Today’s post by Joe Farace
“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them”—Mark Twain
My book-reading year is off to a good start. If you read my last book club post, you’ll know I read 79 books in 2025. This year, so far, I just finished reading book number three, Sharpe’s Storm, a rip-roaring yarn from Bernard Cornwell.
One of the other books I’ve read this year is Slow Horses by Mick Herron, which brings me to an email I received from a reader after mentioning, in the last book club post, about receiving a signed, collector’s edition of that book as a gift.
Bill from Tulsa wrote: ”Why are you reading Slow Horses—he didn’t mentioned that I had previously read Dead Lions—when you have been watching the TV series that is based on the book.” I often read books that had films or TV show produced based on them, The books generally have more detail and occasionally subplots and even characters that never appeared in the film. Sometimes, as in the case of Stephen King’s 11/22/63, I am disappointed in the movie because it changes too much of what I enjoyed about the book. I started watching the Hulu miniseries based on that book and hated the show so much that I stopped watching after one and one half episodes. I’ve read all of the Thursday Murder Club books and look forward to finding the movie based on the first book on DVD at the library. I’m not going to subscribe to Netflix to watch it.
The Coziest of Cozy Mysteries
I am currently reading The Hidden City, a Charles Lenox Mystery by Charles Finch. This the latest of 17 novels in the Charles Lenox Mystery series that began in 2007.
Several years ago I tried reading one of the other books in the series but gave up after I-don’t-know-how-many pages. Stephen King says he gives a book 50 pages before giving up; John Grisham likes to give a book 100 pages. Recently on Instagram, I saw someone—I can’t remember whom—offered an interesting rule about this: The number of pages you should read before giving up is equal to 100 minus your age. The concept being that younger readers have lots of book reading years ahead of them, while older readers, like me, do not. In my case that doesn’t give a book many pages to interest me and I gave The Hidden City many more pages than that mainly because it was the last book in my TBR stack! I’m glad I did.
Lenox is the opposite of Sherlock Holmes although they exist within a similar time frame in Victorian London. He is an aristocrat and married to Lady Jane, a woman of noble birth. He has two adorable and precocious daughters. He’s not a lone wolf and owns a detective agency and is partners with two people, one of whom—a woman—is also of noble birth and has Junior Detectives working for him. In that way, Lenox is more like Max Allan Collins’ Nathan Heller than Holmes.
There is a mystery that wraps around the book’s cozy contents and it’s the best kind. A simple story of an old woman who was a housekeeper during Lenox’s childhood seems to be harassed by a vagrant who is sleeping in her vestibule and appears to have tired to break into her apartment. In the best whodunit tradition this incident has more layers than a red onion.
Lenox has his own “Watson” who kind of bounces in and out of the story but appears to not do much. When late in the book, when Lenox uncovers the name of the “Moriarty” behind a string of suspicious deaths and theft of property you ask, wait a minutes, “who’s this guy?” only to discover that in tried-and-true fashion you had met the dastardly villain early in the book—as required by the code of all mystery writing, especially cozies—and boy was I surprised. The encounter with this Moriarty happens, not at Reichenbach Falls but in Lenox’s study and Lenox gets more than he bargained for in this encounter. NO SPOILERS.
There are three endings in the book: This first is when Lenox confronts Lade Jane at a women’s suffrage demonstration; suffrage being a plot line that runs throughout the book. It’s a perfect ending but Finch keeps going, first with a look at a heartwarming Christmas scene at the Lenox’s country estate and then a final chapter where a sequel in the series is set up with an upcoming trip to the United States. There are so many Lenox family subplots that you will often wonder, “what happened to the mystery?,” but over time and well past 100 pages, I came to know and love the Lenox family and almost didn’t care about the mystery, only to be rushed slap dash into its speedy and unexpected finale.
When I (tried to) read that first Charles Lenox novel, I was a big fan of hard-boiled detective stories but as I’ve gotten older, I seem to gravitate more to the cozy mystery genre. The Hidden City has made me love the genre even more.
Upcoming Books (TBR)
Not to beat books by Mick Herron to death but I just ordered a copy of Herron’s Real Tigers and am waiting for my local Prime driver to drop off the book any minute now. Wait! It’s here!
Anther book that’s winging its way to me via the USPS and eBay is Dinosaur Shaman, which is a graphic novel that’s the third book of the 1986 Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (that’s the series’ real title) trilogy by Mark Schultz. I already own the first two books in this series. If you can get your hands on any of these three graphic novels you will be delighted with this post-apocalyptic tale. As far as art style is concerned, Schultz’s style of illustration is right out of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant and his story telling is engaging. Which brings me to…
Over dinner last night, I asked Mary if graphic novels count in my “books read” list. Her answer was “yes, it’s a book.” So I’ll be adding it to my list.
Update: I just received the book and not only is it in pristine condition, but it’s a signed copy!