The Cyclist (2020) - Tim Sullivan

 

The Cyclist is the second book in Tim Sullivan’s eight-book DS Cross series. As with the titles of the other books in the series, the title of this one describes the profession of the victim of the crime Cross and his team will be investigating. 

DS George Cross is a Bristol detective who is somewhere on the autism spectrum. He is not an easy man to work with or to befriend, but he is a brilliant detective with the highest conviction rate on the entire police force. Cross pays attention to detail, and combines logic and intense focus on the tiniest of clues to reveal a victim’s hidden lives and motivations - often leading him directly to their killer. 

As Cross writes him, George Cross is a very sympathetic character, but he is so socially awkward that he often comes across as rude without any idea that he is doing so. He hates noise, crowds large and small, and has never mastered the skill of making small talk or reading the emotions of others. Thus, his lack of friends. 

But George, largely thanks to input from his department partner Josie Ottey, is not unaware of the way others react to him, and he is working hard to make himself more acceptable to others.

He often spent time observing people. Sometimes from Tony’s café, where he would have breakfast every morning. He was a bit of a student of human behaviour. Not because of his work but because he learnt from it. He tried to observe, to understand the way people worked, in an attempt to fit himself in a little more easily. It had mixed results…"

 This time around, Cross and his team are investigating the murder of a man whose body was found inside an abandoned building. Using clues only he could piece together, Cross quickly determines that the brutally murdered man is a cyclist, a fact that leads directly to the man’s quick identification. Then once the victim has been identified, Cross begins to peel back his life layer by layer until all is revealed. This is a mystery involving high level competitive cycling, performance enhancing drugs, sibling rivalry, financial pressures, family feuds, and a romance gone off the rails. Everyone of any importance in the victim’s life seems to be hiding something, and what they are hiding is usually enough to give them good reason to want to see Alex Paphides dead. 

 The Cyclist comes with an abundance of suspects. 

Good luck.

Reading Novels Published in 1926: A Self-Challenge

The last two weeks have been somewhat of a challenge when it comes to finding much time to read or to post anything here on Book Chase, and that is likely to continue well into the foreseeable future. As I briefly mentioned before, we are in the midst of unraveling all the complications arising from my brother-in-law’s sudden death in a traffic accident. In less than two weeks, that has already required us to make five separate trips totaling over 900 miles, so reading and blogging time is definitely at a premium. 

But I woke up this morning wondering what people were reading exactly 100 years ago, in 1926. I’m hoping to read a few 1926 novels just to remind myself how quickly time sneaks up on all of us, and I’ll be choosing primarily from this bunch:

• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Soldiers’ Pay by William Faulkner
• The Plumed Serpent by D.H. Lawrence
• All the Sad Young Men by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Mantrap by Sinclair Lewis
• Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
• Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
• The Private Life of Helen of Troy by John Erskine
• Show Boat by Edna Ferber
• Early Autumn by Louis  Bromfield
• The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy
• Beau Sabreur by P.C. Wren
• The Hounds of Spring by Sylvia Thompson
• After Noon by Susan Ertz
• The Blue Window by Temple Bailey
• My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather
• The Romantic Comedians by Ellen Glasgow
• Adam’s Breed by Radclyffe Hall
• Under the Tonto Rim by Zane Grey
• The Dark Chamber by Leonard Cline

If I can read even two or three of these before the end of the year, I’ll consider this to have been a successful self-challenge. If anyone wants to join me in reading at least one 1926 novel, feel free to choose anything else from that year and to suggest others for me to consider. 

Now I need to sit down and actually read something…anything…before my frustration gets the better of me.

(The image up above is only the second image I’ve ever generated using AI, but I think it does a pretty good job of setting the tone for this new goal of mine.)

Animal Farm (1945) - George Orwell

 

George Orwell’s Animal Farm should still be required reading in middle schools and high schools across the world, but based upon the current embracement of socialism and communism by the young people in this country, I would guess that that’s not generally the case anymore. Animal Farm is the perfect political book for young adult readers. It is a short, satiric fable that uses talking animals to teach a moral lesson, the kind of layered story whose message is clear and hard to forget. 

On its surface, Animal Farm is the story of a bunch of mistreated farm animals belonging to Mr. Jones. With an exception or two, none of the animals on the farm are happy about the way that Mr. Jones treats them, and they are growing unhappier by the day, so when an old boar called Old Major calls for an animal takeover of the Jones farm, the rest of the animals are eager to sign up for the overthrow. The revolution is successful, and the animals rename the farm Animal Farm and vow to live by the “Seven Commandments of Animalism.” Their key commandment is “All animals are equal.”

At first, that seems to be true. But the pigs, because they are the smartest animals on the farm, easily take the lead in setting the farm agenda and allocating work to the other animal types. Soon, the pigs have bent the commandments in their favor, and it gets harder and harder for the working animals to tell the pigs from humans like Mr. Jones. In the end, the pigs have started walking on two legs, they are wearing the clothing Mr. Jones was forced to leave behind, they are sleeping in his bed, they are drinking up the man's liquor, and they are cutting secret deals with neighboring human farmers. 

Animal Farm is a savage take on social revolutions, and how all too often they end up only replacing one set of tyrants for a fresh set of tyrants. All too soon, the animals of Animal Farm learn that the truth is more that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Orwell makes plain that once leaders decide to prioritize their own personal comforts over the political principles they once so adamantly preached, it is the masses that will suffer, all the while being told that it is all for their own good. Orwell wrote Animal Farm during parts of 1943 and 1944, but the novel was not published until 1945 - Stalin being a key World War II ally of Britain and the U.S. - because it was such an obvious criticism of how Stalinism betrayed the Russian Revolution. 

At first, Animal Farm is fun, if maybe a little too cute at times, but as Old Major begins to manipulate the farm animals and consolidate his power, the true horrors of life on Animal Farm strike the reader hard. The book conveys a complex lesson in simple, straightforward way, and that makes what it has to say about the creep of communism all the more difficult to forget. 

Yes, Animal Farm should still be required reading in schools. The book’s lesson has stuck in my head for at least fifty years now, so I can personally attest to both its approach and its overall brilliance.  

A Purple Place for Dying (1964) - John D. MacDonald

Travis McGee is living the good life. He lives comfortably on a Florida houseboat and takes a “salvage consultant”job only when it appeals to his curiosity or when he urgently needs a quick infusion of cash. He’s tall and tanned, the kind of man who can be physically intimidating to other men without really trying while attracting more than his share of women. McGee, though is not your typical “salvage consultant.” He’s the guy you call when you need someone who’s handy with a gun - and you want to keep the whole transaction under wraps.

When Mona Yeoman contacts him about recovering the cash she believes her husband has stolen from her trust fund, McGee is almost broke and he knows that it’s time to go back to work. Mona's offer of a free plane ticket to Arizona, not to mention McGee’s usual hefty fee if he successfully salvages the missing cash, is exactly the kind of job offer he needs. Mona’s timing could not have been more perfect. But things do not go as expected, and just a couple of hours after meeting Mona Yeoman on the ground, McGee finds himself without a client and without any chance of collecting a fee from her. McGee, however, outraged by what he has witnessed, is not ready to call it a day - fee or no fee. He knows he can’t just walk away, but the can of worms he is about to open up is one he never expected. 

A Purple Place for Dying is classic sixties hardboiled stuff that benefits from MacDonald’s fast pacing and his sharp, clean prose. MacDonald is not an author who wasted words, but this third Travis McGee novel still manages a strong sense of place and is filled with multiple interesting characters with problems of their own. But let’s also say that A Purple Place for Dying did not exactly age gracefully, especially in how women are presented. 

Even McGee’s potential client is introduced with misogynistic, almost dismissive, comments that set the tone for every female character to follow - especially the young woman who later becomes a key player in McGee’s investigation. What I, as a modern reader of this 52-year-old novel, find most off-putting are the casual references to putting wives in their place with beatings and spankings. I was in high school in 1964, but I still find it hard to believe that comments like those would not have been offensive to most readers even when the novel was first published. In a more humorous vein is McGee’s assumption that sexually repressed women of the time only need a man like him to help them heal emotionally before they willingly jump into bed with him. But I have to remind myself that, as are the popular James Bond movies of the same era, A Purple Place for Dying is a product of the times from which it sprang, that it was not especially misogynistic in its day.

All of that said, A Purple Place for Dying is a fast paced mystery thriller that today’s mystery fans can still enjoy and appreciate as long as they remember to keep it in the context of its own time. It’s meant to be a novel of escapism, and it is exactly that.

What I’m Reading This Week (6/28/26)

 This past week was not the one I expected it would be. I’ll keep it short, but here’s what happened. Two Texas Highway Patrol troopers rang our doorbell on Tuesday night around ten to tell us that my wife’s only brother had been killed in an auto accident about three hours earlier. Because my wife is her brother’s closest living relative, we have been going almost non-stop for the last few days making all the necessary arrangements. The funeral is tomorrow - all of this is taking place out of town - but the process of putting all of his affairs in place will take months. 

I had very little reading time last week, and won’t have a whole lot more anytime soon, but I did finish a 1964 novel by John D. MacDonald called A Purple Place for Dying. The novel reads like a near-satire of the genre, but I’m not sure if that’s what MacDonald intended at the time it was published, or if it has just aged badly. 

I was looking for some lighter reading to add to the books I have in progress right now, and remembered reading that several of you have already read Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth. I love the premise of an 81-year-old serial killer with a sense of humor. It sounded like fun, and through the first 45 pages, it’s proving to be exactly that. I’m still to the point of getting familiar with all of Mabel’s neighbors and her childhood background, but it’s already quite a cast of memorable characters. 

One whole side of my family tree traces its North American roots to Nova Scotia and the years in which the British were expelling the French settlers from that part of Canada. I know that history in a general fashion, but have been getting curious to learn more of the details. Dean Jobb, at least so far, seems to be a pretty readable historian, and I’m looking forward to getting some answers about the expulsion that saw half my family end up in southern Louisiana where it met and married the German half. Acadian Saga is one of the better histories on Cajun history that I could find.

That’s if for now. We are leaving town again in the morning, and even though it’s only a two-hour drive, it’s one I’ll be making over and over in the next few weeks. I’ll be checking in and out as I can, and I look forward to seeing what you are all reading. 

The Dying Light (2026) - Ann Cleeves

 

The Dying Light is the fourth novel in the Two Rivers series featuring Detective Inspector Matthew Venn which began in 2019 with The Long Call. Series author Ann Cleeves is a veteran series writer who is best known for her eleven-book Vera Stanhope series and her nine-book Shetland series, but she is also the author of two earlier series. 

Readers of Ann Cleeves fiction know, first and foremost, to expect an atmospheric British setting, most usually some remote rural or coastal spot where the investigation is at least somewhat dependent on what the landscape is willing to surrender to police. Faithful readers know, too, that investigations will be further complicated by relatively small, tight-knit communities filled with long-held grudges, secret affairs, lots of gossip, and an unshakable sense that everyone has something to hide. 

The Dying Light offers plenty of all of that.

The story begins when Lottie, a seventeen-year-old girl, is found dead in the swimming pool of politician Paul Armstrong’s North Devon holiday home. Further complicating what is already expected to be a delicate investigation, Armstrong’s daughter Hannah - Lottie’s best friend - is nowhere to be found. Only the night before, the girls had managed to irritate the locals at a small music festival to such a degree that Venn and his team (DS Jen Rafferty and DC Ross May) have no shortage of suspects and motives to sift through. 

A big part of the appeal of series fiction is in watching the repeating characters change and grow over time, and Cleeves, a master of this, takes the time here to further evolve each of her main characters. Series readers will not be surprised to learn that Venn, as a result of his strict, cult-like religious upbringing, is still struggling with self-doubt and anxiety - even to the degree that Jen is at times the more effective investigator of the pair.Venn, however, is becoming more and more self-aware with each book, and his efforts to become more self-confident allow him to give Jonathan, his husband, the emotional support Jonathan needs in his struggle to resolve issues from his own past. Jen, not a native of North Devon, is feeling less and less the team outsider now, and she and young Ross are finally starting to put their rivalry aside long enough to trust each other.

The Dying Light is a fine addition to the formidable Ann Cleeves collection of well written murder mysteries. If you’re already into her Vera or Shetland books, this series is for you.