La Serenissima & Dordogne Mystery Read Along - 2022

This is a group that reads mystery series. We started years ago with the works of Tony Hillerman, Craig Johnson, and then moved on to Camilla Lackberg and Donna Leon. Since we have "caught up" with Lackberg we are moving on to a different author. The reading schedule for 2022 is posted in the next post.

Those who participate in this group decided last year that for this year (2022) we are going to continue to read and compare/contrast the books of Martin Walker, a British author, who lives in the Dordogne region of France, with those of Donna Leon, an American ex-patriot who lived in Venice until 2015 and writes about La Serenissima. In 2015 Ms. Leon moved to Switzerland where she splits her time between a home in Zurich and one in the mountains.

We will be reading the remaining Benoit "Bruno" Courreges novels that have been published. Bruno is an unconventional detective. He is a passionate food lover and is a former soldier who was wounded in the Balkan Wars of the 1990's. The books are set in the Perigord region of France and is located in the northern part of the Aquitaine. The Perigord has been renamed and rolled into the administrative department of the Dordogne.

The other author we will be reading is Donna Leon who writes the Guido Brunetti series. In total there are a total of 30 currently published Guido Brunetti novels with novel number 31 coming out in March of 2022. We will be starting with novel 28 in the series and will catch up with Ms. Leon this year. In general Ms. Leon publishes one "Guido Brunetti" novel each year so in that sense we won't ever be able to "catch-up" to Ms. Leon, but we will be current with the Guido series at the end of 2022.

Like Ms. Leon, Martin Walker publishes one Bruno book each year. He also published short stories about Bruno and his adventures as well as the novels. Some of the short stories can be found on his website and some are available through subscription and on Audible as recorded short stories. I will be leaving the short stories off this year, as there are now enough of the published Bruno novels available in the U. S. to keep us reading through this year when we combine them with the remaining Guido books that we have not read.

Here is the reading schedule for 2022

There are some of the novels that have different titles when they are published in other countries. I will try to list all the titles that the book might be published under as we come to those novels in our reading.

January 2022 - Bruno Courreges - Resistance Man: A Mystery of the French Countryside by Martin Walker - Book 6 in the series
February 2022 - Children Return: A Mystery of the French Countryside Also Know by Children of War by Martin Walker - Book 7 in the series
March 2022 - Guido Brunetti - Unto Us A Son is Given: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon - Book 28 in the series
April 2022 - Bruno Courreges - The Patriarch: A Mystery of the French Countryside AKA Dying Season by Martin Walker - Book 8 in the series
May 2022 - Bruno Courreges - Fatal Pursuit: A Mystery of the French Countryside by Martin Walker - Book 9 in the series
June 2022 - Guido Brunetti - Trace Elements: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon - Book 29 in the series
July 2022 - Bruno Courreges - Templar's Last Secret by Martin Walker - Book 10 in the series
August 2022 - Bruno Courreges - Taste For Vengence by Martin Walker - Book 11 in the series
September 2022 - Guido Brunetti - Transient Desires by Donna Leon - Book 30 in the series
October 2022 - Bruno Courreges - Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker - Book 12 in the series
November 2022 - Bruno Courreges - Shooting at Chateau Rock by Martin Walker - Book 13 in the series
December 2022 - Guido Brunetti - Give Unto Others by Donna Leon - Book 31 in the series

This schedule will leave us with 2 of the Bruno Courrages books to read in 2023 - should we choose to continue reading a mystery series in the coming years. Of course, both authors will probably publish another book in each series in 2022 so there will be some leftovers for next year.

There are also several short stories about Bruno Courreges that we might be interested in reading throughout the year. Those are:

A Market Tale by Martin Walker - published in 2014 (available only digitally on Kindle. I have not checked to see if it is available on other digital book sources.)

Chocolate War by Martin Walker - published in 2018 (available only digitally on Kindle. I haven't checked other digital book sources.)
A Birthday Lunch by Martin Walker - published in 2019 (available only digitally on Kindle. I haven't checked other digital book sources.)
Oystercatcher by Martin Walker - published in 2020 (available digitally on Kindle. I haven't checked other digital book sources.)

I've added this to the group wiki!

Updates on previous series

Longmire series by Craig Johnson - we caught up with Mr. Johnson back in December of 2016. Since then there have been several more Longmire books published. The last book we read for this group was Wait for Signs in December of 2016. Here is a list of the books that have been published since then.

An Obvious Fact by Craig Johnson published in October of 2016
Western Star by Craig Johnson published in 2017
Depth of Winter by Craig Johnson published in 2018
Land of Wolves by Craig Johnson published in 2019
Next to Last Stand by Craig Johnson published in 2020
Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson published in September of 2021

There is a new Longmire book on the horizon. It is tentatively titled Hell and Back and is scheduled to be released in September 2022.

Camilla Lackberg - finished reading her Erica Falck & Patrik Hedstrom series back in December 2020. Since then Lackberg has published 2 new novels that are in a different series. She has not published any new Erica Falck/Patrik Hedstrom novels.

Golden Cage by Camilla Lackberg was published in 2020
Silver Tears by Camilla Lackberg is a sequel to Golden Cage and it was published in 2021.

>2 benitastrnad: Bruno Courreges only made it to book 3 in Dutch translation.
The last two Guido Brunetti books haven't been translated yet, so I can participate in March and June.

Is there a reason there is no group read in July?

>7 thornton37814:
No reason. It was a mistake. I wondered why I came out uneven when I thought I had it all figured out. I will make the changes.

>8 benitastrnad: Just wondered.

Our book for January is Resistance Man by Martin Walker. This is the sixth novel in the Bruno Courreges series set in the small town of St. Denis in the Dordogne region of France. The Amazon blurb for this book follows.

It's summer in St. Denis for chief of police Bruno Courrèges, and that means a new season of cases. This time there are three weighing on his mind. First, there’s the evidence that a veteran of the French Resistance is connected to a notorious train robbery; then, the burglary of a former British spymaster's estate; and, finally, the murder of an antiques dealer whose lover is conveniently on the lam. As Bruno investigates, it becomes clear that they are connected--however, figuring out how will take every skill he possesses. Add in juggling the complex affections of two powerful women, maneuvering village politics, and managing his irrepressible puppy, Balzac, and Bruno has his hands full once again.

Since this is our sixth novel about Bruno and the people who live in the area we already know that not only is this area of France full of fascinating people, it is a land of deep history that provides much plot fodder for the author. This makes me anxious to get my hands on this book and start reading. I do not have a copy of the book, and my local library doesn't either. That means that I placed my Inter-Library Loan request for the book today. That means that it will be at least 10 days before I can start reading it. I am making a sad face at the moment, as I was looking forward to taking a mental vacation by indulging all of my senses in the Périgord. In the last year, this series has become a favorite of mine simply because I like mysteries, but this series offers such pleasant side trips. Side trips that include discussions of great foods and wines, places of importance, and of course, the lifestyle of the region. It has also been of interest to read about how the influx of tourists and people who own second homes in the area is changing the lifestyle of the Périgord and how concerned the residents are about the changes that are occurring in their towns and villages.

In November I visited my sister who lives in Bozeman, MT. Bozeman is in the throes of a series housing crisis. The "Great Reshuffling" caused by the work-at-home life style brought about by the COVID pandemic has turned Bozeman from a hillbilly ski resort town on the fringes of ski bum territory into a sexy place to live and work. (The recent popularity of the TV series "Yellowstone" has not helped.) The numbers of people purchasing second homes in Bozeman has skyrocketed and has driven up the price of housing astronomically. My sisters home is now worth double of what it was pre-pandemic.

To add insult to injury, Bozeman only has two RV parks. While I was there, my sister took me to get groceries at a local supermarket. We drove down a street that was lined with campers and RV's on both sides of the street. She told me that these were essentially homeless people. These people lived in their campers and RV's and would be on that street for 2 to 3 weeks, then the city would come and make them move. They would move to another street in a different part of Bozeman and live there for 2 to 3 weeks and the city would come and make them move and the cycle would just repeat. This problem has been created because apartments are rented by the newcomers for much higher prices than ordinary laborers can afford, condos and houses are purchased for cash by people moving into Bozeman, and new house prices are simply out-of-reach for working people. There was an interesting story this morning on NPR about this problem in Missoula, MT - a sister city to Bozeman on the western edge of Montana. Here is the link to that story.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1070966346/why-some-cities-are-operating-legal-ho...

As I listened to this story early this morning, it reminded me of many of the things that the citizens of St. Denis and of Venice discuss in both of the series that we are reading. The very things that make these places attractive places in which to set a series are the things that attract other people to live there. Unfortunately, they are often the very things that can bring rapid change that often harms the very things that attracted people to them and leads to resentment between the natives and the newcomers. We have seen examples of this kind of conflict in the Guido Brunetti books when it causes rifts between native Venetians and the newer immigrants, and we have seen shades of it in the Bruno books as well. It is the thing that drove our authors to relocate. Donna Leon moved from Venice and sought a place that was not as "touristy" for her new residence. Walker is also an expatriate. He is British and eventually became a permanent resident of his "second" home in the Dordogne. It will be interesting for us as readers to see how these conflicts are handled in the series as we read through them.

I am eagerly awaiting my book from ILL. I know that I have enjoyed reading both of these series and it has encouraged me to seek out other mystery series set in other countries and places that make me feel like I am part of the place. I hope that we have an enjoyable and relaxing journey with both Bruno and Guido in the coming year and that both authors manage to keep that homey sense of place that makes us readers feel like we live there too.

I began listening this morning on my way to work.

I just picked up my copy from our Inter-Library Loan Department last night and will begin reading the book today.

>11 thornton37814: I started listening last weekend and I'm about a third of the way through.

I finished reading Resistance Man this weekend and if this book doesn't make you want to visit the Dordogne nothing will. I got my COVID booster shot on Friday afternoon and by Saturday evening I was having the side effects. I couldn't get warm so I went to bed and read - and read - and read. By Sunday afternoon I had finished this novel. I can't wait to read the next one in the series.

I thought it was interesting that the author provided more information on how the French judicial system works. This reading group has spent a considerable amount of time reading books set in countries that use an Inquisitorial judicial system. Both France and Italy use this system and in the last two years we have been reading mystery series set in both countries. This is the first time in the Bruno books where the author takes some time to explain that the legal system is different in France. I found it helpful because an examining magistrate is appointed to the case that is the focus of this book. I have not seen as lengthy of an explanation of the role of the court in the Guido books, but I have noticed that Guido often refers to the fact that he merely gathers the facts. He has to present these facts to the court. In the Gianrico Carofiglio series that we read several years ago, the lawyer in the stories makes some effort to explain that the judges make a decision after he presents his evidence and there is no jury. This was the first mystery series that I had read that offered this kind of explanation of the legal system in that country. I find it interesting and educational. It made me realize that the whole world is NOT like the U. S. and I should not expect it to be. Maybe that is why a good mystery can provide a window into how other countries work?

In an inquisitorial system the court, or part of the court, is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case and can often direct the police to investigate certain leads or to ignore them. This is very different from an adversarial system such as found in the U. S., Britain, or former British colonies where the role of the court is to be an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense. Inquisitorial systems have law that is based in codes while adversarial systems are based in common law. Inquisitorial systems are prevalent in Continental Europe, Latin America, in African countries that were not former British colonies, and East and South Asia (except for those that former British colonies.)

>14 benitastrnad: I found the description helpful. I'm not done with the book. I'm listening on my commute.

I am really enjoying the audio of this, but I need to get something off my chest. Enough with the killing of animals! I got to the part where the horse dies at bedtime last night. Not the stuff of pleasant dreams.

I apologize to the group as I am late moving us along to our February book.

Our book for February is The Children Return by Martin Walker. This is book 7 in the Bruno Chief of police series. It was published in 2015. In Great Britian is was published with the title Children of War. I confess that I have never quite figured out why books are published under different titles in the UK and the US. Seems pointless to me, but ...

I got my copy of this book from the library on Wednesday, but I haven't started reading it yet. I hope to do so sometime this week. It will be pleasant to return to the environs of St. Denis, even if the reason for doing so is murder. It is a very good thing that St. Denis has other things to offer the reader. Things like descriptions of good food, good wine, and interesting residents.

Here is the blurb from Amazon about Children Return.

When an undercover agent tracking domestic jihadists is found murdered, it’s troubling enough for Bruno’s beloved village. But when this is followed by the return of Sami, a local autistic youth thought lost to Islamic extremism, provincial St. Denis suddenly becomes a front line in the global war on terror. Abducted and exploited for his technological genius in Afghanistan, Sami has used his talents to gather invaluable stores of al-Qaeda intel—but as an international tribunal descends to begin an exhaustive debrief, it becomes clear Sami’s former handlers are far from ready to relinquish him. Now the same jihadists who killed the agent aim to silence Sami, and as the eyes of the intelligence world turn toward his case, Bruno must scramble to track down the terrorists before they exact their own justice.

As if things aren’t complicated enough, Bruno finds himself contending with the mixed, alluring signals of one of the high-ranking U.S. intelligence officers on Sami’s case, even while juggling the affections of his neighbor and sometime lover. Add to that a member of the tribunal with dangerous skeletons in his closet, the mysterious history of two Jewish siblings who claim to have been sheltered locally from the Nazis during World War II, and a high-profile philanthropist whose presence in St. Denis seems to be attracting attention from the jihadists, and it’s all almost enough to absent Bruno from the village’s wine festival.

With international intrigue and action aplenty, The Children Return is a journey to St. Denis that readers won’t soon forget.

>17 benitastrnad: I've listened to 3 or 4 hours of it (probably closer to 4). I listened to it on my Friday commute both ways and then listened to it yesterday as I drove to and from the cross stitch shop a little over an hour away.

I finished reading Children Return this week and as always, enjoyed the mystery very much. I suspect that the blended immigrants who have fit so well into the town might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it may be a realistic picture of the way of life in a small French town. I don't live there so I don't know and am depending on the author to paint that picture for me. I know that there are places where immigrants find a welcoming place to live. Lincoln, Nebraska is one of those places that I know about. It is a designated City of Refuge with a history of welcoming different immigrant groups way back to the 1950's. It has Somalis, Koreans, Malaysians, Central American indigenous groups, Burmese, and Thai immigrants. All of these make for a vibrant and lively urban setting in a very unexpected place. Who would have thought that a state like Nebraska would have such diversity? Recently, I ate at a newly opened restaurant that served Malaysian food that was owned and operated by a Malaysian couple. The menu was limited and the place very small, but it was good food and I enjoyed my meal.

In the Children Return the author brings into the story immigrants from France's former colony of Algeria. Their immigration was caused by Algeria's war for independence and the civil war in Algeria after France pulled out. The story of this war was interwoven with the story of France's other major twentieth century wars - World War I and World War II and the devastation caused by both wars. Then it brings in France's participation in the Forever War in Afghanistan. The NATO allies participation in this war is something that American's sometimes forget. I found the author's description of the horribly scarred veteran of WWI who took in the refugees from WWII to be especially moving. The author pointed out that 8 young couples from St. Denis were married and the young men sent off to fight in WWI. Of those 8 only 2 survived WWI and this man was so horribly scarred that he wore a porcelain mask for the rest of his life. The interweaving of all of these wars and the aftermath into a coherent story was very well done by Walker and it only served to make me want to read more about Bruno and St. Denis.

Our March book will return us to Guido Brunetti and Venice. Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon will be the book for the month. This one is number 28 in the Guido Brunetti series and was published in March of 2019. I hope that it will be available in translation so that some of our other members can join us in reading this title. This book is available as a recorded book, so if some of us are traveling for Spring Break it might make a good traveling companion. I am lucky in that my local public library has 2 copies of the book and it is available as a recorded download as well. I hope that the rest of you are as lucky with getting your hands on this title. It should be fairly easy to get through Inter-Library Loan as WorldCat says that 1,129 libraries worldwide have a hardcopy of this book, 228 libraries have a recorded version, and it is available in translation in German, Spanish, French, and Catalan. I did not see Dutch listed, but I hope that there is a translation available.

The Amazon blurb for the book follows.

“Your situation is always ambiguous, isn’t it, Guido?”, his father-in-law, Count Orazio Falier, observes of Donna Leon’s soulful detective, Guido Brunetti, at the beginning of her superb 28th Brunetti novel, Unto Us A Son Is Given. “The world we live in makes that necessary,” Brunetti presciently replies. Count Falier was urging his Venetian son-in-law to investigate, and preferably intervene in, the seemingly innocent plan of the Count’s best friend, the elderly Gonzalo Rodríguez de Tejada, to adopt a much younger man as his son. Under Italian inheritance laws this man would then be heir to Gonzalo’s entire fortune, a prospect Gonzalo’s friends find appalling. For his part, Brunetti wonders why the old man, a close family friend, can’t be allowed his pleasure in peace.

And yet, what seems innocent on the Venetian surface can cause tsunamis beneath. Gonzalo unexpectedly, and literally, drops dead on the street, and one of his friends just arrived in Venice for the memorial service, is strangled in her hotel room―having earlier sent Gonzalo an email saying “We are the only ones who know you cannot do this,” referring to the adoption. Now with an urgent case to solve, Brunetti reluctantly untangles the long-hidden mystery in Gonzalo’s life that ultimately led to murder―a resolution that brings him way more pain than satisfaction.

Once again, Donna Leon brilliantly plumbs the twists and turns of the human condition, reuniting us with some of crime fiction’s most memorable and enduring characters.

>20 benitastrnad: I downloaded the book today even though I'll probably lose nearly a week of time on it before I get to it. I have one other audiobook checked out that is ahead of it. I'm not worried though. I'll be traveling for my spring break and will listen on the way there and back and probably still turn it in early.

I got this month’s book from the library. It is starting out well.

I did finish the audiobook on my trip.

Finished today. I think this is among the best in the series. This may be because of more development of family relationships.

>24 Helenoel: I really liked this one, too. The crime plot was very slow to develop, but it was also more satisfying than most.

I have been traveling for Spring Break and even though I brought the book with me I have not opened it. I will have time to read it next week, but as always with Guido, I am looking forward to it.

I finished reading Unto Us a Son is Given by Donna Leon and I enjoyed reading it. There were lots of cultural and social topics in this one. In the end I agree with you in that this was more of a murder mystery than some of the books in this series have been. It was also an interesting literary technique to have the actual crime done in the last quarter of the book. By the time the crime happens I sensed that there was some mystery in the tangled relationships that had been slowly revealed throughout the story, but I do confess that I never thought that the person murdered would be that one, or for that reason. Very interesting.

For anybody who hasn't finished the book there are three more days before the end of the month.

It is now April 1st and time to travel back to France and the world of Bruno Courrages. Our book for April will be Patriarch. (This is the US title.) This book was published in the UK under the title The Dying Season. This brings me to the problem of different titles in different countries. I asked a publisher about why this was done, and was told that sometimes it had to do with publishing agreements, such as contracts with authors, copyright, and distribution rights. Sometimes the problem is that books have to be translated from British English into American English and that can make enough substantial changes in a book that it needs to have a different title because it is almost a different book.

Whichever title is used I am sure that this book will be another adventure in the life of our courageous hero, Bruno.

Here is the Amazon blurb about the book.
A beloved village, a renowned family, a suspicious death—it’s the latest adventure in the Dordogne for police chief Bruno.

When Bruno is invited to the lavish birthday celebration of World War II flying ace and national icon Marco “the Patriarch” Desaix, it’s the fulfillment of a boyhood dream. But when the party ends in the death of Gilbert, Marco’s longtime friend, it’s another day on the job for the chef de police. All signs point to a tragic accident, but Bruno isn’t so sure. There is more to the Desaix family’s lives and loyalties than meets the eye. There is Victor, the Patriarch’s son, Gilbert’s old comrade-in-arms and sometime rival; Victor’s seductive wife, Madeleine, whose roving eye intrigues Bruno even more than her fierce political ambitions; Yevgeny, another son, an artist whose paintings seem to hold keys to the past; and the Patriarch himself, whose postwar Soviet ties may have intersected all too closely with Gilbert’s career in Cold War intelligence.

Bruno is diverted by a dangerous conflict between a local animal rights activist and outraged hunters—as well as meals to cook, wine to share, and an ever more complicated romantic situation. But as his entanglement with the Desaix family grows and his suspicions heighten, Bruno’s inquiries into Gilbert’s life become a deadly threat to his own.

If you haven't checked out the Bruno web site lately, it has been updated. One of the features is a list of suggested summer reading on the food, wine, and history of the Perigord region. Here is the link to that page. http://www.brunochiefofpolice.com/

Here is the link to the suggested summer reading list. https://shepherd.com/best-books/perigord-france

I like rabbit trails, especially when it comes to books and since there was another list listed under Walker's list I clicked on it and went to the list for "Best Books to Understand the French" list. Here is that web page. https://shepherd.com/best-books/understanding-the-french

The one book that both authors, (Walker and Barlow) had in common was Discovery of France by Graham Robb. I happen to have that book on my shelf so will have to take it down and read it sometime this summer.

I also added a book to my growing TBR list. This one was Cafe Neandertal by Beebe Bahrami. I visited the Neandertal Museum in Neandertal Germany twenty years ago, and like Walker, thought that it was a fascinating culture. I do need to read more about it, so perhaps Bruno will inspire me to do so.

I just checked out Fatal Pursuit so I can get a start on it!

I finished reading Patriarch several days ago and forgot to post it here that I had finished. I enjoyed this book. A friend of mine has been reading the Bruno books (not in sync with me or our group) and recently complained to me that there was getting to be "too much food and wine" in the books. So much so that the books were beginning to read like a food and wine travel book. I disagreed with her - because I like the descriptions of what is going on in the French countryside. I like the mysteries but I also like the feeling that I am sort of living alongside of these characters.

I also learned a good deal about the French legal system in this book. There was a lengthy passage at the beginning of chapter 16 in which the complicated intertwining of the French Legal system was sort of explained. This passage reminded me of some of the descriptions of how the Italian legal system works from our earlier reading of the work of Gianrico Carofiglio several years ago, and some of the same kinds of explanation in the Guido Brunetti books. I serves to remind me that there are many ways to provide citizens with a democratic legal system and ours is only one of them. It also shows that as well as being good entertainment, a person can learn much from mysteries.

>31 benitastrnad: I'm not as far along in the Bruno series as you guys (I finished the 3rd book in April) but I'm enjoying them. The food and wine descriptions add to the books in a good way, for me.

>32 lindapanzo:
I am glad you are liking the Bruno books. I have certainly enjoyed the series and all of the local characters who are part of the novels as well. It certainly put the French Dordogne on the travel map for me. Maybe someday I will visit there.

>31 benitastrnad: I love the food and wine descriptions! They are part of what I love about the books.

It is now the first part of the month and time to read our new Bruno book. This one is Fatal Pursuit. It is book 9 in the Bruno, Chief of Police series. In this book the subject is cars. Classic Cars. Cars of great value. Specifically the car company Bugatti. I thought Bugatti was only a motorcycle manufacturer but it turns out that they started in out with cars. Bugatti was a German then French manufacturer of high-performance automobiles. The company was founded in 1909 in the then-German city of Molsheim, Alsace, by the Italian-born industrial designer Ettore Bugatti. The cars were known for their design beauty and for their many race victories prior to WWII.

In this Bruno mystery the French Resistance during World War II is once again front and center. The town if St. Denis finds itself embroiled in the untangling of family and French National legends. This legend centers around a classic car - the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Coupé Aero. It was so special that it had a name, even in 1940. It was known as "La Voiture Noire" - the Black Car.

The Bugatti Type 57 was a world famous back in the day. It was unparalleled in sleek design and since it was premiered by Bugatti has been considered one of the world's most beautiful cars. It was both a touring (driveable on a road) and a race car. The Bugatti Type 57 and later variants (including the famous Atlantic which is part of our novel) was an entirely new design created by Jean Bugatti, son of founder of the Bugatti, Ettore Bugatti. Type 57s were built from 1934 through 1940, with a total of 710 examples all the styles produced. This low number of cars produced makes this car a very expensive car in today's market for classic cars. A rediscovered Type 57 sold for 3.4 million euros at auction on 7 February 2009 at a motor show in Paris. (That is $9,485,100.00)

What set the Type 57s's apart from other road cars of the art deco period was the design and the speed. The motor and chassis featured several unique design innovations that brought driving on a road or on a race course to a whole different level. The car used a twin-cam 3,257 cc engine based on a previous Bugatti model, but it was heavily modified by Jean Bugatti (the son of the founder of Bugatti), unlike the previous engine designs in Bugatti cars. The engines of the Type 50, 51 used bevel gears at the front of the engine to transmit power from the crankshaft, whereas the Type 57 used a train of spur gears at the rear of the engine, with fiber gear wheels on the camshafts that made it quieter and thus more like a road car.

There were two basic variants of the Type 57 car: the original Type 57 and the lowered (chassis was lower to the ground) Type 57S/SC. The original Type 57 was a touring car model produced from 1934 through 1940. It used the 3.3 L (3,257 cc; 198 cu in) engine from the Type 59 Grand Prix cars, producing 135 hp (100 kW). Top speed was 153 km/h (95 mph). It rode on a 3,302 mm (130 in) wheelbase (compared to a 2018 Subaru Outback (the car I drive) which has a wheel base of 108.1 inches. Road-going versions weighed about 950 kg (2,090 lb). Hydraulic brakes replaced the cable-operated units in 1938, a modification Ettore Bugatti did not like. In total 630 Type 57's were produced.

We all know about Vehicle Identification Numbers on our modern cars. Motorized vehicles of all types, including motorcycles and trucks, are also tracked by the same kind of system with a separate number that is placed on engines and chassis placed on them when they are produced in the factory. These numbers allow manufactures to keep track of engines when they are "pulled" from one vehicle and put into a different vehicle. The same is true of chassis.

The car in this novel was modified by adding a supercharger to the engine. A supercharger is an air compressor that increases the pressure or density of air supplied to an internal combustion engine. This gives each intake cycle of the engine more oxygen, letting it burn more fuel and do more work, thus increasing the power output and speed. Especially the speed at initial acceleration. A car of the size of the Bugatti Type 57s would have been able to attain speed quickly and then maintain that speed.

The specific car that is the subject of this book was special just because it was a Bugatti, but it was also special because of it's unique history. The novel does a great job of telling this story, so I won't repeat it here. I do want to say that I couldn't believe the story was true so did some internet searching and found out that the basic skeleton of the story, as told by Walker is true. "La Voiture Noire" was the only Atlantic model to have factory installation of the supercharger. The car was purchased directly at the factory on 10 March 1936, by Greek racing driver Nico E. Embiricos. But as innovative as Bugatti was, Embiricos wanted some other modifications on his car. The body of the car was completed on August 24, 1936 in the factory in Molsheim and then shipped to Embiricos' residence in London. The car was then sent to Corsica Coachworks in London for conversion to a two-seater convertible racing body. This work was completed on September 4, 1936. The Coupé Aero bodywork was sent back to the Bugatti workshop, where it was eventually mounted on chassis No. 57453 with engine No. 2SC. Being the only Atlantic already fitted with the "C" specification supercharger straight from the factory, No. 57453 was completed on October 3, 1936. During the winter of the same year, the car was mostly driven by Jean Bugatti and racing driver William Grover-Williams and his wife, Yvonne. There are few photographs of "La Voiture Noire" but it was photographed for the company's 1937 promotional catalogue and was also exhibited at the Nice and Lyon Motor Shows in the spring of 1937.

Brought back to Molsheim, it was proudly driven by Jean Bugatti until the end of July, when he offered it as a gift to Bugatti race driver Robert Benoist after winning the 1937 24 Hours of Le Mans race. In the spring of 1940, all Benoist, Grover Williams and his wife, fled to England before the Germans took over France and the car was returned to the factory. Strangely, even though it was frequently driven, No. 57453 never had a registered owner. The Bugatti factory was moved to Bordeaux in 1941 after the Fall of France. The last mention of the car was on a list of cars that were to be sent via a train to Rue Alfred Daney in Bordeaux on February 18, 1941. It was registered as "1244 W5" and bearing chassis No. 57454. Robert Benoist joined the French Resistance after the Fall of France. His friend, and fellow race car driver, William Grover-Williams also returned to France as a member of the British Secret Service. Both Benoist and Grover-Williams were discovered and murdered during the war. The car disappeared.

Jean Bugatti, who unfortunately died on August 11, 1939 at the age of 30 in a car crash, often considered the Atlantic model and most notably No. 57453, as his most innovative and most valuable creation. For this reason, at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show, commemorating the 110-year anniversary of both Jean Bugatti and the brand, Bugatti produced a one-off complete replica model of their most famous creation - "La Voiture Noire." After the show, the car was sold to an anonymous buyer for $19 million. According to the Bugatti stylistic team, "La Voiture Noire" was tagged as the ultimate Grand Tourer, and as such was a tribute to Jean Bugatti's stylistic genius. I take that to mean that the Bugatti design team that made the car also made a few changes to update the design. What those are, would only be known by those who study Bugatti cars.

I tried to copy the picture of the car, but couldn't get it to come in. If somebody else can move pictures into our thread, you are welcome to do so as the car is a beauty. The picture on the cover of the paperback version of the book is a Bugatti Atlantic, Type 57s.

>35 benitastrnad: Bugatti automobiles were known to me through, of course, books, but which book or books I don't know - I'm thinking Miss Spider breaks out the Bugatti, but it could be confused with Wooster crying out "Launch the Lagonda" which I had somehow misplaced onto Wimsey who in fact had a Daimler.

Not the real thing, but an 18K model:

I just realized I forgot to review it when I finished it on Wednesday. I'll do that before I forget!

It is now June 1, 2022. The year is not quite half over. We will be moving back to Venice for this month's book. It is Trace Elements by Donna Leon. This is book 29 in the Guido Brunetti series and our second Brunetti book for this year. Here is the Amazon blurb for the book.

A woman’s cryptic dying words in a Venetian hospice lead Guido Brunetti to uncover a threat to the entire region when Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police. Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding.

“They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,” Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently-deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him Brunetti softly promises he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. They discover that Fadalto worked in the field collecting samples of contamination for a company that measures the cleanliness of Venice’s water supply and that he had died in a mysterious motorcycle accident. Distracted briefly by Vice Questore Patta’s obsession with youth crime in Venice, Brunetti is bolstered once more by the remarkable research skills of Patta’s secretary, Signora Elettra Zorzi. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region. But justice in this case proves to be ambiguous, as Brunetti is reminded it can be when, seeking solace, he reads Aeschylus’s classic play The Eumenides.

As she has done so often through her memorable characters and storytelling skill, Donna Leon once again engages our sensibilities as to the differences between guilt and responsibility.

Brunetti's consent reading of classic Greek and Roman literature has been one of the threads in this series that has become a source of interest to me. What is Guido going to be reading in this installment in the series? How does that figure into the plot of the mysteries? How does that reading effect his personal philosophy and introspection? How does that reading effect his ability to do his job? Guido's reading turned out to be very important to the story in The Temptation of Forgiveness and I am sure that it will be important in this novel as well.

When I first started reading the Brunetti series I didn't pay much attention to the literature that Guido was reading. I thought that it was mostly the author's vehicle to introduce the reasons why Guido and Paola were happy and stable together as a family. I paid more attention the opera's that were mentioned in the books than the reading of the ancient texts or Paola's constant quoting of Henry James. However, I have come to realize that these works of literature are often important to the story and serve to illuminate Guido's thinking.

Here is a link to the Wikipedia page on Aeschylus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the winner of the Dionysia prize several times for his plays. In ancient Greece this was a great honor. The god Dionysus was the Greek god of the theater and winning the Dionysia prize was a great honor. The City of Dionysia held a festival each year (in the late winter) in which plays were submitted to a jury and judged on the second day of the festival. The winning play was preformed on the third day of the festival. Aeschylus won this playwriting contest multiple times and is considered to be the father of tragedy. Modern scholars believe that Aeschylus's plays were politically motivated and the three plays that make up the Oresteia seem to tackle several of the political themes and events that were going on at the time the plays were written.

I will be reading this book with one eye on Guido and the goings on at the Questura and one eye to Guido's thoughts as he reads the third play in the Oresteia - The Eumenides. Eumenides is the name of the three goddesses of the Furies. The word means gracious ones in Greek. They have this name because they are the dispensers of justice in Greek mythology. However, by the time in which Aeschylus is living the rudiments of justice that includes a trial are being formed. Modern scholars believe that Aeschylus was showing his support of the new judicial system over that of the revenge and vengeance circle that allowed blood feuds to continue through generations in endless cycles of violence.

I will be looking forward to hearing what you think as you read this book. I will start reading it this weekend.

>38 benitastrnad: Reading ancient classics isn't something I noticed in my few scattered reads in this series. Is it there from the beginning, constant, episodic?

>40 quondame:
I think it is there from the beginning. At first I didn't notice it, and it does seem to be more prominent in these later installments. I began to notice that it was part of the story about four or five books ago. The exchanges between Paola and Guido have had a literary bent to them from the beginning. There was the constant ribbing between the two which was more relevant - Henry Jamess or "all those dead Romans." But I never noticed it as more than that. I did notice the references to opera and the classical operas from time-to-time, but didn't notice how the reading, or what was read, influenced Guido. Looking back on it, it seems much clearer that the ancient texts are informing Donna Leon as she thinks up and writes her plots.

On a lighter note, it constantly amazes me, how bloodthirsty those ancient Greeks were. I tend to think of them as super civilized, but they weren't. They were pretty barbaric in many of their customs. One of my reading goals for this year is to read the works of Mary Renault. So far I have only read Last of the Wine and it made me turn to Wikipedia many times so that I could find out about a person, or an event, or a thing that was referred to in the novel. That book is not for people who don't want to be informed about ancient Greek history. I do plan on reading the others by Renault and am going to start with the series about Theseus. I will do so as soon as I get caught up on my Book Club reading for the year.

>41 benitastrnad: My Donna Leon reading has been very sporadic - I have 5 read of the first 14, so it would be unlikely for me to have spotted background details. Though Signora Elettra's abilities and willingness to use them for Commissario Brunetti, are so awfully convenient.

I'm a little over halfway through the audio version. This one is very slow to develop.

I just downloaded the audiobook but I suspect it will mostly be listened to en route to and from the Atlanta airport. I don't anticipate a lot of car time until then with gas prices so high.

>44 thornton37814:
The same here. It is taking me much longer to get through my audio books than it was due to the increase in gasoline prices. I had planned a mini-vacation for this last weekend (I had Thursday and Friday off) but didn't go anywhere (not even to Birmingham) due to gasoline prices. Here in Tuscaloosa is is $4.45 a gallon and it cost me $50.00 to fill up the car on Wednesday night. I spent Thursday getting a hotel room and plane ticket to Washington D.C. for the American Library Association annual conference and after the prices I had to pay for a plane ticket I decided I was staying home and saving my money for that trip. I have rigged up an external drive to my home computer and am doing some listening on that device, but it goes slower because I am working from my office full time. I spent my vacation as stay-cation. I just shelled out $350.00 for my yearly membership to the Student Recreation Center so I have been spending my time at the amazing cement pond at that facility. (the outdoor swimming pool.) I got in reading time, but no listening time.

Incidentally, it is amusing to me to see how many people take their books into the water with them. There is a shallow water sunning deck at this pool and I saw three different people with books in hand reading while they lay in the cool water sunning themselves! What will they do if the book gets wet?

>45 benitastrnad: I can't imagine taking books into the water. I think those of us who grew up with the Beverly Hillbillies will always think of pools as cement ponds. I'm glad I purchased my plane ticket when I did--before the prices went up again. I am having to drive to Atlanta to catch the plane to Wichita for the Association of Christian Librarians conference, but I will be able to listen to Brunetti coming and going and finish it before I get home. (Of course, that is assuming my COVID test is negative--and I think it will be. I was exposed last week. So far no symptoms but tomorrow is testing day. I just have to wear a mask in public through Sunday, and I have no problem staying home as much as possible and wearing it while I'm around others.)

I finished reading Trace Elements over the long weekend and like all of the Brunetti books I really enjoyed this one. I have to say that the revelation of the murderer and Brunetti's choice surprised me. Did he opt for who he thought would be convicted and therefore a sure form of justice? Interesting thoughts. Now I will have to read Aeschylus play Eumenides just to see why Brunetti made that choice. I want to know if he was influenced by the play or not?

>45 benitastrnad:
On Sunday there was another one in the water with a hardbound book. That book was a library book because I could see that it was covered in mylar and had a bar code on the front. Very interesting to see people in the water with books.

>47 benitastrnad: A couple of thoughts. Many of Brunetti's novels contain environmental themes. Many of the endings (and the plots as well) show a flawed/corrupt justice system--even when there are good guys like Brunetti.

The book for July takes us back to France to book 10 in the Bruno, Chief of Police series. This one is Templars Last Secret.

>50 benitastrnad: I just downloaded the audiobook, but I've got one audiobook in process ahead of it.

I am almost finished with the July book. Just wanting to bump the thread up in general.

I finished reading Templar's Last Secret and will wait a bit to make some comments. I will say, that like all of the Bruno books, it is very readable, not at all like the Guido Brunetti books. Bruno isn't as much of a philosopher as is Guido!

I just got back from my vacation in Kansas and so am a bit behind. I am still behind because my fire alarm at my house kept going off last night. It went off twice and disturbed my sleep. I think that the reason it does this is because of the amount of humidity in the air and the temperature of the AC. Oh well -

It is now August and we are going to be reading book number 11 in the Bruno Courreges series by Martin Walker. This installment is titled A Taste for Vengeance. This one is another murder mystery and is set in the Périgord. This novel also features Bruno's beloved sport of Rugby. This series has taught me that the French like Rugby just as much as the English and this was a surprise. I thought the French too "civilized" for that sort of sport. Learning things like this are one of the reasons why I like to read mysteries set in other countries and cultures. Some of these novels provide great insights into the everyday culture of the places in ways that other works of fiction do not. In one of the previous Bruno novels, Walker introduced us to the sport of rally car racing and now he is going to place rugby in center stage. French rubgy - who would have thought? It will be fun to see how Walker incorporates this sport into this novel.

I have to get my copy of this novel from our local public library. Fortunately, for me, they have two copies of this novel - and both are on the shelf. Happy reading everybody.

I'm making good progress on the audio version of this one. I've listened to 8:39:44 and have 2:20:23 to go! I should probably finish tomorrow or Saturday as I plan a trip to the cross stitch shop in Johnson City. I haven't decided which day I'm going. I need to go renew my car tags tomorrow. I'll probably use the convenience center instead of the courthouse. Parking is much easier there, although it's further from my home. It should be easy to head on to Johnson City from there though.

I have the audio downloaded and ready to go as soon as I finish my current audiobook. I'll probably start it sometime next week. The narrator for this series does a fantastic job.

>56 cbl_tn: I'm curious to see if you notice anything strange with the narration on this one. It sounded like someone else read a single chapter. I can't remember which one it was. The inflections just didn't seem the same, and the recording seemed different.

>57 thornton37814:
I have noticed that on some other audio books that I have listened to. It seems the same, but somehow it isn't. I wonder if it is a difference in the studio where it was recorded. Or some other engineering things. Whatever it is - sometimes it is noticeable and can be a bit jarring. It interrupts the flow.

>58 benitastrnad: It is so odd!

I finished reading Taste for Vengeance this week but will wait a few more days before I discuss it with you guys. It is getting on towards the end of the month and we will be reading a new book in a few days.

I can say that I really enjoyed the descriptions of the countryside along with the descriptions of the food and wine. These books make me want to go visit the Dordogne before Walker starts making that region sound like it has the same problems with tourists as does Venice. I watched an episode of Rick Steves show from a few years ago that featured Venice and he made a point to show the very long line of tourists waiting to get into St. Marks. He also said that the best time to see Venice was early in the morning or later in the afternoon. He also showed the reason for the huge numbers of tourists - humongous cruise ships. Sometimes more than one of them docking in Venice. I think that has changed and now these ships have to dock outside of the lagoon. Tourists have to disembark and take smaller vaporetto's into the city. After seeing that episode I can understand why the city government made that a requirement for the cruise ships.

It is now September and time to return to the world of Guido Brunetti. This month we will be reading book number 30 (that number is correct!), Transient Desires by Donna Leon. This entry in the series was published in 2021, so we are catching up with Ms. Leon. There is only book number 31 and then we will have to wait until March 2023 for the release of the new title in the series. I got my copy of this book from the public library earlier this week but have not started reading it. I hope that this nice long weekend will afford me the time to get started on this novel.

In our current novel, Guido finds himself working with two of the other Italian law enforcement entities. Since these are not his "peeps" he and Claudia Griffoni find themselves not knowing which of their new partners they can trust as they try to solve the newest crime on the Laguna. For us as readers, the author is introducing other pieces of the Italian justice system to us. Guido and Claudia find that they need to form a working partnership with the Guardia Costiera and the Carabinieri.

The Guardia Costiera translates to the Coast Guard and part of the Italian Navy.
The principal tasks of the Corps activities are the following:
1. Search and rescue at sea (SAR) with the entire organization of co-ordination, control, detection and communications active for 24 hours a day requested by this activity;
2. Safety of navigation, with systematic investigative controls on the entire national mercantile, fishing and pleasure shipping, through the activity of Port State Control, also on the foreign mercantile shipping that calling at the national ports;
3. Protection of the marine environment, with functional dependence of the Ministero dell'ambiente e della tutela del territorio (Ministry for the Environment), using for this aim also resources (operations' centers, aeronaval crafts, naval traffic control systems) already used for tasks of rescue, safety of navigation, and maritime police;
4. Control on maritime fishery, with functional dependence on the Ministry of Agriculture: at this end the general command is the responsible authority of the National Fishing Control Center and the Captaincies carry out the controls prescribed by the national and community norms on the entire fishing fleet;
5. Peripheral administration of State functions in the matters of formation of the maritime personnel, of registration of the mercantile and fishing shipping, of pleasure shipping, and of the contentious for those maritime crimes that have been de-penalized;
6. Maritime police (namely technical-administrative maritime police), including the discipline of maritime navigation and the regulation of the events that are carried out in the maritime areas that fall under the national sovereignty, the control of the maritime traffic, the maneuver of the ships and the safety in the ports, inquiries on the maritime accidents, the control on the maritime State property, the testing and periodic inspections of coastal deposits and other hazardous installations.

Other functions are carried out for the Ministries of Defense (enrollment of the military personnel), for Cultural Activities and Treasures (underwater archaeology), of internal affairs (anti-illegal immigration), of Justice and the Department of Civil Protection, all having as a common denominator the sea and navigation.

The Carabinieri is one of Italy's main law enforcement agencies. Until 2000 they were part of the Italian Army but now they are a separate branch of the military services of Italy. The Carabinieri have policing powers in all parts of the country and they can exercise those powers any time any where. Unlike the Police (for which Guido works) they carry guns at all times. According to Europol the Carabinieri Corps' military duties include "contributing to national defense, participating in military operations in Italy and abroad, executing military police functions and ensuring the security of Italian diplomatic and consular representations". As a national police force, it "carries out public order and security policing, as well as investigative activities on its own initiative or at the request of the judicial authorities". Europol also states that the force is "supplemented by the Specialized Carabinieri Commands, responsible for safeguarding the primary interests of the community: from the protection of the environment, health, work and national cultural heritage, to the observance of community and agri-food regulations, to the suppression of forgery of currency. Since the Carabinieri are a branch of the military they have served as peacekeepers for the UN in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In 2003, 12 Carabinieri were killed in a small town outside of Basra, Iraq by a suicide bomber. It was the largest loss of life by an Italian military unit since World War II.

It will be interesting to see how Guido works with these two different military organizations.

Before we move on to the book for next month, I wanted to let you know that last night on PBS I watched a NOVA program called "Saving Venice." This is part of a series that PBS is doing on cities where the rising oceans are causing many problems. The one on Venice had a great segment on the Aqua Alta phenomena that has played a part in several of the Guido Brunetti books. This hour long program explained what the Aqua Alta is and how the MOSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) works. And sometimes doesn't work. To my surprise they do not use the MOSE to stop every Aqua Alta - only those that are predicted to be above 43 inches in height. Anything under that is let through. The reason - the occasional high tides are needed to clean out the Venetian Lagoon. Particularly the sewage from the city. I learned that Venice doesn't have a sewage treatment facility. It has always used the tides to carry human waste out of the city. It turns out that they are also pumping sea water back under the city in order to lift the city back up to pre-twentieth century levels. As fresh water is pumped out of the aquifers under the Lagoon, the city sinks. In order to stop the sinking they are pumping sea water into rock layers under the aquifers to help lift the seabed back to where it should be.

I also learned why the huge ships that use the Venetian port cause severe land erosion and why they are now restricted to only one ship channel. It was a very enlightening program and I found that it explained some of the questions I had from reading these mysteries and never had a chance to answer.

The program on Venice was followed by the one on Miami, because Miami is also sinking.

The series is called Sinking Cities and it will feature - Miami, London, and Tokyo.

It is now the third day of the month and time for us to move on to the next book. The book for October will be Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker. This is the twelfth book in the Bruno Courreges series by Walker. That means that we will be returning to the Dordogne and all the food, wine, and adventures that we can handle.

I did some digging and there are now 16 books in the Bruno Courreges series. Yes!!! Book number 16 in this series will be published in June of 2023. It is titled Chateau Under Siege. I am sure that it will be as full of food, wine, and adventures as the previous books in the series.

In the meantime, there is our current selection. I went to our local public library on Saturday and got my copy. I have not started reading it yet, but will get started a bit later this week. Here is the blurb from Amazon to wet your appetite for Bruno and the Dordogne.

Another installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: When a young American woman turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle, Bruno Courrèges initially assumes that she died of an overdose. But her doctor soon persuades him that things may not be so simple, setting Bruno on an investigation that will lead him from the Renaissance to the French Resistance and beyond.

Claudia Muller had been studying with Monsieur de Bourdeille, a renowned art historian who became extraordinarily wealthy through the sale of paintings that may have been falsely attributed—or so Claudia suggested shortly before her death. In his younger days, Bourdeille had aided the Resistance and been arrested by a Vichy police officer whose own life story also becomes inexorably entangled with the case. Also in the mix is a young falconer who works at the Château des Milandes, the former home of fabled jazz singer Josephine Baker.

Once again, it’s up to Bruno to make sure that justice is served—along with a generous helping of his signature Périgordian cuisine, of course.

Since it is October it is time for us to think about getting our list together for next year. So I have a couple of questions for the group.

1. Do we want to continue with this group? We will have 3 Bruno books we can read and 1 Guido book to read for sure during the next year. Her new book will be published in March of 2023 and is titled So Shall You Reap.

2. We will need to pick up a series so what kind of murder mystery series do you want to read? Historical, Contemporary, Cozy, or International?

3. Do you have a series that you would like to suggest for the group to read? If so, let me know what it is and I will do a bit of investigating and let you know what I find out.

Last year I started a Mystery series list of series titles that caught my eye. I have that series that we can look at if nobody has any suggestions. So please, send me your ideas of what we could read. We need a series that has 6 - 10 books or more. Other than that the series suggestion box is wide open.

I finished last month's Bruno on the way home from the airport yesterday. I just didn't get it started early enough to finish it before heading out of town. You can tell I didn't have a lot left since the drive is only an hour. I appreciate your sharing what you learned about the MOSE and Aqua Alta.

I'm open to continuing. I've really enjoyed both of these series. I'd prefer series similar to the ones we've been reading which feature police who should be investigating rather than amateur sleuths. I'm open to them being historical settings. I usually prefer ones set in Europe to those set in the U.S. I'd be open to Canada too although I've read most of the Constable Molly Smith ones and all the Gamache ones to date.

I have lists of series at home and can check my lists and get back later.

>64 benitastrnad: I would love to continue. International and historical mysteries are among my favorites, but I'm willing to try just about anything.

Some suggestions to consider:
Vera Stanhope series by Ann Cleeves
Phryne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood
Verlaque & Bonnet series by M. L. Longworth
Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen
John Madden series by Rennie Airth
Quirke series by Benjamin Black
Marcus Didius Falco series by Lindsey Davis
Gideon Oliver series by Aaron Elkins

>65 thornton37814: & >66 cbl_tn:
I would be open to a historical mystery and have had my eye on the Marcus Didius Falco series and the Phryne Fisher series.

I also have recently run across another historical mystery series Rowland Sinclair that I thought might be good. This series is set in Australia in the 1930's. Sinclair is an amateur sleuth in the same vein as Phryne Fischer. There are currently 10 books in this series.

The Phryne Fischer series is also set in Australia but a decade before Rowland Sinclair. The 1920's. There are 21 books in this series. Book 21 was published in June 2021. This mystery series has also been made into a popular PBS series.

If we do a historical series I am fine with any of these three.

>65 thornton37814:
I recently ran across a new contemporary mystery series set in modern day France. It is the Provencal Mystery series by M. L. Longworth set in modern day France. This series is about a French magistrate instead of a policeman. The Amazon blurb about this series says it features chief magistrate Antoine Verlaque and his old flame Marine Bonnet, who must team up to solve murders. This series sounded interesting to me and there are 10 books in this series.

I also found a series set in modern Greece. Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mysteries. These are by Jeffrey Siger. He lives on the Greek island of Mykanos. There are currently 12 books in this series with about 1 published each year. It appears that these books are set at different locations around Greece and the Greek Islands. Here is the Amazon blurb for this series. Politically incorrect detective Andreas Kaldis, promoted out of Athens to serve as police chief for Mykonos, is certain his homicide investigation days are over.

I had thought that we would finish out the Bruno series next year and would read the newest in the Guido Brunetti series next year as well. That would give us 4 books. We could read one each quarter. That would leave 8 other titles for the rest of the year. Both Bruno and Guido are ongoing series so as the new books in the series are published, I thought we could add them into our yearly reading list. This would let us keep up with their adventures while branching out and reading something new. Is that a system that would work for all of you?

>69 benitastrnad: That works well for me.

>68 benitastrnad: I've read the 1st and 3rd in the Mykonos series. I gave the first one 3 stars and the 3rd one 4 stars, so I'd be open to that one. I'm used to the first in series not being quite as good.

The Verlaque and Bonnet series is one that has been on my radar as well, so I'm open to it. I haven't read any of them.

>66 cbl_tn: Vera: I've read 1-4 and 9 in it. They've all been recent enough I'd probably sit out the month rather than re-reading them, but I could join the discussion.

Phryne Fisher: I think I've shied away from the series because the first in the series sounds like "noir" since "cocaine" is in the title. I've been interested in reading many of the books in the series as I've seen descriptions though, so I think I would enjoy this one.

Jussi Adler-Olsen: His books sound interesting to me. I meant to read one while we had it on lease books and didn't get around to it.

Rennie Airth: I've never heard of this series, but it looks interesting. I like Scotland!

Benjamin Black: I've read some he's written under the name John Banville but none in the Quirke series. Banville is a good writer.

Lindsey Davis/Marcus Didius Falco: This is a series I've meant to try. I'm not sure I'd want to read this series in back to back months though.

Aaron Elkins: I've read and enjoyed a couple in the series, but I'd consider re-reading the ones I've read.

One more to consider:

Author Maureen Jennings - Series: Detective Murdoch (https://www.librarything.com/nseries/21017/Detective-Murdoch-mysteries). The first is in my TBR pile.

Some that interest me don't have a large enough corpus yet!

The Rowland Sinclair series sounds interesting! I'd be happy with it as well.

>71 thornton37814: I've read the first two Murdoch mysteries and decided not to continue with the series. I rated the first 3 stars and the second 2 1/2 stars. I don't think you'd like them any better than I did. You might want to read my review of book #2.

Most of these have TV series based on the books, which boosts their popularity in libraries. The books should be fairly easy to get.

More suggestions to consider:

Benjamin January series by Barbara Hambly
Sergeant Cribb series by Peter Lovesey (an older series but readily available in my library's OverDrive collection)
Bone Rattler series by Eliot Pattison - I've had my eye on this one for a long time but never got around to reading it.
Irene Huss series by Helene Tursten

>72 cbl_tn: I trust your assessment. After your reviews of both, I'm removing them from my TBR list. I apparently own copies of both the first and second so I'll add them to my McKay's pile.

>73 cbl_tn: I'm not really interested in the Pattison series at all. The one which would interest me most of these last suggestions is the Tursten series, but I think I'd prefer the earlier suggestions.

>73 cbl_tn: >74 thornton37814: That second list is series that weren't on the first list that have lots of series books available to borrow in TN Reads. Of the second list, I'm most interested in the Sergeant Cribb series.

I am interested in the following series. This list is not in priority order.

1. Phyrne Fisher
2. Rowland Sinclair
3. Marcus Didius Falco
4. Mykanos series
5. Verlaque & Bonnet
6. Irene Huss

Upon thinking about it a bit more I would also be open to reading the Jussi Alder Olsen and the Rennie Arth series. again - one historical and one contemporary.

There are three historical mystery series on here and 3 contemporary.

I have already read the first 4 of the Benjamin Black Quirk series, but I could do them as well. I find them very gloomy. I can honestly say that I have preferred the style of the Guido and Bruno series that we have been reading to the Quirk series. The Guido and Bruno books are halfway between cozies and the dark mysteries of the Fjallbacka and Longmire series that we read before. I think it is because I like getting to know the major character of the series.

I will take a longer look at our lists next week and see which ones all of us have on our list. I will also look at WorldCat and see how readily available our list is. I don't want to have us struggling to find copies of the books once choose a series. Once we have that information we can make a choice from there.

>76 benitastrnad: Of the six series on your list, I've read one book each in the Phryne Fisher series, the Mykanos series, and the Verlaque & Bonnet series. I didn't like the Phryne Fisher book quite as well as I did the other two books. We've been in France with Bruno, so it might be nice to choose a different country for variety. However, the Verlaque & Bonnet series presents a different side of the criminal justice system since Verlaque is a Juge d'Instruction and not a policeman.

I took some time today and looked up each of the first books in this series and found the following information that might help us make our decision regarding a new series to add to our list.

First of all I figured that at the end of this year we would have the following books to read from the Guido and Bruno series.

Coldest Case by Martin Walker
To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker
Chateau Under Siege by Martin Walker (to be published in June 2023)

There is a new Guido book due out in 2023 as well.

That would make the potential schedule for 2023 look like the following.

January 2023 - new series book 1
February 2023 - new series book 2
March - Coldest Case by Martin Walker
April 2023 - new series book 3
May 2023 - new series book 4
June 2023 - To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker
July 2023 - new series book 5
August 2023 - new series book 6
September Chateau Under Siege by Martin Walker
October - new series book 7
November - new series book 8
December - new Guido book by Donna Leon

I took a look at WorldCat and found the following numbers for the series under consideration.

Historical series
Phyrne Fisher - 21 books in the series - 524 libraries have book 1 in this series. It is also available in download and on CD (I use CD's)
Marcus Didius Falco - 20 books in the series - 877 libraries have book 1 in this series. It available in download but not on CD
Rowland Sinclair - 10 books in the series - 150 libraries have book 1 in this series. It is available for download (my public library has the first three books in this series - who knew?)

Police Procedural series
Chief Inspector Kaldis (Mykonos) 12 books in the series - 409 libraries have book 1 in this series. It is available for download.
Provencal Mysteries (Verlaque & Bonnet) 10 books in the series - 582 have book 1 in this series. It is available for download and on CD.
Inspector Huss (8 books in the series - 492 libraries have book 1 in this series. It is available for download.

Any of these series would be fine with me, but I do have my preferences.

I think that we need to decide if we want to read a historical or a police procedural series. Right now I am leaning towards the Marcus Didius Falco series or any of the three Police Procedural series. I would like to read from a different country than France since we will still be reading three of the Bruno books next year.

>78 benitastrnad: Inspector Huss would work well with next year's reading schedule since there are 8 slots for new books and 8 books in the series. The Mykonos series would also work well, as we could read 8 of those next year and one per quarter in 2024.

ETA: LibraryThing shows 10 books in the Inspector Huss series.

I think I'd prefer Detective Inspector Huss. I'm not sure I'm up to reading 8 books in the Falco series. I think I could handle every other month, but I'm not sure I could be immersed in Ancient for back-to-back months without a break.

Another option since some of these series are shorter would be to pick two new series and read 4 each in them. Then we could continue those two series the next year with 6 and 6. If we did that, I'd go for Huss and Falco.

>80 thornton37814: Another option since some of these series are shorter would be to pick two new series and read 4 each in them. Then we could continue those two series the next year with 6 and 6. If we did that, I'd go for Huss and Falco.

That works for me!

>81 cbl_tn:
That works for me as well! I would go for the Inspector Huss and the Falco series. Those two mixed in with the finishing of Bruno and Guido would make for a fine mixture of mysteries for next year.

>79 cbl_tn:
I will check on the number of Inspector Huss books and see what I come up with and let you guys know.

In the meantime I started Body in the Castle Well and am moving along nicely with this story.

>82 benitastrnad: I like this plan!

I will listen to Body in the Castle Well as soon as I finish my current audiobook. I love mysteries with art history themes so I'm predisposed to love this one. I hope it's as good as it sounds!

>83 benitastrnad: >84 cbl_tn: I'm less than 2 hours from the finish on this one!

I'm excited for this plan too!

I finished Body in the Castle Well and like always enjoyed the novel and all of Bruno's culinary adventures as well as the mystery. I really enjoyed the description of the Confrere of the Pate de Perigeaux. Wow - I didn't even know that such things existed. Fascinating.

>86 benitastrnad: It was a good one!

Our next book is another in the Bruno Courreges series. This one is book 13 in the series and is titled Shooting at Chateau Rock. The Amazon blurb for the book says:

This installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno will take all of Bruno's resolve and quick thinking to untangle a mystery that will reach its deadly denouement at the château of an aging rock star. But in true Bruno fashion, at least lunchtime is never in danger.

It’s summer in the Dordogne and the heirs of a modest sheep farmer learn that they have been disinherited. Their father’s estate has been sold to an insurance company in return for a policy that will place him in a five-star retirement home for the rest of his life. But the farmer dies before he can move in. Was it a natural death? Or was there foul play? Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges is soon on the case, embarking on an investigation that will lead him to several shadowy insurance companies owned by a Russian oligarch with a Cypriot passport.

The arrival of the oligarch’s daughter in the Périgord only further complicates one of Bruno’s toughest cases yet.

I went to my local library to check out the book and when I went to enter it into LT, I discovered that I already had a copy of the book. I found my copy and tonight on the way home from work, I will return the libraries copy to them. I can't wait to get started on this book and since I have my own copy, I can read it at my leisure.

>88 benitastrnad: I just downloaded it, but I've got about 2.5 hours remaining on the current audiobook before I get to it. I've really enjoyed the narrator for the series. I'm guessing that I'll get to it Wednesday and should finish it by the end of next week.

>89 thornton37814: We're at about the same spot then! I have just under 2 hours left of this month's book. I'm really enjoying this one!

>90 cbl_tn: I'm actually listening to a different series at the moment, but I'll get 1/2 hour done tonight on the drive home, an hour on tomorrow's commute, and a I might actually finish it tomorrow night going to and from the visitation/funeral at church. I looked and I'm just at 2 hours and 1 minute. I'd say I'll probably make myself finish it tomorrow night. That way I can start the Martin Walker on Wednesday. I have another audiobook due to deliver on Friday, I think, but I should be able to finish the Walker and then it before they are due.

My reading this month got interrupted so I have not finished Shooting at Chateau Rock and I noticed that nobody has posted here since October 31st. Wow! My month was so busy I didn't even notice.

In case nobody has looked at a calendar today it is now December 1st and time for us to move on to our next Guido Brunetti book by Donna Leon. This one is Give Unto Others. This is book 31 in the series and was published in March of 2022. That means that we are now caught up with Guido and the events of his life. In this installment Brunetti is forced to confront the price of loyalty, to his past and in his work, as a seemingly innocent request leads him into trouble.

Here is the Amazon blurb about this novel.
What role can or should loyalty play in the life of a police inspector? It’s a question Commissario Guido Brunetti must face and ultimately answer in Give unto Others, Donna Leon’s splendid thirty-first installment of her acclaimed Venetian crime series.

Brunetti is approached for a favor by Elisabetta Foscarini, a woman he knows casually, but her mother was good to Brunetti’s mother, so he feels obliged to at least look into the matter privately, and not as official police business. Foscarini’s son-in-law, Enrico Fenzo, has alarmed his wife (her daughter) by confessing their family might be in danger because of something he’s involved with. Since Fenzo is an accountant, Brunetti logically suspects the cause of danger is related to the finances of a client. Yet his clients seem benign: an optician, a restaurateur, a charity established by his father-in-law. However, when his friend’s daughter’s place of work is vandalized, Brunetti asks his own favors—that his colleagues Claudia Griffoni, Lorenzo Vianello, and Signorina Elettra Zorzi assist his private investigation, which soon enough turns official as they uncover the dark and Janus-faced nature of a venerable Italian institution.

Exploring the wobbly line between the criminal and non-criminal, revealing previously untold elements of Brunetti’s past, Give unto Others shows that the price of reciprocity can be steep.

My local library has this book in print (2 copies) but both copies are checked out at the moment. I will have to wait a week or so to see if one of them is returned. If not, I will place a hold on the book and hope that I get it before I leave for Kansas and my Christmas break. Then it will be back to Tuscaloosa for 30 days of work, and then I retire on February 1. I signed my retirement papers today. I intend to get the schedule up and running for our next years year of mystery reading during the last week of December, so it will be ready for us on January 1, 2023.

In the meantime, don't hesitate to post on this thread regarding your reading of the book for this month Give Unto Others.

I checked today and the new Guido book for 2023 will be published on March 14, 2023 and the title is So Shall You Reap. We have something to look forward to.

Last month was busy. I did listen to the Martin Walker book early in November. I downloaded Give Unto Others this morning so I'll be able to start it on the way home this afternoon.

I assume you are moving back to Kansas permanently when you retire?

I am going to stay here and do nothing - nothing - for six months. I am going to go to bed when I want, get up when I want, and drink coffee and read books whenever I want to do so. At some point during that six months I will figure out what I want to do. I am thinking about working for the park service during the summer, teaching English in Japan, moving to Vermont, etc. etc., I am sure that at some point I will figure out what I will do and where I will go. I do plan on moving back to Kansas at some point in the future.

I managed to finish Guido on my return trip from the cross stitch shop in Johnson City. I'll try to get a review posted at some point on my thread. I don't want to give away too much to those of you who are in process or haven't started it yet.

I just finished reading Shooting at Chateau Rock and enjoyed it. This one was a slow starter. Frankly, I got bored with all the stuff about Balzac. I wish it had been left out, but there were lots of other interesting tidbits about life in Europe that I liked reading about. All that minutia about how the French notarie system works was very interesting. The minutia about Balzac - not so much.

I stopped at the library this evening and picked up Give Unto Others and will start it on my trip home on Thursday. I will have a nice long vacation in which I can read to my hearts content even if I have 2 instruction sessions booked with graduate students for next week. I don't know what some of these professors are going to do when I retire.

Speaking of that - today I got notification from our HR that I have to get more paperwork in, and I don't have time to do it before Christmas. Since the University closes the week between Christmas and New Years I may end up backing off my retirement until March 1. But that wouldn't be so bad and would still work for me.

I am not done with Give Unto Others but should finish it before the end of the week. I will get started on creating the new thread for 2023 on the 75'ers Challenge Group. As soon as I do I will post the link here.

I worked out the schedule for our reading for 2023. It would look like this:

January 2023 - Detective Inspector Huss by Helene Tursten - book 1 in Irene Huss
February 2023 - Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis - book 1 in Marcus Didius Falco
March 2023 - Coldest Case by Martin Walker - book 14 in Bruno Courreges
April 2023 - Night Rounds by Helene Tursten - book 2 in Irene Huss
May 2023 - Shadows in Bronze by Lindsey Davis - book 2 in Marcus Didius Falco
June 2023 - To Kill A Troubadour by Martin Walker - book 15 in Bruno Courreges
July 2023 - Torso by Helene Tursten - book 3 in Irene Huss
August 2023 - Venus in Copper by Lindsey Davis - book 3 in Marcus Didius Falco
September 2023 - Chateau Under Siege by Martin Walker - book 16 in Bruno Courreges
October 2023 - Glass Devil by Helene Tursten - book 4 in Irene Huss
November 2023 - Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis - book 4 in Marcus Didius Falco
December 2023 - So Shall You Reap by Donna Leon - book 32 in Commissario Brunetti

The September book A Chateau Under Siege will be published in June of 2023, so we should be able to get our hands on it by September.

I am satisfied with this list as I only feel like I have to read 4 books of a series and so if I don't like that series I can quit reading it and won't feel like I need to go ahead and complete the series. It also lets all of us read a bit more freely. Let me know if this arrangement works for all of you and I will go ahead and set up the 2023 thread in a few days.

>99 benitastrnad: It works for me.

I set up the new thread for 2023. Here is the link.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/347194

Come on over and let's get started with our reading for 2023.

I slid in under the wire with Give Unto Others. I finished reading it on December 28, 2022. Like all the other Brunetti books I have read - I enjoyed this one. It amazes me that Leon can write a book about moral and ethical dilemmas that make the reader think and ponder on ethics while reading a murder mystery. For me, as a reader, this is what sets this mystery series apart from many others. It does remind me of the Gianrico Carifiglio books that we read several years ago. That series was also deep into the inner workings of lawyerly ethics.

The case of Give Unto Others, I thought that Guido was doing something that was borderline unethical, but he has done so in the past, and it has worked. What I thought was interesting that the others - Vianello, Pucetti, Claudia, and the indomitable Elettra, followed Guido into this territory. Elettra is not surprising, since she lives in this borderland of unethical behavior, but the others especially Vianello, surprised me. Do they really trust Guido that much that they would willing follow him into “the Valley of Death” and jeopardize their jobs and reputations?

As I wrote the previous post, I was reminded that Gianrico Carofiglio has a new Guido Guerrieri or Avvocato Guerrieri book translated into English. The new one is Measure of Time. In this book Guido Guerrieri contemplates his retirement as he works on his last case. The book was just published in 2022 in the US, so perhaps we can include it on our reading list for next year - 2024?

>103 benitastrnad: I like that idea. Maybe we could plan to catch up on old series once a quarter. I've read a few of the Longmire books that have been released since we finished the group read, but I'm not caught up with the series.

I think I only read the Brunetti books the year we did Carofiglio. (I read the first one and gave it 2 stars so I didn't continue.) I probably would not read that one. I don't really enjoy legal thrillers that much. You all can go ahead and read them, and I'll just skip that month.

I kept up with the Viveca Sten series. I think there are a couple books of short stories that are not translated in English, but that's all I haven't read of it.

I started Detective Inspector Huss only to find I had already read it and thought it promised a lot more than it delivered. I think I'll skip it and join in next month for a re-read of The Silver Pigs which I remember enjoying.

>106 quondame: In case you missed the link to this year's thread, here it is: https://www.librarything.com/topic/347194

>107 thornton37814: Thanks. I do have it starred, but somehow landed here, which doesn't make much sense, but well, it happened.

>108 quondame: I understand. It's easy to do that at the beginning of the year.