Tim's Public Domain Reads: 2019

Friday, April 5, 2019

Book Review #58: The Silent Bullet

The Silent Bullet is the first book in the Craig Kennedy, Scientific Detective series written by Arthur B. Reeve which was originally published in 1910. Craig Kennedy is a chemistry professor at a university in the area of New York City. He also becomes a detective on the side using scientific methods to solve crimes along with his roommate and newspaper reporter, Walter Jameson. This book is comprised of twelve short stories tied together by the introduction titled "Craig Kennedy's Theories". His clients are both police and private citizens.

This book, like many short story collections, contain some good and some not so good stories. There are a few that are memorable. It is interesting to see the technology that he uses to solve the crimes are precursors of some of the technologies of today be it medical and other crime fighting techniques.

If interested in reading this book, you can download it from the following sites in various formats:

Project Gutenberg:  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2454

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/ARTHUR-B-REEVE-COLLECTION-Prometheus-ebook/dp/B07JQQKPTK/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=The+Silent+Bullet+Arthur+B.+Reeve&qid=1554523394&s=digital-text&sr=1-3

Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/arthur-b-reeve-crime-mystery-boxed-set-arthur-b-reeve/1129830772?ean=9788027242962

Tim's Rating: ➷➷➹➹
(Four out of six arrows)

Friday, February 8, 2019

March Mystery Madness 2019

It’s about that time of the year again and my favorite month of the year for reading. “What are you talking about?” you ask? Why it’s about time for the March Mystery Madness readathon. March Mystery Madness is a readathon that was created four years ago by two Booktubers Elizabeth (lizziefayeLovesBooks) and Troi (Troi Towel). Since then, the readathon has been expanded to Goodreads, Twitter and Instagram. The first year I participated was two years ago, less than a month after I started making videos on Booktube. Last year, Elizabeth wanted to add more co-hosts and asked me to be one of them, which I accepted. I was asked to be a co-host again this year and I couldn’t turn it down.

Like most readathons, there are challenges for this one. We have established five one word prompts which can be interpreted by readers in various ways and a bonus prompt for this year. The books that qualify are more than just mysteries. They can be thrillers, suspense, police procedural, true crime, pretty much anything that some sort of mystery of any kind is to be solved. The challenges/prompts are:

1.) Old – Read an older mystery/thriller such as a Sherlock Holmes book or one written by Agatha Christie. Or it could be a historical mystery or thriller. Or it could be one that gives you an old feeling.

2.) Again – Reread a mystery or thriller or read one by an author in which you read another one of their books or read another book in a series.

3.) New – Read a newly released mystery or thriller, or read a book that you just bought, or read one that is by an author that you’ve never any of their works.

4.) Borrowed – Read a mystery or thriller you checked out from a library, or one borrowed from a friend, or one from Kindle Unlimited.

5.) Blue – Read a mystery or thriller with a blue cover, or one that has blue in the title, or one that makes you feel blue, or one that has a setting around blues music.

Bonus) Read a mystery or thriller that has a wedding in it.

If you want to participate in it and make a video on YouTube or a post on Instagram, please leave #MarchMysteryMadness somewhere that it will let us know that others know that you are participating.

Here’s the announcement video that I posted on Booktube this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN9bfl5kgio&t=1s

The Goodreads group for this readathon can be found at: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/184109-mystery-madness

I have a Goodreads group that does a read-along of a book in a series each month. The book that we will be reading next month will be Pop Goes the Weasel by James Patterson. That book would qualify for the again challenge if you have been reading these along with the group or if you read anything by James Patterson before. My Goodreads group can be found at: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/602824-world-of-sleuths

I will be posting more videos related to this throughout the rest of this month and next month. I will post something here when I make the videos that pertains the subject matter for this blog.

Below are the links to the other co-hosts channel. The will be posting videos from today through the end of March that promise to be interesting, so you might want to view them and subscribe if you have a Google account (that includes a gmail account). Here are their channels and other links:

Mystery Madness Goodreads Group:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/184109-mystery-madness

Twitter for the readathon
https://www.twitter.com/marchmysmadness

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Book Review #57: The Woman in White

I would like to first start off by apologizing to my readers for not posting any reviews for the past four months. It mainly due to my health problems. One of my New Years resolutions is to post reviews all of the books that I read into one of my blogs. The ones that are old enough to fall into the Public Domain will be posted in this blog. The others will be posted in my other blog, World of Sleuths. I have some more ideas for posts that I will go into over the next two or three months.

The Woman in White is a mystery/thriller novel by Wilkie Collins that was originally published in 1860. This book is written in a similar style as Dracula was written where it is a combination of documents written by characters in the story. In this story they are written more in the form documents for a inquiry for a law suit. It is either as characters testimony or their journal entries. This story starts out with Walter Hartright who is an artist by trade and gives private lessons to people. He applies for and is offered a position in the country at an estate where he will be instructing two younger women, Miriam Halcombe and her half-sister Laura Fairlie, and he will board at the estate. The night before he is to leave London, he comes across a mysterious woman dressed all in white while walking back to his flat after visiting his mother and sister. This mysterious woman asks him to walk with her into London where she disappears. When Walter arrives to the estate, he is greeted by Miriam and doesn't meet Laura until later. When he see's Laura, he cant believe how much she looks like the mysterious woman. He starts falling in love with Laura during his time there until he finds out that she is engaged to be married to Sir Percival Glyde, who along with his friend Count Fosco, has plans, other than what he perceives, to swindle Laura's inheritance.

This book had been put on my radar as one to read after reading David Morrell's novel Inspector of the Dead where he included an essay about thrillers and how this novel is credited to be around the first thriller. It was a slow read for me because of how it is written and the sheer size of the book. After reading it, I'm glad I did and plan to read more novels by Wilkie Collins in the future.

If interested in reading this book, you can download it at the following sites in various formats:

Project Gutenberg:  http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/583

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Woman-White-Wilkie-Collins-ebook/dp/B0082Z447U/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1548387956&sr=1-1&keywords=the+woman+in+white+by+wilkie+collins

Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/woman-in-white-wilkie-collins/1001834504?ean=9781365970399

Tim's Rating: ➷➷➹➹➹
(Five out of six arrows)