Although my house in Minnesota has 6 inches of snow and is under a winter advisory for another 18 inches- I’m turning my mind towards spring! Verdant fields, reseeding the garden, planting new olive trees. My dog is delighted and terrified of frogs. Let’s just say I dream of all things bright, bold, and green! Goodbye snow, hello tall, soft grass, and the smell of mint, basil, rosemary, and thyme from my herb garden. My love for green extends to books I’ll be reading this Spring: all the books have the word “Green” in the title. Let’s see what’s on my list!
Goodreads Synopsis:
Beautiful Sylvia Bain Atwood oversees her ailing father’s estate while her sister is his caregiver. But their father’s fortune has shadowy roots—and now one of his creditors is blackmailing the family. When the situation escalates to murder, defense lawyer Perry Mason will have his hands full in this mystery in Edgar Award–winning author Erle Stanley Gardner’s classic, long-running series, which has sold three hundred million copies and serves as the inspiration for the HBO show starring Matthew Rhys and Tatiana Maslany.
My thoughts:
The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister by Erle Stanley Gardner was the first book I thought of for this list. Maybe because the title reminds me of The Berenstain Bears and the Green-Eyed Monster, a childhood favorite, but I digress. This book has friction between sisters, blackmail, and, of course, the unflappable Perry Mason. I think it will be a winner!
Amazon Synopsis:
While in England, Pat and Jean Abbott are focused on contributing to the war effort in whatever way they can, but they don’t mind taking a weekend to join some other American expats at the country home of advertising man Steve Hayward and his wife. But before much fun can be had, a body is found on the premises. Pat isn’t so sure that everyone’s impulse to blame the death on a passing drifter or a Nazi spy is the answer—and when the spotlight of suspicion falls on a member of a house party he’s sure is innocent, he starts getting reluctantly involved in the case . .
My thoughts:
Pat and Jean Abbott are the protagonists of a country house murder mystery set in England…this should be interesting. This seems totally out of left field because they are so Californian in mannerism and attitude. I think Pat would feature well in a more severe Nazi hunter-type role, but Jean, well, she’s snarky and nosey, so I don’t know how easily she will work in this more somber story. What does all of this have to do with a cat? I don’t know. What it has to do with an apple-green cat is doubly mysterious!
Goodreads synopsis:
On a steamy day on Staten Island, a speeding car tears past a couple of beat cops and smashes into a delivery truck. In the front seat is Andy Rowan, pale and unconscious. In the back is a blonde—beautiful, naked, and dead.
She was an aspiring Miss America, minted in the wilds of Brooklyn, and he was the press agent who wanted to make her a star. Now she will never walk a runway again. Police, judge, and jury all consider the case open and shut, and a year later, Andy’s awaiting his turn in the electric chair. But Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with a zest for crime, believes the frightened little man innocent of the killing. She has nine days to save his life. It will take a miracle, but Miss Withers has worked miracles before.
The Green Ace is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.
My thoughts:
Eeek! The Green Ace is more serious than many other books in the Hildegarde Withers series. An innocent man on death row with a tight deadline and the highest stakes is a big case, which I think will take more than folksy wisdom and tenacity, which are the hallmarks of the previous books. I am intrigued by the darker tone explored in The Green Ace.
Goodreads synopsis:
This Golden Age masterclass of red herrings and tricky twists, first published in 1944, features a tense and claustrophobic investigation with a close-knit cast of suspects. “You have to reach for the greatest of the Great Names (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen) to find Christianna Brand’s rivals in the subtleties of the trade.” —Anthony Boucher in The New York Times It is 1942, and struggling up the hill to the new Kent military hospital Heron’s Park, postman Joseph Higgins is soon to deliver seven letters of acceptance for roles at the infirmary. He has no idea that the sender of one of the letters will be the cause of his demise in just one year’s time. When Higgins returns to Heron’s Park with injuries from a bombing raid in 1943, his inexplicable death by asphyxiation in the operating theatre casts four nurses and three doctors under suspicion, and a second death in quick succession invites the presence of the irascible—yet uncommonly shrewd—Inspector Cockrill to the hospital. As an air raid detains the inspector for the night, the stage is set for a tense and claustrophobic investigation with a close-knit cast of suspects.
My thoughts:
Another WWII mystery but this one sounds twisty. Poison Pen letters, a death foretold during surgery and Inspector Cockrill on the case.
Amazon synopsis:
Members of the Greene family keep dying while the pool of possible perpetrators keeps shrinking. Philo Vance—the independently wealthy, staggeringly brilliant, not remotely modest (and did we mention handsome?) amateur sleuth—uses his detective skills to unravel the murders, though sadly not before most of the Greene family has been bumped off. But that’s Our Philo: The Sleuth You Love to Hate.
I feel pretty called out by this synopsis because I do love to hate Philo Vance! Despite the fact that he is unabashedly a silly ass, I do like his stories and am interested in who is killing off the Green(e) family. Is this stretching my Spring theme a bit far? Yes, probably, but it’s my list so I make the rules.
Goodreads synopsis:
Did she jump—or was she jumped? A sleuthing couple looks into the disappearance of a young woman on the Golden Gate Bridge . . .
An abandoned car on the Golden Gate Bridge usually carries the sad suggestion of suicide. But after Pat and Jean Abbott spot the car in the fog and learn that it belongs to a friend’s niece, Katie Spinner, they begin to suspect that she is not in a watery grave but in the clutches of a kidnapper.
When one of Katie’s friends—who was supposed to go with her to the North Beach arts festival—turns up dead, the mystery of the missing young woman becomes only more challenging in this compelling 1950s mystery in the long-running PI series.
My thoughts:
The synopsis for Deathwish Green sounds like the Lana Del Rey Summertime Sadness music video in book form from the outset. However, I hope it isn’t a book about suicide—given the seaside and vacation vibes also intimated in the story, I am guessing not. I hope it’s more in the vein of adventuring on the water with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge as a major set piece. I like the Pat and Jean novels leaning into the California vibes.
Goodreads synopsis:
Penny visits a ski resort and stumbles upon several mysteries. Unknown enemies are trying to force the resort to close, and during her investigations, Penny discovers a mysterious green door in the resort that leads to a room that can only be entered by invitation. The Penny Parker mystery series.
My thoughts:
I am excited to read this entry into the Penny Parker series because it is written by Mildred A. Wirt, better known as Carolyn Keene, who is famous for writing the Nancy Drew series. Wirt has remarked that when her time with the syndicate in charge of writing Nancy Drew ended due to creative differences, she was more than happy to embark on writing her own series, which she thought was much better. I’m curious how Penny Parker, a part-time journalist, stacks up against her more popular counterpart.
Goodreads synopsis:
Phryne Fisher is doing one of her favorite things―dancing to the music of Tintagel Stone’s Jazzmakers at the Green Mill, Melbourne’s premier dance hall. And she’s wearing a sparkling lobelia-colored georgette dress. Nothing can flap the unflappable Phryne―especially on a dance floor with so many delectable partners. Nothing but death, that is. The dance competition is trailing into its last hours when suddenly a figure slumps to the ground. Phryne, conscious of how narrowly the weapon missed her own bare shoulder, back, and dress, investigates. Phryne follows the deadly trail into the dark smoky jazz clubs of Fitzroy, into the arms of eloquent strangers, and finally into the sky, as she uncovers a complicated family tragedy from the Great War and the damaged men who came back from ANZAC cove.
My thoughts:
Phryne’s investigation of a mystery surrounding a shady mill and wrongdoing during WWI sounds dangerous and right up her alley. Knowing Greenwood there will be lots of discussion about the rights of workers and returned soldier layered into the mystery.
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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