Mom Meets Her Maker: James Yaffe

 

I read My Mother, the Detective, a collection of the Dave and Mom stories by James Yaffe in 2019. The stories were first published in the 1950s and 60s in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In each story, Dave, a detective in the New York Homicide Squad, and his wife Shirley visit his mother and they discuss one of his cases over dinner. Mom asks some pertinent questions and solves the case; Dave is afraid that his coworkers are going to find out that his success rate with cases is due to his mother's help. 

Between 1988 and 1992, Yaffe wrote four mystery novels about Dave and his Mom. Mom Meets Her Maker is the 2nd of the four novels. The book is set at Christmas, and it was the perfect read for me at this time of year. 

Dave is now a widower, and he has moved to the small town of Mesa Grande, Colorado. Dave is no longer a police office; he is now an investigator for the Public Defender's office. The current case that he is working on relates to a serious dispute between neighbors. An older Jewish couple, the Meyers, have retired to Mesa Grande. Their son, Roger, has a dispute with the next door neighbor, Reverend Chuck Candy, who has put up a massive display of Christmas decorations, including lights and music which stay on until 2:00 a.m. in the morning. When he and the Reverend are tussling over a gun that the Reverend pulls out, the gun is fired, and Roger ends up charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Of course, as the case is investigated, the situation escalates and there is a death, which is also blamed on Roger.

In this novel, Dave does a lot of the legwork, following up on clues and interviewing witnesses. His mother functions more as an armchair detective, as she asks him to find out the answers to questions she has, and helps solve the crime. 

My thoughts:

• So, how did I like Dave and Mom in a full length novel? I found the novel very entertaining, and the characters a lot of fun. Some of the characters (good and bad and in-between) are over the top, but they worked for me.
• Like the short stories, Dave narrates most of the novel. I enjoy the way he tells the story, with subtle humor.
• Many mystery novels that are set at Christmas are only tangentially involved with Christmas. This one is immersed in Christmas. 
• The mystery puzzle is good and there are surprises at the end. I also enjoyed a chapter at the end, "After Christmas," where Dave tells us what happened after the crime is solved and where various characters ended up.

A post at the blog, Beneath the Stains of Time, reminded me of this book. The post is also worth a read because it recommends other good Christmas mysteries. Also see TomCat's review of the book. He says: "A better Ellery Queen-style Christmas mystery than Ellery Queen's The Finishing Stroke (1958)."  (I haven't read that one yet, but I do have a copy.) And I just ordered copies of the other three Dave and Mom mysteries. 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle: Shirley Jackson

 

This is the first paragraph of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It establishes the narrator and tells us a good bit about her. 

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all, I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in our family is dead.”

I think this type of book is best experienced when you know little about it, and I enjoyed going into it that way. Although I might have read it sooner if I had read more reviews. Thus my description and comments will be brief. 

As this short novel starts, Mary Katherine (also known as Merricat) lives with her older sister, Constance, and her Uncle Julian in a very large but run down house. The reader learns shortly that everyone else in the family died from poisoning when eating a meal. For several years after the poisoning, Merricat was the only one who left the house. She would walk to the nearby village twice a week to do the shopping and get books from the library. Constance never left the house, and Uncle Julian was confined to a wheel chair.

 

My goal in reading this book was to read a Gothic novel, since I don't go for that genre much, and to read more by Shirley Jackson. Up to now I have only read a few of her short stories.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. This story was not nearly as scary or tense as I expected it to be. There was a sense of foreboding and waiting for something horrible to happen. 

I liked Merricat's narration, and the depiction of their lives before and after the rest of the family died. I liked the way the ending was handled. The beauty of the story was in the way Jackson very slowly reveals small bits of the plot.

 -----------------------------

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2006 (orig. pub. 1962).
Length:    146 pages
Format:    Trade Paperback
Setting:    Vermont, US
Genre:     Gothic, Classic
Source:    I purchased this book in 2017.

Short Story Wednesday: Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King

Lily King is a new author for me. She has written several novels, but she came to my attention when I read about her short story book, Five Tuesdays in Winter, at Patricia Abbott's blog in 2022.

This week I read four stories (of ten) from that book. All of them were very good. Each story focuses on a specific incident or series of events, but as the story is told, much more is revealed about the characters. The stories have so much depth.

"Creature"

This story was forty pages long and it overwhelmed me (in a good way). A woman describes her experiences when she took a job as a teenager (14 years old). She was a live-in babysitter for a well-to-do family for a few weeks. The kids were young, both under six. The kids' uncle is visiting; he is married but arrived alone. And he is young enough to be attractive to the babysitter. That is the setup for the story, but I can't say much more about it. The writing is beautiful, the events and feelings are described well and feel real. 

“Five Tuesdays in Winter”

This one is easy to describe, and it was just as good as the first one. It is a love story, plain and simple, and it is a lovely one. The characters are a reticent bookstore owner, his twelve-year-old daughter, and a woman who has recently been hired to work at the store. 

This quote from the story reveals a bit of his character:

"Mitchell's daughter, who was twelve, accused him of loving his books but hating his customers. He didn't hate them. He just didn't like having to chat with them or lead them to very clearly marked sections – if they couldn't read signs, why were they buying books? – while they complained that nothing was arranged by title. He would have liked to have a bouncer at the door, a man with a rippled neck who would turn people away or quietly remove them when they revealed too much ignorance."

"North Sea"

This story is about grief and the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Oda's husband died unexpectedly, leaving her and her young daughter with very little money. Since his death, their relationship has been strained. Oda plans a vacation in hopes of mending their relationship. I liked the story but it was bleaker than the others.

“When in the Dordogne”

The first three stories I read featured young girls, either preteens or early teens. I read a fourth story to see if each story in the book was going to follow this pattern. But in “When in the Dordogne,” the main character and narrator is a fourteen-year-old boy. His parents go on an extended summer vacation because his father has had a breakdown and needs relaxation. 

The first paragraph:

"The summer of 1986, the summer I was fourteen, my parents went to the Dordogne for eight weeks. My father had been unwell, and it was thought that France, where he had studied as a young man, would enable his recovery. Through the university’s employment office, my mother hired two sophomores to house-sit for the time they would be out of the country. As I came with the house, these two college boys were obliged to take care of me, too."

Right there I knew it was going to be a great story and I was right. 

Books Read in November 2024

 

November was a very good reading month; I enjoyed reading all the books. I finished an excellent nonfiction history book that I had started in early September. I read a romantic comedy / chick lit book that was way outside of my normal reading. And five crime fiction books, all very good. 

Nonfiction / History

Tudors (2012) by Peter Ackroyd

I read this book because I wanted to know more about the Tudors. The subtitle is "The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I." I had read novels that covered the Tudor years but those focused on specific events or people, such as the Wolf Hall Trilogy about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII. In this nonfiction book, I learned a lot about Henry VIII, including more about each wife and the religious turmoil at the time. I was surprised by many things that happened Elizabeth's reign. This was a great overview and I will look for more to read on the subject.

Fiction

The Rosie Project (2013) by Graeme Simsion

This novel is about a socially challenged genetics professor, Don Tillotson. He has Asperger's Syndrome, although that is never stated in the book. He lives an orderly life, planned to the last detail, but he has few friends. He decides he would like to find a wife, so he comes up with a questionnaire to eliminate women with habits or interests he could not tolerate. The story is unrealistic but lots of fun. I don't usually read romantic comedies, and I didn't really realize that this was one when I started it, but I liked it anyway. 

Crime Fiction

Two Nights in Lisbon (2022) by Chris Pavone

This is not a spy thriller but it sure feels like one. The reader and the characters don't know who to trust. I did not know what was going on most of the time. Well, I knew the basic plot (a couple goes to Lisbon on business and there is a kidnapping) but it was clear from the beginning that a lot was being withheld from the reader. I loved it, but I have loved all of Chris Pavone's novels, so I am prejudiced.

Alias Emma (2022) by Ava Glass

This is the first book in a relatively new spy fiction series. Emma Makepeace has always wanted to be a spy. Her father, who died before she was born, was a spy, and she idolizes him. Emma's first important assignment is to bring Michael Primalova, the son of Russian dissidents, across London to a safehouse, so that he and his parents can be put in protective custody. My review here.

Three Men Out (1954) by Rex Stout

I am working my way through the novella collections in the Nero Wolfe series. All of them are rereads. The stories are  "This Won't Kill You", "Invitation to Murder" and "The Zero Clue". The stories were first published in The American Magazine. 

Deadland (2019) by William Shaw

Deadland is the second book in the DS Alexandra Cupidi series, but there is a book written earlier that introduced Cupidi, so I consider this the third book. There are multiple plotlines. Two teenagers steal a phone from a very dangerous man. They end up running and hiding to avoid him, because he wants to kill them. DS Cupidi's case revolves around a human arm found in a valuable vase in an art gallery. She has to determine whether the arm is part of a dead body, or if somehow the person is still alive. Both the main characters and the secondary characters are well defined and interesting and the mystery plots are good too. If I had any complaint is was that it felt long. 

A Darker Domain (2008) by Val McDermid

This book is the second book in the Karen Pirie series. Detective Inspector Karen Pirie is in charge of the Cold Case department in Fife, Scotland. First, a woman reports that her father has been missing for over 20 years, from the time of the Miner’s Strike of 1984.  Shortly after that, new information shows up in Italy related to a kidnapping that also took place in 1984 in Fife, and that case is added to Karen's workload. See my review.

Currently Reading

Actually, I will start reading this one tonight. Between 1952 and 1968, James Yaffe published eight short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In each story, Dave, a detective in the New York Homicide Squad, and his wife Shirley visit his mother and they discuss one of his cases over dinner. She asks some pertinent questions and solves the case; Dave is afraid that his coworkers are going to find out that his success rate with cases is due to his mother's help. Between 1988 and 1992, Yaffe wrote four mystery novels about Dave and his Mom. The four novels are set in Colorado, not New York.  Mom Meets Her Maker is the 2nd of the four novels. The book is set at Christmas, and I think it will be a perfect read for this time of year. 

The photo at the top of the post is a pot of succulents in our back fenced-in area in 2008. The photos immediately above were also taken in 2008, in Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden. The photos were taken and processed by my husband. Click on the images for best viewing quality.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Late Mistaken" by Dino Buzzati

 

"The Late Mistaken" 

This is one of the stories in The Bewitched Bourgeois by Dino Buzzati, which will be published next month by New York Review Books. Translated by Lawrence Venuti.

In this story, the noted painter Lucio Predonzani, who had retired to his country house in Vimercate, opened the newspaper to discover an announcement of his death. The headline said: "Italian Art World in Mourning; Painter Predonzani is dead."

He tells his wife, then rushes to the city to confront the editor of the paper. The editor is surprised but protests that this could be a good thing for Predonzani. If he pretends to be dead, his paintings will go up in value after his death and he could make money on that. He decides to do exactly that, with the cooperation of the newspaper editor, who would provide publicity for gallery showings of his works. 

The rest of the story is about what happens after that.

This is a very short story about an extremely absurd situation. It is humorous at times. I was intrigued, and would like to try more stories by Buzzati.

Per Wikipedia, Buzzati was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet who was born in 1906 and died in 1972.

I read this story in the December 2024 issue of Harper's Magazine. It can be read online here; Harper's Magazine allows two free articles a month.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Sandwich to The Wheel Spins

The Six Degrees of Separation meme is hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavoriteandbest. The idea behind the meme is to start with a book and use common points between two books to end up with links to six books, forming a chain. The common points may be obvious, like a word in the title or a shared theme, or more personal. Every month Kate provides the title of a book as the starting point.

The starting book this month is Sandwich by Catherine Newman, which I have not read... but I do have a copy that I am planning to read. The story takes place during an annual family visit to Cape Cod.

1st degree:

My first link is to The Cape Cod Mystery, published in 1931 by Phoebe Atwood Taylor. It is the first book in the Asey Mayo series. In the middle of a sweltering hot summer on Cape Cod, a man's body is discovered in a cottage. A sheriff arrests Bill Porter for murder, based on circumstantial evidence. Bill asks his friend, Asey Mayo, to find out who really committed the crime. The author knew Cape Cod quite well, and her depiction of it in this book is humorous and entertaining.

2nd degree:

Death in the Off-Season is a much more recent mystery set on Nantucket, an island about 30 miles south of Cape Cod. Merry Folger is a new detective in the Nantucket police, working under her father. This novel is the first book in the Merry Folger Nantucket Mystery series and was first published in 1994. Later it was republished by Soho in 2016, with edits to bring the series up to modern times. That worked well for me, and I liked the characters and the setting.

3rd degree:

The previous book was a police procedural and that is a favorite subgenre for me. Diamond Solitaire by Peter Lovesey is also part of a police procedural series, this time set in London and featuring Peter Diamond. But as this third book in the series begins, the police detective is no longer in the police, and is working as a security guard at Harrods in London. This wonderful story takes the reader to New York and then to Japan as the protagonist goes in search of the identity of a young Japanese girl.

4th degree:

So now I move to a police procedural set in Japan, Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino. This book starts out as a police procedural, then turns into something else. Detective Sasagaki is investigating the death of a man in an empty building. He starts with the victim's family, a wife and a son about 10 years old, and his place of business, a pawnshop. The case is dropped for lack of evidence although Sasagaki continues to look for more information related to the crime. The middle section of the book follows the lives of people related to the victim in the years leading up to the death. As the story gets closer to the end, Detective Sasagaki comes back into the story and the crime is solved. This book was originally published in 1999, and the novel portrays life in Japan in the 1970s to the 1990s, with changing fads, various stages of education, office life, and characters at various economic levels.

5th degree:

Staying with Japan and police procedurals, I turn to Tokyo Express, Seichō Matsumoto's first novel, published in 1958. In this novel, two detectives in different cities in Japan investigate the same crime and collaborate, sharing their thoughts and discoveries. A man and a woman are found dead on a beach in Kashii, and the police assume that it is a double suicide. The alibis of their suspects depend on train schedules, so a good amount of time is spent on that aspect of the alleged crime. This is a good picture of Japan after World War II; it was first published in English translation as Points and Lines.

6th degree:

Picking up on the emphasis on trains in the last book, I am moving to The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, which takes place primarily on a train. This book was filmed as The Lady Vanishes, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. A young woman, Iris, meets an older lady while traveling on a train in Europe. They have tea and talk for a while, and then, Iris takes a nap. When she awakens, Miss Froy, the older woman, has disappeared, and the other people in the same carriage deny that there ever was a Miss Froy in the  carriage. The Wheel Spins was published in 1936, and is an excellent picture of the tensions in Europe in the 1930s.

My Six Degrees took me from Cape Cod and other coastal areas in the US, on to the UK and Japan, and finally to an unnamed area in Europe prior to World War II.  If you did this month's Six Degrees, where did your chain take you?

The next Six Degrees will be on January 4th, 2025 and the starting book will be the 2024 Booker winner, Orbital by Samantha Harvey.