Book Review

Books Read in October 2025

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Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers 

Published 1935

This is one of my all-time favorites, so it’s difficult to review it and not just encourage you to read it! 

Ostensibly a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, this book is written primarily from another character, Harriet Vane’s, point of view, and she is really the main character for a change. While the is a mystery (and Lord Peter gets to the bottom of it), this book is more interested in exploring human relationships and vocations. 

Harriet Vane agrees to attend a gaudy (a reunion weekend, for those of us not part of the British education system) at her (fictional) Oxford college, Shrewsbury, one of the first women’s colleges at Oxford. She discovers that someone is sending poison pen letters and occasionally destroying college property and generally making an embarrassing mess that the college is trying to shield from view by handling internally. Harriet’s old college friends ask her to investigate, fearing that calling in the police would reflect negatively on the project of educating women, already precarious. 

Harriet temporarily relocates to Shrewsbury College, enjoying the peace and quiet of working in an academic atmosphere, and contemplates her writing and her life generally. This opportunity to reflect on the work she feels called and gifted to do, versus doing work that may be noble but she doesn’t feel is “hers” to do. It also gives her an opportunity to reflect on her relationship with Lord Peter and the way she is both attracted to and afraid of the idea of marriage. 

After a failed relationship and a murder trial, she was naturally skittish about Lord Peter’s proposal, but as time as passed, she feels differently. 

The poison pen letters and her conversations with the single and married women around the college make her think about her feelings about romantic attachments. It is especially tricky for intellectual women, as expectations about how marriage should be and expectations about women’s roles complicate the question. 

While things have changed to some extent (female professors and professionals are not expected to be single now), questions of “the role of women” or “a woman’s place” and a suspicion in some quarters of women in intellectual and/or authoritative spaces are still contested, and figuring out a marriage of equals is still fraught today. 

Birds of a Feather, by Jacquline Winspear

Published 2004

This is the second in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. I enjoyed the historical setting (set in London after World War I; Maisie was a nurse in the war), and the books definitely fit in the “cozy without being ridiculous” side of the mystery genre. 

In this installment, Maisie has an office and an assistant, Billy. Maisie is called in my a wealthy businessman to find his adult daughter, who has disappeared. As the case unfolds, Maisie begins to suspect that the disappearance is related to the murders of several women—and the girl who vanished knew them all. 

Maisie presents herself as a “psychologist and investigator,” and she often tries to imagine herself in the place of a person she investigates or works for. It’s sort of “I’m really great at picking up vibes,” and these hunches are taken as accurate. It reminds me of Sherlock Holmes, except she’s supposed to “read the room” instead of being hyper-observant and making deductive leaps like Holmes. If that bothers you, move along, but if the occasional psychological reading doesn’t bother you, carry on. 

The mystery is interesting, but also interesting was the setting and I appreciated the depiction of life after a devastating war that left society dealing collectively and individually with many losses and the trauma attached to a post-war era. 

Maisie herself started as a maid to a wealthy family who saw her potential and had her educated, so the slightly fluid social environment is also interesting (if slightly unbelievable). 

I enjoyed the characters and the mystery and recommend it for fans of the cozy mystery genre who don’t want explicit details but want a satisfying ending. 

Enshittification, by Cory Doctorow

Published 2025

While the title of this book is, ahem, colorful, the concept is one that makes sense. You may have come across this term if you’ve read any of Doctorow’s essays or read other critiques of the way the internet (particularly social media) seems to work now.

Doctorow points out that most of us are unhappy with the way we experience using internet platforms and technology, and it is spreading out into our “real” (offline) lives too. 

He describes the enshittification process of some of the biggest name social media/ tech companies as this: 

  1. “First, platforms are good to their users
  2. “Then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers
  3. “Next, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves
  4. “Finally, they have become a giant pile of shit.”

Doctorow explores these phases by looking at Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, the iPhone, and I’m sure you can think of other platforms and services that you once enjoyed but now grudgingly use because they reached Stage 4 of this process. 

It’s not just things on the internet: it is also many companies that go through this process, or companies that are acquired by big companies or venture capital that make programs, platforms, and services worse (this extends to restaurants as well; the problem is pernicious). 

After diagnosing the problem, laying out the ways that the death of competition and regulation have accelerated the problem, Doctorow does give some ideas for a way out of our rest seeking and techno-feudalist problem. His four forces pushing against enshittification are: 

  1. Competition (real competition, not just buying your opponent)
  2. Regulation (tech especially as avoided antitrust laws because the sector is new, complex, and evolving and regulators are slow and the average age of our legislators is…high)
  3. Interoperability (allowing repairs by third parties and allowing things to work with other things—for example, this would mean Apple devices allowing non-Apple third parties to repair phones without voiding warranty, etc.) 
  4. Tech worker power (I think this could be expanded to other industries; America has a terrible recent track record with unions, which I think is a huge problem. When the bosses are the only ones with power, we’re in trouble)

Doctorow says there are reasons to hope, all is not lost, and we can work together to raise awareness and demand change so the internet—and other real-life companies—must take notice. 

Various other countries are also passing regulations that gradually are trying to reign in tech companies. The Biden administration was unpopular with tech in part because Lina Khan (I’m a big fan) and others stood up to them. 

My personal theory about why so many younger people are so down on “capitalism” is that what we are living through right now is not strictly speaking, capitalism. Ostensibly, yes, but really it’s more of a techno-feudal society that has sprung up under the guise of capitalism. This is not to say that I think unfettered capitalism is great, but I think our economic structure right now has shifted quietly (see page 194 and following in the book for more details). 

I have so many thoughts on this book, and I think it is an incredibly helpful frame for considering why we have a lot of discontent about our lives and feel uneasily that they have gotten worse/ harder despite having access to so much. 

While we do have access to quantity, the quality has gone down and we feel trapped in systems and using products where true competition and customer protection have been sidelined for years, allowing greed and anti-competition to win the day. 

I would love to be part of the movement that unsticks us from the current enshittifying trajectory! Surely we can find a peaceful way to take our power back and move into a new era of small business innovation and freedom. 

Books Read in August 2025, part 1

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The Man in the Brown Suit, by Agatha Christie

Published 1924

Anne Beddingfield is at a loose end after the death of her father, an impecunious academic. She goes to London to look for work and adventure, and one day witnesses a man’s death at a Tube station (London’s underground train transport system). 

She decides to investigate, and this leads to her taking a cabin on a ship sailing for South Africa to find out more about the man’s death, which she thinks may also be connected to another death in a country house. Shenanigans ensue, of course. 

The spine of this book said it was first in the “Colonel Race” mysteries by Christie, and Colonel Race is a character in this book, but not in the way Poirot or Miss Marple are the main detectives in their stories. Miss Beddingfield is the main character in the book, and it’s a standalone story in which Col. Race appears as a background character. 

I appreciate that Christie was experimenting with style here—after two Poirot mysteries and a Tommy & Tuppence mystery, she moved on to try something else. However, I am not sure this effort at a thriller was completely successful. 

Anne is interesting, but she is attracted to men who are a bit brutal and harsh. She rejects a man who respects and admires her and instead is interested in someone who yells at her and orders her around. This preference was off-putting and I understand why this has not made any “best of” lists. There is a lot of Agatha Christie material out there, and I recommend starting elsewhere (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None, and The Body in the Library, and Murder on the Orient Express are well known for a reason. I also have a soft spot for Dumb Witness—a cute dog! and Crooked House—if you want to try something not related to Poirot or Marple). 

Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt

Published 2022

Despite opening from the point of view of Marcellus, a Giant Pacific Octopus who lives in an aquarium, this is not a sci fi book. All the other point-of-view characters are humans living normal human lives. 

The primary characters are Tova, a lonely older woman who cleans the aquarium and befriends Marcellus, and Cameron, a young man who can’t seem to hold a steady job and who is searching for his identity and some stability to escape his troubled past. 

Tova is considering retiring and moving to a retirement home as she has no one to care for her as she ages—she’s a widow whose only son tragically died many years ago when he was just eighteen. She is so focused on her lack of biological family that she overlooks the people already in her life. 

Cameron also thinks of his past as his destiny. His drug-addicted mother left him with his aunt and never told him who his father was. Cameron finds his father’s class ring and goes to search for someone to tell him who he is. 

Of course, eventually Tova and Cameron meet at the aquarium, and Marcellus helps them realize that their pasts may hold tragedy, but they can move forward together. 

While I occasionally wanted to shake some sense into the characters (especially Cameron), this was a sweet book about connection and identity and I enjoyed it. 

Books Read in June 2025

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I made it through my 6-hour exam (hooray!), so I now turn my attention back to books I have read somewhat recently.

Unnatural Death, by Dorothy Sayers

Published 1927

At dinner one evening, Lord Peter Wimsey chats with a doctor who suspects that one of his patients was murdered, though he cannot prove it. She was an elderly woman with terminal cancer, so it is not unusual that she died, but in the doctor’s opinion it is unusual that she died so soon and suddenly near the end of the previous year. 

His speaking up caused a lot of fuss and led to his needing to move out of the area due to bad feeling against him in the village. Lord Peter decides to investigate, despite the doctor’s protests (wanting to leave well enough alone). 

More suspicious deaths assure Lord Peter that he is on the track of an unscrupulous killer, but with the murder method being extremely difficult to trace, it is a challenge for him to prove the connection. 

Another good mystery from Dorothy Sayers and an opportunity to spend time with the erudite Lord Peter and his friends. 

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers

Published 1928

On Armistice Day, 90-year-old General Fentiman is found dead in the titular gentlemen’s club. He has been in poor health, so this is not unexpected, but there is something slightly strange about his body that Lord Peter notices. 

It is also reported that the General’s sister, Lady Dormer, died at almost the exact same time. Lady Dormer’s will leaves everything either to her brother, or, if her brother predeceases her, she leaves everything to her companion. 

It becomes important to establish who actually died first, and Lord Peter takes the case to establish if both deaths were natural and who predeceased whom. 

Another interesting mystery from Dorothy Sayers, and I also appreciated that it also addresses the internal psychological wounds that soldiers brought back from war. Lord Peter himself has what might be mild PTSD, and one of the General’s grandsons has major physical and psychological wounds from being exposed to chemical weapons. This makes his behavior seem more “suspicious,” and whether that means he is guilty of a crime or just suffering from the effects is unclear. These wounds affect all his relationships, from his relationship with his wife to his difficulty in holding a steady job, and I appreciated having this acknowledged though with a fairly light touch as part of the story. 

Strong Poison, by Dorothy Sayers

Published 1930

A young woman, Harriet Vane, is on trial for the murder (by poisoning, as the title suggests) of her ex-boyfriend. Lord Peter, attending the trial, is immediately struck by her and cannot believe that she is guilty. 

The jury cannot come to a verdict, so there is a delay while a new jury is selected and a new trial can begin. Lord Peter takes this chance to re-investigate the case in hopes that he can discover Miss Vane’s innocence…and possibly marry her after her acquittal. 

Unfortunately for Lord Peter, the case and Miss Vane both prove tricky. Discovering new evidence and even another motive for the crime is difficult, and Miss Vane, while not repulsed by Lord Peter, is not in a marrying frame of mind (being in prison and on trial). 

The introduction of Harriet Vane to the Lord Peter mysteries is a bright spot and a turning point for the detective’s character development. While the story does not end with them together (which I appreciate), it does end with her being freed from false accusation and the audience is interested to see what happens next.

Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Published 2024

In a post-apocalyptic setting, a robot valet named Charles serves his elderly master faithfully day after day…until one day he murders him. 

Charles leaves his manor house and sets out toward the central robot Diagnostics facility so they can figure out what made him slit his master’s throat and solve the problem so Charles (now un-Charles, as he had to leave his name behind at the manor) can find other employment. 

As we follow un-Charles on his adventures, it becomes clear that civilization has completely collapsed and it is unclear if there are any humans left for un-Charles to serve, or if robots are all that remain as relics of time gone by. The robots un-Charles encounters are all trying to complete their programmed missions as efficiently as possible. Of course they don’t have feelings about the futility of trying to do all their human-centric jobs when there are no humans to benefit from these jobs, but if they did, they might be depressed.

Un-Charles, despite his one murderous episode, is a gentle narrator, which helps to lighten a pretty bleak landscape. He does make a friend, the Wonk, who accompanies him on many of his adventures, and who pushes un-Charles to be more than the sum of his programmed parts. 

This book gives a sharp critique of late-stage capitalism and joins many other works of art warning about over-reliance upon technology and its dehumanizing effects (as usual, it leads to the collapse of civilization). It is interesting and Tchaikovsky is an engaging writer, but it is certainly a cautionary tale and not just interesting science fiction. 

(Sorry for the dark cover image–the painting was very light so I needed to adjust it, but the results were not completely satisfactory.)

The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy Sayers

Published 1931

Lord Peter, on holiday in Scotland in an artistic community, consults with the local police on the case of an artist found dead among the rocks. While initially thought to have fallen to his death while painting, Lord Peter finds evidence that all is not as it seems, and murder is indicated. 

This painter seemed to have provoked quarrels with basically every other artist in the area, so there is no shortage of suspects. 

I have slightly mixed feelings about this installment of Lord Peter’s adventures in detection because while the story is interesting, there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of discussion about railway timetables, and all the Scottish characters’ dialogue is written out phonetically, so we get the idea of what the Scottish brogue sounds like. 

This is charming for a few paragraphs, and then becomes difficult when it is clear that this will persist throughout the entire book. 

Between struggling through some of the dialogue and also not having personal familiarity with the British obsession with railway timetables, this one was a bit more difficult. I also could not stop thinking about the Monty Python railway timetable sketch, which I will link here in case you have not watched it. 

Not a bad mystery, but I would not put it in my top-tier list of Lord Peter’s adventures. 

Books Read in May 2025

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Sorry this is so late! I have been studying hard for the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® exam, which I am sitting for in July, so other efforts have fallen by the wayside. However, here are two books I finished in May:

Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens

Published 1865

I have been making my meandering way through the works of Dickens over the past few years, and I found a copy of this one at our local library book sale (which is amazing and not to be missed!) last year. This was one of Dickens’ last novels, and he does seem to start with a bit more confidence than some of his earlier works. 

As with some other Dickens novels, the central story involves money: a will and a large inheritance (I haven’t read Bleak House yet, but look forward to it!). The only son of the late Mr. Harmon is set to inherit a large fortune if he returns to England and marries the girl his father chose for him, Bella Wilfur. Miss Wilfur captured the old gentleman’s attention as a child, and he wanted his son to marry her when they both grew up (this is bananas, but was it maybe less bananas in the 19th century? Unclear). 

The son, John Harmon, was abroad and is apparently murdered immediately upon returning to England, alas. So instead, the Boffins, faithful servants of old Mr. Harmon inherit the goods. 

Separately, we also follow the story of Lizzie Hexam, whose father pulled Harmon’s body out of the Thames, and we also check in on some Members of Society who are around I presume to be a contrast to the lower class characters. 

Class and money are two defining themes of the novel, with various characters exemplifying different attitudes toward both. Their moral character is not defined by their rising or falling in status or class, which is interesting, though we do have the satisfaction of seeing some bad characters come to bad ends. 

As with all Dickens novels, you have to settle in and go at his pace. You can’t rush forward, and you have to bear with all the side-plots and cast of many characters who appear and weave in and out of the story. Eventually most of the threads come together in some way, but it is sometimes a long road to get there. 

While there were sub-plots and characters I enjoyed, this is not going on my list as a “top shelf” Dickens. It wasn’t bad, but I was bored in the sections where the fancy society people came together and tried to all trick each other into thinking they were richer than they were, and I also did not care for the way the main male character “tested the character” of the main female character. Lying to a woman you profess to love to see if she will pass your test and demanding she be loyal to you no matter what is not great. Either you think she has good moral character or you don’t. Do not lie to her and get other people to also lie to her to trick her into being “good.” 

All in all, I would say this is a Dickens novel you could skip unless you’re really a completionist. There are, as always, entertaining side characters, and I thought the various characters and their attitudes toward money (or the lack thereof) were helpful in some ways, but Dickens explored those themes in other books to greater success I think. 

Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy Sayers

Published 1926

I am an unabashed Dorothy Sayers fan. This is the second book in her Lord Peter Wimsey detective series. In it, Lord Peter’s brother, Gerald, is on trial for murdering his sister’s fiancé, and Lord Peter (with his faithful valet, Bunter, and police friend, Inspector Parker) must unravel the mystery. 

As usual in a good mystery, witnesses are lying about their movements the night of the murder, there are various clues to be followed up, and in this case there is also a vivid scene of blundering about near a bog in the foggy moors. 

The mystery is good, the characters are entertaining, and I appreciate the literary quotations and references. 

Lord Peter is an interesting sleuth because while he is methodical in following clues, personable in questioning witnesses, and can come across as the idiotic upper class rich gentleman to lull suspects into a false sense of security, we also see glimpses of his sensitive emotions and hints of the ways that a generation of men who went off to WWI did not escape unscathed. This blend humanizes him. Bunter’s obvious faithfulness to his master, without being slavish, is also a point in his favor. 

This was perfect to read in the evenings to wind down while I am studying for the CFP® exam—I can’t handle putting other facts in my brain with nonfiction right now (my brain is full of facts about financial planning!), but I didn’t want something completely mindless, so a good story well told was exactly what I needed.

Books Read in March 2025

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The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

Published 2020

This book series seems to be having a moment—multiple people told me they were reading it and really enjoyed it. I believe there is a movie in the works to adapt it? So maybe that is why there is some buzz around it right now. 

Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim are four residents of Cooper’s Chase, an English retirement community. They are unlikely friends, but the story opens with Joyce being invited to the titular Thursday Murder Club to even out the numbers. The members look at files of unsolved murders to see if they can unravel them. 

Then, of course, a real murder turns up practically on their doorstep and the cold cases are set aside in favor of investigating a fresh murder, with a side of retirement community shenanigans. 

Having protagonists in their 70’s was excellent too: while they are solving the murder, they are also dealing with the pain of losing spouses and friends to dementia and death, the frustration of aging bodies, and the annoyance of being dismissed due to age. How does it feel to know that most of your life is behind you, and how do you make friends when you know that your time is short? When you are acutely aware that your mind and body are not as reliable as they once were, how do you react? 

These questions were integral to the story, and I appreciated that perspective. 

It was a fun mystery without being heavy handed in the description of evil that leads to murder and also without grisly details. The mystery was interesting, the characters fun, and the murder not too grisly. Miss Marple might have fit in with the club, had the story not been set in the present. Fans of Agatha Christie might enjoy this book, and there are currently four books in the series, with a fifth coming out in September. 

The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon

Published 2023

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, and I heard a recommendation for this book…somewhere…and thought I would give the genre another go. 

The book is set in Maine in 1790-1791 and is from the perspective of Martha Ballard, a local midwife in a small river community. When a man is discovered in the river (which, as the title suggests, is frozen), Martha, as a medical practitioner, is asked to examine the body. She discovers he was murdered and then thrown in the river. 

The man, Joshua Burgess, had also been accused a few months before of participating with a local magistrate in the rape of a minister’s wife, and was generally of doubtful reputation, providing multiple motives for murder. 

Martha attends births, works at unraveling the murder mystery, and attends court hearings as a medical witness on behalf of her friend who was attacked. 

The story itself was interesting, and Lawhon is a good writer, but while it is possible that a midwife in the 18th century had some more progressive views on the role of women in family and society, Martha’s perspective felt a bit more like a 21st century woman who traveled back in time to the 18th century. 

I think this is why most historical fiction is not for me: the historical details are interesting, and I appreciate the attempt to make the past come alive, but it is exceedingly difficult for a modern author to take the attitudes of the time on their own terms. This is not to say a modern author cannot comment or show outdated or immoral ideas as outdated or wrong, but the protagonist here really felt out of step with the community. 

This is why I prefer historical fiction with a sci-fi framing: if a modern person travels back in time to observe a previous era, it is completely plausible that they would be horrified by some of the attitudes and prejudices. 

Of course there have been people who were “ahead of their time” in some way, and it is possible that the historical Martha Ballard on whose diary the book is based had some progressive views. However, some of the perspectives rang slightly false to me personally.

I still wanted to find out what happened, and I didn’t hate the book, I just think that historical fiction might not be for me. 

Content warning: fairly explicit description of rape. 

The Tomb of Dragons, by Katherine Addison

Published 2025

This is the third installment of a fantasy series (which itself is a spin-off of another book–kind of a nesting doll situation) about a man who is a witness for the dead (he can communicate with the recently deceased). He is also someone who can patiently unravel a difficult situation, likely because he is not easily put off by social discomfort, in a society which is extremely concerned with politeness and protocol. 

Thara Celehar is a prickly prelate who has managed, despite his expectations, to make friends in the city of Amalo where he was sent (two books ago). Although he is experiencing a career crisis (the details of which would be a spoiler for the end of the previous book, The Grief of Stones), he continues to show up and do the tasks set before him by his superior. 

Celehar’s adventures do lead him to the titular tomb where he agrees to witness for the ghost of a dragon, but he also has other tasks such as: figuring out how to get a new coat which he can barely afford, drinking tea with his friends, acquiring a bodyguard to protect against assassination attempts, and prodding another religious administrator to do his job and clean up a paperwork nightmare. 

All the while he is grappling with his unhappy past and his friends try to encourage him that he is actually worth befriending and that they truly enjoy his company, which he finally starts to believe. 

The world building in these books is amazing: I love a complex societal structure with rich details (since the characters are elves and goblins, they have long ears that express emotion, for example). 

While Celehar does have missions and adventures, these are not really the main point: it is more about how he deals with his past hurts, and how his friends humanize him, and vice versa. The way Thara learns to move forward and live again, even though his job is to speak for the dead, is a major theme. 

I have mixed feelings about the ending—it certainly leaves the door open for future books, but changes how things stand in a way that I am not sure I love. But I do enjoy this world and the character, so I am open to reading future books if the author decides to return. This ending could also possibly close the end of this character arc and allow the author to move on to other people in the same world, so she left her options open. 

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

Published 2014

I enjoyed The Tomb of Dragons so much I decided to go back and read the book that started it all. I listened to this audio book while I painted our guest room, so I blew through it in several days. 

As I said above, I love a complex social structure with court intrigue, and this is also a fish-out-of-water story, which is helpful in introducing a complicated world. 

Maia is the fourth and youngest son of the Emperor of the Elflands. His mother died when he was a child, and Maia has been raised in exile by a distant cousin who was banished from court and who takes out his frustration on the boy. 

A messenger arrives, and Maia is whisked off to the palace as the only surviving son and heir to the throne. 

From learning about how the government functions and the dizzying intrigues of court politics, Maia will have to fall back on his own judgment and figure out who is loyal and who might be plotting against him, assuming him to be an ignorant lout (partially a stereotype because Maia’s mother was a goblin, and therefore considered inferior to the lighter-skinned elves). 

Maia makes friends and enemies, good decisions and foolish ones, and must come to terms with what it means to be Emperor: he is both alone and also never alone. As Emperor, Maia has a lot of power, and he is self-reflective enough to know that this power could be corrosive. It is also strong and fragile, as all power is: he knows if he pushes too far, he could lose it, but if he plays it too safe, important work for the less fortunate will not happen. Being the Emperor is both a privilege and a responsibility, and those themes are explored without feeling like they hit you on the head.

A lot happens in this book (assassination attempts, audiences with any number of petitioners wanting something from the emperor, details about setting up a household, and many many names and aristocratic titles) and the steampunk details are fun. 

While I would gladly read more about Maia’s adventures as Emperor, the book ends on a satisfying note and so far the other books set in this world are about a side character (though we do get a glimpse of Maia in The Tomb of Dragons, which is so fun). I do like a book that sticks the landing, and this one does.

The Man Who Died Twice, by Richard Osman

Published 2021

This is the second book in the Thursday Murder Club series, and it was also delightful. Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce and back for another adventure. 

Elizabeth’s ex-husband, Douglas, was also in MI5 and returns to her life as a man in hiding due to stealing some diamonds from a black market “banker.” But did he actually steal the diamonds? Is his life really in danger (all signs point to yes, but Douglas is not exactly truthful). Can our geriatric heroes extricate themselves from more sticky situations? Especially when Ibrahim is mugged by some teenage delinquents and is not at the top of his game. 

Blending mystery, friendship, and the indignities of aging in a humorous way, Osman’s books are entertaining with poignant moments of reflection on the difficulties of getting older. When mind and body are no longer going to be in better shape even with mental and physical exercise as the body slowly breaks down, it creates an urgency and clarity that is refreshing in some ways. 

The mystery is again entertaining, the characters endearing, and it’s just a fun ride.