I am a big fan of the Shetland mysteries (Vera and Jimmy Perez.)Several years have passed and Jimmy has settled into his new home in the Orkneys with his partner Willow Reeves.
One night, during a terrible storm, a close friend disappears and is found murdered. A Neolithic story stone is found next to his body. Jimmy is heartbroken. Archie Stout was as close as a brother. And Jimmy is too close: questioning Archie’s wife and family is difficult.
And rumors – about Archie’s relationship with a young artist, as well as concerns about a television star and his wife, swirl about the island. But Jimmy, assisted by Willow, preserves to the tragic solution.
Amy Patricia Meade is becoming one of my favorite authors. In this outing, she offers us Rosie the Riveter.
Rosie has taken on the job at the Brooklyn shipyards, along with several other women, because of the pay. The more ‘ladylike’ jobs do not pay as well and Rosie is supporting her widowed sister and baby. The male riveters don’t want the women there but Rosie is managing.
When her foreman makes a pass at her, promising a promotion, she clocks him in the head with the telephone. The next day his body is discovered in a nearby alley. Rosie is the prime suspect. She begins to investigate, finding a surprise ally in the police lieutenant investigating the case.
Roșie discovers several people wanted the foreman dead. The solution rests in a very nice twist. I would love to read the sequel but unfortunately it is unavailable.
Highly Recommended.
I also read Million Dollar Baby by Meade. Marjorie, an attractive mystery writer, catches the eye of wealthy British heir, Creighton Ashcroft. The house he is renovating is the site of a suicide, a mysterious death, and a missing diamond. When Ashcroft invites Marjorie to tour the house, they find a body.
A handsome policeman arrives to investigate – and Marjorie is immediately interested. Ashcroft is jealous and annoyed, but the three must work together to solve the mystery.
My husband and I just returned from a Christmas cruise through Germany, Slovenia, and Budapest. Christmas markets have been a feature in Europe, primarily Germany, since the Middle Ages. The first date I found stretched all the way back to the 1200s but the date usually accepted for the first Christmas market is 1434. They have evolved into markets for food (gingerbread, for example, and the famous meter long sausage), Artisan products, and my favorite: Gluhwein. This is basically mulled wine and it is good! We also were able to keep the mugs. I now have a nice set of six.
Gingerbread in all forms: small cookies, cakes, and several different recipes, is huge there. Gingerbread as a baked good is very old, almost as old as bread which puts it almost into the Neolithic. My favorite was made solely with honey, water, and rye flour. Quite different from our American made. And, I might add, totally without ginger.
We also tried raclette, melted cheese poured over home baked rye bread. Wow!
Artisan products include wooden items – bowls, spoons, cutting boards, baskets, glass and paper ornaments, textiles – my husband bought socks.
One of the markets was in the courtyard of a castle. We took a tour, and part of the family’s home was from the Middle Ages with the stone crypts. Hard to imagine one family living in the same house for a millennia.
The Christmas markets are so popular that they are frequently located within blocks of one another. In Vienna, we could see a market from the market we were currently standing in. Within in the limits of the city center, there are 13 and of course many more outside.
I finished the final two entries for the Wren Winters series, at least up to now.
In the second outing, Wren and her friends are thrilled at the invitation to appear on the podcast of a popular influencer. But Noelle collapses and by the time the police arrive, she is dead. Noelle, it becomes clear, was being threatened online. Further investigation turns up a jealous ex, a former business partner, and a sister determined to force Noelle offline.
Then Wren’s. pink haired librarian friend begins to display similar symptoms. Now Wren and her friends have to hurry before Esther follows Noelle to the grave.
Wren and her friends head off to a gaming con. Wren is reluctant, because this was the exact convention her beloved husband Marcus attended before his death. Wren soon realizes that the jealousies and rivalries between the members are dangerous and when two of the women are murdered, and then Wren herself is attacked, she realizes the case goes all the way back to Marcus and his death. Once declared an accident, it is obvious he too was murdered. Was it by the same person? And why?
I really enjoy these books. The gaming world is a fresh and original setting (and one I, a former D&D player revel in) and the mysteries are complicated and intriguing. I hope this is not the last we’ve seen of Wren Winters and her posse.
The two books I read this past week couldn’t be more different.
Turkey Trot Murder takes place as Tinker’s Cove, Maine, is gearing up for Thanksgiving. But the community is rocked by the murder of a young college student, Allison Franklin. Her father, the wealthiest man in town, puts the blame squarely on the immigrants. He includes a restauranteur, although his family could trace their heritage pre-United States. Emotions run high and soon Allison’s father is also found murdered.
Who could be the murderer of both Franklins? The immigrants? Or the many other people in town, including Franklin’s estranged wife, with whom both battled?
I thought Turkey Trot Murder would be cozier than I usually read. And it did follow several of the cozy rules: the violence takes place mostly off scene and there are plenty of homey domestic touches throughout. But the depiction of the opioid crisis gave the story much more weight. I found this aspect very realistic and really more interesting than the mystery. In fact, the mystery ended up being overshadowed by the rest of the story.
Recommended with that caveat.
Wasp Trap couldn’t be more different.
In 1999, 6 students are chosen by a charismatic teacher to work on a special project, developing a test to discover psychopaths. But Sebastian shuts down the project very suddenly. No one knows why.
The six students, now adults in their forties, meet at a dinner party planned by two of the so-called revolutionaries. The visit quickly goes sideways when the six are isolated in the house by two genuine psychopaths and told to confess a secret from 1999. The situation rapidly spirals into murder.
I thought this book started slowly but once it picks up steam, it is unputdownable. There are several surprising twists before the secret is revealed and the psychopath is revealed. Recommended.
Sam, Candie and the gang are involved in another adventure. In this outing, Hank’s brother Aaron (Hank is Sam’s squeeze) is in town and involved with Joy, the daughter of the owner of the diner. A barbecue contest sees a bank manager make a pass at Joy. Aaron leaves in to defend his girlfriend. When the bank manager is found squashed to death by a pumpkin, Aaron is a prime suspect.
But there are many suspects, all with strong motives for wishing Edgar dead.
Lots of fun. The pet parade with all the pets in fancy costumes was a highlight. And I have to give Kazlo credit for finding some of the strangest methods of murder ever. Not only the 2000 pound pumpkin, but an outhouse, a bag of dogwood and so on.
In 1621, the Governor of Plymouth Colony wrote a letter in hopes of attracting more colonists. In it, he described a three-day feast shared by the Plymouth settlers and the local tribe. The governor sent out four men who provided a variety of fowls, sufficient to feed the colony for a week, while tribal hunters killed five deer. In the 19th century, this event became associated with the idea of a Thanksgiving feast. Thanksgiving is traditionally associated with New England and the Pilgrims, but Jamestown, Virginia and other locations have also been suggested as the the places for the first In New England, I expect seafood would have been on the menu.
Although Thanksgiving was not made a National Holiday until 1863 (by Abraham Lincoln), it was celebrated prior to that date. A novel published in 1826, Northwood, a tale of New England, discusses Thanksgiving with many of the foods that are traditional and still eaten today.
Many of the dishes in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner are foods native to the Americas. The turkey (although having eaten a wild chicken I’m sure the turkeys were much different from our own), potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash (including pumpkin) green beans and cranberries. Besides tradition, many of these foods are eaten because they are affordable. (Although I regularly hear on the news how much the cost of turkey has risen from year to year.)
However, Will Rees and his family would not have had the lavish feast we think of when we think of Thanksgiving. The huge feasts were a feature that came in during the nineteenth century. And, as I mentioned, seafood would play a large part in their meals, as it still does in New England.
With the USA’s 250th birthday coming up, there has been several books about the American Revolution.for example: The American Revolution: An Intimate History, by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns and a new Burns’ documentary. I was particularly interested in the section on smallpox.
Like Covid-19, smallpox was a viral disease and greatly feared.The initial symptoms were similar to the flu, Covid-19 and many other viral diseases: fever, muscle pain, fatigue and headache. Before the distinctive rash erupted, small reddish spots appeared on mucous membranes of the mouth, tongue, and throat.
The characteristic skin rash form within two days after the reddish spots on the mucous membranes. The rash was formed of pustules with a dot (that became filled with fluid) in the center. These spots scabbed over and then the scabs fell off, usually resulting in scarring. In Murder On Principle, Constable Rouge suffers a case of smallpox and becomes terribly scarred.
The origin of smallpox is unknown although the theory says the virus developed in certain African rodents 60,000 or so years ago. The earliest evidence of human illness dates to the third century BCE with Egyptian mummies It is a lethal disease with a fatality rate for the ordinary kind of about 30 percent. Higher among babies. The Malignant and Hemorrhagic forms are over ninety percent fatal. Occurring in outbreaks, it killed hundreds of thousands, including at least six monarchs in Europe. In the twentieth century it is estimated to have killed 300 million alone. As recently as 1967, 15 million cases occurred worldwide.
During our Revolution, General Washington realized that a. smallpox epidemic would kill many of his troops. Accordingly, he had his soldiers vaccinated against the disease. They used a live virus so the risk of contracting smallpox was a possibility although usually the disease was less severe and less fatal.
In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered that milkmaids who had contracted cowpox, a much less serious disease, did not come down with smallpox. He began a trial and proved that inoculation with cowpox prevented smallpox. The cowpox was safer than the live virus..
Later, the vaccine was made of the killed virus. In Great Britain, Russia, the United States vaccination was practiced. However. My father contracted small pox as a toddler and lived to tell the tale. When he volunteered for the Army during WWII, they tried to vaccinate him but of course it never took because he was already immune.
A concerted global effort a to eradicate smallpox succeeded with the last naturally occurring case in 1977. (The last death was in 1978. A researcher contracted the disease from a research sample.) WHO officially certified the eradication of smallpox in 1980.
At Death’s Dough is the fifth in Mindy Quigley’s deep dish mysteries. Delilah runs an upscale pizza restaurant. But it is winter, and custom is slow. She is gearing up for Valentine’s Day, and hoping for a good turn out. Dominick Capone, Delilah’s boyfriend’s cousin, has a plan. But a few days later, his body is discovered frozen in the frozen lake outside.
Even more than who murdered him is the why. As Delilah pokes into it, she discovers his murder leads to a long ago death, and a treasure.
I did not even come close to identifying the killer. The characters are engaging and the recipes are good too. Recommended.
I read the Lace Widow on the recommendation of a friend. This is a historical mystery that takes place just after the American Revolution and involves the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
Eliza Hamilton, Alexander’s widow, is almost prostate with grief at the death of her husband. But she is convinced her husband was murdered and is determined to bring Burr to justice for it. Her questions bring her into contact with a house of widows on Pearl Street, but also to the notice of a band of conspiracists. A brick with a warning note is hurled through her window. And her son, Alexander Junior, is targeted as the murderer of several other men, all friends of his father.
I found the details of early New York City fascinating. The Hamiltons lived in Harlem, which was the country then! Each trip back and forth takes hours. But I didn’t love the main character who, although she is praised for her strength, is always falling into tears, fainting, and sleeping. I would give this a mixed review. Parts are very good, others not so much.
