The Mind's Eye

I'm not a ditz - my brain is miswired!

We see with our minds, not really our eyes.  The eyes are just receivers, not interpreters.  That's the basis of Oliver Sacks's The Mind's Eye.  People with apparently normal eyes who do not see (or stop seeing) the world as the rest of us do.  A concert pianist suddenly becomes unable to sight-read music during a concert, a man's morning newspaper appears to be written in a foreign alphabet - neurological oddities appearing through vision and changing the lives of the patients.  Sacks doesn't explain how these oddities happen (there is no explanation), but describes how the two, and a woman left aphasic by a stroke, compensate for their defects with varying degrees of success.  They demonstrate the plasticity of the brain.  

Stereo Sue's story is odder.  We're used to people losing an ability and then coping, but Sue grew up with no depth perception.  In her 50s, she began to see depth - not well or consistently at first, but eventually she developed consistent stereo vision.  You don't miss what you never knew, and Sue had been satisfied with the flattened universe in which she lived.  Seeing bioluminescent plankton in 3-D for the first time, though, she realized what she'd missed.

I've read most of Sacks's books, and they've become more personal in the last decade.  One long chapter detailed his treatment for optical cancer and the related complications - a chapter which I skimmed, thanks to my extreme squeamishness about anything to do with the eye.  He also discusses his prosopagnosia - face blindness.  It's severe enough that he doesn't always recognize reflections of himself, but until a discussion with his brother (also face blind), it was his "normal" and not something he missed.  Sacks then discussed his total lack of a sense of direction, and hypothesized that the two might be related.  

That's when I stopped feeling like a ditz.  My sense of direction is legendarily bad.  Friends joked about it two years before I was even old enough to drive - and my mom jokes that even watching The Amazing Race on TV could be dangerous for me.  I get lost in office buildings and disoriented in malls that bend.  When I went to a friend's mother's funeral (coincidentally the day before I started reading The Mind's Eye), my mother got up at 6 am on a Sunday to act as my navigator, because otherwise I wouldn't find Long Island let alone the funeral parlor.  I'm also not very good putting names to faces - I recognize people by their gait or voice, but when a fellow commuter greets me in the supermarket, it takes me a bit to realize I know them.  I've spent decades thinking I'm inattentive or just an airhead, but instead, I'm probably miswired.  In an odd way, it's comforting to know that, and it even allowed me to relax a bit on my latest road trip - with my mom, of course, as navigator.

Body Work

I guess it's easy to take long-running series for granted.  I used to buy Sara Paretsky's books (and Sue Grafton's and Marcia Muller's) the moment they were available in paperback.  I've never put them on probation and always look forward to their books, but a combination of a busier life, more series to read, and a drift towards non-fiction has led me to fall behind.  Body Work came out in paperback three years ago, but I bought it at The Book Corner this past March.  Paretsky's previous book, Hardball, was her best in at least a decade so I'm surprised it took me so long.

Hardball wasn't linear, and neither is Body Work, although the timeline isn't quite as twisted.  Vic is at the hot new club where a performance artist who invites audience members to draw on her naked body is the usual headliner.  Most nights, a young woman paints the embellished face of another woman on the Body Artist's back, until one night she draws the attention and ire of a young veteran.  After the performance, someone shoots the young woman and she dies in Vic's arms.  The veteran, a young man who enlisted out of patriotism and left the army with PTSD, is a natural suspect and he's found near death from an overdose.  Did he kill her - and why?  Or was he framed?

Well, it would be a very short novel if Chad Vishneski were the killer, so it's not a spoiler to say he's just another victim.  Chad's parents hire Vic to find out if he did kill Nadia Guzman, and she begins to investigate both the victim and the accused.  The link between the two turns out to be Nadia's older sister Alexandra, a civilian contractor who'd died in Iraq and whose time in Baghdad overlapped with Chad's.  This leads Vic to a mix of corporate corruption, money laundering, and drug dealing which eventually ends in the Body Artist's final performance.

Paretsky has put perhaps a bit too much plot into this installment, but she ties it up well.  She's also brought back Vic's cousin Petra, who again acts as the catalyst for Vic's involvement in the case but is otherwise a bit of an annoying brat.  It's a better-than-average installment in a good series, but maybe a bit of a letdown after Hardball.

The Murder at the Vicarage

I first read The Murder at the Vicarage 30 or so years ago, but I don't think I've read it since.  It's been 28 years since I saw a high school production of the play.  As with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I remembered only bits of the story but the memories that came back were more personal than plot related.  I remember the pink blood on the "victim's" white shirt and joking with my friends Michelle and Vicky (the stage managers for the show) afterwards, even what I was wearing.  I don't remember the plot.

Maybe it's because the plot is more mechanical than distinctive.  Someone calls vicar Leonard Clement away on a fake call for last rites; he returns home to find Colonel Protheroe dead in the vicarage study.  There are half a dozen or so likely suspects (including the vicar who'd tactlessly expressed how little his overbearing parishioner would be missed after death), and of course those with the strongest motives have the strongest alibis.  Those alibis are no match for Miss Marple's logic, though.  She's actually a minor character (the book is written from the vicar's POV), the most self-aware of a Greek chorus of gossipy old ladies who annoy the vicar's much younger wife.  In her first outing, she's not quite the sweet natured old lady who sees parallels between every crime, big or small, and a long-ago event in St. Mary Mead.  She's a bit cattier, and rather than solving the mystery on her own, she directs the vicar towards the solution.  I recently read Christie's autobiography and she claims that The Murder at the Vicarage had "too much plot."  She's right, but it's still a worthy introduction for the iconic character.

Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen

Catherine of Aragon always seems to be seen in reflection - Henry VIII's first wife, Mary Tudor's mother, Charles V's aunt, and the stubborn and deeply religious cause of the English Reformation.  She was more, though - she'd have to be, to survive more time as Henry's Queen than her five successors combined.  She was deeply devout, and brilliant, and politically aware, yet because she was a woman, she had to rely on others in her attempt to prove the validity of her marriage.

The story of Catherine's life is well known, and while Tremlett portrays it well, the facts are too well known for any revelations.  The daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who merged his minor kingdom with her more powerful domain to form the unified Spain that still exists, Catherine's early years were spent as a pawn on the marriage market.  Betrothed to Arthur, Henry VII's oldest son, she traveled to England as a pre-teen to be groomed for her eventual role.  She married Arthur, he died a few months later, and after three years in the limbo of widowhood, she married Arthur's younger brother Henry.  She failed to produce a surviving son, and after Henry took that as a sign that their marriage was cursed, spent the rest of her life trying to maintain her position.

I found Tremlett's insights into Catherine's personality more interesting.  Brilliant and with a flair for diplomacy, she acted as Henry's ambassador and stand in at various points in their marriage.  In fact, she was probably better at running England than her husband - both were intelligent and educated, but Henry, even before the head injury which may have been responsible for his later tyranny, didn't have the attention span or personality for ruling.  Perhaps this brilliance is why the Pope repeatedly postponed deciding on the validity of her marriage, or perhaps that brilliance led to the arrogance which kept her from accepting a settlement.

Catherine's faith, which sustained her through her trials, may have also been their partial cause.  She was from the medieval world which saw mortification of the flesh as necessary for eternal salvation and frequently fasted to the point of starvation, particularly during the three years between Arthur's death and her marriage to Henry.  The teenage Catherine spent those years wondering if she was going to be returned to Spain, married to her father-in-law, sent to a convent, or returned to the marriage market; it's not hard for modern eyes to see her faithful fasting as a way to control something in her life.  Anorexia, or some other eating disorder, could partially explain her pregnancy troubles.

That leads us to the big question - did Arthur and Catherine consummate their marriage?  Tremlett isn't sure.  Would such a devout woman fight so hard for a lie, or did the realization that she would lose everything overrule her ethics?  The announcement of her first pregnancy with Henry provides evidence for both sides of the argument.  The country was eager for an heir, so Henry and Catherine announced her pregnancy - several months before she was, in fact, pregnant.  On one side, this shows a level of comfort with private lies for political means, but Tremlett also discusses the possibility that neither Catherine nor Henry was fully aware of how conception worked.  One would think that if she'd consummated her several-month marriage to Arthur, someone would have provided her with some information.  The mystery remains.

Come Home

Come Home could benefit from some tartness.  Lisa Scottoline doesn't dwell in the same sub-genre as Laura Lippman but her legal thrillers have always had a bit of South Philly girlfriend addy-tood.  This novel, however, features a Main Line pediatrician and a Lifetime Movie tone.  I love seeing authors stretch, and (although it may surprise some to hear me say this), I don't assume that "chick lit" is bad.  Come Home, however, is, well, not very good chick-lit.  Three years after her divorce, Jill Farrow opens the door on a rainy night to find her former stepdaughter, distraught over her father's death.  Abby is convinced her father was murdered, the police are not.  Sounds like the perfect Scottoline set-up right?  Well, the solution turns on a rather dull (and accurately portrayed) bit of regulatory law, and Scottoline does manage to make that interesting.  Where she fails in in her usual strength - character.  As I mentioned last year, Scottoline's longest running character, Judy Carrier and Mary DiNunzio feel so real that I not only know them, I have been either one - or both - of them.  Jill Farrow, her fiancé, her daughter and former stepdaughters - none of them feel real.  They're the sort of flat characters that trap talented actresses in RomCom Purgatory, cute and earnest and ultimately unbelievable.  Think Twice reminded me how much I like Lisa Scottoline's Rosato & Associates books.  Come Home has taught me to think twice if Scottoline's protagonist isn't a lawyer.

Hardly Knew Her

Laura Lippman calls her genre "tart noir" and the title fits her short story collection, Hardly Knew Her.    The stories are dark, and the women, although firmly planted in the 2010s, are acidly drawn successors to the sort of woman played by Ida Lupino and Barbara Stanwick.  Lippman devotes the first two thirds of the collection to short stories featuring desperate women - a gambler's teenage daughter, an elderly woman denying her age, a mistress whose lover falls back in love with his wife, a babysitter with a dilemma - and sharp but believable plot twists.  Then there are three stories featuring Tess Monaghan, set before Tess's retirement in The Girl in the Green Raincoat, two cases and a "profile" of the accidental detective which foreshadows the earlier-written novella.  Finally, there's "Scratch a Woman" - too long for a short story, not quite a novella.  It's the story of a suburban call girl and her PTA-mom half sister, as tart and as twisted as the stories that precede it, and with perhaps the most surprising ending of all…or maybe not.

The Pale Companion

I pulled The Pale Companion off my shelf as I was nearing the end of my annual book diet.  I read an earlier (the first?) book in the series nearly a decade ago and remember it as enjoyable but not particularly gripping.  That's also my assessment of The Pale Companion; a decent mystery but not one that left me desperate to hunt down the rest of the out-of-print series.

The Chamberlain's Men are traveling to an estate near Salisbury where they will perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream" the night before the ceremony.  Along the way, company member Nick Revill ends up on the wrong end of a riot and meets local magistrate Adam Flemming whose daughter Kate tends to Nick's bruises.  Due to the Theory of the Conservation of Characters, we know that the Flemmings will be guests at the wedding, and that (since this is a mystery), Adam Flemming will be charged with solving it.  And we are not disappointed - we even get a bonus murder.  The first death is that of Robin, a feral woodsman found hanging from a tree.  His murder has not been solved when, the night after the performance, someone kills Lord Elcombe with a gnomon.  His elder son, Henry (the groom to be) appears to have killed him, but has he?  Phillip Gooden creates a good puzzle, giving strong motives to the innocent and supporting his slightly improbably conclusion.  I'll give The Pale Companion a middling grade - worth reading, but perhaps not worth searching for.

The Dance of Death

Roger the Chapman began solving mysteries at the behest of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Kate Sedley has framed her novels as the memoirs of an old man countering the then-current Tudor propaganda against his occasional patron.  Sedley - and Roger - have reached 1482, a year before Richard III became king and three years before he died in battle.  Perhaps that means she's going to wind down the series, or maybe Roger will return to solving ordinary, non-political mysteries.

I hope it's the latter.  The Dance of Death is the second consecutive (and third of the last four) Roger the Chapman novel to involve Richard and political intrigue.  It's the best of those three, but I miss Roger's life in Bristol with Adela and their children.  Roger does as well, which is why Richard's spymaster Timothy Plummer intercepts Roger's message to his family to force Roger to perform one more mission.   Actually, he's on two separate missions, the first posing as the husband of a half-french woman whose cousin has information regarding the French King's attempts to void the engagement between the Dauphin and Elizabeth of York.  The second verges on treason; Richard has asked him to find evidence that Edward IV is illegitimate and that their mother was unfaithful.  Disguised as a wealthy merchant and his wife, they travel to France accompanied by one of Richard's men and Phillip Lamprey, an old friend of Roger's.

Sedley devotes most of The Dance of Death to the journey from London to Paris, seemingly followed by an unhappily married couple, a jeweler, and a flirtatious courtier and leaves the mystery to the final few pages.  Maybe that's why she got me - the killer's identity surprised me, even though I'd seen all the clues.  After a relatively disappointing installment, Sedley produced a satisfying and enjoyable mystery.  Unfortunately, I may have to miss the next few installments.  I hadn't ordered from amazon.co.uk in a few years and during that time, her publisher apparently shrank the print runs in favor of ebooks which are not available in the US.  My next trip to London may include scouring the city for used book store (or maybe curling up in a library, devouring the two books between The Dance of Death and the one I just ordered).

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

I like Peter Ustinov's portrayal of Hercule Poirot.  It's not quite accurate, but it's how I picture him.  The  real Poirot (and Poirot as played by David Suchet) is a bit too unreal and mannered to solve crimes.  Ustinov gave the impression that Poirot's fussiness was at least partially an act so that witnesses - and criminals - would underestimate him, say too much, and allow him to solve the mystery.

Vish Puri, the Delhi-based private detective who solves The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing reminds me a bit of Poirot.  He's a bit younger than Poirot, a happily married family man, and less mannered, but there's a sense that he lets people underestimate him and then turns to his advantage.  Plus, he never misses a meal - or a snack, even when trying to solve the apparently supernatural death of India's #1 debunker.  Dr. Jha is the Guru Buster, part Uri Geller, part MythBuster, exposing both New Age twaddle and Indian televangelists preaching a Hindi version of the Prosperity Gospel.  One day, during his weekly Laughing Club meeting, he and the rest of the group are overcome with uncontrollable laughter.  They're paralyzed by humor, and unable to act when a god appears and fatally stabs Dr. Jha.

Vish Puri reads about the Guru Buster's death and decides to investigate.  Looking both at the Laughing Club members and the charlatans Dr. Jha had exposed, Puri solves both Dr. Jha's murder and the apparently unrelated death of a young woman at a Swami's compound.  Hall does something interesting here, writing parallel plots which may or may not be related.  He also allows Puri's operatives, particularly Facecream, the young woman who infiltrates the Swami's compound, to be competent and interesting, not just flunkies following the boss's orders.

The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing isn't just a satisfying mystery, it's also an enjoyable domestic novel.  Puri's wife Rumpi is preparing for their daughter's baby shower, Puri's brother-in-law shows up with yet another get-rich-quick scheme, and when armed robbers disrupt the kitty party (a party where Ladies Who Lunch pool money for a monthly drawing) attended by Rumpi and Puri's mother, Mummy-ji decides to solve the crime.  Hall weaves these domestic scenes (and a lot of food - this probably isn't a book to read while hungry) around the main mystery, creating a truly enjoyable book.