It's a Mystery!

You may have noticed that my lists have changed.  What you are going to be getting here is my reading diary, both as I am reading and as I wish I was reading.  Let's be honest, the "Books I am Reading" list that most people post is for public consumption -- the true list is the books we all have started and put down.

Usually every January one of my resolutions is to finish as many books as I can that I abandoned reading earlier.  Some years I actually get through 4 or 5 of them -- I did last year.  This year I didn't even make that resolution because the pile is too big and I have too much to read for the store.  I really try to get through some of the "buzziest" books that are coming up but there is not enough time.

My default list is always my reliable historical murder mystery writers.  That's why I immediately picked up "Death Comes to Pemberly" by PD James, English murder mystery writer extraordinaire. James has written this book in an imitation of Austen's style, which means, unfortunately for one who wants a fast paced book, that there are many digressions into the life and manners of an English manor house and much preoccupation with appropriate behavior for the upper class characters involved.  I enjoyed this as a mise-en-scene of 19th century British country life, but the essential mystery seemed so uncompelling that several weeks later I had actually forgotten who the victim was.  There is much convoluted postponement of plot points, and red herrings abound.  However, one is very tempted to believe that that is how life was actually lived at that time, because the wealth of detail is so well written.  PD James is never a waste of time.

I also just finished two Michael Jecks books from his Knights Templar series - "The Oath" and "The King's Gold."  These books featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Simon Puddock, the bailiff, are set in the early 1300's in and around Exeter, with side trips to the Devon moors, London, Bristol, and sometimes France.  Sir Baldwin is the king's appointed justice of the peace, and a man of integrity, honor, charity and compassion who believes in keeping his sworn oath.  (I wish these characteristics were more present in current day politics.)  Besides writing rip-roaring plot lines, along the way Jecks gives us all kinds of detail on daily life among all classes of Englishmen, allowing us to look at some of history's more notorious events from a different viewpoint.  These two books have gotten us through the flight and arrest of the inept King Edward II and his infamously corrupt adviser (and companion) Hugh Despenser.  They are a wonderful study in how a man of honor, sworn to his king, adapts to a time of divided loyalties, transition of authority and general lawlessness.