Daughters Galore

And then there was the matter of skin. When I look back on it now, when I look back on the girl on the dusty road carrying a newborn baby and a bucket, I now realize I knew nothing about skin. Skin touched me only lightly within Cradock House. It was only beyond its walls that the world divided itself so strictly between black and white, with coloured falling awkwardly in between. Yet I thought I understood those grades of colour. I thought I could even manage under the new word called apartheid. Only once I came to live across the river did I realize I was wrong.

In 1919, gentle Cathleen Moore left Ireland to sail for South Africa, where she was to marry her fiancé, Edward Harrington, whom she had not seen for five years. Their home was to be in the Karoo, a semi-desert territory far from the coast. Before long, the family had grown to include Miss Rosemary and young Master Phil. Miriam was their housemaid, and in 1930 she gave birth to a little girl named Ada, after Madam's sister in Ireland. She was welcomed into the household. The Housemaid's Daughter, by Barbara Mutch, is the story of Ada.

From the beginning, Ada felt like part of the family. She helped her mother with her work around the house––cleaning, ironing and polishing––but, at the same time, Cathleen quietly began to teach her to read, and because Cathleen's daughter Rosemary showed no interest, Cathleen also began to teach Ada to play the piano. There are strict conventions about how Mistress and maids are to interact, but Cathleen gets around most of them. Subtly, Cathleen opens her heart to Ada, as she accidentally-on-purpose leaves her journal out for Ada to read and learn from.

Ada grows up alone; isolated from exposure to other children like her. And so she has no real sense of what the world is like.  She is naïve, innocent and at the same time strong and resilient, as she struggles to understand things. She tries to get a grip on wars, which can leave some wounds only on the inside, as happened with Master Phil in North Africa in World War II. She struggles to understand the new fears of apartheid, which strangle the area in the 1950s, and finally she has to come to grips with a terrible thing that happened to her that has her in fear for her life and those of people she cares about.

What is at the root of this fear came down from the mixing of blood within a single family. It had terrible power, this difference in skin between mother and child. It became another kind of war; one that forced disputes among people, divided old friends and turned strangers into enemies. She also had a shame that she would carry all the days of her life.

Music had been the source of Ada's strength throughout the years. She used it to bring peace and comfort to her family, and it enabled her to make a living when otherwise she might have starved. Ada spoke the language of music. She could hear Grieg in the ripple of a river like Cathleen did, yet she she could recognize Township Bach in the rough-and-tumble life of the people. She played it all and and more. Mutch has a poetic way with words, and her descriptions of Africa, the Karoo and the people evoke many strong emotions. Keep a hankie on hand.

Ada was a special daughter and she had a special daughter. But that may be another story. I keep coming across these stories about unusual daughters.

Rei Shimura is a prototypical American daughter in that she, too, is of mixed ancestry and this is far from unusual in a melting-pot country. Her father is Japanese, while her mother is of European extraction. Rei grew up in San Francisco, but has more an affinity for the Japanese side of her heritage and had lived for some time in a small apartment in North Tokyo. The Samurai's Daughter, by Sujata Massey, tells about Rei's line of work, which is in the Japanese antique trade. At present, Rei is taking a sabbatical to take on a personal history project. She hopes to make a record of the style in which the Shimuras had lived before the massive modernization of the 1960s. She was interested in the artifacts of that life, such as the cooking pots, the quilt designs and garden patterns.

She knew that her father had sold several artifacts from his past in order to be able to buy a large house in San Francisco, but she also wanted to understand why her father had gotten rid of some of the more valuable items the family owned, and was puzzled by his negative attitude about them. One artifact he sold was a letter from the Emperor Hirohito himself. Rei flies off the handle easily, so she doesn't communicate easily with either of her parents and she doesn't get the answers she seeks from them. Her hope is to recoup some of the items.

Rei's fiancé, Hugh Glendenning, is a lawyer involved in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of people forced to engage in slave labor for Japanese companies in World War II. They are hoping for recompense, since it was their hard work that gave the now-successful companies a good start. One of these clients is in San Francisco, and is brutally murdered. Rei gets drawn into this case, as her research delves into the war years as well.

One thing that Rei learns is that although she may look Japanese, speak Japanese and live in Japan, she has much to learn about the culture and the deep, hidden fears and sentiments that persist despite modern times. Rei is somewhat like a Samurai warrior ancestor herself, in that she is combative, resilient and traditional. There are 10 books in the Rei Shimura series and they are educational as well as entertaining. Massey's latest book is The Sleeping Dictionary, first in the Daughters of Bengal series, published by Gallery Books in August 2013. I hope to review this book about a daughter soon.

Sometimes, after reading of very dark deeds, I like to lighten my spirit with something from Michael Pearce. One of these is The Snake Catcher's Daughter. Pearce's mysteries take place in early 20th-century Egypt, when that country was governed by the British, the Egyptians following the code of the French, the Sultan was under the influence of the Ottomans and, of course, there were many other miscellaneous fingers in the pie.

There were those who appreciated the changes the British made, such as abolishing the kurbash, which was a whip used for punishment and extracting confessions, but there were those who liked the old ways better––especially the lucrative methods of job advancement by bribery rather than performance. Garth Owen, the Mamur Zapt in charge of the political crimes section of the government, becomes aware of a plot to discredit many of the British officials and cause them to lose their jobs.

One such man, a policeman, is found drugged in a snake pit and this is leading to all sorts of rumors of untoward behavior. The wily Mamur Zapt has to keep one step ahead of the nefarious plotters and he does this with the help of a young girl who has learned her father's trade, since he is too drunk to take care of business himself. She provides an all-too-necessary service in the land of the Nile. She is a snake catcher. She helps Owen catch the snakes he is after as well.

The list of books about daughters goes on and on, and I can't wait to read Laura Joh Rowland's The Shogun's Daughter (September 2013, Minotaur), a historical novel that takes place in ancient Japan. Another historical novel is The Kingmaker's Daughter, by Philippa Gregory, which chronicles Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, and how he used his daughters politically. Linda Lafferty's The Bloodletter's Daughter is another book about violent ancient times. Bad boys have daughters too, as is seen in The Con Man's Daughter by Ed Dee. In this book, ex-cop Eddie Dunne runs from the Russian mob, the FBI and more while trying to save his daughter. One of my favorite Suzanne Arruda books is The Serpent's Daughter, in which Jade del Cameron must save her own mother from evil forces in exotic 1920s Morocco. Maybe the book that started my interest in daughters of crime fiction is Bootlegger's Daughter, the beginning of the Deborah Knott series, by Margaret Maron. Knott is an attorney looking to be a judge in North Carolina, who gets involved in southern politics and crime.

Now, for books about sons, you'll have to wait for a future post.

Pyramid Schemes

It was at the turn of the 19th century that Napoleon led an expedition into Egypt, and while he did not succeed in his military objective, he was successful in stimulating a widespread European interest in long-ignored ancient paranoiac monuments. Although there was quite an attraction to Egyptian history, much of the appeal was in portable antiquities like those acquired by the scholars and artists who accompanied the Napoleonic forces.

In 1799, French soldiers found the famed Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering and translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the British forces who defeated Napoleon later confiscated it.

Great numbers of objects of art and archaeological elements found their way to great museums of Europe, such as the Louvre and the British Museum and others in Italy and Prussia.

Scarab

By the middle of the century, the quantity of artifacts, statuary, wall reliefs and paintings that left the country was staggering. Auguste Mariette, a junior curator at the Louvre, came to Egypt in 1850. While his primary goal was to acquire artifacts for his museum, he was appointed as the director of the newly-established Egyptian Antiquities service or, more correctly, Service des Antiquités d’Egypte. Eventually, the European interest in antiquities shifted from wholesale collecting to scientific recording, and Mariette led the way.

Howard Carter

During his tenure at the position, Mariette monopolized Egyptian excavations. His successor, Gaston Maspero, encouraged foreign excavators to come with the system of the "firman;" an exclusive contract with the antiquities service to excavate a specific site.

Thus began the golden age of Egyptology, during which time came many famed excavators, such as the Prussian Lepsius, Englishmen Flinders Petrie and Howard Carter (who is known for the fabulous find of the tomb of King Tuthankamen) and, of course, the greatest Egyptologist of this or any age, Professor Radcliffe Emerson and his wife Amelia Peabody Emerson.

Maspero

The chronicles of the Emersons, as recorded by Amelia Peabody and later written about by Elizabeth Peters, begin in 1884 when Radcliffe Emerson––who preferred to be known as plain Emerson––and his brother Walter came to the valley of the Nile to excavate at El Amarna. It was here that Amelia and Emerson met while trying to foil antiquities thieves, a job that was a passion for them and spiced up their life-long adventures.

What do Mariette, Maspero, Eugene Grébaut, Jacques de Morgan, Pierre Lacau have in common? They were all heads of the Service des Antiquités d'Egypte and they were all the bane of Professor Emerson's existence. While Emerson considered himself a mild-tempered man, his sobriquet of "Father of Curses," as the native Egyptians knew him, better described his personality.

If Emerson could have jumped forward 100 years or so into another century, he might find that he had some competition for the title of the greatest Egyptologist of all time.

In 2002, Zahi Hawass, a famed Egyptian archeologist and then the head of the Service des Antiquités d'Egypte, began a restoration and conservation project of the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, outside Cairo. But ever since the February 2011 revolution that deposed Hosni Mubarak, the tourist trade has dried to a slow trickle, all funds have evaporated and Hawass has lost his position.

Step Pyramid

For 10 years, Zahi Hawass was the King of the Antiquities. He was a combination of scholar and Barnum and Bailey. He was a celebrated TV personality with a temper who, on the one hand, brought the world of Cleopatra, Tutankhamen and Osiris to rapt television audiences and hosted a reality TV series on the History Channel called Chasing Mummies: The Amazing Adventures of Zahi Hawass. He has also written best-selling books and lectured all over the world.

On the other hand, he brought in funds that enabled the restoration and conservation of the deteriorating antiquities at Saqqara. He was a force in snatching Egyptology out of the hands of Westerners, who had dominated the field since the days of Napoleon, as he encouraged training and opportunities for young Egyptians to a degree never before seen.

"Antiquities are collapsing in front of my eyes," says Hawass in an interview in Smithsonian Magazine. But critics claim that the sites restored by Hawass have been Disneyfied by the use of modern materials out of keeping with the original structures. Now in enforced retirement in Cairo Hawass still has plenty to keep him busy, but it remains to be seen if the Antiquities Service can survive without him. It may take his notoriety and fame to bring in the money needed by the Antiquities Service.

I can just imagine Emerson rolling over in his grave. But it is really Amelia Peabody who has a thing for pyramids. She gets her wish in Lion in the Valley. When the Emersons get to Egypt for the 1895-96 season, accompanied by the indescribable Ramses, their son, they are excited because they have been given the firman for the Black Pyramid in Dahshoor, and its much-coveted burial chamber is theirs for the digging.

But, as usual, the wind that swirls the hot sands sweeping through the bustling streets and marketplace of Cairo brings evil, and murder with it. Add to this the brazen moonlight abduction of Ramses, which only leads to more misfortune and death. Peabody expects to see her arch nemesis, the Master Criminal, at the root of their troubles. What she doesn't know until too late is what his real motives are.

Ramses II

Nothing is more intriguing in the series than the character of Ramses Emerson. He was given the appellation because, as an infant, he was imperious and demanding. Later on, the nickname was deemed appropriate because his habitual expression fit his emotions admirably. Amelia once described Ramses as catastrophically precocious. By the time he was five, he could speak several languages, read Egyptian hieroglyphics and had survived so many calamities he was deemed to be a "brother of demons" by his Egyptian acquaintances. At age eight, during the excavation of the Black Pyramid, Ramses can be seen to be perhaps a little smarter than his parents, but not when he wants to learn about the facts of life. His take on the activities of reproduction is delightful.

Elizabeth Peters tells her stories with a subtle humor that never fails to get a smile from me. She gently pokes fun at all of her characters. This element is best noticed when listening to the audiobook versions narrated by Barbara Rosenblatt. Her impressions of Peabody and Emerson bring a whole new dimension to the experience of these books.

Peters intermingles the real characters of Egyptian history with the fictional in all the books of her Amelia Peabody series. In Amelia Peabody's Egypt Compendium, the Egypt that entices the readers is brought to life as it was back at the turn of the century. Hundreds of photos and illustrations give the reader a good visual of what the Emersons saw on a regular basis. Articles by experts in the field describe the prevalent attitudes on the empire, the fashions, the servants and more, much more. If you are a fan of the series, or if you are interested in Egyptology for other reasons, this book is worth reading.

I believe seeing the pyramids of Egypt would be the experience of a lifetime. I wish I had made the trip long ago. But following the steps of the intrepid Amelia Peabody is as adventure in itself.

Agatha Christie as Nemesis

Charles Dickens

College students all over the world are probably deep into their studies of literature of all kinds. Back in the day, as they say, during my college years, what I learned about was the writings of DWM (Dead White Men). Popular reading may not have the cachet of the classics, but I must sometimes agree with the wimpy kid of diary fame who defines a classic as a story about a person or an animal with a tough life, either or both of whom die before the end.

So last week, September 15, was Dame Agatha Christie's birthday. I am glad to be reminded that she is the most-published novelist of all time, having written some 69 novels and 19 plays over a period of 56 years. I thought it would be interesting to talk a little about what she wrote when she was 30, then later on in her career.

In 1920, Christie's debut was The Mysterious Affair at Styles. She was working at a hospital dispensary at the time. In it, she introduced her most famous character, Hercule Poirot. Captain Arthur Hastings, a soldier who had been invalided out of the army during the Great War that was still ongoing, narrates this book. He has been invited to Styles, a country estate in the village of Styles St. Mary, as a guest of the eldest son of the family. There is a cast of many characters at Styles, so when the matriarch is murdered by strychnine shortly after changing her will, there are plenty of suspects.

Young Agatha

It just so happens that some Belgian refugees are living nearby, in a house by the gates of the estate. One of these is ex-policeman extraordinaire, Hercule Poirot. It is here, in this first Christie mystery, that this gentleman's peculiarities are delineated: a fanciful moustache, a pedantic manner, comments on little grey cells, as well as patience with Hastings, who is often quite slow to grasp what he is seeing. Christie's Sherlock and two-steps-behind Watson became very popular over the years, as they untwist the skeins of some truly complex murders.

It is interesting to speculate about whether Christie's occupation made her interested in pharmaceutical modes of murder. In her first story, she gave ample information about the ways strychnine was used in everyday medicines, which is what made it readily available.

In contrast to these classical detective types, Christie soon published three books with entirely different main protagonists. There was The Man in the Brown Suit, which takes place in 1920 but was published about four years later. The main character herein is a feisty young girl raised by a gentle, scholarly father who relied on her for everything. After her father dies, she has made no plans until she is present at the death of a man who falls on the third rail in the subway. A man in a brown suit, claiming to be a doctor, tries to resuscitate the man and then rushes off, dropping a mysterious piece of paper.

Our heroine, Anne Beddingfeld, grabs the piece of paper and starts on the adventure of a lifetime. It starts with seeing another murder victim, which eventually leads her on a fantastic voyage by sea to South Africa, and later to Rhodesia. Aside from learning how to surf, she runs from spies, revolutionaries and secret agents who seem to want to kill her. Naturally, the cause of all this trouble is a girl's best friend––diamonds.

Anne is an unusual girl for the era in some ways, because she is educated, fearless and intrepid. On the other hand, she longs for romance and all the things others girls of the time want. When she is asked about what frightens her, she responds that only wasps, sarcastic women, very young men, cockroaches and superior shop assistants make her scared. This story is the first of Christie's standalones.

In 1922, Christie began a series featuring Tuppence and Tommy Beresford, intelligence agents in England. A few years after that, she began a trilogy with The Secret of Chimneys featuring a Scotland Yard detective. It begins with the story of the adventure-loving Anthony Cade who, tiring of his job as a travel guide, leaves it to carry some important papers to London and then to the Chimneys estate. The papers are the memoirs of a Count who had his fingers in many political pies, and it is feared by different parties that these writings may reveal secrets dangerous to many in government circles. Anthony becomes a target of both governmental agents and villains of other sorts and the fun begins. This series pokes a bit of fun at the more serious spy thrillers of the era, as Christie portrays the aristocracy, the police as well as butlers in a stereotypical humorous fashion.

The main policeman in this series of three is Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard and he uses as his cohort Bundle Brent, a no-nonsense daughter of the Chimneys family.

Christie writes these Battle-and-Brent books with a light touch and quick pace, introducing us to amusing characters and a little bit of romance. These are very different from Christie's better-known Miss Jane Marple and Poirot series, but very likeable. When The Secret of Chimneys was translated to TV, however, Jane Marple was used as the central character. Jane Marple was introduced in 1930––10 years after Poirot and six years after Superintendent Battle.

The Murder at the Vicarage was the first of the series, in which Jane Marple was introduced as a knitting, grey-haired elderly woman who has a keen eye for the variations of human behavior and a nose for the evil that lurks behinds the facades of seemingly ordinary villagers. She is well portrayed on film, but the overwhelming feature that I noticed in some screen adaptations is that poor Jane is frequently given only one hat that she wears for gardening, visits to neighbors and even funerals. I have been tempted to take up a collection for a new one.

There is not much change in the Jane Marple character over her lifespan, except in the development of her nephew's progression in his writing career. She often bursts his balloon in the early days but, as he becomes more well known, he is able to send her on voyages (A Caribbean Mystery) and local trips (Nemesis). Nemesis was written in 1971, toward the end of her career and it was the penultimate Marple story.

Poirot also remains much the same, except that he has more aches and pains and takes more tisanes. But his little grey cells still work. Christie was reportedly very tired of this character (so was I), and she made his foibles a little over the top. Hastings, who was once much younger than Poirot, doesn't appear that way by series end. She also uses another frequent character in the Poirot stories, a writer of mysteries called Ariadne Oliver, who writes about a depressed Finn from a country she knows little about, in her books. Mrs. Oliver frequently bemoans the fact that her publisher won't let her kill Finn off. Is this a thinly-disguised version of Christie herself?

The non-series books are where I found the main changes in the Christie stories over the decades. By the end of World War II, Christie had seen much of the world, since she was married to Max Mallowan, her second husband, who was an archaeologist. She incorporated exotic locations in many of her books. But in Death Comes as the End, written at the midpoint of her career, the story is set in Ancient Egypt.

Valley of the Kings

It is about Renisenb, who has been recently widowed, and has returned to her father’s house. He is a wealthy landowner and priest who recently married Nofret, a young, manipulative concubine. Now, the home is not the peaceful oasis Renisenb remembers. Then, Nofret ends up dead at the foot of a cliff.

Evil from within, compared to evil from the outside, is the main theme. Christie used this theme more as the years passed. In Death Comes as the End, the characters are interesting, but not always consistent. The main Christie-like feature was that I thought I knew who the murderer was––until, one by one, my main suspects were murdered and the only one left standing had to be the guilty one.

Twenty years or so later, Christie wowed many with the psychological thriller Endless Night that builds slowly from a gypsy curse to a creepy non-traditional shocker. Just telling the story may give it away. Evil is personified once again.

So if you have read all the Marples and Poirots, take a chance on the other wonderful and different mysteries that Agatha Christie has dished up to us. Many are free on Kindle and there are new editions published all the time. William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins, is releasing most of these books in a very nice trade paperback edition that enticed me to pick up several of the non-series books and the Inspector Battle books.

One thing is for certain: the villains in all of Christie's books, plays and short stories meet their nemesis when they encounter any one of Christie's poking, prying protagonists. Nemesis, in Greek mythology, is the avenger of crime and the punisher of hubris. Christie's plotting, intricate and delightful, stands the test of time. If I have to pick a favorite character it would be Miss Jane Marple, but there are several non-series books that I have yet to read. Lucky me.

"Go to Heaven for the Climate, Hell for the Company" (Mark Twain)

Use your imagination to populate this picture of Heaven

Mark Twain must have spent a lake vacation with my family, our friends and miscellaneous pets. As soon as we got out of the cars and smelled the water, we all ran completely wild. It was so much fun. There is nothing like spending time with friends and family you love. The books I read during the past few weeks have characters with special relationships, too. Let me tell you about some of them.

Author Edward Conlon's dad, grandfather and uncle were cops. Conlon graduated from Harvard, but his blood runs cop-uniform blue and he became a NYPD detective. Red on Red is his first novel and it's a doozy; a literary book you don't have to be a mystery fan to love. It's about two NYPD detectives, protagonist Nick Meehan and "Espo" Esposito, who became partners five months earlier. Nick, desperate for a transfer, agreed to take a look at Espo for the Internal Affairs Bureau. The two men are very different, but a close relationship or good partnership doesn't have to begin with a likeness, a shared past or shared tastes. It can begin with unlikeness that leads to thrilling epiphanies of jokes and actions one wouldn't have thought of but the other one did. During the first night a reader spends with them, they discover an unidentifiable woman hanging from a tree in the rain at Inwood Hill Park. The mysterious witness who called the cops and the odd scene appeal to Nick, who likes cases with "funny things or lucky things, glimpses of archaic wonder and terror, where life seemed to have a hidden order, a rhyme." They are also called to the scene of a shotgun victim, probably the result of a drugs turf war, that the aggressive and competitive Espo will handle. Espo and Nick accidentally cause a death to round out their shift. Fabulous characterization, setting, plot, humor and insight. I can't recommend this 2011 book, nominated for an Edgar First Novel, highly enough.

William Landay's Defending Jacob is set among the Barber family. Andy Barber couldn't believe his luck when Laurie, his dream girl, married him. He's happy at home and at the DA's office in Newton, Massachusetts, where he's been the top assistant DA for more than 20 years. When 14-year-old Ben Rifkin is found, stabbed to death on his walk to school, Andy expects to prosecute the case. These plans are turned upside down when Andy's son, Jacob, is accused of the crime. Jacob says he is innocent and Andy insists that it's his duty as a father to believe him. Laurie, reeling from the criminal charges against Jacob and the flabbergasting revelations from Andy, isn't so sure. This book has been described as a Greek tragedy. I'll say. It's both thought-provoking and suspenseful. Author Landay is a former district attorney and a Dagger Award-winner for Mission Flats. Defending Jacob, published in 2012 by Delacorte, is his third outstanding non-series novel. If you like books by Scott Turow, you'll like this one.

Austalian writer Garry Disher's Port Vila Blues was originally published in 1995 and will be re-released by Soho Crime tomorrow. In a nutshell, here's the scoop. Wyatt, a cool-headed career thief, has once again joined forces with his old crime-planner and trusted friend, Jardine. Six months earlier, Jardine was grazed by a bullet above his ear, suffered a stroke and hasn't been the same since. He directs Wyatt to a house with a stash of cash. Along with the cash, Wyatt finds a diamond-studded Tiffany brooch. He and Jardine then seek a fence. Unknown to them, the brooch was stolen before. When its original thieves hear it's turned up again, they assume someone among them is cheating the rest. This is not a comfortable state of affairs because they are very enterprising and ruthless corrupt cops. They set out to investigate their fellow friends-in-crime and Jardine and Wyatt. Port Vila Blues, the fifth in the Wyatt series, is set in various cities of Australia and on the island of Vanuatu. I'm not sure why it reminds me of those old Spy Versus Spy cartoons in Mad Magazine. It's not a book of espionage. Maybe because of the murderous scheming and betrayals among colleagues and friends. Chasing the determined crooks are determined cops. The book's ending makes me anxious to read others in this series, especially the next, The Fallout.

Shawn Maguire is ex-CIA. He was kicked out for his violent behavior, his insufficiently brown-nose-ish attitude and his drinking. He's now living in rural England so he can be near the grave of his wife. Other than attending meetings for sex addicts and running out of money, he's not doing much. An arms dealer asks him to look into the disappearance of Darius Osmani, whom the CIA suspects of being a Middle Eastern terrorist with information about a nuclear device. Although he hopes to be reinstated in the CIA, Maguire agrees to accept this freelance job. He heads to Paris, where he meets Osmani's beautiful wife, Danielle Baptiste. This isn't a thriller of blood-pressure-raising action, although Maguire and Danielle track Osmani, who's being flown from one black hole to another, courtesy of the CIA. Instead, it's a look at Maguire's history as a CIA operative in the Middle East during the war, CIA renditions and the short-sighted American practice of throwing money at problems and taking a hand in other countries' elections. The flashbacks within flashbacks can get a little confusing. Maybe that's appropriate. In Gerard Macdonald's The Prisoner's Wife, published in May 2012 by Dunne/St. Martin's, it's confusing to figure out who's a friend and who's an enemy, because sometimes it depends on the time and place. I enjoyed the quietly beautiful writing and Maguire, an appealing and complex protagonist. I hope to see him again soon.

There you go. I enjoyed my time at the lake with family and friends. After reading these books, I realized how lucky I am not to worry about which friends might sell me out or try to kill me. I don't suspect my kids of any serious crimes and I doubt my husband will drop a bomb on me. Now I hope you'll read these books in a heavenly place and the hellishly good company of the fictional characters will kindle your enjoyment.

Home again and needing a vacation