What have you recently finished reading?

I haven’t finished anything in a couple of days, but the last thing I finished would’ve been J.J. Connington’s Murder in the Maze. I didn’t like it as much as the other book by him I’ve read (The Ha-Ha Case), in part because it fell back on the ol’ exotic poisons thing (curare in this case), and also I just don’t think it was well structured as a mystery.

Before that was also a classic mystery, Annie Haynes’ The Abbey Court Murder — a bit melodramatic, but satisfying enough.

What are you currently reading?

I haven’t been reading a lot in the last couple of days due to getting busy, so I’m still working on Michelle P. Brown’s Illumino, which should really admit that it wants to talk about far more than just twelve manuscripts and far more of the historical context, and the second volume of The Villain’s White Halo, which has taken a fascinating turn in a couple of respects (Duan Chongxian’s adventures, and the truth[?] of Luo Mingchuan’s whole thing).

I have also started another classic mystery, Robert van Gulik’s The Chinese Maze Murders. It’s apparently based on classic Chinese detective stories, and was originally written in English but first published in Japanese and Chinese. I’m not far into it, and I don’t know a lot about van Gulik’s background and how respectful it’s likely to be, but it’s definitely going to be an interesting product of that period of detective fiction in English from my perspective!

What will you be reading next?

No idea, honestly. I might pick out some shorter reads while I’m so busy, or continue on the classic crime binge — there are a couple more writers I noted to look into, or I could read more of the authors I’ve tried recently, since there are some more of those on Kobo Plus.