The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead

(47. - 1230.) The Murder Wheel by Tom Mead - A reward of two
thousand pounds is being offered by The Daily Chronicle to the person who can solve the Ferris Wheel murder which has captivated London.

Young solicitor, Edmund Ibbs, is helping defend Carla Dean. She is facing trial, charged with murdering her husband, Dominic Dean, high above the ground in a Ferris wheel compartment.

No one else was in the compartment. The gun used was her husband’s revolver. Powder burns upon the husband demonstrate the revolver was fired at very close range. Her fingerprints alone are upon the revolver. There is no powder residue upon her hands. What explanation is possible beyond Dean shooting her husband? Ibbs is determined to find an alternative.

Two witnesses testify as to a mysterious limping man near the Ferris wheel at the time Dean is shot

Days later, Ibbs is at the Pomegranate Theatre watching the magic of Professor Paolini when a body, wearing armor, falls out of a crate instead of the expected Sir Lancelot. The body is Miklos Varga, the man who operated the Ferris wheel when Dean was shot. No one at the theatre saw Varga placed in the crate. The man moving the crate says only the man portraying Sir Lancelot was in the crate when he was wheeling it.

There is yet another murder in a locked room at the theatre. Ibbs, having been knocked out, finds himself in the room with a body in the corner and a revolver, recently fired, glued to his hand. The deceased is Paolini who was about to tell Ibbs everything about Dean.

Inspector Flint of Scotland Yard calls upon the old conjuror, Joseph Spector, to aid him as the good inspector is a solid man but these locked room crimes bedevil him. Spector is a master at dissecting illusion. With not one, not two but three impossible murders to be solved there is an abundance of illusion. 

I came close on one but never figured out any of the murders.

Mead is a clever author. The story lagged a bit for me in the early going at the theatre but it steadily picked up momentum. I was grateful for the diagrams. It would have been too difficult to keep track of the settings and multiple characters with words alone. I look forward to reading the third in the series.

For the first book in the series I had Hercule Poirot provide his thoughts on the detective skills of Flint and Spector. In my next post Horace Rumpole of the Bailey considers illusion.

****

Mead, Tom - (2023) - Death and the Conjuror and Hercule Poirot Discusses Tom Mead's Sleuths Joseph Spector and George Flint

Bad Boy by Winona Kent

(49. - 1232.) Bad Boy by Winona Kent - In the fall of 2018 Jason Davey / Jason Figgis has returned to London after a tour with his mum’s band, Figgis Green. He is rehearsing with his jazz combo who have a permanent residency at the Blue Devil in Soho. He sums up his approach to music: 

I’m notorious for my everything-goes-audio-fusion. You can do it with food, so why not with music?

As a rehearsal winds down he gets a call from Marcus Merritt who wants him to sign a band program and hire him as a private investigator. Davey has gained some fame for solving mysteries. He is uninterested until Merritt mentions the meeting has to do with the composer Elgar. With his interest tweaked they meet at the top of The Shard. (The soaring spike, “soulless” to some, of a building appears on the front cover.)

I was equally caught up in what kind of mystery could involve Sir Edgar Elgar the long deceased, great modern classical composer.

The book shifts from light to dark in a stunning moment. Marcus hands him a book of band memorabilia and then takes “a run at the window at the southeast corner of the floor” and raises himself up over the open glass wall top. He looks at Jason and lets go falling 800 feet to the ground.

Inside the book is a train ticket and directions to go see Judy in the village of Newlydale. He finds Judy Galpin. She has more directions for him from Marcus. She surprises Davey and myself when she advises Marcus was her ex-husband.

Kent is deft at startling readers.

Judy takes him to Tissington, 20 minutes away, where Davey finds a nice bowl and instructions from Marcus to find the folder containing Elgar’s “original sketches, drafts and revisions to one of his best-known works, the Enigma Variations”. Marcus had stolen the folder and wants Davey to find it and offers a clue:

A courtesan skilled in the culinary arts. Ask for Tricia.

Determining the clue is a cryptic crossword type of clue Davey identifies the answer as Bakewell tart and pudding.

Marcus sends Jason on a journey for a folder containing Elgar’s “original sketches, drafts and revisions to one of his best-known works, the Enigma Variations” .

Marcus had a devious, clever, witty mind. His directions, actually puzzles, lead Jason on in his search, actually a quest, deep into the English countryside and back into the heart of London.

The buildings of Soho which were occupied by those making and selling popular music for over four decades are major characters. They are somewhat forlorn as the music trade has moved on except in the memories of those who once worked and sometimes lived in them. Jason has a vivid recall of the days of glory in Soho.

The light hearted nature of much of the questing contrasts so sharply with the suicide of Marcus and the involvement of the underworld, both English and foreign.

Jason is a bright man. He is a sleuth with whom the reader is comfortable. Once engaged he is a persistent investigator. As with myself the suicide of Marcus left Jason unnerved and unable to shake the image of Marcus sliding away to his death.

Despite the suicide in the back of my mind I enjoyed Jason’s quest, especially the historical music exploration. Kent has an impressive knowledge of popular music going back decades. Equally impressive is her knowledge of Elgar and his music.

I did find the resolution predictable rather than unexpected.

The story is crisply told in 214 pages.

Bad Boy is a good book. I am glad Winona sent me a copy.

The Lords of Time by Eva Garcia Sáenz

(44. - 1227.) The Lords of Time by Eva Garcia Sáenz translated by Nick Caistor - The third book in the White City trilogy is a striking, absorbing, disturbing mystery with another amazing opening.

In 2019, 3 years after The Water Rituals, the life of Inspector Unai, the Kraken, is going well. He is with Alba. They have a 2 year old daughter, Deba. He has almost fully recovered from Broca’s Aphasia.

The Vitoria police are stressed by the disappearance of the 12 and 17 year old Nájera sisters.

The structure of the book is intriguing. Sáenz has written a Lords of Time book about 1192 that is contained with her Lords of Time book of 2019. They are two independent books. As well, there is a chronicle from the Middle Ages providing source material on the events in the 12th Century.

At the eagerly awaited book launch in 2019 for The Lords of Time book about 1192, Antón Lasaga, a wealthy textile businessman, is found dead in a bathroom. 

In the 1192 story Count Don Diago Vela has returned to Victoria, which was the name of Vitoria in the 12th Century, after a 2 year journey. He arrives to find his betrothed, Onneca, has just married his brother, Nagorno. Rushing to the home of her father, Count Furtado de Maestu, he is just in time to join the witnesses to the consummation of the marriage in the matrimonial bed. (They are there to confirm there is a bloodstain showing the bride was a virgin.) Hours later, Count de Maestu is found dead. 

Both Lasaga and De Maestu have died from being poisoned by Spanish Fly (cantharis), the aphrodisiac made from “the crushed shell of the blister beetle”.

Unai and Count Diago set out to find the killers over 800 years apart.

Once again Sáenz has created yet another form of riveting ritual death to rival the means of murder in the earlier books which featured stuffing bees in the mouth of unconscious victims and a form of drowning with the victims lowered into pots of water.

In 2019 Unai orders a search for the source of the Spanish Fly. It is banned. He learns Blister beetles were recently stolen from the Museum of Natural Sciences.

Count Diago is also searching for Spanish Fly. While not on sale in the marketplace Spanish Fly is available in 1192.

Looking for the author of the fictional fictional Lords of Time Unai and his aide, Esti, go to the NograroTower in the Valdegovía Valley to see Ramiro Alvar Nograro, the 25th Lord Nograro. A shy man, really a recluse, he is an intellectual  under 40 years of age and never leaves the Tower. The Lord they meet, Alvar Nograro, says he is the 24th Lord and is a very handsome man “wearing a cassock and a delicately embroidered scarlet chasuble”. The psychological issues are striking and complicated.

Count Diago had been on a secret mission for King Don Sancho the Wise to take Berenguela to marry Richard the Lion-Hearted.

Ritual murders of young people take place in 2019 in the same ways as set out in the fictional fictional The Lords of Time.

At the body of a boy Unai genuflects and recites to himself his mantra:

“This is where your hunt ends, and mine begins.”

Tasio Ortiz de Zarate of the first book, The Silence of White City, returns to Vitoria. He wants to see Deba. In the 12th Century young aristocratic women might be immurred, walled up in a church with an opening for food and water.

Who connects the current fictional fictional The Lords of Time about 1192 and the ancient chronicle for the plots are almost the same? 

The villains past and present are fiendishly clever and brutal. Danger lurks in the past and present. The body counts increase.

In Victoria conflicts rage between the aristocrats and the common folk. How will Count Diablo solve the murder of Count de Maestru amidst the violence enveloping the town?

As Alba and Unai explore the tangled past of the NograroTower Deba is taken care of by Unai’s 100 year old grandfather and his brother, German.

Unai is a reflective man:

“.... contemplating Locards’ principle that every criminal leaves some trace of themselves.

What I was about to discover is that the same is true for every act of love.”

Unai considers a comment about a town “full of bastards”. He is advised there are “children born to an official mistress who was faithful to her man”, “children born of incest”, children born to concubines - “Women who cohabit with Catholic priests”, nuns and “children born to an adulterous woman whose husband brings them up as his own”. 

The traces from love or more accurate sex are unexpected and devastating. The complications and consequences of illicit love are endless.

The story in Victoria moves to 1199. It remains a turbulent time with a vicious war.

In the present, assumption, as always, proves misleading for Unai. There is a fundamental flaw in his reasoning in the tracing of a deceased member of the Alvar family.

Unai is convinced psychopaths cannot be “rehabilitated”:

They don’t respond to therapy …. Why? Because psychopathy isn’t an illness; it’s a way of being.”

His grandfather is attacked while taking care of Deba and she is taken. Unai freezes and his aphasia returns. Because of “cognitive dissonance” he cannot determine who to help first.

How Saenz connects the past of the 12th Century and the present of the 21st Century to the end of the book is so clever.

At the end of the book there is a self-reflection on the past, the present and the future by Unai about himself and his family and his city. Few books extend such reflection over 800 years. I received in Norway a decade ago a family tree for the ancestry of my great-grandmother that goes back to 1,000 A.D. when a Viking in the Lofoten Islands converted to Christianity. I am a rarity in Western Canada to be able to trace my family for a millennium. Spain is different and its ancient heritages let authors create a depth to their works that is impossible in North America.

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Sáenz, Eva Garcia and translated by Nick Caistor - (2022) - The Silence of the White City; (2023) - The Water Rituals and Broca's Aphasia in The Water Rituals

Susan Juby's Butler

As stated in my last post Helen Thorpe is an excellent butler.

In A Meditation on Murder by Susan Juby, she is working for the wealthy Levine family.

Her attention to detail and style is reflected in a lunch she organizes for the Levine's and their guests, Archie Hightower and his daughter, Cartier. 

She works with Chef to set up a special menu but I was most struck by the setting she created:

The table was decorated entirely in cream and pink in honour of Ms. Cartier Hightower’s alleged girly-girlness. Pale-pink stocks and white peonies ran the length of the table in small vases. The dinnerware was also pink and white, and the linen napkins were large and white, with the faintest pink pinstriping The colour palette looked extremely appealing against the large Monet painting that hung behind the dining table.

Who would not love to sit down at such a table.

Yet what I think makes the fictional Helen and 21st Century butlers I have met stand out is their unobtrusive attentiveness.

Helen feels no need to fill silence. She will answer questions directly and simply. She will ask questions to aid her understanding of people and be sure she has instructions correctly. At the same time she is comfortable with not talking.

Helen radiates calm. The butlers in my experience from Oceania cruises display the same calm. It has a positive effect on the restless, the emotionally wrought. Being around a truly calm person relaxes anxiety.

It is not easy to be mindful. Helen has to struggle not let life turn into “avoidance and aversion”.

Cartier, as with many millennials, craves attention. 

Butlers are fine examples of people who draw attention by not seeking attention. Their discretion is uncommon in the world of the 21st Century. People notice someone content with not looking for attention by word or action or attire.

Helen does not look to be constantly photographed, videoed and connected to the internet. She thinks of “hearing tales, probably apocryphal, about traditional peoples who would not allow themselves to be photographed lest their souls be stolen”.

Helen sets out the essence of being a butler:

“..... I like looking after people. Making things go smoothly.”

Could you be a butler?

The International Butler Academy in the Netherlands advises: 

Welcome to a world of style, elegance, and decorum. A world of exceptional service. Step into our school for butlers, where dreams take flight and professionalism is cultivated. Here, we craft individuals into extraordinary professionals who embody the epitome of service. With our unrivaled training and unwavering commitment to excellence, we empower aspiring butlers to become masters of their craft.

Students range in age from 18 to 68.

The Academy is convinced manners matter:

At many Fortune 500 companies, top management takes potential employees to lunch or dinner to observe their comfort level with executives, spouses, waiters, and even the various pieces of silverware. Management will compare good manners with competence in business and poor manners with incompetence.

I wish I saw more evidence in the world we live in that manners are important.

I am glad that Canadian courts expect lawyers to be civil to everyone in the courtroom. Emotions may be high during trials but I see civility maintained.

The world needs more butlers.

****

Juby, Susan - (2022) - Mindful of Murder and Butlers in Fiction and Real Life and Exchange with Susan; (2024) - A Meditation on Murder

A Meditation on Murder by Susan Juby

(42. - 1225.) A Meditation on Murder by Susan Juby - With the majestic calm of a former Buddhist nun and her butler training, Helen Thorpe is buttling for the wealthy Levine family:

She made sure their various homes and estates ran smoothly and were fully and competently staffed. Helen travelled with her employers and handled all their social engagements and day-to-day needs. She used a combination of elite-level organization skills, love, and firm boundaries to keep all the irritations of everyday life at bay for Bunny and Benedict Levine.

She has moved from the Yatra Institute where she worked in the first book of the series, Mindful of Murder.

The Levines un-nerve their fellow super-rich by inviting the working class and the middle class and the professional class to functions.

Still many events are with the super-rich. Helen skillfully handles a lunch for the Levine's with billionaire Archie Hightower and his influencer daughter, Cartier.

The Levine's are a profoundly empathetic couple. Their desire to help the less fortunate leads them to head to Nepal to establish one or more schools and to give Helen to Cartier. 

Helen’s equilibrium is jarred, especially by the provocative “give”. Her employers swiftly amend their words to the slightly less inappropriate that she is to be loaned to Cartier while they are away. Cartier is in need of “guidance …. A steadying hand … an infusion of wisdom …. Taste”.

Her volcanic father, Archie Hightower, sums up what he consider Cartier needs:

“I think what I want is for her to learn a few things about being a proper … uh, rich lady”.

“Things” include some “depth” and some “manners”.

Currently Cartier is with the Deep State, a group of aspiring internet influencers seeking fame through dangerous stunts. Archie will get Cartier to come home and spend time with Helen and work on learning “a few things” by threatening to cut her monthly allowance of $200,000 to $2,000. Helen considers this assignment her “least promising position”. All would agree Cartier is not ready to handle a multi-billion inheritance.

Cartier’s PA has recently died in a kite surfing accident that Cartier filmed and posted.

Blossom, a member of the Deep State, has also died. She fell, while filming herself in a restricted area, at a waterfall into a rocky river.

The late Bonnie Hightower, Cartier’s mother, had style, unfortunately informed by comic books, superheroes, Star Trek and Star Wars.

Helen’s approach to working with Cartier is a concept that I will keep in mind:

She didn’t know, but for the moment, she would try to respond in a useful way to whatever happened. It was an approach that had never failed her yet.

Still, how do you be useful to the task of improving a spoiled little rich girl in mourning over the losses of her mother and two close friends?

Helen calls upon Nigel from the Yatra Institute to help with Cartier’s trio of yappy, annoying, ill-disciplined dogs.

He explains to her that the key to influencers are followers - “attention economics”.

Helen, with her reserve and modest dress and indifference to the internet, is an exotic creature to the Deep State. 

They use Helen in their never ending efforts to get attention. She is irritated by their antics and how they treat her but she carries on doing her best to be useful to Cartier.

While the members of the Deep State appear to be the least mindful people around they should not be underestimated in their dedication to gain fame and fortune as influencers.

When an ugly incident occurs and Cartier is being instantly blamed she is fortunate Helen is there to prevent complete disaster and minimize the attention. On reading the internet accusations Nigel reverts to the basics:

The first rule of modern life was don’t trust the internet, at least not right away.

On the internet “tragic outcomes” are popular.

Desperate for advice in the maelstrom Helen reaches out by WhatsApp to her Buddist teacher, Sayadaw U Nandisara, in Thailand. When they talk upon the phone she is startled that the monks are aware of what happened at the club as younger monks are upon the internet. Sayadaw calms her wobbles.

Cartier is devastated by the thousands of comments and posts attacking her. She senses there is some orchestration. How do you overcome an internet tsunami? Helen, Nigel and Cartier retreat to a ranch in the interior of B.C.  Helen starts with the basics.

Helen starts helping Cartier learn to be a “proper rich lady”. Her approach is so clever.

Helen’s mindfulness, even when under extreme pressure and danger, serves her well. Butlers do not panic.

Along the way Helen solves a couple of murders.

Helen is an excellent representative of the butlers of the world.

****

Juby, Susan - (2022) - Mindful of Murder and Butlers in Fiction and Real Life and Exchange with Susan 

The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker

(43. - 1226.) The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker (2011) - PETA cuts a hole in a fence allowing thousands of ducks to temporarily escape from a farm and cause a huge traffic jam. They leave leaflets setting out their opposition to foie gras. Several ducks die from being hit on the road.

Chief of Police, Bruno Courrèges, is called to an archeological dig nearby. The area of St. Denis is famed for its archeological discoveries and caves related to Neanderthals and Cro-Magnans. The body of a man, his hands bound behind his back, is found by one of the digger students. He cannot have been buried earlier than 1983 as he was wearing a Swatch watch which went into production in 1983.

There is a dramatic announcement of an archeaological find at the dig that reverberates through the world of archeaology.

At the same time Bruno is also assigned to assist with security for a summit between French and Spanish Ministers of the Interior concerning joint action against the Basque separatist group ETA which has expanded its war against the Spanish government to France with the killing of a French police officer. Bruno’s former lover, Isabelle, using a cane as she is not fully recovered from being wounded in a raid on human traffickers, is back in St. Denis as one of the leaders of the French security team. Current lover, Pamela, who consistently professes her relationship with Bruno is no more than good friends, is not amused. 

Bruno demonstrates his practical approach to keeping peace in St. Denis without resorting to criminal charges. Using alternative measures and restorative justice through apologies and compensation for damages he avoids confrontations between farmers, Greens and archeaologists. Many police would simply start arresting and charging and letting the courts sort out the consequences. Bruno’s efforts reflect the type of discretion Canadian police officers had 50 years ago. They were trusted to use discretion. Most used that option appropriately. To be effective it requires police officers who are engaged with their community and personally know the residents.

Bruno starts establishing a relationship with Annette Meraillon, a magistrate assigned to the region for her first posting. Bruno and Sergeant Jules introduce her to their form of justice by reducing the speed on her speeding ticket and letting the sanction of a lecture from an aggrieved mother suffice for driving through a pedestrian crossing when mother and children had started across. 

The attractive slender Meraillon initially has the good sense to recognize the benefit of their discretion towards her but reacts negatively when Bruno discreetly handles the issues between the farmers and the Greens.

Would that I could visit St. Denis and share some meals with Bruno? No sleuth eats better than Bruno. Nero Wolfe might even be persuaded to go to France to dine with Bruno.

There is a pang in his heart everytime Bruno sees Isabelle. Her ambition and his attachment to St. Denis are irreconcilable.

The whole community and beyond celebrate Bruno’s birthday. He is shocked and touched and moved greatly by his gift. One of the wines at the birthday dinner is a Château Haut-Brion worth 1,000 euros per bottle. (Bruno’s friend, Hercule, who died in the previous book, had purchased a case when it was 3,000 euros for a case.)

In a complex world it is not a surprise that there are uncommon connections that go back to the Spanish Civil War. The relationships between ETA members past and present, Spanish Fascists, Communists in and out of France, Resistance fighters, Colloborationists, Anarchists, 1980’s radicals, Greens, PETA, intelligence services, police and the French justice system all intersect in St. Denis. It was fascinating.

Walker skilfully makes credible the combination of a charming French village and international terrorists. Danger is not limited to major cities.

Unlike the Armand Gamache books I found a thriller ending entirely plausible. Bruno, having been a paratrooper, before he was a country policeman, served in the war in Bosnia.

I may have to read a third book in the series this year. I am so caught up in Bruno’s life.

****

Walker, Martin - (2019) - Bruno, Chief of Police and The Magic of St. Denis and Three Pines; (2023) - The Dark Vineyard; (2024) Black Diamond

Exchange with Dean Jobb Concerning A Gentleman and a Thief

My last post was a review of A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb. After reading the book I wrote to the author. A copy of my letter and his reply are below. A warning before reading. There may be more information in my letter than some readers would want before reading the book.

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Dean:

I was very glad my good friend and sister in the law, Dawna Ring, sent me a copy of A Gentleman and a Thief. I appreciate your inscripion to me. I enjoyed reading the book. I will be posting my review, a copy follows  this letter on my blog, Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan, in a few days.

As I read the book I thought there was a moment when Arthur Barry might have used his bright, agile, organized mind for a conventional life. When he returned from World War I you set out his unsuccessful efforts to find a job amidst hundreds of thousands of demobilized soldiers. Could he not have found a job again with his brother or through another of his siblings? Or was he lying about sincerely seeking employment?

While reading a true crime book I think about an alleged and/or actual criminal and their legal representation. My experience in criminal defence goes back 49 years to when I graduated from law school.

I have observed that it is a rare accused who, charged with serious offences, does well on his own (it remains to this day rare for the accused to be a she).

While it pains me to say it, Arthur did better on his own than he could have with a lawyer advocating for him. Charm and apparent candour worked well. 

I appreciate that he confessed to save his wife, Anna Blake, but he is so clever in dealing with the prosecutor and police. He provides abundant information on other thefts, on the condition he is not charged with them. He discreetly sets his accomplice, James Monahan, as the leader of the duo. Being allowed to plead guilty to one theft limited his punishment. His sentence of 25 years is severe but not the maximum.

The police and district attorney had good reason to be content with the single guilty plea. Victims, even if they talked to Arthur in darkened bedrooms, were uncertain of him being the thief. Beyond having stolen items in his possession there was little evidence against him. I am sure the district attorney hesitated about pursuing additional charges for it would have been interesting to see what a jury would have done had Arthur gone to trial and said he did not know what was in the box containing damning evidence given to him by Monahan when he was arrested. There would also have been questions over the admissibility of his confession because of the inducements made to him while being questioned.

I am sure there were many New York City lawyers ready, even eager, to defend the Gentleman Thief. Do you know if he consulted a lawyer before or after his confession?

Years later, when he was facing trial for “planning and inciting the deadly riot” in which he escaped from Auburn prison he had the wisdom to have a lawyer represent them rather than try to represent himself, though his co-accused, George Small, did well on his own.

You set out that Arthur received court appointed counsel in Max Goldman. He was well represented by Goldman. The book simply describes him as a local lawyer. Do you know anything of Goldman’s experience as a lawyer?

I was struck that Arthur did not take the witness stand. Accustomed to talking his way out of trouble I would have guessed he would have wanted to testify. Do you know why he did not go onto the stand?

I think he was wise not to expose himself to cross-examination. He would have had to admit his extensive criminal history. He would have had to admit he was not a mere bystander. He would have had to admit that he participated in the violence.

I wondered if he subsequently had legal assistance in his parole application. It was well done and dealt with legal issues more than factual matters.

I think Arthur could have been a great lawyer instead of a great criminal.

If you are able to reply and are willing I would post your response together with this letter upon my blog.

I look forward to reading more of your books.

All the best.

Bill Selnes

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Thanks for your kind words, Bill, and for the great write-up. Much appreciated.

Everything I could find about Barry's dealings with the justice system is in the book.

Dean

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A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb