Category Archives: Mystery

Book Reviews, Fantasy, Gothic/Horror, Mystery, Short Stories

Fragile Things Group Read, Week Three

33 Comments

I am a fan of Neil Gaiman. If you’ve been around this blog for any length of time, that much is obvious. But I am a fan of him because of his work, not a fan of his work simply because it is written by Neil Gaiman. That is an important distinction. There is (gasp!) work that Neil Gaiman has done that I am not a fan of, for one reason or another. His collaboration with Michael Reaves, Interworld, comes to mind. As do some of the short stories in his collections Angels and Visitations, Smoke and Mirrors, and this one too.

While I do not understand it when anyone says that Neil Gaiman is a “bad writer” (a position I find indefensible) I do understand completely when people say that they cannot connect with him or his stories. I understand that when I read some of his short stories that do nothing for me. I understand it even more when his short stories make me angry (you’ll have to wait for a coming week to find out about that). This week’s selections are far from my favorites. I will readily admit that in my normal re-readings of Fragile Things I often skip these altogether. I am truly hoping I am a rare exception in this and that some of you liked these and will talk them up. If not, please know that the collection does turn around. There are great stories to come. And if you did like these, don’t be shy, tell us all why that is the case.

Do I have to remind you that there might be spoilers ahead? Yes I do, because I want to be a conscientious blogger.

And here we go.

Continue reading Fragile Things Group Read, Week Three →

Book Reviews, Fantasy, Gothic/Horror, Mystery

Storm Front Group Read, Part 1

32 Comments





“My ad looks like this:”

HARRY DRESDEN–WIZARD

Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment

“You’d be surprised how many people call just to ask me if I’m serious”.





When I was tossing around group read ideas with friends for the R.I.P Challenge, my friend Jeff mentioned that he really wanted to give Jim Butcher a try. I have said many times that it is pitiful for me to have worked in the city which Jim Butcher calls home for over a decade and not have read one of Butcher’s novels. A number of us experienced the work of Patrick Rothfuss for the first time earlier this year and in a couple of different venues recently he has sung the praises of Jim Butcher’s Dresden books.

Just like fellow bloggers get enticed by the books that other bloggers like, it is easy to be tempted by the books loved by our favorite authors, new and old.

And so here we are, just finished with the first section of Jim Butcher’s first Dresden Files book, Storm Front. While Storm Front does not have the depth of other recent group reads (Dune, The Way of Kings), it is a refreshingly fun, fast-paced novel and I am glad we are reading it together.

As with all group reads, spoilers may be present in the posts and comments.

You’ve been warned. 🙂

Continue reading Storm Front Group Read, Part 1 →

Book Reviews, Fantasy, Gothic/Horror, Mystery

Fragile Things Group Read, Week 2

26 Comments

“It seemed like a fine title for a book of short stories. There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”

As dawn breaks on this chilly (almost) Autumn Sunday, I sit here with a contented smile on my face, ready to put the finishing touches on Week 2 of our group discussion of Neil Gaiman’s short story collection, Fragile Things. We had a great discussion last week which has me even more excited about this week’s four selected stories.

By way of spoiling my forthcoming thoughts on the four stories for this week, there were no misses for me in this week’s grouping either. I like them to varying degrees, but all were stories I enjoyed the first time I read them and I enjoy them even more now.

And speaking of “spoiling”, the Fragile Things Group Read encourages an in-depth discussion of the stories in question, so spoilers will be present in the posts of participants, to varying degrees, and also in the discussion.

Enough preamble, let’s talk Gaiman!

Continue reading Fragile Things Group Read, Week 2 →

Book Reviews, Fantasy, Gothic/Horror, Mystery, Poetry, Short Stories

Fragile Things Group Read, Week 1

62 Comments

“I think…that I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things, than spent avoiding moral debt.”

“Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks…But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some have outlasted the lands in which they were created.”

It is my great pleasure to be hosting a group read of Neil Gaiman’s short story collection, Fragile Things. 32 stories (including the Introduction and its special surprise)–Four stories each week for Eight weeks. I like the symmetry of that. I also like that it is a manageable task set amidst all that one has to fit into a 24 hour day. Short stories are best savored slowly, a lesson I have yet to properly learn, being a person who tends to gobble them up like sweets.

The expectations are few: read the stories and share whatever you want about them, good or bad, simple or profound, erudite or concise. The idea is not to limit yourself to non-spoiler conversation, so I’ll caution those who follow along here and elsewhere. If you plan to experience these stories for yourself it may be best to do so before reading these posts.

For those who are participating and those who have read these stories before and those who just feel inspired because of the conversation, please share whatever you so choose. I look forward to talking Neil Gaiman with you over the next eight Sundays.

Let us begin.

Continue reading Fragile Things Group Read, Week 1 →

Book Reviews, Mystery

Dead Lagoon: An Aurelio Zen Mystery ~Michael Dibdin

26 Comments



Dead Lagoon: An Aurelio Zen Mystery ~Michael Dibdin

–published 1994
–Vintage Books
–297 pages
–7/10 stars

In this fourth novel featuring Criminalpol detective Aurelio Zen, Michael Dibdin sends his gritty sophisticate back to his native Venice, ostensibly to investigate alleged attacks against an aged contessa, an old family friend. Zen’s real motivation is to dig into the disappearance of a wealthy American whose case has been closed and declared unsolvable. That is no barrier to Aurelio Zen, for he is motivated by that which sets all things into motion–money.


I became enamored of Venice-born Aurelio Zen thanks to the BBC adaptations of the first three of Michael Dibdin’s novels, which aired here in America back in July courtesy of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS. Actor Rufus Sewell played the part of this upscale, Rome-based police detective whose famed reputation for integrity seemed at odds with the choices he made in order to get the job done. When I heard that the series was cancelled and at this time no more of Dibdin’s novels are set to be adapted, a sad fact that I hope changes soon, I decided I wanted to know more about Aurelio Zen and I picked up a copy of the next book in the series.

Michael Dibdin passed away in 2007 and thus had no hand in the adapting of his works. Knowing the liberties that are often taken with novel to film adaptations, I had no idea what to expect.

While I had no trouble picturing Rufuss Sewell as the “urbane and skeptical Aurelio Zen”, the detective that Michael Dibdin unleashed in Dead Lagoon was as unlike the films’ version as often as they were mirror images of one another. It made for an interesting read.

If you are expecting a formulaic mystery in which the bad guys are all bad and the good guys are all good and everything is tied up with a neat bow at the end, I can tell you right now that Aurelio Zen is not for you. If, however you are looking for a detective novel that at times reads like a work of literary fiction with a protagonist who is hell bent on doing things his way in a world that is becoming increasingly more legalistic and regimented, then I would recommend you give Dibdin’s series a try.

Continue reading Dead Lagoon: An Aurelio Zen Mystery ~Michael Dibdin →