Me so happy!!

Guess what I'm doing for the next few days??

Everyone have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!

Opinion: The Skull Beneath the Skin

When I am in a reading slump, I can always count on a P. D. James mystery to pull me through.  (Oh well maybe not that newest one about Pemberley -- yuck!)  While she is mainly known for her Adam Dalgliesh series, James also imagined another detective -- a woman, an amateur -- in two books written ten years apart.  The Skull Beneath the Skin is the second (and seemingly final) book of the Cordelia Gray series and is one of my absolute favorite James's mysteries.

The Skull Beneath the Skin opens with private detective Cordelia Gray accepting the job of bodyguard to an actress who has been receiving poison pen letters.  Cordelia's assignment requires her to travel to a secluded island castle where the actress, a capricious and self-indulgent sort, is performing in a privately produced play.  As events unfold, Cordelia finds that someone has prepared for a performance of a different sort -- murder.

The Skull Beneath the Skin is an incredibly satisfying literary whodunnit.  It has all the elements of the classic  'locked room' and English Country House mystery, but where some mysteries (like 1222 -- see my recent review) are weak in style and substance, Skull runs away with characterization and complexity and simple plain ole good writing.  Cordelia Gray is Nancy Drew all grown up, and Cordelia mysteries are P. D. James at her most wonderful.  Start with the first book of the series, An Unsuitable Job For A Woman.

Final rating:  4 1/2 stars

Opinion: Weight

Jeanette Winterson's Weight is a modern retelling of the myth of Atlas, the Titan whose fighting against the upstart Zeus resulted in being forced to carry the world upon his shoulders.  Weight centers around Atlas and his struggles -- both internal and external -- to hold the world in place.  Winterson's Atlas is an extremely broody character whose internal monologue runs like this

No man believes what he does not feel to be true.  I should like to unbelieve myself.  I sleep at night and wake in the morning hoping to be gone.  It never happens.  One knee forward, one knee bent, I bear the world.   (26)

and

It is fit that a man should do his best and grapple with the world.  It is meet that he should accept the challenge of his destiny.  What happens when the sun reaches the highest point in the day?  Is it a failure for morning to become afternoon, or afternoon to turn into peaceful evening and star-bright night?  (71)

Atlas's one chance at relief comes with the arrival of Heracles.  Heracles is also on the receiving end of a god's wrath (this time it is Hera) and is in the midst of completing twelve seemingly impossible tasks.  One of the tasks is to retrieve one of the golden apples of the Hesperides.  As Atlas is the father of the Hesperides, Heracles arrives to ask where the golden apples might be found.  Atlas is no fool and recognizes the opportunity to escape his monumental task.  He transfers the weight of the world to Heracles and goes to retrieve the apples himself.  Upon his return, Atlas tells Heracles that he will finish the task by taking the apples to the king Eurystheus while Heracles remains.  With only his wits to save him from a potential eternity of holding up the universe, Heracles tells Atlas that "bloody Switzerland" has mountains poking into his back (the Matterhorn in particular) and would Atlas mind holding the world for just a second so that Heracles could get more comfortable?

Unsuspecting Atlas nodded and bent down to put the apples on the floor of the universe.  Then with a light flick he spun the Kosmos off Heracles and held it over his head.
Heracles quickly picked up the apples.
'Better make yourself comfortable mate.  I'm not coming back.'   (82-3)

What a jerk.


Weight is the third book in the Canongate Myths series, a series in which contemporary authors put a modern spin on classic myths.  At only 151 pages, this book went by very quickly and is easily read in a single sitting.  Weight is not a light read -- the title is quite ironic now that I think about it -- and Winterson packs a heavy emotional punch in relatively few pages.  (As a heads up to some readers, Weight contained several semi-explicit sexual encounters between characters -- gods and demigods and their insatiable libidos, you know.)  There is quite a bit of self-indulgence going on in Weight by both the author and the characters that verges on tedious, but the writing is excellent if you like that sort of thing.  For example, in an exchange between Atlas and Heracles, Atlas states

'Bent under the world like this, I hear all the business of men, and the more I hear them questioning their lot, the more I know how futile it is.  I hear them plan for tomorrow and die during the night.  I hear a woman groaning in labour and her child is stillborn.  I hear the terror of the captured man, and suddenly he is set free.  I hear a merchant travelling home form the coast with his goods, and robbers set upon him and take all he has.  There is no why. There is only the will of the gods and a man's fate.'  (51)

Now those are the thoughts of someone with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Lighten up, would you?

My rating:  3 stars


Rating system:  1 star -- Don’t Bother
 2 stars -- Only If You’re Bored
 3 stars -- A Good Read
 4 stars -- Don’t Miss It
 5 stars -- Run, Don’t Walk, To Get This Book

Opinion: 1222

1222
by Anne Holt

I first became aware of Anne Holt's 1222 when it was nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Novel.  It has been on my Goodreads TBR list ever since.  How I finally obtained a copy is a long and boring story involving inter-library loans (which I hate) and Amazon Marketplace via Royal Air Mail (which I hate even more -- grrr).

1222 is billed as ""A dazzling crime story ... a brilliant thriller" on the cover.  I wouldn't go quite that far.  The story has several elements I like in my mysteries:  a strong female lead, a secluded location, a limited number of suspects, the 'puzzle' element of a locked room mystery.  The protagonist is Hanne Wilhelmsen, a disabled former police officer, who happens to be traveling on a train that derails in the middle of a wrath-of-God type snowstorm.  Luckily for Hanne and the other passengers, they are stranded within evacuation distance of a picturesque hotel that has not only enough rooms for everyone but also enough food and supplies that there is never a question of the novel disintegrating into a survival story.  As one murder follows another, Hanne reluctantly begins uncovering the pasts and prejudices of her fellow passengers.  Can she catch the murderer before the official police arrive?  You bet your snowboots.

1222 is my third read from the 2012 Edgar Best Novel list this year.  While 1222 might be a good book to have with you if you are snowed in somewhere cozy with the wind howling outside and a cup of cocoa at your elbow, it was not a good choice for reading during record setting heat in early May.  Surprisingly, I have been disappointed in all the 2012 nominees this year.  I have historically been able to count on the Edgar list for fantastically enjoyable crime novels, so I don't know what is going on with my 'eh ... ok... whatever' attitude and general dissatisfaction with this year's picks.  In addition to 1222, I have also read Gone, a forgettable Mo Hayder from last summer, and attempted a third novel, The Devotion of Suspect X (couldn't make it more than fifty pages).

Maybe my reading tastes and preferences are changing.  It has certainly happened before.  Ten years ago I couldn't get enough Dianne Mott Davidson and Martha Grimes.  Now I won't touch either author with a ten foot pole.  Five years ago, I plowed through the entire Kay Scarpetta series -- and today have no desire to encounter that character again.  Ever.  Two years ago, it was Twilight.  Less said the better about that.

What will pique my interest tomorrow?  Stay tuned.

Mythology In May

 
 
















We are a couple of weeks away from the beginning of summer break, and I have already begun my Summer Reading Challenge.  The project?  Read as many titles as I can from the Canongate Myths series.  According to Goodreads, the Canongate Myths are a "series of short novels in which ancient myths from myriad cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors."  The full list of works (seventeen to date) can be found at Goodreads or at The Myths official website.

I have already completed the first two titles of the series: A Short History of Myth and The Penelopiad.  A Short History of Myth introduces the series with a concise description of the human compulsion to tell stories attempting to explain the unexplainable.  Karen Armstrong follows the thread of human storytelling from the Palaeolithic hunters to the agrarian cultures of the Middle East to the great (or is it not so great?) transformation of rationalism in the modern West.

The Penelopiad is a retelling Odysseus's return to Ithaca after twenty year's absence from the point-of-view of his long suffering wife, Penelope.  I admit to being a little rusty on my mythology here, so I had to dip into Edith Hamilton's classic Mythology for the backstory.  Here it is in a nutshell:  Odysseus is drafted into service during the Trojan War and spends ten years on foreign soil (heard of the Trojan Horse? that's Odysseus's brainchild).  The war finally ends and Odysseus spends ten more years trying to get home.  He braves gods, ghosts, crazy one-eyed monsters, and nymphomaniac goddesses on his journey.  When Odysseus finally does make it home, he is greeted by The Suitors, a bunch of young men trying to woo his wife and claim his wealth (and eating him out of house and home in the process).  After various disguises and feints, Odysseus reveals himself, kills the suitors, and reestablishes his claim on hearth and home.

Drawing from various sources including the Odyssey and Robert Graves's The Greek Myths, Margaret Atwood gives Penelope a voice and perspective on unfolding events.  Penelope is funny and sad, ironic and clever, deceiver and deceived.  She is a wonderful character, wonderfully rewritten.

I thoroughly enjoyed both of these books and look forward to the next book in the series.  Final rating(s): 4 stars

Top Ten Favorite Characters

I have not had time to participate in many memes recently, but I always love the Top Ten lists from The Broke & The Bookish.  This week's Top Ten is Top Ten All-Time Favorite Characters.

1.  Sherlock Holmes.  No surprise here for anyone that knows me.  My shelves are crammed with Holmes, both from ACD and many, many spin-offs and pastiches (the good, the bad, and the ugly).

2.  Mary Russell.  The only Holmes spin-off series that is worth its salt is Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series, now in its eleventh book (book #12 A Garment Of Shadows is due out this fall).  The first book in the series, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, is one of my top ten favorite books of all time, so of course its central character had to make this list.

3.  Jane Eyre.  The quiet, bookish girl gets the man.  Forget about the crazy lady upstairs.

4.  Dexter Morgan.  A serial killer slash blood spatter expert vigilante?  Dexter is in a class all his own.  And thankfully, Showtime is doing him right.

5.  Cassie Maddox.  From Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series, Cassie is a female detective holding her own in an all-male world.  Still feminine while also tough as nails, Cassie's hard outer shell hides a quick, intelligent mind and quiet vulnerability.  The Likeness has got to be my favorite book of the past five years.

6.  Laszlo Kreizler.  Caleb Carr has only written two entries into the Kreizler series (the latest almost fifteen years ago), but his alienist detective has all the cerebral wattage of Holmes.

7.  Luna Lovegood.  She may be ditzy on the outside, but Harry Potter's friend Luna has got it going on.  Though not as brainy as Hermione, Luna steals the show with her off-the-wall National Enquirer-esque tidbits.  Love her!

8.  Julia.  A minor character in Lev Grossman's The Magicians, Julia (no last name) comes into her own in The Magician King.  And she blew me away.  Think Lisbeth Salander with a wand.

9.  Arya Stark.  Who says girls have to wear corsets and let the men tell them what to do?  Arya Stark is no shirking violet and to hell with the rules.  In Game of Thrones, she sums up all you need to know about sword fighting:  Stick them with the pointy end.

10.  Gretchen Lowell.  Introduced in Chelsea Cain's Heartsick, Gretchen is a female Hannibal Lecter, every bit as smart and every bit as ready to kill you in some unimaginably horrible way.

There is my list.  It wasn't until I was finished compiling that I realized over half my entries are female characters who can not only out think you but also either kick your butt or reduce you to ashes.  Happy reading!

Review: Shroud For A Nightingale

Shroud For A Nightingale
by P. D. James

Called "the greatest contemporary writer of classic crime" by the London Sunday Times, P. D. James has been writing the Adam Dalgliesh series since 1962.  And that, my friends, is longer than I've been alive.  Ha! An entire lifetime!

P. D. James novels always begin in the same way:  an introduction to the principle characters, the perpetration of a crime, and the call to a "special investigation" team headed by Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.  Shroud For A Nightingale follows this pattern.  The characters are a team of student nurses and the supervisors, teachers, and doctors at the nurse training hospital, Nightingale House, where they live and work.  The crime (a particularly yucky one in my humble opinion) occurs when one of the nurses is poisoned during a training exercise involving an intra-gastric tube (blech!).  There's a second murder, too, but I'll leave that victim for those of you who are interested in reading the book for yourselves.  Adam Dalgliesh, the poet policeman, is soon on the case and follows the twisting lines of petty jealousies and resentments, gossip and long-buried pasts to the resolution.

Shroud For A Nightingale is neither the best nor worst of the Dalgliesh series.  I had been away from James for a while (after the travesty of Death At Pemberly -- ick!), and it was nice to settle into a familiar author's style and method.  I found many, many similarities between Shroud (copyright 1971) and a later Dalgliesh mystery in a hospital setting, The Private Patient (copyright 2008).  In fact, there were times during my reading I had to stop and think, "Have I read this before?"    The characters seem to echo each other (lower rank nurses jealous of the higher ranked ones, arrogant doctors, possible trysts between them all) and an always-locked-but-somehow-open door that is key to the murder.

All in all, Shroud was an enjoyable read for someone who is already familiar with Dalgliesh or who is one of those Type A'ers who must read a series in order, but if it is your first entry into the books, I would recommend starting with Cover Her Face (Dalgliesh #1) or the fantastic Death In Holy Orders (Dalgliesh #11 and arguably the best of the series).

Final rating:  3 stars