Review Monsieur Pamplemousse Investigates

Michael Bond is best-known for his beloved books about Paddington Bear. But he has also written a series of 16 mystery novels featuring the gourmand sleuth, Monsieur Pamplemousse, and his faithful hound, Pommes Frites.

Monsieur Pamplemousse Investigates is the sixth book in the series and finds Pamplemousse trying to thwart a plot to humiliate his boss, the editor of France's premiere restaurant guide, and ruin the company. He is helped along the way by his clue-sniffing dog and an attractive computer expert who can cook a pot-au-feu just like his mother (including plugging the bones with potatoes to keep the marrow in).

The humor is a little silly (Pamplemousse loses his clothes and has to go in drag, for instance) and the computer crime so dated as to be incomprehensible, but the book has a decently puzzling plot and the charm needed to make a successful cozy, plus a Paris setting and plenty of food talk. Perfect for a chilly autumn afternoon.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this or any other books in the Monsieur Pamplemousse series, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

This counts as one of my books for the Foodies' Reading Challenge.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings:

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

 

"Is this seat taken?" I asked the attractive young woman sitting by herself in the lounge.

-- The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille.  It's a clever beginning, really, because he is approaching an ex-girlfriend who he hasn't seen in a year and he knows won't be happy to run into him.

Teaser Tuesday: The Tangled Bank

To many, a squirrel is a squirrel and by any other name is still just a squirrel. . . .  They are also capable of ravaging birdfeeders worse than jays,  though their brilliant acrobatics to defeat "squirrel-proof" feeders are surely worth the price of a bag or two of the best black sunflower seeds.

-- from "Squirrel Tales" in The Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion by Robert Michael Pyle, published by OSU Press.

Charles Darwin contended that the elements of a tangled bank are endlessly interesting, ever evolving, and can explain the entire living world.  These essays were originally published in Pyle's monthly column for Orion and Orion Afield magazines.  They cover topics from Mexican monarchs to bookstores to the love of hops.

I love that the author's back-cover biography says, "He is often associated with butterflies, slugs, and Bigfoot." That is priceless! Especially when accompanied by a photo of Pyle in a moss coat:

For those in the Portland area, there is a book event for Pyle this Sunday: A conversation, reading, and book launch with Robert Michael Pyle and Orion editor Jennifer Sahn.  Sunday September 30, 7:30 pm Heron Hall, Portland Audubon, 5151 NW Cornell Road, Portland, OR.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Kristen at BookNAround is hosting in September.  Please visit her terrific blog for reviews of her favorite types of books, mostly contemporary/literary fiction, historical fiction, young adult, narrative non-fiction (travel, cooking, etc.) and memoirs.

I got one book last week:



The Writing on the Wall by W. D. Wetherell.

From the Publisher's Description:

When Vera decides to travel to an old house in the New England countryside for a month-long escape from some devastating news about her daughter, Cassie, she has no idea her life is about to change forever.  It begins innocently enough—peeling the old wallpaper from the walls as a favor to the house’s owner.  What she discovers underneath—written in India ink on the very walls of the house by a woman named Beth, in 1919—is the beginning of the reader’s unsettling crossing into the unknown world underneath the paper.

Wetherell won the Michigan Literary Fiction Award for his earlier novel, A Century in November, which I reviewed here.

Book Beginnings: The Tangled Bank

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

For Christmas, Thea gave me a children's book titled The Riverbank, beguilingly illustrated by Fabian Negrin, with words by Charles Darwin.

The Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion by Robert Michael Pyle, published by OSU Press.

This is a collection of essays, originally published in Orion and Orion Afield magazines, exploring Charles Darwin’s contention that the elements of a tangled bank, and by extension all the living world, are endlessly interesting and ever evolving. The essays cover topics from squirrels to bookstores to the love of hops.

I want to read this mostly because the author's back-cover biography says, "He is often associated with butterflies, slugs, and Bigfoot." That is priceless! Especially when accompanied by this photo: