An Excellent Mystery

 

By Ellis Peters

A Brother Cadfael Mystery

It 1141 and in Britain, King Stephen and Empress Maud are still at war. War which lead to the burning of the city of Winchester and refugees from the fire, two Benedictine monks, arrive at Shrewsbury and are accepted into the abbey. Brother Fidelis is a former soldier who retired from military service after being gravely wounded. His companion is young Brother Fidelis, who is Humilis' caretaker and attendant, as Fidelis never fully recovered from his injuries and is in declining health. 

Before Humilis became a monk, he was engaged to be married to a little girl named Julian. He went off to war, planning to return in about ten years when the girl would be grown. But returning maimed and dying was not part of the plan and he releases Julian from their promise to marry. He joins the brothers and Julian joins a convent.

Three years have passed and Humilis wants to find Julian to assure himself that she went on to have a good life without him. But upon investigation, it is discovered that Julian never reached the convent. What happened to her and to the treasure she took with her as a gift to the convent is not known. Amazingly, her family was not aware that she never arrived at her destination. Once they find this out, though, they are quite anxious to discover her fate! The fear is that she was murdered for the small treasure she took with her.

Humilis and a former associate of his, Nicholas, both want to find out what happened to her. Humilis, because he let her down by ending their connection. And Nicholas, because he was the one who met Julian three years ago to let her know that Humilis was backing out of their marriage. And Nicholas was quite smitten with the young woman and would like to get to know her better. The news that she is missing and her fate unknown makes him determined to figure out what happened. 

Meanwhile, back at the abbey, Humilis takes a tumble and his old wound breaks open. Due to Brother Edmund's and Brother Cadfael's and Fidelis' care, he makes a partial recovery but clearly his already fragile health is failing. It would be a comfort to the dying man to understand what happened to his missing former bride, Julian. Which makes the hunt for Julian even more urgent. But things are not looking good when a distinctive ring of hers turns up in the possession of a silversmith who bought it from a man who claimed it belonged to a woman he knew who had died. 

This was an okay story. It is not hard to figure out what is going on with Fidelis. So that was no surprise. What I never really understood was why Julian did what she did. I wish the author had gone into that a little more deeply because it really did not make any sense to me at all. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?

 

By Patrick F. McManus

A collection of funny hunting, camping, fishing and childhood antics stories. I don't know much about McManus, but I would guess that he was passionate about outdoor life. But he enjoyed looking at the funny side of it. 

In my opinion, his best stories are the ones he tells about his childhood. These are what I would call tall tales though I suppose they have some foundation in reality. His stories based on his adult adventures are still quite funny but I love the kid ones best.

This collection includes:

• All You Ever Wanted to Know About Live Bait but Were Afraid to Ask
• The Green Box
• Skunk Dog
• Cold Fish
• The Rifle
• They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?
• My First Deer, and Welcome to It
• The Crouch Hop and Other Useful Outdoor Steps
• Meanwhile, Back at the B Western
• The Education of a Sportsman
• The Gift
• The Sensuous Angler
• And Now Stay Turned for "The Camp Chef"
• The Heartbreak of Astigmatism
• Sneed
• The Hunter's Dictionary
• Tenner Shoes
• Reading Sign
• Tying My Own
• Psychic Powers for Outdoorsmen
• The Fishing Lesson
• The Hunting Camp
• If You Don't Mind, I'll Do It Myself!
• Useful Outdoor Comments
• Journal of an Expedition

So far, every McManus collection I have read has been a real joy. All the stories are funny and some are plain hilarious. And you really don't need to be someone who hunts, camps, hikes, fishes to enjoy them. They are just such an enjoyable read!

Sierra

 

By Richard S. Wheeler

A novel of the California Gold Rush, aka 49ers

Ulysses McQueen is the son of a prosperous Iowa farmer. He is a newlywed and his wife, Susannah, is pregnant with their first child. But it is 1849 and gold has been discovered in California. Talk is of easy money, gold nuggets so easy to get you can just pick them off the ground. And McQueen has gold fever. So he packs up and heads off to western Iowa to join the hopeful men headed to try their luck mining for gold. Never mind the fertile farm he is leaving behind. Never mind the young wife preparing to become a mom. Never mind the disapproval of his parents and siblings. Off he goes, gonna get rich in California.

But things don't go quite to plan. McQueen joins up with another man, Asa Wall, a professional gambler. But their livestock get stolen and they have to join up with another group who doesn't like McQueen and makes life very hard for him until he becomes ill and collapses. 

Despite the struggles, McQueen makes it to California only to find that about a 40,000 men got there before him and all the best sites were taken. He joins a small group of miners and they manage to get quite a bit of gold. McQueen gets tired of mining and set out on his own only to lose everything to his old trail companion, Asa Wall, the gambler. Meanwhile, back home things are not going well either.

Susannah gives birth and gets into a disagreement with McQueens family. In spite, they evict her and the baby from the farm that they had let their son work. So she decides to head to California with her baby and track down her missing husband. She doesn't take the land route, she travels by boat instead. 

Before all that, in 1848, Stephen Jarvis in California, is a recently discharged soldier. He meets a young California woman, Rita Estrada, and they fall instantly in love. But he is a penniless soldier and she is the daughter of strict and old-fashioned Mexican rancher. Jarvis ends up at Sutter's Mill just before gold is discovered and he becomes one of the first miners to strike it rich. But mining is hard work and the more people who show up to mine, the more uncertain things become. Jarvis takes his gold and sets up in business instead, supplying food and necessities to the miners. Turns out he has a knack for business, knowing what people need and want and how to acquire it at a reasonable price. His plan is to return to Rita and show her family that he is a successful business man and ask permission to marry her. But Rita is no longer available. Due to family pressure, Rita married a local man instead of waiting for Jarvis. Jarvis is devastated. 

This was a pretty long book and I got rather bored with it in the last quarter of the story. The author keeps throwing road blocks in the young peoples' way and I found it rather tiring, the endless hard times. Here's another thing, I didn't really like the characters much. Only Jarvis, really. The young husband McQueen walks away from a good life without a second thought about his wife and the child she is bearing. He fails to respond to her letters and she often doesn't know if he is dead or alive. And Susannah, after being kicked out of the home she shared with her husband, and instead of staying with her loving parents, heads out with her baby on a dangerous trip to track down McQueen. It doesn't end well. And Rita, who loves Jarvis but lets her family browbeat her into marriage with a man she barely knows and who she doesn't love instead of standing up to their disapproval of her desire to wed a non-Mexican. I just found McQueen, Susannah, and Rita foolish and unappealing. 

My Life and Hard Times

 

By James Thurber

A collection of short stories based on Thurber's childhood and teenage years. 

In the introduction to the stories, written by John K. Hutchens, he claims that Thurber had an excellent memory and that the stories are all true, for the greater part. I don't know if that is the case or not, but they are all funny and amazing and worthy of being cherished and passed on to later generations. 

The stories are:

• The Night the Bed Fell
• The Car We Had to Push
• The Day the Damn Broke
• The Night the Ghost Got In
• More Alarms at Night
• A Sequence of Servants
• The Dog That Bit People
• University Days
• Draft Board Nights
• A Note at the End - a commentary by Thurber on his stories. 

The book is available to read online for free at Project Gutenberg Canada.

Kirkus Reviews has a review of the book, dating from when it was published in the early 1930s: Kirkus Reviews.

Night March

 

By Bruce Lancaster

Stedman is a captain in the Union Army when misunderstood or misleading orders leads him and his friend, Captain Pitler to being captured by the rebels and locked up in a building in Richmond, Virginia, called the Libby. It used to be general purpose building but was designated a prison for Union officers.

Like most prisons for enemy soldiers, life was not easy in Libby. Food was inadequate and disease was common and medical care lacking. And the guards were trigger happy. However, during a fire, Stedman and Pitler managed to escape and set out to find their way back to the Union forces to continue the fight. 

This required seeking out sympathizers who would supply them with shelter, food, and clothes and a guide to lead them on to the next stop and, hopefully to rejoin the Union forces in Tennessee. 

This story was a bit of a bust for me. The first part goes into great detail about the night Stedman, Pitler and the rest made their way toward Richmond only to be captured. This is detail that I cared nothing about. I skipped reading most of that. I picked the book because I thought it would be about their flight from captivity to freedom. Details of battles don't interest me at all. 

The story of their time in prison wasn't all that interesting either. I had already read Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor which was published a couple years before Lancaster's novel. So there was nothing new in the author's descriptions of the prisoners' suffering. And I found their escape a bit unbelievable. Anyways, I was glad they were finally on the road only to have a poorly written romance thrown in. Most stilted and ridiculous dialogue between two lovers I think I have ever read. I don't know  though. Maybe people in love back in the 1860s talked that way. The author was certainly closer to that era than I am so maybe he is correct. 

Even though this book was published in the late 1950s, there is a review of it online at Kirkus Reviews.