The Shell House Detectives by Emylia Hall

Thank you Cath at Read-Warbler for your very fine review of The Shell House Detectives (2023).  Its the first novel in Emylia Hall's new mystery series and it takes place in West Cornwall in the fictional seaside town of Porthpella.  I was drawn in to the Shell House Detectives right from the start and I already have the second book in the series The Harbour Lights Mystery stored in my kindle.   

When the Shell House Detectives begins we are introduced to Ally Bright, a widow in her 60's.  She is an artist and beachcomber who makes beautiful paintings and sculptures from the items she finds on her walks along the beach.  Ally has a cute little dog named Fox and everything seems to be going well.  But Ally is dealing with grief.  Her husband Bill, a retired police officer, died  a year ago and life hasn't been the same since.

And then one night a young man, Lewis Pascoe, knocks on Ally's door. Bill told Lewis that he would be there for him if he ever needed help.  Lewis needs help now because he has just gotten out of prison only to find that his grandmother who raised him passed away and new people are living where his grandmother used to live.

Ally wants to help.  She remembers Lewis Pascoe's father, Paul Pascoe, who committed suicide 20 years ago when Lewis was a baby.  She is tempted to invite Lewis in to talk but Ally is a woman alone and it's late at night.  She breaks the news to Lewis that Bill passed away and that if Lewis is in trouble he needs to go to the police.  

The next day Ally is walking along the beach with Fox and notices that there has been an accident up ahead.  She gets closer and discovers it's Lewis.  He has fallen from the cliff. Lewis is barely alive and the police are calling it a suicide attempt.

And that introduces us to Jayden Weston who is also there at the scene.  Jayden is 30 and recently left the police department after his partner was killed in the line of duty.  Jayden, like Ally, is somewhat lost.  He moved to Porthpella with his wife who is expecting to have a more peaceful life.  But Jayden is bored because being a detective is in his blood.  Ally and Jayden are not convinced that Lewis's accident was a suicide attempt and they are determined to find out what happened with Lewis particularly after a woman goes missing and the two cases seem to be related. 

Ally and Jayden are well drawn characters who have very nice chemistry together.  And there are other characters I really liked.  Saffron the young woman who owns the Hang Ten Coffee Shop and likes to surf.  Gus who is working on a detective novel and Mullins a young Porthpella police officer with an admirable sense of duty.  

And finally there is the town of Porthpella.  I would love to live in a seaside community like this particularly when the sea we are talking about is the Atlantic Ocean.  I highly recommend The Shell House Detectives.

Top Ten Tuesday

 This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt, hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl, is about travel.  Here are my ten and I have read and recommend each of these books:

Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon - I read this book when I was in my twenties and loved it.  Blue Highways for me set the bar for travel memoirs.

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder- such an important book about the high cost of housing in America and how many people are living in their vans.  I fear Nomadland will be even more relevant ten years from now

 

Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer - A powerful book about a young man who decides to head to Alaska and live in the wilds with tragic results.  Very well written and thought provoking.

Kerouac by Ann Charters - Jack Kerouac was the consumate writer and traveler and this biography is excellent. 

Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil  by John Berendt -  in the 1990's the author travelled to  Savannah GA ito write a magazine story and stumbled upon a story bigger than he could have ever dreamed.   216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and if you haven't read the book you should.  The movie does not do the book justice.

 The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James - A really fine novel about a young woman who moves to an out of the way town in upstate New York.  She takes a job at a run down motel in the hope of finding out what happened to her aunt who worked at that same motel and disappeared over 30 years ago.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - Read this in my twenties and as I recall it was a struggle. But it's an important novel about a poor farming family, the Joads, who move from Oklaoma to Calfornia during the Great Depression.  It's possible I read it when I was too young and I definitely want to give this novel another chance.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden - A novel about a group of Anglican nuns who travel to the Himalaya mountains to open up a school and a medical clinic.   The sisters are not really prepared for the beauty and remoteness of the area and the culture shock.  Thus novel is very good with a haunting atmospheric quality. 

Life And Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan - The plot centers around a young woman who get a very bad cancer diagnosis.  She decides if they can't cure her  why bother with treatment.  And so she moves to an island in the Caribean that her mother, who passed away when she was a teen, loved.  It sounds like a depressing read but I found it inspiring and hopeful.

Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz - Tony Horwitz was such a great writer of history and travel and he combined his talent for both in Confederattes In The Attic. 

Hope everyone has a great summer.  Stay cool and Happy Reading

Homer's The Iliad

Currently reading Homer's The Iliad.  Its a book that has been on my bucket list for some time.  It's one of the most important works of literature but would I understand it?  And I am pleased to say that I am halfway through The Iliad and I am understanding it and enjoying my reading experience.  

And that is due to the greatness of The Iliad but also Stephen Mitchell's translation.  There are so many translations out there but Stephen Mitchell writes in a contemporary English that works for me.  The Iliad is a little over 400 pages and it contains 24 chapters.  I am now going into chapter 15.  I pace myself, a chapter every other night.

The backstory to the Iliad is the Trojan war which began when Paris, a Prince of Troy, ran of with the beautiful Helen, the wife of King Menelaus who is one of the Achean (Greek) Kings.  Menelaus is furious and humiliated but that's nothing compared to King Agamemnon, Menelaus's brother, who is the King over all of the Acheans.  King Agamemnon launches a war against Troy and the two sides have been fighting ever since.

And now nine years into the war The Trojans and the Acheans no longer think much about Paris or Helen.  Instead the two sides are fighting for honor, glory, vengeance and survival.  And a central focus of The Iliad is Achillies.  He is the greatest of the Achean warriors, a man of super human strength, but he is sitting out the battle sulking due to his fury at King Agamemnon who has betrayed and humiliated him and the cause is once again over a woman.  

The dispute begins when the god Apollo forces King Agamemnon to return his slave girl Chryséïs, to her father.  Agamemnon does not want to do this but you can't go against Apollo.  And so to compensate himself Agamemnon orders Achillies, his best warrior, to give him Briseis, a woman Achillies won in battle years ago. Heartbroken and furious Achillies explains all this to his mother Thetis who is also a sea goddess.  She flies up to Mt Olympus and begs Zeus to restore her son Achillies' honor.  Zeus cares for Thetis and grants her wish.  Achillies stays out of the war and the Trojans start winning.  

And that brings us to Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors.  Hector is a major character in The Iliad second only to Achillies.  He is the brother of Paris and is quite angry at all the destruction and bloodshed Paris has caused Troy by running off with Helen  

How will this all end?  Will Achillies come back into the war and lead the Acheans to victory?  What will cause him to rejoin the fight?  And then there are the gods and goddesses.  They play a major role in The Iliad.  They are not impartial bystanders.  The gods and goddesses have very human emotions and they have taken sides in this war and are not adverse to aiding their side when needed.  

Hera, Athena, Poisideon are supprting the Acheans.  Aphrodite who has been rooting for Paris and Helen is on the side of The Trojans.  Zeus appears to be on the side of the Trojans as well but this is all part of a master plan and if Achillies comes back into the fight the Trojans are in trouble. Hector understands this and during a break in the fighting his wife pleads with him not to go back to the front:

"Hector answered her, “Dearest, what you have said troubles me too. Yet I would feel terrible shame at facing the men and the long-robed women of Troy if, like a coward, I shrank from the fighting. Nor can I: my heart would never allow that; it is my place to be brave and scorn danger and always fight in the front line, winning great fame for my father and for myself. But however it is, deep in my heart I know that a day will come when the sacred city of Troy will be devastated, and Priam, and Priam’s people. And yet it is not their anguish that troubles me so ... that is nothing compared to your grief, when I picture you being caught by some bronze-armored Achaean who claims you and takes your freedom away and carries you off in tears ... But may I be dead, with the cold earth piled up upon me, before I can hear you wail as they drag you away.”

I should say that The Iliad is a violent book. Battle scenes everywhere and men dying on both sides of the conflict in gruesome ways and I am only halfway through.  But I am fascinated by this story.  It is holding my attention and this is certainly a 5 star read.

Mother To Son by Langston Hughes..

Mother to Son by Langston Hughes (1922)

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

The Big Sea by Langston Hughes

"Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pull...I'm still pulling" - Langston Hughes

I am not much of a poetry reader because alot of poetry goes over my head.   But there are poets, and Langston Hughes is one of them, who are very talented but also accessible.  And a few years ago when Jane at Reading Writing Working Playing (please visit her fine website at blogs I follow) reviewed Langston's memoir The Big Sea (1940) I knew it was a book I would be reading and this year's Search For Wonder Classic's Challenge has given me the reminder I needed.

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, MO in 1901 and The Big Sea takes him to age 31 and what an amazing life he had in just 31 years, a published poet, novelist and short story writer.  He worked on ships traveling to Africa, Paris, Italy, South America.  He was a key member of the Harlem Renaissance and met so many fascinating people and had such memorable adventures.  All of which he details in this book.

Langston Hughes's life wasn't easy though.  His relationship with his parents was not supportive and so he was on his own from an early age.  Langston got jobs working on ships because he wanted to travel but also the racism in the US in the 1920's meant that  many jobs were closed to him.  But jobs working on ships as part of a crew were easier to get.

In writing the Introduction to The Big Sea, Arnold Rampersad notes that there were three important events in Langston Hughes' life: 

"The first is in Hughes’s boyhood, when, after waiting trustingly for Jesus to come to him at a religious revival, he fakes a conversion, then weeps far into the night in guilt and shame. The second, in his adolescence, and almost cheerfully advanced against a background of Mexican Technicolor, concerns Hughes’s brutal feelings for his father: “I hated my father.” The third involves Hughes’s banishment, when he was twenty-nine, by Mrs. Charlotte Mason who had generously supported him as a patron over the previous two years. Even in 1939, ten years afterwards, as he himself writes, Hughes cannot recall the exact moment of banishment without feeling sick".

The falling out between Langston Hughes and Charlotte Mason was a sad part of this book.  Langston Hughes writes that he loved Mrs Mason.  She wasn't just a patron but he thought of her as a friend.  But she turned into a very controlling person who felt that she should be dictating what Hughes wrote.  And finally when he suggested to Mrs. Mason that maybe it was best she no longer support him but that he still wanted very much to be her friend she said some terrible things which Langston doesn't go into (he doesn't name Mrs Mason in the book) but he was very hurt.

The Big Sea ends on a happy note with Langston Hughes looking towards the future and I will be interested in reading more of his poems which now that I have read his memoir will be even more meaningful.

Vera Wong's Guide To Snooping On A Dead Man by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Vera Wong's Guide To Snooping On A Dead Man (2024) is the second novel in Jesse Q. Sutanto's wonderful Vera Wong mystery series.  All of the qualities we loved about Vera in book one are here in book two including the intricate teas Vera brews and the delicious meals she creates

And Vera's son Tilly has a girlfriend, Officer Selena Gray, who we were introduced to in book one.  Vera couldn't be happier but she is a bit anxious:

There is no need for her to be nervous. Tilly and Selena will settle nicely into their new place, and before she knows it, there will be a proposal, then a wedding, and then … twin grandbabies. Nay, triplets! When Vera closes her eyes, she can just see it—Vera sitting on an overstuffed sofa with one arm around Emma and the other arm around three fat grandbabies".

Life is going well.  Vera's tea shop is packed and the suspects/friends from book one have become family.  They don't appear too much in book two and that's a good decision by the author because a new murder case has landed in Vera's lap and she has a new group of suspects/friends to deal with.  

The new case starts out with Vera being taken in by a phone scam.  The scamner pretends to be calling from Vera's bank and asks for her social security number.  Vera gives them the number but soon realizes the big mistake she has made.  Vera runs down to the police department and Selena is able to stop the scam from proceeding.

Vera is relieved and as she is leaving the police precinct she spots a young woman she had noticed on her way in.  The young woman, Millie, appears nervous and seems to be trying to decide whether to walk into the precinct.  Vera comes over to Millie asking if she can help.  

Millie doesn't really want to share what the problem is but before you know it she is sitting in Vera's tea shop explaining that her friend Thomas has gone missing.  Thomas just wouldn't up and leave like that and Millie is worried.  A day or two later Thomas is found dead.  His death is ruled a suicide.  A handsome young man with his whole future ahead of him?  Vera is not buying it and so the investigating begins.

For me Vera Wong's Guide To Snooping On A Dead Man took this series to a deeper level. The murder Vera is tasked with solving shines a light on a serious issue that most of us don't know or think about.  I can't go into the specifics without revealing too much of the plot.  Suffice it to say that fans of book one will be just as pleased, if not more so, with this second Vera Wong mystery.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

I was scrolling through the Edgar Award winners from the 1940's and 1950's a few weeks ago and I found a number of books that caught my eye including A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin which won The Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1954.  

Ira Levin would go on to write such blockbusters as Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives but he never went back to writing mystery novels which is a shame because if A Kiss Before Dying is any indication he had a real talent for the mystery genre.

A Kiss Before Dying is set during the early 1950's somewhere in the Midwest.  And when the novel begins we are introduced to a handsome, spoiled and sociopathic young man.  He is dating a fellow college student named Dorothy.  She is an innocent young woman and he is only interested in her family’s wealth which she doesn't suspect.

But when Dorothy gets pregnant the young man knows that once her father finds out he will disown her.  Dorothy is okay with this but the young man is not.  He does not want to be saddled with a wife and a baby trying to make ends meet.  He was meant for better things and so he kills Dorothy making it look like a suicide. 

That ends part one of A Kiss Before Dying and I enjoyed part one but the novel really takes off in parts two and three which I can't go into but what I will say is that this is a gripping, page turning novel with a major twist halfway through and the 1954 Edgar for Best First Novel was well deserved.  A four star read for me.