The Night of the Twelfth by Michael Gilbert

 

I thought I had read all the really good books written by Gilbert and was going to simply be working through his others because I am, as Simon always tells me, a "completist."  Surely there is no way he could write a better book than those I had already read.  But was I wrong!  

The Night of the Twelfth, published in 1976, is now out of print--which is so odd because it's amazingly well written.  I'm just repeating myself at this point but Gilbert really is a special sort of genious when it comes to writing breezy prose that is quickly paced while at the same time develops the story slowly and carefully. And despite the fact that there are 20-odd significant characters, they are very distinct individuals with their own voice.  

I don't want to give too much away as the story is too enjoyable to risk spoilers with an overly developed overview, but I can describe the basic idea: the story takes place in Surrey County which (in this world) is populated by a lot of tiny villages that are connected by many, many minor roads that weave between woods, quarries (like in Dr. Who) and farms. This geography is important as it means that a terrible person who is familiar with the landscape can find many places just off an empty road to do evil acts but then pop back into their car and evade capture by disappearing into a maze of windy roads. The evil deeds in question are kidnapping boys (preteens) while they walk home from after school events, bundling them up into the trunk of a car, driving to a nearby but well hidden drive or field, sadistically torturing them, and then leaving the dead body to be found (maybe) some time later.  This horrible scene plays out within the first few pages so we know we are in for seriously upsetting stuff right from the get go. But, despite the awful nature of the crimes taking place, the book does not descend into morbid horror the way so many more recently published mystery books do (looking at you, Jo Nesbo, who gives us nasty, horrible stories that make you want to take a hot soapy shower after reading).  Perhaps because of the quick pacing of the story and use of humor to develop all the various characters, it seems like the book is getting something importantly done rather than cynically belaboring cruelty.

Ok, enough about the crimes.  The story unfolds by taking us into two separate groups of people.  One is the police (local "constabularies", some of whom are smart and reliable and some doing time until their retirement kicks in next month) and undercover Scotland Yard investigators on loan to help out.  But even better than the usual plaster footprint casts and witness interviewing, we see an amazing net of assistants collected who report to the police to ensure they can catch the guilty party.  They are night owls (astronomers, insomniacs, 3rd shift workers getting home before dawn, bird watchers and so on) who take up posts at various important road intersections and remain on the look out for a specific make and model of car.  And it works! (As one inspector notes, once you tell someone you need their help catching someone who sadistically tortures a child, even hardened criminals step up and do their part.) So much more satisfying than AI generated reports scraped from flock cameras....

The other characters are all found at Trenchard House, a private school (smack dab in the middle of all the sites where murdered boys have been found) for boys from around 7 years old (they get to sleep with teddy bears) to until 14 or so (they are not allowed teddy bears). When we meet the teachers they are complaining that the few days they had off from teaching because of a serious lice infestation at the school was a far too brief break and they are debating the (dis)value of beating boys to maintain discipline. Some are strongly in favor because "back in their day" boys were beaten all the time and they turned out just find.  Others are strongly opposed because beating "just creates fascists and don't we have enough of those in the world already?"  Good points on both sides but the issue is moot because the headmaster, Fairfax (nicknamed "Connie") by all the boys, prohibits all physical punishments. The rule carved in granite is that teachers can impose "demerits" and if the student gets two demerits in one day, they get sent to the headmaster's office and he gets to decide if whapping the kid with a stick is warranted. (It turns out it rarely is as imposing menial custodial tasks that prevent the kid from getting to do fun things after school hours is very effective at stopping obnoxious behaviors.)  As is expected, the teachers all get along well enough but do not actually like each other all that much, and each is vaguely suspicious that none of the others actually does their job all that well.  To underscore that point, one of the teachers, Mr. Morrison, just had a "nervous breakdown" and is "taking a break" (which seems to involve hiking in Switzerland and reading a lot of good books). And suddenly there are two new "teachers", both of whom have guns with silencers hidden in their bedrooms. How do we know this?  Because the oldest boys (there are only three of them and they share a bedroom which is on the highest floor of an old tower) spend every evening looking out their bedroom windows and spying on all the teachers as they sneak out after hours, one to get to a pub to get drunk, one to get to his "lady friend's house", one to "go walking," and another who "takes photos".  And it turns out that the two new guys spend at least three hours every night patrolling the borders of the school property. Very interesting.

We learn about the characters by popping in and out of every classroom, eavedropping in on the conversations between the students and their teachers when the students don't want to work and ask ridiculous questions to derail the lessons. (Such as: "G.G. [nickname for carpentry teacher] is a real hero, right?"--a question that prompts their classics teacher to, yet again, angrily lecture on the Ancient Greek notion of "hero" as it contrasts with the "perverted notion of heroism" one sees everywhere in today's society as when football players are regarded as role models...He's not wrong.)  

As in all Gilbert's stories, we are allowed to do our detecting because we are privvy to all the relevant conversations but we aren't able to actually solve the mystery (and so unable to avoid more horror) because our two secret police/teachers withold vital clues from us. The question isn't who did it but how to prove it without risking another horrible murder. Fortunately we get the benefit of a wise psychologist (not the sort of "counselor" with an MA in "communcations" that we all have to suffer these days) who tells us the true nature of sadism and the hidden motives of the sadist. It turns out this is no sexual pervert we are dealing with but someone who gets pleasure from making a vulnerable person cry. Really, really terrible and all too recognizable--which is, I believe, the point of the novel. Rather than give us a community of normal people within which a pervert desperately tries to stay hidden, we are provided a sea of minor sadists, each of whom for one reason or another, has a moment during which they would be really happy making this or that person suffer.  

The Notting Hill Mystery by Charles Warren Adams

Allegedly this is considered to be the very first detective book ever written--though I have heard that said of lots of books from all over the world. (Hello Di Gong An, the 18th century collection of stories based on Di Renjie, a county magistate of the Tang court who lived in the 7th century, which was translated into English by Robert van Gulik thereby giving us the amazing Judge Dee books which I discovered about a month after I moved to Arkansas because there is an really good bookstore in Little Rock with a truly excellent mystery section just inside the main entrance of the bookstore. I bought the first Judge Dee book solely on the basis of its cover design. While others recommend that you never judge a book by the cover, I usually do and it usually works out really well for me. So that just goes to show something.) ANYWAY, whether it's the first English detective book or not, The Notting Hill Mystery is very much NOT a "modern police procedural detective novel": the story (published some time during 1862 and 1863 as an eight-part serial in the magazine Once a Week) is a collection of depositions written by Mr. Henderson, a secretary for the Life Assurance Association, and letters and statements Henderson collected as part of his insurance fraud investigation report. And it relies on plot points that no modern mystery writer would get away with now.    

The impetus to Henderson's investigation is a claim--well, 5 claims, really--made by Baron R-- (one clue that this isn't a modern novel is that some people have their last names turned into an initial followed by a long dash) for five life insurance claims, each for £5000, for his wife who died mysteriously (horribly, painfully, after an unbelievably protracted series of undiagnosable and untreatable illnesses). Each policy was with a different company and only because these businesses work together did they realize that he had taken out so many policies on his wife just a year before she died.  

In the course of his investigation, Henderson quickly comes to the conclusion that Baron R-- killed his wife. So the question is not, did he do it, but HOW did he do it??  (The fact of the multiple life insurance policies certainly explains the why he did it....) But in order to answer that question, we need to go back more than 20 years, to the birth of Mrs. R---, which takes us to the London household of Lord and Lady Boleton who are dearly in love with one another.  Lady Boleton--an overly emotional, easily distressed sort of woman--is pregnant and her husband is off traveling to god-knows-where, and he should have returned ages ago, but hasn't.  She is certain something TERRIBLE has happened to him as she can "sense" it.  And, lo and behold, she is right--the news arrives that he has been killed by robbers (or some sort of collection of bad people while he traveled on the road) and, distraught, she runs out of the house in the middle of the night and collapses on the turf of some sretch of boggy land.  She is found hours later by servants who drag her back into the house where she goes into early labor and gives birth to two extremely tiny twin girls--and then conveniently she dies. So we are clear of the Boleton parents.

What happen to the girls?  Barely alive (but ridiculously rich), hanging by a thread, they are packed off to live with an elderly aunt who loves them, but is slightly out of her depth. One girl, Gertude, is fair haired and thin but relatively healthy, and the other, "poor Catherine", is "dark, gypsy-like" and sort of runty and sickly. Nonetheless, they adore each other and (it is said repeatedly) have a special way of non-verbally communicating--as if by telepathy. (Another clue that this isn't a modern mystery is the reliance on mental signals/messages to sustain the entire story--very much like a lesser Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story.)  Then, as if these girls haven't suffered enough, the aunt hires an idiotic and inattentive nursemiad who takes care of the girls each day for a few hours, which invloves daily walks to a nearby park.  And while paying attention to one and not the other, the "dark gypsy girl Catherine" disappears into thin air, never to be seen again.  Of course the obvious conclusion is that she was stolen by Gypsies. The police hassle all the gypsies they can find, but no Catherine is recovered. So, Getrude no longer has a twin and no longer has someone with whom she can secretly commune. And for the next 20 odd years vague illnesses beset Gertrude for no reason whatsoever--right as rain one second then at death's door the next. Very eerie!!

Nonetheless, Getrude grows up and marries a Mr. Anderton (stupid name) and they are desperately in love.  Apparently Mr. Anderton is the best husband possible, except in one respect: he is a mild-mannered man UNLESS SOMEONE IMPUNES HIS REPUTATION!  He can stand a lot but he cannot stand his good name being sullied. Of course insults do not cause him to have a temper, but instead to get melodramatic, despairing and suicidal.  Good thing Gertrude is also "sensitive" and is well-experienced in knowing how to talk someone off a ledge. Indeed, both spend a LOT of time talking each other off ledges.  Not a marriage that I would like, but it works for them.

So: these childless Andertons travel about England and Europe, resting and relaxing in various stately homes they rent for weeks on end, bringing various servants along with them.  All is wonderful except for those pesky mysterious bouts of illness that Getrude suffers from that no ordinary doctor seems to be able to treat.  (They all assume it is a form of "cholera" or "gastritus" and give her strong sedatives.)  After going to a "show" (the kind that Tin Tin and Captain Haddock go to to see sword swallowers and mind readers), Mr. Anderton decides that MESMERISM is the answer and he asks Baron R--- (yes, that Baron R!!) to come to his home and treat his wife.  This so-called "treatment" involves nothing more than Gertrude laying out on a divan/couch sort of thing with her eyes closed and the Baron sitting next to her, holding her hand.  He then sends "pulses of energy" into her to heal her--that's the "mesmerism".  And, amazingly, she is "cured" and feels fit as a fiddle after only a few minutes!  Initially, Mr. Anderton is so grateful he insists that the Baron visit every day for these "treatments". And, initially, Gertrude is also excited. But after some months (!) they both decide that there is something "unseemly" about the whole thing. So Mr. Anderton decides to end the treatments, insisting that Baron R-- leave and never return. Getrude suddenly decides that she "loathes" the Baron so intensely, she cannot stand to even have him in the house, let alone holding her hand while she lays back with her eyes closed.  (At this point, I really have no idea what happened--is something sexual taking place while he is holding her hand and sending "pulses" through her body?  Her husband is in the room durnig the treatmetns and the Baron isn't even talking to Gertrude--and she is certainly fully clothed.  I don't get it.)  Despite Mr. Anderton insisting, the Baron will not be put off and offers to "mesmerize" Gertrude "remotely": he has an "assistant" ("Madame R---) who does not speak. (Later we discover that she can speak English and she wants to speak English but isn't permitted if the Baron glares at her with his bulbous, unblinking eyes.)  So the Baron and Mr. Anderton go into the far corner of the room where it's dark (why?) and Madame R-- sits next to Gertrude and holds her hand. And--la!!!--the "mesmerism" works even better and Gertrude is suddenly so healthy, she can hardly stand it!

Ok, that's all weird but more importantly, where is this going? Well, there are a lot of mesmerism sessions, a lot of traveling about to various homes in various parts of England, Scotland and then Germany. The only thing of real significance during all this is that the Baron expertly pumps Mr. Anderton for information about Getrude's backstory and Mr. Anderton unwisely reveals that Getrude is a twin whose sister was stolen by gypsies. Seemingly a throwaway comment, it sends Baron into a state of shock so strong, his hands shake and he cataonically stares off into the middle distance for so long his cigar goes out!! 

From that point on, Baron R-- "travels around the continent" (though he is in fact seen gadding about in London by various witnesses who are later asked to write letters which make up this novel). And then , after a few weeks free of the Baron, everything goes to hell: Gertrude's bouts of illness get more frequent and more severe she can't eat, can't sleep, and has serious GI distress to the point that she literally wastes away. Mr. Anderton calls every doctor he can get a hold of and all are completely perplexed--each later testifies that the thought of poisoning certainly occured to them but (a) they can't figure out how it could be done since she hadn't eaten or drunk anything in weeks and (b) Mr. Anderton was at her side CONSTANTLY. Ok, Getrude is out of the picture. THEN here comes the Baron, who, while allegedly consoling Mr. Anderton, tells him that it sure looks to everyone like he killed his wife.  Well, Anderton can take the death of his wife but he cannot take insults to his reputation.  So he kills himself--using the handy bottle of poison the Baron left on Anderton's bedside table.

Ok, that's two deaths.  Where is this going?  It is all leading up to the mysterious death of Madame R--, the Baron's wife, the silent non-English speaking but actually English speaking woman who was so amazingly able to non-verbally communicate with Getrude.  And, yes, Madame R-- dies the exact same death that Getrude did--lots of vomiting, diarhea, cold sweats and sleeplessness for weeks on end until finally her heart gave out. And THAT'S when the Baron applied for payment on all those insurance claims and THAT'S why our intrepid Mr. Henderson the insurance secretary got busy interviewing doctors and servants and neighbors. He quickly comes to these conclusions: (1) Madame R is the long lost "dark gypsy-like" Catherine, Getrude's sickly twin; (2) the Baron discovered the fact of the vast wealth that Getrude inherited from her overly emotional parents; (3) in order to get that wealth (plus the 5 insurance payouts as 5 cherries on 5 sundaes), the Baron had to (a) marry Catherine which required buying her from her circus manager--don't even ask, we can't get into all the weirdness here; (b) kill Getrude; (c) kill Mr. Anderson; (d) kill Madame R/Catherine--in that order!!!; (e) have proof of the identies of the twins and sit back while the money rolls in as the only living heir to the Boleton fortune.

Well!  As said above, this is not a modern murder mystery where police sergeants slowly and ploddingly collect plaster casts of footprints, hairs from fabrics and various witness statements but is far more like a Wilkie Collins laudenum-induced fever dream--which means it's interesting, but not exactly intellectually satisfying.  And I just can't get past the whole "mesmerism" angle which has to be real, because this "remotely induced sickness" is how the Baron killed his three victims.  Even if we buy it, would any court buy it?  Or is Baron R-- going to literally get away with murder?

Film review: Memories of Murder (2003)

This is the second ever film by Bong Joon Ho, South Korean director of Parasite (and to a lesser extent, Mickey 17).  I've been meaning to watch it for a while, and when Jami suggested it as a way to avoid watching some sci fi flick I'd suggested, I readily agreed.  I think I hadn't watched it because it has kind of a gloomy reputation (just looking at that poster above should give you a hint), and while it's about a horrific topic (it's based on a real story of a serial killer who targeted women and defiled their bodies), and it certainly doesn't try to lessen the horror, its frank portrayal of some of the rank amateurism (not to mention outright abuse) of the cops involved leads to some laugh-out-loud moments.  Putatively our protagonist, to whom we are introduced right at the outset, is Detective Park Doo-man, played by chubby-faced Ho stalwart Song Kang-ho (although in body he's quite slender in this one).  He has been called to the site of the first corpse, found in a covered drainage ditch out in the fields.  (The whole film is set in rural South Korea, and the actual murders were the firsts murders in that part of the country.)  The place is swarming with kids, whom he has to shoo away, particularly as they discover the woman's underclothes nearby and start playing with them.  In fact, disturbance of the crime scene by hicks and gawkers is a running theme - at the site of the second corpse, a tractor runs over the only footprint on the scene.  Park has a thuggish sidekick, Detective Cho Yong-koo, whose job it is to beat suspects until they confess, one he clearly relishes (until one of them later fights back, to maiming effect).  

They are shortly joined by a competent Seoul detective Seo Tae-yoon, 

who, while clearly contemptuous of their methods, makes no attempt to intervene, but just tells them as they cart the suspect off that he's not the one.  An early suspect is the mentally disabled adult son of the local tavern owner (where they often hang out, eating meat and drinking beer), whom they bully and abuse into confessing, 

and take him out to the site of the murders to re-enact them.  

He does reveal some facts that he shouldn't know, but he also has a bodily quirk that absolves him.  Their second main suspect is the cause of one of the laughest-out-loudest moments in the film, when the two hick cops are at the scene of the latest murder with a kind of magic they've bought from a shaman (seriously - it's very hard to respect them) when they see the city cop coming and hide, and then he sees somebody coming and he hides, and it turns out to be our suspect.  So we have three groups, with only our thuggish pair aware of all of them.  And then Cho steps on a twig...

Anyway, suffice to say that, while he also confesses after abuse, he is not their man.  It takes an observation from the one female cop on the force 

to help them track down their most promising suspect, one who will test Seo's resolve to do things the right way.  

There is also a great older boss whose exasperated reactions to the bickering, especially between Park and Seo (their relationship got off to a bad start when Seo, clearly dropped off near town approaches a woman to get directions, at which she screams, runs, falls down a hill and he's helping her up when Park drives by and thinks he's attacking her and attacks him) provides comic relief.  There's also a girl's school, and two schoolgirls in particular who both help and hinder them.  And lots of shots of rain (the murders all take place in the rain), and one scene in particular that is blood-chilling, as we see a victim stalked and caught.

Overall, it's truly an excellent film.  I thought Zodiac was amazing, but having seen this earlier film, I can't help but think that it was hugely influential on that one.  Apart from the killer, everyone in this film is so normal and alive and fallible that it just brings everything home.  I'd even rate it higher than Parasite, but that might be recency bias.  The penultimate scene teeters on the edge of melodrama 

(and is the only time in the film where there's any intrusive music), but the film saves it with a very affecting coda/bookend (which fits with the film title).  

See it if you have any affinity for police procedurals, as it's an all-timer.  The two hours fly by and you realize that you've been holding your breath for most of it.

Too Darn Hot

 We will not be attending the fair in a tiny baking hot square of asphalt in downtown Flint, although no doubt it will be better attended than Trump's fair.  We'll go swim in a lake instead.

 

Death in High Heels by Christianna Brand

 

I didn't even know this book existed until I got it a few weeks ago as part of that book club.  It is Brand's first novel, published in 1941 and written during her evenings while she worked at the very sort of store as is featured in this story.  It's a West End "boutique" called Christophe et Cie where mannequins (again with the mannequins) model fancy new designs by Mr. Cecil, an extremely camp man who is constantly having intense fights with various "boy friends" and then spending weekends crying with his mother. (The fight that gets caught up in our murder mystery results after Cecil's boyfriend tells him he's fallen for one of the women who works with Cecil--and she is the very woman who ends up dead.) Brand seems to know that this stereotype of gay men is a bit over the top as several characters comment on how ridiculously stereotypical he is.  The owner of the store, Mr. Bevan, has similar relationship problems with women: he sees random young ladies out and about and invites them home with his to look at his etchings and next thing you know, they are working at the store, either modeling, sales, or running errands around the store, up and down stairs to take people things or deliver messages.

Brand said in an interview that she HATED that job and HATED all the people she worked with, and she spent her free moments fantasizing about murdering her workmates--and thus her first murder mystery was born! As is usual for Brand, the murder occurs very early on in the story--just a few pages in and Miss Doon (Bevan's right hand who helps him run the business) dies an extremely painful death from poisoning by oxalic acid.  It is quickly determined that she had to have ingested the poison during the lunch she ate while at work. Necessary backstory on lunches at Christophe et Cie:  Bevan realized that he can pay his workers less and make them work more if he (a) keeps them on site during the lunch "hour" (which is actually only about 15 minutes) and (b) if he has served up a "hot meal" each day.  That way, they can be paid less as they won't have to buy their own lunches each day.  The fact that he is a rotter and a cad is mentioned by every character all through the novel. He doesn't even deny it! In the aftermath of the murder, his only concern is whether negative press will harm his business.  When he discovers that, in fact, it results in the store being overwhelmed with new customers--women who want to goggle at the scene of the crime and tell their friends that their new dress came from the place where that woman was poisoned!!--he is ecstatic!  

The list of suspects is limited to those sharing that same lunch or in a nearby room. This includes: Bevan and Cecil, Miss Gregory (Bevan's left hand, who takes care of the business/financial side of things), "Macaroni" (Bevan's secretary--her real name is McEney but the nickname Macaroni was given to her by her friends at work and the name stuck), three shopgirls: Irene, Rachel, and Victoria, two mannequins: Judy and Aileen, and Mrs. 'Arris, the peevish cleaning lady who selectively pretends to be hard of hearing so she can eavedrop on the gossipy conversations among the various young ladies.

And as always with Brand's stories, she manages to deliver a mystery that is both impossible and also too easy to solve.  On the one hand, every single person has reason to poison Doon and everyone knew of the poison, saw it, and could have gotten some. On the other, it is (seemingly) literally physically impossible for any of them to have done it as they are either not in the room at the time the poison had to have been added to Doon's food OR they are in line of sight of at least two others who would have seen if they had added the poison to the food.  And, as always with Brand, every one of the characters has secrets that they are terribly ashamed of that they want to hide which causes them to withold evidence or lie about evidence, making the investigation all that much more impossible to solve.  

And who is our intrepid investigators from Scotland Yard?  Inspector Charlesworth is in charge and has Seargeant Bedd as his right hand man. Charlesworth is very young (his elders laugh at him behind his back) as he is perpetually falling in love and then three weeks later when the relationships explode, he is moping around work, despairing at the pointlessness of existence. [Another novel that features him is The Rose in Darkness, which I have not read and is, as far as I can tell, out of print.] Nonetheless, his chief takes a chance on him and throws Charlesworth into a dress shop full of lovely young ladies.  And the inevitable occurs: each one he meets he's more in love with than the last.  He's particularly smitten with Miss Victoria. The only problem is she is happily married and finds him rather silly.  And he is silly when it comes to love but very serious when it comes to solving the murder. Sergeant Bedd, who says he prefers women with a "bit o' meat on them", isn't so easily distracted and very competently runs around gathering information from various porters and chemists who sell oxalic acid (which, it seems, is very easy to get).  

After several days of getting nowhere Charlesworth's chief assigns Inspector Smithers (who is  loathesome and smug and only too happy to see a pretty young lady hung for murder) as Charlesworth's "assistant". Smithers has no creative intelligence and no capacity to see beneath the surface and sets out to make an arrest--a wrongful arrest, Charlesworth is certain.  Fortunately, their flaming row is just the impetus Charlesworth needs to turn his perspective upside down and get the brilliant flash of insight he needs to solve the case--just SECONDS before the murderer strikes again...

The best part of reading Brand's books is her development of female characters: their conversations, inner dialogs, and her attention to how they think about their bodies, how they attend to their hair, make-up, fit of their gloves and so on. She makes sure we really do understand what each is doing and feeling and thinking when we are hearing the events from their point of view. And here she gives us seven distinctive women, all with (what they believe to be) terrible secrets, a few worth being killed for and a few willing to be accused of murder for. That makes all of them extremely dangerous and interesting, and allows Brand to demonstrate her skill for writing a fast paced yet satisfying story.  In comparison to her others, it is a "first effort" but I would be extremely please if I wrote this after a long day of working with people I hated.

Garden Update

 First I'll start with the good news:

This is the first "strawberries on a wall" pot to produce something.  According to the books I should have nipped off all flowers to cause the plant to grow stronger roots so we would get more strawberries next year, but I'm gardening with the "who knows if we'll even be alive next year" mindset so no plants in our yard are getting radically pruned for the sake of an uncertain future.

Here is the neighboring pot with plenty of fetal strawberries and flowers. And, so far at least, all evidence is that squirrels CANNOT GET AT THESE POTS! 

And for an added bonus, I saw this little thing growing on the ground as I was planting pond plants.  I forgot to take pictures of that task (it is ridiculously hot and sweaty today and even working in the shade was deeply unpleasant) but the idea there is that I cannot simply plant pond plants in the water as the goldfish will eat the roots and so kill the plants.  Goldfish are carp and carp are notoriously evil fish who are (a) ridiculously smart (people who love goldfish and koi swear the fish "talk" to them--I know of several such people) (b) perpetually ravenously hungry and (c) capable of digesting anything and everything--including other goldfish--including their own children!!!  And, of course, the more they eat, the bigger they get and so the more they need to eat.  It's a terrible, self-perpetuating cycle.  ANYWAY...the pond plants need to grow in pond-safe grow bags so the fish cannot get at them.  All this assumes I will get the pond lining holes property patched (thank you raccoons) and get the waterfall pump working (I dread finding out what is blocking the intake tube) and the pond level will get up to its proper level and the water will get much needed oxygenation and the pond will provide a safe place for underhoused amphibians.

And here is a TINY green bean bush in our front yard.  It really is tiny--only about 8" tall.  So far it has produced about a dozen (actually pretty good) beans but the promise was that the plant would climb up to 6-10' tall.  I have no hope of that happening.  

Ok and now the bad news:

Earlier today I was in the diningroom and looked out the window into the back yard and saw something brownish gray and fat toddling around inside one of the sweet potato grow bags.  At first I thought it was a cat using the thing as a catbox so I ran out but--worse!--it was a juvenile groundhog eating its way through ALL MY PLANTS.  All the tomatos that I started from seed are now stems only.

And here is what remains of one sweet potato bag.  They are all like this, with most of the leaves gone.  Of course, none of the other potato leaves had been touched as even a groundhog teens know they are poisonous. I went online to see what the solution was and, apparently, there really isn't one.  The only certain solution is building a smooth wall that is sunken 3' into the ground and is at least 6' tall--wire fencing doesn't work as they simply climb over.  And anything just on the ground is useless as they dig under.  Plan B is predator urine, which I am also not excited about using as the thought of our yard smelling like lion piss is too horrible to think about. And, anyway, I have a vague memory of trying to get rid of a raccoon gang with the same strategy 25-odd years ago and it was useless--they didn't care at all and the backyard smelled like a port-a-potty for years. The final, least severe, suggestion was to plant garlic all around the perimeter of every raised bed and grow bag as, apparently, groundhogs have very tender noses and they cannot stand the smell of garlic.  Unfortunately, in this part of the world, garlic has to be planted in late October. So that ship sailed.

Here is a photo of a young groundhog that I did not take as the second I got outside to get a good look at our resident groundhog, it took off like a shot, squealing like a stuck pig. (They sound like a very loud chipmunk being carried off by a hawk.) Adult groundhogs are the same color but much bigger and very much rounder and they sort of lollop along as they are too fat and their legs too short to run. 

Don't let their cuteness fool you because they can do untold damage and not just to gardens. We have a giant one who has lived underground near our house for years.  It has tunnels all along our basement walls (about 6' underground) which creates the perfect place for rainwater to gather which in turn encourages tree roots to grow, which then prompts those roots to dig through our basement walls which then requires $25,000 of "water and mold remediation" work.  

Film review: Nightfall (1956)

 [Except where indicated, this review is by Jami, because Simon is supposed to be writing a book.]

This is a strange movie. If you consider appearances only, it's very attractive: the city and (later) mountainscapes are beautiful to look at.  But the dialog is forced and the lead actor's delivery is just odd: old Twilight Zone shows had better actors.  What is extra odd is that, aside from the main character, the rest of the actors are really famous. It just goes to show that famous faces don't ensure a high quality product. [I have to object!  Yes, the script is stilted in places, but in the time honored people-don't-actually-talk-like-that Noir way.  And the film is directed by the great Jacques Tourneur, of Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and most illustriously, Out of the Past fame.  In fact, he made this movie right before he directed the all-time-classic Night of the Demon.  But he had to go to England to make that, so maybe this was the end of the road for him in Hollywood.]

The movie starts as all these sorts of movies do, in a gritty, down and out, part of Los Angeles late at night. The only people milling around are the lonely hearts looking for alcohol and a warm bed with a soft pillow.  And so we meet our two protagonists: Jim and Marie [ANNE BANCROFT!].  (Good Biblical names, that's how you know they are the protagonists.) Marie starts the conversation by asking Jim for $5.  She claims she had been stood up by a "girlfriend" and, bizarrely, didn't bring one thin penny with her.  Yet, she has been throwing back the martinis for hours. Jim makes some painfully awkward small talk (yikes) and, surprisingly, this works and she is instantly attracted to him.  He gives her a $5 bill and she pays for her tab, which only comes to 70 cents!  So why did she ask for $5 instead of $1, or simply 70 cents?  He doesn't mind.  Throwing more good money after bad, he offers to buy her dinner, which involves smoking a lot of cigarettes. He reveals he's an artist (for advertising, not the flaky kind--all protagonists in 1950s movies work in advertizing or for the U.N.--it's a fact) and she tells him she's a model. They were called "mannequins" then and they modeled clothing for women who would then ask the designer to craft a version of that dress or swimsuit or whatever for themselves.  This really did happen and people I know were mannequins for a living, too, right up to a few months before I was born.

Wait, why is the evil Senator from The Manchurian Candidate in this movie?  Because he's a too-good-to-be-true agent for an insurance company named Ben and he'd rather find the $350,000 stolen from a bank in Seattle by two goons than see his company take the financial hit. (Are we REALLY supposed to care about an insurance company "losing"money that they will simply shift onto their customers by raising their policy rates??)  Since Wyoming police decided that Jim is wanted for the robbery (wait--what?  when did that happen? hold your horses...) Ben has been watching Jim for months but still "can't figure him out."

Finally, after Jim heads to his apartment and goes to sleep (about 2 am) Ben heads home and pours out all his troubles to his ridiculously tolerant wife.  Clearly she knows everything (is that even legal?) and they've had a version of this conversation dozens of times before. She also has no problem with him coming home at 2 am, sleeping for 90 minutes and then getting up again to mull over the puzzles. If Jim stole $350,000, why does he live in a shitty apartment, work his ass off for an advertising company?  Why does he eat cheap diner meals and wear off the rack suits?  So many puzzles...

Given that everyone talks about how hot is is, they sure are heavily dressed all the time, like when they wear full pajamas and thick robes.

Next day: [no it wasn't!  It's very important that this happens right as Jim and Marie walk out of the restaurant.  Marie is revealed to have been helping the goons, which is very much a turn-off for Jim.  She scuttles off before...] Things take a dark turn as Jim is abducted off the street (where is Ben when this is happening?) by two goons, John (the brains [played by the nice dad in the original Parent Trap]) and Red (the brawn with the itchy trigger finger) who drag Jim out to an oil rig (they still had those in the city when we lived in LA) [I would say it's an oil derrick] and made clear how easy it would be to remove one of Jim's legs below the knee by simply laying it down under the nodding donkey part of the rig.  Jim gets the point, but he insists that he doesn't know where "it" is.  But what is "it"?  We don't know but it's likely that $350,000 Ben talked about endlessly with his wife the night before.

Finally we get some back story:  Some time ago in relatively recent history, Jim and "Doc" (appropriately nicknamed because he's a doctor) are camping outside Moose, Wyoming (a real place), having the time of their lives--eating butter breaded fried fish, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze  beside a campfire, when out of nowhere a car comes racing along and smashes into a fence just up the road near the turnoff to their campsite.  Doc and Jim race to see what happened and meet John and Red for the first time--we know they are evil, but Jim and Doc don't realize it yet and if they had, perhaps Doc would have tied that tourniquet on John's arm a lot more tightly. John and Red inform them that, after they kill both, they are going to steal their car.  Why all the gum flapping?  Why not just get the job done?  Well, there is a reason these two hapless idiots never get the big score.

Doc and Jim are trying to buy time, but this is not going to end well. Red's idea is this: Red will shoot Doc with Jim's rifle and then force Jim to turn the gun onto himself--an obvious murder/suicide sort of arrangement. Fortunately, just seconds before John and Jim showed up, they had been sort of talking about in a very indirect way that John loved Doc's much younger wife [actually she came on to him and he honorably resisted].  So, unbeknownst to our killers, a ready-made motive for this otherwise ridiculous event exists.  

With Doc quickly out of the way, it's Jim's turn.  He's given the rifle and told to kill himself.  Didn't anyone notice that the rifle is too damned long to be used to blow one's brains out?  Doesn't everyone know that if you are going to blow your brains out while "cleaning your rifle" you have to take your shoes off and fire the thing with your toes?  This is basic stuff American kids are taught in grade school. Yet here we are, Jim is wearing heavy early winter clothing and his hunting boots and trying to decide how not to shoot himself in the head when it's actually physically impossible...stupid.

Well, Jim flat out refuses.  Wise choice--what can they do, shoot him with a handgun? Yeah, that's precisely what Red does.  Now our two goons really have a mess on their hands because this is no "murder/suicide".  So John and Red race off, driving recklessly and swerving and sliding all over the road (just like they were when they caused the car crash that created this whole mess--why were they doing that since the Seattle robbery was at least 900 miles behind them?) as they make their getaway.  BUT....moron that Red is, he grabbed the Doc's medical bag rather than their bag of money (which conveniently looks exactly the same).  Can Jim really be dead?  Of course not--Red is so stupid he didn't even manage to shoot Jim when Jim was firing the rifle at him, but instead Red hit a rock that ricocheted into Jim's head and knocked him senseless.  But can't Red tell that Jim is alive and breathing with no bullet holes in him? By this point it's clear that Red is too stupid to be allowed to live.

Ok, now fast forward to back to the oil rig.  AGAIN Jim manages to get away from these two bozos--and John's arm isn't even in a sling! Yes, they got a few punches in but they didn't sheer off one of his feet. Jim knows he can't go back to his place (but does he? [actually, that's not it - he's mad at Marie, but also curious about her connection to the goons]) so he goes to Marie's place at 4 am.  She's not too happy to see him--she has a big modeling gig tomorrow.  At first he accuses her of working for the goons but she says she knows they are the police and that he's a robber.  Amazingly quickly, all misunderstandings are resolved.  He informs her that she can't stay there because (bozo that he is), the two goons took the piece of paper with her address written on it from his pocket while they were rolling around, fighting near the oil rig. So he tells her to pack up all her things as from now on, she lives on the run.  And she agrees!!  [She does say that her therapist told her she has terrible taste in men.]

Then the two head back to his place--but wait, I thought he couldn't go to his place!?! [See previous note.  The reason the goons had to use Marie to lure him was because they didn't know where he lived.]  So the goons know her address but not his? How did they find him in LA when they kidnapped him off the street and took him to an oil rig? It makes no sense!  More excruciatingly awkward small talk and then both fall  into a peaceful sleep, him on the floor and her on the couch/bed--very proper.  

Would you go to sleep if two goons had found you and just threatened to slice off your foot using an oil rig?  Wouldn't you get moving asap?  No, you wouldn't, because  Marie insists on doing her modeling gig while Jim buys "supplies" and bus tickets for two for Moose, WY.--back to the scene of the crime.  Well, the second crime--not the bank robbery and not the oil rig which is the first crime we learned about in the movie. [Also, as Jim explains when Marie asks why they don't go on the run immediately, he's been waiting all this time for the roads in Wyoming to be cleared of snow, which apparently happens on a very specific date, which he has circled on his calendar, and which is TOMORROW.]

But last night our two goons DID go to Marie's apartment and found her modeling portfolio and so knew what company she worked for--and from there, they knew exactly where she'd be modeling the next day!  (Really?  That seems incredibly unlikely...)  But wait--how did they get to her apartment from the oil rig--Jim stole their car from after knocking them out!  (Why didn't he stick THEIR legs into the oil rig?  Things would have been must simpler if he had.) Then, seconds from the end of her modeling gig, the goons show up to smirk at Marie while she models an evening gown!  (Wait--if they didn't know who she was or where she lived or where she worked until AFTER Jim met her, how did they hire her to ensnare Jim???)  She sees the goons and makes a very slow beeline (her dress is ridiculously tight down to her ankles and she's wearing stilleto heels) for Jim who is also there, waiting to take her to the bus station.  

And they make it to the station and onto the bus without any incident at all.  And lo and behold, here is Ben showing up at a rest stop bathroom just to give Jim a jolt of nerves.  Ben is a little too friendly and a little too knowing and it doesn't take Jim long to realize something is up [particularly as they'd already met - before Jim went into the restaurant/bar where he met Marie he was standing out on the street and Ben went up and asked for a light.  Presumably he wanted to look his quarry in the face and read his character]. But what?

Now we see our heroes waking up on the bus in Wyoming, just 10 minutes from Moose, fully refreshed and ready to hunt for a bag of money. (Having taken a Greyhound from Phoenix to Yellowstone I can attest that that is at least a 3 day ride with a LOT of stops at all hours. It'd be even longer and more miserable going north from LA and then over through Nevada or, worse, Idaho. Nobody wakes up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.)  

And here is Ben again!  But this time, he lays his cards on the table. And so does Jim!  And now they are best friends with common enemies, the two goons!  So our duo becomes a trio and all three head out to the campsite in search of the damned bag of money.

But wait--John and Red got their first!  HOW??  And if they were going to do that, why didn't they just do that right from the start save everyone--including themselves--a lot of grief?

And the movie ends as the story began, with Red and John with guns with a plan to kill our hapless trio.  But, as always happens with goons, after having been like conjoined twins for over a year, they really, really hate each other and John now has the itchy trigger finger and desperately wants to be free of Red.  But then Red kills John! I actually did not see that coming...But Jim has plans for Red and again we have another fistfight only this time instead of an oil rig waiting to cut off limbs we have a very very slow snowplow headed right for the cabin in which Ben and Marie lay tied up, very quietly and calmly waiting for someone to untie them.

SOMEONE is certainly going to die by snowplow.  But who?  And when?  And where is the money????

And what is Ben's wife doing all this time?  [Hey, he's got enough money for a new LIFE, let alone wife.  As soon as he bumps off Jim and Marie...]

Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert

Another good murder mystery with great story telling.  This book is widely considered Gilbert's finest novel but since I haven't read several dozen of his books I'm in no position to say.  It is set in a law office (published in 1950) and so, given that he worked in a law office for about 40 years, it's safe to say that he is in his element. So not only are we treated to a ripping yarn but we get to see how a high profile London law office operated 76 years ago.

The basic idea is that Henry Bohun (our protagonist) was recently hired to work at a law firm that regards itself as one of the more prestigious offices in London.  We start with him bright and early on his first day when he is just meeting everyone and finding his feet. The reason there is an opening is because one of their senior partners, Mr. Horniman, died from heart disease recently.  Bohun is a bit of an odd nut, having bounced from subject to subject (studying medicine, accounting and then law in addition to spending some time in the military) and so while young to his profession, he isn't wet behind the ears. The office has an odd atmosphere since everyone's every single action is absurdly regimented by The Horniman System: a method of annotating and storing legal documents that is overly detailed and ridiculously complex.  Every client has a card with their name as well as dozens of letters and numbers that are codes that tell you the dates of events, quantity and nature of letters written and received, topics addressed, problems solved and problems remaining.  Each client--with their obscenely inflated piles of folders, letter copies and notes is assigned to a long coffin (!!!) shaped file. And each file is hermetically sealed (so no silverfish, damp, rats or nosy Nancies are going to get to those files and damage, eat or steal them) and locked with a series of keys that only two people have: the lawyer who worked for that client and the office security guard who opens up and locks down the office every day. 

As Bohun meets each person we get a sense of not only how a work day goes but also the mood of the place.  The office has seven lawyers, each of whom has various axes to grind about the others, generally because each is convinced that they are the only one who works a full day and actually earns their salary. It also has five secretaries, three assigned to the senior partners (at least until one died) and the rest are shared among the remaining lawyers. The one who was assigned to Horniman now works for all the lawyers and she regards this as seriously beneath her. The fact that Horniman Junior was hired to "replace" Horniman Senior does not lessen her resentment as Horniman Junior is widely considered to be a wholly incompent lawyer who isn't even trying to cover that fact up. (He spends all his time at the seaside on his boat, dreaming of stocking trout. I mean, really!) There are also two staff people, the security guard I already mentioned and a cashier.  

Gilbert's special talent is shifting the storytelling from one person to the next so we cycle from room to room, finding some people farfing around while others gripe about others farfing around, some innocently flirting and others making thinly veiled insults and threats. And just as we start to get a handle on the lay of the land in one room with one pair of people, one character interrupts themself and says, "Was that a scream I just heard?"  Then we move to another room, travel back in time a bit, find out how this office pair operates, and, again, one says to the other, "I say, was that a scream?" And round and round we go until we finally get to the nexus of the matter: three people (Horniman Junior, Miss Cornell who is the female character voted "most likely to scream hysterically until someone soundly slaps her," and the security guard Sergeant Cockerill) who have used blunt force to open up a file that no one had the key to and finding no files but instead a dead body crammed inside.

The body, Mr. Smallbone (hence the name of the novel), is both an unimportant client and a trustee for a very large (half a million pounds!!!) and extremely important trust fund. Senior Horniman was the only other trustee. Well, that opens up a lot of sticky legal issues: who manages the money if both are dead? how was the money being managed? was Smallbone murdered because of something he knew--or something he did? Unfortunately, not one single file concerning Smallbone or the trust is anywhere to be found--which means someone worked very hard to (a) eliminate all records of the legal issues concerning Smallbone and (b) eliminate Smallbone as well. To deal with (b), we have the arrival of Inspector Hazlerigg of Scotland Yard.  Apparently this is the Inspector's 4th time appearing in a novel by Gilbert but I haven't read those books so he is new to me.  He's another example of the perfectly competent Scotland Yard inspector that populates all these cozy murder mysteries.  Imagine how crap all these novels woud be if they had American police detectives?  As for (a), Bohun is the obvious choice because (1) since it's his first day of the job he is off the suspect list (it's estimated that Smallbone has been dead 4-8 weeks--remember, the file was hermetically sealed), and (2) he's a lawyer and an accountant, so he'll be able to make both heads and tails of whatever he finds concerning the trust.  

Of course everyone assumes that Senior Horniman was up to some financial larking about, spending trust money to save the law office during the lean war years and then shaving funds from other accounts to secretly restore the trust balance. That is, until Body 2 appears!  Well, that means that the murderer is not only alive but is desperate: their dream that Smallbone (an annoying albeit unimportant person in the grand scheme of things) would remain stuffed in a file for centuries was smashed and now they are against a wall and lashing out. Who are they and will they kill again?

I'm not going to give away anymore as it's extremely tightly plotted with no end of false clues and fabricated alibis. While the mystery is good, the best part of the novel is the conversations behind closed doors in the various offices--after all, with two dead bodies within a few days, it's pretty difficult to do anything else except throw people you hate under a bus in the hopes that they get arrested for murder.