Vera Wong's Guide To Snooping On A Dead Man by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Vera Wong's Guide To Snooping On A Dead Man (2024) is the second novel in Jesse Q. Sutanto's wonderful Vera Wong mystery series.  All of the qualities we loved about Vera in book one are here in book two including the intricate teas Vera brews and the delicious meals she creates

And Vera's son Tilly has a girlfriend, Officer Selena Gray, who we were introduced to in book one.  Vera couldn't be happier but she is a bit anxious:

There is no need for her to be nervous. Tilly and Selena will settle nicely into their new place, and before she knows it, there will be a proposal, then a wedding, and then … twin grandbabies. Nay, triplets! When Vera closes her eyes, she can just see it—Vera sitting on an overstuffed sofa with one arm around Emma and the other arm around three fat grandbabies".

Life is going well.  Vera's tea shop is packed and the suspects/friends from book one have become family.  They don't appear too much in book two and that's a good decision by the author because a new murder case has landed in Vera's lap and she has a new group of suspects/friends to deal with.  

The new case starts out with Vera being taken in by a phone scam.  The scamner pretends to be calling from Vera's bank and asks for her social security number.  Vera gives them the number but soon realizes the big mistake she has made.  Vera runs down to the police department and Selena is able to stop the scam from proceeding.

Vera is relieved and as she is leaving the police precinct she spots a young woman she had noticed on her way in.  The young woman, Millie, appears nervous and seems to be trying to decide whether to walk into the precinct.  Vera comes over to Millie asking if she can help.  

Millie doesn't really want to share what the problem is but before you know it she is sitting in Vera's tea shop explaining that her friend Thomas has gone missing.  Thomas just wouldn't up and leave like that and Millie is worried.  A day or two later Thomas is found dead.  His death is ruled a suicide.  A handsome young man with his whole future ahead of him?  Vera is not buying it and so the investigating begins.

For me Vera Wong's Guide To Snooping On A Dead Man took this series to a deeper level. The murder Vera is tasked with solving shines a light on a serious issue that most of us don't know or think about.  I can't go into the specifics without revealing too much of the plot.  Suffice it to say that fans of book one will be just as pleased, if not more so, with this second Vera Wong mystery.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

I was scrolling through the Edgar Award winners from the 1940's and 1950's a few weeks ago and I found a number of books that caught my eye including A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin which won The Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1954.  

Ira Levin would go on to write such blockbusters as Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives but he never went back to writing mystery novels which is a shame because if A Kiss Before Dying is any indication he had a real talent for the mystery genre.

A Kiss Before Dying is set during the early 1950's somewhere in the Midwest.  And when the novel begins we are introduced to a handsome, spoiled and sociopathic young man.  He is dating a fellow college student named Dorothy.  She is an innocent young woman and he is only interested in her family’s wealth which she doesn't suspect.

But when Dorothy gets pregnant the young man knows that once her father finds out he will disown her.  Dorothy is okay with this but the young man is not.  He does not want to be saddled with a wife and a baby trying to make ends meet.  He was meant for better things and so he kills Dorothy making it look like a suicide. 

That ends part one of A Kiss Before Dying and I enjoyed part one but the novel really takes off in parts two and three which I can't go into but what I will say is that this is a gripping, page turning novel with a major twist halfway through and the 1954 Edgar for Best First Novel was well deserved.  A four star read for me.

The Edgar Awards

In January of this year the Mystery Writers of America announced their 2025 Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations.  It's a prestigious award dating back to the 1940's and each year the Edgars honor "the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television"  Here are this year's Edgar nominations for best mystery/crime novel published in 2024:

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett 

Rough Trade by Katrina Carrasco 

Things Don’t Break on Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins 

My Favorite Scar by Nicolás Ferraro 

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore 

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell 

I have read and posted my thoughts about Listen For The Lie by Amy Tintera which I reallly enjoyed and recommend.  Haven't read the others but I am on hold for The God of The Woods by Liz Moore with 9 weeks still left to go. 

The Edgars tend to focus on noir and hard boiled mystery/crime novels.  And so I got curious and went back to the first Edgar award winners from the 1940's and early 50's.  Many of those books are out of print but with kindle unlimited and the Libby reading service I have been able to check out a few and right now I am listening on audio to A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin (1954 Edgar for Best First Novel) which so far is a real page turning experience.  The 2025 Edgar Award winners will be announced in May.

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

For the classic's challenge category, choose a children's classic, hosted by Ann at Search For Wonder I chose The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe (1950) by C. S. Lewis.  It's the second book in Lewis's acclaimed Narnia series.  But even if you haven't read the other books in the series, and I haven't, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe can be read as a stand-alone and it's worth your time.

Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are siblings who when the novel begins are living in the English countryside at the home of a kindly professor.  The year is 1940 and the children were sent to the countryside from London due to the blitz.  The professor's home is huge with many rooms and secret compartments.  And since their parents are not with them, possibly still in London, the children are on their own and begin exploring the house.  It is Lucy who first discovers the wardrobe cabinet: 

"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. "I wonder is that more moth-balls?" she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hands. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold ... And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been .. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air" 

Lucy finds herself in the world of Narnia which is run by the evil White Witch.  In Narnia it is always winter but there is no Christmas.  The witch who refers to herself as the Queen of Narnia forbids it.  And if the animals, birds, fauns and other creatures who live in Narnia disobey the Queen she will turn them into stone.  

Lucy upon arriving in Narnia is greeted by a faun named Mr. Tumnus.  He is friendly and invites Lucy to his cave for tea and cake.  Lucy is the first human Mr.Tumnus has ever seen.  Humans are referred to by the people of Narnia as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.  The Queen is terrified of humans because there is a prophecy that when four humans, two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve, sit on the four thrones of Cair Paravel the reign of the White Witch will be over and a great and good Lion named Aslan will rule Narnia.

Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy all this and he also confesses that the White Witch has sent him to Lucy so that he can bring her to the witch's castle.  But he doesn't have the heart to do it and helps Lucy escape.  When Lucy returns home she tells Peter, Edmund and Susan about Narnia.  They don't believe her.  

But in a day or two all four children go through the wardrobe together and arrive in Narnia.  They learn that Mr Tumnus has been arrested for treason for disobeying the White Witch by helping Lucy escape.  Lucy, Peter and Susan are scared but they are also brave and they feel they must rescue Mr. Tumnus.  

Edmund in comparison is not so noble.  He went through the wardrobe door once before and he met the White Witch and fell under her spell.  He is particularly interested in the delicious Turkish Delight candy the witch dispenses and her promise that if Edmund does what she asks he will be made a Prince of Narnia.  I will leave the story there.  

The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe can be read as a Christian allegory, a children's fantasy novel or just as a good story.  Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan are well drawn and  each is very much their own person.  Lucy is kind hearted, inquisitive and she takes risks.  Peter being the eldest feels responsible for the younger children.  Edmund resents Peter's authority.  Susan is quiet and gentle but brave when it matters.

I have read my share of children's classics in the past few years.  And though a few have been a let down, the majority: Little House In The Big Woods, Ramona The Pest, Anne of Green Gables and now The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe are first rate and these books can be enjoyed at any age. 

Desperate Times: Stories From The Great Depression by Cornell Woolrich

The Great Depression of the 1930's is an era that has always interested me.  I am also a fan of the writer Cornell Woolrich (1903 - 1968).  And so a collection of Woolrich's short stories written during and about the Great Depression, sign me up!  

There are 8 stories in Desperate Times and 7 of the stories center around characters who are down on their luck.  If times were different these characters would never have resorted to murder, faking their own death, fraud, identity theft etc.  But the bad economy as they see it has left them no choice.  

One of the stories for example, Borrowed Crime, involves  a father who needs money to save his son who is dying of TB.  The father reads the newspaper and learns that the police are offering $1,000 leading to the arrest of a killer.  The father decides he will confess to the murder he didn't committ and collect the reward money.  Needless to say it doesn't go well.

And that's a theme throughout these seven stories.  Each of these characters decides to do something illegal thinking it will get them out of the desperate situation they find themselves in only to discover after they have crossed the line that they are in much worse shape now and can't go back.  

The 8th story, Even God Felt The Depression, was written by Cornell Woolrich near the end of his life.  It's his autobiographical look back on what it was like in NYC in the 1930's  trying to make it as a writer:  

"The nights were even more excruciating. To me those long lines of lights that flamed along the Avenues as far as the eye could see were never garish (as they probably were) but glamorous, seeming to hold out a promise of wonderment and magic, and I wanted to be out where they were. Everyone else was, in droves ... and there I sat, in a solitary room, locked in the lonely pool of light cast by a desk lamp. But I wouldn’t leave the desk. I almost had to grab it with both hands and hang onto it for dear life, almost had to hook my ankles around its legs to stay on the chair, but I wouldn’t leave it, no I wouldn’t leave it" 

Woolrich's hard work and perseverance paid off.  He is considered today to be one of the great crime novelists of the mid-twentieth century.  I would say though that if you are new to Woolrich, Desperate Times is not the best place to begin.  I enjoyed these stories and they gave me a sense of the kind of novels Woolrich would become famous for in the 1940's.  But they are not on the same level as The Bride Wore Black, Deadline At Dawn, Walz Into Darkness etc all written in the 1940's when Woolrich really hit his stride.  

I have read and recommend The Bride Wore Black and I will definitely be checking out Deadline At Dawn and Walz Into Darkness in the not too distant future.  

The Shining by Stephen King

The Shining (1977) is my first Stephen King novel which I chose because it's one of his most popular and critically acclaimed books.  It's a horror novel but also a tremendously interesting family drama centering around three characters: Jack Torrance, his wife Wendy and their five year old son Danny who has psychic abilities.

Jack is a writer and a recovering alcoholic.  He hasn't had a drink in two years since the night when in a drunken rage he accidentally broke his son Danny's arm.  Wendy almost left Jack after that but he vowed to stop drinking and he hasn't had a drink since.  

Jack continues to feel guilt about what he did to Danny.  These days he is a good father and Danny loves him.  But even sober Jack's temper can be a problem.  It's why he lost his last job as a teacher at a prep school. And when The Shining begins Jack has a new job as a caretaker for the winter at the Overlook Hotel located high up in the Colorado Rockies. The Overlook closes down during the winter months and so Jack, Wendy and Danny will be the hotel's only residents.  

It's not an ideal situation but Jack and his family need the money. Jack is also hoping to use the time at the Overlook to finish writing his play.  Wendy and Danny are not thrilled about accompanying Jack to this isolated environment but they want to be supportive. However it soon becomes clear that moving into the Overlook was a very bad idea.

Stephen King has done a marvelous job creating the characters of Jack, Wendy and Danny.  And there is also Dick Halloran who works at the Overlook. Like Danny, Dick Hallorann is psychic, the shining he calls it.  He is going home for the winter along with all of the other guests and employees.  But Hallorann tells Danny that if he needs him to reach out through his psychic powers and he will come back to the Overlook.

I really liked Dick Hallorann. Wendy and Danny are also very well drawn. I would say though that the most fascinating character is Jack Torrance. You can't say he is likeable exactly but he has good in him.  But Jack's emotions can run from remorse to self pity to rage and in a haunted hotel with evil forces at work it's a powder keg situation.

The Shining is a horror novel and things can get pretty intense, particularly as you near the end.  But it is also a wonderfully written book, gripping, with great characterization.  I am glad I chose The Shining for my first Stephen King novel.  And there is a sequel, Doctor Sleep, published in 2013.

Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

"I remembered the question I had asked myself after the attack: Could our happiness survive such a blow? Standing there, on the stage of the Chautauqua amphitheater, I knew the answer. Yes, we had reconstructed our happiness, even if imperfectly. Even on this blue-sky day, I knew it was not the cloudless thing we had known before. It was a wounded happiness, and there was, and perhaps always would be, a shadow in the corner of it. But it was a strong happiness nevertheless, and as we embraced, I knew it would be enough" - Salman Rushdie, Knife

On August 12, 2022 Salman Rushdie was giving a talk at an outdoor event in upstate New York when a deranged young man rushed on stage and stabbed Rushdie 15 times almost killing him.  It was such a terrible crime. Since 1989 when Iran issued the fatwa Rushdie has lived a life that none of us can imagine.  But I had thought it was over with and that Rushdie would be able to live in peace.  And then came that day.  

I was hesitant to read Knife but I shouldn't have been.  Rushdie writes about the attack and his painful recovery and that can be difficult to read.  The attack blinded him in one eye and there were other serious injuries.  But the book is also about Rushdie's recovery, his inner strength and the support of his family.  His wife Eliza who has been with him every step of the way.  His sister, his two sons who rushed to New York to be by his side. Rushdie's friends and the hospital staff also helped him greatly.

Salman Rushdie is an excellent writer.  Knife is thoughtful and humorous at times.  He writes about many things in his memoir, his childhood, his life as a writer, his friendships, religion, politics, his thoughts on the importance of privacy.  Rushdie has led a full life.  The attack is not something he will forget but he is amazingly resilient and  continues to have good people with him.  And so a book I was afraid to read turned out to be quite inspiring.