The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The plucky young chemist with a nascent obsession with death is back in action. The case is a little less personal for Flavia de Luce this time, but that doesn't stop her from jumping in whole hog to get to the bottom of it.

Flavia runs into a couple of traveling performers with some car trouble and before you know it, she's got them some help--and a gig. While she hangs around the TV star and his assistant, she finds herself surrounded by some of her town's darker history and then face to face with a murder. And Flavia being Flavia, she can't resist sticking her nose in and making sure all the knots are untangled--particularly the ones adults are ignoring, despite them being painfully obvious to her.

We get less of Flavia's sisters (and the rest of the household, come to think of it) in this installment--but when they're around, their impact is greater. Clearly, as this series continues, there's going to be some serious drama on the homefront with some major implications for the de Luce family, I hope Bradley tackles that quickly, the foreshadowing's getting old quickly.

Unlike with so many other amateur sleuths (particularly juveniles), it's nice to see that her reputation and track record are acknowledged by some in the community -- which is both a help and a hindrance, I hope to see more of that in the future.

My only major quibble with this installment is that it takes far too long to set the main action of the novel up--in a 348 page mystery novel, you'd better get to the central crime before page 150 or so. Unless you've got a heroine like Flavia to focus on, I can't imagine being patient enough to wait that long to get the ball rolling.

Another fun (occasionally hilarious) read, with a mystery satisfyingly twisty, with just enough red herrings to get you through it. Highly recommended if you've read the first in the series.



View all my reviews

Misc. Things about Books

• We're all more than familiar with the stereotype of the socially awkward bookworm (heck, it's practically my whole identity for huge chunks of my life), but some recent research suggests that just might not be so. In fact, those who read a lot of fiction might be more empathetic than others (gotta say, that's long been my theory, glad to see that I was probably right). (h/t:Lifehacker)
• This has been linked like crazy all over, but author extraordinaire Michael Chabon has a great essay out about The Phantom Tollbooth (taken from his introduction to the forthcoming 50^th anniversary edition). Loved, loved, loved that book (and re-re-re-re-re-reread it as a kid). A couple years ago I read it with my kids and fell in love again--thanks to Mr. Chabon, I have to go read it again.
• I'm torn about this. I'm a huge, huge fan of Robert B. Parker, and the thought of not getting new Spenser and Stone volumes each year depresses me, but the news that the Parker estate and his publisher have hired new authors to continue his two main series (thankfully there's no talk about more Cole/Hitch books). If Joan's comfortable with it, it seems wrong for us fans to be naysayers. But, my initial reaction's more like what Andrew Wheeler tweeted, "V.C. Andrews, move over: sharecropping to begin over Robert Parker's barely-cold corpse." (h/t:Harry Connolly's feed). But, hey, it's not like Parker treated his stuff as much more than a commodity anyway lately (and honestly, I liked some of the choices that the new Stone writer made with the movies more than Parker made). I do know I'll be grabbing them up from the library as soon as humanly possible--and hopefully I'll like 'em enough to head to a bookstore after that.

A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield/After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel by Sophie Littlefield

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I knew that crime fiction would come up with someone to dethrone Lisbeth Salander as reigning Queen Bad*ss, but I never woulda figured it'd be someone like Stella Hardesty. Sure, Lisbeth could take Stella in a steel cage match--but in an extended campaign, that little girl wouldn't stand a chance, Stella'd kick her Asperger's all the way back to Sweden.

After years of spousal abuse, Stella finally had enough and killed him. Some years later, Stella augments her income from her sewing supply store by helping women in similar situations by making their spouses, boyfriends, etc. To say that her methods are unorthodox would be an understatement of the highest order.

The case at the center of this book seems pretty straightforward--the jerk in question seems to need (and respond to) some encouragement to stick to the behavior plan that Stella's lined out for him--like she expected, but lo and behold, he ends up kidnapping his ex's kid.

Things go out of control from there.

Given the subject matter, this book obviously goes to some pretty dark places. Yet this story is told with a lot of wit and charm--a few laughs, too (particularly as a mutual attraction grows between Stella and the new Sheriff). It doesn't take long at all to really like Stella and get invested in her crusade, as well as this case.

Just can't wait to get my hands on the sequel.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


(really 4.5 stars, if that were possible)



This should make up for my less than glowing review of Vaughn's last book (the fun Steel). This is the best novel Carrie Vaughn has published--and that's saying something.



Beyond paraphrasing the book description, or spoiling the whole thing, I can't think of anything else to say.



Just read it.



View all my reviews

Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe

Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'll be honest with you, I have only the vaguest of memory of what actually happened in the first Eddie LaCrosse novel (The Sword-Edged Blonde), and only somewhat better recall about the second (Burn Me Deadly). That's a reflection on the amount of stuff I've read in that time, and is in no way a reflection on Bledsoe. I do have a very clear recollection about what both books told me about Alex Bledsoe's talent and that I enjoyed them a lot. I'm equally certain that Dark Jenny won't suffer from that same fading from memory/excuse to reread them. This one is gonna stay with me for awhile.

Essentially, this book is a variation of an Arthurian story--ideal king, queen rumored to be less than ideal, noble knight corps with a few rotten apples thrown in, a wizard figure, wicked half-sister, and a whole lotta intrigue--with a few unique twists of Bledsoe's own thrown in for good measure. Not a sour note to be found here--some notes that were hard to listen to, sure, but...okay, there's a metaphor that went awry. I was trying to say that yes, there were things that were less pleasant than others--this book goes to some dark, nasty places--but it all worked well.

We get this Arthurian tale via an extended flashback--in the middle of a nasty winter storm, with nothing else to occupy the attention of his neighbors, Eddie receives an interesting package. One so interesting, there has to be a great tale that goes along with it--which he ends up telling to the crowd at his favorite tavern (with only the tiniest of breaks to remind us that this is all in Eddie's past). By making this all an extended flashback, Bledsoe is able to give us a slightly different version of Eddie--one on the way to being the guy we've seen in the last two books. It also gives him the excuse to have a great femme fatale to grab Eddie's attention without having to write around his lovely lady.

A great, riveting fantasy noir. Can't wait for the next one already. A decent jumping on point for those new to the series, and a great third installment for those who've been around for awhile.



View all my reviews

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't know why so many of the reviews/recommendations I've read for this book compare the hero, Flavia de Luce, to Lisbeth Sanders. I guess it's because they're both not your typical female mystery protagonist. The comparison doesn't seem fair -- I know which one I'd like my sons to marry (seriously, if she has a granddaughter...). On the other hand, I know which one I'd like walking home with my daughter after dark, too.

Anyway, I need to get back on task, this, by gum, was a fun read with an utterly charming hero that deserves all the accolades and awards it's getting.

Our 11-year-old hero (no, this is not a kid's book [not that there's anything inappropriate for anyone who's made it through Rowling here]) is a budding, self-taught, chemist with a curious mind and a stubborn streak a mile wide. Her family life is a mess -- but in a charming, amusing, English countryside way -- but our plucky gal has managed to get through it pretty much intact and for the better.

So when she discovers a body on her lawn, yet the police shoo her away from the crime scene and dismiss her, she starts her own investigation. She's helped early on by a fact or two the police didn't obtain from her, and some that she kept to herself out of spite. Her father's arrest for the murder just adds fuel to her fire and becomes determined not only to solve the case before the police but to make them eat a good-sized helping of crow.

Probably not much of a spoiler to say that's exactly what she does, because the book's not about that foregone conclusion, but in watching Flavia do that while making less than flattering observations about her older sisters.

Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

The Sentry by Robert Crais

The Sentry by Robert Crais

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So the third Joe Pike novel starts off with him gassing up his Jeep and noticing that across the street that a couple of gang-bangers are up to no good at a sandwich shop. Pike decides to intervene, roughs up the ruffians little (well, by Pike's standards). The shop owner isn't grateful, but his niece sure is.

Pike senses an instant connection with her, the kind of connection that he hasn't felt in a long, long time. Where some guys will do something to show off for a gal, try to impress them, Pike decides to get the gang to back off what what seems to be a straightforward protection racket. And it seems to work, very easily.

Which of course, is where things go very, very badly for all involved. The woman and her uncle go missing, so Pike sets off to find her, rescue her from whatever she needs rescuing from and brings Elvis along for the ride. A twisty, nothing is as it seems (at least twice), ride.

More than maybe any other Pike/Elvis or Elvis/Pike novel, this one is about the friendship between these two men. Yeah, there's the action, the mystery, the bullets (MINOR SPOILER: far, far fewer than we've come accustomed to Pike using), and so on. But at the core, this is about the bond tying Pike and Elvis together.

Told in Crais' (sadly) now-typical shifting perspectives, the action, once it starts, doesn't relent. I flew through this book without realizing it. The only thing that kept me from finishing it in one setting was forcing myself to put it down so I could get a few winks before work. The best of the Pike books so far, better than a couple of Elvis books, too.

Perfect book for immersing yourself into to get out of a crappy day.

Waiting for the next book from Crais, if only he could write faster...



View all my reviews

A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke

A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Elmore Leonard famously quotes Steinbeck saying, "Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story."

I sincerely wish Burke would follow Leonard's urging to get rid of the hooptedoodle, or as he puts it later, "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

There's a whole lot in here (and most of this series) that sounds like writing. Once you take all that away, there's not a lot in this book. Horribly thin plot, from the get go everyone knows who did what and pretty much why, there's just a few hundred pages of wheel spinning, hooptedoodle, and moments intended to be tense that really aren't.

Not sure if I'll keep going with Burke





View all my reviews

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'll be honest, I'm sticking with this series primarily because of the author's reputation, though Eight Million Ways to Die did impress me. I was fairly dismayed when I started this book and it looked like all the progress that Scudder made during his outing was tossed out without explanation or comment. A relapse, or backslide, etc. would've been acceptable if Block had done it right (obviously), but to just start off the book without noting that he'd fallen off the wagon was just horrible.



Thankfully, he didn't waste too much time before he had Scudder inform us that this was an extended flashback. That done, we could see Scudder not at his alcoholic worst, just pretty bad--probably before the first book in the series, now that I think of it. Then he brought us back to the present at the conclusion of the novel, making the whole exercise mean something. What made me ready to toss the whole series at the beginning, in the end made a pretty effective novel. It's not a trick that he can use more than once, I think--and my gut says Block wouldn't try.



As far as the mysteries that make up Scudder's cases? Marginally interesting, at best. I've yet to be really impressed by the whodunit aspect of Block's books, it's how Scudder interacts with the suspects/victims/survivors that makes them interesting--especially as he interacts with himself. But one of the two mysteries here is about as strong as he gets, and the other is about as weak as he gets. So...eh, whatever.



If you like Matt Scudder, this book will satisfy you. If you've never encountered him before, I'm not sure this is the book to start with.



View all my reviews

I Know You're Dead and All, But . . .

Dear Stieg Larsson,

Until you become a much, much better writer than you are, you really need to get to the hook earlier than page 245 of 640. Dude, that's 40% of your book.

Just sayin',

Me

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

I don't think I've the original context of the remark, but I've seen it often enough that I don't doubt the veracity. But at some point Dennis Lehane characterized his Kenzie/Gennaro series as the kind of books that a guy in his twenties would write, as an explanation for why he'd moved on. Now, first of all, I don't blame a guy for not wanting to get stuck in a rut, to only write one thing his entire life (no matter how good he is at it). But that always struck me as an uncharacteristically dumb thing to say. What's that say about 1. the authors outside of their 20s who are writing the same kind of thing and 2. those of us out of our 20s who like to read that kind of thing.

Frankly, I thought that Shutter Island was more like something a guy in his 20s would write (particularly the ending) than anything else he wrote.

But hey, it's his opinion, and he's entitled to it -- as long as he writes things more interesting than The Given Day (which, to be fair, I haven't been able to get too far into, it's fully possible that if I'd read another two pages, I'd have loved it).

Still, imagine my surprise when I learned that a new Kenzie/Gennaro book was coming out.

It's a lighter read than the previous five books in the series, but it still carries that trademark Lehane punch. This book sure seems like a self-conscious attempt to stress the fact that our heroes, like the author, aren't in their twenties. They've aged, matured, get tired more easily want nothing to do with the violence that so marked their younger years. They're not the only ones who aged, Amanda McCready, the kidnapped girl from Gone, Baby, Gone is missing again, and again, he aunt calls upon Kenzie to find her.

By the end, Lehane takes his characters to an interesting (and predictable place) that probably closes the door to future installments -- not unlike what Riordan did to Tres Nevarre and what Koryta may have done to his PIs. I hope it's not the last I see of these two, but can understand why it would be.

In the end, a satisfying read. Better than many PI novels that came out this year, but not as good as it could've been.

Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith

sorry for the rushed nature of this one, but I wanted to get something up today and didn't have time to polish it right.

You just have to love this concept. An illiterate cowboy in 1890's Montana hears about Sherlock Holmes due to the republication of some of Watson's accounts in American periodicals. He's drawn by what Holmes does and sets about getting his hands on all of Watson's reports he can. And then he makes his brother read them to him over and over and over so he can learn how to do what Holmes does. At some point he thinks he's learned enough to start, and puts himself in a situation to put his skills to the test. And presto, you've got yourself a novel.

So much for the concept--how was the execution? Ehhh, not as good. It was dull, downright slow, filled with a bunch of cliched Western types. It was interesting enough to keep me reading, but man, did it get sloggy in parts. I'm glad I persevered, because the conclusion was satisfying (even if it's pace was 200% of what preceded it) and the central characters were amusing.

These brothers offer a great take on Holmes/Watson, and I'm sure I'll get to the sequels pretty soon. Hoping that now that the series has been set up, the next ones will pick up a little faster.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I honestly don't know why it took me so long to get around to reading this little international phenomenon, it wasn't because I didn't have access, my sister loaned it to me months ago. Something just kept me from it, maybe it was fear of the bandwagon, who knows. It certainly has a strong following, almost Tha Da Vinci Code-like, more than one person saw me carrying it and had to talk about it, which never happens to me.

The one thing that we all agreed on was that it started slowly. Like cold molasses slow. It was either brave or foolhardy of Larsson to start off his book with a detailed and plodding description of a financial crime. Hardly the kind of thing that sucks you in. Not only that, that type of crime doesn't seem to match up with the cited statistics about assaults on females in Sweden that are so prominent. When, after more than 200 pages into the novel, when we finally do get our first assault on a female, it comes across as perfunctory.

The book follows the path of 2 protagonists--Mikael Blomkvist, a financial reporter with a superiority complex, and Lisbeth Salander, a young investigator for a security company whose talents far exceed her appearance and age. Blomkvist is in the middle of some legal trouble, which has forced him out of the news biz for awhile, so he takes a job researching a decades-old missing-persons case for an aged, reclusive industrialist. Salander's dealing with her own legal and personal issues, and apparently the near universal belief that horribly thin girls with tattoos and piercings are stupid and unreliable.

The book plods along, almost but not quite capturing my interest until soon after obligatory (yet unnecessary for either plot or character development) assault that the two finally meet, and then--finally the plot begins to pick up. The two join forces and quickly uncover clues that lay hidden in plain sight since the fateful day when the industrialist's niece disappeared. These lead them to the trail of a serial killer.

Larsson gets both the investigator and the reporter to discover the killer's identity at about the same time, when, naturally they are miles away from each other. This leads to both being in some kind of jeopardy. But honestly, I didn't once feel any tension, it was clear that the jeopardy would be thwarted without permanent damage of any kind being inflicted.

Things were tied up in a tidy, and somewhat satisfactory bow, and the further along in the novel, the better things moved. But there's really little to recommend the book on. Blomkvist reads a lot of detective fiction, usually dropping the name of the author and title along the way. There are at least two mentions of a Val McDermid novel. And as many problems as I have with her stuff, it's a darn shame that Larsson didn't pay more attention to her, he could've learned how to make even an obvious conclusion not seem entirely forgone, and with enough tension and suspense to spare. The "Thriller" label that's applied to this book is very misplaced.

Why bother to finish it? Curious to see what all the fuss was about, really. Also, the Salandar character was intriguing enough. Which is why, incidentally, I started the sequel.

Odds 'n Ends Reviews

Here's a handful of things I've been meaning to blog about, but the posts would be very small, or I can't just find the time. So, in no particular order:

TV

• Rubicon. This show is like the anti-Damages, yet it's so similar. Like Damages, you have no idea what's really going on most of the time (and you're okay with that), you're pretty sure you're not really going to know if it's worth it until the last episode (but it probably is), it's absolutely riveting, and it'll make you paranoid, seeing conspiracies everywhere. On the other hand, it's not like Damages--it's told sequentially (not that it's any help figuring out what's happening), it's slow. Glacially slow. People stare out the window and think. People stare at paper and think. People do crosswords. And you can't take your eyes off it. Seriously good stuff. I hear AMC is running all the episodes this weekend for those who've missed out on the first half of the season. It's worth the try.
  
• Mad Men, I didn't get the appeal of Season 1. I still didn't get it for most of Season 2 (but kept on just to see what the fuss was about, and 'sides, I needed something to watch at work). But then something--don't ask me what--clicked with me, and I can't get enough of this world. Well, most of it. If Betty Draper vanished into thin air, I'd be absolutely okay. Great, great show.
  
• Monk it feels weird not spending time with Natalie, Leland, Randy and Monk any more during the summer.
  
• Sons of Anarchy comes roaring back next week and I cannot wait!!!
  

Books

• Scott Pilgrim 6: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour. Not the way I'd have ended the epic, but I can't complain. This series was a real treat to read. If you've watched the movie, or have seen the commercials and thought you might want to watch the movie, you need to check out the source.
  
• Richard Yancey -- I've spent a lot of time with Mr. Yancey over the last month or so. Frodo and I have worked through his YA series about the last descendant of Lancelot, the unlikeliest of heroes--Alfred Kropp, and I've read the first three installments in his Highly Effective Detective series. Both feature "heroes" that don't fit the mold for their genres (similarly at times), who nevertheless get the job done. Both are fun, both are well-told/plotted/paced, and both are far more satisfying than you'd think from reading the cover blurbs. Can't wait for the more from this guy.
  

Movies

• Greenberg/The Runaways. I just don't get it. Some of the acting in these is great. I'm glad to see Ben Stiller can act as well as he did in Greenberg, and it's always great to see Merritt Weaver. Kristin Stewart rocked (sorry, couldn't resist) in The Runaways, and it hardly needs to be said that Dakota Fanning was great. And most everyone else in both films was just about as good. But--UGH. Both were such monumental wastes of time. Is there a word for the opposite of Gestalt? If so, it's what describes these. If not, there should be.
  
• Cop Out--not Kevin Smith's greatest movie, but so funny once Tracey Morgan was reigned in. Bruce Willis should do more comedy.
  
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World because of time/money, I've been to the theater 5 times this year--2.5 times mostly as a chaperone/chauffeur. I'd be 100% willing to go another 5 times just to watch this movie. Sure, it's not absolutely faithful to the source material--but it captures the essence and got the story to fit in a decent runtime, so I can't complain. So much fun. So much heart. Why isn't this a hit?
  

Music

• The Reason Why by Little Big Town. I've only had this album for three days, and have listened to it maybe 4 times, but it already feels like an old favorite I can turn to and relax/think with. These guys are too good to be so small.
  

What is Truth? - Quote of the Day

"...Like the whole concept of truth, Mr. Hinton. You know what the most haunting question in the Bible is? When Pilate says to Jesus, 'What is the truth?' You know, is it empirical and objective, or it is all relative and subjective? Is my truth your truth? Or is truth something outside both of us, immutable as the atomic weight of lithium? When you think about it, all science, religion, philosophy, morals, everything, turns on Pilate's question. What is the truth?"

Now, standing on the corner of Church and Henley, waiting for the light to change, Hinton said, slightly out of breath, "All right, then. I'll bite. What is the truth, Mr. Ruzak?"

"Boy," I said. "You got me."

- Richard Yancey
The Highly Effective Detective Plays the Fool

Too Many Women by Rex Stout

Alright, once again, picking up after a pointless break in a surely vain attempt to catch up with my little project, this time looking at the classic, Too Many Women. Like The Silent Speaker, this one gets re-read more than others in my collection, and is still fun to read every time.

The president of the large engineering supply corporation, Naylor-Kerr, comes to Wolfe with an interesting problem. During a recent survey of departments about employee turn-over, an employee of the company is listed as "murdered." Which is a pretty good reason to no longer come to work, but the idea that one of their employees has been murdered (particularly when the police think he was just a victim of a hit-and-run) is a bit too scandalous for such a fine and upstanding company, and could Mr. Wolfe please rid them of such rumors? Wolfe takes the case, mostly to get Archie out of the office for awhile--they're getting on each other's nerves and could use some space. So Archie poses as a personnel consultant and goes undercover.

The first thing Archie notices on his arrival at the offices is that there are a whole lotta women (clerical staff, on the whole) working at this company (see quotation below), enough to ensure that he's got plenty of incentive to stick around and do a thorough investigation. He's not there too long before he begins to find evidence that the murder accusation might be well founded after all--and before you know it, there's another body (shock!). The first victim was some sort of lothario, who didn't like to go far for his pray, so the suspect list is pretty large. Archie bounces around from attractive female suspect to attractive female suspect, questioning, wining and dining, and all other sorts of verbs, until his boss puts all the pieces together.

This is a breezy novel with plenty to recommend it in matters of style, humor, fun characters and plot quirks. Whether it be the petty bickering between the two stars, the patter between Archie and the women, or Archie having to put up with one individual's health food nuttiness; the interplay between various characters is definitely more than enough to draw the reader in.

I can't help but note, each time I read this, how much books like this disprove many of the assumptions we have about this time period--particularly those propogated by groups wanting to imagine the mid-20^th century as some sort of moral oasis

I could reproduce pages and pages of Archie's descriptions of the staff of Kerr-Naylor to give Stout a chance to strut his stuff, but will leave them to their proper context, just listing two here for a sample:

     ...as far as space went, it was a room about the size of the Yankee Stadium, with hundreds of desks and girls at them. Along each side of that area, the entire length, was a series of partitioned offices, with some of the doors closed and some open. No stock of anything was in sight anywhere.
     One good glance and I liked the job. The girls. All right there, all being paid to stay right there, and me being paid to move freely about and converse with anyone whomever, which was down in black and white. Probably after I had been there a couple of years I would find that close-ups revealed inferior individual specimens, Grade B or lower in age, contours, skin quality, voice, or level of intellect, but from where I stood at nine-fifty-two Wednesday morning it was enough to take your breath away. At least half a thousand of them, and the general and overwhelming impression was of--clean, young, healthy, friendly, spirited, beautiful and ready. I stood and filled my eyes, trying to look detached. It was an ocean of opportunity.

She was not at all spectacular...but there were two things about her that hit you at a glance. You got the instant impression that there was something beautiful about her that no one but you would understand and no one but you could help her out of. If that sounds too complicated for a two-second-take, okay, I was there and I remember it distinctly.

The Silent Speaker by Rex Stout

With The Silent Speaker, we've returned to novels in our tour through the Corpus, the War is over and our heroes, like the rest of the country, are adjusting to that fact. In the U.S., part of that has to do with price regulation and battles between governmental agencies and private businesses. In this case we have the Bureau of Price Regulation (BPR) and the National Industrial Association (NIA).

Now, I'll be honest (and I realize this makes me a horrid person), this part of U.S. History makes my eyes glaze over, so I can't say for certain how much the relationships depicted between the two entities are accurate. But this feels real (names of agencies/groups/companies being changed, naturally), and a little bit of reading that I've done about The Silent Speaker seems to support that. In years to come, Stout will not tweak details like that (The Doorbell Rang), but it's more than understandable when he and other authors take that tack.

The head of the BPR (Cheney Boone) was scheduled to speak before a gathering of the NIA--a hostile audience, to be sure. And it does not appear that his address was going in anyway to endear him or the rest of his McCoys to the NIA Hatfields. But a funny thing happened on the way to the podium--well, not funny at all really, but that's the phrase. Someone took a monkey wrench to his cranium while he was backstage rehearsing. The BPR people and the Boones begin accusing someone--anyone--with ties to the NIA, the NIA are certain that it's all a front designed to bring public sentiment against him.

The police are soon stymied and have to deal with enough political pressure to prevent them from doing any real work. Wolfe's patience is tried (and then some) by the bickering between and within the various camps. In addition to the vitriol flying all over, there are enough red herrings to keep things too confusing for the case to progress much.

In this book, at last, our cast of regulars is completed with the introduction of newspaperman extraordinaire, Lon Cohen. He doesn't get a lot of space in this appearance, but that's remedied in the next couple of books (and many future ones).

This is really one of the gems in the series, and one I return to more often than many others. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but all cylinders are firing this time out, and not a false or ill-advised step is made (by the author anyway). This is a great novel to serve as an entry (or re-entry) point to the series for someone not sure where to start.

And now, for our regularly scheduled collection of witticisms and other notable quotes:

As usual, he didn't life an eye when I entered. Also as usual, I paid no attention to whether he was paying attention.

     "Satisfactory, Archie," [Wolfe] muttered.
     Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It's childish.

[Wolfe] pushed the button, savagely, for beer. He was as close to being in a panic as I remembered seeing him.

I looked at the wall clock. It said two minutes to four. I looked at my wrist watch. It said one minute to four. In spite of the discrepancy it seemed safe to conclude that it would soon be four o'clock.

     I had made a close and prolonged study of Wolfe's attitude toward women. The basic fact about a woman that seemed to irritate him was that she was a woman; the long record showed not a single exception; but form there on the documentation was cockeyed. If woman as woman grated on him you would suppose that the most womany details would be the worst for him, but time and again I have known him to have a chair placed for a female so that his desk would not obstruct his view of her legs, and the answer can't be that his interest is professional and he reads character from legs, because the older and dumpier she is the less he cares where she sits. It is a very complex question and some day I'm going to take a whole chapter for it. Another little detail: he is much more sensitive to women's noses than he is to men's. I have never been able to detect that extremes or unorthodoxies in men's noses have any effect on him, but in women's they do. Above all he doesn't like a pug, or in fact a pronounced incurve anywhere along the bridge.
     Mrs. Boone had a bug, and it was much too small for the surroundings. I saw him looking at it as he leaned back in his chair. So he told her in a gruff and inhospitable tone, barely not boorish...

Not Quite Dead Enough by Rex Stout

The ninth installment in the series always leaves me feeling...eh. It's not like I don't enjoy parts of it, but it's not Stout at his best. A lot of it feels forced actually, as if Stout felt compelled to write something in support World War II and just couldn't find a way to work it into the series naturally.

Let me say upfront, I don't blame Stout for falling a little flat here--while he wrote this he was working a lot to support FDR and the war effort through various means. If you haven't read McAleer's biography of Stout, I'd highly recommend it, particularly over this period. It makes sense that he wasn't at his best here.

Like Black Orchid, Not Quite Dead Enough is made up of two novellas. In the first, we are introduced to Major Archie Goodwin, of Army intelligence. He's sent to NYC to recruit his once and future boss to the effort. Wolfe's far more interested in joining the infantry (see the quote below), and has given up the detective business and his assorted comforts and indulgences in order to train. The description of his training and his appearance at this time are worth the effort alone.

Archie uses a case that his long-time friend, Lily Rowan, was trying to get him involved with to rekindle Wolfe's dormant detective skills as a way to move him from his focus on the infantry to intelligence. The case isn't that interesting, really, but there are some fun characters.

The second novella, Booby Trap shows us the Major acting as Wolfe's handler while he acts as a civilian consultant to the intelligence service. In this particular instance, Wolfe gets to play to his strength, dealing with a couple of murders of Intelligence officers investigating some fraudulent arms sales. I find it disappointing, really, but I do read it occasionally.

My lukewarm feeling toward these stories carries over to the quotes I jotted down:

Not Quite Dead Enough
[Wolfe speaking] "I am going to kill some Germans. I didn't kill enough in 1918."

Wolfe pronounced a word. It was the first time I had ever heard him pronounce an unprintable word, and it stopped me short.

Booby Trap
"Indeed," I said. That was Nero Wolfe's word, and I never used it except in moments of stress, and it severely annoyed me when I caught myself using it, because when I look in a mirror I prefer to see me as is, with no skin grafted from anybody else's hide, even Nero Wolfe's.

[Wolfe speaking] "Archie. I submit to circumstances. So should you."

Black Orchids by Rex Stout

Black Orchids is the ninth installment in the Wolfe/Goodwin series, and the first to not be a novel. Instead, it's a collection of two novellas, one that shares it's name with the book and Cordially Invited to Meet Death. For whatever reason, I kept putting this one off for years--until 2 years ago, I think. What a stupid, stupid move. These are not Stout's best work--in character, complexity, theme or whatever--but they are just about the most entertaining entries in the corpus. I literally LOL'ed more than once the first time I read them, and a couple of times on this second read as well.

It's no mistake that the book shares the title with the first novella--it's the superior entry, a funny, light romp until it stops and becomes one of the grimmer entries in the corpus. Wolfe throughout is childish, peevish, calculating and, eventually, ruthless. Archie is, well, Archie.

Lewis Hewitt, a fellow orchid fanatic and sometimes ally of Wolfe's has produced a new hybrid that Wolfe is very jealous of--some black orchids (not the most subtle of titles), and is showing them at New York's annual flower show. Naturally disinclined to attend himself, Wolfe sends Archie down to view them, take notes on them, etc. Archie indulges him in this, fully expecting Wolfe to try something to get them.

Another exhibit at the show features a couple acting out a summer picnic, the man is okay, and the woman is so striking that Archie immediately starts calling her his fiance. Judging by the crowd that assembles at the time each day where the man naps and she washes her feet, Archie's not the only one smitten.

Now is the time where I mention that as this is a Wolfe story, someone gets killed. Hewitt is tangentially associated with killing, enough to scare him into being open to some pressure from Wolfe regarding the hybrids.

Things remain lighter for a little while, but then as I said they get dark and morally murky. Even so, a rollicking good read that ends too soon.

The second story, has it's moments, too. Bess Huddleston, a party planner for the obscenely rich, is being blackmailed and comes to Wolfe for help. Years before, Huddleston had insulted Wolfe's dignity by trying to hire him to play detective at a party (she ended up settling for Inspector Cramer), nevertheless, Wolfe takes the case and sends Archie to her home to investigate.

Huddleston's home and the inhabitants thereof are some of the strangest a reader will encounter anywhere--as is the method of murder and attempted murder that Archie stumbles into.

Unlike Black Orchids, this one was just short enough to remain entertaining. Oh, I should mention that both Fritz and Wolfe end up taking guidance in the kitchen from a (female!!) suspect--that alone makes this worth the time.

Lines that struck me as insightful/funny/revealing/whatever

from Black Orchids
I do not deny that flowers are pretty, but a million flowers are not a million times prettier than one flower. Oysters are good to eat, but who wants to eat a carload?

[Archie speaking to Wolfe] Will you kindly tell me," I requested, "why the females you see at a flower show are the kind of females who go to a flower show? Ninety per cent of them? Especially their legs? Does it have to be like that? Is it because, never having any flowers sent to them, they have to go there in order to see any?"

[Rose Lasher speaking of Archie] "That ten-cent Clark Gable there that thinks he's so slick he can slide uphill"

And Archie's reaction: ...her cheap crack about me being a ten-cent Clark Gable, which was ridiculous. He simpers, to begin with, and to end with no once can say I resemble a movie actor, and fi they did it would be more apt to be Gary Cooper than Clark Gable.

from Cordially Invited to Meet Death
[Wolfe speaking] There is nothing in the world, as indestructible as human dignity."

For a cop to move persons from the house, any person whatever, with or without a charge or a warrant, except at Wolfe's instigation, was an intolerable insult to his pride, his vanity and his sense of the fitness of things. So as was to be expected, he acted with a burst of energy amounting to violence. he sat up straight in his chair. [I cannot read that last sentence w/o chuckling]

Where There's a Will by Rex Stout - Updated

Wow, it's been exactly one month since I started this post. When I get behind (on these write-ups, not the reading) I get beeeehind.

So I can't be certain, since it was twenty some years ago, but I think this was the first I ever read--and while I don't remember being hooked right away, I did beat it to the library to grab another one. As I recall, the copy of the book my aunt loaned me had a balloon-y cartoonish drawing of Wolfe shoving his face into an orchid under some 70's era kitchen green and orange stripes. Never judge a book by its cover indeed.

We are introduced right away to the remarkable Hawthorne sisters--April, May and June; a writer (married to the Secretary of State), a college president and one of Broadway's brightest stars. Their wealthy brother has just died in a hunting accident and left behind a most curious will. His sister's didn't get the inheritance they'd been promised, instead they'd each been left a piece of fruit. That didn't bother them too much--except for appearance's sake (although May, the college prez, is distraught that her school didn't get what it'd been promised); what bother's the sisters is the way his wife wasn't taken care of, and that his mistress (a poorly kept secret at best) received the overwhelming bulk of the estate. The sisters want Wolfe to prevail upon the mistress to return much of her inheritance to the more "rightful" heirs. Wolfe, for reasons I can't understand, takes the case. Naturally, it's not too long into the case before someone's killed, and that's when things really start to get interesting.

On the whole, the male characters (other than the regulars) in this novel are pretty dull, but most of the female characters rate a novel all their own. The three Hawthorne sisters have all striking personalities and a realistic dynamic between the three. There's an interesting detail or two about the widow that I'll save for those who want to read it. The daughter of the writer and the Secretary of State, Sara Hawthorne, grabs my attention each time I read it. Even if I can rarely remember how much peril she will be in by the end of the book--I always care a bit more about her welfare than I do similar Stout characters. As the sole female descendant of the legendary sisters, she feels the weight of expectation to do something as remarkable to the world at large, while being convinced that she's not of the same caliber as her mother and aunts. To make up for that, she tries harder to be unique, to make her mark, to distinguish herself than the others probably had to--and in doing so endears herself to readers as well as to Wolfe and Archie.

A staple of P.I. fiction involves interactions between police and the private dicks--usually (after the first novel or three), there's some sort of grudging mutual respect and assistance. Yet typically, there's a mixture of trust and distrust--the P.I.'s withhold information and or straight-out lie to the cops and vice versa--teeter-tottering between the two extremes. Sometimes this feels forced, or even obligatory--even from skilled authors. Stout almost always pulls it off successfully (I can't think of an exception), and generally entertainingly (thanks to Archie's narration if nothing else). Wolfe has laid all his cards on the table and Inspector Cramer is convinced Wolfe's up to something and makes more than one biting comment in that regard, leading Archie to observe: "It's a funny and sad thing, the purer our motives are, the worse insults we get." A sign of Stout's ability is that he can keep something this tried and true fresh.

You've got a very wide and colorful cast of characters, a dash of political intrigue, and Wolfe out of the office on a case. What's not to like?

A line or two that made me grin, both revealing a good deal about all involved.

Wolfe frowned at her. He hated fights about wills, having once gone so far as to tell a prospective client that he refused to engage in a tug of war with a dead man's guts for a rope.

[After Archie is informed by Fritz that Wolfe has left on business] I hung up and went back out to the car and told Fred:
"A new era has begun. The earth has turned around and started the other way. Mr. Wolfe has left home in a taxicab to work on a case."
"Huh? Nuts."
"Nope. As Fritz says, honest for God. He really has. So if you'll--"
"But [expletive], Archie. He'll get killed or something."
"Don't I know it?"

Update: Found the cover image I remembered. I was off on the colors (tho' there could be another version, I guess), but there's that nasty cartoon....

Split Image by Robert B. Parker

I have just spent 2 hours in the presence of some good friends, and am covered in the glow of a good time (even if TLomL will bemoan the fact that I knocked off a hardcover in a single 2-hr setting, sorry dear).

I was apprehensive and ambivalent about picking up one of the last books that Parker finished before his death, but that vanished by the end of a chapter or two--and given the wafer-thin nature of his chapters, that means it didn't take long at all. And other than the occasional transient thought, it really didn't come up as I read. But now I'm done, and all I can think about his how this was the end of the road. And that's really too bad.

Many people will say they can tell in Rex Stout's final novel that Stout pretty much wrote a conclusion to his series--not an airtight conclusion, he could've easily continued, but it served well as a conclusion to his long-running series. The same could be said for Split Image, although Night and Day could've functioned that way as well (but not as neatly, and the book wasn't nearly as good, so I'm glad it didn't have to). There is a real sense of Parker saying goodbye to the characters -- although a lot of that is likely projection and isogesis on my part.

For awhile there, as the quality of Parker's other series/works vacillated, the Jesse Stone novels could be counted on for a certain level of quality--but lately, they've been just up and down as the rest. Thankfully, thankfully, Split Image comes out on the up side. Sure, there's the now typical wandering around in the middle portion, but there's enough various plot elements at play that it doesn't detract as much.

A typical Parker novel will have 2 plotlines, one having to do with a case and another having to do with some personal conflict with the protagonist--and with Jesse Stone novels, that's typically Jesse dealing with his ex-wife and excessive drinking. But a few years back, Parker merged his female PI series into the Stone books, and this is the pinnacle of that merge giving us 4 basic plots--the crime Jesse's dealing with, the case Sunny's working, Jesse dealing with Jen and alcohol, and Sunny dealing with her relationship with her ex. That's enough balls in the air at one time that even if the novel's basically at a standstill, you don't notice.

And thankfully, each plotline actually works pretty well. Jesse's investigating a double murder involving some gangsters, Sunny's dealing with a girl who may have been kidnapped/brainwashed by a possible cult (shades of an old Spenser case as is typical of a Sunny story), Jesse's gaining insight (with the help of Sunny/his therapist) into what he expects from a relationship with a woman and how Jen just wouldn't fit that, and Sunny's gaining insight (with the help of Jesse/her shrink) into her relationship needs with men.

Throw in appearances from Spenser regulars, enough name-dropping to tie Jesse's gangsters into the larger Parker-verse, the lines any Parker novel has to have ('We'd be fools not to,' 'Enough with the love talk,' etc.), the glorification of having pet dogs (yet another Parker philosophy that's dead-on), and an actual satisfying conclusion to the investigations and you have yourself a great Parker novel.

Not the book to start reading Stone with (that's Night Passage), but for people who know the characters it's a darn satisfying read.



I should admit I was pretty embarrassed at how long it took me to get the title. In my defense, tho' I really didn't think about it until I saw it out of the corner of my eye printed on top of p. 195 and had an "Well Duhhhh" moment.