The mystery really begins with a bang when a masked intruder bursts into Blubber B Gone ( a weight loss chain) and murders the owner.
Camerin Torres takes a new job with Trend magazine and although assigned to copyediting, begins to investigate the murder. She soon realizes that murders always follow visits by Terry Mangel, and his body positivity traveling group, and the murders are always of people associated with weight loss businesses. Since Camerin herself has unresolved issues surrounding weight and weight loss, she is drawn further and further in to the investigation, even traveling to Philadelphia to visit the most recent stop of Mangel’s show. Her impulsive action puts her in legal trouble and her life in danger.
An unexpected romance blossoms between Camarin and Trend’s owner, who has secrets of his own.The romance distracts a bit from the mystery, but the central theme of this society’s focus on weight was captivating. The list of research materials at the end was also very interesting. A mystery that makes one think.
Mornings on Horseback, by David McCullough, is a selective biography of Theodore Roosevelt. McCullough does not discuss in depth Roosevelt’s political career, although of course it is touched on in several places.
Instead, McCullough concentrates on Roosevelt’s childhood and youth, and the family which had so much influence on him. His father, Theodore Roosevelt Senior, was almost a god in his children’s eyes. As with many of the wealthy, Senior was a philanthropist, something that influenced his son.
The family was almost unbelievably wealthy and the children enjoyed every privilege. That did not, however, prevent serious health issues. Anna (Bamie), the eldest daughter, was born with a twisted spine. Elliott suffered from seizures (possibly epilepsy) and died young from alcoholism. (He is Eleanor’s father). Theodore himself suffered throughout his life from asthma and McCullough compellingly makes the case that Roosevelt’s interest in the outdoors, the open spaces, the hiking, hunting, birding and so on, stemmed at least in part from an early treatment for his asthma.
Hooker Avenue, by Jode Millman, takes place in Poughkeepsie, New York. Since I live close by, have lived in the Hudson Valley most of my life, and attended college in Poughkeepsie, this is familiar territory.
The mystery follows several characters. Jessie Martin, Det Ebony Jones and Lissie Sexton. Jess, a disgraced lawyer, sees a shiny flash in her headlights one rainy night. Lissie is trapped in a storm drain and in danger of drowning. This event begins a chain that links the three women together in the hunt for a serial killer.
Lissie in particular is a captivating, although not particularly likable, character. Severely beaten, she narrowly escapes the killer. But, as a prostitute with a rap sheet, she is dismissed until Ebony ties the beating to a string of missing women.
Exciting and enjoyable. My only criticism is that the wrap up could have been tightened up.
The Changeling Queen, by Kimberly Bea, begins with the English folk song, Tam Lin. For those unfamiliar with the song, Tam Lin, an earthly knight, is the lover of the Faerie Queen. He is destined for the teind, a fee Faerie pays to Hell. But Janet, a human woman who is carrying Tam Lin’s child, pulls him from his horse and holds on through the magical changes the Queen throws on him. (A snake, a burning brand etc.)
The Faerie Queen, determined to win, tells Tam Lin and Janet her story. She hopes to trick them into surrender.
The Queen was raised by a human midwife and given a human name, Bess. For a time, Bess chooses to remain in the human world, working as a healer, and falling in love with Thomas Shepherd, the bastard son of a noble. But he chooses to marry a human woman and Bess, hurting and vulnerable to the machinations of the Dark God Amman, returns to the faerie realm.
Recommended. I enjoyed this. A better book in my opinion that deals with the Faerie Realm and the teind is The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope. The Elizabethan world is believably depicted and the Faerie Realm and Faerie Queen carry an aura of menace. I reread this book regularly; it is that good.
The Cretan Zeus is not quite the same as the Classical Greek version of the God. For one thing, the Cretan Zeus is more of a harvest God who is born again each spring and dies in the Fall. Since Classical Greeks thought all Gods and Goddesses should be immortal, they changed the attribute of the God whose name they’d taken and declared all Cretans are liars. They kept, however, the story of his upbringing in a cave after his father, Cronus in Classical Greek mythology, swallowed all his children. A prophesy declared one would be his killer. To prevent that, Cronus swallowed them. But Rhea, to protect her remaining child, dressed a stone in swaddling clothes so Cronus swallowed the rock instead.
In both versions, Zeus was nursed by a nanny goat – or one of several other animals such as a pig. Take your pick. I’ve now read several variations. Zeus’s crying was masked by the Kouretes, a group of armed men who clashed their weapons together to hide the cries.
So what does this have to do with Dionysus? Well, the Cretan Zeus is more like Dionysus. A mortal harvest God followed by ecstatic worshippers.
When I was in Greece at Delphi I asked our tour guide why Dionysus was so different from the Classical Greek Gods. They do not embody the Dionysian wildness and several represent rationality. She didn’t know but I have the answer now. Dionysus is a very old God. He is named in the linear B tablets. And in many, if not most, of the other Middle Eastern Bronze Age religions there are other Gods like him.
These early beliefs were concentrated on fertility – not just human fertility although in Bronze Age Crete the High Priestess, as an earthly representation of the Goddess, represented that fertility. Ritual intercourse was practiced not only in the Mediterranean but as far away as Norway. For these early farmers, fertility among the livestock and of course a good harvest meant the difference between life and death. According to Joseph Campbell, in very early times the king of the land, (or the consort to the Priestess) was sacrificed so that his blood would nourish the land and promote that fertility. This practice evolved to a ritual sacrifice, using animals or other rites that stood in for the death of the king.
That is why the High Priestess had such power. Although we are not entirely sure how much, I imagined her as THE power, with her consort controlling the administration of the state. Bulls and other animals were sacrificed, but other rituals were also employed. I suggest that the consort is required to reestablish his strength by facing a bull in the ring.
Of course, as the Priestess comes to the end of her fertile years, she would be replaced with a younger woman.
The Red Queen is the 26th entry in the Richard Jury series. And what a disappointment.
Tom Treadnor is shot through the window in a local pub, The Queen. When Jury investigates, he sees someone has edited the pub’s name to The Red Queen. When he begins investigating, he discovers everyone has a different opinion of the victim. Jury sends his friends Melrose Plant and Gerrard Gerrard to the Treadnor estate to do some undercover investigating. I was never sure why this section was included since it offered nothing to the mystery.
About halfway through, Jury’s sergeant suddenly leaves Scotland Yard to look for a sister that disappeared five years ago and has suddenly reappeared. (In past novels, the sister is believed dead.)
I’ve read almost all of the Grimes’ mysteries and yet I felt as though I’d gone to a party where I knew no one, but they knew each other. There was almost no back story to help put the reader in the know. There was, however, an awful lot of empty banter. And the murder mystery was not very good. But at least there was an ending, albeit not a very plausible one. Wiggins’ story feels half-finished with several unanswered questions.
This sounds like a dry topic, doesn’t it? Well, when one reads contemporary accounts of the women and children affected by this cruel system, it rapidly becomes, instead of dry, horrifyingly real and really awful.
What was warning out? The poor, it is said, are always with us. And the poor tend to be disproportionately women and children. Mortality was high and although there were plenty of widowers, there were a significant number of widows also, many with dependent children. Women didn’t have ‘careers’; they were taught to rely on a man and everything in the culture excluded them from paid employment except for domestic chores. They worked as help or wove out of the home. (Hence the rise of wet nursing as a profession.) So what happened if a woman fell ill? Or a young woman became pregnant out of wedlock? Or it was a bad year?
The first step the town fathers took was to confirm that this family deserved help. Had the adult been born in the town? If not, she and her children were ‘warned out’ to her town of birth. It did not matter that she had left the town for a very good reason; back she went. If she was pregnant, and late in the term, the town fathers would pay for the birth and care until she could travel. (And the accounts are full of bitching about the expense!) Back she went, even if the baby’s father was still in town.
Some towns were relatively progressive for the times and tried to pay for the trip. Others not so much. A woman’s children could be snatched away and sent out to work and she might never see them again. (And the care of the kids under these circumstances was dire: ten year-olds were expected to work like adult men.)
What this charity came down to was this: The affluent men who ran the town did not want to pay for the care of anyone out of town coffers. Grudgingly, they would do so for people who they knew and whose families were long time residents, if these people were deserving. Everyone else was sent away or allowed to starve.
This is where the Shakers came in. They took in many of these desperate people – and some of the orphans became Shakers in their turn.
Does any of this resistance to helping another sound familiar? This country has evolved in baby steps but there are some who would send us back to this.
This past week I read Dachshund Through the Snow by David Rosenfelt. I love these books. They are funny and with good mysteries as well.
In this one, Andy Carpenter is persuaded by his wife and by a Christmas wish from a young boy, to bring his father home. But he doesn’t want to be found. He knows he is suspected of a murder that happened long ago, a murder he assures Carpenter he didn’t commit.
As he investigates, Carpenter begins to believe the young man is telling the truth. Especially after several people assigned to watch Carpenter are murdered. Then another man who was asking questions.
Sure enough, the case is way more complicated than it first appears. But Andy pursues it to the end and justice is served.
Bulls in Ancient Crete were sacred. We know that from the murals and the statuary that show how valuable the bull was. Rhytons, drinking cups, were even made in the shape of a horned bulls head. I’ve certainly discussed at length the ritual of bull leaping. Teenagers, little more than kids actually, ran at a charging bull, grabbing the horns, and flipping over the beast.
These are not out modern bulls either. These were bulls that were especially fast. They are not extinct, a poacher killed the last one that was housed in a Polish zoo.
How do we know about this ritual? Well, anyone who knows the Theseus myth is familiar with the minotaur. Athens had to send 14 tributes to Knossos; 7 boys and 7 girls. In the myth, they face the minotaur in the labyrinth. Theseus, with the aid of a ball of string and a sword given him by the king’s daughter Ariadne, defeats the minotaur.Frescoes from Knossos show they teenagers leaping over a charging bull. Another member of the team caught the jumper. There seems to be no doubt this ritual occurred.
What is behind the veneration of the bull? I’ve read varying explanations. Is it because the Bull represented the male principle, even in a society with a Supreme Goddess? Is it because of the connection with Poseidon. also a God in this culture. (I have mentioned previously how much the Classical Greeks borrowed from the Minoans).
A stylized version of the bull’s horns, called the Horns of Consecration, were used everywhere. Examples have survived in Knossos.
I regularly read nonfiction. (A lot of research material, but I don’t blog about that.) This past week I read two nonfiction books just from interest.
When I started this book, I thought it would be about Woodrow Wilson but it turned out to be primarily about William Bullitt. An energetic politician, Bullitt was active right about to the Nixon years. Bullitt was active during World War II, was given a medal by DeGaulle, and also served as an ambassador to the Soviet Union.
The book was only slightly about Wilson. It began with a few chapters, focusing especially on a psychological workup of Wilson by Freud and ended with the release of that workup. So a break of almost forty years. Bullitt waited until Wilson and his wife were dead.
Bullitt was an interesting character. Super smart. His assessments of the Nazis and the Soviets was spot on. I was disappointed there was not more about Wilson, however. And I feel the psychological assessment reached in some cases. So, an interesting book, but not a total success.
Now for a complete change of pace. This book is a history of the video game industry from the early 2000s. I love video games and have played many, many, right up to the Burning Shores ( from the Horizon Forbidden West franchise), Mario smash brothers, Hollow Knight and Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. (Not a fan. The game felt clunky and old-fashioned to me.) I have not played all the games discussed. Shovel Knight, for example. I have played Assassin’s Creed, although not Unity. (I’m glad since apparently the game kept glitching and one of the NPC’s face would explode. Disturbing to say the least.) Huge fan of Dragon’s Age and Witcher 3. Even bigger fan of The Last of Us, one and two, but this game was not included in the book.
I may go back and look up some of the games I missed. Yes, I still have my PS4 as well as my PS5.
I am even more amazed, after reading about all the trouble these teams went through, that my friend Thomas Happ developed Axiom Verge BY HIMSELF. The first was released in 2015, after five years of development. The second installment came out in 2021. Both were considered among the best games of those years.
