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."