City of Sin: London and Its Vices

London, City of Sin
London, the place we grew up in
Just one great big loony bin
London!
                  - Opening song of "Elephant!" in The Tall Guy

I thought of The Tall Guy as I read City of Sin: London and Its Vices.  The third book in Catherine Arnold's trilogy is more entertaining than the first two installments due to some strategic name-dropping, but in the end it didn't make much of an impression.  A historical assay of adultery, prostitution, and pornography, sprinkled with tales of well-known sex scandals, it's not boring, but it's not deep either.  Very little of it seemed new and fresh, but then again, that's why they refer to prostitution as the oldest profession.  More diverting than its predecessors, City of Sin is only slightly less ephemeral.

Strip Jack

Inspector John Rebus may be congenitally incapable of happiness.  Either that, or he's incredibly unlucky.  His new relationship seems to be failing from the start, he's a pawn in the battle between his alcoholic boss and the man who wants to replace him, and he's dealing with three totally unrelated crimes (a politician named Gregor Jack caught in a prostitution sting, stolen rare books, and a homeless murder suspect who's disappeared).  Normally, I'd consider it too coincidental for these three threads to tie together, but Ian Rankin manages to combine them cleanly, and with a murder - that of Jack's wife.  As Rebus investigated her wealthy, fast-lane friends and Jack's "old gang," it becomes clear that Jack has been betrayed and doesn't know it.  The final scenes, with the murderer holding Jack hostage before being chased through a wooded area during a thunderstorm are a bit contrived, but somehow the book held together for me.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

My parents bought a VCR when I was in 7th grade.  My mom taped shows from PBS to use in class; I became a serious movie fan, not only watching movies but reading reviews and thinking critically about cinematography, costumes, and the technical aspects of filmmaking.  The first movie I remember wanting to see for reasons other than the plot or the star was Tess, but it was rated R and I was 12.  By the time I was old enough to see it, the movie had fallen into the good-but-not-classic category that doesn't get shown very often, so I still haven't seen it.  It also took me 30 years and Ravelry's Classic Literature group to get around to reading the book.

Hardy heroines do not have an easy life, and Tess Durbeyfield suffers more than any character I've met in quite a while.  When her father is too hung over to drive the family's beehives to market, Tess goes in his place.  She falls asleep, so she doesn't see the oncoming mail carriage which runs her off the road and kills the family's donkey.  Her parents then convince her to ingratiate herself with noble alleged cousins, and after being hired to look after the noble "relatives'" poultry, she's seduced or raped by Alec d'Urbeville, returns home, and gives birth to a son who dies before she can give him a name.  Eventually, she becomes a milkmaid and falls in love with Angel Clare, a minister's son who apprenticed himself to the dairy farm so that he could learn the trade before emigrating.  On her wedding night, she tells Angel her history, thinking that he'll understand because he's just admitted to a sexual encounter of his own.  Instead he rejects her, leaving her essentially alone while he explores the possibility of farming in Brazil.  Tess finds work on a turnip farm and once again encounters Alec, now a fire-and-brimstone preacher who recognizes her and repeatedly tries to seduce her, while simultaneously blaming her for his loss of faith.  She resists, but after her father dies and her family is homeless and trying to sleep in a churchyard, he "rescues" her.  Of course, this is when Angel returns from Brazil, frail after a long illness but willing to forgive his wife.  He finds her in a resort town, living as Angel's mistress.  She tells him to leave, but runs after him - because she's murdered Alec.  They wander across the countryside, consummating their marriage in an abandoned manor house, and the authorities catch up with them as she sleeps on an alter at Stonehenge.

It's depressing and frustrating (particularly when you consider that Hardy was criticized for being too sympathetic towards Tess), but beautifully written.  There's a bit of a cognitive disconnect between Tess's hard life and the vivid descriptions of her beauty and the picturesque countryside.  I don't usually like Victorian novels - they're too florid and moralistic.  Hardy found the right balance in his prose and by keeping the ending depressing, avoided the moralistic uplift I too often encounter in the novels of that era.

Sad Cypress

Back when I started buying Agatha Christie novels, I wonder if I tended to buy those I wanted to read immediately new and "filled in the gaps" at The Book Swap.  I've read a few of the bought used volumes multiple times, but when I pick up a never-read Christie, it's almost always one I bought used. My copy of Sad Cypress was twice-used - not only is there a stamp from The Book Swap, but also one from used book store in Muncie.  The book itself is a bit of a time capsule.  Not only is there a somewhat lurid cover (with a syringe, a tea cup, and blood stained finger sandwiches next to a medical bag with a knife and a rose poking out), but there are cigarette ads between pages 112 and 113 (and evidence of torn-out ads between pages 136 and 137).  Clearly, this book was printed to be displayed on a drugstore rack, back in the days before big box stores and when places like Clover (which was kind of like Target, only smaller and local to the Philadelphia area) had tiny book sections with an odd array which may or may not include best sellers.

Sad Cypress doesn't feel like a typical Christie, and I was surprised when I saw that it was written during her peak years.  It's a "murder in retrospect" but not quite, and a Poirot novel in which the detective doesn't appear until late in the book.  Christie starts the book during the accused's murder trial.    Elinor Carlistle pleads not guilty to the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival for the affection of her cousin-by-marriage whom their recently deceased wealthy Aunt Laura Welman had always assumed she'd marry.  Mary was the daughter of the aunt's steward, not quite a lady but educated above her class thanks to Mrs. Welman.  When Mrs. Welman dies intestate, her estate goes to Elinor, who breaks her engagement to Roddy Welman and gives L2,000 to Mary who intends to take a massage course.  Then Mary dies after eating sandwiches prepared by Elinor, so the combination of flimsy motive and strong opportunity put Mary on trial.   The local doctor, who'd been in love with Elinor, hires Hercule Poirot to exonerate her - whether she's innocent or not.  Well, since this is a Christie novel, of course she's innocent, and the real murderer is someone whom I'd never suspect.  Christie plays a bit with the structure, melding a straightforward courtroom drama with a cozy village murder mystery, and I enjoyed it.  I'm sorry I didn't read it 28 or 30 years ago, when I first bought my twice-used copy.

Vile Bodies

My parents were pretty laid back about my education, except when I got my summer reading list for 11th grade.  We ended up not discussing it (because it had apparently been chosen by Sr. Maureen Christi - the department head - over the objections of my 11th grade teacher), but the third book on the list was Vile Bodies.  I'd never seen my parents so thrilled by anything I'd done in school.  Every time I picked it up, they rhapsodized about Evelyn Waugh and referenced his other novels.  I went through a Waugh phase myself in the early 90s, so I understand, and lobbied for Vile Bodies whenever Ravelry's Classic Literature group voted for our next read-a-long, particularly after reading Bright Young People.


It's been more than 20 years since I've read Vile Bodies, and while I wasn't disappointed, it wasn't quite as interesting as I thought it would be.  More a series of vignettes than an actual  novel, it follows Adam Fenwick-Symes through a series of financial windfalls and disasters (and corresponding engagements and breakups with Nina Blount).  They're actually a bit bland, but their story provides a framework on which to hang the stories of American evangelist Mrs. Melrose Ape (who's actually a madam) and her "angels" (who perform for wealthy and willing gentlemen), Nina's cinema-obsessed and apparently senile father, disreputable hotel owner Lottie Crump, tragic party-girl Agatha Runcible, and various caricatures of the nobility, the press, and the Smart Set.  Extremely amusing, but ultimately lightweight, it's a one-sitting book to be enjoyed but perhaps not analyzed.

Tears of Pearl

Genre fiction doesn't get enough respect.  While we've all come across mysteries, romances, and fantasies which weren't good novels but "ticked the boxes," more often the authors write good books within the limitations of the genre.  When an author only succeeds on one front, I prefer that the result be a good novel with a fair mystery than the other way around.  Tears of Pearl is an enjoyable novel, but not much of a mystery.

Lady Emily and Colin Hargraves have eloped and endured a month-long visit with her parents.  En route to Constantinople on the Orient Express, they meet Sir Richard Clare, a diplomat who makes an impression on them by losing important papers and then taking an accidental overdose of chloral hydrate during dinner.  Since this is a mystery, there must be a body and Emily stumbles across one after attending an opera at the Sultan's castle.  The dead woman was one of the Sultan's concubines - and also Sir Richard's long lost daughter, and (as usually happens in mysteries), one death leads to another.  As Colin investigates through diplomatic channels, Emily gets permission to play sleuth in the harem, solving the mystery as she walks in the footsteps of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

I found the mystery rather unsatisfying - I figured out the killer's identity about 40 pages too early, and the motive seemed far-fetched.  Lady Emily, though, is a wonderful character - adventuress, autodidact, fashion plate, devoted friend, and madly in love with a man who loves her even more.  She's someone I'd like to be, and Tears of Pearl succeeds as a romance and a travelogue through late-19th Century Constantinople.  I guess it's best described as an upper-level beach book - well-written but escapist - in which there just happens to be a crime.

Notorious Nineteen

Janet Evanovich still makes me laugh, but she's in a rut.  Sometimes it feels like she's started writing her Stephanie Plum novels with a checklist.  Grandma Mazur talks about her (desire for a) sex life?  Check.   Car death?  Check.  Proposition from Ranger?  Check.  Family dinner (during which Steph's mom chugs "iced tea")?  Check.  Bob the dog?  Check.  Appearance by one or more colorful recurring characters?  Check (in the person of Randy Briggs, little person and IT-guy-turned-security-guard).  Outrageous outfits on Grandma Mazur and/or Lula?  You had to ask?

Notorious Nineteen ticks off all the boxes, and arrays them around a reasonable mystery.  Geoffrey Cubbin disappeared from a local hospital after an emergency appendectomy, but before his court date.  He'd embezzled from the retirement community he ran, and since her cousin Vinnie bonded him out, Stephanie has to find him, dead or alive.  It turns out that Cubbin isn't the first person to disappear from Central Hospital in the past few months, and one of the nurses on duty seems to be living far above her income.  It's a pretty well-constructed plot, but it's also about 75 pages short of a novel, so Evanovich pads it out with a homeless man trying to retrieve his magic statue from Uncle Sandor's Buick and/or Steph's apartment and Ranger's friend's wedding - in which Steph has somehow ended up as a bridesmaid.  It's Jersey, so I don't have to tell you the dress is...unique.  These subplots collide with only a tiny bit more coincidence than I like, and Grandma Mazur's costume when she goes undercover at the retirement home is a classic, but the series hasn't managed to combine the kind of humor that makes it a bad idea to read the book in public with a tight plot since about 9 or 10.  Evanovich now writes several series.  Perhaps it's time for her to slow down a bit so she can string together the set pieces with a little more plot.  Then again, I'll keep reading the Plum mysteries because they still make me laugh out loud.

Wobble to Death

Professional sports started oddly - a mix of mill teams with "ringers" and individual competitions set up for the benefit of gamblers.  Wobble to Death takes place at a wobble - a week-long footrace, with a belt and 500 pounds going to the man who walks and runs the most laps without collapsing.  The race starts out well, with the two favorites - Captain Chadwick and Charles Darnell - circling a shorter, inner track, away from the elbows of the pack of also rans, but on Tuesday, Darnell collapses and dies.  Was it tetanus (from walking barefoot with blistered feet)?  Just bad luck?  Or was he murdered?

Well, this is a mystery novel so of course he was murdered - but by whom?  Sergeant Cribb has a few suspects, including a threatened champ, an unfaithful wife, a crooked promoter, a "doctor"/competitor, and a drunken manager.  Lovesey's mystery is neatly crafted, but a bit too lightweight to last.  Like The Detective Wore Silk Drawers, I enjoyed it more for the glimpse into Victorian sports than for the enjoyable but essentially forgettable mystery.

Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

I started reading Ben Goldacre's columns in The Guardian a few weeks before he suspended it to write his second book.  I decided to look for his first book, and promptly forgot until I saw the last few minutes of a talk Goldacre gave promoting Bad Pharma.  Since I'm still on the Book Diet, I took Bad Science out of the library, which was probably a wise decision.  I really enjoyed this book, but I'm also unlikely to read it again.

Goldacre is an Oxford-educated doctor, so his writing focuses on health-related topics.  He has an engaging style, and after a few pedantic (and by his own admission condescending) background chapters, he alternates between exposing "treatments" with no scientific support and more nuanced articles which explain how fairly simple statistical principles and concepts like confirmation bias lead us to believe lies wrapped up in technobabble.

Some of Goldacre's targets, like homeopathy, Brain Gym (a set of breathing and self-massage exercises that allegedly improves brain function - who falls for this?), and 'scientific' makeup get off fairly lightly.  They're mostly harmless, usually damaging only the consumer's checking account.  He's much harsher on targets whom he believes have done real harm.  Vitamin pusher Matthais Rath claimed that HIV does not cause AIDS and, by encouraging South Africans to give up antiretroviral drugs in favor of his supplements, probably caused tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of excess transmissions.  This truly horrifying chapter did not appear in the original edition of Bad Science because Rath sued Goldacre and The Guardian; in a just world, the survivors of those who died after exchanging HIV drugs for useless pills would sue him for wrongful death.  He rightfully faults Andrew Wakefield for the MMR scare which returned deadly but preventable diseases to endemic status in the United Kingdom, but he also blames the gullible and lazy science press and the Blairs for fanning the "controversy."

Nutritionists seem to fall between the two poles.  I don't see how they're as harmful to their 'patients' as charlatans like Rath and Wakefield, but he treats them much more harshly than homeopaths and cosmetics companies.  I think he's offended by the abuse of science - most of his examples feature Gillian McKeath, host of You Are What You Eat.  McKeath took something sensible (and not particularly marketable) - eat smaller portions, focus on greens and grains, and get some exercise - and wrapped it in pseudo-scientific explanations that would leave a scientifically-inclinded high school student giggling uncontrollably.  Instead of saying that darker greens have high levels of phytochemicals, she says they "oxygenate the blood" because they "have so much chlorophyll."  Seriously?  As Goldacre points out, you have no light in your large intestine, and even if you did, you have no gills with which to absorb oxygen.  McKeath and her ilk are just making it up and they don't care that they are.  That deeply offends Goldacre.

As I said above, I enjoyed Bad Science, but he didn't cover anything new to me.  I've got a science degree and have spent the past decade doing document review for large pharmaceutical litigations.  Bad Science was confirmation bias - it told me what I already knew, and gave me a chance to shake my head at the gullibility of my species.  I'll read his new book and his columns, but I won't regret returning this volume to the library.