The Point of Vanishing

In Which Inspector Lewis Finds Art Usefull

This was the last episode in the second season of Inspector Lewis (aw, sad ;_;), and it was the best EVAR!

The episode opens with a party to celebrate the promotion of some blonde woman to inspector.  Hathaway is brooding and slugging down liquor with a fatalistic air, so it's pretty obvious something has been going on with him and the blonde.  Lewis remains oblivious. 

Then someone is murdered.  The victim is identified as a man who drove a truck into some rich person's car back in the day, crippling their daughter.  Lewis and Hathaway meander over their mansion and meet an "American" (the accent was a little sketchy on that one) girl with red hair living with the family; their son and wheel-chair bound daughter, the nice-guy dad, and the evil bitch mother.  The American flutters her eyelashes at Lewis and they spend the next forty minutes flirting, because Americans are sluts like that.  Oh, did I mention she's engaged to the son?  Meanwhile, Hathaway makes friends with the daughter, and she invites him to her birthday party, where yet another murder occures.



It was pretty obvious from the get-go who the killer was in this episode; but I loved how Lewis figured it out because he used a painting!  Lewis and Hathaway first become interested in it when they find a postcard of the piece with "It was no dream," written on the back.  I'm not sure what painting it is in real life; in the show was mearly described as "a Renaissance painting" (if you recognize it, please let me know).  It depicts hunters, dogs, and other animals rushing into a dark forest in pursuit of a distant lady on a horse.  As the overly enthusiastic museum volunteer told them, the painting represents courtly love, which was viewed as analagous to the pursuit of the hunt in the Renaissance.  But (she continued), what makes the painting so compelling is the element of danger--the hunters don't know what they're rushing into within the darkness of the forest.  Is the lady leading them to bliss or danger?  They have no idea, and they don't care; the possibility of love is too alluring to allow them to pause.  This proves to be a good metaphor for the entire episode, as many of the characters are looking for love in all the wrong places. 

I adored this episode because 1. Lewis managed to look at a work of art without making fun of it (much); and 2. it was all about love and forgiveness.

And what about Sgt. Hathaway and his over-before-we-even-knew-it-existed romance, I'm sure you're wondering.  Well, Lewis eventually gets a clue (because the pathologist hits him over the head with it), and tells Hathaway he needs to "say goodbye properly" to the blonde.  Then he watches them kiss from her apartment window, which is kinda creepy.  So much for Hathaway and his monkish ways, I guess.  As for Lewis, at the very end of the show he looks at the postcard of this painting, which I think is a clue that Lewis himself is ready to pursuit of love again, as well.  But we'll have to wait until season three for that.

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Writing from a Female Perspective

Today, mystery writer Jeff Markowitz is guest blogging about writing a female protagonist from the perspective of a man.  Jeff is the author of the Cassie O’Malley Mysteries, an amateur sleuth series set deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

Welcome, Jeff!

I hear sometimes from readers who are surprised that the main character in my mystery series is a woman.  One reader explained it this way.  “Many men write superficially convincing female characters and if the plot is good enough, well cool. But very, very few write women whose character can carry the story.”  So I am gratified when my readers, particularly my female readers, tell me that they find Cassie O’Malley to be a believable character who can carry not only a story, but a series.
   
Genre fiction has not always treated women kindly.  For many years, female characters in genre fiction (and, to be honest, in most other fiction) existed in order to be rescued, and to admire the male characters doing the rescuing.  Genre fiction has always loved the “damsel in distress.”  But the truth is, the mystery genre would not be thriving today if mystery writers weren’t writing characters, both male and female, who are three-dimensional, men and women who may sometimes be larger than life, but who are never written “smaller than life.”   

Readers of mysteries want stories that keep them guessing, that are marked by unexpected twists and turns, but it's not the mystery that hooks them and keeps them coming back.  It's the characters.  It's important for me to remember that the story I'm telling is Cassie's story.  The murder mystery is just the vehicle to tell her story.

Cassie O’Malley is a woman whose life has not lived up to her expectations.  Let me share a little bit of her back story (Authors love back story).  As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Cassie had her life’s plan neatly mapped out in a three-ring binder.  She was going to be an investigative reporter, walking the halls of power in Washington, a force for truth, beauty, and the American way, holding politicians to their promises by the power of her words, exposing the hypocrites and the cheats and, along with her equally successful husband, becoming rich and famous in the process.

Shortly after graduation, she marries her college sweetheart and less than a year later, he dies in his sleep.  When we meet Cassie, she’s in her mid-thirties, widowed nearly fifteen years, living alone in a condo at the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, her dream of becoming a big-time investigative reporter having been replaced by the reality of her job writing about space aliens and sea monsters, psychic spies and Siamese triplets, for a barely reputable tabloid magazine.  And she’s good at it.  She’s successful, but hardly happy.  My editor refers to Cassie as a “semi-depressed, semi-alcoholic journalist.”

The question, however, remains.  Why did I decide to make my protagonist female?  The first book in the series opens with a character, alone, on a back road in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, in the hour before the sun comes up.   Perhaps you’re thinking that putting a female character into that desolate environment heightens the tension right from the opening scene.  And that may, in fact, be the result of my decision, but it has nothing to do with my decision-making.

I don’t want my characters to see the story through my eyes.  If the story is going to work, I have to see it through their eyes; I have to see the story through Cassie’s eyes.  In some ways, it is easier for me to maintain this separation with a female character.  Certainly Cassie and I share some personality traits, for example our love of jazz (and whiskey), but she is her own person, more clever than I am, more assertive, way more interesting.  If there has been any "bleeding" of personality, after six years writing Cassie’s story, it is that perhaps I have become more like Cassie, rather than Cassie becoming more like me.

And now, Cassie is back in It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder (ISBN 978-1-59414-729-6), a Christmas mystery that will keep you laughing and guessing until the final showdown.

At odds with her new boss, tabloid reporter Cassie O’Malley finds herself covering the mall at Christmas.  Cassie wants nothing to do with the assignment.  Then Big Mack turns up dead, in the men’s room.  Sensing an opportunity for fifteen minutes of fame, mall security guard Oliver Berryhill spins a heroic tale of his confrontation with the loan shark.  The police are skeptical, but Big Mack’s son, the even bigger Little Mack is determined to avenge his father’s murder. 

Barely a week later, a second body turns up and Cassie finds herself covering a double homicide.  In a race against time, Cassie must solve the murder before a third victim is killed in It’s Beginning to look a Lot Like Murder.

Jeff's latest novel, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder has just been released by Five Star.  To find out more, please visit http://jeffmarkowitzmysteries.com.

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Allegory of Love & The Quality of Mercy

I swear this series should be re-titled, "Lewis and Hathaway:  A Bromance".  I don't know if the gay episode (as I like to think of it) put this idea into my head or not, but it seems like it's all about Hathaway's and Lewis' relationship now.  Whereas before it was all about ideas and art and me oggling Lawrence Fox, which was much more fun.

It's been a few weeks since I wrote a review, because I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by the episodes.  But just because I wasn't reviewing doesn't mean it wasn't airing, or that I wasn't watching!  The episode after Life Born of Fire was The Great and the Good.  I don't have much to say about that episode, but you can read Ruth's review of it at Booktalk & More if you're interested.

The episode after that was called Allegory of Love.  Here, we met Dorian, a very Oscar Wildesque (as you might have guessed by the name) fantasy writer who is huuuuugely successful.  HUGE.  Best thing since CS Lewis--who was a resident of Oxford and shared the same surname as Inspector Lewis (mentioned several times during the episode).  Anyway, someone dies, I forget who, and then other people die, and Lewis and Hathaway think it has something to do with Dorian's fiance, Alice--named after Alice from Alice in Wonderland, which was created by yet another Oxford resident, LEWIS Carrol (yes, also mentioned).  There's a surplus of creepy professors running around, and Dorian is obviously hiding something.  My first guess would have been that he's gay, but the writers already played that card this season.  So what could it be???

This was an okay episode, although I have to say--can we not go for the sexual shocker every single episode?  Also, Lewis' stubborn refusal to apparently read ANYTHING at all gets somewhat annoying.  Finally, Hathaway flirted with a girl in a bar (not gay, not gay at all), and I hated her.

In The Quality of Mercy, an actor in a student production of The Merchant of Venice is murdered, but no one cares because everyone at Oxford is a cold-hearted bastard.  But who cares about the murdered people?  Not me, that's for sure (hahaha).  The significant thing that happens during this episode is that Hathaway discovers who killed Lewis' wife!  Yes, it's true!  You thought they were going to drag that out until the last of the last episodes and have it be a huge dramatic thing, but no.  The actual unveiling of the murderer (or woman-slaughterer) was waaaay anticlimatic.  Hathaway, however, was quite humorous with the watching-Lewis-out-of-the-corners-of-his-eyes-as-if-waiting-for-him-to-explode bit.

And here's where it just gets too bromantic for me, because Hathaway is all concerned about what Lewis will do when he finds out.  So he... asks their supervisor's advice?  Oookay.  And then of course he has to tell Lewis eventually (duh-sigh), and Lewis ends up proclaiming, "You just proved you don't know me at all!  Or yourself!"  And they pout. Under direct questioning, Lewis refuses to admit that he ever felt anything for Hathaway other than professional admiration, and Hathaway looks like a puppy that's just been kicked by its mom.  Aw, sad.

Will Lewis and Hathaway mend their battered relationship?  Will they hug and share their feelings over a pint?  Will Hathaway ever stop with annoying quote attributions?  Hopefully we'll find out... next Sunday!

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Life Born of Fire

I did not like this episode of Inspector Lewis.

Since Ruth hasn't posted her review yet, I suppose I will have to make some attempt at writing a coherent synopsis. A kid named Will shoots himself in the head in front of a church altar. For some reason, homicide detectives Lewis and Hathaway are called to the scene. Turns out, Hathaway knew Will when they were kids, and he freaks the hell out. Lewis subsequently makes two nonsensical decisions: one, he will investigate Will's death as if it's a homicide, even though it was obviously suicide and therefore should not even be under his purview; and two, Hathaway can be on the case because he has no conflict of interest. ORLY? He literally ran out of the church, but he's perfectly all right to investigate Will's death, sure, uh-huh.

Eventually, it turns out Will is gay ("Oh yeah," sez Sgt. Hathaway), he had a girlfriend, and he was part of a Christian group that was trying to un-homophize him. Nice to know those kinds of organizations exist in Europe and not just in America. And Will knew how to use a camera because he sent all his gay friends inflammatory video right before he died.

At this point, I'm thinking this Will person was reeeeeeaaaaaaaaalllllllllly annoying and I'm glad he's dead. But unfortunately, other people connected to Will and the crazy talk Christian group are being murrrrdered, which means Lewis and Hathaway can now justify investigating his death. Blood and fingerprints point to a guy with some strange Welsh name whom Will was in love with, but who disappeared from Oxford about three years ago and hasn't been seen since. Yet Hathaway has his number on his cell phone! It seems like Hathaway is all up in Oxford's Flamboyantly Gay community. Is it because he was in the Seminary, or because he's English, or... could he ACTUALLY BE GAY??? This leads to a hilariously awkward exchange between Hathaway and Lewis:

Lewis: Are you... nah.

Hathaway: Go on and ask.

Lewis: No, it's... it doesn't matter.

Hathaway: You've been dying to ask.

L: It's none of my business.

H: Maybe you really want to know.

L: Well, okay. *expectant look*

H: What?

L: Are you?

H: WHAT?

L: Are. you. gay?

H: *extended pause* What does that mean?

L: You know what that means.

H: What, there's boys and girls and a nice, neat, straight line down the middle; and gays if you like shoes and musicals and straights if you get loaded and eat Yorkie bars?

L: No, no.

H: Find a definition then, Sir.

L: Loaded and Yorkie bars--how stupid do you think I am, man? You're right, it's none of business.

H: *heaves a sigh--of relief???*

Meanwhile, Sgt. Ambiguously Gay knows way more about the people in this case than he's telling Lewis, and when Lewis finds out, he is PISSED. And not in the really, really drunk sense of the word, either (that would be Hathaway). Lewis says he never wants to look at Hathaway again, and he might get his wish, since it seems that the Sergeant is the next person on the killer's TBK list.

I found this episode to be really annoying. The plot was badly set-up and thus felt like an excuse to preach at me about gay rights. It would have been cool to be shown into the Oxford GLBT scene, but the way this was done was really shallow and unbelievable. And the whole "mystery" about whether or not Hathaway himself was A GAY was just dumb. Obviously they aren't going to make that character gay, since he's the only eye candy on the show (sorry Kevin Whately); and personally I thought the way they played with that idea was simply juvenile. The writers need to catch an ep of Torchwood, if you ask me.

Oh, and it was painfully obvious who the killer was. Honestly, what kind of girl agrees to date a guy and meet his mom after she finds out he's gay? That should have raised a whole slew of flags. Hathaway and Lewis need a woman on the team to catch these things.

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Music to Die For

In the second episode of Inspector Lewis Series II, a gloriously shirtless Bradley James (I'm such a dirty old lady) is involved in boxing.  And then a very red-faced, obnoxious English guy gets murdered, Inspector Lewis is seduced, and a kid with a scarf that makes his head look like it's coming out of a vagina jumps off a balcony.  And Lewis is like, "WTF?" and Hathaway is like, "Do you honestly think you have a chance with a woman who looks like that?" to Lewis, and suddenly it all makes sense.  And then Hathaway goes to Berlin and is freaked out by Deutschlanders and takes illegal pictures of secret documents with his cell phone.  THEY'RE NOT GOING TO LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THAT, HATHAWAY!  But fortunately he also writes stuff down. 

Um, yeah, so I'm pretty sure that made no sense to you unless you've watched Mystery!, and I'm sorry for that.  But you should watch it--no free plot handouts!  Besides, if you want a review that makes sense, you can read Ruth's at Booktalk & More.  Right now, instead of a plot synopsis, I'm going to tell you all the random things I know about Wagner.  Brace yourselves.

Richard Wagner lived in the 19th century.  He was inspired by folk tales such as the Poetic Edda and many of the operas he wrote tried to revive a noble and glorious Germanic past.  Nietzsche was in love with his wife and saw Wagner as keeping them apart (duh).  Anywho, another 19th-century personage who loved the Poetic Edda was Guido von List (though he was not actually "von" List, or anywhere for that matter, and just made up that name so he'd sound more aristocratic).  Like Wagner, of whom List was a huge fan, he wanted to revive the glorious German past; to that end, he studied ancient standing stones and whatnot, and pretty much invented runes.  Well... he had visions of what the runes meant and how to read them delivered by Odin.  Or so he said.  And then, after WWI, List wrote that the dead would rise up for vengeance against all of Europe like an ancient and crusading army and that Germany would take Russia as its due.  And guess who read that?  That's right, Hitler was a HUGE fan of List (and Wagner) and that 1. is why only one of List's books has been translated into English; and 2. everything I know about Wagner.  Well, that and Inspector Morse was a huge fan.

And now for a change of topic and a token question--What do you think of Bradley James' acting skills?  I think he's okay, but Ruth says he could use some work.

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Take A Chance Challenge: The Firemaker

The Firemaker by Peter May

I read this book for the Random Book Selection portion of the Take A Chance Challenge hosted by Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here.  Here's the challenge:

Go to the library. Position yourself in a section such as Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Children (whatever section you want). Then write down random directions for yourself (for example, third row, second shelf, fifth book from right). Follow your directions and see what book you find. Check that book out of the library, read it and then write about it. (If you prefer, you can do the same at a bookstore and buy the book!)

Before I left for the library, I wrote down, "4th row from entrance, 3rd shelf on right, 2nd shelf from top, 28th book from left."  My library has all the fiction books grouped together, so I didn't know if I was going to get a fantasy or mystery or whatever.  Except I accidentally picked the book 28th from the right instead of the left, so... clearly I need a t-shirt that says "I follow directions well."

Anyway, the book I wound up with was The Firemaker by Peter May.  It takes place in modern-day Beijing, where Margaret Campbell, a forensic pathologist, has come to teach at the police academy.  As she's being driven to the academy, her car hits a bicyclist with a "square-jawed high-cheek-boned face."  He's really tall and has big hands, too.  Turns out the guy is Deputy Chief Inspector of Section One (or something like that) Li Yan, and Margaret has mortally offended his manly sensibilities by giving him a dressing-down for not looking where he's going.

Li Yan writes Margaret off as a stupid foreigner; but after she assists on an autopsy of a burn victim, he can't help thinking, over the scent of burnt flesh, that she's awfully cute.  Before you know it he's taking her out to lunch, then ice cream; and then she's "assisting in the investigation," and meeting his uncle.  After a date that runs about 20 hours, involves many drinks, karaoke, nightclubs, teahouses, restaurants, street food, and hanging with Li Yan's BFF, Margaret spends the night in Li's apartment.  But will their love be able to last???  When Margaret returns to work the next morning, she's informed that everyone in Beijing knows she slept at Yan's place, and that she broke the law by doing so and is on the verge of being fired.  Pissed off, Margaret quits and books the next flight to the US; but Li Yan doesn't want her to goooo!  Will Margaret leave China & Yan?  Will Yan quit his job and move to Chicago to be with her??? 

Oh, yeah, and in the middle of all that there's a murder mystery.  But I skimmed through that part.

This is a mystery novel, but the mystery is laaaaaaaame.  It starts off promising:  three dead bodies discovered in Beijing, all with a Marlboro cigarette nearby.  But as the mystery goes on, it involves rice genetics (yes, rice genetics--sexy, no?) and a huge conspiracy in the Chinese government.  Now, I don't know that much about the Chinese government, but the author spends considerable time telling us that everything everyone does is seen and observed in China by everyone else.  So then I'm supposed to be convinced a conspiracy is possible in that sort of environment?  Okaaaay. 

Not only is the mystery itself unconvincing, but the sleuthing skills of our noble detectives are just sad.  There's a scene at the beginning of the book where Margaret identifies one of the dead guys; it's supposed to be amazing and impressive, but I could have figured it out.  In fact, practically all the "clues" Margaret and Li Yan suss out are pretty obvious.

There is one fun part of this book:  the descriptions of Beijing and culture there.  I loved hearing about how the schools in China were organized, how people greeted one another, and how cooperative Chinese society is in general.  Not to mention the food, parks, and entertainment scene of Beijing.

Other than that, though, this book wasn't very good.  The mystery was not mysterious, the romance was pretty predictable and full of tropes, and the ending was unnecessarily dramatic and completely unbelievable.  I loved sexy Li Yan, but Margaret was annoying.  Oh!  Annnnnd all the American characters talked and acted as if they were British.  Shocker, the author is from the UK.  So why didn't he just make Margaret be from the UK if he obviously can't write a believable American character????  Lordy lordy lordy, that was annoying.

So, yeah, the novel had good points, but I really can't recommend it.

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Mystery Read-A-Thon!

So I'm about to start this weekend's Mystery Read-A-Thon. It's reading books and mysteries for twelve hours this Saturday and Sunday. I have a huge pile of mysteries built up on my TBR shelf, so hopefully this will let me get through... um, one of them. At the very least.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Tasha, isn't every day a read-a-thon for you? Umm, nooooo. And especially not a mystery one. I love mysteries, but they usually get passed over for the romances. Poor little mysteries.

Here are all mysteries I have to choose from for the Read-a-thon:



If you've read any of these and have an opinion on them, let me know! I'm going to start out with Firemaker by Peter May because that's also on my list for the Take-A-Chance Challenge, so I'll be able to kill two birds with one stone by reading it. I'll have to see what sort of mood I'm in after that before I decide on the next book.

So the plan is to start around 2 pm today and read as much as I can until bedtime, then make up the rest of the hours on Sunday afternoon. I'll be checking in here and on twitter occassionally to update my progress.

Want to participate in the Mystery Read-a-Thon? I'm pretty sure you can still sign up through the end of Saturday. Just go to their website. Caribousmom is also giving away prizes for the read-a-thon here!

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