Eloise by Kay Thompson

33. Eloise
by Kay Thompson, drawings by Hilary Knight
children's picture book, 1955
library book
finished, 6/21/10






Maybe I am too literal minded. Maybe I took this book too seriously. But honestly, I didn't like it at all. And I can't understand why it has become a classic in the literature for young children. It is about a six-year old girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. She has a nanny.



Can you see the last line? 'She is my mostly companion' - and that's the truth. Her nanny and the various employees at the hotel are her only friends. Her mother makes an appearance in a section of the book when Eloise tells us she likes to pretend.

Sometimes I am a giant with fire coming out of my hair

That's perhaps a fairly normal child's imaginary situation, but then:

Sometimes I get terribly sick and have to be waited on
Sometimes I get so sick my head falls over and is wobbling until
it is loose

So, this thirty-year old mother 'knows an ad man' and then we find out:

Eloise has a tutor -


And these snippets are just about the sum total of the mentions of Eloise's mother. Achingly sad. I think it is all too clear that this young rich woman leads a jet-setter life in which there is no room for a little girl. Eloise's life truly is at the Plaza.



This book came out when I was little, but I never read it then and didn't read it to my kids. I wonder why? Since Kay Thompson is one of the authors to choose from in the You've Got Mail Reading Challenge, I thought this would be a perfect time to finally read it. I guess I'm sort of glad I did. At least now I know who Eloise is. But again, I just can't see how it got so popular. This is a children's picture book, not a juvenile or young adult book. I can't imagine a child understanding it as her mother or father reads it to her. The language is complicated and the references obscure to most readers. Hilary Knight is a well-known and well-respected artist, and though the illustrations were excellent, this little girl is not in the least appealing. Again, just so sad to me. When the children's librarian saw me with this book, she offered me three other Eloise books. After I finished Eloise, I knew I didn't care to read them, but I did skim through. Because in one she goes to Paris and in another she goes to Moscow, I thought, ah, maybe now she'll be with her mother, but no. Nanny is still her 'mostly companion.'

There's some information about Kay Thompson here.

Summertime!

Avocado Salad

Peel and pit two ripe avocados.
Put the pulp into a food processor with the juice of half a lemon.
Process until smooth.
Place in a bowl.
Chop as many grape tomatoes as desired and put on top of avocado.
Chop fresh chives and add.
Salt as desired.

This couldn't be any easier and is simply delicious!

On 'our Paulie's' 68th!

The words are not in sync, but still... this is the song that made me fall in love with Paul McCartney when I was a young girl watching the Ed Sullivan Show all those years ago.

Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham

32. Mystery Mile (second in the Albert Campion series)
by Margery Allingham
mystery, 1930
library book
unabridged audio read by Francis Matthews
finished, 6/15/10

On the back of the box of tapes it says that Margery Allingham introduced Albert Campion as a secondary character in The Crime at Black Dudley (1929), and that she grew so attached to him he became the central character in Mystery Mile (1930) and 19 more Campion mysteries.

Isn't that just delightful to think of a writer becoming 'attached' to a character?

I recently bought the first in the series in a beautiful edition from Felony & Mayhem. I have mentioned this fantastic company several times on the blog. They offer a great selection of the Campion books with simply beautiful covers. I fully intended to begin my Albert Campion adventure with The Crime at Black Dudley, but one day at the library, while looking for an audio book, Mystery Mile jumped right out at me and whispered, listen, listen. So I did. I loved it. In fact I loved it so much, I plan to buy a print copy from F & M.

The book opens on an ocean liner going from the US to England. There is a conjuring entertainment on board and a volunteer is requested. A young man rushes to the stage and saves the man from what would have been certain death. The man is an American judge traveling with his adult son and daughter to escape being murdered by a criminal group at home. Clearly, the group called Simister (yes an m, not n) has followed him and will stop at nothing until their target is killed. The judge's savior on board ship is none other than our hero, Albert Campion, an unlikely hero in appearance and demeanor. He is a little like Bertie Wooster, but with the brains of Jeeves. He comes up with a plan to bring the judge and his family to a place called Mystery Mile, an isthmus (I feel like the little boy in The Music Man when I try to say that word!) in Suffolk, where only a few families live. Campion is old friends with a young woman and her brother and hopes their home will be a refuge for the judge. Of course it isn't. There are many adventures in store for our little group, both dangerous and romantic. There is mud which is like quicksand. There is a disappearance from a maze which has no escape. There is a mysterious fortune teller who comes, after whose visit a much beloved friend commits suicide.

Albert Campion was a bit of a mysterious fellow himself. I thought I couldn't figure some things out because I hadn't read the first book yet, but from a bit of reading I've done, this is the case throughout the series. We don't learn everything about his past, his family, or his manservant, a former burglar named Lugg.

I loved every minute of my time within these pages. I so look forward to each book in this long series. Margery Allingham is considered one of the queens of Golden Age detective fiction, and now I know why. The only mystery to me is why I didn't begin reading these books long ago. I have seen a few of the televised versions, and now that I've met Mr. Campion in print, I see that Peter Davison was the absolute perfect choice to play him.

Mrs Bale is not really complaining, but...

Mrs Bale wonders if we've gone into another weather zone. Has our windy hill been transported to the Pacific Northwest? I think there have been some sunny, warm days this month, but what I remember are rainy, cloudy, raw, dark days. She and I aren't really complaining because after all our British souls are most at home in this sort of weather, but still ... it would be nice to have a wee bit more sunshine. So far the plants seem fine. In fact, they are looking more like those in a tropical rainforest everyday. Green, green, green. I will certainly take this over dry and brown and hot anyday, but still ... it would be nice to see the sun.

Mint

Honeysuckle

Daylily

Addendum: a few hours later the sun came out! I'm happy. :<)

Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason

31. Silence of the Grave (Icelandic title, Grafarpögn) - fourth in Inspector Erlendur series
by Arnaldur Indridason
translated by Bernard Scudder
mystery, 2002
finished, 6/14/10

As in all new estates, the children played in the half-built houses, climbed up the scaffolding, hid in the shadows of solitary walls, or slid down into recently dug foundations to splash in the water that collected there.

What an eight-year old boy finds in one of these foundations is an old rib bone, and so begins a mystery that bridges sixty years.

Grafarholt used to be rural countryside outside of Reykjavik.

But the city had spread across the bays and hills as the rural population depopulated. A modern city swollen with people who did not want to live in the countryside or fishing villages any more, or could not live there, and came to the city to build new lives for themselves, but lost their roots and were left with no past and an uncertain future.

This is the modern day Grafarholt that Erlendur would see as he investigates the bone.


The book goes back and forth between modern day police trying to discover who it belonged to and why it was there; and the story of an extremely abusive husband and his family. The reader puzzles about a connection but there are so many twists and turns that when the ending revealed all, I was surprised. I had to avert my eyes from some of the descriptions. I read enough to get the gist, but honestly some of the details made for difficult reading. How I hated that man. What made it especially terrible was a scene of the husband shaking hands with the police as they left the house without doing anything, though they saw the woman's injuries. We later find out this is a family of many years ago, and the reader might think, 'well those days are gone' except I know they aren't, and the author knows it, too. Erlendur encounters the same situation, asks where the man is, and the woman tells him:

If you're going to take him, make sure you kill him. If you don't, he'll kill me.

And we all know the truth in her fear; and how seldom restraining orders work.

As I read on in the book, I came to realize that it is a story of families and how some can go wrong, and some can go horribly wrong. What should be a source of refuge and peace and support can become exactly the opposite; from Erlendur's own family to the family with the cruel father in the past to the family with an abusive father and an addicted mother, whose child is taken away in the present.

Erlendur suffers the guilt of a man who left his wife and children many years ago. We met his daughter in Jar City and she comes into his life again in this book. Other than losing a child to death, this policeman's situation really couldn't be worse. Eva Lind is an addict who lives the life no parent can bear thinking about.

We know that Erlendur is a great reader of books about 'ordeals in the wilderness' and his knowledge of such things gives him guidance in solving this case.

"Someone sets off from a farm, say. It's the middle of winter and the weather forecast is bad. ... He loses his bearings. Gets lost. In the end he gets covered over in a snowdrift and freezes to death. By then he's miles off the beaten track. That's why the body's never found. He's given up for lost.

That's a typical Icelandic missing person scenario and we can explain it and understand it because we live in this country and know how the weather suddenly turns bad and how the story of that man repeats itself at regular intervals without anyone questioning it. That's Iceland, people think, and shake their heads. ... There were rarely grounds for treating such disappearances as police or criminal matters.

What if people said so-and-so had set off for the moors or another farm or went to lay a fishing net in the lake and was never heard of again? A search is mounted, but he's never found and is given up for lost."

"So the whole household conspires to kill this person?" Sigurdur Óli said.

"Then he is stabbed or beaten or shot and buried in the garden?" Elínborg added.

"Until one day Reykjavik has grown so big that he can't rest in peace any longer," Erlendur said.

It is such details which bring Iceland alive to the reader.

How the police come up with information about the past, and about the people who used to live on that hill before it changed beyond all recognition makes for fascinating reading. There were both English and American barracks and the reader wonders if somehow soldiers from the Second World War could be involved. There's a man whose fiancée apparently drowned, and we wonder if the rib is hers. He himself died many years ago, and his niece has all his papers in her cellar. She hasn't been able to bring herself to go through the morass of boxes. A good argument is made for not holding onto clutter.

The cellar measured about 90 square meters and ... full of boxes and more boxes, some labelled, but most not. There were cardboard boxes that once contained wine and cigarettes, and wooden crates, in all conceivable sizes and filled with an endless assortment of rubbish. In the cellar were also old cupboards, chests, suitcases and sundry items that had accumulated over a long time: dusty bicycles, lawn mowers, an old barbecue.

Horrors! Yet, some important information is found there after days and days of searching.

I cannot praise this book highly enough. It was a perfect followup to Jar City. With each book, we learn more and more about this interesting, thoughtful Inspector Erlendur. We learn about Iceland. And we follow investigators as they pore over clues until they have solved the case. Along the way, we see human nature at its best and worst. I have the next two in the series on my shelf, and will continue buying them as long as Arnaldur Indridason continues to write them, and Bernard Scudder continues to translate them into English. I'm hoping at some point, the first two will be translated.

Vacuum update, and a thank you

Well, here I am with my new upright vacuum cleaner. :<) Not what I thought I wanted, and not a brand I expected to buy but I am happy, happy with my new Electrolux. We hadn't even researched it. We went to Lowes fully intending to check out all the Dyson models and come home with one. But the Electrolux was the first one we came to, and I watched the little videos and read the literature. It was half the price of the Dyson Animal, and it may well turn out to be half the quality, but we thought why not? If it doesn't work out, we can always go back and buy the other one. But it really seems fine, and actually more than just fine. I love it! Who knew? I was sure I wanted a canister type. But the upright is just great. It has a button to make the handle go lower. It has buttons for rugs and for bare floors. It has NO bags, which thrills me. It looks beautiful in my butt'ry. And I cleaned the whole downstairs in about an hour. Unheard of! There was so much less stopping, and putting on attachments. These attachments are all right on the machine, and it just takes a minute to put one on. There is a great telescoping wand with a brush on the end with which I can do the whole set of stairs. I can take the whole thing off and put on a little attachment to vacuum the furniture. No complaints, just joy. And I was smiling as I worked.





Here it is. That little dog and cat sticker can come off but I kinda like it.








And this is how much dirt I got! I had just vacuumed three days before. You push a button while holding it over the trash can, and it drops right out. Easy peasy.



And now I want to thank you all so very much for leaving notes about what you liked and didn't like. It was rather like reading reviews of machines online. One person would love a certain kind, and another had nothing but trouble with it. That seemed especially true of the Dyson which is why we thought we'd go with a cheaper machine.

Farm and Garden Weekly - Week of June 6

This old sidewalk has never been touched since we moved here in 1981. It is rather like our version of living in Italy. I think some people pay the big bucks to have such antiquity in their gardens. :<)

Looking down from terrace

Looking up to terrace

This week we planted the last of the vegetables - summer squash and yellow beans. We also put the dahlias in one of the raised beds. We haven't planted them for two summers so I hope they come up. I bought some cosmos plants and will put them in this week. They are the only annuals I plant now. I used to buy others but they were almost always disappointing. They either didn't grow tall enough or soon enough on my cool hilltop, but cosmos never let me down.

There is still a lot of bird life going on at Windy Poplars. The wild turkey babies are out and about, walking with the mothers out in the north pasture. I think their nests must be in the adjacent woods. Also one day I saw a tom turkey just lying down on a big rock. I guess birds need to rest sometimes too.

I also saw the new crow babies high up in the birch trees. I love their young voices.

I put the camera inside the Dutchman's pipe, and got this shot of the robin eggs. Isn't 'robin's egg blue' just the most wonderful color?!

The peonies are almost open.

This coming week they should be gorgeous. The weather has been quite cool and cloudy and I think it slowed them down a bit. Query (to quote the Provincial Lady): how do you know someone lives in northern New England? Answer: She lights the woodstove on a June day.

The Rosa rugosas along the fence are in full bloom.

The poppies are just amazing. They have this rather surreal look in every picture I take.

The lettuce is ready to eat,

as are the garlic scapes

And scallions

We had them for supper tonight sautéed in olive oil and served over spaghetti. Delicious!

The lupines are still the shining stars of the garden.

Calling on my faithful readers for recommendations

Well, the day I have dreaded has arrived. My old Electrolux is beginning to break down. I don't want to put any more money into it since it is a refurbished model. I have had a few Electroluxes in my adult vacuuming life, but as you may know the company was bought by Aerus. There are still Electrolux machines but they aren't made by the original company. It is all very confusing. All I know is that it is time for a change.

Before I buy a new one, I would like your recommendations. Could you please let me know what kind of vac you have and if you love it or hate it and why? Does it use bags?

Here are my cleaning facts. I have two shedding black dogs and a cat. I live on a dirt road. I have a barn. I vacuum once a week. And I want a canister type not an upright.

Divine Dream Bars

This is a recipe from December 1999. I noted on it that Margaret and I made them when she got home from school, and that they were a nice variation on Magic Cookie Bars (which I wrote about in my second month of blogging in 2006). Today I bring them to her boyfriend Matt for the June installment of his birthday present. I loved what Margot said in a comment on the May installment, 'I've really been enjoying your "boyfriend" series of recipes.' Me, too! It's been a fun activity each month.

Divine Dream Bars

1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour

Mix together and pat into greased 9 x 13 pan.
Bake at 350 F. about 10 minutes.

Blend together the following:

1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs, well beaten
2 Tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup coconut
1 12oz. package of chocolate chips

Take first mixture out of the oven, and spread second mixture over it.
Bake another 15-20 minutes. Cut while warm. Delicious!!

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

30. Noah's Compass
by Anne Tyler
fiction, 2009
library book
unabridged audio read by Arthur Morey
finished, 5/31/10




My favorite Anne Tyler book, which I mentioned here, is Back When We Were Grownups. And now Noah's Compass has quickly become second on my personal list. I feel that her great, great gift as a writer is in her details. Details of places, and of the thoughts inside her characters' minds. I feel I know Liam Pennywell. In fact, I feel as if I've known him my whole life; that maybe he was someone I went to school with. He is sixty years old, widowed once, divorced once, with three daughters. One is from the first marriage to a young woman who killed herself, and the other two from his second wife. Though the couple are divorced, they have contact. There isn't acrimony between them. He also has a young grandson.

Liam has lost his teaching job because the two fifth grades in the school have consolidated into one. He moves into a new apartment and, because he forgets to lock his sliding glass door, someone comes in and hits him over the head, and bites his hand. Liam has no memory of any of it. The last thing he recalls is falling asleep. He wakes up in the hospital and is terribly unsettled because he can't remember what happened. He isn't particularly worried it will happen again. He isn't afraid to go home. But he hates having lost the memory of something that occurred in his life.

Liam meets a woman in her late thirties, who may just be the love of his older years. She's a very interesting character, with many quirks and opinions some of which are unusual and others which are, to my mind, quite charming. One of them is that she doesn't use the big highway because she doesn't like the 'peer pressure' of getting off the ramp onto the road.

The book explores their relationship, and also the relationships with his family. His youngest daughter Kitty ends up living with him for the summer. He babysits his grandson sometimes. During one of these times, the boy asks about Noah's ship (ark). In Liam's response, we find the source of the book's title.

... he wasn't going anywhere. There was nowhere to go. He was just trying to stay afloat. He was just bobbing up and down so he didn't need a compass. ...

In a few words, Anne Tyler gives the reader such a strong impression of his ex-wife's kitchen:

Liam loved Barbara's kitchen. It had never once been remodeled as far as he knew. ... The general look of it dated from the 1930s. ... Even the plants on the windowsill seemed old-fashioned; a yellowed philodendron wandering up to the curtain rod and down again; a prickly stunted cactus in a ceramic pot shaped like a burro.

I truly loved this book; the quiet, the characters, the way we get to know Liam so well. This isn't a story filled with drama or tragic events. The reader gets to spend some time in the company of these very human people, and I feel all the richer for it. Her characters become as friends. I love a book that shows people can have happiness in so-called small ways.

I will close my book report with some of the words which end the book. They will decide for you whether this is your kind of book or not. It sure is mine.

He leaned back against the cushions with a contented sigh. ... Socrates said ... What was it he had said? Something about the fewer his wants, the closer he was to the gods. And Liam really wanted nothing. He had an okay place to live, a good enough job, a book to read, a chicken in the oven. He was solvent, if not rich, and healthy.

Spring Salad

This is a variation on a recipe I cut out of Martha Stewart Living magazine last year. Today is the first time I've made it and it won't be the last. My gosh, this was delicious! And about as good for you as anything could be! I'm going to leave the amounts of ingredients up to you. We made ours separately in our own bowls but you could make a big batch and divide it later. The grape tomatoes and basil were both organic and locally grown in a greenhouse, and the chives were from the garden. I didn't toss the ingredients before taking the photograph so you could see the individual items.

Late Spring Salad

Put garlic cloves through a press, or mince, and heat very gently in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Pour into a small bowl and let cool maybe 10 minutes.
Chop tomatoes (grape, cherry, or big) and put in bowl.
Chop basil and chives and put on top of tomatoes.
Drizzle the garlic and olive oil over the top.
Sprinkle on salt and pepper as desired.

Farm and Garden Weekly - weeks of May 23 and May 30

I didn't get a chance to write last weekend, so here is two weeks worth of news. First I'll offer Weather Report's Birdland, a word that pretty much describes life around here these days.

We have two pastures across our dirt road from one another. One is the 'home' pasture, the south pasture where the barn is. The other is the north pasture. If the weather is good, we let the farm animals across in the morning and bring them back in the evening. Well, this one day it was rainy in the morning so we didn't cross them. By evening the weather was gorgeous and with these long, long days, we thought they could go over for a few hours. Suddenly, the male bluebird was going wild, coming to our screens, perching on the roof of the house, calling its cry of upset. We saw that all the animals were gathered around the telephone pole where the bluebirds made their home. A couple were shaking the guy wire as they scratched their backs. We quickly moved the animals into their home pasture, and after maybe an hour the bird settled down. And then we didn't see them again. We have a feeling that the babies were fledging just at the time the farm animals were all around their birdhouse. We think the male got all shook up. Anyhow, all is quiet now, and we're wondering if they will come back next year or decide it was just too chaotic for them at Windy Poplars Farm.

Phoebes are nesting in the barn,

and I hear their song all day long, as I do the Song Sparrow's. I've never seen the nest but I'm quite certain it is nearby.

There are robin nests everywhere: the big maple tree, the honeysuckle along the fence (where we saw one blue egg a while ago, and now the inhabitant has flown), and this one just discovered this morning in the trellis that supports the Dutchman's Pipe. A couple years ago we had a disastrous time with a robin building a nest there because the nest wasn't secure enough (even after we had supported it ourselves) and two babies fell out and died. But this year's is in a different spot; on a stronger section so we're hopeful it will be successful.


This is truly the blue/purple season of the year.

The Bearded iris

The Siberian iris

The Korean lilac

Baptisia australis

I don't think there is any flower more difficult to capture than a display of lupines. Even calendar photos are never that good, in my opinion.

I love this one with the bee who flew into the picture just as I was taking it

The spiderwort - and as I note each time I mention this beautiful plant, don't forget Henry Mitchell's correct pronunciation!

And last but not least, in the vegetable garden we planted three locally grown tomato plants and two basil plants. The bushy plant is thyme, a perennial

And the spinach is ready to harvest

Today's poem - The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

I don't usually comment when I post a poem, but I wanted to say that I had to memorize this when I was in school, and amazingly I still remember a fair bit of it. I often find myself hearing the words in my head. I think it is a fantastic piece of work.

The Bells
by Edgar Allan Poe
(1809-1849)

I.

         Hear the sledges with the bells--
        Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
  How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
      In the icy air of night!
  While the stars that oversprinkle
  All the heavens, seem to twinkle
      With a crystalline delight;
    Keeping time, time, time,
    In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
          Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

         Hear the mellow wedding bells
        Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
  Through the balmy air of night
  How they ring out their delight!
      From the molten-golden notes,
          And all in tune,
      What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
          On the moon!
    Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
          How it swells!
          How it dwells
      On the Future! how it tells
      Of the rapture that impels
    To the swinging and the ringing
      Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
          Bells, bells, bells--
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

         Hear the loud alarum bells--
             Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
  In the startled ear of night
  How they scream out their affright!
    Too much horrified to speak,
    They can only shriek, shriek,
             Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
       Leaping higher, higher, higher,
       With a desperate desire,
    And a resolute endeavor
    Now--now to sit or never,
  By the side of the pale-faced moon.
       Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
       What a tale their terror tells
             Of Despair!
  How they clang, and clash, and roar!
  What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
  Yet the ear, it fully knows,
       By the twanging,
       And the clanging,
    How the danger ebbs and flows ;
  Yet, the ear distinctly tells,
    In the jangling,
    And the wrangling,
  How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells--
        Of the bells--
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
    Bells, bells, bells--
In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!

IV.

          Hear the tolling of the bells--
          Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
  In the silence of the night,
  How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy meaning of their tone!
    For every sound that floats
    From the rust within their throats
         Is a groan.
    And the people--ah, the people--
    They that dwell up in the steeple,
         All alone,
    And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
       In that muffled monotone,
    Feel a glory in so rolling
       On the human heart a stone--
  They are neither man nor woman--
  They are neither brute nor human--
         They are Ghouls:--
    And their king it is who tolls ;
    And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
         Rolls
       A pæan from the bells!
    And his merry bosom swells
       With the pæan of the bells!
    And he dances, and he yells ;
  Keeping time, time, time,
  In a sort of Runic rhyme,
       To the pæan of the bells--
          Of the bells :
  Keeping time, time, time,
  In a sort of Runic rhyme,
       To the throbbing of the bells--
       Of the bells, bells, bells--
       To the sobbing of the bells ;
  Keeping time, time, time,
       As he knells, knells, knells,
  In a happy Runic rhyme,
       To the rolling of the bells--
    Of the bells, bells, bells--
       To the tolling of the bells,
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells--
          Bells, bells, bells--
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

The Torso by Helene Tursten

29. The Torso (Swedish title, Tatuerad Torso) - second in the Inspector Huss series
by Helene Tursten
translated by Katarina E. Tucker
mystery, 2000; English translation 2006
finished, 5/30/10



As I sit down to write this book report, it is a beautiful, really perfect early June day. The sun is shining, the temperature is warm but not hot, flowers are in bloom. The story in The Torso doesn't seem to belong. Horrific deeds shouldn't happen period, but especially not on such a blessed day. Well, we know that isn't true. Ugliness is juxtaposed with beauty every minute.

The book takes place in this same season.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The air was fresh but still mild. Steam rising from the warm earth smelled good. The early summer foliage was at its most beautiful and everything breathed hope in the face of the oncoming summer.

You know that a book called The Torso is not going to be pretty. The torso is found by a black Labrador in a little children's pool on the ocean front. It is in a black plastic bag. And to make it even worse, the internal organs have been removed. I'm sure I can feel you wincing, as I did myself. And you may be wondering, how could she read on. Well, it wasn't easy going in some parts, but honestly, I am so fond of Irene Huss that I'm willing to follow along on her cases regardless of how tawdry.

It is quite different reading crime fiction written by a woman.

After almost twenty years as a police officer she had seen everything, but not all at once. That was what nauseated her about this area. ... She felt violated and degraded as a woman.

The investigation leads to a similar crime in Copenhagen, Denmark, and so Irene and her fellow workers travel back and forth from their home in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden over to Copenhagen.


In the ferry bathroom, Irene sees a yellow plastic tub hanging on the wall with a sign 'used syringes.' And in the hotel, she finds a tourist guide with a section called, 'Copenhagen After Dark.' These are little hints of the kind of experiences she will have in the city.

While in Copenhagen, there is an additional, more personal job that Irene must do. A former neighbor of Irene's has asked if she can find her daughter.

"She won a beauty contest last summer and after that she wanted only one thing ... to become a photo model. She refused to continue going to high school. And she had also had contact with a modeling agency in Copenhagen."
Irene jumped in. "How did she get in touch with the agency?"
"Through an ad. They were looking for Swedish girls who were willing to work in Copenhagen."

What the mother knows (or thinks she knows) is that the girl had gotten in touch with a female photographer. The trip was arranged and the photography agency set up an apartment for the girl and two other girls seeking the same employment. The mother hadn't been over to visit, though the daughter had called her off and on, sounding busy and happy.

When Irene gets to Copenhagen, she is told by her colleagues there that:

Copenhagen lures hordes of young girls, consumes them, and spills them out onto the trash heap after a few years. They often come here with dreams of making a career in the theater or as photo models. The reality is something completely different.

You may have heard the song, Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen; well,The Torso shows us another side - scary, seedy Copenhagen. I guess every place has its dark underbelly but this one seemed particularly bad and sad.

I need to stress that this book deals with some very sordid stuff. Irene is disgusted, and also feels a sense of guilt because a later murder may have occurred because of her investigations.

She had never reacted so strongly to a murder investigation before. ... She wanted vengeance. She wanted to avenge herself for having been used for the killer's purpose.

Even as I write the warning, I want to say that I really, really liked this book, as I did Detective Inspector Huss. The pace is so fine, so right. And the life the police inspectors lead as they are working on a case is well-described. We read of the restaurants they visit and what they eat and drink. Irene's clothes are noted. Even as they are involved in such gruesome crimes, they still must live their lives. We discover that one of the policemen has a drinking problem, and that two others are getting married. Irene's home life isn't as problematical as in the first book, but still the girls are now nearly seventeen, and becoming more separate from the family life. There may be a new puppy joining the family; a son of their dog Sammie. The relationship with her husband is still strong, though she does find herself attracted to a man on the police force in Denmark. What I am trying to say is that these books aren't all about the crimes. Rather they are about the solving of the crimes, the slow, slow process involved in gathering clues, the part that luck plays, the hard work involved. As I noted in Detective Inspector Huss, I've not read any mystery, any crime novel that has showed so truly and honestly the process, the procedure, the actual job of the police. And the officers aren't spared grief. Sometimes their own families are involved in criminal atrocities.

Unless we are involved in a crime, we can turn away from the horrors, but this series shows how those affected, and the police who must solve those crimes have to stay the course until the murderer has been found. This case has a particularly surprising ending that felt just right to me. I have the third in the series, and so far the last, on my shelf which I will begin soon. Tursten is an amazing writer.