Hand weaving has been inextricably linked in history from neolithic times right up to the Industrial Revolution. Weaving was a profession. Men (and the professionals were mostly men) had an apprenticeship of between seven and nine years. (That changes one’s view of the Luddites, who were seeing the end of their professions, doesn’t it?)
Weaving has now been mechanized but the machines follow the same process that modern looms employ.
Previous looms were much simpler. The Egyptians looms were similar to those used by Navahos.
The weavers in South America use a backstrap loom, where the warp goes around the back, and the tension is controlled by the weaver. Patterns are memorized.
Modern looms look more like this.
They all utilize sticks that separate the threads in the warp and make a cross. The shuttle carries the weft threads through it. Anyone who has ever woven a potholder on a little frame knows that the threads have to go over and under to make a mat.
Looms were very expensive and heavy so if a woman wove, she did so in her home.
We have words in English that memorialize this craft; for example: heirloom, i.e. heir loom.
In the Will Rees mysteries, his weaving supports his family.
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.
In two weeks, the newest of the Will Rees/Shaker series will be released. In The Long Shadow of Murder, a body is discovered in the woods near the Shaker community of Zion. Suspicion immediately falls on the Shakers, although Rees is skeptical. He feels there are plenty of other suspects, including the victim’s wife and other traveling companions. Indeed, the murder has its roots in the Revolutionary War.
The Shakers were, if not the most successful commune, was certainly one of them. An offshoot of the Quakers, the name Shakers comes from ‘the Shaking Quakers.” The group’s proper name was the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing; with a name like that it is understandable they had a shorter and more easily remembered nickname.
The wellspring of the Shakers was a woman, Mother Ann Lee. She sailed to the colonies in the middle 1700s and set up a damsel community just outside of Albany, New York. (The runways for the airport are now located over the old fields.) Like the Quakers, they believed in simplicity and were abolitionists. Mother Ann Lee a former Quaker, was revered. Her position as the prophet/leader resulted in two important doctrines: men and women were equal – highly unusual in this day and age, and they were celibate. Despite that, for many years, they thrived.
How did they succeed for so long then? And they were. They took in converts. Here the unmarried woman could find a home, The disabled could find a home. The landless men, who frequently stopped at the Shaker villages for the winter, thus earning the title of Winter Shaker, had three meals a day and a roof over the heads. Although many left again come spring, some probably remained.
And they adopted orphans. Since this was a world with no safety net, and lots of death, there were a lot of orphans. Besides training these children in the skills they would need in an agrarian world – the girls learned cooking, sewing and other homemaking skills, and the boys farming – they were taught how to read and write. Since males and females were rigidly separated, the boys went in winter, the girls in summer. The Shakers thrived until the world changed. After 1900, the United States went from agrarian to industrial. Girls now could work in factories.
In 1966, the United States passed a law stating that the Shakers could no longer adopt orphans. That really impacted this group.
Yes, they still accept converts. The numbers have shrunk to 2, but one is a younger man who converted. These two live at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. This was the smallest and poorest of all the Shaker communities. My village of Zion is based on Sabbathday Lake.
Why did I choose to set murders within or near this group? Well, although most were peaceful good people, there are always some bad apples. Certainly the acceptance of anyone, and the toleration of the Winter Shakers, opened up the communities to some of these bad’uns.
I pre-ordered the new Finlay Donovan book: Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave.
Like her previous books, this is a mix of mystery, humor and romance. Finlay’s neighbor, the nosy Mrs. Haggerty who documents everything going on in the neighborhood. Then a body is discovered in Mrs. Haggerty’s back yard. Although she is cleared, her house remains a crime scene. Mrs. Haggerty’s nephew drops her off at Finlay’s, leaving her to sleep in the spare room while her elderly neighbor takes the master bedroom. Finlay and her best friend Vero want to stay out of this investigation – but when Finlay’s ex Stephen becomes a prime suspect, they have no choice.
And Mrs. Haggerty has secrets of her own. Finlay watches her leave the house late at night to hand deliver notes. Wha-a-a-t?
Lots of fun.
This is another book I picked up at the Suffolk Festival. I’ve read several of the other series by Christine Trent: the Lady of Ashes series and the Florence Nightingale mysteries and enjoyed them. St. Clement’s Bluff is a change of pace.
Raleigh is devastated by her husband Grant’s death. When she finally begins to recover, and reads Grant’s will, she is shocked to discover he has left her a house on St. Clement’s Bluff. None of his family seem to know anything about it.
When Raleigh visits it, she finds an old house with its history as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The house is totally empty, except for one room that is filled with beautifully carved furniture. Raleigh begins to investigate.
She gradually meets nearby neighbors, including a fisherman, Kip Hewitt who saves her from a half-hearted suicide attempt.
Well-written, and with a clever mystery, but the real draw are the characters.
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.
