Entries from Westport Public Library BOOK blog tagged with 'usualsuspects'
Death on a train
The phenomenal success of the Phryne Fisher series is no doubt due in part to author Kerry Greenwood’s vision of her character: “Phryne is a hero, just like James Bond or the Saint, but with fewer product endorsements and a better class of lovers. I decided to try a female hero and made her as free as a male hero, to see what she would do. Mind you, at that time I only thought there would be two books.”Next Sunday, the 29th, at 2 p.m., the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing the 3rd book in the series, Murder on the Ballarat Train.Movin’ on
The bad news is that Walter Mosley says that his beloved character Easy Rawlins “has officially moved on.” The good news is that Easy’s fans can join in next Sunday, October 18th at 2, when the Usual Suspects discuss the first book in the Rawlins series, Devil in a Blue Dress. Published in 1990, it won the Shamus Award, and was followed by ten critically acclaimed titles. The series played out over a twenty year period, from the Jim Crow 1940s to the politically charged 1960s. The author is known for his strong, black male characters and his passionate musings on race, politics and the writing life. When asked in a CNN interview if he missed Easy Rawlins at all, Mosley replied “No, he's right there on the shelf. All I have to do is reach up and pull him down.”
The Indy Five
The 40th Bouchercon World Mystery Convention will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana, October 15 - 18, 2009. Author Michael Connelly will be the Guest of Honor. The Anthony Awards, named in memory of mystery writer and critic Anthony Boucher, will be given out at a ceremony on Saturday, October 17. The five Best Novel nominees are Trigger City by Sean Chercover, The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly, Red Knife by William Kent Krueger, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny. The Cruelest Month has already won this year’s Agatha Award for Best Novel and is nominated for the McAvity and the Barry awards as well as the Anthony. Louise Penny is an author that I suggest to readers often and they never come back to me disappointed. The New York Times attributes this success to the “elegance and depth” that she brings to her traditional village mysteries.Deep in the heart of Texas
San Antonio author Rick Riordan has become a household name – at least in households with children – for his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series which features a twelve-year-old boy who discovers he is the modern-day son of an ancient Greek god. Riordan also wrote the multi-award-winning Tres Navarre mystery series for adults. Jackson “Tres” Navarre is not your stereotypical private investigator. He is a Tai Chi master with a Ph.D. in English from Berkeley. There are seven titles in the series which began in 1996 with Big Red Tequila. Next Sunday, August 16th, at 2 pm, the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will discuss the third title, The Last King of Texas, published in 2000. New faces are always welcome. To reserve a copy of the book, call 291-4821.True confessions
It has been said that G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a prolific writer who devoted his entire career to journalism because as a journalist he could not avoid being a controversialist. He wrote essays, often 1500 words in length to fill a page, on a variety of subjects and these appeared in the Illustrated London News for 30 years. Next Sunday, June 21st, at 2 pm, the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will discuss Father Brown: The Essential Tales, a fifteen story collection released by Modern Library in 2005. P. D. James writes in her introduction, “We read the Father Brown stories for a variety pleasures, including their ingenuity, their wit and intelligence, and for the brilliance of the writing. But they provide more. Chesterton was concerned with the greatest of all problems, the vagaries of the human heart.”Life on West 35th Street
The very first Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, was published in 1934, and the upcoming Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana (October 15-18) will celebrate this auspicious seventy-fifth anniversary and will feature a Friday evening Wolfean-themed banquet. Long before cozy culinary mysteries were in vogue, Rex Stout’s readers were treated to cooking tips, food lore and gastronomical miscellanea. Besides orchids, the mainstay of his detective Nero Wolfe's leisurely existence was the enjoyment of good food. Wolfe (frequently described as weighing "a seventh of a ton") dined on three generous meals a day. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the detective’s cases in 33 novels and 39 short stories over a forty year period from the 1930s to the 1970s, and most of them are set in New York City where the detective resides in a brownstone on West 35th Street.An Unsuitable Job for a Woman?
The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be exploring the role of woman as detective in a two-book discussion series, “An Unsuitable Job for a Woman?” The first book, being discussed next Sunday at 2 p.m., is The Friend of Madame Maigret by Georges Simenon. Maigret attempts to prove that a murder has actually been committed without a corpse and he begins to suspect that his wife’s earlier strange encounter with a woman and her baby may hold the key. Although Maigret is a police professional and Madame Maigret is a stay-at-home wife they often work together as a team. According to the official Maigret website, “Mme Maigret provides the calm balance to Maigret's hectic working life … Her female insights are invaluable to Maigret and her wise answers to his apparently innocuous questions often help him with his cases.”Shell shock
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – once referred to in the military as “shell shock” or war neurosis – is an anxiety disorder that can occur after experiencing a traumatic event. Reports of battle-related stress appear as early as the 6th century BC, and in 490 BC the Greek historian Herodotus described an Athenian soldier who, although not himself physically wounded, was rendered blind after witnessing the death of a fellow soldier. Next Sunday, October 19th, at 2, the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will discuss the first of Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge mysteries, A Test of Wills. Set in 1919, Rutledge has returned from France with a medal of honor and a serious case of shell shock, which often manifests itself in the form of a nagging specter – Hamish MacLeod, a corporal whose only return from the war has been inside Rutledge's head.Astonish me
Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs was a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year 2003, an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel 2003, the Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel 2003, and one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Mysteries of 2003. The New York Times review for this book said “Prepare to be astonished …” The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing Maisie Dobbs next Sunday, September 21st, at 2 p.m.Like a thief in the night
The exploits of Lawrence Block’s gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr have entertained us from his debut in 1977 in Burglars Can't Be Choosers right on through the tenth book in the series published in 2004, The Burglar on the Prowl. By day, Bernie is the proprietor of Barnegat Books, a used bookstore in Greenwich. He has a cat named Raffles, named after the E.W. Hornung character. Next Sunday, August 17th at 2 p.m. the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, book number six, published in 1994. Bernie has actually been trying to earn an honest living but an unscrupulous landlord's threat to increase Bernie's rent by 1,000% is driving him back to a life of crime. When the cops wrongly accuse him of stealing a $1 million baseball card collection, Bernie cannot alibi himself since he was busy burgling a different apartment at the time . . . one that happened to contain a dead body locked inside a bathroom.You see why I married her, Mycroft?
“The exquisite juxtaposition of lady-like threats and backhanded compliments proved irresistible.” When I first heard that some upstart California mystery writer named Laurie R. King had dared marry off Sherlock Holmes to a young American woman I was horrified. That was, of course, until I started reading her books and couldn’t put them down.The bookman cometh
Next Sunday, June 15, at 2 pm The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing The Bookman’s Wake by John Dunning. Denver cop-turned-book dealer Cliff Janeway is lured into going to Seattle to bring back a fugitive wanted for assault, burglary, and the possible theft of a priceless edition of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. The bail jumper turns out to be a young woman calling herself Eleanor Rigby. To find her Janeway must unravel the secrets of the book's past and its mysterious maker.Meet the author
Come meet Karen E. Olson, author of the Annie Seymour mysteries! Find out what the future holds for Annie. Next Sunday at 2 in the McManus Room, The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing the first title in the series, Sacred Cows, which Publishers Weekly called a “spirited debut.” Annie Seymour is a police reporter at the fictional New Haven Herald. She is tough, smart and has a self-deprecating sense of humor. She lives in a brownstone in the city's Wooster Square neighborhood, just around the corner from the best pizza in the world. In Sacred Cows, when a Yale student is found dead, Annie's investigation into the girl's secret life brings her closer to home than she expects.Had I but known!
The "Had I But Known" school of mystery writing -- in which the principal character (frequently female) does less than sensible things when involved in a crime which have the effect of prolonging the action of the novel -- originated 100 years ago with Mary Roberts Rinehart in her 1908 book The Circular Staircase. This book will be the featured title for the Usual Suspects discussion next Sunday, April 13th, in honor of the Library’s 100th birthday.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.Chiller thriller
On Sunday, February 17th, at 2 p.m. the Usual Suspects Mystery Reading group will discuss Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, which has been called a stunning intellectual thriller in the tradition of Gorky Park and the novels of John Le Carré. Smilla Jaspersen is the daughter of a Danish doctor and an Inuit woman from Greenland who lives in Copenhagen. When an Inuit boy she knows dies under mysterious circumstances, she refuses to believe it was an accident. She decides to investigate and discovers that even the police don't want her involved. Smilla persists, and her investigation leads her from a fanatically religious accountant to a tough-talking pathologist and then to the secret files of the Danish company responsible for extracting most of Greenland's mineral wealth. Finally, she boards a ship with an international cast of villains laden with a large stash of cocaine bound for a mysterious mission on an inhospitable island off Greenland.Déjà vu all over again
In Linwood Barclay’s new suspense thriller, No Time for Goodbye, a Milford woman whose parents and brother vanished during the night from their family home twenty-five years ago decides to take her story to a popular crime-stopper program on national television. She then fears that her husband and child may be taken from her in the same fashion when it becomes clear that there is much more to their disappearance than she ever imagined.Tied up in tinsel …
The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group will be discussing Ngaio Marsh’s Tied up in Tinsel at our December get-together on the 16th at 2 p.m. In honor of our current theme, "The Grand Dames of Mystery," we will be serving an English tea, and in honor of the holiday season we will have a book swap. Please join us. New members are always welcome. Phone 291-4821 for a copy of the book. Call 291-4836 for more information on The Usual Suspects.Gather around
Three authors of interest to mystery fans will be speaking at the Library over the next few weeks as part of the Authors @ the Library series. On Tuesday, October 30, at noon Jerry Labriola will discuss his book The Strange Death of Napoleon Bonaparte, a suspense novel that combines equal parts mystery and rich historical detail. On Wednesday, November 7, at 7:30 p.m. Jed Rubenfeld will discuss his book The Interpretation of Murder, a historical mystery and a psychological thriller - in the truest sense of the term -- with a cast that includes Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. On Monday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m. Susan Schaab will discuss her book Wearing the Spider, which Liz Smith called "The Devil Wears Prada in legal Technicolor."Fall book discussions
The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group has two award winners up for discussion this fall.
This coming Sunday, September 16th, at 2 p.m. our title will be The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin, which was the winner of the this year's Edgar Award for Best Novel.
On Sunday, October 21st our title will be The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard, which was the winner of this year's Agatha Award for Best Novel.
Summer school
The Usual Suspects will continue to meet through the summer and our July and August selections are mysteries with an academic setting.
Joie de mort
Join the Usual Suspects this coming Sunday, June 17th, at 2 p.m. for a discussion of The Circle by Peter Lovesey.
Publisher Edgar Blacker is murdered shortly after speaking to an eccentric group of would-be writers. His body is found in the charred remains of his house.
Will writers really kill to be published?
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.
Tonypandy
Several stalwart mystery fans braved the elements and The Usual Suspects Mystery Reading Group met yesterday despite the deluge and had a spirited discussion of The Daughter of Time, although it seemed that Barbara Michaels‘ Buried in the Rain might have been a more appropriate choice.
We proclaimed Richard “not guilty” on all counts of murder and mayhem and concluded that history has not treated him fairly at all. In fact, we found that we shared Josephine Tey’s concerns about the writing of history, which is one of the many themes in the book.
It’s almost time …
… for Sunday’s discussion of Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time.
If you are a mystery fan and looking for a chance to get together with fellow enthusiasts, please join us on Sunday, April 15th at 2 PM in the Seminar Room at the Library and share your thoughts.
Mark your calendar for April 15th
I am excited to announce the upcoming book discussion of Josephine Tey’s classic mystery, The Daughter of Time . Written in 1951, this book came in at #4 on the list of the all-time 100 best mysteries by the Mystery Writers of America.
If you have already read it, give it a quick once over again and join us! If you have never read it, you ought to give it a try. And even if you can't get around to reading it, come any way. This is a great chance to get together with some fellow mystery fans.
Usual Suspects, unusual detectives
There has been some interest expressed recently about reviving the Library's Usual Suspects mystery book discussion group. If you would like to see this happen as well, please contact Jane Murphy by either posting a comment to this blog or sending an e-mail and let her know whether you would prefer daytime or evening sessions.
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