Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Christopher was dead.

-- from Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano. Well, that's as good a way as any to start a mystery book! Straight to the point.

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead is the second book in Elle Cosimano's mystery series featuring a novelist and single mom mistakenly thought to be a contract killer. I haven't read the first book, Finlay Donovan is Killing It, but found this one on my TBR shelf and am in the mood to give it a try. 

Have you read any of the Finlay Donovan books? What do you think of them?

 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead:

"She's their babysitter, Steven!" 

"And I'm their father! I want to see my kids."

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Finlay Donovan is—once again—struggling to finish her next novel and keep her head above water as a single mother of two. On the bright side, she has her live-in nanny and confidant Vero to rely on, and the only dead body she's dealt with lately is that of her daughter's pet goldfish.

On the not-so-bright side, someone out there wants her ex-husband, Steven, out of the picture. Permanently. Whatever else Steven may be, he's a good father, but saving him will send her down a rabbit hole of hit-women disguised as soccer moms, and a little bit more involvement with the Russian mob than she'd like.

Regeneration by Pat Barker -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Tiny Vices by Linda Dahl

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Finished with the War[,] A Soldier's Declaration

I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. 

-- from Regeneration by Pat Barker. 

Regeneration is the fictionalized story of real-life poet Siegfried Sassoon. The novel opens with the text of Sassoon's actual 1917 anti-war declaration, a declaration that landed him in military hospital for the "mentally unsound."

Regeneration is the first book in Pat Barker's World War I trilogy, followed by The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road, for which she won the Booker Prize in 1995. The three have been on my TBR shelf for a long, long time. Now that the audiobooks are available on Spotify, I am going to finally read them. It may seem weird to read books with my ears when I have the book books right here to read with my eyes, but I need a shortcut or I won't ever get to all the unread book on my shelves! 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Regeneration:

"I told him, time enough to do summat for the Empire when the Empire's done summat for you."  

"It's natural for the young to be idealistic."

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In 1917 Siegfried Sassoon, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. This novel tells what happened as only a novel can. It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired. It is a story of a battle for a man's mind in which only the reader can decide who is the victor, who the vanquished, and who the victim.
 
One of the most amazing feats of fiction of our time, Regeneration has been hailed by critics across the globe.  More than one hundred years since World War I, this book is as timely and relevant as ever.

Rereadings, edited by Anne Fadiman -- BOOK REVIEW

 

Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love

BOOK REVIEW

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Anne Fadiman's collection of essays about books and reading, Ex Libris, was wonderful. Her book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, is some of the finest nonfiction writing I've ever encountered. I grabbed Rereadings off my shelf with those two experiences in mind. 

Only then did I catch the subtitle and realize that Fadiman didn't write the essays in this book. She is the editor of this collection of essays by 17 other writers. Specifically, these are essays originally published in a literary quarterly called The American Scholar, written on the theme of revisiting a book originally read prior to age 25. 

I was disappointed that Fadiman wasn't the author, but the premise still appealed to me. I'm a subscriber and big fan of Slightly Foxed, a literary journal dedicated to celebrating backlist books. The essays in Rereadings sounded like those I gobble up whenever a new issued of Slightly Foxed arrives. I didn't recognize any of the essay writers in Rereadings, but I don't recognize the essay writers in Slightly Foxed either, and that doesn't dampen my enthusiasm. 

What did dampen my enthusiasm -- and my spirits -- was the tone of most of the essays. In Slightly Foxed, people write about books they love and want you to read. Some are books they have reread many times, sometimes they only reread a book in order to write about it in Slightly Foxed. But they are excited to explain the joys of the book and encourage you to read it.  By the time I finish an issue of Slightly Foxed, my book wish list is noticeably longer. 

In Rereadings, most of the essays were about how a book the writer loved as a child, teen, or college student didn't stand up to reading again as an adult. Maybe the story seemed too simplistic when read with adult eyes, or the book hit wrong to current sensibilities, but for whatever reason, the magic was gone. Well, OK. But I'm an adult reading about these books now. I can't experience what it was like to read them as a teen ager so share their lessened appeal on rereading. Reading about why they are disappointing to an adult reader was a downer. I finished Rereadings with a list of books people no longer liked. 

That's not to say the essays were poorly written. They weren't. They were all polished and well-argued. But they didn't inspire me to read more, certainly not to reread. 

NOTE

Rereadings was one of the books from my TBR 26 in '26 list. I'm glad the challenge got me to finally read this one, but I won't be rereading it, that's for sure! 

Penguin Green Tribands -- BOOK LIST

 

BOOK LIST

Penguin Green Tribands

The 400 vintage Penguin crime books in their ionic green triband covers make up my favorite book collection. 

Back in the darkest days of the pandemic lockdown, when bored out of my socks, I did a little bookish retail therapy. Thanks to eBay and Royal Mail, I found myself the new owner of a job lot of over 400 vintage Penguin mystery books. After arranging and rearranging them all over my living room floor for a few weeks, culling duplicates, and generally playing with them for a while, they had to sit in boxes until I could get shelves built for them. Now they are shelved in the little home office I call my growlery, where I go and growl at the world. The next step is to read them!

Early Penguin paperbacks were issued without illustrations on the cover, just a band of color at the top, the title on an off-white band in the middle, then another band of the same color at the bottom. Hence, "triband" editions. They were color coded. Green was for crime fiction – mysteries, thrillers, and, less commonly, true crime. These early Penguins were not sold in the United States (for copyright reasons I don't understand). You can now find them here used, but not often. Also, Penguin has more recently reissued some books with triband covers, along with triband coffee mugs that match the books. Those are cool in themselves, but not what I collect. I go for the vintage editions.

I don’t have nearly all the original green tribands, but I have about 415 of them, including duplicates. A few are first Penguin editions, most are Penguin reprints, all are pretty tattered. There are plenty of my favorites in the collection, like Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Raymond Chandler, etc. There are others I know of and haven’t read much of, or at all, like Margery Allingham and Simenon. And there are plenty that are brand new to me.

To inspire me to read all of my green tribands, and to keep track as I go, I decided to list them all here. Repeating author names every time seems crazy, so I only listed the name for the first book by the author and put that one in bold. I also tried to list them in publication order for each author, although some authors were so prolific they published more than one book in the same year. I haven't dived deep enough to know the exact date of publication, so if you see more than one book in the same year, I don't know which came first.

All these are on my shelves and most are still TBR for me. I've noted if I've read a book, even if I read it in a different edition. I also noted if the audiobook is available. If so, I may read it with my ears and save the triband further tattering. 

When possible, I've linked to the title (not usually the same Penguin edition) so you can read more about the book. A surprising number are available in a new edition or vintage copy, but several are out of print and hard to find. Some are available online but with no description of the story. I left out those links. Sometimes I had to link to the book under an alternate title. 

The Crime at Black Dudley (1929) by Margery Allingham

Mystery Mile (1930) ON LIBBY 

Look to the Lady (1931)

Police at the Funeral (1931)

Sweet Danger (1933)

Death of a Ghost (1934)

Flowers for the Judge (1936)

The Case of the Late Pig (1937)

Dancers in Mourning (1937)

The Fashion in Shrouds (1938) ON LIBBY

Mr. Campion & Others (short stories) (1939)

Traitor's Purse (1940)

Black Plumes (1940) ON LIBBY

Coroner's Pidgin (1945)

More Work for the Undertaker (1948)

Take Two at Bedtime (1949)

The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)

No Love Lost (short stories) (1954)

The Beckoning Lady (1955)

Hide My Eyes (1958)

Uncommon Danger (1937) by Eric Ambler

Cause for Alarm (1938)

Aphrodite Means Death (1951) by John Appleby

Ten Minute Alibi (1934) by Anthony Armstrong and Herbert Shaw

Mischief (1950) by Charlotte Armstrong

The Suva Harbour Mystery (Who Killed Netta Maul?) (1948) by Frank Arthur

Red is for Killing (1941) by George Bagby

Mr. Fortune, Please (1927) by H.C. Bailey

The Best We Can Do (1958) by Sybille Bedford

The Port of London Murders (1938) by Josephine Bell

Trent's Last Case (1913) by E.C. Bentley ON LIBBY

Trent's Own Case (1936)

Trent Intervenes (1938)

The Tongue-Tied Canary (1948) by Nicolas Bentley

The Floating Dutchman (1950)

Mr. Priestley's Problem (1927) by Anthony Berkeley

The Piccadilly Murder (1929)

Jumping Jenny (1933)

Trial and Error (1937)

Not to be Taken (1938)

My Name is Michael Sibley (1952) by John Bingham

Five Roundabouts to Heaven (1953)

A Scent of New-Mown Hay (1958) by John Blackburn

A Question of Proof (1935) by Nicholas Blake

The Case of the Abominable Snowman (1941)

See You at the Morgue (1941) by Lawrence Goldtree Blochman

Dead Lion (1949) by John Bonett

Dead Reckoning (1943) by Francis Bonnamy

A Rope of Sand (1944)

The King is Dead on Queen Street (1945)

A Bullet in the Ballet (1937) by Caryl Brahms

The Wooden Overcoat (1951) by Pamela Branch

Heads You Lose (1941) by Christianna Brand

Suddenly at His Residence (1946)

London Particular (1952)

Tour de Force (1955)

Case for Sergeant Beef (1947) by Leo Bruce

Three Bad Nights (1956) by Bruce Buckingham

The Case of the Second Chance (1938) by Christopher Bush

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James M. Cain FINISHED

Spider Web (1938) by Alice Campbell

Murder Included (1950) by Joanna Cannan

It Walks by Night (1930) by John Dickson Carr

The Waxworks Murder (1932)

Poison in Jest (1932)

Hag's Nook (1933)

The Mad Hatter Mystery (1933)

The Blind Barber (1934)

Death Watch (1935)

The Hollow Man (1935)

The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941)

The Emperor's Snuff-Box (1942)

Till Death do Us Part (1944)

He Who Whispers (1946)

Below Suspicion (1946)

Captain Cut-Throat (1955)

Patrick Butler for the Defense (1956)

Murder by Burial (1938) by Stanley Casson

The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler FINISHED

Trouble is My Business (1939)

Farewell, My Lovely (1940) FINISHED

The High Window (1942) FINISHED

The Lady in the Lake (1943) FINISHED

The Little Sister (1949)

The Long Good-Bye (1953) FINISHED

Playback (1958)

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) by G.K. Chesterton FINISHED

The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926) FINISHED

Poison Ivy (1937) by Peter Chaney

Can Ladies Kill? (1938)

The Urgent Hangman (1938)

Dark Duet (1942)

The Riddle in the Sands (1903) by Erskine Childers ON LIBBY

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) by Agatha Christie FINISHED

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) FINISHED

The Big Four (1927) FINISHED

The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) FINISHED

Miss Marple and The Thirteen Problems (1928) FINISHED

The Seven Dials Mystery (1929) FINISHED

The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) FINISHED

Peril at End House (1931) FINISHED

The Sittaford Mystery (1931) FINISHED

Murder on the Orient Express (1933) FINISHED

Lord Edgware Dies (1933)

The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1933)

Parker Pyne Investigates (1934)

Murder in Mesopotamia (1935)

The ABC Murders (1936) FINISHED

Death on the Nile (1937)

Murder in the Mews (1937)

Ten Little N_______ (1939)

Murder Is Easy (1939)

The Labours of Hercules (1939)

The Body in the Library (1942) FINISHED

The Moving Finger (1942)

Death Comes as the End (1945)

Crooked House (1949) FINISHED

The Deadly Reaper (1956) by Clark Smith

Appointment in New Orleans (1950) by Tod Claymore

Reunion in Florida (1952)

Public Enemy (1953) by Hugh Clevely

The Death of a Millionaire (1925) by G.D.H. Cole and Margaret Cole

The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins FINISHED

The Dangerfield Talisman (1926) by J.J. Connington

Death at Swaythling Court (1926)

The Case with Nine Solutions (1928)

The Golden Box (1942) by Frances Crane

The Moving Toyshop (1946) by Edmund Crispin

Swan Song (1947)

Buried for Pleasure (1948)

Love Lies Bleeding (1948)

The Long Divorce (1951)

The Cask (1920) by Freeman Wills Crofts

The Pit-Prop Syndicate (1922)

The Groote Park Murder (1923)

Inspector French’s Greatest Case (1924)

The Cheyne Mystery (1926)

Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy (1927)

The Sea Mystery (1928)

Sir John Magill’s Last Journey (1930)

Mystery in the Channel (1931)

The 12.30 from Croydon (1934)

Crime at Guildford (1935)

The Loss of the Jane Vosper (1936)

Fatal Venture (1939)

Golden Ashes (1940)

Post Mortem (1953) by Guy Cullingford

Conjurer’s Coffin (1954)

Framed for Hanging (1956)

Dead March in Three Keys (1940) by Peter Curtis (Norah Lofts)

The House without a Door (1942) by Elizabeth Daly

Evidence of Things Seen (1943)

The White Priory Murders (1934) by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr)

The Plague Court Murders (1934)

The Red Widow Murders (1935)

The Ten Teacups (1937)

The Judas Window (1938)

The Reader is Warned (1939)

And So to Murder (1940)

She Died a Lady (1943)

He Wouldn't Kill Patience (1944)

Shear the Black Sheep (1942) by David Dodge

Bullets for the Bridegroom (1944)

The Long Escape (1948)

The Lights of Skaro (1954)

To Catch A Thief (1952)

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) by Arthur Conan Doyle FINISHED
 
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) FINISHED

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1921) FINISHED

The White Cockatoo (1933) by M.G. Eberhart

The Cases of Susan Dare (1934)

Speak No Evil (1941)

Darling Clementine (1955) by Dorothy Eden

The Horizontal Man (1946) by Helen Eustis

The Missing Link (1952) by Katharine Farrer

The Cretan Counterfeit (1954)

The Big Clock (1946) by Kenneth Fearing

Stealthy Terror (1918) by John Ferguson

The Man in the Dark (1928)

Death Comes to Perigord (1931)

Night in Glengyle (1933)

Remove the Bodies (1941) by Elizabeth Ferrars

Don't Monkey with Murder (1942)

Murder in Time (1953)

The Bandaged Nude (1950) by Robert Finnegan

Death and Mary Dazill (1941) by Mary Fitt

Requiem for Robert (1942)

Death and the Pleasant Voices (1946)

Payment Deferred (1926) by C.S. Forester

Plain Murder (1930)

Rex v. Anne Bickerton (1930) by Sydney Fowler

Reunion with Murder (1941) by Tomothy Fuller

The Widow LeRouge (1866) by Emile Gaboriau

The Mystery of Orcival (1867)

Murder on Leave (1946) by G.V. Galwey

The Lift and the Drop (1951)

The Case of the Howling Dog (1934) by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Sleepwalkers Niece (1936)

The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1936)

The Case of the Lame Canary (1937)

The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe (1938)

The D.A. Holds a Candle (1938)

The Case of the Substitute Face (1938)

The Case of the Rolling Bones (1939)

The Case of The Perjured Parrot (1939)

The D.A. Draws a Circle (1939)

The Case of the Baited Hook (1940)

The Case of the Haunted Husband (1941)

The Case of the Careless Kitten (1942)

The Case of The Drowsy Mosquito (1943)

The Case of the Buried Clock (1943)

The Case of the Crooked Candle (1944)

The DA Calls A Turn (1944)

The Case of the Golddigger's Purse (1945)

The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife (1945)

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette (1946)

The Velvet Well (1946) by John Gearon

The Black Stage (1945) by Anthony Gilbert

Documents Marked "Secret" (1945) by John Gloag

The Leavenworth Case (1878) by Anna Katharine Green ON LIBBY

Reputation for a Song (1952) by Edward Grierson

The Thin Man (1934) by Dashiell Hammett FINISHED

Lady Killer (1957) by William Hardy

Tenant for Death (1937) by Cyril Hare

Death is No Sportsman (1938)

Suicide Excepted (1939)

Tragedy at Law (1942)

With a Bare Bodkin (1946)

An English Murder (1951)

That Yew Tree's Shade (1954)

He Should Have Died Hereafter (1957)

Cork on the Water (1951) by MacDonald Hastings

Cork in Bottle (1953)

Cork and the Serpent (1955)

Cork in the Doghouse (1957)

A Taste For Honey (1941) by Gerald Heard (H.F. Heard)

Fugitive from Murder (1940) by M.V. Heberden

Death in the Stocks (1935) by Georgette Heyer

Famous Trials III (1950) by James H. Hodge, Ed.

Famous Trials 4 (1954)

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1945) by George Hopley

Raffles (1899) by E.W. Hornung ON LIBBY

Mr. Justice Raffles (1909)

Rogue Male (1939) by Geoffrey Household

The Murder of My Aunt (1936) by Richard Hull

The Ghost It Was (1936)

Excellent Intentions (1938)

Murder on Safari (1938) by Elspeth Huxley

Death at the President’s Lodging (1936) by Michael Innes

Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)

Stop Press (1939)

There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940)

The Secret Vanguard (1941)

Appleby on Ararat (1941)

The Weight of the Evidence (1943)

The Journeying Boy (1949)

A Private View (1952)

Man From the Sea (1955)

Old Hall, New Hall (1956)

Appleby Plays Chicken (1956)

A Pin to See the Peepshow (1934) by F. Tennyson Jesse

Death Takes Small Bites (1948) by George H. Johnston

Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1947) by Gerald Kersh

Carteret's Cure (1926) by Richard Keverne

William Cook Antique Dealer (1928)

The Sanfield Scandal (1929)

The Fleet Hall Inheritance (1931)

Missing From His Home (1932)

At the Blue Gates (1932)

He Laughed at Murder (1935)

The Three Taps (1927) by Ronald Knox

Murder on My Street (1958) by Edwin Lanham

Blood upon the Snow (1944) by Hilda Lawrence

Death of a Doll (1947)

Duet of Death (1949)

Uncle Silas (1864) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

A Kiss Before Dying (1953) by Ira Levin ON LIBBY

The Kiss of Death (1947) by Eleazar Lipsky

The Rasp (1924) by Philip MacDonald

X v. Rex (1933)

The Bad Seed (1954) by William March ON LIBBY

Famous Trials of Marshall Hall (1950) by Edward Marjoribanks, Ed.

A Man Lay Dead (1934) by Ngaio Marsh FINISHED

Enter a Murderer (1935)

The Nursing Home Murder (1935)

Death in Ecstasy (1936)

Vintage Murder (1937)

Death in a White Tie (1938) FINISHED

Artists in Crime (1938) FINISHED

Overture to Death (1939) FINISHED

Surfeit of Lampreys (1940)

Death at the Bar (1940) FINISHED

Death and the Dancing Footman (1941)

The House of the Arrow (1924) by A.E.W. Mason

An Oxford Tragedy (1933) by J.C. Masterman

The Case of the Four Friends (1956)

He Never Came Back (1954) by Helen McCloy

Deadly Weapon (1946) by Wade Miller

The Red House Mystery (1922) by A.A. Milne ON LIBBY

The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (1929) by Gladys Mitchell

The Longer Bodies (1930)

Death at the Opera (1934)

Come Away, Death (1937)

Laurels are Poison (1942)

Tom Brown's Body (1949)

Faintley Speaking (1954)

Watson's Choice (1955)

Twelve Horses and the Hangman's Noose (1956)

The Twenty-Third Man (1957)

Spotted Hemlock (1958)

The King and the Corpse (1948) by Max Murray

The Right Honourable Corpse (1952)

The Doctor and the Corpse (1953)

Royal Bed for a Corpse (1955)

The Rod of Anger (1953) by Derrick Nabarro

The Nightwalkers (1947) by James Norman

The Mysterious Mickey Finn (1939) by Elliot Paul

Verdict of Twelve (1940) by Raymond Postgate

The Ledger is Kept (1953)

The Diehard (1956) by Jean Potts

Information Received (1933) by E.R. Punshon

Crossword Mystery (1934)

Mystery Villa (1934)

The Roman Hat Mystery (1929) by Ellery Queen ON LIBBY

The French Powder Mystery (1930) ON LIBBY

The Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931) ON LIBBY

The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) ON LIBBY

The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933) ON LIBBY

The American Gun Mystery (1933) ON LIBBY

The Chinese Orange Mystery (1934) ON LIBBY

The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935) ON LIBBY

The Door Between (1937) ON LIBBY

The Four of Hearts (1938) ON LIBBY

The King is Dead (1952) ON LIBBY

Puzzle for Fiends (1946) by Patrick Quentin

The Follower (1950)

The Man in the Net (1956)

The Cambridge Murders (1945) by Dilwyn Rees (Glyn Daniel)

The House on Tollard Ridge (1929) by John Rhode

Trial by Fury (1941) by Craig Rice

The Circular Staircase (1908) by Mary Roberts Rinehart

The Yellow Room (1945)

The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913) by Sax Rohmer

The Content Assignment (1954) by Holly Roth

The Sleeper (1955)

The Mask of Glass (1955)

Shadow of a Lady (1957)

Telling of Murder (1952) by Douglas Rutherford

Comes the Blind Fury (1953)

Night of the Horns (1961) by Douglas Sanderson

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928) by Dorothy L. Sayers FINISHED

Documents in the Case (1930) 

A Crime in Holland and A Face for a Clue (1931) by Simenon

A Battle of Nerves and At the 'Gai-Moulin' (1931)

The Man from Everywhere and Newhaven-Dieppe (1931/1934)

In Two Latitudes (1932)

Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (1934)

The Murderer (1937)

Poisoned Relations (1938)

Havoc by Accident (1943)

Escape in Vain (1943)

To Any Lengths (1944)

On the Danger Line (1944)

Lost Moorings (1946)

The Hatter's Ghosts (1947)

Maigret's First Case (1949)

My Friend Maigret (1949)

Maigret in Montmartre (1951)

Maigret's Revolver (1952)

Maigret Sits it Out (1952)

Maigret's Mistake (1953)

The Speaking Eye (1955) by Clark Smith

Not Wanted on Voyage (1951)

The Evil of the Day (1955) by Thomas Sterling

Fer-de-Lance (1934) by Rex Stout FINISHED

The League of Frightened Men (1935) FINISHED

Red Threads (1939)

The Short Weekend (1953) by T.S. Strachan

The Missing Moneylender (1931) by W. Stanley Sykes

The Immaterial Murder Case (1945) by Julian Symons

The Man With My Face (1948) by Samuel W. Taylor

The Franchise Affair (1948) by Josephine Tey ON LIBBY

The Daughter of Time (1951) FINISHED

Docken Dead (1953) by John Trench

Dishonoured Bones (1954)

Man of Two Tribes (1956) by Arthur W. Upfield

The Battling Prophet (1956)

Department of Dead Ends (1949) by Roy Vickers

Murdering Mr. Velfrage (1950)

Don Among the Dead Men (1952) by C.E. Vulliamy

The Verdict of You All (1926) by Henry Wade

Policeman's Lot (1933)

Here Comes the Copper (1938)

Diamonds For Moscow (1953) by David Walker

The Four Just Men (1905) by Edgar Wallace

The Doors of Sleep (1955) by Thurman Warriner

The Invisible Man (1897) by H.G. Wells ON LIBBY

The Watersplash (1953) by Patricia Wentworth

The Wheel Spins (1933) by Ethel Lina White

Many Dimensions (1930) by Charles Williams

The Other Family by Joanna Trollope -- BOOK BEGINNING

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

The Other Family by Joanna Trollope

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Looking back, it astonished her that none of them had broken down in the hospital.

-- from The Other Family by Joanna Trollope.

Joanna Trollope is always a good read. Whatever is the "plot" she makes an interesting story out of it, with interesting characters facing difficult circumstances. And she often gives a surprising but satisfactory ending. She's a definite favorite of mine when I am in the mood for well-written hen lit, or an Aga Saga as they are sometimes called. 

Trollope is right up there with Maeve Binchy and Anne Tyler in my book. Can you recommend others like them? I'm always on the lookout!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from The Other Family:

So here they were, Margaret in black, he in his best dark work suit, hair gelled, sober tie, uncomfortably damp palms, in a North London church packed with showbiz people, looking at a pale-wood coffin with brass handles -- and his father inside. It occurred to him that he, as his father's only son, and his mother, as his father's wife, had more right to be there than anyone, more natural right.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

When Richie Rossiter, once a famous pianist, dies unexpectedly, Chrissie knows that she must now tell the truth to their three daughters: their parents were never married. Yet there is one more shock to come when Richie's will is read. It seems he never forgot the wife and son he left behind years ago - Margaret, who lives a quiet life of routine and work, and Scott, who never knew his famous father. Now two families are left to confront their losses and each other, and none of them will ever be the same.