Past Lying by Val McDermid

 

First Lines: He really believed it was a madcap game. A joke. A dare, played out between old friends. Why would anyone imagine otherwise?

It's April 2020, and Edinburgh is in lockdown. You'd think crime-- especially cold cases-- would take a holiday. Still, when a source at the National Library contacts DCI Karen Pirie's team about some archived documents of a recently deceased crime novelist, Karen welcomes the chance to investigate. 

At the center of the investigation is a novel: two crime novelists playing a game of chess, but it soon becomes clear that their real-life competition is deadly serious. Bit by bit, Karen and her team uncover a very twisted game of betrayal and revenge, made even more complicated by the pandemic.

~

When anyone asks about my favorite mystery series, Val McDermid's Karen Pirie books are right up at the top of the list. With its lovely twisty plot, Past Lying is an excellent addition. The story is made even more engrossing by showing readers policing in the time of Covid. There are rules that must be obeyed, or there will be consequences, and Karen and her team have to be very careful (and quick-witted) about how they conduct themselves.

Speaking of Karen and her team, there is a lot in Past Lying to further the lives of the main characters. There's Karen's relationship with Hamish, the entrepreneur, which is complicated by the fact that he's miles away while Karen is in his apartment in Edinburgh with team member, Daisy, during the lockdown. And Daisy? She shows a lot of talent as a police officer, but I'm not sure how much I can trust her. After all, Daisy herself says, it's "... always handy to have something on your boss."  This doubt makes the back of my mind itch as I watch Karen work hard to make both Daisy and Jason stronger members of the team. 

There's even more going on in the characters' lives, which makes sense due to the personal nature of lockdown; however, there is also an insider's look at the craft of writing, manuscripts, publishing, author events, and workshops, as well as the plight of refugees. Past Lying is a densely layered, completely satisfying mystery, and I don't want to wait until December for the next book in the series. 

Past Lying by Val McDermid

eISBN: 9780802161505

Atlantic Monthly Press © 2023

eBook, 412 pages

Police Procedural, #7 Karen Pirie

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

With Karen at the Desert Botanical Garden

In between visits to Denis at the hospital and rehab, Karen and I did manage to get out and about. We did some shopping as well as visiting a couple of my favorite places. You know that the Desert Botanical Garden had to be one of those places! Come along with us on a very busy day.

Once inside, the first thing that caught my eye (after the hordes of people) was one of my favorite wildflowers, the desert bluebell.

The Desert Wildflower Trail is one of the most popular parts of the garden, and it certainly didn't disappoint this year.

I love owl clover!

Karen and I found this little mourning dove at the side of the trail. It had a run-in with a cholla and had two big pieces stuck to it. The bird picked one piece, and when it flew away, the other chunk fell off. (Just one way the cholla extends its range.)

On the other hand, this curve-billed thrasher didn't have any problems with the cholla it was sitting it. The bird serenaded us for quite some time before we moved on.

I told you Karen was with me! Here she is enjoying one of the many water features in the garden.

We didn't arrive in time to watch this egret catch its lizard lunch, but the bird didn't move on until its lunch had gone all the way down that long throat!

Karen at the Toward 2050 exhibit. From the website: "Explore an engaging exhibit led by textile-based artist Ann Morton, centered on community and environment. TOWARD 2050 invites the public to craft handmade artworks that express their views on the environment. These unique creations will come together in a captivating labyrinth installation at the Garden that encourages visitors to take steps towards addressing climate change."

Toward 2050 exhibit

Karen and I loved this Twisted Cactus.

Red Wing Hopbush

Kalanchoe

Agave blossom

Karen and I had a wonderful time. I hope you enjoyed your virtual visit, too!

An Enjoying Spring Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Things have been rather sedate here at Casa Kittling, which is nice for a change. Denis did have a couple of medical appointments, and his surgeon wants him to concentrate on his physiotherapy then come back in six to eight weeks. Obviously, there seems to be no hurry to perform that second surgery. 

Meanwhile, I've been watching (and listening to) all the baby birds here on the property and keeping all the birdbaths and fountains filled. I've completed one knitting project and have started another, using some of the yarn that I bought while shopping with Karen when she was here. Ever since I first slapped eyes on it, I've been itching to get my needles out and start working with it. Am I an addict? Heavens, no!

Denis and I went to the Desert Botanical Garden last Thursday, and although the place was heaving with people (I heard over a dozen different languages while we were there), it was still a lovely afternoon to be there.

An April afternoon at the Desert Botanical Garden.

Time is running short, so I'd better get to work. I hope all of you are well and happy and enjoying the spring. Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Are future bestselling authors all going to be TikTok stars?
• Steve Thompson's new adaptation of Elizabeth George's books about an odd couple detective duo is betting on Britishness, universal themes, and chemistry.
• The American Library Association has sued Trump.
• Why we turn to detective fiction in times of upheaval.
• The first folding eReader is smaller than a paperback.
• A book bound in the skin of a 19th-century Suffolk murderer has gone on display.
• This is how Meta AI staffers deemed more than 7,000,000 books to have no "economic value."

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• An ancient "military outpost" in North Macedonia might be the birthplace of Alexander the Great's grandmother.
• Archaeologists have unearthed rare trace of the first ancient factory dedicated to purple dye production.
• Archaeologists in Peru discovered the graves of men, women, and children killed in battle, then buried with honor. More from Live Science.
• The world's super rich are buying up T.rex fossils and it's hampering research. (They're probably trying to build their own Jurassic Park.)
• A long-lost "Merci Train" that was given to New Jersey after World War II has been found.
• Did every civilization have inequality? A new 10,000-year study reveals a surprising answer.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• How a mega freeze in Florida may have caused Burmese pythons to evolve at a blindingly fast speed.
• Biologists rejoice as extremely rare Guam kingfishers lay their first wild egg in nearly forty years.
• Watch gorgeous footage of a chameleon changing color multiple times in three minutes.
• The Dracula parrot: the goth bird whose piercing screams echo through New Guinea forests.
• Check out the first confirmed footage of the colossal squid, a rare and enigmatic deep-sea species.
• A study suggests that salmon are being exposed to our anti-anxiety medication, and it's making them take more risks.

►The Wanderer◄

• The "world's largest wildlife crossing" will help animals walk safely over eight lanes of California traffic.
• Redwood forest tree art in Australia.
• Residents of all ages in Chelsea, Michigan formed a human chain and helped a local bookshop move each of its 9,100 books-- one by one-- to a new storefront about a block away.
• A new study has found that tree rings bear witness to illegal gold mining operations in the Amazon.
• How the Bolivian capital of La Paz successfully implemented an aerial gondola public transit system.
• The Southwold (England) Sailors' Reading Room.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• J.K. Rowling's journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner.
• Why being the child of a crime writer made it inevitable Abbi Waxman would become one.
• On Eleanor Rigby as a product of the combined genius of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
• Students fighting book bans are the focus of the new documentary Banned Together.
• Anna Wintour: the Devil rarely wore Prada.
• The long, strange trip of the Titanic victims whose remains surfaced hundreds of miles away, weeks after the ship sank.
• Sixteen of the greatest painters of all time whose influences live on today.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Five World War I mysteries written by women.
• Six mystery and thriller movies oozing with romance.
• Fourteen new bookish mysteries that will keep you guessing.
• Ten mysteries set in the bleak midwinter.
• Most Americans want to read more books. These accessories can help.
• New mystery and thriller movies and TV coming in Spring 2025.
• Criminal doctors in classic crime novels.

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!

Medicine River by Mary Annette Pember

 

First Line: My mother's migraines hold me prisoner for much of my childhood.

Recently, I have immersed myself in the history of Indian boarding schools fictionally, historically, and physically. I often pass the site of the Phoenix Indian School, and my visit to the internationally acclaimed Heard Museum included much time spent in the excellent (and sobering) exhibit Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories. That time brought to life many things I've read, including Mary Annette Pember's Medicine River. 

Pember's exhaustive research began as a way to understand her mother's behavior as well as her grandmother's. Both women were sent to Indian boarding schools, and Mary's mother in particular was indelibly scarred from her experience.

Indian boarding schools were the U.S. government's attempt to assimilate all Native Americans-- to make them think and behave like whites. The boarding schools were rife with disease, and those in charge sent sick children back to the reservation to infect and kill many others. To add insult to injury, these children were forced into schools that Native Americans were forced to pay for. They literally funded their own abuse.

Pember shines light on so many topics. Legislation affecting Native Americans over the years. Famous Native Americans who were products of those boarding schools. Insights into her own Ojibwe culture. The homegrown historians (mostly women, both Indian and white) who are documenting and preserving America's Indian boarding school history. This book is a gold mine of illuminating facts that also helped the author shed light on her personal history.

One of the things I found most interesting was the study of epigenetics-- that humans can pass along more than DNA in our genes, that genes can also carry memories of trauma experienced by our ancestors. It's an interesting avenue of thought.

Medicine River is an important addition to Native American history. It is a history that we should all know more about.

Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools 

by Mary Annette Pember

eISBN: 9780553387322

Pantheon Books © 2025

eBook, 304 pages

Non-Fiction

Rating: B+

Source: Net Galley

An I Think I'm Back Weekly Link Round-Up

 

As my grandfather would say, I've been busier than a one-armed paperhanger with the hives. After spending over six weeks in hospital and rehab, Denis is finally home. We're still awaiting his second surgery that will build that artificial vertebra in his spine. 

For two weeks of this time, our niece Karen was here from the UK. It had been much too long since her last visit, and I'd forgotten just how well suited we are. We had so much to talk about that I swear I wore calluses on my vocal cords! We spent the two weeks visiting Denis, doing a bit of shopping, and visiting places like the Desert Botanical Garden and the Heard Museum. (Yes, photos will be shared in the future.) 

Here's my most cherished photo taken during this time.

Denis & Karen, two of my favorite people.

As I said, there will be more photos to come. Now it's time to thank friends for the Care Packages they sent and to share some links with all of you. Enjoy!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• On my grandfather's novel: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby at 100.
• Rightwing groups across the U.S. push new bans to limit "obscene" books in libraries.
• How bubble wrap accidentally became a shipping necessity after failing as wallpaper.
• What an old dollhouse taught Elise Hooper about storytelling and family.
• "Reading builds empathy": the case for saving America's libraries.
• A lost bit of the story of Merlin and Arthur has been found at Cambridge.
• High net worth victims: Why we love our murderees to be filthy rich.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Archaeologists unearthed a rare reminder of Britain's brief reign over the "nation's oldest city."
• Archaeologists uncovered two nearly life-size statues carved into the wall of a tomb in ancient Pompeii.
• A three-year-old picked up a "beautiful stone" and discovered a 3,800-year-old scarab amulet in Israel.
• A gladiator's marble-etched epitaph was found in an ancient Roman necropolis.
• Tumaco-Tolita gold figurine: A 2,000-year-old statue with a "fancy nose ornament" from a vanished South American culture.
• An eagle-eyed man discovered a rare Viking arm ring that may have been lost in a marsh in Sweden 1,000 years ago.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Meet the Chicago Cubs' newest feathered fan: a Canada goose that built her nest in their baseball stadium.
• A hurricane swept these tortoises across miles of ocean to a new home in Florida, and now they're thriving.
• At 97, this endangered tortoise becomes the oldest first-time mom of her species with four new hatchlings, and potentially more on the way.
• Meet the Asian small-clawed otter, an adorable and social carnivore.
• This octopus is using a beer bottle as a nursery.
• The New England Aquarium built a new "assisted living" retirement retreat for aging African penguins to live out their golden years.

►The Wanderer◄

• Fifteen photos that will remind you to appreciate the rain.
• Harrison Ford urges us all to listen to the quiet around us to celebrate the biodiversity of the natural world.
• The best states for birdwatching, mapped.
• The ten U.S. cities with the most green space.
• The demand for tiny plants is driving a poaching crisis in South Africa.
• Crime and the City: Port Moresby and Papua New Guinea.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Khutulun, the Mongolian princess who challenged her suitors to a wrestling match-- and always won.
• Dorothea Dix, the compassionate crusader who revolutionized care for the mentally ill.
• Sixteen women environmentalists you should know.
• How Val Kilmer embodied the spirit of Jim Morrison in the Oliver Stone movie, The Doors.
• Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the nation's first Black female doctor, blazed a path for women in medicine, but she was left out of the story for decades.
• Indigenous artist DY Begay conjures the magic of nature with her tapestries.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Ten haunted house novels full of atmosphere and secrets.
• Five thrillers about someone disappearing on a camping trip.
• The best mystery shows streaming now on AcornTV.
• Six mysteries and thrillers by Irish and Irish American women.
• Sixteen Scottish crime thrillers.
• Fifteen books about intergenerational friendships.

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!

The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips

 

First Line: Gul was dreaming of Mahnaz when her phone rang.

A call in the middle of the night from the Sindh police makes Dr. Gul Delani think that they've finally found her missing niece, Mahnaz, who's been gone three years. Delani, a talented curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, is consumed by grief and buries herself in her work.

But there is no news of Mahnaz. As one of the country's leading experts in archaeology and ancient civilizations, Delani has been summoned to a narcotics investigation in a remote Pakistani desert region. She can't believe what she finds: a mummy-- life-size, seemingly authentic, in a sarcophagus decorated with symbols from the ancient Achaemenid Empire in Persia. 

The discovery is too good to be true and too precious to leave in the wrong hands. Delani will stop at nothing to get to the truth even as her work puts her in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy and even threatens to interfere with her search for Mahnaz.

~

Although I was fascinated by the archaeology and the history contained in The Museum Detective, it really wasn't my cup of tea. With the current political turmoil here and abroad, I find myself having little patience with the restrictive lifestyles of more traditional Muslim women, and that is what Dr. Gul Delani has dealt with most of her life. It's been tremendously difficult for her to work her way up into her position at the museum in Karachi. Moreover, I wondered why she was still so determined to find her niece and why her parents seemed eager to write the girl off. 

The angst piled higher and higher as the story veered from archaeology and history to drugs, the illegal antiquities trade, corrupt police, and other people in power who couldn't be trusted. Perhaps if I had been in a different mood, I would've enjoyed this book more, but I didn't. I just couldn't warm to Delani or care about her search for her niece.

The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips

eISBN: 9781641296571

Soho Crime © 2025

eBook, 337 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #1 Dr. Gul Delani

Rating: D+

Source: Net Galley

The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper

 

First Line: New Hampshire, 1950. The woman steps back from her workbench, surveying the completed boxy wooden structure.

When head curator Tildy Barrows discovers a secret room in the beautiful Belva Curtis LeFarge Archival Library in San Francisco, she knows she's found just the thing to save the struggling establishment: two exquisite never-before-seen dollhouses.

Tildy sets out to decipher the histories of the dollhouses after finding clues hidden within the miniatures. Her search sends her to the worlds of Belle Époque Paris, a group of wounded World War I veterans in the English countryside, and Walt Disney's Burbank studios in the 1950s.  As the mystery unravels, she finds not only inspiring, hidden history, but also a family revelation, and a future for herself.

~

I am enjoying all the stories that are being written about overlooked women in world history, whether real or fictional. Elise Hooper's The Library of Lost Dollhouses is another strong addition to this category, and her Author's Note at the end explains the people who inspired her characters.

The story spans a century and is told by two women, one, head curator Tildy Barrows who is passionate about saving the Belva Curtis LeFarge Library in San Francisco. As she described it, I wished I could go there and wander through all the rooms-- marvelous! The second is Cora Hale, extraordinary artist and creator of the most exquisite dollhouses I've ever read about. (I love the Thorne Rooms in the Phoenix Art Museum and have visited them many times, so this is a subject that's interested me for a long time.) I love how Cora was able to incorporate women's secrets into the houses she created for them.

Another strong point in this book was the descriptions of how difficult it is to keep a place like the LeFarge Library afloat, especially after the pandemic. As the book traveled from one place to the next, from Tildy's life and then back to Cora's, I couldn't wait until all was revealed. All in all, this is a heart-warming read that's well worth your time.

The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper

eISBN: 9780063382152

William Morrow © 2025

eBook, 315 pages

Fiction, Dual Timeline

Rating: B

Source: Net Galley

Not Dead Yet by Jeffrey Siger

 

First Line: The media had declared him dead a week ago, yet there he was, battered, bruised, tattered-clothed, and shoeless, plodding bear-like along a rugged Mediterranean shoreline, head down and oblivious to the pain inflicted upon his naked feet by the sharp rocks.

Dimitris Onofrio is a wealthy Greek businessman known to be ruthless in many illegal enterprises, but law enforcement has never been able to put him behind prison bars. When his chartered plane goes down in the Mediterranean with no survivors, many breathe sighs of relief, but... a week later, Onofrio is found alive but catatonic on a remote beach beside the body of his beloved wife.

Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis must find out if the plane crash was an accident or sabotage-- especially since his wife and father-in-law are the company's owners that chartered the plane. Onofrio is known for extreme vengeance, so everyone in Kaldis' family has a possible death sentence hanging over them. 

The trouble is, Kaldis has been ordered not to investigate, but the wily police officer can always find a way around roadblocks. There's no way he will lose his wife, his two children, or his father-in-law, and his entire team is right by his side to help.

~

I've loved this series since the very first book. I've learned so much about Greece, its landscape, its culture, and its language. These books have been the next best thing to visiting there. (I wish!) Not Dead Yet continues Jeffrey Siger's tradition of marrying a first-rate cast of characters with blood-pumping action seemingly ripped fresh from the headlines.

The action in Not Dead Yet is set in cosmopolitan Athens and the remote rugged coastline of the Peloponnese, but even though the setting is so rich and evocative, there's so much more to this book-- and the entire series-- than its setting.

If you love multi-faceted characters who have grown together as a family and show true love and affection for each other, you'll find it in these books. If you love humor, you'll find it here. If you love scary bad guys, there's Dimitris Onofrio, a man completely capable of murdering entire families in revenge-- whether he's sure they're guilty or not. But in Siger's talented hands, Onofrio isn't your typical bad guy. (Just don't turn your back on him.) How Kaldis works against his "superior" officer's direct orders to investigate the plane crash is a work of art encompassing every member of his team and some new faces like retired aeronautical accident investigator Niko Reichardt. And if you've grown to love Kaldis and his family as much as I have, well, I knew he could pull off the impossible. It was just a matter of how.

There are many surprises in store when reading Not Dead Yet, and when I closed the book on the final page, I had a big smile of complete satisfaction on my face. Do yourself a favor. Pick up this book. I bet you'll love it-- and don't be surprised if you find yourself looking for the other books in the series. 

Not Dead Yet by Jeffrey Siger

eISBN: 9781448314966

Severn House © 2025

eBook, 240 pages

Police Procedural, #14 Inspector Kaldis

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley