Then and Now

It is at this time of year when the sunsets come earlier and the stores are filled with displays of glue sticks and binders that I feel some nostalgia for my own school days. Well, my memories are of paste and black composition notebooks, but some things don't change too much. At the beginning of the summer before my freshman year of high school, I received a list of about 100 books, out of which I was supposed to read 10 over the course of the vacation. The list was heavy with classics of literature such as R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone and Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native. I found myself scrambling through the titles to find something I might enjoy. Sometimes I lucked out and found a short book, like George Eliot's Silas Marner, but much of what I read was dry as dust.

These days, young readers are enticed to read by exciting, dramatic and laugh-out-loud funny books, with characters far from the dreary and doomed gents I struggled through. I can recall wading through Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, which is the sad story of a boy whose father died when he is very young. His mother marries an autocratic man who often thrashes David for little infractions and finally sends him off to boarding school. There is a ruthless headmaster at the school, and David’s travails and struggles are the theme of the novel. I rated the book heavy and depressing. Well, I was 13 at the time.

If you want to read a story about a young boy's difficulty in school, as well as life, I recommend instead The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. In it young Greg Heffley is starting at middle school and his mother has given him a journal to write in. He goes along with this, providing no one calls it a diary and providing he doesn’t have to write down his "feelings" in it. Greg has an older brother, Roderick, whose job in life seems to be to torment Greg in one way or another.

One night, just a few days into summer vacation, Roderick awakens Greg, roughly telling him to get up because he has slept through the entire vacation and it's the first day of school. Roderick is wearing his school clothes and Greg falls for it and scrambles to get ready making quite a clamor and rousing his father, who gives him the Dickens.

Greg's father also would like to encourage Greg to go outside more, but Greg rests assured in the fact that his father will never be able to dismantle his gaming system.

There are about 10 books in this series and I found myself smiling on almost every page.

Another choice classic on my list was the option of reading either Homer's Odyssey or Iliad, an epic poem about the Trojan War, which involved a 10-year siege of the city of Troy by surrounding Greek states. It is famous for the incident of the Trojan horse and the romance between Paris and Helen, who was so beautiful that her face is blamed for the launching of the thousand ships, which precipitated this war. Famous warrior Achilles, a demigod, is immortalized in this poem.

On the other hand, a much smoother introduction to the Greek gods and goddesses is the series about Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. Percy is introduced in book one, The Lightning Thief. Percy thought he was living a normal life until he was 12 years old. He is a troubled boy who has difficulties with reading and getting into fights. He is expecting to get kicked out of school when, on a school trip to a museum, one of his teachers turns into a maniac and tries to kill him––and somehow the teacher is the one who is vaporized. This is the beginning of a journey for Percy that leads him to who he really is: a son of a god, in the way Achilles was. He is a demigod, the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea. He is accused of stealing Zeus's thunderbolt and he has a quest to find it and to save the world.

There are five books in the series and all are very well written. The stories are exciting and educational. They are much easier to read than epic poetry, in any case.

One book I did enjoy from my summer reading was White Fang, by Jack London, about a wild wolf-dog's transformation from feral to friendly. London explored how animals view their world and how they view humans. It is an intense story, but White Fang ends up relaxing on a porch in the sunshine. Despite my enjoyment, I would recommend, for a lighter read, How to Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is part of a group of Viking boys of the Island of Berk, who is going through a coming-of-age ritual. This involves catching a dragon and training it so that will be with him for many years into the future.

Toothless

Failure to accomplish either of these will result in exile, banishment and worse––humiliation. Hiccup is the son of the chief of the tribe and has an even greater burden, since he is small and gets picked on quite a bit.

Nonetheless, he captures his dragon heroically but it turns out to be a very small dragon that hasn't any teeth. Naturally he is named Toothless. One of the things that distinguish Hiccup from the others is that, unbeknownst to many, he can speak Dragonese. He has studied about Dragons for a long time and he knows a bit about them.

One of the other boys, graphically named Snotlout, has captured a Monstrous Nightmare dragon that is fierce indeed, and he has named him Fireworm. Usually only sons of chiefs are allowed to have such fearsome dragons, and Hiccup feels compelled to challenge Snotlout for the ownership of the beast. This small battle is put off until the dragons are tamed and trained.

On the day of the results of the training of the dragons, there is also a competition between similar-aged boys and their dragons from the Meathead Islands. Thus begins the heroic misadventures of Hiccup the Viking. This is a very enticing story about unlikely heroes––and just as unlikely allies––in an unpredictable world.

Lorna Doone, a novel by R. D. Blackmore, is set in the seventeenth century and is about a girl who is supposedly a member of the fierce Doone clan. She is forced to run away to a neighbor who would protect her from the attentions of the heir of Doone Valley. Lorna turns out to be a wealthy heiress and, as such, is a pawn in the machinations of men and politics. A modern twist of this story could be City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare, the first in her Mortal Instruments series.

Clary Fray is a 15-year-old girl, comfortable in her life and with her friends, who goes out to an all-age nightclub called Pandemonium. A very interesting young man catches her eye, and she sees that he might be in trouble. She follows, observes a fight to the death and wants to call for help––when she realizes that others cannot see what she has seen.

Thus begins a new phase of Clary’s life. Even as she is on her way home, she receives a frantic call from her mother not to return home but to go to a friend's house instead. But it is too late, because the things Clary has seen have thrust her into a new world and she cannot turn back. Now Clary needs answers, which she can't get at home because her mother has disappeared.

The new world now open to Clary's vision is one of another dimension in which forces of good, the Shadowhunters, try to maintain a balance between the downworlders such as vampires, werewolves and faeries and, even worse, the demons. This is the first of a series and is an intriguing take on old villains not unlike the warring clans of yesteryear, and is quite entertaining.

Comparing the classics and Young Adult lit is akin to contrasting oranges and lemons with extra points given for tartness, but I take the view that while what you read is important, it's more important that at first you learn to love to read.

So if the adventures of Sherlock Holmes seem pedantic, then try the series The 39 Clues, written by a group of well-known authors, beginning with Rick Riordan. The books tell of the adventures of two siblings, Amy and Dan, who discover that they belong to the Cahill family, the most influential family in history. The main plot concerns Dan and Amy's quest to find the 39 Clues, which are ingredients to a serum that can create the most powerful person on Earth. Each book chronicles one location to which Amy, Dan, and Nellie travel and focuses on one historical character with whom a Clue has a link.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula might be a little stiff, so go for Heather Brewer's series The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, which begins with Eighth Grade Bites. The story is about Vladimir Tod, who has to learn to survive as a vampire while he learns about his destiny.

As far as the classics are concerned, I do recommend reading them as an adult. The novels I have reread as a mature reader held much more significance for me because I saw them in a different light. Although about 50 pages of David Copperfield is enough, even now.

The Naughty Take Their Lumps

It's a lump of candy cane coal,
not a mouse dropping.

Yesterday, while shopping at Trader Joe's, I came across the perfect holiday gift for someone who's been naughty this year: little pieces of minty candy cane drenched in rich dark chocolate so that it resembles lumps of coal. You may have a person on your shopping list who deserves such a gift. God knows the world of crime fiction is replete with characters for whom such a gift would be appropriate.

Now, I'm not talking about villains so nasty their own mothers, if sensible, would shriek and run at the sight of them: Not Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs or the serial killer of T. Jefferson Parker's The Blue Hour. Not the criminal masterminds Professor Moriarty (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and the Deaf Man (Ed McBain). Or the psychopathic lawmen of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Pop. 1280.

And certainly not the vicious albino hit man Grady Fisher in Urban Waite's The Terror of Living. The word is "naughtiness," not "depravity." Hand the coal to the decent-but-flawed Phil Hunt, who spent 10 years imprisoned for the shotgun killing of a bait-shop owner during a robbery that netted him $40 when he was a young man. He straightened out after prison and married a good woman, but their lives are a constant quiet struggle. To supplement the income they make raising and boarding horses on a small farm in northwest Washington State, Hunt occasionally smuggles illegal drugs by riding one of his horses into the mountains and fetching a package dropped out of an airplane. Hunt should have quit while he was ahead. His last job is interrupted by off-duty deputy sheriff Bobby Drake, who struggles with emotional baggage involving his father, a disgraced ex-sheriff. The novice smuggler accompanying Hunt is caught, and the drugs are lost. Suddenly, Hunt's life, never easy, is made a heck of a lot harder now that he has Drake, the DEA, and Fisher, who's been hired by a drugs kingpin, hot on his trail.

The Terror of Living is Waite's 2011 debut, a book that straddles literary and mystery fiction. If you only read cozies, it's not for you; rather, it's for people who like Cormac McCarthy, Robert Stone, Graham Greene, Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos. It's about how bad things happen to good people or how good people make bad decisions, setting them on a train going too fast for them to leap to safety. Waite's tale isn't entirely unpredictable, but his characters are eloquent, the setting is beautifully described, and the writing is assured. I look forward to this young writer's books in the years ahead.

Let's now stop gazing ahead and take a look back over our shoulders and across the pond (I have a crick in my neck just writing that), where another man merits a piece of our coal for naughtiness: Margery Allingham's Magersfontein Lugg, sleuth Albert Campion's second banana. Has there ever been a fictional character more aptly named than the lugubrious and vulgar Lugg? A Cockney who was once a cat burglar, Lugg now functions as Campion's loyal manservant, heavy, and expert on England's criminal underworld. Lugg is no better than he has to be. The first book in this Golden Age classic mystery series is The Crime at Black Dudley. In that book, Campion investigates the death of his host at a weekend house party without Lugg's assistance. He meets Lugg in the second book, Mystery Mile, while looking into all the deaths and close calls that occur around Judge Crowdy Lobbett. The most energetic, light-hearted, and creative wordplay in the series is found in More Work for the Undertaker, in which Campion and Lugg become involved with the extremely eccentric and literary Palinode family while searching for a multiple poisoner. The most serious and beautifully atmospheric book is The Tiger in the Smoke, featuring the escaped prisoner, sociopath Jack Havoc. (Allingham is wonderful with names.)

Like Lugg, E. W. Hornung's A. J. Raffles is a talented detective when tracking a man responsible for crimes other than his own. He is England's best cricketer and a sociable gentleman who lives at a prestigious address: The Albany, in Piccadilly. He's patriotic and once sends the Queen a gift. But Raffles receives a lump of coal because he's a daring and cynical thief who steals for the challenge and excitement in addition to the money, which he occasionally gives away. (That gift to the Queen was stolen.) He's a safe cracksman and a master of disguise.

Raffles appears in a novel and more than 20 stories chronicled by his old school friend Bunny Manders. (All of Hornung's short stories featuring Raffles, written from the 1890s to the 1920s, can be found in the 1984 book, The Complete Short Stories of Raffles--the Amateur Cracksman. After Hornung, other writers continued the series.) Bunny loves Raffles and is ambivalent about his criminal career.  Hornung's friend and brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, also didn't entirely approve of anti-hero Raffles. Although these stories exhibit the prejudices of their time, they are classic adventures that are a pleasure to read. You can also search for a play, several films, a radio series, and a British TV series that feature Raffles.

More idealistic and romantic than Raffles is Leslie Charteris's Simon Templar, a dashing figure whose true name is unknown and whose nickname is "The Saint." His calling card, which he leaves at scenes of his activities, features a stick figure with a halo. The Saint earns his coal by operating as "the Robin Hood of Modern Crime" outside the law to right wrongs and avenge innocent victims by stealing, killing, and helping people. He's a master of disguise, a skilled knife thrower, and an expert fighter. Danger is good for you, he says, because it makes you feel intensely alive. The tales are of all sorts: character studies, whodunits, ghost stories, science fiction, or straight adventures. We first meet The Saint, who has barely arrived in the small town of Baycombe on the coast of England before an assassin appears, in the 1928 book Meet the Tiger. Following that first appearance are portrayals in more novels (written from 1967 to the end by people other than Charteris), short stories, radio programs (Vincent Price is the best known Saint), several TV series (Roger Moore became internationally famous in this role), films (George Sanders in the 1930s and 40s), comics, plays, and magazines.

Before heading back to the United States, let's pay a visit to Colin Watson's Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime, who well deserves her lumps because she's an endearingly genteel criminal who specializes in con games and theft. Miss Teatime appears in Lonelyheart 4122 and all subsequent books in the Flaxborough Chronicles series except Blue Murder. In Lonelyheart 4122, Inspector Purbright investigates the Handclasp House, a matrimonial bureau that may be involved in the disappearance of two women. Purbright runs across Miss Teatime and warns her about the bureau, but she pays no attention. In Just What the Doctor Ordered, three Flaxborough women are attacked by elderly men (one man threatens to "pollinate" one of these women). The men escape from the scene by running sideways in a crab-like fashion. Purbright suspects an herbal elixir for virility. He doesn't know what to suspect in Six Nuns and a Shotgun, because all he has is a telegram about two naked nuns in Philadelphia. In all of these books, the clever and enterprising Miss Teatime is a thorn in Purbright's side. Watson's Flaxborough books are filled with eccentric characters; they are clever and amusing. I highly recommend them.

We'll have to catch Simon Brett's Melita Pargeter, a gentleman crook's widow who often turns her hand to investigations, and Jonathan Gash's shady antiques dealer, Lovejoy, later. Let's return to the States, where our next coal recipient is Donald E. Westlake's John Dortmunder, a determined and good-hearted man who has no pretensions to a life outside of crime. Dortmunder isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, however, so the plots he masterminds are invariably foiled by his scruples, his inept colleagues, or plain rotten luck. There are fifteen books in this entertaining series, which opens with the newly paroled Dortmunder's attempt to steal the Balabomo emerald in 1970's The Hot Rock. These books feature masterful plotting, great small-time crooks' lingo, fine suspense, twists and turns, and a delicious sense of irony. I enjoyed all of them. Here are a couple: Bank Shot, in which the bank is in a mobile home, so stealing the money means stealing the bank; What's the Worst that Could Happen? features the theft of Dortmunder's lucky ring by a well-to-do businessman, so Dortmunder assembles a team to seek revenge; Bad News involves the taking over of an Indian gambling casino. For a list of the books in the series, see Westlake's page on Stop You're Killing Me.

We could drop off coal to John D. MacDonald's adventurer Travis McGee, but that will take a separate trip. Instead, we'll make a quick visit to Bernie Rhodenbarr, Lawrence Block's genial New York City burglar. The first book in the series is Burglars Can't be Choosers, in which Rhodenbarr is caught burgling an apartment. He pays off the cops, but then things change when they find a body, and Rhodenbarr has to run. Among good books in this series are The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (Bernie's friend Carolyn's cat is kidnapped, and a Mondrian painting might be the ransom) and The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (Bernie has opened a used bookstore in an attempt to go straight. When his landlord's demands return him to a life of crime, a dead body in the apartment he's burglarizing and a frame job involving a stolen baseball card collection give him a headache).

Our coal all delivered to its worthy recipients, let's relax with some Speculoos Wafers (from a Washington Post recipe based on a thin, spiced French cookie) and some strong coffee. While we're relaxing, we can talk about other characters who require our coal and the gifts we're going to give those who are nice.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

"Tousled and sleepy, each facing in a slightly different direction, they sat on the sleeping shelves like great black lumps. Their huge, heavy heads drooped, their bodies slumped, their mysterious coffee bean eyes stared at nothing. Lost in gorilla reflections, they scratched themselves occasionally, or emitted a digestive rumble, or poked a listless finger in nostril or ear while they waited for their breakfast.

"Pretty much like people first thing in the morning, if you ask me." ("Nice Gorilla," by Charlotte and Aaron Elkins, Malice Domestic I, edited by Elizabeth Peters)

If you ask me, too. Makes me feel like reaching into the story with some cups of strong coffee. Do you often feel like that while reading? I do. I'm not talking right now about books in which someone is acting as if his or, more often, her forehead has been stamped "too stupid to live." I'm talking about books in which a character is wearing a sign on his back that says, "Kick me." Or when someone's suspicions ripen as slowly as that avocado sitting on your kitchen counter when you're anxious to make guacamole.

Mrs. White is one of those avocados. She is a quiet housewife and mother who gradually comes to realize that her beloved husband is the guy who has been brutally murdering women in the New England town of Putnam Wells. The reader knows this from the very beginning, when Louise Porter gets home with ingredients for chicken cacciatore dinner, and Paul White walks slowly out of the kitchen corner to join her.

This is a fascinating story that shows a woman picking up the first little clue and drawing a false conclusion. Soon there are more clues to puzzle Mrs. White about her carpenter husband, and she begins to probe her memory for almost forgotten, but now tantalizingly suggestive hints that might help her decipher the present. At the same time, her husband Paul increasingly recognizes that his wife isn't the soft and placid woman he thought he married. The tension builds until plot developments and changing characters' viewpoints shift anxiety into overdrive.

Margaret Tracy's Mrs. White is not a gore fest. In addition to gripping psychological suspense, this book offers some interesting character portraits. It's too bad that, after winning the 1983 Edgar for Best Paperback Original, it's largely forgotten today.

Today, yesterday, a century ago. Avocados are not a recent development as we see when we get to know Mrs. Bunting in Marie Belloc Lowndes's 1913 classic, The Lodger. The Buntings are good people who have retired from careers as house servants. Unfortunately, they are now teetering on the brink of financial disaster. They finally put a small card in the window, offering rooms to let. When a stranger reads the card and knocks on their door, Mrs. Bunting casts an experienced servant's eye on him and assesses him as obviously a gentleman, even if his clothes are very shabby and his manner very odd. After all, he's a potential lodger, the only thing that stands between the Buntings and starvation on the street.

London is in a state of uproar due to a series of murders committed by a man called "the Avenger" because he leaves notes on the bodies. From these notes, it is obvious that the murderer doesn't approve of women who drink. The Buntings follow the Avenger murders in the newspapers that are hawked in the neighborhood and are kept abreast of the clues by a young cop working on the investigation. He drops by occasionally to see Mr. Bunting's beautiful teenage daughter, who has come to stay with them, but he never sees the lodger.

After reading newspaper accounts and listening to their policeman friend, is it any wonder that Mrs. Bunting becomes suspicious when she overhears the reclusive lodger, holed up in his room, reading aloud passages from the Bible that are uncomplimentary to women? He has already forbidden her to enter his room under any circumstances. And then there is his appearance and manner, which are so bizarre. Soon, Mrs. Bunting is lying in bed listening for him to tiptoe out of the house in the middle of the night.

This book is a wonderful psychological and moral study of the respectable, working-class Londoner at the turn of the century. This Londoner is very suspicious of the police, loyal to associates, concerned about public opinion, conscious of class differences, and aware of the precarious nature of financial security. Moral questions about the nature of sanctuary and the plight of the criminally insane come into play. Mrs. Bunting finds herself in a real predicament: she needs the money the lodger provides, isn't sure if he is guilty, feels sorry for him, and actually rather likes him. She worries about the safety of the beautiful young woman staying in the house, yet worries that the policeman will arrest the lodger and cast the Buntings into financial ruin and life on the street.... Her suspicions slowly ripen. It's enough to make her head, and a reader's head, spin.

The Lodger isn't a horror story, but rather, excellent classic psychological suspense. I enjoyed this book and the 1926 Hitchcock movie made from it. (There's a glass floor in the movie, a fabulous idea given the mysterious lodger pacing upstairs and poor Mrs. Bunting, worrying below him.) This is a particularly great book to read and movie to watch as the days slink away to leave us nights of wind, rain, and cold. Along with The Lodger, how about something hot to drink, some chips, and guacamole made from ripe avocados?

There Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens

On Monday, my good friend Della posted "Last Night I Went to Bed With a Murderer" about her propensity for reading murder mysteries in bed. Excellent stuff; you should go read it if you haven't already. Della's post got me to thinking about reading in bed and especially about reading spinetinglers in bed. The fact is, though, I can't. First of all, my record for staying awake while reading in a horizontal position is somewhere around 11 minutes. But, more importantly, I don't like my spine tingled at any time, especially not when it's dark and who knows what might be lurking outside. When you live in the sticks, there are enough creepy noises in the night. I don't need some author prompting me to imagine even more.

I admit it: as a reader and viewer, I'm a complete coward when it comes to violence, horror and sometimes  even suspense. I was the kid who had to leave the room when The Twilight Zone came on. Just hearing the theme's dee-dee-dee-dee dee-dee-dee-dee would have me rocketing out of my chair. The first movie I ever went to was Pinocchio, and when he got swallowed by the whale well, let's just say that's 50 cents my mother regretted spending.

I haven't gotten a lot more sanguine with age. I've never seen Jaws or The Exorcist. And don't even think about trying to persuade me to see them now. It would just confirm what I already know–and make me bitterly resent you on top of it. We don't want that, do we?

I'm only slightly better when it comes to books. My preferred mysteries are those in which the violence occurs off scene. It isn't that I've never read suspense or thrillers. I've read some of Val McDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series, for example. I can't say they weren't excellent, but when I got to one with the title The Torment of Others, I took that as a none-too-subtle hint that it would be beyond the horizon of my tolerance. I mean, seriously: the torment of others? I won't watch America's Funniest Home Videos because it torments others too much. I gave up Stuart MacBride's Logan MacRae series when I read Flesh House (a major mistake for me) and the titles alone of his subsequent books make it clear to me that I got out in the nick of time: Blind Eye, Dark Blood and Shatter the Bones.

I've been a big fan of Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole series, set in Oslo, but his most recently translated book, The Leopard, features a serial killer whose work is spectacularly creepy and repulsively gruesome. This from a guy who has written a children's book called Doctor Procter's Fart Powder? But he's hardly the first author who has decided, for some reason inexplicable to me, that a serial-killer plot is just the ticket. Well, not only are those books too scary for me, the last thing I want is to be taken into the twisted psyche of the killer, which seems to be part and parcel of serial-killer books. The book becomes a cat-and-mouse game in which the reader is invited to feel at least a tug of sympathy for the killer. I prefer my murderer to have a particular animus toward one person (I might stretch it to a small group of people), and I like him or her to have a reason for murder that I can relate to, even if I wouldn't find it sufficient to drive me to shoot, stab, poison, electrocute, cosh or otherwise dispatch the victim.

So, is it clear to everyone that when it comes to violence, horror and serial killers, I'm way off the bandwagon? What appeals to me about crime fiction is the puzzle solving and the characters. I want to read books that tell the truth about the characters in it and how they came to do whatever it is they do. True, in one case, that character will have committed the ultimate sin. But I don't need to have that sin described to me in graphic detail or have the victim's terror and pain played out in the text.

In light of this confession of my lily-livered nature, some might think it's strange that I read a lot of World War II history in which, of course, there is enough horror for even the most intrepid reader. But somehow, I feel that because there can be such real horror in the world, I don't want it in my fiction reading. I know there are many other readers who feel just the opposite: they will read novels with violence and horror, but don't want that in their nonfiction reading.

But back to mystery. In traditional mysteries, the reader need never see into the full depravity of the murderer's mind because, for one thing, the murderer is exposed at the close of the book. But just because a book isn't filled with teeth-clenching suspense or harrowingly graphic descriptions of violence doesn't mean that it's mild or dull. The discovery of the victim's body can be a moment of shock and horror; all the more so because the reader hasn't been subjected to a literally blow-by-blow account of how the corpse came to be. The examination of motives and the revelation of the murderer's identity are often emotionally intense.

In Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night, there isn't even a murder, but when Lord Peter Wimsey takes center stage in the Senior Common Room of an Oxford women's college and reveals the identity of the person who has been leaving poison pen notes and playing increasingly nasty tricks on its faculty and students, it's one of the most emotionally raw and intense moments in crime fiction. I recently re-read Ngaio Marsh's A Clutch of Constables (or, rather, listened to the audiobook), and Agatha Troy's horror when, while admiring the river and countryside while on a barge cruise, she discovers a murder victim, is arresting:

"Troy leant on the starboard taffrail and watched their entry into this frothy region. She remembered how she and Doctor Natouche and Caley Bard and Hazel Rickerby-Carrick had discussed reality and beauty. Fragments of conversation drifted across her recollection. She could almost re-hear the voices.

'–in the eye of the beholder–'

'–a fish tin with a red label. Was it the less beautiful–'

 '–if a dead something popped up through that foam–'

'–a dead something–'

'–a dead something–'

'–through that foam–'

'–a dead something–'

Hazel Rickerby-Carrick's face, idiotically bloated, looked up; not at Troy, not at anything. Her mouth, drawn into an outlandish rictus, grinned through discoloured froth. She bobbed and bumped against the starboard side. And what terrible disaster had corrupted her river-weed hair and distended her blown cheeks?"

I was out walking on a warm, sunny day when I reached this point in the audiobook, but I felt a chill upon hearing these words and visualizing the scene so vividly portrayed. I had a real feeling of the disorientation and shock Troy felt when making this nightmarish discovery. And that's what works for me. Horror once removed. (At least once; after all, I am a chicken.)

My state of mind puts me on the sidelines when people rave about authors like Mo Hayder, Thomas Harris and Jeffery Deaver, but I know there are plenty of other people who can't wait to read their books. Some of my best friends enjoy a good nightmare-inducing plot, an evisceration or two and witnessing a gruesome autopsy alongside a medical examiner who is expert in the arcane ways of establishing time of death. Who knows, some of the Material Witnesses may be in that group. If so, we'll be hearing from them very, very soon.

So are you in the chicken coop with me or are you prowling around the pen, just waiting to pounce? If you're in with me, you're probably already familiar with classic authors like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. Have you tried modern authors like Louise Penny, Reginald Hill and Fred Vargas? These are authors who don't sneak up behind you and yell Boo! but who also don't shy away from examining the feelings that compel a murder and describing the emotional impact of the crime on witnesses and those connected to the victim.

Now if you're not a chicken, my recommendation is um, uh . . . Can I get some help here? 

Last Night I Went to Bed With a Murderer

I never go to bed alone. Most nights, I have more company than I know what to do with: my husband, our dog and our two cats on the bed make for a slumber in which everyone coordinates turning over like vegetables grilling on kabobs. When my husband isn't home at bedtime, I don't allow myself to pine for human companionship. I'm not picky; male or female will do. It probably won't surprise you, fellow mystery fans, when I say there are few bed partners better than a murderer. Here are some of my recent enjoyable one- or two-night stands.

Doreen Corder begins The Pew Group by Anthony Oliver on the wrong foot. Hers, against her husband Rupert's instep at the top of the stairs. Moments later, he's in a heap, head askew, at the staircase bottom, dead as the parsley on your plate. (She doesn't consider it murder because it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. He wanted whiskey and sex while she wanted an hour of show-jumping on TV. We'll let her take a mulligan on calling it murder.) Antique shop owner Rupert doesn't leave Doreen very well off, but she managed to pick up enough knowledge watching him run his business to give it a go on her own. In fact, Rupert's barely cold before Doreen scores a coup: a pew group, an extremely rare piece of English pottery worth "a king's ransom" comes into her possession.

Everyone in the Suffolk town of Flaxfield wants to get their hands on it and before long it's missing from the cupboard of Doreen's shop. Who took it? There's no lack of credible suspects and Flaxfield has gone on the boil. There are strange happenings in the woods at night, someone disappears and everyone is looking for the missing pew group. Looking over their shoulders are Doreen's mother Mrs. Lizzie Thomas, who has moved to Flaxfield from Cardiff to keep an eye on Doreen, whom she considers flighty, lazy and mean, and Inspector John Webber, who has returned to his hometown while on medical leave from his London job.

This is a very engaging traditional mystery. It sparkles with unique characters living their eccentric lives in a picturesque part of England. The unusual relationships that they develop with each other make this book special. The cheerful and nosy Mrs. Thomas finds Webber attractive but the two are friends and comrades in sleuthing rather than lovers. Oliver's writing is not only ribald and witty, he also gives some interesting information about the antiques trade and the obsessional collectors who support it. It's the perfect read when you're looking for a book that's neither mind-numbing action/dripping bodily fluids nor the blandest of comfort food. Unfortunately, Oliver only wrote four mysteries in the Lizzie Thomas/John Webber series (The Pew Group is the first) but they're all good for some entertaining hours in the sack.

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Those are King Lear's words but Edward Powell's aunt in Richard Hull's The Murder of My Aunt would agree with them. Since the death of Edward's parents she has used family money, which Edward will inherit upon her death, to support him at her home in Llwll, Wales. Edward detests Wales and would like to live in London but this is impossible because he was kicked out of school for outlandish behavior and he has no skills. His narcissistic personality renders him unemployable. Edward spends his days reading racy French novels, spoiling his Pekinese So So and engaging in a battle of wills with his aunt.

Edward's aunt is determined to teach him to be a better person and he is determined not to be taught. After a particularly bad day in which he runs out of gas on his way to Llwll he decides to kill her. Luckily for his aunt and the reader, although he is sharper than a serpent's tooth, his mind is less than razor sharp, and he must try, try, and try again to kill her. [Georgette and Jonas Oldacre, this book might be for you.]

The Murder of My Aunt was written in 1934 and is a classic of mystery fiction. It regularly appears on lists of 100 best mysteries ever written. Edward's petulance and self-serving explanations make a very entertaining narration. The battle between Edward and his aunt is a fascinating study of narcissism and an unhealthy symbiotic relationship. Hull's writing is ironic and literate and if you haven't yet read his book you have a pleasure in store for you.

Three men walk into a Japanese restaurant in São Paulo, Brazil. (I swear this isn't the beginning of a joke. I'm going to tell you about Ira Levin's brilliant 1976 thriller, The Boys from Brazil.) Two are bulky men in dark suits and the third is an older, slimmer man dressed in white who insists on paying for the private dining room adjacent to the room he'd already reserved. When the two other men go over the two rooms inch by inch and then assume the position of guards outside the room, the reader knows something is up.

Gregory Peck as Dr. Josef Mengele

Something is indeed up; way up. The six men who join the man in white, Dr. Josef Mengele, around the table are former SS members and this is what they hear: "'You know what you're going out to do. Ninety-four men have to die on or near certain dates in the next two and a half years. . . They're sixty-five years old, or will be when their dates come around. They're family men, stable; civil servants mostly; men of minor authority."

Laurence Olivier as Ezra Lieberman

Why must these men die? The six aren't told why other than that the plan has the backing of the Kameradenwerk (Comrades' Organization) and that the future of the Aryan race depends on it. They are good soldiers and they do what they're told. They fan out around the world and the 94 men begin dying.

The six assassins aren't the only ones who hear the plot. A young American gets wind of it and calls world-renowned Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann (based on real-life Simon Wiesenthal, name changed to Ezra Lieberman in the movie The Boys from Brazil), who hears only that 94 men in several countries will die at the hands of the Nazis. He must figure out who, where and why in order to know how to stop it. Liebermann isn't the man he used to be and he knows he can't go to the authorities with this snippet of unproven information. He's old and frail and his sources in government and media have retired or died. Liebermann still lectures but to much smaller audiences at synagogues and colleges. The world's attention has moved on to other things.

The Boys from Brazil was written 35 years ago but it remains a stunning thriller all the same. Levin's pacing and plotting are impeccable. The story alternates between the jungles of Brazil with Mengele, and Europe and the United States with Liebermann. Levin, who also wrote Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, and A Kiss Before Dying, is a master of suspense. Disregard any voices in your head telling you you don't need to read this book. Don't read anything more about the plot. Levin has more tricks up his sleeve than you think and he'll keep you awake all night until you finish. The next night, you can watch the movie based on Levin's book, starring Gregory Peck, Laurence Olivier and James Mason.

One of Celia Fremlin's publishers once exulted that she was such an expert in domestic psychological suspense that her reader can sense the diapers drying on the line while reading. And it's true. She sets her books among middle- or working-class English families and then lets them walk into a nightmare step by terrible step. Fremlin's eye and ear for the every-day worries of women--what their families will eat for dinner, whether they should worry when Susan isn't home by midnight, what Mrs. Jones across the road will think when Robert runs the babysitter home at 2 a.m.--are unparalleled in mystery fiction. That she then takes these normal worries and magnifies them into something truly frightening is her gift to psychological suspense.

In Fremlin's 1969 book Possession, Clare Erskine is thrilled when her 19-year-old daughter Sarah announces that she is engaged to be married to accountant Mervyn Redmayne. Yes, he is 31 years old but, as Clare tells her husband, they're lucky he has a real job and hasn't joined a firm of psychedelic accountants or quit to do something artistic or take drugs. Sarah's previous boyfriends took advantage of her generous heart and loyalty but here is a man who will safely remove Sarah from their clutches. Clare is not pleased when her younger daughter is adamantly opposed to Sarah's engagement. Even worse, Clare's best friend Peggy reports that Mervyn's mother, Mrs. Redmayne, is an overly possessive mother who will cause no end of problems for Sarah. Clare tries to balance faith in her daughter's good sense and desire to be independent with her worries about Sarah's future. And Mervyn and Mrs. Redmayne give Clare something to worry about.

I don't want to say any more about the plot of this book but I will tell you that Possession had me breathing through my mouth and leaning away from the bed's headboard while reading it. If you're looking for suspense in a literary mystery rather than a page-turning popcorn read, this book is for you. I opened the book when I crawled into bed and then finished it before the cows came home.

Many of us enjoy the companionship of a murderer while snuggling under the covers and before drifting off to sleep. If you can give us any recommendations we'd love hearing about them. Please leave them below as a comment or on the Third Degree page rather than on the wall of a public restroom.