The last time Vegas shut down was Nov. 23, 1963 out of respect for the death of a president. Yesterday Nevada’s governor said they needed to shut down for thirty days. People had been staying home for a while anyway.
“You see all these massive buildings that are meant to have 10,000 people in them and no one is there,” one interactive gaming exec said.
That means gamblers will have to find other ways to, uh, invest, like, say, the weather. Bookies are taking bets on high temperatures in select cities, rainfall, and events on American Idol. Of course, other countries have sports too, so maybe we’ll see a spike in soccer interest.
Two major movie theater chains have closed until better health prevails. I just learned my local library will be closed until April 1; they are encouraging us to use their digital borrowing service, Hoopla. Perhaps the librarians won’t have to go on unpaid leave, like those of retailer Tattered Cover of Denver, one of the largest independent bookstores in the country.
We’re living in troubling times. I’ve seen more people walking through our neighborhood, but the warm weather could have inspired that. Three of us took that walk after sunset tonight. Dark, empty streets can be nice.
A woman is strangled in an out-of-the way spot in Edinburgh. Detective Inspector Jack Knox is surprised to learn that the case has been taken over by a “more sophisticated” police team from western Scotland. Their leader, however, turns out to be a decent and sensible fellow. He puts Jack in operational command and makes his people available to reinforce the local cops, who know the territory.
Crime scene investigation, witness reports, and CCTV suggest that the killer drove a delivery van, so the team begins a systematic investigation of delivery companies and their drivers. Slowly the noose tightens, but surprises are in store.
That’s how Robert McNeill’s Murder at Flood Tide goes. It’s not a thriller, but a fairly realistic police procedural, like the previous volume in the series, The Innocent and the Dead, which I’ve already reviewed. The drama is mostly low-key, but along with the threat of the serial killer, there is an insubordinate team member to be dealt with.
I like the realistic approach of this series, but I can’t
pretend I find these books compelling. They are entertainment with a moderate
level of dramatic tension; nothing to keep you awake at night.
I used to be a beanpole, just below six foot of skin, muscle and bone, but now, when I showered in the morning, it was like navigating the Yorkshire Dales.
It is a melancholy thing to come to the end of a book series you’re enjoying a lot. I don’t know if Stan Jackson intends to write any more Perry Webster novels – he’s kind of running out of hair colors. Peroxide? Titian? Dishwater?
Anyway, Redhead is the fourth in the series, and perhaps the best, depending on your preferences. Author Jackson gets better as he goes.
At the risk of spoiling it for people who haven’t finished the previous book, I have to tell you that Perry is married now, to Julia Emburey, the headmistress of a prep school. Julia thinks she has no relations, but is startled to learn she has a cousin – in France. Perry and Julia travel to the home of this woman, Gabrielle Dupont (originally Gale Emburey) who is very rich. Julia had known of Gabrielle’s father, her uncle, who was accused of murdering his wife and disappeared with his baby daughter. Now she learns that he went to France, where he changed his identity and had considerable business success.
Gabrielle says that her late father was innocent of the
murder. She would like Perry to investigate the cold case. If he can vindicate
her father, Gabrielle will make a major (and much needed) contribution to Julia’s
school.
Both of them dislike Gabrielle from the start, but the money
is tempting, and what harm could there be in righting an old injustice?
There was another suspect in the case, the “redhead” of the title – a French au pair who also disappeared at the time of the murder. But she had no apparent motive. Perry begins questioning friends and associates from those days, asking questions that most of them find puzzling, but that one of them finds absolutely threatening…
I enjoyed Redhead, as I have enjoyed the whole series. The writing has always been good, and the plotting has improved from book to book.
I’m happy that Perry has found a satisfying marriage, though
I’m not entirely sold on Julia. She’s great most of the time, but occasionally
she exhibits a prickly, feminist humorlessness that puts me off. No doubt
female readers will react differently.
There’s an odd element in this one related to religion. Perry
visits a sort of modern hippie commune, where they teach what seems to be a
rationalized Christianity. “Grace” is their watchword, but without all that
supernatural stuff. No doubt that seems positive to the contemporary English; I
don’t think it holds up in practice. You’ve got to deal with original sin – a
topic which, ironically, gets mentioned in passing.
I should note that at one point author Jackson uses the
phrase “begging the question” correctly. Full marks for that! A rare pleasure
in contemporary books.
Also, there’s a chilling anticlimax.
Good book, and recommended. I’ll read the next, if there is one. Mousy? Bald?
They posted another of my articles at The American Spectator Online on Sunday. It’s called A Message to the Young: Beware the Groove.
It was around 1973, and I was attending a small Midwestern college. This being the ’70s, the school was already busy debriding itself of its past Christian tradition and regenerating as a sort of flyover Dartmouth.
I was in a Christian Ethics class, listening to presentations on the topic of sex. A young woman had already informed us that the Roman Catholic Church saw no value in women except as baby factories — I was kind of pleased with myself for asking her how she accounted for nuns.
Like the raising of the Mary Rose, Suzie’s words, and now Cyl’s, had brought it to the surface and like the Mary Rose, the thought emerged covered in stuff I didn’t want to delve into.
I’ve been calling this series of mysteries by Stan Jackson the “Ste Webster” series, because that’s what everyone’s been calling the character up to now in the books. But in the present volume, Raven, “Ste” and his friends have started referring to him as Perry. Which is also what the series is called on the Amazon pages, so I guess that’s what I ought to be calling him now.
Ste, or Perry, Webster is, as you may recall, a professor of philosophy at the University of York. His fiancée was murdered in the first volume, Blonde, and he managed to identify the killer. This has given him a reputation as a detective, and occasionally people ask him to solve other crimes.
This time out, Perry is approached by a former student, Laura “Raven” Wellbourne. She tells him that as a girl she attended St Barnabas School, a prestigious nearby institution, comparable to an American prep school. During her time there, she tells him, she was blackmailed and serially abused in secret by the headmaster, Dr MacDonald. As an adult, now with an academic degree, she changed her identity and appearance and returned to the school, getting a job as an instructor. Her plan was to somehow find evidence of MacDonald’s true character, and expose him.
But now Dr MacDonald has been murdered, found floating in
the school swimming pool with his head smashed. Raven is the police’s chief
suspect, but she swears she didn’t do it. Since she’s been relieved of duties,
someone is needed to cover her classes. Could Perry fill in for her, on a pretext,
and try to find the real killer?
Perry is so appalled by what she’s been through that he agrees to do it. Before long an audit reveals that Dr MacDonald has been involved in massive misappropriation of school funds, to the extent that its future is jeopardized. This is of great concern to the acting interim headmistress, Julia Emburey, a very attractive woman who has raised an interest in Perry that he hasn’t felt since his fiancée died. But is MacDonald’s embezzlement the motive for the murder?
I’m enjoying this series of novels immensely. Sometimes you
just “hit it off” with a series or a character. I like Perry Webster, and enjoy
spending time in his company. Also, author Jackson has fixed some of the
writing problems I’ve identified in earlier books.
So I recommend Raven, along with the whole series. Mild cautions for adult themes.
This bit, called “The Funniest Sketch in the History of Sketch Comedy” by our friend Anthony Sacramone, is not a bit that could fly in our current day of keeping our distance and staying home to avoid infection. Happier days. Enjoy!
Having different strengths as individuals, we will take different writing advice, uh, differently. Put that on a t-shirt.
Thinking of my own strengths, I can point to two solid words of writing advice that have helped me maintain the level of mediocrity you’ve come to expect from my posts on this blog.
No dedicated writing space. By using this laptop and my tiny desk for many activities aside from occasional mediocre writing, I encourage distraction and my habitual multitasking. I may be a fairly gifted multitasker, actually. I get all kinds of stuff done. Not thoughtful blog posts that build an enduring readership, but tasks, man! tasks get done. With a dedicated space, one can mold physical habits to aid the dedicated task, so when I sit down to write, I actually write. Often I open the blogger, and all my thoughts sneak out the back.
No writing notebook. I’ve used writing a notebook in the past for many things, including review notes on books I read. I don’t think going back to any of that would interest me today, but notetaking helped me think and remember observations far better than my current non-method. I’ve had a few good blogging ideas recently that were nowhere to be seen later in the day. When I first thought of this post, I thought I could rattle off these other ideas, but no, I don’t have any other ideas. I am a stranger to them.
Now, I’m on the loveseat with the laptop and Splatoon on the big screen: no distractions at all, words flowing like cold butter.
Speaking of multitasking, I’ve avoided social media for a few weeks and feel somewhat liberated. I’ve fueled their accounts with too much of my attention.
On a country road near Dublin, a wealthy property developer is found dead in a crashed car. It wasn’t the crash that killed him.
Not far away, in a shed in the woods, a young man is found
naked and stabbed to death.
Detectives Aidan Burke and Fiona Moore are on the case. The
books at the older victim’s office look fishy, and his company’s labor force
seems dodgy. But his family situation was odd as well. No lack of motives here,
but lots and lots of secrets.
That’s the premise of David Pearson’sA Fatal Liaison, second in his Burke and Moore mystery series. I’ve reviewed the previous volume before, and this one completes the series to date. No doubt there will be more, because these books work pretty well.
As a Typical Male ™, I assumed at first that Aidan Burke,
the senior detective, was the main character. But he’s really not. Aidan is
smart enough and knows his job, but he has a drinking problem and has lost a
step or two. He doesn’t treat Fiona badly, according to his somewhat Neanderthal
lights, but his younger sergeant is actually smarter than he is. More than once
she suggests a line of inquiry that he barely notices, which turns out vital
once she’s followed it up.
A Fatal Liaison is a solid entry in a solid series. It’s not one of my personal favorites, but I have no cause to complain. Cautions for language and mature subject matter. Also implied criticism of traditional Christian morality.
Stan Jackson’s Ste Webster mystery series continues with its second hair color title, Brunette. Once again Ste, a professor at the University of York, has a murder to solve… for reasons of his own.
Mackenzie West was, despite her brown hair, a golden girl at
the University. Beautiful and popular, she was a good student and a star
athlete, a prospect for the British Olympic fencing team. Until one morning she
plunged down a stairwell to her death.
It could have been an accident, or suicide, but the police
suspect murder, and Inspector Allen would like nothing better than to pin it on
Ste Webster. Failing that, there’s another faculty member he has his eye on,
Matt Harper, head of the Philosophy Department. Matt’s a friend, and Ste doesn’t
believe he did it. When both Mackenzie’s parents and Matt ask him to look into
the matter, he hesitates but agrees, partly to appease his personal demons. He’ll
have to keep out of Inspector Allen’s way, but he’ll try.
It soon appears that Mackenzie had dark secrets no one guessed.
Ste finds not one but several people who had plausible reasons for killing her.
Which gives them reasons for silencing Ste as well…
As with Blonde, the previous book in the series, I enjoyed Brunette quite a lot, but had reservations. The prose is very good, and I like Ste and his supporting cast. As an added bonus, both Chesterton and C. S. Lewis get quoted (though Ste is not religious).
On the down side, I’m still annoyed by Ste’s tendency to walk
into danger without protection, and the author’s tendency to rescue him through
sheer luck. That’s a plot strategy that can’t be sustained forever. Also, the
conclusion of the book was a little bit ambivalent in moral terms.
Still, I’m going on to the next book. The pleasures outweigh my reservations. Minor cautions are in order for language and subject matter.
While still I may, I write for you The love I lived, the dream I knew. From our birthday, until we die, Is but the winking of an eye
W.B. Yeats wrote fondly of his native Ireland and the pagan faerie roots he supposed it has. These lines from his poem, “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” published in 1893. Composer Thomas LaVoy arranged the last stanza into this choral piece, performed by The Same Stream.
I cast my heart into my rhymes, That you, in the dim coming times, May know how my heart went with them.
