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Reading adventures, Pt. 4: Seaside shenanigans in the Côte d’Azur
The last stop on my summer adventures was Nice – and what a treat for a Golden Age mystery fan! The Côte d’Azur was a favorite destination for many of the wealthy class in the Golden Age. There’s a wealth of mysteries that take place in and around that favorite summer playground. While we only…
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Reading adventures, Pt. 3: Luxury rail revival in The Main Character
As the setting for a mystery, there’s nothing as perfect as a train. A mixed cast of characters, scenic views, time pressure, and locked-room constraints make for the perfectly suspenseful read. If you throw in a “vintage” train setting, you also get the vicarious joy of true luxury travel. Stories like Murder on the Orient…
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Reading adventures, Pt. 2: Digging into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Barcelona
I left Madrid in love with Spain – and with the experience of reading location-specific novels while traveling. Reading The Familiar and experiencing a dark, historical angle of Madrid left me craving a similar experience over the rest of my travel. As we hopped on the train to Barcelona, I pulled out The Shadow of…
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Reading adventures, Pt. 1: Stories familiar and novel in Madrid
When I was little, summer meant one thing: travel. Whether we were packing our car for a road trip through the Appalachian Mountains or buckling in for a long-haul flight to Kolkata, my family was lucky enough to spend our summers adventuring. And that meant I got to take my reading to the most wonderful…
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Through a glass, darkly in Catchpenny by Charlie Huston
LA has an – interesting – reputation. It’s the City of the Stars, but also all the machinations required to keep those dreams going. Wannabe actors (and now influencers) flock there, hoping for a Big Break, but the break can only come for so many. But what happens to those who get left behind? In…
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Time trials in The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Time-travel is a tricky subject, both to read and to write about. When done well, time-travel stories can be suspenseful and thrilling. Hermione’s Time-Turner adventures, even with their flaws, taught me how much character writing can impact a time-travel plot. More recently, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle set up an unputdownable Golden Age…
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Atmospheric puzzling in The Last Murder at the End of the World
Mysteries are like comfort food for me – familiar, soothing, a pattern that never fails to please. Like with the best comfort food, even slight tweaks on the typical formula can keep the recipes fresh. But every once in a while, you find a recipe writer that does such unexpected, creative things that they force…
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Prophecies, puzzles, and legacy hijinks in How to Solve Your Own Murder
As a mystery fan, I constantly find myself wishing for books with both a human element and a really tricky puzzle. Modern mysteries frequently seem to focus on one or the other. Cozies love human connection, but their puzzles are often predictable, especially reading at a meta-level. And modern stories that focus on the crime…
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Autism, awareness, and The Framed Women of Ardemore House
It’s Autism Awareness month! And that makes it perfect timing for The Framed Women of Ardemore House, a recent mystery featuring an autistic protagonist. I picked this up almost as an afterthought – an English country house murder, with some historical elements. Before we get into it, though, an apology for all of you. I…
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When murder meets music: Gethsemane Brown’s paranormal Irish adventures
It’s a bit of a leap from the past to the present in mystery novels, but this next entry should help bridge the gap. Alexia Gordon’s Gethsemane Brown Mysteries have been popping up on my radar for a while, but I’ve been reluctant to engage. The series follows Gethsemane Brown, a violinist who finds herself…