Archives

Mystery at Plum Nelly by Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West

I read and enjoyed many of the books in this series of mystery books many, many years ago when I was an avid consumer of all things Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and the Boxcar Children and Helen Fuller Orton. The books feature a group, actually two groups, of children who form two clubs: The Cherokees and later, The Lookouts. The children, who live in southern Tennessee near Lookout Mountain, are first called The Cherokees, but when the older members of the club “became less active because Mickey, Bitsy, Ted, and Buzz had new teenage interests, Jimmy, the youngest member, began a new club, the Lookouts.”

In this particular mystery, Mystery at Plum Nelly, the Lookouts and the Cherokees are all helping with the annual arts and crafts exhibit that is hosted at art teacher Miss Manning’s mountain cabin called Plum Nelly. “When people would ask how to get to her house the mountaineers would say, ‘It’s down the road a piece–it’s plum nearly out of Tennessee and plum nearly out of Georgia.’ Only they say ‘plum nelly’–so the place just got to be called Plum Nelly.” The book is full of dialect, mountain talk, and quaint sayings and aphorisms, but it’s not enough to overwhelm or confuse readers, even young readers. The mystery involves kidnapping, spies, government secrets, and midnight disturbances. It’s great, published originally in 1959, and very fifties in tone, characters, and setting.

This series of books would appeal to fans of the Boxcar Children original series (I don’t recommend the modern Boxcar Children mysteries which were written and published more recently.). However, Cherokee/Lookout series of mysteries is out of print, hard to find, and very pricey when you can find them used. If your library has them or if you happen to find them in the wild at a reasonable price, I highly recommend you check them out. None of these books are to be found in my huge, big-city library system. I have not re-read all of these mysteries for content considerations, but the only thing I found that might be objectionable in Mystery at Plum Nelly is a little bit of good-natured teasing of one of the Lookouts, Billy, who calls himself “fat” and loves to eat.

The entire series consists of sixteen books:

The Mystery At Shingle Rock (1955
The Mystery At the Mountain Face (1956
The Mystery At the Shuttered Hotel (1956
The Mystery At Moccasin Bend (1957
The Mystery At the Indian Hide-out (1957
The Mystery At the Deserted Mill (1958
The Mystery of the Vanishing Stamp (1958
The Mystery At Plum Nelly (1959
The Mystery At the Haunted House (1959
The Mystery At Fearsome Lake (1960
Mystery At Rock City (1960
The Mystery At the Snowed-in Cabin (1961
The Mystery of the Dancing Skeleton (1962
The Mystery At Ghost Lodge (1963
The Mystery At the Weird Ruins (1964
The Mystery At the Echoing Cave (1965

Bleak House by Charles Dickens, again

I finished reading Bleak House this afternoon, and although David Copperfield is still my favorite among the works of Mr. Dickens that I have read, I must say that Bleak House is quite a story. It’s a fog-infused novel, fog throughout being the sign and symbol of the people in the story and their lives as they are caught up in the fog of a very complicated and never-ending lawsuit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

“The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s about a will and the trusts under a will — or it was once. It’s about nothing but costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That’s the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away.”

It’s Shakespeare who wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” as a halfway joking solution to the country’s problems. But Dickens must have had the idea in mind when he wrote such an indictment of the damage that being caught up in the system of law and courts and chancery can do to a man’s or woman’s soul, mind, finances, and health. Several characters fall victim to the vicissitudes of the courts and of lawsuits, while others manage to hold themselves above and at least somewhat untouched by the fog and snare of placing their hopes in a successful settlement of Jarndyce and Jarndyce or any other interminable lawsuit.

“In a unique creative experiment, Dickens divides the narrative between his heroine, Esther Summerson, who is psychologically interesting in her own right, and an unnamed narrator whose perspective both complements and challenges hers.”

This double narrative echoes the many double or contrasting characters in the novel as well as the divided pairs that appear throughout the story. As I’ve already noted, the irresponsible, uncaring Skimpole is a contrast to the extremely passionate Mr. Boythorn, a butterfly versus a bull. Timid, balding, and generous, Mr. Snagsby is the opposite of the grasping, greedy opportunist, Mr. Smallweed. Mrs. Jellyby neglects her home, her husband, and her children while she spends all of her time and energy trying to care for the natives far-off Borrioboola; Her daughter Caddy Jellyby acquires a father-in-law who neglects his responsibilities by focusing on himself and his own comfort and “deportment”. Mr Jarndyce, Ester Summerson’s guardian, refuses to pay any attention the lawsuit that carries his name, but Richard, another party in the suit, becomes so obsessed with Jarndyce and Jarndyce that he loses his money and his health worrying over it. Sir Leicester Dedlock has a “family of antiquity and importance” and is said to “always contemplate his own greatness” while the poor, illiterate orphan boy Jo habitually answers any inquiry made to him with the words, “I don’t know nothink.”
Lady Dedlock is rich, bored and unhappy while Esther Summerson is relatively poor, busy, productive, and generally content. I could go on, but if you read the book you will have fun finding more contrasts between the various characters.

And what are these contrasting and complementing characters supposed to teach us? Maybe we can learn that we all run the risk of going to extremes, of our best qualities turning us into caricatures and even exaggerated hypocrites or immoderate fools. Passion is good, but too much passion about everything looks foolish (Mr. Boythorn). Charity begins at home. Good deportment or manners is less important than a good heart. Taking care of business is good, but immersing oneself in the ever-changing circumstances of a business over which one has no control (like the stock market) is a recipe for anxiety and depression. None of us really can say that we know everything or that we know “nothink”.

The contrast between Esther and Lady Dedlock says something different; it’s not about moderation as much as it is about the difference between a “good woman” and a bad one. Is there really much difference between Esther and Lady Dedlock? Is one perfect while the other is a classic fallen woman? Or are they both just women who are trying to make the best of their own circumstances, women who have been molded by the past and their own upbringing, and who make the best choices that they can make in a Victorian society/sinful world?

I’m definitely curious now to watch the miniseries, Bleak House. Since I know the basic plot of the story, I can watch for more contrasts in the TV version as well as looking to see how the actors, writers and TV producers characterize the various people in the novel. The Perfect Esther and the Ever-Generous Mr. Jarndyce as well as the Evil Mr. Tulkinghorn and the Sponging Skimpole may have more nuance and subtleties to their character in a televised production.

Well done, Mr. Dickens.

Leonard Wibberley, b. April 9, 1915, d.1983

So, I’m doing a little research on Leonard Wibberley since it’s his birthday today. I know about his most famous book The Mouse That Roared. I read it a long time ago, and I remember the basic premise: a very small country decides to declare war on the United States, lose the war immediately, and then benefit from the “Marshall Plan” aid that is sure to be extended; complications ensue.

I have in my library Wibblerley’s Treegate series of historical fiction novels set before, during and after the American Revolution, and I have three of the four in his series of historical novels on the life of Thomas Jefferson, but I haven’t yet read the books from either of those series.

What I didn’t know is that he wrote over 100 novels and other books, some for adults, others for children. And he wrote under three pseudonyms in addition to his own name: Christopher Webb (some historical fiction books for children or young adults), Patrick O’Connor (Black Tiger series on auto racing, and others for YA), and Leonard Holton (Father Joseph Bredder murder mysteries for adults).

Some of these and some of the other books he wrote under his own name look interesting. I’m particularly interested in the mystery series, if it’s good. There’s also a series of historical novels for children or young adults by “Christopher Webb”, published by Funk and Wagnalls in the 1960’s:

Mark Toyman’s Inheritance, 1960. “Mark Toyman is an orphan being raised by his uncle and aunt on the Kansas frontier in the early 1850s. A pro-slavery mob kills his uncle and force Mark and his aunt to flee for their lives.”
The River of Pee Dee Jack, 1962. “Fur trapping and fur trading Northwest Passage exploration story.” (Amazon)
Quest of the Otter, 1963. “Young Paul Joplin’s father, a whaling captain, did not return to his home in Mystic, Connecticut from his last voyage. When he comes of age Paul sails aboard another whaling ship, the Otter, bound for the South Seas in search of his father.”
Matt Tyler’s Chronicle, 1966. “Matt Tyler, a simple cobbler’s apprentice in Boston, finds himself caught up in major events of the Revolutionary War from the siege of Boston to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.”
Eusebius the Phoenician, 1969. “Eusebius, a Phoenician merchant/warrior from Tyre sails from the Mediterranean Sea to Scandinavia to return the body of a slain Viking warrior to his people and to seek the Holy Grail. The Vikings accompany him on a quest that takes Eusebius to the British Isles where he helps a defeated King Arthur re-establish his kingdom in return for assistance in finding the Holy Grail.”

And just a few of the many others of interest by this prolific author (#readallthebooks):
The Ballad of the Pilgrim Cat. “An endearing story of how a stowaway cat on the Mayflower saves the Pilgrims by protecting their grain seeds from rodents.”
Treasure at Twenty Fathoms by Patrick O’Connor. “Chuck Crawford is learning to dive and has a run in with a shark. Will he be able to overcome his fears or will he have to quit diving?”
The Centurian. Adult fiction based on the life of the centurion who oversaw Jesus’ crucifixion.
Flint’s Island. A sequel to Treasure Island, Wibberley’s favorite childhood book.

Don’t these and others (listed at Wibberley’s website) sound absolutely fascinating? Has anyone read anything by Wibberley other than Mouse books, Treegate, and Thomas Jefferson? Any recommendations?

Born August 3rd

Two of my favorite novelists have birthdays today: Baroness Phyllis Dorothy James (b. 1920, d.2014) and Leon Marcus Uris (b. 1924, d. 2003).

Although I like her detective novels very much, my favorite P. D. James novel as of now is Children of Men, a dystopian novel about a world where no children are born. I suggest that those who are prone to look askance at large families and pro-life ideals read James’ rather chilling picture of a future with no children at all. Read my review here. The movie version of Children of Men skews the themes and the plot of the book to make it more about refugees and anti-refugee sentiments than about fertility and the tragedy of a world without human reproduction.

Leon Uris is sometimes described as a “Zionist” and one obituary in the British newspaper The Guardian referred to him as a racist for his portrayal of Arabs in his admittedly pro-Jewish novels. I think this is an unfair accusation, but if you are Palestinian, or sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, you might not enjoy Uris’ novels as much as I do. Exodus, Mila 18, and QB VIII are all great stories with lots of historical information about Israel and the experience of modern Jews in Europe during and after World War II.
My thoughts about Uris and James and their books on this date in 2004.

Uris’ most famous book,Exodus, was made into a move with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint in the lead roles. Reviews of the movie are mixed (I’ve never seen it), however, composer Ernest Gold won the Academy Award for Best Original Score of the movie Exodus at the 1960 Oscars. I recommend both the movie music and the book.

Pat Boone wrote the following lyrics for the Exodus main theme:

“The Exodus Song”

This land is mine, God gave this land to me
This brave and ancient land to me
And when the morning sun reveals her hills and plain
Then I see a land where children can run free

So take my hand and walk this land with me
And walk this lovely land with me
Though I am just a man, when you are by my side
With the help of God, I know I can be strong

Though I am just a man, when you are by my side
With the help of God, I know I can be strong

To make this land our home
If I must fight, I’ll fight to make this land our own
Until I die, this land is mine

Also born on this date:
Mary Calhoun, picture book author of Hot-Air Henry and other books about Henry the Adventurous Cat. I like the story of Henry getting trapped in a hot air balloon and going for a wild ride.
Ms. Calhoun also wrote Cross Country Cat, High-Wire Henry, Henry the Sailor Cat, and Henry the Christmas Cat—all about Henry, a cat of many adventures. And she is the author of the Katie John series of books about a girl growing up in a midwestern family in the 1960’s. The books in order are Katie John, Depend on Katie John, Honestly Katie John!, and Katie John and Heathcliff. Be aware that Katie John grows over the course of the four books from tomboy and president of the “Boy-Hater’s Club” to a fan of Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights) and a boy admirer. The books were published over fifty years ago, however, and the boy-hating and the romantic elements in the final book are quite innocent and unobjectionable. And Katie John is a lovable and irrepressible character throughout the series.
I have High-Wire Henry and the first three Katie John books in my library, available for check out.

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas

It’s the 1930’s, the depths of the Great Depression, and the farms of Harveyville, Kansas are drying up. No rain. No money. Very little work. And the crops are burning in the fields.

The Persian Pickle Club are a group of ladies who meet together to quilt. They work together, share quilt pieces, read together, gossip a little, and keep each other’s secrets. Twenty-something farm wife Queenie Bean is happy to welcome the newest member of the Persian Pickles, Rita Ritter, who has come to Harveyville with her husband, Tom. Tom is home from the city to work on the family farm, and his new wife is about Queenie’s age and a big city girl. So, Queen decides that she and Rita will be best friends.

As the story progresses, it turns into a murder mystery, and newcomer Rita is determined to double as detective and journalist, crack the murder case, and write it up for the near-by town’s newspaper. Rita and Tom both want to get out of Harveyville and back to the big city, while Queenie loves farm life, is content to let sleeping dogs lie as far as the murder is concerned, and just wants a friend and a little rain.

I’m not thinking that The Persian Pickle Club breaks any new ground in the genres of historical fiction or murder mysteries, but it’s a good solid read for quilters, cosy mystery fans, and readers who remember or want to experience a taste of the Depression era.

Sandra Dallas is the author of fifteen adult novels, two young reader novels, and ten nonfiction books. I read her children’s book Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky in 2015, and I added another of her books to my TBR list, Prayers for Sale, from this recommendation at Small World Reads. I think I’d like to explore more of Ms. Dallas’s work. Anyone else have a book by Sandra Dallas to recommend?

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

Before Verity . . . there was Julie.

Billed as a prequel to the popular spy thriller Code Name Verity, The Pearl Thief, set in Scotland and featuring a fifteen year old Julie/Verity, is a coming of age exploration of gender, identity, and bisexuality encased in a murder mystery. Of those three elements—setting, theme, and genre—only two were at all appealing to me. All of the cross-dressing and lesbian awakening stuff which tried to make itself part of the overall theme of confronting prejudice and unkindness instead made me wish the mystery itself were more compelling so that I could skip over the same-sex and opposite-sex kisses and gropings and at least enjoy the plot.

I found it difficult to believe that Julie, an upper class young lady home for the summer from finishing school, could really do the things she did with no compunction or misgivings, no voices in her head screaming that the choices she was making were wrong. She seduces an older man, shares a steamy kiss with a saucy maid while Julie is disguised as a boy, and has an intimate interlude with another girlfriend, all without much inner doubt or moral reflection. There were hints of Julie’s confused sexuality in Code Name Verity, but the hints remained just that and were easily ignored or skipped over. In this one, with a much younger Julie, the intimations have magnified backwards and become blatant and irritating, distractions from a mystery about stolen pearls and attempted murder. However, the mystery isn’t that compelling either.

Anyway, there you have it. The story in this one is subordinate to the message: travelers (gypsies), the disabled and disfigured, and LGBT persons all have to deal with prejudice and misunderstanding, but it’s easier to explore your bisexual impulses because that’s a choice that can all be kept secret and mostly unacknowledged. It’s not a particularly appealing message.

I really liked Code Name Verity, appreciated Rose Under Fire, and enjoyed Black Dove White Raven, but I thought this latest novel by Wein was a dud.

Talking to Strange Men by Ruth Rendell

Talking to Strange Men is a strange book, illuminating the strange but insightful mind of acclaimed mystery writer Ruth Rendell. If ever Thoreau’s famous observation were embedded in a novel, this story of a lonely garden center sales clerk who pursues his runaway wife while becoming caught up in a game of espionage is that novel.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” ~Henry David Thoreau

The cast of characters, teens and adults, in Talking to Strange Men are not wise. The plot is convoluted, but believable. The setting is very British, and my only complaint, besides the depressing, almost despairing tone of the novel, was that some of the details and language and slang that are peculiar to the British setting were somewhat obscure to me, a lowly American.

There is some talk of sexual matters in the novel; it’s definitely an adult novel despite the many teenaged characters. But the sex talk is much more discreet than would be the case with a novel written and published nowadays. (I just read The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer, and I thought the book could have been a couple of hundred pages shorter and much better without all the detailed sexual information that added very little if anything to the story.) Talking to Strange Men is a 1987, cold war sort of novel, and its age shows in the details of the spying and the crime investigation that go on throughout the story. Not that the age of the novel makes it any less satisfying as a psychological page turner, but it is definitely set back in the days before cell phones, computers, and the world wide web became ubiquitous.

Read Talking to Strange Men if you’re a fan of psychological and British quirkiness, like Tana French, maybe, or P.D. James.

The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

The Ringed Castle, Book Five in the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett.
Checkmate, Book Six in the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett.

I can’t believe I read the whole thing, but I’m glad I did. I began reading this six volume series back in December 2013 with Game of Kings, the first book in the series. In this novel, a young Francis Crawford of Lymond, second son of a nobleman and landowner in fourteenth century Scotland, cavorts and carouses his way through wartorn southern Scotland and back and forth across the border with the enemy, England. Francis is a giddy young man with a facile and garrulous tongue, but also a leader in war and romance, with an undercurrent of danger and subversive rebellion running through his character. He’s a medieval/renaissance Scottish James Bond, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Scarlet Pimpernel all rolled into one.

Queen’s Play and The Disorderly Knights deal with Lymond’s adventures in France and around and about the Mediterranean as he serves and politics the king of France, Henri II, the child Mary of Scotland, later to become Mary Queen of Scots, and the Knights of Malta or the Knights Hospitaliers. After a stirring and tragic (for Lymond’s inamorata, Oonagh O’Dwyer) escape from the Turkish invaders in Tripoli, Lymond and his second in command, Gabriel, both return to Scotland where Lymond puts together a small private army, trained in all of arts of war and intended to keep the peace along the Scottish border.

If you’ve made it this far in the series, you’re sure to be hooked by this time, and the fourth book is the climax of the entire story, with a rather infamous human chess game forming the centerpiece of the action. In Pawn in Frankincense, Francis Crawford is at his most vulnerable and his most deadly. The chess game in the seraglio in Istanbul is unforgettable.

Books Five and Six are the ones I read this month as I made my impromptu trip to literary Scotland. In The Ringed Castle, Crawford of Lymond has exiled himself to Russia, the backside of the world in this time period and the land ruled by Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, later known as Ivan the Terrible. In this half-barbarian court of a half-mad tsar, Lymond becomes the Voevoda Bolshoi, supreme commander and advisor to Tsar Ivan. In the meantime, back in England, Phillipa, the teenager that Lymond married in in Book Four, only in outward form in order to save her good name and protect her and her mission, is serving in the court of Mary I (Bloody Mary) and investigating Lymond’s mirky and mysterious past and family background.

Checkmate brings everything in the first five books to a satisfying close, well, almost everything. With a great many starts and stops, hesitations and false starts, triumphs and tragedies, Francis Crawford of Lymond finally meets his destiny, finds his true parents and heritage, and becomes the man he was meant to be. If you have never read these books and you want to, I would recommend that you plan for a marathon reading of all six books in order over the course of a month or more and that you have an English dictionary and a French-speaking translator nearby at all times. A working knowledge of Spanish, Russian, Gaelic, and Scots dialect would come in handy also.

I have a theory that, after the events of these six books were finished, Francis Crawford of Lymond became the actual secret author of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare.

The Anatomist’s Wife by Anna Lee Huber

First in a series, “A Lady Darby Mystery”, The Anatomist’s Wife takes place in Scotland, 1830. Lady Kiera Darby is a young woman, recently widowed and involved in a scandal related to her late doctor husband’s anatomical studies. As the story opens, Kiera has taken refuge with her sister’s family on their estate in Scotland, away from the vicious gossip of Edinburgh and London society.

Unfortunately for Lady Darby, when Lady Godwin is murdered (within the first few pages of the novel), Lady Darby is asked to assist Mr. Sebastian Gage in his inquiry into the crime. Not only is Mr. Gage a rake and perhaps somewhat brainless, he also may, like everyone else in the house party, suspect Kiera Darby of having some culpability in the murder. After all, Kiera’s reputation is still in shreds after her husband’s death and subsequent revelations about his work with dissecting dead bodies and having his wife draw them.(!)

There wasn’t really much Scottish atmosphere to be found in this mystery novel. The occupants of the manor call upon the services of a “procurator fiscal” rather than a coroner in the wake of the murder, and Kiera’s brother-in-law, Philip, lapses into Scots dialect a couple of times under stress. Other that that, the events in the novel could have taken place anywhere in England or Scotland or even Ireland or the continent without much change in the descriptions or the plot.

The post-Regency and pre-Victorian time period of the novel, makes it an interesting mix between what I think of as Regency promiscuity and profligacy and Victorian propriety and conventionality. The society women are appalled at Kiera’s history of having helped her husband in his study of human anatomy. And yet, these same ladies seem to be quite athletic in their pursuit of other women’s husbands. This moral schizophrenia affects the men, too, as when Gage explains to Keira that he is a rake, but certainly not a rogue: “I assure you, my lady, that were you closeted with a rogue rather than a rake, you would know the difference. If a rogue decided he wanted you, he would use all of the means at his disposal to persuade you, but ultimately he would debauch you whether you wished it or not. A rake would never dishonor a woman in such a way.” (In other words, he may be an adulterer and a cad, but at least he’s not a rapist.)

I found the ending to the book and the solution to the whodunnit rather unsatisfactory. The murderer turns out to be insane, with quite a thin motive for his or her actions. And those actions progress from a bloody and violent beginning to an even more brutal and murderous ending.So, finally, although it was good enough to keep me turning the pages, I found only few things to like about this mystery and many others to dislike: too much romance, not enough mystery, too much insanity, not enough sense, too much sexual immorality, not enough virtue, and too much generic setting, not enough Scotland. Fans of Georgette Heyer or other Regency/Victorian romance/mystery writers may enjoy this one more than I did. It wasn’t awful, just not what I was looking for.

If you want to do some more research in the area of Scottish mysteries or post-Regency era mysteries:

Rachel Knowles: When Is the Regency era?
Cozy Mystery Books with a Scottish Theme.
Books in Scotland: a resource for information on all the best in Scottish Books and Writers.

Erle Stanley Gardner and 5 Things That Made Me Happy Today


Over the weekend, I read four Perry Mason mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner. I think I needed to de-tox from reading so much about the “roaring twenties” and Warren G. Harding’s infidelities and his lack of common ethical sense. Perry Mason only flirts and skirts the edges of legality, unlike Mr. Harding who was apparently juggling multiple mistresses while he was in the Senate and while he occupied the White House.

What did I read?
The Case of the Nervous Accomplice. Sybil Harlan hatches a plot to bring her wandering husband back to the fold by throwing a monkey wrench in the business deal he and his paramour are working. But then another party to the deal ends up dead, and Sybil is the obvious suspect. This one was pretty good, and I didn’t see any obvious holes or issues.

The Case of the Careless Kitten. The behavior of a kitten is the main clue that resolves the murder mystery. This story is OK, but there is a a minor character, used as a red herring, who is a Japanese (or possibly Korean) “houseboy.” He is written as a stereotypical “sinister Japanese” character, which since the book was published in 1942, right after Pearl Harbor, is not surprising. It’s a wonder he wasn’t made more sinister–even portrayed as a spy or something worse. But the racist treatment of the character is rather jarring to this contemporary reader’s ear.

The Case of the Vagabond Virgin. At the end, the denouement, of this story the solution is either wonky or I didn’t understand. The murderer uses the victim’s car as a getaway car, drives it to Vegas, leaves it there, and flies back to LA. But neither the police nor Mason seem to have noticed throughout the entire book that the victim’s car was missing. That doesn’t make sense to me.

The Case of the Crooked Candle. Too technical for me, with not enough emphasis on characters. The case hinges on a complicated timeline and high tide and low tide and the burning of a candle in a leaning boat. But I don’t know why anyone would leave a candle burning on a table in a houseboat containing a murdered man.

So, I took a break from true and sordid history to read about not-so-true or even true-to-life murder mysteries. Now I think I’m ready to go back to the twenties and see how Florence Harding manage to deal with her husband’s death and his loss of reputation afterwards.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.

Per the ever-inspiring Melissa Wiley, here are five things that made me smile today (Thank you, Lord, and thanks, Melissa, for the idea.):

1. Listening to Read Aloud Revival, Episode 10, with Heidi Scovel of Mt. Hope Chronicles. It’s just so encouraging to hear people talking about their love of books and reading and classic literature.

2. Chocolate-covered cherry Bluebell ice cream.

3. Reading Gulliver’s Travels with my almost 16-year old and discussing as we read. What was Swift trying to say about England in his story about the tiny Lilliputians of his imagination? And why is his story filed with scatological references that will fascinate and amuse the high school students (boys) in her homeschool literature class?

4. A new family joined my library.

5. Reading half of the book Happy Pig Day by Mo Willems to one of the children in that new library family, and then getting a hug from the child as the family went out the door. Happy Pig Day to me, too.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.