After a week’s vacation in Maine, I am resuming my usual schedule. During this week, I read the latest by C. S. Harris.
Who will remember is Harris’ twentieth Sebastian St. Cyr mystery. I’ve read all of these books and enjoyed them all.
1816, the year without a summer. A young ragged boy appears at St. Cyr’s home and tells him there is a dead body hanging by one foot in a ruined chapel. St. Cyr investigates and discovers it is. What’s more, it is a Nobel, brother of one of the Regent’s boon companions. The victim, Farnsworth, is well-known as a crusader against crime, sin, immorality.
But as St. Cyr investigates, he discovers Farnsworth may not be the good and pure man many believe.
And what is the link with the Frenchman who may be an assassin sent by Marie-Therese, daughter of Louis and Marie-Antoinette, and the sole remaining member of her family?
The setting – Regency England with glaring economic inequality – and the poor who struggle to survive is beautifully rendered. Another winner! Highly recommended.
Rita Todacheen is a forensic photographer, an unusual choice for a Navaho. Navahos avoid death; Rita is photographing the dead every dat. She also sees ghosts, a gift/curse that she has had her whole life. Now she is haunted by a murder victim, Erma, who insists Rita find out who murdered her.
More murders, one of a judge and a family, begin to push Rita onto the path to discovering the murderer.
This has a real Sixth Sense vibe. I found the identity of the murderer fairly easy to figure out and the mystery is somewhat overwhelmed by the ghost angle.
Still, unusual and captivating. Recommended.
Foul Play in La Playa is the fourth and the newest in the Vermont Country Living Series. In this outing, the Buckleys accompany their friends Alma and Sheriff Mills to Mexico for a destination wedding. First, Stella and Nick discover that the previous occupant of their cottage was murdered. Then, barely a few days later, one of the other guests is found murdered.
In certain mysteries, the victim is so unpleasant that the reader thinks he or she deserves it. This is one of those cases. Georgie is a vile woman who ferrets out secrets and then blackmails the secret holder. Naturally, the mystery turns out to be far more complicated than that.
Another winner. I hope Meade continues with this series. It is stellar!
First, a shoutout to let everyone know I’ll be at Clifton Park Mall this Saturday, June 21, 10 – 4. There will be a lot of authors there and so a lot of fun.
This week I read two very good books.
The first was the new one by well-established author, Anne Perry. The One Thing More takes place during the French Revolution on the eve of the execution of the King. Celie, born into minor aristocracy, is now a laundress. She is also working with a group trying to arrange the King’s escape. Several other people, including the owner of the house, are not only involved but leaders. But the plans are halted when Bernave, the house’s owner and the leader of the plot, is murdered during an incursion by a mob. Who murdered Bernave and why? Now the house is surrounded by the police, including the dogged Menou. Celie, in an effort to connect with another plotter, has to go over the roofs.
The murderer and the motive are not identified until almost the final page after some pretty hair raising scenes. Perry has not lost her touch. Recommended.
Death upon a Star is Amy Patricia Meade’s newest mystery. Evelyn Galloway travels to Hollywood in the late thirties to work as a script girl for Alfred Hitchcock on Rebecca. On Evelyn’s first day, she meets a kind older actor who had been a silent movie star. They make arrangements to meet for lunch the following day but he doesn’t show. Evelyn can’t let it go and begins her own sub rosa investigation.
Meade’s trademark humor and interesting characters are on full display but the real star is the setting. From the activity in the studio to the long ago stars to Alfred Hitchcock himself, Meade hits every note perfectly. Although not as funny as the Country Living series, Death Upon a Star is charming and fun. It deserves a wide readership. Recommended.
Game over at Guild Hall in the third in the Vermont Country Living Mystery series. In this outing, the Buckleys are invited to attend at Game Supper at the Guild Hall. Not a sports game supper or a board game supper but a game meat supper. The object is to sample all of the game recipes: venison stew, bear meatballs and the like.
The supper does not turn out as planned. An young man, Mudd Morrison, angry that his ‘gleaned’ meat (read roadkill) is not included, confronts organizer Bessent. He is sent on his way but a short while later Bessent drops dead, poisoned.
Later that night, Stella sees a light at the guild hall as someone searches Bessent’s office.
She begins to dig into the mystery, discovering that Bessent’s game supper has created quite a few enemies, from the exhausted volunteers, to Mudd Morrison, to the environmentalist who is worried about sustainability, even the local priest.
Then, in the middle of all this, Stella’s mother arrives unexpectedly with a catastrophe of her own.
And I can’t forget the talking dog. Yes, seriously. Truly funny.
The Nick and Nora Charles vibe is alive and well, the characters are offbeat but never implausible, the mystery is intriguing. I love this series and can’t wait for the fourth installment. A must read.
Nick and Sarah Buckley trade their city life on Murray Hill for a rustic farmhouse in Vermont. Barely a few hours after they arrive, they discover a body in the well – by way of blood in the tap water. Since their house is now a crime scene, they must leave. But where can they go? The town is full of leaf peepers and there is not a room to be had.
Offered a hunting camp, with no electricity or running water, they soon realize that if they ever want to return to their house, they are going to have to solve the crime.
Accordingly, they begin speaking to their neighbors and soon discover the victim was almost universally loathed. And the locals; well, quirky does not begin to describe them. But Sarah and Nick persevere.
This cozy has a real Nick and Nora Charles or Hart to Hart vibe. It is laugh out loud funny. A++. Highly recommended.
In The Long Shadow of Murder, I explore the long lasting effects of past actions.
One of the side threads concerns the Battle of Minisink.
Minisink is an area in Orange/Sullivan County. It was the only decisive battle fought in the upper Delaware Valley. Most of the British soldiers were concentrated in and around New York City.
On July 22, 1779, Joseph Brant, an Iroquois and a supporter of the British, led a party of warriors and Loyalists disguised as warriors, upon Minisink. Only a few settlers were killed because they fled to the fort, but the settlement was destroyed. Riders from Minisink reported the raid in Goshen, New York (where I worked at the Library for many years – but not during this time, of course). A militia under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Tusten set out. They were joined by a detachment of men from Sussex, New Jersey and, a little bit later, by militia from Warwick under the command of Colonel John Hathorn. Although Tusten did not want to follow the Iroquois, the militia dismissed the fighting ability of the Iroquois. With 120 men, the militia marched out to engage.
Hathorn planned to ambush Brant but before it was set, Brant got wind of the approaching force. (Accounts vary a little here.) Brant took the high ground. After several hours, ammunition ran low and the fighting degenerated to hand to hand combat. At least 46 militia men were killed, including Tusten. Hathorn was seriously wounded but survived. Brant lost only 7 men.
Brant gave no quarter to the captured and wounded men. All were killed. The widows could not collect the remains for 43 years, because of the battle site’s remote location. Eventually, the remains were collected and brought to Goshen, where they are buried beneath a stone obelisk.
In the aftermath, another American force went after Brant. Although they did not catch him, they swept through forty Iroquois villages, killing everyone – men, women, and children – in their path.
Although there was no term for PTSD then, I suspect the soldiers on both sides carried scars from the events of those days, especially the destruction of the Iroquois villages. These were non-combatants, unarmed, and mainly women and children. That would be pretty hard to justify.
First, I want to give a shout out to the Poughkeepsie Barnes and Noble for hosting the mystery panel yesterday. The four of us: Jode Millman, Nancy Bilyeau, Tina deBellegarde and myself engaged in a lively discussion about writing, and of course about our books. Thanks again to Barnes and Noble.
This week I read The Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman.
Jim Chee is struggling to decide his path forward. He loves his job but worries he has given up his dream to become a haitaii, a medicine man/shaman. He takes a hiking trip in the back country to clear his head, aiming for a sandstone bridge that is sacred to the Navahoes. While there, he discovers a body floating in a man-made lake. Because he discovered the body, he is asked to remain an extra week and investigate.
At the same time. Bernie (Manuelito) has her own problems. She is worried about her mother’s increasing forgetfulness. And, while she is traveling home, she sees the murder of a man on the highway. Trying to discover the man’s identity, and the reason behind his murder. draws her into a case of her own and a very dangerous undercover operation at a hemp farm.
Anne Hillerman describes the setting as carefully as her father did and the mysteries are very good. She is a worthy successor to this series involving Leaphorn, (the Legendary Lieutenant), Jim Chee, and Bernie Manuelito.
I am excited to announce that The Long Shadow of Murder was released today. It is the latest in the Will Rees saga.
After a long winter, Rees is driving into town for supplies when he is distracted by Constable Rouge. A body has been discovered in the woods near the Shaker community of Zion. Of course, Rouge is immediately suspicious of the Shakers but Rees isn’t so sure. He wonders if the victim’s traveling companions might not have reason to kill the man.
But as Rees and Lydia investigate, they find that everyone in town has secrets, some going all the way back to the Revolutionary War.
As usual, besides the murder, Rees and Lydia are trying to manage their busy farm and their large family with a new baby on the way.
On Saturday, I and three others of my writing friends will be on a panel at the Poughkeepsie Barnes and Noble. We will be available to answer questions and sign books. Hope to see you there.
The three pillars of the Shaker belief were Church, Community and Celibacy.
Besides the Sunday services, the Shakers believed that work itself was sacred and a job well done was as much a prayer to God as a Church service. One of their mottos was “Put your handsto Work, and your hearts to God.”
Essentially an agricultural community, the Shakers ran large and productive farms. (And where did they get the money for this property? Although they would accept converts who had nothing, wealthier converts were expected to donate their property (dowries, land, and money) to the community. This meant they quickly grew wealthy in their turn.
Most of the work was split along traditional gender lines. Their standards of cleanliness (not at all common in that time) meant their livestock was fat and healthy, their milk pure and disease free. Although most people have heard of the Shaker furniture, they also ran many businesses to support themselves. Many villages had their own mills, tanneries, basket making and broom making shops. They were famous for their medicinal herbs and seeds, which they sold via traveling wagons. They also engaged in a thriving international trade, especially with China. In today’s money, they made millions.
They were creative inventors as well and many of the villages had machinery far in advance of the neighboring farms. The Shakers invited the first clothes pin. And well before advances in modern chemistry, they invented a product to add to clothes to so they required less ironing.
Their attempt to create perfection resulted in the high quality of their products that we admire today.
The Sisters, besides cooking, caring for the children, doing laundry and housework, spun and wove cloth that was famous for its high quality. They had equal power to the men. Every Family had two Elders and two Eldresses, two Deacons and two Deaconesses to share the authority for the community. The Shakers believed that God was both male and female and of equal importance.
Celibacy was strictly practiced. Marriages were not allowed and married couples that joined a Family were expected to live as brother and sister. Men and Women were segregated although Unions, where the Brethren and the Sisters could meet and talk on a regular basis, became a feature of the village life.
Last week I wrote about their practice of taking in orphans. It became so well known, they found foundlings on their doorsteps. They also took in children whose parents signed them over to the Shakers as quasi-apprentices. The New York State Museum has examples of some of the contracts signed between the parents and the Shakers. When the children reached the age of twenty one, they were free to choose between remaining or leaving. Many of the children raised by the Shakers married out; the Shakers did not require the Children to ‘make a Shaker’.
Eventually, with the shift ofAmerica from a rural to an urban society the flood of new converts began to diminish and by the 1930’s the number of members had declined so severely that several villages were closed and much of the land sold off. Many of the once-thriving Shaker villages, for example, Hancock Village, became living museums. The only village still in existence today is Sabbathday Lake in Maine.
