Category Archives: murder mysteries

Ancient Crete

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Now that In the Shadow of the Bull will be released this summer, I thought I should talk a little bit about the culture of ancient Crete.

Although it is called the Minoan Era, that is a misnomer. Minos was a mythical king mentioned in Greek stories from Classical Greece, many years later.

What we do know is that this sophisticated society flourished in the Bronze Age, only to be destroyed about 1459 B.C.E, The volcano on the island now called Santorini blew, sending ash as far away as Turkey., and causing massive damage to Crete. Some archaeologists discuss signs of rebuilding but the Achaeans, the Greeks from the Mainland, were able to take advantage and occupy the island.

The iconic statuettes from Bronze Age Crete  are of women (priestesses probably although some scholars claim they are the Goddess) with snakes twining up their arms and around their waists. Snakes were sacred in this Bronze Age religion.

Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term 'goddess' also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The 'Snake Goddess' figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake's close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess
Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term ‘goddess’ also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The ‘Snake Goddess’ figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake’s close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess

The shedding of their skins was a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. One of the resources I read said that the snakes were allowed to live in the houses. (I am not sure how she knows that.) If so, I’m sure that the presence of the snakes kept down the mice.

Currently Crete does not have native venomous snakes and it is thought that there no venomous snakes in Crete during the Bronze Age either. So, of course I had to wonder if the asp was ever imported from Egypt.

(I think everyone knows that Cleopatra is supposed to have committed suicide with an asp. According to my research, however, it was a mixture of poisons including opium and wolfsbane. But I digress.)

The prevalence of women in the artwork, not just statuary but also the mosaics, have lent support to the theory that women enjoyed a high status in this society. It is theorized that the religion featured a Goddess as well as less important Gods. Several were transported virtually unchanged to the pantheon of Hellenic Greece.

Currently Reading

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I finished Death’s Rival by Faith Hunter.

I am in awe of Hunter’s imagination. Although this is several books in, the story still feels fresh. This is an enjoyable series and I expect to read it right to the end.

I also finished Death of a Snow Ghost by Linda Norlander. I met Linda at last Year’s Malice and was interested enough in the description of her first book to read it and the second.

Jamie Forest leaves New York City for a small cabin in the Minnesota woods. Along with each mystery, Jamie experiences the trials of a hand to mouth existence in a cabin that seems to need constant massive infusions of cash.

In Death of a Snow Ghost, Jamie has her first bitterly cold winter. On her way home, she sees what looks like a ghost coming out of the snowy fog. But it turns out not to be a ghost but a young woman in labor. Jamie delivers the baby in the back seat of her car and finds herself thrust into a serious mystery.

Carmen is terrified that someone will try and take her child and as Jamie becomes involved in the lives of these pregnant Hispanic women, she realizes that something is very wrong in the home, and the people, who supposedly work for an organization that claims to save them. A death of one of the young women, as well as one of the men, leads Jamie into a complicated mystery.

All the familiar characters are here: Clarence her friendly lawyer, Jim, her love interest, and more.

Although this is a cozy, it deals with some serious topics. Highly recommended.

Currently Reading

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The first book I read this week was Book Four of the Jane Yellowrock series, Raven Cursed.

Jane is working security in Asheville, N.C. for a vamp parley. The vamps in Asheville want to set up their own territory. Evangeline Overheat, Molly’s older sister, has agreed to facilitate the parley. But a group of campers are attacked by something supernatural, and Jane realizes the two werewolves she didn’t kill have followed her to North Carolina and are on the hunt.

Then Lincoln Shaddock does not turn up at the parley and Evangeline begins changing, growing younger and prettier. What is going on?

Action packed and fun.

The second book I read was A Truth to Lie For by Anne Perry, the fourth Elena Stands mystery.

Elena is called into service again, tasked with pulling a scientist working on German warfare out of Germany. Elena calls upon her old friend for Jacob and they successfully find the scientist. But when they try to take him out of Berlin, traffic jams and roadblocks send them south to Munich. Just in time for the Night of the Long Knives; Hitler’s strike against Rohm’s brownshirts.

At the same, a young Gestapo officer, Hans Beckendorff is trying to navigate the politics of working for the Reich, and for an increasingly unhinged Hitler. In the end, he is forced to make a life-changing decision.

I had a few criticisms. The ending seems rushed. Perry relies on a few phrases over and over (I really got tired of ‘surprisingly good coffee’.) It is not really a mystery, more a thriller.

But here’s the thing. Despite the absence of blood and gore (a constant feature of the Yellowrock novels), A Truth to Lie For is absolutely terrifying. Maybe because the reader knows what is coming in the next few years, but I felt a sense of dread throughout. I was truly scared at several points in the book.

Murder, Sweet Murder Review

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So pleased to receive this wonderful review from Missi Stockwell Martin.

Murder, Sweet Murder (Will Rees Mysteries #11) by Eleanor Kuhns

Will Rees accompanies his wife to Boston to help clear her estranged father’s name in this gripping mystery set in the early nineteenth century.

January, 1801. When Lydia’s estranged father is accused of murder, Will Rees escorts her to Boston to uncover the truth. Marcus Farrell is believed to have murdered one of his workers, a boy from Jamaica where he owns a plantation. Marcus swears he’s innocent. However, a scandal has been aroused by his refusal to answer questions and accusations he bribed officials.

As Will and Lydia investigate, Marcus’s brother, Julian, is shot and killed. This time, all fingers point towards James Morris, Lydia’s brother. Is someone targeting the family? Were the family quarreling over the family businesses and someone lashed out? What’s Marcus hiding and why won’t he accept help?

With the Farrell family falling apart and their reputation in tatters, Will and Lydia must solve the murders soon. But will they succeed before the murderer strikes again?  (Summary via Goodreads)

Readers of the Will Rees Mystery series by Eleanor Kuhns are going to go crazy, in a good way, when they start reading the eleventh book, Murder, Sweet Murder……Rees and his wife Lydia along with two of their children are heading to Boston to visit Lydia’s family.

In Murder, Sweet Murder Lydia, who left home many years ago when her father had tried to marry her off to a gentlemen that she did not love, is returning after receiving a letter from her younger sister asking for help.  It seems that their father Marcus was accused of murder and Cordelia, Cordy, knows that Will and Lydia have helped solve crimes in their hometown in Maine so they are the obvious choice to clear Marcus’s name.  Unfortunately when they arrive at Lydia’s old home, they are not as welcomed as they had hoped.  First no one other than Cordy wants an investigation, it seems the case has somehow been swept under the rug, and second the family is not so warm to accepting Will into the family.  When Lydia left she didn’t keep in touch with anyone other than Cordy so they are not aware of Will as her husband and of her children.

Will and Lydia are not deterred and begin their investigation into the young man’s death.  It is known that he is from Jamaica, a plantation that Marcus owns, but not much more is known. He was killed in the middle of the night outside a tavern that was closed, no witnesses that they are aware of and not much to go on…so Will decides to start at the place of death and go from there……

Every time that they think they have a clue or a fact to the murder, something happens that changes their minds.  Once they start investigating they learn of more people that could possibly have committed the murder and when they find out that the person killed isn’t who everyone thinks, they are lead down another disturbing road.  And when someone else is murdered in exactly the same way as the first person, Will and Lydia are more determined to find the killer !!

Readers will be drawn into the story immediately !!  Readers will love that Will and Lydia are traveling to Boston allowing us to get to know Lydia’s family and the secrets that have kept her away for all those years.  There will be members of the family you will fall in love with instantly and there will be some you will hate as soon as you meet them….but you will enjoy the time that you spend in Boston and will be just as glad as Will is when they leave.

Review by Missi M.

Currently Reading

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August 29. This week I read the latest Kathy Reichs Cold Cold Bones.

A human eyeball is delivered to Temperance Brennan’s front porch. Shortly after, a head missing said eyeball is discovered. Shortly after, other victims turn up, each one mimicking a past case that Brennan worked on.

At the same time, she is worried about her daughter, Katie, who has returned from military service. Suffering from PTSD, she wants to set up a charity for veterans. She begins volunteering at a local shelter, only to disappear shortly after.

What is going on?

Enjoyable. My only criticism is that I knew who the villain was fairly early on.

The second book I read was In Death’s Shadow by Marcia Talley.

I enjoy these which are a cozy as I like to read. In this one, an insurance scam results in several murders. Insurance scams sound as though they would be very dry but I found the insurance in this book interesting. Hannah’s breast cancer, now in remission, is the theme that ties all the books together. Fun.

Inadvertently, I read this one out of order; this is number four so I will have to go back and fill in with the third.

Making sugar from sugarcane

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The cruise I was on for vacation stopped at Falmouth Jamaica. An excursion out went to the Good Hope Plantation. I was particularly interested in visiting this estate since my most recent book, Murder, Sweet Murder, centers around a sugar plantation in Jamaica.

Sugarcane is a finicky crop that demands a particular temperature and regular water. Since it exhausts the soil, new fields must always be planted. It is also very labor intensive.

The Good Hope estate was set up in 1774 and, at its height, used about 3000 slaves.

Several buildings from that time are still there, although they are being used now as a shop, reception area and a restaurant. A small museum was attached.

One of the tools used to create sugar from the cane is a pot that resembles a wok. Five of these, the heat increasing as the syrup was moved from one pan to another, boiled the cane juice down. The resulting syrup was allowed to cool and the sugar crystallized out of it. The crystals are allowed to continue drying and then packed in barrels.

This must have been some process. Anyone who has ever made fudge knows how quickly sugar burns. (At the Whitney Plantation near New Orleans, a site now dedicated to the enslaved people who worked it, we were told that children were usually given the job of stirring the syrup, I can hardly imagine assigning a child to such a dangerous task.)

The byproduct of sugar making is molasses which was fermented into rum. The lowest quality was called killdevil, screech and a number of other names. Nonetheless,, everyone drank rum – until the Whiskey Rebellion in the new United States made whiskey the patriotic drink.

At its height, Jamaica produced about 20% of the world’s sugar. The amount dropped off when slavery was abolished and the plantations lost their enslaved workforce.

I did not see the house but pictures show an elegant home and hint at the gracious lifestyle the enslaved population offered the white planters.

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 – 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.

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!

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.



F

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.