Fashion Friday

Lying on my sofa thinking about New York Fashion Week coming to an end and I have nothing new to wear. Not even a cupcake will tempt me out of the fashion doldrums. (Project Runway being so unwatchable this season, I stopped a couple of weeks ago and haven't gone back. The adorable Tim Gunn not withstanding.) So many choices, so many decisions. It's too exhausting. You know when you have so much to do you wind up doing nothing?

But from a prone position, I can still express my opinions - heck, I can always do that.

Here's my (somewhat fanciful) basis for my critiques: Before any of the Fashion Week shows, I imagine myself a Hollywood Young Thing looking to shop for the new season and possibly pick out my Red Carpet Ta-Da! dress. As I go along, I say to myself: yeah, I'll buy that (my budget is HUGE, unlimited in fact and of course, I have the sylph-like body), I'll wear it in Cannes or Paris or wherever. Or I say: NO! what a horror! Next!
I told you I was fanciful. Ha!

I've only seen a few of the shows in photos this year. But each year it's the same: I can't help but fall under the spell of Ralph Lauren . I know I'm not daring in my choice and some would even call it too comfortable, but I don't care. Ralph is king in my universe. He has some design staples he always relies on, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. (In truth, lots of designers do that, most not so successfully.) I like his make-believe world. Here's a man who completely re-invented himself and his life and turned it into the sort of thing anyone might envy. He created a design brand based on his innate taste and style and, I think, the sort of life he would have naturally liked to have led in a different time and place. The Ralph Lauren style is recognizable anywhere. Not a bad thing at all. I do love it.

I liked Michael Kors collection, his soft colors: stone, ivory, gray, etc. were wonderful. Not crazy about the yellows though, but the greens were perfect. He has an eye for a good green. One complaint: Some of his models looked anorexic (aren't women's legs supposed to have a shape?) and that's not a good look, sorry, Michael. Still, the clothes were wonderful, chic, casual and breezy. Nothing seemed to be trying too hard. Likeable clothes if you have the body for them. Some of the looser styles could be worn by someone with a more average shape. On the whole, I'd say: terrific.

Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein did a gorgeous and very classic collection, I thought. Simple modern shapes, laid back colors, everything in keeping with the Klein concept. The long dresses looked a little too casual to call them 'gowns' but, they were moody and lovely anyway - my favorite things in the show.

I liked the Cynthia Rowley show. The circle cut-outs were fun. I'm liking all these roomy shapes I'm seeing. And I'm loving socks with sandals. Saw that all over.
(My daughter says only old people wear socks and sandals. Obviously, she has been proven wrong.)

Why can't the more inexpensive clothes have these subtle yummy colors too?

Naeem Khan is one of First Lady Michelle Obama's design choices and this show had a few gowns that would look great on her. Khan used my least favorite color, yellow, in a way I actually liked.

The Donna Karan show didn't 'wow' me at first, but then I began to like what she did. The early 'rumpled' stuff was not something you can really wear unless you're six feet tall and weigh 100 pounds, or so I'm thinking. The models looked a little awkward at first. But I liked the usual Donna Karan colors. I always do. There's always something special about her shows.
Her DKNY line was delightful. Most especially the print dresses and bathing suits. There was also a flirty, layered ruffle mini-skirt that I'd wear if I were twenty again and still had good legs.
A very fun thing to have in the closet. I might wear it with a blazer.

Okay, one last show to comment on: Diane Von Furstenberg. I loved the prints and the color combos. Lots of sprightly, interesting ways to put things together. I thought it was terrific. Sometimes in the past I haven't been too fond of her print choices, but this year I thought they worked fine.

An editorial: Fashion is, in many ways, an art form. Put aside the snarky comments and the Fashion Police atmosphere and what's left? The clothes and a designer biting his or her nails in the wings. When you put on an item of clothing, you are making a statement about yourself (it can't be helped), you are creating a little play, a story for the world to interpret. So in a way, you and the designer are collaborating. We're all entitled to comment on the fashion designs put before us since, in one way or another, they will be influencing what we choose to wear at some point down the line. And we all gotta' wear clothes - right? Well, most of the time.

Baker Street Irregular

Besides author name recognition, what else makes you sit up and take notice when you're drifting along online, checking out book blogs, sites, reviews, etc? Half an eye here, half an eye there. What's the special word that suddenly jumps out and slows you down? Or is it an expression? A well-designed book cover? Or a certain combo of letters, names, subject matter? Do you have a special trigger?

If I see anything having to do with Sherlock Holmes, I'll generally slow down and take a good look. This, combined with fighting Nazis in WWII, will usually do it for me. I mean, who can resist?

A new book incorporating the original Baker Street Irregulars (a group of Holmes aficionados named after the original, original group of rowdy street urchins Sherlock Holmes employed in several of his cases) has gotten a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. The book, Baker Street Irregular, is not due out until November, at a hefty price I'm thinking - $39.95 - but you'll probably be able to get it for less than that. Hopefully my library will snag a copy. This sounds like something I will definitely be wanting to read.

The author, Jon Lellenberg is Official Historian of the Baker Street Irregulars and co-author (with Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley) of the Agatha Award winning (for best non-fiction) Arthur Conan Doyle : A Life in Letters. (Doyle was a prolific letter writer.)

Here's part of the starred review for Baker Street Irregular from Publishers Weekly:

Lellenberg "...makes an impressive debut with this gripping period spy novel. In 1933, Woody Hazelbaker, a young Wall Street lawyer, gets an unexpected and unlikely career break after taking on mobster Owney Madden as a client. The knowledge Woody gains from assisting the criminal in liquidating his interests in a number of businesses proves handy years later on the eve of WWII when Woody and some fellow Sherlockians get involved in anti-Nazi efforts amid strong isolationist sentiment. Lellenberg does an excellent job at bringing the original Irregulars, who included Christopher Morley and Rex Stout, to life..."

Two names caught my interest immediately: Christopher Morley and Rex Stout - two of my favorite authors, as characters in a book. That closed the deal for me. Can't wait to read this one.

Here's a link to read more about Baker Street Irregular by Jon Lellenberg.

Correction: My apologies to author Jon Lellenberg, I originally referred to him as Ellenberg because I wasn't paying close enough attention to details.

Happy Birthday, Dame Agatha!

The day slipped away from me and here I am, at the last minute, posting Anniversary Birthday Wishes for Agatha Christie, one of my favorite authors of all time. (She would have been 120 years old today.) In celebration tonight I'm watching Murder in Mesopotamia with David Suchet (of course) as Poirot (Though I'm not happy with the changes made to the original story by the screenwriters, still, it is a fun story.). The library sent me an email announcing that a requested copy of The Labours of Hercules is in. I'll be picking it up tomorrow. (I did read this collection of short stories years and years ago, but can't remember much about it, so it will be like re-reading this for the first time. More or less.) So that's what I'm up to, Agatha Christie-wise, this week.

The covers posted above are from some of my favorite Christie books . I wanted to add a little color and pizzazz to the post. Not to mention a birthday cake that I wish were real. Who couldn't eat birthday cake any time of the day or night? And of course, a crown for the queen of mystery.

Also, as part of the celebration, please check out Kerrie Smith's Agatha Christie Carnival

posts and quizzes. I'm rushing over there right now to take the quiz which will challenge my knowledge of the great Agatha's books. Janet Rudolph over at Mystery Fanfare is talking about the pleasures of re-reading the books, something I'm sure we all know a little bit about. She also has a list of the alternate titles given some of the books. Les, over at Classic Mysteries has a link here to his podcasts of Agatha Christie reviews.

Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

I was going to include a review of Miss Hargreaves in with two other books, but at the last minute I've decided to do this one separately. Point blank I will tell you what a reviewer is not really supposed to tell you: I loved this book. There, I said it and I'm glad. (Reviewers aren't supposed to gush.)

Ridiculously, I'd never even heard of Miss Hargreaves or Frank Baker, before I read about them on Simon's blog, Stuck In A Book. Then shortly thereafter (or maybe it was just slightly before) I read about Frank Baker's book on the inimitable Nancy Pearl's blog as well.

I'm trying to fashion my own review without being too influenced by Nancy's or Simon's, though they both said everything I would have said if I had their way with words. Not much to add to theirs, really, so I'll try to keep it short: Read this book. Well, maybe not that short.

Miss Hargreaves is a fanciful (in a thoroughly non-sarcastic way) story set in the 30's though it could just as easily have been set yesterday, last week or tomorrow. To me, it's a timeless sort of thing as are lots of tales that take place mostly in the heart and imagination.

What would happen if you and a pal decided one day, on the spur of the moment, to invent a human being, just for the heck of it - as a harmless prank? Then, caught up in the 'fun' you send off a letter to this imagined person, again, just for the heck of it. This is exactly what Norman Huntley lay-clerk at Cornford Cathedral and feckless 'hero' of Frank Baker's delightful novel, Miss Hargreaves, and his cohort Henry Beddow, decide to do one day while on a rain-soaked, boring trek through an undistinguished church in the dreary town of Lusk.

Norman is the imaginative, inventive sort who has gotten into the habit of making up stories...simply for the fun of doing it.

He does try to explain:

Call me a raging liar if you like, although it's an actual fact that I've never lied in order to get out of things so much as to get into things. Sometimes I think all those books in father's shop led me astray. Books do lead you on.

Ha! The 'ha' is my own.

Once this 'invention' is aired, told to the doddering sexton conducting the interminable tour of the Lusk church, it takes on a life of its own. Unbeknown to Norman and Henry, the dye has been cast. Back home in Cornford, you may imagine Norman's astonishment when in the next morning's mail he receives a letter from Miss Hargreaves announcing her intention to visit Cornford, hoping to stay with Norman's family, and by the way, how is her dear old friend Norman?

From then on, this gorgeously written story is a kind of wonder to behold. For all it's gentle sweetness, there is a kind of frightening thread running beneath the surface of Norman's predicament. Author Frank Baker holds the reins tightly and never allows the story to gush with undue sentimentality. In a way, in Miss Hargreaves, Norman appears to have created his own Frankenstein monster; a fluffy, dithery one with a will of steel and a penchant for writing unctuous poetry. She arrives in Cornford, a fully fashioned litttle old lady, towing her harp, her cockatoo and her Bedlington terrier, not to mention piles of luggage. I abominate fuss.

Norman's invention is, perhaps, not such a completely fun creation after all.

Yet, what happens next to Norman and his family, his friend Henry, and the town of Cornford near the Thames, is a joy to read about.

A few words though (before I forget) about another character: Norman's ever-so eccentric violin-playing, book seller of a father, Cornelius, who nearly steals the book away from Norman and Miss Hargreaves, though not quite. Cornelius Huntley, to my mind, deserved a book of his own. See if you don't agree once you read Miss Hargreaves. He seems the perfect foil for Miss Hargreaves and is, obviously, the perfect foil for Norman - the only member of his family who believes Norman's story of how Miss Hargreaves came to be, mostly because he believes he has the same oblique talent for invention that Norman has. (Norman's inheritance of this talent doesn't surprise him in the least. Obviously it runs in the family.) Creative thought creates.

My thanks go to the publishers, The Bloomsbury Group, for re-releasing this wonderful book first published in 1940 and deemed author Frank Baker's finest. Too good to be forgotten for sure.

As I said in the beginning and continue to say: Read this book.

You will thank me. (Not to mention Simon and Nancy Pearl.)

More Library Loot

This is actually loot from my second trip to the library late last week. (Had to rush down there or risk my 'reserves' being shipped back.) Since I'm still reading stuff from the previous week's library trip (not to mention a few used books I picked up online), I am rapidly falling behind. Same old/same old. Since I'm mostly retired, not so much intentionally as by circumstance, I generally have plenty of time to read, but still, even I have a life to lead away from books. I have a granddaughter to keep an eye on. (Seeing her tonight!) And I plan on getting back to painting and setting up my art blog any day now.

Anyway, back to library loot:

After waiting several weeks, my copy of The Passage by Justin Cronin arrived at the library. But jeez, it looks like a heck of a long rode. I hope I'm up to it. I'm not such a fan of vampire books, I hope the subject matter doesn't wear me out. But this book's been so HIGHLY recommended by friends whose taste I respect, we'll see.

Murder At Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd sounds a treat for someone like me, a real Jane Austen fan from way back. I'm not crazy about all the Austen pastiches out there (please, no zombies need apply), but this one sounds intriguing. All I ask is that it be well written with a bit of imagination and style.

No Trace by Barry Maitland. This police procedural (I'm fond of police procedurals) was recommended by Roberta at her blog, Books To the Ceiling, among a list of other interesting books and authors for the Fall. I thought I'd give Maitland a look.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. Essays by Gladwell sound like a very good thing. I've read two of his previous books, The Tipping Point and Outliers. I think he's a brilliant observer and researcher, not to mention, a terrific writer.

Commuters by Emily Gray Tedrowe. Can't remember who, originally, recommended this, but it sounds good. Besides, I always like to take a look at debut novels. You never know when you're going to find yourself at the dawn of a great new writer. I'm not, normally, a reader of 'family' novels unless they're enormously well written, like The Hills At Home by Nancy Clark, but if something about it sounds interesting, I'll bite.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. What can I say? I've never read Atwood, never felt any need to. But Nancy Pearl recommends this very, VERY highly. So I am powerless to resist.

We'll see what happens.

Warrior Woman

Now this is what I call a Warrior Woman with capital W's. From now on this is who I'll imagine whenever a book calls for a strong, warrior-type woman character. I can't help it, she's instantly encased in my imagination. Isn't she amazing? Look at that nose! That jaw line. Those shoulders. Those arms, a little fleshy but full of strength. And isn't she clutching a sharp arrow? Yup, I think so. I wouldn't mess with her in a dark alley. Or any other alley, for that matter. Of course, the dog by her side doesn't hurt either.

This startling portrait is by George De Forest Brush (1855-1941), a little known artist featured today on the truly terrific Art Inconnu blog. They post (almost daily) some 'new' artist who is under-appreciated or been over-looked by history. It's a great place to find wonderful art by artists many of us have, regrettably, never heard of.

Shadowboxing

I love shadowboxes though, unfortunately, I don't own any. I've been meaning for years to try and create one of my own - still haven't done it. Although, in a way, my whole house is my own, very personal shadow box. Lots of crafters do shadow boxes on various and sundry topics, but very few (in my humble opinion) qualify as artists.

When it comes to Shadow Boxes As Art, there's no one better than Tracy W. Hambley. I first saw her boxes in Mary Englebreit's magazine years ago and I've never forgotten them. See what you think, here's Tracy's blog.

Wouldn't it be great to have a box designed around some sort of central literary topic? A scene from a favorite book? A favorite reading genre? A favorite author? A favorite book cover? The mind wanders, but you get the gist of what I'm saying - right? It would be a very cool thing.

Here are some topics off the top of my head: Agatha Christie, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Nancy Drew, your favorite vampire novel...see where I'm going with this?

No Sex Please, We're Cozies

Jeff Cohen's books always make me laugh. His sense of humor is somewhat similar to mine, so I usually get a kick out of what he has to say, or more importantly perhaps, what his characters have to say. (Isn't that the same thing you might ask...hmmm, maybe.) Hey, how could you not like a guy who is the Numero Uno Marx Brothers fan in the world? He's big on Mel Brooks too. (Though we have a bit of a taste difference in the film, Young Frankenstein: he LOVES it, I merely like it. But hey, no body's perfect.)

Here's a link to his latest blog tirade...well, not so much a tirade, as a, well, yeah, what the heck, it is a tirade. Sort of. Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room is the name of the blog, Let's Talk About Sex is the post.

Jeff is talking about sex in cozy mysteries, that invisible occurrence - we do agree it must occur somewhere, sometime, or else where do all the little kiddies come from? Just no writing about it. No sex in cozies, no curse words, no dead dogs or cats or other furry creatures. There, Jeff and I agree wholeheartedly. A dead dog is the kiss of death. The wise cozy writer will refrain. Even if it would make a cat laugh.

I love cozy mysteries. Especially in this heightened anniversary year of the greatest dame of all, Agatha Christie. Not that she should be thought of as strictly a cozy writer - she is, was, a Grande Dame of the Golden Age of Mystery, after all. But you know what I mean.

It's not that cozies aren't seething with stirrings of sex. Cozies very much can be...seething, but usually only in a jolly kind of way. (Not that ALL cozies are necessarily funny, but in general, quite a lot of them can be.) Just no talking about sex. And yet, bumping someone off does indicate, in as drastic a way as possible, that some sort of dark emotion (maybe even sexual) lurks, at least in the bosom of the killer. But in cozies, any sex must be handled off-stage (along with the murder), imagined by the reader. It's there all right, just slightly off in the shadows somewhere. I don't know about you but I don't mind that at all. I have a rather vivid imagination after all.

And don't get me started on cursing, dammit.

P.S. Lee Child's stalwart, intimidating, stop-at-nothing, take-no-prisoners hero, Jack Reacher doesn't curse either.

Agatha Christie - 120 Years

If I hadn't been so busy grumbling and sneering out the window at the weather and the NY Times (a paper I normally love), I'd have posted this sooner.

This month, on the 15th to be exact, the Grande Dame of Mystery Writers, Agatha Christie, would have been 120 years old. Second only to the Bible is book selling popularity, Christie's books are beloved by millions of mystery reading fans all over the world. (Including me.) In honor of Christie, there are many on-going and up-coming anniversary doings in the real as well as blogging world. Here's a link to Janet Rudolph's blog, Mystery Fanfare in which she explains the hoopla and points out the sites of various Christie celebrations. Another link here leads you to Kerrie Smith of Mysteries in Paradise, who has organized the exciting Agatha Christie 120 Blog Tour. You can read more about the Tour and the Christie Reading Challenge at Kerrie's blog.

I first began reading Agatha Christie books when I was a young girl, discovered her after I'd finished my share of Nancy Drews and Dana Girls and was looking around for more 'grown up' mysteries. I don't remember the very first Christie book I read, but I have a feeling it was The Seven Dials Mystery. Wouldn't swear to it though. After that there was no stopping me. I read all the Christie books I could get my hands on and I've been doing it ever since. I believe I've read every book and short story in the Christie canon, except for the Egyptian book. I still re-read my favorites every once in awhile. In fact, when I'm ill, nothing will do but an Agatha Christie mystery. For me, they are the ultimate in comfort reading. I don't even bother to note them on my yearly reading list anymore since they are so second nature to me.

Towards the end of 2008, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and almost immediately had to have a mastectomy. The day before surgery, my dear mother passed away. To say it was not an easy time for me is a mild understatement. But with the help of family and friends, I managed to get through the roughest few weeks I've ever experienced. In a way, I like to think that Agatha Christie was one of those friends because, when I felt like reading, it was her books I turned to. When I was feeling truly down, especially during the chemo crapola, I could often find escape in my favorite Christie books.

Many years ago, I had the good fortune to visit England, Scotland and Wales for three weeks, and one of the very first things we did once we arrived in London, was go to the theater to see Christie's long running play, The Mousetrap. It was an unforgettable play, an unforgettable night.

I've always credited Dame Agatha with my lifelong interest in all things British. Remarkably, her books helped turn me, a girl from the lower east side of Manhattan, into an Anglophile from the very first.

Time for the Big Books

Checking out the Times book section. Uh-oh.

There's little (if anything) I find remotely interesting in this Fall's new releases heralded by the Times. What is wrong with me? The new books I'm waiting for (none too patiently) are listed on my sidebar to the left. (Under the heading: New Books I Am Especially Looking Forward to Reading.) Am I so far off the mainstream? Possibly. Not that I give a fig. Just thought I'd mention it.

According to this piece in the NY Times, Beach Reads Finished, It's Time for the Big Books, by Julie Bosman - Fall is the time for the Good Stuff. (My wording, not theirs.) But this year's version of Big Books sounds like a giant yawn to me. Except for David Sedaris.

And I see that the Times is featuring a second review of C by Tom McCarthy, this one by Jennifer Eagan. This may be because the last reviewer Michiko Kakutani, called McCarthy's book, ...disappointing and highly self conscious... Of course, I imagine this was before the book made the upper cut for the Man Booker Prize. Interesting. Although perhaps it's a good thing to have yay and nay reviews when a book is up for such a vaunted prize.

It occurs to me that I might be sounding a bit snotty and snippy - I blame the weather. And the unpalatable fact that the Mets are losing yet again - 3-0 to the Phillies. Sigh.

A Sunday Grumble

Nothing much to write about today. It's a dreary, rainy Sunday that's neither hot nor cold, just kind of in between so your body temperature runs itself ragged trying to regulate itself and all that happens is you wind up feeling out-of-sorts. It's humid, of course, and that wears me out in and of itself. I can stand just about anything but damp and humidity. Ugh. What's worse - hot humidity or cold?

In the meantime, waiting for the baseball games to begin (if rain doesn't shut them down), I'm reading a couple of recommended books and liking them very much: Miss Hargreaves by Frank Taylor and Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt. I've already finished Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams, another recommendation I liked, but don't want to write about until I finish the Taylor and McDevitt books. It'll be a kind of trifecta of agreeableness. (These are part of last week's Library Loot.) Three very different books with not much in common except they're all three well-written and all contain different lengths of mysterious thread. In my classics reading (I suppose that Conrad is regarded as a classic), I'm still struggling a bit through Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. The book just has such a dreary core that I hesitate to get back to it when I'm feeling out of sorts. But eventually I'll finish it. I'd like to think I read at least one or two literary classics a year without actually being prompted to do so. It makes me feel very virtuous.

(The expression on the face of Tim Burton's March Hare matches mine today.) Ha!

Remember, Remember That Day in September

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

There's an Agatha Christie Challenge going around the blogs in honor of what would have been the beloved writer's 120th birthday this month. I didn't sign up, mostly because this blog is a new gig for me and I'm still feeling my way around, but also because I don't like reading under deadline. However, that doesn't mean I won't EVER join in a challenge, it just means that for now I'm trying to figure things out - there are so many of them! I am a person who is easily side-tracked, so I want to make sure I know what's what before I dive in. It is fun though to go from blog to blog to see who's writing what about the great Agatha and her books.

I even found out, from Miss Lemon's blog that the archeologist Max Mallowan, Miss Christie's second husband, had written a memoir. Who knew? I plan on reading it, of course.

I usually re-read Cat Among the Pigeons around this time of year just for the fun of it. Part of my autumn ritual. It's a back-to-school book since most of the action takes place at Meadowbank, an exclusive English boarding school for girls. To my mind, the book is also one of Christie's jewels of characterization. (Though some claim Christie lacks that particular strength, I disagree. This book, one among many, is proof enough for me of her talent for characterization.) The crimes themselves and the solution, spring from the types of character these people have.

This is a Hercule Poirot mystery although he does not make his appearance until about three quarters of the way into the book, so that in itself is a bit unusual. But once he does, the cat is then really among the pigeons. Though I wonder too, if Christie didn't mean the murderer when she coined the title. Either/or. Up until that point the build-up of the story is revealed to us from the varying viewpoints of several different characters beginning with a second chapter set in a small, revolution-prone Middle Eastern principality. An Arab prince and his commoner friend, an Englishman, make a desperate attempt to flee for their lives, a small package is hidden, a sharp-eyed observer who happens to be in the right place at the right time sees something she was not meant to see and events are swiftly set into motion leading, incongruously, back to the hallowed grounds of Meadowbrook, an exclusive and very uppercrust English institution.

Cat Among the Pigeons is part spy thriller and part mystery with international complications. One of several intriguing characters who make an appearance is the redoubtable Mr. Robinson, the enigmatic and mysterious money man, the behind-the-scenes intimate of governments who shows up now and then in Christies' books.

As the school year begins at Meadowbank once again, Miss Bulstrode, the formidable headmistress and founder of the school, is thinking seriously of retiring, turning the reins over to someone else. She is feeling her age and wonders if the school is becoming too settled in its ways. But to whom can she turn? Meadowbanks is her own creation, the result of years of unflinching devotion and hard work. All over Europe, well -to-do families send their daughters to Meadowbank, secure in the knowledge that they will be well educated, but more importantly, will graduate from Meadowbanks as finished ladies. Who ever takes over for Miss Bulstrode must be fashioned of a certain mettle. But, after all, there is only one Miss Bulstrode.

That first hectic day of school, there are the usual disruptions and distractions from parents, students, teachers, new members of staff settling in, the arrival of cars, limousines, one after the other, depositing one young girl after another, daughters of the rich and famous, among them a Middle-Eastern princess. Humdrum and to be expected, but Miss Bulstrode feels uneasy. She can't help but feel she's overlooked something important.

Murder at Meadowbank is not only unexpected, it is unthinkable. And yet, when it happens it doesn't come as much of a surprise to the reader. What are we here for after all? Still, it is one of Christie's most interesting and, in many ways, most forbidding settings, a place so exalted that even the whisper of scandal can demolish years of hard work. Can Meadowbank survive multiple murders? Will Miss Bulstrode retire? Is that a moot question in light of events? Will there be enough school left to hand over to anyone? Oh, and who is the murderer and where will they strike next?

Cat Among the Pigeons features several of Agatha Christie's most engaging characters, among them the young (15 years old) but astute Julia Upjohn - she and her friend Jennifer appear to be at the heart of the mystery. They behave entirely in keeping with their differing personalities, Julia eventually acting on an idea that helps propel the mystery to its solution.

If I have any quibble at all with anything, it's the idea that a certain character would notice something at the beginning, something exquisitely important, and not follow up with a query to someone, after all, her daughter is attending the school. But, at the same time, that person's personality allows for this sort of oversight, so my quibble is not a major one.

This particular book has a terrific ending (not so unusual in an Agatha Christie mystery), complete with a very last minute arrival of an important witness, a startling denouement and a delivery of a package by Mr. Robinson himself, to a character who, up until the last couple of pages we'd never even known existed. Love it.

Sharing the Anger

Author S.J. Rozan interrupted her blog to let off steam about certain crazy-making, brain-busting news events happening or about to happen in NYC and Florida and I was so moved by her outrage, her straight-from-the-gut post that I wanted to share it. I love S.J. Rozan's work. Her last book in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series, Shanghai Moon was nothing short of brilliant and I can't wait to read her new book in the series, On the Line. Having said that, I must also say that I rarely pay attention to an author's politics. (Although if an author came out in favor of Sarah Palin's policies, I'd have to, very seriously, question their brainpower and motivation.)

S.J. is worried about the human condition as am I, she's also worried about what's happening in downtown Manhattan, as am I. She's worried, too, about the kind of world this is shaping up to be. As we all should be.

Here's the link to A.J. Rozan's blog.

No, I am not turning this into a political blog in any way, shape or form, but you know, once in awhile, you gotta' look up, look around and pay attention. Especially on the eve of the anniversary of one of the most momentous and heartbreaking days in our history.