The Queen’s Jewels is a novel that is part of the Murder, She Wrote range and is an adequate literary diversion. Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain are credited as co-writers. Since Jessica Fletcher is a fictional character, I think we can trust that Bain deserves full credit on this one.

Jessica Fletcher is invited to lecture on a cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, which is making a transatlantic voyage from London to New York. She has been aware of a jewel theft that has occurred in Europe in which the owner was murdered. The mystery seems to have followed her aboard the ship, and she encounters old friends who were former intelligence officers and an insurance investigator. Although Jessica is reluctant to get involved in another mystery while on a working holiday, another murder onboard compels her to use her gifts of observation and deductive to piece this particular puzzle together.

Nothing too spectacular in this one. There is a bit more depth in some of the characters than we would see in the television show. It does seem to be a good choice to write this in first person perspective from Jessica’s viewpoint. Sometimes I struggle with imagining Angela Lansbury saying some of the dialogue, but the effort is valiant enough.

There were probably more recurring characters than I would have liked. We had Michael Haggerty, Inspector George Sutherland, and Dennis Stanton all in one book, which sort of felt a little too gimmicky.

It is another cruise ship murder trope, but it was still a fun read. It did manage a few interesting twists and surprises at the end.

The effort to write a blog on this novel is probably not all that relevant, but I hope it’s a fun read as well.

Now, I am going to move on to more serious literary contributions such as the latest Star Trek novel from Greg Cox entitled Identity Theft.

The Ghost Orchid is a recent thriller written by the prolific Jonathan Kellerman and features Dr. Alex Delaware who is brought in by his friend, Milo Sturgis, to consult on another peculiar murder.

A pool boy arrives at a house to do some maintenance and finds his task impeded by a couple of dead bodies floating in the water. Dr. Alex Delaware, psychologist extraordinaire, is almost recovered from a recent near-fatal injury when Detective Milo Sturgis finally calls him to take a look at the scene to see if he had any insights on where the investigation should go. Milo and Alex find that both victims have some troubling histories, so it is not clear who was the primary target and who may have just been unlucky. They also find that marital infidelity is at the root of the scene, but the motive may not be as obvious as it would first appear. The dead woman’s identity turns into a deeper mystery the more Alex and Milo dig.

Kellerman is one of those reliable and interesting suspense writers, and this installment in his long-running series continues his impressive publishing streak. This may also be one of his better entries even though there is not a whole lot that has changed by the dynamic between his characters. I did like the choice to not have Alex focus too much on what happened in the immediately preceding novel where he was nearly killed. Milo had been hesitant to consult with Delaware, but it was not too far into the story before that bit got resolved.

I also thought the lingering question as to which victim was the primary target was quite nicely placed. There is a scene where Delaware’s long-time girlfriend provides an important clue, which I thought was kind of brilliant.

I usually find Kellerman’s works to be pretty solid as far as leisure reading goes, but this particular novel was little bit above that when it came to the plot and the questions that had to be answered.

Kellerman is also not shy about introducing the more likely suspect way later into the story at times, which I sort of appreciate since the cast of characters in mystery novels are all kind of laid out early. I think this tendency sort of emulates how real murder investigations tend to go.

Anyway, this particular Alex Delaware novel is a pleasurable and a bit more compelling than many in the series and has certainly ensured that it will not be too much longer before I hunt down the next installment.

Since Halloween is a few days away, I think I will let my reading journey turn even darker as I let Darcy Coates reveal How Bad Things Can Get.

Murder She Wrote: A Time for Murder by Jessica Fletcher and Jon Land was likely written solely by the latter since the charming Mrs. Fletcher is a fictional character from the television series.

This is my first foray into this long-running novel series. Of course, I was and still am a watcher of the television series that starred the late, and truly great Angela Lansbury.

Jessica Fletcher is invited to a retirement party of a former colleague from her teaching days. She is also interviewed for a high school newspaper; however, the young woman who met with her is subsequently murdered. Jessica and the sheriff in Cabot Cove, Maine discover a connection to a previous murder over decades in the past in which Jessica had her first exposure to amateur sleuthing. This was back before she became a bestselling novelist, and her husband was still living. The readers sort of get two murder plots for the price of one here.

It’s a fun, easy read for the most part. I did have some trouble conjuring Angela Lansbury’s portrayal in my mind’s eye with some of the dialogue and scenes. written by Land. Land also did not worry too much about age discrepancies or anything since the television series ended well before the Internet and ubiquitous cell phone use. That was a little distracting, but I was able to set that aside for the most part and enjoy the story.

Obviously, this isn’t really great literature, but it was a fun diversion. The novel series has yet to really slow down. This particular novel was published in 2019 and was by no means the first one. If I feel like revisiting Mrs. Fletcher’s exploits in print, I will have plenty of options. There is actually little doubt that I will do just that.

Until then, I am on to a grittier reading indulgence with Mickey Spillane’s The Killing Man.

The Archer Files provided me with a welcome introduction to an author I had not read before. This is apparently the definitive collection of short stories by Ross MacDonald that feature his best-known private eye character, Lew Archer.

There are several stories and other material in this volume, so I don’t have the time and patience to analyze each entry. I will just merely recommend for any mystery fans to try this volume out.

There is a rather helpful and interesting biographical profile of Archer written by Tom Nolan, who edits and reviews crime fiction and apparently has done a thorough account of MacDonald in the past. I guess he is one of these experts in crime fiction. He seems to be a pretty good writer in his own right. I had no real issues with his introduction.

There are a dozen short stories that follow. Some are better than others, as one would expect, however none stand out as being really bad. Archer himself is pretty typical of other fictional, hard-boiled, protagonists of the era of the early Cold War days and the subsequent decades. He is does have a cool blend of toughness and intelligence. Archer is no slouch when it comes to his knowledge of literature and culture, but he’s certainly no push-over. He is a likable enough hero, and I will likely peruse a novel or two before long.

A somewhat more intriguing feature of this volume is a section known as the Case Notes. These are stories that MacDonald started and either just not finished or recycled the ideas into other works. It was interesting and a little annoying t the same time in that there were several stories that I was really wanting to know the resolution.

I am not sure that Ross MacDonald really broke much new ground in the genre at the time of his publications, but I can certainly see how he earned whatever acclaim he enjoyed during his lifetime. MacDonald died in 1983, and his real name was Kenneth Miller.

MacDonald certainly was not lacking in his writing talent. From what little research I did, it does seem that MacDonald has held in quite high esteem in the world of crime fiction, and as near as I can tell from my so far limited exposure to his works, that reverence from his peer seems pretty justified.

I am moving on to another highly regarded, long-standing crime writer who is still very much alive and quite prolific. It has been a couple of years, but I think it’s time to revisit Easy Rawlins as he gets himself into a bit more trouble with A Red Death by the formidable Walter Mosley.