Hallowe'en Party

Never kill a child or a pet

That's standard advice from the plotting panels at mystery conventions, but if you're Agatha Christie, you can violate that twice in a single novel.  The first victim, Joyce Reynolds, is an unpleasant tween, the sort of girl who borrows adventures she hears and embellishes then when they become her own. Naturally, when she's drowned in the apple-bobbing basin during a community Halloween party, the investigation centers on Joyce's earlier claim of having seen a murder once.  

The problem is, no one can remember a murder. Well, there was that au pair who disappeared a year or so earlier, but she wasn't murdered, was she? Luckily, Ariadne Oliver happened to be at the party (she was visiting a friend, the mother of one of the other tweens at the party), and she calls Hercule Poirot who solves the mystery just in time to save a third child from death. Written in the mid-60s, Hallowe'en Party feels a little more comfortable with the era than Third Girl, largely because "mod" influences are made in passing rather than being a central part of the story. It's a good late Christie, but because it's missing the broad near-misses that evoke the years shortly before I was born, it's not one of my frequent re-reads.

A Case of Spirits

It's been three years since I read one of Peter Lovesy's Sergeant Cribb books. The policeman's adventures are light and diverting, and more interesting as a glimpse into certain aspects of late Victorian life than as straight mysteries. Here, Cribb finds himself immersed in the spiritualism fad because several seance-goers have been burgled while communing with the dead. When an up-and-coming medium dies while in an electrified chair (an instrument to contact the world of the beyond), Cribb and his plodding assistant Constable Thackery change their investigatory focus from burglary to murder. A Case of Spirits is a passable mystery with several amusing character sketches, particularly that of a well-born spinster who turns out to be more important to the plot than one would guess upon first meeting her.

One Nation Under God: How Corporate American Invented Christian America

My first grade school was part of the (now almost forgotten) religious left. When it closed, I ended up on the other end of the spectrum, and I didn't understand it. How could people who wear their Catholicism on their sleeves be so enthusiastic for Reagan and for shredding the social safety net? How did "freedom of religion" come to mean "you must practice some form of monotheistic religion, preferably Christianity but Judaism might be OK?"

Kevin Kruse traces our public and somewhat skewed view of religion to the corporate reaction to FDR's Depression and WWII programs. FDR used some liberal theology to support his creation of the New Deal, and the businessmen who felt he went too far used theology to claim the programs were not only unnecessary but harmful. This occurred during a time of increasing religious affiliation and attendance to record levels which we now think of as a historical norm.

The new religiosity may have started in the 1930s, but it didn't take hold until the 1950s. Promoted by a handful of ministers (including Billy Graham), an outwardly religious (but unaffiliated in early 1953) President Eisenhower, and the best minds of Madison Avenue, we became a "Christian nation" with public prayers and the insertion of "under god" into the Pledge of Allegiance. As one would expect from a religious movement led by millionaires and advertising executives, it focused on power over mercy, and the separation of church and state became almost blasphemous to both. Kruse devotes the third section of his book to the fallout, the lawsuits and eventual culture war that was inevitable when people began to question authoritarian public piety.

Elizabeth Regina

I remember learning that England's victory over the Spanish Armada was a triumph which cemented the island as a world power and laid the seeds for its global empire of the 19th Century. What I didn't realize (and I don't remember being in my textbooks) was that it was the demarcation between Elizabeth I's Gloriana years and her time as an aging monarch without a recognized heir. The last installment in Alison Plowden's Elizabeth quartet has a somber feel. Her not-quite-lover Robert Dudley is dead, and most of her original advisers have died or retired. England has achieved the sort of peace and prosperity her father could never have achieved, but Elizabeth finds herself surrounded by lesser advisors and for practical reasons unable to officially name James VI of Scotland as her heir until shortly before her death. Elizabeth remained fascinating until the end, but Elizabeth Regina feels subdued, as if the Queen was going quietly to her death.

A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World

Well, at least there wasn't any false advertising. A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World was brief. It was also shallow, focusing on the industry and not on its effects. Neither enlightening nor entertainingly written, it's a book destined for the donation box.

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power

I've been an urban legend enthusiast since I bought a book called Rumor as a fifteenth birthday present to myself.  A few years later, I discovered alt.folklore.urban, where we'd collect and debunk various legends or cite Jan Harold Brunvand's books on the topics. Back then, we talked about things like whether it's illegal to drive while barefoot (at the time, it was in two states - like many legend, there's a grain of truth to that one) or whether acid washed jeans fall apart in the dryer because they can't get all the acid out after the dying process (thanks to my lab partner, I could tell everyone what happens if you wash a pair of jeans with a few drops of HCl dried into the thighs). In the last days of Usnet, the myths were changing to black helicopters and new world orders, but they were still mostly for fun.

25 years later, urban legends, which have always had a nasty thread, have devolved into toxic hoaxes.  Aided by US and foreign political operatives who have an interest in chaos and the amorphous nature of the internet, they've become a way of accusing political opponents of heinous crimes and recruiting for hate groups.

Anna Merlan began exploring these groups when she reported on the Conspira-Sea, a cruise for UFO researchers and other conspiracy theorists. When the 2016 Presidential campaign became rife with rumors (none of which stand up to the slightest bit of analysis and some of which can be traced back, as Brunvand did in his books, to earlier rumors and legends). Ranging from the relatively harmless world of UFO investigators through Pizzagate and into the sordid world of white supremacists, she not only describes what these groups do but also how they appeal to others. It's simple, really, as it's always been. We're psychologically programmed to see patterns, and it's more comforting to think that there's a reason for everything - even something horrible - than to think it just happened. Seeing an attack as a "false flag" with "crisis actors" gives those who see the "truth" a perverse sense of superiority. They're not torturing the parents of children who were murdered in their first grade classrooms, but fighters for the truth. The internet makes it easier for these groups to find each other, but Merlan shows how it didn't create them.

Merlan also shows a deft touch in her exposing and debunking of these toxic tales. We can't leave these groups and stories completely in the dark because then they have a chance to expand, but we have to be careful not to help them spread. Merlan uses a clinical tone to explain how these hoaxes developed, puts them in a cultural context, and all along repeats that they are not true, and that they're harmful. Republic of Lies is what we need right now - a book that exposes and calmly debunks the toxic tales that are undermining our society.

And This Is Laura

I donated almost all my children's books to The Book Corner when I graduated from college. I just didn't have the room, and I wasn't going to read them again.  A few years later, I regretted donating a few, and fondly remembered several others, some of which I began to take out of the library.

And This Is Laura was one I had the nagging desire to re-read, and the realization that she has a lot in common with Ron Weasley finally pushed me to download a copy. Laura Hoffman is a normal 12-year-old - too normal, in fact, for her family.  Her mother Maggie was a Hollywood contract player in the 1950s and twenty years later writes westerns and gothic romances (two of each annually) for a Harlequin-like syndicate. Her father Basil is a scientific genius who has his own lab and an unlimited budget at Bell Labs or a similar place. Her older brother Doug is a pianist, composer, and champion debater while her older sister Jill is the captain of the bowling team and perpetual star of school plays. Even her little brother Dennis stands out, although his memorization and recitation of commercials strikes me as more annoying than commendable. Still, with a family like that, who's going to notice a 12-year-old popular, nearly straight-A student with excellent people skills and a creative streak?

Laura doesn't think she has a chance. As much as she loves her family, she feels like a hanger-on and perpetually overshadowed. Laura expects to be completely overshadowed by Jill's reputation when she joins the junior high drama club, but while she's not (yet?) as good as her sister, she's better than she thinks. More importantly, she meets her new and almost instant best friend Beth. Beth's a flautist and possibly as talented an actress as Jill, so when she visits the Hoffmans for the first time, she fits in, perhaps even better than Laura does.

During Beth's first dinner at the Hoffman's, Laura gets her first vision. Her father will solve the problem he's stuck on at work once the man with the white shirt stops by his lab. When Dr. Hoffman does hit on a solution after a visit from a white-shirted colleague, Laura doesn't think much of it, but Beth does (Laura sees her starring in the next school play). Beth also tells Jamie (a classmate who probably became an agent) and soon Laura is doing readings for most of the school. Most of them are the sort you'd expect from that age group - making the basketball team, being asked to a dance - but after seeing both her little brother's disappearance and the apparent death of her classmate Steve in short order, she's relieved when a classmate's policeman father tells her she has to close her business. It's just as well, because she's got a part in the play and is understudying Beth who's the second lead. With lines to learn and absolutely no confidence in her ability, she just doesn't have the time. And as long as Steve is alive and Beth isn't the star, Dennis will be safe.

But then Steve's family is in a car accident - Laura didn't see his funeral but his being carried on a stretcher - and his sister is too badly injured to keep her role in the play so Beth is now the star. While panicking over her unwarranted certainty that she'll ruin the play, she has another vision about Dennis's disappearance. Rather than worry her parents, she tells Jill and the two of them promise to keep an eye on him. And it works, through play practice and a successful performance in which Laura shows a flair for comedy, at least until one afternoon when Maggie Hoffman loses track of time while wrestling with a plot point.

Once Dennis is missing, Laura admits to the visions, and when her the officer sent to the Hoffman house turns out to be Laura's friend's father, she tries to visualize where her brother is. Once again, Laura is right - he's at the mall, dozing in front of a TV display, and for once, she feels special. When she tearfully admits this to her parents, they're confused.  A tween wouldn't realize this, but parents love their kids because they're them, not because they're talented or special. And maybe Laura's problem is that she's too good at too many things - a top student who is a good actress and has a knack with people, she's top-five at everything when everyone else is #1 at one or two things but middle of the pack in everything else. She is special, but tweens just don't have the perspective to see themselves as they are.

Since I have more perspective at fifty than I did at twelve, I also see more in And This Is Laura than I did when I first read it. I saw how Beth and Laura became almost instant friends and felt it more nostalgically now than when I was at an age where such things happened naturally. I also saw Laura's talents where she couldn't, and how her talented family put in more effort than she thought (both parents wrestle with work problems, and both Jill and Doug are almost always practicing). I also noticed the almost jealousy Laura felt towards Beth (her parents are lawyers and she only has one younger brother so the house is quiet and cleaned by a housekeeper) and Beth felt towards Laura (who comes from a big family with a comfortable, slightly chaotic house). Both come from loving families and love their families, but they both feel the other has the better deal. My memory was of an entertaining book about a psychic girl who gets a part in the school play, but And This Is Laura is considerably deeper.

Lucky You

Carl Hiaasen was a guest at Bouchercon 1998. I wasn't really familiar with him back then, but a few months later I read the copy of Lucky You that had been in the goody bag and may have been given a slightly wider berth on SEPTA that week. I then handed it to my parents who were packing for a cruise, and both separately learned that they couldn't read it in public areas because of the looks they got.  Particularly my dad,who had a distinctive, obnoxious, and loud laugh. Did I enjoy it as much twenty years later?

JoLayne Lucks lives in a town full of questionable miracles and adjacent to a privately owned (but for sale) wilderness.  When she wins the Florida lottery (well, half of it) features writer Tom Krome reluctantly goes to interview her. He finds that she's been beaten by the two-man self-proclaimed militia who won the other half of the jackpot and that she wants the money to protect the baby turtles who live in the tentatively sold wetlands. I remember all that, plus the evolution of Turtle Boy, the militia's kidnapping of a Hooters waitress, and the fact that JoLayne reclaimed her ticket.  I did not remember Krome's soon-to-be-ex-wife (an actress who'd creatively avoided service of the divorce papers for two years), Krome's girlfriend and her husband (a murderous judge with a dim clerk), or the fact that a money-laundering mobster had put in a bid for JoLayne's wetlands. Hiaasen follows his typical formula - quotable and witty descriptions of bizarre, only-in-Florida crimes and characters - but he didn't tie the subplots together as tightly as he does now, either thematically or chronologically (the main plot ends with about 50 pages left in the novel). Anti-government militias, even incompetent two-man outfits, are a bit darker than they were in 1998, so I cringed a bit as I laughed -but I still laughed. Maybe not as loud and as obnoxiously as my dad did, but enough that I didn't pull the book out if the train was crowded.

Kissed a Sad Goodbye

*Warning - minor character spoilers*

I'm reading Deborah Crombie's books as backlist, and I enjoy watching Gemma's and Duncan's relationship unfold.  Now officially a couple (although still partnered at work), they're still working out the details of their relationship.  Duncan is also tentatively building a relation ship with the son he didn't know he had until his ex-wife's murder in Dreaming of the Bones.

Kit comes up from Cambridge to spend the weekend with Duncan, whom he thinks is just a friend, and the rare adult who won't let him down. Duncan, of course, ends up being called out on a case, the murder of a Annabelle Hammond, whose body was left on a footpath in a gentrifying  section of London. She's the CEO of a tea company with warehouses on the Isle of Dogs, and suspicion falls on Lewis Finch, the developer responsible for most of the local redevelopment.  As fits with a mystery set against shifting present-day relationships, the motive is more visceral. Annabelle's father William and Lewis Finch were evacuees together during WWII, and Crombie shifts between the current crime and the men's adolescence in a rural mansion, and we learn that the roots of both their estrangement and Annabelle's death can be found in a 1945 tragedy.