Peril at End House

All the clues were there, and I really should have noticed the most important one. Agatha Christie didn't cheat, she just made it look like she did. Peril at End House starts with Nick Buckley stumbling across Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings just as (another) attempt is made on her life. She's brushed them all off, but Poirot is anxious that someone is trying to kill her to inherit the ramshackle End House, illogical as that seems. He asks her to invite her cousin Maggie to visit for a few days and when Maggie dies, was it a case of mistaken identity? And who killed her - a potential inheritor or one of Nick's questionable friends? I'd somehow skipped Peril at End House in favor of an nth reading of one of my favorites, and I'm glad. Nearly 40 years after first reading Christie, she can still surprise me.

Vanity Dies Hard

 I shouldn't be so surprised that the first half or so of Ruth Rendell's novels feel so old. Vanity Dies Hard was written 56 years ago, putting it only a year or two closer to today than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was when I read it in high school. But by the time I discovered her, Agatha Christie was dead and Rendell was only halfway through her career when I picked up her first Barbara Vine novel 30 years ago.

Rendell was a psychological novelist, with motivations more important at times than the actual mystery. But science and society evolve, making Vanity Dies Hard hard to review today. The plot is simple - wealthy but drab Alice Whittaker married a younger man at 37, and after her friend disappears, she believes she's being poisoned by someone. Well, it doesn't take a detective to discover why a 37-year-old newlywed might suddenly feel "unwell" so despite Rendell's talent for creepiness, I never though Alice was truly in danger. I was intrigued by the fate of her glamorous friend Nesta, though, but less so than I was by questions about the framework. Why was Andrew Fleming essentially forced to quit his job and join the family firm when he married Alice? Why was Alice's first assumption poison and not pregnancy? How desperately dull life was for affluent women for whom there was no expectation of even becoming educated just for the sake of knowledge. And how accurate is this portrayal of mid-1960s small town England?

Dead Land

 Every time I read one of Sara Paretsky's I wonder if it will be the last. VI Warshawski has been around for 40 years and at least two age-retcons, but I still look forward to her appearances. In Dead Land, VI is once again dragged into the mystery by her goddaughter Bernie. On an ice hockey scholarship in Chicago, Bernie is supporting herself over the summer by coaching youth sports and VI is supporting her when she attends a local committee meeting where Bernie's charges are receiving an award. The main agenda item is redeveloping the beach along Lake Michigan and when a low-level staffer (and Bernie's sort-of boyfriend) gets flustered and drops some papers, it leads the two women into VI's speciality, corrupt politics. This ties in with a second plot involving a socially conscious musician who's been homeless and emotionally fragile since her husband's politically motivated murder. The two plots developed along parallel tracks and while they connected at the end, this is one of Paretsky's less satisfying books. Mediocre Warshawsky is still entertaining and thrilling, though, and I'm happy to see that there's a new book coming out next month.

The Monogram Murders

 The Monogram Murders marks the return of Hercule Poirot. No, he hasn't been reimagined or resurrected or brought into the 20th Century. The Christie estate authorized Sophie Hannah to write new Poirot novels set during his classic inter-war period. The first one finds him "vacationing" in a boarding house within site of his flat and near a small restaurant which serves magnificent coffee. It's while waiting for his new friend (and fellow resident of Mrs. Blanch Unsworth's house), police detective Edward Catchpool, that Poirot first encounters Jennie Hobbs. She's nervous, and lets it slip that she fears for her life, which of course catches Poirot's attention. Meanwhile, Catchpool is investigating three murders at a nearby hotel where each of the victims was found with a monogrammed cuff link in their mouth. The crime was a bit contrived, but Hannah captures the Christie feel and I'm ready to binge the next three books. I'd also like to see this adapted for TV - in part because I saw Rupert Grint in every scene with Catchpool.

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

 In a bit of irony, I read a Mary Roach book I could potentially read in the quiet car when I'm working from home. Roach's speciality is the absurd side of science, but the framework of Grunt, warfare, tones down the giggles. Gulp discussed intestinal distress; Grunt features a sniper who's experienced diarrhea while on a mission. The life and death implications lead to a more subdued tone. Roach still focuses on the absurd, but approaches the subtopics slightly more clinically.

That's not to say there's no room for humor. The chapter on heat stress (deadly and underestimated) features a series of endurance experiments undergone by Mary and a young Marine and conducted by a medical officer...who happens to be the Marine's mother...and who embarrasses him by "momming" him in front of his colleagues. The chapter on clothing (which must be durable, stain resistant, flame retardant, warm in cold environments and cool in hot environments - and cheap) starts with a scientist throwing condiments at swatches. And of course, the chapter on stink bombs (featuring a custom made stink called Who Me?) has plenty of gross-out humor. 

But there's no humor in battlefield simulations where amputee actors strap on fake wounds an bags of simulated blood so field medics can practice with special effects artillery exploding around them. Or in the surgical science of penile reconstruction. Noise and sleep deprivation threaten soldiers' and sailors's ability to function, and the "push through it" attitude most have doesn't help.

With less humor, I focused on how much of this research will, as emergency medicine did, eventually reach the civilian world. Using maggots to debride wounds already has (I did my Medical Devices paper on leeches on the incorrect assumption that the photos in the medical articles would be less gross than those related to maggots). The stakes are lower for us, but dealing with background sounds and circadian rhythm disruptors could make life easier and more pleasant for everyone as well as cutting down on automobile and industrial accidents. As someone who leans pacifistic, I'm not comfortable with military matters but Grunt was, like all of Roach's books, fascinating and enlightening.

Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind

I'm still trying to understand how the religious right came to embrace everything I was taught that Jesus was against. Ill treatment of others (particularly the needy), violence, and power for power's sake. Sarah Posner covers much of the same ground as Kristin DuMez's Jesus and John Wayne which in turn builds on Kevin Kruse's One Nation Under God. Posner is a reporter and takes a different track than the two historians, looking less at history and including anti-democratic movements in Brazil and Eastern Europe to show how our current political climate is not unique. 

If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home

If Walls Could Talk is ostensibly the book of the series, and I expected it to be essentially the script to Lucy Worsley's TV series of the same name. Instead, Worsley uses the framework of the show to peek into the lives of ordinary people. The bedroom isn't just for sleep but also for sex (and childbirth, breastfeeding, and STDs), praying, and death. The bathroom leads to discussions of hygiene in general, plus makeup and plumbing. The living room is where we relax but also have to deal with housework (and formerly servants). Finally, the kitchen gives her a reason to discuss food fads and alcohol, as well as the political implications of menu choices. If I weren't working from home, this would be the perfect commute book - interesting but in short bites so I wouldn't get so engrossed I risk missing my stop.

A Sleeping Lie

There's a four year gap between the publication of Shake Hands Forever and A Sleeping Lie but the England of 1979 in which Inspector Wexford lives feels further in the past. Wexford's older daughter Sylvia has left her husband over her desire to start a career, and that (along with the fact that she'd married at 18) feels like it belongs to the early rather than late 70s. As does her return home after the purchase of a dishwasher.

Wexford's domestic life ends up providing him with the lightbulb moment that solves the murder of Rhoda Comfrey. Miss Comfrey was stabbed to death after visiting her hospitalized father, but there's no proof of her existence other than her corpse. Or of the novelist whose wallet she's inexplicably carrying. Moving between London and Kingsmarkham, Wexford and DI Mike Burden try to flesh out the life of a woman who all but disappeared after winning a football pool and to trace a man who was apparently born in his 20s. After an embarrassing (but amusing) mistake, Wexford's actress daughter Sheila unwittingly provides the final piece of information Wexford needs.

Anna of Kleve: The Princess in the Portrait

Ask the average person about Anne of Cleves, and you'll  probably hear "Oh, yeah, she was the ugly one." Allegedly Hans Holbein's portrait of Anne was much more attractive than the real woman and Henry fell in love with the fantasy. Alison Weir turns that around in the fourth of her Six Tudor Queens novels. Anna might be described as plain and the portrait was painted from her most flattering angle, but it's Henry who doesn't live up expectations. Anna fell in love with a vision of a vibrant king and instead finds an obese and ailing man who appears much older than his 48 years. Henry was disappointed as well, but in other ways. Kleve was a serious and sedate court with plenty of scholarship and no dancing or games. Unlike the Tudor court, the daughters of Kleve were only taught to read and manage households, so Anna spoke little English and had little to say about music or literature.

Henry was unable to consummate their marriage (probably due to ill health), but they have an affectionate relationship, dining together and playing card games. When Henry's eye roves towards Anna's lady in waiting Catherine Howard, Anna's only potential reason to regret relinquishing her position is the possibility that Kleve would lose Henry's protection. Once that's negotiated, she gracefully steps aside and becomes the King's Sister, taking precedence over all women at court barring the Queen and growing close to Henry's daughter Mary. The historical record covering Anna's post-consort years is sparse, so Weir fills in what we know (she tended to overspend her income) with what we can assume (battles with scheming courtiers). She also gives Anna a romance, but one which depends on a trope (an early seduction by a man with greater power) which feels even more uncomfortable now than it would have a few years ago. That aside, Anna of Kleve was an enjoyable emersion into the heroine's life.