October Books

I only read a measly eight books in October.  I don't know what my problem was.  It seemed like I never had time to sit down, but don't ask me what I was doing because I can't remember.  I keep a journal, if you really want to know, but I don't think you want to waste your time.

The Man Without a Face  -  Armstrong

Vermilion Drift  -  Krueger

Northwest Angle  -  Krueger

Trickster's Point  -  Krueger

(I was trying reading straight through all the books by an author I like, but I don't think that's for me.  I like more variety.)

Death is a Word  -  Holt

Tenting To-night  -  Rinehart

Marking Time  -  Howard

Hungry Heart  -  Weiner

I hope you had a good reading month.  Here's to more time to read in November!

The Blue Santo Murder Mystery - Margaret Armstrong

I just read and reviewed another book by Margaret Armstrong, Murder in Stained Glass.  I bought The Blue Santo Murder Mystery at the same time, and I've just bought the last of her three mysteries, The Man With No Face.  These are all Kindle books at about $3.99 each.  A very good deal, I think.

This book starts a bit backwards, with the news that the richest woman in America, Mrs. Kearny-Pine has disappeared while vacationing in New Mexico.  The news is shocking.  Then the book moves to Tecos, New Mexico, before Mrs. Kearny-Pine disappears.

The Blue Santo is a hotel, as well as the name of a carved figure over the hotel's mantelpiece.  The local Indians / Native Americans consider it bad luck.  Mrs. Kearny-Pine wants to buy it.  Very badly.

She's not an easy woman to live with, as her younger, philandering husband knows, or to deal with, as her high-living nephew, Algy, or her very nice young cousin, Rosalie, know.  Or as many other people know.  She wants what she wants and she gets what she wants.

But when she disappears from the hotel, everyone is out looking for her.  It's a real puzzle.  She's just vanished.  Everyone has a theory.

Despite some stereotyping of Indians / Native Americans (this was published in 1941), I think the author did a good job with her characters and with describing the landscape, although I have to admit I've never been to New Mexico.  If I'm wrong, tell me.  The plot was good, too, ending with a twist just when I thought I knew everything.

I'm eager to read The Man With No Face.  There don't seem to be any consistent characters in the three books.  I was sorry that Miss Trumbull from Murder in Stained Glass didn't reappear.

While I was trying to find out how many mysteries Margaret Armstrong had written, I found that I probably have some of her books:  she was a highly sought-after designer of book covers and book bindings.  Before I stopped collecting things, I collected what I call illustrated bindings, those gorgeously decorated books that it would be a shame to cover with dust jackets.  Most of her covers were Art Nouveau, a style I particularly like.  Some of her art is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and she wrote and illustrated the first book on wildflowers of the American West.  A very interesting woman indeed.

Murder in Stained Glass - Margaret Armstrong

This is one of the reissued Queens of Crime mysteries.  Margaret Armstrong is new to me.  I read it on my Kindle.  While I was doing that, I was wondering when it was written.  You know how it is:  on a Kindle, it's not easy to flip to the front or around in the book.  Anyway, it was published in 1939.    It sometimes feels more modern than that.

The narrator, a Miss Trumbull, goes to stay with an old school friend, Charlotte Blair, in the village of Bassett's Bridge, Connecticut.  She says she doesn't "enjoy visiting - most spinsters like their own homes better than other people's".  I'm not a spinster, but I like my home better, too.  Charlotte has always been a bit strange and she seems to have become stranger, birdwatching at night and having  odd spells, when she stays in her room for days.  The villagers think she's bizarre.  But her young cousin, Phyllis, who is staying with her, is charming and lively.

Anyway, Miss Trumbull, after making all sorts of excuses, goes to Bassett's Bridge and gets wrapped up in a murder.  A famous stained glass artist, Fredrick Ullathorne, works in the village.  He's currently working on a window for a New York City cathedral.  They all go to take a look.  And then he disappears, and bones and a false tooth of his are found in the ashes of the kiln in his studio.

Miss Trumbull needs to know what happened, especially when suspicion falls on Charlotte and on Phyllis's fiance, Leo, the artist's son.  She figures it out and is almost murdered herself.  There's quite a twist at the end.

I liked Miss Trumbull and I liked the description of the life she and her friends led, going to plays and the opera and teas in the city.  I believe there is one mystery that didn't get solved, but, on the whole, this is a satisfying and nice mystery.