Author Archives: Eleanor Kuhns

About Eleanor Kuhns

Librarian and Writer Published A Simple Murder, May 2012

Currently Reading

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This past week I read two great books, both very different.

The first one is The Hidden one by Linda Castillo, the newest in this series.

Kate receives an appeal from three men from a far away Amish community asking her to come and help. Jason Bowman, her first flame, has been accused of murdering the Bishop of this village eighteen years ago. Kate hesitates. She will be out of her jurisdiction and with none of her support network. But she agrees to look into it.

Once she is attacked in her motel room, she knows her investigation is upsetting someone. Instead of being intimidated, she is more determined than ever to resolve this case.

Her research takes her to Minnesota, and to a failing bar outside the Amish are. She soon begins to see that the Bishop was not the man everyone thought.

I did not guess the ending. Another wonderful mystery.

The second book I read was A Killing in Costumes.

Cindy and Jay, once married soap stars, came out as gay. They remained good friends and have set up a store of movie memorabilia Hooray for Hollywood. Facing financial ruin, they are offered a way out in the offer of a valuable movie collection from an old star. But a larger company is also trying to handle the sale. After meeting with the salesman from Cypress, he is found dead and Cindy and Jay are the prime suspects.

And what’s up with the old star’s creepy son? Lots of fun.

Currently Reading

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Queens of the Wild (continued).

I finished reading Queens of the Wild. As I understand it, Hutton’s thesis challenges the belief that the Faerie Queen, Queen of the Night, the Green Man and all the witches and goddesses are descended from the ancient world. He believes they are more recent constructs and offers both scholarly and literary examples to prove it.

My problem with this theses, and he may be right that there is no direct line from the Goddesses of the ancient world to the current (after all, it is hard to interpret what was happening in prerecorded history), is that he seems to dismiss the existence or at least the importance of these Goddesses. Here is a quote: To a great extent, the vision of a prehistory in which human society had been violently altered from being led by and centered on women to being dominated by men, and in which religion had changed its focus from an earth goddess to a sky god was an obvious response to modern anxieties about gender roles in changing Western social orders.”

Am I the only one to see his belief that patriarch has always been dominant underlying his statement?

He draws Maria Gimbutas, a well respected archaeologist, into the discussion but dismisses her later work after she’d moved to California. “Gimbutas’ own work now gradually mutated to serve the beliefs and ideals of this movement (which stressed the importance of a female deity. . .”

I want to add that statuary, art work, Minoan seals and other artifacts do attest to the presence and importance of Goddesses in the ancient world. In the modern world matrilineal societies are not unknown. (see the Pueblo tribes in the southwest U.S.)

The book jacket says this book is thought provoking and it is. In my opinion, though, he wrote out of his belief in the primacy of male dominance.

I also read Holy Chow by David Rosenfelt.

This was a wonderful relief from the previous work. In this offering, Andy Carpenter reluctantly takes on the murder of a wealthy woman who had adopted a dog from his rescue operation: the chow of the title. Her stepson is arrested but Carpenter does not belief he is guilty. As usual, he professes his unwillingness to become involved but does and also, as usual, the mystery is more complicated than it at first appears.

Amusing and fun with a good mystery to boot.

Politics and cloth

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One of the things I have found so interesting is the way politics infuses everything; even the simplest article.

For example, cloth. We take it for granted. But cloth is important and has a very involved history.

But back to politics and calico.

Cottons, especially the calicoes, imported from India became very popular in the late 1700s. In Salem, calicoes were one of the primary imports into the new United States.

In England, however, which had always had a thriving wool trade, various protectionist laws were established to protect the woolen industry from this threat. First the printed calicoes were banned. This created trade in the gray unfinished cloth (fustian) which was sent to London to be finished.

A flourishing industry in India was almost destroyed to protect the English wool trade.

Then the wool trade objected when the imports of cotton recovered. Parliament passed a law fining anyone caught wearing dyed or ‘stained’ calico, but they exempted neckcloths and fustian.

In 1783 Thomas Bell invented a process to print cotton using copper rollers. At first only a few pieces were printed but by 1850 over 20,000 pieces were completed.

Now the Calico printers in their turn took steps to protect their product.  In 1916, they and the other printers joined and formed a trade association. This then set minimum prices for each ‘price section’ of the industry. This held until 1954 when it was challenged by the government Monopolies Commission.

Even printed cloth has a political history.

Currently Reading – and the whiff of patriarchy?

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The first book I read this week was A Simple Murder by Linda Castillo.

I chose it because it shares a title with my first Will Rees mystery series.

I also enjoy Linda’s books and have read them all. This work consists of five interlinked short stories, all starring Kate Burkholder and the Amish.U admit I prefer her novels but these were fun and were a little lighter than her novels. (It seems funny to consider murder mysteries ‘lighter’,)

The second book is Queens of the Wild; Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe. This is nonfiction; a study of Mother Earth, the Fairy Queen, Mistress of the Night and the Old Woman of Gaelic Tradition. Hutton challenges most of the current scholarship in claiming these are NOT pre-Christian Goddesses.

I am reading it as part of my research for the new series I am working on. It will take place in Bronze Age Crete. Women figured prominently in this society and the mosaics, seals and other artifacts discovered seemed to indicate, not only a Goddess as the supreme being, but the importance of women.

Why do I find the Hutton work so disturbing?

When I began my research into what is popularly known as the Minoan Civilization, I began with a work by Nilsson, one of the first archaeologists to dig in Knossos. He was convinced that the many depictions of women in the mosaics, including a very famous one showing them participating in bull leaping, had to be showing Goddesses. Why? Because women simply couldn’t be that important. His prejudices were clear and informed his interpretation of this ancient civilization.

Granted, understanding a society that is separated from us by over 3000 years is very difficult, especially when one is working with mosaics, jewelry, seals and other artifacts, (no newpapers or written records to help) as the clues to interpret the inner workings of a culture. With that said, however, the lesson I took away is that we all judge based on the cultural mores we’ve internalized. It is important not to assume that because gender roles in the early twentieth century followed one pattern that they were set and unchangeable, and fit every human society. Most scholars now posit that women were indeed that important in that society.

So, back to Hutton. I admit I haven’t quite finished this work and maybe I will agree with him more when I’m done than I do now. His focus does appear to be more about the Christian world of the early Middle Ages and a discussion of how these pagan goddesses came to be in a Christian society. We shall see.

Communes – and Shakers

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The communal style of living which is now so much a part of our picture of the Shakers was actually not a part of their beliefs. When they moved to the Colonies, however, relocating around Albany, financial stresses compelled them to live in a communal setting

If you have begun thinking of tie-dye, put it out of your mind.

The equality between the sexes was a direct outgrowth of the Shakers’ belief in the dual nature of God; a masculine half and a feminine half. It did not hurt that the spiritual leader of the order was a woman, Mother Ann Lee. Her experiences during childbirth, and the death of her young children, persuaded her that all sin came from sex and that only by overcoming fleshly desires could true salvation be attained. Unlike many of the new faiths that sprang up at that time, the Shakers were celibate.

The sexes lived together in the Dwelling Houses, but were separated and lived on separate sides of the Dwelling House. Personal property was abolished as well, all the property being held communally. New converts brought with them and gave to the order all of their worldly possessions, including land. Even though the order accepted anybody, including those who were penniless, the order became quite wealthy from the property deeded to them.

By living communally, the Shakers also had a work force, necessary on the large farms they owned.

Their agrarian methods ceased to be competitive with the United States economy when it shifted from farming and handcrafts to factories. The Shakers couldn’t compete and their numbers began to dwindle. Celibacy was part of the problem. Since they had no children of their own, they relied on converts, both adults and children. Once there were governmental agencies that cared for the poor and for the abandoned children, formerly a conduit of people to ‘make’ a Shaker, and the number of converts declined, the number of Shakers diminished rapidly.,

Tthey remain once of the most successful ‘communes’ ever established. Currently, there are still two surviving members.

Currently Reading

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Week of July 11

So glad to return to my usual routine. This week I read two books: Sleep Well My Lady by Kwei Quarter and Unbreathed Memories by Marcia Talley.

Sleep Well My Lady takes place in Ghana.

A famous fashion designer, Lady Araba, is found murdered in her bed. Her chauffeur is arrested but Araba;s aunt is convinced he is not guilty so she applies to the Sowah Detective Agency. They quickly discover there are plenty of suspects, from the alcoholic Augustus Seeza to Ismael, the gardener. Although DNA evidence has been collected, it has been set aside, untested. The members of the agency go undercover to lay bare what really happened.

Although the setting is exotic, the motivations -and the people – are like people everywhere. Outside of some clunkiness in the style, probably from the translation, a very enjoyable mystery.

The second book I read this week is Marcia Talley’s Unbreathed Memories.

It is number two in the Hannah Ives series; my plan is to read them all throughout the summer.

Hannah’s sister Georgina is seeing a therapist and suffering a rather severe mental breakdown. During therapy, she claims her father sexually abused her. Worse, Georgina’s therapist has taken a header off the balcony and now Georgina is the prime suspect in her murder. It is up to Hannah to figure out what really happened.

I really enjoy these mysteries!

Maine and Ellery Queen

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Had a fun but very busy week in Maine. We stayed on Mount Desert Island, an absolutely magical place. The place we stayed had limited Internet; I could only access my email from 5 am to about 8. After that my phone worked only intermittently.

Above are a few shots of Maine locales. The middle photo is Thunder Hole in Acadia Park. The Island is one of the best place for hiking I know.

While there, I did not have time to read a book. Instead, I read an Ellery Queen magazine. Probably the April issue (I am behind.) Some good stories in there.

Black Death

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Probably one of the most famous pandemics is the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death. I was most familiar with the plague that swept Europe in the 1340s (primarily from The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. One of my favorites and one I reread almost once a year.)

But recent scholarship has discovered Yersina Pestis in Bronze Age Samples. This is a very old disease. The oldest human sample is 5000 years old but it is now estimated that the organism is probably 7000 years old. Wow. It is thought that the disease originated in Northern Eurasia but one of the Bronze Age samples is from England so the disease was already traveling.

But most of the graves found so far are individuals, not mass graves. What happened?

Well, the theory put forth in BBC History, Vol 23, is that the spread of the disease coincided with the rise of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century. As they spread out, reaching even Italy, they carried some of their own provisions with them. Guess what loves grain? Rodents.

It has been known for some time that rodents and fleas were the disease’s vectors.

One of the goods Italy was importing was grain.

COVID traveled via airplanes. The Black Plague traveled by ship as goods and people went from country to country. It returned in waves and one estimate posits that half the population in Europe died. Certainly entire villages were wiped out.

The disease is still around and still lethal without treatment.

Plagues

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After experiencing Covid this past week, I have a new interest in the plagues that have occurred throughout human history.

Some, like smallpox, have been eradicated in the wild. The last case occurred in 1978 when a lab worker was infected and died.

Smallpox has been around for over 3000 years; the exact beginnings are not known. It was widely feared, and with good reason.The ordinary type of smallpox was extremely lethal with death rates ranging between 30 and over 60 percent. Almost as feared was the scarring left in those who survived. The malignant form is even more lethal, causing death in almost 100 % of the time. Smallpox epidemics swept through the population in regular waves. George Washington was so nervous about the effect on the Continental troops that he insisted everyone be variegated (inoculated with matter from a pustule. Death could still occur but was less likely.)

Another greatly feared plague was the Bubonic, the so-called Black Death. It also swept over Europe in waves and is still the most lethal pandemic recorded, killing between 75 and 200 million people. Estimates of death rates in Europe range between 45 and 60%. The Hemmoraghic form had a mortality rate of between 90 to 95%. Entire villages were wiped out. The loss of so much population created tremendous economic and social upheaval and, arguably, contributed to the rise of the middle class.

The Black Death is so-called because it causes the flesh to die and turn black. Because the Bubonic Plague (called that because of the swellings, or buboes) is bacterial, it is treated with antibiotics and is now curable.

Influenza. There have been six pandemics in the last 140 years, with the 1918 pandemic being the worst. Millions died and millions more were sickened. Like COVID, it is a respiratory disease. Severe cases still cause death. Because it is viral, antibiotics do not work. A new vaccine shot must be taken every year as the virus mutates quickly.

And then we come to COVID. Vaccinated and boosted, my case was not terrible. I felt awful the first day but then the illness moderated to nothing worse than a bad cold.

Currently Reading – week of June 13

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Another crazy week. A high school reunion infected myself, my husband, and a number of other friends with Covid. Light cases all but still an interruption in our usual routines.

This week I read When Blood Lies by C.S. Harris.



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I strongly recommend this series, which begins with What Angels Fear.“ These historical mysteries take place in the Regency and follow Sebastian St, Cyr.

When Blood Lies is number seventeen or eighteen.

After years of searching for his mother, Sebastian finally locates her in Paris living under the name Sophie Cappello. He and his family travel to Paris and Sebastian makes an arrangement to meet her. He has many questions, including about the identity of his biological father. But just hours before the meeting, she is murdered. Despite being warned off the investigation, and seeing both his life and the lives of his family threatened, Sebastian (or Devlin, as he is also called), persists.

The mystery is set against Napoleon’s escape and return from Elba and the heightened tensions his imminent arrival in Paris brings.

I read and write historical mysteries because I love the historical details included in the story. I did not know that the armies went over to Napoleon instead of fighting him and he took Paris without a single shot being fired.

Another excellent mystery.