New Books - Update

Just a quick post to update on a few books I purchased yesterday while the missus and I were wandering about 5th Street in Courtenay. It's been a hot, dry month but it felt nice just to get out for a couple of hours. We checked out a couple of our favourite local stores; Home & Garden Gate, where Jo bought some soaps, a new handbag and a couple of other items; and Tab Imports,  where we made note of a couple of furnishings, for future reference. Of course, they weren't the only shops we visited as it's a nice little local High Street. I left Jo for a brief time and headed to the two books stores; The Laughing Oyster and  Second Page Used Books and managed to find a couple of books in each. On the way home we picked up a bucket of yummy ice cream at Benino Gelato in Comox. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon out. But of course, my purpose in writing this is to let you know what books I bought; 3 from Second Page and 2 from The Laughing Oyster.

Second Page Books finds - I was checking out some of the series I'm reading and trying to find the first books for them most part. But I also fleshed out a couple.

1. The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (originally published in1930, the first Miss Marple mystery) - It came as no great shock when Colonel Protheroe was found shot to death. The Colonel had earned the hatred of almost everyone in the village. The question was: Who had gotten to him first? The police relaxed when their first suspect confessed. They became uneasy when their second followed suit. By the third confession, they were tied up in knots - and only the sure hand of the remarkable Miss Marple could unravel the tangled skein of deception spun by a maddeningly elusive murderer.

2. Summer Knight by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files #4, originally published in 2002) - Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can't pay his rent. He's alienating his friends. he can't even recall the last time he took a shower. The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man. And just when it seems things can't get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer harry can't refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him - and hopefully end his run of bad luck. All he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen's name. It seems simple enough, but Harry knows better than to get caught in the middle of faerie politics. Until he finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving the case. No pressure or anything...

3. Death Times Three by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe short stories republished in 1985). I haven't read any Nero Wolfe stories yet, but he's a character that I've started to take an interest in. I've acquired a couple of his books and hope to give him a try sometime this year. This books contains 3 earlier short stories; Bitter End, originally published in 1940, Framed-Up for Murder, originally published in 1958 and Assault on a Brownstone, originally published in 1961.

The Laughing Oyster pearls -  I went in to The Laughing Oyster to check on the status of my order of the Harper Lee sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, which I pre-ordered (Jul 14th at the moment) and while I was there found a couple of other books. I also ordered the first book in the Backstrom series, a series by Swedish writer Leif GW Persson, the book being The Linda Murder Case.

But now to the two book I found -

1.  The Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette (originally published in France in 1981) - Martin Terrier is a hired killer who wants out of the game, so he can settle down and marry his childhood sweetheart. But the Organisation won't let go: they have other plans for him. In a violent tale that shatters as many illusions as bodies, Jean-Patrick Manchette, the master of French noir, subjects Terrier and the reader alike to a fierce exercise in style: a tightly plotted, corrosive parody of "the successful story."

2. After You with the Pistol by Kryil Bonfiglioli ( Charlie Mortdecai mystery #2, originally published in 1979). One thing I can say about The Laughing Oyster is that they do often have books I've never heard of or seen before. This is the second book in an interesting looking series. "Charlie Mortdecai - degenerate aristocrat and victim of his own larceny and licentiousness - has no idea. Until it is made clear to him that he must marry the beautiful, sex-crazed and very , very rich Johanna Krampf. The fly in the ointment is that Johanna thinks nothing of involving poor Charlie in her life-threatening schemes, such as monarch-assassination, heroin smuggling and - worst of all - survival training at a college of feminist spies. Perhaps, it's all in a good cause - if only Charlie can live long enough to find out."

So there you have. Must dash now as the missus has made bacon and egg sandwiches for brunch.. :)