Author Archives: Eleanor Kuhns

About Eleanor Kuhns

Librarian and Writer Published A Simple Murder, May 2012

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Last week I read two of the books I picked up at the Suffolk Author Festival.

Orphans Amelia and Jonah Mathews have parlayed her modest psychic talent into a comfortable life. But a head injury increases that talent far more than she is prepared for. When she wakes from her coma, and sees a ghost for the first time, her reaction lands her in the notorious insane asylum Blackwell’s Island.

While Jonah searches for his sister, Amelia attempts to survive. Finding an ally in new doctor, Andrew Cavanaugh, they discover a terrible murder for hire conspiracy.

Highly Recommended. I hope Murphy continues this series. The characters are appealing and the story is un-put-downable.

The Bronze Compass begins with a bang as Lily, an American spy in Nazi Germany, watches as her contact commits suicide rather than be taken by the Gestapo.

A harrowing flight, with no food or resources, through Germany to safety behind the American lines ensues. Lily does find some help along the way, particularly from a stray horse, but her success rests primarily on her own resourcefulness.

This was an exciting suspense/spy novel. My only criticism is that Butler devotes several chapters at the end to wrapping up all the story threads. These final chapters dilute the excitement of the bulk of the story, and could probably and more effectively been condensed into an epilogue.

Recommended with that caveat.

early F

Mexico City

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I have not kept to my usual schedule of blogging. My husband and I were in La Ciudad de Mexico for a wedding. A beautiful wedding in a small jewel of a church. Since the mass was in Spanish, I caught only a little of it. A mariachi band walked the bride down the aisle and also performed at the reception!

While in Mexico City, we ate tacos on the street, visited a restaurant that could have provided the template for the village square scene in the movie, Coco, and visited several museums and Tenochitlan. (This is an archaeological site, well worth a visit.) I tasted pulque, which I liked better than I expected.

One of the museums we visited was El Museo del Artes Popular. Really interesting with displays of pottery, embroidery and a special display on El Dia Del Muertos – the Day of the Dead. In fact, skulls and skeletons were everywhere, not just in this museum, but as souvenirs in the Anthropology Museum and as trinkets at the Mercados on the street.

We also visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The original church is sinking. Although it has been pumped up, the slant is still obvious. A beautiful modern church that seats 10,000 is nearby.

Everyone was lovely to us and didn’t mock my pathetic Spanish. We never felt unsafe. We did not drink the water; even the locals drink bottled water.

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I wil be reading some of the books I bought at the Suffolk Book Festival. Murder Strikes a Chord by Heather Weidner is the first.

When Cassidy inherited her grandmother’s property and event venue business, she also inherited her grandmother’s four sixty plus friends, the Pearly Girls, who wear their pearls everywhere.

In this outing, Cassidy has arranged a nostalgia tour for several rock bands popular during the eighties. The Weatherman are the headliners; that is, until the lead singer and primary songwriter is founded garroted.

Since the relationship between the band members is testy, suspicion immediately falls on them. But Johnny Storm has lived the rock and roll lifestyle so there are plenty of other suspects.

At the same time Cassidy is investigating the murder, and trying to run a business, she is dealing with the mayhem caused by the Pearly girls.

A funny and light-hearted mystery. Lots of fun.

Suffolk, Virginia

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By now, Everyone knows I attended a book festival in this city. Not only is the festival just about my favorite, but I love the city itself.

The Great Dismal Swamp lies just outside, and, I would suspect, some of the city lies on reclaimed swamp land. I’ve taken several tours of the swamp, which provided the basis for one of my favorite of my own books: Death in the Great Dismal.

The swamp was established as a wildlife preserve in 1974. It is a peat swamp and the estimate of the depth is 15 feet of peat. When walking through the swamp it is important to watch your footing; the tour guide dropped a pole down and it rapidly disappeared from sight. The preserve is owned by the wildlife. Signs of bears are everywhere. All the insects bite. Unusual birds flutter through the tall, straight pole pines. Truly an amazing place.

Suffolk is also a major producer of peanuts. A short drive around shows peanut farms and a drive through town brings one to the peanut factories. The peanut itself is a curious plant. The peanut is unusual because, although it flowers above ground, the seeds, I.e. peanuts, are below the ground. They have to be dried to release the moisture from the soil.

As is usual with some of the weird plants we eat for food, how were peanuts discovered? Did someone dig up the roots and find the peanuts growing beside the roots? Who figured out they need drying? That they can be roasted?

The Virginia peanut is large and very crunchy, larger than most, and so crunchy my jaw started to hurt. They are a legume, not a nut, despite the name. These groundnuts, originally only eaten by pigs, were studied extensively by George Washington Carver. He developed hundreds of uses for them but credit for making peanut butter lies with Dr. John Kellogg, he of cereal fame.

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Revenge in Rubies is the second in the Harriet Gordon Mysteries.

When the young wife of a British officer is murdered in her bedroom, the military closes ranks to keep Inspector Curran out. Harriet realizes her friendship with the victim’s sister-in-law might prove useful and she calls upon the bereaved family to offer comfort. Other murders quickly follow and both Harriet and Curran are soon in the killer’s sights.

Both of them must deal with their own demons before they can solve this mystery.

Another winner from A. M. Stuart. I love this series. Highly recommended.

I also read Dance of Bones by J. A. Jance.

Big Bad John Lassiter is convicted of the murder of his best friend and partner Amos Warren and sent to prison. Thirty years later his daughter, who he has never met, wants the case reopened. Brandon Walker is reluctant but agrees to look into it and finds that there is more than a reasonable doubt that Lassiter is innocent.

A parallel story involving Lani, Walker’s adopted daughter, intersperses the main story. The stories and rites of the Tohono O’odham tribe are a big part of this half of the novel.

The two stories meet, separate, meet separate again and again, finally joining for a blowout ending.

This is the first that draw J.P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker together in one book, which is interesting.

Recommended with reservations. There are a lot of characters. And, with the tribal stories, and the two halves of the mystery all happening at the same time, it starts to get a little confusing. But there is no doubt there is a lot going on and it keeps a reader’s interest.

The Suffolk Author’s Festival

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Instead of blogging about books, I thought I would talk about the Festival. I’ve gone many years running; this is one of my favorite festivals. The staff is great, I love the area, and I really enjoy meeting the readers.

I also always sell quite a few books.

This year I also served on a panel. Moderated by Christine Trent (author of Lady of Ashes and the Florence Nightingale mysteries), the panel discussed Balancing Fact and Fiction. Also on the panel were Ellen Butler, Nicole Glover, Stacie Murphy, and Katharine Schellman. Of the panel members, outside of Christine, I’ve read only Katharine Schellman. Expect reviews of the other authors’ books to come. I bought eight books while I was there.

Other old friends I connected with: Heather Weidner and John Dedakis, both of whom have new books out in their series. (For Heather, it is the Pearly Girls.) Some authors I met last year: Maggie King and Mike Marsh I met last year and got reacquainted with this year.

New authors for me: Esme Addison and Lee Clark. I expect to read books by these authors as well.

The headliner was Tonya Kappes who has written more books than I can count.

This festival is such fun I hope to attend again next year.

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Sleep in Heavenly Pizza (the fourth of Mindy Quigley’s Deep Dish Pizza series) starts with a bang at a holiday party for a wealthy family. Delilah follows one of the women upstairs and quickly realizes something is going on. The undercurrents continue, culminating in the discovery of bare feet and ankles protruding from a snow mound at the annual snow sculpture festival. Delilah identifies the feet and Capone, the detective in charge, and her boyfriend, reveals that the body also wore no clothes.

What is going on?

Added to this puzzle is Melody’s jealousy of the wealthy friend of Delilah’s niece, who is flirting with the sexy bartender, and Rabbit’s jumpiness. What is going on with him? A recovering alcoholic, and a felon, he has been a model employee up to now. Delilah worries he has fallen off the wagon.

Another fun and charming cozy. The recipes at the back are an added bonus.

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The thistle and the rose, by Linda Porter, is a biography of Margaret Tudor.

Sister to Henry VIII and wife to James IV of Scotland, Margaret was married by age 14. James was almost thirty. She bore James six children, although only two survived: James V and his younger brother (who also died young.) Margaret was widowed in her early twenties when James was killed at Flodden.

A woman in a very patriarchal time, and in a foreign country, Margaret fought hard to hold on to the crown. The angry nobles of Scotland put the Duke of Albany over her as regent and her two boys were removed from her care. She was confined to Stirling Castle. This, despite her husband’s will, which specifically named as regent of his sons.

After a hasty remarriage, a disaster as the one that followed, and seven months pregnant, Margaret escaped captivity and fled to England and the not so tender embrace of her brother. Henry resented her, and resented him in turn and refused to obey his commands or allow him to control his life.

Margaret was really a remarkable woman. Her son, James V, became king largely because of his mother’s efforts.

The biography reads almost like fiction and is quite captivating. Highly Recommended.

Men and Jewelry – Addendum

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Last week I blogged about the history of men’s jewelry. Today I read an article in BBC History with an interesting side note.

The article concerned the mystery of whether Richard III murdered the princes in the Tower. To summarize the history: In 1483, Edward IV’s sons were 12 and 9 at the time of the King’s death. Because Edward V was too young to rule, his uncle Richard of Gloucester was appointed Lord Protector to rule until his nephew was old enough. Shortly thereafter, he put the princes in the Tower.

Over the summer, they were seen less and less and by the end of the summer they were never seen again. At the time it was assumed Richard had murdered them. By then, he’d declared them illegitimate and taken the crown for himself.

In 1674, the skeletons of two children were discovered under a staircase in the Tower, close to where the prince had been kept. They were buried and although they were exhumed in the 30’s, the results of the analysis weren’t conclusive.

People who believe Richard murdered the boys rely on an account by Thomas More who wrote a detailed explanation of what happened and who was guilty. The skeptics believe More’s account was propaganda put forth by the Tudors.

However, the men More accuses were real people: Miles Forrest and John Dighton, and were carried out on the orders of Sir James Tyrell. He was Richard III’s right hand man and fiercely loyal. A will was also discovered which mentioned a gold chain (told you there was jewelry involved) that belonged to young Edward V. As I mentioned previously, gold chairs and jewels were frequently given as rewards to favored individuals. This chain was owned by a wealthy woman who was the sister-in-law of Sir James Tyrell. Tyrell’s lawyer was also a man named John More, the father of Thomas More. So we have a web of connections as well as a physical object.

Considering how desperately some people long for power (why, they might even invade an innocent country), the evidence here sounds pretty plausible. We may never know for sure, though, since there are no forensics except for the skeletons and tests on them have proven nothing.

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I read several books while I was on vacation (somewhere warm!), I read several books. But I want to focus on one: Three inch teeth by C.J. Box.

This is one of the newest (24 of 25) by Box and continues his Joe Pickett series.

This reads less like a mystery than an adventure story since we know from the beginning what is actually happening. The novel begins with a bang when the young man courting Sheridan, Pickett’s daughter, is attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. The situation rapidly becomes far more complicated when there are multiple murders all over Wyoming.

Simultaneously, Dallas Cates, a violent prisoner who swore vengeance on Joe, his friend Nate, and others is released from prison. He hooks up with Soledad, another enemy of Nate and Joe, and the two plan to murder the men they see as their enemies.

Action and violence filled. My own criticism is that MaryBeth plays a very small role in this one.