Short Story Wednesday: Nearly Nero by Loren D. Estleman

This week I am reading short stories from Nearly Nero by Loren D. Estleman. The subtitle for this book is "The Adventures of Claudius Lyon, the Man Who Would Be Wolfe." Between 2008 and 2016, Estleman wrote nine short stories about Claudius Lyon, a man who is obsessed with emulating Nero Wolfe in all ways, and his assistant, Arnie Woodbine. Most of these stories were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. One additional story ("Wolfe Whistle") was written for publication in this book. 

Just a few examples of how Lyons imitates Wolfe: 

• He has a greenhouse on the roof of his abode, but he grows tomatoes, not orchids. He has no gardening skills at all. 
• His butler/cook is not nearly as talented as Fritz, and cooks only kosher meals. 
• He drinks cream sodas all day, rather than beer. 
• His assistant, Arnie Woodbine, has been in prison and is a con man. He is not above doing something illegal. 

These are the stories I read:

"Who's Afraid of Nero Wolfe?"

"The Boy Who Cried Wolfe"

"Wolfe at the Door"

"Wolfe on the Roof"

The stories are an affectionate homage to the Nero Wolfe series and are intended to be humorous. Loren D. Estleman is a big fan of the series and wrote the introduction to the Bantam Crimeline edition of the first Nero Wolfe novel, Fer-de-Lance. 

I would not categorize these as serious mysteries, in the sense that there is a crime to be solved. They are puzzles, often based on word play, and usually silly. However, for the most part, they are fun to read and have very nice endings. 

The only real drawback to these stories that I can see is that I don't see how they would appeal to anyone who hasn't read at least a few Nero Wolfe novels.

Loren D. Estleman is a very prolific and well-known author who has been publishing novels since 1976. He is the author of the Amos Walker series, the Valentino series, the Peter Macklin series, and many standalone novels, including many Western novels. He lives in Michigan. 

The Humans: Matt Haig

 

I enjoyed reading this book so much. It brightened my life, it improved my mood, it helped me to feel more love and acceptance for others. And it almost certainly will be one of my top ten books of 2024.

I am going to use a paragraph from the beginning of the novel to describe this book: 

This book, this actual book, is set right here, on Earth. It is about the meaning of life and nothing at all. It is about what it takes to kill somebody, and save them. It is about love and dead poets and wholenut peanut butter. It’s about matter and antimatter, everything and nothing, hope and hate. It’s about a forty-one-year-old female historian called Isobel and her fifteen-year-old son called Gulliver and the cleverest mathematician in the world. It is, in short, about how to become a human.

This book is a science fiction story, but for me, it felt like a book about how to live a better life, a sort of self help book. Or possibly a book about a philosophy of life. 

The protagonist of this book is an unnamed alien, a Vonnadorian. He has been sent to earth because an earthling, Andrew Martin, has discovered the solution to the Riemann hypothesis. The Vonnadorians have determined that this discovery will lead to technical development on earth that humans are not ready for and they want it stopped, no matter what it takes. 

The alien takes over Andrew's body. His mission is to kill anyone that knows about Andrew's work and is aware that he had successfully come up with a solution. That includes Andrew's wife and 16-year-old son. 

The only real science fiction elements in this book are that the alien has powers (for example, he is much stronger than normal humans and can heal humans and animals) and he gets communications from his superiors back on his own planet. Otherwise, the focus is on how he learns to fit into human society with no real instructions, so that he can accomplish his goal. He makes a lot of mistakes along the way.

The alien in Andrew's body starts to have misgivings about his mission. Initially he finds humans disgusting, but once he can stomach living with humans and interacting with them, he begins to like some of them. The family has a dog, and the dog knows that this being is no longer really Andrew, but the alien develops an affection for the dog and vice versa. As Andrew, he tries to interact with the teenage son, who despises his father. 

The alien reads a lot (starting with Cosmopolitan, which gives him some strange ideas) to try to learn about humans. The poet he especially likes is Emily Dickenson. He cannot stand human food, but he does like peanut butter sandwiches, and that is mainly what he subsists on. Since I also eat a lot of peanut butter, I considered this a plus.

The story is narrated by the alien and seems to be a book he is writing for Vonnadorians, to explain his actions after he arrived on earth. It is often humorous but sometimes dark.

---------------------------------------------

Publisher:   Simon & Schuster, 2013
Length:       285 pages
Format:       Hardcover
Setting:       Earth, UK
Genre:        Science fiction
Source:       On my TBR since 2020.

Short Story Wednesday: The Habit of Widowhood and Other Murderous Proclivities

Robert Barnard (1936 - 2013) is one of my favorite authors. He wrote about 50 novels between 1974 and 2012. Some were series books but a large number of his mysteries were standalones. I have read and enjoyed most of his series books, but the standalone books have the best plots and subtle humor.

The Habit of Widowhood is a collection of short stories by Barnard. There are 17 stories in 215 pages. Based on the stories I have read, his short stories are darker than most of his novels, but not unpleasantly so. 

These are the six stories I read. They all involve a crime but they are not puzzle mysteries. Most are between 10-12 pages, a good length for me.

"Cupid's Dart" 

An overprotected and sheltered young woman is pushed into an arranged marriage, with devastating results. This was my favorite story of the ones I read; I found it an intense and affecting read.

"The Habit of Widowhood"

A woman marries older men in order to inherit their money when they die. This happens too often and she eventually realizes she will have to move from town to town. Some of the marriages are very brief; some last a few months. The story is told by her great-great-grandson, using her diaries.

"Soldier, from the Wars Returning"

Description from the book cover: "A young soldier, home from World War I, is determined to live and love not just for himself, but for all his fallen comrades. But in doing so he enrages a number of husbands."

"Dog Television"

A dog witnesses a murder. A wonderful story and not so dark.

"The Women at the Funeral"

The story begins in 1891; Roderick, at 52 years of age, lives with his three sisters and his mother. He dies from tuberculosis. After her brother's funeral, the oldest sister, Alice, finds out that he had done some charitable deeds to support people less fortunate than he and his family. He was generous and Alice does not approve. Not a lot happens in this story, but I found it satisfying and a good read.

"Perfect Honeymoon"

David and Carol have chosen a small Greek island for their honeymoon. David is old-fashioned, timid, and has recently inherited a thriving business. Unfortunately their honeymoon is marred by the arrival of Joshua Swayne, one of Carol's old suitors. 

Books Read in March 2024

Even though I am getting my summary of reading for March 2024 out very late, I am happy because I have actually written reviews for six of the nine books I read. For me that is very good. And I enjoyed almost all of the books. So March was a good reading month. 

Of the fiction books I read this month, six were published between 2007 and 2020. Only two were published before 1960. That is a big change in the direction of my reading. I read too many exceptional books to pick a favorite for the month but I am glad I reread another book by Rex Stout. And I am in the middle of a book of three novellas in the Nero Wolfe series, Curtains for Three. 

This week I participated in the Classics Club Spin, where 20 books are listed and a random number between 1 and 20 is selected. The book that resulted from the spin for me to read for this spin was The Warden by Anthony Trollope. I am happy with that pick because I haven't read anything by Trollope before.

Here are the nine books I finished reading in March:

Nonfiction

The Book of Books (2007) by Les Krantz and Tim Knight

The subtitle of this book is "An Eclectic Collection of Reading Recommendations, Quirky Lists, and Fun Facts about Books." It has a more formal approach than the Book Lust series by Nancy Pearl, although it was published around the same time. This book is made up of lists of books about specific subjects, or genres and subgenres. Each book on the lists is summarized briefly. Some of the lists came from outside sources and some were put together by the authors.

Fiction

My Name is Lucy Barton (2016) by Elizabeth Strout

While Lucy Barton is in a hospital in New York City for many weeks due to complications following an appendectomy, her mother visits her and they have some strained conversations about the past. The story is set in the 1980s, and Lucy narrates it, years after it happened. See my review. 

The Glass Hotel (2020) Emily St. John Mandel 

This story revolves around Paul Smith and his half-sister Vincent Smith, and starts when they are teens. Many other characters that they interact with then and later in their lives are important to the plot. Set in Canada. See my review. 

Crime Fiction

The Silver Swan (2007) by Benjamin Black

Set in Ireland in the 1950s, this is the 2nd book about Quirke, a pathologist working in a hospital in Dublin.  Benjamin Black is a pseudonym of John Banville. See my review.

Defectors (2017) by Joseph Kanon

This is the first book I have read by Joseph Kanon, and it definitely won't be my last. I have six more of his books on my shelves. The Defectors focuses on a group of American and British spies living in and around Moscow during the Cold War, after defecting. My focus was on the relationship of the two brothers in the story, Frank, the US spy who defected to Russia in 1949, and Simon, his younger brother, who had to leave his job in intelligence to work in publishing after Frank's defection. In 1961, Simon has been allowed to come to Moscow to work with Frank on publishing his memoirs. He has not seen or heard from Frank in the years since his defection. I loved the exploration of family relationships, but the story has plenty of action also.

Your Republic is Calling You (2006) by Young-ha Kim

The story takes place over the course of one day in the life of Ki-Yong, a South Korean with a wife and teenage daughter. Except that he is really a North Korean spy who has been living in Seoul, working as a film importer, over 20 years, and has now been recalled to North Korea. See my review.

A Beautiful Place to Die (2008) Malla Nunn

This is a historical mystery, set in a very small town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique in 1952. New apartheid laws have recently gone into effect. The protagonist is an English police detective who is investigating the death of an Afrikaner police captain. See my review.

A Scream in Soho (1940) by John G. Brandon

This was one of the earlier books in the British Library Crime Classics series, and it was the only book this month that I was disappointed with. It is not a bad book, it is just that it is more a thriller than a mystery, along the lines of Edgar Wallace's novels, per the introduction by Martin Edwards. Published during the war, the plot centers around a spy hiding in Soho. It also had a good bit of overt racism and sexism which was distasteful, although not that unusual for book of this period. 

Plot It Yourself (1959) by Rex Stout

This book is part of the Nero Wolfe series; Wolfe is a private detective and his assistant is Archie Goodwin. In this case, the story revolves around authors, publishers, and accusations of plagiarism. The first novel, Fer-de-Lance, was published in 1934. See my review.

Currently reading

I started The Mistress of Alderley by Robert Barnard last night, and surprised myself by reading 100 pages. Caroline Fawley has given up her acting career quite willingly to live in an elegant home in the country. Her wealthy lover Marius purchased a country house for her to live in, but her children worry that she is depending too much on his generosity, with no promise of marriage. This book has a surprise appearance by Inspector Oddie and Detective Charlie Peace from Barnard's Charlie Peace series; I have read all except the last two books in that series.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken in late March in our back yard after we had a good bit of rain. The lighting was perfect. We had a lot of weeds in the back at the time, and we still do. Lots of work to be done. 

The photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

 

Classics Club Spin #37, April 2024

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, 21st April, 2024, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by Sunday, 2nd June, 2024.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr.Ripley (1955)
2. Shirley Jackson – We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)
3. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
4. William Shakespeare – Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
5. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
6. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
7. William Thackeray – Vanity Fair (1848)
8. Anthony Trollope – The Warden (1855)
9. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
10. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
11. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)
12. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
13. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847) 
14. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847)
15. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
16. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
17. Willa Cather – My Ántonia (1918)
18. Kenneth Grahame – The Wind in the Willows (1908)
19. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)
20. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

This is the same list as I used last time, except for one change to eliminate the book that I read for the last spin, and add Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Are there any of these you especially like... or dislike?

My top choice would be The Wind in the Willows.

The #1937Club: They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer

I read They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer for the 1937 Club hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings. And isn't this a lovely image for the club?

They Found Him Dead begins with a large gathering of family and friends at the home of Silas Kane and his mother, Emily Kane. The occasion is Silas Kane's 60th birthday celebration. With most of the main cast introduced at the beginning, it is difficult to figure out the relationships. But that is part of the fun.  And there are some very interesting characters in this family.

The next day the body of one of the family members is discovered at the bottom of a cliff and the death appears to be accidental. But when there is a second death in the family, Scotland Yard is called in. Inspector Hannasyde and Sergeant Hemingway arrive and start gathering facts and evidence. Young Timothy Harte, 15 years old, is staying at the Kane's country house while his parents are traveling; he is fascinated by the investigation and offers plenty of tips to the policemen. 

My favorite character, possibly because we get much of the story from her point of view, is Patricia Allison, companion and secretary to Emily Kane. She is intelligent and down-to-earth. She has caught the eye of Jim Kane, who is Timothy Harte's half-brother. Most (if not all) of Heyer's mysteries involve a romance, but I liked this potential romance because there isn't a lot of angst involved. The focus of the novel is not on the romance but on the mystery.

Another wonderful character is Lady Norma Harte, Timothy and Jim's mother, who is traveling in Africa as the book starts but returns in time to be considered a suspect. She is a strong female character, not afraid to speak her mind.

I haven't even mentioned the Mansell's, a family who have been close friends of the Kane's for years. Joseph and his son Paul are partners in the firm of Kane and Mansell. The Mansell's seem to be pushing the Kanes to support a scheme in Australia that Silas Kane is not in favor of. There are many more characters I haven't described and you can see how confusing the many characters could be. In this case it was not a problem at all for me and the book was a lot of fun to read.

There are eight mysteries by Heyer featuring Hannasyde and / or Hemingway. In later mysteries, Hemingway has worked his way up to Inspector.

I loved this interchange between the policemen from Scotland Yard:

“You're more prejudiced against Paul Mansell than I've ever known you to be against anyone," said Hannasyde.

"Not prejudiced,"said the Sergeant firmly. "I never let myself get prejudiced. All I say is, that he's a nasty, slimy, double-faced tick who'd murder his own grandmother if he saw a bit of money to be got out of it.”

The only small complaint I have is that I did not like the ending. It made sense, and the groundwork had been laid, but it just wasn't satisfying. But overall, a good read, and I am eager to read more of Heyer's mysteries.

The two mystery novels by Heyer that I have read in the last few years are Envious Casca (1941), set at Christmas, and Death in the Stocks (1935). I enjoyed both of them.