Apr 04 2026

The Tailor of Panama by John Le Carré

The Tailor of Panama is Harry Pendel, half of the Savile Row partnership of Pendel & Braithwaite, relocated to Panama City some years back. A large portrait of the late Arthur Braithwaite — shipped over from England at his widow’s insistence and damn the expense — presides over the premises just off the prestigious Via España. The prestige of English hand-tailoring has translated into a tidy business for Pendel. He has fitted more than one president, quite a number of ministers, practically all of Panama’s business elite, and wealthy men of discerning taste from around the region. He has not held himself above creating uniforms for men new to their high ranks, and he is far too worldly to inquire about how they attained those ranks, or indeed how legitimate their governments might be. Credit available to the right customers, but cash very much preferred.

The Tailor of Panama by John Le Carré

The book was published in 1996 and is set a vague but not too large number of years following the first Bush administration’s forceful ouster of Panama’s notorious ruler Manuel Noriega in 1989. Corruption is assumed of anyone with money. The deadly violence of the drug trade is also assumed, but stays in the background in this novel. By all appearances, Pendel has created a jolly island of English probity and taste in the tropics. The men who come to his shop enjoy the whisky more than the good fitting, and there are regulars who stop by to be seen and to catch up on the latest gossip, in between business, golfing, maintenance of at least one mistress, and the other accoutrements of being rich and Panamanian. Pendel hears a lot in unguarded moments, whether that is during fittings or when his clients are relaxing in the club-like atmosphere of Pendel & Braithwaite.

Pendel himself is a devoted family man; one of the novel’s first scenes shows him taking his two children to their school. His wife, Louisa, is a daughter of one of the Canal’s leading engineers and grew up when the Canal Zone emphasized the practical colonial status of the country that surrounded the Canal. She works for a Panamanian politico-businessman, and she’s a part of the city’s network of socially elite women, parallel to the men’s networks and just as riven by affairs and personal scores. At times Pendel cannot believe his luck; at others, he cannot meet Louisa’s complex and contradictory psychological demands. Le Carré only partly explores this relationship, which is probably just as well because I do not think it would hold up to protracted investigation.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/04/the-tailor-of-panama-by-john-le-carre/

Apr 02 2026

Murder By Memory & Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite

Oh, boy, am I the worst person to send a speculative fiction mystery to when the mystery is, at best, mid. And that’s the thing: these mysteries could be so good, and have so much to say about the human condition as we hurtle into infinity, if the ideas were at all fleshed out and given room to breathe.

Which is a bit ironic given that being fleshed out is one of the core technologies at the heart of these novellas. The basic premise is that instead of generation ships carrying humanity to new life on a distant planet, the inhabitants have the ability instead to write their memories and personalities into digital books stored in the ship’s Library. These can then be re-downloaded into newly created bodies based on each individual’s own genetic codes when their old ones expire, whether from natural causes or otherwise. The people aboard the HMS Fairweather have thus been alive for centuries.

Ship’s detective Dorothy Gentleman had elected not to be immediately reborn after her latest death, and has essentially been hibernating for the past two years. She’s thus startled, as Murder By Memory begins, to find herself rudely awakened, and not in a body corresponding to her own. Instead, she wakes up in an elevator, her personality and memory abruptly thrust upon another’s in an emergency action that the ship’s computer Ferry has deemed absolutely necessary.

It seems that while the ship is weathering a magnetic storm, some of the books in the Library have been damaged beyond repair, including Dorothy’s. Given her importance to the ship, Ferry shunted her consciousness into the first available body, knowing it would be able to sort everything out later. But another emergency has come up: there’s been a murder aboard the Fairweather. And who better than the newly reanimated ship’s detective to solve it?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/02/murder-by-memory-nobodys-baby-by-olivia-waite/

Apr 01 2026

Armaveni by Nadine Takvorian

subtitled: A Graphic Novel Of The Armenian Genocide.

The older I get, the more I wonder why people who commit genocide are so hellbent on pretending it never happened. It adds a layer of weaseldom to an already terrible thing. Like, it’s bad enough you’re a mass murderer but when confronted with the evidence, you’ll pretend it never happened? That feels like a double erasure, of not only a person’s life but also their very existence.

Perhaps that’s the point, which is why it feels especially important in this day and age that the stories of the murdered, displaced and those otherwise affected by state-led actions of eradication continue to be told. The tragedy of the Armenian genocide is probably one of the best hidden of the 20th century. Even as well-read as I’ve been throughout my lifetime, I didn’t know about it until maybe ten years ago? I’m glad that people are speaking out, and that Nadine Takvorian has turned her family history into this compelling Young Adult graphic novel.

Partially set in 2001, the teenaged Nadine of this book comes from an Armenian American family that doesn’t like to talk about the past. California-born Nadine loves drawing and loves stories, tho knows that there are certain ones that her family refuses to share. Her parents run a specialty food store in the city, where she and her brother Sayat help out on Saturdays. A passing question from a customer regarding her identity, and an essay assignment on what it means to be American from her history teacher Mr Ward, soon combine to have her question her own heritage with greater intensity.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/04/01/armaveni-by-nadine-takvorian/

Mar 31 2026

Nobi Nobi TRPG Collector’s Box by Takashi Konno

I am trying to wean myself off of the bad habit of buying books and games via Kickstarter that I don’t subsequently have the time to read and/or play. One way to do this, ofc, is to stop buying things. But another way, more pleasing to my heart if tougher on my calendar, is to actually enjoy these things I’ve bought, whether by myself or in groups.

So when several of my local D&D regulars were unable to make it to the only date we could schedule to meet after a several month hiatus, I thought, “it’s finally time to give some of my other games a go!” I primarily wanted to try out the Nobi Nobi Tabletalk Role Playing Game because it’s lightweight, versatile, almost zero prep and, well, I’d been getting marketing emails letting me know that the expansion set is coming out soon, lol. How to decide whether I’m interested in buying the Cyberpunk and Steampunk expansions if I haven’t yet tried the original even?!

I also had another, slightly ulterior but definitely sneaky, motive for wanting to introduce Nobi Nobi to my RPG table. The game calls for the set of Game Masters and Main Characters to rotate from Scene to Scene. I wanted to use this quality to make players feel more comfortable telling stories, doing improv and being the focus, thereby fostering confidence and hopefully inspiring them to take more agency in the rest of our games going forward. Maybe one of them will even offer to GM a game soon! Stranger things, Horatio!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/31/nobi-nobi-trpg-collectors-box-by-takashi-konno/

Mar 30 2026

The Trouble With Leo by Michelle Assarasakorn & Nathan Fairbairn

This fifth installment of the PAWS graphic novel series for Middle Grade readers is too cute!

Jumping into a series on its fifth installment can always feel a little disorienting, so I do recommend reading the earlier books in the series first to get a better understanding of who some of these unintroduced characters are. That said, the book does work as a standalone. I can’t imagine not wanting to get started with the prior books, tho, if they’re anywhere close to as charming as this one is!

It’s been a whole year since a group of girls who weren’t allowed to own dogs, but who really wanted to hang out with them, started a dog-walking service called PAWS. Members have come and gone in the interim but business continues to grow for Gabby, Mindy and Hazel. The girls and their families and friends are having an anniversary picnic at the park when a regrettable encounter between Gabby and her nemesis Leo leads to the latter declaring that he’ll just start his own dog-walking business then.

Gabby laughs it off, but when flyers for a new dog-walking service called SCAMPS start showing up around the neighborhood — staffed by Leo and his friends Brandon and Nolawi — an all-out turf war erupts, with both sides resorting to dirty tactics. Gabby’s big mouth, however, winds up getting Mindy and Brandon assigned to work on their class science project together. As an unlikely friendship springs up between the two, can they figure out a way to calm things down before one of the pet-lovers does something that there’s no coming back from?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/30/the-trouble-with-leo-by-michelle-assarasakorn-nathan-fairbairn/

Mar 27 2026

Tantalizing Tales — March 2026 — Part Four

Lol, I’m so tired of the rollercoaster my health has been on lately. Let’s hope that the end of March and the beginning of April bring better things, including these three upcoming novels I’m super excited to talk about! Bonus: I also discuss three books from 2025 that I’m still very much trying to squeeze into my unfortunately overstuffed schedule.

First up is Emily Carpenter’s A Spell For Saints And Sinners. Ingrid White inherited a shabby Savannah townhouse when her grandmother, local celebrity psychic Miss Edie, passed away. She’s also inherited, and fully believes in, the family business of witchcraft that Miss Edie used to run from the premises.

Unfortunately, business hasn’t been great lately, and mounting bills have Ingrid worried for the future. Heiress Sailor Loeffler’s bachelorette party changes everything. Sailor is so enamored of Ingrid’s eerily accurate reading that she soon allows Ingrid into her inner circle as a trusted confidante. In order to ensure her continuing access to Sailor’s charmed life — with all the privileges that it brings — Ingrid starts using more and powerful spells, venturing into the dark practices that Miss Edie used to warn her against.

But is it really witchcraft that keeps clearing Ingrid and Sailor’s paths, or something far more mundane and malevolent? Soon, Ingrid will have to confront how just far both she and the people around her are willing to go in order to get what they want.

As a single-issue Etsy Witch myself, I’m totally intrigued by this premise, and am super looking forward to discovering the resolution. Like Miss Edie, I’m a big proponent of putting out good energy only, and am already nervous for and invested in the characters in this Southern Gothic mystery.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/27/tantalizing-tales-march-2026-part-four/

Mar 26 2026

From the Fields To The Fight by Angela Quezada Padron & Sol Salinas

subtitled How Jessica Govea Thorbourne Organized For Justice.

This warmly illustrated picture book tells the life story of a prominent labor rights organizer that many people, myself included, may never have heard of before. Young Jessica Govea is a Mexican American girl who starts working in California’s agricultural fields with her parents when she’s only four years-old. It’s hard work made worse by both exploitation and endangerment, so when her parents are approached by labor organizers wanting to better conditions for farm workers, they readily agree. Jessica pays attention to their actions and persistence, and their setbacks and successes, even as she notes the racism and poverty that negatively affect so many of her peers.

As she gets older, her parents want her to go to college. She demurs, preferring to stay involved in labor actions instead. This leads Jessica to leave the United States for the first time, organizing and advocating for strikes in Canada against exploitative Californian grape growers. It’s lonely, frustrating work but nothing, she knows, compared to what she and thousands of others have had to endure growing up. Will she be able to persevere and strike a blow for all the workers who’ve had enough of being cheated and mistreated by their employers?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/26/from-the-fields-to-the-fight-by-angela-quezada-padron-sol-salinas/

Mar 25 2026

River of Bones And Other Stories by Rebecca Roanhorse

Alright, I’m going to straight up admit that I haven’t read any of Rebecca Roanhorse’s Sixth World novels, so I was definitely not as invested in what is likely to be the biggest draw of this book for fans of hers: the novella that closes the collection and gives it its name.

River Of Bones is a perfectly fine story on its own, but I definitely got the feeling while reading it that I was supposed to come into it already caring about Kai, the extremely powerful narrator, as he tries to reconcile his feelings for Maggie, his maybe-girlfriend, with his feelings for his ex Lala. Alas, I grew steadily less impressed by his story the more powers he displayed — likely the opposite reaction of readers who already know him and love him and want him to succeed. For readers new to the setting, this may well be the least successful of an otherwise absorbing collection of short speculative fiction.

Interestingly, I also had a meh response to the story that opens this book, the critically acclaimed Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™. It is a perfectly fine, if heavy-handed metaphor for the absolute audacity of white people in the ways that they treat indigenous peoples and “authenticity.” While I certainly agree with the sentiments, part of my indifference is likely due to how far forward we’ve leapt as a nation in the past ten years alone when it comes to the representation of Native Americans in popular media — helped in no small part by Ms Roanhorse herself. The pushback she’s received in the years since underscores both the irony of her story and the complexity of identity. It’s hard to escape the feeling that the pain she’s experienced in navigating all this has definitely fueled the writing of the rest of the stories here, which draw on her descent from both a Pueblo and a Black parent, while also reflecting her experience of being adopted by and raised in a white family.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/25/river-of-bones-and-other-stories-by-rebecca-roanhorse/

Mar 24 2026

BBC Pride And Prejudice: The Official Coloring Book by Charlotte Rickards

Can I admit something? I’ve never watched the BBC adaptation of Pride And Prejudice that millions worldwide have swooned to for decades. Nothing against it: I’ve just never had the time! I’ve certainly watched enough clips and absorbed so much via cultural osmosis (augmented now by the research I did for this review,) that I feel I have a fairly good grasp of the miniseries tho.

Thus I was delighted — if not as much as an established fan of this adaptation in particular might have been — to receive this coloring book several weeks ago. I truly enjoy reading Jane Austen’s novels and applaud the spirit of the many media adaptations of her work. While I cannot speak to how strictly this coloring book hews to the BBC series’ timeline/storyboards, it does seem to follow the progression of the book closely in the way that it lays out the familiar scenes. Often, these scenes are juxtaposed with memorable quotes, decorated sampler-like, on the facing pages.

Charlotte Rickards’ linework is excellent in both regards. The movie stills are instantly recognizable, with just the right amount of texture lain down to assist the person coloring in these pages. Some of the art is more ornate than on other pages, but that is okay, as it allows artists to choose what kind of picture they wish to tackle next (if they’re not going to go from front to back, as I rarely do with coloring books.) I also quite admired Ms Rickard’s pattern work, and how the book featured all sorts of imagery — portraits, landscapes, architecture, lettering, fashion, decor — for the colorist to work with.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/24/bbc-pride-and-prejudice-the-official-coloring-book-by-charlotte-rickards/

Mar 23 2026

Shy Cat And The Stuff-The-Bus Challenge by Dian Day & Amanda White

with colors by Jessie Zheng.

So every once in a while, I wade through the cesspool formerly known as Twitter (bear with me, I swear this is going somewhere relevant) to peek at sports banter and celebrity gossip. Occasionally, posts on other topics will cross my feed, usually the fascist-coded, algorithm-pushed bullshit that reminds me why I only use the site for research instead of community nowadays. The most recent thread to enrage me made the absolutely baseless assertion that kids only go hungry because irresponsible parents don’t bother feeding them enough, and that food insecurity is primarily a neurosis.

That kind of nonsense only underscores how important it is for books like Shy Cat And The Stuff-The-Bus Challenge to exist. Dian Day and Amanda White are both members of the Hungry Stories team, which works to highlight food insecurity in North America in creative ways, as a means of advocating for change. This first Shy Cat graphic novel is a terrific way of doing so, as young Mila learns about this complicated issue and, perhaps just as importantly, how to talk about it with the people around her.

Mila lives with her Mom in a two-storey house subdivided into apartments. Mary Elizabeth Bernadette lives downstairs, and a stray cat occasionally makes a nuisance of itself outside. Mila doesn’t mind tho: she loves cats and, with her best friend Kit, visits all the ones in the neighborhood as often as she can.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/23/shy-cat-and-the-stuff-the-bus-challenge-by-dian-day-amanda-white/