Shortly after my dad died, I went on a Christie kick, re-reading several of my favorites. Around the same time, my mom decided that she wanted to read the books in publication order, and I realized that I had lost several books over the years. Some may have been loaned out and never returned, but I think most of my lost books were soaked when I had them stacked under a wall AC unit which had a towel under it to block warm air. A thunderstorm soaked the towel and I came home to several irreparably soggy paperbacks. Naturally, I went to my favorite used book sources to start filling in the gaps.
One of those new/old books is The Secret of Chimneys. I know I read it in high school, and I'm pretty sure I read it about the same time I read The Seven Dials Mystery. I didn't remember anything else, other than it was enjoyable. More than 30 years later, it's a lightweight wannabe spy novel with engaging characters and plenty of banter. Anthony Cade, an impoverished and somewhat rakish aristocrat, is shepherding a tour group through archaeological sites when an old friend asks him to deliver the memoirs of a deposed and deceased Hertzoslovakian diplomat to a London publisher. Murders, theft, a beautiful widow, and an Earl's plucky daughter ensue, with the solution coming through maybe a little more coincidence than the average reader should expect. It's a natural successor to The Secret Adversary, with plenty of action and slightly more believable characters. It's her fifth novel, and Christie hadn't quite hit her stride yet, enjoyable but not overly memorable.
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Bone Box
When Faye Kellerman wrote Murder 101, I said that it was probably a good thing that she didn't make Peter Decker's daughter Cindy the new lead of the series because the West Coast native would probably put Philadelphia neighborhoods in the wrong places and that it would make me angry. I was right. No, Ms. Kellerman, a cop and a medical student would NOT live near Rittenhouse Square, and even in University City (which I think you described) they probably wouldn't have a 3 bedroom apartment. Cindy wouldn't drive to the Roundhouse from Rittenhouse Square or West Philly - traffic and parking prices are both insane and we have SEPTA. Oh, and you can't leave suburban Cleveland around 11 am and get to Philadelphia before 5. Getting from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia in under six hours is only possible if you don't stop to pee and don't encounter a construction zone (and there's always a construction zone).
Ms. Kellerman, these are not obscure facts. A simple check on Zillow for "Rittenhouse Square" and on Google for "drive time between Cleveland and Philadelphia" would have fixed your draft.
I wish geographic errors were my only problems with Bone Box. I've enjoyed Faye Kellerman's Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, but it's a weak, disorganized entry. It starts well, with Rina literally stumbling across a partially buried skeleton while on a nature hike. The bones belong to a former student at one of the Five Colleges Consortium, a young man who'd dropped out of one of the colleges to work in finance and had started to transition to being a woman. Decker and McAdams link this death to another one, and possibly to a pair of related and intermarried couples on the faculties of four of the colleges. If this sounds improbable, it is. Kellerman used a similar theme in The Theory of Death, and making it more complex only made it less believable. Her ventures into the LGBTQ community also felt a bit off, although as an outsider, I can't say anything more specific that the LGBTQ people portrayed didn't feel like real people. That happens sometimes with minor characters, but the mystery's main victim should be a bit more fleshed out. I enjoyed parts of Bone Box (the interplay between Decker and McAdams, plus a guest visit by Decker's former partner Marge Dunn), but I'm beginning to question Kellerman's decision to both move Decker to the East Coast and to keep him as an active police detective. As much as I like her books, maybe she should have ended the series with Decker's retirement.
Ms. Kellerman, these are not obscure facts. A simple check on Zillow for "Rittenhouse Square" and on Google for "drive time between Cleveland and Philadelphia" would have fixed your draft.
I wish geographic errors were my only problems with Bone Box. I've enjoyed Faye Kellerman's Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, but it's a weak, disorganized entry. It starts well, with Rina literally stumbling across a partially buried skeleton while on a nature hike. The bones belong to a former student at one of the Five Colleges Consortium, a young man who'd dropped out of one of the colleges to work in finance and had started to transition to being a woman. Decker and McAdams link this death to another one, and possibly to a pair of related and intermarried couples on the faculties of four of the colleges. If this sounds improbable, it is. Kellerman used a similar theme in The Theory of Death, and making it more complex only made it less believable. Her ventures into the LGBTQ community also felt a bit off, although as an outsider, I can't say anything more specific that the LGBTQ people portrayed didn't feel like real people. That happens sometimes with minor characters, but the mystery's main victim should be a bit more fleshed out. I enjoyed parts of Bone Box (the interplay between Decker and McAdams, plus a guest visit by Decker's former partner Marge Dunn), but I'm beginning to question Kellerman's decision to both move Decker to the East Coast and to keep him as an active police detective. As much as I like her books, maybe she should have ended the series with Decker's retirement.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Caroline: Little House, Revisited
I loved the Little House books as a kid (the TV show was another matter - it strayed too far from the script and was cloyingly maudlin so it became my first hate-watch show). I've re-read them a few times as an adult and while I now cringe at parts, I still enjoy them. Caroline: Little House, Revisited, as the title says, tells Little House on the Prairie from Caroline Ingalls's point of view. Laura backtracked when writing her novels (the family moved from Wisconsin to Kansas in 1870, and then back to Kansas a little over a year later), in part because she didn't plan Little House in the Big Woods as part of a series and in part because her publisher didn't trust a three-year-old protagonist.
Ma was always stoic in the Little House books; not exactly cheerful but considering gloom as improper as boisterousness. She was the anchor, the practical woman who anchored her wanderlust-stricken husband. She came from a stoic era, but she'd also spent much of her child in deep poverty after the death of her father. That colors the internal monologue that makes up most of Caroline. Where Charles always sees the possibilities of life, Caroline anticipates problems. And yet she follows him, joins in his dream, separating from family and a comfortable life to spend weeks tracking across the endless prairie with nothing to distract her (I can't even handle a half-hour car ride without a book; Caroline went months without reading materials) and to give birth nearly alone (Carrie was born in Kansas, and Mrs. Scott who lived 3 miles away acted as midwife). There's less action in Caroline than in the Little House books, but more fear because an adult can anticipate death (by drowning, due to malaria, or under the logs meant to build shelter). It's quieter and more reflective, and while good, perhaps not quite as memorable.
Ma was always stoic in the Little House books; not exactly cheerful but considering gloom as improper as boisterousness. She was the anchor, the practical woman who anchored her wanderlust-stricken husband. She came from a stoic era, but she'd also spent much of her child in deep poverty after the death of her father. That colors the internal monologue that makes up most of Caroline. Where Charles always sees the possibilities of life, Caroline anticipates problems. And yet she follows him, joins in his dream, separating from family and a comfortable life to spend weeks tracking across the endless prairie with nothing to distract her (I can't even handle a half-hour car ride without a book; Caroline went months without reading materials) and to give birth nearly alone (Carrie was born in Kansas, and Mrs. Scott who lived 3 miles away acted as midwife). There's less action in Caroline than in the Little House books, but more fear because an adult can anticipate death (by drowning, due to malaria, or under the logs meant to build shelter). It's quieter and more reflective, and while good, perhaps not quite as memorable.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Mourn Not Your Dead
Warning - mild spoiler for Leave the Grave Green
I'm beginning to wonder why Duncan Kincaid gets so many high profile cases. I've read five of Deborah Crombie's mysteries and Duncan has investigated the deaths of two high ranking police officers and the son-in-law of a famous opera couple (conductor and soprano). I guess he has a reputation for being discreet. A week after their impulsive night together, Duncan and his DS Gemma James find themselves investigating the bludgeoning of Commander Alister Gilbert. The suspects fall into two categories, professional and personal. Gilbert may have been involved in some high level corruption, he wasn't popular in his village, and there's something "off" about how his wife and stepdaughter act during their initial interviews.
Normally, Gemma and Duncan would coordinate their investigation, but their encounter has gotten in the way. For Duncan, it was the natural release of the barely recognized sexual tension between the two, but for Gemma - younger, lower-ranked, and a woman - it was a risky, potentially stupid act. She has feelings for Duncan, or thinks she does, but she's a young divorced single parent from a working class background whose ex-husband is less than diligent with support payments. Because of the shifting point of view (and because the pair married several books later), we know that Duncan isn't being predatory, but Gemma doesn't know that, or exactly what she feels towards Duncan. This could hurt the career she needs on multiple levels, and this conflict begins to spill into their working relationship. It doesn't prevent them from solving the crime, and Crombie doles out the clues so that I came to the right conclusion about the same time as Gemma and Duncan.
I'm beginning to wonder why Duncan Kincaid gets so many high profile cases. I've read five of Deborah Crombie's mysteries and Duncan has investigated the deaths of two high ranking police officers and the son-in-law of a famous opera couple (conductor and soprano). I guess he has a reputation for being discreet. A week after their impulsive night together, Duncan and his DS Gemma James find themselves investigating the bludgeoning of Commander Alister Gilbert. The suspects fall into two categories, professional and personal. Gilbert may have been involved in some high level corruption, he wasn't popular in his village, and there's something "off" about how his wife and stepdaughter act during their initial interviews.
Normally, Gemma and Duncan would coordinate their investigation, but their encounter has gotten in the way. For Duncan, it was the natural release of the barely recognized sexual tension between the two, but for Gemma - younger, lower-ranked, and a woman - it was a risky, potentially stupid act. She has feelings for Duncan, or thinks she does, but she's a young divorced single parent from a working class background whose ex-husband is less than diligent with support payments. Because of the shifting point of view (and because the pair married several books later), we know that Duncan isn't being predatory, but Gemma doesn't know that, or exactly what she feels towards Duncan. This could hurt the career she needs on multiple levels, and this conflict begins to spill into their working relationship. It doesn't prevent them from solving the crime, and Crombie doles out the clues so that I came to the right conclusion about the same time as Gemma and Duncan.
Monday, August 13, 2018
An Unholy Alliance
Four years ago, I re-read A Plague on Both Your Houses, the first book in Susannah Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew series, as part of an online book group. The characters (and 14th Century Cambridge) had changed so much in the 15 or so years that had passed for Matt and his friends that I decided to re-read the entire series. So why did it take four years? Well, I don't have a To Be Read list, I have a To Be Read library.
Gregory starts An Unholy Alliance with a man trying to steal important university documents. Unfortunately for him, the lock was a special one with a poisoned prong and the Chancellor finds the man's body. He gives Matt and Brother Michael (not yet a Proctor, but already plotting his ascension to the highest office in the University) the task of finding out who this man is, how he died, and why he was robbing the University. Somehow this mystery may (or may not) tie to the cults that have grown up in the wake of the Plague and a series of women (mostly prostitutes) murdered and left with marked feet. As with my first re-read, I enjoyed the mystery (which Gregory ties together well), but was more interested in the characters. Brother Michael is now a friend and ally to Matt, but we don't yet have his entire backstory as a courtier or know the depths of both his ambition and his skills. Matt's book bearer Cynric is still a bit of a cypher, although we see the first hints of his ladies' man persona, and William is an antagonist rather than the Friend Nobody Likes he becomes by the middle of the series. We meet Sheriff Tulyet for the first time, and I'd forgotten that he (like Michael) was somewhat antagonistic at the start, and Matt's first crop of students, including the rich but hopelessly dim Deynman. Most importantly, we meet Matilda, leader of the sisterhood, protector of her fellow prostitutes, and Matt's eventual love. I'd forgotten how casually she'd been introduced, and I wonder if Gregory intended for her to be a minor, or even one-off character.
Gregory starts An Unholy Alliance with a man trying to steal important university documents. Unfortunately for him, the lock was a special one with a poisoned prong and the Chancellor finds the man's body. He gives Matt and Brother Michael (not yet a Proctor, but already plotting his ascension to the highest office in the University) the task of finding out who this man is, how he died, and why he was robbing the University. Somehow this mystery may (or may not) tie to the cults that have grown up in the wake of the Plague and a series of women (mostly prostitutes) murdered and left with marked feet. As with my first re-read, I enjoyed the mystery (which Gregory ties together well), but was more interested in the characters. Brother Michael is now a friend and ally to Matt, but we don't yet have his entire backstory as a courtier or know the depths of both his ambition and his skills. Matt's book bearer Cynric is still a bit of a cypher, although we see the first hints of his ladies' man persona, and William is an antagonist rather than the Friend Nobody Likes he becomes by the middle of the series. We meet Sheriff Tulyet for the first time, and I'd forgotten that he (like Michael) was somewhat antagonistic at the start, and Matt's first crop of students, including the rich but hopelessly dim Deynman. Most importantly, we meet Matilda, leader of the sisterhood, protector of her fellow prostitutes, and Matt's eventual love. I'd forgotten how casually she'd been introduced, and I wonder if Gregory intended for her to be a minor, or even one-off character.
The Cellar
The Cellar is dark, even for Minette Walters, and unlike most of her books, there's no happy ending. We see the events unfold through the eyes of Muna, a girl taken from an orphanage and hidden from view by an African immigrant family in England. When their younger son goes missing, they realize they can't hid Muna any longer and pretend she's their mentally disabled daughter and not their slave. Muna is actually much brighter, and much more calculating, than anyone in her family, and even better than her "mother" at developing cover stories for the neighbors. More of a thriller than a mystery, The Cellar left me with mixed feelings. It's even creepier than it's dark, and while I admired Walters' writing, I was a bit to unsettled to actually enjoy reading the book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)