The Righteous by Michael Wallace

I know that Amazon uses their Kindle specials to push new and/or unknown writers - and generally I don't mind. I'm not sure I mind this time. I think it is more a case this time that this trilogy isn't really my sort of thing - right now I'm not sure if I want to read the other two.

I suppose that fundamentally they are thrillers not mysteries - and pretty brutal in spots - like the scene in the first few pages where the bads rip the first victim's tongue out before they cut her throat. The remainder of the murders are gruesome as well - and those that happen "off stage" are described in great detail.

The setting is among the outlawed polygamist Mormon groups scattered around Utah and other areas with more land than population. It is interesting in that it takes on one of the most fundamental problems with a social order arranged around polygamy - what about the extra young men? As I understand it, the original vision or whatever making polygamy the order of the church arose from the charisma of the leader, Brigham Young, who attracted many more women followers than men. Since they had already adopted a fixed patriarchal order wherein women could only be admitted to heaven if they were married, it followed that the faithful must take up the slack by marrying all those extra women. However, as procreation followed its natural course, the numbers evened out - and now they had a surplus of young men. In many such societies, that problem is handled by war and other things frequently fatal to young men, but the Mormon church did not have recourse to a handy little war. I suspect that when the government came after them to give up the practice, most thinking members of their leadership were thinking, "What took them so long?"

According to this writer, what happened to those loosely connected communities which refused to give up the practice was that they simply kicked out the surplus boys. As told in this story, they would select the "likeliest" - the brightest, the best looking, the most athletic - and put the others out on the road. He compares it to a pride of lions and the roving bands of bachelors.

Throw into the mix a couple a rather nasty eugenics programs and a little tax fraud, a few drug induced visions, and some really warped conditioning - and there you have it.

I may come back to Book 2 - in spite of it all, he produced a couple of rather appealing characters - but not just yet. I think I need to read another cozy cookbook mystery - or a dozen - first.

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Finally, after all these years - the first one of the Brunetti books by Donna Leon. It was interesting in the context of the series to see some of the development of the character of Brunetti and supporting cast. It is a little more heavy-handed in its handling of the veniality of the police and others of authority, but she clearly lays out the contradiction of Brunetti's mind. He is a man who is interested in justice, far more than the law. This certainly plays out in this story. Although I suppose he reports the truth to his technical superiors, it is far from the whole truth.

His contempt for his supervisor, Vice Questore Patta, is not muted at all. And Patta's office definitely suffers because he has not yet hired the amazing Signorina Elettra. Several of the regular cops have not made the scene yet. Brunetti has to manage with the "assistance" of two foreigners (nonVenetians), who seem to be drawn from the stereotypical American cop - more interested in doughnuts (brioche) and coffee than in the crime.

Then there is Brunetti's relationship with his in-laws. By the time of the latest of the books that I have read, their interactions seem fairly normal. In this one, we learn that that is a recent change. Brunetti does not visit them except for two ceremonial occasions every year even though he and Paola have been married for twenty years, and although his children and Paola are frequent visitors to the Palazzo and enjoy their company. It is too simple to simply chalk it up to the social distance between even a fairly high ranking police officer and the traditional Venetian nobility, but that is a fair starting place. After twenty years, Brunetti finally realizes that "that sort of people" have access to people and information that he does not.

Another thing: in this book Leon introduces two characters which she brings back in a later story: the opera singer Flavia Petrelli and her companion, American Brett Lynch. There are the recurring characters of the background setting, of course, but these are different. And I believe that when they return they are central to the crime. Of course, at the moment, I have no idea which one of the books that is. This is the gift that enables me to reread murder mysteries with enjoyment - I never remember who done it ---

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

The end notes state that the author is claiming as virtue her complete ignorance of the fantasy "canon." The virtue, of course, is not being driven by the traditional/conventional devices of the genre. The pitfall is, of course, that she is left vulnerable to all the cliches which she does not know to avoid. A minefield without a map. It is possible that she missed one or two of them, but not many - although, there are no dragons.

The experienced fantasy reader will have spotted all the hidden characters and decoded the totally cliche mystic prophecy and all the micro plots within the first few chapters. Given all that, it still read pretty well up to the last ten percent. At that point, I got the feeling that she had lost control of the story. She had finished all the action, but had neglected to get the two main characters in bed - or at least definitively headed in that direction. So rather than going back and embedding that in the main story line, she meanders around for much too long rather than just getting to the point - "and they got married and lived happily ever after." After several hundred pages of high drama - all of a sudden we are confronted with a cliche scene with the heavy duty fantasy standard of the symbolic crone, matron, and maiden (or Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) leading somehow to an utterly ridiculous comic declaration scene, from which she tries to go directly to the heights for the finale. It worked for Puccini in La Boheme, but here, not so much.

Now, after all that crabbing, it was mostly a good read. Those fantasy quest addicts who blasted through all of the Shannara books and other derivatives of derivatives will probably love it. It seems that it won awards in Australia - the land of its birth. Perhaps something was lost in translation. I did enjoy it, it kept me coming back - even during finals week. Perhaps I am merely annoyed by the superior "I can write rings around you slobs who write fantasy without knowing anything about it" attitude. Actually, the fantasy is a fairly minor element of the story. The curses and prophecies could have been dealt with in other ways, and the "walking the sleep" could also have been worked around. Beyond these, we have medieval warfare without the restrictions of history or geography - although, I suppose that alone makes it fantasy.

One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

In another year or so, I suppose we'll know if this was the last one of this series. There are certainly indications that it could be, but you never know what a story-teller may do to tell a story.

The story revolves around a group of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who are variously pressured into a support/counseling group for returning vets. There is the nineteen year old Marine suffering from depression only in part because he left his legs in Iraq. There is the doctor with traumatic brain injury. There is the cop whose anger is completely out of his control. There is the young wife who can't manage to put the things she did behind her. And there is Clare, herself, who has become dependent on drugs and alcohol to keep the demons at bay.

The lives of the continuing characters in these books is such a large part of the stories that it feels as if the conclusion of one part of that story is the end of the series. Russ is waiting for Clare with a ring when she returns from her tour of duty, and eventually does actually manage to propose. Clare finally does manage to accept his proposal, even though they have taken opposing positions on the first death - well, not actually the first ... - never mind that. They actually manage to get married - eventually.

The crime in this book is, typically for the series, convoluted and broad of scope. Unlike some of the others, the bad guys are called to account for their deeds, including some unpunished in previous books. This also helps give the book a tone of finality.

Each of the vets resolves his or her issues, or takes steps in the direction of resolution - another bit of finality. They discuss the fact that they have each taken steps to control the monsters - as they stand together after the funeral of another young Marine from Miller's Kill dead in the middle east.

There are a few bits and pieces that are not resolved, but fundamentally it feels very concluded. I will be interested to see if a new one turns up.

Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs

I'm certainly glad that I don't have any rules for the sequence of my reading. This, I think, is the eleventh in the Tempe Brennan series by Kathy Reichs. I had every intention of starting at the beginning, but so it goes. I picked this up off a shelf and started reading, then had to get the ebook to speed up the reading. I'll get back to Deja Dead in good time.

This one is classic Reichs: a long dead body, actually parts of a long dead body, are discovered in a hidden cellar, and suddenly there are bodies everywhere. Also, we have a particularly offensive speciment of the southern (only they no longer seem to be confined to the south) politician/religious bigot. Sadly, his is not one of the corpses, but one may hope from events that he was sufficiently discredited as a man with the ear of God to fail at any re-election attempt.

There is a sub-theme of what Reichs in her endnotes calls "fringe religions" such as Wicca, santeria, voodoo, and a number of others. This is addressed largely in the context of our current national paranoia about "otherness." "'Think as I think,' said a man. ..."

Others have mentioned to me Reichs' justification for the Tempe Brennan character in the TV series Bones. The rationalization is that she sees TV Tempe as a young Tempe, before the series of books begins. I don't like to pick at things like this too much, but --- Tempe in her forties, has a daughter in her mid-twenties. In this book there is a discussion of persuading Katy to graduate from college after six years by cutting off funding (that plot is vaguely familiar, somehow). So, Pete, Tempe's ex, and Katy had to have "happened" before the age at which we find the multi-PhDed "young" and socially inept Tempe in the series.

Personally, I think my second word choice was correct - it is a rationalization which Reichs uses to excuse the quantities of money that she is making from the TV rights. It doesn't really bother me; I even enjoy the series to a certain extent, but every time I read one of the books, I can't help recognizing how much better they are than the series.

The Brummstein by Peter Adolphsen (translated by Charlotte Barslund)

This isn't really a novel, not even a novella. It's a short story. A singularly pointless short story. I don't think the problem had anything to do with the translation (from Danish) - it is just a stupid, non-story. There is no plot; there is only a succession of boring characters over a period of a hundred years or so who for some reason hang on to a pebble which the first one carried out of a cave. It vibrates, but it is never explained.

Really, don't bother. This was a complete waste of 99 cents.

Edwin of the Iron Shoes by Marcia Muller

Muller's name came up in the conversation with my sister the other day, so I added her name to the list and bought the first book. I had forgotten how much I enjoy these. I think she is going to have to move up into the sequence - of course, I had intended to move Kathy Reichs up. No reason the sequence can't be longer than six, I suppose. I probably ought to get Muller into the loop - according to the wiki, there are now twenty-nine (29) books in the Sharon McCone series. The last one came out last year - so she is still at it - and I haven't read one in years and years.

This one was a little like the Gilbert and Sullivan song, "Things are seldom what they seem ... ." The characters keep switching personas - or more accurately - keep displaying sides of their character that were not quite expected. And that is rather the nature of the crimes around which they all keep dancing and which precipitate the requisite murders. Can't have a murder mystery without a murder. Of course, in this case the murder is the loose thread which unravels a complicated and widespread criminal enterprise (not for nothing have I watched all the seasons of Law & Order).

The title refers to an antique mannequin of a child which for some reason is anchored in place with iron shoes and actually does have an oblique role in the story. Even the antiques in the antique shop are not entirely what they seem.

I think some of what I thought was the background of Sharon McCone is stuff that I mixed in freely from Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone and possibly even Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawsky. A potential romantic interest is established in the person of the lead cop, Greg Marcus. I distinctly remember his name, but I did not remember that they were ever a couple. I may be confusing it with Milhone's goto cop who was at one point her father's partner -- I think. Feel free to correct me - it may be some time before I review all of that stuff. Just tell me - it was Milhone that hung out at Mono Lake, right? And McCone is pretty much San Francisco - as is Kate Martinelli, Laurie King's cop. All Cali girls, anyway.