So, I wasn’t so wishy-washy the next book. I chose Ngaio Marsh’s Death in Ecstasy. Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn is a rich man indeed, he has not one, but two Watsons. His unofficial Watson is a journalist called Nigel Bathgate. Nigel is bored one evening and noticed an odd collection of people heading for some oddball religious establishment. He fails to get in at first, but then later he sneaks in and is definitely not bored by the new religion he encounters there, sort of an amalgam of various gods and goddesses, outre decor, pagan ritual and a charismatic priest. Bathgate finds himself falling a bit under the sway of this man when one of the worshipers called up to take part in a wine drinking ceremony up and dies. Bathgate calls Alleyn and the rest is a fairly interesting case of how poison could have made it into the sacred wine, who was everyone and why they would have reason to do each other in. There’s a pile of missing bonds, and various allegations of misbehavior, mostly quite fun.

Souring things a bit for me are the attitudes to the two gay acolytes. If one reads books from the 30s one is pretty much bound to run into some of this sort of thing, but one needn’t enjoy it.

For such a dramatic setting, the cover art over the years has been pretty dull. There’s an interesting but not clear one from 1968, but i went with this one from 1975. Not great art, but does capture something more of the novel than a dropped chalice.

I practically can’t remember how to post! I figure if I don’t start now though, I just won’t. And I have actually been reading. Thanks to Cathy for hosting, as always. I hope others out there are doing better than I. I will try to find out over the next half month.

I couldn’t decide on my first book so I went to a random number site which chose Dorothy L. Sayers Gaudy Night for me. Kind of long, kind of odd. Mostly starring Harriet Vane with Lord Peter buzzing in and out like an insect. She’s going to a gaudy night, which is like a reunion here in the States. She hasn’t been back to Oxford since she graduated and then became notorious for possibly killing her lover and, well, just having a lover was enough in those days. But she braves it and gets very involved with college life again when she finds a poison pen note. Harriet is of an academic turn of mind so when she gets another, she contrives to stick around and investigate under cover of writing an academic article. Largely you can just put Sayers in her place, except perhaps for all the undergrads falling for her and then you can put in a bit of Zuleika Dobson.

World War II is on the horizon and Peter keeps buzzing off to do secret diplomatic missions and Harriet can’t make up her mind to just accept him already, for reasons I’ll never understand. Also there’s a fair amount of intellectual banter which goes over my head. It was different at Oxford in the 30s. Or maybe just at Oxford. Any Oxfordians read this and can follow the banter? Anyway it was 2 months ago I read it. There are lovely picnics and chases through the night and dates with undergrads and a lot of vandalism. There might even be a body or two. But honestly I don’t remember any bodies. A number of almost bodies. Sorry.

Sadly Harriet is not much use on her own. So it’s a good thing Peter isn’t away the whole time. I enjoyed it mostly, but it seems to me you could probably cut about 75 pages out of it. It is a book of its time and there’s a lot of attitude about women going to college, teaching college, having jobs, etc. I enjoyed watching some of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries many years ago, but they don’t seem to be available streaming, maybe on YouTube. At any rate, I’ve only got a few Sayers’ novels left. I guess that’s why it’s so long since the last one. Not keen to run out.

I am certainly way out of the habit of doing posts. A whole year. I’ve thought about it. I wanted to do the readathon, but missed it. I couldn’t have done it anyway as I had long plans that day, but I did miss doing it. So, for the seventh time I will endeavor to read 7 books in the summer period as set up by Cathy of 746 Books. Apparently it took me 4 years to find this challenge. I always enjoy it even when I flame out. I haven’t quite finished the list. I thought I would do some audiobooks which would make it easier to meet the challenge. This is a thing I’ve only been doing a couple years now. Thanks to a particular DJ who I don’t want to listen to. I’m better about getting through classics when there are fewer distractions, so it’s been pretty successful. I haven’t chosen the audiobooks yet, but I have a bunch of ebooks.

The Buccaneer King – about the pirate Henry Morgan

A Murder Too Many – E. X. Ferrars

The Black Camel – 4th Charlie Chan mystery, I believe

A Cabinet of Curiosities – Alan Kurzweil I’ve actually read this long ago, so I might switch it out.

The Case of the Solid Key – I’ve enjoyed other Anthony Boucher mysteries

Death in Ecstasy – Ngaio Marsh

The Long Divorce – running low on Gervase Fen mysteries

Evidence of Things Seen – 5th Henry Gamadge

The Enigma of Room 622 – Joel Dicker

Coroner’s Pidgin – the next Campion

Not only mysteries although I tend to read them faster, I wanted some variety.

Only 7 of these are really on the list.

The Mandelbaum Gate – I used to like Muriel Spark

The Lost City of Z – I read The Wager earlier this year and that was really good.

Bats in the Belfrey – E.C.R. Lorac books are being republished thanks to the Golden Age of Mystery renaissance.

A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul

The Naked Nuns – Colin Watson The previous one started off great, but then had a victim who underwent a far more horrible time than is usual in a mystery like this and I’ve had a hard time going back to him.

Gaudy Night – I haven’t read Wimsey in so long

The Metabphysical Club – might be too long

I have already read Ben MacIntyre’s Forgotten Fatherland, an excellent book about Nietzsche’s sister trying to set up a sort of Aryan paradise in South America. Busman’s Honeymoon comes after Gaudy Night apparently. Oops. I can’t figure out right now how to remove books from a collection. Not delete them, just not have them in the group.

Also possibly in the mix: Some Die Eloquent, which I picked out early and forgot.

I hope those of you joining in have a great summer full of great reading!

(Oh, and I’m going to start today! Usually I start on Memorial Day weekend because that marks the beginning of summer in the USA and I need all the time I can get, but I wasn’t organized enough so I’ve got a week less than I might have had. I will also go to Labor Day, which is September 2nd for the same reason)

So, Cathy of 746 Books has decided to host again and I’ve decided to join again, even though I never make it. I extend the time – going Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day; I choose shortish books and many mysteries because I’m usually better about reading those; but still, it’s too much for me. Maybe this year is my year. Also perfectly willing to toss out list or parts of list and get on with whatever appeals at the moment. I always think vacation will help, but it doesn’t much. Any way, I will attempt to post pictures of my list as they are all ebooks. I am starting today with Michael Innes’ third Appleby mystery: Lament for a Maker.

The rest of the books at the moment include:

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Eighth Detective

Traitor’s Purse

The Naked Nuns

Parting Breath

The Crooked Hinge

The House on the Cerulean Sea

The Paris Enigma

Rhododendron Pie

The Nursing Home Murder

The Green Hat

Buried for Pleasure

The Lord of Misrule – Paul Halter

The Seville Communion

The Metamorphosis

The House Without a Door – Elizabeth Daly

Behind That Curtain (one of the 11 books in the Earl Derr Biggers Collection)

The Blatchington Tangle – G.D.H. Cole & Margaret Cole

The Greene Murder Case

You may have noticed I stuck a few short classics in there. Time will tell how far I get, but I always start out with enthusiasm and gratitude to Cathy for hosting!

Here I am, not finishing the last event, signing up for the next. 3 weeks from Saturday (October 22nd) will be Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon. Yay! You don’t have to read the whole time, unless you want to. You just make reading as much a priority as you can. And snacks. Snacks are also a priority. People all over the world reading during the same 24 hour period. It’s fun. Sign up! Join us! Snack! Read! Enjoy!

Here is where: https://deweysreadathon.wordpress.com/

Henry Gamadge #3 and in some ways the most enjoyable. I feel that Daly is getting into the swing of it. Gamadge is in his element looking into the missing volume of a set of the works of Byron. A volume that disappeared 100 years ago with the governess of the Vaureguard household, a wealthy old New York family. Society is not what it once was. The Vaureguards still have some money – one is a famous actress trying to stage a comeback. They still have the old family manse. But they really do not want to be disinherited by the head of the family who has a sad tendency to fall for stories such as the return, after a hundred years, of the governess who disappeared. It must be true. She brought the book back.

A delicate investigation for Gamadge trying to determine a way to get rid of the supposedly returned governess without offending the old man, until people start dying. An enjoyable Henry Gamadge novel and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Given that in order to finish the remaining books of the 20 I’d have to read about 400 pages a day, I’m going to go back to my original plan of reading until Labor Day. Might finish by then. I have a much better chance at any rate.

So it’s been almost exactly two months since my last entry. At least I’ve been reading more than I’ve been writing. More than usual. Maybe more than ever, but not enough unless I read every single free minute and a few that aren’t, but I’m trying.

Book #4 was The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart. MRR was quite a famous and successful writer in her day. And mostly her stuff stands the test of time, if you tend to like old books. White Cat was a fun one. There are two elderly spinsters one of whom has always bullied the other until the other disappears! Their… niece? great-niece? some young female connection of theirs whose father has just died, I think… oh dear. 2 months is too long. She meets their lawyer who loves her instantly. There’s scandals and missing money and mysterious people searching houses for what? There’s a strange number turning up here and there, a constantly fainting woman, a stolen valise, or was it? Plenty going on, fast paced, a bit Sherlock Holmes mixed with a dash of Ann Radcliffe or better yet, Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I definitely recommend it if you like old mysteries and/or gothic novels. It’s not a pure gothic, just touches. Or if you like MRR, but haven’t read this one, you’re sure to enjoy it.

#5 was Slight Mourning by Catherine Aird. Fifth of the Calleshire county mysteries with Inspector Sloan which began in the late 60s and seems to have gone on until fairly recently. More of a police procedural, but fairly tame if you don’t like a lot of blood and guts. This one starts with a dinner in a mansion. The host, driving one guest home afterward, is killed on the return trip. It turns out he’s full of barbiturates. So, how did that happen? 11 others at the dinner all had the opportunity, but who and why remains to be found out. I’m very fond of this series, too, as you may have guessed.

So, 15 more to write about, should I finish all of them. It will be a minor miracle if I do. I have seven to go. Some are already started. But I’m so easily… look, squirrel!

Wish me luck. And I hope you’ve enjoyed your summer! Maybe I’ll come see what you’ve read. Maybe after August.