PS-21-01: Project Stratemeyer Update

       I have read all of the books through The Rover Boys in the Air which is the sixteenth book in the first Rover Boys series by Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer). There are four books left in this series. After I finish those four books, I will post my review and thoughts of the series as well as the books in the series and possibly a brief synopsis of each.

Book Review 21-02: The Moon Rock

      The Moon Rock is a locked room mystery by Arthur J. Rees, first published in 1922. Robert Turold is a man who's been obsessed most of his life to gaining a title that had been in his family history and went into abeyance centuries before and is close to obtaining it until he is found dead in his residence that is in a house on top of the coastal cliffs in Cornwall. The house was locked at the time of his death were his family members, servants and his trusted doctor. First believed to be a suicde, it is later belived to be a murder. The search for his murderer takes place in Cornwall and the London area. Which one these killed him?

     To tell you the truth, this book was confusing to me at first, but then after the murder takes place, it gets interesting. This is the first book that I've read by this author and will read more by him in the future.

Tim's rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Four out of five stars)

Links:

You can download this book in various file formats from Project Gutenberg at:  http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/12509.

Book Review 21-01: The Mischief Maker

      The Mischief Maker was written by E. Phillips Openheim and was published in 1913. Sir Julien Portel was the foreign minister for England whose career ended abruptly when a woman that he had known for years managed to get him to write her an intimate letter and she gave it to her political hungry husband who made it public which brought demands for his immediate resignation. Disgraced and not having much money, he goes to Paris where he is approached by people from a couple different factions that are trying to get him to work for them and betraying England. Being a true patriot of England and curious he just sees what they want him to do where they wine and dine him, one even trying to get him to go on a mission for them that would get him out of Paris for a period of time. He refuses to accept working for either he stays in Paris where he discovers places where the common man in Paris frequent and learns to understand them. He is then approached by an old friend with a a way he can earn money while hitting back against those organizations.

     I had selected this book for satisfy a prompt for the March Mystery Madness readathon, but it turns out not to really be a mystery, but more of a political/espionage thriller. But I also like reading that type of story, I kept reading and am glad I did as it has plenty of action in it.

Tim's rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Four out of five stars)

Links:

If you're interested in reading this book, you can download it in various formats from Project Gutenberg at: http://gutenberg.orhttp://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8878g/ebooks/8878

Starting Up Again

      2020 was a bad year in most peoples opinion chiefly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of things were neglected that year including this blog. Being concerned with relatives that contracted COVID-19 during the year and my own health problems, I didn't read as much as in previous years. Whenever I finished reading a book I would tell myself to write a review in one of my blogs, but I kept putting it off and I would and I would with the next book.

     Well, I'm stopping putting that off beginning now. I am currently reading three books for March Mystery Madness that I'm trying to finish by the end of the month. two of them are in the public domain which I will post reviews for them in this blog. The other one that I'm reading not in the public domain, so I will post reviews for them them in my other blog, World of Sleuths. You will see everything in them that I have put in my other blogs, but might have a different layout.

So keep watching over the next week for the reviews.

Announcement: Project Stratemeyer

Over this past weekend I decided to start compiling a list of series that are in the public domain. I started off with an author that I have read some of his books. That author is Edward Stratemeyer. He wrote several book for children an many of them are in series. More important is that he formed the Stratemeyer Syndicate which consisted authors writing under pen names that he created. These each of the stories were started by guidelines or outlines that he created.

The best known series that were created by authors in the Stratemeyer Syndicate are The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. There are not any books in those series have any books in that are in the public domain, but most of the first Tom Swift series, The Rover Boys and The Bobbsey Twins each have several, if not all the books in the series that are in the public domain.

Project Stratemeyer is my reading project that will probably take at least y year to complete. I will be reading all of books that were written by authors that worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. I will be reading other books as will as these, some are in the public domain, others newer books, mainly mysteries and thrillers. after each book I read for this project, I will write a review after I finish each book and post them in this blog. Also, after I finish a series I will write a series review which I will post here also.

Yesterday I started reading the first book in The Rover Boys which was written by Edward Stratemeyer under the pen name Arthur M. Winfield. Some of these books are/will be rereads for me such as this one. I will post a review of it either later today or tomorrow after I finish reading it.

Project Stratemeyer:
Current book:  The Rover Boys at School; Or, The Cadets of Putnam Hall
Author: Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
Year first published: 1899
Series: The Rover Boys, First Series
Number in series: 1

Other books in the public domain that I'm reading:
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawtthorne
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Book Review #59: The Red House Mystery

A. A. Milne is best known for writing Winnie-the-Pooh stories for his son, Christopher Robin Milne, in which Christopher and his teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, play major roles. The first book with stories about them was a short story collection titled Winnie-the-Pooh which was first published in 1926. Four years before that, he wrote The Red House Mystery which he wrote for his father that enjoyed reading detective stories. This was the only mystery that he wrote.

This story is a “locked-room mystery”, which takes place at an English country house owned by Mark Ablett who liked to have guests stay there that participated in various sporting activities and games during there stay. One morning he announce that he just received a letter form his brother Robert, who had been living in Australia for the past 15 years, stating that he would be arriving that afternoon to see Mark. None of the staff or guests had ever heard anything about Robert, except for Mark and Robert's cousin, and Mark's right-hand man, Matthew Cayley. Robert was shown to Mark's office immediately upon arrival, per Mark's instructions, but Mark wasn't in there at that time. A short time later, a gun shot was heard coming from the office. Caley went to check in the office, but the door was locked from the inside and Caley started pounding on the office door insisting to be let in to see what happened, but with out any response.

About the same time, Antony Gillingham, a stranger to all there, but Bill Beverley shows up to see Bill. When he arrives, Caley is pounding on the door, Antony asks if there was any other way into the office, and is immediately taken around to a window outside by Caley. They see a body lying on the floor and mange to break into the office where after turning the body over, Caley identifies it to be Robert, but Mark is nowhere to be found. Unimpressed by the inspector sent to investigate the crime and having to stay there until after the inquest, Antony decides to try to solve the case with Bill being his “Watson.”

I had part of the result figured out early on, but wasn't sure of some of the other details. It was fun, and sometimes hilarious, following Antony and Bill around during their investigation and reading about some of their hypothesis.

Tim's Rating:  ➷➷➶➶

(Four out of six arrows)

If interested in reading this book, you can download it in various formats for free from Project Gutenberg at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1872

If you'd prefer to listen to it as a free download from LibriVox at: https://librivox.org/the-red-house-mystery-by-a-a-milne/

If you want to read more about A. A. Milne and useless trivia facts such as one of his school teachers was H. G. Wells, you can start by looking at his Wilipedia page at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._A._Milne

Resurrection and Change

Its been almost a year since  I posted anything in this blog. Well that's about change. I have decided that I will start posting reviews of all the books that are in the public domain that I read again in this blog and also do series reviews, author spotlights and general talk about books in the public domain.

You may ask me why I'm doing this now. One of the reasons is that March Mystery Madness is going on all this month and every book that I'm reading this month is in the public domain and I can talk about them easier in this blog than I can in a video on YouTube. Also, there are several children's series in the public domain from 100 years ago that Id like to read. I have read some, but what I've read isn't even the tip of the iceberg. Because of some legal changes that were made on YouTube this year, I don't want to get fined for talking about children's books along with a number adult books that I read every month.

You will be seeing more changes including all of the links that I put in the post will be at the very end of the post. That way you, the reader won't have to look all over in the post for them. Also, I'll leave links to the audiobook along with the links for the book, if there is one. The book links will generally be for the location in Project Gutenberg if the book is available there, otherwise I'll leave the link for the site from which I obtained it. The links for audiodbooks will be in the Librivox location.

Will, I need to get back to my reading. I'll be posting a review for the book I'm currently reading within the next few days.