2012 Anthony Award Winners

BEST NOVEL
A Trick of the Light—Louise Penny [Minotaur]

BEST FIRST NOVEL
Learning to Swim—Sara J. Henry [Crown]

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Buffalo West Wing—Julie Hyzy [Berkley Prime Crime/Tekno]
(Yeah Julie!  Congrats from your friends at Murder Among Friends!)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Disarming”—Dana Cameron, EQMM June’11, p.24

BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION WORK
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion—Charlaine Harris, ed. [Ace]

*Pictures & more on Bouchercon 2012 to come!

Gamache and Beauvoir soon discover that there is a serious rift among the monks, between the men who agree with the dead prior that the monastery should make another CD so it can pay for badly needed repairs and the men who believe the CD has ruined their peace. But it is much more difficult to determine who murdered the prior, who was also the choir conductor. A critical piece of evidence may be a scrap of paper the prior was clutching when he died, which contains neumes–the precursors to musical notation that indicate the rise and fall of the chants–and nonsense syllables in Latin.

Gamache’s and Beauvoir’s work is interrupted by the arrival of their superior, Superintendent Francoeur, a man who hates Gamache and is determined to destroy him. Soon it becomes obvious that his intent is to drive a wedge between Gamache and Beauvoir.

As always with Penny, the mystery is atmospheric and absorbing. I haven’t been happy lately, though, with the direction she has been taking Beauvoir.

I reviewed the book in 2009 and looking on Amazon I found it had a completely different cover look in 2011, something that made it look a lot fresher, more exciting and intriguing to my mind. I think she might have moved publisher’s and that’s the reason why. It’s made me think that I might create a covers board on Pinterest that charts the different cover looks of the same books – so whether it’s an update for a new audience or an overseas cover, I think it could be something that would be interesting to have all together, to see the evolution of a book. So that’s coming soon.

For illustration here are the three covers, the first is the original book I reviewed, the second is the newer cover I found on Amazon and the last is the US cover. Let me know which you prefer!

The bad new is that it is pretty cold because I still have on my summer biking gear. The good news is the stars pop out brighter when they aren’t dimmed by the heat from the Earth.

The bad new is I could only bike to the flat part of town that I call El Paso. The good new is the sky is 360 degrees like the inside of an umbrella and the way I learned  my constellations.

The bad new is I can’t see many birds at this time of night. The good news is their songs are more beautiful from the deep dark of the bushes.

The bad new is these riding mowers are throwing grass in my face. The good news is this one guy seemed to challenge me to a race, which I won. Hmmm. That one can go either way because surely Streak and I are faster than a guy on a riding lawn mower.

Let’s switch hands and try this for a change.

On the one hand, the kids in this neighborhood are urchins and like to trash talk me. On the other hand, they are riding bikes, playing sandlot baseball and sassing adults, reminding me of my own kid-hood days.

On the one hand, these folks have the biggest, barkiest dogs of any of my bike trails. On the other hand, I love dogs and don’t mind the barking because I get plenty of that at home.

On the one hand, this is a young neighborhood with plenty of screaming and crying babies. On the other hand, they aren’t my little kids and I can feel sorry for the exhausted adults. Also, some of the little kids and lonely parents like to wave at me — also fun.

On the one hand, I’ve gotten tired of my current book on tape for some reason and have lost track of the plot. I think it’s because James Lee Burke can get harsh in his characters, and work has been too busy to keep my mind on the intricate plot. On the other hand, I just got Louise Penny’s “Beautiful Mystery” on download from the Harris County Library and I can try it out. We can do a bad news and a good news with this one because I paid Audible for the one I’m not liking and got the new one for free from the library. Even Steven.

On the one hand, it got dark really quickly tonight and I would hate to be killed by a hectic soccer mom, careless teenager or distracted Houston commuter . On the other hand, I have this excellent headlight that charges up on my computer and is almost as bright as a car’s headlight.

On the one hand, the mosquitoes are out in full force after the sun goes down and it doesn’t take a half mile to discover that now it’s time to make my way home so I can use the other hand for swatting.

The first night we went to a book signing by Louise Penny for her newest book, The Beautiful Mystery. I would highly recommend her series, the first of which is Still Life: An Inspector Gamache Mystery. They can be read without reading the previous books, but I do think you would miss much of the back story. Louise is a lovely, thoughtful woman and was interesting and engaging, warm and very friendly. I had met her at Bouchercon in San Francisco two years ago and met her very charming husband, Michael, there as well.

The next day I spent almost all of the day hanging out at the pool with a friend from CA also there for Laurie’s launch party. If you look closely you can see the girl child emerging from the bottom of the water slide.   Then, it was off to Poisoned Pen for the launch party for Laurie R. King‘s newest in her Mary Russell series, Garment of Shadows. It was webcast and there is a brief glimpse of the back of my head. Barbara Peters, the owner of Poisoned Pen, runs these like an interview for most of an hour and then gives some time for questions from the audience. Afterwards, the author sits at a table and everyone lines up with their book(s) to be signed. This time, Barbara confessed to having taken a Valium for a strained neck or shoulder (I can’t remember which) and it made her quite talkative. Poor Laurie really didn’t get nearly as much time to talk as she should have. But, it was still good. If you want to hear it, it may still be up at the bookstore website, here. See me in my caftan since the book is set in Morocco and so it was a Moroccan-themed party.

After, we went back to the hotel and about six of us, along with Laurie, hung out having a beer in the beautiful bar, chatting and laughing. Totally awesome. I really am in awe of the woman since she is so incredibly talented and almost scary intelligent. She is, however, warm and friendly and funny so I managed to relax and enjoy it.

I have heard both Laurie and Louise talk about their writing and find their rather different approaches fascinating. It amazes me that anyone is talented enough to write and craft a book worth reading since I am totally devoid of the ability to create story. I remain incredibly grateful to those who can write since I love to read so much. Laurie’s approach is to have a concept of the plot in mind as she writes. Her first draft, she says, would be about 75 or so pages long, basically an elaborate outline with bits of conversation and action. Her revisions consist of fleshing out what she has written, sometimes going back to rewrite scenes so that they make more sense and support the development of the plot and characters. Louise has said that she writes everything including the kitchen sink into her first draft, so that her revisions consist of pruning and trimming and cleaning up and removing all the extraneous words. I gather there is no one or even two ways to write. Both Louise and Laurie end up with well-plotted books, full of wonderful characters, deeply thoughtful and interesting, and yet they each get there in such a different way.

On Thursday, I’m flying to Cleveland to attend Bouchercon, the Mystery Writers of America annual convention. I’m sure I will have more to say about authors and writing when I return.

That was the first night. After that, things improved.

Back in May I found out that one of my favorite authors, Laurie R. King would be having a launch party for her newest book, Garment of Shadows, at the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona on September 4th. Sigh, thought I, I wish I could go. And then, inspiration struck! My brother and his family had moved to Tucson a year ago and we had not yet visited. My kids would not (quite) be in school yet. My husband could take a couple of days off. The plan was coalescing. Then I found out that another of my favorite authors, Louise Penny, would be having a book signing at Poisoned Pen (hereafter referred to as PPB) the night before Laurie. It was like gravy, or frosting, or sparkles. So off we went on Thursday, the 30th, fly, fly, flying over the land. We arrived safely and will skip over that first evening.

My brother loves the area and was extremely eager to show us all his favorite hikes and places. My sister-in-law is also quite an athlete. She’s done triathlons. She’s like an entirely different species than me.

So, the first day we were there, they took us up to Mt. Lemmon. Bear in mind, we were home in NJ at about 650 ft. above sea level the day before and now, suddenly, here we are at 8800 ft. My head stopped being firmly attached to my body. We did one short-ish hike with lovely, beautiful views and then had a picnic lunch. The rest of the family then went on a 5 mile hike. I opted to take my unattached head and walk a half mile up the road to a coffee shop and hang out and wait. I had a book on my kindle ap on my phone, a yummy cookie, great coffee, and lovely weather.

The next day we went over to a park – Sabino Canyon. It was lovely, but oh so hot. And no, not a dry heat, it was monsoon season so it was kind of humid. We also hiked around another park, saw my brother’s office – very cool as it is a drug company working on cancer drugs. But the coolest (hottest?) place was the Desert Museum. You walk around outside with the animals in their natural habitats – mountain lions!! Bobcats!! (really really cute!) Wolves!! Javalinas! Otters!! (totally impossible to get a good picture of).

I’m doing a slideshow of some of what we saw and then write a new post on the Scottsdale portion of the visit. Enjoy!

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For example, authors such as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr created memorable novels that feature mostly a focus on plotting as opposed to deep character development. Of course one can point to exceptions in each of these authors’ back catalogues but in general their novels feature intellectual puzzles. That’s their appeal for millions of crime fiction fans. But for those of you who loved those puzzles, what happened to your view when you first read, say, Ruth Rendell’s work or P.D. James’ work? Those authors certainly feature solid mystery plots but their focus is also on deep interesting characters and psychological study. Did expanding your horizons that way change your perception of the ‘whodunit’ kind of intellectual exercise?

Many readers fell in love with the hardboiled PI novel along the lines of Raymond Chandler and later, John D. MacDonald, Peter Temple, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. It’s easy to see why too. A well-written ‘hard boiled’ novel has a solid blend of realism, action, compelling plot and suspense. And the very well-written ones also develop the characters so that they aren’t ‘cardboard cutouts.’ But if you’re the PI-novel type, what happened to your perception when you expanded your horizons to include quieter series such as Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series? Did you change your view of the level of violence and grit in the series you’d always loved? If you’ve broadened your reading to include some traditional ‘country house’ or ‘English village’ series such as Ngaio Marsh’s or Caroline Graham’s work, have you returned with the same interest to the PI sub-genre?

Very often crime fiction fans experience these ‘growing pains’ if you want to call it that when they broaden their reading to include the work of authors from other countries. Each country has a different culture – sometimes several different cultures – and that’s reflected in the crime fiction that comes from that country. So suppose you’ve been a fan of L.A. crime fiction such as the work of Michael Connelly. What happened to your perception of that sort of crime fiction after you expanded your reading to include work such as Håkan Nesser’s Inspector Van Veeteren novels or Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache novels? Those series reflect the cultures of their authors and thus expose readers to those cultures. After experiencing those different cultures did you return to Connelly’s work with the same enthusiasm?

There are also many crime fiction fans who originally fell in love with historical crime fiction such as Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. If that describes you, what happened to your perception of that context and those authors when you began to read crime fiction set in the modern day? Do you still enjoy virtually returning to medieval times? What about when you began to read historical crime fiction set in different eras, such as Rebecca Cantrell’s Hannah Vogel series which is set just before World War II? Did that change your perception of the historical crime fiction you’d always loved?

Sometimes of course we broaden our reading only to realise how much we really do enjoy the novels we’ve always loved. In those cases, returning to a favourite author’s work is like re-uniting with a dear friend. Yes we’ve matured but that doesn’t change our feelings about that author’s novels. I know I have my favourites whose writing I always enjoy. It doesn’t always work out that way though, even if the author has continued to innovate and create well-written books.

When that happens – when we see that our tastes have simply changed – it can be a little sad, especially if we have some very good memories of a particular author or series. But people grow and expand their horizons and sometimes that simply means that our favourite clothes if you will simply don’t fit any more.

Has that happened to you? What’s happened to your perception of your favourite authors’ novels as you’ve widened the scope of your reading? If you’re a writer, has your writing changed as your reading has changed? Just wondering…

Thanks to Bernadette at Reactions to Reading for the inspiration for this post. Folks, you really should be following her superb blog. I know it’s one of my must-reads.
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Kenny Loggins’ Heart to Heart.

The ensuing investigation, conducted by Gamache in his inimitable and deliberate fashion, dates back hundreds of years, with the first records of what we now think of as Gregorian chant. The music is gorgeous and haunting, dear to Gamache’s heart, too — but the quest to find those first written-down scribblings takes him on a journey of greed, disloyalty and a vicious war conducted between two normally silent monk camps, one wishing for financial salvation, the other moral preservation.

[np-related]

The change in scenery and upping the ante in terms of menace makes The Beautiful Mystery one of the best in the series. That’s largely because, in changing the scope, Penny brings the reader more deeply inside the head of Gamache’s right-hand man in the case, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir. We see him idolizing Gamache professionally but also hesitant personally, as a new wrinkle — in the form of his burgeoning love for Gamache’s daughter Annie — tests Beauvoir, especially when he learns some things about his superior that threaten to dent the hero worship permanently. Gamache’s character also deepens with the added gray shades, so much so that the ending is a triumph of quiet devastation — the right next step, but disturbing nonetheless.

While Penny continues to raise the emotional stakes with each Inspector Gamache outing, Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks novels have settled into a well-worn but eminently pleasurable groove. In Watching The Dark (McClelland & Stewart, 343 pp., $29.99), the 20th book in the series, the wistful quality and superior storytelling that broke Robinson out 10 books earlier with In A Dry Season (1999) are still very much in evidence. But, coming off his excellent standalone tale Before The Poison — certainly among the best crime novels of 2011 — the series’ flame doesn’t burn with the same brightness.

Robinson sounds many familiar notes in Watching The Dark, from Banks’ solo nightcaps with a drink in his hand and music playing on the stereo, to the DCI’s romantic yearnings for relationships akin to past loves like ex-wife Sandra, recent bygone paramour Sophia, and current colleague and now good friend DS Annie Cabbot. But the action plays out a little differently, thanks to a cop killed with a crossbow in the police rehab unit, mysterious photos that connect the dead man to a girl’s disappearance in Talinn, Estonia, and an icy blond policewoman whose job is investigating officers — and who, naturally, spars with Inspector Banks.

The fallacy of dinging an author, even mildly, for doing what he does best should be acknowledged here. After all, Robinson, who has earned his crime-writing stripes several times over, is still writing at a very high level, and one marvels at how he’s able to sustain that level of consistency with each subsequent book. That’s a bloody hard thing to do.

Finally, it might be instructive to the reader to describe the circumstances of how I read Linwood Barclay’s newest thriller Trust Your Eyes (Doubleday Canada, 498 pp., $22): late at night, on a cruise ship, when I should have been sleeping. A great many thrillers strive for this effect, but Barclay, in the five or so years since No Time For Goodbye, cast his mould for standalone suspense, has hit this mark almost every single time.

In this instance, I simply had to know what happened next to two very different brothers, Ray and Thomas Kilbride, who are caught up in a conspiracy that casts the widest possible net while still rooted in their rural hometown of Primrose Falls. After their father’s death, the Kilbrides find themselves on different paths — older brother Ray comes home for what he believes is a temporary stint managing the estate, while Thomas spends his days in front of his computer, absorbed in a Google Earth-type reality simulacrum called Whirl360. And just when Ray’s about to go back to his life, Thomas shows him a blurry image of what appears to be a dead woman — a gruesome nexus point for the virtual to become frighteningly real.

Piling twists like pieces in a game of Jenga, Trust Your Eyes is a breakneck tour of sex-for-pay political scandals, Olympic medal winners reinventing themselves as killers-for-hire, and having every keystroke logged by those who have no business doing so. Even as the ramifications grow larger and encompass a great many people, Barclay never forgets the key to the book is the relationship between Ray and Thomas, the many assumptions each had of the other, and how those perceptions are challenged and upended as the stakes grow larger for the both of them.

• Sarah Weinman writes the Crimewave column every month for the Post.

Guess what?! You can.

But you’ll have to get your tickets fast, as this year’s Vancouver Writers Fest is sure to be one of the best-attended ever.  It runs from Oct. 16-21 on Granville Island. Check out the website for information on the program, tickets, etc.

Also, you might want to consider becomming a member ($35 per year, $20 per year if you’re in a book club with at least 5 members). Benefits include:

• Earlybird ticket purchasing privileges;
• a discount on Festival tickets;
• personalized membership card;
• an invitation to a members’ reception and the 2012 Festival Reading List
• discounts at supporting bookstores (Banyen Books & Sound, Blackberry Books, 32 Books, People’s Co-op Bookstore);
• a subscription to Book News, the festival’s weekly e-newsletter and INK, the festival’s member newsletter (delivered electronically) and
• voting privileges at the Annual General Meeting.

I already have tickets for the Grand Openings event, and am eyeing the Torn From the Pages event. I wish I could go to the Michael Chabon event, but can’t make that night. What are you excited for?

In Louise Penny’s The Beautiful Mystery (St. Martin’s press, library hardcover), Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and sidekick Jean-Guy Beauvoir travel north to the wilderness outpost of two dozen cloistered Gilbertine monks, whose amateur CD of Gregorian chants brought them world-wide fame. The CD also has divided the brothers between those who side with the choirmaster in wanting to further capitalize on their divine musical gift, and those who agree with the abbott that preserving their isolation is essential to their tiny order’s preservation. But now the choirmaster is dead in the abbott’s walled garden, presenting a no-exit puzzle for the two detectives, whose investigation is further hampered by the unwelcome arrival of Gamache’s dodgy boss.

In her last novel, A Trick of the Light, Penny explored ambition,  pride and jealousy in the art world; here, the same motives for murder emerge among the monks, all of whom have been recruited for their musical gifts that combine for “the beautiful mystery” of the title. Penny smoothly orchestrates the ensemble cast, detailing the history of plainsong and musical notation, along with asides on chocolate-making and monastic life. Gamache is quietly astute, as usual, but troubled Beauvoir keeps second-guessing his mentor’s methods. A murderer is revealed but not without cost to the Gilbertines — and the detectives. The ninth book in this favorite series can’t come soon enough.

The narrator of Laurie R. King’s A Garment of Shadows (Random House, digital galley via NetGalley) awakes with a headache, not knowing where or who she is. A victim of amnesia, our intrepid heroine will figure out where she is – Fez, in 1924 Morocco — long before she reclaims her identity as Mary Russell, the much-younger wife of Sherlock Holmes, something series readers have known since the get-go. But before the two can be reunited and embark on a daring ride through the desert, Mary will use her wits and fierce intelligence as she dons male Arab garb and seeks her name in the twisting marketplace. Warplanes fly overhead as Britain, France and local political factions tussle over Morocco’s future, and Holmes, in a parallel narrative, is drawn into the intrigue even as he learns Mary is missing. King evokes the period and Arab culture with her vivid writing, and the plot unfolds at  a relentessly suspenseful pace.

The impoverished West Virginia town of Acker’s Gap springs to life in journalist Julia Keller’s first mystery, A Killing in the Hills (St. Martin’s Press, digital galley via NetGalley) when three old men are gunned down in a fast-food restaurant. County prosecutor Bell Elkins’ teenage daughter Clare was a witness to the shooting, but her failure to tell her mother about the figure she glimpsed in the doorway will put both their lives in danger as they pursue separate investigations.

Bell, who has returned to her hometown from Washington, D.C., to crusade against the prescription drug trade that is ravaging the rural county, is a strong and prickly protagonist. As she tries to figure out the perplexing shooting with the sheriff, she also deals with a mentally handicapped man accused of killing a child, the scars of her horrific childhood and the difficulties of being a single mother. Keller builds suspense by moving among the perspectives of Bell, Clare and the hired killer, and then ups the ante with a devastating betrayal. My only quibble is the overuse of similies that mar Keller’s otherwise fine writing.

Did we visit the Café Temporel like Inspector Gamache and drink café au lait and munch croissants? Mais Oui! Was it as delicious as Louise’s description made it sound?   Absolument!

Did we visit the Literary and Historical Society where the victim, Augustin Renaud, met his death? We did! Was it fun to take the tour and talk with other Louise Penny fans who’d read the book? You betcha.     

Did I come away with further insight into what it is about Louise’s storytelling that grabs the hearts and minds of readers? Not as much as I would have liked.

Which is why I’m excited about a book that points to some answers. It’s called Wired For Story, by Lisa Cron (http://www.wiredforstory.com/). Cron’s book pulls together some of the latest neuroscientific research on why humans need stories and what writers must do to fulfill that need.

Cron tells how Canadian researchers studied two groups of readers: one that read Chekhov’s short story, “The Lady with the Toy Dog”; and another that read a document with the same content, but told as fact. It turns out that Chekhov’s story was significantly more likely to influence behavior measures. Leading the researchers to conclude that a powerfully-told story can instill new values such as empathy. Wow!

She points to another study where brain imaging reveals how readers’ brains create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements in the brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life.

Even better, the book provides twelve chapters on how to use neuroscientific findings to craft better stories.

A great vacation and, now, this new book to take me on a new journey into a better understanding of what readers crave from story.

In Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny has intricately woven three storylines into a riveting mystery. The story follows the murder investigation of a busy body “wannabe” archaeologist, a re-opened case involving the murder of a hermit, and a kidnapping rescue gone horribly wrong.

Chief Inspector Gamache retreats to Quebec, to recover from a shootout in which he was severely injured. While there, he becomes involved in an investigation wherein a man who tirelessly searches for the missing remains of Samuel de Champlain turns up dead in the basement of the library. Meanwhile, the Chief Inspector receives daily letters from the partner of a man who was wrongly convicted of a previous murder: “Why did he move the body? He didn’t do it”.

The story moves along at a captivating pace. While the absence of transitions between flashbacks makes the plot confusing, the reader becomes propelled into the solving of two mysteries, and intrigued by what happened to Gamache’s kidnapped partner. While this book would appeal to any mystery lover, it would also appeal to anyone who loves a good fiction read – the main character must deal with his own mistakes, trauma and humility in addition to solving the crime.

Book finished 9/7/2012

This paragraph didn’t make it onto some of the places I auto-post so I’ll add it here.

This is the end of the catamaran trip from yesterday:

Something new – just as we got back to the Careenage, the captain/crew started playing this and most everyone danced their way into port.  What fun!

I usually try to keep a list of books I’ve read on trips.  One thing I like about coming here to Barbados is that they have a book exchange and I can often pick up British books I might not be able to get in the states. Anne Perry was one of those authors I discovered here.

When I first got here I was reading

That’s a pleasant enough book but I don’t know if I’ll finish it or not.  I just don’t really care enough about the plot or the characters.  If there’s ever a moment when I’m somehow bookless, I might finish it.

On Tuesday, August 28, I had set up an auto-delivery to my Kindle of

I love the Gamache series. I discovered these books either last year or the year before here and have read the whole series.  The characters are interesting and the plots are fascinating.  They take place in Canada, which I find interesting.

I also like a mystery series by Michael Genelin which takes place in Slovokia about a female detective named Jana Matinova, but I’m up to date on those.

At the end of the Gamache book was a note “…if you liked this book, you might like…”

So I tried

I usually read British novels from the 19th century and this was contemporary but I really enjoyed it, anyway. Loved the main characters and I hope the author, Emma Jameson, writes more in this series.

So then I read

I finished that this morning and started this

When that’s done, probably some time tomorrow afternoon, I’ll start

And that about wraps up this trip, I think…

For instance in Louise Penny’s series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec we meet Agent Yvette Nichol. In Still Life she is new to the agency and wants more than anything else to establish herself and “belong.” She is excited to be assigned to work with Gamache because of his outstanding reputation and at first she toadies to Gamache. But Nichol is arrogant and unwilling to really learn. So she has more than one run-in with her boss. Nichol’s tendency to do whatever it takes to get ahead becomes a problem for Gamache in more ways than one as the series continues.

Carl Hiassen’s Skinny Dip features sycophant Chaz Perrone. He’s got a degree that he hasn’t really earned in marine biology and is soon hired by Florida agribusiness magnate Samuel Johnson “Red” Hammernut. Perrone’s role is to give credibility to Hammernut’s claims that his commercial farm does not cause pollution in the protected Everglades. Perrone discovers a way to alter water samples so they look innocent and he’s content to flout the law that way because it helps him stay in Hammernut’s good graces. And it earns him a generous income. Then Perrone’s wife Joey deduces that something is going on and confronts him. He tells her what she wants to hear (as I “said,” he’s a sycophant) but now he’s afraid she’ll ruin his comfortable setup. So he takes her on a cruise, ostensibly to celebrate their anniversary, and pushes her overboard. Perrone thinks he’s solved his problem but Joey doesn’t drown. Instead she is rescued by former cop Mick Stranahan and together the two of them hatch a scheme to get back at Perrone and find out why he tried to kill her.

In H.R.F. Keating’s Inspector Ghote’s First Case we get a look at how Ganesh Ghote began his career with the Bombay police. Ghote has just been promoted to the rank of Inspector when he’s sent by his superior to the mountain town of Mahableshwar where Englishman Robert Dawkins’ wife Iris recently committed suicide. Dawkins wants to know what would have driven his wife to such a drastic act and Ghote is assigned the task of finding out. One of his first stops is the Mahableshwar police station where he discovers to his dismay that the local cop in charge is Pathan Barrani, his old nemesis from the Nasik Police Training School. Barrani is a sycophant and a bully and he has absolutely no desire to have Ghote on his patch. But he tells Ghote that he already investigated the case and it was a definite suicide. Ghote soon finds though that this explanation doesn’t quite fit. There are too many little details that aren’t consistent with a verdict of suicide. So Ghote keeps digging and asking questions. In the end, and in spite of Barrani’s sycophantic insistence that the “official” explanation is correct, he finds out the truth about Iris Dawkins’ death.

Martin Edwards’ sleuth DCI Hannah Scarlett knows all too well what it’s like to have to deal with a sycophant. Her boss ACC Lauren Self is politically savvy enough to know whom to kiss up to as the saying goes and she does so shamelessly. Her rationalisation is that she wants financial and other support for the Cumbria Constabulary, so she has to “make nice” with the “higher-ups” and with wealthy supporters. But from Scarlett’s perspective (and she’s not the only one with this opinion) Lauren Self has a very appropriate surname…

And then there’s local reporter Meredith Morgenstern, whom we meet in Vicki Delany’s In the Shadow of the Glacier. Morgenstern lives and works in the small British Columbia town of Trafalgar but she’s eager for the big break that will give her national attention. She gets what she thinks is her chance when wealthy local developer Reginald Montgomery is murdered. Montgomery co-owned Grizzly Resort, which is planned as an upmarket tourist attraction. Some locals support the plan because it will bring in needed revenue. Others violently oppose it on environmental grounds. So Montgomery’s death is big news for several reasons. In fact it’s so big that L.A. television journalist Rich Ashcroft is sent to Trafalgar to cover the story. He has nothing but contempt for the locals, including Morgenstern, but she is so eager to impress Ashcroft and “make” her career that she essentially does whatever he wants. Her behaviour ends up putting the investigation in jeopardy and she betrays her former friend Constable Moonlight “Molly” Smith in the process.

And of course no discussion of crime-fictional sycophants would be complete without mentioning Donna Leon’s Vice Questore Giuseppe Patta. He is exclusively self-motivated and will say and do anything to further his career. He toadies not just to his superiors but to anyone who’s wealthy and powerful. He frequently opposes the kind of thorough investigation that Leon’s sleuth Commissario Guido Brunetti wants to conduct, particularly if the object of Brunetti’s investigation is anyone with enough clout to cause trouble. Patta is not completely inept or stupid but he is so self-serving that Brunetti knows that the only way to get Patta to approve anything is to show him how it will benefit him. Of course fans of Leon’s series know that that’s exactly how Brunetti and Patta’s assistant Elettra Zorzi manipulate Patta.

Sycophants can be annoying and even dangerous so the wise person knows who they are and knows them for what they are. But they do make for interesting characters and conflict in crime fiction.
 
 
 

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Lional Bart’s I’d Do Anything.

#1 Movie: Batteship

Battleship

Title: Battleship
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Liam Neeson, Rihanna
Release date: August 28, 2012
Available formats: DVD & Blu-ray

#1 Book: The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Lousie Penny

Title: The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel
Author: Louise Penny
Release date: August 28, 2012
Available formats: Hardcover, eBook  & Audiobook CD

#1 Music CD: Built to Last

Trailer Features Track 5 – Cougars & Gigolos

Built to Last by The Rippingtons
Featuring Russ Freeman

Artist: The Rippingtons
Title: Built to Last
Format: Compact Disc
Release date: August 28, 2012

For instance, in Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis’ The Boy in the Suitcase, Nina Borg gets an odd request from her friend Karin. Karin wants her to pick up a suitcase from a locker at Copenhagen’s Central Station. What Karin hasn’t told Nina is that the suitcase contains a three-year-old boy. He’s in a drugged and dazed state but he’s alive. When Nina tries to find Karin to get some answers, she discovers that her friend has been murdered. She also learns soon enough that the person who murdered Karin is now after her. In the meantime Sigita Ramoskiene, a young Lithuanian mother, is looking for answers of her own. Her three-year-old son Mikas was abducted from a playground near Vilnius and she is desperate to get him back. Both she and Nina continue to search for answers and it’s soon clear that the little boy Nina found is in fact Sigita’s son Mikas. Each in a different way, and for most of the novel separately, the two women try to solve the mystery of who took Mikas and why.  So, when is Mikas abducted?  Saturday afternoon.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Red-Headed League, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson get a visit from Mr. Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker with a very strange story to tell. Wilson responded to a job offering that specifically targeted men with red hair. Despite competition from many other men who’d applied as well, Wilson got the job. All he had to do to earn extra money was to copy the Encyclopaedia Britannica. One day he arrived at his place of employment only to find that it was closed and the Red-Headed League he thought he’d joined was disbanded. Wilson wants Holmes to find out what happened to the Red-Headed League and solve the mystery of his odd employment. It turns out that this job was simply a ruse to get Wilson out of his pawn shop so that a gang of thieves could use it to dig a tunnel into a nearby bank. Holmes enlists local police officer Peter Jones and bank director Mr. Merryweather to go along as he and Watson prepare to trap the thieves. And when does all of this action take place? Saturday night. In fact, Merryweather gives up his Saturday evening rubber of bridge to go along on the chase. See what I’m getting at here?

And then there’s Håkan Nesser’s The Unlucky Lottery (AKA Münster’s Case). Waldemar Leverkuhn and a few of his friends went in together on a lottery ticket. To their surprise and delight the ticket came up a winner. The four men agree to meet to celebrate their win and they go out together. Very late that night, Leverkuhn’s wife Marie-Louise comes home to find that her husband has been stabbed. Intendant Münster and his team investigate the case beginning with Leverkuhn’s family and neighbours. When they find out about the winning lottery ticket they also investigate Leverkuhn’s friends. What the team finds is that this is not a simple case. There are few leads and despite the fact that Leverkuhn seemed to be an inoffensive elderly man, there was more to his life than it seemed on the surface. In case you hadn’t guessed already, Leverkuhn is murdered on a Saturday night.

And just so you know, Sundays are not any safer than Saturdays when it comes to crime fiction. In Agatha Christie’s The Hollow, Sir Henry and Lady Lucy Angkatell invite a group of friends and relations to spend the week-end with them at their country home. Among the guests are Harley Street specialist Dr. John Christow and his wife Gerda. Hercule Poirot has taken a nearby cottage and has been invited for lunch on the Sunday. When he arrives at the Angkatell home though, he’s dismayed to see what looks like a tableau arranged for his “amusement.” The body of John Christow is lying by the pool and the killer is standing over the body holding the murder weapon. At first Poirot is far from amused. But when he realises that this is no act he begins to ask questions. It’s soon clear that there’s more to this murder than the scene would suggest. He and Inspector Grange work together to find out who would have wanted to kill John Christow and what the motive is. Did you notice? That murder takes place on Sunday.

So does the murder of beloved former schoolteacher Jane Neal, whom we meet in Louise Penny’s Still Life. Neal is a resident of Three Pines, a small town in rural Québec. On the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, Neal takes an early walk with her dog. During her walk she’s killed by an arrow in what looks like a tragic hunting accident. Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté is assigned the case. Something about it just doesn’t fit with the theory of accident so Gamache and his team investigate more thoroughly. They find that several people in Three Pines are not telling everything they know about their own lives or their relationships with Jane Neal. It turns out that despite the fact that Three Pines is a close-knit community more than one person in the area had a reason to want Neal out of the way.

Sunday is also not a safe day for powerful politician Silvio Luparello, as we discover in Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water. Early one Monday morning, two workers are assigned the task of cleaning The Pasture, a notorious area of the Sicilian town of Vigatà. In the process of cleaning everything up they discover Luparello’s mostly-unclothed body in a car. Inspector Salvo Montalbano is assigned the case and it’s not going to be an easy one. Neither Luparello’s political allies nor his family members want the circumstances of his death to be made public. He was found after all in very embarrassing circumstances in a place usually frequented by prostitutes and their clients. So the Powers That Be put a lot of pressure on Montalbano to “rubber stamp” the official verdict of death by heart attack. Montalbano doesn’t believe the case is that simple and he asks for two extra days to ask questions. He’s reluctantly granted the time and gets to work. He finds that Luparello had plenty of political enemies, political “allies” and even family members who are only too happy he’s gone.  And when did Luparello die? That’s right, folks: Sunday evening.

You see? Week-ends are just not safe! So if you do make plans, please be careful. I’m just saying…

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Loverboy’s Working for the Weekend.

None.

A good read is just as good a read while sitting on your comfy chair in front of the fireplace as on your sandy lounge chair in front of the ocean.

But I thought I’d share what books have kept me company during this too-short summer season while I’ve squeezed myself in a steel tube flying from one coast to another; while I’ve been surrounded by boxes of packed kitchenware and towels during a move; when I sat on a rusty ancient beach chair with the Atlantic Ocean waves soothing my sunburned skin; and while resting in bed, lights turned low, muscles going limp after a hard day’s night.

STATE OF WONDER, by Ann Patchett

Every Patchett book delights me in its authenticity, range of characters, and thought-provoking scenes. Despite slapping myself constantly because of (unseen but well-imagined) mysterious enormous insects (you’ll understand by page 100), I loved every inch of this amazing Amazonian book.

A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, by Deborah Harkness

I ignored several good reviews of this book because one of the characters is a vampire, and I am tired of vampires invading the bookseller’s list. Enough already. But my daughter (who’s prone to read scientific non-fiction tomes) gave me her copy and suggested this is more than a vampire story. I got sucked in immediately (whoops, couldn’t help myself). As the reviewer for PhiloBiblos remarks, “Pure literary brain candy, but … it’s very well written and chock-full of fascinating bits from Harness’s research.” Now I can’t wait to read the sequel.

THE WEIRD SISTERS, by Eleanor Brown

A friend’s friend’s mother recommended this book so highly that I bought the paperback less than 24 hours later at one of my favorite independent bookstores – the Concord Bookshop in Concord, MA. Three grown-up sisters discover themselves, and each other, when moving back home with their aging parents. Many wonderful Shakespearean references abound (after all, in Shakespeare’s time, to be weird was to be prophetic). Author Brown explains, “The fact that (the sisters) were named after … famous Shakespearean heroines contributes to their feelings of failure. They are never going to be as glamorous and romantic and well-spoken as the women after whom they are named, but their problems are very much their own.”

THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU, by Elizabeth Berg

I’ve never read an Elizabeth Berg book I didn’t like (and she’s written a dozen). Berg delves into a woman’s soul like a woman delves into a deep dish of ice cream: passionately and to the last drop. In this Berg book, longtime friends attend their 40^th high school reunion. Harsh, painful, funny, eye-opening: these words describe the book, as well as the reunion. I think the Seattle Times reviewer got it right: “Maybe Freud didn’t know the answer to what women want, but Elizabeth Berg certainly does.”

A TRICKLE OF LIGHT, by Louise Penny

Several years ago my man and I stumbled upon an amazing independent bookstore in North Conway, NH, called White Birch Books. Even though I live on the other side of the country now, I still read this bookstore’s monthly e-newsletter because the staff has been so good at introducing me to new authors, like Canadian Louise Penny. I began with her first mystery, Still Life, set in a fictitious Canadian village south of Montreal, and I’ve been hooked ever since. A Trick of the Light is Penny’s latest, in which the wise and wonderful Chief Inspector Gamache (a truth-seeker in more ways than one) searches for clues after an art-inspired murder in the deceivingly sweet town of Three Twins. I agree with the Booklist comment: “Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm….”

 
I could continue with more good reads, but now it’s your turn.

What Summer Read do YOU recommend?