Where was Bill Reading?

On Thursday I put up a post that reviewed the settings of the 44 mysteries I have read this year. It turned out I had read books set in 12 different countries and 2 books set in multiple areas. I felt I had been reading more books set outside North America than before I became a blogger. To test the hypothesis I looked back to my reading during 2010 when I read 31 mysteries.

As I expected the greatest number of mysteries were set in Canada and the United States. I read 8 mysteries set in each country.

In Canada I read 3 mysteries set in my favourite place, Saskatchewan. I read 5 more mysteries set in 5 different locales – Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Nunavut.

For the United States I generally ranged around the perimeter of America. I read 2 mysteries set in California. There were 2 books in Massachusetts – Boston and Provincetown. There were single books in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New York City. Out of the 8 books only 2 were off the coast. One took place in the Catskills of upstate New York and one in Chicago. After completing this review I noted that in 2012 I have not read a single mystery set in New York City.

Of the remaining 11 countries in which I read mysteries in 2010 there were 2 countries with 2 mysteries.

From Sweden I read mysteries set in Stockholm and Ystad, Skane.

I read Australian mysteries set in Sydney and Melbourne.

 

I read books set respectively in Ireland, Germany and Greece.

There was a historical mystery from the U.S.S.R. that started in Moscow and moved east along the railway.

I went to South Africa for a mystery set in and around the Krueger National Park.

I read one South American mystery. It was set in Peru.

There was a thriller that was split between the Middle East and Pakistan.

I also read a book about mysteries, Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James. It is an excellent work.

After reviewing 2010 my theory about being North America centric at that time in my reading was unfounded. I read mysteries set in 13 different countries in 2010 versus 12 countries so far in 2012. Out of the 31 mysteries in 2010 just over half at 16 were set in North America. In 2012 it was 26 out of 44 being North America. By number of countries and percentage I read more around the world when I was not a blogger. Once again reality crushes perception.

Where is Bill Reading?

Since I began blogging I believe I have been reading more varied crime fiction. In particular, I think I think I have been going more outside North America in terms of authors and the setting of books. Yet “believing” and “thinking” can be wrong. Consequently, I took a look through my reading to date in 2012 to see if my beliefs and thoughts are backed up by a review of my actual reading this year. In this post I will list the countries in which I have read mysteries, the locations within the countries and how many books per country. The list goes in a descending order by the number of books per country. As always, no list fits all categories. At the end are a couple of books that did not have a primary country for their setting. My list is based on setting not residence of author.

Thankfully, Canada was first on the list. I do not say it will be so every year. This year I read 13 books with Canadian settings. Leading the way was Ontario which was the setting for 5 books. Tied for second with 3 books each was my home province of Saskatchewan and British Columbia. I read 1 book from each of Quebec and the Northwest Territories.

The United States with 10 books was the country with the second largest number of books read. Settings were California (3), Chicago (2), Wyoming (2), Florida (2) and Boston (1).

Three countries tied for third with 3 books per country.

From England I read one book set primarily in London, a second book split between London and rural England and a third was set in Yorkshire.

I read 3 books set in Australia. One took place in rural Victoria, another was in a distant suburb of Melbourne and the last was set in the vastness of Northwest Australia.

The third country with 3 books was South Africa. I read two set in and around Capetown. The third took place near Durban.

There were a pair of countries with 2 books.

I read books from Italy that were set in Sicily and Naples.

My reading included two books from Sweden. One took place in northern Sweden and the other was in Goteberg.

There were 6 countries with one book set in that country.

I read a book set in Shanghai, China.

There was a book set primarily in Auckland, New Zealand with a secondary setting in Brisbane, Australia.

I read a book set in Moscow during the time of the U.S.S.R.

My reading had a book set in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

One book took place in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The sixth country was Norway with the book set in Bergen.

Two books could not be tied to a single nation. One moved from Northern Africa to northern Europe during the book. The other had the characters almost equally spending their time in Germany, France and Italy.

I also read some non-fiction. Two were set in the United States, one in Saskatchewan, one in England, one in Germany and the last one in several European countries.

As you were reading this post were you trying to figure out the characters and authors by the settings? I was not making this post like one of the wonderful quizzes of Margot Kinberg at her excellent blog, Confessions of a Mystery Novelist. It would be impossible to know all of the books be the limited information but some should be easy. If you think you identified any of the books feel free to list in a comment or an email the books you have determined.

By my count I read 44 mysteries so far this year set in 12 specific countries. With Canada and the U.S. accounting for 23 books just under half of the books were set outside North America. Having completed the post I realized it does not really tell me if my horizons have broadened unless I go back to looking at the settings of the books I have read before blogging. I will check out the settings of my 2010 reading and make that the subject of my next post.

The Truth Can Get You Killed (1997) by Mark Richard Zubro

45. – 677.) The Truth Can Get You Killed (1997) by Mark Richard Zubro – Paul Turner is a Chicago Police Detective in Area Ten who happens to be gay, widowed (from his wife’s death) and the father of two teenage sons (one in a wheelchair because of spina bifida).

On New Year’s Eve Paul is enjoying an evening out with his lover, Ben, at Au Naturel, a hot hot gay bar, featuring barely clad young male dancers. More interested in each other Paul and Ben return home shortly after midnight.

It is bitterly cold the next morning when Paul and his partner, Buck Fenwick, are assigned to investigate the murder of a middle aged man whose body has been found in the back alley adjacent to Au Naturel.

The victim is Federal Court of Appeal Judge Albert Meade, a staunchly conservative jurist, who has recently gained attention for a ruling favouring a local anti-gay ordinance.

Initially, Paul is concerned about being perceptions of bias. He is worried a conviction of the killer might be jeopardized because he, a gay man, is investigating the murder of a homophobic judge. It is an interesting twist on how L.A. detective, Mark Fuhrman, was pilloried as an untrustworthy police officer in the O.J. Simpson murder trial because of some racist comments unrelated to the case. Paul’s commander sees no reason to remove him from the case.

Considering the location of the body, Paul and Buck wonder if the deceased judge was a closeted gay man. As they go forward they are met by a gay wall of silence. There is a strong reluctance in the gay community to talk about any man who wants to stay in the closet, even after death.

Buck has some difficulty understanding why there are a significant number of gay men in the late 1990’s who remain in the closet.

Paul, who does not hide his orientation but does not make it overtly public, does his best to explain there are many gay men afraid of the consequences of being out in their families, at work and in the community.

When sources place the judge in Au Naturel on New Year’s Eve the gaydar of the detectives is tingling. As they move forward they find perception and reality are not always the same.

The fears of gay men wanting sexual relationships but afraid to be open are explored throughout the book. Members of the gay community who are totally out are not always understanding of those still in the closet. The book explores a challenging gay issue without becoming a polemic. In my last post, a profile of Zubro, there are comments from Zubro on introducing gay issues into his mysteries.

Paul and Buck have a deft, sometimes witty relationship.

Paul becomes the first gay detective I have read parenting a pair of boys on his own.

Reading the Russell Quant series by Anthony Bidulka a decade later is to see a far more open gay detective though the issues of the closet remain very real as explored in Flight of Aquavit.

It is a good book. I appreciated the author telling his story in 211 pages. I regret to say I would not have read this book if I was not looking to read “Z” author so I could profile the author in the 2012 Alphabet in Crime Fiction meme. I am going back to the library to read another Paul Turner mystery.

 

This will be my last post in the Alphabet in Crime Fiction meme hosted by Kerrie Smith at her blog, Mysteries in Paradise. Six months have gone swiftly by. Thank you to Kerrie for setting up the meme. Next week I will have posts about my author profiles for the meme.

“Z” is for Mark Richard Zubro

The end of the alphabet has been reached this week in the 2012 Alphabet in Crime Fiction meme hosted by Kerrie Smith at Mysteries in Paradise. I am concluding 26 weeks of author profiles with “Z” is for Mark Richard Zubro.

The American author was a Grade 8 English teacher at Summit Hill Jr. High in Frankfort, Illinois. He has been president of the teachers union.

He lives in the Chicago suburb of Mokena.

At the kareenacolcroft website there is an interview between Zubro and his character Tom Mason from the Tom and Scott series. In the mysteries Tom is a high school teacher and Scott a professional baseball player. In the interview Zubro and Tom discuss Zubro’s mysteries delving into gay issues.

Tom: But isn’t the mystery genre limiting? How can those kinds of books be socio-political?

Zubro: A writer is only limited by his or her imagination. I set out to do some very specific things with my characters. I knew I was going to have happy, loving gay people as protagonists. Talk about socio-political! There is a significant portion of the population who are angry simply because gay people exist. Then if we dare to present ourselves as happy, we might as well have announced the wend of western civilization and/or the destruction of the planet. Writing anything with gay characters is socio-political simply because it exists. Remember, the first book in the series, A Simple Suburban Murder, came out in 1989, when you could the number of happy, openly gay characters in print and on screen on one hand.

The topics include the decision on whether to come out and the challenges of coming out. In a shift from my usual approach I will include some comments of Zubro on these topics which are featured in his book, The Truth Can Get You Killed, which features Chicago gay detective, Paul Turner. I will post a review of the book on Tuesday.  

Tom: How many team sport athletes are out at the professional level? And the ones who came out after their playing days are over don’t count.

Zubro: People make arguments about dangers to their careers. I’m out in my life. I’m afraid I become far more judgmental about their decisions than I have a right to be.

Tom: Something as mundane as coming out can be such a plot point?

Zubro: What planet are you on? Sure, coming out is reasonably easy for you. You’re a saint about the whole thing. In the real world it is never that simple. Coming out, as you well know, is a life-long process. Unfortunately, even in this day and age it can be an issue.

The Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books provided some information on the retired Zubro and summarizes who is at risk in his books:

 

He retired from teaching in 2006 and now spends his time reading, writing, napping, and eating chocolate

 

One of the keys in Zubro’s mysteries is you do not want to be a person who is racist, sexist, homophobic, or a school administrator. If you are any oh those, it is likely you are the corpse, or t the least, it can be fairly well guaranteed that bad things will happen to you by the end. And if in Zubro’s books you happen to be a Republican and/or against workers’ rights, it would be far better if you did not make a habit of broadcasting this. If you did you’re quite likely to be a suspect, or worse.

Traditional Outdoor Journeys in Crime Fiction

On Tuesday I reviewed Scott Young’s mystery, Murder in a Cold Climate, set in the late 1980’s  in the Northwest Territories. In the mystery RCMP Inspector Matthew “Matteesie” Kitologitak undertakes a search for criminals in the bush of the southern Territories by dogsled.

While most of the time Matteesie searches while in an airplane or on a snowmobile he goes back to the old ways on this search.  It is a return to an earlier era when travel by dogsled was the only effective means of ground transportation in the Arctic.

It is done a classically understated Canadian way rather than the over the top American Hollywood like chase of Sheriff Walt Longmire in Hell is Empty. Longmire goes forward alone and on foot through the mountains in a way that stretches belief.

It is not to say there are not real life epic journeys in the Arctic. In Sledge Patrol by David Howarth there is recounted the 230 mile winter journey in Greenland on foot of Danish officer, Ib Poulsen. Remarkably he set off with neither winter boots nor supplies. He wrapped his feet in sacking to provide some protection. Poulsen survived by managing to reach supply huts set up for travelers needing assistance.

The journeys in the Arctic are beyond the personal experience of most readers. The vast majority of the world’s population does not experience travel in -40 weather (It does not matter which temperature scale is used. Both Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same at -40.)

In the Australian mysteries of Arthur Upfield there are often great trips made in the outback. Several involve aborigines walking great distances with little food and less water.

In Wilbur Smith’s book, The Burning Shore, French aristocrat, Centaine de Thiry, undertakes a dramatic trip across the Kalahari Desert with a family of bushmen. It is the best part of the book.

Matteesie’s dogsled trip also recalls great stories of my youth when RCMP officers routinely undertook long dogsled journeys to accomplish their duties.

There was always danger. In 1911 a  RCMP patrol of four officers became lost. Unable to find their way they perished before a relief patrol could find them.

What makes Matteesie’s journey unique are the trio on the trip. Matteesie is an Inuk as well as a police officer. George “No Legs” Manicoche is a disabled Metis. Edie McDonald is a white woman teacher. Surprising for that era it is her sled and dog team and she is the driver. Twenty-five years ago putting a disabled man and a woman in the group heading into the bush was equally rare in real life and fiction.

There are reasons for using the dogsled rather than snowmobiles for the search but they are best left for a reader to discover in the book.

I do appreciate chases in the empty spaces of the world that do not rely on planes, cars, snowmobiles and other motor driven means of travel. They force the participants of those journeys to rely on themselves and their ability to adapt to the land and weather rather than rely on modern technologies. I admit there is also an element of romance for me in these trips becoming quests.

Murder in a Cold Climate by Scott Young (1988)

Murder in a Cold Climate by Scott Young (1988) – Matthew “Matteesie” Kitogitak is the most unique sleuth I have encountered in years. He is from the last generation in the North to have spent their early years living off the land. During his lifetime he has gone through the dramatic transformation of northern life to a contemporary lifestyle. Joining the RCMP when indigenous northerners were limited to being “special” constables he has reached the rank of Inspector, the only Inuk RCMP Inspector of the late 1980’s. In appearance he is far from a handsome chiselled hunk. He is 5’6” with a developing pot belly. He is unhappily married to Lois in Ottawa. Though committed to the marriage he has a long continuing intimate relationship with Maxine in Inuvik.

Lastly, he has a mischievous, witty, slyly humourous, bantering personality illustrated by his nickname, Matteesie. (In my reviews of Stan Jones books set in northwest Alaska I discuss the same playful indigenous communication.)

 

The book is set in the harsh northern winter. Young evokes the Canadian approach to winter. Only in Canada and other far northern countries is the following conversation credible. I have heard it throughout my life:

As we walked our breath made little frosty clouds that blew between us as we walked. There wasn’t much to say.

“Minus thirty-five, according to the radio,” I said.

“Yeah, but not a bad morning. No wind.”

Matteesie is getting ready to leave Inuvik for an Arctic Institute Conference in Leningrad in the U.S.S.R. when he is directed by the RCMP Commissioner to investigate a plane that has gone missing in the area of Fort Norman. The son of Canada’s Finance Minister happened to be the pilot. Adding to the mix his passengers are suspected drug dealers.

On Matteesie’s flight to Fort Norman a stretcher is loaded on the plane. A Northwest Territories Metis leader, Morton Cavendish, has had a stroke and is being airlifted for treatment in Edmonton.

As Matteesie prepares to leave the plane by the rear exit a man walks up the exit steps, moves up to the unconscious man and fires 3 shots into Cavendish’s head. The shooter, before Matteesie can reach him, rushes out of the plane and jumps on an idling snowmobile and disappears into the bush next to the runway.

Frustrated and mad at both being unable to prevent the murder and pursue the killer Matteesie is determined to find the murderer.

Cavendish’s son, William, has disappeared and Matteesie starts searching for him in Fort Norman. While few are willing to talk Matteesie eventually gets some information from George “No Legs” Manicoche, a trapper who had his legs amputated, He had gotten drunk and passed out in the snow and his legs were badly frozen.

While Matteesie uses modern transportation most of the time he and No Legs join a white teacher, Edie McDonald, on a dogsled search into the wilderness that harkens back to an earlier era of the North. I will discuss their trip in my next post on Thursday.

Matteesie knows the resolution of the case will be found in the bush. He is glad to spend time outdoors. His status as an Inspector and then working with the Federal Government has kept him indoors. Riding a snowmobile he reflects:

As I bumped along, a feeling of peace gradually came over me. Much of my life, both before I signed on as a special and after, I’d spent time out in the bush or the tundra with snow machines or dog teams. On long trips I might have an objective many days away but the important thing was always just to get through the next few hours before night and food and sleep. On such a trip the mind roams free. I hadn’t felt this good for a long time, leaving behind conferences, memos, reports, the trying to convince others this policy was good and that bad, being polite with deputy ministers and deferential with the political ministers who came and went like migrating geese.

If you are ready to leave the city and head into the wilderness of northern Canada search out a copy of Murder in a Cold Climate. It is worth the effort. While Young may have spent most of his life writing about sports he has crafted a good mystery. The characters are true northerners. The geography and weather of the North play an important role as they do in real life. The North is integral to the plot. I expect readers will long remember Matteesie. I longed to join Matteesie on a northern journey. (Nov. 6/12)

“Y” is for Scott Young

As we reach the 25^th letter of The Alphabet in Crime Fiction meme hosted by Kerrie Smith at Mysteries in Paradise I am staying in Canada. I am profiling Canadian author, Scott Young, for “Y”.

Scott spent the first half of his 87 years known as one of Canada’s sportswriters with forays into fiction and non-fiction books. He spent the last half of his life being identified as the father of singer / songwriter, Neil Young. Scott ended up writing a book about their relationship called Neil and Me.

His youngest child, Astrid Young, is also multi-talented. She is a singer, songwriter, writer and painter.

 

Scott was born in Manitoba in 1918 and grew up in several communities in Western Canada including Prince Albert, Saskatchewan which is about 100 km from Melfort.

While he quit school at 16 Scott was a writer early in his life submitting stories that were usually rejected. At 18 he found employment at The Winnipeg Free Press and was soon a sportswriter. An editor telling him that he would never be worth more than $25 a week to the paper prompted him to move to Toronto.

He covered most major sporting events in Canada for Toronto newspapers and was also a broadcaster on the Saturday night telecasts of Hockey Night in Canada. He was fired from the broadcasts because he ran afoul of the Toronto Maple Leafs owner who threatened the sponsor if Scott stayed on the broadcasts.

He was a man of strong principles. He quit The Globe and Mail because of the paper using anonymous comments. He abhorred unattributed comments.

Through and after his journalistic career he was writing books. Overall he wrote 45 books.

Almost 50 years ago, when I was a boy on the farm at Meskanaw I devoured his Young Adult hockey trilogy – Scrubs on Skates¸ Boy on Defence and A Boy at the Leafs’ Camp. The books followed the path of a young boy’s progression from learning to play hockey to reaching the NHL. Scott put vividly to words the dreams of every young Canadian boy of my generation.

Of his impressive total of books there were two mysteries – Murder in a Cold Climate and  The Shaman’s Knife. I will be posting my review of Murder in a Cold Climate on Tuesday.

Young placed his mysteries in the Canadian Arctic in the Northwest Territories. Young loved going North and the books resulted from his travels to northern Canada.

I expect he is the only mystery writer who is a member of two Sports Halls of Fame. In Wikipedia it states:

In 1988, Young received the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame as selected by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, and was also inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame.

In the blog Neil Young News there is a quote from Canadian writer, Kevin Chong, writing in The Globe and Mail about what Neil learned from his father:

“The most vivid way to get an idea across was to lay oneself bare in the knowledge that others would identify with the bareness, the sometimes painful truth."

Seven Days by Deon Meyer

48. – 680.) Seven Days by Deon Meyer – Captain Bennie Griessel of the elite Hawks unit of the SAPS (South African Police Services) crashed at 45. After years of his alcohol abuse his wife ended their marriage. With his life in shambles his superiors gave him a final chance but he would have to stop drinking. Griessel quit. As the book opens he has not had a drink for 226 days. He now lives in a tiny apartment with a few clothes. He is working to reassemble his life. He has met the singer Alexa Barnard at AA, another recovering alcoholic, and a tentative relationship has begun. This fragile existence is thrown into turmoil.

He is made the lead investigator into the second investigation of the death of Hanneke Sloet, a lovely young lawyer. The initial investigation had been unsuccessful. Now anonymous emails are threatening the police if they do not arrest the killer. The writer asserts the police are corrupt and concealing the killer, a communist. When the writer shoots a random police officer the whole police department is made available for the investigation.

The same evening Barnard, overwhelmed with feelings of insecurity, starts drinking again. Griessel stays with her overnight to attempt to return her to sobriety.

Griessel wants to help Barnard but his time is consumed by the investigation for the sniper, dubbed Solomon by the press because of quotes from the Bible in his emails, has vowed to shoot an officer each day.

Griessel hesitates a few minutes before reading the personal documents collected about Sloet:

Sloet would become flesh and blood, a person with a life, with emotions and regrets and few secrets. It would rob him of his distance, his objectivity, it would all become that bit more personal. That was where the trouble lay, the root of the evil. Because he knew what came next. The case had been easier from the start. He hadn’t been at the scene of the murder. He hadn’t stood beside her, and seen the terrible fragility of the female body, her expression caught at the moment of death. He hadn’t smelled the blood and perfume and decomposition. He hadn’t lived her last moments with her in his mind, felt her acute fear of the darkness of death, or heard the silent scream they all uttered when they lost that final grip on life.

As he looks into Sloet’s life there is no immediate focus point for someone to kill her. Her last serious relationship ended almost a year earlier. She is doing very well at work. Her family and friends cannot identify a danger to her. She was totally dedicated to her work and rising quickly in the law firm.

Yet the killer must have been well known to her. She opened the door and there are no defensive wounds or any sign of a struggle.

Griessel finds himself in an unknown world when he tries to understand her work. She has been working on a complex multi-billion rand business deal under the Black Economic Empowerment program. With the vast sums involved he finds connections to people he would not have expected to be players in major finance.

As the police seek to penetrate the world of big South African finance Solomon’s daily deadline adds an almost unbearable urgency.

Griessel wants to do more for Barnard but can barely find the time to leave messages.

He is further challenged by the need to explore Sloet’s participation in the current social media of our day. While in his alcoholic mist he lost touch with developments such as Facebook and Twitter.

I found it interesting how the SAPS of the 21^st Century has the formerly segregated white, black and coloured of South Africa now working together as opposed to the mysteries of Malla Nunn of the mid-1950’s where only white officers were in charge.

It is a rare book that combines mystery and thriller with equal skill. When I read earlier this year Taken by Robert Crais and Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson, those accomplished mystery writers had written excellent thrillers but the mystery had been lost. Meyer maintains the pace of a thriller with the puzzle of a mystery.

The first book of Meyer I read was Blood Safari. It was a good book but no better to me. The second was Trackers which I found an excellent book. With Seven Days he has ascended to a great book. There are fascinating characters in the midst of a strong mystery with Solomon day by day ratcheting up the tension. I expect Seven Days will be a contender for a slew of book awards. (Oct. 28/12)