Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Old favorites found

I have no idea who Ellis Peters is, but I'm beyond grateful that someone--Maxim Jakvbowski--put together a memorial anthology of historic crime in honor of her. Dozens of authors--including my new favorite, Kate Ross--wrote short stories for this anthology. Surprisingly, Ross' story isn't my favorite; perhaps if it had been a Julian Kestrel story, it would have been. Instead, my favorite story is by Marilyn Todd, a British author I fell in love with ten years ago during a semester I spent in London.

Being rather poor--and London being rather expensive--I used to spend a great deal of time in the local library. I spent most of my time in the fiction section, completely enthralled by all of the new authors I "found." One of those authors--in fact the only books I can still remember--was Marilyn Todd, and her Claudia series. I was hooked the instant I started to read them. There were only four stories in the series (I think) at that time, and I read them all. Sadly, I didn't purchase the books before I left. Over the years, I remembered the series, but I forgot who the author was and therefore couldn't find the books here.

But thanks to this anthology--Past Poisons--all that has changed. The NYPL has some of the books from the series in stock and now that I've "found" the author again, I'll start tracking down the other books I missed.

I love it when books and my life come full circle like this.

2 comments:

Sycorax Pine said...

Ah! Ellis Peters - author of the delightful Brother Cadfael series about the medieval Welsh monk/crime-solver. I highly recommend them - and the TV adaptations, which star Derek Jacobi.

Heather said...

Yes, I think I'm going to have to read at least one of the Brother Cadfael books. Thanks for the recommendation!