At Home: Books from October through December!

Will it surprise you to know that my reading really tanked in October, November and December? So, I'm putting these three paltry months together! Some of my reviews are a bit shorter than usual because I didn't write them right after finishing the book!

"The Case of the Crooked Candle" by Erle Stanley Gardner

I love the Perry Mason TV show. Not the new ones, but the original black-and-whites that show up on cable. So when I saw this book at a used bookstore in Canada, I figured "let's give it a try."

I will say that I can see why these attracted filmmakers to do the original movies and the later TV series. You may even have seen this episode. It finds Perry and Della Street, his secretary, approached by a woman who is concerned about her father. He may have been involved in a financial scheme and she is asking Perry to come help confirm his alibi. 

Meanwhile, another call to Mason's office finds the lawyer dealing with what might involve one potential company "hiding" as another and in the course of investigating meets a woman who has just learned of her husband's death. It turns out the two cases are related and that the deceased was murdered on the yacht belonging to the woman who first appeared in Perry's office. Of course, Perry chooses to represent him. 

The crooked candle in the title comes from the murder on the yacht and it will eventually be the key to solving the mystery. 

Fans of the TV series will recognize all the favorite characters: private detective Paul Drake, DA Hamilton Burger and Lieutenant Tragg, and they are true to what we expect. The dialogue, particularly in the courtroom scenes, is especially witty and clever. The plot's a tad complex but it was good fun, the kind of book you read on the plane and are happy to leave behind when you finish.

"A Scream In Soho" by John G. Brandon 

This British Library Crime Classic is a fun one. We meet Detective Inspector Patrick McCarthy, a snappy dresser and a master of disguise, who hears a blood curdling scream near his Soho flat late at night during a WWII blackout. Naturally, he rushes out to see what's happening.  There are all the signs of murder, including a bloody knife, but no body. Thus begins a clever novel, one which editor Martin Edwards describes as more thriller than mystery, that takes readers into the Soho underworld, complete with gangsters and a plot to steal top secret defense plans.

Written in the 1940s, the book might offend some modern readers with stereotypes, homophobia and a degree of racism. That said, the book is often witty with some snappy dialogue and the plot and mystery are solid and well presented. McCarthy is an engaging character -- a policeman with excellent connections in the darker criminal underworld. The plot moves quickly with both well-written action scenes and delightful interactions with McCarthy, his boss, and those who work with him. It's not my favorite British Library Crime Classic, but it was well worth the time.

"Time Steps" by Donna McKechnie

This is a book for Broadway fans and I am one of them. Donna McKechnie may have had her big break on Broadway in the musical "Promises Promises" but it was "A Chorus Line" that brought her a Tony Award and great notoriety in the theatre community. A dancer from the Detroit suburbs who hit Broadway at 18 (to the chagrin of her parents), she worked with some of theatre's greatest luminaries, including Bob Fosse, Stephen Sondheim and Michael Bennett.

McKechnie tells an honest story of a youth that was not loaded with love and affection but not terribly grim, either. Her lifesaver was her passion for dance. She covers those early years and then her move to New York, conveying the challenges a dancer (who can also sing and act) and the experiences one having a life in the theatre must go through -- auditions, rejection, and trying again. She recounts her less than successful times in Hollywood after "Promises" and her resurgence in "A Chorus Line" in a role that was, in part, autobiographical. 

She also tells of her odd marriage to director Michael Bennett, one which probably shouldn't have got off the ground in the first place, and her struggles with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) which stopped her dance career dead in its tracks until she found a doctor who was able to help her. 

"Time Steps" is a solid theatre memoir and anyone interested in Broadway musicals will find it well worth their time.

"A Bird in the Hand" by Ann Cleeves

Long before "Vera" and "Jimmy Perez," Ann Cleves wrote about George and Molly Palmer-Jones. George is a twitcher or avid bird watcher, and probably in his 60s. "A Bird in the Hand" was the first of Cleeves' books to be published and the first in a series of eight bird-watching mysteries featuring the Palmer-Joneses. 

George, who has retired from the Home Office and is a tad bored, is asked by a man named Clive Anderson to investigate the murder of Tom French, a friend of Anderson's son, Adam. Was the killer another birder and might Adam be in danger? French, considered by many to be one of the region's best birders, was found dead, clearly murdered. George is curious and decides to investigate and his wife, Molly, a retired social worker who has a knack talking with people, is all in as well.

As George searches for answers, while doing a little birding himself, he discovers several who knew Tom well -- twitchers Rob and Peter, Tara (a young woman who "rings" or bands birds), and Sally, a single mother who for some time was very close to Tom. Might one of them have killed Tom, whom it appears wasn't as beloved as many presented him to believe? Meanwhile, Molly does her own investigation, as she speaks with those who were in Tom's orbit.

As I was reading this book, I realized I wasn't turning the pages as quickly as I do in some of her other excellent series. Was I bored? (No.) Was it "not good"? (No.) It just didn't grab me, at least not for some time. But I reminded myself that this was her first book, and when put that way, it was remarkably good. The characters are well defined and there is a great deal of atmosphere in the countryside. The plot, too, twists well. I always feel a little proud (and a little cheated) when I guess the murderer. I didn't in this offering. 

I'd say give it a read if you like Cleeves or are interested in birding. But don't expect it to be quite as solid as her later works.

"Riding Out" by Simon Parker

In this lively and thoughtful memoir, we follow travel writer Simon Parker through the months of 2020 when much of the world was in lockdown for the Covid19 virus. Parker decided to ride his bike from the tip of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall and back again, accompanied only by his tent, a sleeping bag, a cook stove and a couple of electronic devices. Along the way, he met a tremendous variety of interesting people, as he asked them questions and discovered how they were coping during these challenging times.

And, ultimately, he begins to realize some things that truly matter to him, as he learns of the loss of dear friends and is parted from the woman he loves during his travels.

"When I first started travel writing," Parker writes, "I obsessed about research, arriving on location with reams of printed ages, novels and guidebooks. But over time I realized I was carving a narrative in my mind, long before I'd given a place and its people a chance to carve one for me." It is clear, as he meets locals, people who had followed him on Twitter and offered him a place to stay or camp, town officials, and more, that his method has changed. "Riding Out" is as much about the people he encounters and the issues they -- as individuals and as communities -- have faced in the pandemic years.

But it is also a story of how this journey changes him as a person. He begins to notice things he may have overlooked before. "Moving at the gentle pace of a bicycle allowed me to focus on the precious details that would have otherwise whirred past, unnoticed, in a car," he writes. "A fox moth caterpillar, with long, dark hairs on the sides and a short orange Mohawk on top. More than 2,600 species of beetle live in the New Forest and most of them seemed to be flying over or crawling across the warm asphalt. Many were matte-black like coal, but some glowed as incomprehensive greenish mauve, a color so magnificent, that only Mother Nature could have imagined it." 

And, his journey intensifies his thoughts on travel and its importance to growth. "To travel is to learn. We cannot simply experience the world in 2D, on screens in the palm if our hand. And to see, hear and feel a place, in the flesh, is -- to me -- the greatest privilege in life."

I saw this book at a charity shop in England and pointed it out to Rick, and he began reading it on our trip. While he was napping on the plane home, I took it from him and read to page 104 before he woke and told him I needed to finish it when he was done. I'm glad I did. It may well be one of my best reads of the year and I not only understood more about Simon Parker and his journey but understood a bit more about Rick and his passion for the bike. I thought, "If Parker's Alana can bid him farewell during this time for several months, I think I can feel better about Rick's long rides -- next year, maybe the Nova Scotia trip that didn't happen this year or a cross-country jaunt. And in a weird way, that was kind of a comfort!

"The White Priory Murders" by Carter Dickson (aka John Dickson Carr)

When American John Bennett meets movie star Marcia Tate and several of her entourage, including the director of her upcoming play in the West End, John Bohun, he becomes a part of their group. He is disturbed when someone tries to poison Marcia with tampered chocolates and when he arrives in London, consults his uncle, H.M. Merrivale, who is connected with British Intelligence, before leaving to join the group at the country home of Bohun's brother. 

As he arrives in the wee hours of the morning, he discovers that Bohun, who has just arrived at the Pavilion on the estate where Tait is staying went to meet Tait for an early morning ride and found her dead. It is a classic locked room mystery. The only footsteps are those going into the Pavilion after a fresh snow, Bennet's and Bohun's. But Bohun has just discovered the body. So how did the murderer escape?

Thus, the stage is set for a clever and well written mystery with no end of suspects. Was it the work of Bohun, who was in love with the actress? Of her obnoxious film director? Her press agent? The handsome co-star? Could it be Bohun's persnickety and obnoxious brother and estate owner Maurice? Bohun's niece, Kate, who seems to know more than she is saying? Or Louise Canifast, the daughter of a man who is said to be engaged to Tate?

First, Detective Inspector Masters in on the case, but it's not long before H.M. enters into the picture, and who very cleverly solves the mystery -- but not until another body is found.

This British Library Crime Series offering by the well-known John Dickson Carr, writing under the name Carter Dickson, does not disappoint with its clever red herrings and more than a few victims. 

"Death of an Author" by E.C.R. Lorac

E.C.R. Lorac has another winner in this British Library Crime Series. Vivian Lestrange is a best-selling mystery writer whose novel seems to have an uncanny knowledge of life behind bars. He, too, is a mystery, known as a recluse who has never been photographed or interviewed in person. When fellow author Michael Ashe expresses a desire to their mutual publisher to introduce them, he is surprised when a meeting is arranged and Lestrange turns out to be a confident, composed young woman, who seems to defy the thought of the times, that a woman cannot write crime.

But is the woman really Lestrange? When Eleanor Clarke comes one morning to work as Lestrange's secretary, she discovers a bullet shot through a window, a locked house and no one -- not even the housekeeper, Mrs. Fife, at home. Concerned, she contacts the police, first Inspector Bond and then his superior, Chief Inspector Warner. She tells them that Lestrange had asked her to impersonate him at the dinner and now he has disappeared.

Thus begins one of the more intriguing of Lorac's British Library Crime Series entries and one of her rare books not featuring Inspector Macdonald. But readers won't mind, as Warner and Bond make for a good team, one of opposites in approach but of thoughtful, creative reasoning and detective work. Who is Lestrange and what has happened to him? Is Clarke the innocent woman she seems to be? And how did a body found burned in a fireplace in a small town miles away from London happen to have Lestrange's notebook with him? And what about Michael Ashe, an author who appears to be almost as elusive as Lestrange himself?

Lorac keeps us guessing until the last chapter as Warner's mind bursts with different scenarios, all plausible. But which is real -- or are any of them so?

This one was a real winner and reinforces my delight in Lorac's work. Highly recommended. 

"The English Understand Wool" by Helen DeWitt

When I completed this short (69 page) work by Helen DeWitt, my first thought was "I don't have a clue about how to write about this." Too short to be even a novella, this cupcake of a book reads in about an hour and when finished I found myself shaking my head, because I'm not sure how to even write about it without spoilers -- and would they matter?

Marguerite is a 17 year-old, who in the first or several short pages recounts episodes of traveling with her mother, Maman. It appears she had quite an unusual childhood with Maman (a French woman who lived in Marrakech) preparing her for "the good life" from a very early age. "The English understand wool," she explains, as she buys a fine Scottish tweed to take to a London tailor, while her other clothes will be made in Paris by an adept Thai seamstress. Marguerite has an aversion to the idea of mauvais ton, roughly translated to "bad taste," something stressed by her mother from childhood.

After several writings outlining her privileged but unusual childhood, it appears that these are submissions for a book to her editor, Bethany. Bethany is distressed that Marguerite isn't sharing her feelings, that Maman appears cold. And feelings sell. But Marguerite wants to tell things her own way. It is at this point that we get the idea that things in her life are not quite as they seem.

I don't want to say too much more here because it would be unfair to the story and to DeWitt's reveal about what happens next in Marguerite's life. Suffice it to say that "The English Understand Wool" is intriguing in many ways and as much a satire on the sensationalism of the publishing world as it is an unlikely but captivating tale of a young woman, wise beyond her years.

At $18.85 US, you may not want to add it to your personal collection. And yet, I heartily recommend finding a comfy chair in a corner of your favorite bookstore or library and settling in for an hour or so for a delightful read. I think you'll find it time well spent.