kw: book reviews, mysteries, fiction, animal fiction
In the past I read a couple of the Sneaky Pie Brown mysteries by Rita Mae Brown, in which the cat is an essential element in the solution of the crimes. Homeward Hound is the latest of her Sister Jane series, set in the Virginia horse country, among the fox hunting set.
Ms Brown's rollicking prose carries a story along, no matter the venue. I found it fascinating reading, not so much for the gradual solution to two murders, but as a window into a subculture about which I know next to nothing. As it happens, the author is a Master of Fox Hounds (MFH designation, something I didn't know is a "thing"). I suspect a number of her friends find themselves limned in the story, only thinly disguised.
Reading of the fox-and-hounds set, to a surprising level of detail, added to my understanding that, whatever formal religion folks may belong to, most have a real "church" that some might call a hobby. So these riders' dedication to the hunt is their actual religion, as is the desert-scanning and mineral/agate-gathering of many rockhounds and the finely-honed model-building of model railroad enthusiasts.
In a Sneaky Pie story, the cat does some of the talking, but only to other cats and dogs, who also talk. In a Sister Jane story, cats, dogs, foxes, and owls get into the act. It seems they can all understand one another's "speech", and also what the humans are saying, but no human knows what the animals are "saying". However, the animals don't do much to solve the crime. Sister Jane does most of that. The animal chatter seems to serve more as a series of asides that help the reader gather background information before Sister Jane becomes aware of it. For example, the primary murder in this volume occurs during a snowed-out fox hunt, when a rider is pulled off his horse and killed, but only the horse notices…and "talks" about it with another horse later on.
The story gets pretty complex, with many characters (about twice as many as most writers would employ, just of the human kind, let alone a couple dozen animals). There are a couple of love stories going on. The tying-up-the-knots scene at the ends ties up a few knots nobody knew were in the works. To me, it detracted a bit. But all in all, quite an enjoyable read.
Showing posts with label animal fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal fiction. Show all posts
Monday, May 27, 2019
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Rounding up the beasties
kw: book reviews, science fiction, animal fiction, short stories, collections
It is really hard to review one of Mike Resnick's anthologies. I love the ideas he embodies in the stories, but to discuss the idea inevitably reveals too much about the story, and his surprise endings are half the fun…even if you can sometimes see the ending coming by halfway through.
Resnick's Menagerie gathers the best of Mike's animal stories and a few essays, including a hilarious tragicomic recounting of him and his dogs participating in a dog show while he has a sprained ankle. I had read a few of the stories before, such as "The Elephants on Neptune" and "Stalking the Vampire". When I compare the range of these two stories, and consider also "Post Time in Pink" and "The Boy Who Cried 'Dragon'", I marvel at the range of the author's interests and expertise.
I think it safe to mention at least a couple of the stories, and I'd feel remiss if I didn't try. "Barnaby in Exile" centers on an extra smart chimpanzee, who can sign (ASL I suppose), and communicates on the level of a human adolescent. It is told from Barnaby's viewpoint, as much as Mike is able to enter a chimp's mind. As a sweet tragedy, it ranks with Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy", which famously made Robyn Asimov cry and say, "You didn't tell me it was going to be so Saaa-aad!".
In "Travels With My Cats" we learn how powerfully writing can turn a life, even a life that has descended into default staleness. As one whose life is built around my reading, I was affected by this story the most of them all. By reading, we really do commune with the author. I have a colleague who learned ancient Greek solely for the purpose of reading the plays of Aeschylus and Thucydides in the original language. Maybe one day he'll find these gents on his porch swing of an evening.
This book deserves a permanent place in the bookshelf of anyone who likes animals, and good short fiction, and the kind of humor that catches you unaware, about half an hour after you've read a story.
It is really hard to review one of Mike Resnick's anthologies. I love the ideas he embodies in the stories, but to discuss the idea inevitably reveals too much about the story, and his surprise endings are half the fun…even if you can sometimes see the ending coming by halfway through.
Resnick's Menagerie gathers the best of Mike's animal stories and a few essays, including a hilarious tragicomic recounting of him and his dogs participating in a dog show while he has a sprained ankle. I had read a few of the stories before, such as "The Elephants on Neptune" and "Stalking the Vampire". When I compare the range of these two stories, and consider also "Post Time in Pink" and "The Boy Who Cried 'Dragon'", I marvel at the range of the author's interests and expertise.
I think it safe to mention at least a couple of the stories, and I'd feel remiss if I didn't try. "Barnaby in Exile" centers on an extra smart chimpanzee, who can sign (ASL I suppose), and communicates on the level of a human adolescent. It is told from Barnaby's viewpoint, as much as Mike is able to enter a chimp's mind. As a sweet tragedy, it ranks with Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy", which famously made Robyn Asimov cry and say, "You didn't tell me it was going to be so Saaa-aad!".
In "Travels With My Cats" we learn how powerfully writing can turn a life, even a life that has descended into default staleness. As one whose life is built around my reading, I was affected by this story the most of them all. By reading, we really do commune with the author. I have a colleague who learned ancient Greek solely for the purpose of reading the plays of Aeschylus and Thucydides in the original language. Maybe one day he'll find these gents on his porch swing of an evening.
This book deserves a permanent place in the bookshelf of anyone who likes animals, and good short fiction, and the kind of humor that catches you unaware, about half an hour after you've read a story.
Friday, December 16, 2011
The cat and the cutie
kw: book reviews, mysteries, animal fiction
The prospect of a quarter million dollars' worth of vintage Barbie dolls going up in flames is rather daunting. It makes for a fitting climax to the current adventures of Temple Barr, PR maven and part-time (usually amateur) private investigator, and Midnight Louie, her black tomcat. The twenty-third Midnight Louie book is Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta by Carole Nelson Douglas. In this one, Ms Barr is actually hired as a PI, and clearing up one mystery unlocks a couple of others.
The mean streets of Las Vegas are no fitting environment when you are a petite five-foot-nothing, but in addition to Louie, Ms Barr has a current and a former fiancé (Matt and Max, respectively), and the six-foot policewoman C. R. Molina looking out for her. In spite of all that backup, she winds up facing a serial killer called BDK, for Barbie Doll Killer, alone.
The series is noted for complex plots and driving narrative. The books are hard to read in the day-to-day way to which I am accustomed; they demand to be read at a sitting. Well, one does what one must.
I found myself comparing this series with my other favorite cat-mystery series, the Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun (who passed away in June at the age of 97 and eleven months). Ms Braun's feline protagonist is Koko, a Siamese.
A side element of the book is the issue of elderly persons with pets, who want to provide for them after their own demise. This is harder than you might imagine, and a closing epilog by the author gives good information on how to go about it.
The prospect of a quarter million dollars' worth of vintage Barbie dolls going up in flames is rather daunting. It makes for a fitting climax to the current adventures of Temple Barr, PR maven and part-time (usually amateur) private investigator, and Midnight Louie, her black tomcat. The twenty-third Midnight Louie book is Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta by Carole Nelson Douglas. In this one, Ms Barr is actually hired as a PI, and clearing up one mystery unlocks a couple of others.
The mean streets of Las Vegas are no fitting environment when you are a petite five-foot-nothing, but in addition to Louie, Ms Barr has a current and a former fiancé (Matt and Max, respectively), and the six-foot policewoman C. R. Molina looking out for her. In spite of all that backup, she winds up facing a serial killer called BDK, for Barbie Doll Killer, alone.
The series is noted for complex plots and driving narrative. The books are hard to read in the day-to-day way to which I am accustomed; they demand to be read at a sitting. Well, one does what one must.
I found myself comparing this series with my other favorite cat-mystery series, the Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun (who passed away in June at the age of 97 and eleven months). Ms Braun's feline protagonist is Koko, a Siamese.
- Louie narrates about every fourth chapter. Koko maintains catly dignified silence.
- Louie knows what he is doing. Koko is an enigma; is he psychic as his owner sometimes thinks, or is he just doing ordinary catly things that are interpreted in all-too-human ways?
- Ms Barr is clearly and explicitly active sexually, though she is serially monogamous. Koko's owner, James Qwilleran, has a romance going on in some of the novels, but its extent is kept mysterious.
- Though in the crisis of each novel, Ms Barr is usually on her own, at least for critical moments, she is usually very social. Mr. Qwilleran tends to operate solo much more of the time.
- The Louie novels have more sub-plots going on than the Cat Who novels.
A side element of the book is the issue of elderly persons with pets, who want to provide for them after their own demise. This is harder than you might imagine, and a closing epilog by the author gives good information on how to go about it.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Doggy detectives
kw: book reviews, mysteries, animal fiction
There is an interesting twist to A Nose for Justice by Rita Mae Brown. Two murder investigations run in parallel, although the murders occurred a century apart. First, the two dog heroes of the book, King and Baxter, a shepherd mix and a wire-haired dachshund, dig up the bones of a long-dead Russian in a barn. Then, in a conflict over water rights and land purchases a series of murders occurs. The dogs figure importantly in the solution to these murders as well, about the time their owners, women called Jeep and Mags, have figured out why and how the Russian died in 1902.
The author drew upon three rich veins of history to produce the milieu for the action. First, Jeep, the great aunt of Mags, was a pilot in the WASPs during WWII. Her ranch, Wings, and the friends she still has among former service women form one thread. Then, the dead Russian is found to have been a performer with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which played in Nevada in the early 1900s. Thirdly, water rights struggles going back before the founding of Nevada as a state are the primary backdrop, and the millions to be made from land and water as Reno expands provide all the motive needed for not just the murders, but chicanery of several kinds.
The characters, human and canine, are richly rounded; Ms Brown has a gift for reifying her creations. The dogs' gradual accommodation as they get to know one another is paralleled by Mags's growing fondness for a deputy named Pete. Jeep, in her eighties, is in a class by herself. A real character, bright, a beauty when younger and still handsome, witty and irascible, she is clearly the queen of the land. This enjoyable read made me care about them all, even the bad ones.
There is an interesting twist to A Nose for Justice by Rita Mae Brown. Two murder investigations run in parallel, although the murders occurred a century apart. First, the two dog heroes of the book, King and Baxter, a shepherd mix and a wire-haired dachshund, dig up the bones of a long-dead Russian in a barn. Then, in a conflict over water rights and land purchases a series of murders occurs. The dogs figure importantly in the solution to these murders as well, about the time their owners, women called Jeep and Mags, have figured out why and how the Russian died in 1902.
The author drew upon three rich veins of history to produce the milieu for the action. First, Jeep, the great aunt of Mags, was a pilot in the WASPs during WWII. Her ranch, Wings, and the friends she still has among former service women form one thread. Then, the dead Russian is found to have been a performer with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which played in Nevada in the early 1900s. Thirdly, water rights struggles going back before the founding of Nevada as a state are the primary backdrop, and the millions to be made from land and water as Reno expands provide all the motive needed for not just the murders, but chicanery of several kinds.
The characters, human and canine, are richly rounded; Ms Brown has a gift for reifying her creations. The dogs' gradual accommodation as they get to know one another is paralleled by Mags's growing fondness for a deputy named Pete. Jeep, in her eighties, is in a class by herself. A real character, bright, a beauty when younger and still handsome, witty and irascible, she is clearly the queen of the land. This enjoyable read made me care about them all, even the bad ones.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
PI Kitty to the rescue
kw: book reviews, animal fiction, crime fiction, mysteries
I am definitely partial to cats. Several well-known mystery book series use cats as more than props. I've noticed titles starting with Cat in or Cat on, and a color in the title, and decided to give one a try. The opening chapter of Cat in a Topaz Tango by Carole Nelson Douglas, which is in the voice of Midnight Louie, promised something a bit different.
Different in a number of ways. Much of said chapter recounts recent events in the lives of the dozen or so principals in and around this book. This pegged it as a soap opera in progress, with a handful of parallel stories more-or-less intertwined, and at most one or two reaching any conclusion in this volume. And so it proved.
But I am not one to recount plots. The author is able to make a reader care about the characters, a trait I honor by not giving much away. The central story thread is a contest titled Dancing with the Celebs, and the levels of show-must-go-on-despite-mayhem silliness know no bounds. Eight adult contestants (half-n-half male-female), and four teen girl contestants paired with members of a boy band, compete in Dancing with the Stars style, but mainly for charity. The twist here is that to vote for a dancer, an audience member must call in and donate $20 to a lost children's charity. The action mainly takes place at a hotel in Las Vegas.
Amidst all this, the central character (Louie) and his human, miss Temple Barr, go undercover with a police lieutenant and a private security officer for the hotel (who has a past with the lieutenant, being the father of her 13-year-old daughter), to catch a stalker known as the Barbie Killer. So far only dolls have met their demise, but in gruesome ways. Ms Barr wears a teen idol persona she has cultivated in prior novels and the police reps masquerade as her agents.
The contest is marred by seeming accidents that are soon seen to be sabotage and other dirty tricks. The main perpetrator (not the only one) is found to have a deep grudge against one of the dancers. Others have more complex motives.
Every three or four chapters, a chapter in a different typeface gives us events from Louie's viewpoint (closer to the ground). He and a casino cat named Topaz, who is a pretty good sidekick for this caper, have a definite paw in solving the various mysteries that present themselves, and snagging (pun intended) the perpetrator. If a cat could think at a human level, I suppose he would sound like Louie.
About as frequently, we are whisked to Zurich to keep up with the progress of a formerly major character, one Max Kinsella, stage magician and secret anti-terror agent. Throughout this book he is amnesiac after barely surviving an attempt on his life, and only slowly recovering (though well enough to bed his psychiatrist). And that brings in another thread. There is a ton of sexual tension and innuendo throughout. It seems to be expected of mystery writing, though a few writers do quite well without it.
By the end of this volume, there are a couple of happy endings, a distinctly more confining ending for a certain perpetrator, and several loose ends for the author to weave into the next in the series. This is #21, but the author is yet young.
I am definitely partial to cats. Several well-known mystery book series use cats as more than props. I've noticed titles starting with Cat in or Cat on, and a color in the title, and decided to give one a try. The opening chapter of Cat in a Topaz Tango by Carole Nelson Douglas, which is in the voice of Midnight Louie, promised something a bit different.
Different in a number of ways. Much of said chapter recounts recent events in the lives of the dozen or so principals in and around this book. This pegged it as a soap opera in progress, with a handful of parallel stories more-or-less intertwined, and at most one or two reaching any conclusion in this volume. And so it proved.
But I am not one to recount plots. The author is able to make a reader care about the characters, a trait I honor by not giving much away. The central story thread is a contest titled Dancing with the Celebs, and the levels of show-must-go-on-despite-mayhem silliness know no bounds. Eight adult contestants (half-n-half male-female), and four teen girl contestants paired with members of a boy band, compete in Dancing with the Stars style, but mainly for charity. The twist here is that to vote for a dancer, an audience member must call in and donate $20 to a lost children's charity. The action mainly takes place at a hotel in Las Vegas.
Amidst all this, the central character (Louie) and his human, miss Temple Barr, go undercover with a police lieutenant and a private security officer for the hotel (who has a past with the lieutenant, being the father of her 13-year-old daughter), to catch a stalker known as the Barbie Killer. So far only dolls have met their demise, but in gruesome ways. Ms Barr wears a teen idol persona she has cultivated in prior novels and the police reps masquerade as her agents.
The contest is marred by seeming accidents that are soon seen to be sabotage and other dirty tricks. The main perpetrator (not the only one) is found to have a deep grudge against one of the dancers. Others have more complex motives.
Every three or four chapters, a chapter in a different typeface gives us events from Louie's viewpoint (closer to the ground). He and a casino cat named Topaz, who is a pretty good sidekick for this caper, have a definite paw in solving the various mysteries that present themselves, and snagging (pun intended) the perpetrator. If a cat could think at a human level, I suppose he would sound like Louie.
About as frequently, we are whisked to Zurich to keep up with the progress of a formerly major character, one Max Kinsella, stage magician and secret anti-terror agent. Throughout this book he is amnesiac after barely surviving an attempt on his life, and only slowly recovering (though well enough to bed his psychiatrist). And that brings in another thread. There is a ton of sexual tension and innuendo throughout. It seems to be expected of mystery writing, though a few writers do quite well without it.
By the end of this volume, there are a couple of happy endings, a distinctly more confining ending for a certain perpetrator, and several loose ends for the author to weave into the next in the series. This is #21, but the author is yet young.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Pets and their people solving mysteries, Berenson style
kw: book reviews, mystery, animal fiction
The Cat Who series by L.J. Braun leads the pack when it comes to animals that solve mysteris for their humans. The various series by Agatha Christie set the standard for mental thrillers that a sharp reader can figure out just ahead of the estimable H. Poirot or Miss Marple.
Laurien Berenson's Melanie Travis mysteries are replete with animals, mostly show dogs, that lend color but few clues. They are instead meant to provide cover, as the swirling silks of a magician, that help her hide the clues in plain sight. Without very diligent mental discipline, the reader gets the point just behind Ms. Travis—or whatever her married name is, in the lastest. And, where would Melanie be without her Aunt Peg?
That latest, Raining Cats & Dogs, is an enjoyable romp. Melanie is doing her best to compete in any arena where her aunt hasn't already dominated the field. So she begins training recently retired Faith (her champion Standard Poodle) in an Obedience class. This is not your ordinary "heel, roll over, play dead & shake hands" class. Many class members are seriously into getting their dog certified at various levels of competitive Obedience.
As a side project, many of Melanie & Faith's new classmates go to a retirement home to provide a couple of hours of companion dog service to the residents there. Of course, not all is well, neither in the class nor at the retirement home. These people have been together 'way too long, and it shows.
A tone I notice in the book, is that the scattered action—looking for a bigger house for a blended family that includes five full-size Poodles, getting used to a very new marriage, sharing a kid with an ex-spouse (fortunately, very amicably)—is justly suited to the Boomer and X generations. While my life has been on the quiet, conservative side, very many of my age-mates and their grown children seem to live in a maelstrom. I suspect that they won't just die when their time comes, they'll be pulled apart by the social whirl.
The thread I was able to unravel, was Melanie contriving to have a cat visit the woman who doesn't like the dogs. A satisfying touch. Otherwise, I was simply led down the garden path as the story unfolded. Matches my life...
The Cat Who series by L.J. Braun leads the pack when it comes to animals that solve mysteris for their humans. The various series by Agatha Christie set the standard for mental thrillers that a sharp reader can figure out just ahead of the estimable H. Poirot or Miss Marple.
Laurien Berenson's Melanie Travis mysteries are replete with animals, mostly show dogs, that lend color but few clues. They are instead meant to provide cover, as the swirling silks of a magician, that help her hide the clues in plain sight. Without very diligent mental discipline, the reader gets the point just behind Ms. Travis—or whatever her married name is, in the lastest. And, where would Melanie be without her Aunt Peg?
That latest, Raining Cats & Dogs, is an enjoyable romp. Melanie is doing her best to compete in any arena where her aunt hasn't already dominated the field. So she begins training recently retired Faith (her champion Standard Poodle) in an Obedience class. This is not your ordinary "heel, roll over, play dead & shake hands" class. Many class members are seriously into getting their dog certified at various levels of competitive Obedience.
As a side project, many of Melanie & Faith's new classmates go to a retirement home to provide a couple of hours of companion dog service to the residents there. Of course, not all is well, neither in the class nor at the retirement home. These people have been together 'way too long, and it shows.
A tone I notice in the book, is that the scattered action—looking for a bigger house for a blended family that includes five full-size Poodles, getting used to a very new marriage, sharing a kid with an ex-spouse (fortunately, very amicably)—is justly suited to the Boomer and X generations. While my life has been on the quiet, conservative side, very many of my age-mates and their grown children seem to live in a maelstrom. I suspect that they won't just die when their time comes, they'll be pulled apart by the social whirl.
The thread I was able to unravel, was Melanie contriving to have a cat visit the woman who doesn't like the dogs. A satisfying touch. Otherwise, I was simply led down the garden path as the story unfolded. Matches my life...
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