Whodunit?

NOT MUDER MYSTERIES-------FOR A CHANGE

 

 

KUDOS:

Denise Talbott, adult services librarian of the akron_summit county public library, deserves applause for all of the work she did to set up accommodations at the green library for my book chat there.  imagine driving up to the library and seeing 'dr. audrey lavin' in flashing lights. i thought i was in vegas for a while!

thanks, denise.

BOOKS:

in case readers of this blog think that all i read is murder mysteries, i am going to write about three of the non-crime books i am now in process of reading:

1. 'The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson' is worth dipping into. i think many of you who are also writers and who dream of publication will enjoy a different twist:

Publication-is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man-

Poverty -be justifying

For so foul a thing

 

it ends

But reduce no Human Spirit

To Disgrace of Price-

 

Ms Dickinson's  1775 poems are contained in the book's 716 pages. open at random and sniff around. you will enjoy most of what you read. the editor is thomas h. johnson and the book is published by little, brown and co.

 

2.  Mark Twain's "The Diaries of Adam and Eve and Other Stories" is a pleasure. at least the story that is included in the title. the extracts from adam's and eve's diaries ("translated from the original") are charming satires on feminism and masculinity with many sly pokes at religious establishments. for all of his jokes about men and women, twain ends the story with adam at eve's grave, saying "wheresoever she was, there was eden."

'extracts from adam and eve' is 28 delightful pages.

the other six stories in the collection are not as interesting, but occasionally show flashes of twain's humor, understanding, and descriptive abilities, esp. the seven pages that comprise 'the californian's tale.

 

dover publications is the publisher of this ninety-four page book that sells for $4.95. you'll be happy i suggested it.

 

3. Michael Gorra's "Portrait of a Novel"  is subtitled 'henry james and the making of an american masterpiece.' it is an elegant biography of james. i'm sure there are those who will disagree with me, but i really think that you have to read or have some familiarity with james's most famous novel, 'the portrait of a lady' before reading it. the title of gorra's novel echoing that of james's almost tells us that.

when i started the book, gorra's  book, i was overcome with all of his words and references. then i thought, 'if he is spending a large chunk of his life reading james that's exactly what he will end up sounding like,' and plunged on, much to my own reward.

mr. gorra weaves together literary criticism, travelogue, and psychological analysis of real and literary characters in his 334 enjoyable pages published by liveright publishing corp. it can be yours for $29.95 or stop by your nearest public library and put your name on the waiting list. there must be one.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. A workshop in poetry and performance

on Friday, March 29th, 2013, 12:30-1:50 p.m.

at Case Western Reserve University
Clark 309, 11130 Bellflower Rd.

2. Thursday, March 28th
Dana Ward at Case Western Reserve University
Guilford Parlor, 11112 Bellflower Rd.
6:00 p.m.
for those of you still ending submissions to the LITTLE magazine on the blog, thank you, but i have closed the journal. i loved publishing it, but i am not looking for a full-time job, which is what i was getting into. i did tell  mrs. kurtz i would give her a plug (when i thought i was going to publish some of her work), so  try reading The Way It Was, Recollections of the Life and Times of an Opinionated Granny, a memoir by Olga B. Kurtz

 

 

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

carl and audrey meet mother angelica/ not the usual blog

                                                      Madre Angelica

 

     “A day of prayer will be offered for Audrey Lavin” read the note from our new bud, Mother Angelica. Not the kind of message this nice Jewish girl usually receives.

 

     My husband Carl and I met the Reverend Mother Mary Angelica by accident at the Hotel Los Espanoles in Santiago, Chile. What immediately drew us together was not exactly psychic recognition or spiritual conversation, though until recently, Madre Angelica broadcast a spiritual message each week on Eternal Word Television Network, which she had founded. No, what drew us together was the fact that the three of us were speaking English.

 

     Contrary to what many tourists think, everyone does not speak English all over the world, certainly not in the small sea-side town of Puerto Montt, Chile, where Carl and I had been living. After a month or so of stumbling around in Spanish, it was a pleasure for us to be in the capital city and hear our own language spoken with our own easily understood, mid-western accents.

 

     Carl and I were taking a week-end’s infusion of big city life after a period of working in Puerto Montt, sometimes called the back-packing capital of the world. Actually only Carl was working. He was the International Executive Service Corps consultant for the Ganasur Meat Processing Company. I was supposed to be teaching at the local university. When I got to Puerto Montt with half my baggage in text books, I found my ‘university’ was more of a fishing trade school than an academic college and had absolutely zero need of or interest in any of my specialties. It happens.

 

     So there we were that lovely February day (as latitude 42 south runs through Puerto Montt and latitude 42 north runs through Cleveland, so February in Ohio equals August in Chile) experimenting with a crisp Chilean vino blanco and un sandwich de jamon y queso. It was a late lunch even for Chile, and we were the only ones in the charming, below street level restaurant, when in walked a large, commanding nun, wearing the brown habit of the Franciscan order. Surrounded by interviewers and flood lights, she was nothing like the (almost) nun we were most familiar with, Julie Andrews in Sound of Music.  

 

     When the Reverened Mother’s entourage dispersed, the three of us who remained started chatting in the way that mid-westerners will. It turned out, as these things never do, that Madre Angelica was from Canton, Ohio; so were we. Not just from Canton. Both she and Carl were born there. Not many Chilean tourists could say that! She had been instrumental in the growth of the Santa Clara Monastery, walking distance from our house. She asked us to stop by to give the nuns who lived there a message of love and blessings from her. We said we would and, of course, some time later, we did.

 

     Madre Angelica started to reminisce about what she missed from Canton, which brought about more coincidences, if not conclusive proof that we were soul-mates. What she really missed was Sugardale hot dogs.

 

     At that time, Carl was president of the Sugardale Provision Company.

 

     Here is part of a letter he sent to her when she and we returned to the States: “Dear Mother Angelica, when you mentioned you hadn’t had a good hot dog since leaving Canton and Sugardale territory, our hearts went out to you. No one should have to go through life deprived of quality hot dogs. Therefore, to at least temporarily assuage the deprivation, we are enclosing a few pounds of Sugardale hot dogs. We hope they arrive in good health and that you remain in good health for many years to come to carry on your good works.”

 

     In return, the nuns of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Birmingham, Alabama, offered a day of prayer for us. It included Remembrance at Mass, Divine Office, Rosary, Adoration Hour, and Prayerful Good Wishes.

 

     Fair Trade, we thought.

kerouac, frazier, and lavin linked by literary gods

 

COMMENTS:

 

readers of this blog, your comments on any book you are reading are welcome. here's one from an e-mail conversation with a.l. in new orleans: "The Valazquez book is interesting. It's full of information and gives great context for Valazquez and his work, but without any personal sources except for his paintings, the book gets a little dry."

 

and here's one from my chicago daughter on facebook about my new murder mystery:

'Maud tagged you in a post. Maud wrote: "I just finished reading my mother's latest mystery Eloquent Tattoo, and I want to report there's _sex_ and _drugs_ in it. Mo-om! *shaking head from side to side* Audrey Lavin"' BOOKS: almost every culture has gods and goddesses of writing. listed here are a few of them:  The Greek god Hermes is the patron god of high arcane literature. - Thoth is the Egyptian god of scribes and writing. - The Hindu god Ganesha is the patron god of writers. & saraswati, hindu goddess , is patron of writers, artists, poets there must be something to these gods and goddesses. they are still influencing our choices. why else would i be reading jack kerouac's "the dharma bums" at the same time i picked up charles frazier's "nightwoods" from the library. the correspondence between the two novels is startling and vividly apparent. the 1958 "dharma bums" preceded the 2011 "nightwoods" by physical, emotional, cultural, and generational times, but both books are infused with the same ethos, though not with the same amount of alcohol. to give credit where credit is due, walt whitman encompassed the same dominant assumptions of the two novels even earlier, mid-nineteenth century. frazier borrowed the title of his earlier novel "cold mountain" from "the dharma bums" which in turn took some of its inspiration and that cold mountain phrase from the japanese poet han shan. i haven't finished either novel yet, so am withholding final comment, but i did cheat and read the last page of "nightwoods" because i couldn't figure out what the author would do with the individualistic characters he had created. he couldn't put them out in the wide, wide world. and he doesn't. what he does do in the penultimate paragraph of the book is have two good people, stubblefield and luce, be seen reading a book,'Something about beatniks climbing mountains." that's a five-word synopsis of "the dharma bums" for you. i knew there was a connection. in checking this out on the internet, i find that frazier recommends "the dharma bums" to readers and says, The Dharma Bums By Jack Kerouac "On the Road is the one I respect, a great American novel that will live as long as people care to read books, but this is the one I love. I read it every few years to revisit the sweet, sad narrative voice and the goofy literary backpacking trip in the Cascades. I made pretty much the same trip years ago, but Kerouac's vision lives stronger in my mind than my own memories."

WRITING HINTS:

 

submit your work. you are not a writer until you have been rejected. often. once in a while, you'll get a rejection with a comment that will make you re-read and re-write your work. in the main, you will have to accept a rejection as that same message. try to read your work from an editor's point of view. see what you should change. or, just maybe, you are submitting to the wrong type of journal. look for your specific audiences.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS;

 

the cuyahoga county public library invites you to meet poet george bilgere, monday 16 april, at 7 p.m.

 

 

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/OhAudrey

whodunits by robert b. parker and agatha christie, an unlikely duo

here's some (i hope) good news for you baker st. irregulars.

the new Sherlock Holmes novel by Anthony Horowitz will be out in November. The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel, written as tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle 81 years after his death, is narrated in first-person by Watson.

The answer, Watson, is elementary. The reason Sherlock Holmes’ latest adventure, The House of Silk, is only being published 81 years after the death of his creator Arthur Conan Doyle, and 106 years after his final story about the tenant of 221B Baker Street, is that the story was simply too shocking to reveal until now.

in reading a recent interview with horowitz, i came across some advice to be emphasized for all writers of historical fiction, detective mystery or not. horowitz warns writers to use the language current at the time of the story. it seems pretty obvious that watson would not say to sherlock, 'good to go?" but many beginning writers forget to keep their characters in the appropriate century.

this was one good characteristic of the writing of c.j. sansom in Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake Mysteries) (See all Historical Mystery Books), reviewed in my last blog. he doesn't make his language difficult for his reader; he doesn't write in shakespearean english; he does throw in the occasional anachronism with the meaning apparent from the surrounding conversation or description.

also, because the novel takes place in a monastery, i talked about religion. i did not want to give the impression that the acting detective was a monk. no,   matthew shardlake is a sixteenth century lawyer.

i have one new and one not-so-new murder mystery to talk about today. robert b. parker's Melancholy Baby (Sunny Randall) (See all Women Sleuths Books) is the new novel and agatha christie's The Moving Finger: A Miss Marple Mystery (Miss Marple Mysteries) is, as you all know, not so new!

melancholy baby is the fourth, my first, in the sunny randall series. parker is best known for his spenser, private eye stories. sunny, private eye, is as much fun. is that right to say when we start off with a couple of murders? sunny is conflicted (we too spend time with her psychiatrist, who is susan silverman, parker's girlfriend), beautiful (but her ex-husband marries another woman, though sunny is still in love with him), and smart (yes, she solves the crimes). the plot involves  sarah markham, a college student who thinks she has been adopted by the people who claim to be her parents and won't take dna tests.

the novel is fast paced, an enjoyable read of  295 pages. it is published by g. p. putnam's sons.

agatha christie's the moving finger is subtitled, 'a miss marple mystery,' but as i remember, miss jane marple is only in about two of three scenes. she is seen knitting (crocheting?) some unnamable white fluffy thing and does ask some pertinent questions. the really odd thing about this mystery is that it does not seem dated. if you are willing to accept that it is an english village mystery with the literary conventions that accompany the site, you'll have a good read. even a couple of mild, and not unexpected, romances are thrown in. the plot deals with who sent is sending poison pen letters to the villagers of lymstock and why.

the book is 201 pages and is published by black dog and leventhal. it must be a re-print, but this is not stated on the title pages.

much of the above column is about english mysteries, so it is appropriate that i close with a quote from anthony horowitz who, speaking of the english reader, says, 'murder somehow suits our national temperament. we live behind net curtains, an atmosphere that lends itself to investigation or, as it's sometimes known, snooping.'

and americans?

murder mysteries and more with authors lavin, lippman, and vargas llosa

 

in this whodunit? blog. i often talk about the philosophies underlying detective novels, the most common being that (oversimplification follows)  in solving the crime that cracks our society, the detective gives us satisfaction by gluing back together that broken world. 

 

maud lavin in push comes to shove has a different take on it. 'Detective novels as a genre, it is said , function to allay anxiety about death--the murders usually happen offstage, early in the book, and to relatively underdeveloped characters, whereas the protagonist, the detective, whom we as readers get to know well, conquers death and evil through reasoning."

 

i'm not sure either of the above philosophies fits laura lippman's the girl in the green raincoat. what would? an article on plagiarism? no. in the novel and in the 'author insights' at the back of the book, lippman repeatedly talks of her debt to rear window. there are slight differences; her heroine tess monaghan, is not wheel chair bound. instead she is in a difficult pregnancy and has to be still. like jimmy stewart in the hitchcock movie, she wiles away the day by following her neighbors' activities.

 

i've read a number of lippman books. she is a good detective novel writer. i have no idea what she is doing here. maybe  it is an experiment in trying out a new reader demographic. actually, pre-teen and early teen readers might love the story.

 

the story ran first as a serial in the new york times, so lippman tries to make each chapter contribute to the whole, of course, but also encloses a what can be read as a short-short story in each chapter, as for example, the story of how a character fell in love. she does succeed in this.

 

the book is 158 pages and is published by william morrow.

 

to read a novel where the author really plays with style, i recommend captain pantoja and the special service by mario vargas llosa. the special service in the title is to make prostitution available to soldiers in the amazon region. t

 

from this you might guess that he book is a satire on the armed services, also religion, radio broadcasters, and more. vargas llosa is giving his readers a 'cartography of structures of power' wherever he sees them. this quote is taken from the speech that accompanied his 2010 nobel award.

 

he plays with dialogue by  telescoping time, place, and person in the four chapters that are made up of conversations. he then plays with the structure of the novel in his other six chapters by telling his story through letters, notes, military reports, newspaper articles, radio programs, and dreams.

 

i didn't really like the novel, but i admire it. see for yourself. captain pantoja is well-translated from the spanish by gregory kolovakos and ronald christ. it is 244 pages and published by jonathan cape (london).

 

audreylavin.com tr.im/whodunit

comments, the religious cozy (murder mystery), and more on how to write

in a recent blog, i asked readers for information on self publishing. i said, ‘i close with a request for reader help: does any one know anything
about create space, amazon’s publishing arm? the wednesday writers
workshop has put together an anthology of pose and poetry. we are
talking to publishers now, but might consider going with amazon.
anything we should know? thanks for your help and advice.’ 

so far, i’ve received one bit of helpful advice from c.l. in montclair, n.j.:

One bit of advice: this company helps writers or others create great books --

http://www.blurb.com/ 

it seems to me that for the most part, blurb publishes picture books. thanks, c.l., i’ll keep checking it. 

speaking of books, which is the main purpose of this blog, if you are in northeastern ohio on saturday 20 november, come to old trail school, ira rd., akron, for the book fair. i’ll be there signing copies of my books. many other authors will be joining me. you, too?

it is amazing how many series of mystery books are out there and how many genres and sub-genres exist. i have just read bad samaritan by aimee and david thurlo. it is their sixth sister agatha murder mystery.  the genre would be ‘cozy.’ the sub-genre would be ‘religious.’ 

sister agatha is an extern nun (not cloistered—i should say!) at our lady of hope monastery. the monastery is about to be shut down because of lack of funds, which  should make its neighbors in bernalilo, new mexico, extraordinarily happy. really, sister agatha runs around town all day preaching at people. some of my best friends are catholic (!), of course they aren’t nuns, but they tend to mind their own religious business. not sister agatha. she is out to solve a murder, not so much because murders aren’t nice by catholic or any other doctrine, but rather because her old boyfriend and ally sheriff tom green has been accused of the crime. the thurlos develop her character by making her well-known for riding a harley accompanied by her dog pax in the sidecar.

there is one really good line in the book. in addition to riding the motorcycle, sister sometimes drives the monastery’s anti-chrysler.

the father brown books and the, perhaps less-well-known, rabbi small (kemelman) books are also religious cozies, but not as preachy. to be fair, toward the end of the rabbi series. kemelman does get too preachy for my taste, but for the most part he uses jewish study techniques and jewish lore to solve crimes.

this time i close with some words from alexande mc call smith in a recent wall street journal. mc call smith warns against overwriting; that is, using  too many words, especially too many adjectives. he says, ‘It’s Roget’s fault, of course. I blame him and his wretched thesaurus. Put it away.’

 

 

 

 

a scottish whodunit? denise mina & how to write from professionals

first a salute to raymond chandler, the father of the noir detective novel, in this his birthday month. quote below taken from a poem a day with garrison keillor.

He (chandler) wrote pulp fiction about the city of Los Angeles and a detective there named Philip Marlowe. Chandler's first novel was The Big Sleep (1939), which sold well and was made into a movie in 1946 with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall — William Faulkner co-wrote the screenplay. Chandler wrote seven more novels featuring Philip Marlowe, who became the quintessential "hard-boiled" private eye, tough and street-smart and full of wise cracks. In Farewell, My Lovely (1940), Marlowe says: "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun."

then to denise mina's second novel in her paddy meacham series, The Dead Hour. a note here: the cover of one edition, not the one i read, carries a subtitle of sorts,'time only matters when it's running out.' paddy is hardly what we used to think of as a cute little cub reporter, more of a rookie journalist, as far down the food chain as she can get. she works the night shift for the scotch daily news, glasgow, following police calls with her driver. the novel starts when they answer a domestic abuse call in a wealthy suburb.

mina is good at portraying the 1980s sordid real world glasgow with emphasis on its catholic and journalism sub-cultures. through paddy's involvement we see the almost completely masculine world of journalism which is starting to go through the changes we see today. though paddy isn't a believer, she is filled with catholic guilt (her weight, accepting a bribe, her family). her observant family is well portrayed. for example, paddy's sister is in a terrible and brutal marriage (imaging the wealthy one that starts the book) , but the family won't consider divorce. mina is also real when she comes to describing paddy. paddy is overweight and eats junk food. she does not run ten miles a day. she does not have a cozy apartment. she lives with her family in poverty. she takes a bribe when she knows she shouldn't (she does turn it in) and she has sex in a car with a fellow police officer when she knows she shouldn't.

i had a little trouble at the beginning getting into the lilt of place and accents. it didn't take long. i also had to keep reminding myself that paddy is just 21, i think! a surprise ending seems to point toward more books in the series. good.

the book is published by little brown and co. and consists of 341 pages.

i close with three writing hints from our honk kong correspondent f.l. thanks for forwarding:

(i attended a) seminar at the hk book fair at which three authors discussed the craft of writing: stephen fry, frederick forsythe, and andrew roberts.

frederick forsythe was the carpenter.  writing was a job and it required discipline and work.  the point of writing was to tell a story.

andrew roberts was the craftsman.  writing was a precision task and it required research and skill.

stephen fry was the socialite.  the point of writing was to connect with others and to have fun.

i would guess that most of us combine the three approaches.

murder mysteries by g.m. maillet, emily arsenault, and louise penny with a nod to harold frederic

back now after a few days in washington d.c. with all of the pomp and circumstances of a georgetown university graduation. much has not changed. for example, still can not figure out how to enlarge this font.

plus louise penny still writes a good novel of chief inspector armand gamache's ability to solve yet another murder in three pines, canada. i realized part way through that i had read the novel A Fatal Grace some time ago, which gave me time to admire ms. penny's style. please refer to an earlier review, but if you don't want to bother, take my word for it. all of the characters that have inhabited three pines in the past are still there. this novel does ask a little more of the reader in the way of accepting coincidences, but it is fine. it was published in 2006 by st. martin's and is 334 pages.

Death at the Alma Mater (A St. Just Mystery) makes good airplane reading. author g. m. malliet speaks (in various interviews) of her admiration for agatha christie. maillet is a worthy follower. i hope i am, too. this novel is not as clever as the first in her series Death of a Cozy Writer (A St. Just Mystery), a novel that is a good satire as well as a good mystery. this one, the third in the series, is more of a good cozy mystery. malliet still uses satire, but not in a way that takes a broad look at the whole genre; she saves her satire for various characters. these characters meet at st. michaels college, cambridge, for a fund-raising weekend. one of them, lexy durant, is found strangled to death at the boathouse. everyone else is suspect. you will enjoy joining sergeant garwin fear, detective chief inspector arthur st. just, dr. malenfant, and st. justs' girlfriend, portia de'ath, in solving this murder. it was published this year by midnight ink and is 283 pages.

i have just started The Broken Teaglass: A Novel by emily arsenault. i know i should wait until i have more to say, but the novel is so darn clever in its first 100 pages that i'm afraid ms. arsenault will not be able to keep up the pace, and i want to say how much i like it while i still do! it is extraordinarily witty. booklist says it is for 'word nerds.' perhaps. it's really for anyone who admires verbal, literary, and/or intellectual dexterity. barzak, who writes a blurb, says it reminds her of a. s. byatt's Possession. i loved that novel too. pick it up for a very good read -- so far.

The Damnation of Theron Ware: Or, Illumination (Classic Reprint) is not a mystery novel. it was written by harold frederic in the 1890s. if you are interested in the school of american realism you will find this a good read and a good illustration of the genre. it might be interesting, too, to anyone studying american culture as it is set in a small town brimming over with small time religion of the 19th century. poor theron. he is given a poor ministry, and his life goes downhill from there. but this is an american novel of the period. in the great american tradition, if things aren't good where you are, head west. so, it will not spoil the novel for potential readers to know that he and his faithful wife head for seattle at the end. i gave publication info and other details on a previous blog.

36 arguments for the existence of god, goldstein

the title alone is argument for liking rebecca newberger goldstein's novel: 36 arguments for the existence of god - a work of fiction.

i haven't quite finished the book, but will admit to cheating by having already read the last fifty-two pages which list the '36 reasons' and their studied refutations. the arguments range from 1. the cosmological argument (everything that exists must have a cause) to 36. the argument from the abundance of arguments.

the book continues to astonish and delight. right now i am in the middle of a section on jewish mysticism, which might not be everyone's cup of tea or glass of manishevitz. our hero, cass; his main girl-friend (at least, the one i'm pulling for); and cass's charismatic (to him) professor are visiting a rebbe in a hasidic village, which happens to be in new york state. the village is kept exactly the way it was in the old country when the baal shem tov, the famous rabbi who started the hassidic movement, died so that when he is resurrected, he won't have any trouble finding his way around. cass and roz discover a child genius. we meet once again the 'little child shall lead them.'

readers who follow this blog know that i have recently read franny, zooey, and nine stories, all by salinger, who repeatedly stresses the thought expressed in isaiah, 'and a little child shall lead them' to the messianic age. whether it is innocence or genius, it is always the purity of the child that will save us. we'll see where goldstein takes this. the book, which i recommend is 399 pages, including arguments and refuatations. it is published by pantheon books.

i'm happy to report that i have spent an enjoyable week or two on e-mail co-writing a study with a russian colleague. it is always a pleasure to work with larissa sokolova. and the internet makes it so easy.

the last comment this column received was pure spam. any suggestions about how to get rid of such 'contributions'?

readers from northeastern ohio are invited to submit poetry or prose (fiction or non-fiction) for an anthology to be organized and  published by the wednesday writers workshop of canton oh.

alan bradley's new whodunit? & quest novels continued with rebecca goldstein

alan bradley's new flavia de luce mystery is a delight.  the friend who gave me The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Mystery (Flavia De Luce Mysteries) said she was wary at first, wary of a novel with an eleven-year-old sleuth, and especially wary that the creator of this young girl detective is a middle-aged man. how could he get in her head? he does. he also keeps the novel on the right side of cuteness and swarminess by making his pre-teen heroine a scientist with real formulas and experiments for the reader to follow. a plus is that many of those formulas and experiments have to do with making poisons. i had found this out in bradley's previous novel starring flavia, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery. in a review laurie king says, 'alexander mc call smith meets sir arthur conan doyle.' that about sums it up. readers should understand, though, that flavia's life is not all sweetness and light. she is burdened by two 'evil' sisters, a dead mother, and a distant father. that's not even counting the murderer and the many suspects. but she has her trusty steed, that is, bicycle, gladys, and can escape easily to the nearby town of bishop's lacy and its environs where murders occur and murderers hide.

here's an interesting coincidence regarding quest novels, which, if you've been following this blog, you know i've been writing about the past two weeks.  the quests i've been writing about are for lost lands. cynthia crossen in her well-written column in the wall street journal touches on some similar journeys in what she calls the 'outdoor-adventure genre.' her list doesn't include any of the ones you readers have recently suggested to me, but does give us a few more to consider: The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage by anthony brandt, a search for the northwest passage; Barrow's Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude, and Outright Lunacy by fergus fleming, a series of expeditions based on false assumptions; and Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure (Kodansha Globe) by james w. davidson and john rugge, a woman's attempt to copy her husband's disastrous voyage. thank you, ms. crossen.

the best quest of all, that search for god, is undermined in rebecca newberger goldstein's 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. this novel, a work of fiction that combines philosophy, story telling, and humor, is so full of sparkling and benign intelligence that the reader is happy to be turning pages, reading. among other labels that could be applied, it can be thought of as a satire on the academic life it is different from my lighter hearted eloquent corpse* and eloquent blood*in that the life of the mind is sorted and sifted to form the satire. i've read only the first 100 pages and will review the novel later. right now i will add that the hero is cass an atheist with-a-soul and that much of the action takes place at a university near harvard, supposedly brandeis university. another coincidence (maybe there is an ultimate planner, after all) is that the following quote from 'a word a day' came across my e-mail this morning,

Albert Camus wrote a limpid and moving essay The Myth of Sisyphus in which he compares man's eternal and, in his view, futile search for meaning to the task that the mythical king was compelled to perform for all eternity. He concludes by saying that life is itself the end: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

a closing note from g.b. of mensa,

"I've been reviewing you website and blog. I'm looking forward to reading your work. It looks very interesting and exciting. I was a Wambaugh fan in the past. I read a few of his mysteries. g.b."

and * a closing note from me. with mother's day on the horizon, remember that Eloquent Blood and Eloquent Corpse: A Murder Mystery can be purchased directly from me or from amazon.com.