» How Mysterious!

D.J. McIntosh, The Witch of Babylon

Nov 052012

OK, here’s a good one. The publisher sent an advance review copy of D.J. McIntosh’s The Witch of Babylon to the new house. They delivered it to my front porch. You know, that place where no one ever walks, to the door that no one ever uses. Turns out it sat there for like 3 weeks before I found it.

So my post is late. But I read the book anyway, because it just looked like good fun. I’ve confessed before my love of archeology, and this one is about an ancient tablet caught up in the looting of Baghdad in 2003, so I dug in (pun intended) as soon as I finally visited the front porch.

The story concerns John Madison, a dealer in Mesopotamian antiquities, who is recovering from a car accident that killed his much older brother, Samuel. Unbeknownst to him, John’s frenemy, Hal, had stolen the tablet and hidden it in hopes of supporting his heroin habit, but he was in WAY over his head, and John finds Hal dead from an overdose of someone else’s doing. It turns out Hal has hidden the tablet and left a series of puzzles that only John can work out, but the people who killed Hal are now watching John so they can snatch the tablet as soon as he finds it. John’s not entirely alone, though; he starts working with Hal’s ex-wife Laurel and two of Samuel’s friends, following Hal’s clues to figure out where the tablet could be now.

I’ve never read/seen The DaVinci Code, but I’m told this story is somewhat like it, with a modern mystery based on historical artifacts. With visits to Turkey and war-torn Iraq, there’s a definite Indiana Jones adventure feel to the story, but with more art, history and religion mixed in. It seems like John’s always getting beaten up, kidnapped, blown up or drugged, yet he still manages to work out Hal’s puzzles and keep the story moving forward.

I have to confess that at times this book made me feel pretty stupid, particularly when John solved the puzzles and I still didn’t get what the question was, much less how he answered it. This is not to say that McIntosh didn’t explain things well, just that like Hal I was in over my head. After a while I quit trying to understand the puzzles and all the references to ancient kings and religious figures and just enjoyed the adventures instead.

So, if you liked “The DaVinci Code,” Indiana Jones, archeology, Mesopotamian culture, or ancient history, you should give The Witch of Babylon a try. It’s both fun and educational.

Many thanks to Alexis Nixon of Forge Publicity for sending a review copy and for her patience with my move.

Julie Kramer, Shunning Sarah

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Aug 272012

How many Amish crime fiction stories does the world need? I never watched “Witness,” with Harrison Ford, but I did read P.L. Glaus’ Broken English and I think Julie Kramer’s Shunning Sarah is better.

Kramer draws upon her own experiences as a television reporter to develop her character, Riley Spartz, and the plot of this book. Spartz is working to impress a new boss, whose job it is to help the Minnesota station through hard times for journalism. One of his brilliant ideas is that the station can make just as much money by being second most popular in the market as it can by being first, so everyone should stop trying so hard to be the best. He institutes one-man bands, where the reporters have to shoot their own film with virtually no training, and where camera operators suddenly find themselves on air.

In this atmosphere it’s easy to see why Riley would work so hard to cultivate a good story, despite the difficulty in covering it: the death of a young Amish woman, whose body is found naked in a sinkhole outside Harmony, Minnesota. For instance, one problem is that the Amish don’t believe in graven images, even leaving faces off their daughters’ rag dolls, so her family doesn’t want a sketch of Sarah circulated by the police or reporters, even if it would help find her killer. For another thing, they don’t want anyone to find her killer, as they believe their job is to forgive the person and leave any judgment to God.

Riley is a complicated character. She wants more than anything to be a good journalist, reporting the news and finding answers to Sarah’s death. She also wants to get out from under the new boss’s control, without losing her job. Kramer’s knowledge of the TV news industry is readily apparent, as she often includes the scripts Riley writes, simplifying complicated events and often resorting to cheesy puns –just like I often hear on my local news. But Riley steps over a journalistic boundary, in my opinion, in her interactions with Hannah, Sarah’s younger sister. She gives her a copy of the sketch of Sarah and draws a face on Hannah’s doll because it disturbs her — Riley, not Hannah — against the beliefs of the child’s family.

In the end the killer wasn’t exactly whom I suspected, but it was solved only because people told Riley what happened (not because of her investigative skills). I suppose that might have to be the way it is when a crime occurs within a nearly impenetrable community, but it doesn’t make for the greatest mystery solving. Since the other books in this series focus on Riley’s journalism in other settings, I have a feeling I might enjoy their mysteries more.

Thanks to Hannah Conlin, publicist at Atria books, for sending me a review copy of Shunning Sarah.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, I Shall Not Want

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Aug 092012

Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson-Russ Van Alstyne series heats up in I SHall Not Want, the sixth book about an Episcopal priest, the cop she loves and the murder mysteries that seem to abound in Millers Kill, New York.

The book starts off with a shocking scene: a shootout, dead bodies, children held hostage, and police chief Van Alstyne dying on the floor of a dilapidated home. The investigation that led to this horrific event centers around a Hispanic immigrant found shot, execution style, and brazenly left dead on the ground. Once again, Rev. Clare’s involvement in social causes gives her access to the mystery, in that she’s taken an interest in helping immigrants get the services they need. In this instance, though, she and Russ each have both personal reasons for being involved, because the illegal immigrant worked on Russ’ sister’s family farm.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this book from a series perspective is that it introduces a new character, rookie police officer Hadley Knox, a single parent who moved back to Millers Kill to live with her grandfather and try to forge a new life. She’s an appealing character who gets a significant amount of time in the book, and I for one look forward to getting to know her better.

There are other shocking developments in this book, though, too, regarding Clare’s service in the National Guard and her relationship with Russ, who finally gets over blaming his love for her for his wife’s death. In I Shall Not Want, these elements outshadowed the mystery and will push the reader to get the next book in the series, One Was a Soldier. It’s in my TBR already!

Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary

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Aug 072012

Somehow I got sidetracked from Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series, even though I really enjoyed The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and A Monstrous Regiment of Women. Once I even checked out the third book, A Letter of Mary, from the library but never got around to reading it. And then I missed all three episodes of series two of the BBC Sherlock series, and it occurred to me that I ought to read A Letter of Mary instead. Oh my gosh, how much I enjoyed reading this book!

If you haven’t read any of this series, you should know that Mary Russell is the wife of Sherlock Holmes. She’s a scholar and a detective in her own right, with the wits and training (by Sherlock) to match the great man on every front. The letter of Mary mentioned in the title, though, is not a letter to Mary. Instead, it’s a letter from Mary… Magdelene. As the book begins, Mary Russell has been deeply involved in a scholarly project, when an acquaintance, an unconventional female archeologist, pays a visit. When that woman turns up dead after leaving behind the manuscript, Russell and Holmes launch into action.

The interaction between Holmes and Russell, the mystery of the archeologist’s death, and the possibilities raised by Mary Magdelene’s letter, and a number of possible motives — from Zionism to misogyny to the challenges the letter may pose to Christianity — provide lots of possibilities for the mystery, not to mention fodder for conversation between Sherlock and Mary.

In many ways this book couldn’t be more different from the book I read just before it, Red Cell, yet they both feature strong, capable, smart women protagonists, and that is something to be celebrated.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, All Mortal Flesh

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Jun 222012

The last book in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne series, To Darkness and To Death, left me cold. In fact, I completed my review with a plea:

All this dithering around about being in love but being unable to be together has completely gotten on my nerves. I hope that one of you who’s read the series will assure me that this problem is resolved at some point!

All Mortal Flesh, my friends, is the answer to that plea. The book begins with the Rev. Clare (she’s an Episcopal priest) hiding out in a cabin in the Adirondack mountains, trying to figure out how to resolve the whole “Russ is married to another woman” problem. Russ, meanwhile, has confessed his love of the reverend to his wife, who promptly sent him packing to his mother’s house and then got a cat. That last point turns out to be big.

If Russ and Clare felt guilty before, how on earth are they going to get over the fact that a friend has just found Mrs. Van Alstyne’s hacked and disfigured body on her own kitchen floor?

That should get your attention. And the surprising conclusion to the mystery and to the Clare-Russ relationship will have you looking for the next book, right away.

P.L. Glaus, Broken English

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Mar 082012

I’m sure I’m not the only mystery lover in the United States who took advantage of the demise of Borders bookstore to stock up on some low-cost mysteries. On one of the last days of the sale, I bought something like 9 or 10 paperbacks for a little over $8 — at those rates, I pretty much bought whatever was left on the mystery shelf (formerly known as the mystery section).

One of the bargains was Broken English, one of P.L. Glaus’ Amish-Country Mysteries. I’d heard of the series but had never read one, so I tossed it into my basket and then gave it to my mom to read. She thought it was pretty good, so I read it in just a couple of sittings.

In the end I liked it more for the Amish setting and characters than the mystery. The book begins with a crime spree by released convict Jesse Sands, who makes his way to Amish country, where he kills Rachel Hawkins. Her father turns out to be a former CIA operative who gave up his position as a sniper and joined the Amish in Ohio. When a reporter investigating David Hawkins’ past turns up dead as well, authorities in Millersburg suspect that Hawkins is trying to cover up his past so that he can remain in the Amish community.

The investigation is carried out by a local professor, Michael Branden, and a pastor, Cal Troyer, who are also the sheriff’s lifelong friends. But Bruce Robertson is convinced that Hawkins will try to kills Jesse Sands in revenge for his daughter’s death, so he concentrates on protecting Sands through his trial rather than seeking the truth in the reporter’s death.

I thought the conclusion was a bit unlikely, but I enjoyed reading about Amish life and culture and the respect people like Branden and Troyer had for their neighbors allows the reader to take a peek into their daily lives and beliefs. I went to high school with a number of Mennonite students in Ohio, and this book made me realize that I missed an opportunity to learn about a different way of life by not getting to know any of them beyond the superficial.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, To Darkness and To Death

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Feb 292012

I like Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series a lot, but I didn’t really care for this book. In fact, if I weren’t already emotionally committed to reading the next book in the series, I probably wouldn’t have finished this one.

The books in the series (prior to this one: In the Bleak Midwinter, A Fountain Filled with Blood, and Out of the Deep I Cry) usually have two primary plots, a mystery and the ongoing relationship between Clare, who’s an Episcopal priest, and Russ, who’s the chief of police in Miller’s Kill, a small town in the Adirondack mountains. In To Darkness and To Death, I didn’t like the way either of these played out.

First the mystery. The whole sordid story begins with the planned sale of an old Adirondack great camp to a conservationist organization. Seems like a nice thing to do, but in so doing, the van der Hoeven family (three grown siblings named Louisa, Eugene and Millie) is upsetting the already fragile economy of Miller’s Kill, with both a logging company and a paper mill set to go out of business. There are many possible suspects, then, when Millie van der Hoeven goes missing. Clare is called in as part of the search and rescue team, and Russ gets involved with the police investigation.

The whole story is told as the day unfolds, so rather than chapters there are time periods that sometimes overlap as the various investigators and perpetrators stories unfold. This should serve to make it exciting and suspenseful, like an episode of the TV series “24,” but it didn’t work for me. Much like an episode of “24,” this story was too complicated and incredible to be believed.

Here’s what I mean: along with the missing Millie, another young woman associated with the sale of the land is beaten almost to death, and other people are variously stabbed, bombed, thrown off towers and assaulted; several different people who’ve never been on the wrong side of the law all seem to spontaneously spiral into violence or covering up violence; and pretty much anyone who does anything wrong is trying to figure out how to pin it on someone else. I found it completely unrealistic, most of all Millie’s day of being held captive at various points by three different people. Yes, I just said that.

And then there’s Clare and Russ. Oh, please. My grandfather claimed that he asked my grandma to marry him because she told him to “piss or get off the pot.” (Obviously he made the right choice.) All this dithering around about being in love but being unable to be together has completely gotten on my nerves. I hope that one of you who’s read the series will assure me that this problem is resolved at some point!

Out of the Deep I Cry

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Oct 262011

Well, well, well, Reverend Fergusson, isn’t this a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into this time?

Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne are back in the third book in the mystery series by Julia Spencer-Fleming, Out of the Deep I Cry (2004). What starts off as Clare’s church’s desperate need for cash to fix the roof soon deepens into mysteries of the past and present, all tied together in the story of the Ketchem family.

One of the members of the church’s board, Lacey, agrees to use family money to pay for the repairs, but this in turn takes money out of a trust founded by her mother, Jane Ketchem, that had been helping to fund a health clinic for low-income residents. Clare’s obviously somewhat conflicted about that, but she’s got other problems, too. She wants to help a young woman who’s refusing to get her children vaccinated; the clinic was funded following a tragic incident related to vaccinations and the mysterious disappearance of Jonathon Ketchem. Thus there are mysteries in both the Ketchem past and Clare’s present. And, as always, there’s a definite attraction between Russ and Clare.

There’s water everywhere in this book, starting with a suicide attempt thwarted by young Russ in the prologue and Clare’s leaky church roof, and ending with a flooding basement that — literally — throws Clare and Russ together. How is she going to get out of this one?

Book #11 in the Mystery and Suspense Challenge

The Body in the Gazebo

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Oct 142011

I’m not a hardcore Faith Fairchild mystery fan, but this one seemed a bit different from the rest… in a good way.

Katherine Hall Page‘s series focuses on Faith Fairchild, whose father was a minister and who married, despite her plans not to do so, another minister. She’s held onto her catering business, Have Faith, which allows her to buy the occasional designer dress and which is often the springboard for her involvement in mysteries.

In The Body in the Gazebo, though, there are two mysteries — who stole money from Faith’s husband’s church account, and who is tormenting her best friend’s mother with messages about her past? — and neither is about the catering business.

Faith’s closest friend is her neighbor, Pix, whose mother, Ursula, is ill. But Pix and her husband Sam have to go to Hilton Head for a vacation/meet the in-laws week in preparation for her son’s wedding. Faith spends as much time with Ursula as she can, while Ursula tells the story of a murder that took place during her childhood and was never really solved. Meanwhile, a new and not particularly likable new board member uncovers what looks like some financial misdeeds involving Tom’s account, and Faith knows she’ll have to help her trusting and financially disinterested husband figure out where the money went.

Both mysteries were engaging, but more than that, I enjoyed the larger theme: the book is really about secrets. Ursula’s family secrets, Faith’s employee’s secret from her husband, even Faith’s little white secrets from Tom. Their reasons for keeping these secrets vary, but in every instance Page leads us to question the wisdom of keeping them.

The mystery is still a cozy, and the book still ends with a few of Faith’s recipes, but I found this entry in the series to be a bit more thought-provoking than usual. I like that.

Book #12 in the Strong Heroine Reading Challenge

In the Bleak Midwinter

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Jul 072011

The Reverend Clare Fergusson is a woman of many talents. Not only is she an Episcopal priest who prays for everybody, even the ones she doesn’t like, attends meetings about the church boiler, visits the old and infirm, and takes a personal interest in every member of the parish; she also knows how to pilot helicopters and served in the military.

In In the Bleak Midwinter (2002), Julia Spencer-Fleming introduces us to Reverend Clare and the Miller’s Kill, New York chief of police, Russ Van Alstyne, who team up to solve the mystery of a baby left at Clare’s church and the baby’s murdered mother. The story hinges on some unlikely coincidences — for instance, both the baby and the dead mother’s body were first found by Clare, giving her entré to the investigation — but overall the book is well plotted and written, and Clare and Russ are compelling characters worth getting to know.

Clare is a contradictory mix of her two careers: hard-headed, tough military woman and idealistic, well-meaning church woman. She can pray at the same time that she’s making a plan to kick a murderer’s butt, and this makes the book more than just the village cozy it seems to be at the beginning. Russ feels responsible for the whole town, but he’s willing to accept help where he can get it, and although married he’s obviously lonely. He’s also shocked when he finds out Clare’s allowed to marry and have children. Hmmm.

This is a series I’ve been meaning to try but somehow never got around to starting. There are seven books now, and I’ll read them all, particularly for the Adirondack mountain town setting and the complex lead character.

Book #7 in the Strong Heroine Reading Challenge

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