Dreams of Falling

THE TORCH OF TANGIER, by Aileen G Baron.

Cover copy: War time Tangier, policed by Franco's Guardia Civil, thick with many nationalities, including Germans and Allies, bitter with the insults of Colonialism, is a dangerous place. Archaeologist Lily Sampson, recruited from her studies in Chicago to the enigmatic Dr. Drury, finds herself in Morocco digging up Neanderthal artifacts at the Cave of Hercules. Quite soon, she's summoned to help the American Legation with an undercover mission linked to Operation Torch. The target date: November 8, 1942. The mission: to control French Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, squash Rommel, and thrust into Europe's underbelly. Out in the Atlantic, General Eisenhower wil rely on relayed communications. But Lily's mastery of code is interrupted by murder -- not one, but two -- which not only imperils her, but Operation Torch itself.

Aileen Baron introduced Lily in A FLY HAS A HUNDRED EYES (2002), a drama of pre-World War II Jerusalem.

Gender of detective: female

This one, unfortunately, does not get it right. She's done her research - and wants to show it off. She wants both a puzzle-box and fascinating characters, and unfortunately cannot quite keep her footing on the tightrope between.

It's getting late and I'm getting poetic. Let's try this again.

I can't tell how much of the problem is the old series problem of necessary accretion (i.e. Lily would be more real to me if I'd read the previous book), and how much is bad writing. Inasmuch as most of the rest of the characters feel slightly distant, as if they too weren't entirely real, I'm inclined to blame it on the writing. The idea is fascinating: spies! Colonialism! Murder! But in practice, there's no sense of urgency. Of course she will get to where she needs to go in time. Of course she will solve the murder when she needs to. Of course everything will work out right. It just doesn't quite reach where it needs to be.

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I hope I pull something I can get passionate about, next. Much more of these 'eh' books will put me to sleep, and that would be even worse than spilled soda.

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MURDER TALKS TURKEY: A YOOPER MYSTERY, by Deb Baker.

Cover copy: It's finally spring in Michigan [...] and the locals have only one thing on their minds - the turkey-hunting opener.

But for sheer adrenaline value, not even turkey season can compete with the local Credit Union getting held up at gunpoint. Committing a robbery in a town where everyone is armed for combat is not the smartest thing to do, and the gunman is shot dead right her in the Stonely Credit Union lobby. The only problem is, in a room full of camo-wearing, heat-packing witnesses, the stolen money has mysteriously vanished.

Faster than you can say "Tom Turkey," Gertie, Cora Mae, and Kitty are on the case in this hoot of a whodunit.

Gender of detective: female

There is, in fact, something I hate worse than Wacky Hijinx. And that would be Quirky Characters. The kind that do not bother to have an actual personality, or characterization, because they are quirky and therefore loveable. Except that they aren't.

The first person narrator is horrible at her job. Not that this makes her any different from half the rest of the characters, who are likewise horrible at their jobs. The rest are so focused on being Quirky that it's impossible to tell whether they're naturally idiots or just pretending. Makes it difficult to care about your heroine risking her life when you're kind of hoping she'll die, I'll tell you that.

I do not loathe this the way I loathed, say, Lilian Jackson Braun's book. But that's not saying very much.

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It's a little worrisome when the mere suggestion of a fandom for her next prompt makes your co-blogger laugh so hard she literally falls out of her chair. (Don't worry, she's better now.)

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UNNATURAL DEATH, by Dorothy Sayers.

Cover copy: The wealthy old woman was dead - a trifle sooner than expected. The intricate trail of horror and senseless murder led from a beautiful Hampshire village to a fashionable London flat and a deliberate test of amour - staged by the debonair sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.

Gender of detective: male

"I happened to find out that a young woman had murdered an old one for her money," Peter Wimsey says in the much better-known GAUDY NIGHT. "It didn't matter much: the old woman was dying in any case, and the girl (though she didn't know that) would have inherited the money in any case. As soon as I started to meddle, the girl set to work again, killed two innocent people to cover her tracks and murderously attacked three others. Finally she killed herself. If I'd left her alone, there might have been only one death instead of four."

I was rather surprised to pick up this novel, because I hadn't realized that the summary Winsey gives above was of an actual official (novelized) case. His summary isn't exactly accurate: the whole point of UNNATURAL DEATH is that, due to some then-recent changes in inheritance law, it isn't certain that the girl would have inherited in any case. Likewise, at least one of the attacks pre-dates Wimsey's 'meddling.'

But Wimsey's summary does give a much better sense of the feel of the novel than the back cover does. This is a downright depressing novel, wherein even the best of intentions go astray, culminating in the suicide of the captured murderer rather than face trial and the death penalty. Without the awareness of it being a part of a series - without being able to continue on to GAUDY NIGHT, wherein Peter (and Harriet) face the question of responsiblity for other people's actions, and come out the other side.

Also worth noting: the ambiguously gay relationship between the girl, Mary Whittaker, and her best friend. Miss Climpson, the private investigator that Peter sends down, assesses it as being unhealthily close, a schoolgirl crush that has for some reason outlasted the schoolgirl years. Then again, Miss Climpson also has Firm Ideas about women needing men, and the narrative voice makes a firm point about Miss Climpson not being a Natural Spinster, whatever that might be. It's difficult to judge how much of the subtext is intended, and how much it's simply meant to imply that Mary Whittaker was unnatural (she's also portrayed as trying to seduce Peter Wimsey, and making a bad job of it because she clearly loathes touching him). Mostly this only serves to make an already depressing book even more so.

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INTERRED WITH THEIR BONES, by Jennifer Lee Carrell.

Cover copy: A long-lost work of Shakespeare, newly found...a killer who stages the Bard's extravagant murders as flesh-and-blood realities...a desperate race to find literary gold, and just to stay alive...

On the eve of the Globe's production of HAMLET, Shakespeare scholar Kate Stanley's eccentric mentor gives her a mysterious box, claiming to have made a groundbreaking discovery. Before she can reveal it to Kate, however, terrifying echoes of the past break through to the present: The Globe burns, and a body is found inside - murdered in the strange manner of Hamlet's father. Opening the box, Kate finds the first piece in a Shakespeare puzzle that sets her off on a deadly, high-stakes treasure hunt, racing from England to Spain to America.

An expert in occult Shakespeare, Kate knows better than anyone the many secrets, half-truths, codes, and curses surrounding his life and work. On the trail of a four-hundred-year-old mystery, she soon realizes that the prize at the end promises to unlock literary history's greatest secret.

But Kate is not alone in this hunt, and the buried truth threatens to come at the ultimate cost...

Gender of detective (?) - female

This isn't a murder mystery, this is a thriller - basically THE DA VINCI CODE except with Shakespeare instead of the New Testament. And like THE DA VINCI CODE, it's not enough to chase an abstract: you have to bring in identity.

Officially, Kate is chasing a lost play of Shakespeare's. Unofficially, it rapidly turns into an issue of Who Shakespeare Really Is - to which the answer, of course, is not "the actor from Stratford-upon-Avon". In fact, it's the most complicated possible theory on the subject. (Why...yeah, yeah, I know, I asked this just a few posts ago, and the answer hasn't changed. It's still about the best/most dramatic possible story.) Really unofficially, it turns out that Kate's murdered mentor was related to one of the key players, which is either a very nice tying off of a loose end or that little bit too much that pushes things over the top, depending on your relative tolerance by the time you reach that point of the book.

It's well written - certainly better written than Dan Brown. But it still elicits a certain amount of 'seriously? seriously?' at the conspiracy theories it perforce avows with a straight face.

DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE, by Robin Paige.

Cover copy: In this stunning new novel by national bestselling author Robin Paige, we are taken back to the turn of the century, to a sumptuously evocative castle beset by centuries of murder...

Lord Charles Sheridan and his American wife, Kate, are on an archaeological dig, excavating sections of Hadrian's Wall, when they receive a mysterious telegram. King Edward has summoned them to Glamis Village, a quaint hamlet north of Edinburgh, without telling them why.

Upon their arrival, they discover that they will be staying at Glamis Castle. Nestled in the rugged Grampian Mountains, it is the most historic castle in all of Scotland, a place teeming with dark secrets and haunting shadows. For Kate, this is the perfect opportunity to gather much-needed inspiration for her next Gothic novel. But while she winds her way through the elaborate manor, gleaning the mysterious histories of those who have dwelt there, Lord Charles discovers the real reason behind their journey to Glamis.

It seems that Prince Eddy, who had been heir to the throne until his purported death in 1892, has actually been alive all these years. Deemed unfit for the throne, he has been living secretly at Glamis under an assumed name. Only now the prince has gone missing - on the very morning that the body of one of his servants was found, her throat slashed in a manner eerily reminiscent of the Ripper's. Now, Charles and his clever Kate must find Eddy and clear his name - while keeping his true identity a secret.

Gender of detectives: one male, one female

This is technically an exception to my 'female authors' rule, as it was written by a husband-and-wife team under a female pseudonym. It does feel like Charles is more of a detective, or at least more of a traditional detective, than his wife: he's the one given all the skinny on what's up with Prince Eddy, and who works logically, while she's left to make personal contacts and work off intuition. (Y helo thar traditional gender-based problem-solving division! Fancy seeing you here!)

Erm. Anyway. Despite the cover's emphasis, the Ripper isn't particularly part of this story, mostly because Charles and Kate tackled that case in a previous book. Prince Eddy is more than a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but he's not the Ripper. Hell, Kate is arguably more insane than he is, given they portray her writer instincts as if they were a completely separate personality.

(As a side note, why are fictional answers to historical mysteries always the most complicated ones, involving royalty if at all possible? Yeah, yeah, it's because it makes the best story. But still, I spent more time rolling my eyes at the Man In The Iron Mask parallels than I should.)

Overall, a little fond of showing off their research skill, but I'm beginning to think it's all but impossible to avoid that in historical mysteries. I'm at least willing to pick up further books in the series.

JANE AND THE WANDERING EYE, by Stephanie Barron.

Cover copy: As Christmas of 1804 approaches, Jane Austen finds herself "insupportably bored with Bath, and the littlenesses of a town," despite the seasonal gaiety, the elegant Assemblies, and the appearance of a celebrated pair of actors at the Theatre Royal. It is with something like relief, then, that she accepts a peculiar commission from her Gentleman Rogue, Lord Harold Trowbridge -- to shadow his niece, Lady Desdemona, who has fled to Bath to avoid the attentions of the arrogant and unsavoury Earl of Swithin.

But at a masquerade thronged with the fashionable and the notorious, Jane's idle diversion suddenly turns deadly. Even as the actor Hugh Conyngham transfixes the guests with his declamation of Macbeth's murderous soliloquy, his theatre manager is discovered stabbed to death in an anteroom. Weeping on his breath is Hugh's sister, the spirited tragedienne Maria Conyngham. And standing by the body, knife in hand, is Desdemona's brother, Simon, Lord Kinsfell. In vain does Simon protest his innocence: he is arrested and charged with murder.

Jane, however, knows that there is more to this fatal drama than meets the eye. And what is one to surmise from the stormy portrait of an eye left lying on the corpse? As Yuletide revels progress, Jane's delicate inquiries expose a bewildering array of suspects and an endlessly shifting pattern of flirtations, amours, and sinister entanglements. And as Jane's fascination with mystery and her fondness for the dramatic arts lead her deeper into the investigation, it becomes clear that she will not uncover the truth without some playacting of her own.

Yet Jane's bravura performance could do more than unmask a killer...it could lead to the ruin of her reputation, or even the loss of her life.

Fiendishly clever and breathlessly diverting, JANE AND THE WANDERING EYE weaves manner, mayhem and murder into a dazzling spectacle of intrigue and suspense.

Gender of detective: female

Right, then, Ms Barron - put down your copy of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, back away slowly, and nobody will get hurt...

Fair's fair: the only reason I recognize the frequent references is because it's my favorite Austen novel, and while I don't know it by heart, I certainly know it well enough to recognize when it's being quoted. Likewise, while the amount of research put in is impressive, I do in fact know someone* who was driven up a wall and back down again by not merely the number, but the relative pointlessness of her footnotes. (For my own part, I'm not sure if it's better or worse to shift one's info-dumps into footnote form as opposed to in-text. Easier to skip, I suppose.)

The mystery itself depends heavily on Actual Regency Historical Persons, which doesn't help, and throws Jane still more into a really questionable situation re: Lord Trowbridge. Jane's actual biography says she was disappointed in love, and so the second book in the series duly had her so disappointed. Unfortunately, as the series progresses, she gets steadily closer and closer to Lord Trowbridge, until one is not merely left wondering why Random Dude From Second Book is supposed to have been her great disappointment, but also how the hell she still has a reputation left, given some of the things Lord Trowbridge has pulled. (No, not that sort of thing. It's not that kind of series.)

In any case. The murderer is caught, and nothing is resolved with Lord Trowbridge because this is a series after all. It's not a bad book -- certainly better than some of the earlier ones I remember reading -- but I'm not sure it's a series I would recommend. Definitely not one I would recommend marathoning. The footnotes might stick somewhere painful.

*For values of 'know' that equal 'have been on each other's f-lists/access lists for several years now, exchange comments, but never met in person or anything'.

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Garlic has been roasted, and the goulash is being heated, I think. Mmm, goulash. :is part hobbit:

MONDAY MOURNING, by Kathy Reichs.

Cover copy: Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for both North Carolina and Quebec, has come from Charlotte to Montreal during the bleak days of December to testify as an expert witness at a murder trial.

She should be going over her notes, but instead she's digging in a basement of a pizza parlor. Not fun. Freezing cold. Crawling rats. And now, the skeletonized remains of three young women. How did they get there? When did they die?

Homicide detective Luc Claudel, never Tempe's greatest fan, believes the bones are historic. Not his case, not his concern. The pizza parlor owner found nineteenth century buttons in the cellar with the skeletons. Claudel takes them as an indicator of the bones' antiquity.

But something doesn't make sense. Tempe examines the bones in her lab and establishes approximate age with Carbon 14. Further study of tooth enamel tells her where the women were born. If she's right, Claudel has three recent murders on his hands. Definitely his case.

Detective Andrew Ryan, meanwhile, is acting mysteriously. What are those private phone calls he takes in the other room, and why does he suddenly disappear just when Tempe is beginning to hope he might be a permanent place in her life? Looks like more lonely nights for Tempe and Birdie, her cat.

As Tempe searches for answers in both her personal and professional lives, she finds herself drawn deep into a web of evil from which there may be no escape. Women have disappeared, never to return...Tempe may be next.

With its powerful mix of nail-biting suspense and cutting-edge forensic science, MONDAY MOURNING is the best yet from this superbly gifted, megastar author who as New York Newsday says, is "the real thing."

Gender of detective: female

Yay, Bones!

Er. Ahem. No, there isn't any actual crossover between the television series and the novels, at least not with this novel. As I understand it, it's more of an 'inspired by' sort of situation than any direct adaptation.

The books, for example, are much more careful about their science. Despite the implications of the cover copy, Brennan doesn't do all the science: she's scrupulous about giving credit where credit is due to other labs, other scientists, who can do the tests she can't. This isn't CSI, where they're able to do every test known to man and in triple-time. Reichs is admittedly a little too fond of ending chapters on a "had I but known" sort of note, but she's at least decent at following up with something that would genuinely have been different, had she known, as opposed to something where I can't come up with anything that would have changed.

My one qualm about the book: the first two thirds are spent on evidence and logic, and then they figure out who they're going after and the last third abruptly turns into a suspense thriller, with kidnappings and last-minute rescues and such. Yes, this does mean Tempe needs to get rescued. Boo.

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Stef's boy is over here, reading manga and grumbling about panels that are out of context and don't make sense. Then again, it is MUSHISHI he's reading.

THE CAT WHO WENT UP THE CREEK, by Lilian Jackson Braun.

Cover copy: Pickax's favorite columnist, James Qwilleran, is enjoying a brief vacation at the Nutcracker Inn, in the nearby town of Black Creek -- though his two Siamese, who prefer the spaciousness of their home, beg to differ. At least the many squirrels that have free rein on the grounds of the inn provide some measure of entertainment for Koko and Yum Yum, while Qwill unearths lots of material for his book-in-progress, TALL AND SHORT TALES.

But the tranquility of the place is interrupted by the discovery of a body floating down the creek - the body of a man who had been a guest at the inn. And a possible motive for his murder is suggested when several gold nuggets are found in his possession. Might he have been illegally prospecting for gold in the Black Forest Conservancy, or perhaps beneath the creek? Seems someone else wanted that gold more than he did...

With her twenty-fourth Cat Who.. mystery, Lilian Jackson Braun once again demonstrates why Qwill, Koko, and Yum Yum are purrmanent fixtures in the world of clever and crafty crime-solvers.

Gender of detective: male

Some of the mysteries I read for this bored me. Some irritated me. This is one of the few that actually left me angry. This is a well known author. This is a bestselling series. And this is some of the worst writing I encountered in my survey.

Seriously. Most of the book is spent on being unbearably cutesy: the squirrels are cute ! Koko and Yum Yum are cute! Qwill's writing is cute! The local amateur Gilbert & Sullivan production is cute! The local amateur historical production is cute! None of which has anything to do with any mystery whatsoever, it's just showing off how Qwill and his friends and his locality are Cuter Than You.

Worse, there are bits and bobs and stories dragged in that in a decent mystery would actually have some bearing on something. Here? Nope. At one point, early on, Qwill is headed to a friend's newly refurbished inn, and vaguely remembers there's a story attached to the site. Does he have to research it? Of course not! He goes to his half-written book, and reads the story he's already written up. And the story doesn't even point to a skeleton hidden in the attic, because there are no skeletons. Valuable antique furniture, yes (which is completely legitimately taken out for an exhibit that will profit the inn, all financed by Qwill, who apparently has a trust that lets him spend money like water). But no skeletons.

When the dead body finally turns up, he's all but ignored: it's more important that his death allows Qwill and the cats to move off to the now-vacant cabin, rather than the top floor of the inn. It's not until nearly the end that the book remembers it's supposedly a mystery, and then it lasts only long enough for a second murder to take place, and Qwill to declare, on very little evidence, that X is the killer with Y and Z being factors that the law will also need to take care of. Ta-da, end of book. Confrontation? Arrest? Closure? Why would we need that? Qwill's told us who the bad guys are!

Somebody help me out here, guys. Is the whole series like this, or did the author just have a bad book, or is the series experiencing writing decay? What the hell's up with this?

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If you're following me, check out my fellow Team Mariposa member as well -- she's writing flash fanfic for the ALS association, and she's much better at writing down our nonsense.

MURDER 101 by Maggie Barbieri.

Cover copy: Safely away from the chaos of Manhattan, St. Thomas, a small college on the banks of the Hudson River in the Bronx, is supposed to be tranquil, bucolic, and serene. Unfortunately, English professor Alison Bergeron has found it to be anything but. Recently divorced from a fellow professor and even more recently without a car - it was stolen - she has been hoofing it to school. One Friday evening, two NYPD homicide detectives drop by her office. The good news is that they found her beat-up Volvo: the bad news is that the body of one of the students in her Shakespeare seminar was in the trunk.

Not only are Alison's chances of getting the car back bleak, but suddenly she's the primary suspect on a list that includes, among others, the murdered student's drug-dealing boyfriend, Vince, and the girl's father's business rivals (he's head of an old Italian family...)

Accused of a crime that she didn't commit, Alison enlists her best friend, Max's, emotional support and services as an amateur sleuth. Their fumbling efforts to clear Alison's name could land her in even hotter water with Detective Bobby Crawford, the handsome investigating officer (and former alter boy) - not to mention the nuns at St. Thomas...

Maggie Barbieri's charming professor and down-to-earth detective make an unlikely but loveable team in her delightful debut mystery.

Gender of detective: female

To be absolutely fair: there is one instance of Wacky Hijinx right near the beginning. However, it's only the one, and the heroine is heartily sorry for it pretty much immediately and doesn't do it again. Which is surprising, given the way the cover pitches it, but rather a relief (see review immediately preceding this one).

More to the point, we get a reason why the heroine isn't necessarily acting as intelligent as you'd expect from a college professor, and it's a reason I have personal experience with: her divorce has just become final. Which wouldn't be such an issue, except that she was in denial about the divorce happening at all, which means it's all hitting her at once...yeah, been there, done that, helloooooo junior year in high school!

It does mean that she doesn't follow up on something which I, at least, pegged as Possible Important Clue much earlier than she did. But it also means that I'm a lot more forgiving of the lapse than I might be otherwise.

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Dear red bucket, why do you not give me the numbers of the books I really really want to do? Are you saving them for the wee hours of the night? Or am I just getting randomizer fail?

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THE SKY TOOK HIM, by Donis Casey.

Cover copy: It's a sad duty that brings Alafair Tucker to Enid, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1915. Her sister Ruth Ann's husband, Lester, is not long for this world, and the family is gathering to send him to his reward. Alafair's eldest daughter Martha has volunteered to come along and care for toddler Grace, freeing Alafair to comfort the soon-to-be-bereaved.

But where is Kenneth, her niece's irresponsible husband? When it comes to light that Kenneth has been involved in some shady dealing with Buck Collins, the most ruthless businessman in town, everyone is convinced that Collins has done him in. In fact, no other possibility is considered. But Alafair suspects that things are not so simple, and with help from Martha, Grace, and her sister's cat, she sets about to discover the truth about Kenneth's fate.

Over the next few days, Alafair and Martha come face to face with blackmail, intimidation, murder, and family secrets that stretch back over twenty years. And in the process, they discover things about each other that will change their relationship forever.

Gender of detective: female

The cat, incidentally, is not of any help. This isn't one of those sorts of mysteries.

It is, however, the sort of mystery wherein both Alafair and Grace are sorta kinda psychic - not enough to figure out that Kenneth is dead until well after the reader has, but enough to find the body (...well after the reader has, or at least this reader had), and enough to figure out a few key hints regarding the big secret, although that was somewhat predictable as well. Granted, including any aspect of the supernatural in a mystery is a chancy thing: it's all too easy for it to come across as a plot coupon generator. This is neither a shining example nor a total dud.

The part where this novel really shines is in the feeling of a snapshot of time and place. These people had different upbringings and different expectations than I did, and the author conveyed that without lapsing into modernization. World War One is a vague murmur in the background, oil drilling is a matter of firm debate, and Native Americans have no problem taking part in Founders' Day Celebrations of a frontier settlement. ...ye-eah. Um. Okay, so it's not perfect. But that issue was sufficiently low-key that I was willing to forgive it and enjoy the rest for what it was.

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Ian has headed out to do non-Blogathon things. He has promised to come back with all sorts of ideas for late-night posts. Then again, given him, maybe that was a threat...

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