Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and is currently revived by Taking on a World of Words. You can participate by answering the three questions below and leaving a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!
What are you currently reading?
In the seeming tranquility of Regency Square in Cheltenham live the diverse inhabitants of its ten houses. One summer’s evening, the square’s rivalries and allegiances are disrupted by a sudden and unusual death―an arrow to the head, shot through an open window at no. 6.
Unfortunately for the murderer, an invitation to visit had just been sent by the crime writer Aldous Barnet, staying with his sister at no. 8, to his friend Superintendent Meredith. Three days after his arrival, Meredith finds himself investigating the shocking murder two doors down. Six of the square’s inhabitants are keen members of the Wellington Archery Club, but if Meredith thought that the case was going to be easy to solve, he was wrong…
The Cheltenham Square Murder is a classic example of how John Bude builds a drama within a very specific location. Here the Regency splendour of Cheltenham provides the perfect setting for a story in which appearances are certainly deceiving.
Amazon
I was intrigued by the method of murder: an arrow since it’s unusual. The only other mysteries I have read using this weapon are Still Life by Louise Penny and one of the Longmire books by Craig Johnson. So far, it is an exciting and intricate read.
In Agatha Christie’s classic mystery 4:50 From Paddington, a woman in one train witnesses a murder occurring in another passing one…and only Miss Marple believes her story.
For an instant the two trains ran side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth McGillicuddy stared helplessly out of her carriage window as a man tightened his grip around a woman’s throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away. But who, apart from Mrs. McGillicuddy’s friend Jane Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there are no other witnesses, no suspects, and no case — for there is no corpse, and no one is missing.
Miss Marple asks her highly efficient and intelligent young friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe family, who seem to be at the heart of the mystery, and help unmask a murderer.
Amazon
4:50 from Paddington is my favorite Miss Marple mystery and is my July Miss Marple Monthly pick.
What did you recently finish reading?
“Who can I trust?” Love-sick Dick Markham is reeling. He’s set to marry Lesley Grant—a woman whom he learns is not who she appears to be. She seems to have been associated with three poisonings, all of which were in locked rooms. Another crime has been committed and we will watch the great Dr. Fell investigate through Markham’s watchful eyes.
That night the enigmatic fortune teller—and chief accuser—is found dead in an impossible locked-room setup, casting suspicion onto Grant and striking doubt into the heart of her lover. Lured by the scent of the impossible case, Dr. Gideon Fell arrives from London to examine the perplexing evidence and match wits with a meticulous killer at large.
First published in 1944, Till Death Do Us Part remains a pacey and deeply satisfying impossible crime story, championed by Carr connoisseurs as one of the very best examples of his mystery writing talents. This edition includes an introduction by CWA Diamond Dagger Award-winning author Martin Edwards.
Amazon
You can read my view tomorrow! This fulfills my last British Crime Classics Bingo Square: a locked room mystery.
Midnight, on a stormy night in June, the luxury liner SS Aspasie founders on the rocks off the Lizard Peninsula on the Cornish coast. Austin Voogdt, the ‘Sherlock of the sea’ and his crew of the salvage ship Godwit rescue who they can, but a mystery comes to light after the survivors reach land. How are stolen banknotes from a stash worth £80,000 turning up in circulation when the banker who stole them is supposed to be at the bottom of the Atlantic? Voogdt attempts to outwit Scotland Yard and the French Police, tracking the illicit currency through Cornwall, across the Channel to the cliff-lands of Finistère in Brittany, in search of the criminal and his accomplices
A,azon
The Ocean Sleuth is book 13 of my #20booksofsummer23 challenge. You can read my review here.
Pat and Jean Abbott are in lovely Laguna Beach, invited to visit some distant relatives at the Black Cypress estate. But the invitation is more professional than personal, since Pat is a PI and family member Enid Ponsonby appears to be targeted by a killer. Whether her disagreeable personality has anything to do with it remains to be seen—but in the meanwhile, the Abbotts will have to untangle multiple mysteries involving a knife thrower, a dead New Orleans gangster, and a tidal wave of potential suspects.
Amazon
Frances Crane’s Jean and Abbot series was new totally new to me and I had a great time with Black Cypress. A review of the book will be out in August.
What will you read next?
An isolated country house sets the scene for a wartime mystery from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author known as the American Agatha Christie.
Amazon
As far as Carol Spencer is concerned, the war has spoiled everything. She and Don had been engaged for years and were on the verge of marriage when he was shot down in the South Pacific, leaving Carol on the verge of spinsterhood at twenty-four. She wants to take some kind of job in the war effort, but her invalid mother demands that Carol accompany her to the family’s summer home in Maine. But when they arrive at the faded mansion, they find it completely locked up. The servants are gone, the lights are dark—and there is a body in the closet.
There is a killer on the grounds of the abandoned Spencer estate, and the police believe it is Carol. As war rages across the seas, Carol Spencer fights a private battle of her own—to prove her own innocence, and to save her mother’s life.
Another #20booksofsummer23 read that I need to get to so I can stay on track. I hope this one is a better read than The After House which was a disappointment.
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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