Fire and Ice by Dana Stabenow

We (my sister and I) have been enjoying Stabenow's Kate Shugak books so much that we were disappointed to arrive at the end of the series. OK, there is this year's book, which is out both in hardcover and for Kindle - but the Kindle version costs more than a paperback will when those are released. Our guess is that the price will go down when the paper version comes out - and we aren't hooked enough to pay $13 for an electronic book which costs virtually nothing to produce. I understand the bookseller and the author trying to maximize their profits, but they can maximize them on someone else's credit card. I can always get it at the library if I really can't wait ---

After all that digression, so - I decided to try her other series of Alaska mystery stories - about an Alaska State Trooper named Liam Campbell. The price of this book, the first in the series, was more in line with my available funds - $0.00. The motives are pretty transparent here, too. This series never caught on like the Kate Shugak series and this pricing on the first book is an attempt to get readers to try it - and maybe they'll like it.

I liked it well enough at the price, and I was willing to go $5 for the second. I'm not sure they are worth much more than that, though.

In a foreword to the electronic edition, Stabenow explains that her editor at whatever publishing moved to another company. She had been suggesting for some time that Stabenow write a book with Chopper Jim central and after settling in at her new job, called to remind Stabenow of the idea. Stabenow's agent stomped all over that notion for issues of contract violation and little details such as that. So, we have a new Alaska State Trooper - Liam Campbell. He works a different part of the state and will never run into Sgt. Chopin or Kate.

As we open, Campbell has been demoted and apparently sent to this new assignment on a punishment tour. It seems that troopers under his command couldn't be bothered to answer calls about a family missing in bad weather and the family of five with three small children freezes to death in their vehicle on the Denali highway. I have been wondering if this is a "ripped from the headlines" story or what. It seems so completely unlike the Troopers as we have seen them in the persona of Jim Chopin. In addition to these career issues, Liam was cheating on his wife with his pilot. Then his wife and adored young son were hit by a drunk driver. The child was killed and his wife has been in an irreversible coma for the last three years. Very depressing all round.

Stabenow is back on the mystical thing. When Campbell arrives at his new assignment, he is adopted by a raven who hangs out and fusses at him all the time. This, of course, is of great interest to the Native Alaskans since the raven is a mystical creature in their mythology. We also have the local shaman who forces him to start learning tai chi.

I'm not quite sure why he is sleeping in his office since there is a perfectly respectable hotel in town.

We open with a fairly gruesome murder. A man is essentially decapitated by the propeller of a small plane. Later on we have a more conventional knifing and both crimes do eventually connect.

Though Not Dead by Dana Stabenow

This one picks up almost literally the day after the end of the previous book in the series. That one ended with Old Sam quietly dead on his dock at his annual moose roast blow-out. This one begins as Kate, his principal heir and executor, is going through his belongings at his house. We learn that he picked up the nickname during the war because - in the manner of nicknames - he was so painfully young.

We actually have two stories running parallel here. Kate is tracking the mysteries of Old Sam's life without Jim by her side. Jim is back in California because his father died and left a mystery for him to track down as well.

So, they each pursue their own family issues; Jim with fewer contusions, it wouldn't do to mess up all that gorgeousness. I believe from the point in chapter one where someone enters Old Sam's cabin, knocks Kate in the head with a chunk of firewood, and steals the book she was reading she has black eyes for the entire duration of the story.

Mutt only gets a small piece of one of the bads, but she does get to do quite a lot of sanctioned intimidating. At least one major bad guy resurfaces in this one and several formerly merely minor annoyances aspire to badness, with varying degrees of success.

Here again, Stabenow runs a historical yarn alongside Kate's adventure, this time the saga of Old Sam. We also get considerable back story on the Aunties - and about time.

Her Majesty's Wizard by Christopher Stasheff

Somehow this came up in conversation, so I thought I would reread at least this one. I think I was talking to a student who reads mostly YA fantasy and thought these might be a transitional step.

This is basically a variation on the Incompleat Enchanter stories by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague DeCamp. Maybe I will go back and reread them next. It has been even longer since I read those. Of course, I will have to check the shelves - they aren't available for Kindle. Or I could buy used paper for under two bucks - six by the time they have handled and shipped - maybe it is on the shelves.

Whatever. The premise is fun. It being widely acknowledged that a degree in English is possibly one of the most useless degrees going, a depressed English grad student - probably having recognized that fact - has essentially abandoned his dissertation to study an antique parchment which he found in an old book. When he finally gets around to reading it aloud, he activates the spell which transports him to a universe where magic works and its medium is the spoken word, preferably rhyming. Given his extensive study of the poetry of the Western World, he discovers that he is an extremely powerful wizard in his new world.

I like very much the message of the power of words. Even in our rational world they have great power when used well. Unfortunately, in our world many of those who use words well frequently do not use them in a manner that would be sanctioned by the forces of good which keep an eye on such things in Wizard Matthew's new universe. Stasheff makes a good job of the conversion of a rational man into a man who must survive in a world where an oath is an actual binding and good and evil literally exist.

The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold

I pulled this off the shelf to loan it to a former student - and started reading. Such fun! Miles is one of the most entertaining characters I've ever encountered. I hope the student likes it. Anyway I had to borrow someone else's copy to keep reading - and the ended up putting it on my Kindle anyway.

At the end of the book, Bujold has an article putting the Vorkosigan books into their internal chronology - which has little to do with publication order. Going back to the beginning would mean rereading the double book Cordelia's Honor which consists of Shards of Honor and Barrayar. It looks like quite a bit of her stuff is available for Kindle now - the catch (and I guess it isn't a huge catch) is that Cordelia's Honor is only available for Kindle as the two separate short books. A sort of one for the price of two deal.

In The Vor Game, Miles really grows up, I think, and the contrast between his fragile body and his unflinching character becomes more than a matter of childish "I'll show them." He (and Emperor Gregor) face the facts of their inherited responsibilities and the responsibilities that they take on themselves. Each finds his own way of dealing with the knowledge that people live and die because of them - because of who they were born and what they have become and the decisions they make.

Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs

Reichs did a nice job with her title here. There is the obvious word play, of course, and the chapter headers of lines and phrases from the Mamas and the Papas's well-known "Monday, Monday," but the critical events hit on a series of Mondays as well.

The crimes here are truly appalling, and Tempe the scientist fights the system to ferret out the killer while Tempe the mother mourns the young women who are the victims. She thinks of them as "her" lost girls. Long dead and buried - and unknown. She is compelled not only to put names to them, but faces.

And school has begun - so these posts are inevitably going to be shorter and less frequent.

Tough Cookie by Diane Mott Davidson

I had to go ahead and read the next one because the health inspector walked in on the last page of the book and although Tom had finished the basic remodel of Goldy's commercial kitchen which began when her ex (AKA the Jerk) broke windows, then was further damaged by the unscrupulous contractor - but since it was a remodel they had to meet new plumbing codes and ---

So, Goldy is shut down until the required plumbing can be ordered, delivered, and installed. So she is giving the Personal Chef racket a whirl - and the TV chef game on a semilocal PBS station. And the bodies keep piling up.

Here the title reference is to a news article about Goldy's involvement in all these murder cases, but she does make a lot of cookies (not tough) in the story.

Usual fun time. The main center of action is a resort up across the Divide from Aspen Meadows. It is winter - actually working up to Christmas - and Goldy is spending lots of time driving across the mountains in the snow.

I guess I understand something about the appeal of living in Colorado - but I am unable to perceive the charm of driving in snow. Snow is lovely seen through a picture window from the side of a roaring fire with a glass or cup of some warm beverage in hand, but it loses all its appeal the moment I have to open the door and set foot outside. Even reading about such things is sufficient to remind me of why I refer to all such places as "frozen northern wastelands."

Prime Cut by Diane Mott Davidson

Am I obsessing over titles? I do think they are important, and I suppose that is what irritates me when the title seems quite unrelated to the story. And perhaps that is one of the things I enjoy about Davidson. Her titles are puns and they always have a foodie connection which generally is well tied to the cooking which takes place in the story as well as a line on the actually motive, manner, or setting of the murder(s).

In this case, the setting is a photo shoot for an upscale catalog, and in addition to the photo allusion of film cutting, we could also consider the treatment of models as meat -- lean meat, but . . .

I do have a complaint, though. It appears that the entire population of Aspen Meadow has been victimized by a contractor who consistently defaults on jobs and deliberate damages things to create more work for himself - which he again defaults on. Has this community no Better Business Bureau? And does no one ever consult it? And who hires a contractor without asking around about the quality and timeliness of his work? And what kind of friends lie to their friends about things like that. Come on, Diane, in a town that size, a guy like the one in the story would never have gotten a second shot - however gratifying it was to make him the first victim.

Davidson also did a very neat bit of foreshadowing in this one. Early in the story, Goldy recounts the tales of local buried treasure which her then much younger son, Arch, insisted of digging for in their free time. And a buried treasure is the focus of the greed which precipitates the murders. Of course, Arch himself breaks the code in the cookbook and is responsible for finding the treasure.

Definitely a satisfactory story with lots of lovely food in it. And Julian is home! He hated Cornell and has come back to fill the void which his departure left in the Schulz family.

A Night Too Dark by Dana Stabenow

Just a trifle preachy. Not that I would argue with the text of the sermon - which appears to be on a text about the power of gold (both literal and metaphorical) to corrupt.

In a continuation of the previous story, the gold mine is changing everything about life in the park. There are none of the usual scenes of the community from the aunties and their current quilt to some congregation or other and their service to the belly-dancing class all at the Roadhouse. The community no longer gathers at the Roadhouse because it is overrun with mine workers.

One by one, the constants of Niniltna are falling - even the aunties. They no longer make the quilts which might symbolize the continuity of a way of life. Auntie Vi has sold her B & B to the mine for them to use as transient housing. Another of them is making cheap versions of the native costume to sell for souvenirs, another is serving fast food to the miners. To underscore the passing of life as we have known it for a whole bunch of stories, Old Sam dies; his passing is very like that of Ekaterina way back books and books ago - quietly, privately, without any fuss.

On the other side, Johnny and Vanessa have their first jobs working at the mine. Other younger members of the community are working because jobs are available because others have gone to work at the mine. Unfortunately, some of them are working as prostitutes and bootleggers.

Industrial espionage has come to the park and is the force behind the murders.

And, by the way, as far as I can tell the title has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. Perhaps I have read too many of these in too short a time, so it is a good thing that we have almost caught up with the current publishing year. Of course, besides that - school starts next week and there goes my reading time for the entire academic year! My latest Amazon order consisted of my textbooks for the coming term.

A Finer End by Deborah Crombie

I ordinarily wouldn't have read two books by Crombie (or anyone else) back to back, but I spent last evening in the emergency room - and couldn't connect to a wireless network to download the book I was reading on my desktop, so I had to read something that was already on my Kindle. By the way, everyone is going to be fine - even the dogs whose fight sent us to the emergency room.

This one was certainly different. I had read it before, but the parts I remembered, while central to the story in one way, were not really connected to the murders. I remembered the Lost Chant and that it was eventually discovered, but I had managed to forget all the murders and stuff.

I did not remember the supernatural angle at all. It was a complete surprise to me. Nothing like that has appeared in any of her previous novels - at least not in this series. The police investigation still went pretty normally, but the element of mysticism in many forms was an overlay to the whole thing. The artist painting over and over a face that she didn't know - the student of the Old Religion - the communication with the 800-year dead monk. And still the usual suspects - greed, passion, and guilt were fully present in their present-day guises. I suppose that setting the story in Glastonbury may have forced the issue.

The story took longer to coalesce that even the one immediately preceding it. We were fully 25% in before everyone who was introduced in a personal narrative was on the scene and more or less connected. Gemma and Duncan did not seem nearly as central to the story as usual. Of course, they were off their own "patch" or patches, now that Gemma is a full inspector with her own shop to run.

When they finally manage to get married, they will be bringing quite a lot of baggage to the business. There is Gemma's toddler son, Toby, who has been around since the first book. In the second book, Duncan inherits Jasmine's cat, Sid. In the book before this one, Duncan's ex-wife is killed - and he discovers that her eleven year old son, Kit, is actually his. In this one, we get a double. Gemma is pregnant, and finally gets around to telling Duncan - and she inherits a dog, a spaniel named Phoebe. Oh yes, Kit brings with him his dog, Tessa, which he rescued during the chaos and horror of his mother's murder and the investigation. That adds up to a fairly substantial household already. An adolescent, a toddler, an infant to be, two dogs, and a cat - I think they are going to have to find a house.

After the awful Americans in the Elizabeth George story, I was looking for references to Americans in this one, since Crombie, too, is an American writing in a British setting. There was one, but he was charming and slightly eccentric with a frequently mentioned hint of a Texas accent. Appropriate, considering that Crombie herself is a Texan.

Kissed a Sad Goodbye by Deborah Crombie

I'm not sure what all the historical information about Isle of Dogs was for. I had never heard of it, and it was interesting, but I'm not sure how it really advanced the cause.

This was a generational thing, the animosities all began with shared guilt from the war years and the children evacuated from London. The scene where the children are being picked over like vegetables in the market was remarkably similar to the scene in the Kate Morton book The Distant Hours where the child of the story is left unpicked until the very end. I suppose that these are at least somewhat accurate representations of the events. It had never occurred to me to wonder how the children were actually placed when they arrived in villages across England. I had sort of vaguely assumed some sort of billeting system was in place. Apparently, they loaded the kids on buses and at their destinations they were treated rather like slaves at auction. Siblings were separated and the prettiest were chosen first. Since the evacuation plan had been in place for some time, I would have expected a little more organization at the receiving end, although in this story, the children were sent home from school with orders to be back in an hour to get on the buses. It made me remember the bomb drills at school during the fifties. We went to school on a military installation - we only had one type of drill - go out and get on buses. We were supposed to get on the buses by neighborhood, rather than grade, so our mothers could find us wherever we were taken, but I have to wonder how it would have ended up if it had ever come down to that.

The two stories are told in tandem rather than sequentially, which was a little confusing at first. It took a while for it to be clear that the people of the historical story were characters in the current time story. And this time Crombie started with that business of introducing all the characters separately each in his or her own little vignette, and I'm not sure she was completely successful in drawing everything into a tight narrative. With school starting next week, I guess I am getting a little impatient - I know that my reading time is going to be significantly shortened.

In the continuing saga, Duncan has gravely disappointed his newly discovered son, and Gemma has started piano lessons. Their relationship seems to have encountered complications which will require some redefinition.

A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George

I have a serious bone to pick with Ms. George, but first let me say that I enjoyed the story. She filled in a lot of back story without too much strain. Of course, the traditional format for a mystery story is to begin at the end with the discovery of the body and the narrative progresses as the cast and reader work through the whos and whys and sometimes the wheres, whens, and hows as well, so maybe it is logical to drop in back story as we go along as well. There is some major drama in Lynley's back story, but that is not unheard of. Sergeant Havers' tale is almost a parallel mystery, and George drops it as a bomb in the last chapter, although she has hinted at vague parallels to the investigation at hand.

Maybe some of the awkwardness in this story is a conscious attempt on George's part to set up a continuing cast for a series. Inspector Lynley's best friend, Simon St.James, is a forensic scientist - handy for a cop. He is also crippled - as a result of an auto accident in which Lynley was the driver - AND we first meet Lynley at St.James's wedding to the woman with whom Lynley is in love and was once engaged to marry. See what I mean about drama in the back story?

Then there is the fact that the gruesome murder happens in the village (in England, apparently, they don't have small towns) where St.James and his bride are staying on their honeymoon. I know England is a small country, but really!

I really don't have a problem with all that, but what is the deal with the ugly, stupid, obnoxious Americans? They appear with some regularity in British novels, but in this case although the setting is British, the author is American. Is she trying to convince a British readership that she is ok, even though she is an American because she despises Americans as much as they do? If these people contributed to the plot in any small way there might be some excuse for them, but they don't. Since they have no function with respect to the plot, it does rather leave hanging the question of the author's motive for including them. She has included a few British "types" as well, but in at least in the case of the proprietor of the inn (we'd call it a bed and breakfast) she makes it clear that the woman is putting on this eccentric Brit act to attract foreign tourists - like the ugly, stupid, obnoxious Americans whom she despises.

Speaking of ugly - I am curious (it has been years since I read these) about what George is going to do about Sergeant Havers. She has made the poor girl uncompromisingly ugly as well as bad tempered. We have now discovered the reason for her personality issues, and we can assume that with continued exposure to Lynley and his friends - who are really good people in spite of their aristocratic ancestry - she will learn to dress better and find a more flattering hairdo. (By the way, does anyone really believe that, even in this egalitarian day and age, the eighth earl of whatsit is really a cop?) But, back to my thread, George has made Barbara Havers physically ugly with piggy close-set eyes and a piggy little mouth in a doughy face and a shapeless body. How does she get around that in future stories?

I recalled that George's crimes are much darker and more perverse than the general run for this sort of thing. I know I have read this before, but remember that I don't remember. I was pretty sure what was going on in the main thread before very many chapters had passed. This story definitely has made me want to grab the next one immediately - if only to see if she continues with the stupid American routine and to see if/how she reforms Sergeant Havers.

Where Echoes Live by Marcia Muller

For a city girl, Sharon McCone can sure get into some weird stuff. "Echoes live" at a place that is a fictionalized version of Mono Lake with all of its grotesque tufa formations. And the precipitating activity is gold mining - or is it?

Sharon and her professor are back together, but drifting, and Sharon is facing some tough realities concerning her own character. She is haunted by the times that she could have, wanted to, and nearly killed a bad dude (go back and reread the last two, if you've forgotten). She didn't do it - but she really, really wanted to. Her mother, on a voyage of rediscovery herself, points out to Sharon that this might not make her the ideal partner for a Stanford professor who likes to put the world into nice neat categories.

Sharon gets off with only minor injuries this time; a subject she wished to question pushed her down a flight of stairs. On the other hand, the climax of the story is a scene worthy of the quotations from Revelations thrown about by the resident madman.

By the way, the kittens, Ralph and Alice, are thriving in Sharon's cottage. Sharon adopted Ralph and Alice after the demise of Watney (a souvenir of a very early case). They were the orphans of Ted the secretary's partner who died of AIDS. Her souvenir of this story is a little different.

I am looking forward with great anticipation to the point in time where Sharon can get a cell phone. Even with lack of towers and such in the wildernesses of northern California, it should be an improvement to having to drive down to the pay phone outside the bar in the nearest little town.

Oathbreakers by Mercedes Lackey

Part Two of Vows and Honor (some time last month). This held together better than the first book although even this was really two stories tied together by common characters. It certainly wasn't as episodic as The Oathbound, but it did read like two novellas rather than a single story.

Tarma and Kethry take their show on the road and join a mercenary company remarkably similar in general organization to Phelan's company in the Paksenarrion stories by Elizabeth Moon. The exiled nobleman leading Idra's Sunhawks is a woman and an exile by choice. We even have a magic sword to identify the rightful king.

The first story is a fairly standard mercenary company story. In the second, our pair, their wolf, and their battlesteeds are sent off to investigate the succession to the throne in the nearby kingdom of Rethwellan (that has come up before - the home of the traitor consort of Queen Selenay of Valdemar).

They get over by the border to Valdemar and meet a herald and his companion. Not just any herald - the heir to the throne of Valdemar. That places it outside the framework of the Arrows of the Queen series, since the heir is neither Selenay not Elspeth, but a fellow named Roald. He may fit into the Valdemar chronology somewhere, but I am not familiar with his name. I suppose someday I should read all those other Valdemar books. Probably should read all those Pern books, too. But it probably won't be any time real soon.

The Wandering Arm by Sharan Newman

Catherine finishes in fine form in this one. The beginning is a little rocky. In the opening scenes she is in labor with her first child, which is stillborn. She spends considerable time questioning her faith and her decisions. She is also called upon to question her faith in other contexts.

Her younger sister has rejected their father because he was born a Jew. Catherine she hates because, first of all, to her mind, Catherine received all the blessings and gifts - and always got her own way. Agnes has perverted that into a belief that the family (Agnes, herself) is being punished because Catherine rejected God (left the Paraclete/got her own away AGAIN).

Their mother has retreated from moral decision into madness and is confined to a convent. Hubert, their father, is tortured by his own sense of guilt and an almost hidden wish to return to the faith of his fathers.

Into all this stew, Hubert's much loved older brother, Eliazar, commits the worst crime a Jew can in a world dominated by the medieval Catholic church. Although inadvertently, he has converted a Christian to Judaism. This, if discovered, puts his family, and the entire Jewish community of Paris at risk. In fact, the risk is so great, that the Jewish community would have cast him out - or even put him to death and merely cast out the remainder of his family - if they had discovered.

Catherine is shaken to her core by this discovery, but by the end has regained her essential curiosity and a pragmatic faith that permits her to be aware of the physical cause of events, but to allow their interpretation as a miracle.

It is certainly an interesting view into the twelfth century mind. I think perhaps it fits with Arthur C. Clarke's observation that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the twelfth century, it would be viewed from the other end and, admittedly, not specifically related to technology. But, phenomena unexplainable by current knowledge must be interpreted as magic (or miracle).

Whisper to the Blood by Dana Stabenow

I'm going to quit worrying about Stabenow's titles and their relationship to the story. I'm sure the connection exists in her mind and it is some failing in mine that keeps me from making the leap. They are extremely cool titles and their provenance is excellent. I have actually been reading some bits and pieces by Roethke - not bad stuff.

This story has its own murders and other crimes to be investigated, but its frame is the story left hanging in the last book. After exploring some of the most unlikely candidates in the park, the actual murderer is uncovered and confesses without even trying to escape or excuse his guilt.

In other matters, a company is setting up to mine gold and that has many unpleasant ramifications as far as the residents of the park in general and the Niniltna Native Association in particular are concerned. After the death of Billy Mike, perennial chairman of the board, Kate is forced to take a seat and is shanghaied into filling his term as chair. After being confirmed at the annual shareholders meeting, she proceeds to let the Aunties know what they have done. Things are changing in the NNA. Kate explains to them, "I told you I wasn't Emaa."

Wonder of wonders, neither Kate nor Mutt gets shot or otherwise damaged in this one. Shot at a couple of times, but not actually shot. And Mutt gets the opportunity to eat a chunk of another bad guy.

Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs

While there were some skeletonized remains here and there in the story, the bones from which the title pun originated were not among them. The bear bones that Boyd found had to go in the stinky autopsy room.

Boyd found them while at a barbecue which Katy had insisted that Tempe attend. All of this led to one of my favorite bits in this entire series. The discovery of putrefying remains effectively shut down the party, and to Katy demanding of her mother why she couldn't just bake cookies like other mothers. I keep telling my children that parents purpose in life is to embarrass their children.

I should quit reporting that I didn't remember much about one of the mysteries that I am rereading. I may remember more after this reading, partly because I do this writing, but more because I often discuss them with my sister who is also rereading. Actually, I consider my poor memory for the details of murder mysteries a gift. Because of it I can reread these stories. It would have spoiled the fun if I had remembered early on that Park is a common Korean name.

A Deeper Sleep by Dana Stabenow

Doggone it! She needs to stop getting Mutt hurt! The last couple of times Mutt has gotten messed up, Kate has, too. This time it was just Mutt. We got a lot of back story on Mutt, though - about time.

When Kate returned from Anchorage after being almost killed by a violent child molester she holed up at her homestead and refused to come out. The aunties (and possibly Ekaterina, Kate's grandmother) decided that something had to be done. So they present her with a half-starved, mistreated puppy, and in saving her, Kate saves herself. Of course, a "tiny" puppy, as she is described several times, seems unlikely to grow up into a 140-pound dog. In my experience, large dogs tend to be large even as puppies. Details, details.

Stabenow's pattern does generally include the deserving victim and this one is exceptionally deserving. The murder victim is himself a known wife killer. He has married and murdered three very young women and been tried and found "not guilty" by reason of jury intimidation. Now he is setting up a fourth. And in case we miss the point, Stabenow has included the murders of the three young wives rather as she did the "hundred years ago" story several books back in The Singing of the Dead.

After that, things get complicated. And for the first time, this one ends without a solid resolution of the crime. We know who and why and how - but there is no nice neat march away to prison.

Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie

Here's a surprise - this time I had figured out who the murderer was - or at least who it ought to be. He was the only character who totally deserved to be the murderer. I also had guessed early on who the victim was going to be, the current victim, that is. There were others, going back over twenty years.

And the surprise connection in this book was the central position of Duncan's ex-wife and her son, but it turns out that Vic is a pretty decent person after all - as long as she isn't married to Duncan. Even Gemma likes her.

I trouble with time frame on this one. The precipitating events seem in the telling to be in the long past, but it wasn't all that long past. The dead poet died only five years in the past of the story. Her birthday is the same day as mine - and only a few years earlier. I guess all the discussion of her obsession with Rupert Brooke kept distracting me from the actual period of the back story. I don't remember quite so much silliness associated with the sixties - but I wasn't at Cambridge and I suppose college life at a small town cow college shouldn't be compared to such exalted heights.

It is hard to believe that a girl from deep in the heart of Texas writes with such authority in an British setting. I wonder how her stories go over in England. The end notes say that they sell well there. I once read a novel by a mystery writer who set his stories in my home area. I have seldom been so outraged by a piece of fiction. Maybe Crombie does legitimate research.

Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs

Again, I remembered the scene setting at the beginning - both of them actually. The unearthing of the mass grave in the Guatemalan highlands was certainly memorable, and who could forget the body in the septic tank? Those were both drawn in so much detail that I remembered them as the openings of two different books. Actually, it turns out that, although everything is thoroughly entertwined, neither of those is the set up for the main thread of the story.

This one has it all - genocide, adultery, abuse of political power, obsession, mistaken identity, and murder for profit. Besides all that, this time Tempe is poisoned.

On the home front - almost all of the action takes place in Guatemala, just one quick trip to Montreal for a couple of reasons - one of which is some technology that is not available in the third world. The local cop with whom Tempe must deal turns out to be Ryan's old college buddy. And trust Ryan to find good reason to accompany Tempe back after her run to Montreal. Naturally, both of them are pursuing and Tempe is tempted.