Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 21

The obligatory The Thing mentions are why I read books like this.

1. The Dark – Emma Haughton

Kate, who has a past she’s trying to avoid with pills, has just signed up to be a replacement doctor on an Antarctic base for the winter. It’s the worst time to be there. Anyone who has worked nightshift knows that your sense of time and what day it is can go out the window and the many days of dark are no different and sometimes lead to madness. But on this base, possible previous murder plus limited people and darkness leads to more murder, drug stealing, flashlight theft, and several simultaneous mishandled investigations and that’s before Kate starts going through withdrawal and has to deal with one of the staff’s pregnancy which totally wasn’t supposed to happen. It sounded like the food was good before the power went out though.

 

Guess who isn’t volunteering for Antarctic base duty despite her last name? T. Snuffkin MacReady, that’s who.

Talked to the “Divel” about seeing a “mistris to cut the herbes in small peeces, shrewing them about the roome” lately?

105. The Manningtree Witches – A.K. Blakemore

It’s no fun being an independent woman in 1643 Manningtree to begin with. All Rebecca West has to look forward to is helping her single mother and pretending she’s going to marry her tutor who is like the only dude prospect she thinks might be worth it (he’s not). She’s smarter and wittier than some other, inevitably richer, ladies in town. And unfortunately for Rebecca, she lives in this time period of English history with the years when Matthew Hopkins became Witchfinder General in her very area after he bought the Thorn Inn (in Mistley, very close to Manningtree). Being smart and witty and independent became the worst possible things for a woman to be once Matthew showed up. Also, if you didn’t look so hot, that was also proof of witchery. I can say that most of the movies from the 1970s about this period seem to leave the accused who didn’t look so hot out of most of it in favor of the good looking ladies who reject icky advances because they’d rather die than make out with witchfinders version of witchcraft. And they will mostly die.

The funnest parts of The Manningtree Witches are when the accused women are talking to each other. Still laughing and making fun of everybody they want to. I mean, they’re destined for the noose now, why not? I really enjoyed their banter at all points of the story. They had no chance, nobody who was accused did for several years and this book makes it clear Hopkins is really in it for the money and the power and control and nicely, he keeps coughing and is clearly getting worse the whole time. He did die rather quickly after his reign of douchetasticness in 1647. And Manningtree, according to the jerk himself, is where he started his career by overhearing some of these witty ladies talking about their devil meetings. Bad luck for most of the accused women of Manningtree, but they met it with aplomb and/or died in prison because the process was really slow. It’s all kind of terrible and knowing how it’s going to end doesn’t make it any better, but at least Rebecca makes it out alive…so she can go to New England, where they haven’t had any witch trials yet. They started hunting witches in New England in 1647, way to pass that torch with that stupid pamphlet (it’s not in this book, but I have read it and it has no redeeming qualities). Geez, Matthew Hopkins always gets in the way, he would though.

The best thing about this book is that it’s from a woman’s perspective, one who is smart enough to help herself just in the unfortunate way of helping the witchfinder. Gross and tawdry, but what’s she going to do? Run away successfully? That’s not working. She knows her tutor/crush is not an option because he’s a spiritual weakling, amongst other evidence she receives. Confessing about the imaginary devil meetings and all the animal kissing and getting out of things by helping the evil cougher is really her only option to get out alive, which I can’t blame her for and it’s good she didn’t have to put up with all his bloody handkerchiefs for very long. Women have had to deal with bad prospects by lying about who they are and what they want for all time. At least she’ll have experience when she gets to the USA, which is not the USA yet.

 

If cutting “herbes” into “small peeces” is probable cause for witchcraft, I know some guinea pigs who are in trouble and Thaddeus and Pammy are just two of twenty-two.

 

“They’re not pets anymore.”

121. The Pack – David Fisher

I was not aware of the concept of “summer dogs.” People who apparently have too much money and not enough empathy get a dog for the house they’re renting on an island for the summer and then…they leave them there, not with someone, just abandoned. Because it would be too much work to have a dog in the city. These people do not seem to realize how awful they are and frankly, the pack created by abandoned dogs in this story is way justified in their heel turn and ripping people to shreds.

The family who gets the most ripped to shreds in this book is one that has a dog that they brought from home for a winter visit and were planning on returning with, but then all the mauling and the stalking and the endless howling and barking sort of turns them off the having a dog thing. Honestly, I wish the pack would have been able to turn on one of the families that abandoned them, it would have been a bit better, but of course the isolation and the winter onset is what makes the turn of the pack stick. They’re not pets anymore and their chosen enemy is Larry.

 

Merricat, Peregrine, Ozymandias, and Danger Crumples were fully together as a herd and probably would have torn me to shreds if I was the kind of person who had “summer pigs” and turned them loose, but I am most certainly not. Animals are for all seasons.

Nothing gets past this citizen detective.

86. Counterfeit Christmas – Carolyn Keene

While shopping for Christmas gifts for their loved ones, Nancy’s best friend Bess passes two counterfeit $20 bills at the Hip Hop Shop for some earrings…that she got from her aunt Celeste and wasn’t aware were fake. But! This has become a problem around town. A problem that gets Nancy and her other best friend, George, invited to a cartoonist awards dinner, racquetball, a printing press, and also yelled at by an art director named Pamela and locked into a steam room “to scare her off.” She also gets almost seduced by Stuart, who owns a printing press, and this all started while she was shopping for her boyfriend, Ned. I mean, sheesh.

Of course, the local police turned this investigation over to Nancy after they saw a few more counterfeit bills passed along, so she never calls them for help before breaking into places and searching for proof. Nancy is always into danger. Several of the Nancy Drew Files series have titles that include the word “danger” very prominently and much to my amusement as the owner of Danger Crumples, who gets into my Nancy Drew parodies as “Danger Drew.” It’s so appropriate. And considering I wish I had a Nancy Drew to send after the people who’ve stolen my art the past couple of years so she could take more dangerous actions and get them to stop stealing my art, including my Danger Drews, well, I just wish Nancy Drew was real sometimes.

 

Of course, Danger Crumples himself was real, and if he’d been alive when people were stealing my work, he would have gone after them. Just look at the gleam of protective menace in his visible eye.

“And we’ve got some perfectly frightful presents.”

44. My True Love Gave to Me – Eric Weiner

There are so many boys who could be pranking Holly Dunn and ruining her Christmas with vague threats and copious near death experiences. She’s going out with Jeffrey, who she doesn’t know well enough to trust. She used to go out with Danny, who left the country. She refused to date Billy, who acted like the class clown who can’t be serious and got really angry about her not taking him seriously when he really only demonstrates no one can take him seriously. Then there’s Rick and Kevin and Steve. So, it’s understandable when she doesn’t know who is killing people around her and dressing it up like the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” If only she’d been a bit more unpopular with the dudes, she could have figured it out earlier.

 

Hen Wen’s true love, Salem, is leading with his nose instead of thematically appropriate presents. Guinea pigs don’t really seem to care about presents. Produce, yes, presents, no.

 

 

Crimeny

125. Angel in the Snow – Patricia Welles

When I started reading this, I didn’t know it was based on crimes I’ve seen on Cold Case and in a slightly more recent special called Children of the Snow. I knew that was in Michigan, I knew it involved child abduction and a suspicious blue Gremlin (like AMC, not like what I’m usually referring to inhabiting copiers and printers and attacking Gizmo), but I hadn’t realized this was so closely based on those crimes and in the exact same location, with one major difference – the fictional Johanna gets to come home and the abductor/molester/killers are dead or caught by the end of the book. That difference is pretty much the only redeeming quality about this story, as otherwise it’s a pretty nasty piece of work.

It tells the story of Johanna’s abduction and abuse from multiple perspectives, including both of her abusers, who mainly reflect dated and repulsive stereotypes about gay men and that ends up being disturbing for many reasons. Actually, several of the “good” characters, including the main lieutenant working on the case and the abducted child herself, bring up homophobic ideas and it’s pretty jarring. And perhaps it also could have been possible for the widowed lieutenant to not get romantically involved with the constantly on edge mother waiting for the police to find her child? There was a little pretense that they wouldn’t get too involved until the case was over, but that was kind of bullshit and it’s very unethical to say the least.

 

Wisting is either yawning or raging at all the questionable (to say the least) behavior in this story. So much!

“I’ve been with her for the past 14 hours, watching her die.”

20. Five Total Strangers – Natalie D. Richards

Conspiracy ride! Well, not at first, but we know how this goes. You’re stuck at the airport because of heavy snowstorms coming in and you think you’ll just rent a car, but no, other people had the same idea so now you’re stuck sharing with people you barely know and everyone’s a backseat driver except one mostly silent dude.

I have never been in this situation, but movies and books make it seem like it happens all the time during the winter, and to be fair, I don’t fly much…but I have driven though a metric ton of winter weather, especially heavy gnarly snow to get home for the holidays. I’ve also never used tire chains. I’m not sure if I’m missing out on the whole tire chains thing, but I have missed out on the crashing into stuff and sliding off the road stuff, so, I’m lucky. There’s always next year.

These people do not seem to have much of any experience driving in heavy snow and they’re a bit shit at it even with chains. It is better to get home at all than to try to get home “faster.” And then all the people in the car seem to be hiding something beyond a lack of snow driving skills, which is unfortunate for Mira the protagonist because she’s going to have to find out what the deal is through slow plodding confusion while stuck in a backseat and stuck outside and stuck in being stuck. This does read pretty quickly though.

 

I usually made Ozma go home in winter when it wasn’t snowing, but she was stuck in the backseat with all her stalkers.

Not calling this time, watching. Although they do call about ransom eventually.

42. A Stranger Is Watching – Mary Higgins Clark

So, kidnapping, murder, a couple who are publicly speaking out about both sides of the death penalty, a teenager in jeopardy, and an asthmatic child who just may be the key to figuring out who is really responsible for the rash of murders of women who had car trouble recently fill out this novel, but that’s not all. There’s also the innerworkings of Grand Central Station from the former oyster bar dishwasher and the homeless ladies who hang out there, the young couple who get their car stolen, the older couple who really want to just move down to Florida and spread information about the asthmatic child’s trust fund like everybody at the bar needed to know, the mother of the teen blamed for a murder who is about to be executed…I found this to have too many characters who I couldn’t really keep track of, which put a damper on the suspense for me. It also kind of works out exactly how I expected, so, that didn’t help. And I read a lot of it in one sitting while waiting for my car to be worked on, so if there’s any reading situation where you should be able to keep track, it’s sitting somewhere you can’t leave because they have your car…and with a mechanic being the killer/kidnapper/creep here it could be scarier – but that didn’t even register.

 

Horace isn’t going to let anyone take your trust fund, Danger Crumples. He’s on the lookout and totally not susceptible to that old “ring the doorbell” trick.

“Oh my god, a troll. I think it knows you’re helping me.”

35. Lucky Girl – M. Rickert

A short novella for Christmas Krampus, essentially warning of the types of company available in Madison over the Christmas holiday. Ro meets several others in a hole in the wall diner and they have one Christmas together impromptu and then plan to do so the next year as well. But, they don’t really know each other and that becomes more of a problem when they tell Christmas ghost stories and the rich one talks about his family’s Krampus chapel and the apparently terrible way in which they fire staff. He’s not available the next year, but then out of the blue invites everyone to his estate years later for a reprise and it gets weird and creepy and then even more involved in Ro’s past and weird and creepy.

I didn’t like this as much as I wanted to, in some respects I think it would have been better as a Christmas film so that you can see the characters because there’s not much space to get much from them. Also, Krampus is more of a suggestion and it connects him more directly to Christmas Day and not Krampusnacht, which I would have liked better. He has his own day.

 

Finny, inspirer of Fimpus, says try harder. He does, especially on Krampusnacht.

 

It’s his day. Gruss vom Fimpus.

I can only think “killer on the loose” in the way it’s said in the song of the same name from Rocktober Blood.

8. The Resting Place – Camilla Sten

Rich people problems mysteries are not really my cup of tea anymore, however, this one read really quickly and at least it’s in Sweden during a severe snowstorm at a remote location. The main character, Victoria aka Eleanor, grew up without her mother and with her abusive, emotionally harsh beast of a grandmother who never had a hair out of place, lied about everything in her past, dismissed any and all concerns, and yet apparently loved Eleanor because she wasn’t quite as venomous as she was with her own daughters. Um, yikes.

Anyway, she gets murdered by someone who does it silently as Eleanor walks in when it’s happening and she has face blindness. After the murder, Eleanor and her aunt Veronika and a lawyer and also Eleanor’s boyfriend have to go to an estate Eleanor didn’t know about, the remote location, and sort out an inventory…with a killer on the loose. They can’t get a hold of the groundskeeper, the only person who has been living there, Eleanor keeps seeing shadows and nobody believes her, and things of course aren’t as they seem. So many things.

 

Baby Twiglet and Mom Pammy never had an abusive relationship and yet, they never had a hair out of place and they are exactly as darling and cute as they seem.