Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“…evil is always essentially small and petty and mean and depraved, and in a limited life it represents a portion wasted, misused, and that can never be regained.”

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman

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CBR15Bingo: Sex (a lot of this book revolves around issues caused by sex) I found out about this book through Jo Walton’s monthly roundup of the books she reads, which I always enjoy. It’s fascinating seeing what goes into the mind of a favorite author, and she’s always reading things I’ve never heard of. I’m not usually a mystery person, but the plot and concept behind this one seemed interesting, so I picked it up. Friday the Rabbi Slept Late follows Rabbi David Small, the […]

Maybe the series gets better?

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

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CBR15 BINGO: Bodies, Bodies because it’s right there in the title (and also because of the dead body) Being on a renewed Agatha Christie kick lately, I thought I’d switch things up a bit and read my first ever Dorothy Sayers, one of the other queens of the Golden Age of Detective fiction. I’d heard about the Lord Peter Wimsey series and thought it sounded right up my alley. I hate to say it, but this novel proved to be quite a slog. The mystery […]

Trope Blend of Culture, Mystery, Food, and Romance with Mixed Results

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

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Arsenic and Adobo is a decent cozy mystery that is pretty aware that it is that, as well as a romance. It pulls off one of those things better than the other. What I don’t get is how Lila can open the novel with “my life has become a rom-com cliché” but be so dense about a romance that doesn’t involve her. There’s obviously something going on with her Tita Rosie and a certain detective, but she (Lila and Rosie both) never even says anything. […]

Nessie, Cannabis, and Maple Syrup time with Bernie Sanders

Feel The Bern by Andrew Shaffer

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Feel the Bern is basically mindless entertainment which is too bad in a way since it has a lot of potential. Once Joe Biden actually ran for and won the Presidency, I’m guessing the author didn’t see it practical to continue to Obama-Biden murder mysteries, so Bernie Sanders must have been the back up or the next best option. The murder mystery takes place when a not super popular community member is found dead, seemingly having drowned in a vat of the town’s main export, […]

“And they all liv’d together in a little crooked house.”

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

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Ooh, I got really into this one. It’s been a month since I’ve finished so I’ve had some time to think (though I do of course wish I’d written the review right away, but alas) and I think the reason that I loved this one so much is that it’s one of the few non-detective mystery novels to get the mystery part right and have it be believable. A lot of the time, as a mystery fan when encountering books with non-detective main characters, there […]

Yer a killer, Cliff!

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

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It took me a bit longer to read Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide than I’d figured initially. This is actually a pretty interesting and entertaining murder mystery where the mystery is not who dies or who dunnit; it’s how the would be ‘deletist’ (we don’t say ‘killer’ here) will achieve their goal while not getting caught and still observing the 4 main principles of ‘deletion’ (we don’t’ say ‘murder’):  Is this murder necessary? Have you given your target every last chance to […]



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