Storymusing: Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution by Katherine Grandjean

 

Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution

by Katherine Grandjean

Okay, I may have stretched our book club’s theme, "The Dogs of Summer," a little bit this past month. In my defense, the two cozy mysteries I read were rather lackluster and this book was engrossing. So, I will fall back on the old definition that a villainous person who lacks integrity could be referred to as a “dog” (though dogs are generally extremely good “people” in my estimation) and that the Harps reign of terror ended in August of 1799, which is definitely summer.

It all started on the American frontier of Kentucky and Tennessee. Wiley and Micajah Harp killed dozens of people in rather vicious ways, as some sort of vendetta for the difficulties life had handed them, as though taking revenge on society at large.

In this book, Grandjean not only displays a well-researched history of Wiley and Macajah, who are very difficult to pin down, but affords us a far better understanding of the time and place where they lived, and murdered.

The Harps would have been children while the U.S. was still a colony of England, and lived through the Revolutionary War. It was a harsh time of deprivation.

“At that time, it was not uncommon to see the penniless and desperate, braving the elements, as they entered Kentucky—women and children shivering in the ice and snow, wading through creeks ‘with out Shoe or Stocking, and barely as maney raggs as covers their Nakedness.’”

Though only as far west as Kentucky and Tennessee, it was very much the frontier in 1799. In fact, part of the very trouble that befell the Harps was because the settlers were pushing the line between U.S. land and Indian Territory. The government finally decided to make the settlers abide by the treaty and those who had settled beyond the line lost their homes. This meant losing all they had spent in purchasing what they thought were land investments. They had been conned.

I’m not one for true crime books, but I loved this book for the historical portrait it provided of the people and how society functioned, as well as government, including the police force, such as it was.

For all the hardship, there was a decent amount of records taken down that the author was able to use in piecing together the story. The book opens at Farris’s Tavern – “Perched a bit beyond the Gap in a no-man’s-land of mountainous rock.” Jane Farris’s deposition regarding what she observed at the Farris Tavern the day Thomas Langford was murdered provides some picture of his interaction with the Harps. The author posits that, “To step into a warm tavern with a hopping fire was a relief. It must have seemed a safe haven on this desolate stretch of road.” It was anything but for Langford.

I was also struck by the mystery of whether the wives of the Harps really had much to do with the killings. Were they forced into compliance? Were their sentiments aligned with the men or did they abhor their actions? There is simply no way to know.

In the end, Grandjean proves her contention that the Harps were not so much serial killers as “spree killers” bent on taking revenge on the society that they believed was responsible for their woes. It is a fascinating portrait of our history and a true American horror story.

I would recommend it for anyone interested in learning more about the reality of our American history.  

Storymusing: Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

 

Listen for the Lie

by Amy Tintera

One of the things I love most about this book is how there are little revelations in nearly every chapter.

The story begins in Los Angeles where Lucy’s past has just been uncovered and she is fired from her job. She’s also concerned her boyfriend is going to be annoyed that she didn’t reveal the past to him either.

“A podcaster has decided to ruin my life, so I’m buying a chicken.”

You see, Lucy is unable to remember the night she supposedly murdered another girl five years ago. She truly doesn’t know whether she did it or not. She is afraid she did but deeply resentful of the people in her hometown, including her own parents, who assume she did.

“…everyone in my hometown decided I was the one who killed her.”

 I think because of this, and difficulty relating to people, she comes across as a bit of a misanthrope but in a humorous way.

“I stab the knife into the chicken between the breast and thigh. I may have used a bit more force then necessary.”

 All of the characters in this book are delightfully flawed and have their own vices. Ben Owens runs the podcast Listen for the Lie and has solved a few cold cases. He’s a little full of himself. But Lucy’s Grandma is just certain he’s Lucy’s best chance to figure out what happened back then. She pressures Lucy into returning to their hometown in Texas for her 80^th birthday, and to maybe talk to Ben Owens, who is there investigating.

Lucy’s own parents are incredibly flawed in their own right, and though they seem to have meant well, they really screwed up when it came to helping her. When she was discovered walking down a dirt road with blood on her dress and a brain injury, they pressured her time and again, not taking the brain injury seriously.

This book is superbly plotted; the characterization strong and humorous. I loved the short chapters, some of them actually transcripts from the fictitious podcast. The hot and humid  summer setting of a Texas town is woven in simply, but vividly.

I did not want to put this book down. When I was finished with it, I really wanted more from this author. Unfortunately, this is the only book she has written for adults to date, but she does have several YA series. I might just have to check them out while I pray she writes another murder mystery for adults.

Storymusing: I'm Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home by Fergus Craig

 

I’m Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home

by Fergus Craig

The theme for our club in June was “Antihero.” What exactly does that mean? Well, in broad strokes, it means a hero who lacks the usual heroic qualities of bravery and selflessness. I found the perfect antihero book for me, a murder mystery where the hero is (was?) a serial killer.

Now, Carol has largely left this hobby in the past, but she still doesn’t see killing people as really wrong. She’s done 35 years in prison and just been released to move into a very nice retirement home. (Which she has financed in a rather morally ambiguous way, we later find out, but so have some other people.)

Here at Sheldon Oaks, they don’t know Carol is a serial killer, at least at first. Well, the manager and owner do, but not the residents. Carol makes a few friends for the first time in her life – Catharine, Geoffrey, and Margaret. Oddly, a LOT of the people in this retirement home were in the police or public service in some way. Geoffrey was a police officer, Catharine was a forensic pathologist, and Margaret was actually Home Secretary, which in England means she was responsible for things like national security, policing, and immigration policy.

They all have a little baking club that meets on Tuesday and it’s quite fun.

Geoffrey realizes who Carol is, or rather what she did, and informs the others. Then someone is murdered, and everyone points the finger at Carol. She is enraged and wants to kill again, but she decides she likes having friends and lattes and the only way to get it back is to clear herself by solving the murder.

I really enjoyed the quirky humor in the motivations and reactions of the people – there’s revenge sex and romance. Carol has reasons why she murdered, though the truth is she enjoyed the killing aspect quite a lot. I even liked the ending, which is not what you might expect.

The setting of Sheldon Oaks is rather humorous in itself. It’s a luxury retirement home that has run well for decades but when Giles Temple inherited it, he got ideas. “A sauna, a pool, state-of-the-art DJ decks, a climbing wall.” There was even “a state-of-the-art sprung-floor martial arts studio.” Not really something people in their eighties are looking for in a retirement home. It’s just ripe for a murder mystery.

It’s a relatively short book that read very quickly, at 261 pages. I didn’t want to put it down. I highly recommend it and I would like to read more by this author.

Storymusing: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann

 

Three Bags Full

by Leonie Swann

After seeing the preview in the theaters for “The Sheep Detectives” I came across this book on the return cart in our library. I came to the conclusion that the movie, which had looked so funny and appealing to me, was based on this very book. I checked it out immediately.

I was taken with the cast of characters, sheep like Miss Maple, obviously a nod to Miss Marple from author Agatha Christie. Names like Sir Ritchfield, Zora, and Othello also give the sheep a thoughtful feel with a nod to other literature. Other sheep have more “sheepy” names like Cloud, Heather, and Mopple the Whale.

Set in a village in Ireland, this book is remarkably philosophical while maintaining a fascinating perspective from the sheep view, where sheep think about things like grazing and relate events to what they know.

The air was perfect; a cool wind blew off the sea, the meadow was fragrant. All the same, the whole place suddenly smelled of death, new death and old, almost forgotten death. Maple began to graze.

Grazing is a comfort to her and the other sheep, but much is made of scents in this story. The sheep can purportedly smell human emotions, though that is not so far-fetched. The sour smell of the sweat of someone who is scared, for example. Or the smell of death on the butcher, which petrifies them.

But George, their shepherd, has expanded their world view by reading to them. Perhaps not great literature, but he has shared ideas with them.

Some of the sheep have been out in the wider world, discovering different points of view, like Othello who was forced to fight dogs, and Melmoth, who wandered free for years.

They are all currently part of George’s flock. Then they find George dead with a spade through his chest.

“He didn’t die of an illness. Spades are not an illness.”

The flock begins to question how this came to be and takes up the call for “Justice!”

As they sneak about the village and investigate, we learn more and more about both the sheep and the lives of the villagers, until they are rich and varied characters.

I was a tiny bit disappointed by the ending because I didn’t feel like the sheep figured it out for themselves, but rather had the truth revealed to them. Nevertheless, they did a great deal of detective work getting to that point.

After reading such an exceptional book, I’m a little afraid to see the movie because I know it can’t possibly measure up. No, I’ll have to wait several months and remind myself that a book cannot usually be directly translated into a movie. They are, as it were, different animals.

Storymusing: Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Wait Till Next Year

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

I picked up this book as a sports memoir for my thematic book club. It begins with Goodwin talking about how she used to listen to baseball games on the radio as a child and record information about the game to share with her father after dinner. It was a warm memory of bonding time between the two of them and clearly profoundly influenced her love of baseball and therefore her life.

Wikipedia says, “A sports journalist as well, Goodwin was the first woman to enter the Boston Red Sox locker room in 1979.[22] She consulted on and appeared in Ken Burns' 1994 documentary Baseball.[23]”

The author is very careful to write her perceptions from the perspective of the age she was at the time. She doesn’t intrude with “looking back, I now know….” It makes the book read much more like a novel than a history book.

This is the story of an almost idyllic childhood of an upwardly mobile white community on the south shore of long island during the fifties. Goodwin puts all the neighbors and owners of stores in the framework of whether they rooted for the Dodgers, Giants, or Yankees.

However, the memoir quickly moves into broader reminiscences in the story of her father and the tragic loss of his family when he was young – one brother died at 15 months, another died of tetanus after a street car accident, his mother developed complications from the stress and died in childbirth, then his father seemed to die of a broken heart leaving he and his sister to be divided between relatives. At eighteen he got a job and apartment then brought her to live with him. A year later she died of complications after anesthesia during a dental procedure. For all that he was a very involved father, he never spoke with her about this until much later in life.

There were also the very scary episodes of Angina her own mother suffered while Goodwin was young. She had to watch without being able to do anything but comfort her. It seems to be something she learned from her mother, who was quick to comfort her in the night during thunderstorms. Sadly, her mother had an early complete hysterectomy which aged her body and made her appear old before her time. But her mother read a lot and shared that love with her daughter. Another profound influence on the author.

Goodwin also shares fond memories of her much older sisters who seemed glamorous and worldly, almost more like aunts. She gives a broad view of all the people in her family, on her block, and in her community. She places her almost idyllic childhood in the larger context of the 1950s and gives us the perspective of what was going on in society through the lens of her childhood and baseball. From civil rights struggles to the advent of the atomic bomb bringing drills at school and home, plus the struggle of trying to keep children safe from polio, it was a time of upheaval. There are family trials and tragedies as well.

When it comes to polio, there was a great deal of concern at that time because they didn’t know how it was spread. She depicts public service announcements and parents making restrictions to try to keep kids safe. One sister had it when she was three and was nursed at home by hired nurses around the clock and eventually recovered with only a leg brace for a year, while a playmate ended up paralyzed.

There were lighter developments as well, such as the arrival of television. The first family to get a television became the host of block watching sessions. Then, as bigger televisions arrived, the children and families went to different houses for regular viewing sessions.

This book is utterly fascinating, so well written, evocative of time and place, as well as the history of our nation through the lens of Goodwin’s childhood on Long Island. It is an extremely engaging and illuminating weave of elements. I don’t think I can recommend it enough. A five star read. 

 

Storymusing about The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective by Jo Nichols

 

The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective: A Mystery

by Jo Nichols

The Marigold Cottages are owned by Mrs. B, Golda Bakofsky. She and her husband, who is no longer living, built them years ago and now they seem to be her sole source of income, though she is very generous in what she asks people to pay.

She is also very selective about who she rents to. There are five people – Sophie, Hamilton, Ocean, Lily-Ann, and Nicholas. Sophie is still skittish from a horrible stalking situation in college. Hamilton has agoraphobia and never leaves his apartment. Ocean is a single mom of two, a teen daughter and a fourth-grade son, who teaches art. Lily-Ann is an elegant and organized proposal manager for a transport company who has left her husband. Nicholas works in the city planning department.

Then Mrs. B adds in an ex-con named Anthony with very badly drawn tattoos and Sophie creates a group chat with her former small group of neighbors., just in case of anything.

A few weeks later, “anything” happens – a man is murdered in the yard and Anthony is taken in for questioning by a detective who assumes it’s very cut and dried.

Then Mrs. B convenes a meeting and asks the small group of neighbors to help clear Anthony of the crime. When that doesn’t happen fast enough, she confesses to the murder and is taken into custody.

Now they have to clear her too.  

It turns out the murdered man was checking out the cottages with the intention of buying and developing the property with another local man. But just who killed him and why?

Of course, each character has their own little idiosyncrasies and even secrets. They are very distinctive and the story is told in alternating very short chapters following each in turn. I find this type of ensemble cast very enjoyable and it keeps the pace driving forward as little bits of information are revealed.

The humor is very evident, from Mrs. B’s dotty old lady act at times to Hamilton’s random fact additions to the group chat. Even the way Nicholas refuses to get involved with the other tenants is humorous. It’s nearly impossible to pull out just one little bit so I highly recommend you give this one a try if you like humorous murder mysteries.

Jo Nichols is actually a pen name for a husband and wife duo, which is often means good writing to me. All the books I know of that were written by spouses are well done.

I definitely want to read more by this duo.

Storymusing on The Black Wolf: A Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel by Louise Penny

 

The Black Wolf

by Louise Penny

Our theme for my book club in February was “Enemies” and this book fits that bill to a T. The question of just who the enemy is, and if there are multiple, reverberates throughout the book.

This is the 20^th book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Most of the series builds on previous story lines, but Penny does a great job of building in back information so that you won’t feel adrift if you pick up this book out of order.

In the last book, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his senior agents Beauvoir and Lacoste thought they had uncovered the extent of a terrible plot to poison the water of Montreal and arrested the responsible parties. But is there more? Did they get the right person? Was that even the end game?

The three are in agreement, We have a problem.

As Gamache’s deafness and the ringing in his ears continue to plague him, clouding both his communication and thinking, he has just two notebooks and a few numbers on a tattered map of Quebec to lead him forward.

The three dig deeper into the evidence they have and what it means. They discover there are deeper layers beneath the dark web of the Internet. Down deep where the conspiracies thrive and multiply, there is more danger than they could have anticipated. And more meanings in the notebooks and map that a young biologist left behind for them.

Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff  is clearly meeting with crime boss Don Joseph Moretti and he is clearly involved in every bit of crime his syndicate can control, but where does she really stand?

The prime minster seems to know more than what he is saying and a friend in the U.S. military is also struggling with what to tell them without becoming a traitor to his own country.

Thankfully, Gamache is surrounded by the warmth and love of all his friends and family in the Quebec village of Three Pines. There is definite comic relief here from the elderly poet Ruth Zardo and her swearing duck, Rosa. There’s a parallel quest for clarity in the form of painter Clara Morrow as she attempts to create a painting that captures the moment just before something momentous happens.

As Gamache’s hearing suddenly becomes clear like a moment of insight, the revelations come in fits and starts and backtracks, like a rabbit running around a snowy hillside.

For me, this book tethers us in the village of Three Pines as it explores the darkest part of what conspiracy theories and power brokers are doing. I love the style and pacing of the book. It’s a relaxing read even though the story has a great deal of tension.

I would highly recommend it and I even might read it again, or at least listen to it on audio.