Friday Forgotten (or Overlooked) Book: DESTINATION UNKNOWN aka SO MANY STEPS TO DEATH (1954) by Agatha Christie

When in doubt, reach for a Christie - words to live by. A quick re-read and all's right with the world again - at least for the moment. (This post is a re-working of a review I did several years ago of a book I never get tired of re-reading, especially when I'm in need of escaping to a more comfortable, more familiar world. And boy, these days do I ever need that.)

Destination Unknown (aka So Many Steps to Death) by Agatha Christie is a stand-alone published in 1954 - the book doesn't feature Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot nor any of the other Christie sleuths. In fact, for the most part this is a thriller though it also has, as a major plot surprise, an element of whodunit thrown in for good measure at the end. Christie was often tricky like that.

Probably not as well known as the titles in the Poirot and Marple canons, but I think this is in many ways, one of Christie's more comforting bests, even if the oh-so-improbable plot requires a larger than average suspension of disbelief. It is in my view, perfect escapist entertainment. The story begins with a sad woman on the verge of suicide and ends with her a heroine no longer sad. Through an extraordinary set of circumstances, she has found the strength to survive.

Hilary Craven is a young, typically subdued British woman who has lost her beloved child to illness and her husband to ennui. As an escape she gets on a plane to Paris, a runaway who discovers almost immediately that you cannot run away from yourself - wherever you are, there you are. Seeing no point to the emptiness of her life, she plans a nice, quite out-of-the-way suicide - wouldn't want to bother anyone back home in England. Christie was not being especially subtle when she named her heroine Craven. Though, in truth, her character's motivation is easy enough to understand.

This quest for oblivion is deduced at a conveniently opportune moment by a shady character named Jessop (of the intelligence service), who picks up on Hilary's intention with no more than an experienced hunch, To watch him reel her into his grand scheme of impersonation (it's her flaming red hair, you see) is a Christie, fairy-tale delight. (Yeah, this is definitely a candidate for my Fairy Tale Crime sub-genre which would also include THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT and THEY CAME TO BAGHDAD, both also by Christie.)

As she is lining up some pills, Jessop stealthily breaks into Hilary's hotel room and upsets her immediate plans:

"...You're not interested in life, you don't want to live any longer, you more or less welcome the idea of death?"

"Yes."

"Good," said Jessop, cheerfully. "So now we know where we are. Let's go on to the next step. Has it got to be sleeping pills?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've already told you that they're not as romantic as they sound. Throwing yourself off a building isn't too nice, either. You don't always die at once. And the same applies to falling under a train. What I'm getting at is that there are other ways."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I'm suggesting another method. Rather a sporting method, really. There's some excitement in it, too. I'll be fair with you. There's just a hundred to one chance that you mightn't die. But I don't believe under the circumstances, that you'd really object by that time."

The gist of the plot: several top-notch scientists have disappeared from their various corners of the world and no one knows where they are - not their governments, families, closest friends or fellow workers. Because of the delicate nature of their scientific specialties, government agencies are naturally concerned. The suspicion is that these learned men and women have gone over to the other side, slipped away behind the Iron Curtain - it was that time in history. If so, there's not much to be done, but if there should be another explanation then...

When Olive Betterton, a young, trim red-headed English woman suspected of being on her way to wherever her husband Tom - a nuclear physicist - is hiding, is badly hurt in a plane crash on the very plane that Hilary Craven would have been on had not the weather forced her connecting flight to detour away from the airport, well then, you kind of know where this is headed. Olive Betterton is pulled barely alive from the wreckage and taken to hospital where all she knows (IF she knows) about Tom Betterton's mysterious disappearance will die with her, unless...

Well, this is an Agatha Christie plot, so you have to expect surprises on top of surprises and boy do you get them here. Such an outlandish plot, but I go along with it every time I re-read the book. I mean, why not? It couldn't happen now, but it could have happened once upon a time...

Hilary Craven is quickly remade into Olive Betterton and sent on her way to join a bunch of disparate travelers, any one of which may or may not be an unknown contact, touring Morocco and other exotic locales. When contact is at last made, it comes in the least expected way and Hillary almost blows it.

Then the circuitous adventure begins. Hillary and certain traveling companions are led away from civilization towards 'a new world.' Their destination? A sinister Utopian society hidden away where no one would ever think of looking. 

Terrific book if you're stricken with the doldrums and feel like a strangely comforting tale of spies, murder, travel, an incredible secret hideout, a cold-hearted villain and last, but not least, a bit of romance and a whodunit twist.

Since it's Friday, don't forget to check in at author Patricia Abbott's blog, Pattinase, to see what other forgotten or overlooked books other bloggers are talking about today.

Monday Review: MURDER AT BEECHLANDS (1948) by Maureen Sarsfield

Lane Parry looks bigger than his car on this cover. I assure you, he isn't.

The second and last mystery (far as we know) ever written by author Maureen Sarsfield. This one features the usually self-possessed Scotland Yard Inspector Lane Parry as well. I reviewed the first book a few weeks ago and now here's the second and last. You know from that review that Sarsfield very mysteriously disappeared from literary history after writing MURDER AT BEECHLANDS and no one knows what happened to her.

This very talented writer either retired from writing or passed away or, perhaps, continued writing under another name. (I added that last one.) But I must admit that over the years I've never read any other book written in quite the same style as Sarsfield's. Can't even think who she reminds me of. I wonder if anyone's ever done a style search for more of Sarsfield's work?

Might be a good subject for a term paper or thesis.

At any rate, MURDER AT BEECHLANDS is written in the same wonderfully lush, heavy with atmosphere style as MURDER AT SHOTS HALL.  It made for some mighty fine late at night reading.

Inspector Parry's car gets caught in a snowdrift in the middle of a rampaging snowstorm in the wilds of Sussex. Lucky for him, he spies lights in the distance. The Beechlands Hotel is just a mile or so up the road from his abandoned car.

True, when he first arrives, snow-coated and exhausted, he thinks he's stumbled upon a lunatic asylum - the inmates outside having a snowball fight - but soon enough he realizes that it's just a hotel full of everyday assorted eccentrics. Made more so, by the almost immediate discovery of one of the guests, Wing Commander Lawton Lawrence, aka 'Lawty' lying battered and dead in the snow - having plunged from his upper floor window. Suicide?

Of course not. The womanizing Wing Commander was hit over the head by an ice hammer (what ever that is) then shoved over the window sill and sent flying into the cold night air.

What happens then - over one long, winter night - is Sarsfield's nightmare version of the charming country house weekend spent in the beautiful English countryside. A second murder occurs and the snow continues to fall, the phone lines having obligingly been cut - Parry and the rest are trapped in the isolated hotel with a murderer on the loose.

The guests had originally gathered at Beechlands to celebrate Wing Commander Lawton's home-coming. The hotel's owner Annabel Adams (a stately woman with an imposing bosom and a secret), had also planned to schmooze one of the guests into investing some necessary cash in her failing enterprise.

Beechlands is a money-losing rococo monstrosity full of red velvet flocking, golden gilding, flickering lights, dark halls, secret staircases, shadowy corners and a couple of dead bodies draped with sheets, lying in the dining room until daylight. Parry, annoyed by the imposition of it all, is determined to find the murderer before he or she does anymore damage.

When the killer makes an attempt on Parry's life and nearly succeeds, the Inspector is saved by the hotel's only waiter, the sneaky Gaston Leroux - a man known to Parry as Albert, a London thief released from prison and now, improbably, on the staff at Beechlands.

Parry quickly eliminates the three addled maids, while keeping an eye on Gaston/Albert and the faux French chef, but it's the list of overwrought guests who keep behaving as if at any moment they're about to be slaughtered which worry Parry most. This belief of impending doom is intensified by the copious amounts of liquor they're all consuming as the hours drag on.

Trapped at the hotel with the ever more grizzled and grumbling Parry are:

Marigold Trent, a gold- digging platinum blond vamp with a penchant for men and see-through clothing.

Christie Layne, a fade into the woodwork type called a 'braown maouse' by everyone thought Parry immediately notices that it's all a guise.

Cintra Norton: A very oddly behaving film star (well, odder than most) approaching middle age, whose life appears to be in determined chaos.

Paul Livingston: A potential investor who's come from London but keeps denigrating the hotel, to Annabel's dismay.

Julian Frake: Marigold's sugar daddy who is not above giving her 'paste' jewelry. He too is seen by Annabel as a potential investor.

Jim Bridges: An embittered architect with war scars and a reclusive nature. Wing Commander Lawton had broken up his marriage.

Sir Eric Hammerton: A hard drinking baronet who arrives late and leaves in the nick of time.

The night goes from bad to worse as the generator stops working, the lights go out and the jumpy guests bump about in the dark.

Morning can't come too soon for Lane Parry.

A terrific second book in this very short-lived series and the ending gives no clue that this would be Parry's last adventure. It's all very confounding.

Again, I thank the Rue Morgue Press for reprinting these two lost classics. Check their catalogue for these and other oldies but goodies.

No Review Today But I Have A Good Excuse...

I seem to have slowed down a bit in my reading lately and for that I apologize. Here's what happened: I had been dipping in and out of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY by Michael Chabon, juggling some books around, reading this, reading that, reviewing what I liked, as I usually do. But Chabon's book kept calling me back and I'd read a few pages and have to spend time thinking about what I'd just read, adjusting to the fact that a magnificent book had begun to unveil itself to me. Yeah, that happens with certain books. But, here's the rub: I should have been reading it sooner since now the library was wanting it back.

I had gotten halfway through KAVALIER AND CLAY hooked to the point that every other book I picked up was suffering by comparison. I either had to read more quickly or I'd miss my own self-imposed review deadline.

But KAVALIER AND CLAY is not something you read quickly. It is a book to savor, to think about, to unreel in your imagination scene by scene. It is the story of Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, Jewish immigrant boys who, as Hitler rises to power in Europe, transform their own lives through artistry, imagination and hard work. Together they create a best selling comic book world filled with super heroes and raging villains, many suspiciously Nazi-like. A wonderful story that will stay alive in my own imagination, I hope, for years to come. So what is a reader to do when faced with a book that astonishes her senses?

With fines adding up at the library (And why or why did I wait so long to begin reading it??? Did I think this Pulitzer Prize winning book would just not live up to the hype? Why was I so leery?), I had no choice but to return it (after several renewals while it sat there waiting patiently for me to make up my mind). Okay, so here's the plan: I wait a week or so, then I request the book again. Hopefully it will be available to me. But I know that at some point I'm going to have to own a copy.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you foolishly dithered over a book only to find that it was even better than you'd dared hope? I'm late to the party I know, but jeez, I'm thrilled to have finally arrived.

Monday Book Review: LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld

A steampunk first for me. I have to admit I probably would not have read this for awhile - if at all - if my friend Jean in Colorado hadn't sent me a copy. She's a school librarian and if anyone knows a good book when she reads one, it's Jean. All I can say is she was right on the money when she picked LEVIATHAN by Scott Westerfeld as something I would like. Even though I am not into the whole steampunk craze - don't know that much about it to begin with, though I think I kind of get the idea - I'm always curious about alternate history if handled in just the right way. (Hey, if ANYTHING can get kids interested in history - alternate or otherwise - I'm all for it.) I'm also not into YA books unless they are truly exceptional. - teen angst is not my thing at this stage in my life. I admit it.But I do recognize that there are many YA books that are well worth the reading.

LEVIATHAN is a remarkably engaging adventure filled with wonderful, convincing characterizations, lightning fast action and fantastic apparitions from the incredible mind of author Scott Westerfeld. The story is set early in an alternate 20th century on the eve of WWI. A war brought about this time not by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, but of another Duke and Duchess, the parents of young Prince Aleksander who is then spirited away in the night just ahead of his enemies, by a small band of loyalists. The murders are being used (as Ferdinand's death was in reality) as an excuse to declare war. Thus begins the gripping story of nations at each other's throats in an Europe that is at the same time both recognizable and not. Alek's family has ruled Austria-Hungary for over 500 years, they and their allies are adherents and proponents of vast, steam-powered war machinery - Clanker technology - which is being used by enemies of the Prince and his cohorts allied with Germany. On the run with the help of their own metallic monster of a machine, a Stormwalker, a creature that operates on huge metallic 'legs' rather than wheels, they force their clumsy way through the night forest, just ahead of government troops in larger and fiercer machinery.

This is a festering Europe of opposing forces, each side heralding their own brand of technology which in the coming war will clash head to head. The British forces are Darwinists, proponents of animal based warfare machinery: The science of DNA manipulation used by Darwin (whose granddaughter plays part in the storyline) and his descendants to create animal/machinery combos used for specific applications. i.e. the huge Leviathan of the title, a whale airship that flies through the clouds with men and machinery: a 'live' creature whose one specific job is to fly on the hydrogen it manufactures. A mammalian air balloon of sorts. A creature that is managed and manipulated by dozens of other small hybrid animals, birds, worms, bees, etc. each with a specific job to do. So this is not only a coming war of ideology and power grabbing but of opposing technologies as well: CLANKERS vs. DARWINISTS.

The energetic black and white illustrations of artist Keith Thompson, scattered throughout the book, are brilliant. They add another form of excitement to a story which is told at breakneck speed. Thompson's technique is perfect for this sort of book, the pictures work hand in hand with the written story, enhancing, as great illustration must, the writer's words.

The story primarily belongs to two main characters: Alek, the young runaway Prince of the Hapsburg's (the ruling family which has turned against him because of his late mother's lowly birth), who, with his small band of loyalists must fight for his very survival in a world in which his high birth must be kept secret. And the British Air Service cadet, Dylan Sharp, a soldier who also has a secret of his own: she is Deryn, a fifteen year old girl masquerading as a boy in the elite forces. Only boys and men are allowed to serve in the armies of Great Britain, a profession which Deryn has aimed for since her late father taught her to fly.

Alek and Deryn are thrown together by circumstance as the great Leviathan makes a forced landing on a glacier in the Swiss Alps. From that moment, their futures, are unknowingly entwined. But Alek must first get over his repulsion of the 'God-less' Darwinist creations and Deryn must overcome her contempt of Clanker technology dependent on machine parts and fossil fuel. The world is on the verge of a hideous war and friend and foe must somehow work together to deliver a secret parcel carried by the great Leviathan to the shores of the Ottoman Empire.

This first book is part of a trilogy, the second book of which, BEHEMOTH is now available. I can't wait to read what happens next to Alek and Deryn and their world of Clanker and Darwinist technology. If someone hasn't bought this for the movies, I can't imagine what they're waiting for.

Read more about the books and their author Scott Westerfeld at this link.

Monday Book Review: ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING by Jasper Fforde

ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING is the sixth entry in the Thursday Next series by the ever witty, ever confounding, ever brilliant Jasper Fforde - a resident of "...the Socialist Republic of Wales..." where it's "...Not Always Raining."

The Thursday Next oeuvre takes place in a kind of alternate universe where familiar things are made unfamiliar at the author's whim. I would say that if you do not have a love of the English language, literature, reading, puns, absurdity and British humor, then these books are probably not for you. Otherwise, read on.

This time out, the 'real' Thursday Next, famed literary detective has gone missing (from the real world) and the book is told from 'the written' Thursday Next's point of view. That is, the Thursday Next who appears in the books we've read so far beginning with THE EYRE AFFAIR - rather than the actual Thursday Next on whom the books are based.

Get it? Got it? Good.

This Thursday Next is one of several on call 24/7 to carry through the scenes in the previous books in case a reader should happen by. Truth be told, the readership of the Thursday books has gone by the wayside and this Thursday is kind of happy to have something to do, i.e. search for the missing Thursday. In the meantime, another Thursday Next - a stand-in named Carmine - has taken over book duties in case, as I said, a reader should happen along.

To explain how BookWorld operates as, say, opposed to the Real World invented by Fforde would take all day, time I've got but wherewithal I haven't. Fforde is better at explaining things and if you really want to know all the details, read the books.

Here's the gist of it: BookWorld (which exists on a different plane than our 'reality') is controlled by the powerful Council of Genres: The Council of Genres is the administrative body that looks after all aspects of BookWorld regulation, from policy decisions in th emain debating chamber to the day-to-day running of ordinary BookWorld affairs, supply of plot devices and even the word supply coming in from the Text Sea. It controls the Book Inspectorate, which governs which books are to be published and which to be demolished, and also manages Text Grand Central and Jurisfiction.

Bradshaw's BookWorld Companion (11th Edition)

The BookWorld is inhabited by every character, every genre, every plot device, every setting, every letter (The Sea of Text), every motivation, every anything you can think of having to do with the creation of books exists for the benefit of the reader who has no notion that the Book World exists at all. The reader (you and me) is never aware of the panoply of moving parts while reading a regular book or e-book.

The reader naturally assumes that the author created the book he or she is holding or viewing off a screen. Little does the reader know that BookWorld uses writers as a sort of conduit.

Enough said.

To avert a potentially devastating genre war, written Thursday Next is called in to search for the missing literary detective who was to serve as an emissary at the scheduled peace talks. But enemies on both sides of the issue do not want her to succeed and written Next must pretend that the 'real' Next isn't missing at all while her search in the BookWorld (with a fast moving side trip to Real World in which she meets the man of her dreams, the real Thursday Next's husband Landen Parke-Laine) takes her from genre to genre with the help of her new-found butler, the endearing mechanical man, Sprockett. They barely survive an attack by 500 mimes when their car is forced off an inter-genre road by another attack by the mysterious Men in Plaid who are frequently after Next currently wanted by the Goliath Corporation (who basically controls the Real World) for a bunch of spurious criminal charges.

Anyway, the peace talks will go on with or without Next, but without, they have little chance of succeeding. An inter-genre war is not a pretty thing to contemplate. The stability of the entire BookWorld is in written Thursday's unsteady hands, especially since she has been manipulated into attending the Peace Talks masquerading as the 'real' Thursday.

Never has the Book World seemed such a daunting place. (See the Map above.)

Rumor had it that undiscovered genres were hidden among the thick vegetation and impenetrable canopy in the far north of the island. Primitive, anarchic, strange and untouched by narrative convention, they were occasionally discovered and inducted into the known BookWorld, where they started off fresh and exciting before ultimately becoming mimicked, overused, tired and then passe. BookWorld naturalists argued strongly that some genres should remain hidden in order to keep the BookWorld from homogenizing, but their voices went unheeded.

Bradshaw's BookWorld Companion (3rd Edition)

Dark Reading Matter: the hypothetical last resting place of books never published, ideas never penned and poems held only in the heart of poets who died without passing them on. Theoretical bibliologists have proved that the Background Story Radiation was appreciably more than the apparent quantity of STORY in the BookWorld. No one had any idea where it might be or how you could reach it. DRM'S existence remained theoretical, at best.

Bradshaw's BookWorld

Companion (4th edition)

Did I mention that these books are also accompanied by b/w illustrations? (Though, strangely, there is no illustration credit given in the book. That I can find, anyway.) Well, they are. Also at the end of the book, you'll find some intriguing ads featuring items and places from the book. Fforde's imagination apparently knows no bounds.

I love these books.

For a complete listing of Jasper Fforde's books, please use this link. You might also want to check out Fforde's inventive, highly imaginative and often confusing (part of the charm), website.

Book jacket illustration by Thomas Allen.

Interior illustrations by Dylan Meconis and Mudron.

Monday Review: A RED HERRING WITHOUT MUSTARD by Alan Bradley

Alan Bradley is such a wonderful writer - yeah, I'm gushing again. I really and truly do wonder how a man of a 'certain' age can write such terrific stories all from the point of view of an 11 year old girl. My initial inclination is this: 11 year old girls are not that much different from 11 year old boys and so I'm assuming Bradley pulls on his own memories of running about the countryside of his youth causing havoc. I'm smiling while I'm writing this, but hey, it might be the case.

This is the third book in the Flavia de Luce series begun with the multi-award winning THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE. The stories are set in the 1950's English countryside and feature the eccentric youngest sister of a trio of girls, daughters of an indifferent, lonely, taciturn widower whose passion is collecting stamps. They all live in a ramshackle, rundown estate called Buckshaw, the house a mere shadow of better times.

Flavia's two older sisters nicknamed Daffy and Feely, are horrors - well, as described by Flavia anyway - definitely two wicked sisters from out of a fairy tale. Most especially cruel is their annoying habit of making Flavia feel as if their dead mother Harriet (who died in a mountain climbing accident when Flavia was a baby) didn't care much for Flavia and that Flavia is adopted.

For Flavia, a brilliant but lonely child, these reminders that she never got to know her mother or form memories of her are a constant sadness. But she plots her revenge against her sisters in her own special place in the house: the 3rd floor laboratory full of potions and poisons and chemical paraphernalia, conveniently left behind by a dead relative. Flavia is a natural-born scientist and her gleeful love of chemical formulas and experimentation is fun to read about, especially when she's plotting against her sisters and brewing poisons.

Stepping through the door into my laboratory was like gaining sanctuary in a quiet church: The rows of bottled chemicals were my stained glass windows, the chemical bench my altar. Chemistry has more gods than Mount Olympus, and here in my solitude I could pray in peace to the greatest of them: Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (who, when he found a young assistant in a linen draper's shop surreptitiously reading a chemistry text which she kept hidden under the counter, promptly dumped his fiancee and married the girl); William Perkin (who had found way of making purple dye for the robes of emperors without using the spit of mollusks); and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who probably discovered oxygen, and - more thrilling even that that - hydrogen cyanide, my personal pick as the last word in poisons.

Flavia's only friend appears to be her bicycle, Gladys, and as Flavia scampers about the countryside in and out of trouble, solving mysteries and digging for answers to quirky problems that seem to fall in her lap, Gladys come in handy for quick escapes or for following up a culprit.

Glady's tires hummed happily as we shot past St. Tancred's and into the high street. She was enjoying the day as much as I was.

Ahead on my left, a few doors from the Thirteen Drakes, was Reggie Pettibone's antiques shop. I was making a mental note to pay it a visit later when the door flew open and a spectacled boy came hurtling out into the street.

It was Colin Prout.

I swerved to avoid hitting him, and Gladys went into a long shuddering slide.

"Colin!" I shouted as I came to a stop. I had very nearly taken a bad tumble.

But Colin had already crossed the high street and vanished into Bolt Alley, a narrow, reeking passage that led to a lane behind the shops.

Needless to say, I followed, offering up fresh praise for the invention of the Sturmey-Archer three-speed shifter.

The current book begins with Flavia having her fortune told at a country fete by an old Gypsy named Fenella. When through a series of clumsy actions, Flavia burns the Gypsy's tent down, the story is off with a bang.

After that, all Flavia can do is allow the Gypsy to camp her horse and wagon on her family's land even if long ago her father had sent this Gypsy's family packing. On their way to the campsite, they are accosted by Mrs. Bell outside her hovel of a home. She accuses the Gypsy of having stolen her baby years ago. But with some clever dissembling, Flavia and Fenella manage to get away from the agitated woman.

Later that night, Flavia out on one of her nocturnal skirmishes, finds Fenella halfway beaten to death inside her wagon. Heroically, she leaps on the sleepy horse's back and gallops into town for help, saving the Gypsy's life. Flavia is nothing if not a courageous kid.

When Fenella's granddaughter, Porcelain Lee, shows up at the hospital, Flavia hides her at Buckshaw. (No one ever comes into her part of the house.) Porcelain is penniless and has no where to go. Obviously she can't stay in the wagon which is a crime scene. Though Flavia doesn't entirely trust Porcelain, she's happy enough to have someone to talk to about the crime. Flavia NEVER reveals much about her adventures to her family - she operates on a 'need to know' basis only.

When Flavia finds Brookie Harewood, local nasty n'er do well, lurking inside one of Buckshaw's main rooms in the middle of the night, holding an antique fireplace iron, she is naturally suspicious. But does she summon help from her father? No. Once Brookie leaves, Flavia decides to solve this mystery on her own as usual. By astute observation and Flavia-like reasoning she figures out that Brookie is involved with some ugly folks in town, and that possibly they are all members of an old-time religion now mostly gone extinct. The Hobblers, as they're called, were given to arcane baptism practices. They also seem to be dealing in fake antiques - possibly copying authentic pieces and replacing them with fakes.

Just a short while later, Flavia and Porcelain discover Brookie's dead body hanging off the Poseidon statue in the dried out, neglected Buckshaw fountain. By now, Flavia is not unused to dead bodies, but this one causes even her to turn a hair or two.

Enter Inspector Hewitt who has met Flavia before and is well aware of her precocious nature and her penchant for trouble. Once more Hewitt tries, unsuccessfully, to keep Flavia out of the investigation chagrined when the young girl stumbles over clues his more experienced men have overlooked.

In this book, we are made aware of the heretofore unknown hidden fountain water-works built beneath Buckshaw (by their original owner, a distant relation of Flavia's family) complete with dungeon like atmosphere and clanking metal doors and wheels and all sorts of damp and dark apparatus. Very atmospheric.

Near the end we find ourselves along with Flavia down in these dungeon-depths wishing she'd be a little more cautious, hoping against hope she'd tamp down her zest for solitary adventure.

But, as usual, Flavia escapes harm and solves the mystery. With a great deal of mental and physical dexterity, she puts two and two together and comes up with the right answer, managing for a moment, to impress even her distant father. Though she seems well aware that it's only a momentary respite and that her sisters will soon be up to old tricks soon as the adults' backs are all turned.

Invisibility was nothing new to me. It was an art I had been forced to learn from the day I took my first step.

Visible and invisible: the trick of being present and absent at the same time.

Another impressive entry in this series by a writer whose inventive mind knows no bounds and whose writing talent keeps shining brightly. I do, most heartily, recommend that you make the acquaintance of Flavia de Luce. Sooner, rather than later.

Monday Book Review: A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS by Eric Ambler

I'm reading Eric Ambler (1909 - 1998) for the first time this year, this month, last night. Even though I'd heard of him, obviously, for many years, I'd never read any of his work until I picked up INTRIGUE at the library - it features four of Ambler's more famous novels. I'm on the third one now, CAUSE FOR ALARM. I read JOURNEY INTO FEAR (1940) and A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS (1939) and really enjoyed both, even though I am not, generally, a big fan of spy novels - most of them are so damned grim and things rarely end well for anyone.

JOURNEY INTO FEAR is polished, well conceived and executed by an obvious master of the genre. Most of the story takes place onboard a ship supposedly carrying the hero out of danger - my sort of plot. I was hooked on Ambler's writing style almost from the first, surprised by how much I liked the way he went about things. In fact I liked JOURNEY INTO FEAR just a tad more than I did Ambler's most famous work, A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS, mainly because DIMITRIOS takes a while to really get going. (But once it does, of course, you're hooked.)

I'm concentrating my review on DIMITRIOS only because it's the one I finished last night and its still fresh in my mind. Old-lady memory is notoriously unreliable past the second or third day after reading a book.

I liked the first line of DIMITRIOS though apparently it is the comment of an omniscient narrator whom we, somehow, lose along the way. But no matter.

A Frenchman named Chamfort, who should have known better, once said that chance was a nickname for Providence.

As I mentioned, the novel takes a few beats to get going and that's my only quibble, -other than that it's a pretty perfect sort of spy story - revealed layer upon layer, picking up speed as it goes along. I haven't seen the film (I think it stars Zachary Scott one of the wierdest actors - in my view - that Hollywood has ever produced), but I think I just might watch it after this.

Here's the basic story:

Mystery writer Charles Latimer is tired; after writing a string of relatively successful books, he goes on holiday to Turkey, hoping that taking it easy for awhile might refresh him. It is an uneasy time, war is fermenting in Europe and soon enough, exotic travel will be curtailed. He is a noticing sort of man as most writers are. He is also a curious man and it is this curiosity that gets him into trouble once he lands in Turkey and, typically, gets invited here and there for drinks and other social niceties. At one of these social events, he meets the oddly voluble Colonel Haki, head of Turkish secret police. Latimer is drawn into a mystery after Haki tells him of the dead body dredged that night from the river.

It is a victim of murder, identified as Dimitrios Makropoulos. A known criminal type whom no one will mourn. On an impulse, Latimer asks to see the body, reasoning that it wouldn't do a mystery writer any harm to see a victim of violence. In truth Latimer's curiosity has gotten the better of him.

Once he's seen the body of Dimitrios, Latimer, usually a reserved English gentleman, decides then and there to try and fine out more about the victim. What caused this particular man to be stabbed to death and thrown in a river? What were the ramifications of fate that wound up costing Dimitrios his life in such a brutal manner? Bit by bit, the more Latimer finds out, the more intrigued he becomes, the more he wants to know about Dimitrios Makropoulos, not just a petty sort of criminal (clearly) but a mastermind, an international gangster of the most vile sort.

One of the things I like most about the story is how Dimitrios is shown from various perspectives, as Latimer searches out and interviews past acquaintances. There is no softening of his criminality, except a mention that Dimitrios' early life was hard - at that time, who's wasn't? But not everyone with a hard life turned to crime with such ease. No, Dimitrios appears to have had an enormous affinity for it.

There's not much unnecessary explanation of the criminal mind, and evil is discussed with a kind of rational resignation:

Three human beings had died horribly and countless others had lived horribly that Dimitrios might take his ease. If there were such a thing as Evil, then this man...

But it was useless to try and explain him in terms of Good and Evil. They were no more than Baroque abstractions. Good business and Bad business were the elements of the new theology. Dimitrios was not evil. He was logical and consistent; as logical and consistent in the European jungle as the poison gas called Lewisite and the shattered bodies of children killed in the bombardment of an open town. The logic of Michelangelo's David, Beethoven's quartets and Einstein's physics had been replaced by that of the Stock Exchange...and Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Good writing, that. It brings to mind the current view of and rationale for the most hideous acts in a supposedly more enlightened age. Don't we view evil in the same way even now? Business is still all, it seems to me - what with corporate America's hold on government actions stronger than ever and the widening dominion of the internet. New theology, indeed.

If you want to read one of the true masters of the spy genre, pick up Eric Ambler and indulge in his very well written, often prescient, novels. These guys from the past are called great for a reason.

This review qualifies for entry in the Vintage Mystery Challenge. I'd like to list both JOURNEY INTO FEAR (not reviewed) and A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS. Both read, both enjoyed enormously.

Monday Review: A BUTTERFLY IN FLAME by Nicholas Kilmer

Since the very first book, Harmony in Flesh and Black, I have been a huge fan of this intriguing series by art historian Nicholas Kilmer set within the suspicious hot-house haze of the art world. Clayton Reed, Boston Brahman and collector of art masterworks is the sort of man of whom it can easily be said that 'refined' is not too refined a description. From his thick shock of restless white hair to the tip-toes of his bespoke shoes, he is a man for whom the upper class would have had to have been created had it not already existed.

A character who, generally, lives in his own fantasy world of art (a Beacon Hill townhouse in Boston), indulging a sort of philosophical seclusion which only the wealthy can support. The 'modern' world is a constant frustration to him. In his devotion to chicanery - when it comes to getting his hands on original paintings - he stops short of outright thievery. He will pay, but he will pay as little as he can possibly get away with. I've come to believe, from having read all the books in the series, that Clay delights in the hunt - though he'd probably claim otherwise.

But Clay doesn't hunt alone. In fact, he rarely shows up at auctions or sales or any other sort of place where a hidden masterpiece might lurk and Clay's presence immediately drive up the price. Instead, he hobnobs with other Boston Brahmans (family name still counts in these circles) and keeps his ears tuned to gossip and undercurrents. He seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to picking up the possibility of a long hidden or about-to-be dumped masterpiece.

For the actual and particular, not to mention peculiar, work of tracking down major artworks, Clayton has his go-to guy, Fred Taylor. (Fred is the star of the series, though in one of the books, the brilliant DIRTY LINEN, Clay steals the show.)

Fred Taylor is a Vietnam vet, a sensitive tough guy (sound familiar?) with an intimidating persona and, really, the heart of an aesthete. An intuitive nose (as well as a great deal of arcane art knowledge) is his speciality. He is a scent hound when it comes to art. Put him on the trail, give him just a couple of oblique references and he is reliably on the hunt.

There's a great deal of fascinating art history entertainingly woven through throughout these tales of murder and mayhem. Who knew the art world could be so violent?

Fred lives (more or less) with a librarian named Molly and her two children - it took him several books before he actually moved in with a few of his things. Because of his war experience, Fred has a bit of a problem relating to possessions and relationships. He owns a house in a borderline neighborhood which he uses as a kind of home base though he rarely, if ever, sleeps there. He allows the house to be used as a kind of sanctuary by homeless vets needing a place to sleep. He's a good guy as well as a hard-nosed investigator.

Are he and Clayton Reed friends? I don't know. I think so, but really it's an odd relationship. Clayton pays Fred's salary, so technically, he's the boss. But each knows the other's limits and the boundaries of their good faith. They each have qualified trust in each other, each knows what to keep from the other. Clay because of paranoia and Fred because of his knowledge of that paranoia.

In A BUTTERFLY IN FLAME, Fred is sent by Clay - at the behest of a couple of his snob-circle friends, Parker Stillton and lawyer Abraham Baum - to pose as an English teacher at the Stillton Academy of Art in Stillton, Massachusetts a small, private and very provincial institution. Fred will be there 'to teach', search and ask questions. The real English teacher has gone missing, along with a much younger girl student. The police have no clues except a curious note left by the girl. The two are assumed to be unlikely runaways. Or something more sinister, thinks Fred. The school is pushing a suicide pact solution for a variety of reasons, but Fred thinks not. His knowledge of Emily Dickinson poetry, self-admittedly limited, helps him figure out that if the teacher and his student are dead, it's not suicide. He's also figured out, mostly by intuition and his knowledge of Clayton Reed's psyche, that there is more to the story than he's been told. Fred sniffs the wind, gets the lay of the land at Stillton and the strange little town that surrounds it, and realizes that somehow, some long lost painting must be in the offing. Perhaps hidden and forgotten in one of the school's old buildings.

After a couple of murders and other general chicanery at a school which is, ostensibly, trying to get a much needed accreditation, Fred resorts to a spot of breaking and entering, a spot of blackmail and a bit of strong arm to get the desired result.

This is a terrific book.

Though it doesn't advance our knowledge of Clayton Reed and Fred Taylor, nor, for that matter, Fred's relationship with Molly, that's not really what the book is about. The book is about the very satisfying salvation of a struggling institution whose devoted and talented students are being short-changed by a rapacious bunch of directors who care nothing about art.

Final total (thanks to Fred Taylor): Art: 1. Greed: 0. (More or less.)

Here are some sentences from A BUTTERFLY IN FLAME, clues to the wry writing style

of Nicholas Kilmer:

Both of Clay's visitors were dressed, like Clay, for Boston: gray suit, white shirt, and tie. Stillton and Baum were patently bedecked by Brooks Brothers. Clayton's version of exactly the same outfit came from a place where you are out of luck unless they know you.

"Poetry is always a bad sign," Clay said. "We want you to find out what happened."

Parker Stillton's cough reminded the world of his importance.

I don't mind exposition at all, if it's interesting. Here, Fred questions Meg, one of the art instructors: Meg went on talking. "Fine. Since we are accidental neighbors, I'll assume you are ignorant...Stillton Academy: it might be the only almost genuine 19th century French academy of art left in this country, maybe in the world. There's nothing left like it in France, anyway, not for the last fifty years. I teach first-and-second-year drawing, painting for second-and third-year students. And as I said, I run the life room. Also I teach figure modeling. That's clay. It works out for me. Clay's my medium."

"The life room", Fred said, presenting her with the damp glass and a tall can of Ballantine ale. He carried another can with him to his chair. "That's where students work from the model."

"The live model. Always nude," Meg said, "until the second half of the third year, when we let the painters start working with drapery as well. I said we were 19th century, but not even we work from cadavers. Not since about seventy-five years back."

This is the assignment that Fred (make-believe English teacher/full time investigator) gives his class on his first day at Stillton:

"...Here's the assignment. Take any poem by Emily Dickinson. Find your books, share them, whatever. Copy the poem. Write it again making it better by subtracting six words. Write it again, making it better by adding six words. Write it again, making it better by removing twelve words and substituting twelve different words. For extra credit write an extra stanza of your own and stick it in somewhere. Make it so much like one of Emily's that we can't tell - A stanza is one of those blocks of lines, usually four lines in Emily's poems - that we can't tell which is the fake. Right." He looked at his watch. "Get started."

Here we have the moment when Fred, out of the blue - it's been hovering on his sub-conscious -realizes who the artist is whose work he's been looking for, the artwork that somehow, Clayton Reed has divined is hiding out within Stillton's crumbling buildings. Fred is just finishing a meal:

There were all of seven diners. Each of them, even the little girls, was involved with either one lobster or a matched pair. It wasn't until his coffee that Fred exclaimed, "For God's sake, it's Albert Bierstadt!"

Everyone in the place looked at him, alarmed.

"It's OK, folks," Fred reassured his fellow diners - as well as the hovering waiter and the woman back of the cash register. "Perfectly OK. AB is Albert Bierstadt."

I checked Albert Bierstadt's work and I've posted one of his paintings below. Kilmer always uses 'real' artists in his mysteries, just the mentioned work is fictitious.

Meant to mention: A BUTTERFLY IN FLAME was part of my Christmas Book Loot from Santa.

Monday Review: THE CRABTREE AFFAIR by Michael Innes

I was actually reading two other books last week (both non-fiction which usually takes me a little longer), but picked up this Michael Innes to read during lunch and never put it down (The book, not the lunch.). I've been bingeing on Innes for awhile as I've discovered (literally) his books: found a bunch of Innes titles in my bookcase I didn't even know I had - twice. Go figure. Maybe I'm being haunted by the ghost of Innes. HA! (Does anyone know if he ever visited New Jersey?)

THE CRABTREE AFFAIR is a nice quiet village murder, the sort of book that's perfect for an afternoon's jaunt into the English countryside where, obviously, there are 'more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies'.

Seth Crabtree is an old family retainer - well, actually 'an outside man' as opposed to an 'indoor' servant (this is made a big deal of in the book - servant hierarchy being some sort of 'written in stone' type thing) who, after many years working in America (Spokane, Washington) has come back home to England (to the tiny villages of Upper and Lower Scroop), where he'd once been an odd sort of confidant to the late mistress of Scroop House.

Retired Scotland Yard grandee Sir John Appleby and his wife Judith are staying with her uncle, Colonel Raven, over at nearby Pryde Park. On the particular afternoon the book opens, they are on a walking tour and find themselves down by the old canal which bisects the Villages of Upper and Lower. Judith is eager to investigate the old abandoned waterway and the nearby grand house, Scroop, Appleby is reluctant.

Stopping at a pub for refreshment, Appleby and his wife run into Seth Crabtree - sitting at an outside table whittling a small wooden boat - and they strike up a conversation. Judith Appleby is quite taken with the rustic Thomas Hardy-like character and seems willing to be charmed, but Appleby, ever the policeman, is a bit suspicious of Crabtree's demeanor. There was just something 'off' about the whole experience, he muses once they resume their walk.

Within half an hour, Appleby and Judith find Crabtree's body floating face down in the old canal and Appleby's highly astute suspicions seem prescient.

There aren't that many people who could have committed the murder, so the story takes on a kind of 'intimate' tone as Appleby is asked by the local constabulary to take a hand in the investigation. Judith Appleby, at one point, even suspects her 'crazy' uncle whom she says, affectionately, is capable of just about anything.

Seth Crabtree had worked at Scroop House before being 'shipped off' to America (perhaps in disgrace) fifteen years previously or gone abroad on his own for reasons not at all clear. But his sudden return is assumed, by Appleby, to have been the cause of his death. This was not the work of some itinerant tramp he deduces almost immediately.

The list of suspects is not long: Colonel Raven, Judith's eccentric uncle. Mr. and Mrs. Bertram Coulson, the enigmatic and very ill-at-ease new owners of Scroop House. Their gloomy butler Hollywood. (Well, I can't help it, that's the character's name.) Dr. West, the local M.D. whose behavior is oddly suspicious, to say the least. David Channing-Kennedy, the too-hearty publican. Daphne and Peter Binns, a brother-sister combo with prickly attitudes and secrets to hide. And finally, Alfred Binns, former occupant of Scroop House, the mostly missing and rather nervous, father of Daphne and Peter.

The final denouement, revealed in the grand tradition of Golden Age mysteries (though this book was published in 1974) - everyone in the room as the detective names the culprit - is surprising and satisfying as mysteries of this type need to be. It is also slightly daring in that author Innes gives in to the lure of a certain type of cliche. Lovely work.

A perfect book with which to relax for a few hours at this busy time of year.

Monday Review: SHOOT TO THRILL by P.J. Tracy

It's been several years since the mother/daughter writing team known as P.J. Tracy had a new book in their Monkeewrench series, but SHOOT TO THRILL, published this year, was well worth the long wait. This is one of those series that doesn't, necessarily, have to be read in order. You can pick up quickly enough who is who and what is what if you pay attention as you go along. But if you're a stickler, I'd say, read the first book, the much heralded MONKEEWRENCH, then the second, LIVE BAIT, then skip around as you like. Or just pick up the latest one and dive right in - it's not rocket science, just damn good writing.

The computer looms large as both friend and foe in this latest thriller set in the mid-west and featuring the always welcome, wise-cracking detective duo of Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, the homicide aces of the Minnesota Police Department. And of course, where and when computers are involved, can the whiz-kid team of Grace McBride's Monkeewrench crew be far behind? This time out, the Feds get involved when, much to their chagrin, they, too, must ask for help from Monkeewrench: the country's top computer software designing crime-fighters who have honed hacking to a fine art. The book introduces, too, a new character, John Smith (yes, but that's his name) a strait-laced, near-retirement FBI agent who quickly becomes a favorite. Smith has been sent to work with the Monkeewrench team as a sort of liaison and general government 'minder'. But he quickly turns into a fellow conspirator and the charm of the thing is watching him slide down that slippery slope.

When murders on video start popping up online - not staged murders, but the real thing - the authorities are stumped. No sooner do they void the video, another one pops up in its place. The murders are occurring all over the board, across the country. Getting a handle on this sort of thing seems a never ending nightmare and the detectives spend a great deal of time cursing the day the internet was born while their Monkeewrench allies, Grace, Harley, Roadrunner, and Annie, use their talents to try and track down a bunch of sociopaths using the worldwide web for gruesome show and tell.

The thing is: except for the video treatment, there is no one modus-operandi, the crimes are all over the board and involve victims who seem not to have anything in common except that their brutal deaths have been flashed on computer screens all over the world. Add to the mix, the deadly copycat element and all in all, not a happy time is to be had in Minnesota.

When FBI agent John Smith first meets with the Monkeewrench crew, ground rules need to be established if anyone is to get anything done that might actually help. Here is John confronted by Annie and Harley:

"Oh, come on. Let's cut to the chase here. You've got posts of real live murders the FBI can't track, at least not legally, because the servers are registered in countries where U.S. access is denied. So what do you do? You call in a bunch of salivating hackers and tell tham that if they try to access these foreign servers they would be in violation of international law. Good grief. Talk about dragging a slab of bacon in front of a bunch of wild dogs."

"I can assure you that was not the Bureau's intention."

"Yeah, right. And these eyelashes are real. The point is, we don't give a gnat's ass about your text files. Don't even havbe to look them over. But if you want us to write software that differentiates real murders from staged ones, we need to download the videos of those bodies in five cities."

"I am not authorized to give you permission to do that."

Harley moved the mass of his body a step closer to Smith. To his credit, the smaller man held his ground. "We're going to download the videos. Are you going to fink us out?"

It took Smith a minute to remember what 'fink' meant. He had to go back several decades. "I do not believe you will do that."

"I just told you we're going to do that."

"Yes you did. But in my opinion, that was bravado. I do not think it was sincere; therefore I will not report it."

Annie tucked her hands into her hips and tapped a toe on the marble floor. Agent Smith watched the toe moving up and down, mesmerized. "I can't decide if your instructions are to handle us just like those other poor fools at the seminar, or if you might actually be a good guy."

"I have never been accused of being a good guy."

"Uh-huh. You want some chili before we get to work, darlin?"

"No, thank you very much for the offer."

"How about a beer?" Harley raised his own bottle.

"FBI agents do not drink alcoholic beverages on duty, sir."

"Yeah, yeah and FBI agents are always on duty, right?"

"Precisely."

"Well, I guess that makes my goals pretty clear here. Before you leave I'm going to see you totally snockered with three belly dancers sitting on your chest and a really great Cuban cigar stuck between your teeth. Let's get up to the office."

Despite the vicious crimes at the heart of this latest Monkeewrench adventure, a gallows sort of humor is always to be expected when these characters work their magic: the computer crew skirting the law while Magozzi and Gino pretend not to see. But it's the interwoven relationships and how they work (or not) that makes this series of books so intriguing, and despite the dark crimes, so much fun to read. This is one of the few times, by the way, when women writing male characters get it just right. (Especially tricky I would think, when it's two women writing as one.)

Magozzi and Gino.....stopped at Tommy Espinoza's office on the way to Homicide, primarily because Gino had heard the crackle of a bag that sang to him like sirens on a sea cliff.

"Gino, it's eight o'clock in the morning."

"What's your point? I hear the sound of salt and fat and I obey."

"Could be a bag of raisins."

Gino snorted and pushed past him into Espinoza's office, central command for the department's computer division. Tommy looked up from his monitor, his dark Hispanic coloring making his blue eyes strangely intense. Gino always thought they were about the same color as the blue stuff people put in toilet bowls.

"Hey guys." He automatically handed Gino a bag of Cheetos.

"Not those. I can never get the all that orange stuff off. Angela will find a speck and I'll be busted. Got anything white?"

"Sure. Popcorn, potato chips..." Tommy spread his arms expansively toward a metal tabel that looked like the snack aisle at Cub Foods. "Rummage away, my friend. Mi casa, su casa."

While Gino went on a cholesterol hunt, Magozzi looked at the monitor Tommy was working on. "You're on YouTube?"

"Sad, but true. We who serve the public must sometimes walk the sewers. Take a look at this." He tapped the screen where a streaming video showed five girls beating the crap out of another girl trying to crawl away."

"Jeez. Is that for real?"

"This one is. A lot of the ugly stuff that gets posted is staged - Spielberg wannabes trying to outdo each other - but some of them are the real McCoy."

Gino walked over to look, his hand deep in a package of potato chips. "Hey. I saw that on the news. High school girls from someplace advertising stupid. They put the girl in the hospital, then they posted it with all their faces showing. How dumb is that?"

"Thank God for the dumb ones. The Brits are having a ball monitoring these sites, ID'ing the perps then heading right for their digs like they had a written invitation. But every now and then, a smart one surfaces, and that's when it gets really scary. Take a look at this. This is Cleveland, four months ago." He fiddled with the mouse until a new video appeared, this one showing a man from the back, beating another one to the ground.

"Jesus," Gino said. "Why the hell do the servers let this kind of s**t on the Web, and why the hell aren't we shutting them down? My kids could see this, for God's sake."

"Take it easy, buddy," Tommy passed him a Butterfinger as if that would cure everything.

As the crimes online escalate, they strike at the heart of all Minnesotans and the world watches 24/7 on CNN; Monkeewrench and their cop cohorts work round the clock to stem what appears to be one too many cracks in an already severely compromised dam.

This is a terrific, page-turning thriller. It looks like P.J. Tracy is back in business.

To learn more about P.J. Tracy and the Monkeewrench series, please go here.

Monday Book Review: The Secret Vanguard by Michael Innes

Okay, here's what happened: You know about the cache of three Innes books I discovered 'hidden' on my bookshelves. Well, in the act of just taking a look, I forgot about the three other books I'm currently reading (see left sidebar), and got hooked on THE SECRET VANGUARD.

If this sort of thing keeps up, I'll never finish the books I'm supposed to read - the library books that eventually must be returned. My own books are supposed to play a waiting game. I mean, the Innes book could have waited. But, as so often happens, I gave in to temptation. It's a hard balancing act between books I own and books the library owns. I don't always manage it successfully. Not when I'm so easily tempted and distracted. Does this happen to you? Or are you a more disciplined reader than I am?

Well, so it's not a totally lost cause, here's the review:

This is my first Michael Innes book and it certainly, won't be my last. I gobbled up THE SECRET VANGUARD because it has the kind of plot I can't resist. Simply put: In 1939 Scotland, two bright young things stumble onto a Nazi plot to track down and kidnap a British scientist. AND that's not all, part of the story takes place on a train heading up into the Scottish Highlands. Is that irresistible or what? Next to the Orient Express, I can't think of a better place to begin a spy story than on a train headed north to Scotland. Obviously, I'm a sucker for this sort of thing.

Strictly speaking, the story actually begins in England, with the murder, in a gazebo, of the harmless English poet, Mr. Philip Ploss. An event that brings Scotland Yard's Inspector John Appleby into the case. "Ploss," said John Appleby deliberately. "Philip Ploss, the Cow-and- Gate-poet. Who would want, now, to shoot a quiet fellow like that?"

We learn, almost immediately that poetry does, indeed, have lots to do with a nest of Nazi spies operating in Great Britain. Author Innes makes no secret of their method of passing information to each other. The reader picks up on the tricks at the same time as the book's characters, so we're neck-and-neck as the plot develops.

Shelia Grant, a plucky young woman traveling north to visit relatives in Scotland, can't help but overhear two fellow passengers spouting poetry (of all things) in her carriage car. Being an astute and particularly intelligent young woman, she soon realizes what's what - especially after she's kidnapped from a dark train station.

Awakening later in a deserted Scottish croft, she realizes she's not alone. A fellow kidnapee, at first nothing but a voice in the dark - an American voice - reassures her with a calmness that belies the circumstances. The hero-in-the-making is Dick Evans, a very handy artist who specializes in Caravaggio and happens to be touring the Highlands. Together the two travelers make their escape but the plot thickens precipitously when they're forced to split up.

That's about it, plot-wise. The rest of the book is spent dodging Nazi thugs in various disguises while John Appleby, back in London, and unknown to the hero and heroine, is on the trail of the missing scientist and has begun his own journey north

One of the more delightful things about Innes' fanciful plot is Sheila Grant. While she is certainly a woman of her times, she is also very resourceful, brave, intelligent and, as I said before, plucky. A great section of the book is just her, on her own, outwitting her pursuers in various and clever ways. Yet, when Dick Evans is around (they are both immediately taken with each other as you might suspect), she is willing to submit to his taking charge, as it were. This is done with no apparent resentment on Sheila's part. It is almost as if she, naturally assumes that when she's on her own, she must take care of herself, but when men are around, they do the taking care of. I went along with this because it was done so naturally, with no insult meant to anyone, if you know what I mean. It was just the way things were done. But I couldn't help admiring Sheila for her finesse at it.

THE SECRET VANGUARD reminds me very much of John Buchan's classic The 39 Steps, in tone, isolated locale and the whole idea of England having its own wretched network of 5th Column-ists sympathetic to Nazi Germany's evil machinations.

In the early part of the tale, Sheila Grant is sitting in her train carriage reading a copy of Sir Walter Scott's The Antiquary. As she reads the opening paragraphs, she thinks: Nice to be Sir Walter Scott and able to open a tale of romantic adventure with that leisurely, confident, bookwormy prose. Nice that readers stood for it.

Well, of course now I want to read Scott as well, and I do agree that there's nothing like a good bookwormy adventure on a chilly October weekend. This time out, THE SECRET VANGUARD fit the bill perfectly. I would gladly 'stand' for it anytime.