2025, animals, books, Uncategorized, Words

Murder at Gull’s Nest

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As you all know, a lot of things strike my interest where books are concerned – recommendations from friends, stories online and titles.  Give me a good title and I’m all in.  At least to start with.

I see a lot of books on Facebook these days.  And as if they are tempting me personally, there are a lot of catchy titles.  Here are a few that I have on hold at the library right now that I chose simply from their titles:  The Dead Husband Cookbook, Inside of a Dog, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests, And Then We Hit a Rock.  Based on my luck with these kinds of picks, most of these probably won’t get finished.  And Then There Were Scones only made it about three chapters.  Awful.

So I approached Murder at Gull’s Nest by Jess Kidd with a bit of trepidation.  I think if the library started a section of Cozy Mysteries, it would probably be shelved there and to be fair, it did tick off all the cozy “boxes”, but not in a way that is run-of-the-mill way.  The characters are real, the story is compelling and importantly I wasn’t able to figure out the murdered until almost 75% of the way through the book.

And even more importantly, the language was fabulous; I do love a good turn of phrase:

  • “Outside, the sky is brightening, which is of no concern to the room, daylight being dissuaded by heavy velvet drapes and the somber yews that crowd about the window.”
  • “Nora steps into a cheap café and orders a pot of tea. When it arrives it is what she hoped for:  decent and strong with a skin a mouse could skate on.”
  • “Humans can’t tolerate emptiness for long… if I’m empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I’m not alone!”
  • “Jesus, who would want to read about a failed old nun, with her stipend, and second-hand shoes.”

So I’m recommending this book to everybody and have requested a couple more Jess Kidd titles

Have you read something recently just because it had a good title?  How did that turn out?

26 thoughts on “Murder at Gull’s Nest”

    1. VS, I just looked up this author’s books on Libby–great titles, all. Himself and Things in Jars are several other intriguing hooks. All books have long waiting lists.

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  2. I am mostly immune to the punny titles for which cozy mysteries seem to strive.
    A year ago when translations of Japanese novels, many of which involved cats, were suddenly everywhere, I couldn’t resist We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, as well as several others that had less provocative titles. It didn’t hurt that we were actually in Japan at the time and that the fictional clinic was located on the same street as our hotel. If I can lump all those translated novels, I would say they are pleasant, amusing and ultimately fairly light reads. I enjoyed them all but not enough to pursue their sequels.

    The book I have been most recently impressed by (obsessed seems a tad too strong) is Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod. That title may not strike you as compelling but it intrigued me enough to pick it up. The book is described on the cover as a “walking memoir” although Mod disclaims that, saying that the publisher needed a category in which to slot it.

    The book takes the form of an epistolary, a series of reflective letters to his friend Bryan. Mod and Bryan grew up together in an unnamed hardscrabble post-industrial town. At age 19, Mod escaped that environment and landed in Japan. Now in his early 40s, he has been there over 20 years. He is a writer and photographer and this book is a narrative of an extensive walk he took during Covid on ancient pilgrimage paths in the Kii peninsula. The Kii peninsula is primarily rural and depopulated, the younger generations having abandoned it for opportunity in the cities. That gives Mod the opportunity to compare and contrast the Japanese mindset with that of his American hometown. The physical similarities are present and reflective of left-behind areas of America today but his conversations with mostly elderly inhabitants as well as Mod’s own musing suggest another way of living.

    I know my description of the book probably doesn’t do it justice or make it seem like a must-read but it stood out among the 85 ( so far) books I’ve read this year.

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  3. I’m currently reading Louise Erdrich’s Tales of Burning Love. I didn’t choose it because of the title, though. I chose it because she wrote it and I hadn’t yet read it. It’s the story of a man, a husband to five wives, who is incompetent with his construction company. He has big ideas, but poor follow-through, and not much business acumen. He marries five women in succession and has one child from these unions. The story is based on his supposed death in a fire, the funeral, and the tales the five wives tell each other about their relationships with him while stuck together in a car in a snowdrift in a blizzard in North Dakota after the funeral. I’m about halfway through it. I love her writing, I’m enjoying the read, but she has written better books.

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    1. “…which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider’s, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?”
      ― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am about to start the Thanksgiving marathon of cooking and organizing a feast. I did the cleaning yesterday. Today I will bake pies, chop stuff, clean out the fridge, go get the turkey (reserved) and some wine and beer, and make a breakfast bake for the morning. While I do that, I will listen to a book I chose for the title, “The Book Club for Troublesome Women”, Marie Bostwick. I love the title.

    I am listening to another book, but the narrator irritates me to no end so I may not make it all the way through it.

    *OT. McGee likes the snow.

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  5. I thought that was the only way to pick a book was based on the title?

    I recently read ‘Maya’s Notebook’ by Isabel Allende. I really like that. Ok, the title is the first clue, then I read the book jacket.
    I was gonna read another of hers, but knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the characters separated, so I went to a John Irving book I hadn’t read yet. ‘In One Person’, to cleanse my palate as it were.

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  8. I checked out an audiobook on Libby called How to Solve Your Own Murder” and thought it was pretty well written. I didn’t get all the way though it, though, before the library snatched it back because there were others waiting. So I’ll have to get back to that one and find out whodunit.

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  10. I’m watching a PBS program called My Life As a Turkey. There is a book that it’s based on, called Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season Living Among the Wild Turkey, but I like the title of the TV adaptation better.

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