I hope between the frantic traveling, parade watching, and air mattress sleeping you have some time for relaxation with a good book. Delve into these creepy, cozy books from around the world.
Murder by the Book
From the publisher: There is no better hiding place for clues―or red herrings―than inside the pages of a book. But in this world of resentful ghost writers, indiscreet playwrights, and unscrupulous book collectors, literary prowess is often a prologue to disaster. Readers should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets.
Featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent, Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, and others, a bookish puzzle threatens an eagerly awaited inheritance; a submission to a publisher recounts a murder that seems increasingly to be a work of nonfiction; an irate novelist puts a grisly end to the source of his writer’s block.
An absolute delight that is best enjoyed in a large comfy chair and a pot of tea by your side.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (September 6, 2022)
Language: English
Paperback: 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1728261155
The Devil’s Flute Murders
From the publisher: Amid the rubble of post-war Tokyo, inside the grand Tsubaki house, a once-noble family is in mourning. The old viscount Tsubaki, a brooding, troubled composer, has been found dead. When the family gather for a divination to conjure the spirit of their departed patriarch, death visits the house once more, and the brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi is called in to investigate. But before he can get to the truth Kindaichi must uncover the Tsubakis’ most disturbing secrets, while the gruesome murders continue…
I love the creepy, otherworldly mysteries from this author. No doubt there are numerous layers I am missing due to my own lack of knowledge about Japanese culture, but I hope Pushkin Vertigo keeps making these available to English-speaking audiences.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo (July 4, 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1782278842
The Secret Life of Insects
From the publisher: In ‘The Secret Life of Insects’, a forensic entomologist tries to solve the murder of his wife, who impossibly seems to have been killed in a forest at the same time she was asleep in bed with him. In the novella ‘Demoness’, four high school friends reunite at a class reunion twenty years later and must face the long-buried truth of a demonic experience from their youth. Bernardo Esquinca’s haunting tale ‘Señor Ligotti’ represented Mexico in the acclaimed The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories and was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award.
These stories are unlike anything else I’ve ever read. Imaginative, vivid, and eerie, yet somehow matter-of-fact. I’m grateful this anthology is available for English readers. No doubt the work is even more stunning in print with the beautiful illustrations.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Valancourt Books (November 4, 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 205 pages
ISBN-10: 1954321961
The Mill House Murders
From the publisher: As they do every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote, castle-like Water Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting and a series of baffling murders. The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate. But will he get to the truth, and will you too be able to solve the mystery of the Mill House Murders?
Another Japanese title in translation from Pushkin Vertigo. Twisty and suspenseful, this one is a classic locked-room mystery and is a bit more straight ahead than the atmospheric Devil’s Flute Murders.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo (May 2, 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 288 pages
ISBN-10: 1782278338
The Skeleton Key
From the publisher: Summer, 2021. Nell has come home at her family’s insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago, her father wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, Sir Frank Churcher created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. The book was a sensation. A community of treasure hunters called the Bonehunters formed, in frenzied competition, obsessed to a dangerous degree. But now the Churchers must be reunited. The book is being reissued along with a new treasure hunt and a documentary crew are charting everything that follows. During the filming, Frank finally reveals the whereabouts of the missing golden bone. And then all hell breaks loose.
This is just a good, fun romp. The author sets up an unusual and intriguing situation, adds some dysfunctional family members, and lets them loose. There are no life truths or revelations in these pages. It is pure entertainment of a high quality.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Mobius (January 24, 2023)
Language: English
Hardcover: 512 pages
ISBN-10: 1473680883
The Edinburgh Mystery
From the publisher: From the dramatic Highlands to bustling cities and remote islands in wild seas, the unique landscapes and locales of Scotland have enthralled and shaped generations of mystery writers. This new collection presents seventeen classic stories, spanning a period from the 1880s to the 1970s, by a host of Scottish authors alongside writers from south of the border inspired by the history and majesty of the storied country. Featuring vintage tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Baroness Orczy together with mid-twentieth-century mini-masterpieces by Margot Bennett, Michael Innes and Cyril Hare, this anthology also includes a rare Josephine Tey short story, reprinted for the first time since 1930.
Deserted estates with mysterious gardners. Remote Highland settings, perfect for fishing and murder. Rough, imperfect crime solvers. This collection of crime stories are all set in and around Scotland and highlight the locations that make it such a wild and wonderful place.
Polar Horrors
From the publisher: Fired up by the accounts of exploring parties in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writers of the weird and supernatural began to construct a literary Arctic and Antarctic in which terrors lay undiscovered in the ice and gateways to bizarre hidden worlds were waiting. From tales of mad science and ghostly visitations among the wind-blown expanse of the southern continent, this new collection showcases a wealth of neglected material and an overlooked niche of literature obsessed with the limits of human experience. This anthology also includes a gem of twenty-first century Arctic horror to trace the enduring lure of these sublime and uncanny spaces at the ends of the Earth.
I am obsessed with doomed (Ant)arctic explorations. I was thrilled when the British Library added this to their Tales of the Weird series. This book explores both polar regions through nautical oddities, explorer’s madness, and supernatural creatures. In a way, all of these things can exist in a world so remote. It’s not as if any of us can go investigate for ourselves. We have to take the word of those that have been, and survived.
Thank you to Thomas for the review copy.
Publisher: British Library Publishing (September 5, 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 0712354425