P.D. James dies at 94--

On Thanksgiving Day it was announced that English mystery writer great P.D. James had died.  She was 94.  Her actual name (and title) was Phyllis Dorothy James White, Baroness James of Holland Park.
Although I hadn't read any of her work, I seem to recall a fondness   when others talked about James' Adam Dalgliesh in book club discussions about various book characters.  Dalgliesh, identified as   a police commander and poet, is a fixture with police procedural mysteries with novels published for numerous years beginning from  1962 (Cover Her Face) and television appearances. 

  Her writing spanned to a private investigator series with Cordelia  Gray (who I did see in a TV adaptation) and most recently with a  mystery set in 1803 featuring characters from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice novel  in Death Comes to Pemberley published in 2011.  Examining her beloved writing genre in print, she wrote Talking About Detective Fiction (2009) about the history and appeal of mysteries and an autobiography, Time to be in Earnest (1999).

P,.D. James (photo from Google.com)

Dubbed the 'queen of crime' James enjoyed a rich recognition in writing circles for a long, successful career. To find any P.D. James books at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library click here, go to "advanced search."  Do an author search for "james, p.d." to find her books and books on CD.   

Book club discusses "Ghost Hero"

In June, the book club selection was S.J. Rozan's mystery novel Ghost Hero.  It is the 11th of the "Lydia Chin/Bill Smith" series pairing the frequent private eye team in New York.  This is the second selection the book club made from this series (the October 2003 selection was Winter and Night).

S.J. Rozan
(photo from her website)

Set in the art world, PI Lyida Chin is hired to verify a rumor that a brilliant Chinese artist, Chau Chun, has new paintings available and circulating in the Manhattan area.  Known as "Ghost Hero Chau," the artist was a professor at the Beijing Art Institute while painting artwork valued at half a million apiece during the 1980s.  The work featured sly political messages--looked upon    disfavorably by the Chinese government--within classical and traditional-looking Chinese art.  The investigation should be considered a "shot in the dark" assignment as Ghost Hero Chau has been reportedly dead in China for twenty years. 

Bill joins Lydia in the investigation, mainly to shadow but also in the guise as a Russian mob associate with a big interest in the new art.  And to assist, Bill confers with another Chinese-American private investigator Jack Lee who is an actual art expert (unlike Lydia).  The three work together--a first, particularly as Lydia hasn't met Jack before--and in the while deal with difficult Chinese art contacts and attract the unwanted attention of a few shadowy, menacing types.

Comments about the book included the following:

• although the book is well into the "Lydia Chin/Bill Smith" series, it is a good title to start the series
• the novel handled a nice blend with good plotting for integration of a detective story in the art world "that a PI would handle"
• the meals the characters ate in the novel sounded appealing although only one entrée was familiar to one attendee
• Lydia has repeated trouble with her mother about potential romantic interests (as it was noted Chinese mothers are harsh critics in these matters)
• liked the introduction of Chinese-American Jack Lee to the book series.

Book club discusses "Paper Butterfly"

Another international setting was the target for the book club this month as the novel Paper Butterfly is set in Beijing. The second in a series of mysteries by Diane Wei Liang, the book features Mei Wang as a private investigator in modern day China.

In this googled photo of author Liang, you have the same picture as shown in the book jacket of Paper Butterfly.

Wang, formerly with the Ministry of Public Security (the police), works independently as a detective with all with the trappings of a successful businesswoman including the employment of a male secretary.

She is beginning a new case to search for an up and coming pop singer, Kaili, who has recently disappeared for several days and a record company executive, who summons Mei, concludes that Kaili is actually missing. Meanwhile, Mei's reliable assistant Gupin also appears to have oddly disappeared and she starts to wonder about him.

Paper Butterfly is divided (for a period) between Mei's investigation of the mysterious Kaili and a poor laborer, Lin, who is en routine to Beijing to meet a special person in his life which does have an impact on Mei's work.

The book club attendees had the following observations:

• the novel didn't give enough atmosphere or information about China culture's today for most
• the question of money popped up when it was asked how Mei supported herself to the extent that she did or being successful in her business
• Mei's personality was questioned too as it seemed aside from work and immediate family, she had no interests although it was noted she is finicky about her tea
• despite working in a location (Beijing) not traditionally used for mystery novels, I liked that Mei is very similar to other fictional detectives in her makeup as [for instance] being determined to close cases and as another mentioned, she has a resourceful network of associates and contacts for her work
• the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 was featured in the book as an important time in history for Mei and Lin and the same is likewise for the author but one attendee thought the book became close to a rant from the author about the protests
• one attendee said Mei's foot travels through Beijing seemed dangerous (or unlikely?) while another said the situation there is likely very different from the U.S. [and to add a related perspective, I mentioned that the author has a short video on her author web page of an actress (?) representing Mei who walks around various neighborhoods, etc., on her own]
• one book club regular wrote and shared with me as an email, "I enjoyed 'Paper Butterfly' and would like to read more books by this author. At first, I was a little confused and thrown off stride by the alternating of chapters between Mei and Lin. Then I got used to it, and at that moment, they came together. The weaving of the story with the events in Tiananmen Square, and the reality of the oppression, with Lin's imprisonment, set the background..[spoiler material omitted]..I kind of wanted Lin to come out all right, but that would have been too easy."
• still another person said this book was her least favorite of the books she had read in the book club (in two years).

Has anyone else read Paper Butterfly or the first Mei Wang mystery The Eye of Jade? What did you think?

Book Club discusses "An Incomplete Revenge" [October]

The book club discussed the fifth book of the "Maisie Dobbs" series by Jacqueline Winspear several weeks back during the October session. An Incomplete Revenge features psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs--a highly motivated woman who pursuits an education and opportunities to move to a professionally-recognized status from that of a house servant. This book series is set during and following the first World War.

Winspear's picture here comes courtesy of her website.

In this novel, Maisie Dobbs is employed by an old friend to check out the feasibility of a land purchase. The land is in a village outside London in Kent and peculiar news stories from the area raise concern for Dobbs employer--incidents of fires. She arrives during a harvest season and works to gain the trust of the locals, including a gypsy community with which she finds an affinity.

The truth of the mysteries lie in a community's hidden secrets and try as she might, Maisie is the outsider--the woman driving around the village in her MG car.

Some quick observations (shared here) included:

• Maisie attempts to fit a community setting by picking up on the language or terms used by the residents or setting
• Maisie has a young assistant who's also a working stiff type and family man, Billy, and she offers him some work with investigations but hasn't reached out to help him as a mentor
• Maisie has personal troubles that stop her from leading a cheerful life
• however, she has a warm relationship with her father
• incidents of community secrets (or shame?) include nearly the whole community.

The Newest in a Loooonng Series

A co-worker smiled yesterday as she received the newest Sue Grafton alphabet mystery, U is for Undertow, before leaving for the day. She noted how the series is coming to end soon and marveled that she remembered reading the first book in the early 1980s. At that time, she was at a church sleepover with two of her children--then in grade school--reading "A" is for Alibi: a Kinsey Millhone mystery.

I'm impressed that Grafton is still going strong with this clever mystery concept and has carvered a unique spot in the mystery genre for herself. And as the new People magazine notes in a book review, private detective Millhone--reaching book 20 now--does that have the wonderful author blessing of not aging in natural years as all novels are still set in the 1980s.

Paretsky Visits Charlotte for Author Festival

Last Wednesday and Thursday, my library system hosted mystery novelist Sara Paretsky for back-to-back evening events and I was able to attend both.

It was the end of the library's "Novello: festival of reading" and I worked as a volunteer, ushering the first night and helping to man the wine bar on the second. The first night consisted of an author talk with questions from the audience and book signings. The second night was a clued-filled mystery program with food, drink and music--Chicago themed.

I enjoyed the events and was glad I had attended. And I was able to speak Ms. Paretsky the second evening. Looking fashionably stylish in her black hat, here's a pix of Ms. Paretsky with the volunteer I worked with when pouring drinks at the mystery-dinner event (a new professional in Charlotte, she said just call her by her nickname "Kiki").

Now, the first evening when she spoke (and I ushered), I jotted down a few notes while sitting in the back. They included the following:
* as a youngster, girl detective Nancy Drew didn't appeal to her (particularly with "no siblings and domestic responsibilities")
* she moved to New York City to become a writer at 23 but later moved to Chicago to work as a secretary ("Chicago became the city that shaped my voice and view of the world.")
* as a devoted reader of crime novels, she became determined to write a private eye novel but that was only a dream for her for a eight-year period (afterwards, "V.I. Warshawski" was created)
* Paretsky wanted to create a female private eye who didn't fit the role of the standard role of women in noir fiction (i.e. victim or temptress)
* writing a story set in Chicago was a hard sell years ago
* "Fiction gives us the heroes we wish we could be."

Paretsky's newest "V.I. Warshawski novel" is entitled Hardball and is in the editors hands after several drafts, she said. Her website has an excerpt.

And she posts to a blog supported by Chicago six other crime writers called "The Outfit." She also read from her most recent blog post in the author talk "What happens to the novel in the Age of Fragmentation?"

God bless you, Paul Newman

I enjoyed going to Paul Newman movies over the years (Slap Shot, Fort Apache the Bronx and The Verdict anyone?) and I was saddened to hear of his recent death. I still find it a little odd to see his pix on salad dressing bottles but he was blessed to have mulitple careers and ventures.

I do give him partial credit to directing me to mysteries as a genre when I discovered his version of writer Ross McDonald's private eye Lew Archer in the films Harper and years later The Drowning Pool. In the Newman movies, a character's name was changed to Harper--and I've read two different accounts why that is the case--and Harper is based on the novel, The Moving Target while The Drowning Pool is the same title of the book. As it happened, the movies lead me to reading the books and I enjoyed McDonald's strong narrative of the lone wolf California PI.

The two Harper movies are in the new Newman collection DVD set and the photo on the cover case (shown here) is from the first movie.

Book club hosted author in April--

The April book session was a special event as we hosted local mystery writer Terry Hoover. Ms. Hoover is the author of Double Dead (a Steve Harlan mystery). Set in the early 60's in Charlotte, North Carolina, Harlan is a young family man who's recently entered the private detective profession.

And the detective gets his big break by assisting in a big murder case involving a big-time bank executive, John Lattimore, tried for the death of his suspected mistress, Delores Green. Harlan is pumped up about the case but loses some steam as Green's 13-year-old son is heavily involved the criminal processings by Lattimore's actions. As you might expect, Lattimore is not the ideal client (although his lawyer is a genuine good guy).

This novel is based on an actual crime Hoover said but it is a fictional story not true crime. Click here to see her website and here's a pix of Terry from that night. She said she mulled developing this novel idea over when a couple of celebrity murder stories were plastered in the news. And she added Double Dead is her second novel with the character as an unpublished book--she couldn't get a publisher for this story--focused on Harlan's involvement in a racially-charged crime as a then newspaper reporter.

To no one's surprise, the questions and discussions during the evening dealt with the writing process. Hoover said she would meet with other writers to review their work and to pick it apart. Published writer Cathy Pickens is a member of the group and she said the group has harsh critics (OK, she said used the "b" word) that review and evaluate each other. As it turned out, Pickens heard about this author visit and stopped by to join in herself. Anyway, finding good critics to review your work is a huge benefit according to Hoover.

Jogging my memory, here are a few things the questions and answers covered including: * Why not have a mystery without a murder or violence? Terry mentioned one novel that fitted that bill and another mentioned that missing persons may also cover that type of story. Otherwise, murders in mysteries are the expected norm.
* Was the ending planned out in advance or did sort of evolve? The ending was scheduled and planned out.
*My mother complains that she can always figure out the criminal in the book before the story ends. Try reading more challenging mysteries (and some writers were suggested).
* The investigation seemed to follow a natural course with Harlan's interviews except during one instance--why? I went back and forth over the scene and sided with a dramatic moment.
* Is it difficult (or frustrating) to read bad material? In a word, it's "yes."

So what is next for Terry Hoover? A new mystery novel is in the works but Terry admits the writing is going slow. This summer the pace should pick up she says. And Cathy Pickens chides her that the writing group also misses her.

Will This Female Sleuth Return to Print...?

For an embarrassing amount of time I had book donation in the back library staff offices entitled Stray Kat Waltz by Karen Kijewski, which I should have added to my library's collection or shipped off to another branch. I do plan to ship it off to another library branch although this title is a little old in public library book years (1998). And since this is the last book in series to date, it does beg the question if fictional private detective Kat Colorado will reach the printed page in a new novel?

That question came up during a book club session months ago and I wondered about this series myself. I read Stray Kat Waltz a few years back when I was considering working with a mystery book club. In the meanwhile, I plucked that book off the shelf as a good possible read with a female detective. And I was pleased--it was. Described as a quick wit, the Kat books must be somewhat breezy reads although in my book, she's recovering from the loss of a loved one.

I have looked on the Internet for new news about Kijewski (pronounced kee-eff-ski according to Mystery Readers Online ) and found a little. An un-official homepage website for Kijewski says--according to the rumors--she searching for a new publisher or stopped writing because of family obligations.

Despite nine novels and three short stories, there are fans interested in more. Here's hoping Kijewski has some stories for Kat in her.