Challenge Complete: Wishlist Challenge

 

 The Wishlist Challenge was a new challenge that was meant to help us with our TBR wishlist books.  Those books that we come across on interwebs or friends suggest or sound good to us somewhere, some time and we think, "I ought to read that" or "I want to read that." And we never do.  So....we were supposed to

Read 12 books (one for every month of the year) that you would like to read, but don’t already have on your shelves.

And I have!  I'm now ready for all that honor and glory that Judith promised will shine on everyone who finishes!

 

Here's my list:

 

1. The War of the Worlds Murder by Max Allan Collins (4/19/12)

2. Nantucket Soap Opera by S. F. X. Dean (3/20/12)

3. A Slip of the Tong by Charles Goodrum (6/3/12)

4. The Gemini Man by Susan Kelly (4/15/12)

5. The Curious Cape Cod Skull by Marie Lee (3/21/12)

6. The Doctor Dines in Prague by Robin Hathaway (3/12/12)

7. Murder Most Puzzling by Lillian S. Robinson (10/23/12)

8. A Good Death by Elizabeth Ironside (3/28/12)

9. The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (9/30/12)

10. The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Kumachi & Izumi Shikiba, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan trans by Jane Hirschfield w/Mariko Aratani (3/17/12)

11. The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Scarborough (5/23/12)

12. Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart (10/14/12)

 

Murder Most Puzzling: Review

Spent the last couple days dipping into an academic cozy mystery--Murder Most Puzzling by Lillian S. Robinson. Dr. Margaret James, known as Jamie, has just returned to the U.S. after separating from her French husband.  They had found each other during the '60s at Berkeley, but when he inherited the title of Count his values and hers no longer meshed.  She is trying to sort her life out when she gets a request from a life-long friend to come to Ebbing College and fill her teaching assignment as a professor of poetry.  Becca Parsons has been diagnosed with cancer and Jamie is more than willing to help her friend out.

Jamie also takes over Becca's duties in sorting through the Ebbing family documents and comes across a 19th-century journal by one of the family's matriarchs.  It tells of forbidden love between Elizabeth Ebbing Brock and her best friend Helen "Nell" Breckenridge.  A family scandal resulted when the girls were "outed" by Lizzie's brother and there is also a mysterious fire that wipes out most of Nell's family right at the time they are trying to get her psychiatric treatment for her "diseased mind" and set her up with an appropriate marriage.  

Jamie just begins to grapple with the difficulties of getting the manuscript published when it disappears.  Who wants to suppress the documents?  Then one of the other professors (and a distant relative of the Ebbing family) is killed.  Both she and Jamie had been involved with the Dean of the College, and the police settle on Jamie as the prime suspect....a woman scorned and all that.  Jamie is determined to find out who has stolen the manuscript and who has murdered Professor Sharon Reilly.  And if those are the same person.  She's also doing research into the 117-year old scandal and fire to try and determine if the motive for the modern day crimes lie in the past.

This is a fairly decent academic mystery.  Certainly not the best one ever--but the characters are great in limited ways.  I particularly like Jamie's friendship with Becca and her mentoring relationship with three of the students at the college.  I wasn't particularly taken with Jamie's left-over swingin' sixties habit of jumping in and out of bed with just about every man she comes across in the book.  As one of her friends notes, it's a little difficult to "follow [her] love life without a score card." She comes back to the States and takes up with a fellow she used to know named Nick (who has a wife, but they're in a non-monogamous relationship, so it's okay) just long enough to bring him into the story and then abandon him in California when she heads to Pennsylvania and Ebbing College.  There she meets and falls into bed with Walt (the dreamy Dean, who also has a wife--but she's an alcoholic and crazy and in an institution, so that's okay too).  Meanwhile, she goes up to a local inn a couple of times and meets another man who she'd happily go to bed with if it weren't that her soon-to-be-ex-husband shows up hoping to reboot their marriage....and....you guessed it, she can't resist a couple of rolls in the hay with him for old time's sake.  Or something. 

Honestly, I just think Robinson was beating the reader over the head with sexual freedom and how different is supposedly is now (1980s in the book) as opposed to the 1800s and their views of "unnatural lusts."  But then, it's not really all that great now, because we still have homophobic people running around upset over this journal....not to mention Jamie's other friend Erin who comes to teach history when Sharon Reilly is killed (and who happens to be a lesbian).  A lot less effort on that front and more attention to making the mystery more of a mystery and we'd have an all-out winner.  There weren't really any red herrings to speak of and it doesn't do a lot for the detective novel when your villain is telegraphed mid-way through--at least that's when I figured it out.  Two and a half stars.

Lake of Sorrows: Review

Lake of Sorrows is the second book in Erin Hart's mystery series featuring American forensic pathologist Nora Gavin and archaeologist Cormac Maguire.  This time Nora, who is in Ireland doing research, is called to the scene of an excavation where a very well-preserved body from the Iron Age has been discovered in the peat bog.  It appears to have been a human sacrifice--slain three ways: strangled, throat cut, and drowned.  The area is close to the site of an extraordinary find of Iron Age artifacts found in the past.  Perhaps the sacrifice was connected to the hoard.  It isn't often that such a complete body is found and Nora can't afford to pass up the opportunity to examine the remains.

She barely has a chance to look over the Iron Age find when a second body is found.  But this one is wearing a wrist watch and seems to have been buried about 25 years ago.  However, when the man is removed from the bog, they discover that he bears the mark of the ancient triple death--just like the Iron Age remains.  This makes the police wonder if there is a connection between the archaeological finds and the more recent death.  But as the investigation continues more deaths occur--bearing the same signature marks.   One of the victims is an old flame of Cormac's and suspicion falls on him.  So, Nora and Cormac begin an investigation of their own to try and clear Cormac's name and Nora finds herself in danger when her questions bring her too close to the killer.

My take:  This installment didn't hold my interest the way Haunted Ground did. The first book started out slow, but once it took off I could not put it down and even went to bed late in order to finish it.  This one never did take off. I easily put it down and had to keep urging myself to pick it up again to finish it.  Not the same gripping performance at all  The story was okay.  The developing relationship between Nora and Cormac was okay.  But I didn't feel that same need to know what happens that kept me reading before.  This one also felt a bit more scattered--jumping from character to character and following each one's movements for a short while before jumping to someone else.  I don't remember the flow being quite so erratic before.  

There are some very good moments: between Nora and Cormac and then with Cormac's friend Michael Scully; also between Detective Liam Ward and the pathologist Catherine Friel.  So, some of the characterization was very good at times--just not consistent.  The mystery itself was decent, maybe not quite as fairly clued as I'd like, but okay.  So...for an overall okay experience...three stars.


Quotes:

It was a place that had been ascribed all sorts of magical attributes, the powerful locus represented by the central axes of the crosses on Bronze Age sun discs, from a time when the world had been divided up into four quadrants, North, South, East, and West, and a shadowy central place, which, because it was not There, had to be Here. Where was her own Mide, her center, that point where all the pieces of her life met and intersected at one infinitesimal  but infinitely powerful place? (p. 9)

He tried to tell himself that nothing he'd done or failed to do had made the final difference to her, but in the end, that was the saddest testament of all. (p. 29)

[Gabriel] had been the anchor around which her energy swirled. To Cormac their union had always seemed a near-perfect balance: strong individuals married together to make a separate entity greater than either of them alone. (p. 32)

So much of existence was like that: endlessly, thoughtlessly, self-perpetuating cycles. (p. 34)

Strange how epiphanies arrived in between things, when they were least expected. (p. 82)

It always amazes me how men can go on behaving like such absolute shite hawks, and women still manage to be astonished. Stupid cows. (Maureen Brennan, p. 237)

I'm not sure I believe in spirits, exactly, but I do believe that what happens in the world never really goes away. Everything that has been remains somehow, makes an impression. Some things make stronger impressions than others, but it all leaves something behind, some change, some ripple in time, don't you think? It's probably the best we can hope for. (Michael Scully, p. 244)

Every relationship meant taking a chance, leaping headlong into the void, suspended by hope. And only some were lucky. (p. 301)

Where on earth can a person be spared from loneliness? And I understand it's sometimes far worse when you're surrounded by people. (Michael Scully, p. 312)

The Anatomy of Ghosts: Review

There are all sorts of reasons why The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor should have been a winner: it's a historical mystery; it's a historical mystery with academic ties; it started out so very promising and held that for about the first 100 pages.  But then it just kind of lost me.  And it isn't the first time that Taylor has done that to me--although I didn't realize it until after I had gotten all interested in the book (when I first heard about it last year) and put it down for a few challenges.  Several years ago I picked up his book Caroline Miniscule which also had academic ties.  I remember that it started out fine...only to lose steam about mid-way through.  His Bleeding Heart Square is better than either of the other two.

But, back to the review....The story revolves around Frank Oldershaw, the only son of Lady Anne Oldershaw and a student at Jerusalem College, Cambridge.  Frank has gotten himself mixed up with the Holy Ghost Club (read a hellfire club) and after some unpleasant experiences there, he begins seeing the ghost of the deceased wife of one of the College's members.  He becomes quite violent and is tucked away in a madhouse as a result.  Lady Anne Oldeshaw calls upon John Holdsworth to get to the bottom of what exactly has happened to her son and charges him with bringing the young man back to sanity.  Holdsworth is no doctor and has no experience with mental disease--but that's not why she wants his help.

As the result of personal tragedy (the deaths of both his son and his wife), Holdsworth has written a book called The Anatomy of Ghosts--discrediting the idea of ghosts and the charlatans who claim to put the grieving in touch with them.  Lady Oldershaw wants Holdsworth to prove to her son that ghosts don't exist and believes that this will be enough to return his reason to him.  Holdworth finds that he must find out what really happened to Sylvia (the dead woman whose "ghost" was seen) before he can help Frank.  But that is no easy task....and the answers may not be ones that either the College or Lady Oldershaw want to hear.

As I mentioned, this book started out promising enough.  The stage was well-set and Taylor took me back to the 18th Century with very little effort.  The historical details were terrific without being overwhelming.  But after introducing the characters with very interesting scenes, he did not sustain the same sort of story-telling throughout.  I hit the mid-way point and found that I didn't much care about these people or what really happened. I soldiered on just to find out who did it and why it affected Frank so much....but, honestly, if I hadn't needed the book for some challenges, I might not have finished.  Two stars--for the promising beginning and the fine quotes I gathered.



Quotes:

Books are not luxuries. They are meat and drink for the mind. [Ned Farmer; p. 22]

The footman had conducted Holdsworth across the hall, through an anteroom and into a long and shabby apartment at the back of the house. The books were everywhere--in cases ranged along the walls, stacked on tables, and the floor, overflowing from the doorway of a closet at the end of the room. [p. 29]

He had seen the libraries of too many men, both living and dead, to be surprised by what they contained. A man's library was like his mind: some of its contents might not be suitable for young gentlemen at the University, or indeed for his grieving widow or his fatherless children. [p. 33]

Money was a powerful thing, Holdsworth thought, the true philosopher's stone, with the power of transmuting dreams. [p. 45]

"Money makes it very serious. Her ladyship has given you all this before you have lifted a finger for her. She will expect a return. The rich always do."
Holdsworth smiled at him. "That is why they are rich." [Ned Farmer; John Holdsworth; p. 46]

Ghosts, whether real or alleged, usually have an identity, and that is, in itself, of significance. [Elinor Carbury; p. 51]

EC: ...Jerusalem [College] is a world within a world. So is any college in this University, or perhaps at any university.  A college is a world with its own laws and customs.
JH: It might be a world of savages for aught I know.
[Elinor Carbury; John Holdsworth; p. 59]

Horace's recipe advises only a dash of folly in one's wisdom, and Mr. Archdale appears to have mistaken the proportions in his moral cookery. [Mr. Richardson; p. 62]

A Slip of the Tong: Review

What is going on at the prestigious Werner-Bok Library now?  The Director, Nelson Brooks, decides to take some time off and leaves Crighton Jones, former head of public relations and now administrative assistant and right-hand woman, in charge.  He's barely out of the building and on his plane when a mystery with an Asian connection comes along.  First, two night workers in the Asian reading room stacks are shot and killed just outside their homes.  The police are looking for connections to drug trafficking, but Crighton isn't so sure.  Then one visiting Chinese researcher is killed as well and another abruptly disappears--and the local tong which had been supporting him refuses to discuss the matter with Crighton.  There are also rumors that either some very rare and valuable Chinese volumes are hidden among the uncatalogued materials in the Asian back rooms or clues to their whereabouts will be found there.  Are Chinese Nationalists or Communists behind all this intrigue? Or is it just good, old-fashioned greed with someone wanting to get their hands on undocumented treasure?  Crighton calls in her mystery-solving friends Edward George, emeritus librarian at Yale, and Steve Carlson, an archeologist with a penchant for pertinent research....and a vested interest in Crighton's safety, and the three of them get to the bottom of the mystery with the help of the library's Asian American intern.

A Slip of the Tong by Charles Goodrum is, I think, one book too many for the Library of Congress's former coordinator of research.  Goodrum, as he should, knows his way around libraries and his depiction of the workings of the Werner-Bok Library is right on target.  The mystery itself is interesting, although not quite as sharply played as usual.  But his characters are becoming caricatures of themselves.  What passed for witty bon mots and by-play between Jones, Edward George, and Steve Carson now sounds trite and sometimes condescending towards other characters in the story.  Somebody (whether it's the characters themselves or the author) seems awfully uncomfortable with Asian Americans and Chinese Nationals and the interactions with most of those characters are stiff and stereotypical.  Lots of "inscrutable" being tossed around, for instance.  If you like mysteries set in a library, then go for any of Goodrum's previous three books (I'm partial to Dewey Decimated, but Carnage of the Realm and The Best Cellar are good solid reads as well) and give this one a miss.  Two stars out of five.

The Lady in the Loch: Review

Soooo, once upon a time I put The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough on my long TBR list.  I'm thinking I probably did that because it was billed as a historical/literary mystery. 'Cause, you know it's set in the late 18th century and stars Walter Scott before he became a "Sir" and before he had written/published most of his best known work.  And I do love me a good historical mystery.  I'm sure the basic synopsis grabbed my attention too.

Because Walter Scott has just recently been appointed as a sheriff of Edinburgh.  He expects the job to be a pretty simple one--giving him a nice steady income and time to work on his writing.  But shortly after taking office he is called to the banks of the half-frozen loch where workers who have been draining off the water have found the bones of some poor soul who was disposed there.   Before he has time to really investigate this find, a young gypsy woman named Midge Margaret comes to him with a story of missing women from the gypsy camp.  One young girl disappeared while gathering wood for the fire and another was snatched from her very bed during the night. 

Midge Margaret gets more attention from Scott than most townsfolk are willing to give the "tinklers" as the gypsies are called--in part because their paths had crossed years earlier in one of Scott's first encounters with sheriff duties (more as a bystander than a law-enforcer).  At first it is thought that body snatchers or "nobbins" as the gypsies call them are responsible for the disappearances.  Because after all, nobody will miss a few gypsies here and there and the university can always use extra bodies to learn medicine and anatomy from.  Scott promises to look into the matter, but before he can make many inquiries Midge Margaret and her brother are attacked in town and her pregnant sister-in-law is taken as well.  Now the race is on...for the attacker is working to a schedule and for a design of his own and Scott and Midge Margaret will have to be quick if they are going to prevent Jeannie (the sister-in-law) from becoming another body in the loch.

All that sounds like the basis for a pretty good mystery story, don't you think?  But nobody told me in the various synopses that I read that we'd be dealing with ghosts and dead people sitting up and talking.  Nobody told me that a sheriff would have the mystical power to call upon a murdered girl and ask her who her murderer is--and that she'd answer.  Nobody told me that we had the belief (and reality) that if murdered people are touched by their attacker then their wounds will bleed afresh and proclaim the guilt of the killer.  Nobody told me that we'd be dealing with spirit possession of living people.  And nobody, after getting me to suspend my disbelief long enough to swallow a historical mystery that contains such things, can tell me why a murdered man later in the book doesn't jump up and proclaim the murderer when he's examined by him/her.  Oh....but that would end the book about two chapters too soon and we can't have that, so that whole murdered people can identify their murderers thing only works when it's convenient for the plot. 

So, that's my major quibble with this book.  After getting me to travel back in time and making me believe in the Walter Scott (and the gypsies and the other characters...) of the time period and making me believe that all this mystical stuff is true, Scarborough does not use the paranormal trappings consistently.   Or at least doesn't give a very good reason why it only works part of the time.  If it works, then it works. Period.  Not just when the author needs it to.

The characters are great. I don't know Sir Walter Scott's work and I don't know much about him, so I can't say whether Scarborough's Scott is true to life.  But I like her portrayal of him.  And I like Midge Margaret a lot.  She's a very intelligent and brave young woman--and the reader is rooting for her and her companions.  The plot itself is an interesting one.  All pluses.  I'm not sure if Scarborough meant the identity of the killer to be a big secret and the reveal to be a surprise--but it wasn't.  It didn't take me long to figure out who was behind the disappearances and deaths.  Overall, a fairly decent story--not quite what I expected and not as consistent within its own world as I would like.  Two and a half stars--mostly for character development.

The War of the Worlds Murder: Review

Unlike the Sherlock Holmes pastiche of a similar name (which I read last year), The War of the Worlds Murder by Max Allan Collins does not take place in the world of the H. G. Wells classic. At least, not exactly. This story revolves around the historic Mercury Theatre radio presentation of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles which caused mass panic in 1938. It features Welles, John Houseman, and Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant), creator of the Shadow, among other historical figures. And, as in his other "disaster" mysteries, Collins uses an author of detective fiction (in this case, Gibson) as his amateur crime solver.

The first half or so of the book is spent in build up. We are introduced to the characters and given a very plausible set up for the murder. Collins gives us a look at the creative spirit of Welles and how the dramatic production of the Martian invasion came about. Gibson is brought into contact with Welles when he (Welles) decides that it would be a great idea to collaborate on a Shadow movie, as a natural extension of the successful radio show. Then Gibson (and through him, the reader) is introduced to the worshipers, admirers, hangers-on...and even possible enemies of the brilliant young actor/director.

Just as the radio production is about ready to go on the air, Welles, Gibson and Houseman discover the body of a young woman in one of the empty sound rooms. She had been the latest in a long line of Welles flings--just recently given the heave-ho. There is blood everywhere and and an incriminating knife that points straight at Welles. The door is locked (but there is a window which has given them the view)...and by the time the security guard can be summoned to bring a key the body and the weapon have disappeared!

But you know what they say in show business...the show must go on. And so it does. One of the most historic radio programs ever goes on the air and panic takes over the country as thousands believe that the Martians are really invading. In the midst of all this, Gibson is watching, thinking and gathering clues to the real disaster that has taken place off-stage. Who killed the young woman? Was it someone trying to frame Welles--or has the actor/director (and amateur magician) pulled a conjuring trick of his own? And what happened to the body? By the end of the evening Gibson will have answers to all these questions.

Collins, as always, has done his homework--and that is quite evident. Historical and anecdotal details are superb. The tale of the panic-inducing radio broadcast is quite interesting. And exciting--as Collins takes us from snippets of the broadcast to scenes from the world outside the broadcasting studio. He uses stories of actual audience reactions to show how effective the broadcast was. The murder mystery itself leaves a bit to be desired. It's not nearly as good as either The Titanic Murders or The Hindenburg Murders, for instance. But for a look at the world of 1938 and particularly for a look at what happened when Welles allowed the Martians to invade...it's very good. Three stars for a good solid story overall.

The Gemini Man: Review

The Gemini Man is Susan Kelly's debut novel and the first in a series of mysteries starring Liz Connors, free-lance writer, and her police lieutenant lover, Jack Lingemann. The setting is Cambridge, Massachusetts--with strong ties to Harvard University. Liz has lived in her new apartment building only three weeks and hasn't had time to really get to know her neighbors. But she comes home one evening to discover her next door neighbor Joan Stanley battered to death in a particularly violent crime. More deaths follow and Liz feels driven to do what she can to help Jack get to the bottom of what looks to be the work of a sexually-driven serial killer. Liz's leads take her to a crisis counseling center in Cambridge, the Harvard Psychology Department, and singles bars. But she doesn't expect her investigation to bring the danger so close to home.

Definitely a product of the 80s, the story is laced with humor and realistic characters. It gives us a peek back into what life was like twenty years ago (some of us remember...). I enjoyed the relationship between Liz and Jack and also enjoyed her abilities to get people to talk to her. Her job as a free-lance writer made it very plausible that others might confide in her when they were reluctant to talk to the police. The one draw-back--I spotted the culprit early on and the red herrings and false clues just weren't strong enough to cloud the issue. But--a good first book. Good enough that I'd certainly give this author another try. Three stars.

A Good Death: Review

Judging by the two books by Elizabeth Ironside that I have read so far, she is a very versatile author. The first one I read (last year), Death in the Garden, was a country house murder with a bit of twist. This most current novel, A Good Death, is a less than straight-forward murder mystery set during the time of the French Resistance under Nazi rule. In both stories one of the most striking features is the sense of place and time that Ironside evokes. One feels very much what it was like to be on home front in war-torn France. How very difficult it was to navigate the territory between resisting the enemy and doing whatever necessary to save your friends, your family, your neighbors. And a major theme in Ironside's books seems to be betrayal--what constitutes betrayal and who is betraying whom?

Colonel Theo Cazalle returns to his family home in Bonnemort, France in 1944. He had left in 1940, faking his death so he could join the Free French in an effort to help end the war and bring peace to his divided country. The estate is deep in the countryside and memories of Bonnemort and his wife Ariane have carried him through the long four years of secret fighting. Now the enemy is being slowly driven from his homeland and he returns to find everything he knew changed and his dreams are shattered.

In his absence, his very home had been invaded by a Nazi officer and his men. The Nazis have since abandoned his estate, but they left a trail of terror and destruction in their wake. A family servant has been shot, several villagers have been hung, his wife has been denounced as a collaborator, his daughter is beaten, and the Nazi officer has been left naked and dead at the front gate of the Bonnemort estate. Theo finds that if he is to restore order to his world he must somehow find out what happened while he was gone. Is his wife a murderer? Did she become the mistress of the officer? Did she betray the resistance fighters? Or were there others who betrayed not only their compatriots but his wife as well? And what role has his daughter and the young girl his wife has sheltered during the occupation played in this drama?

As with the previous book, Ironside moves between time periods in this historical novel. The time jumps aren't quite as great in A Good Death--but they are just as important. We are given Theo's viewpoint "now" (1944) and then as he interviews various participants we are given the stories of the previous years as if they were happening as they are being told. It is a very interesting narrative technique and Ironside manages it very well. It is also interesting to be given so many versions of "what really happened." As is always the case, each character has their own version of the truth--slanted by their own fears and prejudices. In the end, when we finally discover what really happened to the German officer, we're still not sure that we've been given the entire truth.

A very compelling historical read. It's not a straight-up mystery--so purists may not enjoy it quite so much. It is also a bit darker than Death in the Garden, so I can't really say that it is a fun and enjoyable book. But is a good book. Four stars.

The Curious Cape Cod Skull: Review

The Curious Cape Cod Skull by Marie Lee is another mystery that has been sitting on the TBR list for quite a while. It is also an academically-inclined book--with the body finder and main character being a former science teacher and the victim and most of the suspects being university folk. And...thankfully, this one went over a heck of a lot better than my previous read.

As mentioned, Marguerite Smith is a retired science teacher who is preparing for a visit from her nephew Jeb and his sons. On schedule for the weekend is an introduction to clam digging for the youngsters. In anticipation of the outing, Marguerite heads out to her shed to unearth the clamming equipment--only to find the door securely locked (not something she regularly does). Her surprise does not end with the locked door, however. On the other side is a dead body.

The victim is one Peter DaFoe, a handsome Cambridge archeologist who had been in charge of an area excavation of an Ancient Native American homesite. And the murder has been carried out using a baseball bat stored in the shed. Police investigations turn up several suspects--from DaFoe's colleagues on the dig to his beautiful, straying wife (who just happens to benefit under a large insurance policy) to, surprise!, Marguerite's nephew Jeb. Having found the body and then having suspicion focus on her relations, Marguerite takes it upon herself to help the police get to the bottom of the mystery. And then her dog Rusty digs up another exhibit....an ancient skull in a fairly new plastic bag. Was this the reason DaFoe had to be silenced?

True to cozy mystery tradition, there are a lot coincidences and the improbable "help" given by the amateur. But the mystery is fast-paced and interesting and the main characters (Marguerite, the police officers and most of the suspects) are charming and well-drawn. Their voices ring true and they seem like real folks who might live in your home town. A very nice debut to a short series (only three books) . The only short-coming is the rather too-detailed archeological descriptions and run-down of how the family trees of the various blue-blood East Coast families. But it doesn't distract too much from the story. If I come across the other two, I will certainly give them a read. Three stars for a solid mystery.

Nantucket Soap Opera: Review

Nantucket Soap Opera by S. F. X. Dean has been sitting on my TBR list (of books I don't own) for quite a while. At some point after I discovered I really enjoyed mysteries with an academic flair I ran across a mention of this one. I don't remember exactly when or how. And so I added it to my Wishlist Challenge--that way I could scratch it off my list. When I found that it was the sixth of a series starring Professor Neil Kelly, well, I just thought that was spiffy. A whole new academic series to start on. Yeah....no. Having read this one, I don't think I'll be going out of my way to look for any more.

Here's the scoop: Professor Neil Kelly is a seventeenth century scholar. He's a rare bird in the academic community--a scholar whose books sell well. Coming off a best-selling book about John Donne and a mini-series no less (we're stepping into fantasy territory here), he's taken himself off to Nantucket in the off-season for some peace and quiet and a chance to commune with his muse. 'Cause he's supposed to cough up another best-seller--this time on Ben Johnson.

His idyllic little world is shattered when Hollywood hits Nantucket in the guise of actor/director William Olds. Olds has decided that his next big winner will be a soap opera based in the 17th century and using a true story of the island's first bank robbery as a jumping off point. Tagging along with Olds is his ruthless and ambitious daughter, his sex-symbol mistress, and an entire entourage of ghastly hangers-on--all roaming the island to see if it really will be suitable for their dream series. They also try to convince Kelly to write the screenplay once they discover that he had actually co-written a small piece on the robbery for a television show. Following the havoc wreaked by the celebrity folk, the story is made complete with three murders, betrayals, infidelity, and an abuse scandal.


This is a story that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. At times comic, at times philosophical, at times drop-dead boring narration. There is way more gratuitous sexual references than necessary (if any can be said to be necessary). Dean's narrative style roams from straight-up story-telling to weird little cameo sketches of various characters. I never really connected with the people involved and I didn't much care about the story--and I darn well didn't care about every male character's sexual fantasies and who they first made it with (and that was rarely important to the plot).

I get the sense that Professor Kelly is a likeable fellow. It's remotely possible that I might enjoy a real-live mystery story with him as the central character. But I can't say that this particular book allows me to discover whether that's true or not. I'm not sure whether the plan was to "sex-up" the story because we had Hollywood involved or not--but if there's some symbolic thing going on with that....well, it just didn't work for me. And, unfortunately, it has made it unlikely that I'll try another one just to find out if a Kelly story really can be good. Unrated.

The Ink Dark Moon: Review

The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani. These poems were written by two ladies of the Heian Court between the 9th and 11th Centuries in Japan. These women were central figures in the only literary Golden Age where women writers dominated the field. Shikibu (974?-1034?) wrote during the court culture's greatest period. She was a woman interested in both religious consciousness and intense erotic experience. Komachi (834?-?) served in the Heian Court's first half-century. Her poems were very diverse--personally expressive with philosophical and emotional depth.

The poems are all very short and yet quite expressive in their brevity. The word choice is precise and beautiful--taking the reader into the heart of the poet's vision in just a few lines. I thoroughly enjoyed my time-travel back to early Japan. But the themes covered are universal. Love and desire, fulfillment and rejection don't change with the centuries. Love can be just as captivating and all-consuming now as it was then. Rejection and loss can cut just as deep. These women convey the feelings of all women...of any time. Four stars.

Of the two, I prefer the selections from Izumi Shikibu. But I do like this one by Ono no Komacchi:
I thought to pick the flower
of forgetting for myself,
but I found it
already growing in his heart.

Selections by Shikibu:

In this world love has no color--
yet how deeply
my body
is stained by yours. (p. 51)

To a man who said we should meet, even if it were only for a single time
Even if I now saw you
only once,
I would long for you
through worlds, worlds. (p. 55)

Some cross the Pass of Love,
some don't.
Unless you are the watchman there
it is not your right
to cast blame. (p. 69)

On a night when the moon
shines as brightly as this,
the unspoken thoughts
of even the most discreet heart
might be seen. (p. 78)

This heart,
longing for you,
breaks to a thousand pieces--
I wouldn't lose one. (p. 110)

Even when a river of tears
courses through this body,
the flame of love cannot be quenched. (p. 118)

Even if I
repeated love's name
forever,
could outward life match
the intensity of our hearts? (p. 135)

The Doctor Dines in Prague: Review

The Doctor Dines in Prague is the fourth in a series of cozy mysteries by Robin Hathaway. They star Dr. Andrew Fenimore, a Philadelphia physician who still makes house calls. In this outing, Fenimore becomes concerned about his Czech cousin and her family. He has been in the habit of calling Anna every week to check on her and her husband, Vlasta. Vlasta suffers from angina and Fenimore had been making plans to bring the family to Philadelphia so Vlasta could have some much-needed surgery at a top-notch facility.

But now, it has been two weeks without any contact with Anna or her husband. Fenimore immediately drops everything, tries to knock the rust off of his knowledge of Czech, and rushes to Prague. There, he finds his cousin's apartment empty....except for the sneeze in the stove. Anna's daughter Marie has been hiding ever since two men with guns kidnapped her parents. He bundles Marie off to the States--to be cared for by his nurse/receptionist and soon he has his lover and a teenaged helper tangled in his efforts to track down his cousins. He finds himself vamped by a blonde femme fatale and up against a psychopath who thinks that stealing the crown jewels will allow him to overthrow the government and become ruler of the country. And it all ends with an unexpected swim in the river and....murder.

I picked this one up primarily because it suited two of my challenges (among others)...Cruisin' Through the Cozies and the European Reading Challenge. It's okay. And supposing that one could suspend one's disbelief enough...possibly quite enjoyable. I just found it difficult to believe that the Doctor could buzz off to Prague and have all the adventures that he did with as little of the language as he had. And that he could be that naive. I also found it hard to believe that just about everybody he knew could hop on a plane for Prague at the drop of a hat. Oh, and the main motive for the whole she-bang? Just a teensy-bit hard to swallow as well. The Doctor is a likeable enough fellow...maybe I would appreciate him more on his home ground. But I don't think I'll go out of my way to find out. Decent...but not outstanding. Two and a half stars.
*And just as a side-note: it's amazing how many books I can read when I'm not staring at my laptop all evening.....

Wishlist Challenge 2012.

Yep. I found another one. Couldn't you at least pretend to be surprised? The Wishlist Challenge is a new challenge that I know I absolutely need, and I bet you do, too.

There are several challenges that ask you to read books you already own, they are generally called TBR challenges. And as anyone who has signed up for my own Mount TBR Challenge knows I have oodles of those books lying around. BUT I also have a huge list of To Be Read Books on my wishlist. Books that I come across out here in the interwebs or listed in the backs of other books that I like or suggested by friends or whatever...that I just have to read sometime so it goes down on the list. And then I don't read it for whatever reason. Well, this challenge will help me take care of that little problem...or at least part of it.

So here’s the wishlist challenge:

Read 12 books (one for every month of the year) that you would like to read, but don’t already have on your shelves.

Rules

1. The challenge runs from January 1st, 2012 to December 31st, 2012.

2. You are to read 12 books from your current wishlist. If you don’t have a list anywhere, write down books that you are eager to read, that you don’t own yet, and choose 12 books off that list.

3. If you can’t find a book that’s on your wishlist (your library doesn’t have it, or you don’t want/can’t buy it) then you can use another book. But: you are not allowed to include any NEWLY added books for this challenge. So, whatever your list is now, that’s it.

I.e. you can’t read amazing things about a book on someone else’s blog, decide you want to read it, then read it for the Wishlist Challenge.

4. You can overlap with other challenges, as long as you read books that were on your wishlist before January 1st, 2012.

Sound good? Want to know more? Then hop on over to Leeswamme's blog (link above) and get the full details.

Judith is promising honor and glory that will shine on everyone who finishes!

Here's my list:

1. The War of the Worlds Murder by Max Allan Collins (4/19/12)

2. Nantucket Soap Opera by S. F. X. Dean (3/20/12)

3. A Slip of the Tong by Charles Goodrum (6/3/12)

4. The Gemini Man by Susan Kelly (4/15/12)

5. The Curious Cape Cod Skull by Marie Lee (3/21/12)

6. The Doctor Dines in Prague by Robin Hathaway (3/12/12)

7. Murder Most Puzzling by Lillian S. Robinson (10/23/12)

8. A Good Death by Elizabeth Ironside (3/28/12)

9. The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (9/30/12)

10. The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Kumachi & Izumi Shikiba, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan trans by Jane Hirschfield w/Mariko Aratani (3/17/12)

11. The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Scarborough (5/23/12)

12. Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart (10/14/12)

Complete!!! 10/23/12