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The End of the Year

© Linda Kinkead

I hope that everyone has had good holidays. December has been kind of a rollercoaster here. I have been absent for a couple weeks because I was in the hospital for a while, had to travel to Bismark, ND, for an interview for my husband and then all of the Christmas chores, shopping etc. I woke up early on Christmas Eve morning and realized that I had purchased nothing for my daughters' stockings. So I helped open KMart at 6 a.m.

All of that is over, and a new year is about to begin and bring with it more mysteries than we can possibly read in a year. Although I have been out of the loop a little bit this month, I have still continued to read.

I have finished The Murders of Mrs. Beale and Mrs. Austin by Jill McGowan. It made a good read and the ending was really an unexpected twist and was not revealed until the very last pages.

I have just finished Charlotte MacLeod's The Corpse in Oozak's Pond. I love her work and the Peter Shandy series in particular. It was, as always, laugh-out-loud funny. She has such a fine way of turning words and names into absurd actions and make them totally believable. My husband will not let me read her works in bed because I laugh out loud and shake the bed. Who in their right mind would name a character Bainbridge Buggins.

So let me wish you a Happy New Year and I will try my best to keep you up to date with the latest and greatest in mysteries.

Now that the holidays are over I intend to read many more mysteries and report on them to you. I have been sent two books in the Old Gang of Mine series by Richard West. I am reading the first one now and am finding it a delightful romp through a personal care home. A retired jewel thief and a man hiding from the Mob team up to solve mysteries. These are very possibly the male versions of Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman and Mrs. Pargetter by Simon Brett. I will do a more in-depth review later in January.