Sunday, March 5, 2017
Medical Meddlers, Mediums, and Magicians: The Victorian Age of Credulity
Sometimes I can lose myself completely in my book while commuting, but with a relatively short train ride and frequent interruptions (even in the quiet car), it's best to keep my reading on the light side. Medical Meddlers, Mediums, and Magicians is an ideal commute book - entertaining enough to hold my attention but not deep enough to require deep thought, and arranged in sections ranging from less than one to about three pages. I found "Medical Meddlers" the most interesting (among them was James IV of Scotland who practiced dentistry along with ruling his country), particularly how the author (a physician) delineated between outright quacks and those who were doing their best with the limited knowledge of the day. I've never been particularly interested in the supernatural, so "Mediums" didn't hold my attention quite as well. "Magicians" was disappointing, partially because so few were covered and partially because there wasn't enough attention given to those who debunked the mediums and meddlers. Light and entertaining, but ultimately disposable, it's enjoyable without being particularly memorable.
Call for the Dead
George Smiley was always a spy, but his first appearance was in a traditional mystery novel. Shortly after Smiley interviewed Samuel Fennan about a letter questioning Fennan's possible communist leanings, Fennan committed suicide. Why, though, did the dead man request a wake-up call for the morning after his death? Smiley, with the assistance of Peter Guillam and recently retired Police Inspector Mendel delves into Fennan's past and finds a connection to his own WWII spying. Not quite convinced that Fennan was compromised, Smiley comes up with an alternate interpretation of the facts. Which one is the truth?
Call for the Dead is a brief, tightly plotted mystery which outlines George Smiley's subdued, analytical character. Different in tone from LeCarre's spy novels (and from the movie Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy which I re-watched last night), it's a good introduction to the author's elegant prose and most famous character.
Call for the Dead is a brief, tightly plotted mystery which outlines George Smiley's subdued, analytical character. Different in tone from LeCarre's spy novels (and from the movie Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy which I re-watched last night), it's a good introduction to the author's elegant prose and most famous character.
Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor
I grew up on Masterpiece Theater, BBC costume dramas with top-level actors and sets which may have cost 35p for all six episodes. I remember watching and wanting to like "Nancy Astor." She was the first woman elected to Parliament, and the show was well done. It didn't grab my attention, though. Maybe I would have paid more attention if I'd realized Pierce Brosnan played her first husband (two years before "Remington Steele") but probably not because it was a few months before that would matter to me.
36 yeas later, I still didn't know much about Nancy Astor when I opened Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor, and I found her a bit less admirable than I thought I would. Like many pioneering women in politics, she road her husband's coattails into the House of Commons. What I didn't realize was that (after a hardscrabble early childhood in the wake of the Civil War), she came from a wealthy and prominent family. Chillie Langdon may have served on the front lines for a Virginia regiment (records aren't clear), and after some financially tumultuous years selling tobacco found his fortune mustering and managing work crews. By Nancy's teens, the family owned a large estate and summered at the premiere southern resort. She and her sisters (including Irene, the original Gibson Girl) had debuts and Nancy spent an unhappy year at a finishing school in New York.
At 18, she married Robert Gould Shaw, soon became pregnant with her son Bobby, and quickly divorced her abusive husband. Nancy then went to England where she rode with the hunt and eventually married Waldorf Astor. He was the son of a wealthy American ex-pat (a member of the banking family) and an aspiring politician. Nancy threw herself into his campaign for Parliament and shared his noblesse oblige style progressivism. When Waldorf became the 2nd Viscount on the death of his father, Nancy ran for and won his seat, eventually spending 25 years in Parliament.
On the surface, admirable, but I just can't admire the person behind the public figure. On a personal level, she could be cruel; a bully to her siblings and in later years vicious to her daughters-in-law. Professionally, she was largely bluster and posturing, often speaking on a point without proper research or even basic knowledge of the topic. There's also the Cliveden Set she led and which supported appeasement (I felt that Port intentionally glossed over this aspect of her life). I don't believe in heroes, and I expect pioneers to be a bit more ruthless out of necessity than those who follow them. Still, Nancy Astor had too few positive and too many negative achievements for me to truly admire her, and a bit too much bland snobbery to be personally compelling.
36 yeas later, I still didn't know much about Nancy Astor when I opened Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor, and I found her a bit less admirable than I thought I would. Like many pioneering women in politics, she road her husband's coattails into the House of Commons. What I didn't realize was that (after a hardscrabble early childhood in the wake of the Civil War), she came from a wealthy and prominent family. Chillie Langdon may have served on the front lines for a Virginia regiment (records aren't clear), and after some financially tumultuous years selling tobacco found his fortune mustering and managing work crews. By Nancy's teens, the family owned a large estate and summered at the premiere southern resort. She and her sisters (including Irene, the original Gibson Girl) had debuts and Nancy spent an unhappy year at a finishing school in New York.
At 18, she married Robert Gould Shaw, soon became pregnant with her son Bobby, and quickly divorced her abusive husband. Nancy then went to England where she rode with the hunt and eventually married Waldorf Astor. He was the son of a wealthy American ex-pat (a member of the banking family) and an aspiring politician. Nancy threw herself into his campaign for Parliament and shared his noblesse oblige style progressivism. When Waldorf became the 2nd Viscount on the death of his father, Nancy ran for and won his seat, eventually spending 25 years in Parliament.
On the surface, admirable, but I just can't admire the person behind the public figure. On a personal level, she could be cruel; a bully to her siblings and in later years vicious to her daughters-in-law. Professionally, she was largely bluster and posturing, often speaking on a point without proper research or even basic knowledge of the topic. There's also the Cliveden Set she led and which supported appeasement (I felt that Port intentionally glossed over this aspect of her life). I don't believe in heroes, and I expect pioneers to be a bit more ruthless out of necessity than those who follow them. Still, Nancy Astor had too few positive and too many negative achievements for me to truly admire her, and a bit too much bland snobbery to be personally compelling.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Turbo Twenty-Three
Janet Evanovich may run out of T-words by the time she gets to the 40th Stephanie Plum book. Turbo Twenty-Three isn't as good as Two for the Dough, Hot Six, or To the Nines (few of her double-digit books have been), but it's her best in a while. Steph (accompanied by Lula, of course) find her FTA highjacking a tractor trailer full of ice cream. He steals Lula's car so they chase him in the truck. You know that's not going to go well, and it doesn't. Even worse, there's a dead body (frozen, coated in chocolate and rolled in nuts) in among the frozen treats.
It turns out that the ice cream company has hired Rangeman to solve a series of sabotage incidents, so Ranger sends Steph undercover at both his client an a rival. While working the cup line gives her a few leads, that's not how she finds the murder. No, she uses coincidence and a few leads from Grandma Mazur's new boyfriend, a bartender who looks like Willie Nelson only older (yes, this induces Mrs. Plum to chug "iced tea" at dinner). Oh, Steph (unwillingly) and Grandma Mazur (willingly) also help Lula and angry little person Randy Briggs break into reality TV. Several laugh-out-loud scenes and a good (although abruptly solved) mystery make Turbo Twenty-Three worth the time.
It turns out that the ice cream company has hired Rangeman to solve a series of sabotage incidents, so Ranger sends Steph undercover at both his client an a rival. While working the cup line gives her a few leads, that's not how she finds the murder. No, she uses coincidence and a few leads from Grandma Mazur's new boyfriend, a bartender who looks like Willie Nelson only older (yes, this induces Mrs. Plum to chug "iced tea" at dinner). Oh, Steph (unwillingly) and Grandma Mazur (willingly) also help Lula and angry little person Randy Briggs break into reality TV. Several laugh-out-loud scenes and a good (although abruptly solved) mystery make Turbo Twenty-Three worth the time.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
No Mark Upon Her
My mom has been reading Deborah Crombie's books since the start of the series, but No Mark Upon Her is the first volume she's handed to me. I prefer reading series from the start, so as soon as my annual book diet ends, I'm gong to start working my way through the thirteen books that precede it.
Rebecca Meredith had been a shoo-in for the Olympic rowing team at 22, until she went skiing and broke her wrist a few months before the trials. Nearly 15 years later, she's a Scotland Yard DI and maybe, possibly, about to try again for the Olympic team. When she misses an appointment with her ex-husband (who needs some information on a potential investor, a recently retired police official), he assumes the worst. He's right - Becca has been murdered and left to drift downstream from her grounded shell. Police brass call in DI Duncan Kincaid, just married and about to take family leave with his newly adopted daughter. They trust Duncan to both solve the case and to be discreet, because they suspect that police politics may have lead to Becca's murder. With his wife, DS Gemma Jones (still on family leave) and her former assistant Melody Talbot investigating the rumors that bubble up during the official case, Duncan and his assistant Doug Cullen discover the killer's identity.
Or did they? Crombie pulls off one of the hardest tricks for a mystery novelist, a true surprise ending that's fully supported. That, and how skillfully Crombie blends in Duncan's and Gemma's domestic life, is why I now have a new series to read.
Rebecca Meredith had been a shoo-in for the Olympic rowing team at 22, until she went skiing and broke her wrist a few months before the trials. Nearly 15 years later, she's a Scotland Yard DI and maybe, possibly, about to try again for the Olympic team. When she misses an appointment with her ex-husband (who needs some information on a potential investor, a recently retired police official), he assumes the worst. He's right - Becca has been murdered and left to drift downstream from her grounded shell. Police brass call in DI Duncan Kincaid, just married and about to take family leave with his newly adopted daughter. They trust Duncan to both solve the case and to be discreet, because they suspect that police politics may have lead to Becca's murder. With his wife, DS Gemma Jones (still on family leave) and her former assistant Melody Talbot investigating the rumors that bubble up during the official case, Duncan and his assistant Doug Cullen discover the killer's identity.
Or did they? Crombie pulls off one of the hardest tricks for a mystery novelist, a true surprise ending that's fully supported. That, and how skillfully Crombie blends in Duncan's and Gemma's domestic life, is why I now have a new series to read.
Murder 101
I predicted Peter Decker's retirement from the LAPD four books ago in Blindman's Bluff. I was wrong in thinking that he'd retire altogether and that Cindy Decker Kutiel would become the new protagonist. That's probably a good thing, because Faye Kellerman has relocated Cindy and her NP-turned-med-student husband Kody to Philadelphia and I suspect that the West Coast based author would place neighborhoods in the wrong parts of the city and make Walnut Street run north/south.
Decker hasn't actually retired. Instead, he's moved to a college town in upstate New York and joined the local police force. The police deal mainly with small property crimes and sub-critical medical problems - and Tyler McAdams, a rich kid working as a police officer "until I start law school" and mainly to irritate his wealthy and overbearing father. McAdams is smart, but arrogant and condescending, so naturally Rina invites him to the Shabbat dinner she holds for local students. That evening, the police chief calls Decker to investigate a break-in at the local cemetery. It turns out that someone has replaced two of four Louis Comfort Tiffany panels in one of the mausoleums with fakes. A few days later, a senior art student is found murdered. The two crimes lead Decker McAdams into the art world and, with some research help from Rina, to a solution I found a bit too abrupt and too wide-ranging to be fully satisfying.
I did, however, enjoy Murder 101 as a novel. Peter has spent his entire career with experienced detectives, so I enjoyed watching him instruct a rookie in the basics of police work. The Deckers' East Coast relocation means that they can visit their kids, so they (and we) have dinner with Sammy and his wife Rachel, Jake and his girlfriend Ilana, Hannah and her fiancé Rafe, and Cindy and Kody. There are even cameo appearances by Marge Dunn (by phone) and Scott Oliver, and McAdams's grandmother, a stereotypical but entertaining grande dame. The 22nd book in the series made me want to go back and read the first.
Decker hasn't actually retired. Instead, he's moved to a college town in upstate New York and joined the local police force. The police deal mainly with small property crimes and sub-critical medical problems - and Tyler McAdams, a rich kid working as a police officer "until I start law school" and mainly to irritate his wealthy and overbearing father. McAdams is smart, but arrogant and condescending, so naturally Rina invites him to the Shabbat dinner she holds for local students. That evening, the police chief calls Decker to investigate a break-in at the local cemetery. It turns out that someone has replaced two of four Louis Comfort Tiffany panels in one of the mausoleums with fakes. A few days later, a senior art student is found murdered. The two crimes lead Decker McAdams into the art world and, with some research help from Rina, to a solution I found a bit too abrupt and too wide-ranging to be fully satisfying.
I did, however, enjoy Murder 101 as a novel. Peter has spent his entire career with experienced detectives, so I enjoyed watching him instruct a rookie in the basics of police work. The Deckers' East Coast relocation means that they can visit their kids, so they (and we) have dinner with Sammy and his wife Rachel, Jake and his girlfriend Ilana, Hannah and her fiancé Rafe, and Cindy and Kody. There are even cameo appearances by Marge Dunn (by phone) and Scott Oliver, and McAdams's grandmother, a stereotypical but entertaining grande dame. The 22nd book in the series made me want to go back and read the first.
The Counterfeit Heiress
Warning - Spoiler in the link
Alexander's secondary storyline features Estella Lamar. One of Cecile's old friends, the mysterious world traveler has only been seen in blurry photographs since abruptly leaving on her travels. Years later, someone claiming to be Estella shows up at the party of the season, a costume ball at Devonshire house thrown in honor of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Cecile recognizes her as an imposter and the woman, wearing a costume very similar to Emily's, runs off. Someone murders the imposter before anyone can identify her and Emily and her husband Colin make discreet inquiries at the request of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.
Cecile, meanwhile, begins to wonder what happened to her friend Estella? She's been sending dispatches back from her travels, but no one has actually seen her. Upon analysis, her travels seem impossible, taking too little or too much time to get from point to point. Estella's Paris and London homes are both fully staffed despite the fact that the mistress of the house hasn't been in residence for over 20 years. Has she been kidnapped? Is she even still alive? Inspired by a true story, Estella's fate caused her imposter's death, but Alexander still manages to make the murderer a mostly sympathetic character. It's a nice twist on the traditional mystery.
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Sins of the Fathers
A few weeks ago, I realized that fiction written in the last third of the 20th Century can fall into an uncanny valley. It's familiar but foreign. I filter most of the 1970s through childhood and the 1980s through the inward focus of a teenager and college student, but I recognize the landmarks. Ruth Rendell's early novels fall slightly outside that range. They're not-quite-old movies and TV shows I saw on UHF channels on rainy weekends.
Rendell was rightly lauded for bringing a psychological edge to the mystery novel, but it makes her earlier works rather dated. Henry Archery's son is engaged to the daughter of a convicted murderer. A brilliant and charming Oxford student, she can't (according to the common knowledge of the day) be the child of such a brute. Using this logic, Archery asks Inspector Wexford to reopen the case, one of Wexford's first, and exonerate Herbert Painter of the viscous murder of his employer, the elderly Mrs. Primero. Rendell provides us, and Archery, with alternative suspects (the victim's grandson, an unstable local woman) and motivations (money), but the twist is itself a twist. The conclusion of Sins of the Fathers conforms to the beliefs of the day, but upends two things that we think we know at the start of the book.
Rendell was rightly lauded for bringing a psychological edge to the mystery novel, but it makes her earlier works rather dated. Henry Archery's son is engaged to the daughter of a convicted murderer. A brilliant and charming Oxford student, she can't (according to the common knowledge of the day) be the child of such a brute. Using this logic, Archery asks Inspector Wexford to reopen the case, one of Wexford's first, and exonerate Herbert Painter of the viscous murder of his employer, the elderly Mrs. Primero. Rendell provides us, and Archery, with alternative suspects (the victim's grandson, an unstable local woman) and motivations (money), but the twist is itself a twist. The conclusion of Sins of the Fathers conforms to the beliefs of the day, but upends two things that we think we know at the start of the book.
Main Street
Babbit was on my summer reading list for 10th grade. I hated it. It was my original cookie book (read a few pages, reward yourself with a cookie, repeat until done). When I reread it while we discussed it in class, though, I fell in love. Sinclair Lewis was a master at portraying flawed but mostly decent people who quietly chafe against a conformist society, appearing to - or wanting to - fit in but never quite feeling comfortable about it.
I wonder if Carol Kennicott would fit in anywhere. We meet her as a college student, vibrant, enthusiastic, and a bit remote. A judge's daughter from Mankato (neither a small town nor a large city), she has no close friends and isn't close to her only relative, an older sister. It's her sister who introduces Carol, by then working as a librarian in St. Paul, to Dr. Will Kennicott, a country GP who apparently came to town to find a wife (I wonder if he had a shopping list of desired characteristics). He think she's pretty; she's bored and enticed by the chance to Do Good in a Small Town.
Carol quickly realizes that she's the victim of a bait and switch. Main Street Gopher Prairie is populated by narrow-minded, mean-spirited, materialistic conformists. Will is a good doctor, but he's extremely condescending towards the immigrant farmers he treats and more interested in land speculation than healing. His friends are crude and the Jolly Seventeen - the young, fashionable wives - are a catty bunch of cliquish "mean girls." Carol's attempts to improve the town fail, through the scorn of the town and, sadly, Carol's lack of skill or endurance. Her story grows darker as she makes friends who are driven from the town, each one leaving a film of suspicion on Carol's reputation.
Lewis could have made Carol a selfless crusader crushed by the evil town, but he's more subtle. Carol is mostly right (the town is drab, crude, and ugly), but she acts arbitrarily and often without considering the whether her goals are right for Gopher Prairie. She's also not very good at reforming, becoming discouraged and then losing interest at the first obstacle. Will is the wrong husband for Carol, but he's not necessarily a bad person, and while some of the townspeople are vicious others come across as weak and easily led. Carol is trapped, but partially because she took the path of least resistance. I sympathize with her, then look at her short-sighted decisions. And then I wonder, did she have other options?
I wonder if Carol Kennicott would fit in anywhere. We meet her as a college student, vibrant, enthusiastic, and a bit remote. A judge's daughter from Mankato (neither a small town nor a large city), she has no close friends and isn't close to her only relative, an older sister. It's her sister who introduces Carol, by then working as a librarian in St. Paul, to Dr. Will Kennicott, a country GP who apparently came to town to find a wife (I wonder if he had a shopping list of desired characteristics). He think she's pretty; she's bored and enticed by the chance to Do Good in a Small Town.
Carol quickly realizes that she's the victim of a bait and switch. Main Street Gopher Prairie is populated by narrow-minded, mean-spirited, materialistic conformists. Will is a good doctor, but he's extremely condescending towards the immigrant farmers he treats and more interested in land speculation than healing. His friends are crude and the Jolly Seventeen - the young, fashionable wives - are a catty bunch of cliquish "mean girls." Carol's attempts to improve the town fail, through the scorn of the town and, sadly, Carol's lack of skill or endurance. Her story grows darker as she makes friends who are driven from the town, each one leaving a film of suspicion on Carol's reputation.
Lewis could have made Carol a selfless crusader crushed by the evil town, but he's more subtle. Carol is mostly right (the town is drab, crude, and ugly), but she acts arbitrarily and often without considering the whether her goals are right for Gopher Prairie. She's also not very good at reforming, becoming discouraged and then losing interest at the first obstacle. Will is the wrong husband for Carol, but he's not necessarily a bad person, and while some of the townspeople are vicious others come across as weak and easily led. Carol is trapped, but partially because she took the path of least resistance. I sympathize with her, then look at her short-sighted decisions. And then I wonder, did she have other options?
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