Happy Birthday, Agatha Christie

There are a few significant dates that seem to stick in my memory, despite the fact that they have become moveable celebrations, such as Columbus Day, October 12, Washington's birthday, February 22, and Lincoln's birthday, February 12, and I celebrate them in my own way.

I also like to celebrate Agatha Christie's birthday, September 15, by reading one of her books. Christie is the most widely-published author of all time, in any language, not counting Shakespeare. And we don't count the Bible.

This year, I picked Crooked House, which Christie always claimed as one of her own special favorites. She said she saved it up for years, thinking about it, working it out and waiting for the time when it was ripe in her mind and ready to be put down on paper. Like many of her other books she took the title from a nursery rhyme:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile,

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

The crooked man of this story is Aristide Leonides, a Greek immigrant from Smyrna, who had come to England near the turn of the century, where he opened a restaurant. He worked diligently and, very like the ancient Greek king Midas, everything he touched was a success. He was not exactly crooked, but he was the type of man who made the authorities realize that there "oughta be a law"––and then there was one.

Leonides built himself a higgledy-piggledy mansion and had a large family. The narrative begins in a way familiar to Christie fans, by means of a serendipitous sleuth. In this case, that sleuth is Charles Hayward. Charles, a young man working for the British foreign office, met and fell in love with Sophia, Leonides's granddaughter, when they were both in Cairo, but their relationship was interrupted by the war and they put everything on hold.

When Charles returns to England, hoping to reunite with Sophia, one of the first thing he sees is the obituary of the magnate Aristide Leonides. Leonides has been murdered and the police suspect someone close to the old man. The family is not allowed to leave the house. Charles arranges to meet Sophia that very night.

Sophia slides down a drainpipe and sneaks out to meet Charles to fill him in. There are few family members left at this point. Aristide's first wife has been dead for a long time, and he has a young, nubile 24-year-old spouse whom Sophia describes as a harem wife, a woman who rather likes to spend her time sitting around eating sweets, reading novels and perhaps carrying on with the young tutor who is teaching Sophia's younger brother and sister. Sophia describes the tutor as somewhat of a rabbit, easily frightened.

The other family members are Aristide's oldest son and favorite, Roger, who is a ne'er do well who can't escape his dependence on his father. Roger's wife, Clemency, is a scientist who has all the knowledge necessary to do murder in all sorts of ways––and the cold-bloodedness to go with it.

Sophia's father is the second son, Philip, who suffers from severe sibling rivalry and shuts himself in the library all the time. Sophia's mother is an actress who has been moderately successful, but insists in remaining on center stage even when at home.

Edith de Haviland, Leonides's unmarried sister-in-law, the sister of his first wife, has never cared for the old man, but moved in to care for the children and stayed. Sophia has two younger siblings: Eustace, a victim of polio, and Josephine, who is 12, precocious, plain––a very unpleasant character who makes you wish for a Flavia de Luce.

Poison is one of Christie's favorite modes of murder, and it is clear from the onset that eserine, an eye drop, was injected into Leonides instead of insulin; that is no secret. All of the family members are equally adept at doing this evil deed. All may be seen to have motive and opportunity. The means were available to all. The drops, the needles, syringes and insulin were out in the open. All this is grist for Christie's mill.

Sophia tells Charles that she cannot marry him until everything is cleared up, and according to Scotland Yard there is no way to get evidence one way or the other.

Of course, Charles Hayward is in the right position to be an inside man. And we are reminded that he once worked for Special Branch. But he has quite a job to do in this crooked house. Crooked because, as Sophia points out, everyone is twisted and twining, interdependent in unhealthy ways. Sophia is afraid, because she is aware of inborn ruthlessness in all of them, and she believes that all of them in the end are capable of murder, herself included.

There is a subtle psychological tension as the family members eye each other and each person has his or her suspicions. Josephine, a very sneaky child, insists she knows who the murderer is and the tension ratchets up a notch when another death by poison, meant for this little snoop, misses its mark and kills another innocent victim. It is, indeed, a very crooked family that keeps turning on itself.

I enjoyed my classic Christie birthday present very much.

Fall Preview 2014: Part Eight

Lady Jane Digby

As fall approaches, the movies turn from summer blockbusters to smaller, "For Your Oscar Consideration" films. The publishing world does a bit of the same thing. Beach reads are replaced on the bookstore shelves by quieter, more thoughtful books, just right for curling up with in an easy chair in your den or living room. In a few months, reading in that easy chair will be warmed by a fire in the fireplace, and we may think life doesn't get much better.

Some big names have mysteries coming out in September, October, and November. One of my favorite writers, Rita Mae Brown, has a new entry, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (Ballantine Books, November 4), in her Sister Jane series. Like her Sneakie Pie Brown cozy series, the Sister Jane books are set in mid-Virginia horse country. But these books are in between cozies and hard-boiled. Yes, people are frequently killed––and sometimes in truly bizarre fashion––but the characters are genial and likable. (Many times, even those who are murdered are likable.) The major human characters, "Sister Jane" Arnold, her boyfriend, Gray Lorillard, and other members of the Jefferson Hunt Club are joined by a variety of nonhumans, in the form of horses, dogs, foxes, cows, and even birds and owls. Brown gives voice to everyone––human and beast alike.

One of the things I love about series books is how the main characters evolve and change with plot developments. That's particularly true in Brown's Sister Jane series; we see her age in place, while maintaining relationships that go forward through the years. Students graduate from schools, jobs are held or lost, hunt club friends go through emotional turmoil and are helped by each other. (For those readers who are put off by Sister Jane as a Hunt Club master, please know that no foxes are killed in American fox hunting. The dogs––if they're lucky not be evaded totally by the fox––will put the fox "to ground." The dogs are trained not to injure the foxes, and in Rita Mae Brown's books, the foxes and dogs are often friends.)

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is the first Sister Jane book since Fox Tracks was published in 2012.

Margaret Atwood has a book of short stories coming out in September. Not normally a short story writer, Atwood is publishing Stone Mattress (Nan A. Talese/Random House, September 16), a book of nine short stories, or "tales," as she refers to them.  Atwood has written 40 or so books, and she stretches her writing to many genres, from dystopian to mystery to poetry to thriller. The reader never quite knows what s/he will get from an Atwood work. Stone Mattress, with its nine tales, looks like it has a bit of everything.

Another writer of series books is Deborah Crombie. Her sixteenth book about London police detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma Jones, To Dwell in Darkness, is to be published on September 23 by William Morrow. Though writing with a much heavier hand than Rita Mae Brown, Crombie does an excellent job of updating the lives of the now-married Kincaid and James with each book. The crimes the couple is called on to investigate for Scotland Yard, though, are psychologically dark and frightening.

It's good to compare Deborah Crombie's writing with that of Ian Rankin's in his Detective Inspector John Rebus series. Both books show the private lives of the police officers and the impact of crime solving on their private lives. (Oh, and speaking of Ian Rankin, Amazon shows two "new" books to be published on October 14, 2014. Though  careful investigation, I have figured out that these "new" books were actually first published 10 and 20 years ago! So be careful when looking at "new" books . . . .)

And speaking of new books, let's focus on new authors of old books. Did you think Agatha Christie was dead? Well, she is––she died in 1976––but her character, Hercule Poirot, is being resurrected in a new book, The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (William Morrow, September 9). Evidently written by Dame Agatha using an ouija board, she is joined by the un-dead author, Sophie Hannah. Hannah is an experienced mystery writer; she writes the Zailer and Waterhouse series, among other books.

How do you, as a reader, feel about one mystery writer taking on/over the characters of another, beloved writer? I sure didn't like P. D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley, and I wondered why such a well-thought-of author as James would even attempt to add anything to the work of an even better-thought-of author, Jane Austen.

So, if you're game to see how Sophie Hannah will write Hercule Poirot, then have at it. But please report back to us if you think Agatha would approve or if she'd be spinning in her grave at this new story of her longstanding character. Personally, I think old characters should remain with their old authors. Present-day authors should invent their own damn characters and stop poaching the old guys.

But let's look at Stephanie Barron's new book in her Jane Austen series, Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (Soho Crime, October 28). Unlike author Sophie Hannah, Barron hasn't taken a character from Jane Austen's writing; she's taken the author herself and given her the adventures. She makes Austen the heroine of a set of cozy mysteries, set in the early 1800s. Here's a problem with most authors who attempt to write a book with Jane Austen as the main character. They seem to forget that life and manners are much different in 2014 than in 1814. Oh, the main themes of mysteries might be the same––greed, infidelity, and jealousy––but they are expressed much differently in modern writing. Can Stephanie Barron carry off era-appropriate writing? Or will Jane's adventures seem to be taking place in 2014? I don't know, but the plot of Twelve Days is going to get me to take a chance!

If you like Tudor mysteries––and who doesn't?––author C. W. Gortner has a new book coming, The Tudor Vendetta (St. Martin’s Griffin, October 21). Set in the early years of Elizabeth I's reign, Gortner’s book looks at the dangers from home and abroad besetting the Queen. Like Rory Clements's books starring John Shakespeare, which take place in Elizabethan England. and C. J. Sansom's Mathew Shardlake series, set earlier, in Henry VIII's reign, the Gortner book is full of spies and danger. Who trusts whom? Certainly, Brendan Prescott, as Elizabeth's spy master, is determined to find out who is a threat to the Queen.

Author Robert Olen Butler returns with the third in his Christopher Marlowe Cobb series, The Empire of Night (Mysterious Press, October 7). The book is set, as were the first two in the series, in the early years of World War I. Cobb, an American newspaper reporter, has been enlisted to spy for US intelligence services in 1915, after the sinking of the Lusitania. (By the way, the Lusitania is the subject of Erik Larson's new book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, due to be published in March, 2015).

Would the US enter the war? Cobb is holed up in a ritzy castle in Kent, the home of a possible British government mole who may be working for the German government. Set also in Berlin, this book looks like an excellent historical novel. It sort of reminds me of David Downing's newish novel, Jack of Spies.

Another new book that is not specifically a mystery, but might be of interest to some of Read Me Deadly's readers is Bettina Stangneth's Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murder (translated from the German by Ruth Martin; Knopf, September 2). It's nonfiction and has received excellent reviews.

These are a few of the books coming out this fall. I've already kicked the cats off my favorite reading chair and I'm ready for days with shorter hours of sun, but more time inside with good books.

Review of Jeanne Matthews' Bones of Contention

Bones of Contention by Jeanne Matthews

Dinah Pelerin, aspiring cultural anthropologist and current legal secretary, was having a terrible week. Her Uncle Cleon, having declined chemotherapy, had phoned her at work yesterday to invite her to attend his assisted suicide in the Australian outback. Diane, who hadn't even known he was sick, asked for but was refused compassionate leave, so quit her job in Seattle and went home to find her boyfriend entertaining a redhead in their bed. Which is why she finds herself today, bridges all burned, on a private flight in a tiny odd-looking plane with a pilot named Jacko (the wacko, Dinah thinks privately), dipping and soaring disconcertingly over the northwestern wilds of Oz. ("No worries, luv. It's an experimental!")

Why Cleon, an urbane and wealthy Atlanta solicitor, has chosen a ramshackle remote lodge for his impending death is a mystery to his family. Nevertheless, all of his wives and children show up, except for Dinah's mother Swan, Cleon's beloved second wife. Dinah is the child of her mother's second marriage and no blood relation to Cleon, but he had become an important and supportive figure in her childhood after her natural father was killed during the commission of a crime. One of Dinah's hopes this week is to learn more about her father from Uncle Cleon. Her Cherokee mother, sailing serenely from marriage to marriage, has always refused to discuss him with his daughter.

When Eduardo, her half-brother Lucien's lover, picks her up at the airport, Dinah learns that Lucien had been bitten by a poisonous snake a few days earlier. His life was saved by another guest, Dr. Desmond Fisher, who ironically has agreed to administer the fatal injection to his old friend and business partner Cleon.

Everyone else has arrived before Dinah: first wife Margaret and her son Wendell, Lucien and his lover, and current wife Neesha with the teenage twins, Thad and sister K.D. The primitive lodge is run by Mack, who also collects and sells Aboriginal Dreamtime art, with the help of cook Tanya and her nephew Victor. The family members are all uneasy at the hints Cleon has been dropping about making changes to his will. Lying in her bunk above K.D. that night, watching the huge spiders crawl across the ceiling, Dinah, who has no expectations, wonders if she can survive a week in this poisonous (literally and figuratively) setting.

The story has an Agatha Christie feeling and setup: manipulative dying man planning to change his will, dysfunctional greedy family members assembled at his deathbed and all at each others' throats. All that's missing is the unknown heir––or is he?

While the murder mystery never really took center stage here, there were enough sub-plots and seething rage and greed to keep me reading. The book was a lot of fun to read, and considerably broadened my vocabulary of Aussie Strine. "Hello, luv. Now don't come the stunned mullet on me. Didn't I tell you I was the chief walloper in the Top End?" Police Chief Jacko Newby, arrived to investigate the first death, demands of the wide-eyed Dinah.

This is the first in the author's Dinah Pelerin series. All of the books in the series––now up to four––are set in different exotic locations, and all deal with elements of native cultures and myths. I have already downloaded the second, Bet Your Bones, set in Hawaii, where a wedding is to take place on the lip of an active volcano. Spiders and snakes notwithstanding, I'd rather be drinking my Mai-Tais at Ducks Nuts in Darwin than attending that party!

Golf, Anyone?

Coming from a family of golfers could have made me an eager player, but I decided years ago that I did not have the aptitude for recollecting where every shot ended up or the desire to share each moment either exhilarating or exasperating with folks after my ordeal. But I do enjoy watching Tiger Woods and reading about the game. You would think that a sport that commends and commands exemplary behavior wouldn't lend itself to murder and mayhem. But sometimes, what are you going to do with the perfect blunt object in your hand?

Real golfers, no matter what the provocation, never strike a caddie with the driver. The sand wedge is far more effective. (Huxtable Pippey)

Swing hard in case you hit it. (Dan Marino)

Of course, sometimes this weapon is used far away from the course, as in Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson.

As it finally warms up here, and heat waves wrap their humid tentacles around the denizens of the middle latitudes, winter is thankfully a dim memory. Walt Longmire, the sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming is immersed in snow. Walt is tired, and as cold as the winter, for several reasons. His daughter Cady had returned to the East to plan her wedding––for some reason leaving him out of the loop––one of his best officers is having second thoughts about his career, Walt himself has worries about his health that he is trying to suppress and, lastly, he won't let go and have the relationship he wants and needs in his love life. As always, he suppresses all his concerns in the job, and the job always comes through.

As in any town, there are people whose actions defy belief but that make perfect sense to them, and the story begins with Walt trying to figure out why a grandfather in his seventies has ended up in a ditch, after having been towed a few miles by a car. I know people like this, you know people like this, and so you settle in for this winter's tale.

The case this time involves an unusual death at a junkyard guarded by two vicious animals of great reputation. The corpse is old George Stewart himself, who was recently smacked in the head by a golf club swung by an irate neighbor. But this isn't what killed the old man. Before many days follow, the bodies are dropping like dominoes and the thread that ties them together is hard to find. Walt has to look within families to try and find connections, and he unearths secrets that are deeply hidden.

There are always many kinds of people who live in any community. Those who have been there for ages and those who saw the potential of the area and come to change it. This does not always make for peace.

As in any community, there is that ubiquitous junkyard surrounded by that chicken-wire fence that is an eyesore, but it provides an essential service. No one wants it in his or her neighborhood and everyone is afraid of the guard dogs. It is a symbol of the other side of the tracks. This sounds more like a big city or town concept, at least a place with tracks, not the wide-open-spaces-of-Wyoming kind of separation. But people are the same everywhere––with a Craig Johnson kind of twist.

There is a moral to this story. It is that problems are best faced straight on, whether they be people with criminal tendencies, family difficulties, physical problems, medical issues or junkyard dogs––or you may get bitten in the a$$.

You can always count on Craig Johnson to tell a great tale and take you into his Wyoming world for several hours. This was a great trip. I would score it an eagle (two stokes under par).

Golf is a game of coordination, rhythm and grace; women have these to a high degree. (Babe Didrikson Zaharias)

Following in the great Babe's footsteps by taking up golf is Lee Ofsted, a very interesting character who is a pro golfer in the LPGA. Lee is featured in the Charlotte and Aaron Elkins mystery series about her adventures as a sleuth as well as a competitor trying to break into the upper echelons of women's pro golf.

In Rotten Lies, the second of the series, Lee is 23 and she is playing the tour on a shoestring. Lee, for the first time in her life, is leading the boards at the High Desert Classic in Los Alamos, New Mexico, when the tourney is halted for a thunder storm. When play resumes, Ted Guthrie, the man most disliked at this club, is found dead on the course. In a cruel twist of fate, Lee injures her arm trying to revive Ted and she loses her first chance at winning on the women's pro circuit. The coroner suspects the lightning strike was no accident.

Lee has talent, courage, and an intuitive sense for seeing the way things lie––whether they're golf balls or nasty plots for murder. She senses that something is amiss at the Cotton Creek Country Club, so she and her lover, California cop Graham Sheldon, help snoop out a murderer. She believes someone closely involved with the game is the culprit, and all of the country club's colorful characters are suspect, from the old geezer holding a golf umbrella near the body, to her own cranky old caddy, Lou.

I was more disappointed in Lee's misfortune than she was. Lee takes life as it comes and, of course, is a good detective. This series is strong throughout and is great for a summer read. Score: Birdie (one under par)

Golf is a lot of walking, broken up by disappointment and bad arithmetic. (Attributed to Mark Twain)

One golf series that weaves the game of golf into the plots is Keith Miles's Alan Saxon string of golf adventures. Saxon is a pro who has passed his glory days. In Bermuda Grass, he has taken on the job of designing a new course for an exclusive resort hotel in Bermuda. He hasn't even had time to change into his bermuda shorts before he learns that there have been several attempts to sabotage the work.

For one thing, a new hybrid Bermuda grass has been stolen and equipment has gone astray. It seems also that there are hazards among the hazards when Saxon finds a disgruntled employee dead in the trees. Adding to the mayhem, Saxon's daughter and her girlfriend, who accompanied him to the Island, have been kidnapped. Saxon falls into a few traps before all ends well. Learning about Bermuda grass was the best part of the story for me. I felt like I was watching it grow. Score: Double Bogie (two over par)

Isn't it fun to go out on the course and lie in the sun? (Bob Hope)


Murder at the Nineteenth, by J. M. Gregson, is the first in the Superintendent John Lambert, Detective Sergeant Bert Hook compendium, both of whom are golfing enthusiasts in Gloucestershire, England. This is an extensive series, which include many crimes with golf themes.

In Murder at the Nineteenth, there is a violent murder at a historic country club, which included among its members Superintendent Lambert. The man was killed at the end of a business meeting, and all those attending are among the suspects. The detectives have to weave around all the lies in order to solve the crime. Readers who enjoy British police procedurals will enjoy these. Score: Bogie (one over par) (As the series progresses, the characterizations improve.)

I went to play golf and tried to shoot my age, but I shot my weight instead. (Bob Hope)

The Murder on the Links is the second of Christie's Poirot series, and from it comes a better picture of what this Belgian detective is like. The thing that struck me was that he might be a precursor to today's Adrian Monk. Hercule Poirot comes into a room and immediately looks around and, if he can, he will begin to straighten up the pictures on the wall, align edges of things out of place and generally look for what is out of order. This is basically the method to his madness, as the saying goes.

Poirot's second characteristic is that he leaves forensic details to others. He can't waste time on clues like cigarette butts or blades of grass because, frankly, he knows nothing about them and he refuses to make himself look ridiculous moving his nose across the ground like a hound dog. Leave that for the dogs, he says.

Poirot gets a frantic letter from France, where a Mr. Renauld is in fear for his life. Despite leaving immediately with his friend, Captain Hastings, he arrives too late. Renauld has been found in an open grave on a golf course wearing an overcoat, which is too large for him, over his underwear. Aside from the gross infringement of the dress code, the corpse has a look of absolute amazement and terror. Poirot makes the fantastic statement that he could see by the victim's face that he was stabbed in the back.

There are many entangled threads, involving several mysterious characters, that Poirot teases out in a delicate fashion, all the while poor Captain Hasting is totally lost at sea. He is a lot more than a day late and a dollar short. It made me wonder just why Poirot puts up with him. A young French detective named Giraud is on the case. He is apparently the best thing to be had in Paris. He is a young rapidly rising star in fact. His method is that of investigating the little clues of spent cigarettes, footprints and the like. He barely hides his contempt for Poirot when Hercule refuses to jump to conclusions. Naturally, Poirot has the last laugh while the Frenchman rushes back to Paris with a little less luster on his star.

I liked the early Poirot books the best because as yet I wasn't tired of the little grey cells comments. Score: Birdie (one under par)

It's so ridiculous to see a golfer with a one foot putt and everybody is saying "Shhh" and not moving a muscle. Then we allow nineteen year-old kids to face a game-deciding free throw with seventeen thousand people yelling. (Al McGuire)

Keep in mind that golfers putter on into old age and that it may be good sportmanship that keeps them in the game. Old golfers never die and they still have their drive.

Cleaning House

I hate housework. Not with a seething, white-hot hatred or a disdain so profound that I refuse to do any house cleaning, but I do admit that my primary motivation when I clean is to avoid embarrassment if a neighbor drops in. Though, if somebody comes by when things look particularly bad, I could always pull a Phyllis Diller and say: "Who could have done this? We don't have any enemies."

Phyllis Diller (may she rest in peace) also wisely said: "Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?" Now that I think about it, though, Erma Bombeck's reply to Diller was that if you do it right, housework can kill you. As a mystery reader, I'd put a slight twist on that and say that housework done wrong can kill––somebody. (Warning: spoilers of a couple of well-known classics are included in this post.)

In 1960, Peg Bracken wrote The I Hate To Cook Book. Bracken was clearly a mystery lover; she includes a recipe for Nero Wolfe's eggs, and a slow-cooking stew recipe for those days when you want to abandon household chores and stay in bed reading a good murder mystery. But no matter how much she hated to cook, Bracken didn't kill anybody with her cookery––unlike some people.

In Dorothy L. Sayers's Strong Poison, Lord Peter Wimsey struggles to clear Harriet Vane of murdering her former lover, Philip Boyes, with arsenic. Wimsey's challenge is to figure out how anyone other than Harriet could have slipped the arsenic to Boyes, whose last meal was one in which he shared all the food and drink with his cousin. The answer to Wimsey's challenge: a clever and deadly way of making an omelet.

Nine years after the publication of Strong Poison, Agatha Christie penned a new Hercule Poirot book, called Sad Cypress, that seems to have been inspired by the earlier Sayers book. Christie's main character is a young woman in the dock for murder by poison when a man falls in love with her and is determined to save her by proving her innocence. As if that's not similar enough to Strong Poison, the man's name is Peter Lord! Beyond those similarities, the stories are very different, though. Christie's sleuth is, of course, Hercule Poirot, not Peter––and a good thing, too, since Christie's Peter seems to have only a fraction of the little grey cells of Poirot or Wimsey.

In Roald Dahl's short story, "Lamb to the Slaughter," Mary Maloney is a pregnant housewife whose police detective husband, Patrick, comes home from work and tells her he's leaving her. In a state of shock, Mary goes through the motions of dinner preparation. When she brings a large, frozen leg of lamb into the kitchen, Patrick tells her not to bother, as he's going out. His disdain jolts Mary from shock to outrage and she whacks him with the leg of lamb, killing him.

Clever Mary then puts the lamb into the oven, heads off to the grocery store to give herself an alibi and then goes home to "discover" the body. The murder is investigated by Patrick's work friends, who never suspect Mary and spend their time looking for the blunt object that obviously killed Patrick. When they point out that the roast seems to be finished, Mary invites them to eat it. As they eat, one detective remarks that the murder weapon is probably right under their noses. Too right!

In Busman's Honeymoon, the last of the Lord Peter Wimsey books, Dorothy L. Sayers shows a preoccupation with the perils of housekeeping. When Lord Peter and his new bride, Harriet, arrive at Talboys, the old house they've purchased in the village Harriet knew as a girl, they are surprised that nothing has been done to ready the place for them, as had been agreed. Bunter and the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ruddle, have to hurry to clean up, prepare the beds and light the lamps and the fire.

The next day, a recalcitrant chimney blocked with "sut," as Mr. Puffet the chimney sweep calls it, causes a domestic disaster. Wanting to be helpful, the vicar fires a shotgun up the chimney to knock out the blockage, which has the effect of causing an avalanche of dead animals, bric-a-brack and clinkers to crash to the hearth and a gigantic cloud of ash to choke the room. More cleaning required! The day goes from bad to worse when a trip to the cellar on a domestic errand results in an unpleasant find: the corpse of the house's previous owner.

Housework even plays a role in the solution to the crime in Busman's Honeymoon. That chimney mishap dislodges a clue, and it turns out that a regular domestic chore is the key to the ingenious murder method. If only a regular domestic chore around my house was integral to something really important. But I suppose cleanliness is its own reward.

Agatha Christie seemed to find an additional reward. She said the best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. I guess I'll just have to take her word for it. I do my best thinking while mowing the lawn, but then I do that while sitting on a tractor. And, as Roseanne Barr used to say, when Sears starts selling a riding vacuum cleaner, then it'll be time to start cleaning house.

Joan Rivers said she hates housework because you make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. Another woman who hates housework is Judith Singer, the Long Island housewife protagonist of Susan Isaacs's first novel, Compromising Positions. Though Judith's inconsiderate husband, Bob, definitely deserves a leg of lamb to the back of the skull, Judith channels her frustrations elsewhere. She investigates the murder of her periodontist, in the process discovering the seamy underbelly of suburbia. An entertaining book was made into an equally delightful movie, starring Susan Sarandon, Raul Julia, Edward Herrmann and Judith Ivey.

Did I mention I hate gardening too? I believe in the old saying that a garden is a thing of beauty and a job forever. Weeding is the most boring, back-breaking job ever. And why is it that it's so hard to pull weeds, but if I accidentally grab a real plant, it pops right out? My favorite thing about winter is that all the snow on the ground makes my garden and landscaping look just as good as my neighbor's.

Our British friends love their gardening, though, and it plays a role in many of their mysteries. In the Christie book I mentioned above, Sad Cypress, the resolution is helped along by a knowledge of rose varieties. (Good thing I wasn't on the case.)

In Reginald Hill's Deadheads, Inspectors Dalziel and Pascoe investigate a series of deaths at the Perfecta Porcelain corporation. Dalziel's old friend, Dick Elgood, an executive at the company, is convinced that its accountant, Patrick Aldermann, is bumping off people to clear a space for his own advancement. Aldermann is an avid rose gardener, who learned all about deadheading roses to make way for more vigorous growth from his great-aunt when he was only a boy. Has he taken the lesson too much to heart?

Even if you skip the hard work of grubbing in the dirt and just appreciate flowers through a visit to London's annual Chelsea Flower Show, that might not be safe enough. In Chelsea Mansions, the eleventh in Barry Maitland's Brock and Kolla police procedural series, Nancy Haynes's dream of coming from the US especially for the show ends violently when, heading back to her hotel after her first afternoon's visit, she is suddenly and inexplicably picked up by a passerby and thrown in front of a bus, killing her. A few days later, a wealthy Russian émigré is killed in his garden. His house is right next door to the small, somewhat rundown hotel where Nancy Haynes had been staying. Are the two deaths connected?

After reading these books, I feel I've been warned off flower gardening and flower shows. I still remember that classic of Catherine Aird's, Passing Strange, in which the village of Almstone's nurse, Joyce Cooper, is strangled at the Horticultural Society Flower Show.

Other garden produce gets into the act in G. M. Malliet's Wicked Autumn, when that battle-ax Wanda Batton-Smyth, head of Nether Monkslips Women's Institute, is bumped off in the middle of the fall Harvest Fayre. I suppose Robert Barnard's Fête Fatale is evidence that it's the gathering, not the gardening, that's the problem. After all, the church fête that is the scene of this book's murder of the new vicar is more about bric-a-brac and baked goods than produce and flowers. But, as with housekeeping, I'm not taking any chances.

As we head into the weekend, I think I'll take a page from Peg Bracken's book and throw something in the slow cooker while I curl up with a good mystery book.