MarysLibrary

Wells and Wong Mysteries

This first Wells and Wong mystery, Murder Is Bad Manners, is also called Murder Most Unladylike. It's 1933 and Wells and Wong are students at a fancy girls' school in England. Wong is homesick for her house and family in Hong Kong but she has made friends at school, especially with Wells, the daughter of Lord Hastings and a perfect English rose (porcelain complexion, golden hair, etc.) Together they have formed the Wells and Wong Detective Agency and when a teacher disappears suddenly they go to work to solve what they are sure is her murder.

The second book in the series, Poison Is Not Polite, aka Arsenic for Tea, takes place in 1934 at the estate of the Wells family. It's Wells' birthday and in addition to her parents the house party to celebrate includes her brother and his friend from school, two classmates of Wells and Wong, a kleptomaniac great-aunt, a dashing and mysterious uncle, a frumpy governess, and a creepy "art expert" who seems more interested in Wells' mother than the house's art treasures. When he turns up dead, poisoned by arsenic at the children's tea, the girls have the case to themselves while the estate is cut off by heavy rains and flooding.

Also at the house though not really suspected of the crime are the butler and the cook. The book includes a map of  the estate and floor plans for the three floors of the manor and a family tree. Perfect.

Are you thirsty . . .

"Are you thirsty?" said the Lion.

"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion . . .

"Will you promise not to -- do anything to me, if I do come?"

"I make no promise," said the Lion.

"Do you eat girls?" she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, or as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"Oh, dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

-- from The Silver Chair by C S Lewis

As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust

Flavia de Luce, in her seventh mystery adventure, As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust by Alan Bradley, finds herself in Toronto at the school that her mother attended in her youth. When a body appears suddenly - it had been stuffed up a chimney a few years before - she feels compelled to find out who it is and who killed the girl. But she doesn't know whom among her fellow students she can believe and she may have put her trust in the wrong teacher. And then there's that language adjustment for an English girl in North America.

Nickles? Dimes? I knew that cents were roughly equivalent to pence, but beyond that, Canadian currency was a veiled mystery.

Why had I ever been sent away from the land of the sixpence - the land of half crowns,, h'pennies, florins, farthings, and shillings. The land of decent coinage, where everything made sense?

I sympathize because I've sometimes held a bit of a grudge against the English who gave us pints, quarts, and gallons, inches, feet, yards, and miles, and then walked into the sunshine of the metric system leaving us trying to remember how many teaspoons in a quarter of a cup and and how many pounds in a ton.

Young Flavia has done it again. A good solid 4 on a scale of 1 to 5.

The Rector of Justin

I first read The Rector of Justin when I was young and I remember wondering idly which versions of events were the true ones and who was reliable and who not. Then I shrugged and walked away from the novel for 45 years.

This time I've read it with intensity and have worn a new wrinkle in my brow trying to decide half a hundred questions: was Horace wise to talk Eliza out of marrying Frank; did Jules commit suicide; did Griscam manipulate the rector or did the rector manipulate him; did the old man really believe in God; was the rector of the title, perhaps, the primary narrator.

Funny how books change with time . . .

The House of how many Gables?

Decades have gone by since I've read any Hawthorne and now I'm sorry because re-reading the House of the Seven (sic) Gables has been a great pleasure.

The characters are, as always in Hawthorne, remarkable, burdened with weighty meaning. Hawthorne writes like no other about guilt, redemption, and atonement. Always mysterious. The incomparable Hepzibah, the beautiful and innocent Phoebe, the puzzling daguerreotypist, the ex-con Clifford, hypocritical Uncle Jaffrey, the tragic memory of Alice, the painting of the dead colonel, and the gloomy Pynchon house itself are all suffused with guilt from the past and the atmosphere oozes hints of the supernatural.

I've visited the house in Salem, Massachusetts, which dates from the late 1600s, and which was in the mid-1800s when Hawthorne wrote the novel owned by relatives. As always with Hawthorne, give him a wisp of family history and he'll give you an entire world of guilt and retribution and if possible forgiveness. He built the story from a tale a cousin told him combined with the mystery of the extraordinary old house and his own, inescapable sense of culpability for the transgressions of his family during the Salem witchcraft incident.

Do visit Salem, Massachusetts, if you get the chance. Chestnut Street, lined with glorious houses built in the early years of the 19th century, is sometimes called the most beautiful street in America, and I would not argue. The Essex Peabody Museum is filled with earth New England shipping and whaling lore. And try to fit in a visit to the House of the Seven (sic) Gables and Hawthorne's birthplace next door. DO NOT miss the secret staircase.

Sic? The House of the Seven Gables has nine gables. Count them.

Plot Twist!