The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

Title: The Long Call, Two Rivers #1 
Author:  Ann Cleeves

Publication: Minotaur Books, hardcover, October 2019

Genre: Mystery/series

Plot: In the first of a new series, Matthew Venn, a Detective Inspector in North Devon is watching his father’s funeral from a distance when, moments later, he learns a body has been found near the home he shares with his husband, Jonathan.  Matthew became estranged from his family due to his rejection of his parents’ evangelical religion, the Barum Brethren, but he puts his familial angst away to investigate the crime, or so he thinks.  As Matthew and his team examine the death there are so many conflicts of interest that he suspects he should remove himself from the case: the fact that the body was found so close to his home, several connections to the Woodyard, the art/day center that Jonathan manages, and the appearance of members of the Brethren.

My Impressions: The day they found the body on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying.

What a first sentence!  This is a very dark and atmospheric new mystery from popular Ann Cleeves, whose other books I have enjoyed.  Matthew Venn is one of the most serious protagonists I can remember reading about and he struggles with a feeling of unworthiness although he is handsome, accomplished, and has a job at which he is skilled.  The story is set in a town in North Devon, near two rivers, the Taw and the Torridge that run into the Atlantic Ocean.  Matthew and Jonathan live in a house on the estuary they got at a bargain price because it might be obliterated in a flood.   The isolation suits Matthew but Jonathan is gregarious and popular; in fact, Matthew is constantly amazed someone so confident would be attracted to him.  This insecurity threatens to derail Matthew from the hunt for the killer but ultimately he triumphs.

In this book, even more than her others, I am impressed by the detailed depiction of minor characters, particularly Lucy and her father Maurice, and Jen Rafferty, the appealing sergeant who works for Matthew.  I had been angry with Cleeves for a plot development in her Shetland Island series but I suppose I am over it by now.  In fact, she was in Greater Boston recently promoting this book and I was disappointed not to be able to attend.

Off the Blog: Enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers in Rye, NY and working on my Nancy Drew paper.

Source:  Thanks to NetGalley for this read.  Recommended!

Back to Frederica by Georgette Heyer, Chapters 18-21

For those who wondered what had happened to the discussion of Frederica, I thought I should finish posting:

Image borrowed from https://tinyurl.com/yj6en84b

Chapter 18

After seeing Felix successfully wheedle Alverstoke and hearing that Jessamy is exercising his precious horses, Lady Elizabeth is dying of curiosity and rushes to see her elder sister, Lady Jevington, for her opinion of the Merrivilles.   Eliza reveals that Lady Jersey wrote to her, predicting Alverstoke would marry Charis and that Alverstoke painted her in the most glowing terms.  Lady Jevington says Alverstoke was hoaxing her: “But unless I am much mistaken it is the elder and not the younger sister for whom he has conceived a decided tendre.” 

Five Things

I was in Denver this week for work and had a lovely dinner with six other Betsy-Tacy fans.  One told me she had just finished reading Meet the Malones and she wrote about it here.  Don’t you love a convert?

 

Somehow I found myself vacuuming under and behind my bed recently!   Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen again due to the fact I found ONE jade earring bought in Canada at a friend’s wedding.   I am afraid the other one was vacuumed.   Is it worth going through the vacuum bag to check?  Even if I find it, would it be too gross to ever wear again?

A Killer in King's Cove by Iona Whishaw

Title: A Killer in King’s Cove: A Lane Winslow Mystery
Author:  Iona Whishaw
Publication: Touchwood Editions, paperback, 2016
Genre: Historical Mystery/series
Setting: Canada, 1946

Plot: Lane Winslow wanted to get away from London after the horrors of the war but no one was expecting her to take her modest inheritance and buy a home in western Canada.  In King’s Cove, a small town in British Columbia, Lane is welcomed by her new neighbors. 

What is a Lib Guide?

Curious about the History of Children's Literature class I have been taking this fall? 

Last week's assignment was to create a LibGuide, which is basically a subject guide that pulls together all types of information about a particular subject or course of study.  I decided to do mine on children's fantasy, so I researched and included nonfiction reference books and encyclopedias, articles, websites, and some of my favorite books in the genre. I suppose it is really just a bibliography with images. I had fun finding all the covers, including the one below from an edition I own:

It will be interesting to see what my professor thinks of my choices!  For those interested, the text we are using is Children's Literature by Seth Lerer.

Here is the link: Fantasy Lib Guide

Six Degrees of Separation: From Alice to The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month the book is Alice in Wonderland.  I have very pleasant memories, not only of reading it but my grandmother gave me LP versions of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass which I listened to often as a child on my own little record player.  At one point, I could quote long passages.  Prior to this gift, I will admit I'd thought the book was called Allison Wonderland. 

Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews, and Aloysius
(copyright Granada Television)

Alice made me think of my first book which begins in Oxford: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. When I visited Oxford, reminders of both books were everywhere!  Brideshead is one of the few books of which I consider the miniseries as good or better.  It really captivated viewers when it first came out, including me.  Oh, Anthony Andrews, I could watch you in anything!   In fact, I loved you in a movie of my second book:

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy, set during the French Revolution, about an Englishman who plays the fop but is really a spy:

We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?
That damned, elusive Pimpernel

My third book is by Georgette Heyer, who was inspired by Orczy and Rafael Sabatini to try her hand at a romantic adventure story.   I have a couple favorites but I am thinking about Devil’s Cub, in which Mary Challoner pulls a gun on the young nobleman trying to seduce her as they travel to France.

Intrepid heroines are always my favorite!   My fourth book is one I was thinking about earlier tonight, Nobody’s Girl by Hector Henry Malot, translated from French and available through Project Gutenberg.  Perrine’s dying mother makes her promise to find the grandfather who disowned his son for marrying beneath him: “Make him love you without revealing your identity!”   An elementary school friend lent me this book when I was about 10 and I was happy to find a copy with the same pink cover not long ago.

My fifth book is also set in France.  (Hmm, there are bits of Brideshead set in Paris so I guess there is a French theme for my chain that I hadn’t planned but will now maintain.)  I am a big Daphne du Maurier fan and once persuaded my book group to read The Scapegoat, an improbable tale of impersonation.   Not all my friends like historical fiction as much as I do but this fascinated everyone.

Finally, for my sixth book, I will end with a book I just finished, The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan, who writes light-hearted women’s fiction but often surprises the reader with serious themes.  Here, an unlikely friendship between Anna and her old French teacher results in Anna going to Paris to work for a famous chocolatier.  This will help Anna recover from an accident and causes Claire to remember her magical time in Paris as an au pair when she was young and in love.

See you next month for Sanditon, soon to be on Masterpiece!