The Suitcase Detective

@goodreads Elizabeth Peters perhaps or David Eddings. 🤔

Do you have a "comfort author" — someone whose books always feel like home?

It's #MurderEveryMonday and I've heard that today's theme is book covers that feature the sleuths themselves. As a long-time fan of the Dana Girls, I always enjoy seeing how the different editions portrayed them. I was first introduced them through the 1970s version and as a girl with long-blonde hair, that depiction stuck in my heart. But the others are very classic Nancy Drew-ish. Which style do you prefer?

@AnneIsReading Elizabeth Peters is a personal favorite! One of the few series I read all the way through. I had a major book crush on Rameses when I was young 😅

#MurderEveryMonday More series sleuths depicted on covers. Amelia Peabody and Vera are small but present

Lois Gibson is considered the most successful forensic artist in the world. Her sketches have helped identify more than 1,300 criminals and earned her a Guinness World Record. Before that, Gibson had survived a brutal attack herself. At 21, while living in Los Angeles as a model and dancer, she was raped and nearly choked to death. That moment changed her life. Gibson used her talent for drawing to help other victims describe the people who hurt them. She became known for her ability to sit with traumatized witnesses and help them recover details from moments of fear. In one case, a witness remembered a tiny scar on a robber’s forehead. Gibson added it to the sketch, police found him, and he confessed. She later said that sometimes one small detail is enough to solve a case.

@vitt2tsnoc I had a set just like this!

JFYI

It’s a sad day to see Claire’s close down. This is what happens when kids are brought up on influencer culture, they're not happy with 99p zigzag hairbands, peel-off varnish, earring STICKERS, and now need top-name skincare and Monica Vinader bangles. A total loss for childhood💔

@MerriamWebster Form because I work in taxes and type it all the time as from.

What word is your spelling nemesis? This is a safe space.

#MurderEveryMonday Not a cover, but does anyone else get that add on the "Midsomer Murders" channel from Episode 1 where the elderly lady is asking for a "number in Brighton" right before it cuts off? Well. . . I live next to a Brighton and my mom and I are always sending each other phone numbers we found there asking if "this could be the number she needs?" 😅

If you're interested: amzn.to/41Zj1bh * I do use affiliate links.

My mother and I have been reading Seishi Yokomizo's Detective Kindaichi Mysteries together whenever we go on long trips, and we just finished one yesterday. This particular novel contained two of his shorter stories including the "Murder at the Black Cat Café" and "Why The Well Wheel Creaked." Mr. Yokomizo's writing style is fascinating and quite unique. The second novel is an especially neat example. The detective himself barely features at all except in so much that he had figured out the truth and passed the case on to his friend / biographer to share. Before him came the little star of the story, a frail young girl who is writing a series of letters to her similarly invalid brother recovering in a Tuberculosis Hospital. What starts as mostly local gossip and news about their family and neighbors becomes increasingly more frantic as a deadly case of betrayal, jealousy, and mis-identity occurs at home. As her worst fears are realized, the reader is then introduced to the series of newspaper clippings from the days surrounding the gruesome incident. Then at last, we learn what she had already realized, a gut-wrenching and entirely unexpected truth. Both my mom and I were crying at the end of her final letter and I don't cry at books very often. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Mr. Yokomizo's writing style is that it initially comes across as so very deceptively simple. The short, generally simple sentences and almost quaint nature of the mysteries as you are introduced to them leads the reader astray into thinking they are looking at a rather cliche story. Husband killed his wife to run away with the mistress. Illegitimate son killed the legitimate son out of jealousy. It's all so terribly simple that you don't realize until the bitter end that Mr. Yokomizo is the master of red herrings and everything is so much more nefarious than you imagined. It's like you started as a fairly cozy mystery and then suddenly rammed into a dark thriller right at the end. I suppose some may compare him to Agatha Christie, but I think he actually does a better job at leading the reader astray and at revealing the darkness and self-centered nature of his true criminals. Unfortunately, you don't always get a happy or satisfactory ending. . . but you do get an excellent mystery! #SeishiYokomizo #JapaneseMystery #DetectiveNovel #MysteryNovel #MysterySeries #DetectiveSeries

@AuthorGFAllen Robert Jordan's world was wonderfully intricate - I have no idea how he kept it all organized. I personally liked David Eddings world because it was both unique and felt so natural. I felt at the end that I knew my own way around the place.

What’s the most impressive example of worldbuilding you’ve ever come across, something so detailed, immersive, or original that it genuinely left you in awe?

Thank you for your service and rest in peace ❤️🇺🇸

Library of America set of women crime writers of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

@Gentleman_Ways Find your joy. Wear the funny outfit. Act silly with your mom. Do the uncool dumb things. Go to the festivals and sing the songs. Do as Andre does (my Jamaican friend) and "Just relax girl, it'll all work out. Have a little fun girl!" Be happy, life's too short to cry over.

If you could give your 18-year old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

@iseeitallways @taiharrow I inhaled the Saddle Club as a kid.

@taiharrow The Saddle Club or Redwall

What was your favorite book series as a kid? Mine: Magic Tree House

@MissDefibaugh @taiharrow Been a while since I read the Borrowers!

@taiharrow Boxcar Children Bobbsey Twins Beverly Cleary (Henry, Ribsy, Ralph the Mouse) Borrowers (Afield, Aloft, Afloat)

@NeverX2me @taiharrow My mom and I read those every year together for a long time ❤️

@taiharrow The Chronicles of Narnia

@taiharrow Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Great Illustrated Classics, Mandie Mysteries, the Thorne Twins. . . Best Friends Wear Pink Tutus if I go really far back.

@PBisaillion @taiharrow I inhaled these as a kid and weirdly one of my favorites was the one where he had a breakdown and took his horse to the desert to reconnect and something apocalyptic happened? I think it really impacted my passion for hurt/comfort and angst genres 😂

@taiharrow The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley.

@DianeGarland12 @taiharrow Trixie! I loved her!

@taiharrow Little House on the Prairie, The Three Investigators, Trixie Belden