I hate misplaced apostrophes.
Detective Sergeant James Hathaway on the Lewis series.
MacKenzie here. One moment while I feed Hamish, our resident hedgehog, his live grubs. I keep trying to convince him to try woodworms, but a hedgehog is really not an innovator. Unfortunately. There, now we can talk…
The number of patrons of our Library always jumps dramatically when the evenings start getting colder. Now, understand that all of the staff here are voracious readers, a fact not at all surprising to me. Mind you, there’s a fair number of dilettantes among the scholars: the Reference shelves aren’t as trafficked as I’d like to see. This lot has its collective head in the clouds and its collective arse on a faerie mound as often as not.
Of course, the overstuffed leather chairs near the well-stoked fireplace in the Robert Graves Memorial Reading Room invite long sittings on cold nights. And one can learn all one needs to know about what is going on around here, over a cup of tea and a tatty scone or two; there’s no finer room in the place for a bite and a gossip over High Tea than in the Library staff room that overlooks Oberon’s Wood. But I hope the real attraction is the books here. It had better be!
I decided to do all mysteries this time. So do read them, along with the music reviews Gary has rounded up, Jennifer’s creative use of rhubarb, Reynard’s pick of a Dylan’s song performed by a trio of legendary musicians and other reviews Gary found.
So how about a bevy of mysteries to consider reading on these oh soon to be Spring evenings? I’ve selected a few of the myriad ones we’ve done over the years (and one new SF mystery); you’ll find they cover everything from English Manor House mysteries to psychic detectives…
April leads off our reviews with an unusual novel from an SF writer doing his only thriller: ‘Dead Man’s Brother is a delight to read — Roger Zelazny’s language and characters seem right at home in this genre — and regrettably over all too fast at less than 300 pages. If only more such jewels were left to unearth…’
Cat has a review of Rita Mae Brown’s Let Sleeping Dogs Lie of which he says that ‘This series grows out of her passions for horses, hounds, and American fox hunting which show up frequently in her fiction and non-fiction works – she has for some time now been a member of a local fox hunt club. Please note that American hunt clubs do not kill the fox as part of their hunt but let it escape. Indeed they care for the foxes on their property by feeding them and making sure they get enough food in harsh winters.’
He also looks at the first novel in a now long running )fourteen books deep so far) mystery series: ‘Christopher Fowler’s Full Dark House is the best mystery set during the London Blitz of the early 1940s that I’ve ever read, bar none. It is also the best mystery set within the very peculiar world of the theater that I’ve read.
Craig looks at a noir novel from a beloved author: ‘In 1985, over twenty years since the publication of his last full-length work, 1962’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury reentered the novel-writing world with the release of Death is a Lonely Business, his foray into a genre dominated by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald — the crime novel.’
Elizabeth looked at a unique shared story narrative: ‘The Medieval Murderers (authors actually: Michael Jecks, Susanna Gregory, Bernard Knight, Ian Morson and Phillip Gooden), after pooling their talents on The Tainted Relic, have done so again with The Sword of Shame. As in Relic, each author contributes their own murder mystery, written within the time period of their choice and with their own characters, with the only catch being that each story revolves around the same object.’
The latest installment of Martha Wells’s The Murderbot Diaries is of course SF also a mystery of sorts. We have Gary’s review of System Failure. ‘Things are proceeding as they do in a Murderbot story, with our intrepid, shy, sarcastic hero providing security services and advice to a group of humans who seem, to Murderbot, determined to get themselves killed through curiosity or lack of planning or carelessness, or, most often, all three. But wait … there’s something we’re not being told. And we know it’s being kept from us because every so often Murderbot’s report file is interrupted by the word redacted just like that, in italics.’
Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg’s Once Upon a Crime definitely appeals to Grey: ‘Fairy tales had a major impact on shaping the imagination of folks long before they were first written down. And mystery fiction goes back many, many centuries as a genre. The themes that were the basis of the material shaped by such writers as the Brothers Grimm, Victor Hugo, and Hans Christian Anderson are also ideally suited to the mystery genre. The possibilities are endless, with questions such as “What makes you think that a wolf ate your grandmother?” being ripe for treatment as mysteries.’
Joel has a review of China Miéville’s intertwined cities as told in his Hugo winning The City & The City novel: ‘With acknowledgments to writers as diverse as Chandler, Kafka, and Kubin (to say nothing of Orwell), I don’t need to tell you this won’t be your typical detective story. But given this is Miéville, would you have really expected a typical anything?’
Black Is the Colour of My True-love’s Heart gets a loving look by Lenora: ‘Ellis Peters has a gift for titles. This aptly named book is the story of a fierce ballad-singer named Liri, who fell in love with a musician — then saw him cheating on her. It’s the tale of a venerable college of music-lore in danger from scandal. It’s the story of a misunderstood, brilliant young musician carrying a volatile secret. It’s all of these, and none of these, and it’s more than that. This is a book of music, of silence, of words; it has love, hate, and all their analogues. Myths and fact combine to wrap the storyline in a heavy cloak of authenticity. This is a story of high passion and cool deliberation; it dances through the morals and minds of another age and gives the reader a wide window into the world of folk music and ballad-singers.’
A.A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery, a classic English manor house novel that gets looked at by Lory: ‘The story is not really a “whodunit” — the “who” is pretty clear from the outset — the question is “how” and, even more, “why” he did it, and Milne keeps us guessing until the end. The plausibility of the solution is not one that would hold up to heavy scrutiny, but the pleasure lies not in the verisimilitude of the puzzle but in the ingenuity of its construction and unravelling, and the witty repartee among the characters.’
From the Rivers of London books by Ben Aaronovitch, Lis has a review of the audiobook of Whispers Under Ground. ‘When Peter Grant’s young cousin, Abigail Kamara, drags him and his colleague and fellow magical apprentice, Leslie May, to a railroad track running under a school playground, they do find the ghost. But the ghost is no threat, and doesn’t seem to be pointing to anything of concern now. So when the first case that lands on his desk on Monday is a man stabbed to death on the track at Baker Street Station, he puts the ghost aside, and sets about finding out why the British Transport Police officer, Sgt. Kumar, thinks there’s something odd about the case in a way that makes it the Folly’s business.
Lory says of another mystery series: ‘Before there was Lyra Belacqua, there was Sally Lockhart. Prior to creating the unforgettable Lyra of The Golden Compass and its blockbuster sequels, Philip Pullman was perhaps best known for his trio of books featuring another kick-ass female: a pistol-packing, checkbook-balancing, mystery-solving Victorian orphan. I adored these books as a teenager (like Sally herself, I was sixteen when the first volume was published), but hadn’t read them in years when the chance came to review them for GMR. Would they still be as compelling as I remembered, half a lifetime later?’
Lory also gives us a mystery set in a Britain that never existed: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.’
Richard offers us a bit of pulp in Manley Wellman’s The Complete John Thunstone: ‘he’s a familiar character with a few unique twists. A psychic detective in the old-school style, he’s wealthy, well-built, and as quick with his fists or his saint-forged swordcane as he is with his wits. Erudite, charming and nattily attired, he tangles repeatedly with the nefarious, seemingly unkillable sorcerer Rowley Thorne, a nemesis seeming cloned from bits of Aleister Crowley and Professor Moriarty. Where Thorne strives to unleash darkness on the world (and win the affections of the Countess Sharon Montesco by fair means or foul), Thunstone and his allies fight to hold the shadows at bay. As such, he fits comfortably within the psychic detective tradition; it’s Wellman’s skill at characterization that makes him stand out.’
Robert’s review of 9Tail Fox that whittles down the general genre label and gets to the heart of the story. ‘The book cover claims that Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s 9Tail Fox is ‘A novel of science fiction.’ Considering what science fiction has become over the past generation, that could well be valid — with some qualifications. I’m going to call it ‘slipstream’ in honor of its genre-bending tendencies and let it go at that.’ is it mystery? Read his review to see if it is.
Remember rhubarb? That huge tropical-leafed plant in your grandmother’s garden with red, red stems, and you chew the stems and your mouth goes dry for the next three days? Jennifer reviews Red Ass Rhubarb wine and gives us a recipe for dark chocolate mousse to eat with it.
Grey, in her review of the film Seabiscuit, says her eyes stayed perfectly dry whenever the visual and audio cues said she should be crying. ‘But I teared up every time I saw the horse(s) who play Seabiscuit take the track. It’s beautiful! The way horses run when they’re racing… there’s an emotion in it that isn’t human, but that I find heart-rending all the same.’
April was pleased with Jim Butcher and Ardian Syaf’s Welcome to the Jungle, a standalone story connected to a series of novels featuring the exploits of wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden. ‘Butcher’s usual snappy dialogue translates quite well into the comic format. Syaf’s art is clean and attractive and he does an excellent job of realizing Butcher’s characters, Harry in particular, right down to his trademark duster, pentacle pendant, blasting rod and staff.’
In new music, Gary reviewed the third album by one of his favorite groups, Nils Økland Band’s Gjenskinn. As with the Hardanger fiddler and his band’s earlier efforts, he says, this one presents Norwegian folk themes viewed through a multifaceted lens that incorporates jazz, classical, minimalism, and more. ‘All of these players are top-tier, in demand musicians in their fields, and all are adept at improvising within the rarified levels at which Økland composes and into which he leads them. The sense of focused joy in their performance is palpable.’
Gary also attended a show billed as Väsen and Hawktail, and figured the two bands would play separately. ‘But it turns out that Hawktail isn’t just some Americana group but in this case is the acoustic supergroup I formerly knew as Haas Kowert Tice, and they’re not opening for Väsen but playing along with them in a sort of super supergroup! It was the best night of music I’ve enjoyed since before the pandemic began four years ago.’
From the archives, Barb reviewed a bunch of Nordic fiddling CDs in her omni review of Alicia Björnsdotter Abrams’ Live at Stallet, Marianne Maans’ Marianne Maans, Majorstuen’s Jorun Jogga, Jan Beitohaugen Granli’s Lite Nemmar, and Kristine Heebøll’s Trio Mio. ‘With this group, the versatility of the violin is evident as we move from solo settings to a sextet and everything in between. Through all of it, the violin is the binding force. The geographical areas represented include Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.’
Christopher gave a mixed review to a couple of albums by Darrell Scott. ‘Live in NC works so much better than Theatre of the Unheard because the songs are given space, both terms of both the arrangements and timing. All of the songs but one go over the five minute mark, being allowed to unravel themselves slowly and powerfully, the rhythm section giving its best and Scott himself proving to be a talented and effective guitarist. His voice, much more relaxed, is fitting and there are times that he even shows potential to be a remarkably good singer.’
Gary liked Jolie Holland’s Springtime Can Kill You, which he said ‘ …is a 12-song cycle about love, its joys and disappointments. It opens with “Crush in the Ghetto,” a lovely and lilting love song with the sighing refrain of “look what you’ve done to me.” Lightly plucked electric guitar and lightly brushed drums accompany her singing, grounded by a low, thrumming bass and the distant soughing of horns and organ.’
Judith reviewed Dark Light from Waterson:Carthy, which at the time was Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy, and their daughter, fiddler Eliza Carthy, with accordionist Tim Van Eyken. ‘You would think that after all these albums, the little extended family would get boring, rest on their laurels, but actually Dark Light is quite fresh-sounding, a nice album with subtly interesting interpretations of the old songs.’
It’s not too early to start planning to attend Denmark’s annual Skagen Festival – which fans of Seaside Hotel may be interested in! Lars told us all about it. ‘On the last weekend in June every year Skagen hosts an international music festival with a folky direction. Fairport Convention, the Dubliners and Runrig have played the festival in recent years.’
Reynard found a really interesting song while he looking at the list of the latest additions to the Infinate Jukebox, our digital media sever. It’s the Dylan song, ’Highway 61 Revisited’ as performed this time by Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. You can hear it thisaway as it was performed on the 17th of November, 2000 at the Shrine Auditorium in Mountain View, California.
Dear Anna,
What’s New for the 28th of April: Tull, Ian MacDonald, Finnish candy and The Wicker Man
What’s that? A Maypole going up in the courtyard in front of the Green Man Pub? There can be no surer sign that summer’s ‘acumin’in!’ It looks like the denizens of the pub’s Neverending Session may be lured outside, along with staff members tucked away in offices in the most unlikely places.
Yes, spring has burst out all over, and some of the folks around here seem to be feeling the effects of the impending May Day. Who was that slipping into Oberon’s Wood just now? Well, spring is as good an excuse as any, I suppose.
We’ve got spring greens in our salad, and some of the winter vegetables roasting on the grill, along with some tender lamb steaks, braised with mint and garlic. Are we starting early? I suppose, but this is the Kinrowan Estate staff, after all.
So pull up a chair, fill your plate, get Reynard to pour you a pint, and feast your eyes on this week’s set of reviews.
So let’s have a look at novels by just one writer this time, this being Ian MacDonald as I am again reading his two Mars novel, Desolation Road and Ares Express, two of the best SF novels ever done. sp let’s start off with this novels…
So Chuck says that ‘I figure this much: Ian MacDonald’s Desolation Road starts with a green man crossing the desert, so this has to be the perfect book for Green Man Review. OK, the book calls him a “greenperson,” and the desert is on a Mars of the future, transformed by mankind’s effort, but you get the idea. Trailing this greenperson is Dr. Alimantando. He comes to a place along a railroad, where, almost accidentally, he settles and starts the community that he names Desolation Road. Soon after, more people begin arriving and, in short order, the community becomes a village, a city, a war zone and a ghost-town — all within 23 Martian years. That’s the story.’
Richard looks at the other Ian MacDonald novel set in the same world as Desolation Road and has a cautionary note as his first words: ‘You will know whether you will love or hate Ares Express long before you have finished the first chapter. The litmus test is very simple: what is your reaction to the name of the main character. If you find Sweetness Octave Glorious-Honeybun Assim Engineer 12th to be painfully twee or flat-out incomprehensible, then you will hate this book.’
Now let’s look at some other novels by him…
We’ll start off with Elizabeth’s look at this novel: ‘ Following his previous work, River of Gods, which depicted a near future India, Ian McDonald launches into a new country, a new culture, and a new mindset for his most recent novel, Brasyl, a dazzling, if somewhat warped, story involving three separate but somehow connected narratives that evolve across three different timelines.’
Gary says the Istanbul of Ian McDonald’s near-future novel The Dervish House is rather like what our own world could be very soon: ‘…hotter, more crowded, with an even starker divide between rich and poor, and teeming with technology. … It’s also brimming with Anatolian spirits that sometimes seem indistinguishable from the effects of nano-technology.’
This novel garners this comment from Grey: ‘Today, I picked up King of Morning, Queen of Day again just to refresh my memory before writing this review. After all, it doesn’t do to refer to a book’s main character as Jennifer if her name is actually Jessica. But my quick brush-up turned into a day-long marathon of fully-engaged, all-out reading. I’ve been on the edge of my seat, I’ve been moved to tears, I’ve laughed, I’ve marked passages that I want to quote.’
Another novel Gary looks at in this review is set in a richly imagined future India, Ian Mcdonald’s River of Gods. And it’s a bloody good read as well: ‘You can hold whole universes in your hand, between the covers. And as with those old faery tales, you need to pay attention to books like River of Gods. They contain important truths, hidden inside entertaining stories.’
Following up on this novel, is Cyberabad Days which Tammy notes is “author Ian McDonald returns to the technologically brilliant, parched and i-Dusty India of 2047, an India first visited in his award-winning novel River of Gods. The seven stories collected in this volume follow the rise and fall of this new India, from the luxurious, robot-monkey guarded palaces of the super-rich to the slums where the robotwallahs rule like tinpot gods.’
Cat R. reviews and finds it very sweet: ‘There is certainly both a determined sweetness and solidity to this Finnish candy (lakritsi in Finnish). The label tells me this is called “black gold” in Finland but a cursory scan of search engine results failed to corroborate this. It is an enigmatic candy that, despite the name, has no black licorice taste to it.’
Speaking of Beltane, Mia reviewed one of our favorite films, The Wicker Man. ‘This film is psychological thriller, detective story, action film, comedy, all of these things and more. Christopher Lee (Lord Summerisle) considers it the finest film that he ever made, and it has a cult following that shows no signs of lessening almost 30 years later. On the most visceral level, I would call The Wicker Man a film about the nature of faith.’
In new music, Gary reviews the electro folk EP Da Vo Gornitsa (Yes in the upper room) by the Russian group Leli. ‘Leli performs songs from the Belgorod, Kursk and Tver regions. The singing is polyphonic, by men and women mixed, and they’re accompanied by some unnamed traditional instruments that include flutes and zithers, plus some rock instruments like electric and acoustic guitars, horns, and drums, plus those synths. The vocal and instrumental parts are recorded on analog equipment.’
He also liked some new jazz. ‘A seasoned veteran working a date with talented younger artists is a trope almost as old as jazz music itself. It finds one of its most delightful recent expressions in this ecstatic album anchored by leading Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen, accompanied by Danish drummer Daniel Sommer and London guitarist Rob Luft. As Time Passes is a thoroughly enjoyable guitar trio recording by three players in obvious synchronization.
Tatiana reviews Sukha-khur, a new Russian world music album from a musician who performs as Zor. ‘The musician Zor, having been on stage for more than 30 years, has a fine sense of national music, and at the same time, his work is very original and filled with deep philosophy. Although Zor was originally a guitarist, he has now mastered the two–string suukha-hur perfectly. But in the album Suukha-hur the musician went even further. The album is based on an instrument with only one string and the musician’s own voice. However, with this, he creates a truly magical sound!’
From the archives, Chuck found the Funks Grove album Albuminium Blue hit ‘n’ miss, but overall he liked it. ‘Lojo Russo’s smoky singing sets the tone and the band, especially, Eric Penrotty’s penny whistle playing, more than hold up their end. Borrowing one more time from my review of The EP — since it’s just as correct for Albuminium Blue — “for solid, smoky folk-blues, this is one great group.” ‘Martin Carthy and friends in the band Brass Monkey lead off their album Flame of Fire with the old chestnut “The Swinton May Song,” David tells us. I have never heard an album Martin Carthy was involved with that didn’t yield treasures. Brass Monkey’s Flame of Fire is no exception. Musical, danceable, foot-tappable, it harkens back to the past to make one appreciate the long history of folk music.
Gary was enthusiastic about the 2006 release from Jolie Holland, Springtime Can Kill You. ‘Holland owned me from the first time I heard her sing “The Littlest Birds” on her home-recorded first release, 2003’s Catalpa. Through 2004’s Escondida to this new release, Springtime Can Kill You, Holland’s music follows a true trajectory of her own design.’
Jack found Jethro Tull’s Songs From the Wood to be right in his wheelhouse. ‘Now, this is not your typical countryside, as our narrator will encounter green men, a huntress who may or may not be the leader of a Wild Hunt, druids, mad whistlers, and maidens who are certainly no longer chaste by the time the song ends. Ian is indulging his interest in folk motifs in a very serious manner.’
Lars had high prise for an album by Scottish folksters Jack Tamson’s Bairns. Rare, he says, is something special. ‘Maybe not quite another “The Lasses Fashion,” but almost. Had they been 25 years younger we would have hailed them as the new messiahs of Scottish folk, now we just get proof that these lads know their craft and that they still can deliver the goods.’
Mia was surprised to find she enjoyed Sons of Somerled by New Age musician Steve McDonald. ‘Generally I am not a fan of New Age music, which so often begins with a grand design and rapidly deteriorates into plinky woo-woo pseudo-ethnic background noise. Sons of Somerled is not of this ilk. Though the most obvious instrument on this album is the synthesizer and some of the traditional instrument sounds are actually done with keyboards, McDonald has done a truly wonderful job of capturing the feeling of traditional Scottish music.’
Tim was disappointed by Fling’s The Wild Swans At Coole. ‘With a name like Fling, you would expect something fast, wild, and maybe a bit out of control. You’ll find none of that here. This Dutch band favors a mellower sound, with lush, almost orchestral arrangements. Evertjan’t Hart’s uilleann pipes strain at the leash sometimes, but never quite break loose.
I personally have a keen liking for the Jethro Tull of the Sixties and early Seventies, which is why you’re getting a cut off the album Jack reviewed above. The cut I’ve selected is ‘The Hunting Girl’, a fine story about boy meets girl riding horse and … Oh just go give it a listen! It’s a soundboard recording done over forty five years ago.