The sort of online rabbit hole one is liable to fall down in lockdown times ...

There's a company named Spirit of Spice that specializes in "whole seed" spice mixes all coming in their own little mills: I've been a fan of theirs for quite a while, though so far I've been buying their products in stores, not directly from them.  So when my stock of their garam masala mix went low and lower (during the lockdown of all times), I started to look for ways to replenish it ... it's heavenly with carrot and pumpkin soups, among other things, and has become an absolutely indispensible element of my cooking. -- In short order, I discovered they have an online store.  The outcome of my foray through the rabbit hole thus opening up arrived today ... and I absolutely love it, from the "look" of the package to the contents (of course) and the nice handwritten thank you note from one of the two managers -- who had even included a large-size bonus item in the package.

And when I put it all onto my spice shelves, I noticed that the contents of my Spirit of Spice mix of Provençal herbs (no tomato soup without it, ever again!) is also beginning to run a bit low.  Hmmm ...

Given my current country of residence's complete incompetence and the news that my native land is trying to be the world leader in everything including incompetence, I needed to escape to a world where real problems are met and dealt with by leaders with integrity and the skills to think through issues rationally with a view towards the long-term.

In other words, a fantasy.

I have always been and will always be, an unapologetic fan of Clancy's works - the ones he wrote himself - so falling back into Jack Ryan's world was, if not a comfort, at least familiar and comfortable.  It's been 2 decades since I last read this, and it generally holds up perfectly.  The first half of the book is a bit overly idealistic, but what struck me about it is that Tom Clancy showed a startling degree of prescience not just in some of his major plot lines, but in his story arc.

Executive Orders is the story about a non-politician ending up as President of the United States, vowing to eject the political riff-raff out of Washington, and appointing business sector executives to the cabinet to get things done.

Sound familiar?  Of course, Jack Ryan wasn't a paranoid narcissist and he was highly educated and qualified regardless of his lack of political savvy.  He also had more integrity than your garden variety black widow spider.  But Clancy imagined the world we live in today twenty years ago, with startling accuracy, albeit in the most idealistic light.

His idealism extended to America's response (and only America because his plot extended no further) to the epidemic that grips the country in Executive Orders; his national lockdown works flawlessly; almost nobody ignores the mandate, there are no rushes on grocery stores, and there's no general panic.  Of course, I'd like to think that any country's population would react to an epidemic of ebola exponentially better than they're reacting (or not) to the corona pandemic, so maybe my faith in humanity hasn't been completely snuffed out.

Either way, it was good to revisit a world that works, even when everything is pear-shaped.

Most of my books of course come from sellers in Europe (chiefly Germany and the UK), but a fair few this year did also end up traveling here from North America, when all told the American offer was better than those by European sellers.

Bought in 2019 and already read:

From Seattle, WA:

James Hilton: Was It Murder?

Candace Robb: The Apothecary Rose (Derek Perkins audio CD)

From Houston, TX:

Ellen Datlow & Terry Windling (eds.): A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales

Sandra Uwiringiyimana: How Dare the Sun Rise

From Mishawaka, IN:

Daniel Stashower: Teller of Tales

Frederic Raphael & Kenneth McLeish: The Book of Lists

Matin Durrani & Liz Kalaugher: Furry Logic

From McKeesport, PA:

Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown

From Coral Springs, FL:

J.V. Turner: Below the Clock

From St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada:

Jennifer Estep: Kill the Queen

Clayton Rawson: Death from a Top Hat

Bought in 2019 and still on my TBR (don't even comment, please):

From Seattle, WA:

James Thurber: Writings and Drawings (LoA)

Agatha Christie: Rule of Three

From Tucson, AZ:

Stephen King: 11/22/63

From Richmond, TX:

Charles Dickens: Bleak House (Paul Scofield audio CD)

From Houston, TX:

Dorothy Dunnett: The Game of Kings

From Mishawaka, IN:

Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson: Napoleon's Buttons

Mercedes Lackey: Arrows of the Queen

Lois McMasterBujold: The Curse of Chalion

Christopher Hibbert: The Borgias and Their Enemies, 1431-1519

Ted Widmer (ed.): American Speeches: Political Oratory from Patrick Henry to Barack Obama (LoA)

Robert Barr: The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont

C. Daly King: The Curious Mr. Tarrant

Eden Philpotts: The Red Redmaynes

Matthew Pritchard (ed.), Agatha Christie: The Grand Tour: Letters and Photographs from the British Empire Expedition 1922

From Windsor, CT:
Elie Wiesel: Night  / Dawn / The Accident (aka Day)

From Frederick, MD:

Samuel Johnson; E.L. McAdam, Jr. & George Milne (eds.): A Johnson Reader

From Kennesaw, GA:

Christopher Isherwood. A Single Man (Simon Prebble audio CD)

Sebastian Junger: The Perfect Storm (Stanley Tucci audio CD)

From St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada:

Otto Penzler (ed.): Bibliomysteries

(Task: The historic (3d century AD) St. Lucia was Italian; yet, like those of many other saints (including, e.g., St. Andrew and St. Nicholas), the most important celebrations of her holiday don’t occur in her place of origin but somewhere else in the world.

List or create a stack of favorite books (minimum: three) featuring a character’s move or transition from one part of the world to another one (or from one end of a large country, e.g., U.S. Canada, Russia, China or Australia, to the other end.)

Alternatively, tell us: Which book that you acquired this year had to travel the farthest to get to you (regardless whether by plane, sea, or whichever other way, and regardless whether it was a purchase of your own or a gift from someone else)?)

Mystery, definitely. 

For one thing, I'm a total chicken -- I can't look at blood (not even, or rather, especially not my own, e.g. in medical procedures); and anything shocking, spooky, or otherwise unnaturally unsettling just has me running for the rafters.  That's particularly true at night -- which is when I'm doing a good deal of my reading -- but basically, it applies 24/7.  So that not only rules out slashers and other forms of gory horror, but pretty much any and all forms of psychological horror as well.  The only stories typically classified as "horror" that I can go near are classics where I essentially know what's going to happen from the word "go" (e.g., Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), or ghost stories (mostly classics as well) where the appearance of the ghost(s) is (1) in itself not overly unsettling, at least not in the way in which it is presented to the reader, and / or (2) tied to a larger point that the author is trying to make.  (E.g.  most of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, Charles Dickens's The Signalman and -- of course -- A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, and Oscar Wilde's hilarious send-up of the genre, The Canterville Ghost.)  Edgar Allan Poe is a special case ... I do love some of his writing (e.g., The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven), but The Tell-Tale Heart creeped the hell out of me way back in high school, and that cat story (which shall remain unnamed in this post) ... well, let's just say once was once too often.

And then -- well, I became a mystery reader all the way back in elementary school, and that was probably the most formative reading experience of my entire life.  It started with a series of books specifically targeting elementary school kids, whose (idiomatic) title went straight to my little smarta$$ jugular, challenging me to demonstrate I had what it took to solve them.  From there, it was practically guaranteed I'd move on to and love the Three Investigators series -- by which time my mom had caught on once and for all, too, and in short order presented me with my first Agatha Christie -- After the Funeral, which for that reason alone will always be one of my personal favorites.  And the rest, as they say, is history!

I've long stopped looking "just" for clever puzzles in mysteries, although that is still at least one of the things I want to see -- it takes a lot of other things in a book to work well for me if I've solved the mystery early on and still end up liking the book.  But on the other hand, I'll be just as unhappy if I can't connect, on some level or other, with the main character (or if not them, at least an important supporting character) -- or if I'm presented with shallowly drawn, cardboard or just flat out boring characters, or if the plot just ties one trope onto the next or is otherwise devoid of originality.  In other words, a mystery that works for me will always be more than merely the hunt for a killer (or other criminal, as the case may be) -- it will be a complex blend of well-drawn, individual characters and an intelligent plot, and ideally the characters will also have some other (e.g., personal) challenges to deal with on their journey to the mystery's solution.

Since I also love historical fiction (and nonfiction), historical mysteries are a particular favorite -- provided they're well-researched, such as Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael series (a long-time favorite) and C.J. Sansom's Shardlake series (my most recent "must-read" series) --, but I've never lost my love for the Golden Age classics -- next to Christie, in particular Sherlock Holmes and everything Dorothy L. Sayers, as probably everybody here knows -- and am thrilled to also see Golden Age crime fiction above and beyond the eternal great ones making such a huge comeback in recent years.  Martin Edwards, the current president (and chief archivist) of both the Detection Club and the Crime Writers' Association, may not be everybody's cup of tea personally, but there's no denying that his lobbying for the revival of Golden and Silver Age crime fiction has a lot to do with this, and I think he deserves huge plaudits on those grounds alone.  That said, P.D. James's writing (and her Inspector Dalgliesh) also has had a special place in my heart for longer than I can remember ... and I'm inordinately happy to have discovered many more great women crime writers and women detectives in recent years; most recently, Joy Ellis's Jackman and Evans series (*waves to Jennifer*).

Oh, and for the record, the "I can't look at blood" thing applies to mysteries as well, of course -- which is one of the reasons why as a rule I don't read serial killer books; nor any other mysteries where I know, going in, that the corpse or the crime scene will be described in gratuitously graphic terms.   [She said, side-eying J.K. Rowling for the second Cormoran Strike book, which definitely should come with a warning label attached.]  However, I am not at all opposed to grit and grime in a mystery's setting -- in fact, I particularly enjoy both classic noir crime fiction (with Raymond Chandler a particular favorite) and modern crime fiction that takes a look at the state of society, such as Michael Connelly's and Ian Rankin's books.

And so it ends. If I could I’d insert a picture of me having a tantrum that would leave any self respecting 2 year old in awe. On second thought that might be too scary. But I digress…

This is the one fans of the Dublin Trilogy have been waiting for & it doesn’t disappoint. We’ve followed Paul, Brigit & Bunny through murders & mayhem that made us cringe & laugh in equal measure. As this one begins, their private investigation firm MCM is barely solvent. Brigit seems to be the only one showing up for work these days & is royally done with stalking cheating spouses.

Paul is engaged in prank warfare with a rival firm run by the Kelleher brothers who are responsible for his breakup with Brigit. And Bunny…well, Bunny is mostly AWOL. He’s spending a lot of time with 2 men who were with him at a particular incident about 20 years ago. Which would be fine if they were alive. Unfortunately they’re figments & Bunny is getting more than a few looks as he’s seen arguing with himself around town.  Could it be the feared & infamous ex-copper is finally losing the plot?

It seems to have started about the time DSI Susan Burns & sidekick Det. Donnacha Wilson were called to a remote area outside of Dublin. New construction unearthed human remains. The bodies are old with nothing to identify them. When the coroner deems them at least 20 years old, all Susan can do is turn to forensic testing. And boy, does she get results. Before she knows it FBI Agent Alana Dove is on her doorstep, demanding to be part of the investigation.

Meanwhile Brigit gets news the firm is being sued & there’s a better than average chance they’ll lose it all to the Kellehers. No more about that. The ensuing game of spy vs spy between the 2 groups adds tension mixed with insanity that may have led to some unladylike snorts on my part.

But the heart of the story belongs to Bunny. Dear, hurley-weilding (& arguably sociopathic) Bunny. After the first 2 books of the trilogy the author released “Angels in the Moonlight”, a companion book that gave us the details of Bunny’s past. It’s a fantastic read that made me look at the big guy in a completely different way as I began to understand how he became this solitary man with an oddly honourable code of ethics. That past has come back to haunt him. He’s done some dodgy things & you get the feeling he’s finally going to pay.

As usual, the characters are colourful & so well described you feel like you would recognize them on the street. One standout is Susan Burns. She’s a whip smart cop with a sharp mind & sharper tongue & I enjoyed her scenes immensely. Dialogue is sharp, witty & full of vernacular that gives you plenty of laughs to break the building tension as all the story lines begin to converge. There’s a big finale ahead & no doubt that things at MCM will never be the same.

This series has been such a pleasure to read. The books are smart, well paced & endlessly entertaining & I highly recommend reading them in order of publication. There are hints some of the characters may pop up in future projects so….tick tick, Mr. McDonnell. No time like the present. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a tantrum to finish.