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As I begin preparing for Malice Domestic, (I am moderating a panel on setting ), I read a book by a featured author. Peril in the Pool House by Judy L. Murray, is the third in the Chesapeake Bay series.

At an open house party, thrown for the announcement of Eliot Davies’ candidacy as well as a welcome to their old, thoroughly renovated house, the body of Eliot’s campaign manager is found stabbed to death in the pool house. Who could have wanted this woman dead?

Helen Morrisey, the realtor who sold Eliot and his wife the house, and sometime detective, begins to poke around. Although warned off by her off and on love interest Joe McAlister, Helen knows Eliot and Alison have sunk every penny into the house – turned into a B & B – and they’ll lose everything unless the murderer is found.

Helen is an engaging detective with an unusual Detective Club. It is an imaginary one including such luminaries as Jane Marple and Nancy Drew.

I enjoyed this so much that I will go back to the first one and read all three. Lots of fun.

I also read The Paris Mistress by Mally Becker.

This is the third of the Revolutionary War series. I have enjoyed all of them but this one is my favorite so far.

Becca, along with her mother Hannah and mother-in-law Augusta, travel to France to meet Daniel Alloway. Becca and Daniel plan to marry in France. Almost immediately, Benjamin Franklin asks Becca and Daniel to listen and report back. Franklin knows there is a spy in his household reporting to England. Reluctantly, the couple agrees.

The visit goes from bad to worse. The body of the young man, Jude Fenimore, who’d traveled to France on the same ship with Becca, is found dead on the roof of Franklin’s house. The magistrates in France refuse to allow Becca and Daniel to marry (all for frustrating bureaucratic reasons) and Daniel is attacked.

Now Daniel insists Becca, her mother and mother-in-law return home before something else happens.

Highly recommended.

Giveaways and More

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I am giving away five copies of In the Shadow of the Bull on both Goodreads (sign up here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/384416-in-the-shadow-of-the-bull) and on Fresh Fiction (sign up here: https://gleam.io/iwKi2/eleanor-kuhns-march

I am celebrating the release of the second book in the series – On the Horns of Death, which will be released April 2nd. Look for another giveaway at the end of March for the second book.

Last call to attend the all online conference Murderous March on Saturday (March 9.) Yes, I will be on the first panel on Saturday morning but there are plenty of other great panels and our featured speaker :
EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR
NAOMI HIRAHARA

If you are in Suffolk, I invite you to the Mystery Festival on Saturday, March 16. All day. This is one of my favorite events. Participants have a chance to meet many different mystery writers, attend panels, and, of course, buy books. Contact them here: Telephone: 757-514-4130

Currently Reading

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L.A. Chandlar is the moderator for my Murderous March panel, The Reluctant Sleuth, on March 9. Since I will be reading all the books for my panel mates, I decided to read hers as well.

The Silver Gun.

Chandlar’s series, The Silver Gun is the first, is called the Art Deco mysteries. They take place in the late 1930’s in New York City. This is after Jimmie Walker and Tamany Hall. Fiorella LaGuardia is currently mayor and on a mission to clean up the city.

Lane has been his assistant for six months. Life is exciting as she rushes around, trying to keep up with his schedule. But then she is thrust onto the subway tracks right in front of an oncoming train. Then she realizes a gangster is following her. He doesn’t trouble to hide it, grinning at her and making threatening gestures.

What is going on? Lane had to understand her own past, and the mystery of her parents’ deaths, before she can figure out why the gangsters have targeted her.

An illicit romance with a mysterious many further complicates Lane’s life.

This is a lot of fun. Recommended.

Games and gambling

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Gambling is one of humanity’s oldest vices. ‘Knucklebones’, an ancient term for dice (since they were made of bones), was used right up to modern times. We know that the ancient Greeks gambled with knucklebones since Homer mentions it in the Odyssey.

One of the games I’ve read about is Aphrodite’s throw which involved throwing four of these dice at the same time. It is thought that the sides of each die had a different number, like contemporary dice do. The rules have been lost in time although there are plenty of guesses.

Contemporary sources from both Ancient Greece and Rome mention gambling on the throw of a die.

Carved wooden boards for games have also been found. We know the Egyptians had games, some of them involving boards, (Hounds and Jackals) so it would not be surprising to find the Bronze Age Cretans did as well.

I must also mention that knucklebones were used for divination, again right up to modern times. ‘Casting the bones’ meant throwing them and then trying to read the future from their positions.

Currently Reading

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With tax season, and since I am redoing my kitchen, I only managed to read one book this week: The Twilight Queen by Jeri Westerson.

Jeri is the author of the medieval noir series featuring Crispin Guest. I loved that series and was sad when she called a halt to it. (Although, as a series author myself, I understand how difficult it is to write something fresh.)

The Kings Fool series takes place during the Tudor era. In this second mystery, Henry VIII is disappointed that Anne Boleyn has not produced a son and is eyeing Jane Seymour. So, it is easy to understand how dismayed Anne is when she finds a murdered man in her bed. Someone is trying to discredit her. And cuckolding the King is treason, punishably by death. The situation worsens when a ring, given her by the King, is found in the murdered man’s belongings. She asks Will Somers, the Fool, for help.

Will, and his much put upon wife Marion, investigate. Weirdly, Nicholas Padgett, one of the fool’s male lovers, also becomes involved.

I love the style these books are written in with all the appropriate slang of the era. The mystery is great and the different characters are well-drawn. My only problem is Will Somers himself. I don’t care for him and I think he treats poor Marion very poorly.Twilight Queen

Artemis

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As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, Artemis is one of the Gods who, it is believed, was a goddess in Bronze Age Crete and was adopted by the mainland Greeks. She remained virtually unchanged, unlike Hera who diminished from a goddess in her own right to the jealous wife of Zeus in Classical Greece.

Artemis was a virgin goddess and a goddess of the hunt, of vegetation, and of birth. Women in labor prayed to her.

In the myths of Classical Greece, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo. (Daughter of Leto by Zeus.) And since those myths all seemed to be dark and full of cruelty, Artemis too could be cruel. She turned a young hunter, Acteon, who accidentally saw her bathing, into a stag and his own hunting dogs took him down.

In my Ancient Crete mystery series, Martis, my protagonist, is a follower of Artemis.

Coming April 24, 2024

As a devotee of Artemis, Martis plans to remain a virgin her whole life.

As part of my research, I hope to visit Ephesus where the ruins of a temple to Artemis still stand. Enormous in scale, the temple boasted a double row of columns that became a model for other Greek temples. Besides honoring Artemis, the temple also served as a place of sanctuary. Recent excavations have shown the stalls, where refuge seekers slept.

Historical note: Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe was double-crossed and murdered on the temple steps before she could reach the safety of the temple.

Currently Reading

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Drowning with others is one of the four novels (so far) produced by the combined talents of Keir Graff and Linda Joffe Hull.

I met Keir at the San Diego Bouchercon when we were on a panel together. I frequently read the books produced by my fellow panelists. (One way to find new authors, right?)

Andi and Ian Copeland are the perfect couple. Except for one short breakup, they’ve been together since they were teenagers. Now their daughter Cassidy is attending the elite prep school, Glenlake, the sameone attended by her parents.

Then a car with human remains is pulled from the lake and the mysterious disappearance of a writer in residence, Dallas Walker went years ago, suddenly blows up into a homicide investigation. Both Andi and Ian knew Dallas and both had reasons to want him dead.

Cassidy, now taking a journalism class, begins to find evidence her parents knew Walker better than they claim. Were one, or both, of her parents involved in his murder?

In Ian’s and Andy’s journal entries, all secrets are laid bare. Gradually the facts of Walker’s disappearance become clear.

But there are still more secrets. The ending is a shocker with a twist I did not see coming. Recommended.

Ancient medicine

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We know the Ancient Greeks had medicine. Examples of the diseases that afflict us now, such as cancer and TB, and diseases we have managed to conquer such as smallpox, are found in their writings.

What do we know of medicine in Bronze Age Crete? Not very much. We know they used herbal remedies. An examination of Egyptian dynasties contemporary with Crete suggest other possible medical treatments. Papyri and scenes inscribed on walls depict medical instruments. The purpose of some of them, however, are still a mystery. Instruments from later dynasties have been found as well.

Papyri, and clay tablets from Mesopotamia, show that a huge feature in medicine was divine intervention. Prayer and animal sacrifice, which we know were also employed in Bronze Age Crete, were important features. Amulets, to keep demons and bad outcomes at bay, were commonly used. Astral medicine, i.e. using the stars to predict the best time for the best outcomes, was also very important. The zodiacal calendar was used to predict the most propitious times for medical treatments.

I want to add that seers were used to predict the best times for all important activities. The flights of birds was one method. The sacrifice of a sheep and the reading of the organs was another.

Our current medical system certainly has flaws. I am very glad, though, that a surgery appointment does not depend on how a flock of birds fly through the sky!

Currently Reading

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This week I read a very interesting nonfiction discussion of pretty much everything relating to textiles and a woman’s fashion in a particular place and time.

Kate Strasdin came into possession of a dress diary, a book filled with swatches of the fabrics that made up Anne Sykes, and some of her friends, during the middle of the nineteenth century.

Since her family, and the family of her husband Adam Sykes, were involved in Britain’s textile industry, Anne had access to all the newest cottons, silk from the East, and, later in the century, the newest in the aniline dyes.

Using the fabrics a a springboard, Strasdin references cultural consequences such the enslaved peoples in the United States who picked the cotton that kept the British factories humming.

When Adam Sykes relocates to China, Strasdin discusses silk and, at the same time, the differences in culture, the Opium War, and more.

Colored photographs of the fabric swatches illuminate the text and there is a QR code at the back that brings the reader to more examples.

Fascinating!British History

St. Valentine

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Regular Readers of this blog know how much I enjoy history. I love blogging about odd things I’ve discovered in my research. But today, I decided to offer a little bit of information about Valentine’s Day.

As you might expect, St. Valentine is the patron saint of lovers. Also of beekeepers, which I guess makes a certain amount of sense. But he is also the patron saint of epileptics.

St. Valentine’s history is a bit of a mystery. By some accounts, he was a Roman priest and physician who suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Christians Other narratives identify him as a Bishop in Italy. He was also martyred. Since martyrdom is included in both stories, it is possible they refer to one person.

Other legends around St. Valentine. In one, he signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended. Like most saints, miracles were ascribed to him and in the former tale he heals the jailer’s daughter from blindness. Another common legend states that he defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war.

St Valentine was removed from the book of saints in 1969 since the details of his life could not be confirmed.

Nonetheless, Valentine’s Day has been celebrated since the fourteenth century.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!