BW9: The Golden Age of Mystery

 

Happy Sunday!  This month we’re waving goodbye to February and winter in my neck of the woods, and saying hello to March and the beginning of spring. We are also celebrating Women's History Month and women who were vital to history. 

And speaking of history, our Crime Spree hostesses Sandy and Amy are taking us back to the Golden Age era this month.  Take it away, ladies: 

If you find yourself spending the weekend at your curmudgeonly uncle’s manor and he ends up murdered, you’re probably in a Golden Age mystery. Luckily, you’re innocent of the crime if you’re young, beautiful, and in love. But if you happen to be a ne'er-do-well that recently been cut out of the will then…

This website is fantastic for exploring even more authors. Who are some of your favorite Golden Age authors?

Authors to explore:

    Agatha Christie’s website is a fun place to lose an hour

·         GK Chesterton

·         EC Bentley

·         Dorothy Sayers

·         Margery Allingham

·         Edmund Crispin

·         Georgette Heyer

·         Patricia Wentworth (sidenote from Amy: Skip the first book and start here.)

·         J. Jefferson Farjeon

·         Josephine Tey

 

Challenge: Evade Scotland Yard by choosing a new to you Golden Age author to read.

Thank you ladies.  Juan and I are trying to stay out of sight of the gents at Scotland Yard as we follow in the footsteps of the the queens and gentlemen of the Golden Age. 

Which brings me to our A to Z and back again -- Our letter and word of the week are I and Informer.

Have fun investigating! 

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BW12: Happy Spring!

Josephine Wall's Hope Springs Eternal

The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven -
All’s right with the world!

~Robert Browning

Happy Spring! In keeping with our mystery theme this month, I looked up books with spring in the title and found several interesting mystery titles. 

 How about something hard boiled

Poodle Springs by Raymond Chandler

Or a bit British

G.M. Malleit's Pagan Spring

Maybe a psychological thrill

Clifford Irving's The Spring

Or gut wrenching suspense

Rick Riordan's Cold Springs

or a step back in time 

Charles O'Brien's Death in Saratoga Springs

Find something with Spring in the title to read this season. And no, you don't have to stick with mysteries.  *grin* 

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History of the Medieval World - Chapter 15 (pp 100 - 105)

Northern Ambitions (China 420 - 464 AD)

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BW4: Mystery of Nevada Barr

A couple years back I discovered Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon mystery series when I read "Blind Descent" and was delightfully pulled into the mysterious world of spelunking and murder.  Her writing puts you right there with Anna as she battles claustrophobia to go save an injured friend.

Blind Descent

Amazon:  "Feisty, resourceful forest ranger Anna Pigeon faced everything from raging fires to deep-water dives with cool aplomb in her first five adventures. Very early in Blind Descent her courage is put to an even greater test when she learns that a woman seriously injured while exploring a cave next door to New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns is a friend who has requested Pigeon's help in getting her out. "A chilling image filled Anna's mind: herself crouched and whimpering, fear pouring like poison through her limbs, shutting down her brain as the cave closed in around her." Pushing aside her fears, Pigeon takes the plunge, leading readers through a truly harrowing series of tight squeezes...."

I dipped my toes into Anna's life again with "Winter Study" as she battles both nature and man in the frozen winter of  Isle Royale National Park.  You could practically feel your toes freezing off as you read the story.

Winter Study

Publisher's Weekly: "In bestseller Barr's chilling 14th mystery thriller to feature National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon (after 2005's Hard Truth), Anna joins the team of Winter Study, a research project intended to study the wolves and moose of Michigan's Isle Royale National Park, the setting for 1994's A Superior Death. Complicating the study is Bob Menechinn, an untrustworthy Homeland Security officer assigned to shadow the research. Crowded into inhospitable lodgings and persecuted by unrelenting cold, Anna is far from her comfort zone as nature turns awry with a series of bizarre events. The team stumbles upon the tracks—and the mutilated victim—of a preternaturally large, unidentified beast, and local packs of wolves descend on human-populated areas, a behavior out of step with their species. The campfire legends of youth metastasize into adult fears as Anna must piece together a connection between these anomalies while guarding herself from the strangers around her. Barr's visceral descriptions of the winter cold nicely complement the paranoia that follows the appearance of the mythic monsters at play.

There are 16 books in the series and easily read as stand alones.   Barr just released the 17th book "The Rope" which takes you back to the beginning of Anna's story.  

The Rope

Amazon:  "In The Rope, the latest in Nevada Barr’s bestselling novels featuring Anna Pigeon, Nevada Barr gathers together the many strings of Anna’s past and finally reveals the story that her many fans have been long asking for. In 1995 and 35 years old, fresh off the bus from New York City and nursing a broken heart, Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she’s simply moved on—her cabin is cleaned out and her things gone. But Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in this situation.

As she slowly pieces together her memory, it soon becomes clear that someone has trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and no one knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage, determination and will to live that she didn’t even know she still possessed to survive, outwit and triumph.

Check out the first paragraph here and find out more about Nevada Barr and all her books here.  I'm slowly making my way through the series and look forward to reading them all. 

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BW48: Book link love

We are coming in to the homestretch with just 5 weeks left in our quest to read 52 books. I'm in the homestretch with NaNoWriMo and close to the 50,000 word mark so today we'll check out some more authors who blog.  Hopefully it will give you a few new ideas for books to read in 2012.  Have you started your book bucket list for 2012?  An eclectic mix of writers of crime, paranormal, thrillers, suspense, romance.

I follow these group blogs and have read many of their books.

Murder She Writes:   Lori Armstrong, Allison Brennan, Toni McGee Causey, Sylvia Day, Laura Griffin, Sophie Littlefield, Jennifer Lyon, Roxanne St. Claire, Karen Tabke and Debra Webb. 

The Deadline Dames: Another group blog by writers of paranormal, romance, thrillers:  Rachel Vincent, Devon Monk, Jackie Kessler, Jenna Black, Karen Mahoney, Keri Arthur, Lillith Saintcrow, Rinda Elliott and Toni Andrews. 

Riding with the Top Down:  Leanne Banks, Kylie Banks, Helen Brenna, Debra Dixon, Kathleen Eagle, Cindy Gerard, Lois Greiman, Michelle Hauf, Betina Krahn and Christie Ridgeway.

The Debutante Ball:  Changes each year - meet the new class of 2012:  Joanne Levy, Erika Marks, M. Molly Backes, Rachel Bertshe, Linda Grimes.

If you haven't checked out my favorite author blog  Murderati lately, they've made a few changes, added some new faces, lost a few. 

Have fun exploring. Happy Reading!

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BW41: Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts - October 10, 2011

Happy birthday to my favorite author - the diva of romance and romantic suspense Nora Roberts.   I discovered her books back in 2007 and fell in lurve.  She has written almost 200 novels (complete booklist) including a number of stand alone books as well as series which are all unique and interesting.  She writes the type of stories that make you fall in the love with the characters and makes you want to turn right around and read the book over again, when you are done.  She also write a futuristic crime novel series called the In Death series under  the pseudonym J.D. Robb.  There are 33 books (chronological list)  in the series (which I've read most of them twice) and I just finished the latest New York to Dallas.  And I recently started listening to audio books in the car and am currently listening to Naked In Death which is the very first book in the series. I can sense that listening to the series will keep me busy for quite a while.    Besides being a prolific writer, she and her husband own a bookstore in Maine called Turn the Page and also a historic inn called Inn Boosboro with rooms named after literary characters including Eve and Roark from the In Death series.  She has a new trilogy named after the Inn Boonsboro and the first book is The Next Always being released on November 1st.

Tidbits from her website:

• Every Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb title released in 2010 hit the New York Times bestseller list.  That’s keeping up a streak started in 1999.
  
  
• With Treachery in Death (February 2011) Nora will have published 195 full-length novels.
  
  
• Nora has written 173 New York Times bestsellers including 27 written as J.D. Robb and one written together with J.D. Robb
  
  
• Since her first bestseller in 1991, Nora’s books have spent a total of 879 weeks on the New York Times list…that’s equivalent to more than 16.5 consecutive years of weekly bestsellers.
  
  
• Nora’s books have spent a combined 178 weeks at the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list – that’s more than 3 years.
  

Once you read one of her books, you'll understand why.

Happy Birthday Nora!

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BW 30: C is for Cara Black

Butte Montmarte, Paris, France by Julie K

I just finished reading the first book in Cara Black's Aimee Leduc Series called Murder in the Marais.  I had heard about her stories and when I came across them while wondering through Book Passages in San Francisco, just had to check out the first book in the series:

Synopsis:  It is November 1993 and the French prime ministerial candidate is about to sign a treaty with Germany that will severely restrict immigration, reminiscent of the Vichy laws. Aime Leduc is approached by a rabbi to decipher a fifty-year-old encrypted photograph and place it in the hands of Lili Stein. When she arrives at Lili's apartment in the Marais, the old Jewish quarter of Paris, she finds a corpse in whose forehead is carved a swastika. With the help of her partner, a dwarf with extraordinary computer hacking skills, Aime is determined to solve this horrendous crime. Then more murders follow. Her search for the killer leads her to a German war veteran involved in the 1940s with a Jewish girl he was supposed to send to her death. It takes Aime undercover inside a neo-Nazi group, where she must play a dangerous game of current politics and old war crimes. Many of the older Jews in the Marais are afraid and prefer to leave the past alone, but the horrible legacy of the death camps and the words "never forget" propel Aime to find out the true identities of the criminals past and present.

Murder in the Marais was her debut novel and the first in a series of now 11 books following the exploits of Private investigator Aimee Leduc in Paris, France.   I discovered Aimee is a feisty chick who jumps into situations fearlessly, throws herself body (literally) and soul into her investigations.   She isn't afraid of a few bruises and once she's on somebody's trail, doesn't let go.   I was amazed at this character's tenacity. I was exhausted just reading the story.  Paris is more than just the setting, it is also a living breathing character that helps bring the story to life.  The rest of the books in the series are:

Murder in Belleville 

Murder in the Sentier

Murder in the Bastille 

Murder in Clichy

Murder in Montmartre

Murder in LLe Saint Louis

Murder in the Rue De Paradis

Murder in the Latin Quarter

Murder in the Palais Royal

Murder in Passy

If you like murder mysteries, this is one series well worth checking out. 

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BW28: A is for Art Mysteries

Painter's Palette at the Ready by Cobalt123

A couple years back I was introduced to the writings of Iain Pears, a writer and art historian.   I happened to stumble across The Titian Committee in our local used bookstore and since I was taking an art class at the time, thought it would be interesting.    Which started my love affair with art mysteries.   

Pears wrote a series of art mysteries centered around  a couple art historians Jonathan Argyll and Flavia di Stefano of Rome's Art Theft Squad.    His books are a fascinating, interesting and educational way to learn about art within a fictional mystery.   The books in the Flavia Di Stefano mystery series are:

The Raphael Affair

The Titian Committee

The Bernini Bust

The Last Judgement

Giotti's Hand

Death and Restoration

The Immaculate Deception

Pears has also written four other stories including  An Instance of the Fingerpost, The Dream of Scipio, The Portrait, and Stone's Fall.   

I had the opportunity to review Stone's Fall and discovered myself entrenched in a fascinating story.  

It is told through the view points of three men, in three different time periods and revolves around John Stone, his widow, Elizabeth Ravenscliff, and a mysterious child mentioned in Stone's Will.

In the year 1909, Matthew Braddock is hired by Elizabeth to find the child. In the course of his search, he meets numerous characters involved in Stone's life. One is Henry Cort. Henry Cort takes over the story in Part two beginning in 1890 and tells how he also became involved in the life of John Stone and Elizabeth. He tell the story of his evolution as a spy and how he played a roll in John Stone's life. He leaves a mysterious package for Braddock to open at a later point. John Stone takes over the story bringing the reader back to 1867 and how he evolved as one of the most richest and powerful men in the world. The story ends with a shocking twist that was totally unexpected.

I've since acquired An Instance on the Fingerpost, The Raphael Affair, and Death and Restoration.   An Instance on the Fingerpost is a chunky book at 750+ pages.  It's one of those books you need to clear the decks for because it will take a while to read. 

Amazon synopsis: "The year is 1663, and the setting is Oxford, England, during the height of Restoration political intrigue. When Dr. Robert Grove is found dead in his Oxford room, hands clenched and face frozen in a rictus of pain, all the signs point to poison. Rashomon-like, the narrative circles around Grove's murder as four different characters give their version of events: Marco da Cola, a visiting Italian physician--or so he would like the reader to believe; Jack Prestcott, the son of a traitor who fled the country to avoid execution; Dr. John Wallis, a mathematician and cryptographer with a predilection for conspiracy theories; and Anthony Wood, a mild-mannered Oxford antiquarian whose tale proves to be the book's "instance of the fingerpost." (The quote comes from the philosopher Bacon, who, while asserting that all evidence is ultimately fallible, allows for "one instance of a fingerpost that points in one direction only, and allows of no other possibility."

If you love art and you enjoy mysteries, there are quite a few other authors who also write art crime novels.  Check out the list from Amazon.

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BW19: R is for Roxanne

Roxanne St. Claire

Hello my darlings!  I'm on vacation this week and have been reading the latest series by one of my favorite authors, Roxanne St. Claire, who wrote the romantic suspense series "The Bullet Catchers."  Her latest series is "the Guardian Angelinos."

"The Guardian Angelinos are a Boston-based family that flies under the radar of the law to  solve crimes, save lives, protect the innocent, and take down the guilty. This team of rule-breaking, risk-taking, wave-making siblings and cousins aren’t afraid to get into the face of criminals as one of the toughest, grittiest security and PI firms around. This close-knit clan of protection, investigation, law enforcement, technology, weaponry, and legal experts all have one simple creed:  The good guys win and the bad guys get the holy hell kicked out of them."

I'm loving the characters in these stories just as much as I adored the tough bullet catchers in her other series.

She's a multifaceted writer with great imagination and very interesting characters.  Check out her booklist here.  A free prequel is available for Edge of Sight which tells the history of Sam and Zach's story in Taken to the Edge.


I hope each and every one of you have a Happy Mother's Day.  My mother's day present this year. Getting to spend it with my mom who we almost lost to a stroke a few months ago.  She is recovering and I'm so thankful I get to share the day with her.  So hug your mom close today and tell her how much you appreciate her, because you'll never know when she could be taken from you. 

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BW10 - I is for Ireland!

Kylemore Abbey

I just finished reading In the Woods by Irish author Tana French and it was quite good. I'll be reviewing soon.  Since St. Patrick's day is coming up next week, there are some events occurring around the blogosphere you might want to consider joining in on.   Carrie of Books and Movies is hosting a month long readalong of Faithful Place, French's 3rd book in the series.  I've also picked up "The Likeness" as well which continues the character Cassie's story.   The schedule is as follows:

Reading Schedule:

Week One (3/1-3/7): Chapters 1-6
Week Two (3/8-3/14): Chapters 7-12
Week Three (3/15-3/21): Chapters 13-18
Week Four (3/22-3/28): Chapters 19-23

Weekly Post Schedule:

Week One’s reading: March 10th
Week Two’s reading: March 17th
Week Three’s reading: March 24th
Week Four’s reading and wrap-up post or review: March 31st

Carrie will  be posting her thoughts every Thursday along with Mr. Linky for whoever wants to join in and post their thoughts as well.    You still have time to join in if you want.  I'm a bit behind in reading, but will be catching up soon.  

Mel of The Reading Life is hosting a week long event "The Irish Short Story" during the week of March 14 to March 20th.  She'll be posting daily about short stories written by Irish authors:  James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Frank O'Conner, Oliver Goldsmith, Sean O'Faolain,  Oscar Wilde, and Liam O'Flaherty.   Join in the fun and read a few short stories by Irish authors. 

I have a few books on the shelves by Irish authors I will be reading this year including:

Bram Stoker's "The Snake's Pass."  He wrote it back in 1890 and is the only one of his novels set in Ireland. It is his first novel and was published about seven years before  Dracula.  He is an Irish writer and has a few other stories and short stories that he's written besides Dracula.  

Patrick Taylor's "An Irish Country Christmas"

J.D. Robb's "Treachery in Death." One of her characters, Roark, is full blooded Irish so it counts.  :)

Irish mystery author Declan Hughes' "The Wrong Kind of Blood."

Another event I just discovered is the Irish Blog Awards which will be held on March 19th in Belfast. Not that any of us have time to take a trip to Belfast at the moment.  However, the website is interesting and has many links to irish blogs broken down by science/education, humor, personal, youth and newcomer.   I haven't had time to check out all the links yet, so can't vouch for any of them. But will have fun exploring when I have more time.

And since Lent is coming up on Wednesday, and I'm Irish and Catholic, I'll leave you with a bit of Irish humor: 

An Irishman moves into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry , walks into the pub and promptly orders three beers. The bartender raises his eyebrows, but serves the man three beers, which he drinks quietly at a table, alone.

An hour later, the man has finished the three beers and orders three more. This happens yet again. The next evening the man again orders and drinks three beers at a time, several times. Soon the entire town is whispering about the Man Who Orders Three Beers.

Finally, a week later, the bartender broaches the subject on behalf of the town. "I don't mean to pry, but folks around here are wondering why you always order three beers?"

"Tis odd, isn't it?" the man replies. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America , and the other to Australia . We promised each other that we would always order an extra two beers whenever we drank as a way of keeping up the family bond."

The bartender and the whole town were pleased with this answer, and soon the Man Who Orders Three Beers became a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet, even to the extent that out-of-towners would come to watch him drink.

Then, one day, the man comes in and orders only two beers. The bartender pours them with a heavy heart. This continues for the rest of the evening. He orders only two beers. The word flies around town. Prayers are offered for the soul of one of the brothers.

The next day, the bartender says to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer condolences to you for the death of your brother. You know-the two beers and all"

The man ponders this for a moment, then replies, "You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up drinking for Lent."

 What books on your shelves by Irish authors or with Irish characters will you be reading?

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BW9: H is for Hitchockian

"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it." - Alfred Hitchcock

H is for Hitchcockian.  I have Alfred Hitchcock on my mind today.   We were going through some boxes in the garage last weekend, cleaning up a  bit.  One of the boxes contains books we inherited from my late mother in law.  We currently have no room on our shelves, so there they sit waiting until we buy some more. Which is going to happen soon, I'm positive.   Periodically I go through the box and find something different that sparks.  I found 39 Steps written by John Buchan.  It was originally written in 1915 and Hitchcock made it into a film in the 1930's.  Which is why I have Hitchcock on the mind.  


Growing up, I loved Alfred Hitchcock movies.  They gave me the chills, entertained and creeped you out at the same time.  The first time we were allowed to watch "The Birds", I ended up sitting around the living corner, peeking out and ducking back at the most scariest scenes.  I think I was about nine at the time.  I could probably have buried my face in my mom or dad's lap, but instead distancing myself from the tv screen seemed to work better.   I've grown to love suspenseful, psychological, scary movies.  Not the blood and guts gory type, nor the explain it all because the audience is too stupid to understand and get it kind of movies and books.  Ones that leave it to your imagination.  The action just off screen.  Heart pounding, hand clenching, break out in cold sweat, jump in your seat, make you squeal stories. Speaking of squealing, my dad is the nervous sort and can't sit still during intense scenes.  He'd leave, come back. (now I know where I got it from)   When my sisters and I would watch a movie, just when we'd get totally wrapped up in it, he'd sneak up behind, grab us and yell boo.  Honestly -- pee in your pants moments.  I managed to get him back a few times.  :)


So how does this relate to books.  Can you get the same thrill out of books?  Oh yeah!  If they are done right.  I'm a visual learner - think in images and have a very active imagination.  When I read, if the writer really knows how to paint a story, I'll be totally drawn into the story, see it.  

What elements are considered hitchcockian?  According to the website Mythical-Buddies.com

• The cool platinum blonde (often a central figure of Hitchcock's films).
• The presence of a domineering mother in her child's life (e.g. Psycho).
• An innocent man accused (again used in many of Hitchcock's films).
• Restricting the action to a single setting to increase tension (e.g. Lifeboat, Rear Window, Rope).
• Characters who switch sides or who cannot be trusted.
• Tension building through suspense to the point where the audience enjoys seeing the character in a life-threatening situation, such as the windmill scene from Foreign Correspondent.
• Average people thrust into strange or dangerous situations, such as in North by Northwest or The Man Who Knew Too Much.
• Bumbling or incompetent authority figures, particularly police officers.
• Use of darkness to symbolise impending doom (dark clothing, shadows, smoke, etc.)
• Strong visual use of famous landmarks (Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, Forth Rail Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Albert Hall, British Museum, Piccadilly Circus, etc.)
• Mistaken identity, such as in North by Northwest and The Wrong Man.
• The use of a staircase as a motif for impending danger or suspense.
• Use of a macguffin or plot device that remains unexplained, such as the microfilm in North by Northwest.
• Referring to crime for mystery rather than explicitly showing it (e.g. Dial M For Murder, Alfred Hitchcock Presents)

Most of the movies Alfred Hitchcock produced were taken from books:  

• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
• Lifeboat was an unpublished short story by John Steinbeck
• Rear Window was based on Cornell Wolrich's 1942 short story  It Had To Be Murder
• Psycho from a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch
• Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith 
• Suspicion was based on Before the Fact by Francis Iles
• 39 Steps taken from the novel by John Buchan  
• Vertigo written by Boileau-Narcejac

Just to name a few.  It would be interesting to read the books and compare them with the movies.  I'll be doing that with 39 Steps.  What about you? 

What book have you read lately that has had Hitchcockian elements to it?  Have you watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie lately?   

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