Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

 

First Lines: It's interesting to note that there are two groups of people who are rarely, if ever, suspected of murder. These groups are elderly women and little girls.

When her neighbor turns up dead in their quiet Melbourne suburb, whispers begin to swarm around 81-year-old Elsie Fitzpatrick. Why should the neighbors be whispering about Elsie? She's grumpy, fiercely independent, never without a sarcastic comment, and minds her own business. But someone found out her secret.

Elsie hasn't always been Elsie. At one time, she was Mad Mabel Waller, Australia's youngest convicted murderer-- a secret she's kept buried for decades.

That is, until 7-year-old Persephone moves in across the street. Full of opinions, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries, she sets her sights on Mabel and refuses to be deterred. With a 7-year-old shadow, a neighbor who seems to have it in for her, the police sniffing around, and the media circling like vultures, Mabel does the only thing she can: she takes matters into her own hands. 

~

The first two sentences of Sally Hepworth's Mad Mabel told me that I was in for something special. By page five, I was in love with Mabel. Perhaps it was because I identified with her a bit, but I loved her voice and her grumpy, sarcastic wit. I lost count of the times I laughed out loud at one of Mabel's comments. 

But there's more to Mabel than being a sharp-tongued, grumpy old lady. As she told her story to two young podcasters, my heart broke for her. The more I read, the more I wanted a Happily Ever After for her. Was I under her spell? You bet.

The marvelous thing about Mad Mabel is that the entire cast of characters shines. They aren't static or cardboard. They change before our eyes, and they hold surprises for us. Not only did the characters hold surprises, but the plot did, too. One of the characters seemed a bit "off" to me, and by the book's end, I was miffed that I didn't guess the truth about the person.

If you're in the mood to be charmed by a character to the point where you'd move heaven and earth to bring her joy; if you're in the mood for a story where you have a little trouble putting all the puzzle pieces into the correct places, well, there's only one thing to do: read Mad Mabel.

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

eISBN: 9781250284556

St. Martin's Press © 2026

eBook, 348 pages

Standalone Thriller

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

JR Returns & I Make a Guess This Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Some of you may remember JR the raccoon who showed up here a couple of years ago to paddle in the swimming pool and eat the treats I put out for him. Well, he came back for a couple of days this week. Someone asked me how I knew it was the same raccoon. For one thing, he pulled over the same birdbath that I put his treats in, even though the birdbath is in a different place now. He also went over and checked the spot where that birdbath used to be. I waited for him to show up twice before I put out anything for him, but he hasn't been back since. I guess I wasn't fast enough, darn it.

I've also mentioned my nameless friend that I was concerned about. I may have an aversion to deerstalker caps (or hats in general), but not knowing his name has been bugging me for a long time. Persistence has paid off-- I think-- and I now believe I've identified him. All I will say is T.M., and perhaps I will find out if I'm right. (Although I do understand if he wishes to remain anonymous. I just have one of those inquiring minds.) 

I have a new pinwheel to add to my collection. It came in the mail this week. (Thank you for it and everything else. You know who you are!) It's the best spinner of them all and is now on my scooter whirring away every time I go outside. Hey, it even spins when I'm around the ceiling fans here in the house!

It's been another scorching week here in Phoenix. I've been doing my outside chores as quickly as possible to avoid the worst of the heat, then I come inside to read and work on tissue box covers.

Virtual hugs to you all, my friends! Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• The end of reading is here.
• The heat wave that made America legalize shorts.
• New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte vetoed a bill calling for increased book bans.
• Austin, Texas, could become a "Book Safe Harbor" as censorship fights escalate.
• Amazon offers AI translation for self-published Kindle books.
• Everything you need for a a reading picnic.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A pair of 2,000-year-old gold rings, one engraved with Indian script, was discovered in an Iron Age burial ground in Thailand.
• A 2,500-year-old tomb of a "warrior prince" with a chariot and helmet was discovered on Italy's Adriatic coast. 
• Builders discovered an ancient Minoan ruin on Crete. Then, things got tense.
• 3D printing gives new life to an ancient game board discovered at a Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall in England.
• The oldest known plague victims have been found in a 5,500-year-old burial ground in Siberia-- and many of them were children.
• Hundreds of Spanish settlers died at the "Port of Famine." This newly discovered silver coin reveals where the doomed colony was founded 400 years ago.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Sperm whales living in the eastern Mediterranean Sea seem to have developed a distinct dialect from those in the west.
• The return of Florida's wild flamingos.
• Cyborg cockroaches could help find survivors of natural disasters. New diving suits allow the insects to expand their search underwater. (Finally, a roach I can like...)
• Can a turtle tuck its head all the way inside its shell?
• Stream the beautiful highs and violent lows of albatross life with this new 24-hour camera on Midway atoll.
• How do dogs watch TV? A new study suggests that it might depend on their personalities.

►The Wanderer◄

• Crime and the City: Bari, Italy.
• Alexander Hamilton's First National Bank revolutionized the U.S. economy. After sitting shuttered for years, the Philadelphia landmark reopened as a museum.
• Vincent van Gogh adored the color yellow. A new exhibition in Amsterdam wants you to fall in love with the hue, too.
• Experience the grandeur of the Italian Alps with these 15 photographs.
• How America's industrial elite built their own palaces.
• A scenic road winding through Theodore Roosevelt National Park finally reopens after six years.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Did this duke poison his brother? A new DNA analysis may solve the centuries-old Medici mystery.
• Spanish officer Bernardo de Gálvez besieged the British during the American Revolution, giving George Washington time to plan a pivotal attack.
• Meet Julia Ward Howe, the remarkable poet who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic and fought for women's suffrage.
• The true story of Laura Ingalls is wilder than Little House on the Prairie.
• To finance their lifestyle, Clara and André Malraux went to Cambodia to steal antiquities. They did almost everything wrong.
• The King and I spotlights an English governess who modernized Siamese society. The real Anna Leonowens exaggerated her influence and lied about her origins.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 8 vineyard mysteries you can savor.
• 9 great books about survival at sea.
• 21 mysteries and thrillers set at sea.
• 6 films Silvia Moreno-Garcia recommends for writers.
• July's best international crime fiction.
• 9 murder mysteries set in resorts.

That's all for this week! No matter how busy you may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!

Wisdom Corner by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

 

First Line: I surveyed the wreckage around Wisdom Corner.

In a promise to his partner, Marie, who is running for a position on the tribal council, Virgil Wounded Horse has been working on putting his past behind him. No more work as a hired vigilante on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. No more smoking. No more drinking. Not everyone has been happy with his decision to stop dispensing justice, but Virgil has persevered... until a beloved member of the community is murdered.

Forced to return to the job, Virgil finds that the victim was threatened by a street gang from a neighboring reservation, and a shady politician who will stop at nothing to gain more power may have something to do with the murder, too.

With the stakes growing higher by the day, Virgil needs to find the killer as quickly as possible because the lives of those he loves are at stake.

~

Back in 2021, I highly recommended Weiden's first Virgil Wounded Horse mystery, Winter Counts, and I'm happy to say that his second, Wisdom Corner, is every bit as good. 

The author puts readers right in the heart of the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations. He weaves fascinating bits of Native American history into his story, like the Carlyle Indian School football team, and shows us all how Indian boarding schools and the proven inequality of the American criminal justice system have made their marks on Native lives. Native American culture and delicious food are also part of this rich tapestry.

But any fictional tapestry is incomplete without an engaging cast of characters, and Wisdom Corner has that, too. Virgil's struggle to have a more acceptable lifestyle is real, and his partner, Marie, does everything she can to help him. Marie's fight for a seat on the tribal council is only one of the ways she shows how much she cares for the people on the reservation. Virgil's nephew, Nathan, is a high schooler trying to have a meaningful life on the reservation-- which is extremely difficult to do for any young person there. I think my favorite new character was Rose Charging Cloud, the chief of police for the Rosebud Sioux tribe. Being Black, Native, and female, she's had a tough road to her job. At first, I didn't like her, but she certainly grew on me. 

Once again, as in Winter Counts, the bad guy was very easy for me to spot, but there was some excellent misdirection steering readers toward other suspects. If you enjoy learning about other cultures in a propulsive mystery populated with vivid characters, I highly recommend Wisdom Corner, but I will say that you should really read Winter Counts first. (Why settle for one great read when you can have two?)

Wisdom Corner by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

eISBN: 9780062969002

Ecco Books © 2026

eBook, 320 pages

Native American Mystery, #2 Virgil Wounded Horse

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley

A Color Me This Weekly Link Round-Up

 

This past week has been another pleasant one, with little to talk about other than the deep scratch on my elbow that I have no idea how it got there, and the huge bright yellow butterflies that use my back garden as a freeway. The hummingbirds absolutely love the bubbling hanging solar fountain-- so much so that they spend a lot of time chasing each other away from it, the territorial little devils!

The rest of the time, I've been stitching. Here's my growing pyramid of tissue box covers. There's one missing because it's a surprise that hasn't yet been seen by its recipient.

I'll be starting work on the one for my home health nurse, and then-- if the spirit still moves me-- I'll work on a few more. My niece, Daisy, has requested one, and I found the perfect pattern for it. I dug up a few more patterns from my stash that I'd like to use. Want to see how I work out color combinations? It helps if you have the empty top of a run of bookcases to plot things out.

Decisions, decisions!

Virtual hugs to you all. Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Vintage READ posters adorning libraries and classrooms for decades go on auction as the American Library Association turns 150. (I love those posters and had some of them adorning the walls of my workspace for years.)
• A new study says that your brain prefers to read on paper rather than on screens. (My brain always has to be different. It prefers my Kindle.)
• Why has the will to ignorance become so virulent in our time? (I never have thought ignorance was cute.)
• Why Jane Austen adaptations just keep coming-- and we keep watching.
• Publishers charge Anna's Archive with copyright infringement.
• What if readers like A.I.-generated fiction?
• Teenage boys in the UK are reading primary-level books while girls' tastes expand.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• This ancient monolith unearthed in Mexico may depict people receiving "divine liquid" in a ritual.
• See these ancient Etruscan frescoes that Italy bought for millions and put on public display in Rome.
• Sold for just £5,588, this amber pendant turned out to be a rare Tudor-Era portrait of Elizabeth I. Now it's going on auction for £100,000.
• 500-year-old freeze-dried potato snacks were discovered in an Inca storage room in Peru.
• Deep in the Mexican jungle, archaeologists discovered a lost Maya city that may yield clues about the civilization just before it collapsed.
• Were Vikings really "uncivilized" barbarians? A large textile-production site discovered in Denmark challenges that stereotype.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• The elusive, critically endangered manumea-- and one of the closest living relatives of dodos-- was spotted for the first time in five years.
• Incredible, first-of-their-kind images show an orca being born in Norway-- and the rest of its pod forming a protective circle.
• Listen to a lion's second type of roar, which was just discovered by scientists.
• "Robo-Bunnies" are the newest weapon in the fight against invasive Burmese pythons in Florida.
• The life and times of Brighty, the Grand Canyon's most legendary burro.
• These urban birds evolved longer beaks during Covid-19 lockdowns. Then, they changed back.

4 for me. How about you?

►The Wanderer◄

• The U.S. ghost town that periodically rises out of a lake.
• 5 isolated islands that are strictly forbidden (and why).
• The Old Patent Office Building hosted Lincoln's inaugural ball and displayed that Declaration of Independence. Today, it's home to two world-class art museums.
• See stunning photos of new national park land that soon will be accessible from America's longest national trail.
• The Claude Glass revolutionized the way people saw landscapes.
• Raymond Island, the tiny Australian island where you can see koalas, kangaroos, and kookaburras.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• How Indonesia's feminists use the internet.
• During World War I, progressive reformer Frances Kellor asked Americans to welcome immigrants-- and urged new arrivals to assimilate.
• Excluded at the March on Washington, Dorothy Height went on to become the "Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement."
• Indigenous ecologist Jason Baldes is restoring the keystone bison on tribal lands.
• How German button maker John Boepple searched the rivers of the American Midwest for the shells that could make him a fortune.
• Alan Lomax spent years traveling the country to record the sounds of America. The legacy of his obsession will live forever.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 20 great U.S. history books for July 4.
• The average salary needed to rent in each state, ranked.
• Eccentric investigators in Asian American and Asian cozy mysteries.
• Eight thrillers with beach and jungle settings.
• 18 must-read biographies and memoirs.
• 7 of the best crime thrillers and neo noirs from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.

That's all for this week! No matter how busy you may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!

Mr. Rochester by Sarah Shoemaker

 

First Line: I know little of my birth, for my mother died long before she could tell me-- before I ever heard her voice or gazed at her face-- and my father banished the woman who helped deliver me, blaming her for my mother's death.

Sarah Shoemaker's Mr. Rochester is a retelling of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and I fell in love with it. The book is told from the point of view of Edward Fairfax Rochester himself, and readers learn about his life from the time he was a motherless boy roaming the lonely corridors of Thornfield Hall to his eventual marriage to Jane Eyre. 

Although Charlotte is not my favorite of the Brontë sisters (Anne is), I've always loved her Jane Eyre. I've watched the BBC mini-series starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton so much that I have vast swathes of the dialogue memorized. I've always wanted to learn more about Rochester, and Shoemaker does a marvelous job of filling in the blanks that both blend in with the original book and make for an engrossing story.

Here, Rochester is a boy/man starved for love, starved for someone to call him by his name, and I couldn't help but fall in love with him. His schooling, his fruitless attempts to earn his father's love, the family business, his marriage to Bertha Mason... as he weathers each storm, I became totally invested in his soul-withering journey toward Jane. The icing on the cake was learning just how much he was willing to give up to have a life with her. I kept wanting to hug the poor man!

I found so much to appreciate in Mr. Rochester. How he came to have his dog, Pilot, and his horse, Mesrour. I even learned the origin of one of my husband's favorite expressions, "cloth ears." 

Oh... by the way, if you're thinking of reading this book to learn more about Jane, I wouldn't recommend it. Jane shows up two-thirds of the way through the book. She had her own book, her own time in the spotlight. This is Edward Fairfax Rochester's time to shine, and he does. Brilliantly. 

Mr. Rochester by Sarah Shoemaker

eISBN: 9781455569823

Grand Central Publishing © 2017

eBook, 465 pages

Historical Fiction, Standalone

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

A Stitching Up a Storm Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Not much to say this week. My nieces in the UK are suffering through a heat wave. Although the temperatures are nowhere near what they are here in Phoenix, I feel for them because, not only are they not used to such heat,  neither are they prepared for it. I doubt Phoenix would be the metropolis it is without the invention of air conditioning, but countries with little experience of heat haven't had any reason to adapt for it. 

Yes, I've been stitching up a storm on those needlepoint tissue box covers. My home health nurse kept looking covetously at one of the completed ones, so I'll be making her one, too. I send progress report photos to the person I'm making them for, and he's shown them to some of his friends. From the sound of it, I could have myself a booming cottage industry if I wanted. However, I don't want to. I tried that before, and I grew sick to death of making the same thing over and over. Using different color combinations wasn't enough to encourage me to keep on stitching for profit.

Here's a photo of three of the requested five that I've completed.

Looking at them, you wouldn't believe I used the exact same pattern on all three, would you?

Virtual hugs to you all. Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Can social media influencers save public schools?
• Are public libraries becoming children's libraries?
• The New Yorker has a new books newsletter called What We're Reading.
• An experimental brain implant allows people with paralysis to type their thoughts with their minds.
• Utah banned another book from all public schools, bringing the list to 28. Here's what it's about.
• HBO's Harry Potter trailer reveals the new cast and a surprise Christmas premiere date.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Archaeologists have discovered evidence that a wooden prototype for Stonehenge may have aligned with the solstice 500 years before the stone circle.
• An ancient Egyptian stone monument depicting a Roman emperor as a pharaoh was discovered in Luxor.
• A 6-year-old boy spotted something sticking out of the ground in a field. It turned out to be a Viking sword.
• The Mask of Mictlantecuhtli: a 500-year-old mask of the Aztec god of the underworld, who tore apart the dead as they entered his realm.
• Archaeologists discovered a second cannonball from the Battle of the Alamo, and it was likely fired by Texans.
• Are these the earliest known dice in the world? Native Americans may have used them to play games of chance more than 12,000 years ago.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• These butterflies can live 25 times longer than their relatives. They might provide insights into healthy aging in humans.
• Female dolphins seem to remember which males were aggressive during mating season-- and may try to avoid them.
• A border collie named Milo goes to great lengths to complete his human's fetch challenges.
• Male bowerbirds in Australian cities are turning human trash into treasure to impress potential mates. (I've loved bowerbirds ever since watching one of Sir David Attenborough's documentaries.)
• Ants can get distracted by cookies, chips, and other junk food. Here's why that could be a problem for the environment.
• See the first-ever photographs of Cozumel's elusive dwarf fox, one of the rarest canids in the world.

►The Wanderer◄

• Major Oak, the 1,200-year-old tree with ties to the Robin Hood legend, is presumed dead after failing to produce leaves.
• Hidden tunnels dating back to Henry VIII's reign were discovered at this English boarding school, where the king once lived.
• Welcome to Pieve Santo Stefano, Italy's "City of Diaries."
• The ghost roads of Ireland's Great Famine.
• To see the magnificence and majesty of Machu Picchu without the hike, check out these amazing images.
• Literary travel ideas for every kind of book lover. 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Rollerena, New York's fairy godmother.
• By signing his name to massive jars, enslaved artist David Drake defied literacy bans in the South. Now, his masterpiece is on view with a famed Paul Revere bowl.
• Sequoyah, the man who created a written language for the Cherokee, did it so efficiently and elegantly, his peers thought it was magic.
• Andrea Wulf considers the rare humanity of 18th-century naturalist George Forster.
• 13 surprising facts about famous naturalist (and one of my heroes), Sir David Attenborough.
• "I will not comply": librarian Luanne James fights the censorship demands of the Rutherford County library system's board.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 7 historical figures accused of witchcraft.
• 6 common misconceptions about the Beatles.
• 7 Australian crime dramas to binge watch tonight.
• 6 suspense novels about art, museums, and forgers.
• The 5 greatest fictional recurring characters, according to Alison Gaylin.
• The must-read biographies and memoirs of Summer 2026.

That's all for this week! No matter how busy you may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!

A Twist in the River by Stig Abell

 

First Line: There has always been the river.

People disappear all the time, but when a young nurse goes missing on the riverbank, leaving her phone and shoes behind, social media goes into a frenzy. Amateur sleuths flock to the area, each with their own theory.

Then another woman is found in the river, and the signs point to murder. Former detective Jake Jackson came to this rural area looking for peace. Now he's looking for a killer.

~

I have enjoyed Stig Abell's Jake Jackson mysteries from the first (Death Under a Little Sky)-- in particular for their gorgeous descriptions of the landscape and wildlife. A Twist in the River has those same descriptions, so evocative that I feel myself right in the middle of the English countryside.

Jake Jackson's path to this fourth mystery has been a fascinating one. Living off the grid. Making new friends in a rather insular community. His life and the lives of the other characters continue to grow, and the journey is a delight. As Jake searches for a killer, readers learn more about the lives and histories of the locals. Many of them moved to the area for the same reason as Jake: peace and privacy. 

While Jake's investigation progresses, readers can accompany him to his favorite secondhand bookshop to browse the shelves, and they can also try to avoid the hordes of social media influencers and podcasters trying to find content to boost their clicks and likes. It's not easy for Jake to avoid "Detective Dani," who has her own YouTube channel. She's zeroed in on him as the best source for the latest information, and she's so devious and manipulative that she causes friction between Jake and the woman he loves. 

The books in this series are naturally slow to unfold, but this time the pace of A Twist in the River really seemed to drag-- to the point where it bothered me and kept making me want to skim here and there. (I didn't.) But... the landscape is still beautiful. I still want to tuck myself away in the library in Jake's house. And the mystery is still a puzzler. I hope you decide to give this series a try, and if you do, please begin with the first one due to the character development. This is a series that should be savored.

A Twist in the River by Stig Abell

eISBN: 9780063472426

HarperCollins © 2026

eBook, 352 pages

Literary Mystery, #4 Jake Jackson

Rating: B

Source: Net Galley

Last One Out by Jane Harper

 

First Line: He had been here, that was clear from the marks in the dust.

Just a handful of residents remain in Carralon Ridge, once a thriving rural village in New South Wales. For the past ten years, its houses and buildings have been bought up and left to rot by a mining company operating at its borders.

Five years ago, Ro lost her son. Sam vanished while visiting Carralon Ridge during a break from college. Sam loved the town and had been working on an oral history to preserve its legacy before it vanished altogether.

Now, Ro has returned to be with her husband and daughter on the anniversary of Sam's disappearance. Soon, she suspects that something important was overlooked in his case. Nothing can stop Carralon Ridge from dying, but someone wants to make sure that its secrets die with it.

~

Several years ago, my husband and I spent many days searching out and visiting old ghost towns from one end of Arizona to the other. It was lots of fun, a great way to explore the state, and very educational as well. Reading Jane Harper's Last One Out reminded me of those times. 

I felt the dust of Carralon Ridge seep into every pore and crevice of my body. It blurred my vision, and the blazing sun made me want to reach for my sunglasses.  In other words, Harper's setting is superb. Here in Arizona, entire towns have been swallowed whole by mining companies in search of gold and copper, so it was easy for me to visualize this Australian town slowly being put to death.

However, Harper doesn't just give readers an incredibly evocative setting; she populates it with multi-faceted characters. After her son's disappearance, Ro's family fell apart, and when she returns to join her husband, Griff, and daughter, Della, for a remembrance ceremony for Sam, she can't resist revisiting the last places her son was known to visit. As she moves from place to place and talks with the town's remaining inhabitants, readers get to know her-- and them-- and become just as invested in learning the truth of her son's disappearance. 

Harper has proven to be a master of creating settings, characters, and plots that get under my skin. Last One Out is a must-read for those who like to be swept away in the pages of an absorbing story.

Last One Out by Jane Harper

eISBN: 9781250291400

Flatiron Books © 2026

eBook, 336 pages

Standalone Thriller

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.