“The Librarianist” by Patrick deWitt

 I quite enjoyed this novel, and found it quite riveting in parts. I must admit, though, that the chapters with the thespian women were a bit too artificially whimsical, and that I was slightly irritated by the chronology. 

The book starts in the present. Bob, the retired, book loving librarian protagonist led a lost, somewhat comatose woman back to a seniors home, where he started volunteering. He found out that she was the wife who had abandoned him for his best friend, and with that big revelation, the book suddenly started going backwards to Bob’s childhood and marriage, ignoring the present day implications of the big revelation.

I’ve just realized an additional layer of depth in the book. Bob’s addled ex wife Connie helped him a lot by causing him to discover the seniors’ home, where Bob made friends and built a nice life for himself. He eventually met up with Connie’s son, and was able to tell him about his father, who had been killed in a hit and run soon after marrying Connie. 

This book has left me with a nice feeling of completion.

“In the Woods” by Tana French

 The author has a great gift for meaningful dialog and complex psychology. As a result, I enjoyed this book despite the fact that the traumatized protagonist/detective turned out to be a great jerk after he slept with his partner/friend, we never found out what happened to his friends in the woods decades earlier, and the psychopathic girl who arranged for her sister’s murder got off scott free. 

The book is brimming with intelligence, but is also frustrating, for the reasons above. Apparently the later books in the series are each about different characters and have better endings, but I have no interest in finding out. The Irish setting was interesting to me, of course.

“The Deepest Map” by Laura Trethewey

 I enjoyed this very informative book about exploring and mapping the ocean depths. It opened my eyes to a number of issues including the ecological dangers of deep sea mining and the submerged archaeological information of human habitats. I studied Marine Biology many decades ago, and I find that my interest in the ocean still persists.

“The Mystery of the Yellow Room” by Gaston Leroux (Otto Penzler)

 I was not much impressed by this locked room mystery by the author of “Phantom of the Opera”. It was overly complicated and overly pedantic. It was also a bit overwrought, but that was likely due to the 1907 publication date.