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A mystery, a mystery and a history
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By Martha D. Bone
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Digging through my bookcases in search of buried treasure, I came upon two series mysteries.How they came, unread, to my shelves is a mystery, but I’m happy that they did.
Thomas Perry’s Shadow Woman is the third in a series about Jane Whitefield, American Indian and escape artist. Jane is in touch with her ancestors, who often come to her in dreams. Jane’s profession is helping innocent people escape from untenable situations. In Shadow Woman, Jane helps Pete Hatcher. Pete works for the owners of a Las Vegas casino, but his bosses are using him for nefarious activities. The bosses are getting nervous that Pete may figure out what’s going on and head for the hills — or the FBI. What Pete does figure out is that his bosses are planning to kill him.
Pete is recommended to Jane by a nurse Jane previously helped. There was too much chasing and violence in Shadow Woman for my taste, but if you want to learn the rules for disappearing, this is the book for you. Jane supplies the requisite fake social security number and driver’s license, but Pete fails to follow the rules Jane has stipulated, and he is discovered by assassins hired by his bosses. He does another really stupid thing. The chase is on again.
Meanwhile, Jane has returned home where her doctor boyfriend wants her to marry him. She agrees, but she knows her business can’t be shut down without some arrangement made for tying up loose knots. When Pete calls for help, she has to help. Now the assassins are looking for Pete and Jane. The guy who hired the assassins (one psychotic male and one psychotic female) is also looking for Pete and Jane — and the assassins. Read Shadow Woman to see who gets whom and how.
A much better — and better-written — book is Pride and Predator by Sally S. Wright. This is one of a mystery series with a professor and archivist named Ben Reese as the detective. Ben comes to visit Scotland and do some appraisal work for a broke Scottish Lord. On the day of Ben’s arrival, Lord Chisholm’s best friend, Jonathan MacLean, is found dead of anaphylaxis, or a lethal allergy to insect stings. Turns out Jon had a picnic basket with bees inside, and the only fingerprints were his own. Since Jon left for his hike with no basket and never carried one, the death is obviously murder.
There is one more horrible murder and several attempted ones before the book is done. I guessed the murderer early on, although I don’t find the solution very believable. There are, however, mass murderers that everyone says are just nice, quiet men, so perhaps the solution is more believable than I think. But the mystery is not the important part of this book.The best parts of Pride and Predator are the life stories of the people involved. Wright has one after another tell the story of his or her family, or the story of one of the suspects. This novel takes place a few years after World War II, and stories of the war are included. Jon was a war hero, as is Ben Reese. Every one of the stories was enjoyable, and the characters are endlessly fascinating.
Shadow Woman is a chase and adventure story, but Pride and Predator is in the style of old fashioned English mysteries, such as those written by Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh, but much better. I enjoyed Wright’s novel more, but some readers will prefer Shadow Woman, which is certainly worth reading for the Native American perspective.
For a perspective of Lewis County history, try Images of America: Lewis County by Dr. William M. Talley and Paula Franke. This is a collection of historical photographs of people and places and events in Lewis County. My father was from Lewis County, and I spent many summer weeks there with relatives, so the scenes are familiar to me. I bought two copies of this book at the book fair last Saturday as gifts for relatives, but I spent an hour or two with the photographs myself. Dr. Talley’s book is loads of fun, and a great gift.
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