Reading Recommendations in April from Just Desserts members

Saturday, 28 April 2018 13:51

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At the April 26th, 2018 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group, following the discussion of the assigned topic of the month (the entire body of works by British mystery/suspense author Ruth Rendell), we held our monthly round robin in which all the attendees were able to share a few recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading recently.

First, here’s the list of Ruth Rendell mystery/suspense books discussed by Just Desserts members at our April 2018 meeting:

• The Babes in the Woods (audiobook)
• Dark Corners (2)
• From Doon With Death (3, including 1 as audiobook)
• The Girl Next Door (2)
• Harm Done
• In Sickness and in Health
• A Judgment in Stone
• Monster in the Box (2)
• Not in the Flesh (2)
• Piranha to Scurfy and Other Stories
• The St. Zita Society
• Secret House of Death
• Simisola
• 13 Steps Down
• The Tree of Hands
• The Vault (2)
• The Water’s Lovely
• various in the Inspector Wexford series

This meeting was audio-recorded, for eventual release through the libraries’ podcast series. This podcast episode finally became available in April 2020 — Click here to listen to the audio podcast recording of this meeting!

After our Rendell discussion, we had a few minutes for a general round robin. Here are the mystery and non-mystery titles recommended by Just Desserts members in April 2018:

• Amelia Peabody’s Egypt: A Companion by Elizabeth Peters
• Instinct on TV, tied loosely into Murder Games by James Patterson – past author selection for Just Desserts
• Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit by Chris Matthews
• The Mrs. Pollifax series by Dorothy Gilman
• How to Wash a Cat by Rebecca Hale
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Sanders
• News note: one group member announced that Margaret Coel is done with writing the Wind River series but will still be writing other things
• Orson Scott Card’s “Women of Genesis” series
• News note: One member mentioned coming across a promo for a “real person” mystery novel, due out in July, by Andrew Shaffer — Hope Never Dies, featuring Barack Obama and Joe Biden as no-long-in-the-oval-office mystery solvers (not yet on order for the libraries)

Because we didn’t have as much time for our general “round robins” discussion, please feel free to respond here on the blog to the following question: What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?