The McCone Files

I first "met" Sharon McCone in 1990 (for me) and 1977 (for her).  Like most long-running series, she's aged in comic book time with a dash of retcon, so re-reading older installments are doubly nostalgic.  Not only do I remember what my life was like when I first read the book, but I'm also seeing a version of Sharon with a somewhat different background.  The McCone Files allowed me to experience the same sort of nostalgia while reading (mostly) new material.  It's a collection of short stories, starting with Sharon's first case for All Souls Legal Collective and ending as Sharon cleans out her office.  Of course Sharon was younger then, but the crimes are also different.  As the staff investigator for a legal collective which charged the poorer residents of pre-gentrification San Francisco on a sliding scale, the crimes she encountered were mostly smaller and more personal than the cases handled by McCone Investigations.  There are a few murders, but also missing persons, burglary, and an accident that's not one, really.  We also meet Sharon's old friends - Hank Zahn is still around, sort of, and Ted Smalley is McCone Investigations's office manager, and in the later stories see the cracks which led to the dissolution of All Souls.  For those who aren't yet familiar with Sharon, The McCone Files is a good introduction.  It's a series of well-crafted mysteries which provides a primer on Sharon's persona.

To Fear a Painted Devil

Before she started writing psychological thrillers as Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell made regular detours into that sub-genre.  To Fear a Painted Devil is one of her earliest non-Wexford novels, and while interesting, the psychology doesn't stand up to the passage of 50 years.  Patrick and Tasmin Selby are replacement gentry - wealthy, aloof, married first cousins (as normal as that seemed to Jane Austen's characters, I'm assuming it was unusual by the 1960s) - who appear to have the perfect life.  They don't of course.  Patrick is remote, distant, and psychologically abusive; Tasmin was raised to be dependent and there are no other suitable and suitably rich men for her to marry, even if she could get a divorce.

The neighbors, of course, don't know the state of the Selbys' marriage when they assemble for Patrick's birthday.  It's an awkward grouping, including impoverished old money, social climbers, harried parents, Patrick's mistress, a middle-aged man and his much younger third wife, and the local doctor.  Just the ordinary social gathering in this newly built bedroom community, until Patrick and a late-invited guest try to eliminate a wasps' nest.  They end up disturbing the nest and the wasps sting Patrick several times, but Dr. Greenleaf treats his stings with an antihistamine and a sleeping pill.  When Patrick dies in the night, Dr. Greenleaf assumes he either took an extra sleeping pill or had an unknown heart condition.  That's not the case - he's been murdered, and Dr. Greenleaf solves the mystery (but not too easily).  I did as well, but I was somewhat hampered by the setting.  Mid-20th Century England is a bit of an uncanny valley for a modern American.  It's recognizable, but foreign enough that I can't really trust my perceptions.  That's only a problem when reading a mediocre book, and it didn't bother me while reading To Fear a Painted Devil.

Murder by the Book

I suspect that there are only a few more installments in Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew series.  Murder by the Book is the eighteenth book in the series, and nearly two years after the publication of the twentieth volume, Gregory hasn't published a follow-up.  Additionally, for the first time since the middle of the series, Matt both mentions Matilde and realizes he's attracted to another woman for the first time since Matilde left Cambridge.

Matt's romantic life, though, isn't particularly important to Murder by the Book.  Once again, the colleges and hostels of Cambridge are at odds.  The University is, thanks to a benefactor, building a library.  Matt takes the logical view - with a central repository, all University members, even those who belong to poor institutions, will have access to a variety of books.  His view barely wins when the question comes to a vote, and during the meeting someone throws a book which hits a scholar on the head.  Coslaye, the stricken scholar, survives thanks to Matt's skill, but a few months later, he's attacked again and killed. Is his murder (and the others in Cambridge) related to the library?  Or are they connected to the smugglers plaguing Sheriff Tuylet?  And who is the French spy being hunted by one of the King's top agents (who also happens to be Brother Michael's mother)?  Gregory cleanly ties together the related plots, and includes several scenes showing Matt's and Michael's interpersonal chemistry.  If there are only two more books in the series, I'll miss spending time with the two of them.

A Brief Guide to William Shakespeare without the Boring Bits

I don't agree with the title, but it's mainly because I don't particularly care for Peter Ackroyd's writing style.  He gives a pretty good overview to all of Shakespeare's plays (grouped by category) and reprints all the sonnets with a brief introductory chapter.  The result is a passable commute book (one that can be read in 5-20 minute snatches over the course of a week or so), but not a particularly engrossing or memorable book.  Ackroyd's analyses of the plays left my mind almost immediately, unlike Sr. Maureen Christi's dissection of "Romeo and Juliet."  Decades after 9th grade, I still remember what she had to say about the fickle teenagers.

A Holiday for Murder

This is a bit of an anomaly among my Agatha Christie paperbacks - I bought it new sometime in the early 80s, but didn't open it for at least 30 years.  It's a pretty standard Christie - a rich, unpleasant man invites his family (including a never-met granddaughter, the offspring of his late, estranged daughter) to his remote estate for Christmas and dies violently in a locked room.  Everyone had a motive, everyone had opportunity, everyone had an alibi, and Hercule Poirot just happened to be visiting the local constabulary.  Throw in two impostors and a romance, and you've got an average Christie.  More diverting than engrossing, I'd put this in the beach read or commute book category.  You'll enjoy it, but it's not going to take up too much of your brain.

Critical Mass

Throughout Critical Mass, I kept thinking, What if?  Not just the big What if? that arises in any novel concerning Holocaust survivors, but smaller What ifs?  What if Martina Saginor had been born in a time and place where it was normal for a working-class woman to get an education?  What if her mother had respected rather than scorned her intelligence?  What if her daughter had known her?

Critical Mass opens with the first meeting between Martina Saginor and Sophie Herschel.  Children in the same city but different spheres (Frau Saginor was the Herschel family seamstress), they became friends and after the Nazis invaded Austria, their daughters, Kitty Saginor and Lotty Herschel, grew up together as friends of last resort.  Both escaped to London (along with Lotty's brother) on the Kindertransport and their families died in the Nazi death camps.

Lotty never liked Kitty, but decades later she still feels a duty to her childhood companion.  When Kitty's drug-addicted daughter Judy Binder disappears, she asks VI Warshawski to find her.  The search leads her to an abandoned rural drug house, but not to Judy, and VI returns to Chicago and meets with Kitty.  Once there, VI discovers that Judy's son Martin (who inherited his great-grandmother's scientific genius and curiosity), has disappeared.  As a favor to Lotty, VI begins another futile investigation, one that becomes critical when VI finds Kitty bleeding to death on the floor of Martin's bedroom.  With her client dead, VI continues searching for Martin as a favor to Lotty and discovers a link between the drug house, Martina Saginor's forced labor in a Nazi camp, and the CEO of a corporation that feels like a combination of IBM, Microsoft and Facebook.  Paretsky also weaves in flashbacks seen through Martina's eyes and a sort of closure for Lotty Herschel.  Perhaps not quite as engrossing as Hardball, Critical Mass still ranks as one of Paretsky's best books.  If you read it, don't skip the author's note - while the story is completely fictional, Martina Saginor was inspired by an actual scientist.

The Case of the Missing Servant

I try to read series in order.  OK, I'm a bit obsessive about it.  If I'm binge-reading an older series, I'll stop (for months, years even) before jumping a gap on my shelf.  Sometimes, though (usually when my mom has discovered a new author), I start with the second or third book in a series.  That's how I discovered Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri, Delhi-based private investigator and chow hound.  Hall is a mid-list author, though, so it took me a while to find the first book in the series.

It was worth waiting for The Case of the Missing Servant.  Like most first installments, it's a bit heavy on exposition, but Vish Puri, his operatives Tubelight, Facecream, and Flush, and Mummy-Ji appear fully developed in their first appearances, and unlike several other books I've reviewed, Tarquin Hall knows how to handle a subplot.

Brahmin judge Ajay Kasliwal's maid Mary has disappeared, and he's been accused of killing her.  He's innocent, but he also doesn't know where Mary is, or even if she's alive.  Puri sends Facecream into the Kasilwal home as Mary's replacement where she learns the household's secrets.  Adding this information to the rumors Tubelight overhears and his own information from the local police, Puri tracks down Mary and serves justice with kindness.  All while dealing with an attempt on his life and  fielding angry calls from another client, a general who wants him to investigate his on-the-shelf daughter's noveau riche fiancé.  Puri handles this case with discretion, while Mummy-Ji (as usual) goes against her son's wishes to solve the more personal crime.

Tarquin Hall has written four Vish Puri novels so far, and the two I've read have contained well-plotted mysteries and some light domestic comedy.  They're well-balanced books, neither total fluff nor serious books which require deep concentration, so I hope the series becomes a long-runner.

Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster

Katherine Swynford presented Alison Weir with a problem which the author mentioned in her introduction.  Although she's the direct ancestor of every British monarch since Henry VII, 6 US Presidents, and Winston Churchill (among other illustrious figures), we know almost nothing about her.  Her family was gentry but not notable; her father was a foreign knight and Katherine came to Britain to serve in the household of John of Gaunt's first wife Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster.  Katherine married another knight, and after her husband and Blanche died, she became governess to Blanche's two daughters.  She also became John of Gaunt's, by then married to Constance of Castille mistress, eventually giving birth to four of his children.

Royal men frequently took mistresses and provided for their children.  What they did not do was flaunt their affairs.  John's public acknowledgement of Katherine created a scandal; a scandal which increased during the early years of Richard II's reign.  Katherine and John parted amicably, and she managed the estates inherited from her husband while John tried to bring Castille under the English Crown.  Eventually Constance died and John did the unthinkable - he married his mistress and spent the last few years of his life with her.

Katherine seems to be a very lucky woman, always in the right place at the right time.  There's so little information about her because she wasn't remarkable, but her descendants founded a dynasty.  It's as if Lizzie Bennet were Queen Victoria's grandmother.  Weir doesn't exactly explain how Katherine gained her status, but she demonstrated that Katherine was intelligent and well-liked, as well as strikingly beautiful.  Charm, brains, warmth, and a little bit of luck can bring you far in life.  In Katherine's case, they brought her into the royal family, and even helped her brother-in-law, a low-born poet and courtier named Geoffrey Chaucer, rise in the royal household.

Gentleman Rogues & WIcked Ladies: A Guide to British Highwaymen & Highwaywomen

I'm in a different kind of reading rut - I keep picking up books that don't engage me.  Gentlemen Rouges & Wicked Ladies looked interesting in the Daedalus catalog, but it's all surface and no analysis.  After a quick description of the typical highwayman (which comes to the conclusion that there was no "typical" highwayman), Fiona McDonald provides biographical sketches of several famous ones.  Unfortunately, there's not a lot of documentation for most of these men and women, so most sketches amount to a page or two of speculation and rumor, one or two notorious crimes, and execution.  It's not a bad book, and might be a decent commute book, but it's far from memorable.