The senior superlatives in my high-school yearbook didn’t include Most Likely to Murder. Did yours? Probably not. But that’s the title of the fourth (and last?) novel in Carole Shmurak’s Susan Lombardi series. I reviewed the first in the series… Read More ›
Graphic novels aren’t my thing. I never read them. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. On average I read one graphic novel every three… three what? three months? No. How about three years? No again. More like once every three… Read More ›
Actually, there’s only one Horowitz that we’re talking about here: Anthony. I’m using the plural metonymically, if that’s the right word, with the author standing in for his books. Thirteen months ago I reviewed A Line to Kill. Two months… Read More ›
Yes, you’re right: the title is a portmanteau. It’s not a concatenation of “dead mistress” but a portmanteau of “dead” plus “headmistress.” Get it? This 2011 mystery by Carole Shmurak wasn’t so easy to find. CommCat couldn’t locate it for… Read More ›
It’s not part of the Harry Potter franchise. I’m talking about The Ink Black Heart, the sixth novel ostensibly written by Robert Galbraith, the well-known pseudonym that J.K. Rowling uses for her outstanding Cormoran Strike series. Unlike Harry Potter, the… Read More ›
It’s obvious that author S.J. Watson had seen the movie Memento before writing his first novel, Before I Go to Sleep. What isn’t obvious (at least to me) was that a mediocre movie of the same title was made from… Read More ›
I mean Venice, Italy, of course. Not Florida or California or Las Vegas or any other inauthentic place. Not that I visited Italy during the pandemic—at least not IRL—but I did manage a virtual visit by reading Give unto Others,… Read More ›
This book reminds me of the caller who asked the Magliozzi brothers a question about his Volkswagen Quantum: he couldn’t get it repaired because he didn’t know any Quantum mechanics. What’s the connection? Well, first you need to know what… Read More ›
You can believe actual data. We’ll call that Door #1. Or you can believe your general “impression.” We’ll call that Door #2. Or you can believe what other people tell you—the “common knowledge” that everyone “knows.” We’ll call that Door… Read More ›
Agatha Christie died in 1976. So how could she be publishing a collection of new Miss Marple stories in 2022? Did she leave them behind, only to be discovered four decades later and published posthumously? That’s certainly what a glance… Read More ›
Learning Strategies 