A Work in Progress

The Serpent and the Scorpion

Two years have passed since the events narrated in Clare Langley Hawthorne's Consequences of Sin.  Suffragette turned reluctant sleuth Ursula Marlowe has had her world turned upside down with the death of her father and her romantic liaison with family-adviser and King's Counsel, Lord Oliver Wrotham, put on the back burner.  Their attraction to each other is fierce and mutual but Ursula is loathe to give up her independence by marrying a man with conservative leanings.  There is still so much work to do if women are to get the vote, and now Ursula is determined to run her father's textile factories on her own.  And proper Edwardian women, certainly not the wives of barristers like Lord Wrotham, do not attend WSPU meetings or run cotton mills.

The Serpent and the Scorpion opens in the first days of 1912.  She has traveled to Egypt to secure cotton supplies for her mills.  A few months earlier Ursula had met a Russian Jewess at a New Year's Eve party she had been attending with her husband.  The two women cross paths once again in Cairo where an afternoon spent shopping in a bazaar ends tragically when Katya is murdered.  The pair had become separated, more likely diverted by a group of men and the general cacophony of a noisy overcrowded market.  When next she sees Katya, she is on the ground--not fainted as Ursula suspects--but with blood from a bullet wound seeping through her shirt. 

The local officials assure Ursula that the death is due to nothing more than local politics.  Egyptian nationalists want to disrupt English rule, and a foreigner like Katya was simply an easy target.  Ursula is, however, unconvinced.  Katya and her husband, both being Russian, and Katya's socialist leanings seem like odd choices for assassination targets by nationalists. 

Ursula has problems of her own.  There have been difficulties in her mills and she is having a hard time keeping things running smoothly and under control.  It would seem as though someone is sabotaging her businesses.  Her travels are cut short when she is notified of a death and subsequent fire in one of her mills.  The body of one of the female employees is found in the charred remains.  Was she the target or simply the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?  The death becomes even more mysterious when the woman's identity is revealed--she was Katya's sister.  In true progressive thinking style Ursula accepts a ride on a friend's monoplane in order to return to her mills quickly and begin sorting out what happened.

The mystery moves from Palestine to London to Cairo and to the North of England and soon Ursula finds herself in over her head as she tries to unravel the mystery of deaths of Katya and Arina.  Were the deaths related and were they were intentional crimes or down to simple bad luck.  She is helped once again by her good friend and fellow suffragette Winifred whose own life had been thrown into upheaval after being accused of the murder of her lover.  Death is not an unknown in either women's lives and worse, deaths occurring under horrible circumstances. 

The story becomes even more tantalizing when a man from Ursula's past, a Russian Bolshevik, enters her life once again.  If things had been cool between Ursula and Oliver before, a former beau complicates their tenuous relationship as much as it adds tension to their attraction.  Headstrong as she is Ursula will find who her friends really are and that sometimes you do need to accept help and maybe even love from those closest and most dangerous to your piece of mind. 

Clare Langley-Hawthorne knows just how to pull the reader along and into the story.  Then tension between characters is almost too unbearable--the will they or won't they get together aspect of the story almost too drawn out and Ursula is so independent-minded she sets herself up for possible unhappiness.  Then again, sometimes the anticipation of seeing how characters come together or are pulled apart is both entertaining and quite satisfying when done well.  Ursula is an intriguing character--paradoxical as well.  How does a suffragette with Socialist leanings reconcile also being a mill owner?  No wonder she has issues with being attracted to a "Lord" who also happens to work closely with the government and keeps to the straight and narrow--knowing just how to work the system yet stay comfortably inside it.  

I won't tell you whether they do or don't end up together, but I will say this second book ends with a cliffhanger ending.  For once Ursula is contented and at peace, but Lord Wrotham is . . .  oops, that would be telling.  I have in my hands the third book, Unlikely Traitors, which I would have cracked open already had I not been so dedicated to whittling down my reading pile to a reasonable size (and am not quite there yet, but I am getting close).  My 'Summer of Murder and Mayhem' is at a close (still have a few more to write about), though I will keep reading mysteries as normal.  I am in the midst of a rather chunky historical mystery translated from French, thoroughly enjoyable in a different way.  But Ursula sits and waits on the top of my bedside pile.  I hope to see how things turn out for Ursula and Oliver very soon.

The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell was (happily) a very prolific writer.  And she was writing all the way up to her death this past spring.  As a matter of fact there is still one more novel forthcoming this fall.  I went through a phase where I read loads of her books--nearly all those written under her pen name Barbara Vine (I think those books are amongst my favorites by her), and quite a few of those written as Ruth Rendell, but I have as yet to pick up any of her Inspector Wexford novels.  Maybe this is not a bad thing since now there will be no more books.  There are more than two dozen Wexford novels, many of which I have on hand and will be filling out the remaining titles in my collection.  So while there will be no more, I still have many books left to read and she is an author I would most happily read again.  I think I will be busy with her work for quite some time.

Ruth Rendell was never one to shy away from difficult topics, though her stories have never made me queasy or felt as though they were filled with unnecessary violence.  For that I have a lot of respect.  She manages to capture the reader's attention, perhaps put them on edge even, and all without ever feeling as though the story was over the top.  She often manages to use contemporary events in her stories and will delicately explore all the psychological nuances underneath--the motivations, the hypocrisies, the passions and abuses that might cause someone to be pushed over the edge into the realm of violence.  And she is a master of bringing disparate characters seemingly completely unrelated to each other together in ways you won't imagine.  She can pull the rug out from under you and give you a shocker just when you least expect it. And don't be surprised if you think you have a character all figured out and then she turns the table on you.

That's what she does in The Water's Lovely.  To be honest she sort of threw me for a loop with this one and I had to set it aside for a bit and mull it over.  I don't think I will be giving anything away (and I promise not to share too many details) by saying that, at least in this story, people you may find culpable and maybe even downright odious might just come away smelling of roses.  And those that seem a little on the odd side and perhaps guilty, aren't really in all actuality.  And that twists of fate are not always fair in delivering justice. 

The novel was published in 2006, so it is a later book.  I wonder (it's been a while since I read her work other than the odd novel here and there, so I can't compare not having stories fresh in mind) if it is just on the cynical side to a degree.  She takes actual events that occurred at the time the book was published and throws her characters in them to fend for themselves.  This is what left me somewhat uneasy.  Honestly, though, this is exactly why I love her books.  I may be unsettled by the way things turn out, but isn't that just what life is like sometimes?

The Water's Lovely is the story of two sisters, Ismay and Heather.  A decade earlier their stepfather was found drowned in the bathtub.  While none of the family was implicated in his death, a death eventually ruled accidental, there is a strong suspicion that Heather had something to do with it.  Ismay and her mother returned home that fateful afternoon to find Heather at the top of the staircase, her clothes wet down the front, as she tells them to come and leads them into the bathroom and shows them the body.  Heather was only thirteen.  When the police were called in, Heather's mother tells them she and both girls had just come in from shopping.  No questions were asked, either by the police or by Ismay, her mother or aunt.  But the question ever after hangs over their heads. 

Some things are best left alone and unsaid.  Maybe it was the death of her husband, or maybe the worry of what Heather might have done, or maybe there is just something not quite right in the family, but Beatrix begins to go mad and must never be left alone.  Now all these years later she lives with her sister Pamela in the upstairs part of the house and Ismay and Heather share the flat downstairs.   Heather is a bit unusual, not pretty, but she works and seems fine if a little on the plain side.  Ismay is attractive and independent and has a most attractive lover.  When Heather begins dating a man from her work, Ismay wonders if perhaps she should tell him about her sister's past.  Maybe he should know what might have occurred before things get too serious.

Ismay can't bring herself to tell him, so instead she confesses their past into a tape.  A tape that will turn up later and cause endless problems.  This is not your typical whodunnit.  Did Heather kill her stepfather?  In a way that's not the important question.  Whether she did or didn't isn't what the plot hinges on.  The "why" of the story is much more important, but even then, as the why is explored there is so much more at work in this story.  The why by story's end almost seems as irrelevant as the who.  Or maybe it is, but not in the way the reader expects it. 

How many other books came before this one?  In Ruth Rendell's hands, the stories are always fresh.  She takes the same questions and manages to ask them in ways that are unexpected.  Which is why I can read her over and over again.   She is by far my favorite crime/mystery writer.  This story left me a little unsettled, but I can appreciate the genius that went into telling it.

Summer of Murder & Mayhem Cont'd

In anticipation . . .

I was thinking that it is perhaps time to think about wrapping up my summer reading project of reading mysteries, but I am enjoying them so much, why stop now?  Summer technically doesn't end until mid-September anyway.  And maybe I'll just let it be a year long project (actually it is really just an excuse to binge on mysteries and crime novels.  I'm nearing the end of a couple of mysteries and have finished a few (must still write about them), so I think it is time to choose something new to add to the reading pile.  Of course it is an agonizing choice--because there are far too many really good sounding stories to choose from.

Here's what the current pile of choices looks like at the moment.  It's a continuous shifting about of books to be honest.  If I allow myself to really start looking through all my mysteries it will be an impossible choice.  Usually I have an idea in mind ahead of time--I am looking for a particular sort of story or a particular setting or period, but I'm not quite sure what I am in the mood for at the moment.  Here are a few possibilities:

A Death at the Palace by M.H. Baylis -- the draw: London setting.  "London positively seethes off the page . . . marvellous."

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty -- the draw: suspense story.  "Once you start you can't stop reading".  I need one of those sorts of books.

Fatal Lies by Frank Tallis -- the draw: I've read the first couple of these Rheinhardt/Liebermann mysteries, love the Vienna setting and love even more all the descriptions of coffee and pastries!  Why does this sound like a really good fall or winter setting however?

In the Spider's House by Sarah Diamond -- the draw: psychological thriller and story of obsession.  " . . . best read with the lights on".

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes -- the draw: have heard it is unputdownable.  It is perhaps not my usual fare, but . . .  "Simply one of the best suspense novels I've read in a long time."

Prime Time by Liza Marklund -- the draw: I've read several of the other Annika Bengtzon novels and it is time for the next one.  "Thirteen people in an isolated manor house" and one of them is found dead!

The City of Shadows by Michael Russell -- the draw: the 1930s Dublin setting is quite appealing.  "A missing woman.  Two mysterious murders.  A city shrouded in secrets."

A Deadly Paradise by Grace Brophy -- the draw: I've read one of the Commissario Cenni mysteries and Italy as a destination sounds quite nice right now.  The mystery in this novel harkens back to the dark days of WWII.

Blood Curse by Marizio de Giovanni -- the draw: another Italian setting, this time Naples (the previous book Venice!).  Is this the first or second book in the series--must check that out.  I keep meaning to read these books.  Part of Europa Editions World Noir series. 

Random Violence by Jassy Mackenzie -- the draw: set in South Africa and would count as my next 'around the world' mystery.  P.I. Jade de Jong sounds like an appealing female lead, too!

Not a hard choice at all!  Has anyone read any of these and can recommend one?  I'm going to try and wait until I finish another mystery before picking one of these so I have a few days to let the stories percolate a little bit.

Death in the Fog by Mignon Eberhart

It's taken me a while to get back to Nebraska-writer, Mignon Eberhart, but I knew I would enjoy the next book by her I picked up her, and I did.  She has been called the American Agatha Christie (though I think that is a label that has been pinned on other writers as well).  She was writing books at the same time as Christie, as a matter of fact I think she created her female sleuth, Nurse Keate, just before Christie's Miss Marple arrived on the scene.  Apparently her standalone mystery, Death in the Fog which was published in 1933, is unlike her other books.  But like The Mystery of Hunting's End which I read several years ago, it absolutely oozes with atmosphere.  Atmosphere of the "it was a dark and stormy night" kind.  The sort that was adapted onto the big screen in black and white with really 'moody' scenes.  Really, the kind I think I like best.  Chills from setting and suspense, not blatant and over the top violence.  I love almost every type of mystery, but I'm especially fond of these vintage crime novels.

"Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck."

Isn't that a great quote?  It's by Robert Louis Stevenson and it appears right before the beginning of the novel.  It should give you an idea of where Eberhart is going to take her reader.  In this case, the setting is a cold, foggy afternoon.  A real pea-souper of a day on Lake Michigan in Chicago.  Katie Warren is returning home from a concert in her aunt's "heavy great car".  She's not worried by the dense fog.  She's a very capable driver.  As a matter of fact she's a very capable young woman--until the Great Crash of '29 she was a successful stock broker.  Now she lives with her aunt thanks to her good will and generosity.  Had the invitation not been forthcoming, just where would she be? 

The fog, however, makes it difficult for everyone--drivers and pedestrians alike.  The fog is growing heavier, there is a hint of sleet on the windshields.

"Bits of automobiles loomed out of the fog here and there into confused, futuristic paths of lights; automobiles with their radiators or their rear fenders mysteriously gone.  It was a kind of Cheshire-cat effect gone modern and very noisy."

As she stops for a red light she hears out of her window the oddest snatch of conversation.  "'I won't,' it said simply, 'eat grape hair'.  It paused and then added with plaintive earnestness: 'Nor yet glocks'."  Slightly sinister it sounds, yet Katie is amused, knowing it will remain one of "life's little mysteries" as to who the speakers are.  And a moment later shoulders and head looms out of the fog--a man, but someone she knows.  Another relative of a friend of her aunt Mina's.  Another guest at her aunt's house and so she offers him a ride home.  Back to Mina's somber house, but a welcome haven for poor, penniless Katie. 

What might have been formerly a haven in a storm will soon become almost a prison.  As capable as Katie may be in her driving, the car loses control and begins a slide on the bridge connecting the main road to the lane leading up to her aunt's house.  The slope, the icy bridge, the heavy car, Katie tries to control it all, but she cannot.  It might not have been more than a simple slide and fender bender, but someone had just stepped out into the lane at that very moment.  And Katie, unable to control the car, rolls over a body.  Not a body yet, but her aunt Mina's companion.  It was an accident.  Katie has killed Charlotte Weinberg.  If Katie is capable, Charlotte is formidable.  Aunt Mina is a wealthy older woman who has been in ill health and Charlotte rules the house. 

And now Charlotte is dead, Katie is shaken and unnerved and out of this horrible accident will roll a very twisty mystery.  It was an accident, wasn't it?  When the, in this story--quite odious--detective arrives, what might have been a "simple" yet tragic accident becomes a case of possible murder in cold blood.  And Katie is, of course, the main suspect.  And perhaps one with so much to gain.  Charlotte was controlling of Mina and of everyone else in the household, and it is a full  house--filled with relatives and servants. 

With Charlotte out of the way, anything goes.  It had been assumed that she would have inherited all.  Now Mina is likely to change her will and there is going to be a line of relatives happy to take her place.  Aunt Mina had failing health, but with Charlotte absent, she seems to rally, which throws in question just what Charlotte's motives had been.  And everyone else's motives, too.

Death in the Fog is a wonderfully atmospheric puzzle.  Not quite your typical detective story, since it is the main suspect you find yourself rooting for and quite put off by Mr. Crafft's smarminess.   Like a good Christie mystery, all the clues are there if you can piece them together, though I tend to just enjoy sitting back and enjoying the ride and let the mystery-solving unroll while the fog closes in around the house.  It makes for a claustrophobic, chilling sort of read.  In the back of your mind you know that that 'grape hair' and those 'glocks' are somehow the key to the mystery, but how do you possibly make sense of it all. 

I'll definitely read more by Mignon Eberhart--I think she was quite popular and fairly prolific, and to those who like vintage crime she is well worth searching out.  I want to go back and begin with her Nurse Keate novels.  I think there was at one time a whole genre of 'nurse novels' mysteries and romance alike.  This was a perfect addition to my murder and mayhem summer mystery reading.  I've been trying to read widely and still have several more books to finish before summer's end.  I think I am only missing an international crime novel, something a little grittier perhaps.  Of all the types of books I have had on the go of late, mysteries have been daily fare for me and I have had quite a satisfying run of them!

A Dangerous Place, Jacqueline Winspear

I don't often get to make this claim despite having many mystery series I like to follow, but once again I've read them all and now I have none to look forward to until a new book is published.  Maisie Dobbs, of course.  She is the only fictional sleuth whose books I have read (and savored) each and every one of.  I must admit this latest installment, A Dangerous Place, was a little slower going for me.  When I really like a character, I tend to get very wrapped up in their lives.  While Maisie can be a little formidable and even a little bit prickly on occasion, she is one of my favorite fictional heroines.  Strange as it sounds I feel like I have gone through quite a lot with her.  From the battlefields of WWI as a nurse to, with this latest book, the middle of the Spanish Civil War.  It's been quite a journey and of late, a tumultuous one, too.

I won't give spoilers away in terms of the mystery at the heart of the novel, but it is hard to not to give away a few things when it comes to how Maisie has ended up in Gibraltar.  I won't go into detail, but Maisie's life has taken quite a lot of surprising and difficult turns in the last few years.  In Leaving Everything Most Loved Maisie had come to a turning point in her life.  Finally able to put the war years and her losses behind her and open up to the possibility of a permanent romantic relationship, Maisie had set off for India at the end of the previous novel.  It was time to give her relationship with James Compton some serious thought. 

When the story picks up in A Dangerous Place, it is now 1937.  Four years have passed and Maisie has traveled long distances both literally as well as mentally and psychologically.  In many respects the distances were long and life altering and now her life once again takes on an entirely new trajectory.  Maisie has, after years abroad, decided it is time to return to England.  Nearly there, however, she finds she is not quite ready to set foot on English soil.  Certain emotions must be dealt with and put to rest.  What happens in Gibraltar will again change her perceptibly, in good ways, but also in ways that continue to challenge her.  Darker years are on the horizon, but in some ways she will return to her roots and that in turn helps heal her many wounds.

Her stop in Gibraltar is meant to be only a short stay, to fortify herself for her return home.  The last thing she expects is to get entangled in a murder investigation.  It's a tricky one.  The death of a local man, a photographer, is assumed to be a cut and dry case.  Gibraltar has been overrun by refugees from Spain, which is in the middle of a messy civil war.  Sebastian Babayoff, a member of Gibraltar's Shephardic Jewish community, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and was murdered by one of those refugees.  When Maisie returns to the path where she found the murdered man, she discovers a small camera, which had been thrown aside--perhaps with the intention of hiding it--and overlooked by the local police.  Did he see, and worse photograph, something he shouldn't have?

But with a war going on in Spain, refugees milling about, and an obvious British presence, Maisie begins to wonder how much is chance and whether she is, herself, being manipulated in some way.  Some of her more recent investigations had begun seeping over to the realm of political intrigue rather than simple inquiries using her knowledge of psychology.  Perhaps it was not so surprising considering her beloved mentor, Maurice Blanche, was himself involved in clandestine business with the British Secret Service.  Maisie is no fool and she knows she is being followed.  

Always concerned with getting to the truth of the matter, the real truth, Maisie's questions and her search for the murderer will take her into Gibraltar's Jewish community and even so very far into the heart of Spain.  What she had left behind so very long ago, bombs and wounded men, once again make a vivid and palpable presence in her life.  

What a long way she has come from her years as a servant in the Compton household.  On to the Great War and then Girten College.  Finally an inquiry agent working with her good friend and former soldier Billy Beale.  And now she is on yet another path.  She finds answers, rather she finds truths that have been shaped by circumstance and chance and what is happening in Spain.  Maisie maintains her independence, but once an agent--however reluctant on her part--of the British Secret Service, she may never again be fully her own woman.  Things get sorted, mysteries resolved and Maisie is ready to undertake yet another adventure.  I suspect it might take place off stage--even now she might be doing something related to the war in Spain.  I think she is going to be returning to her investigative roots, but only time will tell.

A character like Maisie, who has gone through so many stories is bound to change over time, and Maisie has certainly never stagnated.  It's been interesting to see how she grows and changes, to see her opinions form according to her life experiences.  This was a slow going read for me not because of the plot but simply to see how much Maisie has endured.  I wonder where her life will take her next.  I only hope that Jacqueline Winspear is even now at work on the next chapter of Maisie's life. 

Until then, I still have Winspear's standalone novel, The Care and Management of Lies, a WWI novel, to look forward to finally reading.  The series in order consists of: Maisie Dobbs, Birds of a Feather, Pardonable Lies, Messenger of Truth, An Incomplete Revenge, Among the Mad, The Mapping of Love and Death, A Lesson in Secrets, Elegy for Eddie and Leaving Everything Most Loved.  I've linked the titles to my own reviews.  Now, once again, the long wait for a new Maisie Dobbs novel begins.

Short Story Sunday: Cheese

Now here's a title that you might not think of as being crime related, "Cheese" by Ethel Lina White.  Whenever I come across a story of hers I always make a point of reading it.  She wrote the novel The Wheel Spins, which Alfred Hitchcock adapted to the screen as The Lady Vanishes and proved to be quite popular--a light-hearted tale of romantic suspense.  Since then I have read a few of her short stories, which are hard to come by but I have tracked down in various short story collections--An Unlocked Window and Waxworks.  I came across her 1941 short story, "Cheese", which is collected in Capital Crimes: London Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards.  Have you seen the series of vintage crime novels that the British Library has been putting out?  I have yet to read any, but they do look good.  

According to the brief biographical introduction (hooray for a little biographical sketch--not all collections bother about sharing information on the authors they have chosen):

"White's specialty was 'woman in jeopardy' suspense fiction, and her ability to evoke a mood of mounting fear has seldom been matched.  Her short stories are little known and mostly hard to find, but 'Cheese' demonstrates her knack of involving the reader in the terror experienced by a woman who faces a cruel adversary, but proves strong and courageous enough to fight back."

I do love a spunky heroine, and in this story Jenny is a country girl who gets involved in something a little out of her league but rises to the challenge.  It is very much a story of its era, more charming than chilling but it certainly has a nice suspenseful vein running through it.

Any ideas what cheese refers to?  I was curious and White doesn't beat around the bush in giving the reader some of the information.

"This story begins with a murder.  It ends with a mouse-trap."

Can you guess who the mouse trap might be?

Rosy-cheeked, fresh from the country and all alone in London Jenny has come to to accept a position as a companion-secretary to an elderly lady of good repute.  A friend in her Girls' Hostel, however, has warned her to be wary of the nephew who will come to pick her up and drive her to her prospective employer's house.  The friend is the niece of a police detective and urges Jenny to go and have the situation checked out.  There's been a series of murders of young women, and London is a big city, especially for a girl just up from the country.

This is so Ethel Lina White: "Inspector Angus Duncan was alone in his office when her message was brought up.  He was a red-haired Scot, handsome in a dour fashion, with a chin of a prize-fighter and keen blue eyes."  See this post and this person (scroll to very bottom of page please).  The perfect actor to play the part in case it is ever made into a movie . . .  Inspector Duncan sees this as the perfect opportunity to set a trap for the killer and Jenny, if she will agree, will act as the cheese for his trap.  He assures her she will be in the presence of the police every step of the way.  If she can just be courageous enough to put herself in the path of the killer.

It all seemingly is going off without a hitch, but there was only a small change of plan, which Jenny makes sure she calls into Inspector Duncan's office.  And then she is off.  The reader may  know the set up of the story from the first sentence, but of course the best laid plans can go awry.  Very much an Ethel Lina White story--Jenny is indeed a woman in jeopardy.

I can see why the story was chosen for a collection of London crime stories.  She does atmosphere very well.  This is the view from Inspector Duncan's window:

"It was between the lights.  River, government offices and factories were all deeply dyed with the blue stain of dusk.  Even in the city, the lilac bushes showed green tips  and an occasional crocus cropped up through the grass of the public gardens, like strewn orange-peel.  The evening star was a jewel in the pale green sky."

"Duncan was impervious to the romance of the hour.  He knew that the twilight was but the prelude to night and that darkness was a shield for crime."

She does atmosphere right, but she is still a writer of her times.  I had a chuckle over this:

"Hitherto, he had thought of women merely as 'skirts'.  He had regarded a saucepan with an angry woman at the business end of it, merely as a weapon.  For the first time he had a domestic vision of a country girl--creamy and fragrant as meadowsweet--in a nice womanly setting of saucepans."

I had a chuckle as that is the least appealing setting I can imagine myself in.  But the story is from 1941 and somehow I think Duncan means it all very complimentary.  I think Jenny is more than cheese/bait for a killer, but maybe a confirmed bachelor, too.  It was a fun story.  Maybe a little dated, but still entertaining.  

No New Yorker story this weekend since the last issue was a double issue and had only one story for both weeks.  I'm not sure where my story reading is going.  Maybe I will get back to Francis Wyndham.  I've been meaning to order a collection by Tove Jansson, but I seem to forget every time I place an order.  I need something a little different--one reviewer called her stories "unacknowledged masterpieces" which sounds very promising.  Who should I look for?  Someone contemporary maybe.  Not necessarily a woman, but you know I tend to pick up women authors to read.  I think it is time to browse my stacks--I have lots of collections, though maybe more anthologies than by a single author.  I know if I go looking I will end up with a stack of books to choose from.  

My posts may be every other day this week as the humidity of summer has arrived with a vengeance and my 'writing room' (how fancy is that--the room where my computer is) is extremely toasty.  I have a hard time concentrating when sweat is trickling down between my shoulder blades.  I always feel for characters in stories who have that problem.  Unfortunately I know exactly how that feels. 

Consequences of Sin by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Suffragettes seem to be turning up left and right in my reading at the moment.  Ursula Marlowe is a suffragette I had encountered in my past reading and liked very much and so was very disappointed when she appeared in only two novels, before doing a short disappearing act.  Happily she has finally resurfaced in a new book, so I dug out her first adventure, Consequences of Sin, and dusted it off and enjoyed it just as much this time around as the first.  There are a handful of fictional heroines I would love to 'meet' (Amelia Peabody and Maisie Dobbs to name but two) and I am sure Ursula Marlowe would be an interesting and clever friend to have.  I'd go to a suffragette meeting with her anytime.

Considering her father is a self-made man, a wealthy mill owner and proper Edwardian gentleman living in Belgravia Square, Ursula should really be contemplating making a good match and buying frilly things to wear, maybe attending country house parties, instead she goes to WPSU meetings, reads H.G. Wells (Ann Veronica), has something of a past with a Russian emigre and counts among her friends a woman who dresses as a man.  As a matter of fact it's her friend Winifred Stanford-Jones who will get Ursula involved with murder.  It's almost surprising really that her father is so indulgent with her (up to a point that is), but perhaps because her mother died when Ursula was very young he gives her more space than most young women of that period would enjoy.  

Winifred calls Ursula one night in a state of distress, and she is not one to usually lose control of her emotions.  There's no one else she can turn to, and Ursula realizes just how right that is since in Winifred's bed is a naked woman who has been murdered.  Freddie has no recollection of what happened to her lover and now no one to turn to.  And now Ursula must summon the courage to ask for help from the one man she dreads being in debt to--Lord Oliver Wrotham.  Wrotham is her father's trusted adviser, a King's Council, a bit stuffy and very upright but someone who Ursula knows she can trust to make sense of a seemingly senseless and inexplicable murder.

Lord Wrotham is quite successful for his age, much younger than her father.  He has a title but not the funds to match, his older brother having led a dissipated life and spending the family's wealth before dying.  Wrotham is a bit of a paradox--conventional and fairly conservative, always right in his thinking yet there is something about him--an artistic side.  Not exactly someone who just prefers the finer things in life, but more a contemporary open-mindedness.  There are, unsurprisingly, sparks between the two, but Ursula is determined to be independent and forward thinking and will Wrotham be able to match her liberality?

Both will be tested as it's not just Freddie who has been targeted but all the young people in Ursula's social group, some simply peers rather than good friends.  Their families make up a tight-knit group with shared histories and those histories twine together with secrets that everyone would prefer remained hidden.  Two decades earlier Ursula's father was part of an expedition to Venezuela that has been shrouded in mystery and thought long forgotten.  Freddie's possible implication into murder is only the very tip of the iceberg.   Something terrible was covered up and now someone wants to make sure it is finally brought to light.

This is a mystery that will see Ursula lose almost everything she holds dear and a flight to South America herself to try and discover just what is at the heart of all the horrible things that seem to be happening to those around her she most loves.  You might expect that an Edwardian mystery would move at a stately progress but it is actually quite a pacy mystery with a likable but conflicted heroine and a few twists and turns along the way.  She's not afraid to be daring, and is maybe even a little too fearless sometimes for her own good. 

I've already started reading the second Ursula Marlowe mystery, The Serpent and the Scorpion, which is set in part in Egypt.  There are unresolved questions concerning just what Lord Wrotham is to Ursula, and that Russian emigre hinted at in the first book is going to return in the second to make things nice and complicated.  All this is in anticipation for finally reading Clare Langley-Hawthorne's newest Ursula Marlowe novel, Unlikely Traitors, which I have been waiting ages for.  Maybe now I can finally find out what happens between Ursula and Oliver!

And the Summer Reading Begins . . .

. . . or continues as the case may be for some of us who couldn't quite wait until the official days of summer arrive.  I've been trying to check in with Feedly daily and so have noted down all sorts of interesting reading plans and readalongs that others are taking part in or organizing.  While I have not been a very good "joiner" of late (everything sounds so interesting and appealing, but there is never enough time) there is lots to choose from should the desire arise!

First a few temptations:

I like the list of books that the Estella Society came up with for their Season 3 TBR Project.  I like to play this little mental game--if I was going to join in, which book (or books) would I choose to read?  My own TBR pile contains both Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus (I even had to have it in hardcover!).  Unfortunately the Catton is just a little too long to contemplate reading at the moment, though I might pick up the Morgenstern at some point this summer.

Dolce Bellezza's ninth annual Japanese Literature Challenge might actually work out with my own mystery-summer-reading project already underway.  I read my first Haruki Murakami novel earlier this year and found I like him very much indeed.  Maybe I could incorporate something by Natsuo Kirino?  Maybe there might even be a Murakami novel that would fit into my mystery reading?

And then there is Paris in July #6 organized by Thyme for Tea.  I'm sure I could easily fit in a French author who writes crime novels or mysteries--Fred Vargas is already on my TBR pile.  Maybe Georges Simenon or (most definitely) Jean-Claude Izzo.

I think I will try and read along with Simon at Stuck in a Book for the Shirley Jackson Reading Week in July.  How about Hangsaman based on an actual disappearance.  It might only be peripherally related to my reading, but I am very lenient when it comes to 'reading rules'. 

* * * * *

My own mystery reading continues apace and considering that the official start of summer is still a week off, I think I've made quite a lot of progress so far.  My in progress books are on my sidebar (yes, there are a lot of them--I have been doing a rotation of sorts so focus on just a couple each week. I know-I tend to be overenthusiastic about starting books, but since it is my summer reading project I have been very self-indulgent.  I have finished a number of books however:

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, Rattle His Bones by Carola Dunn, A Possibility of Violence by D.A. Mishani, and Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death by James Runcie.

And there have been a few teasers, too:

Mignon Eberhart's Death in the Fog, Vera Caspary's Laura, and Lindsey Davis's The Ides of April.

I'm still thinking about my Around the World in Seven Murders.  Two down and five to go.  Technically I could cross off Europe, but it would be a mystery set in England and I should really get more creative than that (since I read mostly books by British authors or set in England that is).  I have a few books in mind to pick up next but with so many categories to choose from, I am only thinking about it at the moment . . . until I finish my next mystery (likely Mignon Eberhart).

I have a feeling I am (once again) not going to get to the next story (which is a novella) by Francis Wyndham this weekend, but I was thinking a good crime story might make a nice addition to my reading.  I have my hefty OxCrimes collection as well as a stack of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines.

Needless to say there will be mystery reading going on at my house this weekend.  I hope you have something good, maybe even suspenseful or edge-of-your-seat good, to read this weekend, too.

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

Sidney Chambers has to be the dishiest (and coolest) vicar I have ever come across in literature (and maybe even in real life . . . though I admit I can't say I have any vicars in my own personal circle of friends . . . a pity, I think).  What can I tell you about James Runcie's first Grantchester Mystery, Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death?  Are you like me and you watched the adaptation this past winter on PBS?  Okay, James Norton does make the character even dishier than he appears in the book, but he is pretty darn likable in the book (and I already have the second book on hand, too, Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night). 

I set out to read the book (the first of four so far), which is a collection of interlinked stories, before watching the TV adaptation, but quickly fell behind.  So I have now read the book and only watched some of the episodes and now it is safe to go back and watch them all in a mini-marathon Sidney Chambers weekend.  Such a trial is my life sometimes.  You may have already read the book?  Seen the shows?  I won't try and write about each story though I think I will tell you about my favorite.  In case you don't know Sidney, let me tell you about him since I plan on continuing on and always like to have a character's back story in mind as I progress through the books.

Sidney Chambers is not your regular, everyday run-of-the-mill stereotypical vicar.  For one thing he likes jazz.  He is good friends with a detective, Geordie Keating, with whom he likes to play backgammon and have interesting discussions.  It's thanks to Geordie that he so often finds himself enmeshed in criminal investigations.  What a perfect "in" anyway--nothing like a father-confessor figure to wrangle a few truths out of criminals and witnesses.  Sidney most certainly instills a certain confidence and assurance in people and then they end up telling him all sorts of things.  Besides he has an analytical mind (as well as a gentleness about him--though he is by no means perfect) which helps.  Oh, and to make things interesting he is in love (I know he is even if he doesn't come out and say it) with a wealthy debutante who happens to work at the National Gallery as an Art Historian.  They are very good friends, but it wouldn't do for her to marry a vicar (she is in love with him, too, even though I am not sure she admits it to herself) when she is used to living a certain kind of life.  Not really vicar's wife material is Amanda.

"Canon Sidney Chambers had never intended to become a detective.  Indeed, it came about quite by chance, after a funeral, when a handsome woman of indeterminate age voiced her suspicion that the recent death of a Cambridge solicitor was not a suicide, as had been widely reported, but murder."

It's 1953 and yes, the setting is Cambridge (with brief forays to London to see Amanda and hear jazz . . .  curiously she is slightly more conventional than Sidney and thinks jazz pretty atrocious).  More than one person makes the mistake of assuming Sidney stayed out of the war, being a vicar and all, but he actually served as an officer in the Scots Guards and carries the horrors of the war with him still.  Maybe it is his experiences in the war that makes him not only compassionate but very open-minded.   He can be quite charming, too.

"Sidney Chambers was a tall, slender man in his early thirties.  A lover of warm beer and hot jazz, a keen cricketer and an avid reader, he was known for his understated clerical elegance.  His high forehead, aquiline nose and longish chin were softened by nut-brown eyes and a gentle smile, one that suggested he was prepared to think the best of people.  He had had the priestly good fortune to be born on a Sabbath day and was ordained soon after the war.  After a brief curacy in Coventry, and a short spell as domestic chaplain to the Bishop of Ely, he had been appointed vicar to the church of St. Andrew and St. Mary in 1952."

The stories flow nicely from one to the next and follow the rhythm of the year, and even though each is its own individual mystery the overall story develops just as in a novel.  My favorite story is one that actually features Amanda more than Sidney, "The Lost Holbein".  Sidney is somewhat out of his element when he's invited to Locket Hall complete with a Lord, a butler and rare painting possibly by Holbein (even though its owner thinks it's rather ugly).   But the Tevershams are parishioners, even if they are the sort who only attend church on high days and holidays.

(Side note--Sidney is not always the perfect christian . . . it crosses his mind that he wishes he had the courage to turn people like the Tevershams away when they can only be bothered to go to church on a few important days of the year.  And not every vicar is a fan of dry sherry.  He would much prefer something just a tad stronger).

When the discussion turns to the collection of paintings with a potential Holbein amongst them, and how it's sale to a museum might save the family estate, Sidney mentions his good friend Miss Kendell and how she might look at their collection of paintings and advise them.  Indeed the painting was likely a Holbein.  Was likely.  When the family had the painting cleaned a forgery was returned in its place.  Knowing Sidney's predilection for amateur sleuthing, Amanda thinks she might make a few discreet inquiries on her own.  No need to call Sidney in until she is sure what she suspects--that the painting was swapped out.  She goes in search of the restorer and finds herself entangled in something far more sinister than she bargained for. 

Like any good cozy mystery, there is a dark underside to happy village life.  Things are never so shiny and easy as they appear.  Still, this first Grantchester mystery was as charming as I had hoped and expected it to be.  And just as I suspected when I set out to write about it, and remember the pleasure I had in meeting Sidney (and his adorable dog Dickens!), I now want to go pull the next book off my shelf and begin reading.  I think it is a full length novel rather than stories.  Where will Sidney find himself next.  Will Amanda marry one of her rich suitors?  Will Sidney try for her hand?  Or maybe he will go to Germany to visit Hildegard, a woman he met in one of his investigations?  There were a few sparks there as well.  I only hope there will be a next season to the Grantchester Mysteries on PBS.  But first, as always, must read the books. 

A Possibility of Violence by D.A. Mishani

One of the things I like about D.A. Mishani's detective, Inspector Avraham Avraham, is his evenness.  He has no real hang ups like most fictional detectives (or no serious ones anyway).  Now that's not to say that things don't bother him or get him down . . . they do.  As a matter of fact there were some things that happened in his previous case that have influenced how he behaves this time out in A Possibility of Violence (translated from the Hebrew by Todd Hasak-Lowy).

When last we met up with Inspector Avraham he made some missteps on a case concerning the disappearance of a high school student.  He didn't exactly dismiss the worried mother who shows up one night at the police station reporting her son missing, but he assured her he would turn up soon enough.  You know how teenagers are.  Give it a day.  A day for clues, in what will turn out to be a case of domestic abuse, to scatter or turn cold.  The case was ultimately solved and there had been nothing really Avraham could have done to change the outcome, but it might have been a tidier affair and a quicker solve had he initiated the investigation right away rather than waiting.

So when a suitcase containing what appears to be an explosive device is left outside a day care, he is not going to take any chances.  A suspect is caught running away from the scene and is brought in for questioning but with no hard evidence he's released.  The suitcase contained only a fake bomb and is likely the result of a dispute between criminals or neighbors, but it's worrisome that it was left so close to a day care.  Is it meant to be a warning, and if so for whom?  And worse, what happens next time?  Will there be a live bomb?  With small children coming and going, there is pressure on Avraham to make quick and steady progress. 

There is no room this time for missteps.  A report, unbeknownst to him, had been written and placed in his file by his boss--now on leave for health issues.  Ilana is more than a boss, she's a friend, so when Avi finds out that her report, while not ultimately damning, is critical of how he handled his last case, he feels betrayed and on edge.  Ilana has always been a sort of rabbi for him--a 'father confessor' and now he feels adrift in his new case.  Compounded by the fact he has a new boss and a Belgian girlfriend who is not answering his phone calls--well, he's under pressure.

If Mishani has given his readers a mild mannered detective, he knows how to build a story that is nicely complex and twisty turny.  Look for the obvious but don't necessarily expect it.  And tread carefully around those red herrings.  Mishani's style is to have more than one thread in his mysteries and he weaves them together in a knot that is tricky to untangle.  Which is the real mystery or how are they related?

A suspect was caught running away from the scene, but it can't be confirmed he had anything to do with the suitcase.  There is, however, one more witness.  The elder brother of a boy who goes to the daycare has seen something.  Every morning his father brings the two boys each to his respective school and daycare.  Maybe the father has something to hide since he is known to have had an argument with the teacher over bruises he found on his son.  His wife is away visiting family in her native Philippines.  He is an older father, an unlikely father of two small boys.  He has his own secrets.

With the possibility of more violence, and potentially violence aimed at a daycare, Inspector Avraham is meant to toe the line, cross all the 'T's' and dot all the 'I's'.  But he knows there is more than meets the eye to this case.  He's instructed to consider all leads and leave no line of questioning unexplored.  And most importantly not to make assumptions based on a gut feeling that his boss is sure is the result of guilt over how he handled his last case.  In other words stay on track and don't spend time on inquiries leading (seemingly) nowhere.

This is almost a test for Inspector Avraham.  Can he comport himself correctly.  Can he avoid getting caught up in minutiae that is unlikely to be connected with the case.  And how far can he go in his own line of inquiry before bringing down the wrath of his superiors.  At the end of the previous book he had settled in well with his Belgian lover and their plans for her to move to Israel are now strained, but he has no idea why, so there is lots going on in Avraham's life.

Mishani has written yet another engaging mystery told from two different perspectives with just the right balance of psychological insight to criminal motivations and social details of a country so interesting and so paradoxical as well as infusing it with details of Avraham's personality and private life.  I'm already waiting for the next installment, which I hear is due out soon in Israel.  And hopefully an English translation will follow quickly.