I've recently finished two books:
"The Pale Horse", by Agatha Christie. This was her 63rd book and was originally published in 1961.
A dying woman gives a confession to a Roman Catholic priest, and the priest is subsequently murdered because of what he's been told. Mark Easterbrook, a friend of the police surgeon who examines the priest's body, gets drawn into an affair in which people are murdered for payment, seemingly by supernatural means.
I really enjoyed this book. An excellent and well-written story. Ariadne Oliver, the writer of detective stories who appears in many Poirot novels, and is Christie poking fun at herself, appears as a minor character in the book. Highly recommended.
"Privateer", by James Doohan and S.M. Stirling. The second book in the "Flight Engineer" trilogy, and just as good as the first, which I praised a few days ago. I bought this from Baen in September 2000.
Description from Baen:
Quote:
Peter Raeder was an ace pilot in the Commonwealth's war against the secessionist Mollies until a battle cost him his hand—and his right to fly the fighter ships he loved. So he became Flight Engineer on the fast carrier Invincible, a crack new ship with a picked crew, ready to fight the fanatical Mollies and their spiderlike alien allies. On his first mission, he faced pirate raiders, attacks by Mollies and a hidden saboteur on board who came close to destroying the Invincible before Raeder unmasked him.
Unfortunately for Raeder, his heroism didn't follow the rulebook, and his reward for saving the ship was a reprimand from an admiral who didn't trust him, and a deskbound assignment—a fate worse than death for a born spacehound like Raeder. Then a less rulebound Marine General offered Raeder an escape: command of a hidden base deep in Mollie-controlled space from which ships, posing as space pirates, will harry Mollie shipping, like the seagoing privateers of Earth's past. And Raeder finds a dangerous mission preferable to exile to an office cubicle . . . even if his chances of surviving this assignment are very nearly zero.
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The only thing I found slightly grating about the books are the not terribly subtle "Star Trek" jokes scattered through it. Eg, there's one scene with two pirate ships, one commanded by "Captain Wesley" and the other by "Captain Crusher". I really think the book would be better without these.