The Edge of Ruin by Irene Fleming

Title: The Edge of Ruin
Author: Irene Fleming
ISBN: 9780312575205
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2010
Hardcover, 240 pages
Genre: Historical Mystery, Amateur Sleuth, #1 Emily Daggett Weiss mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Purchased from Amazon.

First Line: One sunny afternoon in the fall of 1909, Adam Weiss came home to the three-story Dutch Colonial house he shared with his new wife in suburban Philadelphia, hung his derby hat on the hat rack, and announced to her that he was selling his string of nickelodeons-- and everything else the couple owned-- to go to New York City and set himself up as a movie producer.

Having signed a contract that will ruin them if they don't turn in four completed movies in a month, there's no time to waste in selling everything, moving to New York, and putting together a cast of actors, props, costumes, and a camera man.

They've barely begun filming across the river in New Jersey when a former Pinkerton detective is murdered on set, and Adam Weiss is declared the killer and carted off to jail. Emily is left behind to continue filming so they won't lose everything and to find proof that will exonerate her husband.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was the fact that I immediately knew whom the killer was; otherwise, this was a very enjoyable book to read.

Having the book set during the early days of the movie industry when Edison had an iron grip on his patents and hired men to discourage any and all independent movie companies was a stroke of genius. Not only are there ideas for a million future books in this period, it's also fun and educational to read about the birth of one of our favorite forms of entertainment.

The book moves very quickly-- almost as quickly as those one-reelers Emily was producing-- and the characters are well drawn and grab the imagination.

Emily is young, pretty, and a former chorine on stage. Adam is handsome and extremely ambitious. Within a very few pages, these two gain more depth. All their possessions are sold, including a good part of Emily's wardrobe-- but not a stitch of Adam's-- which throws up a red flag concerning Adam's character. A little later when Adam is jailed and Emily is in charge of writing the storylines and scenes for the movies, Emily is shown to be highly intelligent, capable of taking charge, and not willing to knuckle under to threats-- not exactly the type of woman who's going to blend well with a man like Adam.

The history was fascinating, the story quick-paced and well-plotted, and combined with the growth of the two main characters, this all leads me to the conclusion that I've found another series of which to keep track.

Life is good!

Buy from Amazon.

Buy from The Book Depository.

Buy from an Indie Bookseller.

A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory

Title: A Quiet Belief in Angels
Author: R.J. Ellory
ISBN: 9781590202500, Overlook Press, 2009
Genre: Historical Mystery, Amateur Sleuth
Rating: A-

First Line: I am an exile.

It's 1939, and in rural Augusta Falls, Georgia, someone rapes and murders a classmate of twelve-year-old Joseph Calvin Vaughan. It is the first of several such murders that span many counties, many sheriffs' jurisdictions, and many years. As a young boy in school, Joseph wanted the murders to stop, so he banded together with several other boys in his class to form the Guardians. All the boys felt that, if they could keep an eye on things, the murders would stop. They were wrong.

Fifty years will pass. Many little girls will be raped and murdered. And Joseph will remain haunted by it all.

I fell into this book and did not want to come up for air. Sure there were a few problems: sometimes the imagery was a bit overwrought or tangled, and Joseph seemed all too content to let life happen to him so he could agonize over it and write about it. Once in a while it strained credulity that not once in all those years did any of the sheriffs in the area ever find one clue or have even one tiny inkling of the murderer's identity, but those were minor annoyances for me. I was hooked by the story, by Joseph's voice, and by the tale that Ellory was spinning.

Elena.

You sweet, silent, lost little girl.

I think of the woman you would have become. I wonder if somewhere there is a place that holds all these unfinished lives. Another plane, another world running parallel to our own, where the dead pick up their incomplete lives and live them out.

And I recall times when I tried so hard to understand the kind of person who could have killed so many children.

Perhaps South of Broad is still lingering in my memory, but as I read A Quiet Belief in Angels I found similarities in the rich language of R.J. Ellory and Pat Conroy-- evocative imagery, a strong sense of place, the power of memory, wounded characters who somehow find untapped wells of strength. It would be rather safe to assume that if you enjoy the novels of Pat Conroy, you're going to love R.J. Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels.

As I did. Joseph Calvin Vaughan and his quiet belief in angels will linger on in my own memory for some time to come.


*Review copy provided by Vida Engstrand of the Overlook Press.

Review-- The Dumb Shall Sing

Title: The Dumb Shall Sing, a Mystery of Colonial Times
Author: Stephen Lewis
ISBN: 0425169979/ Berkley Prime Crime, 1999
Genre: Historical mystery, #1 Catherine Williams
Rating: C+

First Line: The sloop Good Hope, its crowned lion figurehead pointing to the sea, rode the outgoing tide past the mouth of Newbury Bay toward deeper waters whose color changed from light blue near shore to an almost midnight black.

We first see wealthy widow Catherine Williams on board the Good Hope. It's New England in 1638. The Pequot War has ended, and all the Pequot leaders are ready for "justice" on deck. Since the agreement the Puritan leaders of Newbury made was with Catherine's deceased husband, they think they can conveniently forget about it. Catherine deems otherwise and manages to save the life of one of the leaders, Massaquoit, who will now live with her.

Catherine is a well-respected midwife and healer in the community. When a healthy baby she recently delivered dies, she is called upon to testify. The baby's mother is struck dumb with grief, and the father accuses both Catherine and his Irish Catholic maid of having had part in the infant's demise. Catherine believes the maid to be innocent, "guilty" only of being Catholic, and she begins to work to find the real reason for the baby's death.

Lewis uses setting and characterization to good effect in this first book in the series. Seventeenth- century New England comes to life, and Catherine and Massaquoit make a good team of investigators. The only weakness I found in the book was that it was glaringly obvious to me what had happened to the baby. That one flaw aside, I found The Dumb Shall Sing to be a strong start to the series, which to date only contains three books. I'll be looking for the other two, The Blind in Darkness and The Sea Hath Spoken. Strong female characters in this time period should not be passed by!

Mini-Review: Listen to the Mockingbird

Title: Listen to the Mockingbird
Author: Penny Rudolph
ISBN: 1894869737/Zumaya
Protagonist: Matty Summerhayes
Setting: New Mexico Territory, 1861
Rating: DNF

A woman who owns a horse ranch in New Mexico Territory? A mysterious past? Confederate soldiers riding up to her adobe? Dead bodies? This mystery had all the earmarks of something I would enjoy. After 63 pages, all I had was a headache. This time I think the reason for giving up was Reader Stupidity. Setting does have importance in the books that I read. Even if I've never been there, I like to have a good fix on where the book is taking place. I could never get a fix in Listen to the Mockingbird. Yes, I know that New Mexico Territory consisted of the present states of New Mexico and Arizona. Yes, I know that the southern half of the territory was often referred to as Arizona. I know where El Paso and Santa Fe are. With all that knowledge, you'd think I could figure out where Matty Summerhayes was. I couldn't. Add to the sense of being lost a total lack of involvement with any of the characters, and I just gave up. I got myself a cold bottle of green tea, an Excedrin, and wandered over to my TBR shelves. Sorry, Ms. Rudolph!

REVIEW: Rat City

Title: Rat City
Author: Curt Colbert
Protagonist: hard-boiled gumshoe, Jake Rossiter
Setting: Seattle, Washington, 1947
Series: #1
Rating: B+

First Line: I'd never used my new pistol.

Nothing like trying to have your first cup of java in the morning when a big palooka storms in your office and tries to punch your ticket to the Pearly Gates.

The above sentence is one reason why Rat City sat on my TBR shelves for a few years. I've seen more than one comedy sketch about the tough private eye, and each time I had to decipher what in the world the characters were saying. I bought the book because of its setting, but when I opened it and realized what sort of book it was, visions of Humphrey Bogart, Maltese Falcons, Mike Hammer and the like began tap dancing in my head and I got a bit queasy. This week, I decided to do some Detesto Testing. I chose three books that I'd had for several years and decided that, one by one, I'd give each a chance. If I wasn't hooked by page 50, they were History. Rat City was the first of the three.

Jake Rossiter, former Marine in the South Pacific during World War II, is back home in Seattle and set up in his own private investigation business. He even has his own gal Friday, Miss Jenkins. When Big Ed, a very big, very angry bookie comes into his office and fires two shots at him, Rossiter doesn't have any alternative but to fire back. Big Ed lives just long enough to gasp, "Gloria!" Not long after that, someone else has another crack at killing him and gasps, "Gloria!" before he dies. It's enough to give Jake a complex, and he sure as shooting wants to know who this Gloria is. He calls in some extra help so he can work the Gloria investigation as well as continue with an old case that's been going nowhere.

Fortunately for me, although Rat City has the look and the feel of 1940s hard-boiled noir, Colbert didn't feel the necessity to use all the period private eye jargon. Colbert has an excellent cast of characters, and the plot moved right along like Rossiter's eight-cylinder Buick Roadmaster. I wouldn't even mind reading the next book in this series just to find out how Miss Jenkins' correspondence course is doing. It's nice to have my expectations kicked in the seat of the pants once in a while, and that's what Colbert certainly did.

A word of warning for anyone thinking of reading this book: it does have some rough language, and I'm not just talking about swear words. If racial slurs bother you at all, I would gently advise you not to read Rat City.