I have a confession to make. Choosing which mysteries to review each month gives me both pleasure and pain, because it means that there are always a few that don’t fit the theme of a particular column or were published in a month full of good choices. So here are some of those titles that deserve your consideration.This is not the Bookshelf of Misfit Toys. Consider them instead as gifts that fell out of Santa’s sleigh when it hit turbulence.
My favorite is John Banville’s Venetian Vespers, which isn’t part of his popular Quirke series. It’s part gothic thriller and part Henry James pastiche (the novel’s epigraph is the first clue, the long and winding sentences another), set in 1899, and narrated by Evelyn Dolman, a self-confessed hack writer who has somehow managed to marry an American heiress.
