Special Feature: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Season 3 Part 1

Special Series: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Season 3 Part 1

The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be killed.  This post gives the details for episodes 1-3 of US Season Two.  All previous posts in the series (in reverse order).

I’m back, after an unanticipated hiatus induced by a combination of novel-writing, family insanity, and other things, and I have for you another Lewis post.  Season 3 is shorter than Season 2—five episodes—so I’ll break it down into two posts.  This post covers episodes 1-3, and I’ll cover episodes 4-5 in the next installment.

Having gotten the formalities out of the way, let’s move on to the season!  We have a total of eight victims in these episodes, of whom four are in some way directly affiliated with the university.  None are students, but two are faculty, one is an administrator, and the fourth is, nominally at least, staff.  Of a total of three murderers, one is staff and two are unaffiliated.  So, once again, Oxford is more dangerous to academics than in danger from them.

I’d forgotten until this rewatch how many of my favorite episodes are in Season 3.  We have rockstars, war reenactors, and a community orchestra, and we learn about both Hathaway and the M.E., Dr. Laura Hobson.  Also, I’ve learned since my last Lewis post that there are new episodes airing in Britain, as we speak.  We should have them here at some point (I’m looking at you, PBS), so there’s even more deadly fun ahead.  But, without further ado, onward to the Season 3 details!

If you haven’t seen the season, here’s the Amazon link.  It’s included with Prime if you have it.

Details for Episodes 3.1-3.3 below the cut.  Contains spoilers.

Book Review: The Lake House by Kate Morton

The Lake House

By Kate Morton

Published by Atria Books and distributed by Simon and Schuster, October 20, 2015

Purchased and read on Amazon Kindle

Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

So I love Kate Morton’s work.  Every time I hear she’s going to release a new book, I get excited.  I’m always torn over whether to get the book as soon as it comes out and read it in bits and pieces as I have time or to wait until I have a free weekend and can seclude myself with the book and some snacks.  This time, I chose option A, not having a free weekend in the immediate future.  I think I’m glad I did.

Like all Morton books, The Lake House has two intertwined narratives, one from the present and one from the past.  In this book, the present-day (well, 2003) story concerns Sadie Sparrow, a London police detective who, after a case goes badly wrong, goes to Cornwall to stay with her grandfather.  While there, she stumbles across an old, abandoned estate and discovers that the family who lived there left the property after their baby son was kidnapped and never found.  As you can probably guess, the past (1933) story concerns what really happened the night Theo Edevane was kidnapped.  Theo’s older sister, Alice, who is a successful detective novelist, also plays a significant role in both stories.

I think I’ve mentioned that books like this, which move back and forth between the present and the past, are some of my favorites to read.  Usually in books like this I prefer one story or the other, and with Morton, that’s usually the past story.  This time, I found both narratives equally convincing and enjoyable, and I particularly liked seeing how Alice developed from the young girl in 1933 to the acerbic novelist in 2003.  As I progressed from the beginning to the middle of this book, past red herrings and false leads and alongside likable, human characters, I thought, “This is great!  I’ll finally be able to give a book five stars on the blog!”

Alas, it was not to be, and the ending is the reason why.  I had it figured out long before I finished the book, and when I first thought of it I dismissed it:  “No, she wouldn’t be that obvious, or that trite.”  Well, she was, and I was quite disappointed.  So disappointed, in fact, that I almost knocked the book down to three stars, or maybe three and a half (now that Miss Fisher has induced the half star ratings).  Then I remembered how much I enjoyed reading most of the book, and decided four was the way to go.  And now that I think about it, I was disappointed with the end of The Secret Keeper, too, after staying up way too late to finish it one night several years ago.  The Forgotten Garden thus remains, for now, my favorite Morton.

As you can see from the sidebar, I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year, and since I’m writing historical fiction I’m doing quite a bit of research reading, so this may be the last book review I post for a bit.  We shall see.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Episode 3.6

“Death at the Grand”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.6

Available on: Netflix or DVD (Amazon link)

Rating: Two and a Half Stars (out of five)

Why must you do this to me, show?  After a really good 3.4 and a fantastic 3.5, you give me… this.  Phryne’s father is back in this one, and neither she nor I is pleased to see him.  For the Baron of Richland is not a good father or a pleasant chap in general.  I have a feeling we’re supposed to see him as an endearing rogue, but as you can probably tell, he is not dear to me.  There are a few fun moments in the episode, and the main mystery I guess works okay, but the Baron grates, and that undermines my overall enjoyment of the episode to the extent that I had to introduce a half star for the first time ever.

The episode opens with one of the aforementioned fun moments, as Phryne quizzes Dot on different types of handguns, which are spread on the table in front of them.  Dot is an apt student, so look out, world!  Then Aunt Prudence arrives with the news that her sister, Phryne’s mother, is out of money and looking for a loan.  This means trouble, because Phryne’s father was supposed to have wired her a large sum, courtesy of Phryne, before departing Australia at the close of episode 3.1.

Then the phone rings, and it’s Jack, of course.  He needs Phryne at a crime scene; a concierge has been stabbed on the roof of Melbourne’s Grand Hotel, and a bag bearing Phryne’s name was found at the scene.  Why?  Well, instead of going back to England, the Baron of Richland has been living it up in the Grand Hotel.  And now we know why Phryne’s mother doesn’t have any money.

In their quest to figure out who killed the concierge, Phryne and Jack uncover a robbery, illicit gambling, and old feud between the Baron and one his associates.  There’s also a second murder and a possibility that the Baron might be a murderer, either in the present or the past.  Could we be so lucky?  Would this show go that dark?  That you might discover the answers to these questions is the main reason to watch this episode.  The solution to this mystery is plausible, but it’s also clearly more about setting up the last two episodes than it is about telling a story on its own.  Logically, the last episodes will involve the Baron, and I don’t like it one bit.

We also have a weird side plot involving Dot and Constable Martin, who spent the previous episode irritating us all with his sexism.  That’s improved… but will he be romantic competition for Hugh?  You can probably guess the answer to that, but just in case, I’m not telling.  This plotline does one thing: it makes me want Hugh back.  If that was the point, writers, you’ve succeeded.  Finally, there’s a bit of romantic banter between Jack and Phryne, but it felt forced to me, like it was put there just to have it there.  This is an excellent example of an episode where the mystery-solving and the romantic comedy just don’t mix very well.

As you can probably tell, I’m not fond of the episode, and I hope the writers manage to rescue the Baron’s storyline to give us something decent for the last two episodes.  I’m not terribly optimistic, but we’ll find out soon.

The next post should be a book post, and I promise I’ll have nicer things to say!

Special Feature: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Season 2 Part 3

The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be killed.  This post gives the details for episodes 6-7 of US Season Two.  Previous posts in the series: Intro, Season One, Season 2 Part 1, Season 2 Part 2.

 The final two episodes of Season 2 give us one undergraduate victim, three community victims (one an Oxford alum, though), and two—yes, two—faculty murderers (one for each episode).  So we’re back to the Season One problem, it would seem, insofar as Oxford is in more danger from academics than it is a danger to academics.  If it’s any comfort (and I’m not sure it is!), only in “The Quality of Mercy” do the murders directly relate to university life; in “The Point of Vanishing,” the murderer is just a murderer who happens to have “professor” as his job title.

As this is the last season 2 post, it’s time for some overall season totals.  Over seven episodes, we have fifteen victims (only episode 2.3 breaks the “two victims per episode” norm).  Three of those victims are undergrads, two are faculty, three are administrators, one is staff, and six are unaffiliated with the university.  Of eight murderers, four are faculty members (two in episode 2.1, remember) and four are unaffiliated with the university.  A variety of faculty, staff, and students assist Lewis and Hathaway in their investigations, so the university isn’t all bad for the community, but I have to admit that these episodes make faculty look pretty scary.  It’s even more worrying to this humanist that three quarters of the faculty murderers are in the humanities.  And we like to think our fields of study improve our behavior toward our fellow humans!  The good news, I guess, is that while grad school often feels like a kill-or-be-killed kind of world, not one grad student has done either—yet (though to be fair it’s kind of a grad student’s fault that everything goes so badly wrong in “The Quality of Mercy”).

If you haven't seen the season, here's the Amazon link.  It's included with Prime, if you have it.

Details for Episodes 2.6 and 2.7 below the cut.  Contains spoilers.

Book Review: The Adventuress by Tasha Alexander

The Adventuress (Lady Emily Mysteries #10)

By Tasha Alexander

Published by Minotaur Books and distributed by Macmillan, October 13, 2015

Purchased and read on Amazon Kindle

Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

Lest you think this blog has over the course of its brief life morphed into an all-Lewis-and-Phryne TV-fest, let me disabuse you of that notion by posting a review of the most recent Lady Emily mystery by Tasha Alexander.  This series, which focuses on the crime-solving adventures of an English noblewoman at the end of the nineteenth century, is one of my favorites, and for at least the last several years Alexander has released a new volume every October.  I hope she keeps it up for a while at least.

The Adventuress marks a return to form after what were, for me, a couple of less worthy entries in the series.  Both Behind the Shattered Glass (2013) and The Counterfeit Heiress (2014) had resolutions that were either unsatisfying or so obvious as to be irritating.  In The Adventuress, Emily’s lifelong friend and one-time suitor Jeremy Sheffield is finally engaged—to an American heiress named Amity Wells.  Amity’s family arranges a two-week engagement celebration in Cannes, to which Emily and her husband Colin, along with some other friends and family, are invited.  Soon after their arrival, Jeremy’s friend Chauncey Neville dies by drinking poisoned whiskey.  Everyone but Emily believes it’s a suicide, but when a young French dancer who had met the English party on the night of Chauncey’s death is found murdered, Emily’s instincts are proven right.

Amity of course knows about Emily and Jeremy’s longstanding friendship and one-time romance, and she sets out to befriend Emily.  However, someone wants her to think that Emily has no interest in her friendship and is out to sabotage her engagement.  Who?  Why?  The solution to this mystery is integral to the resolution of the murder plot. Like all of the Lady Emily books, The Adventuress uses alternating narrative perspectives.  This time, we get third-person narration from Amity’s point of view as well as Emily's first-person perspective. This has caused Alexander problems in the past, most notably in The Counterfeit Heiress where the second narrative voice made the mystery's solution fairly obvious, but in The Adventuress, it works pretty well by developing the "who wants to sabotage Emily and Amity's friendship" plot alongside the murder plot.

The Lady Emily books overall are fun, quick reads.  If you’re a fan of the Late Victorian era or of historical mysteries in general, they’re reliably enjoyable in spite of the occasional dud.  One thing I really appreciate about this series is that once Emily and Colin are married (at the end of book 3), their relationship is mostly a background to the mysteries.  It’s nice to read about a partnership between a married couple who love and can count on each other without a lot of relationship-based drama.  I particularly like how, in The Adventuress, jealousy never enters the picture on Colin’s part, even though there’s some suggestion that Jeremy and Emily might have lingering feelings for each other.

On a final note, for fans of other historical mysteries there’s a lovely shoutout to Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody books.  I like thinking of the characters as all inhabiting the same fictional world at the end of the nineteenth century.  Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot and will continue to look forward to new entries in the series.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Episode 3.5

“Death and Hysteria”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.5

Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015)

Rating: Five Stars (out of five)

Okay, so this episode isn’t perfect, but it’s the best episode of the season so far.  It has everything you’d expect from a Miss Fisher mystery: a twisty turny plot, lots of witty banter, beautiful clothes, and Phryne insisting on helping those cast aside by mainstream society—in this case, “hysterical” women.

The episode opens with a group of women dancing the lawn at Aunt Prudence’s estate.  We then see Aunt Prudence conversing with the head psychiatrist, Dr. Samuels, and learn that she is letting the doctor use her house as a sanatorium because he has helped her cope with her son Arthur’s death.  When one of the patients dies by electrocution, aunt Prudence summons both her niece and the police, so Phryne and Jack are soon on the scene.  We soon learn that all is not as it seems with Dr. Samuels and his partner Dr. Perkins, and Phryne wonders if her aunt might have been taken in by an unscrupulous practitioner intent on taking Prudence’s money.  The case takes numerous twists and turns as we discover that Dr. Samuels is in disgrace with his medical colleagues, in no small part because he tries to save women from unnecessary hysterectomies.  Dr. Perkins, too, is up to something as is his sister Harriet, who serves as the doctors’ secretary and assistant.  The solution is moderately shocking and the episode is well-plotted so that the reveal makes sense.

I won’t reveal the murder weapon; let it suffice to say that it leads to much witty banter and some understated hilarity when our heroes discover it, and it allows for lots of innuendo between Phryne and Jack.  Their relationship is at its finest; we see the attraction but we’re not hit over the head with it and both characters behave like the ones we’ve come to know and love.  Hugh is completely absent, as he’s still on the sulky fishing trip he embarked on after being refused a promotion in Episode 3.4, causing this viewer to wonder whether the actor had another break, or the show had a budget issue, or what, because pouty Hugh is a weird story choice.  His replacement is an extremely sexist and irritating constable; as Mac remarks, “It’s men like that, that make the rest of them look reasonable.”  Fortunately he’s not around enough to spoil the episode.

Overall, this was a fun, well-plotted episode, and I hope the rest of the season continues in this vein.

Special Feature: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Season 2 Part 2

The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be killed.  This post gives the details for episodes 4-5 of US Season Two.  Here's the Intro post; here's the Season One breakdown; and here’s the first three episodes of Season 2.

In the first three episodes of season 2, things look pretty grim for Oxford faculty, staff, students and administrators.  We have victims in all four categories, and two faculty murderers.  Thus far in Season 2, undergrads aren’t as dangerous as they are in Season 1, but the community of Oxford is still pretty dangerous, what with all the murderous ex-Communists and, in these episodes, vengeful parents running around.

Episodes 4 and 5 contain a total of four victims (two in each episode).  Only one—a faculty member—is a member of the university community at the time of his death, but most of the murders connect to Oxford U in some way.  Neither of two murderers is directly affiliated with the University.  These episodes suggest that you can’t escape your past (even by becoming an English professor).  Your high school and college days may or may not be the best of your life, in other words, but they will haunt you forever whether you like it or not.

If you haven’t seen the season, here’s Amazon link.  It’s included with Prime, if you have it.

Episode-by-episode details below the cut.  Contains Spoilers.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Episode 3.4

“Blood and Money”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Episode 3.4

Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015)

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

For me, this is the best episode of the season so far.  The mystery has a lot of twists, but it isn’t hard to follow and the solution makes sense.  Also, while Phryne and Jack have some nice personal moments, those moments are driven by the story rather than the other way around.  Things between Dot and Hugh aren’t so good, though, and the manufactured drama between them keeps this from being a five-star episode.

The plot concerns the murders of two boys from Melbourne’s impoverished Collingwood district, where Phryne spent much of her childhood.  Phryne is drawn into the case when Paddy, a young homeless boy, asks her to find his missing brother.  The boys are part of a gang called the Bottle Top Boys, and the case concerns medical research and a drug-and-jewelry-theft scheme as well as the murders.  Paddy approaches Phryne because she’s legendary in Collingwood, and she takes the case because she wants to help people from her old neighborhood.  I like it when the show references Phryne’s origins, and they used those origins particularly well here.

The subplot involves Hugh’s mother’s opposition to his conversion.  There were always religious tensions between Dot and Hugh, but we haven’t heard a lot about this until now, and we certainly haven’t met his mother.  That Hugh’s mother opposes the marriage isn’t all that surprising, but it’s really irritating that he chooses not to tell Dot.  He tells her nothing—and does not adequately explain why.  Clearly, the writers wanted a reason to delay Dot and Hugh’s marriage without breaking them up.  It feels manufactured and can you tell I find it irritating?  Frankly, Hugh is a jerk in this episode, and he’s been a jerk all season.  I hope they redeem him in the remaining four episodes.

Mac is great in this episode.  We see her in her non-ME professional capacity, and she also assists in the investigation.  I love her and Phryne’s friendship, and I’m glad we get to see more of her this season.  Jane, on the other hand, is still totally MIA.  Everyone seems to have forgotten that Phryne had an adopted daughter, and I can’t help but find this odd.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode and hope the show continues on the trajectory established here in the second half of Season Three.

Book Review: A Question of Death by Kerry Greenwood

A Question of Death: An Illustrated Phryne Fisher Anthology

By Kerry Greenwood

Published by Poisoned Pen Press, 2014 (reprint of 2007 original)

Paperback; purchased from Amazon

Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

This is a fun read for Phryne Fisher fans.  It contains thirteen short stories as well as recipes and fun facts about Phryne from author Kerry Greenwood.  In addition to drawings in some margins and designs on all pages, there’s at least one full-color illustration (by Beth Norling) for each story, so we get a sense of how Greenwood, assuming she collaborated with the illustrator, imagined Phryne’s appearance pre-TV.

The stories themselves are fairly insubstantial.  It’s possible to write tightly-plotted, well-developed mystery shorts (see: Sherlock Holmes), but Greenwood doesn’t do so here.  Most of the mysteries aren’t actually murders, and the police aren’t in all of them.  My favorites were “Come Sable Night,” in which Greenwood seems to be trying out ideas for Murder and Mendelssohn (2014) and “The Hours of Juana the Mad,” in which Phryne stakes a dinner at High Table on the recovery of a stolen Medieval manuscript.  In fact, a number of stories including “Carnival” and “The Vanishing of Jock McHale’s Hat” as well as “The Hours…” involve theft.  In general, Greenwood showcases Phryne’s logic and cleverness, and I enjoyed the stories in part because of their lightness.

As a side note, a number of episodes in the second season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries appear to emerge from the stories collected here.  With added murders, “The Vanishing of Jock McHale’s Hat” and “The Hours of Juana the Mad” become “Marked for Murder” (Episode 2.6) and “The Blood of Juana the Mad” (Episode 2.8), and I’m pretty sure that “The Body in the Library” is the basis for “Murder Most Scandalous” (Episode 2.1).  I always like comparing a book/original story with its adaptations, so it’s fun to see how these episodes started.  Also, I was wondering why they got away so apparently quickly and completely from Greenwood’s stories, and I was sort of relieved to see that wasn’t the case.

Two caveats regarding this book: it’s not really for Miss Fisher newbies and there are some distracting typesetting/proofreading errors.  I’m really not sure you’d be drawn to Phryne Fisher through this anthology if you hadn’t read the other books.  Why would you care what’s in Phryne’s bag, for example, and how would you know how strong a role food plays in Phryne’s world (hence the recipes)?  On the second point, I noticed a lot of missing punctuation and even a place or two where spaces between words went missing.  This is supposed to be a nice book, and for the most part it is, but I did find the editing errors distracting.

Overall, this is a fun read and a worthwhile purchase for Miss Fisher aficionados.

Special Feature: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Season 2 Part 1

The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be killed.  This post gives the details for the first three episodes of US Season Two.  Here's the Intro post; here's the Season One breakdown.

My Miss Fisher-induced euphoria cased me to neglect my favorite British inspector, but have no fear, I have not forgotten my commitment to assessing the dangers of Oxford for academics and would-be academics.  Season Two of Inspector Lewis is inexplicably long.  At seven episodes, I believe it’s the longest season of the series.  In fact, I think it might have been two different “series” (seasons) in Britain that were combined into one for us Americans—so maybe not “inexplicably” long, but long.  For that reason, I’m breaking the season in to three posts, covering episodes 1-3, 4-5, and 6-7.  Onward with the first installment!

While Season One had only 25% university victims, in Season Two things are looking a little bleaker for academics, at least in the first few episodes.  We have, in total, seven murder victims (plus a suicide) and four murderers.  Two victims are undergrads, one is faculty, one is a staff member, and three (count them, three! And all in one episode!) are administrators.  That means all the victims are affiliated with Oxford University in some fashion.  Two murderers are faculty members, and the other two are unaffiliated community members, though one is the parent of an undergrad.  So, Oxford University is definitely a dangerous place to work or study, and the town/gown issues dwarf those in most US university towns!  It’s far from certain that you’ll die in Oxford, but you might want to invest in some Mace or something.

If you haven’t seen the season, here’s Amazon link.  It’s included with Prime, if you have it.

Episode-by-episode details below the cut.  Contains spoilers.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Episode 3.3

“Murder and Mozzarella” 
Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.3
Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015) 
Rating: Three Stars (out of five)

This episode makes it clear to me that Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries no longer wants to be a mystery show with hints of romance.  Instead, it wants to be a romantic comedy in which leads solve mysteries.  There’s nothing wrong with that in theory, but I’m not sure it works when Phryne Fisher is one of the lead in question.  Just as “Murder and the Maiden” is structured to give Jack an opportunity to be jealous, the plot in “Murder and Mozzarella” highlights parts of Jack’s life that Phryne doesn’t know about and puts an artificial obstacle in the way of the romance.

The murder victim, Nonna Luisa Carbone, cooks in her family’s Italian restaurant.  The Carbones have a longstanding rivalry with the Stranos, who also own an Italian restaurant.  The Carbone family assumes that the Stranos must have murdered Nonna Luisa, but did they?  The activities of an Italian crime syndicate and an illicit love affair complicate Phryne and Jack’s investigations. 

The murder plot is fine, though not particularly gripping.  The solution isn’t what I expected at the beginning, but it isn’t hard to figure out once we learn about a certain plot point halfway through.  But this episode isn’t really about murder; instead, it's about Jack and Phryne’s relationship.  To my relief, there’s no silly jealousy on Jack’s part here.  The episode suggests that Phryne might have something to be jealous about, but they don’t push that plot point.  I’m glad, because I don’t think it’s in her character to be jealous, at least when there’s no definite commitment on either part.  “Murder and Mozzarella” certainly plays with the idea of commitment on both sides, but since we only ever see flirtation and innuendo, as viewers we have sense that the relationship is going anywhere at all.  So why did we have a whole episode essentially about it?

The already-committed relationship between Dot and Hugh also encounters some obstacles, this time in the form of Catholic doctrine about the family.  Hugh is all for the “man as head of household” bits and Dot is not.  Hugh has always had a sexist streak—but he’s a man in the 1920s, so it made a certain amount of sense.  At this point, though, he’s known Dot (and Phryne!) for quite a while, and it’s wearing thin, especially since they’ve amped it up this season (why?).  Ultimately, Dot and Hugh’s problems have the same “fake” feel to me as Jack and Phryne’s problems, but for different reasons.  We all know (don’t we?) that Dot and Hugh are going to get married, and we all know it’s unlikely that the show will either put Phryne and Jack together permanently or end their relationship completely.  For different reasons, all the obstacles are artificial.  That’s not good storytelling, show, I know you’re better than this!

Review: The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley

The Dead Key 
By D.M. Pulley 
Published by Thomas and Mercer (an Amazon imprint), 2015
Free as part of Amazon Kindle First for Prime members 
Link: Amazon 
Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

I enjoyed the The Dead Key more than any Kindle First book I’ve read since joining Prime a year or so ago (I should note that they tend to sit unread on my Kindle for longer than other books, since they’re free).  It had a lot going for it, in my, erm, book: it’s a mystery, it centers on two female protagonists, and it moves back and forth between two connected stories set twenty years apart.  In spite of a slow start, I was drawn into the story and by halfway through, I had trouble putting the book down.

The more recent (1998) story focuses on Iris, a young engineer assigned to draw plans of the defunct First Bank of Cleveland (FBoC).  Iris discovers that the bank had suddenly shut down twenty years before and that the vault is full of unclaimed safety deposit boxes.  Why?  And what does the FBoC’s closure have to do with Iris’s engineering firm?  This is what Iris wants to find out.  We also follow the adventures of Beatrice Baker, who in 1978 goes to work at the FBoC and uncovers a web of intrigue, fraud, and corruption, some of which concerns her personally.  By the novel’s end, both women face serious danger.  Will they survive?

Overall, I found myself drawn more to Beatrice than to Iris.  Beatrice is very young—only sixteen—and has to lie about her age to get her job at the bank.  While we eventually find out why she did this, I’d like to have learned more about her background.  She’s vulnerable and sweet but not stupid, and I found her interesting.  Iris, on the other hand, is harder to root for.  She drinks a lot and, while she recognizes that it’s a problem, she doesn’t seek help and even drives drunk.  Because her drinking seemed like a plot device and an afterthought more than a trait that drives her character, this got in the way of her likability for me.  I still found her story interesting, but that was more because of the situation in which she found herself than because I cared about her personally.

I’m a big fan of books that combine a present-day story with a historical story (though it’s hard to call 1998 “present-day” and I’m sure my parents would object to the labeling of 1978 as “historical”).  It’s easy to do this badly, but Pulley handles the dual plots quite well, keeping up the tension in both and making it clear from the beginning how they relate.  The plotting and storytelling are excellent, and overall I enjoyed this book very much and would read more of the author’s work.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Episode 3.2

“Murder and the Maiden”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.2

Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015)

Rating: Three Stars (out of five) 

This episode could have been really fun.  It involves airplanes, crossdressing, White Russians, and a substantial helping of the witty banter this show is known for.  However, it fell a bit flat for me.  For one thing, the plot is very convoluted.  For another thing, the Phryne/Jack will they/won’t they plot has been dialed up even from episode 3.1, and as I said in my review of that episode, I’m not a fan.  Some romantic comedy fuels the banter that makes this show great, but too much takes away from the mystery plots, and that’s what happened in this case.

The setting: an Air Force base.  Before the episode’s opening credits, we see a young woman die in the arms of a man.  Who is he?  Did he kill her?  That’s what Jack, Hugh, and the rest of the police force are trying to figure out.  Phryne, Dot, and company come on the scene because Phryne’s old friend Group Captain Compton has asked her to investigate both the disappearance of Flight Lieutenant James Manning and the attempted sabotage of his plane.  Of course, we soon learn that the two cases are linked, so Phryne collaborates with the police force to solve both of them. 

Phryne’s relationship with Compton, who once saved her life, fuels the tension between her and Jack in this episode.  He’s jealous, and she has to convince him he has no reason to be.  If this continues, it’s going to get very annoying (more annoying than it already is).  Phryne and Jack are not in a relationship.  Occasionally they’ll have dinner together, but it’s certainly not official, and I’m not sure why Jack would expect her to be “faithful.”  Also, the jealousy is irrational; Phryne hasn’t had one of her trademark casual liaisons since sometime in Season Two.  If we have to put up with his jealousy, I’d rather Phryne have some fun.  And I’ll go further: Show writers, either get your leads together for real or get rid of the romance.  Will they or won’t they?  Make a decision. 

 Also standing between this episode and higher rating for me is the resolution of the mystery itself.  There are a lot of moving parts, including a romance between Bert and a woman who works for the Communist Party and some random homophobia.  At several points, I was confused, and instead of being surprised and delighted by the resolution, I had to work backwards to figure out how it made sense.  In other words, watching this episode took work, which watching this show didn’t use to (and shouldn’t) do.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Episode 3.1

“Death Defying Feats”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.1

Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015)

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

I love Phryne Fisher.  She runs around 1920s Melbourne catching killers, sexing up [innocent] suspects, fighting for social justice, and generally being awesome, all while wearing fabulous clothes.  I found the TV series on Netflix in, I think, February of 2014.  By June, I’d read all twenty novels and seen every available episode of the TV show.  I even bought an Acorn TV subscription so I could watch Season Two before it came to Netflix.  So imagine my surprise and delight when I found Season Three on Netflix last week (the DVD doesn’t come out until October 27, and the show isn't on Acorn yet). 

Of course, this show is also perfect blog fodder, and the rest of this post reviews episode 3.1.  Expect reviews of the other seven episodes in Season 3 in the coming weeks.  I’ll avoid spoilers for Season 3, but I’m going to write as if readers know the show’s characters and basic premise.  To catch up, go to Netflix or Acorn TV (you won’t regret it!).  Anyway, here we go!

In the opening sequence of “Death Defying Feats,” a magic trick goes horribly wrong when a guillotine decapitates Pearl, a magician’s assistant.  Phryne, Jack, Dot, Hugh, and the rest of the gang soon arrive on the scene, and we follow them on their quest to discover who tampered with the guillotine and killed Pearl.  The magic show, Mackenzie’s Cavalcade of Mysteries, employs a bunch of sketchy characters including an ex-con handyman, a clairvoyant with an identical twin sister, the victim’s fiancé and show-owner Mr. Mackenzie (who may have murdered his first wife), and a contortionist who was also the victim’s lesbian lover.  Which of these people killed Pearl, and why?  Phryne and company find out, of course, but not without trouble and danger along the way.

For Phryne, “trouble” includes her Father, the Baron of Richland, who has arrived in Australia for a surprise visit.  The Baron, it turns out, is the new financial backer for Mackenzie’s Cavalcade, so he’s also involved in the mystery.  Phryne isn’t thrilled to see him, and frankly, neither was I.  I found him irritating, and I wasn’t sure why he was there, except to add unnecessary drama.

Some of that unnecessary drama involves Phryne and Jack.  When Jack learns that Phryne has a “gentleman visitor,” he gets upset and gives her little chance to explain who the visitor is.  She doesn’t try very hard, though, and in fact seems to be toying with him.  I’ll be honest: I don’t love the romantic element the TV show introduces into the Jack/Phryne relationship (it's not in the books), and I really hope the show never focuses too much on that.  I love that Phryne has a lot of lovers, and I love that while the TV show downplays them a little bit from the books, she still has her sexual romps.  I hope they don’t completely change that aspect of Phryne’s behavior because her sexual freedom is part of what makes her unique among female sleuths.

In other news, there’s also some tension between Dot and Hugh, because Hugh isn’t terribly comfortable with his wife-to-be’s involvement in murder cases.  Dot likes solving mysteries and she helps out a lot in this episode, and Hugh was being kind of obnoxious, so I hope this isn't an ongoing plot thread in Season 3.  Mac is back, and she’s now a medical examiner (did I miss this happening at the end of season 2?  I haven’t had time to go back and check).  Aunt Prudence was present, and she and I are on the same page with regards to Phryne’s father.  Jane, however, was MIA with nary a mention.  She’s not in all episodes of the previous seasons, so maybe she’ll be back soon, but surely Phryne would have noticed that her ward was missing and some explanation seems warranted.

Overall, this was a good episode, and not just because I was so glad to have my show back.  The solution to the murder was not obvious, but it made sense and as usual, there was a lot of witty banter between characters and Phryne's clothes were gorgeous.  Four stars.