New BookTalk Booklists on BookGuide - Tracy and Nate's joint booktalk from December 2, 2023

Tracy T. and Nathan H., both of the Anderson and Bethany Branch Libraries, presented a joint booktalk session to the Bethany BookTalks group on December 2, 2022. Each provided their own separate booklist. Tracy's included a variety of reads in several categories, and Nathan's focused on mysteries/thrillers.

You can check out their lists on the Lincoln City Libraries' BookGuide reader resources pages at these links:

A Sci-Fi Fan Dabbles in Mysteries and Thrillers

Tracy's Recent Reads - Fall/Winter 2022

New Booklist on BookGuide: Science Fiction and Fantasy Murder Mysteries

In December 2022, a new booklist was released on the Lincoln City Libraries' BookGuide readers advisory web pages: Science Fiction and Fantasy Murder Mysteries. The last several years have seen a number of these cross-genre crossovers, where traditional "murder mystery" plots have turned out to be major plot elements in a science fiction or fantasy novel setting. But this crossover genre actually goes back many decades.

This extensive booklist covers both older titles and recent releases, single titles and long-running series. If you're a mystery fan who doesn't mind a slightly different background to your "sleuth solves the mystery" storyline...give one of these a shot. If you're a science fiction or fantasy reader, but are curious about the tropes and traditions of the mystery publishing field, take a look at some these included titles!

Check out this new booklist on BookGuide at the following hotlink:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Murder Mysteries

BookGuide's Mistletoe Mysteries booklist has been fully updated for 2022!

 Updated Booklist!

One of the booklists we maintain on the BookGuide readers advisory site, which is among our most popular, is Mistletoe Mysteries -- a comprehensive guide to mystery fiction with a setting related to year-end holidays (Christmas, Hanukah, Winter Solstice, Eid, Kwanzaa, New Year's). Each year, this booklist is updated with new novels published in the preceding 12 months, not to mention older titles we've learned about since the last update.

The Mistletoe Mysteries online booklist has now been updated to be current with all-known 2022 releases. Note: This year, we found a several more older seasonally-appropriate mysteries which had not been included on our list before, which we've now added, in addition to all the new 2022 additions. Look for little red "NEW" graphics next to anything that's been added in the past two years (2020-2022)

For this list, we include only books released through mainstream publishers -- you will not find self-published, independently-published, vanity-press, CreateSpace, or Kindle-exclusive titles listed here. (For a similar list, that does include a lot of those which the Lincoln City Libraries do not include, try The Christmas Mystery Book List at the Cozy Mystery List website).

All titles currently owned by the Lincoln City Libraries are hotlinked in the list to our online catalog, so you can check on availability and/or place holds. Titles no longer owned by our library system should be available to borrow through our InterLibrary Loan service, where we can borrow materials from other libraries on your behalf. Check out the list of holiday ho-ho-homicides at the link below:

Mistletoe Mysteries

New BookTalk Booklist on the BookGuide readers advisory pages: Whodunnit Mysteries

Jen J., from the Bennett Martin Public Library downtown, was the presenter for the South Branch BookTalks on September 8, and the Bethany Branch BookTalks on September 9. She shared a variety of mystery novels, both classic and contemporary.

You can check out her list of Whodunnits at the following booktalk booklist on the Lincoln City Libraries' BookGuide reader resources pages at this link:

Whodunnit Mysteries - Old Classics and New Favorites

New Booktalk Booklist: Women Private Investigator Mysteries with Marcy G.

 

In January 2022, as part of our South Branch BooksTalks on Zoom, mystery fan Marcy G., from the Gere and South Branch Libraries, presented a talk on "Women Private Investigator Mysteries" -- featuring forty significant books or series that chronicle the presence of female private investigators throughout literary history, from 1864's "The Female Detective" by Andrew Forrester, to today's many contemporary and historical female sleuth series.

Check out Marcy's list of recommended reads, in this booktalk booklist on BookGuide at the following link:

Women Private Investigator Mysteries

DVD Review: The Witness for the Prosecution (2016)

The Witness for the Prosecution
based on the short story by Agatha Christie (DVD Witness)

I’ve never seen the original 1957 film, Witness for the Prosecution, starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton, despite being a life-long fan of Agatha Christie. Both that film and this TV-movie, are based on a Dame Agatha short story, originally published as “Traitor’s Hands” in the UK in 1925, and subsequently reprinted under the more familiar title. Christie also adapted her story as a full-length stage play, which premiered in 1953. Billy Wilder and his creative partners adapted it again for the feature film, and it has been adapted several times for television in both the UK and US.

 

This 2016 was written by Sarah Phelps and directed by Julian Jerrold, and goes places the previous versions did not. Set in the early 1920s, the mystery revolves around the brutal murder of a socialite, ostensibly by Leonard Vole, a much younger man (a recent WWI veteran) who she had been using as a gigolo. Despite the victim’s maid’s assertions that Vole killed her, he says his “wife”, a dance-hall girl, can provide his alibi. Vole’s attorney takes the case to court, only to have the “wife” turn on Vole and provide testimony on behalf of the prosecution in the case. But there are still more twists and turns to come.

 

The performances in this teleplay version of The Witness for the Prosecution were superb, with great work from Kim Cattrall as the victim, Monica Dolan as the maid, and Andrea Riseborough as Romaine, the “wife”. Billy Howle as Vole was hit-or-miss. But the film’s real star is the diminutive Toby Jones as Vole’s desperate attorney, John Mayhew. The film-makers actually turned this into Mayhew’s story, more than those more central to the mystery itself. This is a double-edged sword — Peters easily carries the film as the main character, but if you’re a purest and wish to see an accurate and fair adaptation of Christie’s actual story, this misses the mark.

 

Production design is great, but I had serious issues with how dark and muddy the cinematographers chose to make everything — 2/3rds of the film seem murky and foggy, and I ended up being very frustrated — I wanted to see the actors’ expressions and most of the time that was difficult. Ultimately, I can only give this adaptation of The Witness for the Prosecution a 6 out of 10 on BookGuide’s rating scale — there’s lots to recommend it, but also lots to be annoyed with. Your mileage may vary.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the 2015 video adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, by the same production team.] [Also available in traditional print format.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this TV-movie ] | [ official BBC The Witness for the Prosecution web site ]

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

 

Hey mystery fans! Don't miss this month's Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group discussion of the works of Elly Griffiths. The April 2021 Just Desserts meeting, tonight at 6:30 p.m. on Zoom. For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts

Our Mistletoe Mysteries booklist has now been updated for 2020!

Updated Booklist!

One of the booklists we maintain on the BookGuide readers advisory site, which is among our most popular, is Mistletoe Mysteries -- a comprehensive guide to mystery fiction with a setting related to year-end holidays (Christmas, Hanukah, Winter Solstice, Eid, Kwanzaa, New Year's). Each year, this booklist is updated with new additions published in the preceeding 12 months, not to mention older titles we've learned about since the last update.

The Mistletoe Mysteries online booklist has now been updated to be current with all-known 2020 releases. Note: This year, we found a large number of older seasonally-appropriate mysteries which had not been included on our list before, which we've now added, in addition to all the new 2020 additions.

For this list, we include only books released through mainstream publishers -- you will not find self-published, independently-published, vanity-press, CreateSpace, or Kindle-exclusive titles listed here. (For a similar list, that does include a lot of those which the Lincoln City Libraries do not include, try The Christmas Mystery Book List at the Cozy Mystery List website).

All titles currently owned by the Lincoln City Libraries are hotlinked in the list to our online catalog, so you can check on availability and/or place holds. Titles no longer owned by our library system should be available to borrow through our InterLibrary Loan service, where we can borrow materials from other libraries on your behalf. Check out the list of holiday ho-ho-homicides at the link below:

Mistletoe Mysteries

New BookTalk Booklist on BookGuide: Historical Mysteries set in the Roaring Twenties

Interested in murder mysteries set in the era of flappers, the Chicago mob, prohibition and the lead-up to the Great Depression. We unearthed a past BookTalk Booklist presented back in 2015, which we'd never shared in the BookGuide readers advisory resources before.

Check out the list of Roaring Twenties mysteries at the following link: 

Historical Mysteries set in the Roaring Twenties

New Booklist on BookGuide: Tartan Noir

After the popularity of the Nordic Noir booklists on our BookGuide readers advisory pages, we had requests for a similar list for Scottish authors, such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid. This field has been given the marketing name "Tartan Noir", and features a number of recent and contemporary Scottish mystery/thriller authors, basically dating back to 1977 and the publication of William McIlvanney's novel Laidlaw.

If you like brooding, somewhat dark, psychology mysteries or thrillers, set in anywhere from the gritty cities of Glasgow or Inverness, to the clover-covered hills of the Highlands -- you'll find plenty to browse through in this list.

This list tries to provide a solid overview of the field of Tartan Noir literature, and includes many titles that many not be in the Lincoln City Libraries' collection. We encourage you to use our InterLibrary Loan service to track down volumes that we may not own locally.

Check out the list of recommended reads at the following link: 

Tartan Noir: A Scottish Mystery Booklist

Book Review: Murder, She Said - The Quotable Miss Marple by Agatha Christie

Murder, She Said
based on works by Agatha Christie (823 Chr)

This is a charming little collection of quotations of lines from the Miss Marple novels and short stories by Agatha Christie, a companion volume to the similar Little Grey Cells: The Quotable Poirot, which highlighted the character of Hercule Poirot, her other great detective. Though there are far fewer Marple novels and stories than Poirot, the editors of this collection still manage to assemble a surprisingly thought-provoking selection — broken down into a variety of categories addressing relationships, motive, and Marple’s views on herself. This should appeal to anyone who’s a Christie fan, or even just the casual mystery reader who wants some more insight into one of the most recognizable sleuths in this literary genre.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Little Grey Cells: The Quotable Poirot and Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories, both by Agatha Christie.]

[ official Murder She Said page on the official Agatha Christie web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

New BooksTalk Booklist: Bibliomysteries!

Former Lincoln City Libraries staff member Mary S. (now with the Nebraska Library Commission), was the guest BooksTalk presenter at Bethany Branch Library on April 12, 2019. Her theme was mystery fiction dealing with books, literature, libraries and bookstores.

Check out her list of recommended reading at the following link:

Bibliomysteries

Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories
by Agatha Christie

During the course of her writing career, Dame Agatha Christie wrote 33 full-length novels featuring her iconic Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot, starting with The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920 and ending with Curtain in 1975. In the intervening years, she also wrote over 50 short stories that featured the detective, and which were collected in various smaller stories collections at various times. Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories collects all of those shorter works in one large omnibus collection, placing them in chronological order according to their first appearances.

If you’ve only ever sampled Poirot before, or, perhaps, only read some of the more famous full novels to feature him, this collection gives you a perfect opportunity to fill in all the gaps in his long-running storyline. If you’re mainly familiar with the televised Poirot stories, in which he was played by David Suchet in 70 episodes over the course of 24 years, you will find the original source material for most of those episodes here in this collection. I will admit, even as a Christie and Poirot fan, that this is a dense volume — there are A LOT of stories to read in this collection. This is the type of book to savor over a lengthy period of time — pulling it out whenever you are in the mood for just a little Poirot, and then putting it away again for another rainy day.

None-the-less, if you are a Christie and Poirot complete-ist, as I am, this should be an essential part of your reading collection. Put your “little grey cells” to work and start catching up on this extensive body of mystery classics!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the 33 full-length Hercule Poirot novels by Agatha Christie. Check out this Hercule Poirot reading list on BookGuide.]

[ publisher’s official Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories web page] | [ official Agatha Christie web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Special Event: Don’t miss “The Mystery of Agatha Christie”, a special 75-minute presentation at the Bennett Martin Public Library on the evening of, November 7th, 2018, 6:30-7:45 p.m. — a celebration of all things “Christie”, covering the author and her life (including her mysterious 11-day disappearance), her entire body of written work, and the stage, screen and television adaptations of her stories. But first, join fellow theater-goers in attending the play Black Coffee, not-so-coincidentally starring this very reviewer as Hercule Poirot, at the Lincoln Community Playhouse on October 19-21 and November 2-4 2018.

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

The Tree of Hands by Ruth Rendell + Just Desserts tonight!!

The Tree of Hands
by Ruth Rendell [Hoopla]

In advance of the April 2017 Just Desserts mystery book group meeting, where we discussed the entire body of works by British suspense writer Ruth Rendell, I asked one of the members — a huge Rendell fan — which single stand-along novel they would most recommend, and The Tree of Hands was what they suggested. It was one of two Rendell titles I read for that book group meeting, and was, by far, the best!

Rendell is a master of creating casts full of characters with mental twists, and this novel is a perfect example of this. There are multiple seemingly-independent storylines that are running simultaneously, and appear to have little to do with each other. But by the end of the book, all the separate characters have crossed each other’s paths, often to the detriment of everyone involved. Very few of the primary characters in this one — a successful writer who’s just lost her child in a tragedy and finds herself “gifted” with a stolen replacement, a con artist trying to sell a home he doesn’t own, a naive young man in love with an older woman, whose flaws he can’t see, and a mentally-damaged older mother with a limited grasp on reality — are people who you’ll like, but Rendell’s storytelling makes their individual plot threads extremely compelling, and you’ll be hard-pressed to guess where they’ll all end up.

In the end, I was extremely impressed by the complex storytelling and well-defined characters in The Tree of Hands, and strongly recommend it as an excellent example of Rendell’s stand-alone psychological suspense novels. If you like it, check out the Just Desserts handout on Rendell’s complete body of work to track down some more of her novels.

[ Wikipedia page for The Tree of Hands ] | [ publisher’s official Ruth Rendell web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Don't miss this month's Just Desserts mystery fiction book discussion club meeting -- being held TONIGHT, May 31st, 6:30-8:00 at the South Branch Library at 27th & South St. Tonight's theme is: "Series Share" -- all attendees were encouraged to read the first or second volume in ANY new mystery series that has begun in the past 3 years. Everyone will get a chance to speak about the series they sampled (and whether or not they'd recommend it). This month's meeting always generates a good "recommended reading list" for mystery fans!

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell

From Doon With Death
by Ruth Rendell [Compact Disc Rendell]

In advance of the April 2017 Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group meeting, where we discussed the entire body of work by British suspense writer Ruth Rendell, I sampled both one of her stand-alone suspense titles, and one of her police procedurals, featuring Inspector Reginald Wexford. This was the Wexford novel.

From Doon With Death is actually the first in the Wexford series, with 23 more to follow if you end up enjoying it. As Rendell put it in interviews, Wexford was “born a 52-year-old-man”. In this novel, he’s already a gruff, seasoned police veteran, one of the more experienced members of the force in a relatively small country community. When a seemingly mild-mannered housewife is killed, with some emotionally-based brutality, Wexford and his young partner have to start digging into lives that on the surface seem placid and normal, but which, under the surface, have a lot of turmoil. The characters in this are extremely well-defined, from the central police investigators to the myriad of suspects in the murder. And, while some the police procedural elements seem quite realistic, there’s also a bit of a laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing that seemed unprofessional.

However, the plot is fairly fast-paced, the sleuths are intriguing, and the ending, while shocking in 1964 standards, when the book came out, is still a bit of a twist even today. I do still recommend this volume, and the Inspector Wexford series in general. If you like these characters, you can also check out the Ruth Rendell Mysteries on DVD, four seasons of a TV series adapting many of her key Wexford novels. You can see a complete list of Rendell’s works in the Just Desserts handout from that meeting.

[ publisher’s official From Doon With Death web page ] | [ publisher’s official Ruth Rendell web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Psych's Guide to Crime Fighting for the Totally Unqualified by "Shawn Spencer"

Psych’s Guide to Crimefighting for the Totally Unqualified
by “Shawn Spencer” with “Burton Guster” [791.457 PsyYs] 

After watching the Psych reunion TV-movie in December 2017, I’ve lately enjoyed watching a bunch of episodes (on both cable TV and DVD) of this charming and eccentric comedy/drama, which ran from 2006 to 2014. Re-watching episodes reminded me of this book, one of the strangest and quirkiest TV tie-in books I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been collected tie-in books since the early 1970s!

Credited as being written by the series’ main characters, “psychic detective” Shawn Spencer and his sidekick/parter, pharmaceutical rep Burton “Gus” Guster, this book is a totally nuts, stream-of-consciousness wander through the kinds of information you might need if you wanted to become a private detective, only told by someone who has absolutely no true skills in that subject. In the series, Shawn pretended to be a psychic detective, so that he could use his uncanny gift of a photographic memory and the ability to almost instantaneously interpret the connections between random facts and evidence, to solve crimes and be the “big shot”. That, and make use of the training his retired cop father drilled into him throughout his misspent youth.

In this book, “Shawn” runs roughshod over traditional detective guidebooks, bouncing from one unconnected topic to another like a pinball machine with ADHD. On one page, he may be offering tips on how to read a crime scene, then he jumps to fantasizing about appropriate cars for P.I.s (like Magnum’s Ferrari and the helicopter from Airwolf), then he’ll offer a pop quiz on how to be a sidekick, a family tree of cop friend Lassiter’s favorite guns, and a stick-figure guide to how to tail someone (drawn on cocktail napkins). He’ll also throw in random pie charts, tables and statistical graphics, that have no real bearing on what he’s just been talking about.

Those who appreciated the off-kilter humor of the Psych TV series, with Shawn’s frequent non-sequiturs and divergences into things unrelated to the cases he and Gus worked on, will appreciate this book, filled as it is with seemingly unrelated pop culture references, and tons of photos from the series.

However, those looking for a legitimate book about how to be a private investigator, should drop this book and run screaming into the hills.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try all eight seasons of the television series Psych. There were also several Psych tie-in novels, which you can see on our TV Tie-Ins booklist.]

[ publisher's official Psych’s Guide to Crime Fighting… web site ] | [ official Psych TV series web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

The Labors of Hercules by Agatha Christie

The Labors of Hercules
by Agatha Christie

I’m not usually a fan, for some reason, of the Poirot novels that consist of short stories, even though I really enjoy the Sherlock Homes stories which are mostly all short. I did like this novel however and I think it was because there was a common thread running through; each story was a play on of the 12 labors of Hercules. At the start of the novel Hercule Poirot is chatting to someone who remarks on his first name, and how it reminded him of Hercules. Poirot admits to not having read the stories of Hercules before, so he sits down to and decides to set himself 12 tasks to mirror those of Hercules, thusly framing the book. As I’ve said before, this is a series you can read in any order, so no worries if you’ve never read Poriot before. I don’t think I’d use the word cozy to describe them, but they are light and non-graphic mysteries. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Hugh Fraser, who does such a good job that when I listen to a Poirot book that’s not performed by him it just doesn’t sound right.

[ official Agatha Christie web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

New BooksTalk Booklist: Fall Into a Good Book - 2017

On September 1st, 2017 at the Bethany BooksTalk group, and September 25th, 2017 at the Gere BooksTalk group, South Branch's Marcy G. presented a booktalk featuring some of her favorite recent reads.

You can see her booklist, featuring 18 books -- mainly mysteries -- at the following link:

Fall Into a Good Book - 2017

Check out Haunting Homicides on BookGuide

Looking for a good "Halloween" or "Fall Harvest"-themed murder mystery? Check out the Haunting Homicides booklist on the Lincoln City Libraries' BookGuide readers advisory website.

From Kathie Aaron's Behind Chocolate Bars to Valerie Wolzien's All Hallows Evil, you'll find several dozen reading suggestions in the category of "pumpkin spice slayings"!

Cruel & Unusual by Patricia Cornwell

Cruel & Unusual
by Patricia Cornwell

I’ve been reading mysteries and thrillers since the 1970s, and I was surprised to consider that I had never read of Patricia Cornwell’s series featuring coroner Kay Scarpetta, until the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery book discussion group discussed Cruel & Unusual, the fourth in the series, for our final meeting of 2016. Cornwell, with the Scarpetta series, is credited with being one of the authors to popularize the mystery sub-genre focusing on coroner and forensic work, long before TV shows like CSI and Bones became huge hits (although Quincy, M.E., with Jack Klugman, ran on NBC from 1976 to 1982).

In the Scarpetta novels, the private life and relationships of Scarpetta, her co-workers and her relatives, take has much priority as the mystery-solving. This is particularly the case in Cruel & Unusual, where partway through the book it is apparent that coroner Scarpetta is being set up to take the fall in some shady dealings in the medical examiner’s office. Supporting characters like homicide detective Pete Marino, FBI profiler Benton Wesley, and Kay’s tech-savvy niece Lucy Farinelli (a brilliant but anti-social 17-year-old in this novel), all serve as major supporting characters in this volume. The plot of Cruel & Unusual was pretty straight-forward, but I did find myself getting interested in the characters and their lives. While Scarpetta herself almost seemed “too good to be true”, she was also quite a flawed character, which made me care a little bit more about her and her fate. All in all, I’d call this a strong mystery/thriller, although there is such character development in each volume that it would be best to start this series at the beginning, with 1990’s Postmortem.

[ official Patricia Cornwell web site ]

See other titles and authors read by the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group on the Just Desserts archives

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Velda: Girl Detective Vol. 1 by Ron Miller

Velda: Girl Detective Vol. 1
by Ron Miller

I knew nothing about this till I saw it while browsing Hoopla. You can tell by looking at it that it’s old or done in an old style and it is former. Velda, the detective, solves a variety of crimes as the book is broken up into short cases. We find out in one of the stories her previous job was a risqué dancer, which actually does come into the story. I find it kind of funny how she uses her past career to talk people into confessing to a crime or exposing their lies to get the bottom of the case. She does appear nude a few times, but is covered so the readers don’t see everything, but the other characters do. So to me it a comedic mystery series and I really liked it. I was reminded a bit of reading the Batman newspaper comic strips because of the age (1950s-1960s); they are both about a crime fighting hero trying to make the city a better place in a time gone by. Right now there are eight other issues of Velda if you read this and like it. You can check them out digitally on Hoopla, which is linked on our webpage. You can also get to Hoopla by searching for the title in the catalog and clicking on the download button.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Batman Newspaper Comics Vol. 1 or 2, by Whitney Ellsworth, Batman the Cat and the Bat, by Fabian Nicieza or Danger Girl: Deluxe, by J. Scott Campbell, all available on Hoopla.] [ publisher’s official Velda, Girl Detective web page ] | [ official Ron Miller — Black Cat Studios web site ]

Recommended by Kristen A.
Gere Branch Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!