The Cases of the Two Phoebes

I was struck by the symbolism of the names used by the author Benjamin Black in his novel The Silver Swan. His main protagonist is Dr. Garrett Quirke, who was introduced in Christine Falls, a story about a "fallen" (like a soldier is fallen) woman. He is a pathologist in 1950s Dublin, Ireland, who has a great thing for the bottle. As do babies, quips a friend of his. He describes himself as having a quirk––he suffers from an incurable curiosity, so when a friend of his named Billy Hunt from the early days of medical school comes to him with the story about his wife's death by suicide, and asks that he not do an autopsy, Quirke does just the opposite.

He searches just a bit, finds a single needle injection site on the victim's arm, does an autopsy and suddenly drops the case. For a while. Quirke has discovered that the victim, Deirdre, has transformed herself into Laura Swan and, as such, had been dealing with a man of ill-repute, Mr. White, snowy of hair and attire, as well as with a Dr. Kreutz, a cross between bad medicine and good spiritual advice.

What concerns Quirke at present is trying to reestablish his relationship with his daughter, Phoebe, who has only recently discovered her relationship with him. She is not particularly happy with it, but she dines with him weekly. Quirke is now on the wagon, except for these weekly meals, where he is down to one glass of wine.

When Phoebe flies into the path of Mr. White, Quirke fears for her safety, and it is only then that he awakes to the danger around her. Quirke does too little, too late, because he is afraid to make waves, and it is left to others to save the day. I found the book a letdown. The characters' names tell you everything you need to know, including who the killer is.

There is another Phoebe who is in danger in Safe from Harm, by Stephanie Jaye Evans. One October night, Pastor Walker "Bear" Wells is enjoying an evening out with his wife when he gets a terse text from his 15-year-old daughter Jo saying come home. They never expect to see their teenage girl cradling the body of a dead friend, Phoebe.

Actually, it would be more accurate to call this girl an ex-friend. She was as different from Jo as it was possible to be. On the one hand, Phoebe seems to want to model herself after the girl with the dragon tattoo. She has dyed her once-blonde hair a crow black that leaves her blonde roots yearning to show themselves, and her skin is bedecked with piercings like the little air vents on a Corvette. One of her worst characteristics is that she seems to be one of those people who  always need to do you one better. She has been to a more exotic location, she has had a better ballet teacher and she plans to attend the Air Force Academy, among other things. Don't we all know people like that? I have not wanted to murder one yet, but I have come close!

The problem with this is that none of it makes sense, because Phoebe comes from a poor background, has been living in a trailer park and has been taking care of a terminally-ill mother, while her father lives in the lap of luxury with his new wife and two children. At first, Jo's tender heart took pity on her, but then these discrepancies and Phoebe's utter dependence on Jo caused a parting of the ways, and they hadn't seen each other for weeks.

Phoebe had recently lost her mother and moved in with her dad and his new family. Now, by all appearances, this troubled young woman had taken her own life.

After calling 911, as well as an acquaintance, Detective James Wanderley, Bear waits and thinks about Phoebe's parents. Phoebe’s father and stepmother had moved to the upscale area of Sugar Land, Texas and were living in one of the more wealthy enclaves. They were members of Bear's church. While the family seemed well-constructed on the outside, attending church, and successful at work, on closer examination it was clear that the picture was flawed.

Bear was glad he was not a cop, because it was the lot of a policeman to look for the worst in people, while he was always able to look for the best. Sometimes, this made for an adversarial relationship, especially when Wanderley assumed that Jo had to be a drug pusher and perhaps a user as well, until proven otherwise, preacher's daughter not withstanding.

What bothered Jo, though, was that she knew that Phoebe was a fighter above all things, and that not only did she not use drugs, she would not have committed suicide. Jo takes it upon herself to prove her case.

In an insightful way, Evans shows with subtle humor that just as being in a garage for a long time doesn't make something a car, spending an appropriate time in church doesn't make a person a Christian. There may be twisted personalities and murderers lurking among the pews.

There are many layers to this story, and because there are twists and turns that will catch the reader unaware, I don't want to give anything away. Certainly, Jo Wells is the smartest––if a bit foolhardy––heroine I have pinned my hopes on in a long time.

Phoebe bird

A Phoebe is a little brown bird. Both of these Phoebes were living out of sync with their families. They had that in common. They differed, in that one could have died to experience freedom from the nest, and one would have loved to be in a nest once again.

In the cases of the two Phoebes, one bird got what she wanted and one didn't.

But one had Jo on her side. I recommend this book!

Texas Twosome

One way of passing the time on road trips when we were kids was to have games naming the capitals of the states. A little bit of trivia was always helpful in remembering these names or even some little memory trick––don't "ju know"––might help with the capital of Alaska. Knowing a bit about Stephen Austin, who wasn't Jane's transatlantic cousin, but was the father of Texas, always helped me when it came to the Lone Star state. Reading a mystery that takes place in Austin brought back some memories for me.

Janice Hamrick's Death Makes the Cut begins on the last day of summer vacation, when history teacher Jocelyn Shore is busy getting her classroom in order awaiting the onslaught of the more than 2000 Texas teenagers who will be saying goodbye to a hot steamy summer and beginning a new school year. Jocelyn hears the loud voices of what appears to be an abusive confrontation between Fred Argus, fellow teacher as well as the tennis coach, and a typical unrealistic parent who thinks his freshman son should be team captain (really?), and she rushes in where others fear to tread, confronting this angry, blustering man as if he might be an errant schoolboy himself. This approach is effective, and the situation is resolved, but aptly-named Fred Argus is not behaving in his usual manner, and he leaves for home.

The next time Jocelyn sees Fred is on the floor of the tennis shed, surrounded by tennis balls and lying with his milky white eyes blankly open. Fred was on older man in his sixties, who was a teacher as a second career. Despite being a coach, he was known for his spindly white legs and his two-pack-a-day smoking habit. Jocelyn knew him to be an excellent teacher, and she credited him with teaching her more than she learned in all her formal years of education about how to impart knowledge to the teenage mind.

Despite the fact that the police are called, it is appropriate to assume that this death was a natural one and, although Jocelyn is deeply saddened, the pressing issues of the first day of school is upon them. Aside from her own classes, she is expected to help her look-alike cousin Kyla teach a course to girls about technology as part of a community service program. It doesn’t take long for it to become clear that this death is really a murder. Before the day is out, Jocelyn finds that she is also the new interim tennis coach.

But Jocelyn is not too busy to realize that Fred had been on the trail of some wrongdoing and, as she begins to investigate, she puts herself in danger. The clues are there for the reader to join in the hunt for the murderer. He will murder again before he is through.

This is a lively, fast-paced story with an excellent cast of characters. The setting is a bit unlike high school as I knew it, but hey, the times they do change. It may help that I read it at this time of year, but I felt the sweltering Texas ambience like I was there. The characters have developing nice backgrounds which were introduced in the first of the series, Death on Tour.

Note: I received a free review copy of Death Makes the Cut, published by St. Martin's Press on July 17, 2012.

I would like to mention another book that recently caught my eye because it was billed as a Sugar Land mystery. I visited there not too long ago and was fascinated by the name. Sugar Land began as a sugar plantation and is the home of the large Imperial Sugar refinery. Sugar Land is a rapidly growing city just outside Houston. It is listed frequently as one of the safest and best cities in the USA to live in. Of course, there is always trouble in paradise.

The mystery is Faithful Unto Death, by Stephanie Jaye Evans.

The story revolves around Walker Wells, better known as Bear, because he once played college football, and perhaps because of his physique. Bear is a minister at a church in Sugar Land. Bear is a man of God, but he is very much a man of family and a Texan.

The smooth path of his days is disturbed when lawyer Graham Garcia is found Big Berthaed to death by a blow to the head at a local golf course. The problem for the police is that it happened in the dead of night, so it was not an accident, and the problem for Bear is that it involves members of his church. The more Bear finds out about the case, the more he realizes that his family members are mixed up in the ragout in some way as well.

Bear may resort to prayer before he loses his control, but he still is quite human in his emotions as he tries to do his best as a husband and father. That he has complete blinkers on when it comes to seeing his family as they really are, is a surprise. He needs a little self-examination at times, but don't we all. He has insight where others are concerned, though, as well as all the compassion and empathy needed for his flock. His slightly snarky, sarcastic sense of humor which is kept to himself for the most part, makes him an endearing character.

The character I found most intriguing, though, was the detective assigned to the case, James Wanderly. Author Evans kept an interesting dynamic going between this young man and the minister, and his future relationship with Bear ought to be interesting. I hope there is one.

Faithful Unto Death was published by Berkley Trade on June 5, 2012.