Jul 23 2022
The long-running No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series relies on a careful balance between new stories — usually cases that the agency is called on to solve — and deeper development of its continuing characters. Too much of the former, and it runs the danger of reading like an episode of old-style television: dramatic events that leave …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/23/how-to-raise-an-elephant-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Jul 12 2022
So I requested this novel ahead of reviewing Sarah Pearse’s upcoming follow up to it, The Retreat. Interestingly, the publicist seemed a little reluctant to send it over — not a problem I’ve usually had with books from larger publishing houses, who don’t have to watch their margins as closely as smaller presses do. I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/12/the-sanatorium-by-sarah-pearse/
Jul 09 2022
This fun new short story puts a modern-day Irene Adler center stage where she belongs! Told through the eyes of her old friend Tommy Diaz, A Scandal In Brooklyn follows Irene as she answers another friend’s request for aid. Priya Stein hasn’t seen or heard from her husband Victor in days. Turns out that he’s …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/09/a-scandal-in-brooklyn-by-lauren-wilkinson/
Jun 01 2022
This may easily be the most fascinating invented setting I’ve read for a murder mystery in ages, and that definitely includes the Anglo-Nordic nation Peter Spiegelman created for his excellent A Secret About A Secret. Imagine, if you will, a near-future world in which North America was never colonized by Europeans. Instead, the indigenous tribes …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/06/01/the-peacekeeper-the-good-lands-1-by-b-l-blanchard/
May 06 2022
It would have worked, too! As the back cover of Meddling Kids says, in 1977 the Blyton Summer Detective Club unmasked the Sleepy Lake monster, a low-life fortune hunter who put on a funny suit to scare people away while he searched the grounds of the Deboën mansion for the gold hoard that was rumored …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/05/06/meddling-kids-by-edgar-cantero/
Apr 21 2022
Trina Low was the Queen Of The Tiles, the glamorous and hyper-competitive Scrabble champion who died abruptly and unexpectedly towards the end of a championship match when she was only 16. Her death scarred the lives of many of those around her, foremost among them being Najwa Bakri, her best friend and the girl determined …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/04/21/queen-of-the-tiles-by-hanna-alkaf/
Apr 19 2022
I’m sure there’s an interesting sociological reason for the recent rise of anthropomorphism in popular culture aimed at adults, where once it was considered primarily the province of children’s books and media. From the bestselling Wanderhome role-playing game to this delightful Shady Hollow mystery series, a longing for creature comforts seems to have seized grown-ups …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/04/19/cold-clay-shady-hollow-2-by-juneau-black/
Apr 11 2022
Tia Drakos is a Los Angeles real estate appraiser who, once upon a time, worked with the police as a handwriting analyst. She’s initially surprised when an old friend, Elise Davis, contacts her about appraising the home Elise grew up in. As the daughter of Hollywood royalty Carson Davis, and a fairly successful businesswoman in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/04/11/appraise-her-by-paula-priamos/
Mar 13 2022
A rare blunder by Erast Fandorin, Imperial Russia’s foremost detective, puts him on the trail of an assassin and revolutionary in the summer of 1914, a trail that leads to Baku, oil-spattered boomtown and possible crucible of a plot against the very order that Fandorin upholds. The city itself is a bubbling pool of money, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/03/13/black-city-by-boris-akunin/
Feb 03 2022
To the Land of Long Lost Friends begins with a wedding and moves quickly to a funereal subject. And it was on the way [to the catering tent] that Mma Ramotswe suddenly gripped Mr J.L.B. Matekon’s arm. “I have seen a ghost, Rra,” she said, her voice filled with alarm. He looked at her in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/02/03/to-the-land-of-long-lost-friends-by-alexander-mccall-smith/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire