October 2026's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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Death at King's Cross (A Four Queens of Crime Mystery #2) by Rosanne Limoncelli

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: DCI Lilian Wyles is confronted by a troubling case, one that only the four queens of crime can help solve—even amidst the ongoing war efforts.

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh are back in the follow-up novel to The Four Queens of Crime.

1941, London. When DCI Lilian Wyles finds a young woman murdered at King's Cross Station, she needs the help of someone she can trust, but Richard Davidson, her former Scotland Yard partner, has joined MI5 and is busy tracking black market routes outside of London, so for now, she is on her own.

After having met the four queens of crime during a murder investigation two years earlier, DCI Wyles has kept in touch. But Agatha, Dorothy, Margery, and Ngaio are all involved in the war effort and have problems of their own.

Agatha is volunteering at the University Hospital Pharmacy, where a dangerous anesthetic has been stolen. Dorothy has heard unsettling information from her connections at the BBC regarding members of the Royal Navy. Margery, who has been in the countryside helping families escape the city from the bombing, is worried about one of her charges whose older sister has gone missing. And Ngaio, who has relocated to New Zealand and is volunteering as an ambulance driver, has begun gathering secret intelligence from wounded soldiers and sailors that may put her in danger.

When the four queens contact DCI Wyles for help, the information they share makes the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place. DCI Wyles once again finds herself collaborating with her old partners in crime to solve the mystery and close the case in this thrilling sequel, perfect for fans of Nicola Upson and Anna Lee Huber.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: An idea I found fun, with the real-life Golden Age Queens solving crimes, gets a second story set in its storyverse. It was a perfectly fine, amusing to read, mystery on its own merits; I was gld to come back to it every time I opened the DRC.

I didn't remember to all that often because I was never fully convinced I agreed with Author Limoncelli's characterizations of them, so kinda felt weirdly underdelivered-to.

Crooked Lane Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) says "$14.99 please" so either read and love the sample available, or try your library before committing to buy.

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Mercy House by Adam Cesare

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Welcome to Mercy House, a state-of-the-art retirement home that appears perfectly clean and orderly . . . but something is turning the residents into monsters. In this thrilling novel from the author of Clown in a Cornfield, you will find little mercy—only a shocking eruption of unfathomable horror.

Harriet Laurel notices the odor the moment she steps inside Mercy House, brought to the retirement home against her will by her son and his wife. In the early stages of dementia, Harriet has grown to resent her daughter-in-law for not providing grandchildren. Yet as she crosses the threshold, she notices her mind begins to sharpen. Then her hate begins to grow. . . .

Arnold Piper, an eighty-five-year-old ex-Marine, has always prided himself on self-reliance. But betrayed by his own body, he’s learning that surviving war-torn Korea was easier than facing the daily indignities of old age. And his worst trials are still to come.

Sarah Campbell, an idealistic nurse, is already stretched thin at the chronically understaffed Mercy House. Now her duties are about to take a terrifying turn. Can she survive the night. . . and her patients?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Seriously creepy for an old man living in assisted living to read at Halloween, but just a hair less creepy than I'd hoped. Why's evey oldster divesting themselves of clothes, inhibitions against murder, and taboos around cannibalism?

Dunno. Author Cesare never says. The body horror will put off many in my age group. It *should* bother our descendants, seeing us in this vio;ent;y primal state, but whatever your gore tolerance is, it's the absence of a *reason* we all go hog-wild that ought to make you go "nah, I'm good" this #Deathtober.

Del Rey Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) is only asking $4.99 for an ebook.

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Chain Reaction (Jack Reacher #31) by Lee Child and Andrew Child

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The heart-pounding new Jack Reacher thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child.

Jack Reacher is hard to find. It's not easy to track him down. And he likes it that way. But General Susan Turner, based deep inside the Pentagon, has the means and the motive. She needs his help. A member of her team has been brutally murdered on covert duty. She can’t trust anyone she works with, not even her deputy. She needs someone from the outside. Someone who solves problems and disappears without a trace.

Reacher heads to Summertown, Colorado. A town as remote and bizarre as it gets. One diner, one motel, five massive data centers, two giant solar farms humming away in the dust. Total population: four people. And one of them is watching him. But Reacher isn’t built to run. He’s built to finish things. General Turner knows that if they come for Reacher, they’ll regret it—all the way to the top of the chain.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: My first Reacher of the 2020s, chosen because Andrew is taking over the series and I wanted to scope it out. This is exactly what I would expect a handover of this long-running series to be. It's not indistinguishable from Lee's earlier work, in a good way.

It's a fine, refining difference that marks Reacher with the smallest bit more need to be human: Susan Turner's back. For series aficionados, catnip.

Bantam Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) has $14.99 on the cover of the ebook. It's #Deathtober, the data centers he's destroying should give you the happy they gave me, whatthehell.

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When the Night Comes Knocking by Katherine Daniel

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this Appalachian horror novel, two estranged siblings become trapped in a convenience store under attack by a monster from the mountains who feasts on guilty hearts.

Rattle, rattle in the dark…
The mountain’s bones seek out a heart.

Jane has not spoken to her brother Thomas since the accident that nearly killed them both. Their drive from college through the North Georgia mountains is uncomfortably silent, until they stop at a roadside convenience store, where a man stumbles in with a mutilated body, claiming to have been attacked by a monster.

At first, no one believes the man’s ravings, but when the next person to leave the store is brutally killed, they fear that local legend might be true: There’s a beast in these mountains who feasts on guilty hearts… and someone among them has lured it out of hiding.

Jane and Thomas each harbor secrets, but so do the other patrons, and as the monster claims more hearts, the survivors turn on each other, desperate to save themselves by uncovering the guiltiest among them.

If the siblings can’t overcome the rift between them, they’ll surely become the monster’s next victims…or worse, become monsters themselves.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: #Deathtober spookiness in Appalachia; all in on that, me! Sadly the pieces never came together for a satisfying conclusion to the narrative.

I really disliked what I got to know about Jane and Thomas so that did not help.

Berkley Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. Library borrows are free and, if you enjoy it, great value. If you don't you've only lost time.

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The Haunted Librarian by Auralee Wallace

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A lonely librarian finds love, friends, and a few ghosts between the shelves in this cozy, paranormal tale from beloved bestselling author Auralee Wallace.

It’s a dark and stormy night…and Amelia Bates is caught in the rain. Life hasn’t always been kind to her, and being a ghostseer certainly doesn’t make things any easier.

Glowing warmly through the autumnal downpour is her safest the library. Amelia, the newly hired librarian, has always relished the comfort of curling up with a novel, vastly preferring it to the company of humans (alive or ghostly).

But Amelia is shocked to discover the building is full of more than quiet stories and warm cups of tea. There are curious, talkative patrons, a shy, bespectacled head librarian who makes her heart skip a beat, and three quirky spirits causing paranormal havoc that endangers the future of the library.

To help the ghosts and save the building, Amelia will have to gather all her bravery and wits, because learning to trust others might just be the first step to a happily ever after she only thought was possible in books.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Librarian + ghosts x cozy romantasy = terrific #Deathtober entertainment. Another story I was never sorry to pick back up, but didn't think to do so for days at a time. I thought Simon, Amelia's love interest, was very dull; I forget which ghost called Amelia "dude" all the time but that *really* grated after the skatey-eighth time.

The humor is gentle, the tone is the good kind of sentimental, the milieu could grow legs and be the book your grands are happiest to find after you die. It was fine, but I wanted to be able to invest in Amelia more. Next book?

Ace Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) only wants $12.99 for an ebook, which is exactly the right price.

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Brimstone Hollow (Annie Gore #2) by Archer Sullivan

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Following her powerful debut in The Witch’s Orchard, private investigator Annie Gore returns in Brimstone Hollow, bringing readers back to the mountains that author Archer Sullivan, a ninth generation Appalachian, knows so well.

There isn’t much that happens in the Appalachian Mountains that Private Investigator Annie Gore hasn’t seen. Before she joined the Air Force, she was born and raised in those rolling hills, and lately Annie's cases have called her away from her Louisville office and closer to the small towns of her youth than she ever anticipated. But when her newest client asks if she’s ever been to a snake-handling church, Annie knows she’s about to enter unknown territory.

Katie May has been estranged from her father―one of Appalachia’s last infamous snake handling preachers―for twenty years. But when Katie finds out he’s been fatally bitten, and a funeral was held within twenty-four hours, she questions whether someone deliberately rushed the process. Despite Annie’s doubts, she takes the case. After all, when she looks at Katie, she sees a version of herself: a girl who needs to understand her father in order to understand herself.

As she navigates the hidden hollers and dangerous secrets of this insular Eastern Kentucky town, Annie works fast, hoping to find the truth in record time for her client―and before too many memories from her own childhood surface. But it soon becomes apparent that someone wants Annie’s investigation to stop―by any means necessary.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The snake-handling preacher dying of a snake bite was *chef's kiss* and then Author Archer pulled a fast one on me and made it the mystery to find out if he really did die of a snakebite which totally harshed my buzz. (There's a joke in there fot y'all to discover.) Not one thing stays the same for long: Victims and perps switch places, Honey the 260Z suffers gross indignities, Annie Gore damn near dies of rattlesnake bite...and by the end I was rooting for a guy who needed Annie to...get...him a severed finger to accomplish something "illegal" to get it done.

Problem is it's all so busy, so frantic in pace that I got left behind a little too often for me to offer a more elevated rating. Still, enjoyed my Appalachian #Deathtober visit fine. Get well soon, Annie.

Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $14.99 for an ebook. Start with #1, linked up top.

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The Raven by Susan McCauley

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: As illness tightens its grip, something darker begins to stir.

England, 1665. As plague ravages London and fear spreads north to York, Martin Blake, a humble cobbler, struggles to protect his family through a bitter, death-shadowed winter. When the parish rector, his wife’s domineering uncle, forces orphaned children from London into their already meager home, Martin’s fragile world begins to unravel.

Grief, illness, and the weight of buried sins close in. Ravens gather. Martin’s reason begins to slip. Whispers spread—of misused alms, of spirits that roam at night, of faith twisted into something monstrous. As snow blankets the land and the dead lie unburied, Martin must confront a chilling truth: is he haunted by guilt, or by something far more sinister?

A gothic tale of illness, obsession, and the perilous border between loyalty and madness.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A #Deathtober gothic story set during the witch panic and Black Death of the 1660s, this is a very creepy tale that is deeply immersive. It took me a while to sort put whether I felt the ravens were real, or simply the guilt/religious abuse and the overwhelming amount of death surrounding Martin the main character manifesting either in the world or in his head.

I'd give it a higher rating were it not for the repetitiveness of Martin's experiences ending up reducing my sympathy for him.

Celtic Sea, LLC (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) wants $19.99 for a paperback.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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The Last Time We Saw Her (22%) by Jaclyn Goldis

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Ten years ago, a teenage summer camper disappeared while searching for a rumored treasure on a remote island. Now, the long-buried truth of what happened to her and the long-lost gold threatens the lives of her friends in this thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Chateau.

Ten years ago, a group of American teenage summer campers went to a lush and isolated Azores island for a hiking and heritage trip. But when a clue to a local legend of buried treasure emerged, the summer devolved into a frenzied hunt and culminated in the disappearance—and rumored murder—of “it girl” camper, Sydney. She was never seen again and the treasure never found.

Now, a decade later, Sydney’s closest circle returns to honor her memory: Sydney’s sister and fellow camper, Olivia; a group of childhood camp friends; and their beloved counselors. They’ve all agreed to participate in a documentary probing what really happened to Sydney.

The group reunites in paradise and retraces their old haunts, hiking along crater lakes and submerging in thermal hot springs. But not everyone has innocent motives for returning to the island. And when the documentary filming reveals explosive truths and fresh hints resurrect the tantalizing treasure hunt, the group begins to implode. Old feuds reignite—and then one of them turns up dead.

Which means that a murderer has surfaced...again.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I read The Chateau a couple years ago when I was in Long Beach at a fellow reader's behest, and thought it was okay: nice setting well evoked, tidy climax.

Loved this setting, the Azores, but was never convinced by the true-crime documentary being that interesting; I gave up mid-transcript because it was just too grating.

Atria/Emily Bestler Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $13.99 for an ebook.

TRICYCLIST, slice-of-queer-life novella-length story

TRICYCLIST
JOON OLUCHI LEE
Nightboat Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The love child of The L Word and Brontez Purnell's 100 Boyfriends, with a disaffected flair all its own.

It’s San Francisco in the early aughts, and Howie Song is floundering. His failed projects—as a professional ballet dancer, as a boyfriend, as a friend—have left him forever the “third wheel.” But maybe he likes it that way? Leaping wildly between lovers, centuries, and an ever-changing cultural landscape, Howie might just feel most himself in the fracture.

Delicious, poetic, and delightfully pornographic, Tricyclist is an ode to the “abnormal angles” of people and art. As Howie overcomes his own ambivalences—in large part thanks to two suitors, and a circle of supporters who happen to be lesbians—Joon Oluchi Lee portrays, with his signature flamboyance, all of life’s joys, pitfalls, and pirouettes.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The cover image is...arresting. In a compact 144 pages I was not expecting to get rich, immersive detail, like something explaining why there's a guy flashing his ass from under a schoolgirl's plaid skirt on the cover. That expectation was met. Howie's character is shown to me by the surfaces he gets distracted from his aimless wanderings by. Jeb, for example; the romance blossoming on Jeb's side was doomed because Howie...doesn't, and I went through the cycle of can't and won't before landing on that...reciprocate what I'm presented as sincere interest in Howie. He's not indifferent to Jeb, as we're presented with open-door sex scenes as the romance world describes them. I've read far more explicit and descritive gay sex scenes in the #Hollanov group on Tumblr. Far.

Val and Tish's romance, as Howie looks on, develops nicely; he does not lack for queer relationship success models. He had a past situationship with some guy that we're told stank. I bet I know why: Howie isn't commitment minded. Permaybehaps he will be, but I'll bet not based on what I know about people who seek and form commitments to romantic partners. Howie feels to me, with his surface-level vision and his general absence of attachments to the kind of people he wants to sex up, like a floater. He has his girl-pack who love him and emotionally support him, so he has no reason to risk boredom, domestic routine, deepened familiarity...all the things he appears to be uninterested in. His ballet "career" of useful, decent dancing without seemeing to desire improving his technical skills, still less exploring the deeper creative depths, to excel or even succeed at is a larger example of his aimless rootlessness.

It's a mixed bag of a read for me. I'm always pleased with the juxtaposition of raunch and refinement because that's the way the world really is. It's presented here in thoroughly measured, considered, polished prose. I'm not fond of Howie. I think people who don't want to make commitments are better off sticking to one-night stands. But of course the real issue is, does Howie introspect as well as he dissects others with his lesbian posse? I don't know, I never see it; and if I'm not seeing it I doubt it occurs; so Howie is probably unaware he's hurting others.

We spend 144 pages to make that unremarkable discovery, with pretty prose to sweeten the cup of Life's bitter dregs.

Need to feel involved in a real-life story? This one scratches that bump with the comforting distance of fiction keeping we-the-reader from feeling voyeuristic.

THE TULIP POPLARS, a poet's lyrical retelling of a story in every family tree

THE TULIP POPLARS
SILAS HOUSE
Algonquin Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A sweeping historical novel about hidden, forbidden love in the early 1900s by bestselling writer and former poet laureate of Kentucky, Silas House.

Amos and Tom fall in love while working in the tobacco fields during the hot summers of the early 1900s, yet Tom cannot shake his strict religious upbringing nor the responsibilities of his family’s farm. His longtime friend Maeve also pines for a man she can’t have, lest she endanger his already tenuous life in a town and world shaped by racial lines. How do you live a life that feels untrue, and at what point do you risk everything?

The Tulip Poplars is a gorgeous and moving novel spanning most of the 20th century, centering on four people trying to find happiness in a world that demands conventional choices. House tells a deeply intimate story of faith and doubt, race and class, sexual desire and the longing to be good when you’ve been taught that you are evil for loving who you love.

Based on the story of an ancestor, House’s new novel takes us from New York City to Southern cities to Appalachia and will leave you with a bigger heart.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's a lovely, lyrical telling of a story every last one of us, regardless of nationality or ethnicity, has in our direct line of descent. In a world a hostile as it is to same-sex love (let alone sex) the closet has created a lot of unhappy marriages. Statistically there were happy ones, too, but I'm willing to wager there were, and are, fewer of those.

So I was predisposed to like and enjoy the story of the "good" people of Bright Star, Kentucky, and unsurprisingly I did. Especially the men falling in love across class *and* queer prejudice lines. Talk about an uphill battle, though, that's Maeve, a white woman breaking literal Jim Crow laws by indulging in carnal congress with Paschal, the only Black person in her father's Episcopal school. He risks his literal life being with her; she loses social standing by her miscegenation, and becomes a pariah by getting pregnant out of wedlock. Fortunately Paschal's whisked away in 1919 due to the Corbin Expulsion, an appalling event I'd never heard of before. Amos self-exiles to New York City, where revolting incidents of police violence against queers impact (!) his life; Tom's confined to a mental institution to undergo insulin-overdose induced coma to cure him of being queer. (In order to include this nightmarish torture, the author says plainly he moved its US application earlier than it took place in reality, which I appreciated.)

As the escapees from Bright Star form new connections, Tom and Maeve navigate their dishonest marriage, raise a daughter, live lives...longing for others. So very many of us do this. We find the scraps and hidden bits we can enjoy to the degree possible, but happiness is a bit strong of a word for the twilight state of anesthetized misery company, if we're lucky turning into companionship, preents in the absence of a love lost. I know all of us carry some unfixable sadness. Far fewer carry this level of punishing loneliness found in settling.

The role of the piano, whose keys I discuss below, stitches the emotional reality of Bright Star together. I know for sure all y'all will know Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1 the instant you hear it. It will be less obvious until you read about the pieces why Author House likely chose them. Safe to say this is the point I fully got on board Author House's Yearning Express.

I've docked a star because on the first page, the first paragraph even, reference to a piano made in the nineteenth century having "Tanzanian ivory" keys caused me to stop reading for weeks. "Tanzania" is a name invented in 1964...during my lifetime. "Tanganyika" was used when it was a German colony in the 19th century, up through independence to the invention of the portmanteau of "Zanzibar" and "Tanganyika." This is easily checked, and as a throwaway line it could've been "African ivory" with no change in meaning. My remaining fraction of a star loss was down to my significantly lower interest and investment in the straight couples.

It's a lovely reading experience, another one of those where I'm compelled to read bits aloud. Normally I'd chuck one in here so you could feel smugly superior about not liking it, but there were six that I could not choose from, so I skipped it.

This caused me significant emotional anguish. It's beautiful writing, and proof one needn't insert weird line-breaks or fail to interconnect the ideas behind the words into grammatically correct sentences to evoke strong emotions and offer beauty to the Muses.

Take note of this before committing Poetry *ptooptoo* again.

A SHADOW OF JAGUARS, soon to be Cali's Morse and Lewis?

A SHADOW OF JAGUARS
D.C. FROST
Canis Major Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A Shadow of Jaguars by D.C. Frost is a gripping cross-border noir thriller that follows Detective DJ Arias as he navigates murder, Hollywood intrigue, and immigrant struggles across Mexico City and Los Angeles, blending fast-paced suspense and richly drawn characters.

In Mexico City for a family funeral, Detective DJ Arias encounters a group of Robin Hood-style thieves who call themselves the Jaguars. Their activities reach across the border into Los Angeles with a Hollywood murder that entangles LA's elite and the nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners who serve them, and threatens DJ's own loved ones.

A sequel to the mystery A Punishing Breed, A Shadow of Jaguars finds DJ and partner Bobby Talbot struggling to untangle a murder where Hollywood, wealthy powerbrokers, and an immigrant population struggle to coexist and survive. Throughout it all, his faithful dog Evidence is by his side.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I haven't read A Punishing Breed, the first of the DJ Arias series of mysteries. From what I've read about others' thoughts on the book, several Goodreads friends having read it, it's a high-energy read with a lot of twists and turns. Permaybehaps too many, possibly a scoche too action-packed at the expense of clarity of purpose.

Checks all the way down that list.

Arias, an LAPD detective, starts the story held under the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe while in Mexico City for a family funeral. The leader of a violent gang called the Jaguars (cool name, but they're felonious yam's bad hombres incarnate), Señor Blanco, robs his family. After Arias is freed, his relatives dissuade the authorities from investigating Señor Blanco's Jaguars in typical intimidated-witness fashion: "No one was hurt; those men treated our women with respect," Arias's uncle says. Returning to L.A. Arias gets involved in the investigation of the death of Hollywood journalist Douglas Vago, who’s killed with the spiky end of a starburst clock in the home of a Mexican film director. Arias and his movie buff partner, Bobby Talbot, discover that the only thing taken from the crime scene was an unfinished script. Their suspect list is heavy with studio execs upset with Vago, a powerful magazine editor carrying secrets, and the director's undocumented household workers. Among the latter group is gardener Juan Tlaloc Duran, who has deep ties to the Jaguars. When you thought the Nutribullet was on full whirl, Vago's ex-wife is beaten to death.

I got really confused a lot. Bobby Talbot the movie buff/sidekick was invaluable for motives but kinda lackadaisical on doing policework meticulously. Arias feels like a lift of the Continental Op in his blockiness and his voice that narrates but never converses. But, again like the Continental Op, he is all-in on Justice. Laws be damned (flouted, anyway) if Justice needs serving. I'm probably more likely to call it ma'at than Justice because I see the latter term as besmirched by the US system that goes by that name, so prefer the clean, clear ancient Egyptian personification that also contains something like karma. I suspect Arias would, too.

There is a woman love interest. I really wasn't interested. Hesperia College was a decently well-limned location, integrated into the story with a slightly strained completeness...I felt at times that locations were sketched for convenience not seen as part of the story from the start.

There was a reckoning, one that arrived in good time...no waiting around, but not rushed or given short shrift only...hectic. And it was well in keeping with what we saw Arias learn. I'm not all the way sure I'll pick up the first one soon, but will certainly get it and read it.

I'm glad Red Hen/Canis Major introduced me to Arias and Bobby. May they develop into Cali's Morse and Lewis.

THE PIANO TEACHER OF MONTPARNASSE, bet this'll be a bestseller

THE PIANO TEACHER OF MONTPARNASSE
HEATHER MORRIS
Blackstone Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz returns with a masterful new novel that captures the astonishing bravery of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

In 1942, the Nazis come for a Jewish family living in the Montparnasse area of occupied Paris. In the chaos of their arrest, eleven-year-old Josephine runs to the only person she can her piano teacher, Andrée Levallois, a secret French Resistance operative.

Andrée takes her in as a member of the family, spreading their rations and risking everything to keep her safe. But soon the authorities close in, and both Andrée and Josie are caught in a desperate race to stay alive.

Epic in scope and based on real people and historical events, Heather Morris has written a story of breathtaking beauty, at once gripping, heartbreaking, and uplifting.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: An intimate story of bureacratic bungling saving a child's life because of a quick-thinking mother, a brave family keenly aware of the injustice being done in their country, and how ver simple a miracle truly is. The real woman said of miracles: "I think maybe miracles are just people being kind when they don't have to be. People being brave when it's easier to hide. People sharing what little they have. People lighting candles when it's dark."

That's the heart of the story. It's deeply affecting, all the moreso because it's based on facts. The Holocaust is receding into memory as the few survivors left alive are approaching their 90s. Soon no witnesses will remain. Hence the uptick of scum shouting "fake news" and "hoax" and "it wasn't that bad, those jews are exaggerating" and suchlike idiocy.

This is called "preparing the ground."

We as a species might very well be extinct in the near future, and I'm not speaking geologically, if the "AI" alarmists are correct. I think I'm more worried that they are *not* correct because if we do not all die I fear deeply we're going to see more and more and more genocides modeled on the "Final Solution" as the desensitization and justification scumbags do their evil work. They've never stopped, the Germans weren't the first to think of any of it, and we still pull out a few individual miracles. Like this one. It is a sentimental telling of a story replete with pathos.

It will do your book club proud and, I urgently hope, begin many a conversation about collaborating with evil on a practical basis by being "sick of the rage" or "too tired" to perform even simple actions in support of those actively resisting.

I'm not a fan of this angle of storytelling but I'm damn sure a fan of this story's message, burnished to a high gloss as it is. Shiny things are pretty good mirrors, after all.

TO THE EAST OF THE EAST, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD in TRANSLATED LITERATURE

TO THE EAST OF THE EAST
PING LU (tr. Jeremy Tiang)
World Editions (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD in TRANSLATED LITERATURE

Min-Hui's travels from Taiwan to Beijing in search of her vanished husband in this multi-layered meditation on marriage and freedom from Taiwan's most sophisticated contemporary voice.

While chasing business opportunities in China, Min-Hui’s husband disappears without a trace, forcing her to uproot her quiet life as a writer in Taiwan and travel to Beijing, where the chaos of the city leaves her reeling. Does the Chinese government truly have her best interests at heart, and how hard are the authorities looking for her missing husband?

Marooned in the ancient capital, Min-Hui encounters the enigmatic Shangjun, a self-proclaimed human rights activist who seeks refuge in her hotel room. As their relationship blooms, Min-Hui allows him to read her novel in progress: a young Qing emperor confined within the Forbidden City becomes fascinated by pirate merchant Zheng Zhilong’s tales of the Taiwanese seas. All the while, Min-Hui contemplates the discord in the marriage she is desperate to save. Exploring the universal longing for freedom with her signature multi-layered narrative, Ping Lu interweaves Min-Hui’s search for her husband and her Beijing love affair with the historical backstory of her novel and unsent letters from her vanished husband.

To the East of the East offers a profound meditation on liberation, destiny and the contingencies of national histories by one of Taiwan’s most sophisticated contemporary voices.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: As best I recall, or can find evidence for, this is my forst-ever encounter with Ping Lu's work. Quite a force in Taiwanese literature, her publisher tells me in this book's attached biographical details "Ping Lu writes on a wide range of topics, including society, culture, gender, politics, history and human rights," then goes on to list Taiwanese literary prizes she has won.

Jeremy Tiang's translation tells me a lot about why that's the case. It's a layered, complex read; Min-Hui's marriage and its anger and stress, Chinese/Taiwanese political intertwining with its sibling/spouse/parent-child resonances that never settle into a predictable, steady state jitter and flare at each other; the history of the ancient culture is presented in an historical novel that's embedded in this modern palimpsest of story.

It's a lot. It's barely over two hundred pages. Pay attention.

I got a vibe as I read the story that I was missing something, that there was a layer of...a resonant bell ringing that I was too far away to hear but I could feel. I looked for reviews by native speakers to see if something was not in the translation. Turns out no, but in a curious way yes. Min-Hui gets two PoVs, one grieving, one knowing; the missing husband gets one; then there's the historical novel. In the observation of people who read the Mandarin version, there is a distinctive and different way the language feels between the PoVs. Like the lack of an English version of "tu" that hobbles Romance-language translations when a tonal shift in character familiarity or intimacy occurs, its shade lingers for the sensitive reader. English gives its speak/readers so much, but not a substitute for tenses, voices, and cases in other languages.

Min-Hui traveling the distance from Mexico City to New York City, with approximately the same change of prevailing culture, and discovering as a result that people who don't communicate are prone (doomed, I'd say honestly) to have different relationships, was a poignant story. Working out her feelings with the historical novel within the novel worked surprisingly well for me. I was not sold on it at first but came to see this technique as almost painfully poignantly demonstrating Min-Hui's functional overthinking issues that condemn her to a half-life of never reaching out, connecting; until one reads the letters it seems literally impossible for her to hope to change.

Never say never.

THE KEY TO A KILLER, third Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries #Deathtober treat

THE KEY TO A KILLER (Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries #3)
OLIVIA BLACKE
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A woman and her ghost roommate investigate their most personal case yet in Olivia Blacke’s The Key to a Killer, the next book in the Anthony Award winning Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries.

When Ruby Young discovered that her Boston apartment was haunted, she did what any reasonable person would do: befriend the ghost. Their relationship overcame a shaky start—Cordelia Graves never wanted a roommate in life, she certainly didn’t want one in death. After working together to solve a few murders, the two are close friends, but there’s a lingering question neither of them have been able to answer: what led to Cordelia’s death?

Lately things have been adding up that suggest foul play. And when Cordelia’s memories of that day start to come back, the roommates can’t ignore it anymore: Cordelia was murdered. Ruby and Cordelia are going to have to piece together what Cordelia’s final days looked like—otherwise a killer could go free.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Every #Deathtober I get a lovely present from Minotaur Books: a funny, fun mystery about two poorly-assorted roommates who solve crimes together. Their skill sets mesh well. They do far better together than either does apart.

Oh, and one's alive. The other isn't.

This time around the spin cycle of Life, which even the dead have, they're going after the solution to Cordelia's death. This is not a drill, this is the big one, y'all. Cordelia, in life, would've completely rejected Ruby and her youth with a curt dismissal. Now the dirtnapped fortysomething has, over two previous investigations, learned to respect and value Ruby, who returns the sentiments. As Cordelia's memories of her death are absent and as Ruby's learned more about her, she's become sure Cordelia was killed.

Cordelia can't remember if anyone wanted to murder her, or think of a reason anyone might. With fridge-magnet letters, the two go over the facts and Ruby gets a twinge of an idea. She's going to get a job at Cordelia's old firm.

Now here's where I say The Formula℠: Don't start here, or a lot of the really strange established-relationship stuff will feel arbitrary and weird instead of cute and endearing. Ruby gets UGS (United Ghost Service) delivery service of things she needs but can't afford by means I'd just rather not look into so I can keep thinking Cordelia's a mensch. I know she's a mensch because Ruby's arachnophobia means Cordelia's just assumed the role of de-spidering their environment. And Ruby's become convinced foul play that needs addressing took her pal's life before she was through living it.

See how one hand washes the other here? Then, as is reasonable and customary in our US lives in this year of our lord twenty twenty six, Cordelia's newly-released brother Ian, formerly imprisoned for, well never mind, begins breaking into the apartments in their building to search for clues to Cordelia's death.

I boggled a bit at this. As the story flowed on smoothly I allowed my hackles to relax. Ian discovers that he, oddly enough, still has his dead sister's number on a weird kind of speed dial. All us mystery series readers know the scoobygroup is most of the fun of a story in that particular storyverse and Ian is one of the most interesting ones in Ruby and Cordelia's. I'm hoping as time goes on Ian will learn from his oddly ameliorated loss to be a more mature character...I typed and erased "person" a couple times, so you see how my idea of the series is heading.

As a resolution to Cordelia's present unaliveness impends, I was struck by an uncomfortable realization: Cordelia, with her fragments of memory returning, was getting the absolute most abysmal exit interview conceivable. Ruby at her side she was going through hard-to-stomach realizations about the life she thought she was living not matching the one that was really happening. Cordelia has a lot to think about. Luckily she has a lot of leisure time to do it in. And a close supportive friend, maybe also brother, to be there as she does it.

I was a bit...um...the ending had an impact on me. That's IT? I asked my Kindle screen. No matter what the lady next door says I did NOT scream, and who asked her anyway. It's resolved, it makes sense, and I will be hornswoggled if I buy for one instant that this is the last we will hear about this.

Spending a few hours alternating between Cordelia and Ruby's PoVs gave me a real feeling that I was in the room with them as the investigations made progress. I was always happy to see Ian, I think Tosh the neighbor's a sweet nebbishy guy on course to get his heart broken, and truly enjoy the slightly edgier-than-before banter between the now more equal friends. It's been more and more fun to get to know them.

I'm not joking, though. This book's the reward for investing eyeblinks into Ruby and Cordelia. Taking a shortcut to get here won't make it more exciting to be here but less. And it really is worth it for these evolved versions of good people.