Tag: mystery

Night at the Vulcan

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Marsh, Ngaio. Night at the Vulcan. Jove Books, 1977.

Reason read: I read somewhere that February is Theater Month. Read in honor of the stage.

Martyn Tarne, otherwise homeless in London, stumbles into the job of dresser for principle actress, Helena Hamilton. Martyn has come from New Zealand in the hopes of becoming a famous actress herself. Was it an accident that she ended up at a theater with bad luck? The building is shrouded in death. Even though she initially lands the job as a dresser for Helena Hamilton, three days later Marty finds herself on stage, acting in the production’s opening night. Does her supposed biological connection to another actor play a part in this new role?
As part of the Roderick Allyn Murder Mystery series, Night at the Vulcan is #16 in the series. A connection back to prior Roderick Allyn mysteries: Mike Lamprey lived in New Zealand and had an uncle who was murdered when he was eight. The same Mr. Allyn investigating the tragedy at the Vulcan handled Mike Lamprey’s uncle’s case.

As an aside, maybe I read this wrong but when Martyn was looking for Helena Hamilton’s cigarette case. Helena clearly said her husband had it. Martyn first goes to Adam Poole who doesn’t have the case. She then goes to Clark Bennington who is married to Helena on the stage. He introduces Martyn as his wife’s dresser. Maybe Martyn saw the flowers sent from Adam to Helena and made the assumption Adam was her husband. I didn’t know it then, but this scene with the cigarette case is pivotal to the plot.

As another aside, here is the most interesting copyright statement I have read thus far: “No part of this book in excess of 500 words may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the publisher.” 25 words used so far. I have 475 more to go.

Quotes to quote, “She could have screamed her hunger at him” (p 21), “Relax all over like a cat” (p 78), and another cat reference, “One never knew which way the cat would jump with Ben” (p 235).

Author fact: Marsh wrote a huge list of murder mysteries. I am only reading Night at the Vulcan for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Night at the Vulcan is also called Opening Night. Like a proper playbill the characters are introduced upfront. Night of the Vulcan was also adapted for South Pacific Television in 1977.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All the World’s a Stage” (p 8).

In the Best Families

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Stout, Rex. In the Best Families. Bantam Books, 1950.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month.

It all starts when Nero Wolfe is contacted by Mrs. Barry Rackham for a case. She wants to hire him to find out where her husband is getting all of his spending cash. She holds the purse strings in the marriage and has admitted to doling out less than he asks for each month; sometimes giving him nothing at all. Since Mrs. Rackham doesn’t want her husband to know she is aware of his spending habits she tells Wolfe he is needed to investigate the death of one of her dogs as cover. Of course it is up to Archie Goodwin to travel to Westchester to investigate the dogs and the money. Of course it wouldn’t be a Nero Wolfe mystery without a murder, but that comes later.
For those of you who love Archie Goodwin’s sarcasm, wit and humor, fear not! Archie continues to make his audiences chuckle. Here is an example: he needed to look up the word “handsome” after a female character used the word to describe Nero Wolfe. Surely there was some kind of mistake? Nero handsome? But no, handsome can also mean “moderately large.” When Archie learned this he was sufficiently placated. Needless to say, it is always funny when Archie tries to get a rise out of his boss. Sometimes he is successful. Other times, not so much.
The biggest twist in In the Best Families is Nero leaving his beloved brownstone. Everyone knows Nero is loathe to leave the confines of his abode. He takes some drastic measures this time around. There are some other surprising twists that break away from the typical formulaic Stout mystery.
It is always a great joy when there is continuity between books in a series. I especially love when characters come back again and again. Arnold Zeck, first seen in And Be a Villain came back in Second Confession and reappeared in In the Best Families.

Lines that made me laugh, “Have I impressed you as the sort of boob who would jump off a building just to hear his spine crack?” (p 57).

Book trivia: Introduction was written by Julian Symons. My copy had in call-caps: NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. Thanks!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Blue Hammer

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MacDonald, Ross. The Blue Hammer. Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

Reason read: Arizona became a state in the month of February.

Blue Hammer is part of the Lew Archer series. Like any good character series, the reader gets to know Lew in increments. We know he is a loner and was previously married. In The Blue Hammer is era is also another character. The 1970s were a time when strangers could enter apartment buildings and ride the elevator freely; hotel keys were returned to the front desk every time guests left their rooms; librarians had no qualms about giving out personal information like where someone lived or their phone number. Lew Archer has been hired to retrieve a stolen painting by Richard Chantry, a man who has been missing for twenty-five years. Doris Biemeyer seems to be at the center of the mystery of the missing painting. She readily admits she let her boyfriend Fred steal it from her parents. The same painting was later stolen from Fred’s bedroom (He lives with his patents.). But, the painting is only the beginning of the mystery. When the bodies start piling up Lew knows this case is bigger than just art theft. Paul Grimes is beaten to death, but before his murder he mistakes Lew Archer for Richard Chantry. Why? Then Jacob Whitmore is drowned seemingly in a bathtub before thrown into the ocean. Are these murders connected? What about missing man Richard Chantry? Is he dead, too? Then Lew’s love interest, a nosy reporter, goes missing.
Blue Hammer is the kind of mystery that prompted me to keep notes on every character and event. The twists and turns come at you fast and furious. I sensed the connection between people and their actions were too important to be overlooked. Everyone has a story to tell and everyone seems to be connected one way or another…

Confessional: Colonel Aspinwall, Dr. and Mrs. Ian Innes, Jeremy and Molly Rader, Jackie Pratt Mackendrick, Betty Jo Siddon, These are people at the party. Will they be important later on?

Lew Archer goes to a party where he is introduced to Arthur Planter,…Will these people be important later in the story or are they decoys with the only purpose of confusing me?

Line I liked, “She can go to hell and copulate with spiders” (p 25). Interesting. Is this a insult specific to the 1970s? Here’s another line, “We walked slowly around the block, as if we had inherited the morning and were looking for a place to spend it” (p 241).

Author fact: Ross MacDonald was an educator.

Book trivia: the title of Blue Hammer comes from a very small detail at the end of the book. Lew Archer is watching his reporter girlfriend sleep. the blue vein at her temple pulses with a steady beat…just like a blue hammer. You’re welcome.

Music: “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “AZ You Like It” (p 30), a chapter about Arizona which is annoying because not much of Blue Hammer takes place in Arizona.

Three Doors To Death

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Stout, Rex. Three Doors to Death: a Nero Wolfe Threesome. Viking Press, 1949.

Reason read: I first started the series fifteen books ago in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month.

Man Alive (published in December 1947) – A man once thought to be dead of suicide is found dead again.
Omit Flowers (published in November 1948) – as a favor to a friend, Nero Wolfe takes on the wrongful accusation of murder. Virgil Pompa, a restaurant chain manager has been fingered for the crime.
Door to Death (published in June 1949) – my favorite of the bunch. Nero’s caretaker of over 10,000 orchids, Theodore Horstmann, has taken leave indefinitely to care for his ailing mother. This abandonment is absolutely unacceptable to Wolfe. The travesty forces him to leave his beloved brownstone to recruit a replacement who has, of course, been charged with murder.

As an aside, for as many times as Archie says Nero never leaves his brownstone, I wonder if someone has actually counted up all the times he has and why.

Author fact: Stout passed away at the age of eighty-eight.

Book trivia: to track Stout’s publications one has to be pretty savvy. Three Doors to Death is comprised of three novellas which were published as stand alone stories. The three stories were republished in a collection called Five of a Kind.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux

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Long, David. The Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux. Scribner, 2000.

Reason read: Sisters Week is in January.

The Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux has been described as the “effect of not knowing on a tragedy’s survivor.” I lost a friend two years ago (it’ll be three at the end of June) and I have absolutely no clue what happened. Was it suicide? Possibly. He mentioned ideation more than enough times. Was it an accidental overdose? Possibly. He admitted he was addicted to pain killers. Was it the damage from the near-fatal stroke he had? Possibly. He was still struggling with his health. But. I will never know.
Hartford, Connecticut (1973). Miles Fanning and Caroline (Carly) Lamoreaux are typical teenagers, skipping out on choir practice for the sake of young love. Only Carly does not meet Miles at the prescribed spot nor is she ever heard from again. Fast forward twenty-four years later Fanning is the founder of SunBreak Records and still does not know what happened to his old girlfriend all those years ago. He has since married and moved to Seattle, Washington. In all honesty he hasn’t thought about Carly all that much. Life has carried him in a different direction…until suddenly Carly’s sister, Julia, sweeps into his life, dragging the memory and mystery of Carly behind her. Julia’s line of questioning is off-putting and abrasive; the way your teeth feel when you bite down on eggshells in an otherwise fluffy omelet or finding sand in your ice cream. Julia interrogates Fanning like his soul has committed a serious crime. She is a strange woman to whom Fanning cannot help but be drawn. What I found so interesting about The Daughters of Simon Lamoreaux was the lack of detail about the investigation into the disappearance of Carly Lamoreaux. Miles Fanning is an obvious suspect but once he is cleared, the reader does not get a sense of urgency to find Carly. It led me to think more about the title. The focus is on the father, Simon. Does he hold the key to the mystery? In the end I found myself saying, yes, he does.

Author fact: Long also wrote The Falling Boy which is on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: this should be a movie.

Real music: Count Basie, Te Deum, Kodaly’s Psalmus Hungaricus, Keith Jarrett’s Koln concert, Soundgarden, Chopin, and Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedies.

Fake music: Billy Caughan’s “Hard Knock Turn,” and Nella Randolph,

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Sibs” (p 199).

Second Confession

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Stout, Rex. Second Confession. G.K. Hall and Co., 1992.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November of 2024. I am now a year into the Nero Wolfe series.

It all starts when a father wants to hire Nero Wolfe to confirm or deny his daughter’s fiancé is not a Communist. James Sperling believes his daughter’s suitor needs to be investigated before they marry. At first Nero is reluctant to take the case for he knows Sperling has connections to the mafia. That is the least of his troubles when the man in question is found murdered and all evidence points to Nero. [Stout likes vehicular homicide and it is Wolfe’s vehicle with the blood evidence.]
It is rare that Nero Wolfe leaves his brownstone in New York City as the country makes him nervous, yet, in Second Confession Wolfe finds himself in Chappaqua, just above White Plains, New York. Another variance of this Nero Wolfe mystery is a different set of law enforcement running interference. Despite these differences, fear not! Archie is his old sarcastic witty self.

As an aside, I truly enjoy learning more about the highly entertaining Archie Goodwin. This time we learn he has gone to high school in Ohio.

Lines I liked, “I wouldn’t go to the extreme of calling him a cheap filthy little worm, but he is in fact a shabby creature” (p 93) and “There are numerous layers of honesty, and the deepest should not have a monopoly” (p 276).

Author fact: Rex Stout served as chairman of the war writer’s board.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 209).

Killer Smile

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Scottoline, Lisa. Killer Smile. Read by Kate Burton. Harper Collins, 2004.

Reason read: I forgot to finish the series started in December of last year in honor of Pennsylvania becoming a state. Somehow I let this one fall off the list.

Mary DiNunzio works for Benny Rosato’s law firm as an associate. Mary’s latest pro bono case is on behalf of the estate of an Italian-American interned in Montana during World War I. Amadeo Brandolini committed suicide during his internment and the family wants to sue the government for reparations. DiNunzio’s mission is to sort out the legalities of Brandolini’s estate, but ends up righting a long-forgotten carriage of misjustice. What starts as a simple estate case turns complicated when people start dying; people who had dared to talk to Miss DiNunzio.
For comic relief, DiNunzio’s boss keeps sending Mary on dates with impossible men. I appreciated how Scottoline wove this side story into the bigger plot.

As an aside, Mary DiNunzio sometimes annoyed me. Lawyers are supposed to be somewhat smart. I found it irksome that Mary did not know where to find Montana on a map, she did not know what an engineer does for a living, could not identify a marlin, and she had no idea what quantum physics was. I’ll forgive her for not knowing the difference between a bow and stern of a boat. but am I making an assumption that lawyers are supposed to be savvy and book smart?
Prophetic vision: in my copy of Killer Smile there are a series of book club questions. One of them is “Do you feel safe in your country?” Killer Smile was written in 2004. Let’s ask that same question twenty one years later.

Author fact: Did I already mention that Scottoline was a trial lawyer? I am pretty sure that I did. She graduated from law school in 1981. The other fact is that Scottoline is really funny in her interviews.
Narrator fact: Kate Burton is really good!

Book trivia: Scottoline was encouraged to bring the story of Italian-Americans interned in Montana after learning the history of her grandparents’ experiences. She even shares photographs of their alien registration cards. Scottoline wanted to bring that lesser known history to light.
Killer Smile is Scottoline’s eleventh book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest: Pennsylvania” (p 25). Pearl mentioned this was one of her favorites.

Those Who Hunt the Night

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Hambly, Barbara. Those Who Hunt the Night. Ballantine Books, 1988.

Reason read: Bram Stoker, the ultimate vampire storyteller was born in November. Read in his honor. Hambly mentions Bram Stoker and his novel.

Hambly has come up with an interesting concept for Those Who Hunt the Night. Someone is killing vampires while they sleep in their coffins. It is as simple as lifting the lid to expose the sleepers to broad daylight. Each vampire is helpless to escape the bright sun’s devastation, and if that doesn’t work, a quick wooden stake to the heart should finish them off. When in doubt, maybe a little exposure to something silver would work. With four of his fellow vampires dead, Don Simon Xavier Christien Morado de la Cadena-Ysidro has no choice but solicit the help of mere mortal Professor James Asher with an offer he can’t afford to refuse. Solve the mystery of the murders and Asher’s wife will stay alive. It’s blackmail, but what can the professor do? What Asher discovers is a variety of vampires who can grow tolerant of silver and daylight, at least partially. This means the serial killer of vampires could be one of their own. In addition to a thrilling murder mystery, Hambly manages to add a little romance to Those Who Hunt the Night.
Trivia: Don Asher rides a brand of motorcycle that was manufactured just down the road from me. I drive by the now defunct factory every single day.

As an aside, if I ever had the chance to meet a vampire and could ask him questions my very first question would be do you have a high tolerance for pain? Maybe I would ask about the incineration process when exposed to light (but that might be too sensitive a topic?).

As another aside, does Hambly contradict vampire lore? In another book vampires avoided drinking the blood of people who were ill, drug addicts, or on certain medications. They did not want to taint their own bloodstreams. In Hambly’s version, the vampires drank the blood of those affected by the Plague. In fact, the Black Plague threatened to live on through the activities of vampires.

Line I could relate to the most, “…he had long grown used to her habit of sleeping with books” (p 216). When Kisa leaves for a business trip I too cover his side of the bed with stacks and stacks of books.

Author fact: Hambly sounds like someone who was never satisfied with staying in one place. She described herself as a high school teacher, model, waitress, technical editor, clerk at a liquor store, karate instructor, and author. I am also reading A Free Man of Color for the Challenge.

Book trivia: I have to admit, the vampire on the cover of Those Who Hunt the Night is somewhat of a joke. He looks like he is wearing an odd-fitting wig and his canine teeth are much too long. In every vampire movie I have ever seen the vampire’s teeth are not visible with the mouth closed. The fangs are only revealed when he or she opens their mouth.

Music: “Till We Meet Again,” Salieri, and Tchaikovsky.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Trouble in Triplicate

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Stout, Rex, Trouble in Triplicate. Viking Press, 1949.

Reason read: to continue the series started last year in honor of Stout’s birth month.

Trouble in Triplicate is actually three short novellas:

  • Before I Die – Dazy Perrit, king of the black market, has come to Nero Wolfe to help him with his daughters. One is blackmailing him and the other has a nervous tic Perrit thinks Wolfe can cure.
  • Help Wanted, Male – Wolfe hires a body double when his life is threatened while he works a murder case.
  • Instead of Evidence – It is not everyday that a man shows up on your doorstep and announces that he is about to die and proceeds to name his future killer. This is a mystery all about identity.

New things I learned about Archie Goodwin: he is from Ohio. He is an ankle man. He has a strange prejudice against people with the name Eugene.

Lines I liked, “He paid us a visit the day he stopped a bullet” (p 3), “If you are typing to can’t talk” (p 160), and “He sounded next door to hysterical” (p 185).

As an aside, Stout mentioned Billy Sunday in “Before I Die” and I had to wrack my brain. Where had I heard that name before? From the lyrics of Ramble On Rose by the Grateful Dead.

Author fact: Stout moved to Paris in order to write full time.

Book trivia: you get three stories for the price of one in Trouble in Triplicate and the stories are not tied together in any way.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter obviously called “Res Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

And Be a Villain

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Stout, Rex. And Be a Villain. Bantam, 1994.

Reason read: to continue the series started a year ago!

Nero Wolfe is crafty. The way he finds clients is to insert himself into a dilemma (pretty much always a murder) with the promise of a solution (usually by proving someone’s innocence)…for a price (usually pretty steep). However it is up to Archie Goodwin to sell that service and bring the client onboard. When on-air guest Cyril Orchard is murdered by cyanide poisoning during Madeline Fraser’s radio program, Archie’s spin is that the heat will be off Madeline as a suspect if she hires the great Nero Wolfe to find the real killer. Logic prevails and Madeline agrees to Wolfe’s demands; except now it looks like the poison was meant for her. Is someone out there is trying to kill her? At the same time Beula Poole is found shot to death and a seemingly unrelated gynecologist is being blackmailed. Then a third person is poisoned. Are all of these events related? The case so stumps Wolfe that he begrudgingly involves his on again-off again nemesis, Inspector Cramer. As usual, Goodwin is the star of the show.

Line I liked, “No doctor should assume responsibility for the health of one he loves or one he hates” (p 168).

Author fact: according to one biography, Rex Stout devised and implemented a school banking system.

Book trivia: As with most Stout books the publishers lets the reader peek behind this curtain. This time And Be A Villain shared Viking’s lawyers’ attempt to find any detail that resembled real people or situations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Too Many Women

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Stout, Rex. Too Many Women. Viking Press, 1947.

The backstory: a businessman falls victim to a hit-and-run driver. Accident or murder? The firm, Naylor-Kerr, Inc, where the businessman worked, is convinced it was foul play. The board of directors hire Nero Wolfe to prove it. The only problem is Wolfe thinks the clues to solving the case are hidden in the executive offices of Naylor-Kerr. It is up to wise-cracking and devilishly handsome Archie Goodwin to find the evidence by going undercover in Naylor-Kerr. He starts in the Structural Metals section but gets distracted by the Correspondence Checker, namely the victim’s fiancé. In fact, there are too many beautiful women for Archie to handle. He starts dating a few of them to get to the gossip. The best part of his job is entertaining the women in the company. Dancing, dining, and drinking to interview them all.
Once his cover is blown, true to form, Archie is still the sarcastic and sharp-tongued sidekick to Nero that we all know and love. When a second man from the same company is found dead in the exact same manner on the exact same street the pressure mounts to solve the mystery. Even though this was a case that was harder than most for Wolfe to solve as Wolfe mysteries, they wrap up Too Many Women like an episode of Scooby Doo with a long narrative about how it all went down.

A favorite quote, “It wasn’t a conception that hit him, it was a sedan” (p 96).

Author fact: Rex Stout held a job as a bookkeeper.

Book trivia: There was a significant absence of Nero Wolfe in this installment.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Silent Speaker

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Stout, Rex. Silent Speaker. Bantam Books, 1946.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November.

One of the aspects of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe that I just adore is that Wolfe’s unscrupulous tendencies. He does not mind stooping to all new lows when trying to solve a case. When Cheney Boone, Director of the Bureau of Price Regulations, is murdered right before he was due to deliver a speech to the National Industrial Association, Wolfe pounces on a way to make NIA his client. Since the BPR and NIA are not exactly friendly, it is easy to pit them against each other. What better way than to accuse NIA of murder? Wolfe then finds a way to turn a $30,000 fee into an $100,000 reward along with faking a mental breakdown. As usual, it is Archie who steals the show.
Who would have predicted Nero Wolfe would come to the defense of Cramer? When Cramer is taken off the case Wolfe actually disapproves of the way the inspector has been treated. It is strange to not have him be the rival of a case.

Small confession: when I don’t take a lot of notes while reading that usually means I am not into the plot. But! I did find this quote that I liked, “An unaccustomed chair always presented him with a complicated problem” (p 238).

Author fact: Among Stout’s many occupations he was also a sightseeing guide.

Book trivia: Walter Mosely provides the introduction to Silent Speaker.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

One Step Behind

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Mankell, Henning. One Step Behind. Translated by Ebba Segerberg. Havrill Press, 1997.

Reason read: at one time I researched the best time to be a tourist in various countries. I later decided that wasn’t a good enough reason to read a book so I deleted all of the “best time to visit” lists. I guess I missed Sweden. According to something I read a million years ago, July is the best month to visit. Who knows if that is still true. New Reason read: the Bayside Festival is being held this July in Helsingborg.

As a Swedish police officer, Kurt Wallander is an interesting character. One of my favorite elements of Mankell’s writing is how real his characters are drawn. Kurt lost his father and takes the time to help his stepmother sell the house. He has bad dreams and concerning health issues. He doesn’t always listen to his colleagues. He doesn’t have the greatest attention to detail (odd for a police officer). Despite his personal problems he has a dogged dedication to his job. When a group of young people are found murdered he realizes he downplayed the urgency back when they were reported missing months earlier. He assumed they were happy-go-lucky youths and the only crime was their refusal to check in with mom and dad. Then more bodies are found, including that of a fellow police officer with ties to the first victims. Suddenly, Wallander and his team have a serial killer in their midst. Can he solve the crime before more people are slain?

Author fact: Henning Mankell’s photograph looks like how I would picture Kurt Wallander.

Book trivia: confessional – I listened to this on audio and it was hard to differentiate the various characters with their foreign names.

Setlist: the Overture to Rigoletto by Guiseppe Verdi.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117).

Not Quite Dead Enough

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Stout, Rex. Not Quite Dead Enough. Pyramid Books, 1944.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November.

Rex Stout likes to throw his readers a curve ball now and again. When we rejoin Archie and Nero in Not Quite Dead Enough, Archie has been in military service in Washington D.C. for two months. There is a war going on and he is trying to do his part. Meanwhile back in Manhattan, Nero Wolfe wants to do his part for the war effort as well. Comically, he and Fritz have been training to be soldiers by exercising and eating better (ha!). When Archive returns he is horrified by the change.
A welcome surprise for readers is the fact that Lily Rowan is back. We first met Archie’s crush back in Some Buried Caesar. This time Archie has set his sights on a new girl, Ann Armory, who works for the National Bird League. Only…she ends up dead. Of course she does. Since Wolfe is not interested in solving crime anymore Archie has to make matters into his own hands by becoming suspect number one. He is last seen with the pretty girl at a dance. His hair is found in her dead fist. Will Archie convince Nero to take the case and clear his name?

Book trivia: this is another one of those “double mysteries” where two novellas are combined.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

After Life

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Ellis, Rhian. After Life. Amazon Encore, 2000.

Reason read: After Life takes place in New York, a city rich in culture. The Puerto Rican Day Parade also takes place in New York in the month of June.

I am the type of person who tries to look at a situation from every angle before making a judgment about it, good or bad. I want to walk around it, peer under it, climb over it and look down from above; I want to make sure I haven’t missed a single detail. So when Naomi Ash says “First I had to get his body into the boat” in the very first line of After Life I did not immediately assume she intentionally murdered her boyfriend, Peter Morton. Nowhere does she say as much on page one. Maybe Peter Morton had an accident, like falling off the roof or a fatal health episode, like a heart attack. And maybe, just maybe, since Naomi Ash lives in such a remote area she needed to illegally dispose of his body. Thinking a little darker – maybe Peter and Naomi fought and things went horribly sideways. Or maybe his death was a suicide, but he made it look like murder because he wanted to frame her. In the first two hundred pages of After Life the reader cannot be sure of anything at all. For two hundred pages Naomi slowly navigates the story of her childhood, her teenage years, how she became a medium, and her current life in the community of Train Line. She carefully parses out the details of everything but Peter Morton’s death. The mystery of what happened to her boyfriend stays tightly under wraps for a good portion of the book.
But the story is worth the wait. In the meantime Ellis writes with an other-worldly aura that keeps the reader entertained. She moves through language with languid grace, like slow moving water. Take for example, the way Ellis describes a voice falling flat in a deep snow-covered landscape. She is correct. If you have ever stood in a winter white landscape you know if the snow is deep enough it has a way of making sound plummet into an eerie depth of alien silence.
The plot of Ellis’s short book is simple. Naomi Ash, following in her mother’s footsteps, is a medium. She lives and practices her craft in a community called Train Line in the fictional town of Wallamee, in upstate New York. She has let readers know that she continues to carry the secret of disposing of the body of her boyfriend, Peter Morton. The secret has laid buried, just like Peter, for a decade. Like all skeletons, in the closet or otherwise, they eventually resurface and when Peter’s bones are discovered, the whole town buzzes with the mystery. Meanwhile, coincidentally, Naomi’s mother’s trade is growing stale and people are tiring of her. Her radio show is about to be canceled. What better way to jump start a failing career than to solve the mystery of the bones?

Confessional: as the hostilities towards Naomi grow I found myself becoming more and more anxious for her. First the child she babysits in the afternoons starts to turn on her, then Officer Peterson takes a curious dislike to her.

As an aside, when I first saw the title I immediately thought of Ricky Gervais and his show of the same name. They are not the same.
As another aside, the harvesting of grapes made me think of my wedding. All of the wine came from the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York.

Lines I immediately identified with, “My mother’s good moods could be more bewildering than her bad ones” (p 64), and “You could life up one of her lies and find a truth beneath it, and then find beneath that truth another lie, and spend your whole life pulling away layers and never get to the bottom of it” (p 122), and one more, “Mothers and daughters are put on Earth to tear each others hearts out” (p 249). Enough about mothers. Here is another good quote completely unrelated to mothers, “…but opening my mouth on that subject would gain me no friends” (p 96).

Author fact: After Life is Rhian Ellis’s first and only novel.

Book trivia: the version of After Life that I picked up was a Nancy Pearl Presents a Book Lust Rediscovery. She wrote the introduction to this edition. Confession: I had never heard of Book Lust Rediscovery and wonder how many other books are republished as such.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “First Lines to Remember” (p 86).