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My One Good Turn

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Case Histories
Case Histories (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kate Atkinson has written a great character in Jackson Brodie. I made the mistake of reading the four novels out of sequence. I wish there were somewhere in all the lists that I’ve seen where someone said “Read this one First” or something like that. Here, I will tell you which one to read first – Case Histories. In it you will learn about all the women that Jackson Brodie will get to know and you will recognize in novels to come. The author weaves the stories past and present into a work of art. There is at the core of the book the mystery of how three separate police cases over the course of thirty years can possibly be related. Rough-around-the-edges Jackson Brodie will put all the pieces together and it makes perfect sense.

They say no good deed goes unpunished and Kate Atkinson had a field day with what that means in One Good Turn. In it, Jackson Brodie is once more the receiver of bumps and bruises while only trying to HELP. Every character in the novel who tries to do something good gets in trouble in huge ways. With flying death-dealing dogs, a drowned girl who gets away, and a laptop computer as a weapon what else can I say?

Then on to When Will There Be Good News. This is the novel I read first. It didn’t hurt to do that except I would have enjoyed it much more if I’d read it third. In this novel a little girl named Joanna is walking in the country with her mother, sister and baby brother. A strange encounter turns her life inside out. Thirty years pass. Jackson Brodie is riding a train home until his ride ends dramatically. Little Reggie is a girl who is resourceful and full of life. All these people’s lives are on a collision course that seems so convoluted that you can’t imagine this is a work of fiction. These kinds of chance encounters happen in real-life. Sometimes we live to recover.

After reading When Will There Be Good News, I realized that I’d seen the movie. It isn’t called that but I can’t recall what the name of it is.

Lastly, Started Early, Took My Dog. In it the most unlikely thing is that Jackson gets a dog. It is so hilariously tragic in how he does it. After the last book and what happened to Jackson I couldn’t imagine that he would get beat up in this one but of course what would these books be like if he didn’t. However, he does get out of the altercation with less bruises this time. Of course his reputation doesn’t recover quite so quickly. There is a couple of tragedies in the character’s histories that make them do what they do – like stealing the girl. I especially loved the old woman who gets more and more muddled as the days pass. I kept thinking that she would be the spoiler. I kept hoping she would not be the spoiler. The way the book is written with one story weaving into another, and past and present and future all being melded into the strange quandary of what makes real life the way it is – brilliant.

So don’t get ahead of yourself like I did and read the books out-of-order. You’ll thank me for it.

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The Next Great Reading Series

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Anika Noni Rose as Mma Makutsi, Jill Scott as ...
Anika Noni Rose as Mma Makutsi, Jill Scott as Mma Ramotswe, and Lucian Msamati as Mr. JLB Matekoni (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just finished the thirteenth novel in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. The novels are set in Botswana. Precious Ramotswe is the main character. She is a traditionally built, happy lady who starts a detective agency and becomes busy, not just with her cases but with all the characters she shares the pages with: Her secretary Mma Makutsi with her 97% typing skills and her talking shoes, her husband Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni with his two shop assistants Fanwell and Charlie and the trouble they get into or cause, just to name a few.

In The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection Mma Ramotswe meets Clovis Anderson, the author of her detective agency bible – The Principles of Private Detection. She has always used this book as her guide in her work. So when two of her favorite people in the world find themselves in terrible trouble, Mr. Clovis Anderson’s sudden appearance seems like a God-send.

But Mr. Clovis Anderson is not all that he seems to be. Or is he?

In this book we get to see Mr. Anderson’s POV, which leads me to believe he may be a returning character even though at the end of the book he is about to leave Africa for his home in America.

The book’s title (the academy of private detection) is hardly a subject within the story, but by the end of the book the reader will have to admit that the title is a mystery fit for any private detective.

If the reader follows Mr. Clovis Anderson’s advice to use COMMON SENSE then the reader will just have to be patient and wait for the next book to come out to discover the answer.

Good job Mr. Alexander McCall Smith. The book series is not hard-boiled, quite the opposite. These books will leave you feeling happy. For those hoping for another recommendation for a series. Here it is.

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The Confession by Charles Todd

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English: Street view of the Victorian Norman S...
English: Street view of the Victorian Norman Shaw Buildings on the Victoria Embankment, Westminster, London, previously home of New Scotland Yard, which opened there in November 1890, near the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster (Big Ben). In 1967, New Scotland Yard moved to the 20-story building at 10 Broadway. Architect: Richard Norman Shaw. Source: photo, edited to remove people from sidewalks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As promised I will now attempt to explain why Charles Todd’s series starring Ian Rutledge is such a must-read. As in other Charles Todd books the series takes place just after WWI. Rutledge is a detective with Scotland Yard. He was on the battlefield in France. His horrible experience in the war is what makes him so unique.

Hopefully what I’m about to tell you doesn’t come as a shock. During WWI deserters, or anyone suspected of deserting, or anyone thinking about deserting was shot on the spot by firing squad if not outright. Usually there was a trial of sorts that might have gone like this:

Officer: What were you doing?

soldier: Shooting myself in the foot so that I can be sent back home and away from this horror.

Officer: Then you are a deserter and I sentence you to death.

Something like that.

Charles Todd doesn’t shy away from hitting the issue head-on. The character Ian Rutledge was an officer. His best-friend was his second in command Hamish MacLeod. Hamish tells him that he “won’t go over the edge” (meaning he won’t lead the men out of the trench and straight into enemy fire, which is what they’d been doing for days.) So after a speedy trial but loathe to do what he must, Rutledge lines up a firing squad. Because everyone like Hamish so much the firing misses anything vital, leaving a bullet riddled but alive man. Rutledge must put a bullet in his best friend’s heart. Just as he does that the bunker where they are is blown up. For three days Rutledge lies under the rubble with his dead friend on his back. His friend’s body creates an air pocket that keeps Rutledge alive. After he is rescued he still hears Hamish’s voice. From that point on he carries his dead friend’s ghost on his back. The ghost Hamish speaks to Rutledge as he investigates murder and mayhem in the many books of the series.

In the latest book “The Confession” the story opens up with a skeletal man coming to Scotland Yard to confess to a murder committed years earlier. The doctor has told him he is dying, he says to Rutledge, and he wants to sleep again so he is confessing. Rutledge considers the confession far-fetched as there has never been a missing person’s report or an unsolved murder in the region of the confessor’s admitted murder. But then the confessor is found murdered and this sends Rutledge into the investigation of the past and the present.

People aren’t who they seem in this story. The Essex marsh village that Rutledge travels to is not a close-knit community but they are a closed-to-strangers community. Rutledge doesn’t get very far in his investigation of the present until people from the past come forward with some disturbing news. Yes, a woman did disappear during the time in question. Her body was never found. But they sure don’t want anyone poking about after all this time. But the man confessed to killing a man. It seems the investigation is stalled, until the missing woman’s niece joins with Rutledge to add more disturbing facts. Her cousin went to war and never came back but was never reported missing or dead by the army. Could this be the man the confessor said he murdered? Or might the cousin be the confessor? Rutledge battles prejudice and outright hostility to get to the truth and finds the truth is quite disturbing. There is someone in the community who would go to any lengths including murder to keep the truth hidden.

So read the series, as each one is a delightful and an intriguing delving into the past. Each books provides a satisfactory story.

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The Murder Stone by Charles Todd

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English: Toilet paper, orientation "under...
English: Toilet paper, orientation “under” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I thought I would post a book remark every Wednesday. After chasing the toddling grandgirl around to: a) reroll twenty yards of toilet paper; b) mop spilled tea (from my cup), tumped water (from papaw’s bedside cup), sopped milk (from her how-DID-she-get-the-top-off bottle) AND liquidy chicken muck (don’t ask); c) keep the crayons inside the room where we do crayons; d) keep her from attempting the ‘down’ on the stairs, which she wants to do very badly but my heart is in my mouth while watching her do it; and then to  juggle laundry, dishes, and recording old music tapes to the computer while watching The Wiggles on the TV …  time got away from me and I missed Wednesday. No, I mean, I don’t know where Wednesday went, because this is Thursday.

I read The Murder Stone by Charles Todd. To be honest after  beginning the book I didn’t know if I could finish it. I have read everything this author (a mother/son team) has written. My thoughts were that it must be a really early book. Everything else they’ve written is good and for this reason I plowed ahead.

Pros: The book is well-conceived. When the plot does pick up – the story ties together well.

Cons: It starts out very complicated. There are three pages of characters. And some of their names are similar. I was getting Francesca and Francis mixed up. Perhaps all the characters didn’t need to be so introduced? Because the more I read, the more understanding dawned. Personal opinion – skip the character list.

Francis Hatton is an old man who dies at the beginning of the story. The story is closely told third person by the granddaughter Francesca Hatton. She may be the central character but the story is actually about the old man. Even after death some things in the past have a way of coming back around to make things ugly. At the old man’s funeral several characters pop up. One young man insists that Francis Hatton killed his mother and secretly buried her. Another wants a mysterious box, another demands that his property be returned to him. All very strange for the granddaughter who doesn’t know why so many mysteries surround the grandfather she thought she knew but learns she really doesn’t. Soon she even begins to question her own origins. Is she really his granddaughter?

The central mystery, the death of the woman, concerns Francesca especially after she develops feelings for the woman’s son.  Set during WWI (which most of Charles Todd’s stories are) this stand-alone book really picks up about mid-way through. The ending is a surprise, which I still find hard to fathom. Though I liked the word play that I didn’t catch until literally the last line of the manuscript.

I would give this book a mid-range rating C + and only because it is written by Charles Todd – and probably for that reason alone. The author’s other books are much more amazing. I love the Bess Crawford series – can’t wait for the next one. I love the Rutledge series. More on Rutledge later.

Bess Crawford is a WWI nurse who is blown into the water with the sinking of her hospital ship and miraculously survives. She continues her job as nurse in France and then becomes a sleuth as mysterious goings-on happen around her. Unidentifiable bodies, concealed identities, kidnapping, murder happen during war, too. The way the writers bring out the colors of WWI from this character’s POV is amazing. I highly recommend these books: A Duty to the Dead, An Impartial Witness, A Bitter Truth, An Unmarked Grave.

Below I’ve included links to some great reviews of some of the above books. I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I didn’t.

Bess Crawford book series by Charles Todd – rating Top of the Heap!

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Ian Rankin Did It Again

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I love the character of Inspector Rebus in Ian Rankin’s novels set in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland; in the Lothian Region on the south side of the Firth of Forth. Don’t you love it? Firth of Forth. The novels with Rebus span a few decades and end with Rebus retiring from the police department. Let us hope he will come out and play again soon.

I think if you want to get to know a country do it through stories set in that country. I want to know more about Scotland and reading Ian Rankin’s books with the characters loving their world and noticing it, helps the reader appreciate that world, too.

I want to visit Scotland the land of my ancestors. I want to meet my cousins, and generally immerse myself in the culture when I get there. So I’m preparing myself by reading series set in Scotland. For starters, I recommend Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith (44 Scotland Street series) to help catch and absorb the flavor of the land.

Now Ian Rankin has done it again. He’s created a completely new and fascinating character called Malcolm Fox (Fox to his fellow inmates in the Complaint’s Department) in two fairly new books. The first is called appropriately The Complaints and the second is called The Impossible Dead.

Malcolm Fox is a fully fleshed out creation who leaps off the page from the first. He is sympathetic to the reader because he works in an environment that is hostile in nature. No other police officer likes him except those in his own department. Why? Because he investigates corruption within the police force in Scotland. Sometimes rumors are just that – rumors. Some officers are not guilty. But if that were the case here there wouldn’t be a story.

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Welcome to Utopia

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English: City Hall of Pearland, Texas Español:...
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This book Welcome To Utopia: Notes From A Small Town is a good read. The perspective surprised me, a native Texan, because I grew up in that small town atmosphere. This account comes from a New York City girl, Karen Valby, who moves to Utopia, Texas for the purpose of writing this book. She follows some regulars at the Utopia General Store “The coffee drinkers” branching out to all the people who intersect them in life.

It wasn’t an earth-shattering, life-changing book, just a good read for someone who has been there. I’m not one of the “Coffee Drinkers” in life but my father was so I guess I’m one of those whose life was impacted by that little Texas ritual. My father always found time to sit and drink coffee and chat about anything and everything. Wherever he was or whoever he met, it was the next question after his greeting…”Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

The dictionary says that Utopia is an imaginary place described as perfect or ideal in all aspects. Karen Valby points out that Utopia is definitely not perfect. Most of its young folk want to leave but many find themselves pulled back into what they know to be familiar and then learning to like it.

I remember going to school in Pearland and how I couldn’t wait to leave. I didn’t want to grow old with the Texas twang snarling my speech, and a dead-end job at the local insurance agency. I didn’t want to have a husband and two point five children.

I did, too. I went to Chicago almost immediately after high school. It was an exhilarating experience. After a few years and dozens of people falling asleep listening for the END of a story I was telling, I learned to speak faster with more clipped non-accented words. Now I’m hard pressed to come up with Texan words, though I do “dish up” folks from the stove, and I usually am “fixin’ to” do something, most of my “Texian” has disappeared from my vocab-bank. I completely lost the “R” in the word ‘wash’, as in “I’m doing the warshing up.” It’s gone. I don’t say it anymore and I blame Chicago for that. While living there I was once asked to please spell ‘wash’. Then that person asked “where is the ‘r’ then?”

I’ve run into people I went to high school with who still live in Pearland. I had good friends I’ve reconnected with. I’m glad for that but just as glad I’ve had the experiences I’ve had, too.

And I’ve come full circle – in Houston with a husband and two point five children (I count the dog as the point five).

Still not Utopia. But it’s all good.

reviews, The Writing Life

Write Now

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Sometimes when things are the busiest I find it easiest to write something. For over two weeks there have been health issues to deal with. Ugh! The most uninspiring bit is the part where I lie around like a sloven harpy for hours. Peel Me A Grape!! It can’t be helped. The body is recovering after having had its resident kidney stone blasted by sound waves, I prefer to think it was punk-slammin-stuff because when I hear that it seems like overwhelming sound waves which mean nothing. Pretty destructive stuff.

So I haven’t been very productive in the writing department and for that I suffer unbearable feelings of self-doubt and recriminations. I’ve come to believe that these “real downers” are all part of the writing experience.

About the detective fiction. P. D. James in her book “Talking About Detective Fiction” says we humans have always had to deal with a dangerous and violent environment and we turn increasingly to diverse pleasures such as the detective fiction novels. “Today there is undoubtedly an increased interest in detective fiction. …  which offer at least temporary relief from the inevitable tensions and anxieties of contemporary life.” I like that. I love her detective fiction novels. She is one of the few contemporary writers of detective fiction which is made up of a simple puzzle that must be solved. I would equate her works with Agatha Christie. Other detective fiction writers whom I love to read include a more complex set of problems and usually a couple of sub-plots which are thoroughly enjoyable.

Most of my life I’ve loved reading mystery stories. I spent many an enjoyable summer afternoon reading Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock Magazine or old worn copies of Agatha Christie paperback at my grandparent’s old fishing shack on Caney Creek by Sargent, Texas.

The time has come. With a bit of luck and pugnacious persistence, I will drum up enough gumption to complete project after project and launch them much like a kid with a bottle rocket in the middle of a deserted night-scape. There is no telling where it will land but it will make some sort of bang somewhere.

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Book Friends

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English: Open book icon
English: Open book icon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s funny how some books feel like old friends. It seems I have a lot of them. Madeleine L’Engle‘s first book of her Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet, is such a book. In it the author reveals so much of herself, both good and bad, that I felt I had met someone I could have spent a lovely afternoon with, walking in the woods, sitting by the stream, retracing foible life in the quiet stillness of the sun-kissed woods.

While I’ve been known to throw a book in the waste bin if, in my opinion, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, most books I purchase stay in my house a short while and then are moved on to other homes. The best ones are given away. I have been known to sell some good ones to the half-price shop. But that isn’t often, and only because I don’t know who to give them to. The best of the best of what I read remain on my shelf. Those are my friends, the ones I plan to read again and again.

Thing is, I can’t keep a copy of A Circle of Quiet. It keeps slipping off into a friend’s hands and more often than not, time goes by and I know I must buy it again. They are becoming thin on the ground, these good little books. The last one was part of the set but I might be able to find it on Amazon again. They’ve been out of print for so many years.

Another lovely read is Rosamund Pilchner’s The Blue Room. I’ve got my copy back again after lending it out. The stories are sweet but not too. A good book of short stories. None of them end in violence or death. Despite the author’s best-sellers, I wonder if such a book would have ever found a publisher these days. It’s so nice, no death, no violent or shocking endings. It’s got two marks against it. The niceness and it’s short stories. I doubt it would be published today. I really do.

My mother had many book friends. She had been collecting all her books for so many years because there was no library near enough for her to be able to use. Her house was impacted with books. Unfortunately when my father passed away suddenly three years ago, she had to be uprooted and she lost many of her books. It was a completely tragic time for her.

I had to move her from her five-bedroom house to a small one bedroom apartment. She was able to squeeze in many of her cherished things but not many of her books made that transition. To assuage her book-friend loss I now take her to the library every two weeks. At eighty-five my mother reads everything. Her two favorite authors at this moment are Deborah Crombie and John Gresham. I only wish those two had more books at my mother’s library.

Her love of books rubbed off. I hope when I’m her age I have as many beloved book friends as she has.