WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley by M. C. Beaton. People liked Jessica Tartnick at first. Then they got to know her. She enraged the aristocratic landowners of Dembley by insisting her hiking group had every right to walk across their land. Lovers found that when they tired of her and wished to break up, she was very comfortable threatening scandal and exposure. So when she's found murdered in the field she was banned from hiking through, there no shortage of suspects

This is good news for our heroine, Agatha Raisin. Back from six months in London, she finds she missed country life and her neighbor/crush James more than she realized. One foolproof way to impress James was to showcase her ability as an amateur sleuth. 

I enjoy this series. Agatha is refreshingly three-dimensional, with her very human faults on display. I also like spending time with the recurring characters, like the vicar's wife, Mrs. Bloxby, and Bill Wong, the police officer who is forever begging Agatha to just leave the crime solving to him. When, at the beginning of the book, he encourages Agatha to join the hiking group because no one ever got killed walking, I had to smile. Oh yes, they will, Bill. Just wait a few pages.

 

2. What did you recently finish reading? An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena. Eight people check into quaint, exclusive Mitchell's Inn in the Catskills. They're counting on a weekend of tranquil luxury -- great food and wine, 5-star service, no internet or wifi but plenty of cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing. 

Then a violent ice storm hits and they're trapped inside. The first death looks like an accident. But then there's a second ... and a third ... someone is picking them off and they're terrified, with no way to defend themselves and no way out.

Yes, it's a lot like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. That classic is even in the well-stocked Mitchell's Inn library. It's also got a dash of The Fugitive and a soupcon of Gone Girl tossed into the stew. It's not high art, but it's good, scary fun. It starts slow, but stay with it. I promise you won't see the end coming.

 

3. What will you read next? I don't know.