The Introverted Detective

 Today I'm reading another Ruth Ware book. Lenora, our main character, goes to a hen party under compulsion. Let's get into it.  This book is Agatha Christie coded. A bunch of people are brought into an isolated area for a hen party. That hen party goes off the rails and one person leaves before the real crap hits the fan. Our main character is in a hospital, remembering what happened. She has a gap in her memory and the police are saying someone is dead. By the end we know what happened. Until then, we get flashbacks between hospital interviews.  Our main character is Lenora, who goes by Nora and used to be called Lee. The frustrating thing is that she is being called Lee by our hen Clare who's getting married and Flo, the maid of honor. Flo is obsessed over "the perfect hen party" to a point that she's basically trying to control the social environment. After some jokes at her expense (a seance where they say "maxwell" says to "buy coffee...

 James Bond is wanted and supposed to be on leave. I am once again reviewing a James Bond in my Gardner collection. Let's talk about it.  Once again, SPECTRE is taking a shot at Bond, this time by putting a bounty on his head. After running into a couple of women who won't go away for anything, he is forced to bring them along. May (housekeeper of Bond) and Moneypenny are kidnapped to get him to come to SPECTRE. One of the women hanging on for the ride is innocent of any agenda; the other is not. By the time Bond figures that out, it is too late. He ends up blowing up the whole place by rewiring a movable bed (where the head of SPECTRE was slowly dying).  This will be a rather short review, mostly because it is a typical Gardner Bond. Five stars, no notes. It's a fun adventure. Bond gets to hang out with Sukie (the woman without the agenda) in the end. Moneypenny and May are safe and going home. May is featured in most Gardner bonds, but usually not to this extent. She'...

 I'm reading an Ian Fleming Bond novel again. I collect James Bond, in case you didn't know. Let's get into it.  This is the book after Bond's wife is killed. Bond is sent on a diplomatic mission to Japan, for intel that they need and don't want someone else to know they have. This leads into a mission to kill a man who created a poison garden. The suicides were allowed to freely walk in and die to piranhas and poisonous trees. Japan is getting a little sick of this, so Bond is sent in to kill the scientist who did this. It turns out to be Blofeld, who killed Bond's wife in the previous book. He becomes Japanese for a while, does his mission and strangles Blofeld, then loses his memory.  This is where the end gets a little weird. The clam diver he stayed with liked him and decided to lie to him. She made sure his old life was not brought up and kept him under a cloud of amnesia, convincing him he was her lover and a fisherman. The end of the book implies he went...