It's a cold day at the farmette. Alexa said there will be an 'abundance' of snow...yay. Not. Anyhow. Not much we can do about it.
Sorry I'm a bit late. Got distracted by the horrible news. I feel like we're living in this dystopian work of fiction with Trump and all his shenanigans. Honestly. Bullying the leader of Ukraine who's trying to keep his country from falling into Russian hands. Oh, right. The orange menace loves Putin. YIKES.
On to better things. Like reading. It's been a while since I recommended some books and I've been devouring a lot recently.
First up. Mystery in the Title. A book by brothers Ian and Will Ferguson. Good Canadian talents, each of which has had his own stellar career. This is the second book in a series I hope will continue for a long time. The main character is Miranda Abbott, an intrepid actress who played a murder-solving woman of the cloth on a long-defunct television series called Paster Fran Investigates.
In this one, Hollywood has come calling to the little town on the west coast of the U.S. where she now lives. The producers actually want her to star in a Movie of the Week and they want to shoot it in Happy Rock. Everyone is very excited until the actor who was supposed to be her main squeeze in the show dies an ignoble - and suspect - death. While murder isn't usually funny, in this book, with these characters, it's hilarious. Highly recommend.
Amor Towles has become one of my favourite authors. A Gentleman in Moscow was a triumph, so I picked this one up for Christmas. It's a collection of short stories with a novella thrown in for good measure.
Towles is a New Yorker, through and through and all the short stories are situated there. He has a real feel for how people behave, and how tiny moments and misunderstandings can make huge differences.
The novella follows Evelyn Ross, his main character from The Rules of Civility to Hollywood, where she makes friends with Olivia de Havilland. There's lots of intrigue involving nefarious blackmailing characters and dead bodies. In the late 1930s. Hugely entertaining.
Finally, I've started reading Ian Rankin's latest John Rebus novel.
The intrepid retired detective has landed in jail for the attempted murder of his nemesis Big Ger Cafferty. Actually, Cafferty is dead. Rebus just happened to be in the room at the expiration.
He's in prison hoping to get an appeal when, of course, a dead body turns up in one of the cells. It's a bit tricky investigating a murder when there are hundreds of malevolent characters who all know he was a cop.
I'm only a third of the way throught this one, but am enjoying it immensely. There are new characters and familiar ones from books past. Like Siobhan, who is getting long in the tooth, although she's still on active duty. Rankin still has amazing storytelling chops and I can't wait to see where this one goes.
So that's it for this week. I just realized all the authors are men. I also recently re-read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and marvelled at her most compelling protagonist, Elizabeth Zott. Thank gawd there are tonnes of great books by people of all sexes to help us escape - for a while - the craziness of current events.
Gratuitous cat photo courtesy of Calvin, who looks like he's about to order some Grey Poupon.
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