Thumbs Up Tuesdays Four

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alphabet series, Anne Perry, Brunetti, Donna Leon, Kinsey Millhone, mysteries, mystery, Nancy Drew, reading, Sue Grafton, Trixie Belden, Victorian, writing

“Two dead men changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I’d never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue.”

Sue Grafton

Can you beat that for an opening line?? That pace and writing style is what makes Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone “alphabet series” this week’s “Thumbs Up Tuesdays Four.”

I can’t remember when I first picked up one of Grafton’s books, but I do know this: I was bitten by a bug whose itch hasn’t stopped since the letter A!

A is for Alibi is Grafton’s first novel in the series, and the most recent is W is for Wasted. I agree with National Public Radio, who said “…makes me wish there were more than 26 letters” in the alphabet. I’m already bemoaning the fact that when Z comes, it just might be all over!

What makes these books so worthwhile are the characters. Kinsey Millhone is the private investigator featured in every book. She’s determined and smart, cuts her own hair with a nail scissors, and has a crush on her 80-something landlord, Henry Pitts. I do, too! Henry is her rock, keeping Kinsey in line when she strays too far into sketchy territory during the course of her investigations, feeds her his homemade soup and bread, and generally looks after her.

Henry provides needed stability, because Kinsey is not above taking grey-area shortcuts to catch the deviants, which adds to her appeal. Grafton’s writing spills out like a ball of yarn, bopping along and unrolling at a pace that makes each chapter flow into the next, all culminating in very unpredictable endings.

by Sue Grafton

My favorite book in the series is T is for Trespass, featuring a sociopathic caregiver, Solana Rojas, who arrives to care for Gus, Kinsey’s elderly neighbor. Rojas is not what she seems, and Kinsey is the only one who feels the unsettling presence of the woman who shuts off Gus from the outside world in her attempt to steal everything he has.

I flipped pages faster than I could read, skimming along in a frantic haste to see who would win – Kinsey or Solana. It wasn’t pretty, either.

And that’s what makes Grafton so good – she digs into the dark side of human nature, dragging us just far enough along the path. Along with Kinsey, we get a little dirty and banged up, but we’re not down for the count – the good guys always win, but not easily.

My love of mysteries started when I found The Clue of the Leaning Chimney, #26 in the Nancy Drew mystery series. I collected Trixie Belden books in grade school (my favorite is #3, The Gatehouse Mystery) and my enjoyment for mysteries continues with Donna Leon’s “Brunetti” series and Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries.

I just wish there were more letters after Z…

In case you missed previous installments of Thumbs Up Tuesdays, here they are:

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

Feeling Nobbled? Breeze Over to Pemberley…

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Belmont Stakes, Colin Firth, history, horse racing, Jane Austen, Jess Witkins, Kentucky Derby, murder mystery, mystery, PD James, Preakness, Pride and Prejudice, reading, TBR Challenge

Fellow blogger Jess Witkins is participating in the 2014 TBR Pile Challenge, hosted by Roof Beam Reader. The idea of the TBR Pile Challenge is basically to stack up 12 books you’ve always wanted to read, and take a year to read them. I’d have problems with that, in a good way. If a stack of 12 books was in front of me, I couldn’t parcel them out to last a year. I’d end up with hungry, suck-cheeked kids, wearing clothes from last week, a family neglected while I devoured my books.

Speaking of books, I just finished Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. The legendary British mystery author is a longtime favorite of mine, and this book is a continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with a murder thrown in for good measure.

Ahem, confession here. Cough…Squirm…Up until a few months ago, I couldn’t stand Pride and Prejudice. I tried to read it, I really did. But I couldn’t hack it and returned the book to the library, satisfied when I heard its echoing thump in the return bin. Why, you ask, couldn’t I hack it?

Marry the girl, already!! I thought when Darcy agonized over Elizabeth. Or don’t!! Either way, get off the fence and DO something, man! (And don’t even get me started on Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth’s overbearing, obnoxious mother. Yikes!)

Then my daughter had to read Pride and Prejudice for her high school English class, and asked for help deciphering the plot. Egads, I thought, feeling like I’d rather endure a root canal than a repeat of Mrs. Bennet trying to cajole and wheedle yet another soldier into marrying one of her daughters.

We ended up borrowing the PBS version of P&P from our neighbors. Honestly, I was prepared for my eyes to cross and glaze over, but you know what? I got hooked. Absolutely, totally hooked. What would Darcy do next? Why didn’t Elizabeth become putty in his wealthy hands? Questions swirled around in my head. 506 minutes on two discs? Not a problem for us! Full steam ahead, my daughter and I plowed through the miniseries in record time. And loved it.

I have many of P.D. James’s books in my collection, and when I saw Death Comes to Pemberley at the library, I snatched it up. Basically, Darcy (bless his heart, he finally married Elizabeth like we knew he would…) and Elizabeth are preparing for their annual autumn ball when Lydia Wickham, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister, arrives at Pemberley, shrieking and sobbing because she thinks her husband has been murdered. He hasn’t, but it’s 1803, so there’s no NCIS or DNA to get Wickham off the hook. Wickham goes to trial, and Darcy worries that the men of the town have been so stirred up by events that an impartial jury is impossible. The lawyer he’s hired, Henry Alveston, discusses the juror situation with Darcy, saying things are so serious that questions regarding fairness, jurors who might be nobbled, and judges who could be bribed by the opposition to turn against Wickham make things dire. (p. 144)

Nobbled??  I put the book down for a minute. Nobbled? I never heard that word before, so I looked it up. Nobbled means “to convince by fraudulent methods; misrepresent or lie to,” or even “to drug or disable a race horse to prevent its winning a race.”

I’m also a big horse racing fan, and never miss the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, (this Saturday, people!) or the Belmont Stakes if I can help it, so it was fun to learn that nobble can be applied in several different circumstances.

California Chrome

So, since confession is good for the soul, I’m admitting that I might be willing to dig into Mansfield Park or Sense and Sensibility…just so long as I can find some cool words to share here.

…and no Mrs. Bennet to nobble things up…

Happy reading to anyone doing the 2014 TBR Challenge! And go California Chrome in this Saturday’s Preakness!

 

 

 

John D. Rockefeller Meets Laura Ingalls Wilder

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books, gardening, history, John D. Rockefeller, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie, philanthropy, reading, Standard Oil, weeding, writing

For years, I’ve enjoyed studying John D. Rockefeller, industrialist and one of the founders of Standard Oil.

John D. Rockefeller

Admired and reviled, he was an astonishing philanthropist, someone whose business ran others out of their business. Like him or not, John D. Rockefeller revolutionized industry and changed the meaning of philanthropy as he gave away much of his fortune.

It’s not as well known that Rockefeller also used his single-mindedness and focus as a writer. Considering he had plenty to occupy his day, John D. scoured his work with a careful eye, writing and rewriting until he had a tight, well-crafted document.

It isn’t really about spewing words on a page – it’s about staying on-message, weeding out words that don’t bloom where they’re planted.

A few years ago, the kids and I were reading the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We learned that Laura and her sisters each had only one or two toys.

A corn husk doll. A ball. That was probably it.

We decided to give this a whirl. Books went back on the shelves, Matchbox cars were stowed in their boxes, dolls tossed in the toy box. Each kid chose two toys, and for the next few hours, that’s all they played with.

At first, it was exciting.

Wow! I’m just like Laura Ingalls Wilder!

It didn’t take long for this exercise to turn into a perceived restriction. Just two toys? What can I do with them??

But like many other situations, a perceived restriction often spurs creativity. The kids shared the toys, pooled their efforts and had fun together.

It’s a bit like writing – we have thousands of words at our disposal, but we really only need a few of them. Revising isn’t a fun part of writing, but it’s very necessary. I tend to do a “word dump,” writing all at once. But I never submit my work afterward. Instead, I step away, and if possible, let at least a day pass before I return and start hacking away.

That restriction is a lot like gardening – pull the weeds, and you’re left with work that blooms.

How do you “weed” your writing?