And Now For Something Completely Different

January 23, 2013 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You only get that title if you remember Monty Python.

It is Book Review Wednesday at the Nolen house. Today’s totally different book review is on a non-fiction book. I read a lot of non-fiction books but I don’t usually review them here.

I started this book thinking it would be a quick read. I mean, look at it! Well, you can’t see it here. It is tiny. STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST or “10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative” by Austin Kleon. Who, by the way, lives in Austin, Texas and so does my fellow book-writer and friend Nikki Loftin (more on her fabulous book later). Nikki encouraged me to read this book. Thank you, Nikki! Should have been a quick read. This book is not a quick read for the simple reason that it is stuffed with good ideas that need to be mulled like spiced apple cider. Mulled apple cider is always better the day after. Yes, I said “mulled”. Or steeped inside that steamy caldron of a creative brain you carry on your shoulders. This is a fantastic book.

Also, I can’t believe I read a NYT’s best seller while it was still on the best seller list. That’s a first.

I don’t want to leave you wondering if I’ve lost it. Here are a few tips from the creative master Mr. Kleon: Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started. In other words, waiting for inspiration to hit you may see you old and gray before anything happens. I love his scribbles and multimedia artwork he uses to illustrate his points. He says “Fake it ’til you make it.” Great advice. You have to make some ugly art before the good stuff. If you’ve been to art school as I have and seen what you start with and then see what you end with on your “forced” projects you understand what this means. With writing it translates into the same thing. Some days what I have written is horrible. But Mr. Kleon says over and over – don’t ever throw anything away. He’s right. You never know when that “horrible” will spark something ingenious. All my work comes from ugly.

He quotes from Francis Ford Coppola — “We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice. And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you.”

Another tip from the book: Write the book you want to read. I’ve always heard – write what you know. But I’ve always believed that you must write what you love AND what you want to read. If you write, you spend a LOT of time at it. You better love it.

One more tip from the book: Side projects and hobbies are important. How well I adhere to this! I can’t help it. I can’t help writing. Even if the writing is only in my head. I can’t help seeing the world around me with an artist’s “eye” although I haven’t touched a canvas in nine months. But life goes on and my projects may look to everyone else as though I’m sitting on my hands. They aren’t – my projects are brewing.

I don’t begin to do this book justice in a short review. I’m going to leave the other seven tips for you to read when you pick up a copy of “Steal Like An Artist”. You won’t be unchallenged, and unchanged if you do. I promise.

The stuff in the book may even be a sort of Holy Grail for writerly types.

Creative advice from Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like An Artist” (holykaw.alltop.com)
Sketchnotes are Fantastic (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)
From the SAY blog: How to Be Creative? Steal a Little (everything.typepad.com)

D.I.Y. House and Home

Collection Renovation

January 17, 2013 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

Last year I added all my vinyl records to my computer with an ION turntable. Most of the records I’d kept since I was 16 so there were quite a few. The job is complete. Now I’m wondering what to do with the turntable. My son taught me how to sync all my music to something called “Google Music Manager” which is in the CLOUD. All my documents and photos are also automatically synced and saved in Google Drive which is also in the cloud. Pretty exciting stuff that is. Now when my computer catches fire, or implodes in some way half expected every six months, it doesn’t matter! Whee!

The second job I set out to do in 2012 is complete now, too. I added all my audio cassette tapes to the computer with an ION tape converter. Life is amazing. I got rid of both my vinyls and my cassette tapes. I’m free! You would understand my elation if you were to glimpse the normal state of my work/art studio/study. I have a sign that says – This Mess Is A Place. It is what it is. I’m working on it.

My next state-of-the-world job is to convert all my slides to the computer. I have all my grandfather’s slides. He hand painted four-inch by four-inch glass plates with most of the stories of the Old Testament in pictures, and Pilgrim’s Progress in pictures. He was a missionary in South Africa where he would go into “the bush” to present the stories to the African people(Zulu). They loved him. It was illegal for him to do it (Apartheid) but there was nothing that quite defined him as much as the word ‘determined’. There was no electricity so he took a hand-cranked generator. The slide projector held the slides two at a time. One slide would be slid in front of the light, which cast the image upon the screen (a sheet). Then the slide was pulled out the other side as another slide was lit up. He had the glass panes converted to 8mm slides in the seventies. The glass slides were then sent to the Emmaus Bible College library.

Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the best books in the world for understanding life. Next to the Bible it is probably one of the most important books in the world. My favorite part in the book is the Slough of Despond. Pilgrim falls into it. I can tell you, I’ve fallen into that slough a few times, too. We used to live in a part of the country where swamps and wetlands were not uncommon. Sloughs (pronounced ‘slow’) are where extra water drains from the swamp or river when there is a lot of rain. So the slough often prevents floods. The thing about a slough is this – it’s dangerous, full of quicksand, or in Sugar Land full of quick-mud, which can be just as bad. Sloughs don’t look dangerous. The grass grows lush and green, the ground looks flat and safe to walk on. So in the book Pilgrim throws off his burden of sin to step forward toward the Celestial City. But that isn’t how it works. If you think you are making life easier by getting rid of stuff, there is always more and sometimes worse stuff to take its place. Christian (Pilgrim) falls in the slough up to his neck. Sometimes I can’t get away from feeling worthless, dejected, and stupid and I must cry out for help. Pilgrim cries out for help and he is rescued.

I could then skip ahead and talk about Castle Despair and the monster named Depression but I think you see what I mean. Read the book. There are newer versions that aren’t written in old English. There are picture versions. I will soon have one on my computer. I will likely publish it here so be looking for it! Meanwhile, on to getting set up to do it.

Eventually I want to check out how to convert paper files to the computer. Think of the room from getting rid of file cabinets! I’m a writer. I have file cabinets!

Thing is, I know that none of this is going to go without a hitch. There might be a slough or two. I’ll keep you posted.

Then I hope to learn how to convert VHS to DVD – and get rid of more dust collections.

When it comes to audio, vintage tech still rocks (digitaltrends.com)
“One must go through the Despond of Slough.” (youknewwhatimeant.wordpress.com)
Click, Hum, Whir: An Orchestra of Obsolete Technology (weburbanist.com)
10 Great Geek Hacks: Repurpose Everyday Objects & Get The Most Out Of Your Electronics (makeuseof.com)

The Writing Life

What Makes Suspense Work?

January 15, 2013 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

An illustration by W. W. Denslow from The Wond... — An illustration by W. W. Denslow from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, also known as The Wizard of Oz, a 1900 children’s novel by L. Frank Baum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although movies and books about monsters (or dragons or paranormal teen angst) aren’t something I normally read, I happened to pick up Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I read it, well, most of it. There is a lot of gore at the beginning. I’m not a fan of gore. So by now you might wonder why I read what I don’t normally read.

Stephen King in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre (a gem of a book) about horror movies and books and why we are so fascinated by being scared, and what makes us scared. He has condensed the reason. We are most frightened by what is behind the door, as long as the “it” of that thing is kept behind the door. Isn’t that true? Weren’t we as children most scared of what the wicked witch threatened to do to Toto in the movie Wizard of Oz because we didn’t know what powers she had? She actually didn’t do anything to Toto. Then we were scared of the castle because it was big and it looked like it was full or those hairy-coated ‘ooma’ guys. Then the witch dissolves in water. WHAT?!! The “door” was opened. As soon as the door is opened or we “see” what is behind the door – we are either a) no longer frightened, or b) disgusted, and no longer frightened. At that point it is up to the author to create suspense in some other way.

So the answer to the why I kept reading Relic is this – the authors knew to keep the monster hidden. I was nearly at the end of the book when I discovered the full reveal. They kept me curious. So I kept reading. Simple.

I skipped about half the book trying to get to that point. What were the parts I skipped? The scientists arguing about DNA, the scientists discussing DNA, the scientists blah, blah, blah. Who cares what the scientists think when there is a freak of nature eating people’s brains?

Someone once told me that Elmore Leonard Jr. said that he writes a book and then deletes all the parts that he didn’t want to read either.

His writing is succinct.

Of all the authors of the past fifty years his fiction will likely stand out in the top 10 most read.

So how do you make your writing suspenseful? You write and write and then delete, delete until you have left only unanswered questions such as – what will happen to the woman suspended above the bridge? or when will the poor child ever get to see her mother? And what happens to the puppy? So with these sorts of questions the reader can’t help but keep reading. The longer the answer is hidden, the more the reader wants to know the answer. That is the anatomy of suspense. The reader may come to the final reveal and it is not the answer they want. But the questions are answered. It is important to always provide an answer.

Conflict is not always a fist fight. Unanswered questions are conflict.

No one wants to read the boring stuff. If there is no conflict, there is no intrigue and therefore no reason to pursue the end of the book.

I saw a funny cartoon in the comics today. The prince and the princess are on horseback and the sign on the side of the road reads: “Happily Ever After, A place lacking all the drama and excitement that brought you together”. Well, the rest of the sign could have said “The sort of thing no one wants to read.”

reviews

My One Good Turn

January 12, 2013 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

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.

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (booksandreviews.wordpress.com)
http://www.kateatkinson.co.uk/jacksonbrodie/books.asp

Home and Family

Rainy Day Funday

Aside January 9, 2013 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

My usual morning routine is this: I haven’t got one. Monday through Friday I rise at 4:15 and stumble downstairs and then across a small yard to my daughter’s apartment above our garage. I get into her bed as she is off to save the world from micro-organisms that may be up at that hour also. The grand-girl is asleep. Well, usually. More usually (IS there such a phrase? Yes, at that hour, yes.) she wakes as soon as her mother leaves. I fix her a bottle and put her in bed with me. This sometimes gives me a few more winks, but sometimes I’m not able to go back to sleep and I lie awake planning all the things I could get done as soon as there is light to see.

Let me just say here. We have tried the cry herself to sleep business and it doesn’t work for her. More like cry-herself-to-throwing-up-her-supper is what happens. Let’s just say her mother doesn’t let her cry herself to sleep but perhaps for others that is an option.

The past few weeks the grand-girl has been waking at 9 AM (the real wake time is when she sits up and says “Hi!”, other times she wakes crying, she isn’t awake.) I have already made myself a cup of milky sweet tea and have drunk it. She is so adorable when she wakes. She crawls out of bed and brings me my crocs, one clutched under each arm. I change her and dress her and take her to my house to see Big Boy and think about what we will do for the day.

The past week it has rained, seems like nonstop, so we haven’t done much. Yesterday after her mother got home from work, we all went to Babies-R-Us to stock up on foods for her. I discovered Sam Moon imports next to Babies-R-Us. It is a big-box store full of really cheap designer knock-off purses, cheap, shiny jewelry, and wallets. I didn’t think I would get anything but I actually surprised myself and ended up buying a wallet.

Still rainy afterward, all night last night and mucho-much-more rain today.

She is asleep as I type this. So precious. Such angels when asleep, right? Here is a snippet of what we do on rainy days. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of loading a video, so – Hope it works for you.

http://atomic-temporary-16578203.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/image00161.avi

Let crying babies lie: Study (sunnewsnetwork.ca)

reviews

The Next Great Reading Series

January 8, 2013 Rebecca Nolen 1 Comment

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.

Simple Words Say it Best (dfolstad58.wordpress.com)
No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (pineneedlesandpapertrails.wordpress.com)

Nature

Snakes Alive – In H-Town!

December 31, 2012 Rebecca Nolen 3 Comments

Nope! I’m determined to bring those stats up with one more post for 2012. And I will – by talking about snakes.

Take that WordPress statisticians!

This past summer I was replanting a garden under the old, wax-leaf Ligustrum growing at the curve of our front porch when I first saw the grass snake. It was exciting. I haven’t seen one of these dark bronze-colored grass snakes in years. I suppose living twenty-five miles west, in Sugar Land, next to the creek with all the large or dangerous snakes there just wasn’t much room for these lowly grass snakes native to the Houston area.

As a child I lived in South Houston. It’s a small town just west of Pasadena, TX. We lived on Avenue B. My younger brothers and I spent a lot of time outside. We were always digging. We dug up lead bullets that were white with age – probably from the days of the battle of San Jacinto which wasn’t far from our house as a crow flies, we dug up oyster shells, old rusty knitting needles, pieces of pottery. We had a regular archeological dig going and didn’t know it. I think I spent my childhood mud-encrusted. My brother Jon and I would haul crawdads by the bucketful from the ditch. Used a string and piece of raw bacon to lure them from their holes. Some call them crayfish, crawfish, or mud-bugs. People eat them. We tried to explain that to my mother. She would not touch them.

Spec’s deli has a nice macaroni, cheese and crawfish dish available that is yummy.

In the process of digging and other mud adventures we caught plenty of green anoles (the Texas chameleon lizard) and grass snakes. The dark copper or bronze colored grass snake has a beautiful face, much like you might imagine would be the face of a snake in a children’s book – big round eyes and a bit of a smile. They don’t get any bigger than twelve inches long and not any bigger around than a pencil, head to tail. They never bite. Never. I would say that is almost true of a Texas rat snake but almost is not never. The rat snake tries to avoid contact but will strike out of desperation to get away. Even the green anole lizard bites. They have bony ridges on their jaws that feel like tiny teeth. I don’t like getting bit. The bronze grass snake does not bite. I have never seen pictures of this snake in any encyclopedia, or snake book. The snake has no markings at all, is dark bronze to light copper and has a buff colored belly. Because I can’t find it on the internet, I don’t know its official name – hence bronze grass snake. If anyone has any other ideas please advise.

As close as we are to the big buildings of downtown Houston, I’m sorry to say the air pollution is awful. The small things are usually the first to go with pollution as bad as it is. Our porches are dusty, and can’t be kept clean, because the dust is smog that has stuck. So that is one reason I was so pleased to see the grass snake.

And then the next day I saw the grass snake again. And the next. It lived under the Ligustrum. I reached down and picked it up. Of course it tried to get away but the way to catch a snake is to remain calm and catch it. I showed the snake to my daughter. She wasn’t that impressed but had never seen one before. I didn’t show it to my husband. He hates snakes. Living out by the creek for six years made his dislike of snakes worse. He didn’t need to know there was a snake – no matter how tiny and harmless – living in the front yard.

I let the snake go under its Ligustrum. I never saw it again. It probably lives next door by now. The neighbors don’t care to be picking up snakes.

2013 – Year of The Snake (femaleimagination.wordpress.com)

Home and Family

A Better Year

December 31, 2012 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

English: The logo of the blogging software WordPress. Deutsch: WordPress Logo 中文: WordPress Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I read my blog stats for the year last night. The good statisticians for WordPress noted that my blogs for 2012 were not nearly as exciting as my blogs for 2011. I had 38 blogs for the year as compared with 60 for 2011.

I can not say that 2013 will be better but I can promise it will be different. Life is full of different.

In 2010 several things went wrong with my comfy world. My neighbor went crazy and began ranting and throwing bottles in her driveway outside our bedroom all night every night. Lack of sleep is a pandemic in our society, especially for women of a certain age, so truly not being able to sleep because of a noisy crazy person next door was a problem. My pregnant daughter’s boyfriend abandoned her, which affected the family in every way. A man rammed his car into her car the year before and was now suing her. She lost her job. We planned to renovate a house and then sell it but found ourselves the victim of an unscrupulous general contractor who took our money and did half of what he said he did to our house. We needed a bigger place anyway with the coming new family member so we moved into our 1910 Craftsman house. The house looked good on the outside but there were unseen disasters yet to come with it. My mother’s health was precarious but in 2010 she was falling almost every week. The parent’s-in-law in Arkansas were dealing with health problems. I had gained so much weight in course of the previous twenty years that my joints were aching too much to move. I went on a serious weight loss plan.

So in 2011 we built a garage apartment in the back yard for the daughter and grandchild. We dealt with plumbing issues and electrical issues that were a result of the unscrupulous contractor. Some of these thing made it into the blog. Our rental properties were having issues – also plumbing and electrical. I can tell you there is a huge difference between each plumbing and electrical contracting company. We dealt with the good, the bad, and the ugly.

By comparison, 2012 was a boring year. My end-of-year report for 2012 instead of being a list of who died or what fresh disaster we dealt with is instead a list of who is alive and how many of our disasters have calmed down.

The grand girl is a joy to live with. The baby’s father is helping out. My daughter has a good job at Dr. Pepper/Snapple as a microbiologist. She is still being sued by the crazed guy who rammed her but no one is too worried because the court keeps putting it off – and will likely declare it a frivolous case and dismiss it. She discovered that the man has made car accidents and suing a habit. My mother is in a nursing home and is very frail but still spunky. She isn’t safe from falling, having fallen about seven weeks ago while trying to transfer from a piano bench back into her wheelchair. She forgot to set the break. She broke all the ribs on one side, one of which pierced her lung and almost killed her. We have such excellent hospitals in Houston. She went to Methodist and after an operation to drain her lung. She recovered. She is 87. My husband moved his parents from Arkansas to an apartment about five minutes from our home. They love their new life and their health has improved. I lost twenty-five pounds last year and kept it off in 2012. Our son has a new job in oil and gas, which is doing well at the moment. He looks forward to the future with his new company. Neither my computer nor anything attached to it has caught fire in the last six months.

I look forward to doing more than 39 blogs in the new year. I look forward to seeing you back here again in 2013. Thank you for reading!

5 Tips to Finding the Right Senior Living Community (allstate.com)
2012 in review (crankygiraffe.wordpress.com)

Home and Family, political commentary

Ode to Doggie Joy and Other Random Christmas 2012 Thoughts

December 23, 2012 Rebecca Nolen 1 Comment

The End of the World day came and went. Some of us are still here. When speaking of end times the Bible says that ‘No man knows the day’ however, it mentions there will be some warning. The end days will be “like the days of Noah” with a mention of giving and being given in marriage. Until lately, I’ve often wondered what THAT meant. The days of Noah were marked by immorality so rampant it disgusted God. Someone asked ‘where was God’ during the recent school shooting. I like Former Governor Mike Huckabee’s commentary about that – If you make a point to escort God out of the classroom why do you ask where He is? I think the shootings were despicable. I mourn with those who lost loved ones. There is no excuse. I do wonder if that young man, the one who shot all those beautiful children, had ever learned the ten commandments? Parents blame schools for not teaching morals. Teachers blame parents for not teaching morals. Come on!

On a lighter note: This Christmas our fifteen month old grand girl is able to point and spout one word exclamations. Words such as “No!” That is what she says to the Big Boy when he tries to take the kolache out of her hand. She is a constant source of joy and serious giggles.

And the dog makes us laugh, too. He loves to share with the baby. He shares his chewed up toys, her chewed up toys, etc. Big Boy is full of joy – when I come home or even re-enter the room, or when I give him a treat, or after his bath, or at breakfast, or snacktime — just about all the time. I love that. He isn’t in my face about it. He is a big dog. And like most big dogs, he is laid back. Well, with the exception of thunderstorms, or the UPS truck driving by, or come to that – any truck driving by. At these times he is a powerhouse of BARK. Even then he believes that he is chasing the trucks or the thunder away, which is protecting his people from the terror of trucks and thunder, which translates into “I’m being a good dog!” So he is joyful.

Merry Christmas to all of you. And may the year 2013 be a joyful one for you.

Silly doggie, Santa never comes until you sleep! (doggies.com)

reviews

The Confession by Charles Todd

October 27, 2012 Rebecca Nolen 1 Comment

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.