Fiction

“Allo Poppets!  How goes it? Getting a little tired of Winter’s wet and windy blasts? Well, here in Kerrville, we’ve had some rain, some cool weather, and some lovely sunshine and temps. between 70 and 77 degrees, which is actually a little warmer in mid-Jan. than usual but I love it, being a hot weather fan.  We desperately need more rain, although our aquifer is back up to normal, but if you’ve ever endured a drought, you’re a little skeptical for the next late Spring through mid-Fall. Didja watch the Super Bowl? My team won!  What happened to yours?  Ah, well, there’s always another year and I think it’s nice that Eli Manning lived to tell a tale that came out great in the end—at least for him, it did. 

You know how children love being told stories and, as they get older, reading them for the excitement, thoughts, facts that are all new to them?  I always loved the beginning of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories” ‘cause he often began them “Once Upon a Time, O Best Beloved---“and to this day, I think the very good—really good—authors maybe silently think that as they begin to write—yes, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced they do, if only in their own minds. Good stories, well told, “take you away to another place and time” and you hate to put them down, and maybe one or two of the titles I’m about to review will do it for you.

Let’s go back to London, Oct. 1839, in “When the Devil Drives” by Cara Peacock, London’s Liberty Lane, female private investigator (at 25), struggling to do all right so as to pay her bills, looked hopeful (and, she hoped, capable and businesslike) when a young, “poetic young man begs her to find his missing fiancee, she accepts”. She feels the girl probably just ran off with someone else and “meanwhile, back at the ranch,” the country’s young Queen Victoria is falling in love with Prince Albert, her German cousin and “another client hires her to help prevent a royal scandal”, involving Albert’s brother Prince Ernest, who is more “worldly and likes to have a good time.” 

So, now she has two cases and then a young woman is found dead and “with a strange bull-headed ring on her finger.”  The one constant around all these crime is the description of a black or dark carriage, drawn by two dark horses, that picks up the girls and disappears before it can be stopped. Those who have heard or seen this conveyance, seen or heard the horses, call it The Devil’s Chariot. This book truly is charming and written in a “deliberate” manner, in describing atmosphere, people involved, countryside—I only regretted that the horses weren’t given more book space!  For those of you who like “old-fashioned” murder mysteries, minus a lot of blood and gore, will enjoy this one—go to the library and check it out.  

This next book, “The Best Bad Dream”, by Robert Ward, is much like the “hard-boiled” private eye stories we’ve all read and, for its realistic violence and the hard, experienced personalities in here are very believable—not lovable, but, at times, understandable and pitiful while being extremely dangerous.  A major point is the Blue Wolf, “a suspicious and exclusive spa for the elderly—at least on the surface.”  The two main characters are Jack Harper and Oscar Hidalgo, “who are burned out from chasing criminals, so a long vacations seems like just the ticket.”  But Jack received a call from an ex-girlfriend Michelle,  who asks for help in finding her sister, Jennifer, who has been kidnapped.  

How can the two points of the case be related?  And how does a huge pet razorback hog, Old Big, feature in finding Jennifer?  What did the kidnappers want with Jennifer?  I got started reading this story and 40 minutes passed quickly. If you like mysteries with a touch of the ghastly, this is your choice. 

Apropos of nothing I’ve been discussing, did you see the interview (there was more than one, actually) of Mimi Alford who’s written about her 18 month affair with J.F.K. that is out now, entitled “Once Upon a Secret”?  That will be a blockbuster and it brings out, as she said, “his dark side.”  

Okay, back to my column and another “dead body book” as Ida called them, and this one is “Shedding Light on Murder”, by Patricia Driscoll, and it’s her debut novel, “set on Cape Cod, in Christmas season during a blizzard.” Grace Tolliver is an ex-probation officer in Barnstable Village.  She’s the owner of Pearl’s Antique Lamps and Shades and has hired Duane Kerby as “holiday help’ but when a well-known citizen if murdered, Duane is arrested for it and Grace feels responsible because she sent him to the man’s home on an errand.  She is busy “readying the shop for the annual Barnstable Village Stroll while keeping an eye on her frisky 84-year-old father” and she finds herself attracted to the detective on the case (you could see that comin’ ‘round the bend, right?) 

Then, a second murder hits and here come the blizzard’s winds, snow, and ice.  Lots of conversation, some (some!) action, bringing out of the people’s thoughts and character—this, my dears, is what we in the trade call “a cozy” and it’s an excellent representative of its genre. It’s not going to be one of the “top” books, such as “Heft”, or “Defending Jacob” or “Taken” by Crais or “Phantom” by Ted Bell, but, then again, it isn’t trying to be. It’s a book to “curl up with” , won’t tax the brain too much and it’s enjoyable. So, check it out. 

Now, our last book fits into the last, or “top” category because the author, Val McDermid, is an author with a  capital “A”, and her newest is “The Retribution”, a Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, who’ve appeared in other stories.  Tony is a clinical psychologist and Carol is police detective. And, between them, they’ve put away a lot of criminals but all that success has bred resentment in Carol’s department and so the “powers that be” decide to break the team up. So, there’s a serial killer to catch “and it seems that this may well be their farewell waltz.”  But Jacko Vance, an ex-celebrity and sociopath has spent a dozen years behind bars, having killed teenage girls with no remorse “and with a twisted and cunning mind long honed by years of planning, Jacko has pulled off the perfect escape”—and guess who he’s after?  

The “Times” of London paper said that “her work is taut, psychologically complex and so gripping that it puts your life on hold”—which, I think, is Brit for “good show!” The best  police procedural put you in the middle of the conversations, theories and action and after 24 novels and short story collection (doesn’t she ever sleep?), McDermid’s got it down pat. The conversations carry you along, the moods and thoughts and theories are well developed—I’m telling you, find this book and enjoy a master (sorry, mistress) at her best.  She ain’t young and won’t be around for the next 20 years—but her stories will.  Enjoy!  You’re welcome.

It has been, as always, a pleasure to “ visit” with you and I hope all is well in your world and should you see me, on the streets or in Spencer Browne’s coffee house or in the library, come up and “chat” a minute. I will be in Liberal from the 20^th until mid-afternoon of the 27^th and I really look forward to being in the library and seeing the staff—don’t you think it would be nice to have “a library cat”, say a big black one with green eyes?  Please let my director know and urge her to check the animal shelter—it won’t be necessary to tell her that I sent you or that it was my idea!  Make sure that your animals have freshwater and a warn place to sleep at night—you do!  See ya soon—Bye!  PS—think about a purring pussycat on the front desk! I’m jus’ sayin’----