52+ in 2009

[lumineaux]

I've been reading a lot, just not posting reviews a lot because most of the books are re-reads.

I restarted the Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne from the beginning and it has reminded me why I liked them in the first place. Thus far I've re-read:
Absolution by Murder
Shroud for the Archbishop
Suffer the Little Children
The Subtle Serpent
The Spider's Web
Valley of the Shadow
The Monk Who Vanished
Act of Mercy
Our Lady of Darkness
Smoke in the Wind
The quirks that have gotten annoying in the later books are still fairly muted in the earlier book. However, once Tremayne hits upon a descriptive sentence he likes, no force on earth will stop him from using it over and over and over and over again. Someone needs to buy that man a thesaurus. And he can't write romance to save his life. And I'd still like to see a sympathetic Roman Church adherent other than Brother Eadulf. But they are enjoyable mysteries on their own terms even so.

I re-read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, the single best psychological horror story/ghost story ever written. I can't sum up the book better than the opening (and closing) sentences do: "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

I got the new Margaret Frazer novel in, and I am all of a chapter into it, so I expect to finish that before the end of the year.

Comments

[rlg.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of the Sister Fildema shorts? There is an omnibus series of Historical Whodunnits, and she appears in at least one of them.

You also might find some writers to enjoy

[lumineaux.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have most of the Historical Whodunnit omnibus editions. And I have to 2 Sister Fidelma short story collections Tremayne put out himself. He's a better short story writer than novelist.