Towards Zero

tags: Agatha Christie, mystery, Superintendent Battle

⭐⭐⭐⭐out of five

An elderly widow is murdered at a clifftop seaside house...What is the connection between a failed suicide attempt, a wrongful accusation of theft against a schoolgirl, and the romantic life of a famous tennis player? To the casual observer, apparently nothing. But when a houseparty gathers at Gull's Point, the seaside home of an elderly widow, earlier events come to a dramatic head. It's all part of a carefully laid plan - for murder...

Agatha Christie's Superintendent Battle solves a complicated murder where almost all the characters are suspects. 3 out of my 4 guesses were incorrect. I was tricked! 

Superintendent Battle is on the first part of the novel to handle his daughter's case at school and does not appear again until about 62% into the book but his presence is always striking even when he remembered Poirot and his daughter in his examination of the murder scene and evidence. Great mystery from Agatha Christie where the current and ex wives of a famous tennis player spend a tense week in the same house. Unexpected romance happened at the end of the short book. Very entertaining. 

Highly recommended.

The Thursday Murder Club

 

Tags: murder mystery, Netflix, Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

Coming to Netflix on August 28, 2025

Four irrepressible retirees spend their time solving cold case murders for fun, but their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn when they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands. Based on Richard Osman’s bestselling novel, The Thursday Murder Club.

Perfect cast

Helen Mirren - Elizabeth

Pierce Brosnan - Ron

Ben Kingsley - Ibrahim

Second Lady Usha Vance Summer Reading Challenge

The Second Lady Summer Reading Challenge is here! Click the link in bio for additional details 📖 #2ndLadySummerReads pic.twitter.com/FgNHA3YFwe

— Second Lady Usha Vance (@SLOTUS) June 1, 2025

Her post on X has a letter to all children across the United States

Dear Future Summer Readers, Adventure, imagination, and discovery await - right between the pages of a book! We are excited to invite all children (K-8) to participate in the Second Lady's 2025 Summer Reading Challenge! Joining is easy: Just read 12 books of your choice between June l and September 5 and track your progress on the attached Reading Log. Each book you read brings you a step closer to completing the challenge. Once you've read 12 books, ask your parents/guardians to let us know, and we'll send you a personalized certificate and a small prize! With your completed form submission, we'll enter your name into a drawing for the chance to visit the Nation's Capital with a chaperone. Terms and conditions apply. More information can be found at wh.gov/read. We hope you will join us in participating this summer. Let the reading adventures begin!

Secrets We Keep

tags: Danish, drama, murder mystery, Netflix series

⭐⭐

Cecilie grows suspicious when her neighbor's young Filipino au pair, Ruby, disappears from an affluent Copenhagen neighborhood. Driven to uncover the truth, Cecilie launches her own investigation, only to find more than she bargained for. 

This drama murder mystery story is not unique and has been done many many times before. The acting and direction is mediocre if not almost terrible. The main character, the rich Cecilie runs ALL THE TIME. Once or twice is fine but the scenes where she is running is just a filler for telling a short tragic story. I guessed who the culprit/s is/are when they first appeared in the very first episode. It is that obvious. Of course, there is no justice for the dead Filipino woman. So what is the point of the show? SMH😾

Not recommended. Trust me.

Nonnas

tags: grandmas, Italian, Netflix movie, family restaurant, Vince Vaughn

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5

From IMDB

After losing his beloved mother, a man risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with actual grandmothers as the chefs.

The nonnas are played by Lorraine Bracco, Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, and Susan Sarandon. all 70+ years old. Cast is mostly Italian actors or are part Italian. 

Highly recommended. I love it and will watch it again. The movie made me want to cook a batch of Sunday Gravy which I cooked just once, 15 years ago. .

The Palace At The End Of The Sea

tags: bildungsroman, historical fiction 

⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

A young man comes of age and crosses continents in search of an identity—and a cause—at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War in a thrilling, timely, and emotional historical saga.

New York City, 1929. Young Theo Sterling’s world begins to unravel as the Great Depression exerts its icy grip. He finds it hard to relate to his father. His father, a Jewish self-made businessman, refuses to give up on the American dream, and his mother, a refugee from religious persecution in Mexico, holds fast to her Catholic faith. When disaster strikes the family, Theo must learn who he is. A charismatic school friend and a firebrand girl inspire him to believe he can fight Fascism and change the world, but each rebellion comes at a higher price, forcing Theo to question these ideologies too.

From New York’s Lower East Side to an English boarding school to an Andalusian village in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Theo’s harrowing journey from boy to man is set against a backdrop of societies torn apart from within, teetering on the edge of a terrible war to which Theo is compulsively drawn like a moth to a flame.

This novel is one of the choices on Amazon First Reads for June 2025. I downloaded it as soon as I saw the author: Simon Tolkien. I have read just one book by this author which I enjoyed. 

All the members of Theo's family, mother, father, and specially Theo are repulsive. The father is Jewish and the mother is a Catholic from Mexico. Theo as a child is very disrespectful to his parents. He is full of hate for his parents and it is not explained why. He just is. His parents are not likable but they do not deserve Theo's contempt for them. It doesn't make sense because the story is set first in 1929 and I don't believe children were like Theo at the time. The author wrote unfavorably the Catholic religion and its practices, capitalism, Republican (Herbert Hoover), and even Jews and seemed to sympathize with communism. Theo is a magnet to communist characters even as a 13 year old boy (huh?!!), first in New York, then England, then in Spain. What? Why is every communist leaning person whether adult, child, or teenager drawn to him? It's not credible. It is too contrived.

This is Book 1 of 2 books and I won't be reading the second. Not recommended.

Lessons In Love

tags: murder, romance

⭐⭐⭐out of 5

From Goodreads

Lady Lucinda Esmond’s swine of a father was forever fleecing young bucks in London’s gaming halls—until he met Cpt. Mark Chamfrey, who, having been once cheated, would not be made a fool of again and promptly kidnapped ten-year-old Lucinda for ransom . . .

But when Chamfrey thought better of it and returned the girl, Esmond nonetheless exacted his own price: Chamfrey could redeem himself and save his skin by agreeing to marry his little victim nine years hence, just time enough for Chamfrey to inherit a title and fortune. Lucinda’s father could not have foreseen what a beauty Lucinda would become as those years passed—nor that Chamfrey, a newly made marquess, would actually come to welcome his so-called punishment . . .

Originally published under the name Marion Chesney, this twist-filled tale of Regency romance is by the New York Times–bestselling author of the Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin series.

I thought this M. C. Beaton novelette would be strictly romantic comedy set during the Regency era but somehow quickly turned into a series of murders. 

Spoilers

Heavenly Ever After

tags: Korean dramedy, Netflix, romantic fantasy

12 episodes, Saturday and Sunday

An elderly woman named Lee Hae-sook died at the age of 80. Since her husband's accident, she has provided for her family on her own. Hae-sook makes an odd choice when she first arrives at the Heaven Admission Counseling Office: she decides to keep her 80-year-old appearance for her afterlife. Her husband's affectionate remarks that she was gorgeous at all ages, but particularly now, had an impact on this choice. Hae-sook and her husband, Ko Nak-Joon, are reunited in Heaven.

But she is shocked to see him in his younger, thirty-year-old self, and he is equally shocked to see her looking older. As it happens, Hae-sook is the only individual in Heaven who has decided against going back to their younger self. In the meantime, Nak-joon delivers letters of well wishes from Earth while working as a postman in Heaven. While he waited for Hae-sook, he constructed a stunning home in Heaven and died before her.

I love it already after watching the first 2 episodes. My fave Son Suk-Ku stars in this comedy drama set in heaven. He is so funny and cute in a comedic role.

I think this series might be a tearjerker also but with more comedy and romance. The dogs who also went to heaven reunited with their humans. There is only one cat in heaven, Lee Hae-sook and her husband's pet who died before both of them did. I'm guessing the cat got to heaven maybe because Lee Hae-sook put a cross on her ashes/urn. 

 

George Bellairs

tags: British, George Bellairs, mystery,

⭐⭐⭐⭐

From Goodreads

The Classic Detective Inspector Littlejohn Mysteries by George Bellairs brings together seven riveting cases of the intuitive and methodical Inspector Littlejohn. This illustrated collection includes the novels Outrage on Gallows Hill, The Crime at Halfpenny Bridge, Death on the Last Train, and The Case of the Demented Spiv, Death In Room Five, among others. Each story is steeped in British charm, capturing the nuances of small-town life while delving into the darkness that lies beneath the surface.

Bellairs’s Littlejohn is known for his patience and keen observation, which allow him to navigate complex webs of secrets and motives, all while exuding a calm demeanor. The plots twist through surprising revelations and intriguing suspects, combining wit and suspense that keeps readers guessing until the end. Bellairs's classic storytelling style and Inspector Littlejohn's deductive brilliance make this collection a must-read for fans of traditional British detective fiction.

George Bellairs is the nom de plume of Harold Blundell, a crime writer and bank manager born in Heywood, near Rochdale, Lancashire, who settled in the Isle of Man on retirement. He wrote more than 50 books, most featuring the series' detective Inspector Littlejohn. He also wrote four novels under the alternative pseudonym Hilary Landon. 

 I recently finished reading all 7 books when the collection became available from Hoopla.. The past 2 years I read 

The Case of the Seven Whistlers 

The Case of the Headless Jesuit 

The Cursing Stones Murder 

The Body in the Dumb River 

Death Before Breakfast

Murder Adrift

I like George Bellairs's books. He has great sense of humor. His numerous characters have their own distinct personalities. They are not the usual cardboard cutouts that are very common in latest mystery fiction books.

Highly recommended if you are not a reader who takes offense at everything.

Karla's Choice

tags: espionage, George Smiley, mystery, thriller

⭐⭐out of five

From Goodreads

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor in Whitehall—unconfirmed and a little scandalous—that George Smiley might almost be happy. But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple interview Szusanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But, as Smiley well knows, even the softest step in the shadows resounds with terrible danger. Soon, he is back there, in East Berlin, and on the trail of his most devious enemy’s hidden past.

Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway’s Karla’s Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction’s greatest writer, John le Carré.

The book was written by John le Carré's son Nicholas Cornwell under the name Nick Harkaway. I read this with very low expectations and I was correct in my presumption that it will be disappointing. 

The novel is set in 1963 but it reads like it happens in the present.. The author writes really well but it just doesn't feel that it is in the 60s with a sea of super women doing spy stuff. The young secretary of the character whom Karla wants to assassinate went to Control asking to be included in the mission, and just like that, she was made to accompany Smiley in his pursuit of the same man to save him. No training on how to work as a spy and with spies. Unbelievably stupid and so 2024. Almost all of le Carré's novels are inhabited by men except for one of my favorites, Connie Sachs, and of course George's wife, Ann. 

Some of the characters in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are here. Connie Sachs, Peter Guillam, Toby Esterhase, and Jim Prideaux have long-ish presence. Bill Haydon has a few appearances with annoying smart alecky lines. They have no similarities to the original characters. Nick Harkaway did a disservice to his father, IMHO.

I didn't like that the author made George Smiley a roly-poly James Bond with all the running and evading the bad guys. He is usually taciturn but very clever and cunning. Here he is soooo chatty. Hello Nick. Your father wrote George as the antithesis of James Bond! Sheesh.

Not recommended specially if you have read both The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.