Summer 2024 Reading Recap

To open our next season, we discuss what we read over the summer, including what we loved and what we recommend. Note, Brook refers to T.L. Brown’s series as “Through the Door” but it is “Door to Door Paranormal Mysteries”.

Discussed

Brook’s list

Before the Fact (1932) Francis Iles (Anthony Berkely)

And Only to Deceive (2005) Tasha Alexander

Dissolution, Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mysteries Book 1 (2003) C.J. Sansom

Body in the Bookstore (2024) Ellie Alexander

Brook’s pick for Sarah: The Witch Elm (2018) Tana French

Sarah’s list

Rock, Paper, Scissors (2021) Alice Feeney

An Inconvenient Wife (2024) by Karen E. Olson

Mill House Murders (1988) by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated in 2023 by Ho-Ling Wong

Towards Zero(1944) Agatha Christie

Sarah’s pick for Brook: The Cartographers (2022) Peng Shepherd

Mentioned

Gone Girl (2012) Gillian Flynn

Girl on a Train (2015) Paula Hawkins

Suspicion (1941) Alfred Hitchcock

The Decagon House Murders (1987; translation 2015) Yukito Ayatsuji

Door to Door Paranormal Mysteries (2020-2021) T.L. Brown

Dublin Murder Squad (2007-2016) Tana French

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.

Sarah	Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
Brook	And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery.
Sarah	Hi, Brook.
Brook	Hi Sarah. It’s time to start our 2024 fall shows.
Sarah	I am so excited. It feels like it’s been a long time since you and I have talked about books.
Brook	I know, i’m I’m really ready this year.
Sarah	So, as is our tradition, we are kicking off this season by talking about what we’ve read over the summer.
Brook	That’s right. And we’ll just remind you guys that if you want short descriptions and explanations of why we chose these books, then make sure you go back and listen to our final episode of of the last season. And ah then you’ll be all prepared to hear our thoughts on our on the books that we read.
Brook	All right, so the first one that I’ll discuss is the book Before the Fact by Francis Iles. And you might remember that Francis Iles is a pen name for Anthony Berkeley. We did a full episode on Berkeley. And after reading one of his books, I thought I would like to read more.
Brook	So I did read um Before the Fact. And like I’ve said, I find Berkeley to be really readable, kind of a modern style prose. And it’s pretty surprising considering that his work is almost 100 years old. um That being said, his work is almost 100 years old. And there’s some things about the story that definitely had me rolling my eyes, ah namely the dialogue. It’s very melodramatic. And um women aren’t portrayed great, you know, it’s, they’re very naive and very gullible. But I really feel like this is a great example of an early domestic thriller. And I can see the influence on that marital relationship thriller setup um that we see in like Gone Girl or Girl on a Train. But I had to laugh because the word “suspicion” is used so many times that I don’t think Alfred Hitchcock had any other choice but to title his adaptation Suspicion.
Sarah	Oh, that’s that’s great. um And so I haven’t read that or anything under that pen name. Did you notice a real difference between that and the stories that you read that were under um Anthony Berkeley’s actual name?
Brook	I you definitely feel the difference in tone because this is more like a romantic thriller, I guess you would call it. So um yeah, I I definitely felt like a little bit more ah of that suspense feeling of in the writing versus you’ll remember we discussed how as a journalist some of his you know, straight mysteries are kind of told like a very black and white factual way. So um so yeah, I would say and and it would be interesting to read more Francis Iles and see if that’s something ah you know, a style he kept up under that pen name. I’m assuming he did.
Sarah	The first book that I’m going to talk about is, um sorry, the first book that I’m going to talk about is An Inconvenient Wife by Karen E. Olson. This was a modern telling of the relationships between Henry VIII and some of his wives with a mystery entwined in there. And um I did have some reservations before I read it around the names because some of the names had been changed. And so it was sometimes a little bit challenging to figure out like who was um who was supposed to be who in terms of um actual historical figures.
Sarah	So I really like the idea of setting the Tudors in modern times. um And I would I think it would be fun actually to do it the other way, to have maybe some modern things happening in Tudor times. So to have them, say, have access to social media or something so that that like real gossip mill you can see it in in real time um but this was the reverse. This was Tudirs in modern times um I think the mystery would have worked a little bit better if it had been more removed from history. So, rather than having one of the victims as one of his wives to have someone who is more adjacent and, you know, part of their entourage because that isn’t what actually happened.
Sarah	And so I kept, you know, I didn’t like that departure as much as I thought I i would have.
Brook	Mm-hmm.
Sarah	But I did enjoy the book. If there’s a series and the second book is around someone who’s more adjacent to them, I think that might be really interesting.
Brook	Yeah, I was excited to hear your, your feelings on that one because it sounded, it sounded like a really interesting concept. So that’s great.
Brook	And we might as well stick with the era of the Tudors because one of my books from this summer was Dissolution by C.J. Sansom. And this is book one in his Matthew Shardlake Tudor mysteries. And Sarah had been suggesting this to me for a really long time and I finally read book one. And I found it to be a really great historical mystery. I loved the actual facts that um Sansom weaves in and uses the actual, ah you know, historical figures in the story. I also really liked the sleuth character of of Shardlake. I mean, I think that he’s fresh and something new. um The case is really tricky. And so that was fun. But I did find myself sometimes getting confused between characters because they aren’t a monastery so they have many things in common with just different different roles and I would get confused between who was who. um I was listening to this book and perhaps if I was reading it with my eyes instead of my ears that wouldn’t have happened.
Brook	But um that was my only my only issue. But I also did start the Hulu/Disney Plus series, which is fairly new. And um although there are a few changes to the characters, nothing that pulled me out of the story. And I thought the production quality was great. it was it’s It’s really a great series.
Sarah	I agree, Brook, and I’m glad that you enjoyed the book. I hope you continue this series. I think it’s an excellent series. um And yeah, Shardlake is ah he’s a really complex character.
Brook	Mmhmm, yes.
Sarah	So the next one that I’m going to share my thoughts about is the Millhouse Murders. And so this was translated from Japanese. ah it The English version um only came out in 2023, but the original book was in 1988.
Sarah	So they don’t have any of the you know modern technology that we have. um This is the second book that I’ve read by Yukido Ayatsuji.
Sarah	And I have to say, I think I preferred The Decagon House Murders, which is the first one that I read. This one, um The Millhouse Murders was a little bit more predictable, but it was still very enjoyable. I will suggest though if someone was to pick up one of his books, I would start with The Decagon House Murders.
Brook	great suggestion
Brook	and And the next one on my list was And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander. and this is a historical mystery um and a mystery without murder, sort of. Throughout most of the book, the mystery revolves around um faked and or stolen artifacts. and so ah But then towards the end, you do realize that there was a death that was probably a murder.
Brook	I also really enjoyed this main character. Emily is our main character and she set up right from the beginning to be you know this rebellious sort. She has pretty much waited too long to get married, but she finally does and then is rapidly widowed.
Brook	And at that point, she remains this rebellious nature. She drinks port instead of sherry, and she has no intention of remarrying after her period of mourning. um And this works really good to give, you know, this is a quite ah cozy mystery, I would say, at least it leans in that area. And so it gives us the reason why this amateur would become involved in um solving a mystery.
Brook	And really, all the characters are really well done. They’re either very likable or very unlikable in the case of Emily’s mother. So, you know, that works good. That’s exactly what what you want to happen is to have these emotions about the characters. The story was suspenseful.
Brook	The story was really suspenseful. It kept my interest and I would read more of the series. I would say too, if you, this is an older book, many of you have probably already finished the series long ago, but if you enjoyed it, I would also point you towards Elizabeth Peters as more of a classic author who does sort of the same type of storytelling.
Sarah	Well, that’s a great suggestion. And I actually don’t think I’ve read any Elizabeth Peters. So maybe that’s something for me to add to a future reading list, Brook.
Sarah	So next I read Towards Zero, which was my Agatha Christie pick. Um, and apparently this was one of her favorite books that she wrote. Uh, it is the last book with superintendent battle in it. Uh, but I really liked that it makes reference to the Christie verse because there is a reference to Poirot.
Sarah	And battle is kind of inspired by Poirot’s detection methods, which I thought was great. I enjoyed the book. I don’t know that it is my favorite of the Christie’s that I’ve read, but you know, it’s the house party and and someone dies and and you know you have to figure out who who it was and lots of lies and secrets. And yeah, so it was it was definitely enjoyable.
Brook	Oh, that’s fun. I didn’t realize that that was one of her favorites. So that’s a ah fun little tidbit.
Brook	All right, so next up for me is Body in the Bookstore by Ellie Alexander, and this is the first book in her brand new series. Like what Vicki Delaney does, building that fictional Sherlock Holmes bookstore that I really, really wanted to visit, Ellie Alexander has done it again, and her bookstore is mostly dedicated to Agatha Christie, and it’s called The Hidden Bookshelf.
Brook	The descriptions of the store and the little town that she’s created just really made me wish it was a real place that I could go live in.
Brook	If you’re someone who’s on the fence about the cuteness of cozies, I would really recommend Ellie Alexander. um I think she’s right in the middle of that spectrum that we’ve talked about before that’s like the traditional mystery on one end to what we learned were called cutesies. And so it’s a great way to kind of see if it’s something that you like, that very quaint and endearing world with a mystery.
Sarah	Oh, that sounds like lots of fun and I hope she writes more in that series.
Brook	I think that they’re just coming out really quickly. So ah the character is is great. And actually, there’s a through line mystery. So I think that’s a smart way. People are going to have to pick up the following books to find out you know the solution to the overarching story.
Sarah	Oh, that’s great.
Sarah	So I read ah Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney. And um if you recall this is one of those books that I kind of felt like I’d seen everywhere when it first came out and I never read it and I thought you know it was one that I thought I should.
Sarah	So I really enjoyed this, although it did take a while for me to get into it. But it was, you know, primarily two characters, this husband and wife who ah were having a ah weekend getaway and things did not go well. And, you know, it’s interesting to build a story around just two characters.
Sarah	And I don’t want to give too much away. There’s obviously there are some other people that are that are part of the story. But I think this was my favorite of the books that I set out to read this summer.
Brook	Oh, nice. That’s excellent. And and good that you kept going, right? You had that feeling where like, I’m not sure that I’m going to get into this. And it ended up being a favorite. That’s a great lesson.
Sarah	Mm hmm.
Brook	Well, we’re down to the books that we suggested for each other. And I will say that this was probably my favorite read of the summer. So thank you, Sarah. You suggested The Cartographers to me.
Brook	by Peng Shepherd. and you know I don’t read a lot of books that incorporate any magical or paranormal elements. It’s just usually not something that I’m drawn to. And for a really long time in this story, I didn’t know that that’s where it was going, but it wasn’t jarring and it wasn’t like out of the question when the magical elements were introduced. And so I thought that was like a really good sign that this was going to be you know a great story. And there are other big surprises along the way as well that really keep the story moving. I loved the focus on old documents and old friendships that hooked me.
Brook	And if you like mysteries, including magical realism, I would definitely pick up this book. And as I was reading, it reminded me of maybe what the only other magical realism ah series I’ve ever read. And that is T.L. Brown’s Through the Door series. I highly recommend it. It’s very similar in the amount of you know magical things happening in an otherwise normal world. um And I think that that it would be great. So I think if you like that ah type of story, you would like either one of these.
Sarah	A great recommendation, Brook. So yeah, as you say, ah the last that I’m going to talk about today is the book that you recommended to me. And that was The Witch Elm by Tana French. And I found this to be such an interesting story. So it’s definitely a slower pace. And you know I would say much more of a literary mystery.
Sarah	But i I definitely enjoyed it. It was very descriptive, um particularly ah you know when the character is describing kind of his the way his thinking has changed after he had quite a traumatic brain injury. I would definitely read another book by her. It was it it just felt
Sarah	It was almost refreshing in in the slower pace and that um the way that the that the story was approached.
Brook	Yeah, those are great observations. It is almost literary, isn’t it? And some of her other work I think is less so like um because she writes the Dublin Murder Squad as well and they’re a little, you know, she writes the Dublin Murder Squad as well. And so obviously as a more of a police procedural, they’re going to be quicker paced. But I do think that she keeps that like really rich language and like but a lot of descriptions. So if you’re in the mood, that’s a good author to turn to.
Sarah	Well, Brook, it sounds like we had a successful summer of reading and I hope it has set us up for a fantastic next season as we talk more about mystery.
Brook	I do too, Sarah. I’m really excited and we hope that you had a great summer and are ready to dive back in to talk mystery each week with us. But for today, I’m Brook.
Sarah	And I’m Sarah and we both love mystery.