Dreams of Falling

First of all, I wanted to thank my sponsors - y'all gave over $125 dollars to the Nature Conservancy, which is three times what I raised last year. Thank you!

Second of all, ( ten last mystery reviews in short-short form, covering settings ranging from murder among the Quakers to murder at a strip club. )

Still little if any brain capacity, despite sleeping half the day. Am holding out from going back to bed until a slightly more reasonable hour, though, or I'll be waking up at 3 AM with my sleep schedule utterly wonked. Wheeeee.

THE MURDER ROOM, by P.D. James.

Cover copy: The Dupayne, a small private museum on the edge of London's Hampstead Heath devoted to the interwar years 1919-1939, is in turmoil. The trustees - the three children of the museum founder, old Max Dupayne - are bitterly at odds over whether it should be closed. Then one of them is brutally murdered, and what seemed to be no more than a family dispute erupts into horror. For even as Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team investigate the first killing, a second corpse is discovered. Clearly, someone at the Dupayne is prepared to kill, and kill again.

The case is fraught with danger and complexity from the outset, not least because of the range of possible suspects - and victims. And still more sinister, the murders appear to echo the notorious crimes of the past featured in one of the museum's most popular galleries, the Murder Room.

For Dalgliesh, P.D. James's formidable detective, the search for the murderer poses an unexpected complications. After years of bachelorhood, he has embarked on a promising new relationship with Emma Lavenham - first introduced in DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS - which is at a critical stage. yet his struggle to solve the Dupayne murders faces him with a frustrating dilemma: each new development distances him further from commitment to the woman he loves.

THE MURDER ROOM is a story dark with the passions that lie at the heart of crime, a masterful work of psychological intricacy. It proves yet again that P.D. James fully deserves her place among the best of modern novelists.

Gender of detectives: two male, one female

The cover copy only cites Dalgliesh, but he has two subordinates who do nearly as much of the detecting, thus my notation.

Honestly, this is a straight-up puzzle sort of mystery, despite the cover's attempts to make it something more. Dalgliesh's 'complications' get short shrift - there's very little concerning his relationship either way, and no particular disaster winds up happening. The most complicated part of the puzzle is actually the re-creation of the Murder Room crimes: the more you stop and think about it, after finishing the book, the less that part makes sense.

*

Mariposa isn't quite sure what I think I'm doing, but it can't possibly be as important as petting the cat. I'd defend myself, except I'm not sure what I think I'm doing either.

SHE SHOOTS TO CONQUER, by Dorothy Cannell.

Cover copy: On a dark and foggy night, charming amateur sleuth Ellie Haskell, her husband, Ben, and her plucky sidekick, Mrs. Malloy, are stranded at the grand yet terribly dilapidated Mucklesfeld Manor on the Yorkshire moors. Shortly before their precipitous arrival, Lord Belfry of the Manor had made the startling decision to save his crumbling establishment by offering himself as the prize on a TV reality show titled Here Comes The Bride. The candidates are to be average women, chosen not for their charm or looks but for their ability to withstand the rigors of a week spent floundering through veils of cobwebs and sleeping on ancient bed linens, all in hopes of becoming Lady Belfrey.

Upon hearing of the elaborate scheme, and thrilled at the prospect of marrying a lord, Mrs. Malloy eagerly joins the competition. But after one of the potential brides is pierced with an arrow during an archery contest, she begins to rethink her eagerness to leap into this particular gothic romance. Ellie begins to investigate, exploring the dark passageway and hidden nooks of the delightfully spooky estate, but she may not be prepared for the secrets lurking behind closed doors.

Gender of detective: female

One of the pull quotes on the back recommends this to fans of Aunt Dimity. I can see the resemblance, at least somewhat: the surface ditziness, the love of imagination.

For the rest, this is a more than usually idiotic cover summary. The first murder is via car crash, not arrow. The archery contest doesn't happen until nearly the end of the book. Likewise, the reality-TV scheme gets a lot more development, with lots of Gothic Romance riffs (from the producers, not anyone else). And most key of all, Ellie is indeed not a total ditz.

She does need a big dramatic rescue at the end, in the best Gothic tradition. Ah, well. Suppose you can't have everything.

*

I'm trying to go through and grab the better books I haven't reviewed yet from my list. Stef is watching True Blood over on the couch. Yay efficiency?

THE BIG STEAL, by Emyl Jenkins.

Cover copy: Hoyt and Mazie Wyndfield were the sort of couple that everyone admired. Charming and elegant, they'd furnished their Virginia manor house, Wynderly, with beautiful antiques and rare treasures from their exotic travels. So it was natural that after their death Wynderly would become a treasured museum. But a burglary exposed more than simple theft.

Hired to assess the value of the broken and missing antiques, intrepid appraiser and amateur sleuth Sterling Glass finds that her job is more complicated than she'd anticipated. Why would this well-heeled couple have so many fakes among the extremely valuable antiques? Working her way through uncovered diaries, old receipts, and one hidden room after another, Sterling finds the plot - and the players - ever-expanding in this mystery of provenance and deception.

Gender of detective: female

There are no deaths in this novel.

("Everybody lives! Just this one, Rose, everybody lives!")

(...er, right, sorry about that.)

The sad thing is, I was disappointed. No murder. No big theft, despite the title: there's a little theft, which is what brings Sterling to the museum in the first place, and something deeper and older, which is what she discovers, but even that's not a clear-cut single theft. There are a couple points where I thought someone might die, but no.

The point to this novel, insofar as there is one besides antiques, is secrets - women's secrets, kept from habit or from duty or just from the delight of having one to oneself. It's an interesting topic, but not what I was expecting from the book. You know where you are with a murder. Secrets are trickier.

*

The sun's risen again. Let's see if I can persuade my eyes to do the same.

LOCKED ROOMS, by Laurie R. King.

Cover copy: Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are back in Laurie R. King's highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling mystery series. And this time the first couple of detection pair up to unlock the buried memory of a shocking crime with the power to kill again - lost somewhere in Russell's own past.

After departing Bombay by ship, Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are en route to the bustling modern city of San Francisco. There, Mary will settle some legal affairs surrounding the inheritance of her family's old estate. But the closer they get to port, the more Mary finds herself prey to troubling dreams and irrational behavior - a point not lost on Holmes, much to Russell's annoyance.

In 1906, when Mary was six, San Francisco was devastated by an earthquake and a raging fire that reduced the city to rubble. For years, Mary has denied any memory of the catastrophe that for days turned the fabled streets into hell on earth. But Holmes suspects that some hidden trauma connected with the "unforgettable" catastrophe may be the real culprit for Mary's memory lapse. And no sooner do they begin to familiarize themselves with the particulars of the Russell estate than it becomes apparent that whatever unpleasantness Mary has forgotten, it hasn't forgotten her. Why does her father's will forbid access to the house except in the presence of immediate family? Why did someone break in, then take nothing of value? And why is Russell herself targeted for assassination?

The more questions they ask of Mary's past, the more people from that past turn out to have died violent, unexplained deaths. Now, with the aid of a hard-boiled young detective and crime writer named Hammett, Russell and Holmes find themselves embroiled in a mystery that leads them through the winding streets of Chinatown to the unspoken secrets of a parent's marriage and the tragic car "accident" that a fourteen-year-old Mary alone survived -- an accident that may not have been an accident at all. What Russell is about to discover is that even a forgotten past never dies...and it can kill again.

Gender of detectives: one male, one female

Continuing our Accused Mary Sue Power Hour, we have Mary Russell -- first Holmes' apprentice, then his wife. I'll admit to picking up this book in fear and trembling. Holmes was one of the icons of my childhood, and there is so very, very much bad Holmes fiction out there.

To my relief, Russell didn't read nearly as Mary Sue as feared. There are hints in that direction (for fuck's sake, she's Holmes' partner, which is startling enough, and also his wife, which is worse), but at least in this book, where Russell is repeatedly described as being self-handicapped by her own denial of her past, she isn't given any plot coupons and I came to her same conclusions at about the same time.

The biggest problem I had wasn't so much Russell as it was Holmes. I felt as though I could have swapped out Holmes for any number of possible pulp heros, without particularly affecting the plot, Part of this, I gather, is that King argues that Holmes is actually at least ten years younger than commonly accepted, and thus it is a man in his 60s I'm reading about, rather than a man in his 70s or older.* I have a harder time judging the use of Chinatown and the Chinese: despite King's best attempts, I can't think of any way to use them without running into questions of cultural appropriation and so on.

Over all: like Reiko, I'll score Russell on the good side of the Mary Sue meter...for now, and subject to further study. King can write: I picked up one of her Kate Martinelli books and was pleasantly surprised how they treated the characters. It comes down to whether a good writer can redeem certain subjects.

*My initial reaction was a shrug - it wouldn't be the first time, nor the second, that authors have manipulated ages for their own purposes. On the other hand, clicking a link in Wikipedia yielded the claim that she had merely restored Holmes to his proper years, and freed him up for a long and healthy middle age, and I admit to a native distrust of any such grandiose claims.

DEAD WATER, by Ngaio Marsh.

Cover copy: It was one of those moments without time that strike at body and mind together with a single blow. A black shape, half-inflated, pulsed and moved with the action of the spring...

Alleyn had to get through the turnstile. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the spring. She was lying face down in the pool, only a few inches below the water. Her sparse hair rippled and eddied in the stream...The gash in her scalp gaped flaccidly and before he had moved the body over on its back...he knew whose face would be upturned towards his own.

Gender of detective: male

Wow, there's telling you nothing, and then there's telling you nothing! Take it away, Amazon:

FAITH HEALING CAN BE FATAL - When intrepid octogenarian Emily Pride inherits an island, and the miraculous properties of its "Pixie Falls" healing spring, she is shocked by all the vulgarity. The admission fee, the Gifte Shoppe, the folksy Festival, the neon sign on the pub, all must go! But local opposition runs high, death threats pile up, and Miss Emily's old friend Superintendent Roderick Alleyn arrives just in time to discover a drowned body and a set of murder motives that seem to spring eternal. The one other key fact that's left out: the dead body isn't Miss Emily's, but that of her most vocal opponent, the owner of the Gifte Shoppe.

This novel isn't set early in the series -- I suspect it's rather late, actually, but I couldn't prove it except by triangulating via the existence of Alleyn's wife and son. That's the thing with Marsh: she's better about character development and depth than Christie, but her characters don't run as deep (and as dependent on being read in the proper sequence) as Sayers.

It's a good book. A bit predictable -- there's a New Zealand girl, for example, who is involved with someone who is not guilty of the murder in the slightest. But then, the beauty of Marsh is that she is predictable. She won't get too wrapped up in psychology, nor let a character get away from her, nor yank the rug out from anyway. You always know what you're getting with her.

*

Kris is asleep on the futon, so it's down to Stef and me keeping each other awake. ('And sane,' says she. 'Bit late for that now, innit?' says me.) Four and a half more hours. Where's that Barq's?

Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me (thank you, swankyfunk!)

HANGMAN BLIND, by Cassandra Clark.

Cover copy: November, 1382. The month of the dead. Close to the Feast of St. Martin in the fifth year of King Richard's reign, Abbess Hildegard rides out for York and the Abbey of Meaux.

This is no ordinary journey. It is a time of rival popes, a boy king, and a shaky peace in the savage aftermath of Wat Tyler's murder. As Hildegard embarks on a perilous mission to secure the future of her priory, with only her two hounds for protection, she encounters a gibbet with five bloodied corpses and then the body of a youth, brutally butchered. Who was the boy, how was he connected to the men hanging from the gibbet, and what do these gruesome deaths mean? Hildegard is determined to uncover the truth, no matter how terrible it may be.

When even her childhood home, Castle Hutton, turns out not to be a safe haven from murder, Hildegard realizes she will have to summon all of her courage and wisdom to counter the dark forces that threaten her friends and family as well as her country.

The first in an engrossing new series of medieval mysteries, HANGMAN BLIND introduces a remarkable and unforgettable new heroine.

Gender of detective: female

If one wants to write a medieval mystery, with a female detective, by far your best bet is a nun. As is pointed out in this novel, nuns had most of the same rights that married women did, without having to answer to a husband. So both this novel and the next have nun detectives.

There the similarities pretty much end, however. This one focuses on the politics of the time, both religious and secular. Everything is very gritty, as if to make it more real. Even Hildegard isn't allowed to escape unscathed: not only is there a lovingly described attempted rape, the narrative makes a point of sexualizing her perceptions of her friends and acquaintance, as if Hildegard somehow would be less human if she didn't feel sexual desire, vows or no vows.

I wasn't particularly impressed. Part of it was the self-conscious grittiness, noted above. Part of it was the heavy accent on the aforementioned politics, never my favorite subject. And part of it was the even more gratuitous survival of the villain, for the evident purpose of, well, having a recurring villain. Bah.

*

"Stef, if you're going to keep sexing up Disney songs, at least do it in writing."

(No, really. I already knew that 'A Whole New World' could be really sketch, but 'Be Our Guest'? Poor, poor Lumiere.)

TO DIE FOR, by Tessa Barclay.

Cover copy: In London to organize a series of concerts, Greg Crowne - otherwise known as Crown Prince Gregory von Hirtenstein - has befriended a pretty Polish countess, Marzelina. When Marzelina is found dead behind the rolling stacks in the Museum of Music Heritage, Greg is inevitably drawn into the police investigation.

It emerges that Marzelina had been sent to England by an elderly relative, Estelle Wiaroz, a Chopin enthusiast who has learned of the discovery of a lost Chopin manuscript. Armed with a letter of credit, Marzelina had been instructed to buy the scrap of manuscript. Not surprisingly, no sign of the manuscript nor of the letter of credit is found on the body.

It seems that Marzelina and Estelle may be the victims of a complex scam, the unraveling of which will take Greg and his girlfriend Liz Blair to Paris and Scotland on the trail of a thriving Chipin forgery industry...

Gender of detective: male

It's not so much that Greg is a music expert, and the leads are all music-related. That's the way it works with mysteries: you have to have some reason why your detective is the one ferreting out the connections, rather than someone from the police. Unless of course you're writing about a police detective, in which case it's their job, or a private investigator, ditto.

The problem is really that there's nothing in the victim's past, no reason for her to die except the Chopin, not so much as 'whoops, flashed too much cash in front of the wrong person.' Maybe it's just that I'm too used to false leads and red herrings -- but this mono-focus wound up feeling railroaded, with the result of the whole thing ringing a bit false. The writing isn't bad. It's just that her meta-reasoning is showing a bit too clearly.

*

Let's try again on
that whole haiku hour thing.
Yay, I think it worked!

Also, I have had berries and whipped cream. Mariposa is magnificently sprawled out on the couch next to me, fast asleep. Sneak, sneak, sneak, sneak....

HOUNDED TO DEATH, by Rita Mae Brown.

Cover copy: From New York Times bestselling author Rita Mae Brown comes the latest novel in her enthralling series of foxhunting mysteries. Richly imagine and utterly engaging, HOUNDED TO DEATH reveals the cut-throat world of competitive hound shows as both human and animals alike try to solve a series of bizarre deaths.

"Sister" Jane Arnold, esteemed master of the Jefferson Hunt Club, has traveled to Kentucky for one of the biggest events of the season: the Mid-America Hound Show, where foxhounds, bassets, and beagles gather to strut their championship bloodline stuff. But the fun is squelched when, immediately after the competition, one of the contestants, Mo Schneider, turns up dead - facedown, stripped to the waist, and peppered with birdshot. Universally detested by his peers, Mo had no shortage of enemies, making the list of suspects as long as the line for homemade pecan pie at a church bake sale.

Two weeks later, back in Virginia, Sister is rocked when her friend the popular veterinarian Hope Rogers dies from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sister refuses to believe that Hope killed herself and vows to sniff out the truth. But before she can make real headway, a wealthy pet food manufacturer vanishes during the granddaddy of all canine exhibitions, the Virginia Hound Show.

Ever reliant on her "horse sense," Sister can't help but connect the three incidents. And what she uncovers will make her blood run colder than the bodies that keep turning up in unexpected places.

Thrilling adventures with horses and hounds, breathtaking vistas, furry friends, familiar faces - including Shaker Crown and the girls from Custis Hall - Rita Mae Brown weaves all these elements into a dazzling novel of suspense.

Gender of detective: female

This is the sort of book that includes a list of characters before the story starts. Unusual, but not unheard of. But this is also the sort of story that includes a list of hunting terms before the story starts. Oh dear, I thought, I'll have to refer back and forth. Except then, as I read, all hunting terms were defined in-text. So what was with the list of hunting terms?

It comes across as a symptom of what the book is like. The characters seem to believe there's something inherent better, inherently more moral about liking and understanding hounds and horse*. On its own, eh. But there's also political soapboxing (worrying about discrimination when there are starving people in the world is selfish, see), and if that's not enough, the animals talk. But you can only sometimes understand them, if you are wise in the ways of hounds and horse, and the moon is full, and the author needs a plot device. Just to top things off, after the author spends the entire book telling us how intelligent "Sister" is, she only solves the murders because she literally stumbles across another one in progress. Not an impressive showing, that.

Overall, another series that failed to impress me nearly as much as the cover copy thought I should be. Bah.

*Ironically, I've encountered this attitude before in fiction - there's a certain kind of Regency romance wherein the heroine adores horses and doesn't understand anyone who doesn't.

BREAKING FAITH, by Jo Bannister.

Cover copy: When she called her business "Looking For Something?" Brodie Farrell hoped to receive challenging commissions from interesting clients. Even by her standards, though, demon rock musician Jared Fry is hard to please. Fortunately his manager, the charismatic Eric Chandos, is easier to like, and it's with him that Brodie works to find a new home for the rock star.

An old coaching inn on the Downs seems the perfect choice. Though the locals are appalled - and their teenagers thrilled - at the arrival of the self-styled Satanist, Fry's primary concern is his new swimming pool. And that's when he realizes that the protestors outside are the least of his problems.

Brodie's troubles are only just beginning, too. She has a long-term relationship with gruff, hard-working Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon and an important platonic friendship with Daniel Hood, a quiet teacher with hidden depths. So why does she find herself so drawn to Chandos? And how much is she going to risk before the real trouble stars?

Gender of detective: male

Brodie isn't actually the detective, really. She's the main character, but either Jack or Daniel is the detective. I think. It's not entirely clear.

I suspect part of the reason I'm so willing to believe Brodie isn't the detective is because she's so blind to Chandos for most of the book. He's bad news, and not even subtle bad news. Consequently, when Brodie falls for his magnetism, it doesn't make him more impressive: it just makes her look stupid.

Then again, I'm really not clear on why either Jack or Daniel adore Brodie. Pretty much everyone admits she's a bitch, with the possible exception of Brodie herself. We're told she's intensely loyal, but mostly we just see her making more difficult the lives of those she supposedly cares about.

I did adore Daniel, though. We're not only told he's intelligent, we get to see him being intelligent. And he's the one character who's actually allowed to get the better of Chandos in a slanging match.

*

Ian is engaging in Wii Baseball, which at least makes sure I can't fall asleep, not if he's waving a Wiimote around like that.

Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me (and if you do, let me know)!