A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

It's time for some straight talk.  I'm feeling like I'm over the Grantchester Mysteries as a book series but not necessarily as a TV series.  There was a spell earlier this year where I read a couple books in a row from this series, and Sidney's whole act about being "conflicted" about solving crimes/mysteries and always being pulled into any hint of trouble in the vicinity of Grantchester (and now Ely) worked on my nerves.  Like either solve mysteries or don't, either prioritize your family over your mystery solving or don't, but this fretting and obsessing over this work/family/mystery solving balance is getting old.  Well, guess what!  It seems Sidney heard and heeded my advice.  The fretting/obsessing over his mystery solving and whether or not he should be doing it is at a minimum in this installment of the Grantchester Mysteries . It's the late 1960's in Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation by James Runcie, and this is the ...

Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night is the second novel in the Grantchester Mysteries written by James Runcie.  It's also a British TV series that airs on PBS, the second season of which aired earlier this year.  Although I haven't yet seen the second series, I can say that as far as the characters' lives and timeline that the two have diverged. The second novel's timeline is hard to follow because it picks up in 1955, the year after the close of the first novel.  However, Perils of the Night covers over five years (!) concluding literally on the eve of the construction of the Berlin Wall.  The first novel was reviewed here on the blog.  In this installation Sidney is caught up in many mysteries and adventures, two of which are connected to his alma mater University of Cambridge. In 1955 when a research fellow falls to his death in the middle of a forbidden midnight climb on King's College Chapel towers, Sidney is enlisted to ascertain that it w...

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill is the first of the Simon Serrailler mysteries.  Hill has written countless other books of fiction, non-fiction and a few children's books in addition to the Serrailler mysteries.  This is the first book by Hill that I've read.  Before I go on, I have a confession to make.  About halfway through the book in the midst of a (failed) quest to find the proper pronunciation of the surname Serrailler (I hate it when there are words or names with ambiguous or unclear pronunciations in a book!) I read a spoiler regarding a central character's fate, and it nearly spoiled the entire book for me, and for a split second I considered ditching the book entirely.  However, denial is a wonderful thing sometimes, and then the next girl went missing, and the story picked up immediately with this development, and I decided I had to finish it because I had to know who the culprit was and maybe that really bad thing doesn't really happen to...