Short Story Wednesday: Three from Mistletoe Mysteries

In 2014, George Kelley wrote a review of Mistletoe Mysteries, an anthology of Christmas stories edited by Charlotte MacLeod, originally published in 1989. All of the stories have a copyright date of 1989 and were first published in this anthology. See George's post, which includes a list of all the stories in the book. 

At the time I purchased a used copy of the book, and the next year I read the first three stories in the book. This year I read the next six stories, so I have now read nine of the fifteen stories. 

These are the three stories I liked the best. Two relate to Christmas traditions, the other is about the Scottish end of year celebration, Hogmanay.

"The Live Tree" by John Lutz

I haven't ever read anything by John Lutz. This was the shortest story of all the ones I read, about a grinchy father with zero Christmas spirit, who refuses to buy a live Christmas tree for his young son. Then his brother, who was in prison, shows up on his doorstep, with a live tree. Contrary to my expectations, I loved the ending of this story.

"Here Comes Santa Claus" by Bill Pronzini

Bill Pronzini is a very prolific author. Mostly he writes mysteries, but he has also written Westerns and edited many short story anthologies. He is best known for his Nameless Detective series of over 40 novels about a private  investigator working in the San Francisco area. I have read 25 of the books in the series; my husband has read all of them except the last one.

This short story features Nameless, who has been coerced by his girlfriend Kerry to play Santa Claus at a big fundraiser. The story is told in first person, as the novels are, but with more humor. A very good read.

"A Wee Doch and Doris" by Sharyn McCrumb

The main character in this story is a burglar, who takes advantage of New Year's Eve, when many people are out celebrating, to rob several empty houses. It also features Hogmanay, a Scottish celebration of the last day of the year, and first footing, a tradition where the first person to enter the house on the first day of the year determines the household's luck for the next year. The end of this story is a hoot, and it surprised me. Not only do I finally have a better understanding of Hogmanay, but I enjoyed reading the story.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter: Sharyn McCrumb

This is the second book in Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian Ballad series. Both this story and the first one in the series feature Sheriff Spencer Arrowood of Wake County, Tennessee, but he doesn't do a lot of investigating. I think it is typical of the series that he does not play a major role in the stories.

In this book, the story centers around the wife of the church pastor, Laura Bruce, of the small town of Dark Hollow. Her husband is serving as an Army chaplain in the Middle East, ministering to troops left behind after the Gulf War. Laura is in her late thirties, only married to her husband for one year, and pregnant. And she is unprepared for the additional responsibilities she is expected to take on in the church with her husband gone.

"It was only later that she realized that marriage to Will entailed greater than ordinary obligations: He came with the spiritual baggage of two hundred souls of Shiloh Baptist Church. She told herself that she would begin by going through the motions as pastor's wife, hoping that the emotions would eventually follow. So far, they had not."

One night Sheriff Arrowood calls Laura, requesting that she come to the home of a family that attends the church. It is the site of a multiple homicide. The parents and one child have been murdered by the oldest son, who then killed himself, and only the two teenage children, Maggie and Mark Underhill, have survived. They were at the high school practicing for a play and came home to find the rest of the family dead. Laura is called in to provide support since her husband is not available.

It is hard to describe the dynamics going on in this story. Laura agrees to be the surviving teenager's guardian for a few months until Mark turns 18, so that they can finish the school year and live in their house. The evidence supports the belief that the oldest son was the killer, but the children left behind are acting strangely. They are old enough to take care of themselves, but they could benefit from some occasional checking in. For a while the sheriff and Laura both lose touch with them. The situation grows tense and suspenseful.

Environmental issues in the area are addressed. A subplot focuses on an older man who finds that he is dying of cancer. He traces his illness to to the pollution of the Little Dove River, caused by a paper mill in North Carolina.

Laura also visits with a older woman, Nora Bonesteel, who is reputed to have "the sight" and often knows about occurrences before they happen. This character does provide a good view of the community and the history of the area, and the supernatural element does not overshadow the plot.

This novel is an excellent depiction of the Appalachian area in eastern Tennessee. The story is dark and unsettling. Sharyn McCrumb's writing is beautiful. I don't know if I was more in tune with McCrumb's style of writing now or if the story improved over the first in the series, but I did like this one much better than If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Onyx, 1993. Orig. pub. 1992.
Length:      381 pages
Format:      Paperback
Series:       Appalachian Ballad series, #2

Setting:      Tennessee
Genre:       Mystery
Source:     On my TBR piles since 2015. 

What did I read in April 2020?

Did the first full month of the stay at home orders affect my reading? I think my reading was about the same but reviewing has been much harder. The concentration it requires is often just not there.

Although my main goal this month was to read what I wanted to, I did manage to read some books for challenges: two historical fiction books, a book for the European Challenge, a book for a USA state that I had not covered previously, and seven books from my TBR piles.

And here are the books I read in April, by category.

Mystery reference

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2017) by Mike Ripley

The author describes his book as "a reader's history of one specific category, or genre, of popular fiction—the thriller—over a particular period when British writers dominated the best seller lists at home and abroad." The book covers only British thrillers published between 1953 and 1975. This includes both adventure thrillers and spy thrillers. Of course, I am most interested in the spy thrillers but I enjoyed learning more about the authors of adventure novels also. With a very nice foreword by Lee Child.

Cross-genre Fiction (Mystery & Fantasy)

Westside (2019) by W. M. Akers

This book is a  mashup of several genres: historical fiction, mystery, alternate history, private detective novel, and urban fantasy. Set in an alternative version of New York in the 1920's. My review here.

Historical Fiction

The Light Years (1990) by Elizabeth Jane Howard

The Cazalet Chronicles is a series of five books that follow the members of one family from 1937 just prior to World War II through 1957. The first book, The Light Years, covers 1937 - 1938. There is large cast; the parents plus four children (three brothers, one unmarried sister) and the grandchildren, who range from 5 or 6 to teenage. Plus other relations, and servants. This is a lovely book, although not upbeat, with the threat of war coming on.

General Fiction 

The Provincial Lady in London (1932) by E.M. Delafield

This continues the story, written in diary form, of a married woman with two children (and a cook, a French governess/nanny, and a maid or two), living in an English village in the early 1930s. The Provincial Lady is now a published author and has received enough money for this effort to improve the family's financial status. She endeavors to find a flat in London to take more time to write. The tone is light and humorous and fun.

Crime Fiction

Boundary Waters (1999) by William Kent Krueger

This is the 2nd book in the Cork O'Connor series. Set in the Quetico-Superior Wilderness on the Canadian/American border. My review here.

The Brutal Telling (2009) and
Bury Your Dead (2010) by Louise Penny

I read these two books as a pair, based on Bill's recommendation at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan. My review here.

The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1992)
by Sharyn McCrumb

This is the 2nd book in Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian Ballad series. I enjoyed it but I found it to be different from most mysteries I have read. It is a dark story and has been described as gothic. Both this story and the first one in the series featured Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, but he doesn't do a lot of investigating, and the story centers around the wife of the church pastor, Laura Bruce, whose husband is serving as a chaplain in the Gulf War. She volunteers to be the guardian for two teenagers whose entire family was murdered. Set in Tennessee.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's first mystery novel and the first in the Hercule Poirot series. My review here.

A Colder War (2014) by Charles Cumming

Cumming is a Scottish author, and his character in this series, Thomas Kell, is an MI6 agent who is on extended leave with pay until an incident still under investigation is resolved. In this 2nd book in the series, he is given a special assignment by the MI6 Chief, to investigate the death, probably accidental, of a high-ranked agent in Turkey. 

Instruments of Darkness (2009) by Imogen Robertson

This was a very enjoyable historical mystery. It was set in Sussex, England in 1780, a period I haven't read about before. The main characters are the mistress of a country manor in Sussex and an anatomist, Gabriel Crowther, an introvert who just wants to study dead bodies. Harriet Westerman discovers a dead man on the grounds of her estate, and pulls Crowther into an investigation of the crime. It is the first in the series and I will be moving on to the second book in the series.

Z is for Zombies of the Gene Pool

In 1987, Sharyn McCrumb, best known for her series of Ballad novels, published a parody of a sci fi and fantasy convention, Bimbos of the Death Sun. Which I reviewed here. As I discussed in my review of the earlier book, this novel was a departure for McCrumb, although I do believe her earlier novels had more humor than her more recent works. I may be revealing my ignorance here. I have not read many books by McCrumb.

Five years later, McCrumb published a sequel to Bimbos of the Death Sun. This book is Zombies of the Gene Pool. Although the stories are definitely linked with the same two protagonists, Dr. James O. Mega and Marion, his girlfriend, and the other characters are a part of the sci fi community, the books are very different. There is still a lot of humor in the second novel, but the topics are handled in a more serious way.

This time the action is set mainly in Tennessee, near a fictional town called Wall Hollow. the original town of Wall Hollow was covered by a lake created by the Watauga Dam, built by the TVA to prevent flooding. (That part really happened; the real town was Butler, Tennessee.)

In 1954, a group of sci fi fans (self-named the Lanthanides) lived together on a farm near Wall Hollow. Per the book, the "lanthanides are the rare-earth series of elements." Most of them were aspiring authors, and they buried a time capsule which contained a short story by each person in the group, plus other artifacts. When the town is covered by a lake, the time capsule is also covered. Thirty five years later, the time this story is set, the lake is going to be drained to allow repairs to the dam, and the group have a chance to recover their time capsule. By this time, some of the group are very famous and wealthy; others are still fans, still writing fanzines; and others have moved on to other pursuits.

The group plans a reunion to dig up the time capsule, and that is what this story is about. James and Marion end up being a part of this group. James (Jay Omega is his pen name) and Marion are both professors at a college in their respective disciplines, Engineering and English. A colleague in the English department is one of the Lanthanides group, and invites them to come along. There is an explanation for this, but it is pretty tenuous.

In my opinion, the mystery plot in the first book, Bimbos, was not much of a mystery. This did not detract from my enjoyment of the book overall, except possibly the extended scene where the murderer is exposed.  

Zombies is also weak in that area. The death does not happen until halfway into the book, and even then it is not clear whether it is murder or not. Then our amateur detective rushes about to find clues, some of them via computers and bulletin boards. And the identity of the murderer was not particularly surprising, although I cannot say I guessed it ahead of time. But, again, this did not detract from the enjoyment of the book.

There is a lot of fun in this book. The characterization in this novel is much improved over the first in the series. There is an old writer, very successful, who is losing his memory and his abilities, and is accompanied by a young companion (and fan) who cares for him. There is another successful member, at least in terms of money and fame, Ruben Mystral, nicknamed "Bunzie." The descriptions of his inner dialogs between the part of him that wants to be the same as he was 35 years ago and the successful, pragmatic business man are priceless. And many others.

I liked this book and I liked it better than Bimbos of the Death Sun. Neither is great fiction, but they both have a lot to offer. My son, who reads more sci fi and fantasy books than he reads mysteries, read both books, once years ago and then again, recently. I was interested to find that he liked Bimbos better, of the two.

This author has a very interesting website, but she does not mention the two Jay Omega mysteries other than in a bibliography of her full works. Her site focuses mostly on the Ballad novels; see her bio page for a lot of background. It appears that all of her books are set in the South and many feature the Appalachian region. I have read the first book in the Ballad series. However, I did not find it compelling enough to rush to read the rest of them. I have a few of the Ballad series and I will give that series another try. The Elizabeth MacPherson series appeals to me. She is a forensic anthropologist later on in the series. I have a few of those also, which I will try. I would love to hear any comments or opinions of her other series.

This book is my pick for the 2012 Crime Fiction Alphabet for the letter Z. Our last letter. Please visit the post at Mysteries in Paradise for other entries for this letter. 

Bimbos of the Death Sun: Sharyn McCrumb

I have had several books by Sharyn McCrumb in my TBR piles for a long time. I recently read Bimbos of the Death Sun, which is an atypical book for this author.

This novel is a parody of a sci fi and fantasy convention, and focuses on fandom and role playing games.  The two protagonists are an engineering professor (Dr. James O. Mega, pen name Jay Omega)  who has written and published a sci fi novel (also named Bimbos of the Death Sun) and is at the convention to promote his book. His friend Marion, who is a professor in the English department, accompanies him to the the convention. I have no idea how realistic the pictures of fandom are, but it is a very entertaining novel, and it pokes light-hearted fun at a lot of groups. Fanatical sci fi fans, fans who attend conventions, fanzines, even authors, publishers and academics. Because of the title, and the covers of various editions, and the setting, this novel has a lot of reviews at sites more devoted to sci fi. Some have found it to be entertaining, others are outraged at it.

The title of the book is not at all indicative of the content. It is mocking the tendency, at least at a point in time, to include well-endowed young women in stories in those genres. In the novel, Jay Omega's book is serious science fiction, but his publisher has forced the title on the book to sell more copies.

One theme was very interesting to me: the picture of loners or outcasts who are attracted to a group because they find a place that they feel they can belong. Marion was once a fan and went to such conventions herself and she was a misfit in her youth. She can remember the need to find a group that she could feel comfortable in and a part of. The author pokes fun at the individuals, but also gives us sympathy for them.

The book was published in 1987 and I enjoyed the picture of the state of computing at the time. At that time I was working in Information Technology but was working with programming for minicomputers and wasn't into the home or desktop PC until later. Nevertheless, it was nostalgic in a way.

One negative aspect to this book is that the characterization was sketchy. The only characters portrayed in any depth were the two main characters. And there were a lot of characters to keep up with.

Another question is... how does this work as a mystery? This is a lightweight book, compared to other books the author has written. It is fun and I enjoyed it, but the mystery was not particularly satisfying. Other reviewers have disagreed and felt it was a good mystery.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, for two reasons. It is fun and it is different. And, the novel won the 1988 Edgar Award for "Best Paperback Original", so it can't be too bad. I saw so many different opinions about it on the web. Five years after Bimbos was published, a sequel came out: Zombies of the Gene Pool. I will follow up later with a review of that book.

In the introduction to this book in the paperback edition (published in 1997) I read, McCrumb explains how she came to write such an unusual novel... for her. To paraphrase, the book started out as a short story, a spoof with the same title as this book, which was just intended as a joke. Later she read the short story for a group and it came to a publisher's attention... and they wanted to publish it (expanded into a book).

From the Author's Note: "Bimbos of the Death Sun was intended to be an observation of the culture of fandom, and a gentle warning. Science fiction writers build castles in the air; the fans move into them; and the publishers collect the rent. It's a nice place to visit, but please don't try to live there."