Tag: mystery

Everywhere That Mary Went

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Scottoline, Lisa. Everywhere That Mary Went. Narrated by Teri Schnaubelt. HarperAudio, 2016.

Reason read: Pennsylvania became a state in the month of December. Everywhere That Mary Went takes place in Philadelphia.

Mary DiNunzio has a problem. She is pretty sure she is being stalked by a stranger. Weird hang ups on her office and home phones, strange notes left at her desk, and a mysterious black car constantly following her all contribute to her growing sense of paranoia. As if these troubling events are not enough, Mary will not report them for fear of tarnishing her chances for a promotion at her law office. She’s up for partner. Meanwhile, she is still grieving the loss of her husband less than a year ago and she has hardly anyone to confide in. Her twin sister joined a convent, her personal assistant has troubles of his own (it is the 1990s and AIDS is running rampant) and her best friend disapproves of Mary’s new boyfriend, a fellow lawyer at the same firm. Mary’s life is a mess. When violence escalates Mary is forced to take action. Her life may very well be on the line.

Author fact: Scottoline used her experiences as a lawyer to start the Rosato & Associates series.

Book trivia: Everywhere That Mary Went is the first book in the Rosato & Associates series. I am reading two others, Mistaken Identity and Killer Smile. A fourth book, Final Appeal, is a stand-alone mystery.

Playlist: “HM Pinafore”, Prince, Madonna, and George Michael’s “Father Figure.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: The Literary Midwest” (p 25).

Would You Rather?

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Tooker, Michelle. Would You Rather?: True Crime Edition. Michelle Tooker, 2024.

Reason read: every now and again I get to review interesting books as part of LibraryThing’s Early Review program. This is one such book.

Would You Rather? True Crime Edition boasts of “1,000 thought-provoking questions and conversation starters on serial killers, mysteries, crimes, supernatural activities and more” and is the “ultimate true crime gift.” All that is true…for the right audience. Tooker knows a great deal about serial killers, unsolved crimes, and unexplained mysteries. Like more than the average person. There were many people (both criminals and victims) I had never heard of before. Some of the Would You Rather questions I couldn’t answer because I didn’t know the case. Thanks to Tooker, I am going to do down a rabbit hole of television shows, documentaries, and true-crime nonfiction to bring myself up to speed!

Book trivia: the illustrations are interesting, a ski mask, dead body…

Rubber Band

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Stout, Rex. Rubber Band. Bantam Books, 1986.

Reason read: to continue the series started last month. Also, Rex Stout was born in December.

The immediate mystery in Rubber Band is that $30,000 has gone missing from a Vice President Muir’s desk drawer. He is convinced he knows who took it. Anthony D. Perry, President of Seaboard Products Corporation, takes offense to the accusation because the alleged culprit, Miss Fox, is his alleged mistress. The secondary mystery involves a group known as the Rubber Band. They are owed money for freeing a man destines for hanging. George Rowley killed a man but escaped punishment due to a seemingly cooked up story about an inheritance. He bribed his way to escape then conveniently never paid the group who freed him. Miss Fox is involved in both cases.
Here are the things I appreciate about the Wolfe series: Rex Stout pays homage to Arthur Conan Doyle by having a picture of Sherlock Holmes over Archie’s desk and the consistencies – Archie, who has lived with Nero for eight years, will always go on and on about Wolfe’s weight. Nero’s time with his beloved 10,000 orchids never varies (9am – 11am and 4pm – 6pm), nor will he alter this schedule for anyone or anything.

The one thing I didn’t appreciate about Stout’s writing. I was constantly considering the time of Stout’s writing. Archie is a little sexist referring to women as “little girls” and using other disparaging remarks.

Line I laughed at, “…she had the kind of voice that makes you want to observe it in the flesh” (p 10).

As an aside, I want to create an Archie Dictionary. Has anyone already done this? Here are some words I would include: bird=guy, bean=brain, pink=kill, faded=retreated, lamped=observed and brass=courage.

Author fact: Rex Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana in 1886. As an aside, I am reading forty-two more Nero Wolfe mysteries. Hopefully, I will be able to find 42 more facts about his creator. Sigh. [As an aside, according to the back page of Rubber Band Rex Stout wrote 72 Nero Wolfe mysteries by the time he died. I am not reading the thirty short stories.]

Book trivia: the front cover of my copy of Rubber Band is humorous. Rex Stout is “the grand master of detection” and Nero Wolfe, complete with a portly silhouette, is “the world’s most brilliant detective.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout: Too Good To Miss” (p 227).

Big Dig

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Barnes, Linda. Big Dig. St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

Reason read: to finish the series started in October in honor of autumn in beautiful New England.

Carlotta Carlyle is back. This time she has an assignment to go undercover to monitor rumors of theft on a construction site in the heart of Boston. Only this isn’t your ordinary dig site. This is Boston’s famous Big Dig. Massachusetts residents will remember that tolls paid along the turnpike were supposed to fund this ginormous project to reroute traffic around one of the oldest cities in the nation. Only, the action isn’t hot and heavy enough for Carlotta. She seems to be monitoring the theft of…dirt. She decides to moonlight, taking on a missing persons case. Working two separate jobs seems like a win-win for Carlotta until she gets fired from the Big Dig assignment. Isn’t it ironic that Carlotta discovers that her undercover assignment is directly tied to her on-the-side case, the disappearance of a dog groomer/waitress? Now Carlotta must find a way back onto the Dig assignment to connect the cases and solve them both.
Big Dig is full of twists and turns. Both the events of Waco, Texas and Oklahoma City play a part in the action. Carlotta finds herself back in the presence of an old flame and finds time to fan a new fire.
Confessional: Big Dig is not entirely believable (big shocker). When Carlotta finds a guy hog tied and suffering from a pretty nasty head wound, she is not alarmed. Instead, she takes him home to have sex.

Author fact: Every time I went to look up information about Linda Barnes I kept running into the character from Criminal Minds…

Book trivia: as with all Carlotta Carlyle mysteries, Barnes includes a plethora of real landmarks of Boston in Big Dig.

Playlist: Chris Smither, Frank Sinatra, Robert Johnson, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Bessie Smith, and Wagner.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter “New England Novels” (p 177).

Flashpoint

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Barnes, Linda. Flashpoint. Hyperion, 2001.

Reason read: to continue the series started in October for leaf peeping time.

Flashpoint opens with cop-turned-private-investigator Carlotta Carlyle finding a man in her tub. It’s a kitschy beginning meant to throw the reader off from the true mystery. You think the man in the tub is going to be the problem to solve, but the real case doesn’t reveal itself right away. Here is how it all starts: Carlotta owns a Victorian outside the city of Boston. Oddly enough, this Victorian doesn’t have more than two full bathrooms. Carlotta’s roommate and PI assistant, Roz, has been painting with a man who passes out in Carlotta’s bathtub. Instead of asking Roz to clean up her gentleman friend in her own bathroom, Carlotta goes to the Y to shower. She has a regular game of volleyball with a team. There, she is approached by a volleyball teammate to help an elderly woman with locks on her apartment door. Carlotta knows nothing about teammate Gwen or why she is asking Carlotta help old lady Valentine Phipps with her locks. As a private investigator, I expected Carlotta to be a little more curious or cautious because Ms. Phipps ends up dead a short time later. Here is the real mystery. Did the elderly woman die of a heart attack or was she murdered? All evidence points towards murder since real estate developers are eyeing her apartment building for demolition…if only the old woman would leave.

As an aside, it is nice to have more of an explanation for Carlotta’s relationship with Paolina.

As an aside, Carlotta asks about where to buy black sheets. Times have certainly changed, girlfriend. You now can buy black anything from Amazon. Carlotta made a comment about New England being chilly in October. Newsflash! You can now wear shorts in November.

Author fact: Barnes has written at least eight Carlotta Carlyle mysteries. I am only reading three. This is my penultimate CC mystery.

Playlist: Ray Charles, Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline”, Wilson Pickett, Paul Rishell, Little Anne Raines, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, “Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe”, and Chris Smither.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “New England Novels” (p 177).

League of Frightened Men

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Stout, Rex. The League of Frightened Men. Farrar & Rhinehart, Inc. 1935.

Reason read: I kicked off the Nero Wolfe series because League of Frightened Men begins in the month of November. I will continue to read the series in honor of Rex Stout’s birth month in December.

While in college, years ago, a fraternity of men pulled a prank that left one of their brothers horribly handicapped. The fraternity men spend the rest of their lives trying to make amends to Paul Chapin, until years later, one by one, brothers are winding up dead or missing. Has their scarred-for-life brother finally decided to seek revenge? It certainly seems that way when poems appear after each death, cryptically pointing the finger back at the group and the accident suffered so long ago. Nero is hired to find a missing fraternity brother and stop the killings before the entire league of frightened men is wiped out.

Because I will be spending a lot of time with Nero Wolfe, I thought I would keep track of his traits. For example, here is what I know so far: Nero likes beer for breakfast. He is considered obese. He has lived at West 35th Street in New York City for the last twenty years (thirteen alone and the last seven with his sidekick, Archie) and it takes an act of god to get him to leave his apartment. Nero is an avid reader and likes tending to his orchids. His right hand man, Archie, is a long time friend and they yell at each other and bicker like an old married couple. As an aside, Archie drinks a lot of milk; almost as much as the beer as Nero puts away.

As an aside, be forewarned! There are several examples of unflattering name calling that, by today’s standards, would be considered politically incorrect.

Line I liked, “You must not let the oddities of this case perplex you to the point of idiocy” (p 158).

Author fact: According to Wikipedia, Rex Stout died in Danbury, Connecticut.

Book trivia: League of Frightened Men was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post.

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

Cold Case

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Barnes, Linda. Cold Case. Delacorte Press, 1997.

Reason read: Cold Case takes place in Boston. Massachusetts is beautiful this time of year. Read in honor of the leaves turning.

Carlotta Carlyle is a private detective and part time cab driver. A case comes to her that is as confusing as an overgrown corn maze. Thea Janis disappeared twenty-four years ago when she was only fifteen years old. After much digging Carlotta discovered Thea was a precocious and promiscuous teenager who published a book of poetry to wild success when she was fourteen. In the span of two weeks of working on the case, Carlotta uncovers a tangle of family secrets. Thea’s name was actually Dorothy Cameron, a gardener from the Cameron family employee also went missing at the same time as Thea, Thea’s sister is a schizophrenic, Thea’s brother is a politician running for office while his marriage falls apart, and more than one murder has taken place.
Maybe this is a premise I have seen too many times, but the wealth of the Cameron family bored me. Rich woman with an icy demeanor and impeccably dress code has a stranglehold on her adult son, who does nothing but disappoint her. Her beloved daughter went missing twenty-four years ago and has been presumed dead ever since a serial killer confessed to her murder. Her second daughter is in a mental facility battling with schizophrenia. What secrets are hidden beneath the cover of wealth?
On top of all this is a subplot involving Carlotta’s little sister and the mafia. Because Cold Case is the seventh Carlotta Carlyle mystery but my first, maybe I’ve missed some key details outlined in an earlier mystery.

As an aside, throughout the entire book I found myself asking does Carlotta ever drive a cab in Cold Case? Answer is yes, but not for hire.
As another aside, Liberty Café was a real place. Too bad it closed. I’m sure fans of Linda Barnes and Carlotta Carlyle would continue to see it out.
Third aside, and I would need an expert to weigh in on this but, when you open a casket after twenty four years, would the smell of death still be so strong that you would need a rag soaked in turpentine to mask the stench? Just curious.

Quotes to quote: there were a few really thought-provoking lines I would love to share, but due to the copyright language, I cannot. Too bad because they were really good.

Author fact: Linda Barnes, not to be confused with the character on Criminal Minds, has written other mysteries series.

Book trivia: as I mentioned before, Cold Case is actually the seventh book in the series. I am reading seven, eight, and nine for the Challenge.

Playlist: “Aint No More Cane on the Brazos”, Beatles, Blind Blake, Black Velvet Band, Chris Smither’s “Up on the Lowdown”, “Hard Times Blues”, Mississippi John hurt, Mozart, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Rory Block’s “Terraplane Blues”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117). Also from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Boston: Beans, Bird, and the Red Sox” (p 40).

Kennedy’s Brain

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Mankell, Henning. Kennedy’s Brain.

Reason read: October is national crime month.

Tragedy trails Louise like an unwanted stray dog. She lost her mother when she was only six years old. She has all but lost her father to grief and alcohol in the years since her mother’s tragic accident. Louise’s marriage vanished into thin air and for the last twenty-plus years she has barely seen her ex-husband, despite having a son together. She barely believes Aron exists. Now, she is facing the unexplained demise of her only son, Herik, found dead in his bed. Like Verona in The Perfect Daughter by Gillian Linscott, Henrik is found with a belly full of drugs, and with no visible signs of foul play, his death is deemed a suicide. And like Nell in The Perfect Daughter, Louise cannot find truth the forensic evidence. She refuses to believe her only son committed suicide. So begins an epic journey to uncovered what really happened to Henrik. From Athens to Barcelona and Mozambique, Louise hunts for explanations.
My one complaint about Kennedy’s Brain was the unnatural dialogue between characters. I know Mankell is using his characters to fill historical background and give context to current situations, but they, the characters, offer way more information than is realistic in their conversations. Maybe something is lost in the translation? Here is an example, Adelinho accuses Ricardo of talking too much but when speaking of his friend, Guiseppe, Adelinho reveals Guiseppe is Italian, is friendly, and visits now and then. Adelinho also says Guiseppe likes the solitude, is responsible for the navvies building roads, likes to get drunk, and goes back to Maputo every month. Why tell a stranger all of this? Another example, Lucinda, dying of AIDS needs to tell Louise something important, but she says she is tired. She’ll share the rest when she has rested. She then goes on to talk about a few other things of little consequence.

As an aside, I had trouble with Louise’s character. What archaeologist injures herself on a shard of pottery uncovered at a dig site and why is she allowed to keep the shard as a gift for her son? That didn’t sit right with me.

Line I Liked, “The horrors in store left no warning” (p 120).

Author fact: Mankell was only 67 years old when he passed away.

Book trivia: Kennedy’s Brain was made into a Swedish movie. We watched a trailer for it and my husband was not impressed.

Playlist: Bach. Note: there was a lot of music in Kennedy’s Brain but nothing specific that I could add here.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Swede(n), Isn’t It?” (p 222).

His Last Bow

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: “His Last Bow.” Doubleday & Company, 1922.

Sherlock Holmes is at it again, solving mysteries for his fellow Londoners. In the “Adventure of the Cardboard Box”, Holmes was so embarrassed to have solved it so easily that he did not want to take credit for it. As usual, Holmes has his ways of learning things about people by making them chatter. The more they talk, the more they reveal. He also can discern important facts by the tiniest of details like cigarette butts and handwriting samples.

Short stories:

  • The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge – solving the murder of a man named Garcia.
  • The Adventure of the Cardboard Box – a box sent to a spinster creates an uproar.
  • The Adventure of the Red Circle – a case of hidden identity and self defense.
  • The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans – the theft of submarine plans.
  • The Adventure of the Dying Detective – someone is trying to kill Sherlock!
  • the Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax – a woman is missing. Quote I liked from this story, “When you follow two separate chains of thought, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth” (p 950).
  • The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
  • His Last Bow: the war service of Sherlock Holmes

Lines I liked, “Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery…” (p 901).Book trivia: I love it when Watson remembers previous cases and references them in new mysteries. He compared the Adventure of the Cardboard Box to a Study in Scarlet and the Sign of Four.

Perfect Daughter

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Linscott, Gillian. The Perfect Daughter. Macmillan, 2001.

Reason read: Linscott celebrates her birthday in the month of September. Read in her honor.

It is difficult to be the prim and proper daughter of a military father and a snobbish mother in 1914 England. [It’s probably difficult to be a child of such parents in any given era.] Giving in to the pressure of perpetual perfection, did Verona finally commit suicide? Or was something more sinister at play? Found with a clever noose around her neck, it looks like the former. When details are revealed, readers must consider the era. Left-wing politics are raging, women are fighting for the vote, and Verona went from being a well-mannered daughter to a runaway, albeit talented, artist living in squalor with a group of Bohemian anarchists. Her life while she lived and breathed was fraught with contradictions, but it is her death which confounds us more. Her autopsy reveals she had been pregnant and had a great deal of morphine in her system. Her friends and family report her behavior was so strange they hardly knew her anymore. Maybe she led a promiscuous life. Maybe she was an addict. Was Verona’s cousin to blame? Suffragette and political agitator, Nell Bray had little contact with Verona; she barely knew the girl, and yet she finds herself trying to solve the mystery. Curious by nature, Nell wonders how a young girl from a well-to-do family could end up deceased on her parents’ property. Is her strange death a message to her society-slaved parents? Or was someone else to blame for her demise?

Author fact: Linscott worked for the BBC before she became a novelist.

Book trivia: This could be a movie.

Setlist: Chaliapin, “O Dem Golden Slippers”, and Schubert.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 169).

“The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge”

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. “The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge.” Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Doyle loves words. Case in point: John Scott Eccles, the man who comes to Sherlock for help describes his experience as incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer and bizarre. All that really happened was that he spent the night at some place called Wisteria Lodge as the guest of Aloysius Garcia, but upon waking found that everyone had disappeared, including the host. As he was sharing this incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer, bizarre news with Sherlock and Watson, the inspector from Scotland Yard arrives to say Aloysius was found murdered. Through a series of tips and clues, Sherlock is led to the home of Mr. Henderson. He is actually Don Juan Murillo. How he is connected to the disappearance of Aloysius Garcia, I am not sure. Of course, there is a mysterious woman who isn’t as she seems.

Story trivia: Holmes looks back at mysteries solved in other stories.

Valley of Fear

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. “Valley of Fear.” The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Reason read: I am still slogging through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete works. He died in July so I am picking it back up.

I took a break from Sherlock Holmes because I was getting bored of the formulaic storytelling. Even though the plot of Valley of Fear follows a scheme we are all familiar with, my hiatus was long enough that I did not mind. I could stomach the repetition of gimmicks used in previous stories. (Sherlock being condescending and Watson’s all-forgiving attitude bothered me the most.) Additionally, the second half of the story was so different from the first that I forgot I was reading a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The refreshing shift in the narrative in the second half of the story kept me engaged, as it provided a deeper understanding of the characters and their motivations in part one. Part One finds Sherlock investigating a murder at a remote location, complete with a moat and drawbridge. Meanwhile, Part Two delves into the backstory of McMurdo, weaving and unraveling and weaving again a tangled web of secrecy and deceit that extends beyond what initially seemed obvious. His involvement in the clandestine society steeped in blackmail and murder not only adds depth to the storyline but also sheds light on the darker side of the era (the start of the Chicago mafia family?).

As an aside, the final solution to the mystery reminded me of the first episode of The Closer, a television show starring Kyra Sedgewick. Everyone assumed the wrong identity of the victim which made the ending interesting.

Author fact: Many people believe Doyle was trying to get away from Sherlock Holmes stories when he wrote Valley of Fear as Holmes does not appear in the second half of the story.

Book trivia: Valley of Fear is the last novel in the collection. From here on out I am reading short stories.

Playlist: “I’m Sitting on the Stile, Mary” and “On the Banks of Allan Water.”

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

Wild Sheep Chase

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Murakami, Haruki. A Wild Sheep Chase. Vintage International, 1989.

Reason read: in early June the running community celebrates a national run day. Murakami is an experience marathoner. To celebrate running and Murakami’s athleticism, I am reading A Wild Sheep Chase.

Hidden in the midst of The Wild Sheep Chase are mysteries. Early on, the nameless narrator receives a letter from someone he didn’t want to think about. He throws the letter away without opening it. As the reader, are we supposed to remember this letter? Is it important later on? I’m thinking it must be or it wouldn’t have been presented in such a way. Right? Wrong assumption. This nameless protagonist has been issued a threat – find a unique sheep with a star on its back or else. The blackmail is terrifying in an unspecific way. Get use to the vagueness of A Wild Sheep Chase. No one has a proper name. Not the narrator, ex-wife, girlfriend, business partner, or even the strange man dressed in a sheep suit.
The entire time I was reading A Wild Sheep Chase I thought it could be a video game…either that or a fever dream. You find yourself questioning chaos versus mediocrity. The negating of cognition. Part I begins in November of 1970. This date is important but you won’t realize it until long after you’ve closed the book. Like I said, fever dream.

As an aside, I was struck by this line, “…an epidemic could have swept the world…” (p 307). It was published 31 years before Covid-19 blanketed the entire world with its deadly power. Here is another line I liked, “No matter how much speed we put on there was no escaping boredom” (p 100).

Author fact: Murakami won the Norma Literary Newcomer’s Prize for A Wild Sheep Chase.

Book trivia: A Wild Sheep Chase is part of a trilogy called The Trilogy of the Rat. I am not reading the other books in this trilogy.

Setlist: Bach, the Beach Boys, Beatles, Beethoven, Benny Goodman’s “Air Mail Special”, Bill Withers, Boz Scags, Brothers Johnson, the Byrds, Chopin, Deep Purple, the Doors, “Johnny B Goode”, Johnny River’s “Midnight Special”, Maynard Ferguson, Moody Blues, Mozart, Nat King Cole, Paul McCartney, Percy Faith Orchestra’s “Perfidia”, “Roll Over Beethoven”, the Rolling Stones, “Secret Agent Man”, “Star Wars”, and “White Christmas”.

BookLust Twist: First from Book Lust twice in the chapters “Japanese Fiction (p 131) and “Post Modern Condition” (p 190). Also in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Japanese Journeys” (p 117). I see this BLTG addition as a cheat.

Long Finish

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Dibdin, Michael. A Long Finish. Pantheon Books, 1998.

Reason read: Dibdin was born in March. Read in his honor.

Do you like wine or truffles? This is a murder mystery centered around both delicacies in Alba, a small hill town in northern Italy. Aurelio Zen has been sent from the big city of Rome to aid in an unusual case. Instead of finding the real killer, he is to clear the name of a winemaker accused of (and jailed for) killing his father. Only when Zen gets to Alba, the murder case of Also Vincenzo is “solved” without his contribution or nosey interference. Strange. When the authorities try to rush him out of town he grows even more suspicious and decides to stick around. The town intrigues him and he is no hurry to leave. It becomes even more mysterious when subsequently two more people die. One by suicide and one by accident…or so it seems.
The more I read about Zen the more I remembered his character from Cosi Fan Tutti. He is still a very complicated man. He is prone to sleepwalking to the point of serious injury. When he starts receiving strange calls he doesn’t know about phone devices that can disguise voices. As a police officer, this detail surprised me. He has the ability to become unglued at a moment’s notice. An act or truth, I could not tell. He might have fathered a child out of wedlock. He doesn’t always have the best intentions but other times he will surprise you.

What exactly is a “powerful but lazy wind” (p 155)?

Author fact: Dibdin passed away in 2007.

Book trivia: Long Finish is the sixth book in the Aurelio Zen series.

Playlist: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao, Italia!” (p 46).

The Bell

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Murdoch, Iris. The Bell. Viking Press, 1958.

Reason read: January is Female Mystery Month and so I am reading The Bell in honor of Iris Murdoch and her mysterious bell.

Iris Murdoch takes you into the religious world of Imber Abbey, a cloistered community of nuns. This devout group is about to receive a long awaited bell to replace one lost to magic and mystery. The Bell‘s plot focuses on a cast of damaged people living outside Imber Abbey: Paul Greenfield, there to translate fourteenth century manuscripts; his wife Dora, there because she feels obligated to stay in a loveless marriage; Michael, the leader of the lay community; Tobey, a curious man about to attend Oxford; Catherine, a beautiful woman about to entire Imber Abbey; her twin brother, Nick, there to be close to her one last time; and the old Abbess, the wise and all-seeing head of Imber Abbey.
Lurking in the background of The Bell is the legend of the original bell named Gabriel. The story goes, as Paul relayed to Dora, a fourteenth century nun was supposedly having an illicit affair but could not and would not confess to it. Because he could not punish the singular guilty woman, the Bishop cursed the entire abbey, causing the tower bell, the aforementioned Gabriel, to catapult itself (himself?) into a nearby lake. The guilty nun was so distraught by this phenomenon she was rumored to have drowned herself in the selfsame lake. When Gabriel unexpectedly resurfaces, with the help of Dora and Tobey, each character wonders what it could mean to Imber Abbey and to themselves.
Confessional: The character of Dora confused me almost as much as she confused herself. I wasn’t even sure I liked her. Extremely immature, she would make up her mind to not do something but then go ahead and the thing anyway (not buy multicolored skirts, sandals and jazz records, not go back to Paul, the abusive husband; not give up her seat on the train. I could go on). There is a dazed and confused ignorance to her personality that I found either charming or annoying, depending on the minute. Dora is described as an “erring” wife, but how errant can she with an abusive ogre of a husband? He is condescending and cruel, telling her she is not his woman of choice.

Lines I liked, “But even if she doesn’t care about her husband’s blood pressure she ought to show some respect for the boy” (p 213).
there is one scene that has stuck with me that I must share. Dora is attending the baptism of the new bell. On one side of her is her silently seething husband, Paul, who has her gripped violently by the wrist. On the other side of Dora is her former lover, a reporter there to cover the story of the bell. During the struggle to free herself from Paul’s torment, Dora drops a letter meant for a third man. The reporter is the one to successfully retrieve the missive. It is an incredibly short scene filled with tension.

Author fact: The Guardian has a number of great blog posts about Murdoch.

Book trivia: The Bell is Murdoch’s fourth novel. I am reading a total of twenty-six for the Book Lust Challenge.

Short playlist: Bach, “The Silver Swan”, “Monk’s March”, and Mozart.

Nancy said: Pearl listed all twenty-six Murdoch novels and put an asterisks by her favorites. Was The Bell a favorite? Read Book Lust to find out.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Iris Murdoch: Too Good To Miss” (p 161).