Scandal in high life

I read the new C.S. Harris mystery today. This is after I read the second-to-last one yesterday, because I forgot I had read it at all. Not because it's bad, but because the third-to-last one was so searingly good that the follow-up necessarily paled in comparison. Alas, so did this one. I AM glad that Harris didn't drag out some of her hero's personal life developments too long (SPOILER ALERT). I can't speak for everyone else, but it was patently obvious to me that his father was not, in fact, his biological father. When you keep yammering on about the family's blue eyes and the one black sheep's unusual yellow eyes, Mendel starts rolling in his grave. Anyway, it was a nice return to period mystery. I haven't been indulging in my usual reading vices, having been using the university library more than the public, and also having been exercising out of doors instead of on the elliptical. I think I'll give myself an injection of bad fantasy next.

Recent hits

John Hart's The Last Child, a gritty modern mystery with a compelling young boy as the central character, searching for his kidnapped sister. Excellent read.

Nine, the Rob Marshall musical with Daniel Day-Lewis and every Oscar-winning woman ever, was indeed quite bad. Marshall failed to motivate the musical numbers as Guido's imagination the way he managed to make Chicago all happen in Roxie's head; besides that, he apparently forgot that not every musical number has to have bells, whistles, a cast of thousands, and mostly-naked women.

Michelle Moran's chick-littish series set in ancient Egypt is quite good because of the use of historical events and detail, though the interpersonal plots are on the level of girl likes boy, girl puts on makeup, boy notices girl.

Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune reminded me how great an adventure story can be when someone is writing it well and creatively. It also contains the seeds of her fascination with the Zorro legend, which she reworked so well in her recent novel (shockingly entitled Zorro). I may have to go back and try her famous House of the Spirits again. I didn't like it when I first read it, but I was very young, and maybe there's even an alternative translation now.

Leonard Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has some musical gems in it, and even some hilarious lyrics. But among other reasons the show isn't put up often, some of the interpolated scenes of African American characters are less than politically correct. "The Money-Lovin' Minstrel Show," ye gods.

Speaking of...

...authors who died, leaving their series unfinished, none was sadder than Kate Ross, an attorney who died after writing only four of her acclaimed Julian Kestrel mysteries.  Kestrel was a sensitive, complicated dandy living in Regency-ish England (I think -- it's been a while), whose obscure origins were as much of a puzzle as the murders and heartbreak constantly dropped in his lap.  They are in the same family as Anne Perry, though not terribly similar; there's a lot of emphasis on emotion and moral dilemma, but less on politics, except for the last one, set in Italy.  Fortunately, Ross did reveal some of Julian's origins in the last one, which makes it a not altogether abrupt close, but it's quite sad to think of all the books she might have written.

And we think we have problems

Another Irish-themed post: a historical mystery series I've enjoyed lately is the Sister Fidelma series by Peter Tremayne, set in 6th-century Ireland. Sister Fidelma is the red-haired nun, dalaigh (roughly a cross between a judge and a detective in their court system), and sister of the king of Cashel. As she navigates these social circles, she's naturally in a position to take charge of some intriguing cases with the help of her sturdy Saxon friend, Brother Eadulf, decidedly the Watson to her Holmes. As a matter of fact, he gets a little too Watson-like in the comic film tradition; sometimes when he wants to sit and eat, I'm pretty much with him and against the annoying perfect Fidelma, but things balance out later in the series.

The series is well written and will interest Ireland buffs with its inclusion of mythology and real history. What lends it that dash of contemporary reference is the bitter strife between the more flexible Irish Christianity and the Roman Christianity attempting to take over. The Irish want to keep their law system, which rarely invokes any kind of death penalty, let the clergy marry, etc. The incoming Romans or Roman-trained clerics want to establish the Penitential system and enforce celibacy. Fidelma naturally provokes their wrath on an almost daily (and certainly bookly) basis. Although Ireland is portrayed as a little too utopian, particularly in contrast to Eadulf's rough Saxon ways (less washing, less law), the clash between fundamentalism and tolerance is an open commentary on our current dialogue, complete with divergent attitudes towards homosexuality.