The Palace Guard by Charlotte MacLeod

10Apr. Kindle.

It is getting serious between Sarah and Max. They even managed to get mostly disrobed in the same room - but no. At least it has gotten beyond "I'm newly widowed and can't even think about that" to "not yet."

I really do enjoy these. They have a vague flavor of the thirties, although they are set in what was, at the time of writing, the present - the early 80s. Okay, I know that was thirty-five years ago now - but still fairly contemporary - no cell phones. Maybe it is Sarah's continual concern with the proprieties - or maybe that is just the way Boston is.

The action in this one centers around a museum which I believe is meant to be a parody of the Gardner - at least I think it is the Gardner. Wasn't there a whole series of murder mysteries set in and around the Gardner? Or maybe not - maybe I am thinking of Murder at the Gardner by Jane Langdon. Something else to reread!

Stolen art, faithless friends, and a fake countess who creates antique Eastern Orthodox icons. Also a couple of rather nasty murders. And a serious suitor for Mrs. Sorpende - it looks like she is going to become a Kelling.

Sick of Shadows by Sharyn McCrumb

10Apr. Kindle.

Since I can't get the ballad books for kindle, I thought I would try one of the Elizabeth McPherson books. Not as atmospheric and moody as the ballad books, but doggone good. I remember reading a couple of these long ago, and I am looking forward to rediscovering the one with the business of the novice ducks. I'm thinking it may be book three in the series, Highland Laddie Gone, since I remember that the action took place at highland games somewhere in the coastal south.

I remember these books as being really funny, but this was not. It is definitely lighter fare than the ballads, but neither is it at the level of hysteria of Bimbos of the Death Sun. McCrumb is clearly a woman of infinite talents.

Elizabeth ends up being the default representative of her branch of the family to the wedding of her cousin, Eileen Chandler. The poor cousin (Elizabeth) is drafted into the service of her domineering aunt and is required to address last minute invitations and sundry other mundane tasks while the bride-to-be wanders about vaguely and works secretively on a painting destined to be a gift for her prospective husband - until the bride-to-be becomes the murder victim.

The Chandlers are a clan with enough money to do (or not do) as they please, and they possess neuroses and psychoses for a crowd several times the size. All of which makes for an interesting group of suspects, including Elizabeth who, with Eileen, the deceased bride-to-not-be-after all, out of the picture, is back in the running for a great-aunt's bequest of $200.000 to the first of her great-nieces or nephews to marry.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

8Apr. Kindle.

I've been picking things semi-randomly to read at my desk. I generally don't spend a lot of time here and am more comfortable abandoning things that simply don't work for me. This was a complete surprise and has kept me sitting at my desk instead of sitting out with the dog, crocheting and reading on my kindle. I had expected one of those cutely quaint little old lady mysteries and this is anything but.

According to Winspear's wiki, she has taken the period encompassing the aftermath of WWI as her own. Maisie is a non-traditional character in all aspects. Her family is lower class. Her father is the British equivalent of the guy we knew seventy years later in northern Italy as "Melone Banane" selling produce from a truck (or horse cart) through the city. Maisie goes into service, but catches the attention of her employer who recognizes her intellectual capabilities and provides her with an education - including entrance into the women's college at Cambridge. Then comes the war and Maisie abandons university for nursing.

The story runs two tracks between the "present day" as Maisie goes into business as a detective with a psychological side and the story of her upbringing, education, and war service. Unlike something I complained about several books back, the two tracks deepen the story and demonstrate a strong connection between the events of the two periods.

I really enjoyed this and I am looking forward to reading the entire series - since book one is available for kindle, I expect/hope that all of them will be.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

8Apr. Kindle.

I think I have had enough post-apocalyptic dystopian YA for a while. This was probably the best read of the lot, but although I will read the other books in the series, they can just wait a while.

In this post-apocalyptic dystopian Chicago, society is divided into "factions" along philosophical lines concerned with what each group blames for war. Abnegation philosophy holds that selfishness is the primary cause of war, hence they strive for selflessness in all things. And so on, the other factions are Erudite, Dauntless, Candor, and Amity - fairly self-explanatory.

The timeframe is a little fuzzy and it seems fundamentally illogical to me that an entire society can separate itself based on ideological distinctions which in some ways remind me of college fraternities and sororities. At sixteen young people are tested to see which faction they should belong to, but they choose whether or not to follow those results - then they are tested and initiated according to protocols set up by each faction. The mechanisms of support for an essentially urban society are simply disregarded.

Predictably, there is a great deal of tension between the factions - with predictable results.

The heroine, Tris or Beatrice, does not test neatly into one or another faction - she is Divergent, possessing qualities of several factions - this makes her dangerous to those who want to control everything.

This series is being or has been made into a series of films. It's a natural - lots of action and bizarre sets.

Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past by Sharyn McCrumb

6Apr. Kindle.

I was disappointed - because it was so short. I had hoped for a collection of short stories at least. Oh well, even short as it was it had that marvelous completeness of McCrumb's ballad stories and was more worth the 1.99 that it cost than many full length novels that I have read.

This piece is intriguing for several reasons, things that I think are uncharacteristic of the ballad novels - I would like to be sure of that, but unfortunately very few of them are available for kindle. I'll have to go check the shelves - I know Bimbos of the Death Sun is back there - but that is not one of the ballad novels.

Back on point, there are two separate and distinct story lines that never cross, they are told in parallel but have completely separate casts. And then there are the principals of the two casts. One of them features Nora Bonesteel as the central character, I seem to remember that she is usually a side character - as in Songcatcher which I read recently. And we know from the beginning that she is dealing with a ghost. The other story is about Sheriff Spencer Arrowood - again, although I think he appears in all the ballad novels, I don't think he has ever been the "star."

Anyway, two charming Christmas miracles wrapped up in one package by a master of the craft. Gotta love it.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

5 Apr. Kindle.

I really did not like this one. It is the current choice of a book club that I sort of keep up with because some very good friends are in it.

It is one of those things in which the point of view switches between characters and instead of chapters you sections headed "Rachel" or "Megan" or "Anna." I'm not crazy about those to begin with - and this one adds the crime of putting the three narrators on different timelines. Sometimes it is effective when you have stuff happening in different centuries - but in this one, one character was out of phase by a few months. And the primary narrator was incredibly annoying - she was a drunk and must have reformed at least half a dozen times in the few weeks of the main narrative thread. None of the characters are likeable - I have a really hard time with stories about people I don't like.

The Curse of the Giant Hogweed by Charlotte MacLeod

5Apr. Kindle

Silly. The Peter Shandy books have been improbable and off-beat with wildly unlikely characters, but this one is just silly. Shandy and his side-kick Timothy Ames and the until this point minor faculty member, Daniel Stott of swine fame, are called to England to confer on an infestation of a noxious weed known as the giant hogweed (sounded a lot like kudzu - only it came in stalks instead of vines). Somehow they are transported back to some fantasy prehistory of the region where among other things, people, and creatures they encounter a semi-wicked (but reforming) witch who inadvertently tells Peter the spell necessary to destroy the giant hogweed.

MacLeod's mysteries tend to be light, funny, and slightly archaic in feel - but this was way beyond all of that. I am informed that the next one returns to her standard fare.