Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Red on the cover and bloody on the inside

The Night of Baba Yaga: A Novel by Akira Otani

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Cbr17bingo Red Akira Otani’s The Night of Baba Yaga won the 2025 Dagger award for best translated crime novel and it is a doozy! I read it in an afternoon and loved it, but be warned: it is incredibly violent and includes passages describing sexual assault. Shindo is a physically imposing young woman who is extraordinarily talented at fighting. Against her will, she finds herself in the employ of the local Yakuza boss, acting as bodyguard to his daughter. What follows is a tale of […]

Interesting elements but a little disappointing

Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto

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Cbr17bingo “I” Published in Japan in 1961, Inspector Imanishi Investigates opens with the battered, bloodied body of an unidentified 50-year-old man found on the train tracks in Tokyo. Those who had seen him earlier in the evening with another younger man indicated that both men spoke with an unusual Japanese accent. As Inspector Imanishi investigates, more unusual deaths follow amongst the very people he wanted to question. While the coroner rules those deaths natural or simply unfortunate, they seem suspicious to Imanishi. As the months […]

Prime Minister by day, detective by night

Felix Grey and the Descendent by Mario Theodorou

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Felix Grey and the Descendent is a detective novel, the first in what promises to be a series featuring Felix Grey. The story is set in London, 1904, and Felix Grey is the second youngest Prime Minister in history. Felix is a progressive and was quite popular when elected a year or so ago, but increasingly he is facing challenges from both the Conservative Party and trade unions. In the midst of this political turmoil, two prominent lords are kidnapped by a sinister man wearing […]

Strong start, weird finish

Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton

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Guard Your Daughters was Diana Tutton’s first published novel (1953) and became a bestseller. In some ways it reminded me of I Capture the Castle, Pride and Prejudice, and Little Women (the latter two are referenced by the characters). The five beautiful Harvey sisters live in post-war England with their parents in a country house, supporting each other’s creative endeavors and hoping to meet lovely young men to marry. Mr. Harvey is a prolific and successful novelist who spends all day writing; the little attention […]

It’s hard to resist a book described as “The Dark Sapphic Romance that Inspired Dracula”

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

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Originally serialized in the magazine The Dark Blue from 1871-72, Carmilla is the first vampire story. Not only did it serve as the inspiration for for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it was written by a woman. The novel is just over 150 pages long and is presented as a scientific account of events in the life of a young woman named Laura. The novel opens with an unknown intellectual explaining that he is including Laura’s case in volume 1 of a Dr. Hesselius’ collected papers. So […]

A Sheep Detective Story!

Three Bags Full: A Novel by Leonie Swann

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This charming murder mystery was originally published in German in 2005. The Deluxe Edition that I read came out this year, and apparently an animated movie with Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson is due in 2026. I happened to see the sequel to this novel (Big Bad Wool) in Barnes and Noble, so I asked if they had the first book. If you enjoy cozy murder mysteries, look this one up. The action takes place in a quaint little Irish village called Glennkill, famous for […]



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