Good morning, Rebus fans. Here's the first line of a book from one of my voluminous book piles. Sip your coffee, munch your toast, and solve the puzzle.
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Saturday, March 5, 2022
DOA's Answer Key for the February 27, 2022 Cryptogram
Our puzzle source is from Mark Twain's Roughing It. It does start out intriguingly. I may add it to my lists of Classics to read this year. Click to enlarge.
Roughing It by Mark Twain
My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor’s absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of “Mr. Secretary,” gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel!
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3177/3177-h/3177-h.htm#link161
Friday, March 4, 2022
Thursday, March 3, 2022
Picard Season 2 Ep 1 Stargazer (Paramount Plus)
While I loved season one of Picard, this first episode seemed a bit meandering. On the plus side, all of the great characters new and old from season one are here.
On the negative side, Q. I knew he was in the season, but have never liked the character. According to the previews, he feels Picard owes some sort of penance. At least he came in at the very end of the episode.
I love the Borg, though, so seeing their newly designed ship was pretty cool. Awesome armor for the Queen as well. At some point she and Seven of Nine will no doubt go Circuit to Circuit, with Seven triumphing (I hope).
More air time for Guinan would be great too.
The Stargazer was a particularly beautiful ship.
What's Cooking March 3, 2022
I've only made Apple Strudel once and it was wonderful. Problematically, I fused together parts of two different recipes, and I'm not sure I could reproduce them.
Here, from Janet's Appalachian Kitchen, an Apple Strudel Recipe that just needs a little glaze. She writes out her recipe right on her Facebook page, so I'll direct you to that, and you'll just need to scroll down. You're looking for this picture :)
https://www.facebook.com/JanetsAppalachianKitchen/
Is there anything more adorable than Easter Peeps? I love the diorama's people make with these pastel cuties. I just don't like eating them. Even so, when I saw Butter with a Side of Bread's Easter Peep Krispies, I was ready to load up on the sugary little things to make these.
https://butterwithasideofbread.com/easter-peeps-krispie-treats/
My desire for chocolate cake has once again proved my undoing. I’ve been wanting to make a recipe from the latest version of my Bettey Crocker Cookbooks. Simply called Chocolate Cake. I just want to say I followed the recipe exactly. I did a good job of greasing and lightly flouring the pan (I usually skip the lightly flowering part). Good start, right?
Once baked and cooled however, neither cake layer would come out of the pan. I ran a butter knife along the edge. I tapped the bottom of the pan.
Finally they came out but a thin top of each later remained in the pan.
Better yet, I made the suggested Fudge Frosting with it. Whoa. It made a lot of frosting, but it would not thicken up to be spreadable for anything. I finally just poured some between the layers, then poured some over the top. Like chocolate lava it slid over the sides of the cake and pooled up.
I haven’t had the nerve to try it yet.
What's Cooking still lives!
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Review: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Sometimes when you really like a book, it's hard to write about it. That's the case here, or I would have had this written this morning.
I bought The Thursday Murder Club when it came out, based on reviews. I took a peek at it, but it wasn't what I was in the mood for at the time. I also had read reviews, and somehow thought it might be a cutesy look at funny old people who totter around talking about crimes and mysteries. Somehow the thought of it being vaguely like the movie Cocoon entered my mind. I thought Cocoon was a depressing movie.
The Thursday Murder Club consists of four individuals who happen to be in their seventies and eighties. They live in a retirement village in the English countryside with lovely views, plenty to do, and the wine flows freely.
They meet Thursdays and go over the case files of a former member, trying to solve some of the unsolved cases. Joyce was a nurse for forty years. Ron was a bit of a rowdy labor organizer. Ibrahim was a psychiatrist. Elizabeth appears to have been a government operative, likely working for MI5.
When murder comes to the community they live in, they perk right up and prepare to dig in and find out who the murderer is. The expertise and friends and acquaintances of this group is a force to be reckoned with. Kindly, they take two local police detectives under their wing.
The murders begin when the developer of their community decides to expand. He owns the land upon which a cemetery for the nuns who lived where Cooper's Chase now stands are buried. He plans to remove all of the bodies (carefully, he says publicly) and create a new community there. This is a case of literally knowing where the bodies are buried, as all sorts of things from the past, not just nuns, are in that graveyard.
The daily lives and concerns of these folks and others in the community are just tossed in. However, if you are getting up there yourself, or know someone who is, the story can hit hard. Losing someone slowly to dementia. Secrets that come out when time runs out. People who are lonely wondering how they ended up this way. That awful time when someone you love isn't communicative any longer and you talk to them and don't know if they hear or understand you at all, but you try because it keeps them with you somehow.
The backstory of one of the suspects just made me cry. Maybe all of the other stuff softened me up.
Book Notes March 1, 2022
Via Sharyn McCrumb:
On Order:
Finally a new Molly Murphy Mystery! Rhys Bowen's daughter Clare Broyles is co-writing, and is perhaps responsible for bringing back the beloved character for an 18th title in the series.
There's no cover yet, but In Myrtle Peril, the fourth Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery is due out October 4th.
Myrtle Hardcastle—twelve-year-old Victorian Amateur Detective—returns to investigate the case of a missing heiress lost at sea, an inquiry that runs aground when a murder in plain sight has no apparent victim. (Amazon)
Coming March 15, The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James, author of The Sun Down Motel, which I loved.
From Novel Suspects, some older mystery titles you may have read, or missed the first time around.
The Goodwill Librarian asks:
The next book I'm reading is Richard Osman's The Man Who Died Twice. I've had the first book The Thursday Murder Club since release, and finally read it this last week. When I finished it, I immediately dug through my book piles for the sequel, which I'd asked for as a Christmas gift.
It's been announced that season 2 of the Reacher series will be based on book two of the series, Die Trying. I plan to order Killing Floor and Die Trying together, and of course read them before season 2 comes!
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