Fatal Remedies by Donna Leon

My sister and I expanded my list of murder series significantly the last time we talked. There are now sixteen writers on it and eighteen series. And I have thought of a couple of others at the cozy end of the spectrum. I suppose I could always add the classics, too: Christie, Tey, Sayers - and then there are the more recent Brits. I think I'll let the classics go for now. They might make and interesting wrap-up - except that I doubt that this project will ever actually be completed. They just keep writing more of them ---

This is the eighth one of the Commissario Brunetti stories, and I realized that, when I went back to them some time last year, I couldn't find the very first one for Kindle. So, I went to check - and it is now available for $.99 - love those 99 cent books - so I got it. I don't believe I've ever read it, but I am not going to start from the beginning of the series again!

The last couple of these have seemed to focus more on Brunetti's relationship with his wife, Paola. She is a professor of English literature and the daughter of traditional Venetian nobility. We are occasionally reminded that Brunetti has a law degree in addition to being a chief detective. This time their relationship is put to the test when Paola decides to "do something" about a travel agent whose stock in trade is "sex tours" to third world countries where those with tastes unacceptable in western society can buy young children. The something she does is to throw a rock through the window of the place and get herself arrested.

This is fairly embarrassing for Brunetti, and gets him put on administrative leave by his incompetent supervisor, Vice Questore Patta, until the owner of the travel agency is murdered when Brunetti is called back to take charge of the case. Explaining the title would be a total spoiler - and that's all the hint you are getting.

An early one of these involved the American army base at Vicenza where daughter #2 was born, and the Brunetti's daughter is named Chiara - sufficient reason for enjoying the series. This one even had an American cop show style attempt to apprehend a suspect with doors being knocked down and shooting and everything.

Breakup by Dana Stabenow

I know I said that I wouldn't say this again, but this is the only one of these that I had read before and it wasn't all that long ago. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it is somewhere back in this blog. I'm glad I didn't skip it because I had read it before. There are whole threads that make more sense with all the back story, and there are references to previous stories. Logically, all the minor threads that I am trying to note in these books meant nothing to me when I read it the first time and minor characters had much less significance, but knowing Kate a little better made a big difference, too. Obviously, the book held together well enough without all that, because I added the series to my list (at that point unwritten) of series worth a deeper look.

No one should complain of any of the books in this series that they are a little slow moving, or slow at the beginning, but this one takes "hit the ground running" to a whole new level - and never lets up.

Breakup - for those who never read a book of the frozen northern wastelands - is the advent of spring, specifically when the ice breaks up on the rivers. It is generally accepted that it is a time of insanity for everything living in the area. In just the first few pages, Kate goes down to check on the stability of the creek bank below her homestead (forgetting her shotgun) and encounters a full grown (and extremely cranky) mama grizzly. She manages to get back up the bank ahead of the bear who decides to take her babies to a better neighborhood. Before Kate's adrenalin has returned to a normal level, another bear, this time a young male (only about 300 pounds), has discovered her cache of frozen meat and is helping himself to a few roasts and steaks. She frightens him away, but in the process, he knocks the legs out from under her cache and all the meat falls on him (which assisted him in his decision to take off) only (and quite by accident) ripping her garage door off as he flees. That evening, while she is settled down to work on her taxes, a piece of a JT9 Bell&Howell jet engine falls through her roof and takes out her couch, which is a minor problem, since the rest of the engine fell in her front yard reducing her truck to a metal pancake - not to mention all the other bits which effectively destroyed everything else.

And that's only the beginning, they haven't even found the first body yet.

If Stabenow was trying to produce a story which gave outsiders a taste of the manic end of winter lunacy in a place where winter is long, tough, and very serious business, she has succeeded.

Peach Cobbler Murder by Joanne Fluke

Compared to most of the others on my list, these are pretty fluffy, but that there is one minor thread which I definitely enjoy. Hannah, cookie baker and sleuth, was an English major in college, even has a masters in English and she is an unapologetic grammar nazi. She drops snide little comments about everyone's grammar and usage, even her own! "Hannah gave a little groan as her last sentence replayed in her mind. She'd always prided herself on having decent grammar and a good command of the English language, but she'd just used the word 'know' three times in one sentence."

Aside from that, in this one the victim is Hannah's rival for the affections of Detective Mike Kingston, and newly her business rival, since Georgia import Shawna Lee and her sister have set up a bakery/pastry/coffee shop right across the street from The Cookie Jar. Given all that, it's a good thing that Hannah has an iron-clad alibi (serving desserts to the entire population of Lake Eden at her partner Lisa's wedding) for the time of the murder.

One must wonder why the official crime investigators in this little town fail to come off as complete bumbling idiots, since Hannah with her team and the gossip network solve surely every crime that occurs in this tiny town.

In a story with a wedding as the initial event, the subject of churches came up - apparently, Hannah is not an Episcopalian, although it is unclear whether or not she has any particular allegiance to any of the sects represented by the handful of churches in Lake Eden. For the moment, I suppose, I must drop the idea of a church connection. Oh, well.

The Last Suppers by Diane Mott Davidson

I suppose that I could stop saying, "I've read this one before, but it was a long, long time ago." I'll probably mention it when I get to one that I have not read previously. Every time I finish reading one of the books in the five or six or seven series that I am reading or rereading I want to immediately get the next one, so I am trying to ration them - the better to compare them - I keep telling myself.

We've got more Episcopalians here. I had forgotten (if it had ever penetrated my awareness) that Goldy was an Episcopalian. Actually, it seems to me that in the first book or two (which I have reread fairly recently) she was not attending church at all. This one is a very "churchy" book. It opens on the day of Goldy and Tom's wedding which is interrupted, of course, by a murder. The murder victim being the priest who was supposed to perform the ceremony - definitely a bit of a downer, but not as much of a downer as the kidnapping of the groom. I remembered from earlier reading that Tom was kidnapped just as they were about to be married, but most of the particulars had escaped me.

An odd little bit, Goldy keeps hearing voices, those of the dead priest and the missing Tom, giving her hints toward solving the mystery. Just a little weirdness which is not characteristic in this series. Typically, Goldy figures it all out only seconds before the murderer figures out that she has figured it out and comes after her.

This Episcopalian thing is interesting. I grew up knowing that Baptists were a fairly contentious lot, but I had never expected it of Episcopalians. These are a rough bunch, and the congregation of Clare Fergusson's church isn't much better. In the Kate Shugak books by Dana Stabenow there are threads of Native American mysticism, but the only churchy book was the one about the murderous cult. Donna Leon's Brunetti family is very Italian. They take pride in the churches of Venice, but it would never occur to them to attend a service in one of them. The Hannah Swenson stories by Joanne Fluke - pure fluff, but are Swedes Episcopalians? If they are, they haven't made much of an impression on me so far. I guess that would be something to read this weekend while I am working on my last paper for the curriculum history class. The other series I am working my way through is translated from Swedish, and the writer is a man - so I don't think it can be included in my "study" at all, but I don't think Kurt Wallander attends church.

Fatal Tango by Wolfram Fleischhauer (trans. Kate Vanovitch and W. Fleischhauer)

Obviously another of the foreign novels from Amazon. I'm thinking I got my ninety-nine cents worth with this one.

It is intense, perverse, political and the ending is just a touch ambiguous. The opening is well-done, with an opening sequence that does not become fully explained until well into the story. The early events are told as flashback during this sequence. The chronological story begins as a young ballerina in Berlin seeks out a tango company from Argentina as research for an audition for the performance of a ballet with tango as a theme. She finds them and that is about the last normal event in the story.

The events of the story play against a background of the previous generation's nightmare in Argentina. Death squads, torture, the desaparecidos, the involvement of the US and most of the west as, at the very least, complicit in these events - it is a horrific setting for what might have been a story of a romance between two young artists.

The telling did seem to drag a bit as Guilietta (doesn't sound German, does she) seeks Damian in the wilds of Buenos Aires, and the crux of the story, as well as some of the informative supporting events, seem just a bit too coincidental for any pretense at even fictional "reality." For example, when Guilietta stumbles into a tango bar speaking no Spanish and really knowing nothing about the history of tango or Argentina, the first person she encounters is a gay American sociologist whose research in hand is on tango. Her new best friend fills her in on all the inside info, let's her weep on her shoulder, and has access to all the right places and people.

Still, I guess it didn't drag too much, since I finished it today (I meant to read the last chapter in the text for the Curriculum History course, oh well). He did keep me guessing. My first thought was that the story would reenact the story of the tango which Damian and his partner perform - not exactly.

I've been trying to categorize this by genre. I suppose mystery/suspense would be first choice, but historical/political is also a major contender.

The Secret Piano by Zhu Xiao-Mei Translated by Ellen Hinsey

The subtitle is "From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations." The translation is much smoother than the translation of the Iceland book that I just read. Of course, the translation this time is from the French and the translator is American.

It is beautifully written and/or translated. Zhu is a survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution and the story is as much about that as it is about the music. And I do mean that the story is about her survival rather than the torture and humiliation of the camps; they are there, of course, but that isn't what the story is about. The title does refer to that period though, and how she smuggled her piano into one of the camps and hid it to practice.

There is quite a lot of technical information about music, but it doesn't seem to me to interfere with the flow. The music is the truth that saves her, or perhaps salvages her would be a better description. She does not claim that music saved her from falling victim to Mao's brain-washing, but when she has survived physically, it is the means by which recovers her humanity.

Between the music and the philosophy, particularly that of Laozi - (I believe he was once spelled Lao-tse - or something like that), she eventually begins to accept what happened to her, what she became during those years. To say that she forgives herself would be a little strong, acceptance is more accurate. And I have ordered her recording of the Goldberg Variations.

On the Cold Coasts by Vilborg Davidsdottir (trans. Alda Sigmundsdottir)

Amazon offered a selection of foreign books for Kindle for $.99 apiece. I certainly couldn't resist an offer like that.

This is set in fourteenth or fifteenth century Iceland, there is a distinct time reference given with mention of Joan of Arc. The setting is not as distinctive as I had rather hoped and the main character, Ragna, never seems to completely gel. She is a victim of circumstances and the position of women in the time and place - no she isn't, she is strong minded and stands up to men in positions of power - but she can't resist her former fiance (who dumped her because she was pregnant by a rescued English sailor) - she resents his other women and bastards - she revers him because he is now a priest. Go figure.

It kept me reading, but I am wondering at this point if the flaws are those of the book or the translation. The translation certainly left something to be desired. There were a fair number of idiomatic problems and some really jarring incorrect word choices.

I haven't decided if the main plot was the fragmented life of Ragna and her bastard son, Michael, or if it was the chaos in the small country occasioned by the increasing role taken in their government, religion, and economy by the English. Neither seems particularly complete. The italicized passages of Ragna's stream of consciousness do not seem to move the plot along in any way - but maybe it is stronger in the original language.

It was interesting, but not a "must read."

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

Sleeping Beauty in a Young Adult, Science Fiction format with the emphasis on the readjustment after she wakes. I could wish for a better title, this one is a bit weak. The allusions are not disguised, her name is Rose, and one character calls her Briar Rose from almost the beginning - just in case anyone missed the connection.

It actually is rather well done and is just twisty enough to keep it interesting. Her parents were in the habit of putting her in stasis whenever she was inconvenient - which was quite often. She figured out that when she was sixteen (biological age), she was actually thirty-eight in chronological age. At any rate, when she became an annoying teenager, they put her in stasis and left her there.

While she was "out of circulation," there was a series of apocolyptic global catastrophes and when she is found sixty-two years later (which, in case you haven't done the math, adds up to an even 100 years), there is no one left that she had known. And, by the way, she is the sole heir to the company that, to all intents and purposes, owns what is left of the world - even post-Dark Days not an inheritance to be sneezed at.

It is also a coming of age story. Rose has been so manipulated for all of her "life" that she has no will, drive, or positivity about herself at all. Through the people and events that follow her awakening, she finds all of that and more and takes direct charge of her life - not exactly in the usual fairy-tale ending, but in many ways more interesting, if only for the novelty.

Blood Will Tell by Dana Stabenow

I promised myself that I wouldn't read another murder mystery until I finished the paper for the class I'm taking. So much for that. These are just so much more fun to read than pompous, pretentious, paternalistic tomes on the future of American education after WWII. The paper is due in five days - this has got to be it.

Kate takes some significant steps in this one. She lets her grandmother shanghai her into taking center stage at an Alaskan Native Federation meeting, a fate she has been devoting herself to avoiding for the entire series so far. With a little undercover work, she has thwarted Jack's ex's plans to get full custody of their son (apparently purely out of spite, since she quite obviously doesn't care about the kid). This, of course, puts a major kink in the Kate/Jack relationship. She also exposed the plot behind the murders - to take over a large chunk of Alaskan tribal land for development. Finally, Ekaterina Moonin Shugak, Kate's grandmother, dies and leaves Kate her inheritor in the matter of the care of the tribe.

The Aleut traditional storytelling is the unifying theme here. It was first introduced three books back in the crab fishing book. Here it opens the book and Kate falls into the pattern as she is forced to address the AFN convention, and as she tries to give Jack's son Johnny a sense of his place in the world. It closes with it as emaa, her grandmother, joins the storytellers of legend.

The Cereal Murders by Diane Mott Davidson

As always, a good time. This time the crime spree is around and about the intense competition for high class position in the undeservedly prestigious Elk Park Prep, where both Goldy's son, Arch, and Julian Teller, apprentice chef and adopted stray from the previous book, are students. Arch is a lowly seventh grader, but Julian is a senior and second in his class.

The first murder occurs at a function for seniors and their parents and representatives of prestigious universities. The victim is the boy who stood in first place in the graduating class - and he is strangled with the extension cord from one of Goldy's coffee pots. Of course, Goldy is the one to discover the body. One thing leads to another and she winds up not only in Tom Schulz's police cruiser, but in his bed - and about time, the man has been courting her for three books now.

These events are followed by a series of rather nasty pranks - Goldy's chimney is blocked, her front steps are iced, a snake is hung in Arch's locker along with a threatening message, and that is just for starters. Goldy discovers that several members of the graduating class are hiding some unpleasant secrets - not to mention their parents' secrets.

In the end the villain is dealt with - rather gruesomely -- and Goldy accepts Schulz's repeated proposal.

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Still the hymn theme - although I am having a little more trouble tying this one to the story. Actually, the title is not a line in the version that is in the book. She used the Isaac Watts version, "My shepherd shall supply my need" which I do like very much, but it does not include the line "I shall not want" which, of course, is from the King James.

The story circles around Mexican illegals in upstate New York. Rather odd, I never thought of them going that far, but I shall assume that Spencer-Fleming did her research. Around here a story about illegals would probably focus on coyotes and abuses of that sort. This is about drug smuggling and Mexican gangs and the New York version of inbred poor white trash - only not so poor.

Clare trashes yet another car. Russ gets over Linda's death. Russ and Claire finally manage to get to bed - honestly, Spencer-Fleming must have been running out of interruptions. She does throw a big one at the end, though. Russ is recovering after being shot and dying - in the prologue - making most of the book a flashback - down to the point where he didn't actually die after all. They have agreed that they can't live without each other - and her guard unit is deployed to Iraq. Remember, she joined the guard at the end of the one before this one - and went back flying helicopters, not as a chaplain.

This one also included what I think is my favorite scene in the entire series so far. These, as you may have gathered, are not cheerful goofy mysteries, they tend to be downright grim. And the events surrounding this scene are just as grim as one would expect - but the Mexican bad guys, in the attempt to recover the truckload (BIG truck load) of pot which the white trash had stolen, set fire to the barn in which the other bad guys are hiding. In addition to the local bad guys and the not so innocent girl and the Mexican laborer who is trying to save her from her family, the barn contains - have you guessed? - the pot, of course. So all this is enacted while all participants, including Clare and a couple of Millers Kill police officers, are as high as proverbial kites.

A Noble Radiance by Donna Leon

I don't believe I had ever read this one, although the title of the next one is familiar. There is a domestic wrinkle this time. When Brunetti calls upon his father-in-law, the Count, for background information on the noble family of the case at hand, the Count informs him that his daughter, Brunetti's wife Paola, is unhappy, and Brunetti had better take steps.

When the crew restoring a villa somewhere in a small village outside Venice turn their attention to preparing to restore the garden, they find a body. A ring found with the body suggests that it is possibly the son of a noble family of Venice who had been kidnapped a couple of years earlier. So, the case goes back to Venice, and Brunetti manipulates his boss into assigning it to him.

The body, of course, is that of the kidnapped heir and the story that unfolds is of truly a Venetian degree of intrigue. Was Roberto kidnapped or was it either a joke or an attention ploy on the part of the young man himself? Why was he so ill before his kidnapping? Did the nephew who took his place as heir really arrange the kidnapping and murder? And why was there never a third ransom note from the kidnappers? And what is their business interest in Eastern Europe?

We also have the sidelight of Brunetti's relationship with his brother, Sergio. They are genuinely fond of each other and one of the things they have in common is the fact that they are both unfashionably devoted to their wives. When Brunetti finally musters enough courage to confront Paola with her father's suspicions. She is able to convince him that her father is actually concerned about his own marriage (he is far more fashionable that Guido and Sergio, the brothers Brunetti).

In a charming scene of the Brunetti family, daughter Chiara cooks dinner for the first time. When Brunetti offers to send out for pizza, Paola instructs him that he will eat what is set before him and request seconds, and so will their son, Raffi. All of this happens, and they consume a truly dreadful meal - and after Paola sends the children out to get gelato for dessert, she confesses to Guido that she bribed Raffi. Our Chiara is a pretty good cook - although she probably wasn't at the age of Chiara Brunetti in this story - I think she is about ten or twelve.

Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow

I'd better read something else for a while. I figured this one out long before the end. Depressing. No, I mean the book. The crime is all around and about a fanatical religious cult whose charismatic leader has come to Alaska to set himself up as God after he left Oklahoma just ahead of the law. The most depressing part is that this time there is no justice. Kate walks away and lets it be. The only hope comes from one of the men of the community who reminds her that they (native Alaskans) have survived before. The Russian orthodox came and baptized the lot of them, but the Russians are gone and they are still there. He cited several other examples, and tells her that someday the evil will depart - and the natives will still be there.

We learn something more of Kate's extended family, but not the mysticism that appeared in the last few books. We do learn more of Kate's personal history - the people and incidents which led her into law enforcement, the charismatic professor who rescued her as a college student thrown out of her own world to sink or swim.

In the last book, we met Jack's son. And in this one we have a young boy who is a minor but pivotal character. Kate has also invited Jack to bring his son with him when he next comes to visit her - which takes their relationship to a different level.

Now I really must read the 400+ page "original source" document for the next paper in the class I am taking. It is about as long as two of these books - and a lot less entertaining. The last three days have been consumed with classwork (and a concert or two) - and I had to have a murder before I got back to work.

Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson

Let's clear the advances in the background story. Julian is on the scene and actual a critical pawn in the mystery, although his role doesn't surface until quite late. Goldy had put Schulz on hold and taken up with an old college friend, now a psychologist. The friend is the first murder victim, and to compound his lack of judgment, it turns out that he was only courting Goldy as research into his study of abused women. Goldy and Arch have taken up residence with Marla's older sister and her husband, serving as live-in cook and general helper-outer because her ex, the JeRK, has been harassing her. Another refugee finds a temporary shelter there, too - Scout, the cat.

More murder, more dinners, a poison pen food critic - oh, yes - a rival caterer in a nearby town who is suing Goldy over the name of her catering business. He and his wife are Three Bears Catering. Apparently, Colorado is not big enough for both Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And somebody finds the missing detonator - and everything blows up.

The story ends with Schulz proposing to Goldy at the hospital where Arch ends up after the bad tricks a minion into trying to drown him. He proposes with witnesses - Arch and Julian are both present and have settled that Julian will move in with them and apprentice himself to Goldy. The fates of Schulz's proposal and Scout the cat are left hanging - but we all know from later books in the series that the proposal is accepted and that Scout takes over the management of the Bear-Schulz establishment in the future.

If you want to know about one of the more creative murders in series fiction and how they get from paragraph two to paragraph three above, you will just have to reread it for yourself. And tomorrow I must do homework - procrastination has already paid off, now it is time to pay the piper.

Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson

I enjoyed the one of these that I read recently, so I decided to go ahead and add Goldy Bear to my circle of murder mysteries. This is the first one, and although I am quite sure that I read it back whenever, I really didn't remember much about it at all. I guess I vaguely knew that she met Tom Schulz right away - but I didn't remember that he pursued her so intently from the very start. And I didn't remember the plot at all. I was surprised at every turn. I suppose one could wonder if the books I read are so bland or repetitive that they are not memorable. I think that it is a personal gift of my own, to remember so little that I can reread with enjoyment.

The basic framework is established in this book. There's Goldy, of course, and her fearless sidekick and fellow ex-wife, Marla. There is son, Arch - eleven and in the sixth grade at this point. There is handsome, charming, and abusive ex, John Richard Korman (AKA the JeRK), whom Davidson's publishers have forbidden her to kill (according to the foreword to this later edition) in spite of repeated requests from readers. I seem to remember that she does kill him several books down the line - he wasn't present in the later book which I read recently. Young Chef Julian is not yet present, but the young person present in this book is a total loser and cannot possibly return for another volume. The canine and feline inhabitants of the Schulz home have not yet put in an appearance - of course, it isn't the Schulz residence yet, although Schulz is very much a presence.

The book opens with Goldy catering the feed following the funeral of the woman who was Arch's teacher for both third and fifth grade, a supposed suicide. As experienced readers of murder mysteries, we know that it can't possibly be a suicide, she had to have been murdered. Someone attempts to poison Goldy's ex-father-in-law - and suspicion falls on Goldy, whose catering business is forthwith and immediately shut down - hence the title.
Goldy dives fully into the investigation, because she sees that as the only way to get back in business - and her personal pride depends on maintaining her independence. All the usual events, including the "deadly peril" episode - the resolution of which involves a molotov cocktail and a swarm of bees.

All good fun - now I have to go read another chapter on the history of curriculum in America. Actually, I am enjoying that, too. Even though it does interfere with my time for reading tripe. I am looking forward to this summer - I am not working for a change - and my goal is to read a book a day. There is this class that is being offered that sounds like fun though and ... at $5 per credit hour, it is hard to pass up the opportunity to live the dream. I always thought it would be fun to just hang around and take whatever courses sounded interesting - and now, finally, I can afford it.