Entries from Westport Public Library BOOK blog tagged with 'supernatural'
Upper crust
Having gushed so shamelessly about Alan Bradley’s Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a delightful little mystery, I feel it only fair to give equal time to a book that might almost be called its evil twin. In The Little Stranger, acclaimed author Sarah Waters delivers a sinister tale brimming with psychological complexity. It is, like Sweetness, brilliant plotted and awash in rich atmosphere. It is set in post-World War II summer at a country estate that was home to the family for more than two centuries now in a state of decline, and deals with the massive social changes of the war’s aftermath. Also, a totally satisfying read. Here’s what’s different – it is a ghost story and not a murder mystery.I say, Holmes!
In what Publishers Weekly calls an “audacious revisionist view of one of the best-known mysteries of all time,” French literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard explains his theory of “detective criticism" in Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Applying this critical method, explains Bayard, allows him to be "more rigorous” than detectives and writers, “and thus to work out solutions that are more satisfying to the soul." Arguing that Sherlock Holmes often drew false conclusions, Bayard offers an alternative solution to that reached by Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles.What the Dickens?
Bestseller Dan Simmons has written a forthcoming (Feb. 09) fact-based novel about Dickens, Drood – a prequel, you might say, rather than a conclusion – imagining a terrifying sequence of events as the inspiration for the novel. In the course of trying to rescue fellow passengers after narrowly escaping death in an 1865 train wreck, Dickens encounters a ghoulish figure named Drood, who had apparently been traveling in a coffin. Wilkie Collins, Dickens’ real-life novelist friend, narrates the tale of Dickens’ newly acquired dark double life as he pursues the wraith through crypts and lime pits in the worst slums of London. Despite the book's length – 784 pages – PW says “readers will race through the pages, drawn by the intricate plot and the proliferation of intriguing psychological puzzles.”Howling good reads
Thanks to the success of True Blood, HBO’s hit series based on her Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire mysteries, Charlaine Harris has become a household name.Sookie’s fans will be pleased to hear that there will be a new book in the series, Dead and Gone, hitting the shelves in May, 2009. Last year, Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner put together Many Bloody Returns, a collection of – what else? – vampire-themed mystery stories. This year she and Kelner have put together Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, a collection of 15 werewolf-themed holiday tales – an interesting addition to the Christmas mystery collection – including the delightful little gem, Gift Wrap, written by Harris. Contributing authors include Donna Andrews, Dana Cameron, Dana Stabenow and Nancy Pickard.Dem bones
Real-life forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs has written eleven mystery novels to date (out of a contractual fourteen) which have been translated into 30 languages, beginning with Déjà Dead in 1997. The latest in the series is the recently released Devil Bones.Somewhere in time
A new publisher, Top Five Books, has launched a series set in 1950s Washington DC with Murder Bay by David R. Horwitz. Sgt. Ben Carey is an ambitious young beat cop with a troubled marriage. After his wife kicks him out, Carey bunks in a decrepit Victorian mansion only to find it haunted by the spirit of a man who died there from wounds sustained in the second battle of Bull Run. Carey comes to suspect that the man was murdered and takes a break from his official duties to solve the nearly-century-old cold case. The story alternates between DC in 1862 and the same city 95 years later. PW says it is a debut with “definite promise.”Gothic Revival
Encarta defines the gothic novel as a “type of romantic fiction that predominated in English literature in the last third of the 18th century and the first two decades of the 19th century” which “emphasized mystery and horror and was filled with ghost-haunted rooms, underground passages, and secret stairways.” Author Diane Setterfield has been hailed for breathing new life into an old form with The Thirteenth Tale the next title for discussion by the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group, scheduled for Sunday, March 16th.Career opportunities for the undead
There will likely be many vampire sightings about town this week, especially at Monday's parade. You can always find a few back in the mystery fiction corner. Real live people will find suggestions for many new career paths in Blythe Camenson's Careers for Mystery Buffs & Other Snoops and Sleuths. Apparently puzzle lovers have the basic skill set to qualify for all sorts of jobs including, but not limited to, law enforcement, news reporting, genealogy, art authenticating and - are you ready? - paranormal research.Sketchy clues
Two men - one good, one evil - who think in pictures.
Police sketch artist Nate Rodriguez, and a vicious serial killer who makes portraits of his victims and leaves them pinned to their bodies.
Jonathan Santlofer’s Anatomy of Fear has an interesting subtitle: A Novel of Visual Suspense.
There are 100 or so sketches scattered throughout the book that enhance the narrative in this unique thriller.
Survivor, 1779
The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will meet again on Sunday, May 20th at 2 p.m. in the Seminar Room.
The book under discussion will be She Walks These Hills, in which an old murder is explained, an even older murder is revealed, and a murder takes place in the present time.
This 1994 Sharyn McCrumb book won the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity and Nero Wolfe awards.
It is part her highly acclaimed Ballad Novels series.
The characters include the ghost of a teenager kidnapped by Shawnees in 1779, an elderly escaped convict who cannot recall recent events because of a rare mental illness, the convict’s former wife and daughter, a radio talk show host interested in the convict’s past, and a frightened girl with an abusive husband and a demanding baby.
Conan Doyle, Detective
It should come as no surprise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of legendary sleuth Sherlock Holmes, was something of an amateur detective himself.
The book Conan Doyle, Detective by Peter Costello explores the many actual investigations he involved himself with including Jack the Ripper, Dr. Crippen and, interestingly enough, the brief disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1916.
Didn’t she see it coming?
Psychics are very popular in mysteries these days, both in print and on screen.
The latest in the Louisa May Alcott mysteries by Anna Maclean, Louisa and the Crystal Gazer, has Louisa May attending séances at the home of Boston's most famous crystal gazer and then investigating the medium’s mysterious death.
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