What are the Horns of Consecration? I mention them over and over in my mysteries. (In the shadow of the Bull and On the Horns of Death)
The horns, a symbolic representation of the horns of the sacred bull, were everywhere in Minoan Crete. They ranged in size from smaller ones that edged walkways and stairs to larger ones.
As I’ve discussed, one of the features of his culture was the bull leaping which, in my opinion, probably bridged sport and religion.
I met Mindy Quigley at Malice Domestic and, as usual, following my practice of reading something by every author I meet. I read Six Feet Deep Dish.
And what fun it was too.
Delilah O’Leary can’t wait to open her gourmet pizza restaurant in beautiful Geneva Bay, Wisconsin.. This has always been her dream. But the day before opening, her wealthy boyfriend dumps her, leaving her with an armful of bills.
Then, on opening night, Delilah finds her aunt’s caregiver Jeremy shot dead – and her aunt holding the gun.
To make matters worse, the detective, Calvin Capone (yes, the great grandson of THAT Capone) closes the restaurant while the investigation is ongoing. Needless to say, sparks fly between Delilah and Capone.
Written in a snappy style with several engaging characters – Delilah’s Aunt Biz is my favorite – this cozy is a treat.
Highly Recommended.
Let me begin by saying that, although there are plenty of theories about burial practices, there are very few facts we know for certain. However, I gleaned what I could and imagined the rest. Since I write murder mysteries, I have to include something about funeral and burial practices.
Excavations have found human remains put in jars and secreted in caves but treatment of human remains began to transition to tombs. When Martis’s sister is interred In the Shadow of the Bull
I describe what I imagined the scene to look like: the giant stone covering the entrance and the remains of many family members in one tomb.
I also include in both the Crete books, the above and also On the Horns of Death
some other descriptions that might or might not be true.
A fresco from Crete show a musician playing a flute in front of what looks like a funeral cortege so I added that to my description. Martis carries gifts to add to the caskets: a small ship for her sister and a small clay figure of a bull for her friend. We know grave goods were included and during the Classical period, small ships were added to carry the departed over the River Styx. I theorized that this was a practice that began in the Bronze Age.
The professional mourners were also a feature in Classical Greece so I thought it was possible they were important before that era. I described them, in groups of a few to many depending on the wealth of the family, in both books.
Finally, I include a meal, a funeral dinner, if you will, connected to the services. I thought this was a reasonable supposition since, even now, food is offered to the mourners after a service. Descriptions of such meals are also part of Homer’s works so a decision to include them seemed safe.
In Greek legends, the Amazons were formidable women warriors who lived on the edge of the known world. Hercules had to obtain the magic girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte in one of his 12 labours, and Achilles killed another queen, Penthesilea, only to fall in love with her when he saw her face. (Kind of ironic that.)
These horseback-riding, bow-wielding nomads, who fought and hunted just like men, have long been shrouded in myth. (Remember, one of the stories claims these fierce female warriors also cut off one breast so as to be able to shoot a bow more effectively.
Now archaeologists are discovering increasing evidence that they really did exist.
Excavations of graves within a bronze age necropolis in Nakhchivan in Akzbaijan revealed that women had been buried with weapons such as razor-sharp arrowheads, a bronze dagger and a mace, as well as jewellery.
These fearsome women from 4000 years ago were famed for their male-free society and their prowess on the battlefield, particularly with a bow and arrow. (The men were, according to one theory, out fighting themselves. To another, that the men were tending the herds.)
Recent issues of Archaeology Magazine and World Archaeology have discussed the excavations leading up to the conclusion that the women from the Caucasus could have been the legendary Amazons.
In 2019, the remains of four female warriors buried with arrowheads and spears were found in Russia and, in 2017, Armenian archaeologists unearthed the remains of a woman who appeared to have died from battle injuries, as an arrowhead was buried in her leg. In the early 1990s, the remains of a woman buried with a dagger were found near the Kazakhstan border.
Some of the skeletons reveal that the women had used bows and arrows extensively. Historian Bettany Hughes observed that “Their fingers are warped because they’re using arrows so much. Changes on the finger joints wouldn’t just happen from hunting. That is some sustained, big practice. What’s very exciting is that a lot of the bone evidence is also showing clear evidence of sustained time in the saddle. Women’s pelvises are basically opened up because they’re riding horses. [Their] bones are just shaped by their lifestyle.”
This is particularly interesting to me since current theory suggests patriarchy came from the steppes with the adoption of the horse. Maybe the story isn’t as cut and dried as it appears.
A documentary detailing some of these finds will be broadcast on the BBC in April. In it, Hughes visits the mountain village of Khinalig. This is the highest inhabited place in Europe. There has been a settlement there since the Bronze Age, and stories handed down through their generations tell of women who fought like men but covered their faces with scarves.
Women, it appears, enjoyed more varied lives in the ancient past than those brought about by patriarchy in our more recent cultural history.
The Gold Pawn in L. A. Chandler’s second Art Deco mystery, after The Silver Gun, and continues the story of Lane Sanders.
Lane continues investigating the mystery of her parents, as well as of their deaths. To do that, she travels to Rochester to visit her childhood home. But, once there, she experiences such a powerful and negative emotion that she rushes back to New York City. A banker, Mr. Hambro, has disappeared. Fio wants Lane to look into it.
Meanwhile Finn, on assignment in Great Britain, is learning more about Rex Ruby and the Red Scroll gang.
The action bounces back and forth as both Lane and Finn piece together the dangerous mobster and the possibility of an heir to him.
Lots of fun. I admire Chandler’s ability to keep the story light and amusing while underpinning the mystery with a serious nod to Jeyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Circles of Death by Marcia Talley is the twentieth book in her Hannah Ives series.
Noel, a young friend of Hannah’s, appeals to her for help. Noel and her sister both took a DNA test and discovered that, not only are they not sisters, but they are not related at all.
Hannah uses her genealogical skills to begin tracking down relatives of Noel’s. With those relatives, they can begin finding someone who might be able to shed some light on the mystery.
At the same time, Noel and Hannah look into the poisoning of several eagles nearby and discover a farm that is using a banned pesticide. The man Hannah suspects of using that pesticide is murdered, his body floating to her dock.
The twin investigations lead to a long ago murder. Although the identity of one of the murderers is not difficult to figure out, the identity of the other was a total surprise.
I’ve read that this might be the last of the Hannah Ives mysteries. I am sorry to hear it. I so enjoy spending time with her and her family and friends.
As I begin preparing for Malice Domestic, (I am moderating a panel on setting ), I read a book by a featured author. Peril in the Pool House by Judy L. Murray, is the third in the Chesapeake Bay series.
At an open house party, thrown for the announcement of Eliot Davies’ candidacy as well as a welcome to their old, thoroughly renovated house, the body of Eliot’s campaign manager is found stabbed to death in the pool house. Who could have wanted this woman dead?
Helen Morrisey, the realtor who sold Eliot and his wife the house, and sometime detective, begins to poke around. Although warned off by her off and on love interest Joe McAlister, Helen knows Eliot and Alison have sunk every penny into the house – turned into a B & B – and they’ll lose everything unless the murderer is found.
Helen is an engaging detective with an unusual Detective Club. It is an imaginary one including such luminaries as Jane Marple and Nancy Drew.
I enjoyed this so much that I will go back to the first one and read all three. Lots of fun.
I also read The Paris Mistress by Mally Becker.
This is the third of the Revolutionary War series. I have enjoyed all of them but this one is my favorite so far.
Becca, along with her mother Hannah and mother-in-law Augusta, travel to France to meet Daniel Alloway. Becca and Daniel plan to marry in France. Almost immediately, Benjamin Franklin asks Becca and Daniel to listen and report back. Franklin knows there is a spy in his household reporting to England. Reluctantly, the couple agrees.
The visit goes from bad to worse. The body of the young man, Jude Fenimore, who’d traveled to France on the same ship with Becca, is found dead on the roof of Franklin’s house. The magistrates in France refuse to allow Becca and Daniel to marry (all for frustrating bureaucratic reasons) and Daniel is attacked.
Now Daniel insists Becca, her mother and mother-in-law return home before something else happens.
Highly recommended.
I am giving away five copies of In the Shadow of the Bull on both Goodreads (sign up here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/384416-in-the-shadow-of-the-bull) and on Fresh Fiction (sign up here: https://gleam.io/iwKi2/eleanor-kuhns-march
I am celebrating the release of the second book in the series – On the Horns of Death, which will be released April 2nd. Look for another giveaway at the end of March for the second book.
Last call to attend the all online conference Murderous March on Saturday (March 9.) Yes, I will be on the first panel on Saturday morning but there are plenty of other great panels and our featured speaker :
EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR
NAOMI HIRAHARA
If you are in Suffolk, I invite you to the Mystery Festival on Saturday, March 16. All day. This is one of my favorite events. Participants have a chance to meet many different mystery writers, attend panels, and, of course, buy books. Contact them here: Telephone: 757-514-4130
L.A. Chandlar is the moderator for my Murderous March panel, The Reluctant Sleuth, on March 9. Since I will be reading all the books for my panel mates, I decided to read hers as well.
The Silver Gun.
Chandlar’s series, The Silver Gun is the first, is called the Art Deco mysteries. They take place in the late 1930’s in New York City. This is after Jimmie Walker and Tamany Hall. Fiorella LaGuardia is currently mayor and on a mission to clean up the city.
Lane has been his assistant for six months. Life is exciting as she rushes around, trying to keep up with his schedule. But then she is thrust onto the subway tracks right in front of an oncoming train. Then she realizes a gangster is following her. He doesn’t trouble to hide it, grinning at her and making threatening gestures.
What is going on? Lane had to understand her own past, and the mystery of her parents’ deaths, before she can figure out why the gangsters have targeted her.
An illicit romance with a mysterious many further complicates Lane’s life.
This is a lot of fun. Recommended.
One of the challenges of writing historical fiction, especially historical fiction that takes place as long ago as Bronze Age Crete, is the difficulty of sorting through the various myths – and the various iterations of the myths. I’ve already discussed the conflation of Zeus and Dionysus in that they share an origin story. When the tribes of mainland Greece swept over Crete after the Santorini volcanic eruption, they adopted much of the Cretan culture. Then they adapted what they’d taken to suit themselves.
Since we are familiar with the Classical Greek myths, so familiar in some case we have internalized them, we think of them as the ‘correct’ stories. Dionysus’s origin story, which became Zeus’s, is one such.
The outlines of Zeus’s story are this. Since it was predicted that one of Cronus’ children would kill him and take his position, he swallowed all of his children as soon as they were born. To protect Zeus, his mother Rhea wrapped a stone in a swaddling cloth (which Cronus swallowed) and the baby was hidden in a cave in Mt. Ida.
In the Cretan myth, it is Dionysus that is hidden in the cave. Each was described as suckled by either a nanny goat or a sow. To hide the baby’s cries, Kouretes made noise.
Who are the Kouretes? If you google the name, they are described as crested, armored warriors who clash their shields together so Cronus can’t hear the baby crying.
But this is not the whole story. According to an earlier myth, the Curetes were the first inhabitants of the Greek island of Crete. They were mythical creatures, specifically legendary benign deities who lived prior to the Minoans. According to an early Greek myth, the Kouretes were not born. They sprang out of the earth of Crete when the infant Zeus wept and his tears fell on the ground.
In this version, they made a hanging cradle for Zeus so he was not of the Earth, the sky, or the sea. He was therefore well protected from Cronus.
Because these are myths, and all things are possible, the Kouretes are supposed to have invented hunting, the first bow, dance, and even the Olympic Games.