The Best Book I Read This Month: Death Washes Ashore by Patricia Skalka

The best book I read this month was a short but engaging mystery: Death Washes Ashore by Patricia Skalka. The book is the most recent installment in Skalka’s Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries series, which I enjoy very much. (My favorite of the series is still Death in Cold Water.)

Death Washes Ashore takes place in the wake of a destructive storm. A strangely-dressed, strangley-positioned body is found on a beach, and Sheriff Dave Cubiak’s team quickly determines the death was not accidental. Over the course of the investigation, Cubiak is drawn not only into the world of larping (live action role playing), but also into a mess of secrets and lies and betrayals.

I enjoy the regular characters in this series. They’re all very down to earth folks. And this story is a well-plotted mystery. I enjoyed all the twists and turns—and the opportunity to visit Door County again, albeit vicariously.

My Favorite Reads of 2021

December was a bust for me, reading-wise. I started three books but only finished one of them. I gave up on the other two. So instead of “The Best Book I Read This Month,” I’m looking back at my favorite reads of the year.

Overall, I finished 38 books this year. There were 8 more that I started but gave up on. Of the 38 I finished, these were my favorites.

The Broken Girls and The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Simone St. James is a master at crafting dual timeline stories that are part mystery and part ghost story. These two blew me away.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

A heart-breaking exploration of William Shakespeare’s marriage and family.

Horseman by Christina Henry

An imaginative “sequel” to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Dry by Jane Harper

A breathtaking mystery set in the Australian Outback

West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

Part buddy road-trip comedy, part conservationist commentary, West with Giraffes imagines the Depression-era cross-country journey of the San Diego Zoo’s first giraffes.

Death in the East by Abir Mukherjee

The fourth of installment of one my favorite mystery series, Death in the East takes place in 1905 London and 1920s India. It focuses on two closed-room mysteries—and a detective who is detoxing from an opium addiction.

Murder on the Red River by Marcie Rendon

Set in 1970, Rendon’s book introduces us to Cash Blackbear, an Ojibwe woman who takes it on herself to solve the murder of a fellow Native American.

The Best Book I Read This Month: West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

The best book I read this month was an unexpected delight. Lynda Rutledge’s West with Giraffes is a fictional account of the cross-country journey of the San Diego Zoo’s first two giraffes. I was looking for something light(er) to read after finishing a particularly intense mystery (The Broken Girls by Simone St. James, in case you’re interested in that sort of thing). West with Giraffes fit the bill perfectly.

Set primarily during the Great Depression, with a frame story set in the very near future, Rutledge’s book follows the adventures of Woodrow Wilson Nickel. Displaced by the Dust Bowl, young Nickel is looking for his place in the world when he stumbles across two giraffes being offloaded from a ship that survived a hurricane at sea. Nickel is captivated. When he hears that they are being sent to San Diego, he decides he must go with them, that his destiny lies in California. What follows is part mad-cap chase, part buddy road trip, part coming of age, and entirely full of heart.

The story is narrated by Nickel, who is 105 years old in the frame story. He’s just heard that giraffes are about to become extinct and he’s desperate to tell the story of the two giraffes that changed his life.

Nickel’s voice is colorful and conversational, which made the book an easy, enjoyable read. I may have even laughed out loud in some places. If you’re interested in a light, fun read, this could be just what you’re looking for.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Horseman by Christina Henry

It’s spooky season, so it’s fitting that the best book I read this month had a spooky bent. Horseman by Christina Henry is not so much a retelling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as it is an imaginative sequel. I adored Henry’s Alice in Wonderland retellings, and this one didn’t disappoint, either.

The story follows Ben Van Brunt, grandchild of the original Legend’s Brom Van Brunt and Katrina Van Tassel. Ben wants nothing more than to be just like brave, bombastic Grandpa Brom, but that determination is put to the test when two village children turn up dead and mutilated. Ben knows a monster killed the boys, but Sleepy Hollow’s residents want something human to blame—something like Ben.

Henry has crafted a story in which nothing is quite what it looks like—not Ben, not the murderous monster, not even the legendary horseman. I loved that. And while I can’t imagine a sequel to this book, I would happily read anything else set in this world.