Still busy writing a new Travelers crime thriller, Grifters’ Hopscotch, where a blackmail leads to a safecracking which leads to an ambush, and on and on. You get the idea. Hope to finish it this spring.

Over the last month, I read two books you may be interested in.

First off, I read the first Donna Leon Commissario Burnetti mystery, Death at La Fenice (1992), which concerns the murder of a German opera conductor at an opera house in Venice.  (I left a link to it last month.) I reviewed the fourth book in the series last month, and I’ve just got to say that this series is gold from the very first book. A solid police procedural with wonderful local color and complex detail. I was 85% through it before I figured out who did it, and even then I couldn’t put it down until the end. Always a pleasure to read a book that is truly diverting.

Not only that, but recently several eBooks from this series have been discounted, so if you check out Donna Leon’s books on your favorite book buying site, you’ll be able to download some of the series on the cheap. Here’s the Amazon link to the series as an example: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09NN6WYDC

Second, I read The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. This is a sort of cozy (all violence off screen), which is usually not my thing, but this was a fun, fun read. It concerns four British seniors who live in a very fancy retirement community and have a club where they solve crimes. And what do you get when you set four retirees—a government agent, a nurse, a psychiatrist, and a union leader—hunting a murderer?  A first-rate who-done-it. And before you reach the last page, you’ll be hoping to know a crew like this if you someday find yourself living in a retirement community.

Happy reading!