Spektator
Watching . . . always watching.
Read Maigret for Manifest. Used my Kindle instead of the laptop. Merde!
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What book is everyone reading at the moment? Part 2.
- Thread starter alex04
- Start date
WilliamAB
New Blood
Wyatt Earp, The Life Behind the Legend, by Casey Tefertiller.
Finished Surviving to Drive by Guenther Steiner, 2023 edition.
It covers the Haas F1 Formula 1 team's creation but mainly focuses on the 2022 season, with this edition having a postscript about 2023.
Steiner is sweary, and hilarious, and I laughed out loud multiple times. I did a longer review in the Formula 1 thread.
Now reading his other book, Unfiltered, 2024.
It covers the Haas F1 Formula 1 team's creation but mainly focuses on the 2022 season, with this edition having a postscript about 2023.
Steiner is sweary, and hilarious, and I laughed out loud multiple times. I did a longer review in the Formula 1 thread.
Now reading his other book, Unfiltered, 2024.
Spektator
Watching . . . always watching.
The Madman of Bergerac, Georges Simenon
An early Inspector Maigret, this one came out in 1932.. An armchair mystery is one in which the sleuth gets reports from assistants or the media and solves the case without stirring from the comfort of an armchair.
This one is a hospital bed mystery.
On a train trip from Paris to a provincial town, Maigret is cut out of his first class compartment and takes the lower berth in a second class one. The man in the upper tosses and turns, and when the train slows, the restless man leaps out of bed and off the train. Maigret follows him into the woods and gets shot in the shoulder.
He comes to in the small town of Bergerac and under suspicion of being the mad killer who has already murdered two local women and assaulted a third, who could not describe the attacker. Maigret clears his name but faces weeks of recuperation in bed. He moves into a hotel, insisting on a room with a view of the town square, and then sends for Madame Maigret to make his tea, light his pipes, and bustle around seeking clues. By some reasoning that I cannot follow, he decides that the murderer must be a professional man. The local chief of police, prosecutor, and doctor, along with a few others, are his suspects. He cherchezes a few femmes as well ...
Not a fair-play puzzle because the villain cannot possibly be detected by the reader, this one is a little annoying because of a plethora of characters with no depth or development. Madman might have worked better with a smaller cast and at novella length. OK, but not compelling.
An early Inspector Maigret, this one came out in 1932.. An armchair mystery is one in which the sleuth gets reports from assistants or the media and solves the case without stirring from the comfort of an armchair.
This one is a hospital bed mystery.
On a train trip from Paris to a provincial town, Maigret is cut out of his first class compartment and takes the lower berth in a second class one. The man in the upper tosses and turns, and when the train slows, the restless man leaps out of bed and off the train. Maigret follows him into the woods and gets shot in the shoulder.
He comes to in the small town of Bergerac and under suspicion of being the mad killer who has already murdered two local women and assaulted a third, who could not describe the attacker. Maigret clears his name but faces weeks of recuperation in bed. He moves into a hotel, insisting on a room with a view of the town square, and then sends for Madame Maigret to make his tea, light his pipes, and bustle around seeking clues. By some reasoning that I cannot follow, he decides that the murderer must be a professional man. The local chief of police, prosecutor, and doctor, along with a few others, are his suspects. He cherchezes a few femmes as well ...
Not a fair-play puzzle because the villain cannot possibly be detected by the reader, this one is a little annoying because of a plethora of characters with no depth or development. Madman might have worked better with a smaller cast and at novella length. OK, but not compelling.
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Safe-Keeper
My avatar is not a Drumpf hat
Finished If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe last night. Loved the ending, loved how everything came together at the end --even what I thought was just random throwaway characters and events suddenly mattered towards the end. In fact it might be my new favourite Pargin book, yes, maybe even better than I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, even though I still find that a way more important book, with its social commentary. It did have a few "why didn't you just--" parts where you just find yourself irritated by how dumb the protagonists could be, but I think that might have been deliberate, and the book lampshades several times how inept the protagonists can be. Loved all plot twists, too, you'll think you have someone all figured out and then it turns out 300 pager later that you were dead wrong (yes, it's a long book, clocking in at over 500 pages, but it's a real page-turner).
If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe has a completely different horror scenario than This Book is Full of Spiders, Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It, and it also pulled off an...
(sort of spoilers, goes into detail about what kind of story it is, feel free to skip if you want to go into the book knowing as little about it as possible)
Oh, and the ending was really unexpected and poignant.
If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe has a completely different horror scenario than This Book is Full of Spiders, Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It, and it also pulled off an...
(sort of spoilers, goes into detail about what kind of story it is, feel free to skip if you want to go into the book knowing as little about it as possible)
Oh, and the ending was really unexpected and poignant.
Carlotta
Graduate Poster
I’m reading one in a favorite series- Aaron Elkins’ Gideon Oliver, the “bone detective” mysteries. Dr. Oliver can tell amazing things from a few old bones, preferably nice, clean ones. Elkins makes fairly unpleasant situations lightly entertaining. The Dark Place is the novel I’m in the midst of. It’s set in the Pacific Northwest, and had me thinking, oh, this is near where Trebuchet and Varwoche are! Then, Dr. Oliver and his FBI friend visit a Bigfoot enthusiast in Port Townsend (hi, Treb). The enthusiast is the only one taking Bigfoot seriously, of course. There may be a mysterious Native American tribe involved, haven’t gotten that far. These mysteries are a bit hard to find now. This one is from the mid-eighties, but all I’ve read so far are worth reading. They have many different settings.
I also have to comment on the mention, above, of the stewardship of nature of Native Americans. The early settlement of Virginia was influenced by the fact that deer were badly over-harvested in this region, creating considerable strife among tribes and adding to the food shortage for the settlers.
I also have to comment on the mention, above, of the stewardship of nature of Native Americans. The early settlement of Virginia was influenced by the fact that deer were badly over-harvested in this region, creating considerable strife among tribes and adding to the food shortage for the settlers.
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