Finding Louise Penny

Gotta love my library: browsing the new acquisitions recently, I found a mystery by an author whom I did not know, Still Life, by Canadian writer Louise Penny. Immediately, I was drawn in by her fully developed characters and her artistry with the language. Anyone who can write this sentence impresses me: "Violent death demands Earl Grey [tea]." Nod to the long history of English cosies in which tea is immediately ordered for witnesses and family of the murder victim. Succinct, clever. Equally adept at plotting, Penny tells a story that featured the traditional closed group, in this case residents of a small, obscure town in Quebec province, peopled by smart, distinct characters. Slyly, Penny says that no one can find this idyllic town on a map, but that it lies near the Canadian/US border. As a long-time resident of New England, I was comforted by the familiarity of the climate and the geography.

I gobbled up the book, and went back for more. Yesterday I finished Bury Your Dead. Same basic cast, led by Chief Inspector Gamache, a French speaking investigator also fluent in English, enriched by the addition of residents of Quebec City. Here again, Penny handles the language skillfully, using just enough French to keep us cognizant of the characters' backgrounds and loyalties. The latter is important in this story because the main plot rests on the history of political struggle between French and English citizens of Quebec. Actually, main plot is a misnomer. This story has three plots and like the driver of a troika, the author never loses control as powerful steeds pull us along to the end where all three story lines finish in a flourish. The solitary murder is solved, a cold case is reopened and justice restored, and the wrenching story of a terrorist attack is told in flashbacks and in a penultimate scene that challenges the best action that any film could produce.

Beginning with the first of Penny's mysteries might be a good thing. I think I have inadvertently read a spoiler for whatever title lies between Still Life and Bury Your Dead, but the thing is, I'd reread these books anyway. That's not something I usually do. Once the puzzle is solved most murder mysteries hold little interest. But I'll reread Penny's books because they transcend their genre. May she live long and write much.

Drat! Curses! Coffee, stat!

Remember last post I promised a new page? Well, it would be easy to add a new page, but it wouldn't be a page to which I can post! So the food lit posts will be incorporated here on the main page of the blog. Let's drown our disappointment in a good cup of coffee, as in reading about a good cup of coffee. As in the Coffee House Mysteries by Cleo Coyle. She's up to ten books, all based on the queen of barristas, Clare Cosi, who manages The Blend, a high-end coffee house in Greenwich Village. All the requisite murder mystery characters are present: Clare, the amateur but highly effective sleuth, her handsome and undependable ex-husband, Matteo; their young adult daughter, Joy, and Mike Quinn, police detective and love interest for Clare. Oh, yes, and the doyen, Madame, Matteo's mother and owner of The Blend. You can visit and be wowed by the fast moving trailer built into the web site, or you can savor the aroma of murder and mocha at your own pace by curling up in that ubiquitous easy chair with a book and a cuppa.

In addition to providing well-paced action and consistently good characterization, these books have educated my about coffee. Isn't that one of the perks about a good novel? We learn something while we are being entertained. For instance, I may be the only person in our caffeinated world who was pleased and surprised to know that dark roasts have less caffeine than regular. Good for me, since I favor the dark roasts, that a bit of cream dropped into really fresh coffee will bloom, whereas the same bit of cream in stale coffee will sink under the oils that have floated to the top. That real espresso is made slowly, otherwise, you just have brewed coffee. I now know the difference between a latte and a macchiato--silly me for not having known before now that one is "marked" with the cream. The other one contains more milk.

This coffee science has to result from real knowledge on Coyle's part. I asked the barrista at my favorite coffee shop today about the importance of the crema--that light tan froth that floats on the surface of a well-pulled espresso. He nodded, like, duh! I could not write Coyle's stories convincingly because I don't know spit about running an espresso machine. So, Coyle ("she" is two people, a husband/wife team of writers) not only writes about what she obviously knows, but she knows what she's writing about. Good idea.

Reading in Overdrive

Just back from a vacation in the Colorado high country, no wifi, no TV, no computer. So what's to do in a cabin 9400 ft up the side of a mountain? Sleep, eat, watch the dogs run, and read. In nine days I read nine mystery stories, a history of bread and part of Mrs. Beeton's The Book of Household Management. Obsessive? Ya think? Here's where the obsession really comes to light. At least five of the mysteries, which I read anyway, annoyed me to the point where I would snort and read a clunker sentence or two to anyone who happened to be in the room or on the porch. Even Duncan the Dog got an earful, and his ears are pretty darned big. I doubt, however, that he has much experience with clumsy prose or a distressing lack of editing. His ears are more attuned to deer clattering down the mountain or a chipmunk scolding from a lodgepole pine.

The books in question shall, out of courtesy, remain nameless. However, we might each take a deep breath and hope with every molecule of our being that when we publish, someone will have pointed out the places where we have dumped useless information just because it's esoteric and lets us feel smarter than the reader: like telling me that Fanny Farmer first regularized measurements in recipes. Actually, Mrs. Beeton did so to a degree a century or so earlier. (She lived 1836-1865. Farmer seems to have published in 1918.) This sort of detail feels about as right as chocolate chips in Yorkshire pudding. Then there's the snob effect where the heroine remarks that someone has used incorrect syntax in speech. Dialog is not, not, not, about correctness. Dialog is the faithful, concise reflection of how the individual characters speak. Nor do I appreciate having an author explain what has already become obvious through the action. If you write anything, especially mystery stories where plot and pacing are crucial, don't sin against your readership. If you write, edit or publish such drivel, shame!