Saturday, January 10, 2026

2026 Alphabet Soup Author Edition

 


The Alphabet Soup Challenge--Author Edition is a companion challenge for Lori's Alphabet Soup Challenge. The goal is to read books by authors whose first, middle, or last name will allow us to read one book for every letter of the alphabet. If you'd like to join in, please click on the link above for full details. X & Z keep getting trickier for me--especially since I'm trying to read primarily from my own shelves. So--my declared personal goal is 13 books (half the alphabet). I will try to do all 26, but if I meet 13, I can count the challenge complete on my challenge tracker page.

A:
B:
C:
D:
E:
F
G:
H:
I:
J:
K:
L:
M:
N:
O:
P:
Q:
R:
S: Death on the Slopes by Norma Schier (1/9/26)
T:
U:
V: Don Among the Dead Men by C. E. Vulliamy (1/7/26)
W: The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson
X:
Y:
Z:

2026 Alphabet Soup Challenge

 


The Alphabet Soup Challenge means that by December 31, 2026 our bowls must be filled with one book (title) for each letter of the Alphabet. Each letter = one spoonful. Basic details: you can sign up any time. Each letter should begin the book title--except for those pesky Q, X, and Z letters. The word that begins with the challenge letter may appear anywhere in the title. For full details and to sign up, click above. X & Z keep getting trickier for me--especially since I'm trying to read primarily from my own shelves. So--my declared personal goal is 13 books (half the alphabet). I will try to do all 26, but if I meet 13, I can count the challenge complete on my challenge tracker page.

A:
B:
C:
D: Don Among the Dead Men by C. E. Vulliamy (1/7/26)
E:
F:
G:
H:
I:
J:
K:
L:
M:
N:
O:
P:
Q:
R:
S:
T:
U:
V:
W:
X
Y:
Z:


Death on the Slopes


 Death on the Slopes (1978) by Norma Schier

Jason Ryder has been trying to recover from the death of his wife in a tragic car accident when two things happen. Valerie Mayne, a woman who says she was friend of his wife in college, shows up at his door and attaches herself, limpet-like, to him. He just can't seem to get her to get a job and an apartment and out of his hair. And he receives a letter from his cousin asking if he'd like a change from the high-powered world of New York publishing to the mountain slopes of Colorado. His cousin, who teaches at a small college in Aspen, is going to Italy to teach and there's an open position. Jason decides the change is just what he needs...and it's a chance to get rid of Valerie gracefully.

Except...

"But Jason, that's too good to be true! I'm dying to go to Aspen!"

And the limpet tags right along to Colorado. Where she immediately stirs up trouble, making everyone think that Jason has a live-in girlfriend. So...when Valerie winds up stabbed with a ski pole and Jason was last person known to be her...well what is the detective in charge of the case to think?

But...Aspen's newest female D.A., Kay Barth, doesn't think the police have enough evidence to make a charge stick and demands that the officers dig a little deeper into Valerie's past. Except...it's evident that's going to be a challenge. Despite making the national news and calls for information, no one comes forward as family or friends to help the police or claim the body. Could there be something in Valerie's past that finally caught up with her on the ski slopes? New evidence is found that there were other men in Valerie's life and that she had history of using what she knew about people to get what she wanted. Whose position did she threaten the most?

This is one of the better mysteries in the Zebra Puzzler series, though one could have hoped for more clues to the motive. On the plus side, there are plenty of suspects to choose from and there are several clues that could point more than one way. So the book is true to the series name--providing a puzzle for the reader. With the set-up, one did know that Jason would be cleared even though it looked quite black for him even at moments towards the end. And this series just isn't the type to turn things absolutely on its head by making the apparently guilty from the beginning suspect the actual villain after all. A fun, quick read that I enjoyed. ★★★★

First line: Margaret Watterson was new to skiing.

Last lines: "You can keep the scotch," she called out. The front door slammed behind her.
**********************

Deaths = 4 (one auto accident; one stabbed; two airplane crash)

Thursday, January 8, 2026

2026 Motif Reading Challenge

 

Kim & Tanya have posted their 2026 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge. Click on the link for full details. For this challenge each month is assigned a motif or theme. The task is to read one book each month that fits the motif...I will list my tentative choices below (once I think of them 😊.

January: The Division Bell Mystery by Ellen Wilkinson
February: 
March: 
April: 
May:
June: 
July: 
August: 
September: 
October: 
November: 
December

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

GAD Mystery Word of the Day

 


My new bookish meme for 2026: the Golden Age of Detection (GAD) Mystery Word of the Day. Whenever I find a word that I'm unfamiliar with, I'm going to actually take time to look it up and share it with mystery-lovers everywhere. 😊

Today's GAD Mystery Word of the Day is Mitral Stenosis (noun): a condition usually the result of disease in which the mitral valve is abnormally narrow

[still from Don Among the Dead Men by C. E. Vulliamy] "There was always a mitral stenosis, my dear chap, always a mitral stenosis with a murmur; but there was no use making a fuss."

Don Among the Dead Men


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

If you don't like inverted mysteries and knowing pretty much everything except whether the police will figure out that murder has happened and be able to pin it on the guilty party, then you best not read the first paragraph.

So...Dr. Bowes-Ottery, lecturer in chemistry, is studiously working his way towards a professorship by doing all sorts of experiments with benzenes and colloids and whatnot when he injects his latest concoction into a lab rat and accidentally discovers an apparently impossible-to-trace poison that gives the victim a grand sense of well-being and euphoria before a quite painless death. What a gift to mankind! Bowes-Ottery sees himself dispensing it to all sorts of undesirables who do nothing but harm to the public. He would never doing harm to anyone--but a painless death that wouldn't be anything to trouble one's conscience over. But it doesn't take long for his scheme of benefiting humanity in general turns to one of personal vengeance on those who have been troublesome to the good doctor in one way or another--a fellow academician who has meddled in all sorts of affairs from those that touch Bowes-Ottery personally to those in the university on a grander scale. Then there's that annoying Mrs. Talantoun, the university gossip, whose tittle-tattle ruins reputations and who has recently notices that Bowes-Ottery pays more than a mentor's attention to the young, shapely student who works in his lab. A tongue like hers most definitely needs silencing. And when he tires of the all too clingy shapely student...well, he can't have her ruining his chances for the top prize in his field, now can he? 

His lab assistant remembers the queer incident with the rat and he begins to get worried. And when Bowes Ottery is made a professor and a new chemistry lecturer is hired...and the two don't seem to get on...and the new chemistry lecturer gets sick in a rather odd way...the lab assistant and the lecturer put their heads together about Bowes-Ottery's last experiment before all the deaths started happening. Meanwhile, the police haven't been as happy with the coroner's court verdicts as it would appear and they've been investigating as well...But will they be able to gather enough evidence to convict our poisoner? Will justice prevail? Well...don't read the last quote below if you want there to be any mystery at all in this story (should you happen to want to track it down and read it for yourself).

I have so many mixed feelings about this one. It's an academic mystery--which I love. It's an inverted mystery which I hate. It has an absolutely fantastic opening with an apparent lunatic or gleeful drunk driving crazily across country producing confusion and mayhem wherever he goes, laughing outrageously at everything he does, and killing himself when he runs into a steam roller--and, yet, we're told it's murder. It's one of the best two-page intros I've read in a long time. And then we're introduced to the murderer and we get to read his journal entries and see what a delusional, self-important, megalomaniac he is. No investigation, no looking at clues, no police interviews with suspects (as far as I can tell they don't have any suspects until somebody gets the bright idea that our murderer might have tried to kill the one person who escaped his clutches). But...there's all these lovely, entertaining peeks at university life that I adored. Oh, and the scenes between the prosecuting attorney and the murderer's defense attorney are priceless--as well as the trial itself. And it's always a good sign if I'm grabbing up quotations right and left.

But....as a mystery it falls flat. Because, in my book, it's not one. Yeah, the suspense of "will he get away with it?" is supposed to carry the day in an inverted mystery, but it doesn't really here. Vulliamy, I think, must have thought himself rather clever with his little twist at the end, but that didn't really do it for me either. So, overall: ★★ and 3/4--I just can't bring myself to give a full three stars.

First line: The car pulled up with a screech and a shuddering heave on the grassy verge of the lane, and the driver's cheerful face appeared at the window.

"Well, you can go easy now. Nobody expects a professor to do more than is required of him--and that's damned little." (the new Professor of Greek; p. 56)

Psychology? That is the last refuge of desperation, if I may venture to say so, with the greatest respect to Dr. Roberts. It leads you round and round for ever and ever, and you get nowhere at all. (the Coroner; p. 94)

"You never know where you are with a learned man; he has a way of being elaborately simple." (Inspector Butts; p. 105)

"Innocent people are much more likely to show confusion than guilty ones. Always remember that. Not only are they usually more timid, but they are taken aback by what seems to them so utterly preposterous; whereas the others are continually on the alert." (the Superintendent; p. 106)

If the residents of this University, or its illustrious visitors, were to get in the habit of dying mysteriously with a certain resemblance in the preliminary symptoms (and it's not easy to avoid that), a kind of general suspicion would arise which might become somewhat embarrassing. (from the journal of our murderer; p. 149)

"If you did happen to kill her, even by accident, you simply mustn't say so. I've known you for some years, and the notion seems to me too incredibly fantastic, my dear boy; but we all do funny things now and then." (our murderer's lawyer to him; p. 162)

Last line: Still, I am inclined to believe that he was convicted on a charge of which he was perfectly innocent. And yet, in the strangest way, justice was done; for Justice (like her sister Truth) may wear the mask of irony.
******************

Deaths = 7 (one car accident; six poisoned)

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

2026 Key Word Challenge

 


It's time for another round of the monthly Key Word Challenge hosted by Kim & Tanya at Chapter Adventure. I encourage you to join in--this is one of my favorite challenges and has been for quite some time. Just click on the link to get all the details and join in the fun.

Tentative picks for the months--will update once I actually read one.
January: Don Among the Dead Men by C. E. Vulliamy (1/7/26)
February: Out of the Ruins by Sally Wright; The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth; The Avenging Chance & Other Mysteries from Roger Sheringham's Casebook by Anthony Berkley
March: Murder Enters the Picture by Willetta Ann Barber & R. F. Schabelitz; The Broken Vase by Rex Stout; Miss Fortune by Sara Mills
April: The Secret of Mirror Bay by Carolyn Keene; Murder in the Mist by Zelda Popkin; Murder in the Limelight by Amy Myers; Liars & Tyrants & People Who Turn Blue by Barbara Paul
May: Murder in Bright Red by Frances Crane; Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier; Dead Letter by Douglas Clark
June: Murder on the Glitter Box by Steve Allen; The Ballot-Box Murders by John Stephen Strange; The Applegreen Cat by Frances Crane
July: A Dying Fall by Hildegarde Dolson; The Country House Burglar by Michael Gilbert
August: It Couldn't Matter Less by Peter Cheyney; The Bungalow on the Roof by Achmed Abdullah; Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth
September: Death Likes It Hot by Edgar Box; The Curse of Doone by Sydney Horler
October: Easy Prey by Josephine Bell; The Mystery of Jockey Hollow by Cleo F. Garis; Random Killer by Hugh Pentecost
November: Keep It Quiet by Richard Hull; The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper; The Strings of Murder by Oscar de Muriel; The Seven Deadly Sisters by Pat McGerr
December: Murder in Baker Street by Martin H. Greenberg; Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat by M. K. Wren; The Secret of the Crooked Cat by William Arden; Cat & Mouse by Christianna Brand

Sunday, January 4, 2026

GAD Mystery Word of the Day

 


My new bookish meme for 2026: the Golden Age of Detection (GAD) Mystery Word of the Day. Whenever I find a word that I'm unfamiliar with, I'm going to actually take time to look it up and share it with mystery-lovers everywhere. 😊

Today's GAD Mystery Word of the Day is Diapason (noun): 1. a burst of sound 2. a musical sound that gets louder, like the sound of an organ 3. range, scope

[still from Don Among the Dead Men by C. E. Vulliamy] The rest of the proceedings in the Bouleuterion were chilled and orderly, and all were relieved when Dr. Blewit again let loose his diapason thunders, the doors opened, and Royalty, followed by the great men and their satellite worthies, filed out and walked informally to the Great Hall.

Saturday, January 3, 2026

GAD Mystery Word of the Day

 


My new bookish meme for 2026: the Golden Age of Detection (GAD) Mystery Word of the Day. Whenever I find a word that I'm unfamiliar with, I'm going to actually take time to look it up and share it with mystery-lovers everywhere. 😊

Today's GAD Mystery Word of the Day is Stereoisomerism (noun): is a form of isomerism* in which molecules have the same molecular formula and sequence of bonded atoms. [*isomerism, the existence of molecules that have the same numbers of the same kinds of atoms (and hence the same formula) but differ in chemical and physical properties.]

Still from Don Among the Dead Men by C. E. Vulliamy: "And mind you, my angel, the Cambridge man is no mean competitor; on the contrary, he's damned good, I can beat him on the colloids, but he's dead nuts on stereoisomerism, which is very fashionable at present."

Color Coded & Read It Again, Sam Headquarters

 


These remain fairly popular, so as long as there is a demand I will continue to offer them. However, since I don't monitor these quite as closely as my other challenges, I am setting these up on the same headquarters site. Will continue to use the Google form method for review links.



2026 Reviews
Click on the first link to submit your review. At the second link you can see links for all reviews submitted for that color prompt and may visit others' reviews, if you'd like.

Color Coded Reviews:


Read It Again, Sam


Calendar of Crime Headquarters

 



Reading by the Numbers Headquarters

 


Here you will find a link to the original challenge post and a list of the challengers. Each month I will enable a Monthly Review link where review posts for the month can be linked up. With the linky provider I currently have, the review link will close on the last day of the month. But no worries--you are welcome to post any review from the previous month on the current linky. There will also be a Wrap-Up link enabled at the end of the year. And the 2025 Wrap-Up Post will remain until it closes



February Reviews
March Reviews 
April Reviews
May Reviews
June Reviews
July Reviews
August Reviews
September Reviews
October Reviews 
November Reviews
December Reviews


January Reading by the Numbers Reviews

 


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Virtual Mount TBR Headquarters

 


Here you will find a link to the original challenge post. Also each month I will enable a Monthly Review link where review posts for the month can be linked up. With the linky provider I currently have, the review link will close on the last day of the month. But no worries--you are welcome to post any review from the previous month on the current linky. There will also be a Wrap-Up link enabled at the end of the year.

202 Climbing Crew

February Reviews
March Reviews
April Reviews
May Reviews
June Reviews
July Reviews
August Reviews
September Reviews
October Reviews
November Reviews
December Reviews

January Virtual Mount TBR Reviews

 


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter