Read in 2026 - 14, 15

Lantern Slides

Edna O‘Brien

 

It is rare for me to read short stories, but my book-swapping friend lent me this paperback and of course I read it.

And of course I persisted and read every story, even though I must admit I was largely underwhelmed.

 

Maybe it’s just me – perhaps short stories aren’t my type of literary genre, perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood, perhaps I didn’t “get” the messages (if there were any), perhaps I simply expected something else after having read the praise on the back of the book.

In any case, I found most of and much about the stories neither captivating nor satisfying.

 

They all left me with a degree of sadness (while not really caring) about the way the characters were dealing with their lives in general and other people in particular.

The “Irishness” of the stories was largely coming from references to Catholic habits, traditions and narrowmindedness (by this I don’t want to accuse all Catholics of being narrowminded, but the characters in the stories certainly are when it comes to thoughts and behaviour based on their religion).

 

Out of the 12 stories, there was only one I liked, and I am not at all sure that the author’s intention was to have readers “like” them, let alone bond with the characters. 

To be fair, I should mention that I enjoyed the style of writing and choice of words. As I said, I guess it's just me, and the high praise is fully deserved.

I was familiar with the name Edna O’Brien but as far as I remember, I had never read anything by her before.

And I must say that I am not planning to give her work another try anytime soon.

The Deadly Detective Agency

Ann Parker

 

In contrast to my previous read, this one was delightful, and I was almost sorry to reach the end.

 

Abigail wakes up one morning, feeling good and unusually well rested – until she realises that she is dead.

A bit at a loss of what to do and where to go, especially once it becomes clear that nobody can see or hear her, she leaves the house (walking right through doors and walls is of course new to her and somewhat exciting) and walks around in the village.

 

Eventually, she meets a man who can see and hear her – another ghost.

Terry introduces her to a group of ghosts who for various reasons have not “passed on” yet.

 

By now, Abigail is convinced that she did not die of natural causes but was murdered, and her new friends are ready to help her solve her own murder.

 

I don’t want to tell you too much, in case you want to download and read this free ebook from Amazon’s Kindle store, but it won’t surprise you that the ghosts manage to find out who killed Abigail, and why.

 

Because they all enjoyed having something to do that made sense and was fun, they start a detective agency, and funnily enough, it does not take long for their “business” (money is not involved, since they would of course not have any need for that) to pick up and their first ghostly clients to appear.

 

This really was a nice, relaxing read. There was humour and quirkiness but also some emotional scenes and food for thought; nothing was overdone, the humour not too daft, the emotional bits not too cheesy and the characters (dead or alive) rather plausible while at the same time the supernatural premises gives the whole thing an interesting twist without being over the top or getting on your nerves.

As is so often the case, this freebie is the 1^st in a series about the “Deadly Detectives”, and I would not mind reading more – especially #2 in the series, called “The Deadly Pub Quiz”.

 

The author was unknown to me. Her author’s profile on Amazon is here.