elderberrywine – Page 16 – Cannonball Read 17

Who Does a Dysfunctional Family Better Than the Brits?

Cover Her Face by P. D. James

April 11, 2024 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

The thing I enjoy about P. D. James’ Detective Chief Adam Dalgliesh is that he puts together a fine team. The crimes are meaty and complex, and half the fun is Dalgleish and his posse holding team meetings to review the bits and pieces everyone has uncovered during the day and steadily working their way to the solution. Whereupon the group of suspects is convened (and there is always a pool of such to choose from) and Dalgleish lays down the verdict whilst the rest […]

Just Your Basic Oklahoma Western

Cimarron by Edna Ferber

April 5, 2024 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

I do love me some Edna Ferber. The thing about her books is that they always read like big Technicolor epic movies, way before such a thing existed. They certainly didn’t in 1929, when this was published. But so many have been turned into such, like this book (twice, first time winning one of the first Best Picture Academy Awards), Show Boat, Giant, and Saratoga Trunk, to name a few. So our hero, Yancy Cravat, is a hot bull-headed force of nature. Think Clark Gable […]

And Now For Something Completely Bonkers

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

March 30, 2024 by elderberrywine 2 Comments

Well, this is certainly one hot mess of a novelette, and it is deliciously illustrated in sketchy (in all meanings of the word) drawings by the novelist herself, a surrealistic painter. The heroine, nonagenarian vegetarian Marian Leatherby, starts off as quite deaf, but is then gifted with an old school hearing trumpet that lets her hear everything. But seemingly no one notices it, even though in the drawings it looms over her head like a conning tower. She has been placed by her children in […]

In the Mood for Some Cocktails and Banter? Plus a Spot of Murder? Here Ya Go!

Collected Millar: The First Detectives by Margaret Millar

March 27, 2024 by elderberrywine 2 Comments

This is a collection of five novels, written by Canadian author Margaret Miller in the 1940s. The last two were Inspector Sands novels, but I’m afraid he is rather bland, although the second one, The Iron Gates, was a nifty puzzle. But the first three, the Paul Prye Mysteries, were some good stuff. Let’s let Prye explain his vocation. “I’m a kind of cosmopolitan quack. If a lady in San Francisco wants to know why her husband has taken to eating paper bags, she might […]

Rather Appropriate for Today

Actress by Anne Enright

March 17, 2024 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

The story of a fictional Irish actress, Katherine O’Dell, circa 1950s – 60s, as told by her daughter. Think Maureen O’Hara, but she was – hush! don’t tell! – actually born in England. There are many questions here. Her daughter’s dad is who? And Norah, the narrator and daughter, has her hands full but it is a labor of love. So Norah grows up in the shadow of her mother, which doesn’t particularly bother her. No fangirl, she. She has her own path to follow, […]

Never Forget the Pickles

A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher

February 21, 2024 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

I spent a year or two as the computer lab teacher at my kid’s school, back in the late 90s, and as thus was quite familiar with Oregon Trail. It, along with Math Blasters and Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?, was one of the key early educational programs, and I must say, it rocked. No matter how careful you were about picking the right route, and packing some pickles among your provisions (scurvy!), there was always that random element of the unanticipated. […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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