Book of the Month: April 2019

April was a much better month for reading, totalling 19 reads. Though of course only 9 of these were titles I reviewed. However, I was also doing some re-reading in preparation for the Bodies from the Library conference in June. Excuses out of the way, let’s take a look at which book was my best read of the month…

In the end I decided to go for two categories this month: Book of the Month (Modern) and Book of the Month (Vintage). Original right?

For the first category, my decision was an incredibly easy one, as Christine Poulson’s Cold, Cold Heart (2017), definitely stood out from the rest of the pack. It has also been my first Antarctic-set mystery read and it is certainly a setting which is done justice in the story and made full use of.

However, for the second category, focusing on vintage mystery reads, I had three contenders for the title: The Hollow Chest (1941) by Alice Tilton, The April Robin Murders (1959) by Craig Rice and Ed McBain and The Noonday Devil (1951) by Ursula Curtiss. In the end, perhaps to some regular readers’ surprise, I decided to go for Curtiss’ novel, as I felt it was the best I had read by her. Whilst with the other two, it seemed I had read better ones by them.

With only one more conference re-read in the offing, I am hoping to get more read for the blog in May. Although to do that my TBR pile definitely needs a growth injection, having fallen once more to 8 books. Some new blood in the pile, metaphorically speaking, would also make me more excited about the books I have unread, as at the moment I am feeling a little less enthusiastic. I’m sure there are some great titles in my TBR pile, but perhaps I need a dollop of novelty. Fingers crossed I should be going to Barter Books soon.