Monday Monday, Can't Trust That Day

Monday Monday, can't trust that day.

The Mamas and the Papas had that lyric right. Those of us working a traditional Monday-to-Friday job face Monday knowing the rest of the work week will drag on forever and ever. It helps if you have great work colleagues and love your job, like I do, but still. Work is work. Some people, including the poor folks below, don't have it easy.

Gerald Seymour: A Deniable Death (2013). This is a very remarkable book of espionage published earlier this year by St. Martin's Press. If you like your spies to do a lot of running around, this isn't for you. But if you hunger for the minute details of planning and executing an intricate spy mission and want complicated and believable characters, don't miss this one.

A misdirected sneeze provides enough DNA to identify the Engineer, who designs and oversees the manufacture of many of the improvised explosive devices that kill or maim Allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Engineer lives just over the border from Iraq in Iran. His beloved wife heads a committee in charge of sweeping Iran of land mines. When she is diagnosed with a brain tumor, the Engineer insists that the Iranian government make plans for her to receive treatment at a top-notch medical facility out of the country. MI6 and their intelligence Cousin (the US) and Friend (the Israelis) get a whiff of this plan and decide it presents a unique opportunity to assassinate the Engineer. If any of the Allied forces' spies are caught, they will be disavowed. If they are successful in their mission, the complicity of the Allied forces' governments will be denied. The question that needs an answer immediately: what facility in what country are the Engineer and his wife headed for?

To find out, MI6 sends middle-aged military surveillance expert Joe "Foxy" Foulkes and a young but gifted police officer, Danny "Badger" Baxter, to the marsh near the Engineer's family home in Iran. Badger plants microphones in the house and in the marsh, so conversations inside or outside the house can be monitored by Foxy, who is familiar with Farsi. The two men, who must lie quietly pressed up against each other for day after excruciating day, dislike each other intensely. They only have so much time before the couple leaves; before they are discovered by the Engineer's guard, who is obsessed with searching the marsh with binoculars, looking for an endangered bird; and before their support team, fending off murderous and thieving marsh dwellers over the border in Iraq, must abandon them and run away. All of these characters have reasons to agonize about the worthiness of their mission and to question their own and others' loyalties. The Iranian guard, Engineer and Engineer's wife are as human as the Allied forces characters. The marsh, home to birds, wild pigs, rodents and insects, is vividly presented. So are the horrible ordeals of the waiting and hiding Foxy and Badger and their endangered support team in Iraq. The suspense is amazing and builds to a fitting conclusion.

Secret Intelligence Service building in London

I found this book, which honors the men and women who secretly risk their lives or toil anonymously behind the scenes to serve their countries, so good that I returned the library book and bought my own copy.

April Smith: North of Montana (1994) and Judas Horse (2008). Last year, Sister Mary complained here about the scarcity of good, strong, sassy women in fictional crime. Sister, meet FBI Agent Ana Grey. Although Ana is short on wisecracks, she has goodness and strength in spades. Unfortunately, Ana suffers from an overabundance of obnoxious FBI colleagues.

In Santa Monica, California, the very rich neighborhoods are separated from the less rich by Montana Avenue. When Ana's mother died, Ana moved from the less wealthy side of the city to live with her grandfather, a retired Santa Monica cop, in a ritzy neighborhood. North of Montana, the series debut, finds Ana's climb up the FBI ladder interrupted by a jealous superior, who assigns her to investigate a local doctor. He has been accused by an aging Hollywood star of addicting her to drugs and is suspected in the death of one of his employees, Violeta Alvarado, who is possibly Ana's relative. This book is beautifully written suspense in which author Smith, an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, compares the haves and have-nots of a California city and forces Ana to reassess her family memories.

Judas Horse involves Ana's return to work after a shooting. She is sent to the FBI's undercover school to prepare her for infiltrating a Portland, Oregon animal rights group that is suspected of involvement in an FBI agent's murder. Once in Oregon, Ana finds herself sympathizing with the goals of the group and is drawn to some of its members, even though she is determined to find the truth behind the murder. She is attracted to the charismatic group leader, Julius Emerson Phelps, but she knows she can't trust him. She isn't sure whether she can trust her own FBI liaison team or the assistant FBI director, whose Portland family has powerful corporate and political connections. The strains of undercover work and conflicted professional and personal loyalties that cross sides are handled very well in this book, the third of the series.

Emma Lathen: Pick Up Sticks (1970). Tall, silver-haired Wall Street investment banker John Putnam Thatcher escapes the Sloan Guaranty Trust to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail. (No, this is not code for flying to Argentina to canoodle with his mistress like the ex-governor of South Carolina.) Thatcher's companion on the Trail, a local named Henry Morland, discovers a body and is immediately suspected by the state police, while Thatcher turns his attention to a pair of Boston financiers' real estate dealings.

This is one of my favorite traditional mystery series. The books always focus on a specific business interest of a Sloan client. Discussions among the bank's employees and conversations between Thatcher and the clients make the financial dealings clear. It's very entertaining for me to sit in on a business deal, even if it's fictional. The authors (in reality, Martha Henissart and Mary J. Latsis are Emma Lathen) write with charm and an appreciation for irony as they exhibit how a business works. Thatcher has a dry sense of humor and is never anything less than ethical. In other words, the opposite of how the Wall Street banker of today is commonly perceived.

Monday is almost over. For the rest of my work week, I'm thankful I don't have to face lying thigh to thigh in a marsh with a fellow worker, wonder about my own or my colleagues' loyalties or escape the relentless pressures of a bank's employees. I hope the rest of your week goes well, too.

Ghosts of Christmas

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas… as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore… though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good: and I say God bless it! (A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens)

In The Christmas Carol Murders, by Christopher Lord, we are introduced to Simon Alastair, who is the proprietor of a bookstore in the hamlet of Dickens Junction, near the Oregon coast. The town was founded by his grandfather as a tribute to Charles Dickens and the ideals he espoused in his literary works. Naturally, in the town center there is a statue of the author, and most of the businesses in the square have either Dickensian motifs or are named after one or another of the characters that Dickens brought to life. Simon's store is called Pip's Pages, the local inn is Bleak House and of course there is an Old Curiosity Shop.

Dickens Junction comes to life at Christmas, when there are several events that attract the tourists; the first of which is a series of tableaux commemorating selected scenes from A Christmas Carol. Many of the merchants in the square participate, but of late they have been pestered by a newcomer to town, Mervin Roark, who is representing a group called Marley's Enterprises. He is offering exorbitant amounts of money for the property in the environs of the square. He refuses to tell anyone what the purpose behind the purchases is. But Dickens Junction, like many places, is suffering greatly from the recession––or, as the merchants refer to it euphemistically, an economic downturn. Many could find security with this monetary offering. Before he has been in the town long he is dead, murdered in a Marleyesque fashion. Jacob Marley, who was Scrooge's business partner, is known to be as dead as a doornail. Roark is killed by a doornail. And his body is discovered at the Christmas Carol staging.

The next event is a competition for the best Dickensian village reconstruction, but this too is marred by the grotesque discovery of another body. The discussions about motive swing widely from the idea that someone who wants to preserve the village's way of life is on a rampage, to the notion that Marley Enterprises group has a subversive intent to do as much damage as possible. Simon feels that he is well placed to do some sleuthing on his hometown's behalf.

Pip

Simon is an interesting character who is a bit of an egoist. He only sells books in his store that he has read himself. If a young person comes in to buy a current book about zombies or vampires, he or she won't find it on the shelf, and Simon hopes the youngster will take My Ántonia instead and begin a life-long journey into great literature. Not that he likes all the books he has read, and he can't believe the rate at which the Ayn Rand books are vacating the shelves. He also begins to see that there is a growing interest in Rand's philosophy of individualism and the ideas that those with great minds are better than all other humans.

So, while on the surface the story is about a murderous Christmas, there is an underlying comparison between the collectivist philosophy of some of Rand's books and the idea of a social conscience that Dickens espoused. Who should be first? The group or the individual? I came out on the side that it is the time of year for the lion to lie down with the lamb.

The story has a romantic subplot that is engaging. I did have to Google the definitions of certain fashion terms that Simon knew much better than I. There were the peplum jacket, the sock monkey PJ's and, finally, kitten heels. I didn't know cats had any.

There are many quotes taken from A Christmas Carol, but I am guessing that the best known comes from the stingy Scrooge who said a great deal with two words: "Bah Humbug."

Dickens tweeting

My favorite is: "God bless us," said Tiny Tim. "God bless us, every one."

Do you have a favorite you would like to share?

There is a different tradition on the Mid-Atlantic Coast that is on many a bucket list, and that is to visit the historic Williamsburg area during the holiday season. The decorations, all made of natural materials, are famous. If you didn't make it this year, take a leaf out of my book, which is Poison to Purge Melancholy by Elena Santangelo. This is the third in a series featuring Pat Montella, a woman from a large Italian family from Philadelphia who moved to Virginia to inherit an old estate, since she is the only remaining member of an old Confederate family. It is in Virginia that she first encounters both history and ghosts.

It is Christmas Eve when our plucky Nancy Drew-like heroine travels to Williamsburg to meet her boyfriend's family for the first time and to spend a few days in one of the colonial houses that were part of the original dwellings present at the time of the Revolutionary War.

As soon as Pat enters the house, she begins getting strange sensations, which she tries to ignore, but this isn't like any haunting she had ever experienced before. Her prior spook sessions had never been frightening; at least she hadn't feared for her personal safety.

The narrative comes from two first-person characters, as the story skids to 1783, then back to the present. One of these is Pat and the other is Ben, a somewhat mysterious man who was in the war and is now making his way in Williamsburg, taking what work he can, as well as entertaining many with his excellent fiddle.

As in Santangelo's previous stories, Pat acts like a conduit from the past to the future. But she is also astute enough to help solve murders that happen around her and she solves past mysterious happening as well.

The background of the story was very entertaining as well, because Pat experiences in her own life certain traditions and customs of the past. Her hostess is an expert at historic recreations, such as the typical festive meals that would have been identical in the hard days of the new republic. There are also a few traditions that only take place in a few areas, like the Firing of Christmas Guns and mummery, which was later outlawed because it is nothing short of robbery by gunpoint. Nowadays, the only mumming is seen at parades, like the Philadelphia New Year's Day parade and at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

The description of the holiday meal was fascinating, as the modern-day cooks make the dishes with the same ingredients as might have been available 250 years before. Even in times of hardships, the meal included four courses (or removes as they were called, because the diners left the table and relaxed in the parlor for a while) of at least 20 different dishes, all arranged geometrically and according to pattern, because the presentation was as important as the food.

There is a fine balance between the two story lines of the past and the present, and one reason for this is that methods of murder don't seem to change much over the centuries, except that the actual implements have improved over time. This is an enjoyable way to spend some free December hours between those spent creating your own traditions.

Merry Christmas.