September 2023 - What Are You Reading?

New month, new thread. Tell us what you're reading this month!

Just now opening Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon; it's about midway through the series. I've hopped around, just picking up Nancy Atherton entries as I find them at my favorite used hangouts, but reading this series out of order doesn't appear to hurt anything.

Started off September in crime with The Second Murderer, Denise Mina's take on Philip Marlowe.

The Girl in the Eagle's Talons by Karin Smirnoff

I am reading How to kill your family by Bella Mackie but I am not sure about where it fits. It seems to be as much black comedy as it is crime fiction.

Next up in crime: The Devil's Flute Murders, by Seishi Yokomizo, translated by Jim Rion.

I'm about to start The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections (about missing manuscript and librarian) and I hope to make it through a few other mysteries this month. Let's see!

Started A stranger in the house yesterday.

Finished Unnatural ends by Christopher Huang. One of those books where it's not difficult to see why someone might want to murder the murder victim.

Finished The Ones Who Are Buried by Kerry Wilkinson and followed that with The Ones Who Are Hidden by the same author. Will read more of her works.

Next up was The Raging Storm (Two Rivers 3) by Ann Cleeves which was excellent.

Have just started Fear and Miss Betony AKA Fear for Miss Betony by Dorothy Bowers.

I'm enjoying The Mistress of Bhatia House, the 4th book in Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry series.

I've been on a Cat Who jag; currently in my tote bag is The Cat Who Played Post Office

>12 gmathis: One of my favourites in the series! I still have a few to read and I've enjoyed every one so far.

I've picked up Under my Skin by Lisa Unger. I've only read the prologue but it looks promising!

Just got the latest installment of Matthew Venn mysteries by Anne Cleeves, The raging storm. I've enjoyed this series, along the coast of North Devon.

I just finished "Her No. 1 Fan," by Abby Davies. Now I'm reading "The Last Time You Called," by Carmi Heyman, both from Book Sirens.

Just finished Hope to Die, by David Jackson, the second in his series featuring DS Nathan Cody.

I finished The Other Side of Silence, the 11th entry in Philip Kerr's wonderful Bernie Gunther historical noir series. Gunther started out the series as a homicide detective in Nazi-era (but pre-war) Berlin. Being a Nazi-hater in 1935 Berlin was bound to bring our pal Bernie some problems, and of course it did by the fistful. The Other Side of Silence finds Gunther out the other end of the war with even more cynicism to go along with his battered conscience. Now it is the mid-50s and he is working as a concierge in a decent but not great hotel on the French Riviera. Kerr was never shy about mixing well-known real life figures into Gunther's adventures and travails. This time we meet Somerset Maugham, who is living in the same town and is being blackmailed. It's not long before the British Secret Service are in town, too, and what we have is a Cold War conundrum. This isn't among the very best books in this series, but even good-not-great Bernie Gunther is still a lot of fun in the reading. Sadly, Kerr died a few years back, but I still have three Bernie Gunther books to go.

>18 rocketjk: This is one of my favourite series. How lovely to still have a few to go. I recently reread the first three published as Berlin Noir and was as riveted as i had been on first reading.

>19 Maura49: Those first three are certainly among the best of the series. There are two or three along the way that, I think, measure up to those, but even those that don't are still a very entertaining.

I agree. I bought all of them and particularly like the very last one, Metropolis,

No spoilers here. Enjoy when you get to it.

Just finished The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver.