Sep 19 2025

Tantalizing Tales — September 2025 — Part Three

Genuinely such a slew of terrific titles to look forward to next week! The first is by one of my favorite contemporary mystery authors, Janice Hallett, who so cunningly uses the epistolary format in all its modern forms to such clever, elegant ends. She’s back with her latest novel The Killer Question, that revolves around one of my very favorite things: Trivia Night!

It’s a struggle for Sue and Mal Eastwood to run their quaintly named pub, The Case Is Altered, given its remote rural location. Their fortunes start to change, however, with the growing popularity of their weekly trivia night. Not even the discovery of a dead body in the nearby river can dampen the enthusiasm of the diverse cast of regulars.

The arrival of a mysterious new trivia team, however, shakes up the scene. How is it possible that this team is scoring top marks in every round every week? That’s no fun to play against*.

Five years later, The Case Is Altered lies derelict. Sue and Mal’s nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. Something strange happened here, one that likely has to do with the proprietors’ own secretive past, that exiled them there to begin with. Will Dominic be able to uncover the truth? Can one single question truly kill?

I have so many books on my slate rn but am honestly so tempted to bring this to my favorite monthly Trivia Night tonight, both for the vibes and because I know this will be an amazing read! *Also, this should be the session that breaks my similarly dominant team’s three-month winning streak, as three key members won’t be able to make it tonight, lol.

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Sep 18 2025

Sky & Ty 2: Dinomite! by Steve Breen

I have not yet been fortunate enough to get my hands on the first book in this series but that certainly didn’t dampen any of my enjoyment of this charming graphic novel for children, which works perfectly well as a standalone.

Sky and her Tyrannosaurus Rex pardner make up the fastest delivery service in the West. In their downtime, they enjoy watching movies at the local theatre, helping others and making friends. The first story of this book, Ranch Dressing, finds them moseying past Cottonwood Creek, where grizzled old miner Crusty Gus is prospecting for gold. When Sky & Ty discover their own nuggets, Ty decides to splurge on something he’s really wanted for a long time, hence the story’s title.

The second story has them coming across a chicken named Vinny, who desperately wants to learn how to fly like an eagle or an airplane. Since Sky and Ty are on a delivery, they wish him the best of luck but move along. A resigned Vinny bids Ty, “Goodbye, cousin.” Ty is surprised by this, but after Sky explains to him the leading scientific theory that birds and dinosaurs are related, Ty immediately turns them around to go help out family.

Warmhearted hijinks are the hallmark of this delightful series, as Sky and Ty (but mostly Ty) learn some valuable lessons about being true to yourself and being kind to others. The shenanigans are entirely anachronistic — which only lends itself to the humor of the book — but the language is perfectly calibrated to its target audience of advancing readers, who will likely be enthralled by the stories within these pages.

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Sep 17 2025

Devil’s Contract by Ed Simon (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! Today I’m excited to bring to you a fascinating examination of power and corruption, with an excerpt from the paperback reissue of Ed Simon’s provocative, persuasive and just downright mesmerizing Devil’s Contract: The History Of The Faustian Bargain.

To quote the press materials: “From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one’s soul in return for untold riches and power—has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations.

“Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from the Bible to blues, and illustrates how the impulse to sacrifice our principles in exchange for power is present in all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, from social media to climate change to AI, and beyond. In doing so, Simon conveys just how much the Faustian bargain shows us about power and evil . . . and ourselves.”

The excerpt we have for you today discusses a fascinating, and definitely unorthodox, examination of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. Showcasing Mr Simon’s wide range of knowledge, the excerpt begins with a discussion of the art world, before going in for the kill with a thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of Christian scripture.

Read on to be just as dazzled as I was by this smart and stylishly written bestseller!

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Sep 16 2025

Tantalizing Tales — September 2025 — Part Two

Hello, dear readers! With September well underway, we have a slew of thematic titles for you to consider curling up with in cozy corners, starting with a new edition of Yokomizo Seishi’s classic Murder At The Black Cat Cafe, translated into English from the original Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk.

Scruffy detective Kindaichi Kosuke is back in another sensational stand-alone mystery. 1947 Tokyo is still recovering from the devastating bombing raids of World War II, when a patrolling policeman passing The Black Cat Café makes a gruesome discovery. The body of a woman is lying in a hastily dug hole, with a dead black cat by her side. The woman’s face has been disfigured beyond recognition, but the café’s actual black cat seems alive and well. So where did the two corpses come from, and why were they buried in the café’s garden?

As Kosuke investigates, he realizes that the enigmatic Oshima, madam of the café — which, despite its name, is actually a brothel — has a past shrouded in secrecy. What exactly is her relationship with the owner Itoshima, and with the young Buddhist monk who was originally found digging up the bodies?

This seventh installment of the Detective Kindaichi Kosuke mysteries translated into English also includes a bonus story, ‘The Well Wheel Creaks’. And while I’ve enjoyed the giallo-style covers of the previous books, the fall-forward art on this volume is by far my favorite of the series so far!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/16/tantalizing-tales-september-2025-part-two/

Sep 15 2025

You Are the Detective and other mysteries to get excited about!

You Are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder, by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper comes out tomorrow! In celebration, here’s a roundup of mysteries to keep on your radar this Fall, including The Heist of Hollow London by Eddie Robson, a futuristic tale full of twists; the very genre-aware The Dysfunctional Family’s Guide to Murder by Kate Emery, and Oblivion Bride, a haunting dystopian novella by Caitlin Starling.

These books run the gamut of mystery subgenres, and they all offer fast-paced engrossing good times!

the cover of the creeping hand murder shows a spooky hand in red surrounded by the title You Are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder

Maureen Johnson and illustrator Jay Cooper worked together on Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, which came out back in 2021, and have rejoined forces now to present The Creeping Hand Murder, a dossier in which both written and visual evidence is presented to the reader as documents, so that you, dear reader, can solve the murder yourself. Kind of like the premise of The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L Sayers or the collected emails and text messages in a Janice Hallett mystery, but with the added interactive features of the Cooper’s illustrations holding clues, and in the physical copy of the book, a “reveal” of the solution at the end.

In You are the Detective: The Creeping Hand Murder, which comes out September 16 from Clarkson Potter, it is 1933 in London and seven people – not precisely friends – have received a mysterious summons to a gathering where one of them is murdered. This is exactly my jam. I am ready to rewatch CLUE right now. To solve this mystery, you read over newspaper articles, interview transcripts, collected notes, and scrutinize snapshots of the scene, uncovering sordid histories of the characters as well as the truth of how the murder occurred.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/15/you-are-the-detective-and-other-mysteries-to-get-excited-about/

Sep 14 2025

Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant and Beverly Brook have survived the first two years as parents of twins, and unsurprisingly they are in need of a vacation. Peter’s family being what it is, and his job being what it is, the trip up to Scotland more closely resembled a circus caravan than a cozy family outing. To be fair, it didn’t start out as a family getaway, it started with a dead sheep. More accurately, as Aaronovitch begins Stone & Sky, “It all started when Dr Brian Robertson, retired GP, enthusiastic amateur ecologist and self-confessed cryptid aficionado, stumbled over a dead sheep a few kilometres west of the town of Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire.” (p. 1) The difference between this sheep and a more run-of-the-mill ex-ruminant is that “it looked to Brian as if something had take a bite out of its belly. Something with a mouth the size and cutting power of a bear trap.” (p. 1)

Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch

Now it happened that Brian had been friends at medical school with Dr Abdul Haqq Walid, now of London, consulting pathologist to a special unit of the London’s Metropolitan Police Service. That unit, colloquially known as the Folly, was home to England’s last officially licensed magical practitioners, and were the police responsible for what less enthused members of the Met called “weird bollocks.” Cryptids fit right in, especially if they might conceivably pose a danger to the public, even the Scottish public.

Brian hadn’t heard back from Walid after sending him some photos and some samples,

So he was a little surprised when, late one evening in July, he looked out of his window to find a vintage Jag, a bright orange Ford Focus ST and a heavily customised VW California camper van unsuccessfully attempting to cram into his driveway. He flung open his front door to find Abdul standing on the step. Beside him was a young coloured girl wearing a fox stole.
“Good evening, Brian,” said Abdul “I’m sorry about dropping in so unexpectedly, but the decision to come up was made last minute.”
“It’s lovely to see you all the same,” said Brian, and was about to ask the girl’s name when he realised that the “stole” she was wearing was in fact a live fox — and a large one at that.
“This is Abigail,” said Abdul.
“Delighted to meet you, Abigail,” said Brian. “Would you like some tea?”
At that, the fox lifted its head and gave Brian an enthusiastic stare.
“Will there be cheese puffs?” it asked. (p. 2)

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Sep 13 2025

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal

The fourth, and presumably final, Lady Astronauts of Mars novel begins with an echo of the opening of the first. “Do you remember where you were when the stars came out? I was with my husband, on Mars.” (p. 14) It’s 1970, and there hasn’t been a clear night sky on Earth since early March 1952, when a meteor the size of the dinosaur-killer plowed into Chesapeake Bay, changing everything.

The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal

After one book with Nicole Wargin as first-person narrator, Kowal brings Elma York, the most famous Lady Astronaut, back to the hot seat in The Martian Contingency. Besides, Nicole is busy; she’s president of the United States. Bradbury Base is established on Mars, and Elma is part of the expedition that will expand the base with a second dome and a greenhouse plus additional scientific and work modules. The members of the second expedition are also expected to become permanent residents of the red planet. As happy and amazed as she is to be on Mars with her husband Nathaniel, she’s apprehensive about her imminent change from spaceship pilot to deputy commander of the mission.

While the people on Mars have escaped Earth’s gravity, they have not escaped the gravity of Earth’s situation. That means the expedition needs to keep building support on Earth for beginning the work of transplanting humanity. And that means

[t]he bean counters back on Earth had wanted me—no, they’d wanted the famous Lady Astronaut of Mars in a visible command position to lend credibility to the mission. That should have come from the actual mission commander, but Leonard Flannery was Black. He was also eminently more qualified to be mission commander than I was. He’d landed on the planet on the first mission. I hadn’t. But I was very good at being a pretty face for publicity.
Thank God we were past the days where we had to avoid mentioning that I was Jewish. Mostly past. (p. 15)

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Sep 12 2025

The Butcher And The Liar by S. L. Woeppel (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! This is a banner week for excerpts, as today we’re featuring a selection from an upcoming psychological thriller, S L Woeppel’s The Butcher And The Liar.

Daisy Bellon is thirty-five years old, and hoping to live the rest of her life free from the shadows of her past. When she was only a child, her father made her an accomplice to his murders. While she’s definitely inherited his skill with a blade, she’s hoping to keep the rest of his legacy buried where it belongs.

Opening a butcher store in a quiet neighborhood of Chicago seems like the perfect way to keep body and soul together while staying, hopefully, under the radar. Never mind that the ghost of one of her dad’s victims has haunted her ever since the night she found her dad dismembering the woman in their basement. But when an anonymous letter arrives, mere days before someone else is killed in a chillingly familiar manner, Daisy knows that she’s finally going to have to confront the secrets she’s long turned away from, or risk becoming a monster herself.

Read on for a scene-setting excerpt of Daisy’s adult life before everything comes crashing down again:

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Sep 11 2025

Game Face: Becoming A PR Detective by Curtis Sparrer

What a terrific idea, writing a middle grade novel about the career of public relations!

Sloan’s favorite computer game, Dungeon Quest, has just hit a weird glitch. Oh well, she figures, time to go to bed anyway… but then she hears her Uncle Curtis speaking urgently from her mom’s home office. She goes to peek in and finds him embroiled in a full-on work crisis.

Sloan figures it’s just grown-up stuff and is about to head back to bed when he says something that makes her realize that he’s actually working on Dungeon Quest. Specifically, he’s trying to figure out how to handle responses to the glitch that started de-aging every character, player or otherwise, in the game. Some shareholders are freaking out and the CEO is Not Happy.

When Sloan mentions that she’d been playing Dungeon Quest right when it all started, Uncle Curtis invites her to sit down and tell him what happened. He soon realizes that she gives him and his team — who are all in a virtual office together — much needed perspective on what’s going on with the game and its players. Together, they begin crafting a response for all the interested parties, and Sloan learns a very cool lesson about what good PR looks like and how PR professionals do their jobs.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/11/game-face-becoming-a-pr-detective-by-curtis-sparrer/

Sep 10 2025

Awake!: William Blake And The Power Of The Imagination by Mark Vernon (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! As promised in my last Tantalizing Tales column, today we have an excerpt of the recently published examination of the life and works of the famed English poet and artist William Blake, and how relevant the lessons we can learn from those still are today.

Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon’s new book Awake! William Blake And The Power Of The Imagination meditates on his subject to come to what I felt were several surprising conclusions. While I certainly agreed with the author regarding the logical fallacies of suggested medical diagnoses to explain away Blake’s visions, I was less convinced by arguments which seemed to turn on the dismissal of words commonly associated with left-wing causes (e.g. progressivism, empathy.) There’s no denying, however, the lasting impact that Blake continues to have on the popular discourse. He may have been dead now for 200 years, but his legacy in poetry, art and thought is ongoing, and may be especially relevant for the turbulent times in which we find ourselves today.

Mr Vernon chooses to take Blake literally in this exploration of his works and life, interpreting his visions of angels as meaningful encounters with the divine. Like us, Blake “lived in a tumultuous era of war, discontent, rapid technological change, and human estrangement from nature. He exposed the dark sides of political fervour and social moralising, while unashamedly celebrating love and liberty. But he also conversed with prophets and angels, and was powerfully, if unconventionally, religious. If we take this seriously[,] then Blake can help us to unlock the transformative power of imagination.”

Read on for a particularly absorbing passage on Blake’s mythological characters and verse, especially as they relate to those of us in the USA and to those of us who love our Marvel movies!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/10/awake-william-blake-and-the-power-of-the-imagination-by-mark-vernon-excerpt/