The Year of the Series - The Sayers Swindle + Dreaming Spies

After the calamity that was 2020 I didn't want to give myself serious reading goals but I did want to do something to help my book stacks get a little more under control.  I've tried getting rid of the ones I want to read but unfortunately I want to read all the books I own.  So I decided to focus on series.  There are so many I have that I abandoned halfway through or came in halfway and never read the first few.  I made a list of ten series and the next book I had to read in them and will be rolling in new books and series as I go along and catch up.  Here are two reviews from that list that I've read recently.

Goodreads:  The Sayers Swindle (Book Collector Mysteries #2) by Victoria Abbott

Blurb:  Jordan Kelly is delighted to make money tracking down rare and valuable mystery novels for her employer, Vera Van Alst, an avid collector and the most difficult woman in Harrison Falls, New York. But now her boss’s complete set of Dorothy Sayers is missing, and finding them may lead Jordan to a murder suitable for Sayers’s esteemed sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey…
When Jordan manages to locate her boss’s missing books, they are in the possession of Randolph Adams, an elderly man in a nearby town. Offering a valuable Hemingway first edition as an incentive, Jordan thinks she’s about to seal the deal—but some of Randolph’s relatives think he should hold out for more.

Then the entire family disappears—and a dead body shows up. It’s up to Jordan to collect the clues—and make sure a killer gets booked.

My Thoughts:  I've really started enjoying this series.  Jordan is an interesting character and I really loved how much she was in love with Lord Peter Wimsey.  Vera Van Alst is horrid but there is slow character growth in her and every once in awhile there is a twinkle of humanness.  I absolutely adore Jordan's uncles and their schemes and less then lawful activities.  I did guess a lot of what was going on but it didn't dim my enjoyment in the book one bit.  My Rating: Really Liked It!

Goodreads:  Dreaming Spies (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #13) by Laurie R. King

Blurb:  It is 1925, and Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes arrive home to find a familiar decorative stone installed in their garden. A stone with a name, which they last saw in the Tokyo garden of the future Emperor of Japan. It is the first indication that the investigation they did for him in 1924 might not be as complete as they had thought. In Japan there were spies, in Oxford there are dreams. In both places there is a small dark-haired woman and danger.

My Thoughts:  I found this Russell/Holmes story absolutely fascinating!  From the explanation of Japanese culture and architecture to the mystery itself I was completely hooked.  At the final show down I couldn't put the book down because I was dying to see how it all played out.  I'm so glad I've gone back to this series because it has not let me down yet.  This is a bit more action oriented then some of the other books in the series and I really enjoyed that Russell and Holmes weren't really in control for most of the book.   It was definitely a bit different from the norm for them.  My Rating:  Really Liked It!