Review: The Mad Wife by Meagan Church

Lulu Mayfield is the perfect 1950s housewife. She is the neighborhood's reigning Queen of Gelatin Salads. Married for 5 years, she and her husband have a young son and Lulu has just given birth to a second baby, a daughter. She had severe post-partum depression after her first baby and is spiraling again. Her neighbors and friends are trying to keep an eye on her but they are busy with their own lives and their non-negotiable weekly schedules for shopping, cleaning, and other household tasks. When a new neighbor named Bitsy moves in, Lulu becomes obsessed with Bitsy and her family. Bitsy's husband seems controlling, their daughter is unnaturally quiet and compliant, and Bitsy herself is a little off.

This is a harrowing tale of the appalling state of health care, especially mental health care, for women in the 1950s but it has more than a few echoes today. The middle portion, as Lulu sinks further and further, is painful for the reader to witness. Given the limited third person narration focused solely on Lulu's thoughts and actions, the reader can only follow where Lulu leads, into her past on her family's farm, in her present with an overbearing and unsympathetic mother in law and an unobservant husband, and in the fixations of a mind trying to protect her amidst her unhealthy preoccupations. The ending of the book is absolutely unexpected and heart breaking.

Review: The Cat Who Caught a Killer by L. T. Shearer

Lulu Lewis is a retired police detective who lives on a houseboat. She lost her husband unexpectedly and now spends time caring for his elderly mother, Emily, who suffers from dementia and lives in a nearby care home. Then Emily dies and Lulu finds herself investigating her death as a homicide. Just prior to Emily’s death, a large calico tomcat walks into Lulu’s life and makes himself at home on her boat. Not only is it unusual that Conrad the cat is a male calico, but astoundingly he can talk to Lulu and he accompanies her on her investigations.

If I had known there was a talking cat in this book, I likely wouldn’t have picked it up. I’m not a huge fan of anthropomorphized animals and this one didn’t really engage me any more than previous ones have. In addition to this plot point not working for me, there are a lot of small, unnecessary details scattered throughout the novel and there is some uncomfortable political commentary sprinkled in as well. Plus, the mystery is quite simplistic and easily figured out.

Review: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann

Sheep who solve a murder? Yes, that is the premise of this mystery. Sounds crazy, right? It is but in a fun way.

Shepherd George Glenn cares deeply for his sheep. He even reads to them every day. His flock is very loyal to him in turn. When they find him dead in the pasture, killed by a spade, they decide that they need to figure out who killed him, using some of the knowledge they’ve gained from George reading them mysteries. The main sheep investigating the murder are Miss Maple, Othello, and Mopple the Whale. They are thoughtful and philosophical (there’s even a debate about whether human beings have souls or not) and they overhear a lot of information from the people around them. They are well drawn and have very distinct characters with their own foibles, strengths, and fears. Sometimes following the sheep’s reasoning is difficult and it’s hard to tell if that’s a translation issue or if it is meant to be written that way because, well, sheep. In general it was entertaining to be in the minds of the sheep, to watch them try to reason out the motive behind the murder, to try to understand the confounding humans, to get distracted by good grass and herbs, to try and connect the clues they’ve stumbled across, and in the end, to share their conclusion with the people who can bring the murderer to justice. The end was a little drawn out but overall it was a pleasing read.

Review: Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby

I have been reading more cozy type mysteries this year and thought that this one set on an island in British Columbia sounded unusual. It turned out to be a pleasant read for an afternoon.

Helen Thorpe, a former Buddhist nun, is a newly graduated butler anticipating her first job working for a very and philanthropic family when she discovers that her former employer and friend, Edna, the owner of the Yatra Institute, a spiritual retreat, has died while on a silent retreat and her will asks that Helen help determine which of her often unpleasant nieces and nephews will inherit the Institute. Helen delays her job, and with the help of two of her butlering classmates, she heads to BC to try to determine who will best run the Institute in the future. That she starts to suspect foul play and then is certain Edna was murdered doesn’t help in her deliberations as she leads the potential heirs (and potential murderers) in classes on meditation, flower arranging, and dancing.

Juby has drawn quirky characters with all the flaws that make them fully human, even if they don’t seem like people this reader would have any interest in knowing in real life. The setting is beautifully rendered and offers an engaging backdrop to the shenanigans and personal growth of the heirs. Uncovering who murdered Edna should have taken more of the center stage but the mystery felt like a background to the characterizations. This would be a more enjoyable read for people who like slower, character driven tales than those looking for a plot driven cozy mystery.

Review: All Hands on Deck by Will Sofrin

One of my kids is a sailor. I can just about bang around in a small sailboat without needing to be rescued and I’ve always thought learning more about sailboats would be fun. Not sure if the kid would be willing to teach me or not! Now that I’ve read Will Sofrin’s account of crewing on the 18th century replica, the tall ship Rose as the boat sailed from Cape Cod to San Diego to be refitted to serve as the HMS Surprise in the movie Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, I am both more and less certain that truly learning to sail would be fun. I might just stick to reading about sailing rather than sailing itself.

Sofrin was already a professional sailor and ship’s carpenter (chippy) when he signed on as a deckhand to get the Rose from the East Coast, through the Panama Canal, and up to California for the movie studio owners. He recounts the average, the extraordinary, and the terrifying that all made up the voyage, from daily watch, to a dismasting, to hurricane force winds threatening to sink the leaking wooden ship. Sofrin narrates the experience of sailing on Rose generally as well as his own personal experiences on and offshore with his fellow crew mates. These first person accounts are also combined with brief asides about what life would have been like on a warship like Rose in the 18th century as well as pieces of the O’Brian source material in the series Master and Commander. This is really a memoir of Sofrin’s months onboard, his friendships and a blossoming relationship, and account of the journey itself (there’s very little about the movie included) but sailors, unique bunch that they are, and those who are attracted by the romance of a sailing life will enjoy reading about this once in a lifetime trip.

Review: Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbarisi

I love a good treasure hunt. I even created a treasure hunt birthday party for one of my kids when they were small. More than I like participating though, I like reading about them. I loved The Westing Game and Treasure Island when I was younger so this non-fiction look into the Forrest Fenn treasure hunt by author and casual hunt participant Daniel Barbarisi was right up my alley.

Combining both his own experiences trying to solve the riddle of where Fenn left his treasure with the history of the hunt, positive and negative, and the community surrounding the hunt, especially the most well-known searchers, Barbarisi looks at what compels people to join in a hunt of this kind, some even to the point of bankrupting themselves, and what compels a person like Forrest Fenn, eccentric as he was, to create the hunt in the first place. He is even-handed and fair in his reporting on the culture, the rumors, and the mythology of the search for Fenn’s treasure. Getting involved as a searcher himself gives the recounting a nice, participatory first person aspect that pure reportage would not have offered. There is some repetition here and there remain some unanswered questions but overall, this was an engaging read about a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Just don’t do too much research into it before reading if you want to maintain the rising tension of the tale.

Review: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

I’m not sure why we think that any aliens who make contact with us will be benign but I suspect that we might be being a touch optimistic. Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl (the first in the series) proves that for sure. I am very much not the demographic for this book, but it was an entertaining read even for this middle-aged, non-gamer, non-sci-fi fantasy reader.

All of a sudden, one night in the middle of the night, all the buildings on Earth collapse, killing everyone inside instantly. People outside all survive the “transformation” and then must decide if they are willing to play the televised, murderous game that aliens have devised for the planet. If they agree to play, they must find their way from dungeon level to level, fighting their way past scary creatures, earning points by finishing quests or killing the baddies, and learning who among the remaining humans are trustworthy and who are not. Carl is outside chasing his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk, when the buildings collapse so both he and Princess Donut survive. Carl is wearing less than optimal (and fairly ridiculous) clothing, boxers, a leather jacket, and pink ill-fitting Crocs, for the weather. When they go down into the first dungeon, it is very debatable whether Carl is in charge or whether he’s Donut’s sidekick. Fights to the death and much hilarity ensue as Carl and Donut try to both be entertaining enough to be tv crowd favorites who earn special bonuses from across the galaxy and to survive truly life threatening events together.

As this is the first in a series, Dinniman drops hints as to where the story line will go in future books, but the story is complete enough in its own right to be a satisfying read. The action is a gentle rising/falling structure that mimics video game quests and rpg fans will likely find gems in the story that I completely missed. There is a lot of humor here as well as cleverly interwoven commentary on human being’s moral compasses and the unknown, potentially nefarious goals of government. The fights are quite detailed, brutal, and visually evocative which might be tough going for some readers. The humor does help and the snark is definitely on point. I don’t know if I’ll continue with the series but I do know that both of my sons, for whom the book was actually bought (we pre-read Christmas presents in this family), will enjoy it a lot.