Bookish

At some point the decline and fall of my marriage so preoccupied my mind that I failed to keep up with Andrew Cartmel's The Vinyl Detective series. Forsooth!

Once I became conscious of the situation I set out to rectify it by putting in an order for the 2 latest entries in the series. Many thanks to Mystery to Me.

They arrived in time for my UK trip and I brought them with me.

I managed to finish Noise Floor while across The Pond. As always, it was a very fun read. It sees TVD and his partner Nevada being hired to find Lambert Ramkin, a.k.a. Imperium Dart, an EDM god from the 90s who has gone missing and his wives are very concerned. As always, Tinkler is ably assisting his friends when not making lewd comments.

The dialogue is fast-paced and witty as usual. Plus the retro-faux-rave scene gave me 90s flashbacks.

Underscore was no less fun. Here, TVD & Nevada are hired to find a rare soundtrack album to a giallo classic called Murder in London and Bikini of Blood and The Black Dog Murders, et al. The seeker is the granddaughter of composer Loretto Loconsole.

Plenty of banter about wine and coffee, Tinkler is in fine form, and the Swingin' Sixties sounds like it was a hoot. Not a whole lot of Agatha here as she is busy elsewhere much of the time, though her driving skills are utilized in a life or death situation as usual. As with Noise Floor, Nevada takes the lead more often than in previous books. I think. It's been a while since I've read the predecessors.

In addition to The Vinyl Detective, I also enlisted Mystery To Me to help me catch up on the Rivers of London series by Andrew Cartmel's pal, Ben Aaronovitch. I have so far received the latest entry in that series, the novel, Stone and Sky, which came out this summer, but I am still waiting on the novella from last year, The Masquerades of Spring.

While in Birmingham I had my first visit to a Waterstones, which I gather is a bit like their Barnes & Noble. I found exactly what I was looking for, a history of the city.

My Vinyl Detective Collection is once again complete

Thanks Mystery to Me.

New reads

My to-read pile continues to grow unabated.

First there's this courtesy of my friend Jason. Thanks!

The there's these new titles from Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch. Many thanks to Mystery to Me Books.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 112: My timing was off

(late September 2023)

(Watch the prelude.)

With plans for an autumn trip to London once again put on hold due to my Frau's medical issues, I turned to my old standby and devised a trek up north for some hiking. While I would return to my beloved Chippewa Moraine Nature State Recreation Area and its majestic kettle lakes, I began the trip with a visit to Beaver Creek Reserve up by Eau Claire.

Beaver Creek Reserve is a camp that provides environmental education for area youth along with hiking trails for those of us that have graduated to adulthood. It’s a bit like the Aldo Leopold Nature Center here in the Madison area but set out in the countryside of west central Wisconsin, some 15 miles east of Eau Claire.

I had timed my trip in the hope that the trees would be well along in their annual change in color but I was a bit early. On trips up north in the earlier part of September it seemed that the fall colors had only begun to appear. And then a visit in the latter half of October proved to have been very much on the downswing of the change. I figured a trek right in the middle would have been perfect but Mother Nature (and perhaps global climate change) had other plans.

And so, while the trees remained mostly green, it was only just. There was still a fair amount of autumnal hues to be had, thankfully.

I had randomly pulled into the northern part of the reserve and found a school bus from Osseo and a bunch of gaggle of kids who looked to be 5th or 6th graders. I did my level best to avoid them. Finding the nearest trailhead, I happily set my course away from the screaming schoolchildren. They seemed to be having fun so more power to them. For my part, though, I simply wanted some quiet, in addition to the great scenery.

I eventually found myself walking along a creek that I think is Deinhammer Creek. Presumably Beaver Creek was to be found elsewhere on the property.

It was overcast but mild and so I didn’t complain too much when forced to walk through the creek in order to get to a set of stairs set on the hillside.

The lovely scenery continued.

After a while I came to a sign indicating that I was leaving Beaver Creek Reserve and was headed towards Big Falls, an Eau Claire County park. Before long I caught sight of the Eau Claire River.

It was just a few minutes before I heard a faint rumble in front of me. With every step the roar of what I presumed to be Big Falls grew louder until I was standing next to it.

Not the biggest of falls, I agree, but it was pretty and those rapids would surely capsize any canoe I was in.

The rather large outcrops of stone that I walked on were littered with smaller rocks.

I have tried to lookup what type of rock this is but have failed. One site said that the rocks at Big Falls are “Precambrian amphibolite gneisses and schists” but, when I look up “gneisses” and “schists”, I see pictures that don’t resemble mine. On the other hand, Precambrian means old. And I’m not talking Joe Biden old. These rocks were formed many millions of years ago, if not billions. Brazil and Nigeria may still have been part of the same land mass. Strange plants were providing shade for the first animals ever on Earth – our (extremely) distant cousins.

It boggles the mind to contemplate something that ancient.

After taking in Big Falls for a while, I headed back the way I came.

Back at the trailhead, I walked around Hobbs Observatory.

Someday, or some night, rather, I will have to return and check out the observatory. It houses 2 telescopes: a 24-inch Newtonian reflector telescope and a Meade LX200 14-inch Schmidt Cassegrain. With much less light pollution than down here in Madison, there must be some fine star gazing there, telescope or not.

I am reminded of the final night I spent at my dad’s house before moving down to Madison to start college. A friend came over and he and I spent the night with my father throwing back a few adult beverages on the patio and shooting the bull. The sky was marvelous. Being out in the country meant exponentially more stars were visible to us than in a city. Plus there was a full moon, or nearly so. To top things off, the Milky Way was out as well. It was as if the night sky was bidding me a fond farewell as I prepared to plunge headlong into adulthood. Or at least into life as a college student which, I suppose, is not exactly adulthood.

After wandering around the observatory, I drove across the road to the southern part of the reserve and found myself before the Wise Nature Center. Stepping inside, I was confronted by a life-sized diorama of a tree and its various animal friends.

The nature center proved to be really neat with the learning area having various exhibits dedicated to both flora and fauna.

Eau Claire means “clear water” in French and the area was home to many a French fur trader back in the day. And so it is only fitting to have a display of various animal pelts.

We generally think of skunks as being nasty, stinky critters and raccoons to be annoyances that try to rifle through our garbage. But, take it from me, they have some very soft fur.

And being the Badger State, there had to be one of them on display.

This one’s open mouth could be interpreted as a friendly grin but that would belie what vicious little bastards they are. Those claws are more representative of the badger’s demeanor. I have only ever run into our state animal once and I hope to never again. We got hissed at, were given threatening looks, and otherwise was told our presence was not wanted.

There were a few live animals to be found including this turtle who looked like he could use a bigger home.

If memory serves, there was a sign saying that new digs were in the works.

Another exhibit taught visitors how to identify the signs left behind by animals on their excursions – by both prints and poop!

For instance, here’s how to ID the signs raccoons leave (from their) behind(s). Get it?

This one for beavers gave me visions of a Caddyshack-like experience the next time I find myself in a creek or river.

Sadly, not all environmental education involves fun as you learn about various critters and plants, as this display on endangered species showed.

It was disheartening to see one so close to home in Dane County.

With my hike being done, it was back to Osseo for a shower and some muscle relaxant at the Northwoods Brewpub. Always one to drink seasonally, I ordered an Oktoberfest.

It wasn’t great, let’s say that. The body was a bit thin and there were some stray phenols that gave it a hefeweizen taste. The follow-up, a brown ale, was much better.

I got back to my hotel room only to receive word that my youngest stepson’s father had been diagnosed with some form of blood cancer. A lousy way to end an otherwise wonderful day. I felt terribly for them both. Earlier in the month the kid's girlfriend had broken up with him and he'd been unceremoniously kicked out of their apartment in Eau Claire. On my way home I was to stop by there and grab as much of his stuff as my car could fit. I texted him saying that I was sorry to hear the news and that I loved him.

Wanting to change my now sullen mood, I picked up the book that I had been reading, Death in Fine Condition by Andrew Cartmel. I adored his Vinyl Detective series which chronicles the adventures of the titular hero, a vinyl record afficionado. For The Vinyl Detective, Cartmel took Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, de-hard-boiled him, and then threw him into Agatha Christie-like ensemble situations. We never learn his name.

In each book, he and his ladyfriend, Nevada, are tasked with finding an extremely rare record and all sorts of intrigue and mayhem ensue. Here, the heroine is Cordelia, an impecunious lover and collector of paperbacks. She is usually late on paying her rent but strangely timely when it comes to procuring marijuana. One day at her dealer's home, Cordelia notices a photo on the wall of a couple people posing next to a bookcase filled with what appears to be a complete set of Sleuth Hound paperbacks.

She seeks out the books and purloins them only to discover that their owner is a fellow named Colin Cutterham who happens to be the leader of the local chapter of organized crime. Peril ensues.

While Cordelia is entertaining and certainly a very capable stoner, there's just something missing, something to really endear her to me that just isn't here. I think that a big part of this is that, while The Vinyl Detective would have fun conversations with a cast of goofy people, Cordelia's chats are more serious. Or, if not serious, just more banal. And Cartmel overcompensates for this by making a fair amount of Cordelia's internal monologues overwrought with metaphor and clever allusions.

Death in Fine Condition is still a fun read, but it lacks the magic of The Vinyl Detective novels for me.

********

Bonus photo. Here’s Grabby at her first vet visit after we adopted her.

 

 

(Now listen to the postlude.)

Cordelia vs. The Ginger Thug

 

 

When I first heard that Andrew Cartmel was taking a detour from The Vinyl Detective series to bring us The Paperback Sleuth, I was ambivalent. I adore The Vinyl Detective and was sad to see him go on hiatus. (Maybe to never return. I dunno.) But there is a character in that series who collected paperbacks so I was confident we weren't going too far afield. Besides, we should embrace change, right?

My confidence was not misplaced because Death in Fine Condition and its bibliophilic heroine, Cordelia, are not far removed from my beloved Vinyl Detective. Indeed, her adventure takes place in the same fictional world as she is Stinky Stanmer's sister. The hero of the other series even gets name-checked, though not favorably, much to my surprise. I still chuckled, though.

Our heroine is a bit impecunious in addition to loving paperbacks. She is usually late on paying her rent but strangely timely when it comes to procuring marijuana. One day at her dealer's home, Cordelia notices a photo on the wall of a couple people posing next to a bookcase filled with what appears to be a complete set of Sleuth Hound paperbacks.

 

Cordelia turns out to be something of a rogue and a villain as she sets out to steal them after discovering that one of the people in the photo is her dealer's landlord. A little luck compensates for her lack of burglar skills and she ends up with an entire set. In fine condition.

 

Unbeknownst to Cordelia, the landlord and owner of these books, a red-headed fellow named Colin Cutterham, is the leader of a local organized crime troop. This not only makes her fearful for her life, but also serves as justification for her thievery. She discovers that Cutterham has procured a second set of Sleuth Hound paperbacks and Cordelia steals it too.

Cartmel builds up some nice Hitchcockian tension and puts Cordelia into no small bit of peril. Cutterham sends a heavy to her flat but she manages to take care of him with a fatal smack with her laptop. Luckily for her, her landlord, Edwin, happens to be this kinda sorta Dextery fellow. That is, he is a serial killer but he only dispatches evil people. This I did not expect. One skill that goes along with being a serial killer is the ability to dispose of bodies so that they cannot be found. Needless to say, this ability comes in handy for Cordelia.

 

Death in Fine Condition felt a lot like a Vinyl Detective novel. The heroine is someone who covets and is an expert in collecting a particular kind of cultural artifact. Cartmel's prose here is in his usual easy going style sprinkled with sarcasm and the occasional tangent into the mania of the collector.

Cordelia, however, is the opposite of The Vinyl Detective in many ways. She is lower class, does not drink good wine and, sadly, is not an ailurophile. She thieves and connives to get what she seeks whereas The Vinyl Detective generally stays within the bounds of the law. The Vinyl Detective is a gentleman, something of a neo-dandy, whereas Cordelia is rougher around the edges, more like someone who would appear on Studs Turkel's podcast, if he was still around.

There are a few scenes where Cordelia settles into a bath for a little bean flicking. Not only do they introduce a bit of prurience but they also illustrate why I found Death in Fine Condition to be good but not as much fun as a Vinyl Detective tale: Cordelia goes it alone.

The Vinyl Detective has Nevada, his girlfriend, as companion and interlocutor but Cordelia is single and we spend more time in her head than with her in conversation. For The Vinyl Detective, Cartmel took Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op and de-hard-boiled him and then threw him into Agatha Christie ensemble situations. Here, Cartmel throws just a touch of hard-boiled quality in but Cordelia is just not an interesting enough character for me to shoulder the plot alone.

 

It's not that I don't like her at all and she is certainly a very capable stoner, but there's just something missing, something to really endear her to me that just isn't here. I think that a big part of this is that, while The Vinyl Detective would have fun conversations with a cast of goofy people, Cordelia's chats are more serious. Or, if not serious, just more banal. And Cartmel overcompensates for this by making a fair amount of Cordelia's internal monologues overwrought with metaphor and clever allusions.

Despite all of this, Death in Fine Condition is a fun story. I did smile while reading it and found the thriller elements rather thrilling. Cordelia worked best when interacting with other characters so hopefully she gets a roommate, girlfriend, or just does more sleuthing with another person present.

The Corpses With the Dragon Tattoos

The man with the masterplan takes on the challenge of writing a Second Doctor tale.

It is 1800. Canton, China. An Englishman named Roderick Upcott is paying a visit to a merchant who has indicated he'd be happy to take a bunch of that opium that Upcott has for sale. The smuggler and his empty stomach are enticed by the smell of pork roasting in the kitchen. He then notices a tapestry depicting a green dragon on a wall and is surprised that it has an uncanny resemblance to the one he has tattooed on his own body.

To Upcott's horror, it turns out that the man he is dealing with is not the opium pusher he was expecting but rather the Emperor's Chief Astrologer who is a bit like the Harry J. Anslinger of the Qing dynasty. His task is to end the opium trade, a blight on the Chinese people. At one point, Upcott notices that the dragon tapestry has gone from green to red. And that smell that Upcott thinks is roasting pork is, in fact, long pig...

Upcott is allowed to escape and, not long after this, the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie meet him when the TARDIS lands at the British Trade Concession. On the grounds is a stone gate, a "spirit gate", and it whisks Jamie off when he steps through it. The same happens to Zoe. Seeing his companions disappear into the aether, the Doctor deduces that the gate is some kind of alien transmat. A few calculations later, the TARDIS is off in pursuit of the misplaced companions.

It lands 100 years later in the Kent countryside at the Upcott family estate. The Doctor sees that Roderick brought the spirit gate back to England with him and is standing in the estate's back 40. Zoe is in the family's employ as a maid (echoes of the TV version of "Human Nature" here) and she is none too happy with the rampant misogyny, amongst other gripes. However, Jamie is still nowhere to be seen.

What follows is something of an Agatha Christie story with Roderick Upcott's descendants being killed one by one with no obvious cause of death. Mysteriously, each victim has the red dragon from that tapestry tattooed on their face.

All of this transpires during a party thrown by Roderick Upcott's great-grandson, Pemberton Upcott. The Doctor cons his way in, of course, and finds that entertainment is to be provided by Celandine Gilbert, a beautiful young woman who is a spirit medium. She is to perform a seance with the aid of her companion, Thomas Carnacki, a "student of supernatural phenomena" and literary character in his own right. Carnacki is a Holmesian detective of the occult created by William Hope Hodgson and lovingly appropriated by Cartmel.

The seance goes a bit haywire and Ms. Gilbert ends up in a coma. Then the murders begin.

It's a fun who dunnit. When the Doctor learns that the victims are all blood relatives of Roderick Upcott, it becomes clear that this is the revenge of the Chief Astrologer. As events begin to hasten to a conclusion, the Upcott estate is transported to somewhere out in space with the grounds suddenly ending in a sharp decline that leads only to a star-filled void.

The spirit gate is the key here and its destruction comes at the hands of fireworks. The Upcotts have a whole room in their cellar full of them. This seems like a rather cheesy way to destroy a big, mysterious, supernatural, stone gateway.

Jamie is M.I.A. for the most of this story and is found only near the end. Zoe spends much of her time complaining about the primitive Victorian mores and the depravity of Thor Upcott, Pemberton's brother. Thor has, shall we say, a healthy sexual appetite, and he enjoys having the butler watch his escapades in bed through a two-way mirror. He attempts to lure Zoe into his web but fails utterly. While Zoe gets points for rebuking the entreaties of the lecherous Thor in the best spirit of #metoo, the companions here take a back seat. The Doctor is front and center with his investigations. He is aided by Carnacki who is the companion stand-in.

It's not surprising to get an indictment of the British aristocracy from Cartmel, the man who famously said he'd like to use Doctor Who "to overthrow the government". The Upcott's are quite unlikable. 

While there are no boundaries broken here and the story adheres to convention by-and-large, I liked it. The murder mystery is enjoyable and witnessing the rich get their comeuppance is always satisfying.