Mini-Review: Something Wicked by Carolyn G. Hart

Book: Something Wicked
Author: Carolyn G. Hart
Awards Won: 1989 Agatha Award for Best Novel

Third in the Death on Demand series, this book features Annie Laurence and her (as of this book) fiancé, Max Darling, in their attempts to figure out who’s behind a series of pranks being pulled on a local summer production of the classic play Arsenic and Old Lace. The pranks escalate to a murder (but of course; what would be a mystery without a murder in it?), and Max falls under suspicion. Annie works not only to clear Max’s name but to figure out who’s actually behind it all.

One reason I liked the book so much (like the previous ones in the series) is all of the allusions to other works. Annie works as a manager of a mystery store that she inherited from her uncle, so her deliberations about various clues are filled with references to all sorts of works from the classic ones to the  obscure (to me) ones. In addition, her store runs a monthly contest that gives a free book to the first person who can identify which mysteries are portrayed in five different paintings.

Summary: Good read if you like mysteries in the ilk of Agatha Christie or enjoy stories focusing on the theater. It’s not necessary to start from the beginning in the series, but the earlier two books are both excellent reads in the same style.

Book Areas

I had thought about writing up a different post for tonight, but I spent most of the evening trying to finish up one of my current books. That prompted this post about my current reading goals and what I plan to do with reviews.

At the moment, I’m currently trying to work my way through the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning books; I had read a lot of them in the past due to my love of sci-fi, but there were a lot more out there that I had yet to touch. In addition, I just started looking at Agatha Award-winning novels to cover my mystery side. Before I started, I hadn’t really hit any of these books (due to the award being handed out starting in 1989), but I’m slowly making my way through them.

On the non-fiction side, I’m currently tackling Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winning books. This is a pretty monumental task due to the relative number of books to read (at the beginning, I had read only parts of 2 of the 37 winning books) and their relative size. They just take a lot more time to finish than the award-winning fiction novels.

This isn’t to say I don’t have other books I’m reading. My backlog of owned unread books is pretty darn staggering, and every time I go to the library, my eye is struck by some collection of books. Thus my progress on these goals is a bit slower than what I would like.

At the moment, I’m currently tracking my progress of the book lists over at List of Bests (there are other lists of mine that I’m tracking up there as well, but the ones mentioned above are the main ones I’m working one). What I’ll try to do is add a short blurb of my current reads somewhere (probably on a sidebar), and then post a short review up here every time I finish a book. I’m far from a literary critic, but I should be able to give people a general sense of the book, and whether you should read it or not. It’ll be a fun experiment, and I hope it turns out well.

If people have suggestions on what I should do on here, please let me know. I’m always open for improvements and [hopefully constructive] criticism.