Widows and Orphans by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti

(37. - 1280.) Widows and Orphans by Kate Hilton and Elizabeth Renzetti - Cat Conway is a reporter for the Quill and Packet newspaper in Port Ellis in the tri-lakes area of Ontario’s cottage country. She is covering the Welcome, Goddess wellness retreat where her mother, Marian, is talking on “work-life balance and avoiding burnout”.

Cat’s article on vaccine avoidance has brought out the very vocal anti-vaxers and complaints to advertisers of the newspaper. The paper is at risk. Those who dislike the paper call it the Shill and Racket. A group of them known as “the convoy” are camping out on the edge of the town. They had been ardent supporters of “The Convoy” that shut down Ottawa for weeks during Covid.

The conference is featuring the world’s best selling poet, Clarity K. She is a striking woman wearing a “flowing ivory cloak with an enormous hood” and “glowing silver hair surrounded a smooth, youthful face”. 

The cloak is made of the “plushest cashmere” which was ethically sourced from a small collective of women in Nepal. It is her Creativity Cocoon.

Marian is furious that an interviewer cancelled their interview about her new book, Grit and Gumption, to go to see Clarity K “giving an impromptu lesson in free verse in the Canoe Salon”.

Marian may be 72 but her energy abounds. She only eats carbs once a month and on her husband’s birthday. She was a management consultant, “cable news pundit on issues of gender and work” and a bestselling author on “midlife empowerment”.

Bliss and Bree founded Welcome, Goddess and post very popular podcasts. Bliss, at least, has succumbed to the health conspiracy theorists of the pandemic.

There is chaos at the retreat when Bliss is found dead at the base of a famed scenic lookout near the resort hosting the conference.

Another journalist from Cat’s paper interviews “weepers” - upset witnesses to a disturbing event.

Clarity hosts a group to SkyWord in memory of Bliss. It is an amazing scene. Participants light sparklers and spell out a message in the sky in the streaks of light created by the sparklers. Even more remarkable, with a camera you “can create still images from the long exposure setting and then use an app to flip them so that you can read them”.

Inspector Cheryl Bell is not one to engage in flights of fancy. (I borrow the phrase for this post from fellow blogger and friend, Margot Kinberg, who has used it in her blog for special, often whimsical, posts.) Bell is carefully assembling information from what happened on the night Bliss died.

Cat interviews Clarity after the death of Bliss. Clarity wants “to contribute to a healing dialogue” and get on record she “had no knowledge of the tragic events of the last few days”.

There is a frightening video circulated in which Cat is making wild threats against Mayor Gerry Halloran. She is shocked as she never made the threats. Fortunately, it is quickly exposed as a deepfake. We are entering a world where video is less and less reliable.

Though Cat is 45 her relationship with her mother is fraught with issues both past and present.

It turns out the Welcome, Goddess world has as much corporate intrigue and conflict as any other large business.

A white board is needed by the journalists at the Quill to list all the suspects.

There is constant irony, subtle sarcasm and wit through the book. 

It reminded me of the conference in Susan Juby’s book by subtly mocking current societal passions and Conor Kerr’s biting portrayal of the business of indigenous activism.

I was a little disappointed that the authors chose to describe characters from the “convoy” in unflattering physical terms. I appreciated that they do not spare the pretensions of the “wellness” advocates but they are attractive people.

Reading about the Quill & Packet was painful. I have witnessed the decline of a strong local newspaper to oblivion. I wrote for the Melfort Journal for 38 years. Now it is a free newspaper with barely a story on life in Melfort.

I enjoyed Widows and Orphans. It is a well written book that credibly examines issues related to wellness and science in the midst of a strong mystery. The ending is excellent. 

Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna

(36. - 1279.) Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna - New York City in the early 1920’s. Ginny Dugan has come from Kansas to make her mark on the world. Her sister, Dottie, is a leading Ziegfeld Follies performer.

Life is a blur for Ginny. Harlem speakeasies, Ample champagne and whiskey. Lovely bright dresses. Beautiful people. Late nights at clubs and parties. Starks’ Headache Powders early in the morning to ease hangovers and get her up to face the day at Photoplay where she works on her “advice” column. She prides herself on being on time to work every morning.

The Follies are the biggest show in the city. Young women from across America desperately want to be a Ziegfeld star.

We think life in the 21st Century is a rush. 1920’s New York City life rivals our time for filling days and nights with activity.

Ginny is determined to get a big story which will propel her into the lucrative ranks of famous journalists. 

She will risk her life for a scoop. Her virtue is long gone. Her integrity is shaky.

She has her flaws. She betrays relationships with affairs that are lacking in love.

Watching a famed singer, Josephine, being dragged from a Harlem club gives her chance for a scoop. She swiftly learns the dangers of asking unwanted questions.

She learns the hard way that:

Things can go south real fast …

Lyuzna is quick with colourful phrases. Ginny survived “the old bullet shower” when she tried to stop Josephine’s abduction.  

A determined but modestly successful private detective specializing in cheating husbands, Jack Crawford, wants to take over her case. His creased felt hat, drab suit and scuffed shoes define his status. He aspires to be a hard boiled detective.

Before there was fentanyl there was “pep powder”. An exhausted Ginny needing energy takes the “pep powder”. The drug gives her a jolt but it is extraordinarily dangerous. She knows no more about the drug than it is illegal and powerful. She has moved from alcohol and recreational marijuana to hard drugs.

Her addiction to taking risks is becoming reckless.

Ginny is fierce but physical confrontations with strong men go badly.

In a cynical city Ginny refuses to give up. She will find Josephine no matter the cost.

Yet how can she find the kingpin of the drug trade? Those who know refuse to tell her. She must know him. It has to be someone who is part of the music business.

Lyuzna keeps the story moving briskly. She is a talented writer who demonstrated her writing skills in the first 300 pages.

The climax was semi-Hollywood. I struggled with it. I expect a better finish to Lyuzna's next book.

Lyuzna created an incredible atmosphere in the book drawing the reader into the excitement and risks of 1920’s New York City. New York City glitters in the night but all that glitters is a facade.

I loved Ginny. She is a hard boiled dame without a gun.

Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr

(35. - 1278.) Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr - The prologue is a vivid rc-counting of the last Métis bison hunt in the late 1870’s in Western Canada. You can feel the “creaking and groaning of the carts, the braying of the draft horses hitched up on them, the barking dogs that seemed to be everywhere”. The two wheeled Red River carts travel towards the Medicine Line (the American border) over the vast prairie which had no roads.

The story opens over a century later in Edmonton with an experienced car thief, Isidore “Ezzy” Desjarlais, efficiently stealing an older F-150 half-ton. All he needed was a coat hanger and a flathead screwdriver. He laments the increased security of current vehicles.

He has stolen the truck to help Grey Ginther steal National Park bison in her scheme to establish a herd of bison in Edmonton. They release them in Dawson Park along the (North) Saskatchewan River Valley.

He grew up in foster care and in group homes. Grey grew up on a small ranch.

He idly wonders about Jeff Bezos buying Saskatchewan and a million bison roaming the land.

They share a shabby mouldy trailer on an acreage owned by Grey’s uncle.

Grey has a degree in Native Studies. Ezzy never reached high school.

She is passionate about indigenous history, the colonization of the West and climate change. Ezzy is just trying to get by. He is entranced by her knowledge and commitment to causes.

He finds he likes being a bison cowboy.

They are distant cousins through a shared great-grandmother.

Ezzy has spent his life surviving. His latest survival was jail. He sees no future ahead of him but surviving. 

Everything goes bad when they decide to steal another load of bison and take them to a different park.

Grey feels a mystical connection to bison for they sustained her Métis ancestors for generations. When one of the bison dies she feels guilty as the bison died “because of selfishness”. She honours the dead bison:

The animal had left a red blood smear on the land. I reached down and touched the blood with my fingertips, then put them in my mouth to lick it off. It tasted of earth and iron and soil and dirt and bone and steel and gunpowder and memory.

Ezzy has not found the way out of just surviving. His Auntie May found the way and became a social worker. Grey has never been in a surviving lifestyle. She is a well educated activist with good parents.

Kerr’s depiction of the indigenous activist business is biting. Fame and a comfortable living for full time activism is alluring. While Grey is a dedicated activist she is reflecting on the nature of professional activism.

Grey is a thoughtful person interested in big causes, some international, others Canadian indigenous. She finds herself forced by circumstance to concentrate on individual problems, her own and Ezzy’s. They are no easier to solve than big issues.

Ezzy goes into rehab. He tries to establish a routine. He is also a thoughtful person. Big issues do not occupy him. He thinks about:

We all just wanted to survive. Us and the bison.

Baloney sandwiches are indigenous comfort food. Sharon and I helped make dozens of them for the mourners at a funeral for two of the victims at the James Smith Reserve who were among the 11 killed by a band member three years ago this month. Grey’s mother makes Grey two baloney sandwiches for Grey to have on the road as she goes to visit Ezzy in rehab. 

Their meeting is moving.

Prairie Edge is an unusual mystery. There is a death but it is not the focus of the book. There is neither sleuth nor police investigating the death until the RCMP get involved late in the book. They are minor characters. I will let readers decide if the death was murder.

The ending is powerful and unexpected. Prairie Edge is a wonderful book and the winner of the 2025 Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence for Best Novel.

Only a few bison survived the coming of the settlers. There are now thousands in Western Canada. Few live a traditional lifestyle.  

Red Hats in Fiction and Life

Hats appear, at least in the crime fiction I read, to be making a comeback. Two months ago one of the sleuths in The In Crowd was Calliope “Callie” Foster, a milliner. My last post was a review of Glory Daze by Danielle Arceneaux. Glory Broussard is a member of the Red Hat Society of Acadiana. The cover of the book, a copy is below, features a wonderful drawing of a red hat that I expect Glory would be proud to wear though it appears a tad simple compared to hats I have seen online worn by real life Red Hat Society ladies.

My blogging friend, Moira Redmond at her wonderful blog Clothes in Books, has recently been featuring hats. At the same time I was writing about the hats created by Callie she was writing about matron hats. They were hats designed for mature women dressing up. 

She followed up with a post that had more matron hats and added garden party hats. I loved the illustrations of hats more than the photos.

I have links below to both of Moira’s posts. 

In Glory Daze Glory wears to her Red Hat Society meeting “wide-legged red pants with a coordinating blazer and a red hat”.

Glory is always conscious of her appearance and makes an effort to be distinctive. For a night out at the local casino She wears a: 

….navy-velvet dress that draped a little at the neckline for a slightly dramatic look. Because she was a proper Southern woman, she had purchased the matching shawl to go with it. The skin on her upper arms had transformed into a crepe-like texture, which she had long ago acceped … She had even sprung for a pair of heels with a wedge - wearable for about four hours - which was all the time she needed to play a few hands of blackjack and catch the Commodores live, in concert.

Regular readers of this blog know my wife, Sharon, loves hats. She has dozens in her collection. While she is not a Red Hat Society lady she has a wonderful red hat that I am sure would meet Glory’s approval. A photo is at the top of this post.

I find it remarkable that Glory, a strongly Catholic Black lady and even more devout member of the Red Hat Society is also a bookie working out her own betting lines for football, NFL and college (mainly the SEC). What was most interesting to me was how she worked out the anticipated scores for her clients to bet upon. She factored in an issue, wind, that she states was not a part of major betting lines. Ms. Arceneaux created a unique sleuth in Glory.

In my life as a sports columnist I recently wrote a column on the wind impacting a Saskatchewan Roughrider game in Regina. Wind on the prairies is almost as constant as at sea.

Getting back to clothing, Glory wears to the St. Agnes’s 31st Red Hat gala for Mardi Gras which is hosted by the Red Hat Society of Acadiana, a “white-sequined jumpsuit” accessorized by a belt that “was thin and had two red tassels at the end, a nod to the membership” and “a pair of white platform sandals with red soles”. 

I wish I could go have king cake at St. Agnes’s Mardi Gras gala in Lafayette with Glory and the ladies of the Red Hat Society of Acadiana.

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Glory Daze by Danielle Arceneaux

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Links to posts from the Clothes in Books blog:

Have I Got Hats for You - matrons and others

More Hats - for matrons and garden parties

Glory Daze by Daniele Arceneaux

(33. - 1276.) Glory Daze by Danielle Arceneaux - Glory Beverly Broussard is a bookie in Lafayette, Louisiana. She is doing well with NFL playoff games underway. Her work, church and the Red Hat Society of Acadiana occupy her time.

Her contentment is upset when Valerie LeBlanc asks Glory to help find her missing husband, Sterling, who is Gloria’s unlamented, repeatedly unfaithful ex. Glory snaps out her refusal and Valerie says she hopes Glory will help for the sake of Delphine, the daughter of Glory and Sterling.

A fuming Glory finds Sterling at his private hideaway. He is dead with a knife sticking from his chest.

Delphine, a lawyer, flies home from New York City. Delphine and Sylvia convince Glory to find Sterling’s killer. Glory has achieved local fame for solving a murder a few months ago.

Glory is a methodical woman with a talent for numbers. She makes a comfortable living as an independent bookie because of her ability to analyze football and prepare her own betting lines.

Glory would prefer to investigate alone but reluctantly accepts the participation of Valerie and Delphine. It pains her when Valerie proves helpful.

The women of Glory Daze are vivid characters. The men are interesting but the women drive the story.

The investigation takes Glory to the casino where Sterling was working when he died. Most of her conversations are with women who work there in lower paying positions such as blackjack dealer and cashier.

Glory is a woman who speaks her mind including talking directly to God. A staunch member of St. Agnes parish she frankly states what is on her mind to the Lord. At least in the book it is a one way conversation.

While a staunch Catholic Glory has a a 6’7” associate who assists with collections when necessary.

Amidst the investigation Glory is also caught up in the demanding preparations for Mardi Gras. The Red Hat Ladies of Arcadiana take their role in the celebration very seriously. As Mardi Gras nears their preparations intensify. They are so determined to be perfect that on a Sunday before Mardi Gras they skip Mass to ensure everything is in order.

Most members of the Lafayette Police Department resent Glory for having previously solved a murder they had deemed a suicide. She will not be intimidated. 

There is a great scene where Glory, Delphine and Justice visit a world famous chef knife maker:

A pit of fire was the first thing that Glory noticed. Orange flames leap like trained gymnasts inside a shoulder-height cauldron …. Dozens of knives clung to a magnetic wall …. Some had handles of ebony or rosewood. Others, mahogany. Each had carvings of his signature celestial designs, though no design was exactly the same.

I love Glory. What a remarkable woman and sleuth. She is Black and proud to be Black. 

Stone Cross by Marc Cameron

(34. - 1277.) Stone Cross by Marc Cameron - Supervisory Deputy US Marshal Arliss Cutter has a “natural aversion to smiling”. A solid 220 pounds he has an intimidating physical presence. Cutter is adjusting to the “chill of Alaska” after working as a member of the Florida Marine Patrol. He is the leader of the Alaska Fugitive Task Force working with Cook Islander Lola Teariki pursuing fugitives in and out of Anchorage.

Cutter’s deft use of a rock draws out a hulking fugitive from Nevada named Twig Ripley. Twig’s arrest goes badly for him when he hits a police dog with a crowbar.

Cutter has come to Alaska to help his widowed sister-in-law, Mim, with her twin 7 year old boys, Michael and Mathew, and her 15 year old daughter, Constance. Ordinarily he resembles his taciturn grandfather who was nicknamed Grumpy. With his nephews and niece his personality lightens. Cutter is professionally successful and a multiple failure at marriage.

As the story proceeds a darkness in Cutter’s psyche festers.

When a handwritten, badly spelled, threat is sent to Federal Court Judge, J. Anthony Markham, Cutter and Teariki are assigned to accompany the judge to Stone Cross five hundred miles from Anchorage. The independent, oft imperious judge, grudgingly accepts their presence. Their official assignment is to enforce a warrant for the most minor of charges, public urination in a national park.

The Yup’ik people of Stone Cross, mostly Russian Orthodox believers, await the judge who will be deciding ownership of a valuable spit of land by the airport.

Birdie Pingayak’s life is a mixture of the traditional and current lifestyles. She has a chin tattoo following her maternal ancestors. She has gone to university and is principal, at 31, of the local school. She is a wonderful character who has faced great adversity in her life.

Life in bush Alaska is hard. Isolation, poverty, harsh weather and a demanding landscape are too much for many urban dwellers who come to work there. Violence is common.

Cutter and Teariki learn the threat reaches back decades and involves Markham as a young government lawyer. There is significant complexity involving Yup’ik people and the white establishment.

While at the village the Marshalls are drawn into a murky murder and abduction from a fishing lodge.

There is a remarkable chase in the wilderness involving dogsleds during a blizzard. I could feel the wind and cold I have experienced in a Saskatchewan storm. I was reminded of the dog sled race in Murder in a Cold Climate by Scott Young in which Inspector Matthew "Matteesie" Kitogitak of the RCMP engages in a dog sled search in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Each pursuit was dramatic and a reminder of the history of the North.

It should have been no surprise, since he is a fugitive hunter, but I was caught off-guard at Cutter’s skill in tracking. He can deduce a great deal from a careful examination of the ground.

As I started the book I thought it might follow the pattern of many American mystery thrillers with a double digit body count, little subtlety and a predictable ending. I was wrong.

Stone Cross blends a strong mystery with an unflinching look at life in rural Alaska. While the book is set in southwest Alaska I was reminded of the Nathan Active novels by Stan Jones set on the northwest coast of Alaska in another indigenous village. I want to read more of Arliss Cutter.

Gallows Court by Martin Edwards

(32. - 1275.) Gallows Court by Martin Edwards - Rachel Savernake is a dangerous woman if you are a murderer. The elegant daughter of the late Judge Savernake has moved to London from the family home on the bleak isle of Gaunt in the Irish Sea. She has abundant money living in a fine home and being chauffeured in a Rolls Royce.

Eminent banker, Lawrence Pardoe, kills himself in his study after writing a suicide note confessing to the murder, including decapitation, of Mary-Jane Hayes.

An intrepid young crime reporter for the Clarion newspaper, Jacob Flint, is insatiably curious. He wants to understand how Pardoe became a murdering monster after a life of respectability.

The lead crime reporter at the Clarion was Tom Betts. Badly injured by being struck by a car the prognosis is grim. Seeking information about Savernake who he knows is fascinated by murder Flint goes to the hospital. Betts whispers a name.

Savernake has a tart tongue with no patience for the assumed superiority of the English male elite. 

A respected private detective with an amazing name, Leviticus Shoemaker, makes inquiries for Savernake.

Flint is tenacious, refusing to give up on the story despite warnings to move on.

As Flint struggled to determine Savernake’s goals I was equally adrift trying to figure out what Savernake was doing in London. She is sparing with information. 

Who are the shadowy figures behind multiple murders in London? It can be hard for a reader when a conspiracy is engaged.

Savernake tells Flint she “is full of surprises”. Both Flint and I agreed with the statement. The book is more thriller than mystery.

The owner of the Inanity Theatre, William Kearey, is incinerated during an illusion. It is a brutal and creative form of murder.

The investigation leads to the secretive Damnation Society.

Gallows Court is a wonderful title. In the book it was a small courtyard in London with several law offices. It can also refer to a hanging court. The death penalty is very much a punishment in the England of 1930.

Savernake is a ruthless woman. She is a true avenging angel. She is not disturbed by collateral damage in her polished schemes. 

Gallows Court is the first Rachel Savernake mystery. I read the second, Mortmain Hall, before Gallows Court. I wished I had read them in order. I find it is a rare series that is better read out of order.

I thought Gallows Court a good book and Mortmain Hall a great book. Ultimately, I find it hard to enjoy vigilante justice and I think there were too many bodies in Gallows Court. My preferred number of the deceased is in the low single digits with one the most preferred. I shall now have to read the third in the series, Blackstone Fell.

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Edwards, Martin - (2018) - All the Lonely People and A Dislike of Cynical Lawyers; (2020) - Mortmain Hall and A Real Life Case and Mortmain Hall and An Exchange with Martin Edwards on Mortmain Hall

How to Face Death

As set out in my review of The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick, Agnes Embleton, born Aubert, considers how to die as motor neurone disease inexorably consumes her.

Her son, Freddie, does not want Agnes to suffer. He wants professional care for her.

Agnes is determined to die on her own terms. She will stay at home. She will draw on the assistance of government provided home care. She has asked a homeless woman, Wilma, that she befriended to live with her to help her through the nights. Family can help but she is not relying on them.

Lucy does not want her Gran to die. Agnes replies:

“I have to, Lucy. Death is like the past. We can’t change either of them. We have to make friends with them both.”

Agnes reminds me of Jenny, the disabled dancer with terminal bowel cancer in The Discourtesy of Death, a later Father Anselm mystery. 

Jenny explains her embrace of her life:

‘Now? she replied. ‘I want my life. I was ready to die before but now I want my life. I know that in one way it’s broken, disappointing, limited, worthless, empty and insignificant … but it’s mine. It’s all I’ve got. I’m still me. And I know it will soon become messy and painful and frightening, but I still want it. I want to live what I’ve got … do you understand? It’s as valuable to me now as it ever was. I’m still … full of something … and it can be exhilarating, despairing, violent and peaceful - every state you can think of - and I just want to keep hold of it … for as long as possible.’

Jenny and Agnes are both determined that it is their life to live as they die. Neither will accelerate the end.

In posts on Louise Penny’s book, The Madness of Crowds, and my niece, Alanna, I wrote of my conviction that all lives have meaning. Because a person is dying does not diminish their dignity and the importance of their life.

Late in the book Agnes can no longer leave her bed. She cannot move her legs or arms. She can move her eyes. She studies her room until there is nothing left to learn. She can still use her mind. She lets her imagination take her into the air and she becomes a bird looking down upon the world. She goes back to WW II swooping into a collaborator’s office and diving through his iris into his brain.

As the end nears, Agnes communicates by pointing to the letters on an alphabet card. Every word is meaningful. The emotions are extraordinary.

Lucy tells Agnes of the trial evidence. Will she live long enough to hear the truths revealed in and out of court?

Brodrick’s powers of description are excellent:

She was fed by drip now, procured by Freddie when he insisted his mother would not die in a hospital bed, but in her home. Everyone diligently fussed over her needs, not realisng that Agnes didn’t care, knowing nothing of the carnival that raged out of sight.

As she lays in her bed going through her memories Agnes loves listening to her favourite piece of music, the powerful and poignant Romance sans paroles Op.17, No. 3 by Gabriel Fauré, which she played for decades on the piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plKLrnRcVwc&list=RDplKLrnRcVwc&start_radio=1

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Brodrick, William - (2023) - The Discourtesy of Death and Can Death be Courteous? and Gilbertines in Fiction and Contemporary Life; (2025) The 6th Lamentation and Reflecting on the 6th Lamentation in the 6th Lamentation