Miles to Go

Dear readers, by now you must know Miss Lemon and all of her quirks: how she values order and efficiency; how she loves Devonshire cream atop a freshly baked rock cake; her passion for filing; and how she likes nothing better than to curl up on her divan on a rainy Sunday afternoon to read a good old-fashioned British murder mystery.

You also may have noticed Miss Lemon's reluctance to dip her toe into the pool (mind she did not say 'cess') of modern politics.  So I think you will be pleasantly surprised to learn that, on occasion, an old cat can indeed change her stripes.

Just such a realisation struck when Miss Lemon discovered how much she enjoyed reading the very modern, very American and very action-packed spy thriller Miles to Go (2010), by Amy Dawson Robertson.

The intrigue centers on Rennie Vogel, the only woman to land a permanent place on the FBI's elite and newly formed counter-terrorism team charged with hunting down the leader of a terrorist training camp in Tajikistan. From the race that cements Rennie's spot on the team to a harrowing trek through the lush forests of Shuroabad, Miss Lemon can see why this genre is called 'thriller.' Double agentry, hostage manipulation, narrow escapes -- it's all here in dramatic splendor.

Lest one think that Miss Lemon's literary sensibilities have veered madly from the British cosy, she begs one to consider the many things in common Ms. Vogel and her milieu have with their literary forebears.  Like Poirot with his little grey cells and Miss Marple with her village parallels, there are things that set Rennie Vogel apart from her peers and ultimately make her the one able to vanquish evil and establish order where others fail -- all the while unmasking that which is not at all what it first appears to be.

What's more, Miles to Go is smart and literary. From its apt title, taken from Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and references to Hawthorne, to Fareed Reza, a reluctant terrorist still moved by the first time he ever laid eyes on Da Vinci's Ginevra D'Benci and Rennie Vogel, who remembers her childhood as if it were a cloister, shut up as she was with all of her books, Miss Lemon challenges her readers to find genre fiction so literate.

Ms. Dawson Robertson names Patricia Cornwell as an influencing figure on her writing, and indeed Miss Lemon could see many Cornwellian elements in Miles to Go, particularly in the scenes set  around Quantico, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Ms. Dawson Robertson also seems to have picked up Ms. Cornwell's knack for pacing. Miss Lemon picked up the book on a Saturday afternoon and had finished the bulk of it by nightfall. (Granted, she had to avert her eyes during many of the decidedly onstage acts of violence.)

Even so, dear readers, please don't laugh when Miss Lemon says that after reading Miles to Go, she rather regretted not taking up a career in the MI5. Then again ... one is never to old to be recruited, is one?

The Ravenmaster's Secret

Miss Lemon chanced upon a lively historical adventure whilst rummaging through a library sale on a recent Saturday afternoon. Indeed, once she began reading The Ravenmaster's Secret (2003), by Elvira Woodruff, she found herself instantly transported to the Tower of London, circa 1735.

If ever she felt like she were a prisoner, however, it was only because she could not summon the strength to pull herself away from this enchanting narrative. Not, at least, until she had turned the last page.

It seems the post of Yeoman Warder Ravenmaster has been held at the Tower of London at least since King Charles II issued a royal decree commanding that at least six ravens be kept on Tower grounds. Should the ravens ever leave, the legend goes, "the tower will fall"... and so, perhaps, will  the kingdom.

Ravens themselves have naturally flocked to the Tower long before their royal institution. Proximity of the gallows and access to fresh meat seem to be the major draw for these macabre little creatures.

But Tuck, the raven that's attached himself to 11-year-old Forrest Harper, the hero of our story, is more pet than black portent. As for Forrest, he's small for his age, mostly friendless and, as son of the Tower's Ravenmaster, lives a dull life in what is essentially a prison.  Forrest gets ill at hangings and bullied by the London boys.What's more, he hates to do his chores.

The one friend Forrest does have is the Tower's rat catcher called, appropriately, Rat.  Not the sort of company Forrest's kind parents were hoping for him to keep. Rat, in turn, is terrorized by the ghoulish Tower chimney sweep, who threatens to kidnap Rat and send him climbing. A fate that would certainly spell death.  Not surprisingly, Rat and Forest long for escape -- that is, until a pretty Scottish prisoner comes to stay at the Tower. She teaches Rat and Forrest one of the most important phrases they might ever learn: Dree yier ain weird.

Face your destiny.

What Miss Lemon found so persuasive about this novel are all the small details that give it both texture and suspense. From the harsh smell of lye on washing day to the hole in Forrest's  pocket that might spell loss of freedom for them all, Miss Lemon means it when she says that while reading The Ravenmaster's Secret she scarcely noticed the modern world around her.

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

Perhaps one of Agatha Christie's most underappreciated yet nevertheless fascinating characters is the mysterious Mr. Harley Quin.

Always appearing unpredictably and in a dazzling spectrum of light, Mr. Quin's essence is best summed up thus: he comes; he goes. And always, he trails a mystery in his wake.

The task of sorting out the mysterious circumstances signaled by the inscrutable movements of Mr. Quin falls on the shoulders of one Mr. Satterthwaite, a man as preening and with as sharp an eye for the dramatic as his name suggests.

The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1930), then, is one of Miss Lemon's favourite collections of short stories, all featuring this bizarre yet eminently likable pair. 

The stories run the gamut from table-turning to ill-fated love. Perhaps the best of the lot are "The Dead Harlequin," in which a painting for sale at Harchester Galleries harks back to a long-ago curse on the house of Charnley, and "At the Bells & Motley," about the troubling consequences of unsolved murder.

In all of these cases, to paraphrase Mr. Satterthwaite, where Mr. Quin is concerned, things happen.  Indeed, with their faint element of the supernatural, these stories are a delightful departure from the usual Poirot and Miss Marple.

But, please, do not tell Mr. Poirot I said so.

When You Reach Me

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious."

So says Albert Einstein in his 1931 essay, "The World as I See It," and Miss Lemon finds she could not agree more.

Neither, it seems, could Rebecca Stead, who so aptly chose this quote as epigram for her 2010 Newberry-award winning novel, When You Reach Me.

Miss Lemon picked up the novel and could not -- absolutely could not -- put it down.

The story is told from the point of view of a twelve-year-old girl named Miranda, living with her single mother in New York City. And her mother has just been selected as a contestant to appear on Dick Clark's The $20,000 Pyramid (a game show, for those who don't know , that was once wildly popular in America).

The notification of her mother's good fortune arrived that day on a postcard, writes Miranda, "Just like you said." It's one of the first of many clues to a brilliant mystery about the ideas of relationships, causality, narrative, and time.

But who told Miranda that her mother would be picked to appear on The $20,000 Pyramid?

It becomes Miranda's task to parcel out the events of the past six months and order them in such a way that will lead her (and the reader of her letter... and the reader of this book) to discover exactly that.

Not a single scene, character, setting, or clue is wasted in When You Reach Me. Not Miranda's childhood obsession with Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time nor the fight she has with her best friend, Sal. She and her sixth-grade friends get a part-time job at Jimmy's sandwich shop, working only 40 minutes over their lunch break -- and that's important, too.

So are The $20,000 Pyramid practice sessions that she, her mom, and her mom's boyfriend, Richard, work up in their living room. After the Speed Round, which her mom seems to have mastered, there is the Winner's Circle, where a celebrity partner will give clues not for a word but for a whole category. For example, tulip, rose, or daisy would be "types of flowers; poetry and the Pledge of Allegiance would be "things you recite."

As it turns out, all of the chapter headings of When You Reach Me could be Winner's Circle categories and perhaps clues, too: "Things That Burn,"  "Things on a Slant," "Things You Hold on To."

Really, it's brilliant.

For those of her readers born in the late 1960s or early '70s, Miss Lemon promises that this novel will resonate. And for those who have ever read anything by Madeline L'Engle or gave more than a passing thought to the nature of time, she promises it will resonate even more.

When You Reach Me is a superbly drawn mystery and more than deserving of the Newberry Medal.

The Scent of Fear

Looking at this photograph of Margaret Yorke, one can't help but think that if there's a universal face of a mystery writer, this must be it.  Eyes that miss nothing. An ironic smile that says, 'Of course I know that people are rarely what they seem.'

Both of these qualities are abundantly in evidence within the pages of The Scent of Fear (1980), an unputdownable portrait of a boy who goes badly wrong and whose crimes end up threading together disparate lives in the most unexpected ways.

Indeed, one of Margaret Yorke's most remarkable talents as a writer is her ability to people a village seemingly at random, with character types that run the gamut from well-to-do spinsters and high-flying solicitors to petty criminals and arsonists. Her psychological analyses are as unflinching as they are astute. Best of all, she seems to have perfected the sacred art of showing her readers how or why her characters are lonely and isolated ... or even criminal. Never does she simply tell.

Really, Miss Lemon thinks that Margaret Yorke is one of Britain's most underappreciated mystery novelists. She once said in an interview that she's most interested in writing whydunnits, perhaps because character is what attracts her writerly instincts. If you've ever read A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell, you know of what Miss Lemon speaks.

Character and its motivation are especially well drawn in The Scent of Fear, the same for which is true in Find Me a Villain and  The Small Hours of the Morning. Margaret Yorke has a knack for creating tension by revealing clues to certain characters just a beat too late.

She's also no weak hand behind the mise-en-scene. If you like your mysteries with plenty of tea, sherry and foul weather, you'll certainly like Margaret Yorke.

And Then There Were None

'Death of a Mystery Writer.' 'And Then There Were None.' Pardon Miss Lemon if she's beginning to sound a bit morbid. But when it comes to British mysteries, the titles are half the fun.

That's especially true in the case of this Agatha Christie classic, first published under a different title in 1939. However, And Then There Were None, the name given to the first American edition published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1940, better foreshadows the tension that lurks between the covers of this mystery masterwork.

Ten ordinary and unsuspecting British folk are invited to Indian Island, off the coast of Devon. Ferried to this barren and isolated rock by Sticklehaven's very own Charon, the guests of Indian Island soon realize their peril.

First, there's the odd set of glass figurines on the dining room table. Ten little Indian boys. Then there's a disembodied voice, outing for all and sundry the skeletons that lurk in each guest's closet. All, it seems, have been guilty of a crime The Law can't touch.

And as a final, damning flourish, all the guests find the following nursery rhyme, posted in their bedrooms:

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

What fascinates the reader -- and the murderer, as it happens -- is that inevitable diminishment. That creeping terror that comes with the first death, then the second, and so on, each in accordance with the circumstances the nursery rhyme presaged.

The book rather reminds Miss Lemon of A Pocket Full of Rye. But it's much more sinister.

Just when you think, dear readers, that you know who's behind this inexorable string of murders, you'll be asked to think again.

This is, after all, Agatha Christie at the top of her game.

Death of a Mystery Writer

For her readers who cherish every quirky aspect of the classic British mystery (and if you're reading this column, surely that means you), may Miss Lemon recommend Robert Barnard's delightful Death of a Mystery Writer (1978).

The novel has everything, from a cold-blooded poisoning in the polite village of Wycherley to a gaggle of disappointed heirs and a Welsh detective who's just far enough left of the mainstream to stir up the long (long) list of suspects into an amusing set to.

Few and far between are the people who know best-selling mystery writer Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs and would not like to see him dead. As insufferable as the Welsh detective he creates, Sir Oliver likes nothing better than to get the better of his inferiors. Whether he's insulting his neighbour's wine or making his children grovel for favour, Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs finds no shortage of enemies.

Worse, his novels aren't even good. Sir Oliver knows little about crime or its detection, and he has never once met a Welsh person.

And that's just what makes Death of a Mystery Writer such a deliciously smart satire. Miss Lemon may even go so far as to give it that terribly modern label: meta-mystery. With chapter titles and dramatic twists that allude to the masters, like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, the ironies abound.

To wit: when Sir Oliver Fairleigh-Stubbs at long last drinks a deadly draught of nicotine-tainted Lakka, a Welsh detective is called in to investigate. The murder, more than one of the suspects remarks, could have been taken directly from the pages of one of Sir Oliver's novels.

Pardon Miss Lemon for mentioning the she even sees shades of herself in Sir Oliver's unflappable literary secretary, Miss Cozzens. Inspector Meredith notes that "the brief glimpse that he had had of her ... suggested to him that here was a woman with no nonsense about her.... On the surface she looked like a shorthand taking machine, and a totally conventional moral entity -- but behind the glasses savage little glints of intelligence were to be detected."

Readers should be not at all surprised at the level of complexity and cleverness they'll find in Death of a Mystery Writer. Robert Barnard names Agatha Christie as one of his favourite mystery writers, and her presence is felt keenly here and in other works. Mr. Barnard wrote an appreciation of Mrs. Christie in 1980 called A Talent to Deceive. It is now on Miss Lemon's to-read pile.