"Amethyst Dreams" is better described as beige

Three parts to this review: 1) The introduction is entirely charming and I could listen to Whitney reminisce for much longer. 2) The narrator, Susan Ericksen, is superb and provides the protagonist with far more personality than the text. 3) The book itself, which is disappointing.

This is supposed to be a Gothic & a mystery. It's neither. Hallie enters a world of lost people and long buried secrets and...does nothing and has nothing done to her. She's confused, people decide to spill their secrets, the book ends.

I can almost believe people opening up about long-hidden secrets--there is something to be said for throwing a stone into a pond, and Hallie serves that role. The trouble is, she has about that level of personality as well, and one wants rather more in a protagonist.

Her "detecting" consists of saying "I can't do this" alternating with asking people "What do you think happened?" and ignoring people who said things about her friend "liking to cause trouble."

There's also a lot of telling rather than showing: We are told Hallie is practical and stable and that her more flighty friend, Susan, listened to her advice. There's no point in the novel where Hallie comes across as particularly practical, stable, or useful. There are also no stories or memories of incidents in which Susan needed her help--just statements that she had.

And I love happy endings, but Amethyst Dreams consists of a sudden "Bam! Everyone is happy now!" Even someone who has spent the entire book dying of cancer is suddenly chipper and apparently well because he's regained the will to live.

I was so glad to visit Goodreads and see others saying Amethyst Dreams isn't Whitney's best because I have fond memories of her from high school and would hate to think that they were entirely based on fals premises.

Book Review: Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Sometimes trusting the cover works, sometimes it doesn't. I picked up Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic because it was free (on Nook and Kindle), and I was looking for a nice, light, fluffy, low-violence read to offset some of the more violent, darker stuff₍₁₎ I have been reading lately. It is not at all light. Not that Doidge gives an excess of gory detail—she does not—but the murders and the motive here are deeply nasty.

Jade owns a bakery where she crafts elaborate and beautiful cupcakes which she gives whimsical and sometimes suggestive names like "Love in a Cup," "Bliss in a Cup," and "Sunshine in a Cup." She is a half-witch with the minor power of dowsing for magic: She can sense it in people and objects, and people with magic tend to be attracted to her. As a hobby, she collects objects with a minor magical residue and crafts them into "trinkets," mostly necklaces and sun catchers. Then, someone is murdered and drained of blood and a vampire informs Jade she's the chief suspect. Soon, there are werewolves involved as well, and Jade finds herself busy trying to solve the murders.

There are several good points about Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic. I love a main character who has and loves a craft, and Jade does love her cupcakes. Also, chocolate! And descriptions of chocolate! Mmmm. The process of making "trinkets" also sounds like a nice, relaxed hobby that creates something beautiful. Even when they gain in importance, they still sound lovely and fun to make.

Doidge writes good, clear prose, and has a good sense of timing. There are humorous moments, and the tale itself unfolds at a good pace. The opening description which helped the cover lure me in, is strong, and she keeps the pace well. The mystery itself is only mildly mysterious: The obvious suspect is, in fact, the killer. It is easy to see why Jade does not spot this, but I am surprised that the vampire and werewolf detectives do not figure things out sooner.

Jade is, like many heroines of mystery series, described as extraordinarily beautiful—blond, athletic, tanned and etc, something which is becoming a pet peeve of mine, though Jade's case is less annoying than it often is because Jade herself is quite matter of fact about it and has not found it to make her life notably better or worse and it is not bringing throngs of adoring admirers to her door.

Unfortunately, though, this is coupled with Jade learning that she is Special after all. I liked her as a low-level magic worker who found herself over her head and had to use her wits to solve things. It turns out she is not, and both vampire and werewolf know this.

Doidge has put some work into her magic system, which was consistent and balanced. The relationship between magical people and "normal" folk is a little blurry: They do, apparently, intermarry. How often or under what conditions, or who they tell about their powers and why is not entirely clear—yet. It is sufficiently clear for the story at hand, and Cupcakes is the first book in a series that will presumably develop this area further.

Bonus point: The vampire finds Jade "intriguing," but not in a romantic sense. In fact, it looks as if, if he ends up dating anyone at all, it will be Jade's mother, which is kind of fun.

The book did not end up being what I was looking for, but I can see where it would appeal to those in search of a fast-paced, magic-laced, mystery with some possibility of romance in the future and a dark strip down the middle.

---
(1) Much of it very good—the set includes a reread of Sunshine for one thing—I just needed a break.
(2) It also turns out that

SPOILER BREAK



Her mother and grandmother didn't tell her about her Special ability in order to keep her safe from those who might exploit her. Since three different people figure out her ability, two of them very quickly, it seems a remarkably foolish choice for two otherwise intelligent women. It seems like training her to use the gift—which she finds she needs and has to figure out by instinct—and protect herself would have been a much better choice.


END SPOILER

Book Review: The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

Verity Grey is hired by an eccentric archeologist obsessed with finding out what became of Romes lost Ninth Legion. He's sure it disappeared in Britain, on the ground he now owns, inf fact. Working with him is Verity's ex, her employer's daughter (and ex's current fling), and a handsome local archeologist who is initially elusive but very attractive. Verity is won over by her employer's enthusiasm, but not as thrilled with his evidence: He's basing his theories on a young boy's second site. Still, Verity agrees to stay for a time, and finds herself troubled by ghosts, fog, and the sound of horses galloping by at night in an area where no horses live.

The Shadowy Horses reminded me quite a bit of the Mary Stewart mystery/romance stories. This is both good and bad: It's good because I like Mary Stewart, and I have read all of her other books, so it was nice to find a potential read alike. It's bad because it wasn't quite a read-alike. Kearsley does some good atmosphere work, and the ghostly centurion, still on guard after all these centuries, and still trying to right old wrongs is a great character. There are also plenty of intrigues and troubles in the present-day crew, enough to make anyone nervous.

The trouble is, Verity Grey lacks some of the spunk of Stewart's heroines. Sure, they all end up turning to the nearest handsome male for help, but they usually don't quaver at the very first sign of ghostly chills. Grey's convinced there's a ghost, and terrified of it, well before there's any real evidence of any actual ghost. Also, I would have liked to see more archeology going on. Kearseley introduces Verity as a well-established, respected archeologist in her own right, but once she reaches the site, actual digging seems to give way to ghostly visitations, romance, and alleged second sight.

Ultimately, I found it fun, light reading, and I'm not sorry to have picked it up, but I thought it needed more oomph. I kept wanting Verity to assert herself more, to turn around when there were ghostly rustles, to show just a bit more backbone.

Random side note one: I think Kearsley also reminds me of Phillippa Whitney, but this is more a memory of some late, late nights reading Whitney's books during my high school years than any other real feeling. And, as those nights spent quietly reading, with no one else up, are treasured memories, I probably won't risk revisiting Whitney and discovering I don't like her any more. That, of course, risks not reading an author I would like now, but all the same, I think I'll let her be.

Random side note two: The Lost Legion caught my attention because of Andre Norton's The Last Planet, which really has nothing to do with the story here, but is one of my favorite books ever, and has had perpetual place on my bookshelves wherever I may be.

Other Reviews

A Book a Week This is where I first learned about it. Kiirstin Maki likes it loads more than I did, so you may want to read her review as well!

Melissa's Bookshelf
A Good Stopping Point
The Eclectic Reader
Lots more results from Fyrefly's Book Blog Search

Got a review I should include? Drop me a line and let me know!

Links of Interest
The Shadowy Horses on Amazon Gracious! It's a 2012 book! Here I was thinking it was written back when...whenever Mary Stewart was writing. I should look that up, I suppose, but Stewart's one of those writers whose just always been there on the shelves, you know? Something of a legend I'm not sure I'm ready to look up her bio and put her in the real world.

Anyway.

Susanna Kearsley's home page, where you can read her blog, catch up on her book lists, and generally find more stuff!

Book Review: Miss Dimple Suspects by Mignon F. Ballard

Miss Dimple, a teacher in a small town during WWII has to help a Suzy, a young Japanese woman, prove her innocence after the woman she has been nursing is murdered.

Miss Dimple Suspects has all the ingredients for a good cozy mystery: It's historical, set in a small town, and has an unexpected and intrepid sleuth. I expected to like it a lot more than I did. As it is, I enjoyed it, but not to the extent of wanting to run out and find more books in the series.

Its primary strength is also its great weakness: It's very much a community book.

On the plus side, there's room for a lot of friendship and sharing. Miss Dimple knows most of the town and several different people help her in her quest to clear Suzy's name. There's almost always at least one person willing to drive her out and to stand guard while Miss Dimple searches. Miss Dimple herself is nice enough and sensible enough that I could easily believe these people would listen to her and be willing to give the Japanese woman the benefit of the doubt, even in the middle of World War II's paranoia.

On the negative side: There are a lot of women in this book, and, although past events are mentioned, none of them gets a very clear introduction. I had a hard time keeping track of everyone, and I found the peripheral players particularly hard to track, and sometimes got quite annoyed when yet another person bearing jam and gossip walked through the door.

There's also one persistent side-issue that keeps popping up and is eventually solved through an unbelievable coincidence. I might try an earlier volume sometime, or I might not. The book never really reached the "I must find more of these books" level of interest, more the "I'd like to be fair and give Ballard another chance" level. We'll see.

Other Reviews
Dru's Book Musings

Got one I missed? Let me know and I'll add it to the list!

Links of Interest
Mignon F. Ballard's Home Page
Facebook.com/mignon.ballard
Miss Dimple Suspects on Amazon.

Book Review: Countdown City by Ben H. Winters

Countown City is another brilliant addition to the Last Policeman trilogy. It is still a mystery, and still noir, but the apocalyptic elements are coming more to the fore than they were in The Last Policeman. The asteroid is closer, and the social order is increasingly breaking down as more and more people "go Bucket List," trying to get in the last few dreams before the asteroid hits.

Henry Palace, however, has always wanted to be a policeman, and he still wants to, even if he no longer officially has the job. This time, he takes the job of finding a missing person in a world where missing people are taken for granted. As before, Winters is playing with the noir tropes: There's the lady in distress, a mysterious organization, guns aplenty, plenty of tough-talking folk, and a detective who just won't quit. There's also an asteroid due to hit the earth in seventy-seven days. The lady in distress is Henry's former babysitter. The guns are being gathered and hoarded by survivalists, some of whom are trying to stay alive until the strike, some of whom hope to make it in whatever "aftermath" a large (dinosaur extinction large) asteroid will leave. The detective who won't quit isn't just sticking to it until this particular case is solved, he's staying on the job until the end of the world.

As with The Last Policeman, the novel is multi-layered. There is the mystery at hand, finding a missing man in a world where everyone takes people going missing for granted. Then there is the second mystery, the one I suspect will take the front in book three, what are Nico's allies up to? And beyond that is the mystery of human behavior: How do people live when the world is coming to an end? When there is a known expiration date and no hope of survival? Who stays on the job and who leaves? Why? What happens when there aren't enough people staying? Is there room for mercy in a world that is ending?

Countdown City is darker than the first book, with more chaos to come in the third book, but still with hints of humor, word play, and friendship. As he goes about his work, Henry mentally catalogs ways people refer to the coming asteroid "The current environment," "these days;" there are no adequate descriptors. Winters has a knack for creating characters you care about and cheer for, even in circumstances when there is no way to have a happy ending, ultimately--but where the reader (like many of the characters) keeps hoping anyway. It's highly readable, highly recommended.

And, yes, there is plenty of material for philosophical discussion. In fact, if ever a book cried out for a book group, Countdown City does. Why am I not getting into deep philosophical discussions here? Well, I've only read it once so far, and I have to admit: It was a pretty quick "Whathappenesnext!" sort of page-turning read. Later, sometime, I'll sit down and read it a little more slowly. It does make me happy that some of the people staying on to the end are librarians and doctors. They, it seems, are doing what they wanted all along.

Other Reviews
Jenn's Bookshelves"
Rhapsody in Books
LargeHearted Boy

Links of Interest
My review of The Last Policeman
Ben H. Winters' website.
@BenHWinters
The Last Policeman on Amazon
A Q&A with Ben Winters
A Look at Concord and the Last Policeman

Got a link or a review I should include? Contact me or let me know in the comments!

Book Review: The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

The Last Policeman isn't good; it's brilliant.

It begins when Detective Henry Palace is called in to investigate a dead man found strangled in the nearby McDonald's bathroom. Almost everything points to suicide: With the end of the world only six months away thanks to an oncoming asteroid, a lot of people are killing themselves. On the other hand, there are hints that it might be murder, and Henry is determined to investigate.

There's a wonderful layering of mysteries here. There is the central mystery: Did the man found dead kill himself, or was he murdered? Wrapped around this is another question: Why hunt down a (possible) killer when the world is going to end in six months anyway? And somewhere to the side, gradually gaining more importance, is the question of what has happened to Henry's sister's husband, whom she is determined to find.

It sounds extraordinarily depressing, which is why I didn't read it at first, but oddly, it's not. It does get dark, and there are promises of darker things to come: People are scared, some are killing themselves, some are running away to try new things, no matter who it hurts. There's also no indication that any of the attempts people are making to save themselves will work: The asteroid won't swerve, there's no sign of any adequate preparation for this kind of strike. In the middle of this, though, there is also a tale of people moving on, of them doing their jobs despite the disaster. Henry's own motives may be a mix of altruism and an attempt to keep himself sane in the middle of a crazy situation, but he's still out there, working, caring, and fighting, and so are other people whatever their mix of motives.

The plot pacing and development is impressive. Any one of the three main plotlines would be enough to keep the story going on its own. There are enough red herrings and odd angles to each of the two primary cases to keep the reader guessing, and enough tension in the interpersonal relations to make a fine end-of-the-world story. Together, they were a rich, wonderful, read. It's also the best kind of genre mix: noir wound around science fiction in the finest of blends.

Now I have to read book two, Countown City, and quickly! Then I shall wait anxiously for book 3. I love falling in love with a series.

--

Other Reviews
Jen's Bookshelves
Reading on a Rainy Day
Chamber Four
Rhapsody in Books

Links
Ben H. Winters' website.
@BenHWinters
The Last Policeman on Amazon

And the book trailer:



As an entire sideline: What do you guys think of book trailers? I partly like them and I partly hate them.

I like them because, yes, they catch my attention, they're interesting. I hate them because they make me feel like watching the TV show or movie, not like reading the book. I like TV, but it's not the same as a book, not by a long shot!

Book Review: In the Best Families by Rex Stout

I listened to this one recently. I love Nero Wolfe mysteries, and Michael Prichard is the perfect Archie.

In this one, Wolfe and Archie start out investigating where a woman's husband is getting his money only to find themselves tangling with criminal mastermind, Zek.

I don't actually like the idea of Zek. I know Archie & Wolfe are sort of Watson and Holmes redone (only partly, mind), but did they really have to face a criminal mastermind just because Sherlock did? That said, the confrontation turns out to be quite exciting and very much of a page turner, and it lets Archie demonstrate his skills as a detective.

One of the many things I like about the Archie-Wolfe pairing is that they are both smart. Archie may not be a genius like Wolfe, but he has plenty of intelligence. Here, he gets to demonstrate that he is staying with Wolfe because he likes the partnership, not because he has to.

I alternate between listening and reading the Nero Wolfe books. The paperbacks fit comofortably in a hand or backpack. The audios are great for gardening to.

Paperback info:
Author: Rex Stout
Publisher: Viking Press,
Publication date: 1950.
ISBN: 9780553277760

Audio info:
Publisher: Books on Tape,
Pub date: 2007
ISBN: 9781415939895

Book Review: Welcome to The Jungle by Jim Butcher

Welcome to the Jungle is the first graphic novel in the Dresden Files series, and also a stand-alone book.

Harry Dresden, Chicago's professional wizard, has to figure out who or what killed a zoo guard. The police would like to say it was the gorilla; certainly, there are clues pointing on that direction. On the other hand, there are also clues pointing in other, nastier, more occult directions, and if Dresden doesn't figure them out, Bad Things will happen. He has to work against time, police prejudice (most of the police would rather not believe in magic, thanks just the same), and the hostile zoo staff (who don't want to believe in out of control gorillas). That, and he has to fight the monster, protect the beautiful woman, and save the day.

I liked this a lot better than the one Dresden Files novel I read--enough so that I may give the series another try.

Then again, maybe it was the flaring trench coat? The illustrations did a marvelous job of creating the creepy, noir atmosphere. I'm definitely going to look for more of Ardian Syaf's wok, if nothing else.

Anyway, it was a good introduction to the world, a nice, suspenseful mystery, some derring-do, and general fun. There's a good look at how the magic works, a strong introduction to a character who may amount to more than the "stoic archetype" I had first dismissed him to (My apologies to any Dresden fans, but I did not get along with the first novel).

I may have to give the novels another try. Or maybe I'll just go straight to the graphic versions? Anyone got any suggestions there?


Who's Who
Author: Jim Butcher
Illustrator: Ardian Syaf
Publisher Del Rey
Publication date: 2008.
ISBN: 9780345507464

Links of Interest
Welcome to the Jungle on Amazon.
Reviews found by Fyrefly's Book Blog Search

In case anyone's wondering, this is #4 in "Books that Deserve Longer Reviews." I'm trying to catch up with myself!

Books That Deserve Longer Reviews Part 1

I never stop reading. It'd be almost as bad as ceasing to breathe.

I do, occasionally, stop reviewing, and this means there's a buildup of books that don't quite get reviewed. So, every now and again, I do short reviews, even though most of these books deserve nice, lavish, proper reviews. Also, the library's summer reading program is giving me a help with short-review writing. So--Here's a start on catching up!

Please note: the "Age level" note is "The age the publishers seem to think this book is appropriate for."

Cold Cereal and Unlucky Charms by Adam Rex, the first two books in the Cold Cereal Saga. So far, the series has a movie star, a pooka, a leprechaun, a unicat, an evil cereal company that is trying to take over the world. It has Merlin, Nimue, Titania, and a mechanical owl. It features two sets of siblings that have to stop the evil cereal company and figure out a way to bring magic back into our world without getting everyone killed or enslaved.

It's funny, crazy, unlikely, and sometimes heart-wrenching. Oh, and occasionally it's gross.

Yes, it's good. Very, very good.

I wish I knew how many books were going to be in it!

Age-Level: Middle grade, but that won't stop adults from liking it.
Genre: Fantasy

Superman Beyond: The Man of Tomorrow by J. T. Krul

I used to watch Batman: Beyond with my little brother, and I like J. T. Krul's work, so this one fell off the library bookshelf with no trouble.

It's a good continuation of the dystopian future of Batman: Beyond and a follow-up to the cartoon. Superman is older now, almost everyone he loved has died, and he has come back to Earth after attempting to take a vacation by traveling through the universe. It didn't turn out to be very restful--he's too used to saving people. Now, back on Earth, he's not sure what to do with himself. Meanwhile, and elderly Lex Luthor has planned to take Metropolis and Superman both with him when he dies. At the same time, criminals are fleeing Metropolis for Gotham, which doesn't have either Batman--Terry or Bruce Wayne--happy, so Terry heads out to see what can be done about the situation.

The strong friendship between Bruce and Clark is admirably shown, there's plenty of action, and, best of all everyone involved also has to think, not just punch, their way out of the situation.

In short, it's fine, fun summer reading. I need to see if there are sequels. Do you know, even now, after years of reading and remembering author names, I sometimes forget to look these things up?

Age-Level: Young Adult
Genre: Um...is superhero a genre? (I guess so. Bill Willingham thinks so. He must be right).

Homicide Trinity by Rex Stout (Editor's note: I originally had this as by Nero Wolfe!)

This was quite a discovery! I thought I'd read all the Wolfe novels, and two of the three stories were new to me. "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo," "Death of a Demon," and "Counterfeit for Murder" Archie is in top form here, sleuthing, griping, detecting, and developing a surprising protective streak for the cantankerous elderly Hattie in "Counterfeit for Murder." "Counterfeit for Murder" may be my new favorite in the Wolfe stories; it's not often the two take on a client who can match them in stubbornness.

Wolfe, of course, is busy taking care of his orchids, trying to avoid work, and eating wonderful meals.

Age-Level: Adult
Genre: Mystery

Dandelion Hunter: Foraging the Urban Wilderness by Rebecca Lerner

I like books on urban ecology and I'm becoming increasingly interested in "weeds," so this book was right up my alley in that regard. Lerner decides to live for a time as a forger, eating only the food she can find in the city. Her first attempt to do so for a week failed, but her second attempt, after more time spent researching, interviewing, and traveling with other foragers, was a success. I disagree with about 85% of her philosophy, but that didn't keep this from being a fascinating read. Also, the writing is good: Clear, strong, and often humorous--especially in the footnotes.

Now I want to find someone to teach me to identify weeds!

Age-Level: Adult
Genre: Non-Fiction

Book Review: The Dead Man's Brother by Roger Zelazny

The Dead Man’s Brother by Roger Zelazny is another non-cozy mystery found during the great cozy hunt. Mind, I already knew it wasn't a cozy. That cover says "non-cozy" as clearly as ever a cover did, and, besides, I really can't see Zelazny writing a tidy little tale about murder in the local bakery₍₁₎.

Dead Man's Brother is firmly noir, which presents me with a bit of a problem: I do read noir, but only very occasionally, so I can say "This is noir," but I cannot comment knowledgeably about the precise flavor thereof. It's got manly men, it's got shady dealings, it's got violence, and a beautiful woman to complicate life. Oh, and there's revenge, and recompense, and a very low-key sort of "doing the right thing." And, it's by Zelazny. That last counts for a lot. It may come up again.

What's it about? Ovid Wiley, now the respectable owner of an art gallery, was once an art thief. There is limited evidence linking his present life to his past--until his former partner turns up dead in the gallery, and the CIA seems intent on framing him for the killing, unless he helps them with a small favor in Italy. It seems a priest has embezzled some funds. A lot of funds. The Vatican doesn't want any official involvement or fuss because it is embarrassing. So all Ovid has to do is quietly and unofficially poke around and see if he can't find out. If he does, the murder charge will go away, and he'll never have to worry about the body in his gallery. So Ovid, who is not at all happy, goes to Italy. There is a beautiful woman. Things get violent. Ovid gets even less happy, makes a trip to Brazil, and solves matters his own, highly unofficial, violent way.

This is unmistakable Zelazny, with his trademark mix of the pulp and the poetic (Is there such a thing as literary pulp? If there isn't, there should be). Ovid reminded me quite a bit of Corwin from the Chronicles of Amber, minus the bit about being pretty nearly a divinity. He does, however, have uncommon luck; reading The Dead Man's Brother, I could not decide whether it was good or bad, but it was certainly uncommon, and he ran through quite a lot of it in the course of the novel. Like Corwin, too, he cares little for the law, though unlike Corwin, he has no family ties to complicate matters.

All in all, a satisfactory sort of read. Dead Man's Brother is not my favorite Zelazny₍₂₎, and this is probably the only time I will read it, but I am glad I did. After all, it is by Zelazny. Have I mentioned that yet?

---
(1) Not that I knew Zelazny wrote mysteries at all, but then, from the afterward, neither did his publishers, not until after he died.
(2) So far, my favorite Zelazny is A Night in the Lonesome October. See
my reviewhere, at The Geek Girl Project, if you're interested in hearing about why. It made a lovely Halloween book, but I'm likely to pick it up at other times as well.

Book Review: Death Without Tenure by Joanne Dobson

I read and enjoyed several of Dobson's Karen Pelletier books a few years ago and was glad when my search for a new cozy led me to one I'd somehow missed, Death Without Tenure, published in 2010. Of course I put it on hold, and of course I started it right away when it arrived.

It was disappointing. Oh, I finished it, albeit in a quick, skimmy sort of way, but Death Without Tenure would never have made me look for more books by Dobson the way Quieter Than Sleep or Cold and Pure and Very Dead, or any of the others did.

The big problem is I never really believed any of the dangers Pelletier was supposedly in. Problem one: For some reason, there is only one tenure position available at Enfield, and Pelletier, just up for tenure, is in danger of losing out to Joe Lone Wolf, an American Indian who has never even finished his dissertation but who is being favored for reasons of political correctness. Problem two: Lone Wolf turns up dead, and Karen evidently has a good motive for killing him; besides, the officer in charge of the investigation hates Pelletier's fiance and wants her to be guilty.

The thing is, for either threat to be credible, everyone involved has to have checked their brains in at the doors. Yes colleges take affirmative action seriously, but I couldn't believe every single one of the people involved in the process would overlook the bulk of tenure requirements. Nor, once some of the circumstances of Lone Wolf's hiring became apparent, could I quite believe them; apparently, no one conducted even the most rudimentary background check on the man they were hiring. People can be idiots, but this required too much stupidity--and the absence of good old-fashioned curiosity--on the part of too many people.

The same held true of the investigation. For Pelletier to be in real danger, the investigator had to be someone the courts would creditably believe. His actions were over-the-top, and his fellow officers so clearly did not like or credit him, that that fell through. Really, anyone who wasn't Pelletier or her friend, was completely inane, which perversely made Pelletier herself far less likeable.

Too, Dobson handles the inter-cultural and inter-racial dilemmas that form the backbone of this book less than deftly. Yes, inter-cultural matters can be difficult, and institutionalized attempts to handle them can create a maze of conflicting dictates. To Dobson's credit, Pelletier herself doesn't come off as a shining example of perpetually correct cultural reading, but the tone of this book is often condescending, at best. Fully analyzing the maze in Death Without Tenure is, mercifully for this reviewer, quite impossible without heavy spoilers, but there are some major letdowns in Dobson's handling of the Lone Wolf scenario. I almost think Dobson wanted to address the issue and slapped it into a Pelletier mystery when what she really wanted was something much longer and more complicated. At least, she needed something longer and more complicated to adequately handle the number of questions she raised.

Other matters were also disappointing: Pelletier's sister brings her mother over to stay for a few weeks. This had some promise because the relationship between the women has been fraught for years. It's even more poignant because their mother is now fuzzy-minded (exact cause unclear), and needs constant care. The trouble is, other than one or two quick bonding moments, the ailing-mother subplot gets reduced to "I left Mom with (insert friend's name) while I taught/investigated/graded." Pelletier has some seriously good friends.

Also, I believe she re-used a motive, this time around, which is a pity.

The other books in the Karen Pelletier series--the ones I did enjoy, enough that I'll still read the next mystery, whenever it comes out.

Quieter Than Sleep: A Modern Mystery of Emily Dickinson
The Northbury Papers
The Raven and the Nightingale: A Modern Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe
Cold and Pure and Very Dead
The Maltese Manuscript

So, what did you think? Feel free to use spoilers in the comments!

Book Review: The Phryne Fisher Mystery Series by Kerry Greenwood

I'm still hunting for new cozies to read. Actually, it's been a surprisingly successful hunt, all told, though there have been glitches on the way. The Phryne Fisher Mysteries by Kerry Greenwood count both as successes and as glitches. They are successes because they’re good, and I enjoyed them, and I’m glad there are more out there for me to read in the future, but they’re glitches in that, while mysteries, they are not cozies, or rather, their coziness varies drastically from book to book.

Phryne Fisher is a private investigator living in St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia in the 1920s. She's also independently wealthy which means she can pick and choose her investigations on her own, and she can make her own decisions on how to resolve them. Sometimes her solutions are legal, sometimes they are not. They are generally, however, quite final.

I had a moment, reading Death by Water, when I had to laugh: When I started the great cozy hunt, I spent quite a bit of time griping about the physical perfection of some of the heroines, and their shallow use of said beauty to get what they wanted. Now, here I was, reading a book about the incomparable Miss Fisher, a raven-haired, green-eyed, porcelain-skinned woman who never hesitated to use her feminine whiles if she thought it would get her what she wanted—and I was enjoying it. Phryne may be nearly perfect, but she’s also a lot of fun, and uses her perfections so wittingly, that I found myself charmed.

The language is also lively, vigorous, and thoroughly enjoyable. Indeed, for a while, I was happily marking particularly choice bits to share with everyone, but on reflection, I think I’ll stick with just one and let you read the rest when you pick up the books. Here’s Phryne telling Dot, her maid, about one of the crew members: “I’m sure Navigation Officer Green will tell you all about it. Until your ears bleed. If he wasn’t such a darling, I’d have to drop him overboard. Even then he would be telling me valuable and useful things all the way down.” See? You know a lot about Phryne, her relationship with Dot, and something about Navigation Officer Green as well in one short segment. That is how it’s done!

There is a problem when it comes to properly tucking the books into a sub-genre so as to be able to recommend them to other people. I started out looking for a cozy series, and Death by Water, which I read first, and Dead Man’s Chest, read later, qualify. In fact, I was all set to suggest them to anyone who enjoys the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries: There's the lovely, lavish 1920's setting, the genuinely likeable heroine who is concerned for those around her, and a lively cast of supporting characters.

Then, though, I read Cocaine Blues and Queen of the Flowers, which are emphatically not cozies. Further books only reinforce the confusion. Cozies generally deal with smaller groups of people, and they usually leave the impression that the world is, at base, fairly orderly and everyone involved will be able to heal and go on with their lives; often, there really isn't much healing needed. The Phryne Fisher books, however, allow for more chaos and leave more injury in their wake. Everyone is certainly better off at the end than they were at the beginning, but they're not just fine. There’s some really nasty violence in some of them, and various books in the series involve hunting down a back-alley abortionist who rapes his patients before leaving them to die of his inept operations, a grandfather trying to sell his granddaughter to the brothels, a wife-beater, and other unsavory sorts generally not allowed to darken cozies. Sometimes, in fact, the books are downright noir. Phryne, too, doesn’t quite fit the usual mold: She carries a gun and shoots to kill when she needs to, and has a succession of lovers, sometimes quite prominently , sometimes not. So I’m going to skip pigeon-holing these, and just let you know that they’re good, but you have to be ready for changes of tone and willing to read anything from cozy to noir and back again.

Two further notes: I suggest reading the series in smaller batches. I’m delighted with the size of the series and plan on finishing it at some point, but, though I do enjoy Phryne’s perfections, they do pall if too many books are read at once in quick succession. Reading them is like eating chocolate cake; it's delightful for a while, but then you realize that you've had enough and it's time for a bit of a break.

Also, while the books are good, they get better as they go on: If I had read Cocaine Blues first, I am not sure whether I would have finished. Death by Water, though, hooked me. Dead Man’s Chest and Queen of the Flowers cemented the positive first impression.

So... Anyone got any ideas about what I should try next?

Book Review: The Black Sheep Knitting Group Mysteries by Ann Canadeo

The great cozy hunt continues!

Back when this quest started, I found A Stitch Before Dying, by Anne Canadeo and I enjoyed it enough that I thought I'd give the series another try. They were just what the doctor ordered: Light, pleasant, craft-centered mysteries. A group of good friends, the Black Sheep Knitting Group, stumble across assorted murders and, for various reasons, end up working to solve them before the police do. They are quick, light reads, perfect for the days when I just want to be entertained while I relax.

The books could use a bit more copy-editing. Knit, Purl, Die, in particular, had a number of minor grammatical glitches, and every book had at least one minor slip up, nothing that affected the mystery, one name changed mid-paragraph, someone had "more than an hour" to prepare for a 7 PM meeting when the time given was 6:30, someone else “leaned over” to give a kiss when he was lying on the couch and she was standing up. Nothing major, but noticeable, all the same.

These were minor irritants, however, in overall enjoyable books. The women in the Black Sheep Knitting Group have a believable friendship that is warm and real. Their discussions ring true as conversations between friends, they seem like nice, ordinary people that one might meet, and there is just the right amount of knitting talk: Enough to verify that this is a real knitting group and to pull the reader into the shop, but not so much that it might as well be a knitting instruction book. This is a difficult balancing act, one not every author can pull off. It’s tempting for authors to wander off into deep digressions and precise descriptions; Canadeo, bless her, knows how to restrain herself. There are patterns and recipes at the end of each book, for those interested in making the crafts or delicious dinners mentioned in the books.

The only problem I have with the series is its length. Right now, it consists of:

While my Pretty One Knits: Everyone is introduced and Maggie, the shop owner, is the prime suspect, and for very good reason. Her good friends rally around to save her.

Knit, Purl, Die: A new member and good friend of the Black Sheep Knitters is found, drowned in her pool. All the evidence points to an accidental death caused by drink and an overdose of pain killers. The group isn’t quite ready to believe this, however.

Til Death Do Us Purl: A young bride needs help finishing her hand-knitted gown on time. The Black Sheep Knitters help her finish her gown, and then find themselves working to find out who murdered the groom just after the wedding.

A Stitch Before Dying: Maggie is invited to give knitting lessons at a new spa and hotel. The Black Sheep Knitters come along for moral support and to enjoy the amenities. Unfortunately, the charismatic owner of the hotel is murdered while they are there. Since Maggie’s friend is involved, so are the Black Sheep Knitters.

And that’s it!

Now I have to wait wait until The Silence of the Llamas comes out next year, in January.

A Not-Exactly Review of She Shoots To Consquer by Dorothy Cannell

She Shoots to Conquer an Ellie Haskell mystery by Dorothy Cannell had a fun cover (1) and a promising premise: Ellie Haskell, her husband, and her housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy, lose their way in the fog one night and find themselves at a mansion where Lord Belfrey is hoping to recoup the family fortune by hosting a reality show, a version of The Bachelor where he is the bachelor in question. They arrive just after one of the contestants has died, seemingly in an accident. Meanwhile, the housekeeper, Mrs. Malloy offers to take the dead woman's place in the contest. It sounds quirky enough to be fun, and it had a great opening paragraph. After that, I stalled out quite rapidly.

She Shoots to Conquer is a pseudo-semi-gothic book; a parody-that-isn't, where the meta-fictional mess piles up until neither reader nor narrator is quite sure where she stands. In other words: I bounced off of this. Hard. Ellie loves gothics intensely. She also has a vivid imagination, so vivid she's never really sure she's seeing what something or just imagining it. Once or twice, I could see, but after the third or fourth variation of "Did I really see it, or did I just imagine it? I know my imagination is really vivid," I lost patience with Ellie. The prose is pseudo-gothic, which means intends up layered densely over itself in an unwieldy mass.

I slogged through three chapters, skipped over for a bit, read the last bit, jumped around, and gave up.

I'll stick to the Aunt Dimity books, I think, for those times when I'm in the mood for gothic lite.

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(1) Yes, I'm still playing the game of "judging a book by its cover." And, yes, I'm still hunting for a new cozy author to love. More on that anon!

Not-Exactly Book Reviews: In Search of a New Cozy Mystery Series

I'm feeling like some light entertainment. Specifically, I want another good cozy mystery or so to read. At the moment, I'm out of suggestions and recent reviews, so I went with a less-scientific method, choosing by cover and title. It's been known to work.

Try one: The Grave Gourmet by Alexaner Campion.

The first, most important thing Campion has to say about Capucine is that she's gorgeous and knows it. She first appears in chapter one in "straightening, drawing in her tummy, rounding out her buttocks, lifting her breasts against her designer silk blouse." By the second chapter, she is asking her superior for a job transfer, still wearing designer clothes, but having decided that "omitting a bra was essential to the tough guy look." For some reason, Campion feels the need to mention her braless state twice within three pages. Am I supposed to like this woman? I'm honestly not sure.

And then there is the prose. French words are liberally scattered throughout the text, just to remind everyone that this is supposed to be France. They're italicized, to remind us that they're foreign (Yes, I know this is traditional, but it's also distracting, especially when it's happening several times a page).

Then there are the metaphors. Oh the metaphors.

In the first chapter, Capucine's "feeling of well-being popped like a soap bubble, drenching her in cold oily dampness." A few pages later, there is Capucine "releasing an insuppressible smile to flutter across the room like a butterfly."

I hope someone opened a window for the poor thing.

Having made it to all of page eleven, I flipped to the end, only to find someone saying, "My sense is she's cauterizing her spirit."

This may well replace "I left my fear in the dimensional tunnel" as a personal favorite non-phrase(1), but I'm still not finishing the book.

Moving on: Scones & Bones by Laura Childs.

The first thing Childs wants everyone to know about Theodosia is that she is with a group of friends. This is promising. The next most important thing, though, is that she is gorgeous. "Her abundance of auburn hair could have inspired Raphael; her fair English skin seemed tempered by the cool, rainy weather of the Salisbury Plain. Theodosia's blue eyes sparkled with barely contained energy" She also has high cheekbones, and a full mouth. Is anyone else thinking of young Anne Shirley's "raven tressed" heroines? Only me?

I read for a while longer. The prose in Scones & Bones was, as you may have gathered from that description, colorful. It tended to intrude itself at odd moments, and I never was sure what to think of characters who talk about tea in tea-catalog terms. Also, I'm pretty sure EMTs don't put their stethoscopes on a man's chest, decide he's dead, and leave. I skipped a few pages, and a few more, and then a few more. And then I ran across this:

"the answer bubbled up inside Theodosia's brain like saber tooth tiger bones being spit from the depths of the La Brea tar pits."

What does one do with a metaphor like that? Hang caution tape around it? Circle admiringly? Stutter to a disbelieving halt before reading it out loud to any and all passers by?

Next book: Agatha Christie's Spider's Web novelized by Charles Osborne.

Spider's Web was something of a safe bet. I like Agatha Christie, and I've read a couple of Osborne's novelizations of her plays before, so I knew what to expect. It was a mildly enjoyable read with Christie's trademark tricks and twists, fun, but just a little flat. It's not that Christie's characters ever have deep interior lives, but they do have them, and Osborne's novelizations invariably leave that out, simply describing the motions of the people very much as though they were on stage. Spider's Web was a stopgap, not a solution.

A Stitch Before Dying, a Black Sheep Knitting Mystery by Anne Canadeo

This one features a group of friends who enjoy knitting together. Canadeo tells us of hobbies, careers, and friendships. There's nary a raven-tressed or Titian-haired heroine in sight. The prose is neatly staying in the background, working to tell the story. The knitting group describes their projects in reasonable, craft-group language.

I like these people, and the time spent reading passed agreeably, quietly, and quickly. It's what I want out of a cozy.

I'm feeling optimistic about this one and plan on picking up a few more in the Black Sheep Knitting mystery series next visit.

Mind, I'll probably pick up a few other mysteries, too, just in case.

Anyone got any suggestions?

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(1) From Andromeda, about the time I realized it had stopped being the show I loved. Still, I've gotten a lot of amusement out of that phrase. That's something.

A Spider on the Stairs by Cassandra Chan, a book review of sorts

Short version of the review: The book is not a cozy, Bethancourt is immature, and Gibbons just never grabbed me.

A Spider on the Stairs is the fourth book in the series featuring Betthancourt and Gibbons. It begins as Bethancourt is glooming through Christmas at his family's estate and Gibbons is called in to investigate a killing that might be yet another in a series of murders by "the Ashdon killer." He judges the murder to be the work of a different killer and is asked to stay on and help the local police force to investigate it since most of the people who would normally do the work are down with the flu. He calls Bethancourt and the two get down to the business of sorting through clues, trying to identify the victim, and figuring out who had a motive for killing her.

I did not get along well with A Spider on the Stairs. This is not entirely the book's fault. I checked it out of the library because I liked the title and because, on looking the author up, I found an earlier book in the series described as a cozy, and I was in the mood for a cozy. Excerpts of reviews on the back of the book only furthered the impression that I'd be getting something frothy and relaxing.

As it happens A Spider on the Stairs is not a cozy. The serial killer Sergeant Jack Gibbons is ostensibly not investigating casts a very long shadow over the story. I wouldn't put the book quite in the hard-boiled category. There's very little violence actually shown, but even the off-page torture and murder of a series of victims pulls the book out of the cozy category as far as I'm concerned.

Momentum kept me going to just past the halfway mark, at which point I started skimming. The problem is, in addition to the complete absence of coziness, I didn't find either of the detectives particularly appealing. Gibbons has likely been more thoroughly introduced in other books. In this one, he's fairly bland. He watches matters, asks questions, and leaves matters of personality to Bethancourt. Bethancourt is, unfortunately, not terrifically likeable or self-aware. He's a womanizer who has broken up with one girlfriend several times, seems to have had a few others, and is interested in crime for some reason no one, including him, can explain. He does collect gossip for Gibbons, but it hardly seems enough to justify Gibbons hauling him along on cases.

On the plus side: The murder puzzle itself is quite well worked out. While I did not like the constant presence of the serial killer case, I did appreciate the mentions of other, unrelated cases in what was, after all, a fairly large area. The clues were carefully planted and worked out well, leading my post-halfway skim to be a lot more detailed than I had expected it to be--to be honest, I had planned on skipping to the end and calling it a day, in which case, there probably wouldn't be a review here, not even with disclaimers. The inevitable connection between the two primary, apparently unrelated(1), cases was well-thought and not one I would have foreseen. Some of the minor characters stand out well. I was particularly impressed with the sense I got of the murder-victim's personality, the feeling that, yes, she would have been a fun person to know.

I do wonder if this is Chan's usual style and subject matter. Bethancourt spends much of the book being glad he's not working on the serial-killer case because the serial-killer's mind doesn't interest him, and Gibbons, too, is happy to leave that case to Brumby, the detective who specializes in the killers. In fact, the ultimate interrogation and arrest of the serial killer is handed over to Brumby with Gibbons watching admiringly--almost fannishly--as Brumby does his work. Is Chan wanting another, darker, Brumby series? Or is this tone and content typical of her? The review excerpts I mentioned earlier all reference previous work and sound even less applicable than usual to the book I read. I think, however, I'm that I am likely through with Chan. A Spider on the Stairs has its virtues, but it is not my style.

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(1) I hope I'm not spoiling things too badly here, but I don't think so. It would be very odd for a murder mystery to have two prominent cases that were entirely unconnected in the end.

Drood by Dan Simmons, a cranky not-exactly review

To begin at the beginning: Wilkie Collins is one of my favorite, most admired, and most-loved authors of all time. Moonstone and Woman in White both landed themselves among my most-treasured books the minute I read them. Armadale and No Name aren't quite there, but are close. I admit, none of the other books I've read quite equals these in brilliance, but four stunning books and several good to really good books is quite enough for any one author, don't you think?

Collins writes beautiful, polished, Victorian prose. He can be scathing in his character descriptions. He knows exactly where and how to use both drama and melodrama to the best effect.

Dickens may not be one of my favorite authors, but he never fails to draw me in, and I am never going to argue with the people who say he's brilliant. I may quibble with the ones who say he's more brilliant than Collins, and I certainly have a bone to pick with the ones who say that Bleak House is clearly and objectively better than Woman in White (I'm looking at you Julian Symons(1)), but I won't debate his brilliance.

And in a general way, I like Victorian novel.

So Drood, a novel purporting to be by Wilkie Collins about Charles Dickens and solving The Mystery of Edwin Drood was either a dream come true or a disaster waiting to happen.

Sadly, it was the latter.

It takes a lot of nerve to write about two great Victorian authors, and a lot more to presume to write as one of them. I didn't really expect Simmons to succeed. I did, however, expect him to at least try. I mean, it is possible to write as a Victorian novelist without being one. Look at Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell(2). Simmons, however, opts to write in an entirely modern tone, and it does not work.

This is Wilkie Collins introducing a character:

A mild, compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour of her birth. Nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time. Starting from this point of view, it will always remain by private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of the vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all.

This is Simmons introducing a character:

[Dickens] was the most popular novelist in England, perhaps in the world. Many people in England and American considered my friend to be--outside of Shakespeare and perhaps Chaucer and Keats--the greatest writer who had ever lived.

Of course, I knew this to be nonsense, but popularity, as they say (or as I have said), breeds more popularity. I had seen Charles Dickens stuck in a rural, doorless privy with his trousers down around his ankles, bleating like a lost sheep for some paper to wipe his arse, and you will have to forgive me if that image remains more true to me than 'the greatest writer who ever lived.'

Can you see the difference?

This is not Collins. It's not Dickens. It's not Victorian, and it's not anyone I particularly want to spend the next six pages with, much less the next eight hundred.

I did read a few more pages, and skipped, and skimmed. After all, the book had come fairly highly recommended. It did not work out. I remained decidedly out of sorts and decidedly unimpressed by any resemblance to actual work by Collins or Dickens. Also, while it had been a while since I read The Mystery of Edwin Drood (what there is of it), I couldn't see any resemblance between the book I remembered and the book I was trying to read.

I kept telling myself I should stop thinking of Collins and Dickens and try to let Drood succeed on its own terms, but it doesn't want to succeed on its own terms. If it had wanted to, it wouldn't be "by" Collins and it wouldn't purport to be the "true" story behind one of Dickens' novels.

Yes, Simmons did his research. As far as I know, the biographical details are accurate (give or take the eyeless men and the sinister duplicates), but he missed the style and spirit of both authors entirely.

So this is a long, rambling, completely out-of-sorts review of a book I wanted to like and ended up not even finishing, not properly.

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(1)Whom I may never forgive for saying that the book that gave us Marian is not quite up to the standards of the book that burdened us with Esther. To add insult to injury, Symons does this in the introduction to Woman in White. Seriously. If you're that in love with Dickens, introduce Dickens.
(2)Really. Do. It's a fantastic Victorian novel. It just happens to have been written in the twentieth century.

Blood Maidens by Barbara Hambly, a book review

Having long ago read, enjoyed, and reread Those Who Hunt the Night (Immortal Blood in the UK) and Traveling with the Dead, I was delighted when the series finally continued with Blood Maidens.

"But what is it about?" a friend asked recently. It's a fair question. The series is set in the early 1900's (1911 for Blood Maidens, somewhere around three years earlier for Those Who Hunt the Night). In all three books, James Asher, philologist, professor, and former spy for Great Britain, finds himself dealing with politics and mysteries present in the human and vampire world and the approach of the Great War.  Partnered with him are Lydia, his wife, a medical researcher, and Don Simon Ysidro, a several hundred year old vampire who keeps some of the courtly manners of 1555, the last year he was alive. In Those Who Hunt the Night the partnership is involuntary: Ysidro having made it clear that he is a vampire makes it equally clear that he will kill Lydia and James both if James does not agree to his demands. In the later two books, the partnership is more equal: There are threats to both humans and vampires that take both to resolve and the three have achieved a level of trust.

I wondered how well a sequel written five years later would pick up the threads of the former books. It wasn't a problem. Blood Maidens takes place about a year after Traveling with the Dead and the relationships are picked up without a hitch. This time, it looks as though the Germans might be recruiting a vampire to their side, a problem for both humans and vampires because vampires rely largely on secrecy for their safety and because the human political balance of power could be drastically shifted if one side had an army of immortal, powerful vampires on their side (and recruiting one vampire means recruiting all the vampires s/he chooses to make). Asher quickly begins to suspect, however, that Ysidro has non-political reasons behind his decision.  Motives aside, they quickly discover unexpected plots and plans in the vampire kingdoms and difficulties in the human political arena that are more than enough to keep Lydia, Asher, and Ysidro occupied and often in danger.

I love these books partly for their atmosphere; Hambly has a degree in medieval history which gives her a good grounding in research and a knack for knowing just which details to include to create the world of the early twentieth century. Her characters are also very much of and from their time, not twenty-first century caricatures standing outside and criticizing(1). The cautious friendship between the Ashers and Ysidro is also well-portrayed. How can you be friends with someone who regularly kills people for food? Who is going to go on doing so, unless you kill him? How can you not be friends with someone who has consistently and honorably kept his word and who has saved both your lives on more than one occasion? Or, from Ysidro's point of view (which is, wisely, never given), how can you be friends with food? And, of course, there is a mind-bogglingly layered set of plots, counterplots, and plans, plus the worry that James Asher will be recognized by people who knew him under another name, from his time as a spy.

I think Blood Maidens could be read as a stand-alone; the story is complete in itself, but reading the first two books made it better.

Certainly it was worth waiting for. Now, maybe, just maaaybe we'll get a sequel to Dog Wizard. Please?

(1) Twentieth/Twenty-first century women in Victorian clothing is a pet peeve of mine. I've never really been able to really enjoy Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series, for example, because Amelia is so modern in her views; there's no trace of the Victorian anywhere in her. Lydia, in contrast, is a medical researcher at a time when women were not commonly allowed to get medical degrees, and she is a very capable person, but she still reflects beliefs of her time, has struggled with her decisions, and works to be "beautiful" by the standards of her time.

Five on Kirrin Island Again by Enid Blyton, a book review

The recent article in the Guardian, "Enid Blyton's Famous Five get 21st-century Makeover" and the subsequent discussion at Charlotte's Library left me feeling somewhat nostalgic for Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven.

They're a little hard to get hold of at local libraries, but I did find a copy of Five on Kirrin Island Again at the local library sale (for the grand total of 25 cents. Have I mentioned lately that I love libraries?) and happily settled down to enjoy it.

It's a straightforward adventure with clearly delineated good guys and bad guys, a sketchily detailed scientific invention that is impressively full of glass and wire, and a brisk pace that keeps the pages turning. Someone is threatening George's father, trying to steal his inventions. It is up to the Five to find out who, even though they are not supposed to go near the Island and the mysterious tower George's father has built.

Even though it has been years, the characters were still familiar: There is "Little Anne" hanging back timidly, George wishing she were a boy, Julian taking the lead, and Dick being the slightly hotheaded one. Actually, Anne was more adventurous than I recalled--I remember being irritated because George always had to wait behind with Anne; here, she is as involved as anyone.

I found the same qualities in the two books in the Adventure Series--The Island of Adventure and The Castle of Adventure I was able to put on hold at the library: There was a tomboy, a more "typical" girl (though Lucy-Ann seems more determined to get involved than Anne), two boys (Phillip and Jack; Phillip is the animal-lover, Jack's the one with a bird), and an engaging animal, Kiki the Cockatoo. There was also a briskly moving plot, just enough threat to keep the tension going, and a satisfactory happy ending.

There were moments of alienation, but these came neither through the language nor the gender, class, or race differences. They came from being an adult and stumbling over the casual way the Adventure kids were dumped with tutors, left their assigned guardian, and showed up elsewhere without anyone worrying. Suddenly, I was wanting to jump in and tell everyone to start paying attention to the kids. Ah well. No departure, no adventure. See also Vladamir Propp on the fairy tale. See any fairy tale. See most of Diana Wynne Jones. Having seen that, I tell myself, get back to the adventure.

I picked up an Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train, at the same sale, and read it immediately afterward. The two share a distinct kinship: Just enough characterization to keep the plot going, and a heavy reliance on "types"(1)  (Christie makes a point of this in the Marple books). Both authors are light on their feet, moving quickly from point to point and relying on plot rather than character. Both also reflect their time period in their choice of word and, yes, gender relations. And, both are fun in small doses.


(1) The Unicorn and the Wasp may be one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, and Christie may be an author I quite regularly return to, but I am not sure quite what the Doctor was thinking when he praised Christie's great and blinding insight into human nature. Perhaps she was deeply insightful, but if so, she kept it for her real life, not her books.

Aunt Dimity Down Under by Nancy Atherton

Aunt Dimity Down Under is a lovely bit of fluff, just what I was wanting. This time around, Lori heads off to New Zealand, taking Reginald the stuffed rabbit and Aunt Dimity's journal with her.

Much lovely description of New Zealand follows, most of it fitting beautifully into the story and making me happy to travel along (Most: Aunt Dimity has a couple of those "I did my research" lines authors sometimes insert), some (unwarranted) scares, and the stray relative Lori is searching for is found and brought safely to the beautiful English village where she lives.

I'm glad to say that Lori seems to have outgrown her tendency fall for every handsome man she travels with; it was getting old a very few books into the series. Now, she travels happily with her native guide, and chats with her husband on the phone.

The Aunt Dimity books are not serious mysteries; even for cozies, they are cozy. Sometimes, that is just what I am looking for.