Recently married, Lord Peter Wimsey and the former Harriet Vane take up residence at their townhouse. When the beautiful wife of an ac­quain­tance is murdered, Peter becomes involved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Meanwhile, Harriet is coming to terms with having "married up", after fending off Peter's wooing for several years. Should she continue her career as a mystery novelist, now that she no longer needs the income, or do what is expected by some: have babies and give up writing. All of this is against the …continue.

In this sequel to The Dead of Winter, a young lady called Victoria Dawes travels from England to Al­bu­querque to seek the aid of Cora Oglesby, the now-retired monster hunter. The women draw the attention of a Navajo skinwalker and a vampire, and they spend the book dueling each other. Under Cora's sarcastic tough love tutelage, Miss Dawes grows from a sheltered Victorian lady into a semi-capable fighter.

The in­ter­ac­tion of the two main characters was fairly en­ter­tain­ing, not wholly pre­pos­ter­ous, and certainly passed the Bechdel test.

England, Spring 1940. The Phoney War is ending, millions have been evacuated from the cities to the coun­try­side, military bases have sprung up everywhere, and everything is topsy turvy. Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter are abroad somewhere on a secret mission, while Lady Peter—the former Harriet Vane—minds a brood of children at their country house in Hert­ford­shire. A Land Girl is murdered in the village of Paggleham, and the local police su­per­in­ten­dent enlists Harriet's aid in solving the murder.

A Pre­sump­tion of …continue.

Cora Oglesby and her husband Ben have been slaying monsters and slinging guns all over the Old West for years, ever since the Civil War ended. In a bitterly cold winter, on the outskirts of a silver-mining town in Colorado, they take down a wendigo and then a nest of vampires.

Cora is tough and hardened and takes no crap from anyone, man or monster. But she's damaged too, more than we realize at first. I thought the first-time author did a decent job of writing a paranormal Western: the …continue.

The President of France must decide whether to commute a death sentence. A senior civil servant, finding both his wife and his daughter in flagrante delicto with an artist, shot them all dead. Inspector Henri Castang, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing officer, is summoned to the Élysée Palace. There is no doubt as to the accused's guilt. He admits it and seems to welcome the death sentence.

Freeling's novel examines the French judicial system. We've all heard that the Napoleonic Code says that a man is presumed guilty until proven innocent, but in fact, under …continue.

We saw The Big Short tonight, which does a creditable job of explaining the basics of the 2008 financial collapse. It's written as a comedy-drama, which makes it far more watchable and en­ter­tain­ing than a more sober doc­u­men­tary. The infodumps are cleverly handled, often breaking the fourth wall with celebrity explainers. The characters let their anger and outrage at Wall Street fraud­u­lence bleed through oc­ca­sion­al­ly, as well they should. I'm appalled that not only did no one go to jail, but that the too-big-to-fail banks are bigger now than they ever were.

Rec­om­mend­ed.

Red Ned Bedwell is an apprentice lawyer in Tudor London. He's trying to fatten his purse by running the Christmas Revels for his fellow clerks, but he's entrusted with minding a young innocent and keeping him from harm and temptation. The innocent is not nearly as naïve as his over­bear­ing mother believes and Ned must follow his trail through the stews of London.

The book is good at recreating the daily life of Tudor London in 1529 as the Re­for­ma­tion is developing under Henry …continue.

Bob Howard is a com­pu­ta­tion­al de­mo­nolo­gist working for the secretive British agency known as the “Laundry”. Some very nasty people are trying to hasten the end of the world, there's a mole in the Laundry, and Bob's superior, the mys­te­ri­ous­ly ageless Angleton, is missing. Bob moves back and forth between vicious office politics and es­cha­to­log­i­cal terrors. The Fuller Memorandum is fast-paced and darkly humorous. Rec­om­mend­ed.

Sequel to The Jennifer Morgue. More at Charlie Stross's Crib Sheet and the Laundry Files Wiki.

We attended the Sherlock Seattle Mini-Convention at the Broadway Per­for­mance Hall. It was much more lightly attended than previous previous Sherlock Seattle con­ven­tions.

The final event of the evening was a Mystery Science Theater–style treatment of Sherlock Holmes (2010 film) given by some of the con's organizers. We had seen Young Sherlock Holmes get the MST3K treatment at last year's con and the show was quite funny. This show was also funny, but I was appalled at just how bad Sherlock Holmes was. (I suppose that's the point of getting the MST3K treat­men­t—the movie stinks and deserves to be heckled.) It was totally incoherent and anachro­nis­tic and ineptly made.

Benjamin Black (the mystery-writing pseudonym of Irish novelist, John Banville) channels Raymond Chandler as he writes a Philip Marlowe novel. Robert Parker wrote a couple of books about a quarter-century ago with the approval of the Chandler estate. Black's book is also authorized.

The book has all the familiar elements of a Marlowe novel: the femme fatale of the title, the idle rich, ungrateful offspring and murderous staff, cynical cops, the baking heat of California, beatings and booze, Marlowe cracking wise, and the trademark Chan­dleresque similes.

If you like Chandler, you'll probably like Black's con­tri­bu­tion to the …continue.