Reading Wedndesday

Just finished: Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette. Sister Agatha is involved in running a halfway house; it's the kind of novel with a broad cast of colourful characters who have all sorts of problems - I'd usually file it under "drama". Agatha's conflicts are not with the divine, but with the church as an institution. Sometimes stories like this don't have much of a resolution, but I would say that at the end, while not all of the protagonist's problems have been solved, she finds herself with a direction that she can work toward. I ended up really liking this one - spent some extra time futzing around with trivial chores as an excuse to listen to more of the audiobook.

Currently reading: Love in Amsterdam, a mystery novel by Nicolas Freeling. This is the first of the Van der Valk series, which I had no knowledge of before picking this up, but apparently it's had several adaptations (including of this novel, which was adapted as The Amsterdam Affair). In 2020, there was another television series adaptation. Anyway, as for the novel - I have mixed feelings. I rather like Van der Valk himself, but he gets very little pagetime. All the other characters are terribly annoying, including the ones we're supposed to sympathize with. The writing style has a strange rushed, light, quippy quality, very like certain old black and white movies (which, given the time period it was written - early 60s - might be intentional?). Very strange. ...Anyway, even with the mixed feelings, I'll finish it, because I do want to know what happens. I'm kind of curious about the TV adaptation, honestly. (More than anything else, the novel makes me want to visit Amsterdam again... I really didn't spend enough time there when I made that trip.)

Reading next: Remina by Junji Ito! Science fiction and horror, hooray! Looking forward to this.