It’s been a good week. Easter dinner at my sister and brother-in-law’s. Weather in the 70s a couple days. Last night, Linda and I went to see “A Beautiful Noise”, the musical about Neil Diamond. Because I’m writing this before the show, I don’t have anything else to say, but we love Neil Diamond’s songs. My father was a fan, and I even bought the “Greatest Hits” album with my father. We split the cost. So good memories.
Memories. That’s what The Correspondent by Virginia Evans deals with. Release date is April 29. It’s going to take me a couple days to get through this meaty, epistolary novel, but I’m hoping it’s worth it. I’ve only read the first fifth of the book, but I admire seventy-three-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp.
“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.
Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.
What about you? What are you doing this week? What are you reading? I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I’m enjoying The Correspondent.
I had a good Easter myself.
This week I read:
One of You by Lorie Lewis Ham; There’s a big deal in Fresno’s Tower district. When a beloved mystery author is murdered, our sleuth investigates. It’s amazing she can investigate at all, as she spends most of her time letting us all know how woke she is.
Sugar and Iced by Jenn McKinlay; The cupcake bakers find themselves catering a beauty pageant. The mother is all for it, but the protagonist has mixed feelings about this. Then one of her underlings goes Miss Congeniality. It turns out that maybe the protagonist is the one with the problem rather than the contestants.
Holiday Buzz by Cleo Coyle; It’s Christmas time, and there’s a Christmas Stalker killing people. When he kills one of Cleo’s employees, she get on the case, as her supercop boyfriend tries to make it to NYC despite a storm. Very Christmassy.
Not much to report from here this week even though it seemed fairly busy. Had a grandson over for dinner while his parents were in Amsterdam (to see the tulips) and Paris to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Our son and family came over the following day and brought lunch for all of us; the only things I had to do was make tea and provide never-ending snacks for little Evelyn. And tomorrow we take the other daughter and her husband to the airport; they’re heading to England to visit his mom for a week, and then going off to Ireland for another couple of weeks – a holiday they’ve been saving up for for a long time.
Books I read this week:
DEATH UNDER A LITTLE SKY by Stig Abell
A first novel from a former Times Literary Supplement editor.
Jake is 38 years old, a detective from the big city, in a failing marriage. He’s ready for a change in his life. Just at this pivotal point in his life he is informed that his uncle has bequeathed his isolated home in the vast countryside and all his money, to Jake. So Jake quits his job, ups stakes and pins all his hopes for a quiet peaceful life away from his stresses, on his new home.
It turns out this home is pretty much off-the-grid living – no phone, no internet, no washing machine, no shower. A fair bit of the book is devoted to seeing how Jake makes this place his own, bit by bit.
But this is first and foremost a mystery novel, and not too far in human bones are discovered at a community fair, and Jake is pulled back into the world of detection. It isn’t easy since the locals clam up and aren’t even willing to talk about the person whose bones were discovered; indeed many of them are downright hostile and threatening – both to Jake and to Livia, his fledgling romantic interest.
This is a slow-burn mystery and the writing is atmospheric, descriptive, and moody. I enjoyed the style of writing but thought it sometimes got in the way of telling the story a little bit. Still, the book has plenty of tension-filled scenes and there was an underlying threat of menace throughout. The two main characters could have been a bit more engaging but I think that will work itself out in the second entry in the series.
I SEE YOU’VE CALLED IN DEAD by John Kenney
It was the title that first caught my eye but this book is definitely going to be on my favourites list for 2025.
Bud is an obituary writer for a newspaper, although he hasn’t been doing a good job of it for a while now. He’s not enjoying life and has been in a bit of a depression since his wife left him. He gets drunk one night and in his drunken state decides he should write his own obituary. It isn’t meant to be serious and it’s full of untruths, but he accidentally hits ‘send’ and now it’s out there in the world. The company wants to fire him but there’s a snag – because of the obituary he’s technically dead, and dead people can’t be fired so the situation is causing big problems at the newspaper. While his job is hanging in the balance Bud somehow ends up going to the wakes and funerals of dead people. Of total strangers in fact. What happens at these events makes for great reading.
Up to this point you think the book is just going to be a funny story about a man who made a silly mistake. And it is indeed darkly funny but it is also so much more – life and death, written in such a way that it gets you emotionally. But in the next breath you laugh. It breaks your heart but puts it together again all at the same time. It is effortlessly profound, and the dialogue is superb. I felt connected to every character, most of whom are in difficult situations of their own, and we experience their worlds – how they cope with what they’ve been given, and it’s all so believable. But funny and readable and human and wise. It’s not preachy, it’s just a novel written in a way that makes you feel, just feel, all while being entertained. And by the end I was inspired and determined to make the most of every day.
When I finished the book (in just over a day) I wanted to begin it again right away, which has not happened to me before. This is a book I will keep and treasure, and re-read from time to time. I loved it.
Both of those books sound really good Lindy, especially I See You’ve Called In Dead.
Two more for the TBR. Thank you!
Death on a Scottish Train by Lucy Connelly. An October release I am reading and enjoying now thanks to NetGalley.
Hello, everyone. My husband and I are spending almost three weeks in Rumania, seeing castles, beautiful churches, and mountains, and we’re just getting started, so forgive me if I’m “away” some days. I’m typing on the phone with my finger, and I’m so slow! But I just finished a beautifully written, moving, and thought-provoking book called MIGRATIONS by Charlotte McConaghy. It’s set in a near future when almost all animals, birds, fish, insects, etc are extinct, so it’s sad. But still excellent!
Have a wonderful trip Kim! What prompted you to choose Romania? A while ago I went to a talk by a Scottish author who had lived in that country for many years; he sets his novels at least partly there. He said if you want to visit Romania go now, while it’s still relatively unspoiled, because Western commerical influences are already visible in some places.
Good morning everyone.
I’m so glad you had a good Easter Lesa. It’s not really a big thing in Scotland, although when I went to the supermarket last Friday it appeared to have been stripped by a swarm of locusts (despite the fact that it was going to be open every day as normal.) The only thing they did have in abundance was a huge oversupply of chocolate eggs. Maybe they weren’t selling well – they have become so expensive, and you get so little chocolate and so much packaging for your money, that people perhaps decided to buy something else.
I completely missed Thursdays at Lesa’s last week, just did not get time to come in here, but I got back from Edinburgh yesterday, so here I am.
Books – I’ve been even slower than usual lately. I finished MRS PARGETER’S PATIO by Simon Brett, and enjoyed it.
In this outing, Mrs Pargeter is having her patio dug up and the work – surprise! – uncovers a body. Whose was it, and who put that it there? Mrs P is soon on the case, aided by her late husband’s many (criminal) associates, all of whom are great characters. These are cosy mysteries, so all of these people are now (more or less) reformed, having been set up in respectable businesses by Mr Pargeter before he died. Mrs P has inherited shedloads of money, plus her husband’s ‘little black book’ containing the phone numbers of just about anyone whose services she may require.
Mrs P is also concerned to help her young gardener, Kirsty, whose mother died of a drug overdose, and whose father, a reggae musician, disappeared without trace on her 8th birthday.
Kirtsy has two great wishes. The first is to find her beloved father, the second to appear on a gardening competition TV show presented by a smooth operator of the worst kind. Mrs P loathes such shows, but wants to make Kirsty happy.
Eventually, of course, all of these plots come together. Brett is a very good writer with a subtle sense of humour, and in these books the characters are far more important than the plot. I love Truffler, Mrs P’s morose right hand man, Gary, her driver, and the many others, all of whom are only too keen to help Mrs P. And Mrs P herself is a wonderful creation, determined to pretend she knew nothing about her husband’s criminal past, but in fact far, far more astute than she chooses to appear.
So that was a fun read.
Now I am onto THE TIGER IN THE SMOKE by Marjery Allingham. I started this because it fits in with Simon and Kaggsy’s #1952 club, but I almost wish I hadn’t, as I doubt I’ll get a review written by the end of the week, and I also forgot how much Golden Age crime tends to irritate me.
This one – considered, I think, the author’s best – includes so much slang of the period that I’m having a hard time working out what everyone’s talking about. It starts with a young woman who believes herself to have been widowed in World War Two. Just as she is about to marry a very successful businessman, she starts to receive photographs of a man who looks remarkably like her late husband. Who is sending them? And why? My problem so far is that I don’t really care. Meg Elginbrodde (the widow) is a dull and entitled girl, Geoffrey Levett, her new man, is pompous and boring, the main police characters are incomprehensible, and the only interesting person is Canon Avril, Meg’s father. There are also some very questionable references to disabled, war wounded, men which would be totally unacceptable today,
I will press on, if only because I can then consign this book to the charity shop bag. But I do know many people really like this novel. Its just me and my issues with Golden Age crime.
On TV we are up to the third series of WHITECHAPEL. The second series focused on killers who were copying the crimes of the notorious Kray twins. It was a very frightening story, which I felt worked extremely well as the Krays were indeed terrifying. They ran all kinds of rackets in 1960s London, brutally murdering anyone who stood in their way. The police were in their pockets – everyone was. I really enjoy the developing friendship between the troubled middle class detective Joseph Chandler (Rupert Penry-Jones) and the experienced local sergeant Ray Miles (the always outstanding Phil Davis.)
Last week I visited my friend Sue to see her new baby goats. They are so cute and funny, and all three are thriving. Sue and I went for a walk. I thought it would be our usual one of about an hour and a half – I didn’t realise that she had something else in mind. Three and a half hours later we finally got back to her house! But it was a lovely route, along the river and through some beautiful countryside with wonderful views. We saw some fabulous country houses – at this time of year I think ‘Oh wouldn’t it be great to live out here!’ – then I remember what it’s like in winter, when the weather can be bad enough even were I live, just 8 miles outside the city centre.
Earlier this week a colleague and I, in our capacity as committee members of the Friends of Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, were given a tour of the St Nicholas Kirk. This is a huge church in the centre of Aberdeen, the ‘mither kirk’ of the city. There are records of kirk buildings there as early as the 1100s, though they have been rebuilt many times since then.
The kirk closed as a church a few years ago, and has now been taken over by Scot-ARTS, a charity that hopes to turn it into a community resource. At the moment everything is just as it was left – the pews with doors at the ends, the huge pulpit, the even larger tabernacle-style seating for the elders, the Drum aisle (where the Lairds of the Drum estate were buried), and many effigies, brasses and memorial stones (the graveyard outside is crammed with ancient graves and tombstones.)
We were allowed to go up into the balcony – where there are more pews, but with almost no view of anything. Here they used to place the deaf children, though by what logic anyone thought it sensible or kind to put children who couldn’t hear in a location where they also couldn’t see, if anyone’s guess. Sermons in the Church of Scotland are notoriously long even now, and in the 16th /17th centuries I imagine they were a good deal longer – so these bored children carved graffiti on the wooden pews. They wrote in Doric, and an expert in the dialect has been able to date the carvings from the use of certain words.
We then went up into the bell tower and saw the mechanics of the carillon of bells, which are operated from the organ, and the one enormous bell that chimes the hour. Unfortunately we hadn’t noticed that it was nearly 11am. BOOM went that bell, and we all shot down the rickety staircase a lot faster than we had climbed it.
My colleague Wendy (who’s much braver than I am) climbed another narrow set of stairs up inside the clock face. In the roof there is also ‘the witches’ ring’ – to which people accused of witchcraft were tied until they were taken to the Castlegate to be burned.
The kirk also houses the Oil & Gas workers’ chapel; services are still held here on an occasional basis, and there is a book of memorial for all people in the industry who have died in UK waters.
So Wendy and I had a fascinating morning, and we hope to make connections between Scot ART and the Friends of the Gallery.
On our way back up the road from Edinburgh yesterday David and I planned to stop off at one of our favourite cafes – only to find that it’s closed on Wednesdays. Every cloud has a silver lining though, as instead we tried Rait Antiques, whose sign on the motorway is distinctly unpromising, but which turned out to be wonderful. I wish I could post a photo of their amazing cakes. David had the biggest, and apparently the best, millionaire’s shortbread he had ever tasted, and I had a delicious cherry and chocolate chip scone with jam. Peppermint tea too – they had a whole range of teas. Lovely.
Home today and hoping not to have to go anywhere outwith Aberdeenshire for at least a week or two.
Have a good week all.
We saw POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive last weekend. I should have checked into it before we went – it lasted less than four months on Broadway and it’s the only show where we thought about leaving during intermission. On the bright side our weather has been in the upper 70s and we’ve been enjoying eating lunch and dinner on the porch.
I read Dead Post Society by Diane Kelly. Whitney and her cousin Buck buy the headmaster’s house at a defunct boarding school to keep it from being demolished. No one else wants it because of a murder / suicide that occurred there but Whitney figures they can turn it into a boutique hotel and flip it. During the course of the renovations they come across evidence that points to the deaths being a double murder.
Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff. H.P. Lovecraft lite with romance. It didn’t quite work for me.