Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated upon. Regarding the Sperm Whale’s head as a solid oblong, you may, on an inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle […]
Police, Adjective
My word, this feels like the police procedural to end all. For reasons I can and cannot spoil. I’m not a big fan of police procedurals. I prefer private eyes or unlikely detectives in the mold of Hitchcock. In real life, detective work doesn’t get solved by a Sherlock Holmes-type using inductive reasoning until the killer is revealed by sheer cleverness. Instead, it takes hard, grinding work, and if a case is solved, it’s usually due to a combination of labor and luck. If a […]
We’ll Always Have Budapest
Dang it! I really did not need another mystery series to get into. A few years ago, I read Roseanna, which is book one in Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s famed Martin Beck detective series. I liked it fine as a procedural but I’m not much of a fan of procedurals in general. Many complimented the series for the social justice aspect; it was an outsized influence for Henning Mankell in his popular Wallander series. But it just didn’t grab me. The case was interesting enough but it […]
The finest Hallmark movie in book format. A big warm bowl of predictability.
I am two for two with the local library book club this year in finding the book selection to be subpar. In fact, I am on the fence whether I liked this one, or Everything I Never Told You the least. This one was just predictable and eyeroll worthy, whereas the other made me downright angry, so I think The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend will land the distinction of being not quite as bad as the book I liked least this year. Sara Lundqvist is […]


