I was finally able to order a Vinyl Cafe book I've had my eye on for a while, it came down in price! This is the last of them as Stuart McLean died in 2017, so I read it slowly, one story at a time so as to make it last longer. :-) The Vinyl Cafe Celebrates contains stories that have not been in other collections, as well as a few favorites that have. If you were a fan of his radio show you will hear his voice as you read. Made me laugh, made me cry ... made me smile.

The terrier of the title in The More the Terrier, by David Rosenfelt, started the whole thing ... he showed up at the home of Andy Carpenter (reluctant lawyer) and when the dog was returned to his owner Andy learned the son was in jail, for a crime he did not commit. There are all sorts of 'dark' connections here and it will be hard to prove the innocence of this young man. There are the usual bits of humor you expect from this author too, so it was a nice read. (One in particular should make you laugh out loud). This is part of the Andy Carpenter series.

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Here's another excellent read from the box from Wandering Reader: Sherlock Holmes: the Montana Chronicles, by Dr. John H. Watson, M.D. and edited by John S. Fitzpatrick. (Pay attention there!) Holmes and Watson are in the states, and have been called to Montana by a friend of Holmes to defend a man accused of murder. (He's originally from London, so that's the connection). Then, there's a threat to a race horse, ghosts ... and more all in this enjoyable collection of short stories. The 'editor' is from Montana and includes photos from the time frame of the stories.

Tall Reader shared a book with me recently that came with a warning ... it's hard to put down! It was a most compelling book, and based, she said on a true story. The Forgotten Orphan, by Glynis Peters tells of a (rather dismal) orphanage during WWII in England. For some reason, one orphan was badly treated. She had a twin brother who was adopted out, but she was not allowed to know where he went. She was never brought forward when possible adoptive parents visited and when the building was going to be taken over by the military for wounded and recovering soldiers, she was left behind. What she does next is the story is amazing.

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Mom was right ... there is a better way to teach history than what usually happens in schools! She would have enjoyed this book, I'm sure: Dinner with the President: Food, Politics and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House, by Alex Prud'Homme. It covers most of the presidents from Washington to Biden and was an excellent read! It was Washington who requested the title "Mr. President" as he didn't want anything royal in the title for the leader of the new country. At the time of the first dinner with him, many folks were frontier folks and did not know how to use utensils and ate with their fingers, others, wanting to break from any fancy British etiquette were inclined to change how they used utensils,or even ignore them. The Hoovers both spoke Mandarin and would do so in public if they wanted to keep their conversation private. FDR fed hot dogs to the King of England, on paper plates! King George had never seen them and had to be instructed on how to eat them. He loved them, had several. With beer! (FDR had the kitchen prepare something more formal, too, in case the hot dogs didn't go over well). Some presidents liked to cook, or their wives did, others were less involved. Some had elegant dinners, others more casual. Some treated the staff well, some dismissed or ignored them. On 9/11, when the area was cleared of all visitors and tourists and there was a heavy presence of military and security, the kitchen staff got busy preparing meals (did this on their own, they weren't asked) and in a 24 hour period of time served over 800 meals. Just a fascinating read.

If you like history, ancient history, and have a fondness for the UK, then you should enjoy Secret Britain: Unearthing Our Mysterious Past, by Mary-Ann Ochota. Evidence of towns, burial sites, hoards of gold, and other objects as well as human and animal remains are explored and explained, all with good pictures! They are unsolved mysteries, many of them: we know the where (obviously), the what (mostly) an item is and/or what it is made of, better methods of dating give the when, experience can tell the how it was made and sometimes even the who determined ... what is missing a lot of the time is the why, and that is often a question in the narrative. A thought provoking read. :-)

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Also in the box from Wandering Reader, and my favorite, was Murder on the Middle Fork, by Don Ian Smith and Naida West. A new setting here ... Idaho, in 1918. Did not like the one of the main characters, he was a horrible man ... an abusive husband. Wife had married him to escape an abusive father. They are working an exhausted gold mine so the location is barren and isolated. There is a local man with a nice farm, a German (remember, this is 1918, think WWI) and he is not well thought of, even though no one has bothered to get to know him. A plot is made to take him out and take over the farm. Things take a strange turn and the ending is unlike other mysteries I've read. It's based on a true story. The descriptions of the mountains, and weather and forests and so on are what I enjoyed, they are wonderful and remind me of my time camping in the high country.

As much as I am enjoying the Albert Smith's Culinary Capers mystery series by Steve Higgs, I will also say that I am starting to worry about Albert, and that holds true for the Cornish Pasty Conspiracy, the 13th in the series. Albert is old, after all! He cannot take a beating the way he once could, nor too much hard physical activity. And, he's figured things out, there is a master criminal he has dubbed the Gastrothief behind all the crimes he's investigating, and now he is on to Albert! Rex is along, to help, of course, and he gets into some unusual situations as well. A fun series.

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Evelyne Redfern is working in a munitions factory in war time London when she is pulled off the line and sent to work in the cabinet war room of Winston Churchill by a friend of her father. There is concern that top secret information is leaking out and she has been tasked to look for how and who is passing it along to the Nazis. She is the first to come across a body, one of the other typists in the war room. This sets things in motion for a well written, exciting mystery, the first in a new series, by Julia Kelly, A Traitor in Whitehall (an Evelyne Redfern Mystery). Excellent descriptions of war torn London, working underground, rationing ... kept me up late! :-)

Here's what was an unusual PI (at least for this reader) ... a mother of a three month old baby girl! Formula for Murder looks to be the third in the Maternal Instincts Mystery series by Diana Orgain, so we're jumping into an already developing character here, and after asking someone who had actually been a mother it made more sense to me. :-) Now, Christmas is coming ... the first with the new baby so Kate has a lot on her mind. She and her daughter are in a serious hit and run accident. She can recognize the driver should she see him again, and got a glance at the license plates. They belong to a car belonging to the French Consulate and so have diplomatic immunity. However, as this reaches a dead end, they see two local reporters leaving the building and later, one ends up dead. That starts the investigation for real, then, along with determining what story she was working on the young man involved in the hit and run is found dead. Is there some sort of cover up going on? Not a bad read. This was in the box of books sent from Wandering Reader.

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I learned of this book in one of the books I've read recently about books, bookstores, and so on: The Last Leaf: Voices of History's Last-Known Survivors, by Stuart Lutz. The author got hooked on talking to old people as a child and went on to work with historic documents. He started learning of folks that had survived or witnessed various events from what we take to be 'long ago' and started interviewing them. Here are those stories, and what a fascinating read! Here you'll meet one of the last women married to a Civil War Vet (that is NOT a typo!) ... she died in 2008! Someone who was there for the Scopes Trial. One of the first people to see a television program. One of Houdini's last assistants. Highly recommend and hard to put down ... consider yourself warned!

I like several of the CSI type shows so What Lies Beneath: My Life as a Forensic Search and Rescue Expert, by Peter Faulding looked like a slam dunk! ;-) It was, for the most part, many of the rescues his team works on involved removing protestors (more complicated than you might think) but I found the search for bodies more interesting ... probably due to too many tv shows and books ... Faulding has put together a world renowned team of experts and equipment who can search underwater (their specialty, actually), in fields and gardens and so on. Many of the missing bodies are now cold cases, some decades old. He works well with other teams too, local police and other search teams. Interesting for sure, but be warned, very grisly, too, given the nature of the work.

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Wandering Reader recently sent me a box of books ... which arrived on a nasty, stormy day (bringing to mind the post office slogan about that) as I was just finishing up the book I was reading. Naturally I decided the next read had to come from that box so I closed my eyes and pulled one from the pile. It was Murder in House, by Veronica Heley, from her Ellie Quicke Mystery series. (a quick search shows it as #10). Ellie and her hubby are not well, they both have colds, but someone is refusing to leave the church (hubby is a vicar) so they know they have to intervene. Ursula is a student at the nearby university. A friend has died, and another is missing. The death was reported as an accident, a young man got drunk and went off a balcony. Thing is, Ursula says, he didn't drink. She is concerned about her missing friend, too. There has been no word from her, her phone is off (turns out it'd been smashed), and her parents could care less. There are direct connections to a powerful and ruthless family here. This is a grim, grisly mystery with some truly horrible events, but it's also a good story with some characters you will come to like (remember we're jumping in with book ten). :-)

It was easy to just grab another book off the 'Wandering Reader pile' and it was Last Will and Testament, the first Virginia and Felix mystery by E.X. Ferrars. A woman has died, she is old, it was not unexpected. She is rich and owns a large house. Relatives gather, relatives who either did not visit, or only visited grudgingly, expecting a nice inheritance of some sort. They are in for a surprise! There is no money, and the bank owns the house ??? When and how did this happen? Then the one last thing of value disappears, as do the housekeeper/cook and gardener (married couple). A nice traditional mystery this is. :-)

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