Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear was new to me and the first in this mystery series set in England post World War I. I loved it and will read more about Masie, who is introduced in this book as the young daughter of a costermonger, the word intrigured me and means a green grocer. Maisie is sent to work as a maid in a wealthy London family when her mother dies and her father can no longer hold the home together. Masie is drawn to the library of the home where she is serving and is eventually discovered to have been reading books but Lady Rowan takes to her and arranges for Dr. Maurice Blance to tutor her. Masie is bright and eventually studies at Cambridge, then interrupts her education to serve as a nurse on the front lines of WWI where she meets and loses her intended husband. After returning to London and completing her studies, she opens her own agency for private investigations. There are so many rich unforgettable characters introduced through the book with a couple divergences back and forth to her service on the front lines and then her current investigation. It is an easy to follow story line and kept me fully interested. I do not want to give away the mysteries, so will limit my comment. I understand that this was selected as a community read in Woodland, CA, which is how I first heard of Masie. It is simply a very good period detective series and having talked to some others who have read and enjoyed the full series of Masie's adventures, I have more good reads ahead.
When I ordered Masie from Barnes and Noble, my fingers must have hit a wrong button because along in the delivery came, "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox" by Maggie O'Farrell, an author who was born in Northern Ireland , grew up in Wales and Scotland and now lives in Edinburgh. This was a strange book but one I read quickly. It is about two elderly sisters long separated. Esme, is sent away to an institution as a young child; her sister Kitty is the grandmother of the protagonist, Iris who learns suddenly about Esme as the institution is closing. Iris is befuddled because she had been taught her grandmother was an only child and Kitty now suffers dementia and is in a care home as well. Well, again I can't give away the plot line, but as Iris decides to take Esme in just until other care can be arranged, she learns more about family history than she ever knew. I liked this line, on page 118, "Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents." It was an odd way to stumble upon a different read, but it held my interest through all 245 pages. I guess I could relate to how intrigued Iris would be as the history of the family is revealed. Not likely a book I would have seen browsing, but serendipity brought it to me.
Every summer I like to read another book by Elizabeth George working through the several I have acquired and added to my to read shelf. I chose "A Suitable Vengeance" which has aired on Public Broadcasting as a movie. I must be on a British train lately as this is set in England too, maybe it's the influence and effect of Sepia Saturday posts and all the Brits who are participating and involved or perhaps it's my current trend having recently visited with my Brit friend Pat, as she's easing back from her heat stroke episode. This is one of Elizabeth George's earlier novels as Inspector Thomas Lynley, forensic scientist Simon St. James and Lady Helen Clyde team up to solve crimes that get quite involved personally in the picturesque Cornwall village. Lynely is torn as the solving the murders point to someone in his own family. But as always Elizabeth George weaves a mystery with many side lines full of richly developed characters with modern twists of drugs, different sexual habits and more to vividly color the mystery.
Recently on his blog, Tony mentioned that he was going to a "piss up," a term I had never before heard. That very evening, there it was in "Suitable" as Mrs. Swann, owner of the pub described such goings on. Discovering what it meant, made me laugh and was worth the reading....I suspect I can use that term now and then to my advantage! Page 254, has this discussion about death, "The worst part of a death was always that moment of knowing beyond a doubt that no matter how many people share it--be they family, friends, or even an entire nation--no two people can ever feel it the smae way. So it always seems as if one experiences it alone." Well, you knowq that struck me. This is one example of the good writing that Elizabeth George has in her books that keep me reading them. I was introduced to her years back in CA and have yet to finish reading all her novels. They are excellent though and a good place to lose self.
And my last book for this post, which I picked up in July for $1, hardback, first edition, at the Library book sale was the excellent "Kate Remembered" by A. Scott Berg, a Princeton graduate, Pulitzer prize winner who devotes years of intense research into his works and therefore has writtten few books. He's not an author who cranks 'em out. This is about Katherine Hepburn, one of my all time favorites. . He begins his long time friendshop with her when she is 75 while he is working on the biography about Samuel Goldwyn. I laughed, coughed and had a tear or two reading about Kate. I learned that she was a creature of habit in many ways, cocktails, very good scotch a six every evening and dinner at seven. She lived to be 95. I learned that she always liked to live in the moment. She was an avid swimmer, even hitting the water outside in the New YOrk and Connecticut winter when others younger would shiver. Of course there is a wealth of information about her movies, many of which I have never seen and lots of information about her fabulous career. But this book is a very personal look at her, her family and the lifetime relationships and her friendship as it forms with the author over 20 years.
She was not one to sit around and reminisce nor live in the past. As Kate aged, few people surrounded her, the result of outliving everyone, but she did make friends carefully with chosen younger folks, and no mistake she chose them. They all were devoted to this eccentric grand lady. I found one story about one of her longest friends humorous; they had lost touch over the years ad were not as close as they had been, although they would each ask other people about the other one. Finally Kate decided to invite her for dinner to catch up. They and a few others spent the evening talking about old times, through the cocktail and dinner hours...after the woman left, Kate remarked to Scott that it was no wonder they had grown apart, Kate was bored with talking about the past which is all they did! She never invited the woman to dinner again!
Entertaining Michael Jackson one evening is another interesting anecdote, especially when she discovers he is very childlike and incapable of good conversation, which Kate insisted on in her home. She painted and sculpted some, two things I had not known about her. A woman ahead of her times in many ways, confident and contentious. She never thought of her self as a second class citizen just because she was a woman, nor did she see why women had to be.
I learned that she was an avid reader and saw that as an absolute personal attribute. I feel the same way. I laughed hearing of how she added and subtracted to her age, confusing folks. Of course the grand relationship with Spencer Tracy is described. This was something very different for that time but they worked it out, she caring for him especially when he drank excessively, which was often. More than once, she would say, "Life's tough for everybody and that's why most people become its victims." She had little tolerance for weakness and for those who might wallow about their circumstances. I suppose she may have been thought of as hard, but I see her as strong beyond. Scott avows that Kate " lived most of her life as a contestant in that great struggle, always pushing herself hard, riding the wave and sometimes swimming ahead of it." I relished all 370 pages. As the author states, this is a tribute to a woman who forbid any tributes at her funeral; that reminded me of my Aunt Jinx. But Scott, explains he believes it is more than a tribute is is her fond remembrances shared with him from her heart. She was one and only, there will never be another Hepburn. I'll have to read her own memoir sometime as well as her writing about her experience making the African Queen, both books are mentioned in this one.
