Book Tracker Teaser

Two Teasers Today!

These two titles are books that I reviewed for The Children’s Crown Award Reading Challenge and which are only marginally mysteries. However, they both deal with the South and are great contrasts with one another and with Whispers of the Bayou - my last entry.

1st Tease:



Red Moon At Sharpsburg
by Rosemary Wells

Adapted from the front flap:

When the Civil War breaks out in 1861, 12 year old India Moody’s relatively comfortable life changes forever. As she struggles for survival, she gets an education in love and loss, the senseless devastation of war, and the triumph of hope in the face of despair. Though the daughter of a harness maker, she has always enjoyed the friendship of the wealthy Trimble family, owners of Longmarsh Hall Plantation. Independent and headstrong, India prefers learning botany and chemistry over the genteel subjects usually assigned young ladies.

From page 65:

‘Pa is going to be safe in his new corps, we hope and we pray,’ I will tell her first. How can Julia understand this? Her father comes home from his law office every evening. He removes his beautifully polished shoes and sits down with a glass of sherry brought by a servant who is better fed and paid than any man who marched up our street today.

Four sentences instead of two, but a good tease for this excellent novel for young adults.

Wells’ style is right on pitch, capturing the soft Southern voice. Her research is meticulous, enabling her to capture the horror of the battle of Sharpsburg at Antietam Creek. The contrast of the civilians picnicking on the hills overlooking the battlefield with the nightmare they watch through their field glasses had me in tears.

Red Moon at Sharpsburg is intense with realistic descriptions of a horrible reality, yet it is also lyrical in its depiction of a young girl’s too rapid passage from childhood to adulthood as she finds a way to achieve her life’s ambition and her heart’s desire.



Four Delights with johnnycakes and sorghum syrup!!!!

2nd Tease:



Tennyson
by Lesley m. M. Blume

The CIP record summary:

After their mother abandons them during the great Depression, eleven-year-old Tennyson Fontaine and her little sister Hattie are sent to live with their eccentric Aunt Henrietta in a decaying plantation house outside of New Orleans.

Tennyson is for all intents and purposes a good Southern Gothic. The first chapter is mesmerizing, pulling the reader into the sultry, verdant landscape of south Mississippi and into the decaying luxury of the Louisiana plantation Aigredoux where the present is inextricably bound to the past.

From p. 45:

The spiders in the trees began to weave great webs in the branches They worked faster and faster and soon the air between every branch and trunk turned into spider silk, as though a vast fine cloth the color of air had been draped over the entire oak alley.

Overall I enjoyed Tennyson - the first half more than the last half. It gives a glimpse into the Depression era South which is not so far removed from the Civil War. My biggest criticism is that Blume does not sustain a stable level of style but alternates between clichés and brilliant prose.



3½ Delights with pralines!!!

Return to Blogging Redux

Oh well, my return to blogging obviously didn’t last very long. I have given much thought to my problem. I visit several blogs daily and have read some interesting entries. Apparently I am not alone in my blog resistance. Others are also reassessing their blog missions and apparently will cut back on their number of entries. I think that my problem might be a subconscious reaction against a perceived assignment!!! I have been a student (English and Library Science) for many years and always completed my assignments - even though I complained and procrastinated! Now I have apparently self assigned - given myself a regular project to be completed - and I am subconsciously resisting that assignment - strongly resisting!!! What a thought!!! So, I am restructuring my idea of how to construct my entries - shortening them.

I read today on Novel Challenges about a new weekly challenge - Teaser Tuesdays- and will adapt the criteria for my blog - at least until I can conquer my assignment phobia.

Teaser Tuesday Criteria:

1. Open the book to be discussed to a random page.
2. Share 2 teaser sentences (avoid spoilers) from that page.

Since I cannot be trusted (obviously) to always post on a Tuesday, I will call my entries Book Tracker Teasers.


Today’s Book Tracker Teaser:



Whispers of the Bayou
by Mindy Starns Clark

from page 62:

“Pardon my saying, but you’re Louisiana born, Miranda, descended from Louisiana gentry on all sides, not to mention a grandmother who was full Cajun. There’s bayou water running through your veins, girl, and jazz music framing out the cadence of your words.”

The test works for me. These sentences capture the tone of this fascinating book.

from the back cover:

Follow one woman’s search through the hidden rooms of a bayou mansion, the enigmatic snares of an ancient myth, and the all-consuming quest for a heart open enough for love - and for God.

Clark cleverly weaves the history of the forced move of the Acadians (Remember Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline?) from Nova Scotia to what is now Louisiana into her intriguing novel of family lies, family secrets, and a hidden treasure in the mysterious, romantic, and dangerous bayou.


3 Delights with pralines!!!

Challenge Roundup

Reading Challenges 2nd Quarter Roundup!

April 2008

1. Piper Reed Navy Brat by Kimberly Willis Holt
2. Bleeding Hearts by Susan Wittig Albert (A ReRead) (A China Bayles Mystery)
3. Spanish Dagger by Susan Wittig Albert (A China Bayles Mystery)
4. Bulls Island by Dorothy Benton Frank
5. Winter Study by Nevada Barr
6. Evan’s Gate by Rhys Bowen
7. Into the Dark: An Echo Falls Mystery by Peter Abrahams
8. Still Life by Louise Penny (Favorite April Read)

May 2008

1. A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
2. Love for Sale by Jill Churchill (A Grace and Favor Mystery)
3. Bell Book Scandal by Jill Churchill (A Jane Jeffry Mystery)
4. A Farewell To Yarns by Jill Churchill (A Jane Jeffry Mystery)
5. The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn (A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery)
6. *The Xibalba Murders by Lyn Hamilton
7. Grime and Punishment by Jill Churchill (A Jane Jeffry Mystery)
8. *Generous Death by Nancy Pickard
9. *The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham (An Albert Campion Mystery)
(Favorite May Read)

June 2008

1. Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daly (A Henry Gamadge Mystery)
(Favorite June Read)
2. ***Tennyson by Lesley M. Blume
3. ***Red Moon at Sharpsburg by Rosemary Wells
4. Look to the Lady by Margery Allingham (An Albert Campion Mystery)
5. Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham (An Albert Campion Mystery)
6. ***Kringle by Tony Abbott
7. ***Julia’s Kitchen by Brenda A. Ferber
8. *Miss Zukas and the Library Murders by Jo Dereske (A Miss Zukas Mystery)
9. Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly (A Henry Gamadge Mystery)
10. Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham (An Albert Campion Mystery)
11. Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham (An Albert Campion Mystery)
12. The House Without a Door by Elizabeth Daly (A Henry Gamadge Mystery)
13. Murders in Volume 2 by Elizabeth Daly (A Henry Gamadge Mystery)
14. House of Seven Mabels by Jill Churchill (A Jane Jeffry Mystery)

*1st In A Series Challenge: 3 Titles
**Nineteenth Century Women Authors Challenge: 0 Titles
***Children’s Crown Award Review Title (Not Counted In 100+ Challenge Count)
100+ Challenge: 26 Titles

Return to Blogging

Return to Blogging!

1st In A Series Challenge
The Crime at Black Dudley
by Margery Allingham
first UK printing in 1929



Reading has never been a problem for me. Writing has. I have always wanted to be a diarist, a journalist but have never been successful. This spring I have had trouble with both! But I redeemed myself over the Memorial Day weekend by reading 6 titles! Now I just have to force myself to blog about them. I am being spurred on by watching the French Open this week, by watching players match point down coming back to win their matches. Their never give up attitude has inspired me to just write. My entries may not be inspiring, but I hope to persevere!

Though my favorite genre is the Mystery and my favorite authors of that genre are those of the Golden Age, Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, I was not familiar with Margery Allingham. What a delightful find! The Crime at Black Dudley is technically the first in a series featuring Albert Campion. However, Campion in my opinion plays a very minor, very mysterious part in this country house mystery. Physician George Abbershaw takes center stage as the amateur sleuth. During a weekend house party at the remote, stark, ominous mansion named Black Dudley, a ritual supposedly dating from medieval times, is reenacted. A dagger is passed from hand to hand - in total darkness, without knowing whose hand passes the blade, for a designated time limit. When the ending gong sounds, the person left holding the bag, so to speak, forfeits the game and pays the price - kisses! The medieval origin of the ritual, however, was played to identify a murderer! The person whose hand was covered with blood at the end of the time limit, was identified as the murderer and paid the forfeit - life for a life! The currently played ritual turned the tables. The person left with the dagger was literally holding the dagger - in his back. Murder was committed in the darkness of Black Dudley!

The blade of the Black Dudley Dagger was its most remarkable feature. Under a foot long, it was very slender and exquisitely graceful, fashioned from steel that had in it a curious greenish tinge which lent the whole weapon an unmistakably sinister appearance. It seemed to shine out of the dark background like a living and malignant thing.

There are many elements of the gothic used to great advantage by Allingham. A secluded, brooding, primitive mansion; hidden passageways; physically strange, totally evil villains; a helpless maiden; a mentally unstable crone. The setting is dark and isolated. There are references to the great Sherlock! The description of the villain is very Moriartyish who is in charge of a well organized multi national crime syndicate. I loved it!. There is nothing like a well written early 20th century mystery! Early motorcars. Early airplanes landing on isolated coastal grass strips. Upper class characters with the leisure to play.

Allingham to her credit meets one of my requirements for a great read - she includes a female character who shows spunk and independence.

Meggie glanced at him sharply, and again the faint smile appeared on her lips and the brightness in her dark eyes. For all his psychology, his theorizing, and the seriousness with which he took himself, there was very little of George Abbershaw's mind that was not apparent to her, but for all that the light in here eyes was a happy one and the smile on her lips unusually tender.

One of the characteristics of these early mysteries I find very amusing. There is a tendency for characters to fall in love literally at first sight - to agree to marriage on the basis of this first sight love without knowing a single thing about the other person. This characteristic plays a crucial part in the motive for the murder.

The ending is well worth the read!. Anything that I say about it will give it away! Though not - in my opinion - on the same level as the great Sayers and Christie, Allingham is a fascinating author. I plan to read as many Campion mysteries that I can find.



3 delights with 2 dollups of whipped cream!!!^^

Reading Challenges 1st Quarter Roundup!

January 2008
1. All the Crazy Winters by Deborah Adams
2. Murder Shoots the Breeze by Anne George (4 Delights !!!!)
3. The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer
4. Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery By Peter Abrahams
5. Open Season by C. J. Box (4 Delights !!!!)
6. *O’Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor (4 Delights !!!!)
7. *Evans Above by Rhys Bowen (4 Delights !!!!)
8. Web of Evil by J. A. Jance (3 Delights !!!)

February 2008
1. *Haunted Ground by Erin Hart
2. **Behind A Mask or A Woman’s Power by A. M. Barnard (5 Delights !!!!!)
3. Hunter’s Green by Phyllis A. Whitney (4 Delights !!!!)

March 2008
1. **Wyllard’s Weird by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
2. *Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
3. Feint of Art by Hailey Lind
4. **Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (3 Delights !!!)
5. Mansions of the Dead by Sarah Stewart Taylor
6. Judgment of the Grave by Sarah Stewart Taylor
7. Still as Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor
8. *A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie
9. Consigned to Death by Jane K. Cleland

*1st In A Series Challenge: 5 Titles
**Nineteenth Century Women Authors Challenge: 3 Titles
100+ Challenge: 20 Titles

Gotta do better!

Tracker - 19th Century Women Writers Challenge

2nd Completed 19th Century Women Writer
(An Unexpected Addition)
Jane Austen
(1775-1817)


(A Public Domain Image)

Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
Published posthumously in 1817

(My Purple Cover)


(A More Gothic Cover)

Serendipity! Sidetrack! Surprise!

My Spring Break began with a movie marathon - a DVD movie marathon! One of the titles was “The Jane Austen Book Club“. I am not sure what drew me to this movie, but I was. Maybe it was the phrase book club. At any rate, it is a fun escape movie that gives insight into a group of women (and one man) and their connection to Jane Austen. I enjoyed it, and it renewed my years old resolution to read Jane Austen. As a teenager I read Pride and Prejudice and at the time, being a romantic teenager, I loved it. As I grew older and perhaps more jaded, I turned from romantic themes to my genre of choice - mystery. As I watched the movie, I was immediately drawn to the description of Northanger Abbey and decided, why not? The next day I bought the book, a new edition whose cover is purple - what’s not to love?!? If I had followed the page 69 test, I would never have completed it. But I am nothing if not stubborn and so persisted - to my great delight! By page 107 I was hooked and finished reading the entire novel in one sitting thus experiencing serendipity and being surprised and sidetracked from my original choices for this challenge.

Northanger Abbey can, with a stretch, fit into my obsession with the mystery genre because Austen parodies Gothic Thrillers throughout, especially Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). And the case can be made that Catherine is a strong, independent female protagonist. She is determined to make the truth known to the Tilney family when she is tricked into missing an appointed walk. When she is rudely evicted from the Tilney home by the very autocratic patriarch, she finds her way home alone, never missing a coach connection. Perhaps my favorite example of her strength is Catherine’s dogged desire to explore what she imagines is a forbidden section of the Abbey, the room of the dead mother. Influenced by her love of Gothic novels, Catherine comes to believe that Mrs. Tilney is not deceased, but hidden from the public, imprisoned by General Tilney for nefarious purposes. This certainly brings to mind Jane Eyre which was not published until 1847 and suggests another avenue of research.

My favorite passage of Northanger Abbey is from page 107, the page that kept me reading:

But you never read novels, I dare say?

Why not?

Because they are not clever enough for you - gentlemen read better books.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

Abbey is described as a parody of the Gothic novels popular at that time, satirizing that popularity. Austen may have indeed intended that purpose, but her description of Catherine’s fantasy about fitting Northanger Abbey, the estate, into the Gothic mode suggests that she could have written an excellent thriller!

And are you prepared to encounter all the horrors that a building such as 'what one reads about' may produce? Have you a stout heart? Nerves fit for sliding panels and tapestry?" . . . We shall not have to explore our way into a hall dimly lighted by the expiring embers of a wood fire - nor be obliged to spread our beds on the floor of a room without windows, doors, or furniture. But you must be aware that when a young lady is . . . introduced into a dwelling of this kind, she is always lodged apart from the rest of the family . . . she is formally conducted by Dorothy, the ancient housekeeper, up a different staircase, and along many gloomy passages, into an apartment never used since some cousin or kin died in it about twenty years before. can you stand such a ceremony as this?

In the end, however, Austen has written a story about the rite of passage of a very young girl, a young girl who in the space of a year recognizes that she has been foolish in letting her imagination run away with her but not foolish in her estimate of the worth of Henry Tilney.

She did not learn either to forget or defend the past; but she learned to hope that it would never transpire farther, and that it might not cost her Henry's entire regard. . . . Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and charming even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the Midland counties of England, was to looked for.

I am not sure that I entirely agree with Austen here. I choose to believe that this is another instance of her irony, saying one thing but meaning another, because I do believe that readers of mysteries and of thrillers can learn about human nature.

Three delights!!! (With scones and honey!)

Tracker - 19th Century Women Writers Challenge

I tend to become obsessive with my reading choices. If at all possible, I will choose titles that fall within my preferred genre, the mystery. In addition, I prefer mysteries by women authors with women protagonists. So, to appease my obsession and to meet this reading challenge was a challenge in every sense of the word. But I had an ace up my sleeve. I was aware of Capitola through one of my favorite mystery series by Joanne Dobson. Dobson edited an edition of this book. Furthermore, I had stumbled upon and purchased but did not read The Hidden Louisa May Alcott: A Collection of Her Unknown Thrillers years ago. In graduate school I obsessively challenged myself to make my assignments meet my reading preferences even preparing a paper featuring the strong girl characters of children’s literature who paved the way for Nancy Drew. In my research I learned of many women authors who wrote, as did Alcott, outside the accepted venues for women and came upon Braddon. Ta Da! I knew I could find titles for this challenge that paved the way for the mysteries that I love today.



1st Completed 19th Century Woman Writer:
Louisa May Alcott
(1832-1888)

(A public domain image)
Gravestone Image included through the inspiration of Sweeney St. George

Louisa May Alcott’s
Behind the Mask or A Woman’s Power
Published in August 1866 in The Flag Of Our Union
Under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard
(The identify of Barnard was not discovered until the 1950’s.)

Behind The Mask was, according to its author, a “blood & thunder” thriller. And it certainly is. Thrillers or Sensation Fiction in 1866 would have shocked Victorian readers with subjects such as murder, divorce, adultery, seduction, and bigamy, subjects shocking for the time when introduced into a domestic scene and which were thought not to occur in respectable middle-class families. At the heart of the novelette is a scheming woman of the world - a gold digger in today’s terms - masked (literally) behind the façade of an innocent, wronged, waif like enchantress. It is giving nothing away to reveal that within the first pages, Jean Muir - the schemer - unmasks her true self:

Still sitting on the floor she unbound and removed the long abundant braids from her head, wiped the pink from her face, took out several pearly teeth, and slipping off her dress appeared herself indeed, a haggard, worn, and moody woman.

And she reveals her true motive:

I will have the best.

Masking is a major literary motif in Mask. A turning point takes place during the performance of tableaux - dramatic scenes created with costumes, makeup, and props - scenes in which Jean assumes the mask of a naïve young girl trying to mask her feelings for Lord Coventry or rather the feelings she wants him to believe she has for him. Masks for masks! A thriller is often defined as having a hero who thwarts the plans of an enemy, climaxing when the hero unmasks the villain. In a sense, Behind the Mask fulfills this requirement. Jean both unmasks and is unmasked. Schemes are revealed both for good and bad. Jean is almost an antihero, lacking traditional admirable qualities yet achieving her goals. The early detective stories of Poe were ratiocinative, moving methodically to ascertain the truth. By that definition, Behind The Mask fits my obsession - the truth was ascertained. The reader always knows the truth, watching as the characters are mesmerized, wanting desperately to enter the plot to rip off the masks, reeling from the means used to reveal the truth to the Coventry’s.

Far from seeming outdated, Behind the Mask held me enthralled until its thrilling end. Alcott must have truly enjoyed writing this. She authored charming, domestic novels while all the while behind the mask of A. M. Barnard she thrilled readers with many, many plots that were far from sweet.



My first - Five Delights!!!!!

Dr. Seuss

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

March 2, 1904 - September 24, 1991

Tracker 6 - 1st To Read Challenge

Second 1st To Read completed!

Evans Above
By Rhys Bowen

I learned of Rhys Bowen from The Lady Killers Blog - highly recommended! Last summer I devoured Bowen's Her Royal Spyness, 1st in the new series featuring Georgie, Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, cousin of King George V of England. Had I not already read this book, I would have listed it first for this challenge. Honesty - perhaps learned from my mystery obsession, the criminal is always found out - prevented my cheating with it. But it certainly inspired me to try the Evan Evans series, and am I glad I did!

As noted in my O'Artful Death post, The Arthurian Legend is one of my passions. Arthur has many Welsh ties. The Constable Evans series is set in Wales so that in itself is one of my delights with Evans Above. The mountains of Wales are associated with mystery and play a major role in this book:

Up on the mountain the sun sank, plunging the cliffs into deep shadow so that it was hard to discern what it was that lay among the rocks. a chill wind sprang up, howling through the crevices and drowning a cry that nobody heard.

The mountain watched as two climbers fell or were pushed to their deaths. Were they murdered? And were their deaths associated with a long ago death of a young soldier who froze during training exercises? How were they connected to a missing apple pie and trampled tomato plants? And then a third body is found, at the back of a cave. What if any is the connection? What is happening to the peaceful Welsh village of Llanfair? Would Evan Evans succumb to the charms of the buxom barmaid, Betsy; or would the ethereal Bronwyn win his heart? Join Constable Evan Evans as he defies the order of his DI and solves the mystery of death on the mountain by looking to the past for answers to present day questions.



Four delights with a dollop of whipped cream!!!!^

Challenges to Read!

I have accepted two more reading challenges!



100+ Reading Challenge:
Read 100 (Or More) books during the calendar year of 2008-2009.
Should be a cinch - right? We shall see!



Nineteenth Century Women Writers Reading Challenge:
Read 4-6 books written by women authors between 1801-1900 - something that I have mentally challenged myself to do for years! Maybe putting my acceptance of this challenge out into cyberspace will inspire me to actually read them! My list is on the sidebar. I am researching a 6th entry to add later.

Becky of Becky’s Book Reviews is hosting this challenge. If you want to see what a truly dedicated reader can accomplish, look at the challenges on her sidebar!

Read on, bibliophiles, read on!

Tracker 5 - 1st to Read Challenge

First 1st To Read completed!

O’Artful Death
by Sarah Stewart Taylor
An 2003 Agatha Award Finalist for Best First Novel

What a great find! After accepting this challenge, I searched Amazon for new series, and this is one of my discoveries. My postlady bravely delivered my package from Amazon on a snowy day. Yes, my south Mississippi town had an actual snow day, and I snuggled up and read Death in one sitting as the beautiful flakes slowly drifted down turning my yard into work of art itself. What a great memory!

Possession by A. S. Byatt is one of my favorite novels, and the movie based on this work is one of my favorite films - one that I rewatch from time to time. O’Artful Death is reminiscent of Possession - there is a love from a past century with a mysterious allusion to that long past relationship. Sweeney St. George, the protagonist of Death, is a professor in the Art Department whose specialty is funerary art - gravestones.

Shortly before Christmas break, Sweeney finds a photo of an intriguing gravestone/monument left on her desk. In her words, it was “weirdly anomalous”. It did not fit in with the accepted grave art of its time. It featured a death figure, a death figure with the hint of a real man’s face gazing lovingly at the figure of a beautiful young girl. According to Sweeney, by the late Victorian period grave art featured more innocent figures such as sweet cherubim not death figures. She couldn’t resist an invitation to spend Christmas in the town where this monument stood, to spend time searching for an answer to this mystery.

Death had me almost from hello. There are references to my favorite things - Edgar Allan Poe, the Arthurian Legend, even Nancy Drew and secret codes! Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” is quoted liberally which could be a reference to Christie’s The Mirror Crack'd, another favorite.

I am going to call Death a modern gothic complex cozy mystery. Its setting is a genteel rural domestic with an amateur detective. But it has elements of the gothic - darkness, isolation, hints of past sins being visited on the present. And it is complex. It made me think and sent me to researching gravestone art. I have to admit I have always been fascinated by the idea of gravestone rubbings even though I have not actually tried this craft.

But here was this strange reaper, his figure so much more accomplished than those of his brethren on other stones. This death was a man, with a man's face somehow suggested in the familiar skull. He gazed down at the girl lying beneath him, his eyes soft, a dreamy smile playing at his bony lips. There was something familiar about the way he looked down at his prey, Sweeney realized, something loving.

Suddenly, she was afraid.. The wind had come up and the woods surrounding the house seemed sinister, full of evil. The night was so dark she could barely see the path her boots had stamped in the snow. As she turned and started for the house it was all she could do not to break into a run, and when she was finally inside, she closed the back door and locked it before it struck her that the person who'd been watching her was inside, and not outside.

4 big Delights !!!!
I just ordered the next three Sweeney St. George mysteries!

Trackers 3 and 4

Oh, what a glorious weekend - I inhaled books. I needed to read!
On Friday I treated myself to a trip to the bookstore - I was desperate for an afternoon of reading mysteries! I bought four and read two of them almost without stopping.

First was a surprising delight.
The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery
By Nancy Springer
A 2007 nominee for the Edgar Best Juvenile Mystery
Read my post here.

Second was
Open Season: A Joe Pickett Novel
By C. J. Box
2001 Edgar Award Nominee for Best First Novel by an American Author

I have seen C. J. Box recommended on several mystery lists I visit but had never read one of his titles. This one had a glowing recommendation on its cover by Tony Hillerman, one of my favorite authors. So I bought it. Hillerman’s Navajo mysteries contain gorgeous imagery of the landscape, so I can understand his attraction to Box whose imagery of Wyoming is equally beautiful.

When the canyon walls finally opened, the bowl in the mountains was even more lush and untrammeled than Joe had imagined it could be. It was a beautiful, remarkable place. Around the rim of the bowl in all directions were sheer, red rock cliffs, which provided both protection and a windbreak. Thin rivulets of water that looked like old lace streamed down the rock walls from above.

I have to say that more and more I avoid mysteries that graphically describe the crimes involved and that use language that Captain Kirk in Star Trek IV describes as colorful metaphors. This one did both. However, the characters became very real to me from the first pages. And the plot was fantastic. It sent me to the internet to learn more about endangered species and the laws that protect them. In my opinion, that is what good writers do. Their research when well done is so much a part of the action that readers don’t know that they are learning. Drawing from my long ago college days, I cling to the belief that literature - including mysteries - should instruct as well as entertain.

Open Season happens to be a 1st in a series title (but not on my challenge list). However, though I thoroughly enjoyed it and read it in one sitting and would really like to follow the development of Game Warden Joe Pickett, I don’t think that I can - that pesky language and those crime descriptions.

Joe Pickett is new to his beat as game warden. He is not totally trusted because he is replacing a much loved warden. Trusted or not, he is soon drawn into a tangled web of deceit, murder, and mysterious hints to a animal species long thought extinct that if it resurfaces could change the lives of everyone in power around Joe. If found to still exist, the government would move in and the economy of the entire area would suffer.

'Do you realize what would happen to this valley if it got out that there might be something in the mountains? . . . They'd [logging truck drivers, cowboys, outfitters, fishing guides] be unemployed while the Feds roped off the entire valley for the future. Environmentalists from all over the country would move in with their little round glasses and sandals and start giving press conferences on how they're here to protect the innocent little creatures from the ignorant locals.'

Pickett has a very interesting philosophy concerning communication.

Joe had always considered individual words as finite units of currency, and he believed in savings. He never wanted to waste or unnecessarily expend words. To Joe, words meant things. They should be spent wisely. Joe sometimes paused for a long time until he could come up with the right words to express exactly what he wanted to say.

And I will waste no currency of communication to hint what the "innocent little creatures" might be. But Joe's solution made the read worthwhile.

4 Delights!!!!

Tracker 2

My second finished book of 2008:
Murder Shoots The Bull
A Southern Sisters Mystery
by Anne George

I have enjoyed the southern sisters several times on audio books - I always have an audio book in my car - but this is the first print version by George for me. One of my favorite bloggers awards her reads bookmarks from 1-5 as a grading system. I love bookmarks; but I honor her great blog; I do not want to plagiarize, so I am experimenting. I am trying out delights first of all - delights 1-5. My idea of delight is a good book with a good cup of coffee within easy reach; thus my symbol for delight is:

Murder Shoots The Bull gets 4 delights. Again, I am experimenting here. I think that I will only award a book 5 delights if in addition to being a great, delightful read, it has more depth and is more complex than a traditional cozy mystery. Cozy mysteries are gentle mysteries typically set in genteel settings like English country houses or villages. They have very little violence other than the murder. The victim doesn’t suffer. Usually death is instantaneous with no prolonged suffering. Usually the mystery is solved by an amateur sleuth, all loose ends are tied up, and the villain caught and punished by the novel’s end - again with no graphic description. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple Novels typify this mystery subgenre. (Definition derived mainly from that of Erin Martin of Cozy Mystery Dot Com and from that of About Dot Com)

In Murder Shoots The Breeze, Patricia Anne and Mary Alice have to solve a convoluted mystery involving blackmail, family issues, an investment club, strange women, old love affairs, and, of course, the murder. The cozy setting is a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. The amateur sleuths are 60 year old Patricia Anne, a retired English teacher, and her 65 year old sister Mary Alice, a wealthy widow many times over. The fun of this series is the relationship between these feisty, funny, southern sisters.

The way my sister Mary Alice got us arrested was simple enough; she hit the president of the bank over the head with my umbrella. Grabbed it right away from me and 'thunk' let him have it. I think he was more surprised than hurt. There was hardly any blood, and everyone knows how much head wounds bleed. There wasn't even a very big knot. Probably wouldn't have been one at all if he'd had any hair. But he screeched like she'd killed him and the security guard came rushing in, saw Mr. Jones staggering around holding his head, and pulled a gun on us. He looked like Barney Fife, the guard did, and chances were the bullet was in his pocket, but you just don't take a chance on things like that. At least I don't. Sister said later that she might have hit the guard, too, at least knocked the gun out of his hand, if he hadn't looked so pitiful standing there shaking like a leaf.

4 Delights!!!!

Following My Path

- * - My first entry for a new blog and the first time I have written 2008 - * -

It is such a cliché to say that I still had trouble writing 2007, but it is sadly true. I have always said that the hardest thing to accept about growing up is to accept that what your mother always told you is true. Time does go faster the older you get!

At any rate, in keeping with the first stated purpose of this blog, I record my first finished book of 2008:

All The Crazy Winters
by Deborah Adams
A Jesus Creek Mystery

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read - light, entertaining, but with some very interesting points. Two of the characters are very eccentric librarians; and since I am a librarian, I thoroughly enjoyed them - even though one of them was already dead when the book began. I might become an eccentric librarian as well!

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

The second stated purpose of this blog is to track the reading challenges that I accept. My first challenge of this year is

Who: hosted by Joy
What: read 12 books that are the 1st in any series
When: between January and December 2008

I am very picky about my reading choices. My genre of choice is the mystery; I prefer women authors and a female protagonist; and I am compulsive about reading all entries in a series starting with the first if possible. Therefore, it was difficult to locate and then pick choices for this challenge. I spent a very long time researching which titles to select - many, many pages of Amazon’s “those who bought this book might also like . . . ”. I reserve the right to change my mind if I don’t like the title I am reading and to pick my alternates at a later date.

With that said, listed below are my initial choices for the 1st In a Series Challenge:

1. Evans Above by Rhys Bowen
(The Constable Evans Series)
2. Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
(The Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries)
3. A Share in Death by Deborah Crombie
(The Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James Series)
4. O’ Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor
(The Sweeney St. George Series)
5. Blood Ties by Lori G. Armstrong
(The Julie Collins Series)
6. Consigned to Death by Jane K. Cleland
(The Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries Series)
7. The Xibalban Mystery by Lyn Hamilton
(The Lara McClintoch Series)
8. Generous Death by Nancy Pickard
(The Jenny Cain Series)
9. The Whole Truth by Nancy Pickard
(The Marie Lightfoot Series)
10. Death at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
(The Albert Campion Series)
11. Haunted Ground by Erin Hart
(The Nora Gavin, Pathologist, Series)
12. Miss Zukas and the Library Murders by Jo Dereske
(The Helma Zukas Series)

Let the reading begin!