August 29. This week I read the latest Kathy Reichs Cold Cold Bones.
A human eyeball is delivered to Temperance Brennan’s front porch. Shortly after, a head missing said eyeball is discovered. Shortly after, other victims turn up, each one mimicking a past case that Brennan worked on.
At the same time, she is worried about her daughter, Katie, who has returned from military service. Suffering from PTSD, she wants to set up a charity for veterans. She begins volunteering at a local shelter, only to disappear shortly after.
What is going on?
Enjoyable. My only criticism is that I knew who the villain was fairly early on.
The second book I read was In Death’s Shadow by Marcia Talley.
I enjoy these which are a cozy as I like to read. In this one, an insurance scam results in several murders. Insurance scams sound as though they would be very dry but I found the insurance in this book interesting. Hannah’s breast cancer, now in remission, is the theme that ties all the books together. Fun.
Inadvertently, I read this one out of order; this is number four so I will have to go back and fill in with the third.
The cruise I was on for vacation stopped at Falmouth Jamaica. An excursion out went to the Good Hope Plantation. I was particularly interested in visiting this estate since my most recent book, Murder, Sweet Murder, centers around a sugar plantation in Jamaica.
Sugarcane is a finicky crop that demands a particular temperature and regular water. Since it exhausts the soil, new fields must always be planted. It is also very labor intensive.
The Good Hope estate was set up in 1774 and, at its height, used about 3000 slaves.
Several buildings from that time are still there, although they are being used now as a shop, reception area and a restaurant. A small museum was attached.
One of the tools used to create sugar from the cane is a pot that resembles a wok. Five of these, the heat increasing as the syrup was moved from one pan to another, boiled the cane juice down. The resulting syrup was allowed to cool and the sugar crystallized out of it. The crystals are allowed to continue drying and then packed in barrels.
This must have been some process. Anyone who has ever made fudge knows how quickly sugar burns. (At the Whitney Plantation near New Orleans, a site now dedicated to the enslaved people who worked it, we were told that children were usually given the job of stirring the syrup, I can hardly imagine assigning a child to such a dangerous task.)
The byproduct of sugar making is molasses which was fermented into rum. The lowest quality was called killdevil, screech and a number of other names. Nonetheless,, everyone drank rum – until the Whiskey Rebellion in the new United States made whiskey the patriotic drink.
At its height, Jamaica produced about 20% of the world’s sugar. The amount dropped off when slavery was abolished and the plantations lost their enslaved workforce.
I did not see the house but pictures show an elegant home and hint at the gracious lifestyle the enslaved population offered the white planters.
This past week I read two great books, both very different.
The first one is The Hidden one by Linda Castillo, the newest in this series.
Kate receives an appeal from three men from a far away Amish community asking her to come and help. Jason Bowman, her first flame, has been accused of murdering the Bishop of this village eighteen years ago. Kate hesitates. She will be out of her jurisdiction and with none of her support network. But she agrees to look into it.
Once she is attacked in her motel room, she knows her investigation is upsetting someone. Instead of being intimidated, she is more determined than ever to resolve this case.
Her research takes her to Minnesota, and to a failing bar outside the Amish are. She soon begins to see that the Bishop was not the man everyone thought.
I did not guess the ending. Another wonderful mystery.
The second book I read was A Killing in Costumes.
Cindy and Jay, once married soap stars, came out as gay. They remained good friends and have set up a store of movie memorabilia Hooray for Hollywood. Facing financial ruin, they are offered a way out in the offer of a valuable movie collection from an old star. But a larger company is also trying to handle the sale. After meeting with the salesman from Cypress, he is found dead and Cindy and Jay are the prime suspects.
And what’s up with the old star’s creepy son? Lots of fun.
The first book I read this week was A Simple Murder by Linda Castillo.
I chose it because it shares a title with my first Will Rees mystery series.
I also enjoy Linda’s books and have read them all. This work consists of five interlinked short stories, all starring Kate Burkholder and the Amish.U admit I prefer her novels but these were fun and were a little lighter than her novels. (It seems funny to consider murder mysteries ‘lighter’,)
The second book is Queens of the Wild; Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe. This is nonfiction; a study of Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, Mistress of the Night and the Old Woman of Gaelic Tradition. Hutton challenges most of the current scholarship in claiming these are NOT pre-Christian Goddesses.
I am reading it as part of my research for the new series I am working on. It will take place in Bronze Age Crete. Women figured prominently in this society and the mosaics, seals and other artifacts discovered seemed to indicate, not only a Goddess as the supreme being, but the importance of women.
Why do I find the Hutton work so disturbing?
When I began my research into what is popularly known as the Minoan Civilization, I began with a work by Nilsson, one of the first archaeologists to dig in Knossos. He was convinced that the many depictions of women in the mosaics, including a very famous one showing them participating in bull leaping, had to be showing Goddesses. Why? Because women simply couldn’t be that important. His prejudices were clear and informed his interpretation of this ancient civilization.
Granted, understanding a society that is separated from us by over 3000 years is very difficult, especially when one is working with mosaics, jewelry, seals and other artifacts, (no newpapers or written records to help) as the clues to interpret the inner workings of a culture. With that said, however, the lesson I took away is that we all judge based on the cultural mores we’ve internalized. It is important not to assume that because gender roles in the early twentieth century followed one pattern that they were set and unchangeable, and fit every human society. Most scholars now posit that women were indeed that important in that society.
So, back to Hutton. I admit I haven’t quite finished this work and maybe I will agree with him more when I’m done than I do now. His focus does appear to be more about the Christian world of the early Middle Ages and a discussion of how these pagan goddesses came to be in a Christian society. We shall see.
So glad to return to my usual routine. This week I read two books: Sleep Well My Lady by Kwei Quarter and Unbreathed Memories by Marcia Talley.
Sleep Well My Lady takes place in Ghana.
A famous fashion designer, Lady Araba, is found murdered in her bed. Her chauffeur is arrested but Araba;s aunt is convinced he is not guilty so she applies to the Sowah Detective Agency. They quickly discover there are plenty of suspects, from the alcoholic Augustus Seeza to Ismael, the gardener. Although DNA evidence has been collected, it has been set aside, untested. The members of the agency go undercover to lay bare what really happened.
Although the setting is exotic, the motivations -and the people – are like people everywhere. Outside of some clunkiness in the style, probably from the translation, a very enjoyable mystery.
The second book I read this week is Marcia Talley’s Unbreathed Memories.
It is number two in the Hannah Ives series; my plan is to read them all throughout the summer.
Hannah’s sister Georgina is seeing a therapist and suffering a rather severe mental breakdown. During therapy, she claims her father sexually abused her. Worse, Georgina’s therapist has taken a header off the balcony and now Georgina is the prime suspect in her murder. It is up to Hannah to figure out what really happened.
Another crazy week. A high school reunion infected myself, my husband, and a number of other friends with Covid. Light cases all but still an interruption in our usual routines.
This week I read When Blood Lies by C.S. Harris.
F
I strongly recommend this series, which begins with What Angels Fear.“ These historical mysteries take place in the Regency and follow Sebastian St, Cyr.
When Blood Lies is number seventeen or eighteen.
After years of searching for his mother, Sebastian finally locates her in Paris living under the name Sophie Cappello. He and his family travel to Paris and Sebastian makes an arrangement to meet her. He has many questions, including about the identity of his biological father. But just hours before the meeting, she is murdered. Despite being warned off the investigation, and seeing both his life and the lives of his family threatened, Sebastian (or Devlin, as he is also called), persists.
The mystery is set against Napoleon’s escape and return from Elba and the heightened tensions his imminent arrival in Paris brings.
I read and write historical mysteries because I love the historical details included in the story. I did not know that the armies went over to Napoleon instead of fighting him and he took Paris without a single shot being fired.
I read only one book this week. It has been a crazy time with High School reunions, weddings, graduation and more.
Anyway, this week, I read Sing it to her bones. I try to read books written by people I know.
I have to say I loved it.
Hannah Ives is recovering from cancer. She goes to visit her sister in law and while walking the dog discovers a body in the cistern of a nearby abandoned farm. As she begins to poke into the murder, for murder it is, Hannah’s own life become at risk. She is warned away several times and then a van drives her off the road and into a pond. She just survives that, but other, more dangerous attempts soon follow.
At the same time, her husband has been accused of sexual harassment. Hannah does not know whether to believe his protestations of innocence or not.
The story is flavored with sailing lore and tips, and the sail boat plays an important part at the end.
I read three good books this week, all purchased at Malice in April.
First up, Watch her by Edwin Hill.
The second Hester Thursby mystery. Hest, and her friend Detective Angela White are at a university function when another guest, Jennifer Mason, mentions their mansion has been broken into. Hester and Angela investigate and Hester begins to doubt the Matsons’s story. Investigation into finances connected to the university reveals financial malfeasance. How are they linked? A murder ramps up the urgency.
I really enjoy these mysteries, not least because Hester does a lot of research (she is a researcher) that reminds me strongly of library reference work.
The second book I read is An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris. I have enjoyed all of her works and this one does not disappoint.
The former United States has been broken up into five regions: Britannia (still allied with Great Britain), Dixie (the Southern States), Texoma (Texas and environs), New America, and the Holy Russian Empire (California, Oregon and Washington State). Lizbeth Rose is a gunnie from Texoma, a hired gun that signs onto crews tasked with transporting refugees from Texoma through the a bandit-ridden land to New America. This trip goes sideways and she is the only one remaining of the crew. She rescues the cargo and gets all of them but two alive to New America. Home again, she is hired for another job by rigors (Russian magic users) to find a descendent of Rasputin. A gory adventure. Highly recommended.
Finally, I read The Bone Track, the second in Sara E. Johnson’s New Zealand mysteries.
Alexa Glock is on vacation with her brother Charlie hiking in Fiordland National Park. They are independent hikers, hiking from hut to hut, under rainy conditions with regular landslides.
If that were not excitement enough, Alexa, running from a landslide, stumbles across a body revealed by the shifting early. She goes into forensic investigator mode and photographs the skeleton and takes evidence. While she is so involved, a helicopter carrying a bag of bulk rocks tries to kill her by dropping the bulk bag on her.
Simultaneously, one of the luxe hikers is missing. Alexa and her brother find it smashed on the rocks below a swing bridge over a gorge. Then Alexa discovers the marks of hiking poles used to push the victim off the cliff in her back.
Highly Recommended for both the mystery and the setting.
Now that I have completed reading the books for my Malice Domestic panel, I am branching out. This week I read the newest book by an old and favorite author (Ann Cleeves – The Heron’s Cry), and a book by a new author, to me at least (Nancy Allen – the Code of the Hills).
Cleeves’s new book is the second in her Matthew Venn series.
Venn is called to an artist’s colony. Dr. Nigel Yeo has been stabbed to death by a shard of glass from one of his daughter’s glass creations. Dr Yeo is an unexpected victim. A good man, and very concerned about the treatment of mental health patients, he has been investigating the suicide of young man.
Then the owner of the artist’s colony is found murdered in exactly the same way. Since Matthew’s husband Jonathan is connected to this colony, he must tread carefully.
Although the Vera and Jimmy Perez mysteries are my favorites, the Matthew Venn books are very enjoyable as well.
The second of the two is The Code of the Hills by Nancy Allen.
Although she is probably more well – known as a co-writer with James Patterson, this mystery that she wrote alone is great as well. Elsie Arnold is a state prosecutor tasked with trying an incest case. Kris Taney has been accused of the rape of his two oldest daughters.
Everyone lies to Elsie, including Kris’s wife and the two daughters. Then a Evangelical group becomes involved – and Elsie is targeted. Her car is vandalized in some particularly horrible ways.
Elsie herself is not entirely admirable. She drinks too much and her choice of men leaves a lot to be desired. But she works on the case to the best of her ability.
The author, who spoke to my Sisters in Crime group via Zoom, referred to her early series as ‘Hillbilly noir” and noir it is.
This week I finished the final two books that my panel authors will be discussion at Malice Domestic. I always enjoy finding new authors.
The first book I read was The Murderess Must Die by Marlie Wasserman.
This is a fictionalized account of a true crime. Martha Place was accused of the murder of her stepdaughter Ida and the attack with an axe on her husband William, She was poorly represented by counsel and became the first woman to be executed via the electric chair. Horrifying and Thought provoking.
The second book is one that I read when it was first released: Death at the Emerald by R.J. Koreto.
This is the third in the Lady Frances Folks Edwardian mysteries. Frances Is asked by Lady Torrance to look for her daughter Louisa, who ran away to become an actress. I really hope the author pens a few more in this series. Beautiful written and charming.
