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10. The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall
9. Ruin Value by J Sydney Jones
8. Manson by Jeff Guinn
7. An Apology for the Life of Jean Robertson
6. The Shooting Party
5. Telegraph Avenue
4. The Little Ottleys
3. The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
2. The Prime Minister and The Way We Live Now and The Eustace Diamonds
1. The Luminaries
Jozsef Rippl-Ronai, Christmas 1910
It had been a couple of weeks since Elaine and I got together to read so we were both looking forward to our time together today. We read four books and part of a fifth:
Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin (1995) by Lloyd Moss. The book begins with just a single instrument.
With mournful moan and silken tone,
Itself alone comes one TROMBONE.
Gliding, sliding high notes go low;
ONE TROMBONE is playing SOLO.
Then we add a trumpet for a duet, French horn for a trio, clarinet for a quartet, oboe, flute, harp . . . and end up with a small orchestra. The illustrations are delightful. Elaine and I were particularly interested in the two cats and the mouse, chasing about the stage, knocking over music stands, and coming nose to nose with one musician's bulldog.
We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States (2002) by David Catrow. The preamble, as every American schoolchild knows (or should know, or used to know), goes like this:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
David Catrow has illustrated these words in order to make their meaning easy to understand. Good idea, but neither Elaine nor I was overly impressed with the book, the illustrations being a little murky.
Jon-Jon and Annette (1994) by Elzbieta. Meh. Neither of us was much interested in this one, either. It's an anti-war story. Jon-Jon and Annette play every day until one morning war is declared and barbed wire is put up between their yards. Jon-Jon's father goes off to war. Jon-Jon is sad but his mother assures him children are not to blame for war. We spent more time talking about the silent E at the end of Annette (and not incidentally at the end of Elaine) than we did about the book. The illustrations, as you can see from the cover, are weak.
Town Mouse, Country Mouse (1994) by Jan Brett. The illustrations make the book, of course. The city mice encounter (and escape from) an owl and think it's a cat with wings. Jan Brett may be my favorite children's author. My favorites are The Mitten, Home for Christmas, and Mossy. The last, about a turtle who has moss and a garden growing on her shell, is brilliant and one of Elaine's favorites as well. Jan Brett has a new book out that would make a splendid Christmas present for somebody, Cinders: A Chicken Cinderella.
Monster Goose (2001) by Judy Sierra. We didn't finish reading this as Elaine didn't much like it. I LOVED it. "Mary had a little bat, it's teeth were . . ." I don't remember the rest, but she takes the bat to school, scares the kids, and gets the school closed down for a week, which is what Mary wanted all along. He-he. And then there's poor Humpty Dumpty who wears sunscreen with too low an SPF and gets hard boiled. Apparently this isn't for the sensitive six-year-old. Elaine, who refuses to accept an unhappy ending and closes the book so she can finish the story the way she likes, didn't care for Little Jack Horner, the cannibal, who bit off his thumb . . . I thought it was hilarious.
There's nothing like a golden-age style mystery with all the components Agatha Christie has taught us to love: a country house, intriguing guests with eventful pasts and secrets they want to keep, a convoluted plot, and a less-than-first-rate detective (in fact we have two of them, DI Blessing and DS Bliss.) Extras include a labyrinth and topiary garden, hidden passageways, and a secret staircase. Also a Church of England vicar, a precocious child (or two), and a housekeeper who writes daily letters to her mum. There's a list of characters and a family tree. There's even a butler.
Titles to the contrary notwithstanding, C C Benison's 12 days of Christmas mysteries are not "Christmas books." This one, in fact, takes place in mid-summer. The titles are tied to the name of the series' amateur detective malgre lui, Father Tom Christmas of St Nicholas Church in Thornford Regis. He prefers, needless to say, to be called Mr Christmas or just Tom.
Ten Lords A-Leaping concerns a fairly routine church activity: raising money for roof repairs. There's a committee, a money goal, a plywood sign with a thermometer to record progress (or lack of it), and plans for the usual bake sales, raffles, and other nickel-and-dime fund-raising events. Until somebody suggests St Nicholas should do something different, something that will raise a lot of money in one go. Members of the Parochial Church Council, Tom, and various prominent church members will takes pledges from parishioners and townspeople. In return they will agree to parachute from an airplane. Topping off this event will be The Lords A-Leaping, a group of titled men who do aeronautical gymnastics.
The story begins with a bang. Or rather with a series of pops, as the parachutes of these first-time jumpers open one by one. But when the lords do their jump (ten of the members are present at St Nicholas' fund raising fair) two of them get into a brawl, 10,000 ft up. When a parachute fails to open the closed circuit TV broadcast becomes a horror show. Will the back up parachute deploy?
I'll leave you to read the book to find out the answer to that and to explain the malfunction in equipment (it turned out not to be what I thought.) Tom has his own problem with his jump. The two-way radio that was to bring him a friendly voice to talk him through his landing malfunctions and he sprains his ankle. He and his daughter, Miranda, are invited to stay at Eggescombe until he can drive (it was his right ankle he injured) at the invitation of the Dowager Countess of Fairhaven who lives there and manages the estate.
Most of the other guests are family, members of the fforde-Beckett family. These people are at swords drawn because of supposed mismanagement of the family trust, the suspected selling of the family impressionist paintings (and their replacement with copies), the take-over of the family house (all the locks are changed), and behind it all the irking suspicion of some that a bigamous marriage makes certain family members, well, not entirely legitimate.
One of the characters is Jane, Vicountess Kirkbride, who is a friend of Tom and Miranda. And we, the readers, know her as well, having met her when she was single (nee Bee) and working as a chambermaid in the Benison mystery series Her Majesty Investigates. This frees her from being a suspect and she is helpful to Tom as he delves into the reasons for the primary murder. Which takes place in the middle of the estate's labyrinth (not to be confused with a maze) where a thoroughly unlikeable character is garroted early one morning. Clues include an old school tie, an ephemeral path through the dewy grass, and the sound of whistling.
But this is not the only murder that needs explaining and Tom goes to work using family history, the sighting of a ghost, and even a little magic to solve the crimes.
This is the third of the Father Christmas mysteries and it does help - although it's not necessary - to have read the first two. It doesn't hurt if you've read the Jane Bee mysteries, which take place in the late 90s and are also very clever and amusing.