TOUCHSTONE: Laurie R. King Hunts the Heart

January's delight was the release of Laurie King's new stand-alone mystery, TOUCHSTONE. For me, February's pleasure was carving out time to read it: all 548 pages.

King has written three earlier stand-alone novels, but she is best known for her two powerful series: five crime novels featuring Kate Martinelli, solid police procedurals with a dash of horror, set in California; and eight Mary Russell mysteries, folded neatly into the genre of Sherlock Holmes additions. Clearly there's plenty of research behind each of those, including mining the rich vein of the Baker Street Irregulars and the mystique of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother. The Mary Russell books also tangle with British politics, as King's version of Mycroft is as a friend to royalty.

But for TOUCHSTONE, Laurie King must have practically moved to the English countryside in her mind -- the English countryside in the fragile years after World War I, then simply "the War." The plot opens in 1921 and reaches its intense climax in 1926, amid murder, mayhem, and terrorist bombing.

And King is a master at the neat, fast-moving, impeccable plot. More important, she tastes the sorrows, losses, and hungers of the human heart.

Harris Stuyvesant works for John Edgar Hoover in the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation. Leaving behind his notoriously difficult boss, and the swinging society of Prohibition in the States, he's in England looking for a bomber: one who's made three trips already across the ocean, sowing havoc in America's class war of labor versus industrialists. An incidental casualty of the English bomber's work is Harris's brother Tim -- and for of Harris's raw soul, battered by his service in France during the War and then the loss of his fiancée, to a bomb blast on the home front, the loss of his brother's capacity for life demands action. Harris will find and catch that bomber. In his thoughts, he calls the man The Bastard, and he already knows his real name. He just has to prove the connection.

If you're a Laurie King fan, you're already saying: Whoa! Where's the strong woman protagonist? So ... let go of expectations. King's creation in Stuyvesant is instead the man of a feminist's dreams: strong, good-humored (when not chasing killers), skilled with cars, cultured, quick to pick up on social cues -- and a sucker for anyone who bears their soul's wounds with courage. That's how he finds himself bonding to the fragile, shell-shocked Captain Grey, a tender-hearted hermit whose sense of other people and their truths and tensions has driving him half mad.

Through Harris's eyes, we encounter the elegant and honorable remains of a Great Family of the realm, along with their beautifully crafted country house. From the local pub to the intricacies of life around devoted family servants to the sweetness of the bluebell wood -- and of Captain Grey's sister -- Harris is falling for an England that's as wounded as he is. The isolated family home where much of the action takes place is part of the allure, and Harris shows us its magic, from galleries of remarkable paintings, to the Great Hall, to the testy caution of the Duke and Duchess, his hosts.

I like especially the descriptions that King places in her "country house," awash in light and history. She walks Harris into the guest room that's decorated in images of trees:

"I'm going to feel like I'm sleeping in a tree-house," he told Grey, and was surprised tohear the pleasure in his voice -- this was like some childhood hideaway, and it appealed to a boyish urge he'd have thought well buried. He was smiling as he studied the room, which fortunately was papered not in leaves, but an off-white and light green stripe. The south window showed the long view down the valley, the one on the left overlooked the house and the shady garden they had come through.

The complexity of the characters and their emotional awareness make this mystery about as distant from a formal Agatha Christie country house murder as possible. In American fiction of this century, being wounded at the heart is usually a guarantee that a character will make need-based, immature choices, and descend through a plot of noir and despair. So it's refreshing to be able to identify with characters who instead work hard at making wise decisions, and who balance loyalty and hope with some skill. Although there's darkness here, including political dirt, what Harris and Captain Grey provide is enough gleaming courage to face the added losses ahead.

Oh yes, for those who like to look ahead: Laurie King is indeed working on another Mary Russell mystery. After all that research in the British Isles, I can imagine the tale flowing more convincingly than ever. Check out her pleasantly conversational news at www.LaurieRKing.com.

Laurie King, The Art of Detection

This newest of Laurie King's Kate Martinelli series has earned a lot of critical attention, as King draws into the plot a chunk of the Sherlock Holmes material she's played with in her other series (Mary Russell, late-life wife of the noted sleuth). Thank goodness, Russell herself doesn't appear in the contemporary cop novel, though. I'm not a fan of mingling centuries... despite the success of historical mysteries. I like my time periods "Straight Up," please.
The manuscript research involved in The Art of Detection doesn't bother me a bit, though; it's very "au courant," considering The Da Vinci Code, and of course the hot bibliomysteries by John Dunning. After all, the art of the forger is a tried and true feature of well-twisted plots.
But I'm disappointed in this Laurie King, because it misses two things that I think the earlier Martinelli books did well: portraying the nature of evil, and sustaining the sense of threat.
See, a hero (male/female) who doesn't have to wrestle for her life or integrity or both is holding back -- I want a tale that gives me a sense of doubt about whether things will wrap up well enough, and I want my heroes to struggle, exert those inner muscles, prove why it is that good can indeed win in the end. There's never a guarantee in real life. A good mystery shouldn't imply one, I believe.
Comments?

Laurie R. King, GARMENT OF SHADOWS: A Morroccan Adventure

GARMENT OF SHADOWS is the 12th in the series that Laurie R. King offers featuring Sherlock Holmes and his late-in-life wife Mary Russell. The book is a good read as an adventure, with voices that alternate between Russell -- King's principal protagonist -- and Holmes. Evoking the postwar feel of 1924 (with a second war yet to materialize), it takes place entirely in the "exotic" atmosphere of Morocco. At the time, the mountains and deserts and bustling cities of the relatively small Islamic nation were being contested for possession as a colony by both France and Spain (which is just across the Straits of Gibraltar from Morocco). In King's deft hands, the roles of tribal (native Moroccan; Berber and other) conflict are also painted into the picture, with leaders whose descent from the prophet Mohammed could be documented and recognized.

For series readers, the plot follows smoothly from Russell and Holmes's adventures in Palestine, and brings back some compelling characters, as well as the international intrigue that often brushes against the famous detective's life because of his brother Mycroft's service to England. And the opening premise of the book is intriguing: Russell has suffered a severe head injury and doesn't even know her name, let alone her role with the world's most famous detective. Her path toward reconnecting with Holmes is fraught with peril, and she doesn't have any idea why she's being threatened. But she knows, in the way that physical training remains in the body, how to protect herself with hurled missiles, deftly twisted knives, and quick lies.

I think the book is best read as a political adventure, and the abundance of recent novels featuring this time period (crime fiction from Charles Todd and Jacqueline Winspear; postwar recovery novels by Pat Barker) prepares many readers to enter the narrative with perspective and excitement. Descriptions of Moroccan locales abound, including charming ones of marketplaces as Russell attempts to find her way and her memories:

I came to a more lively quarter with open shops. Men sat in some, all wearing the same calf-length, rough-spun robes but occasionally layered with a heavier burnoose. They wore a variety of head-coverings: Some had loosely wrapped lengths of cloth, others wore snug turbans that revealed the crowns of their heads and a single thin plait, some had the rigid caps called tarboosh or fez. The women picking over displays of onions and greens were for the most part veiled, although some went freely bare-faced. They all haggled: over the cost of lemons, the measure of olives, the quality of tin cups. Colourful displays of garments and tools spilt onto the street.

But Russell-without-memories soon questions her own automatic actions of self-preservation: "First an acrobat, now a pick-pocket. Had I escaped from some traveling circus?"

I found the story enjoyable, and the complications and twists to be startling, with a denouement that takes argument over motivations through several layers of complexity and doubt. There's no question that this is a dandy adventure in a little-known country, and fun to read. Readers may also enjoy (as I do!) the many photos that King provides of Morocco within her blog and website, and especially her Pinterest board: http://www.laurierking.com.

On the other hand, there are two aspects I expected that aren't really in this book. One is the Holmes persona and themes; it would be hard to find any moment in the story that could raise a spirited argument among today's Baker Street Irregulars, for instance, because there is almost nothing that connects to the Sherlock Holmes of A. Conan Doyle's stories. Holmes in fact pursues almost no detection, and what Russell does is mostly dependent on secondary characters who show her what she needs to know or discover. It seems a pity to have abandoned the intrigue of detection, for the sake of the political maneuverings that add up to the "garment of shadows" of the title.

The second gap is the more serious for me, and will probably keep the book off my "keep this to re-read" shelf: There is very little depth of character to Russell here, and her struggles that King has portrayed so well in other titles of the series -- around being a woman in a man's world, defending her academic training, being a Jewish woman in a period of blatant anti-Semitism, working out the issues of a May-November marriage -- have vanished. The story remains on the surface, a travelogue with risks and escapes, rarely with inner conflict and certainly without character growth.

I know Laurie R. King can build more compelling books than this one; I hope her next, which is also in this series, will dip more deeply and give us more of the worthwhile struggle that takes a story into our own layers of inner questions and blossoming strengths.

Well Worth Reading: THE BONES OF PARIS, Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King's latest book came out in 2013 (she has another coming out this May, though -- author website here); it's THE BONES OF PARIS and I didn't rush to read it, knowing that her many fans would carry the book along, and at her level of the mysteries field, there are only a few publications whose word really matters in terms of how readers rush to purchase copies.

But I enjoy both strands of King's work -- her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, and her California police procedurals. So I made sure that my winter reading did include this one ... and it  belongs to neither of those series, but instead is a sequel to Touchstone, which I fear I somehow missed reading (I'll catch up with it soon).

THE BONES OF PARIS fits into the era King's explored from so many directions in her Russell/Holmes books, thought, as it opens in the fall of 1929 with a missive that reaches Bennett Grey in England. Readers of the earlier book will know immediately why the letter and enclosed photos have been sent to Grey -- the rest of us will catch up slowly, as we begin to understand the strange catastrophes and losses that tie together the man in England and a missing-persons investigator, Harris Stuyvesant, whom we meet in the next chapter in the heat of Paris's end-of-summer season, struggling with consequences of his ratty lifestyle and emotional sloppiness, while also trying to earn a living among the "beautiful people" of the expatriate community in Europe. A lot of what's wrong for him, and what goes wrong as he investigates, can easily be blamed on his own choices.

Yet a lot of the twisted nature of the arts community he finds himself investigating is a consequence of two very large factors: the damage done in France by the Great War, and the rebellious efforts of artists at the time to shake up reality, confront death and disaster, refuse to settle for comfort or attachment. The Surrealists make up the characters as well as the setting for King's exploration and Stuyvesant's investigation. King's interweaving of art and despair, loyalty and fractured love, make this "crime novel" simultaneously a deep and layered novel of that extended hold-your-breath season between the two major European wars. And she is generous with hints of the oncoming hostilities, even as her characters insist on heavy drinking and partying in their slice of "peace."

If you've been reading Charles Todd, or Jacqueline Winspear, or Pat Barker's "Regeneration" trilogy, pick up THE BONES OF PARIS. It may also be a good fit for you if you're an Alan Furst fan. And if you stop now and then to think about madness and art, about how new ideas emerge from darkness, about how evil overtakes good and how death fascinates, and how poets become murderers ... Don't come for tea, please. But all of this is in King's crime novel, and it's a darned good read.

With Secrets and Revelation: DREAMING SPIES, Laurie R. King

If you're a Laurie R. King fan -- and I am -- you probably had DREAMING SPIES on your list earlier this year, and purchased it soon after its release in mid February. I did, too, but I knew there was no rush to review it, so I tucked it away to enjoy later.

So, a few reasons to read (and collect) this 13th "novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes":

* For anyone who's followed Laurie R. King's writing, from the Kate Martinelli (San Francisco) homicide series to the eerie and compelling Stuyvesant & Grey books to the very popular Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes sequence, reading DREAMING SPIES is the best way to discover which direction King's creativity has taken this time, and how she's tying together her many interests. Plus, is her storytelling changing with time? My own answer to this: Yes, she's separating the thread of violent crime from the thread of puzzle solving. Although her 2006 release, The Art of Detection, was a deliberate (and entertaining) effort to tie the Martinelli series to the Russell/Holmes books, it left out some of the dark threat of the early Martinelli books. That darkness now prowls in the Stuyvesant & Gray books instead (so far, just two of them: Touchstone in 2007 and The Bones of Paris in 2013).

* Holmes fans who are not deadly serious in their passions can enjoy the notion of Holmes as a much older man, married to his young student Mary Russell -- and in DREAMING SPIES, Russell asserts her equality to Holmes in terms of deftness with disguise, quick planning, even martial arts. In fact, the premise of the story, which takes the pair into Japan in 1924 to assist a ninja (or more than one ninja!) and other politically significant Japanese figures, is that neither Russell nor Holmes speaks Japanese or has expertise in the "customs of the country." Hence their decision to explore, and then assist, puts them on a level playing field. Actually that means Russell will dominate a bit more than usual, since she's younger and by gender better adapted to the schemes involved this time.

*King is such a good storyteller that this, like her earlier books, is an entertaining diversion with page-turner appeal. She's also a top-notch researcher, so don't let the unexpected appearance of, say, a woman who is a ninja turn up any doubts: Sure enough, there's history to back the concept, with an early Japanese woman becoming an espionage-oriented ninja in the 16th century, running her own network. Russell is a bit too much of a loner to adapt to a network, but she's not going to let a spy who's younger than herself take over the scene! (Or is she?)

*If you've been reading any of the half dozen intriguing series of English mysteries racing into print on the World War I years and the years between the wars -- or even James Benn's World War II series with Billy Boyle -- this 1924/1925 setup will enhance what you're already consuming, adding details of Europe, the United States, and Asia, particularly Japan. It's a time-honored way to enjoy adding history to your plate.

These Russell/Holmes books don't feel like the original Sherlock Holmes tales -- they leave a very different taste in the mind -- and that's the drawback to reading them. The depressed genius of the Conan Doyle character wouldn't balance all that well with Russell's animation and enthusiasms, I think. So, as with the earlier books in the series, enter lightly, for the fun of it. (My one regret for DREAMING SPIES was the near-absence of Holmes's usual remarkable insights ... and with it, I thought, a bit less insight on Russell's part, too. But perhaps they were both overwhelmed with learning that new language, and all that comes with it.)

Best of all, I came away from the book relaxed, taking joy in the twists and resolution of the story, and more attentive to the history and cultures on display. Fun! I recommend reading it -- provided the "reasons" above fit your state of mind as you open the book.

Brief Mention: Laurie R. King, BACK TO THE GARDEN

If you've been asking yourself whether the communes of the 1970s really were what you recall (or reall learning)--passionate about freedom, love, and justice, as well as drenched in music and hormones and surviving on the strength of good gardening and skilled planning--the new crime novel from Laurie R. King will be deeply reassuring!

Sidelined police inspector Raquel Laing tackles identifying a set of bones discovered at a long-ago California commune, now a serious historic and art attraction. She's racing the clock, because the suspected killer (highly psychopathic) is close to death and playing games with not revealing the names of the (gasp) seventeen women he admits to have slaughtered and buried in the state.

Readers will either love or hate King's choice of alternating time periods between the commune's heyday and Laing's investigation. I found it tolerable, for the sake of the acute insight into "those days" and the fervent beliefs that impelled decisions and lifestyles. The police procedural aspect of the novel, as Laing interviews one commune leader after another, reflects what a long and often unrewarding process this can be in real life. But Laing's own passions and her skills in reading emotions, lies, and truths are fascinating and highly believable. 

King has described this as a standalone. If so, that's a shame -- Laing as an investigator, with her quirks and questions, would make a great foundation for an enjoyable series, and King is expert at crafting long-term pathways of detective work and personal growth. She's accessible via social media; if you feel the same way after reading BACK TO THE GARDEN, drop her a note to encourage a sequel (I will).

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Laurie R. King: Download "A Mary Russell Companion"

As Bouchercon 2010 approaches, the guest of honor, mystery author Laurie R. King, has been gearing up with reflections on previous Bouchercons (a grand annual celebration conference for mysteries and their readers and writers). She is also offering special stories through her website. I suggest stopping by to download "A Mary Russell Companion: Exploring the World of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes Series." What a treat! I can also recommend highly the newest mystery in the series, The God of the Hive, although I recommend reading its predecessor first (The Language of Bees).

Second Raquel Laing Investigation from Laurie R. King: Sept. 8

When I reviewed book one of this series in 2022, BACK TO THE GARDEN, author Laurie R. King was calling it a stand-alone. And I found that regrettable at the time.

Well, four years later, here comes a second! Laing works for the San Francisco Police Department. I've pre-ordered my copy. So for the moment, consider this a reminder that you might want to do the same.  My favorites of King's books are quirky picks within her Mary Russell series -- but that won't stop me from being excited about this new Laing sequel!

When the Author Builds Herself a World: Nicola Griffith, SHE IS HERE

Last July I mentioned Nicola Griffith, whose lush noir crime fiction can be a slow-read delight. At that point, her Aud Torvingen trilogy, featuring a Norwegian-born detective, was just being reissued, and is now easy to grab for American readers: The Blue Place; Stay; and Always.

Griffith is better known for her award-winning world-building in science fiction/speculative fiction. But she teases that you may not have heard of her books (especially if you're not reading sci-fi), but you've heard of the authors who praise herhis sleuthing series: Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Lee Child, Manda Scott, Francis Spufford, Laurie King, Ivy Pochoda, Robert Crais, Elizabeth Hand, James Sallis and more.

So when the independent PM Press focused on Griffith in its "Outspoken Authors" series this winter, I set everything else aside to read SHE IS HERE, a slim compendium of Griffith's nonfiction, poetry, and short stories. It's not the most polished work I've picked up, but it's definitely compelling. 

As an example, in a "letter" to Hild, who ran an early Anglo-Saxon (Early Medieval) abbey and is better known as St. Hilda (protagonist of the award-winning novel Hild, pictured above), Griffith tells this historical personage brought to life that "On some level, you made me."

Of all the women remembered by history -- even sketchily -- you're the onlyu one I know of who lived on her own terms. Your renown was not as anyone's parent or wife, or for suffering unspeakable torment or a martyr's death. All you achieved was a person ion your own right. You lived a long and successful life and died admired and powerful. You won.

You won. That single fact, that women can win, helped counterbalance all the nonsense I'd absorbed from history. Partly because I stood on those ruins and saw what you had made, I knew we could each triumph on our own terms and in our own service.

When you notice that Griffiths describes herself on her website as a "queer cripple with a PhD," her self-discovery through Hild rings even more powerfully. And as a fictional world-builder, she clearly walks in company with such powerful writers as Margaret Atwood and J.R.R. Tolkein.

Give yourself a treat, a stretch, a vivid entry into the mind of an outstanding author. Grab a copy of SHE IS HERE. When you've finished reading it, maybe give it to the local library, for all the folks who otherwise might not notice an invitation into this potent adventure. 

 

 

Bouchercon Note: Laurie R. King Receives Jack Reacher Award

While the literary world rocked on Thursday with the news of the Nobel Prize in Literature (see previous entry), the community of mystery lovers gathered in Baltimore at this year's Bouchercon embraced Laure R. King with its Jack Reacher Award. King, who just finished her latest manuscript, described the result in her e-list MUTTERINGS: "it was an absolutely unexpected prize, and a considerable honor." Actually she had a lot more to say, and it was funny and fun -- so I'd suggest subscribing to her e-list ASAP! Sign up at her web site, http://laurierking.com/wp.php.

Book Trailers: The Moby Awards!

Book trailers are on my mind lately, so it seemed only fitting that as a hundred mystery books arrived at the shop this morning, the person carrying them in said, "I've been waiting for the Moby awards!" Most particularly, this person wanted to know who had won the category of "Book Trailer Least Likely to Sell the Book."

The whole story of the awards and last night's ceremony is here in this dandy Wall Street Journal blog article (who knew?!).  For those in a hurry, here's the list:

Best Cameo in a Book Trailer:

Zach Galifinakis in Lowboy

Best Performance by in Author:

Dennis Cass in Head Case

Best Big Budget/Big House Book Trailer:

Going West by Maurice Gee

Best Low Budget/Indie Book Trailer:

I am in the Air Right Now by Kathryn Regina

Least Likely Trailer to Sell the Book:

Sounds of Murder by Patricia Rockwell

 Actually it's been a winning book-trailer week here, too, as my own recent effort is a finalist in the ForeWord Reviews Book Trailer Contest, and if you attend BookExpo America (nope, not me this time), you can pick up a CD with mine on it, for The Darkness Under the Water. Or just peek here on YouTube instead.

 

All this lead-in chat is a way of working toward the bigger questions for mystery lovers: How much of an effect do these alternate media visions have on a person's desire to buy or read a good mystery? I have to confess that the movie trailer for Shutter Island lured me to the theater sooner than I would have gone to see this adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel. (I like the film for Gone, Baby, Gone the best of Lehane's book adaptations.) I think film and video trailers had a huge effect on sales for Dan Brown's sequel to The DaVinci Code. But ... for me anyway, it's the written word -- the review, the word of mouth, the author's promise of what's coming -- that lures me into a book. How about for you?

Last but not least, I'll pin up on this spot a pair of book trailers for two very different mysteries: one by  Michael Connelly and one by Laurie King. Careful -- these are LONG (the Connelly one is almost 10 minutes) so don't click on them unless you've got time to spare or have good instincts for when to disconnect and get back to your other life. Comments, anyone?

Crime Fiction from Nicola Griffith, June's Nebula Grand Master

 Nicola Griffith at center, with her award.

The Nebula Award is for science fiction, not mystery -- but author Nicola Griffith has been able to excel in both genres, so it's a thrill to see her named Grand Master by the sci-fi world this summer. Her acceptance speech is well worth reading, as she talks about "world building" ... something that's also common to crime fiction and historical fiction, not just speculative or sci fi work.

Summer's a great season for discovering a new author and barreling through a series. Thanks to Picador, Griffith's three crime novels featuring Aug Torvingen are newly released in softcover in the US: THE BLUE PLACE (which I just devoured), STAY, and ALWAYS. Check out a long description of Aud (Norwegian born, American by choice, a former police detective now taking specialized private work. In THE BLUE PLACE she agrees to track down a case of art fraud, murder, and a red herring of drugs connected to a Mexican cartel. Why? 

"It's the adrenaline," Aud admits to her new and very close friend Julia. "When everything slows down and my muscles are hot and strong and the blood beats in my veins like champagne I feel this vast delight. Everything is beautiful and precious, and so clear. Light gets this bluish tinge and I feel like a hummingbird among elephants, untouchable."

But that elation and "untouchable" sensation can lead her astray, and does, with nearly unbearable costs. Maybe you'll connect to that part of Aud. Or maybe to the gorgeous descriptive passages of her adopted home area, Atlanta, Georgia, or the home she revisits as a safety location during the crime hunt, Norway, with its mystical winters, stunning landscape, and pervasive legends.

My dad used to say, "Do as I say, not as I do." Let me pass that along to you also: Take Griffith's Aud Torvingen crime novels slowly and luxuriously. Don't devour ... instead, savor. That's what summer was made for.

And here's a postscript from Griffith, to remind you that you may not have heard of her books (especially if you're not reading sci-fi), but you've heard of the authors who praise this sleuthing series: Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Lee Child, Manda Scott, Francis Spufford, Laurie King, Ivy Pochoda, Robert Crais, Elizabeth Hand, James Sallis and more.

 

Read Five Books Quickly -- Christopher Fowler's Sixth Bryant & May Mystery Is Coming!

'A suitably Gothic building in which to begin a murder investigation,' said Bryant, relishing the throught. 'But our duty is to the innocent. For that reason we must enter the realm of darkness.'

When the "sixth and final" Bryant & May mystery from Christopher Fowler is published in the US this October (the "true first" will release in the United Kingdom on June 30), readers of this madcap series will realize there have been clues laid for the finale, all the way from the first book, FULL DARK HOUSE. That's what Fowler promises on his web site, www.christopherfowler.co.uk, where he also clears up some wild rumors and reveals his upcoming author events. Somebody bring that author over to this side of the Atlantic, quick!

Better yet, now is the time to buckle down to reading the first five books in the series (the fifth and latest was WHITE CORRIDOR, which came out last May). The series opens during the Blitz, the years of bombing that London endured during World War II; it's a great setting for disappearances, violence, shell shock, all the confusion and loss of warfare within a congested city. And Arthur Bryant and John May, as members of the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit, get the wierdest of the city's crimes dumped in their laps. Solve 'em or see your job vanish, that's the situation.

Dave and I had missed out on this series, but heard about it when we visited Vermont's newest bookshop, Mystery on Main Street (119 Main St, Brattleboro, VT 05301, 802-258-2211, www.mysteryonmain.com). The shop is in some ways our mirror image: designed to sell new books, mainly paperbacks, whereas we work from the wide range of mysteries from 1900 forward (more than half, of course, after 1980). So conversation was dandy, ranging from Australian author Arthur Upfield and his Bonaparte series (why on earth aren't these in print? here at Kingdom Books, we've even gathered softcovers and shipped them back to the eager market in New Zealand and Australia!), to the hot new Brazil-set work of Leighton Gage, to the substantial established authors we all "must read" (Michael Connelly, S. J. Rozan, the Kellermans, Laurie King). No question about it, more mystery bookshops mean more delight for all of us.

At any rate, M-on-M's owner, David, popped the softcover version of FULL DARK HOUSE into our hands, and ... boy, am I glad! Let's see, if I plan one more Christopher Fowler for each month, I should be ready for October. Or, hmm, could I read them all quickly enough to make it worth ordering a British copy at the end of June? Could be!

Coming Soon: Olen Steinhauer Three-Books Survey, and Collecting Ephemera

Olen Steinhauer (photo by Nancy Crampton)

What we've been up to this week: Dave's preparing a blog series on collecting ephemera -- those "transitory" scraps of paper, photos, maps, etc. -- connected with mystery authors (say, Robert B. Parker, Laurie King, George Pelecanos, and some much earlier authors). He'll start showing photos and commenting, probably tomorrow (Sunday).

And me, I'm re-reading the entire "Tourist" series by Olen Steinhauer, to get the most out of his new release. The sequence is The Tourist, The Nearest Exit, and, released last week, An American Spy. Like David Downing's Berlin series, this is espionage blended skillfully with human desire and the struggle for survival -- although it's set "today." And like John LeCarré's George Smiley sequence, the books probe an increasing visceral distaste for the necessities of global politics.

I'll start the commentary on Monday.

Last but not least, it's almost spring here in Vermont: Most of the snow around us has melted, although the ground is still frozen for at least a foot of depth, maybe more; caretakers for the nearby Moore Reservoir (part of the story in my own novel The Darkness Under the Water) have dropped its water level by at least a foot, to prepare for the meltwater runoff from the most northern mountains; and I'm taking down the back-deck birdfeeder, so we don't accidentally lure winter-starved bears into close proximity as they emerge from their dens. Another sign of the season: Polly's Pancake Parlor, high on the ridge in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, opened for 2012 today, and we drove the 28 miles over, to savor a classic breakfast. I photographed mine, which includes amazing smoky bacon, as well as a stack of gingerbread pancakes and a couple of eggs. You can spot maple sugaring operations along the forested slopes, by the roiling clouds of steam rising from them; here's to a long and sweet season, with spring's first farm product of the north.

History and Mystery: Amy Belding Brown, Mr. Emerson's Wife

A question about Ralph Waldo Emerson's complicated and intellectual second wife Lydia Jackson Emerson turned ex-romance novelist Amy Belding Brown into a historical sleuth. Had Lidian (Emerson's nickname for his second wife) become entangled with Henry David Thoreau? Who were the other mysterious figures among the Transcendentalists?

As she investigated, built theories, and began writing a historical novel, MR. EMERSON'S WIFE, based on the evidence she found, Brown made some painful discoveries, chief among them that "my primary obligation as a writer of historical fiction was not to history -- sorry! -- but to character."

Although the "facts" within the fiction are drenched in research, Brown feels it's the sense of life's truths, and the struggles of her characters (especially struggling with the difficulties of any long-term marriage), that matter most. "I'd like to advance the premise that what we know as facts represent the most superficial aspects of our life, and I am convinced that the real characters [Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Lidian, Bronson Alcott] in my book would agree with me."

Now she's in the research phase of her next work, also historical fiction, this time based in the lives of the Puritans and the "praying Indians" of Massachusetts. She's carrying with her the question she posed this evening" "Is historical fiction better, the closer we stay to the facts?"

Although her novels aren't likely to be called mysteries (in spite of her sleuthing), I think the question is worth considering in terms of, say, Alan Furst's espionage suspense, Laurie King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, even (or especially) The DaVinci Code.

Comments?

ALA Banned Books Week Begins Sept. 25

I took a quick look at the American Library Association's list of books frequently banned or challenged during 2009, and found two familiar author names: Walter Dean Myers and Jodi Picoult. Most of the titles on the list are children's or young adult books (although grownups often read these, too, when they are good writing!). A few are science fiction. Mysteries don't stand out on the list, except for Picoult's suspense thrillers.

But it seems to me that mystery readers have just been lucky so far -- nobody may have tried to ban Patterson, Grisham, Agatha Christie, Patricia Cornwell, Nevada Barr, Tony Hillerman, Dick Francis, Charles Todd, Eliot Pattison (unless you count China), Lisa Brackmann (unless you count China again), Stuart Neville, Laurie R. King, John Le Carré, Peter Lovesey, Cara Black, James R. Benn ... but it could happen.

And it wouldn't be because of the style of writing or even the "bad words" (as in Ginsberg's book-length poem "Howl"). It would be the ideas under the plots -- the things that the characters stood for in their choices.

So it seems to me it's worth taking a few minutes this year, as Banned Books Week opens tomorrow, to look at which books are being attacked now, and, if the spirit moves us, to stand up for them in one way or another. At risk today: SPEAK, a 1999 novel by Laurie Halse Anderson involving a girl who is keeping to herself the facts of having been molested. Interested in what the author has to say, and how social media are giving new ways for voices to defend Anderson's book and the right of teens to read it? Click here.

Mysteries That Borrow Literary Characters

There's a fine tradition of borrowing characters from earlier work, often to tease and entertain. Jasper Fforde takes this to the n-th degree in his "Thursday Next" detective fiction, punning madly and playing wildly with the literary canon. Far more serious are the "continued" books in the name of earlier authors -- and somewhere in between are Laurie R. King's mysteries that entangle young Mary Russell with an aging Sherlock Holmes. In very different ways, I've enjoyed both Fforde and King.

In this month's "Killer Books" reviews on the website of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association there's mention of a new "Jane Austen" take-off: JANE BITES BACK by Michael Thomas Ford. Picture Miss Austen in modern days, living as a vampire ... OK, I know that sounds nuts, but it's no more crazy than what Fforde does -- and the reviews have been so upbeat that I'm planning to snag a copy soon.

And that reminded me of a gem that I picked up in Boston in December: MURDER ON THE CLIFFS by Joanna Challis. I had to bring it home because the author is Australian, and Dave and I are dedicated fans of the dark mysteries by Australian author Garry Disher, which feature a protagonist named Hal Challis. Does that make sense as a reason to buy a book? Well, I confess we're in a lengthy binge of reading Australian authors lately. And it turns out Joanna Challis has written a lively and delicious "historical" mystery that allows the young Daphne du Maurier to seize life in ways that will lead toward her literary career (think Rebecca).  This is the first in a sleuth series, and promises well.

Now I've broken the ice into the area of light and sometimes romantic mysteries that are going to stay firmly on my side of the room. And I've got a few more to add ... stay tuned.

British Gothic, THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT CASTAWAY HOUSE, Stephanie Lam

The US publication of Stephanie Lam's debut novel, a modern-day Gothic set on the coast of England, is a perfect excuse to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea (or cocoa) and slip into another world -- one where mystery, desire, and suspense mingle, enhanced by startling moments of joy and discovery.

Like the instant of revelation of a flash of lightning, THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT CASTAWAY HOUSE opens through the eyes of a small girl in a dirty dress, overwhelmed with longing for the grand house up above the cliffs of the British seacoast. But the storm quickly moves forward, placing us at the dark and very grubby entrance to the once-grand home as of 1965, as 18-year-old Rosie Churchill struggles to find rent for her first home away from home ... as a boarder in this peculiar rooming house. She's not that far away geographically from the home where she grew up, and her mother keeps trying to reach her by phone. But Rosie's got her reasons for running away.

Quite a few chapters will pass in this satisfyingly chunky book (500 pages!), with its pulsing narrative that flips madly from 1965 to 1924 and back again, before Rosie gets specific about those reasons. The damage to this teen, though, opens her to a number of compassionate actions toward the old tramp arriving at Castaway House, insisting he's stayed there before.

Twists of romance, friendship, and the strangely dark threat of a "dishy" man with a white Jaguar, leaving her unwanted messages and gifts, keep the plot stormy and Rosie's life precarious. In some ways it's a relief, then, for her to try to take care of Dockie the tramp, and to press for details of the artist who lived in the house a generation earlier. This artist, Robert Carver, is the other set of eyes -- and stories -- that Lam provides, with his 1924 visit to the home of his school friend Alec. Robert can fake for the butler that he's used to hot and cold running water as the grand home provide. But the emotionally charged atmosphere between his friend Alec and Alec's new wife throws him completely off track:

Alec glanced towards the door, and then whispered in my ear, 'She hates me because I've seen through her.'

I turned to him. 'What on earth do you mean?'

'Shh.' He looked at the open door, and then, loudly, 'Let's go out. I've something to show you.'

'Show me?' I asked, heavy with food and wine and not particularly willing to leave the house. 'Is is important?'

He squeezed my hand. 'Life-threatening,' he growled.

Rosie's secrets, Robert's secrets -- and it's Castaway House (and the tramp Dockie) who will tie them together.

Shelve this one next to Laurie R. King's dark British exhumations of the Sherlock Holmes "continuation" or the archaeological mysteries of fellow Brit Elly Griffiths; there's a tang of English despair that also echoes into the Charles Todd series. And underneath, of course, the dire precedent of Jane Eyre. Storm, grand house, secrets -- oh yes, leave room on that bookshelf. This is Stephanie Lam's debut, and it's clear she'll have more good mysteries to follow. Website here; the book is published by Penguin and distributed via Trafalgar Square Publishing.

HHH (Hazy, Hot, and Humid) but Still Reading

It's been hot by Vermont terms -- in the eighties to low nineties each day, and night-time temperatures around 73 (we're used to plunging down to 50 at night, which cools the place off). Dave and I each have a fan close to the desk, and we've got one room air-conditioned for occasional breathing spells.

In those breathing spells over the past couple of days, I enjoyed Laurie R. King's new page-turner, GOD OF THE HIVE -- it takes all the threads left hanging from the preceding book, The Language of Bees, and weaves the rest of the tapestry of Mary Russell and her aging but still adept husband Sherlock Holmes, as each one grapples with what it means to have "family" members. For Holmes, it's his son Damian (via Irene Adler; remember her, always "The Woman" to Holmes?) and Damian's child; for Mary, it's taking responsibility for protecting that child and an extraordinary new acquaintance, for whose sake the book was nearly named "The Green Man" (actually that was its name in manuscript, but things change when publishers get involved, don't they?). I won't spell out the plot here, but the book offers Mary a chance to display all of her own most profound character traits (courage, analysis, speed of decisions, loyalty) EXCEPT the one that may be most familiar: There is no time at all for her bookish studies.

Now I'm working on the notices to the press for our July 17 guest of honor here at Kingdom Books: Carla Neggers (that's her photo above). As I do, I've been reflecting on her immense list of work (more than 50 novels), as well as on the genre in which she shines: romantic suspense. Neggers blogs at "Running With Quills," with several other authors -- among them Jayne Ann Krentz, who offered this insight recently:

How does one define romantic-suspense? I think the best definition I ever heard comes from our own Elizabeth Lowell. She once said that in a novel of romantic-suspense the relationship between the hero and heroine must move in lockstep with the development of the mystery/suspense plot. Every twist in the mystery should create a twist in the relationship and vice-versa.

And why is romantic-suspense so popular? Because the relationship between the hero and heroine raises the stakes of the danger and makes the outcome very, very personal. We're not just risking our necks to save the innocent from the bad guys. We're forging an enduring bond of love that will be strong enough to establish a family. It may be a family of two or it may be the foundation of a dynasty or it may be a non-traditional family. But family is family. It is the basic building block of civilization. Without the unique connections of family bonds of one kind or another, there is no future, nothing worth fighting for, no hope.

Watch for a review later this week of the newest Neggers suspense novel: THE WHISPER.

New Jane Austen Mystery -- THE WATERLOO MAP, Stephanie Barron

Have you ever enjoyed a Sherlock Holmes appearance in a TV program or film? If so, you already know the most important part about Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries: This Jane can't be the same as the one you know from reading Austen's own writing in Pride and Prejudice and Emma. But the parallels are close enough for pleasure. And by unbinding the character into an amateur sleuth who's also an early feminist and eager author, Barron's created a lively protagonist for her thoroughly enjoyable British period mysteries.

There are already 12 others in this series, which is good news in two directions -- you have plenty of other titles to gather later on if (like me) you find you're delighted by THE WATERLOO MAP.  (I liked the title before this one, too. A lot.) And if you've been reading the series already, here's a delicious adventure to plunge into, keeping in mind Jane's trials and tribulations from the earlier books. Among those -- and deftly reviewed by the author to bring new readers up to speed -- are Jane's obnoxious and pompous brother who can't stand her writing or her independence, the women friends and relatives who admire and support what she's doing, and a guilty romantic attachment to the painter Raphael West (a real historic personage worth knowing about), who keeps crossing Jane's path.

This time, her journey takes her reluctantly into the London home of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, who keeps a full set of Jane's works, handsomely bound, in each of his residences. And the royal personage wants Jane to visit his library at Carleton House ... maybe even to write something while there! ... and add to his prestige. Jane's not a fan: "There are few people of whom I think less than the Prince Regent. His entire history is either foolish or despicable." But the invitation can't be declined, and with a sigh, Jane concedes her calendar to the Regent's pleasure. At least, for one day!

That visit turns out to plunge her into crime-solving, as a hero of the recently concluded battle at Waterloo dies in the library, at her feet. Thanks to her insight, the "natural" (if unexpected) death is quickly and quietly recognized as murder. One mustn't offend the Regent, of course! But Colonel MacFarland of the Scots Greys cavalry is also too important to have his death overlooked. Jane's evidence is crucial to the court doctor:

"I will be forced to anatomise MacFarland now," the doctor mused ... "if it is a matter of murder..."

There. He had uttered the word aloud.

"Suicide is not to be thought of?" Raphael West asked.

"I should have said the Colonel had everything to live for," Baillie replied simply. "He was a Hero, recollect."

I met West's eyes. How had he earned that honor?  And might one man's reputation, be another man's shame?

Jane's probing into the heroics of the battle that everyone in England admires is far from welcome, and the Hero's widow has every reason to be furious with any assault on her husband's career. Should Jane back away from it all? Friendship and honor pull her forward instead.

This well-spun, entertaining "traditional" mystery is costumed in an era of ritual, class, and significant moments. In Stephanie Barron's hands, the setting is an added delight, forcing Jane to tackle the social forces that prevent women from taking bold action. Secrets, revelations, and further crimes unfurl.

If February's a tough time for you, great news -- the book's release date is February 2, and it's much more fun than watching for that funny old groundhog! If you can't make time for a midwinter reading binge, you can still scoop up a first edition from Soho Crime and let the pleasure of reading it wait for the right moment. Barron's website doesn't give her tour dates, but there are plentiful resources on Jane Austen, and maybe the best part of the site is discovering how this former CIA intelligence analyst tumbled into, shall we say, channeling one of the wittiest women of the Regency period.

A bit more modern than a Georgette Heyer mystery, but very close in flavor to Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series, and to Laurie R. King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes adventures, THE WATERLOO MAP makes it onto my shelf for "keep and re-read." We deserve to enjoy this much fun!