Hi everyone. I'm back today with my final month of reading for 2025. I will be doing an overall reading post next week, but for today, I want to share my books from December. It was a good reading month, but I wish I had more time to read some more holiday books before Christmas. Not that I can't read holiday themed books now, but some of them are just better when you're in the pre-holiday spirit. 😉
I don't usually read a lot of short stories, but I thought around the Thanksgiving holiday short stories would be easier to read than getting into another novel. That really didn't work out since I only made it through 1 short story over that whole holiday weekend 😏, so instead this holiday mystery collection became a December book.
This collection of American mystery holiday stories contains many authors I was not familiar with. These include Anthony Boucher, Lillian de la Torrre, Carter Dickson, Pat Frank, Vincent Starrett among others. (The only name that I actually knew was Mary Roberts Rinehart.) I like how the editor (Otto Penzler) started each story with a short write up about the author. He also included a variety of holiday themed stories, which made it fun to read because I didn't know what type of story was coming next. There were ghost stories, traditional/ classic murders, murders set in historical time periods, FBI stories, military based stories, and more. I have to give the editor 5 stars for creating a great variety of holiday mysteries and also for picking some well written short stories.
The other good thing about reading short story collections like this book is that you can read some, move onto something else, and then come back to the more of the stories. I actually liked reading one or two of these stories before bed since I could start and finish a complete tale (or 2) in that one sitting. I'm glad I picked up this book, and even though some of the stories may not be the first thing I would reach for (like the military stories), it's good to shake up your reading every now and again.
My first listen for the month was this 1952 classic British mystery by Susan Gilruth. According to the introduction, none of Gilruth's books ever made it into paperback. That is really a shame because if they were even half as good as this book, I'd be gobbling them up. This book doesn't feel vintage but definitely is a classic style mystery. And I really enjoyed it also.
Lee Crauford is a guest at her friend's home in a little English village for Christmas. Her husband has been called up for military service, so Lee feels this will be a nice way to spend the holiday until he returns home. However before she leaves her home, Lee experiences some "warnings" that things may not go smoothly on her visit. And indeed, there is a murder while Lee is visiting.
Once Lee arrives, her friends decide to have a small holiday get together to welcome a mysterious new widow to their village and to introduce Lee to their neighbors. That's when you meet most of the characters including the stuffy, overbearing and outspoken local nobleman. Then the stuffy, overbearing and outspoken local nobleman is murdered even if the attempt was disguised to look like he had a stroke.
Lee is surprised when she runs into her good friend Inspector Hugh Gordon one day when she is out running errands. He's come to the village to help investigate the murder of the nobelman, Sir Henry Metcalfe. Because he respects her opinion, Lee gets involved in the case, working with Hugh Gordon. Lee met the village suspects at the party, and she can help Inspector Hugh out because she has some social impressions but doesn't know any of them (except the friends she's staying with) well enough to have made deep connections.
I had a suspect in mind only because that person was so anxious to clear themselves. However, I didn't see the twist that ended the story coming. It was a clever idea that Hugh had that solved the case. Plus I like how the author pulled all the loose ends together, and even surprised me a bit doing that.
In between reading my short holiday mysteries, I read this biography of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray. I actually purchased this book in Nova Scotia at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum because I was surprised how interesting and accomplished this man was. When I noticed this book in the gift shop, I knew I wanted to find out more about him. (And the post about the museum will be coming.)
Gray writes a readable and interesting biography, starting when Bell was born in Scotland. Bell then moved with his family to London, from there to Canada and finally on his own as a young man to the United States. However, he eventually moved back to Canada, living in a home in Nova Scotia that is still in his family today. The beauty about the museum we visited was that so many of his belongings, models and other items were all donated to the museum by his 2 daughters, so for me, reading this book was a chance put all the images I saw in the museum together with their backstory. (Even though the museum did a great job of that.)
Alec (as he was known by family and friends) had an amazing ear and was also a very smart man. However, he couldn't have become who he was if it wasn't for his future father-in-law protecting his budding telephone invention by filing a patent for him. Bell was definitely a man with ideas but someone who didn't always do a good job of selling those ideas. He was also someone who couldn't be bothered with all the paperwork because office organization was definitely not his strong point.
Interesting too is that all his life Bell saw himself as a teacher and advocate of the deaf, and teaching was as much his calling as playing around with his science experiments. Between teaching, experimenting and (when he was a young man) pursuing his wife, he couldn't be bothered with much else.
I also liked how the author also writes so much about Bell's wife Mabel. She was definitely Bell's right hand and also an interesting character on her own. She met Bell because she was deaf, but luckily her parents never believed that being deaf meant being less intelligent (which was a common thought at that time in history). When she married Alec Bell she often took on the role of organizing all his paperwork; in fact, when he was being sued by Western Union (who said Bell did not invent the first telephone and was taking credit for it anyhow), Mabel found a letter that she had rescued from the trash that proved that one of the Western Union men suing him had admitted years earlier that Bell was the phone's inventor. That letter clinched the case for Bell. It secured his patent and the invention of the phone went on to make him a lot of money.
Bell did more than just invent the telephone. He also was interested in flight and also in building a plane that could land on water (those planes did not exist yet). He experimented with both. In fact, he was quite the accomplished man, although if you're like me, you probably didn't know much about any of these other experiments. Nor that he was president of the National Geographic Society and was a big advocate for Helen Keller. I can’t say I even knew all that much about the invention of the phone before visiting the museum and reading this biography .
Charlotte Gray (the author) did a fantastic job bringing me into Bell's life even more than the museum in Nova Scotia did. I really liked her writing style, and very much enjoyed this biography. As the author states, there was so much information available that her research into Bell's life meant she could write a very thorough biography. But luckily for the reader, Charlotte Grey knew how to pick and choose to end up writing an excellent and complete but not an overbearing story.
After listening to Death in Ambush, I was then onto another British Library Crime Classic, once again it's a story set at the holidays. Dramatic Murder, unlike Death in Ambush which happens in December before the holiday, starts right at Christmas and then moves on into January. Elizabeth Anthony first published this book in 1948, and according to what I read, it hadn't been published since that original date.
This book starts off in Scotland at a castle where Dimpson McCabe (Dimpsie) has invited his closest theater friends to join him for the holiday. When the last 2 of the guests show up, they find Dimpsie dead in the Christmas tree. All of the other guests (who have already arrived) have been out playing hide and seek in the woods, and Dimpsie was supposedly going back to finish decorating the tree. The finished tree was to be a surprise for everyone at the Christmas Eve party. His death was certainly a surprise.
After a quiet and downcast holiday, everyone goes back to London, still believing that it was an accidental death. That's when the reporter, Katherine, who was one of the 2 people to find Dimpsie dead, decides to do some investigating. No one can believe that Dimpsie was so silly as to work on a string of Christmas lights with the string still plugged in and him standing in soaking wet moccasins. Then, a few other characters who were at the Christmas get together are murdered also. I definitely had no clue who the killer was for most of this book.
I do wish this story focused more on Katherine's investigating instead of popping over to it in every few chapters, or, if not Katherine, that it focused more on Inspector Smith from Scotland who travels to London to wrap up a few questions. It does take awhile before you find out everyone's "back story". The wrap up seemed a bit forced and even a bit rushed, but overall this still was a pretty good (and enjoyable) mystery story, just not quite as tight a story as the Death in Ambush one.
Mae recently mentioned this book over on her blog (Mae's Food Blog), and when I read her review I knew I wanted to read this book. I find microbiology and microbes fascinating. Why? Because everything on this planet that is alive or was alive has to deal with them. They can be good (for example helping us digest food and break down organic wastes in the environment) and they can be bad (like when they cause disease). For all we think as humans as smart and "evolved, a tiny invisible to our naked eye microbe can wipe us out one by one or even en masse.
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Mycobacteria are fascinating organisms because they have this fatty/waxy covering on them. This coating means you can carry them in your body for decades and maybe not even ever get signs or symptoms of this disease. This I knew, but John Green takes this factual information and turns it into such an interesting read. He focuses much of this book on Henry, a young man he meets in Sierra Leone who had been suffering from tuberculosis during much of his life. That story is at times quite sad. Between that story, he writes about the disease (which is probably one of, if not the oldest disease known to man), the history it has affected, and the medicine we now have to fight and treat it. Plus a whole lot about a tiny bacterium and the politics and money making when it comes to treatment medicines.
I thought Green did a fantastic job considering he is a popular fiction writer (although I admit I haven't read any of his other books 😞) and not someone who has written a lot of non-fiction. He definitely can write non-fiction. He has a lot of passion for this topic, and it shows in his writing. I think the ending where he goes on about public health policies was interesting, but I did prefer the earlier parts of the book where talks about the disease and Henry. Although not a long book, it was well done and right up my alley when it comes to information. I enjoyed learning about as well as a writing style I enjoyed.
This is book 2 in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series. The main detective is Jimmy Perez, and when this book opens, he is just getting cozy with his artist girlfriend (Fran) at her first art gallery showing. That's when a man shows up and starts crying in front of a painting. No one knows who this man is, including the man himself. It's not long after that (in fact the next day) that Perez is called out to where a suicide occurred, and he is surprised to see it is the same man from the art gallery. It isn't much longer until that suicide is ruled a murder.
This story is mostly set in the fictional Biddista, a small town on the island. You meet some of the locals that are all about the same age and who grew up together. One of them, Lawrence, suddenly left town years before without ever contacting anyone he left behind. His friends and family still remember him and he plays a large role in the story even though he isn't in the story. Perez wonders if there is any connection between Lawrence and the murdered man (you don't find out his identity until well into the book). Then there is also a writer who has moved to the town. People aren't quite sure what to make of him.
There's another murder, and then some human bones that are found near the sight of the second murder. Cleeves does another fantastic job weaving together a story with these characters and also bringing this Shetland Island to life. I didn't even come close to figuring out who the killer was, and I very much enjoyed this mystery.
December marked the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, and since it's been several years since I read any of her books, I thought I would finish off the year by listening to one, Northanger Abbey. I read online that this book was published after Austen's death, but that it was one of her earliest books. I've only read this particular Jane Austen book once or twice before and that was many years ago, so I can't say I remembered all that much about it.
Catherine Morland is a teenager as well as one of 10 children, and she decides, since she has nothing else to distinguish her from her 9 siblings, to be a heroine. When the opportunity to visit Bath arrives, she goes. This is also true when she goes to visit Northanger Abbey. However, growing up in the country she really doesn't know much about city life, and she isn't sure how to interpret many of the situations she finds herself in.
I am always struck whenever I read this author by how "modern" Austen's language and story is, well maybe not buggy rides and balls but just how people were people, no different than today. Even though her stories are a bit romantic, I always want to root for the main character. Perhaps that partially explains why her books are still popular. In this story Catherine is doing the season's rounds of balls, parties and buggy rides. However, she is a bit manipulated and is learning the way to behave in these situations. Then she goes to Northanger Abbey to stay for a bit.
Throughout this story there are lots of reading discussions about the latest Gothic books, so when Catherine makes it to the Abbey, she imagines it is like one of those books. For example, when she notices a large dark cabinet in her room, she's convinced there's something sinister inside it. (When it ends up just linens and some common things, it's almost like she's let down.)
I used to gobble up Jane Austen stories years ago, but as I've "matured", I don't find them quite so appealing. However, saying that I did very much enjoy this book, especially the second half once Catherine goes to the abbey. I will most likely read more Jane Austen at some point in the future, but I'm not one of those huge Austen fans that some people are.
My final book for the month (and the year) was another by Peter Swanson. This time I read his 2014 novel The Girl with a Clock for a Heart. Swanson writes such twisty novels that I can never tell what is coming next, and that is definitely true for this one. This is the 4th novel by this author that I read this year.
When George was in his first semester of college he met and became involved with a girl called named Liana. When she didn't return to college for the second semester, he heard she has committed suicide. Yet when George went to Florida to visit the family of his now dead girlfriend, he realizes that the girl he thought he knew was not the girl who committed suicide.
Twenty years later Liana is back in his life, and maybe it's not a good thing as she now wants George to do a favor for her. When he does it, he ends up being a murder suspect. There’s stolen diamonds, missing money, a boat scene and in the end, when Liana is supposed to actually be dead, you can’t be be certain of that either.
This book is classic Peter Swanson, and it was not only a fast read but also hard to put down. It was a great read to wrap up 2025.
That's all for my December books. Next week I'll share my annual reading wrap up. Wishing everyone who likes a good book a great reading year for 2026.
