One of the problems with understanding the culture in Ancient Crete is that we are limited to archaeological discoveries. We have not deciphered Linear A and so the writings, that might explain unknowns about this civilization cannot be read. That means that many facts, about their diet for example – did they have cheese? -, about their political structure – was there a King or was it a theocracy-, or about whether this society was an empire or a loose confederation of city states, are unknown.
We know there were colonies spread out over the Aegean. Akrotiri, buried in ash and currently being excavated, is one. But were they just colonies or independent city states?
On Crete, other cities besides Knossos, arguably the largest and best known, were wealthy and powerful. Gortyna was one and it is thought there was conflict between the two cities. That seems to imply equally powerful city states – but we don’t know.
I’ve read arguments on both sides of the debate and both seem equally plausible to me.
I read two books this past week. Neither were traditional mysteries. The first one was Her Past Can’t Wait by Jacqueline Boulden.
At a business function, Emily is groped by an important client. Instead of accepting it, she turns and slaps humans causes a big scene. Although her supervisor saves her job, she is suspended for two weeks. During that time, she goes for therapy and discovers a long ago trauma. Her investigation of that trauma leads to a serial predator and almost costs Emily her life.
The second book was Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney.
Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart which has made her alternately scorned and spoiled. When her estranged family arrives on a tiny island in Cornwall for Nana’s eightieth birthday, they all arrive with secrets. Because of the tide, the house will be cut off for eight hours. As a storm rages outside and on the stroke of midnight, Nana is found dead. One by one, each of the family dies. Who can be killing the family?
Creepy and captivating. Perfect for a Halloween Read. I admit, however, that I was not thrilled with the final twist.
WordPress has ‘upgraded’ which means it is more difficult to use and without some of the previous amenities. Bear with me, I am still figuring it out.
I’ve been asked why I chose such a long ago era to write mysteries about. After all, it is the Victorian era that is so popular now.
Well, I am fascinated by the ancient past. In some ways, the past is all around us. A large Roman mosaic was just discovered in Eastern Turkey by a man gardening on his property. Roman ruins have been discovered in Italy, Greece, Great Britain, France and more.
In other ways, the ancient past is an undiscovered country. There is much we don’t know. Although they were human beings like us, so many aspects of ancient cultures are strange, odd, sometimes downright offensive to modern eyes.
Ancient Crete
Differences between Ancient Crete and our current culture go far deeper than clothing of technology. It is believed the Minoans were matrilineal, maybe even a matriarchy. Some of the archeologists I read had real problems with that. It is certainly true that women were powerful.
The Minoans worshipped a Supreme Goddess, although there were Gods in their pantheon.
And some of their sports/rituals seem absurdly dangerous to us. The bull leaping, in which teenagers run at a charging bull, grab the horns, and flip over, is something that would not be allowed today. I cannot imagine a parent nowadays who would allow this.
Some archaeologists have even suggested the Ancient Minoans practiced human sacrifice (of children no less) under certain exigent circumstances.
These differences are what make this society so fascinating. It shows the breadth of human culture and belief.
The other factor that I find captivating is the cultural line that stretches from Ancient Crete to Greece and then to the entire Western civilization. (Greece is commonly honored as the cradle of democracy.) Certainly, the mainland Greeks who became Classical Greece, adopted Minoan Gods, art, and language. Although Linear A has not been deciphered, Linear B has and it is an early form of Greek.
So here it is. This ancient culture, so very different from our own and with so much still unknown about it, influenced the course of Western Civilization right down to modern times.
This title, written by Jacqueline Boulden is the winner of several Indie awards.
At a corporate function, Emily Archer, tired of the sexist comments and harassment, slaps a man who gropes her. Since he is an important client of her company, she is immediately threatened with dismissal. Her boss manages to keep that from happening but she is suspended. Therapy reveals a long ago trauma.
Now sensitized, she is made uncomfortable by the behavior of a new hire. This evolves in the reveal of a sexual predator, and puts her life in danger.
Although not a whodunit, engrossing. Recommended.
I also read the new mystery of Donna Leon.
I’ve read all of Leon’s books and greatly enjoyed them but I found this one disappointing. The book starts with a bang. The members of two gangs are arrested and brought into the station. When the father of one of the boys, does not pick him up, Griffoni walks him home. At the same time, Brunetti is asked to vet that father, Dario Monteforte, for a job.
Monteforte, lauded as a hero twenty years previously, was never awarded a medal. Why the contradiction?
The case becomes even more serious when the forensic scientist, Enzo Bocchese, is attacked in his apartment.
I found this book confusing. The two halves don’t mesh well and it felt to me as though two different stories had been mashed together. Leon’s writing is, as usual, lovely and her characters are wonderful but I felt the story was disappointing.
This past week, my husband and I went on an Alaska cruise. This makes two visits to Alaska in about one year. The previous visit was an interior one. We biked in the back country (and saw bears), kayaked, hiked a bit of Denali, and so on.
This time we cruised up the coast. We left from Vancouver, an amazing beautiful city, traveled up the Inside Passage.
Our first stop was at Icy Strait Point. We are talking remote. Goods are delivered once a month by boat. Our van driver said that many of the people go south for the winter. I believe it.
From there we went to the Hubbard Glacier which was definitely a high point of the trip.
Hubbard Glacier
This glacier is still growing, despite climate change. We saw it calve several times. The water was filled with floating ice.
From there we sailed to Juneau
and Ketchikan.
It was cool and rainy throughout, but at least we didn’t see snow like we did the previous summer.
In Ketchikan we went on a tour of Saxman Village, a First Nation community. Above is a lodge house and some fine examples of totem poles. They are designed to communicate information in a pre-literate society. The original paint colors were ground ores, e.g. iron oxide, mixed with the saliva of woman (who first chewed the roe of one of the local fish.) Since they have declined to continue doing that – no wonder – the paint is now bought.
Alaska is amazing and very beautiful. It seems to stay pretty cool all year round though. (The temperature never rose above 57 and this was the first week of September.) I wonder what the winters are like. Harsh I’m sure, and this is from someone who is familiar with both New York and Maine winters.
I read quite a few books while I was on vacation but I will discuss only one: The Yellow Wife by Sadequa Johnson.
Phelby is the daughter of the plantation’s master and thus grows up petted and treated differently than most enslaved people on the plantation. She has been promised her freedom at sixteen but instead, while the master is away, Phelby’s mother dies and the mistress (a jealous and vengeful woman) sells Phelby. She is supposed to be sold to a ‘fancy house’, a brothel but while the line of slaves is being held at an intermediate point, the jailor sees her and pulls her out to become his mistress. She bears him several children and after the Civil War, when intermarriage is allowed, he marries her.
I wanted to read this because, although it takes place later in the 1800s than my own book – Death in the Great Dismal – it does have some similarities.
First, both deal with slavery. Writing about this very thorny subject was difficult for me and it took me a long time to reach the point when I felt I could do it.
Both also feature a mixed race woman involved with a white man/master. Both include a white woman who was jealous of the mixed race woman.
Of course, there were some obvious differences. My protagonist, Will Rees, is a white man. He is also a northerner, outside of the Southern culture, and so always maintains a certain distance. Johnson wrote her book from the point of view of Phelby herself, the woman at the center of the action. My mixed race character, Sandy, fancies herself in love. Phelby’s reaction to the jailor who plucks her out of the coffle to become his mistress/wife is much more nuanced. She’s afraid of him but remains tied to him until his death. Although her children, all but one, escape to the north and pass for white, Phelby does not. My character Sandy does escape with Rees and Lydia after a severe beating by the mistress of the house. I wanted a happy ending.
Since I wrote my mystery as entertainment, the story is not as dark as The Yellow Wife. I suspect it is more accurate to the experiences of the times.
I will be at the Albany Book Fair on Saturday from 10 am to 4pm. The Festival is held in the upper campus; my table will be in the ballroom. Stop by for a chat if you’re in the area.
Occasionally I read other genres than mystery. Science fiction and historical fiction are two of my other favorites. This week I read System Collapse by Martha Wells.
I have read quite a number of novels and stories by Wells but this was a new series for me. Told from the viewpoint of a Murderbot, an android if you will, it tells of a hunt for some rogue colonists and a skirmish with a corporation determined to enslave the colonists and take the planet for its resources. Put like that, it sounds average but the murderbot’s voice is so human in so many ways that the story works. The bot, like Data in The Next Generation is both human and not and struggles with the dichotomy. Fun.
I also read Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice. In this outing, Finlay and Vero head to Atlantic City to save Vero’s cousin from a mobster and rescue the Aston Martin given Finlay by a Russian gangster. Needless to say, it does not go smoothly. Finlay’s ex-husband and mother insist on accompanying her and then Finlay’s hot cop boyfriend turns up. Laugh out loud funny.
One of the things I find so interesting about the research into the distant past is how many more things are discovered, seemingly every year. One would think that after decades of excavation, everything would have been discovered already. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Recently a labyrinth was discovered on Crete on the top of a hill. Crete has undergone many excavations but clearly there is still plenty more to find.
And, as science moves on, we have better tools. archeogenetics is a new and burgeoning field. The discoveries made through testing DNA have upset many long held beliefs. The Etruscans, for example, believed to have emigrated from Anatolia to Italy are now found to be from the Caucasus.
Tests of the Blackfeet Indian Tribe have been similarly surprising.
Previously, they were thought to have migrated to the High Plains from the Great Lakes. Some anthropologists have argued that the Tribe’s language if part of the Algonquin family. Nothing in the Blackfoot oral tradition supports this.
DNA supports their belief that they have lived on their ancestral lands since time immortal. Current linguistic research indicates that the Blackfoot language has features belonging to an ancient language that predates Algonquin.
Even coffee has proven to have a surprising journey. The coffee bushes evolved in Eastern Africa in a few different strains that eventually interbred. The plants that grew on the eastern side of the Great Rift Valley remained wild but the ones on the eastern side were brought to the Yemen city of Mocha. Folklore says that the red berries were eaten. (Yuck.) Oral histories say that an Indian monk brought the berries to India from which it spread around the world. Dutch explorers cultivated c. arabica on Java – Typical. Another variant was cultivated by French colonists – Bourbon – and that combination of those two varieties largely gave rise to the coffee most of us drink today. Who knew?
The third of Amy Myer’s cozies, Marsh and Daughter’s murder mysteries, Murder in Hell’s Corner, finds Georgia and her father investigating the murder of Patrick Fairfax, a revered WWII pilot.
As Georgia and Peter investigate, especially looking into a close knit group of pilots who knew Fairfax, they realize that he was not as universally admired as his family believed.
Was the murderer one of his many women? Or one of the other pilots? Or his business partner? The solution, and the twist at the end, is surprising.
What I found captivating, though, was the descriptions of WWII. The relentless bombing by the Germans, the loss of friends and comrades that occurred almost hourly, the sheer scale of a war pounding at this small country. Like Foyle’s War, it is a reminder that England was almost destroyed and was metaphorically hanging by its fingernails.
I was captivated by the Olympics this summer and watched as many events as I could. I did not realize how many really fast runners there are! Really impressive.
There were a couple of things that struck me. Perhaps the most striking was the good sportsmanship displayed by the athletes. So much hugging between winners and losers. Refreshing.. I also loved the engagement of the audience. The French men’s basketball team took silver and the crowd broke into a spontaneous anthem. So moving!
The teams were diverse, not only the United States contingent, but most. I love seeing the inclusion of all these athletes, including some from countries who not only have never won but never even participated before now.
Also impressive was the number of women competitors. Women have not been well represented in the past but, boy, they sure were this time. Wonderful to see.
The only two blots on the Olympics had almost nothing to do with the athletes but with the judges instead. I have been following the dustup over the gymnastics. The judges made several mistakes, that is fact. They marked off one gymnast for going out of bounds and the replay clearly shows she did not. They missed the difficulty of one of the moves in Jordan Chiles’ routine, added it on review and then took it away again. Instead of admitting their mistakes, they’ve doubled down. Both the USA and Romania agree to multiple bronzes (3 to include another gymnast) but the judges refuse. This is not a good look and certainly does not display good sportsmanship.
Finally, the Chinese diving team tested positive for a banned substance. When Kamila Valieva tested positive during the figure skating in the Winter Olympics she lost her gold and Russia was banned. China suffered no consequences. If this is the rule (and it should be) it should be applied uniformly. The Chinese divers may have won anyway – they are that good – but doping gave them an edge and supposedly is forbidden.
