Every month, you fellow mystery lovers who scan the blogosphere for news come upon the same refrain: “My Book Club met, and . . . oy, this book!!!” As you may have deduced from the occasional mid-month deluges of reviews of the same classic title, I belong to an online club that consists mostly of my fellow bloggers (plus one delightful attorney who hasn’t been tainted like us!) As you can imagine, we are a well-read bunch, and our tastes are as varied as the Tunisian cous-cous banquet my friend Viv’s mom used to make. You can imagine how daunting it can be coming up with a new old title every month. It has to be something that most of us haven’t read or are excited about re-reading. It has to be affordable (we shy away from new books) and it has to be available!! (One club member can only access some of his favorite authors through membership at the Bodleian Library, where he has to peruse old texts in the Reading Room!)

Frankly, I like these people so much that, even if the book falls short, it’s fun to see their faces and chat. Sometimes we make short shrift of the current offering and do just that. Once in a blue moon we strike gold, but most of the time we disagree – which can make for some interesting discussion and/or some uncomfortable moments. I think my favorite meetings involve more general questions about the genre, which allows each of us to bring up our favorites and share ideas and opinions. That’s when having seven know-it-alls come together can be a lot of fun!

This month, we did not have a general question, nor did we strike gold! We picked a title that is sure to divide us when we meet later today. I won’t have much to say about it because, frankly, I couldn’t get through the thing. I won’t mention the title, but again you can deduce it if you follow the mystery blogosphere. It was one of those 1930’s romps from a long-forgotten author, and I’m sure it worked for a lot of people – but not for me. I think I got hung up by the prose, an example of which I will produce forthwith and with all due haste: 
“As a brick thrown into a still pool breaks the silver surface and makes ripples which, fading, leave behind them water streaked and clouded by the muddy depths below – so Morton-Blount’s admissions spread a circle of disturbance which slowly settled down again into a false calm. But the mud had stirred, hidden depths had shown on the surface, and each of the three people at the table waited for another to speak first.”

Yeah, I couldn’t handle two hundred pages of that . . . It’s okay: we have our titles set through November, and I’m sure I’ll love some and hate others, and disagree with some members and unite with others. It’s all a part of Book Club, right? Well, it turns out that there are all sorts of experiences to be had. Because it so happens that . . . I’ve gone and started a book club! 

This one is live, rather than online, and it takes place once a month at a wonderful independent bookstore in my town. After only a year in existence, the owners have built a strong community out of local readers, and out of a wealth of activities and events, they sponsor around two dozen book clubs. What they were missing, however, was a mystery book club, and so I offered to start one. They said yes, and the Golden Age Mystery Book Club was born! We had our first meeting last Tuesday. For our inaugural title, I chose – well, who do you think I chose?!? Of course, it was Agatha Christie, and it seemed fitting that I select, nearly one hundred years to the day after its publication, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. 

Omigosh, what a great time we had! There were, fittingly, thirteen of us. Someone even made cookies! And though we were meeting for the first time and feeling each other out, Dame Agatha provided us with so much to talk about. It turns out that for many of the club members, this was their first experience with Christie! They were full of curiosity, full of ideas, and they brought the excitement of discovery and wonder to the table. 

One of my favorite comments came when we were discussing the artifice of the murderer’s plot. I mean, who brings a Dictaphone to a dinner party?!? One of our members had an answer for that, and it had to do with the sense of romance that Golden Age mystery novels bring. As Dr. John Curran reminds us in his recent book, The Murder Game, classic mystery authors were playing with us, and we loved them because they were inviting us to play along in their world where crime and intrigue were transformed into a series of puzzles that we needed to solve before we came to the final page. 

I walked out of that first meeting on a cloud. Book clubs can do that to you! It was a beautiful evening, and I went and got a small dish of ice cream. And, yes, the ice cream was pretty bad, but my mood stayed high for the rest of the night. 

I have my titles selected through November for this Book Club as well. As everyone seems to be pretty new to the genre, I don’t have to poke about for titles that nobody has read. Thus, our schedule is full of bangers, as follows:

• August – The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
• September – Green for Danger by Christianna Brand
• October – The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr
• Noir-vember (because one member asked for something hard-boiled) – The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

If you ever happen to be passing my way on the second Tuesday of any given month, I hope you’ll stop by and join us. Sometimes, there might be cookies. But you can also help me out by answering either or both of these questions in the comments below:

1. What do you think we should read for our December/holiday book? (I hesitate to go back to Christie so soon.)
2. If you could select a classic mystery to discuss at one of our Book Club meetings in 2027, what would it be? (Go on, check your shelves, I’ll wait . . . )

Thanks in advance for your help. Now I’ve got to go make breakfast and clean up. I’ve got Book Club online in two hours!