48. Mystery Mile - Margery Allingham

The second Albert Campion book, a bit better than the first, but Albert is still getting fleshed out. Not a bad mystery, though, and the setting and characters are well drawn.

47. The Damascened Blade - Barbara Cleverly

The third of the Joe Sandilands mystery series. Joe ended the Great War stuck in India and he can’t seem to ever make it home. Here he begins taking a vacation to the NW frontier to visit one of his mates from the war.  Unluckily for him, he gets a call and finds himself assigned to protect an American heiress who is looking for the mystery, magic and exotic wonders of India. She didn’t find that in Simla where she’d been pretty much locked up in the British cantonment, so she weedles her way to the one place where a shooting war could break out any time.

Not long after she arrives, along with some British high mucky mucks, a Pathan group arrive to escort a doctor through the Kyber Pass to Kabul. On the night of the welcoming dinner, one of the guests ends up poisoned.

I love this series, set in the 20s, and Joe is an interesting mix of stern DCI and military type who understands how politics can complicate matters.  Lovely local color and always an exotic feel for this series.

46. Flashman - George MacDonald Frazer

Accidental hero, admitted cad, coward, sexist, racist  and all-round asshat, Flashman stumbles into situations which kill better men and leave him looking like a shining example of the British Empire.

A satire of the Victorian ideals and prejudices, it is painfully funny and takes no prisoners.

45. Behold, Here’s Poison - Georgette Heyer

I really enjoy Heyer’s mysteries. The murders are intriguing but really secondary to the complex social interactions of the characters. And the dialog is sparking and very much ‘airy persiflage.’ 

44. The Phoenix Guards - Steven Brust

More or less a retelling of The Three Musketeers set in Brust’s fantasy world of Dragaera.  Humorous swashbuckling antics in the highly political arena of House politics the disparate friends defy the odds and manage duels with all sides.

40. The Risk of Darkness–Susan Hill

 

I love, love, love the Simon Serailler series by Susan Hill. This is the third of the series. I’m not sure why I love it so much, but I expect it is because she creates such fully rounded characters, with lives far beyond the mysteries.  And her detective is fascinating, maddening, and appealing to me. And his family is just as complex as he is.

I’m going to jump into book 4 tomorrow. I can’t wait!

39. In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker

First in the time travel series The Company, a wildly imaginative world where time travelers from the future create ‘immortals’ who then work for The Company collecting data, things, plants etc from the past to improve the lives of the people of the future.

They can only change children into immortals though, so they select children at risk to recruit to their purpose. Mendoza, a young child the Spanish Inquisition has locked in its dungeons is thusly recruited.

She grows up in a Company compound and the Garden of Iden is her first assignment.

It had a bit more romance than I like, but I did enjoy the story and especially the world-building.  I’ll read more of the series.