Rosh's Reviews

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: Arthur Conan Doyle ADAPTOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Julien Choy SERIES: Manga Classics Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 GENRE: Manga PUBLICATION DATE: January 21, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A wonderful option for manga lovers to experience Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘A Study in Scarlet’. Faithful to the original. Full-colour graphics. Sherlock and Watson look too young to be convincing, but the rest is great. Plot Preview: The same story as ‘A Study in Scarlet’, the very first novel where ace detective Sherlock Holmes makes his appearance. This manga is faithful to the classic in every relevant way, skipping out only a few of the relatively unimportant scenes. Let me again begin by reminding manga newbies that this book is almost in traditional manga format, with the reverse right-to-left pattern of storyboarding. ‘Almost’ because unlike most manga, this is in full colour. ‘A Study in Scarlet’ is the first of the four Sherlock Holmes novels ( The rest of his detective outi...

AUTHOR: Tamara von Werthern SERIES: Accidental Detective Mystery #1 GENRE: Spoof Cozy Mystery, Humour RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: I had fun with this indie novella. A quirky lead character, an adorable dog, humour and crime mixed up in a cosy village setting. The perfect light read for crime mystery lovers, though the crime is quite subtle here. Story Synopsis: Philipp von Werthern is almost sixty but still lives life somewhat on the edge with his numerous cars, his insurance business, and his dog Maschka. When a beautiful stranger named Annelie Janssen approaches him through a friend’s recommendation with a “crime case”, he is stumped because he is not a professional detective. But how can one refuse a beautiful woman, even if she is young enough to be his daughter? (Or is she?) Thus begins an adventurous and humorous ‘accidental detective’ story. The story is written in a limited third person perspective mostly from Phillipp’s point of view. I am not a crime or mystery genre fan....

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #6 GENRE: Cozy Mystery. RATING: 2.5 stars. An interesting mystery but doesn’t suit Miss Marple. Finally it is Miss Marple who narrates an unsolved mystery for the Tuesday Night Club. I sat up straight in my seat, expecting a cracker of a mystery. Alas, the cracker turned out to be damp and squishy. The story concerns Miss Marple’s niece Mabel Denman who is being shunned after the sudden death of her husband. The word around is that Mabel poisoned him. The problem is that no one, including the doctor who was called, knows exactly how Mr. Denman died. His last words too seem weird to everyone. Except Miss Marple, but of course. There’s not much deduction or discussion from the club members this time as Miss Marple narrates the whole story almost in one go. The rest are mostly passive listeners. If this had been a story featuring Sherlock or Poirot, I would have marvelled at the deduction. But it doesn’t suit Miss Marple’s personali...

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #5 GENRE: Cozy Mystery. RATING: 3.5 stars. A good story that is easy to deduce but fun to read. Petherick’s turn this time to narrate the mystery. (I laughed at how Miss Marple warns him very clearly right at the start not to narrate anything with legal wrangles!😄) The story involves a man who is possibly being cheated by a spiritualist. Unlike what you would assume, the mystery isn’t about revealing the true nature of this medium but about understanding why his will was blank. I liked the title and how well it suited the mystery. Even the backstory that leads to the events is interesting. The mystery itself was quite guessable, even though Christie tries her best to put across red herrings within the limited page-space she has. I still liked it enough, not just because my guess was right but also because it springs sensibly from the story. I just wish the writing would have presented a greater challenge – there are so many clue...

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #4 GENRE: Cozy Mystery. RATING: 3.75 stars. Finally an interesting story in this collection! This edition of the Tuesday Night Club comes from Joyce Lemprière. She narrates an incident from five years back, where she saw unexplained blood stains on the pavement, and heard of a death just a few days later. Local superstition links the two events. Miss Marple explains the coincidence. The writing was a bit confusing in this one (partly because of Joyce being so haphazard in her narration of the events), but when you focus on it, the story is pretty enjoyable and also easy to deduce. In fact, I think that’s one reason why I enjoyed this tale because the resolution didn’t spring out of nowhere but came from the clues scattered within the earlier events. My guess was right, plus I couldn’t find any major unexplained logical gaps. The only negative other than Joyce’s choppy narration is that one element of the resolution is too farfet...

Author: Agatha Christie Series: Miss Marple #5 Genre: Cozy Mystery Rating: 3.5 stars. Finally a Marple mystery that worked for me…. somewhat! I can safely say that this is the best Marple story I have read (which isn’t saying much, considering that I have read exactly one full-length novel and three short stories featuring the iconic character.) By now, I have attuned myself to the format and was hence prepared for the huge infodump in the final 20%. (Not that I liked it; I tolerated it.) What clicked for me: 😍 Miss Marple doesn’t just make an appearance a lot earlier (around the 30% mark) but also gets an active role in the proceedings. I finally feel like I know the character to some extent. 😍 There are several complicated but memorable characters. They might not be layered (possible because there are too many of them to go in depth about) but the variety of persons adds to the interest factor. Mitzi the cook was my favourite of the lot, followed by Bunch the parson’s wife. 😍 The ...

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #3 GENRE: Cozy Mystery. RATING: 2.5 stars. This time, it’s the turn of Miss Marple’s nephew, Raymond West, to narrate an unsolved mystery. Story Synopsis: Gold missing. One person supposedly guilty. As expected, the guilty isn't guilty. I went in with lower and better expectations this time around. I reminded myself not to look for fast thrills or detective work, to expect Miss Marple to pop in with the right solution only at the very end, not to look for a perfect resolution of the entire mystery but be happy with a “who did it” and a little of “how he did it”, and finally, to expect conversation to dominate over action. Despite all this prep, I still land up on 2.5 stars as my rating because the cue that helps Miss Marple ‘crack the case” is so silly, it borders on the ridiculous! I've always known that cozy mysteries aren't for me, and this anthology is confirming it with every subsequent story. Not giving up thoug...

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #2 GENRE: Cozy Mystery. RATING: 2 stars. Shucks! Yet another bummer in this collection. The Tuesday Night Club meets at Dr. Pender’s house this time. The clergyman narrates a spooky mystery about a supposedly paranormal element in a murder that took place within a mysterious grove of trees. Once again, of the five club members who attempt to solve it, it is Miss Marple who hits the nail on the head. (I’m beginning to think I should stop writing this line; it is but obvious that every mystery in this anthology will be solved by Miss Marple! 😄) It took me a while to get into this short Marple story. The middle built up to some chilling paranormal suspense. The ending was a DUD. It leaves too many things unexplained. Moreover, as the entire story comes through conversations alone, it becomes a bit tricky to follow the story-within-a-story. Overall, I liked the proceedings better than the first story, as this had more of a mystery e...

Author: Agatha Christie Series: Miss Marple, #2 Genre: Crime Mystery Rating: 3 stars. First full-length novel of Miss Marple done. And it’s a mixed bag of opinions! Just so you know, this is the first full-length novel in which Miss Marple makes her appearance. However, her character was introduced to the world not through this novel but through a short story named "The Tuesday Night Club" , which is a part of "The Thirteen Problems" anthology. Now that I have read both, I feel you can begin with either of them, as both don't do a great job of *introducing* Miss Marple other than through indirect references. The information is obviously more detailed here as it is longer.  Story Synopsis: There is a ‘murder at the vicarage’. Everyone is trying to figure out who did it. *shrug!* On the positive side: 😍 I did get to know a lot about Miss Marple the character. I think I will like her, as long as she gets a greater role in the remaining books. 😍 The narrator is a ...

AUTHOR: Agatha Christie SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #1 GENRE: Cozy Mystery. RATING: 3.5 stars. A decent introduction to Miss Marple. This story is part of the The Thirteen Problems collection. This is a short story known for having the very first print appearance of the legendary Miss Marple. I began my Marple journey with this story because I always love to see how an author introduces a staple character the very first time. In that sense, I am slightly disappointed because there’s hardly any character background provided.  (Maybe this is a Christie specialty, because her first Poirot book The Mysterious Affair at Styles also revealed little beyond boring facts about the detective. Contrast this with “A Study in Scarlet” where Arthur Conan Doyle presents a perfect picture of the maverick Sherlock Holmes and makes us get inside his mind with ease.) Anyway, back to the story. This is a very quick read, not requiring more than 15 minutes. Six people – Miss Marple, her nephew, a...

Author: Serena Blasco Genre: Detective Fiction, Graphic Novel Rating: 3.75 stars. The second collection of Serena Blasco’s graphical adaptations, this edition containing books four to six of the Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer. I still haven’t read the original books nor seen the TV series. But I have read the first volume of the graphic novel , which collected the first three stories, and that helped get into this one easily. The three stories in this book are: Book 4: The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan:  A woman is being forced to marry, and her only hope of escape is Enola. Decent story. Too many jumps in logic and too many convenient coincidences for my liking. The weakest of the three tales. Book 5: The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline:  Enola’s landlady Mrs. Tupper is kidnapped, so Enola is personally involved in ensuring her safe return. Better than the first one in terms of continuity and flow. Also contains a surprise appearance by a very popular and inspirational l...

AUTHOR: Saadia Faruqi ILLUSTRATOR: Hatem Aly GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: August 1, 2022 RATING: 4 stars. A cute chapter book about a little girl who becomes a detective to help her grandma. Yasmin is a little girl who loves to watch “Detective Hoo”, a TV program with an owl for a detective. When her grandma loses a couple of her things, Yasmin decides to don the mantle of her idol and starts investigating what might have happened. I wasn’t aware that there is an entire series of chapter books based on the character of Yasmin. To a certain extent, this hindered my comprehension as I wasn’t aware of the little girl’s age or location. But one can read the book even without these details. Yasmin and her family are Pakistanis, but the story is written in a neutral manner so it could be set anywhere. Even the scene that is in the classroom has only Yasmin in the illustrations. At the same time, the culture of the family clearly comes out through the clothes and the f...

Author: Kerry Greenwood Series: Phryne Fisher, #22. Genre: Detective Fiction, Short Story Anthology. Rating: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: An interesting collection of short stories featuring Phryne Fisher. There are a few decent stories here but none that blew my mind. Let me begin with a disclaimer. I have never heard of this supposedly famous character prior to reading these stories. I don’t know anything about her, have never read her full-length cozy mysteries nor watched her NetFlix series. (I don’t know what rock I have been living under!) So this review is based on this book alone and not on any loyalty or fondness for this character. In other words, I might be disappointing some of you Phryne Fisher fans with my words. Apologies for that! The collection begins with two very different types of author's notes: ‘Apologia’, which contains a little humorous note to the reader, and ‘On Phryne Fisher’, which details out the journey of this character, including how the idea for the b...

Author: Serena Blasco Genre: Graphic Novels, Detective Fiction. Rating: 3.5 stars. So! Here’s what you need to know first! I haven’t watched ‘Enola Holmes’ on Netflix, I haven’t read any Enola Holmes book before this one, and all I know of ‘Enola Holmes’ is what I saw in the BBC series ‘Sherlock’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which isn’t a reliable reference point. I have read every single Sherlock Holmes story, but that doesn’t help much in this case. So this is the perspective of a general reader (and graphic novel lover), not of an Enola Holmes fan-girl. (Just preparing you for why the review is so lacking on gush.😛) This book brings together Serena Blasco’s graphical adaptations of the first three Nancy Springer novels featuring Sherlock’s younger sister Enola. Those who have read the original series might know that each of the first six books of the series contains one mystery for Enola to be solved, and at the same time, there is a larger narrative connecting them all and resol...