Every summer reading list needs a cozy mystery. This one is nestled in the community of Aix-en-Provence. Magistrate Verlaque oversees Commissioner Paulik’s investigation of a possible wine theft. A local vineyard is stunned to discover a number of irreplaceable bottles from its cellar. Soon local law enforcement will wish the only crime they had to…
REVIEW: STRONG POISON by Dorothy L. Sayers
I’m ashamed to say this was the first Sayers novel I have read. I can’t imagine why, other than I assumed them to be like Agatha Christie and there were already so many of hers to read. And I don’t remember my childhood library having any of her books, (they may have) but there was…
REVIEW: MURDER IN THE RUE DUMAS by ML Longworth
This whodunit revisits Judge Antoine Verlaque and law professor turned amateur sleuth Marine Bonnet, and their lives in Aix-en-Provence. The two were introduced in Death At Chateau Bremont, a mystery about identity and inheritance. This time they join forces to find the murderer of fellow professor Dr Georges Moutte. Scholarly, perhaps, but hated by most…
SPOTLIGHT: BORIS AKUNIN in The New Yorker
I have ADORED Boris Akunin for years. I mean, at least 10 years; maybe more. I was heart-broken when American publishers stopped “importing” him. Last summer, I went to London and stopped in at Daunt Books in Chelsea. I bought every Akunin / Fandorin book they had. When I explained to the wonderful staff that…
REVIEW: AN UNMARKED GRAVE by Charles Todd
Those who are suffering from a bit of Downton Abbey withdrawal and enjoy a cozy mystery should read this book. Battlefield nurse Bess Crawford is alerted to an unaccounted for corpse in the shed turned makeshift morgue. Interest piqued and always dutiful, she intends to report the findings to the Matron. Before she can, she is struck…