October AlphaKIT - D and T

Welcome to the 2024 AlphaKIT.
This is an unofficial challenge for the 2024 Category Challenge Group. Each month has two letters selected for you to use however you choose.

There are no rules. Have fun and enjoy reading. September letters are: D and T

and

If you like, update the AlphaKIT wiki with your reading.

I do have various possibilities but nothing really leaps out at me, so I'll wait and see what other challenges there are.

Tentative plan: Sadie When She Died by Ed McBain and Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson.

I'll be reading North Woods Daniel Mason and Olympus Texas by Stacey Swann

Roadkill by Dennis E Taylor hits both. Also I'll be reading The Downloaded and one or another of T Kingfisher's books.

I'm going to read The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant and Dead Run by P.J. Tracy.

So far, I plan to read The Old Ducks’ Hen Do by Maddie Please.

I plan to cover both letters with Terry Bisson's story collection Bears Discover Fire.

I am planning on Daughters of the River Huong by Uyen Nicole Duong and Resistance by Mara Timon.

Oddly, I'm finding it easier to come up with Ds than Ts!

But, here's what I'm hoping:
Old Bones / Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Thousand Words / Jennifer Brown

Here's my list for the month:
Currently Reading

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance genius reinvented architecture
Death at the Dinner Party ✅
Diva Goes Overboard ✅
Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor by Darci Hannah ✅
FDR's Mentors: Navigating the Path to Greatness ✅
Gingerbread Danger ✅
How the Murder Crumbles by Debra Sennefelder ✅
Little Shop of Found Things
Murder on the Page by Daryl Wood Gerber ✅
Murder, She Barked by Krista Davis
Overdue or Die ✅
Party To Murder ✅
Peach Tea Smash
Rose Throne
Setting Trick
Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder ✅

My first read for the month fits for D: Disclaimer by Renee Knight, 2.5*.

Starting "What the Cat Dragged In" by Miranda James

I read Pumpkin Eye by Denise Fleming and Tangles and Treason by Nancy Warren.

This Cursed House / Del Sandeen
4 stars

In the early 1960s, Jemma (from Chicago) has been hired by a family who live on a plantation just outside New Orleans. Jemma is a teacher and assumes that she will be tutoring. The Duchon family are all light-skinned Black people and although they say they are “proud coloured people”, they look down on Jemma’s darker skin. Jemma also has an ability to see ghosts, and there appear to be a few around this plantation. She is in for multiple surprises the longer she stays with the backwards Duchons, and only one of those surprises is what they have hired her for.

This was really good. I was pulled in early on, and the surprises continued to come. The Duchons are a piece of work, though I think the author does do a good job of showing multiple sides to a couple of them, and there are reasons why some of them are the way they are. Given the time period and place, there is some historical fiction thrown in to this horror/ghost story, as well, which I quite like.

I just read Doctor Sally by the always delightful P.G. Wodehouse.

I got my first D book with Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik.

I've finished a T: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, 4*.

Another D: Hollywood Pride by Alonso Duralde.

For the D, I read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

And for the D again, I read The Lively Dead by Peter Dickinson.

COMPLETED What the Cat Dragged In, Hiss Me Deadly, and Requiem for a Mouse, all by Miranda James, pen name of Dean James

November Thread is Up

It felt strangely difficult to find a T book, but finally I've read Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon.

I've finished Dead Run by P.J. Tracy for my "T" book.

I read Death of a Traitor by M.C. Beaton and R.W. Green for both letters.
Green has done a great job of taking over Beaton’s characters since she passed. This, the second Hamish Macbeth story, was up to the standards we expect from Beaton.

Just realized that while I added this one to the wiki, I never added it to the thread: Dogland by Tommy Tomlinson.

Another D: Arkady Martine's A Desolation Called Peace.

Sadie When She Died by Ed McBain, for the D again.

For T, I read The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I have finished Carsten Curator, a novella by Theodor Storm for T.

I finished another T book, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. It deserves the hype!

I've finished reading Deadline by John Dunning for my "D" book.

Another novella by Theodor Storm finished: Renate.
ETA: For some strange reason, the wiki doesn't save my entry...

COMPLETED Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie

I read Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope for the T.

I completed both my AlphaKit reads for October with Daughters of the River Huong by Uyen Nicole Duong and Resistance by Mara Timon

Starting "Chaos Terminal" by Mur Lafferty

Maigret et le corps sans tête is another one down for T.

I have set up the 2025 group here: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/24518/2025-Category-Challenge. Feel free to stop by anytime, start suggesting CATs and KITs, and post your threads for the 2025 challenge!

(I'm posting this notification to a bunch of threads, so sorry if you see it multiple times!)

Another T--The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith.

So far this month
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Olympus Texas by Stacey Swann
Thirty Days in Paris by Victoria Henry

Enslaved by Ducks / Bob Tarte
4 stars

Bob lived a pet-free life for a long time. But when his wife decided they needed to save a rabbit (though they had no idea how to take care of one), this snowballed over the following years, so that (over time), they had a number of rabbits, cats, and many types of birds (parrots, parakeets, a canary, a dove, geese, turkeys, a number of different species of duck, and more). The geese, turkeys, and ducks lived outside in the barn and yard. They had a hard time saying no if there was a critter in need. Bob was not a handy guy, but was constantly building new fencing and other spaces to keep the critters in the yard, but to separate many of them, as well.

I really liked this. They muddled their way through taking care of many of them, as did the various vets they sought help from when there was a medical need. Most of the vets hadn’t dealt with many of these types of critters, either. There was plenty of humour in the book, but as some of the pets got sick and died (or got better), and some went missing, there were sad situations, as well. It was unfortunate that they didn’t research before bringing home the different types of pets, though, to know ahead of time what they were getting into.

I read The Body in the Annex by Diana Xarissa as my first D book.

I have finished one more T, two Ds and one for both letters:
T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton
The Decagon House Murders by Yukiot Ayatsuji
Daggerspell by Katherine Kerr
What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley

COMPLETED Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty

For another D, I read Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle.

For a double D, I read Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar.

I have finished a D book: Cinco días de Octubre.

Old Bones / Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
3.75 stars

Special Agent Corrie Swanson is a rookie FBI agent. After a few months of looking into cold cases, she finally gets a chance to investigate a current case. Someone dug up a grave, then was shot and left on top of that uncovered grave; the grave, itself, was robbed, but only the top half of the remains was taken.

Archaeologist Nora Kelly is given the chance to head out on a search for a “lost camp”. In the mid-1800s, a group called the Donner Party went missing in the mountains in California and most of them died after having cannibalized many of the others. The person who brought a diary to Nora (and her institution) with a good description of how they might find this camp is a historian and a descendant of one of the Donner Party.

Initially, these “stories” don’t seem connected, but of course, they are. Corrie has an inkling (though her superior thinks it’s a stretch) as to how they might be connected (but nothing concrete). Anyway, I liked both storylines. Both women are tough, though not always likable. I thought it was a good story, and I will continue the series. Nora Kelly has been in at least one of the Agent Pendergast books, as well, and he made an appearance in this book. I didn’t know the Donner Party was a real group, though the author’s note at the end tells us that some of the main “characters” that are part of the Donner Party in this book are fictional. I like these mysteries involving archaeology; I think it’s a nice mix.

For another T, I read Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison.

My D & T reading this month:
D:
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Robert Louis Stevenson (1879)
A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle (1887)

T:
Phineas Finn, Anthony Trollope (1869)
An Eye for an Eye, Anthony Trollope (1879)

I finished one for T on the last day of October: Ayala’s Angel by Anthony Trollope. Unfortunately, this is one of the less engaging ones.