The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

From yesterday's post on honeybees to today's entry on holes in the earth, I never know where my reading will take me.

I just discovered the Ruth Galloway mystery series by Elly Griffiths. The Crossing Places introduces Ms. Galloway, forensic archaeologist. She is a 40-year-old woman who teaches at the University of North Norfolk and lives in a cottage at the edge of the sea. She lives alone with her two cats. 

She gets involved in a missing persons case when bones are found preserved in the peat near her cottage. She meets DCI Harry Nelson when he asks her help in identifying the age of the bones. He has been haunted by the disappearance of Lucy, a young girl who went missing 10 years previously. Her body was never found. Then another girl disappears. Could the same person be involved? And who is writing those letters taunting DCI Nelson and hinting that Lucy's body would be found "where the earth and the sea and the sky meet"?

There is a lot of atmosphere in this book. The Saltmarsh, the sea, the storms. There are Druids and ancient burial sites. I love reading about the desolate landscape that so attracts Ruth. In her isolation, she finds it easier to talk to herself and her cats than she does to her colleagues. In the course of the book her old mentor shows up as does a former lover. Her one friend Shona, Ruth's exact opposite, bewails her misery over her own doomed affair with a married man. 

The overall arc of the story held my interest. There were some inconsistencies - how did so many people come to know about the letters when the police weren't disclosing their existence? And sometimes the weather changed from page to page in matter of minutes. But who cares? Minor details.

Ruth is an independent, intriguing character and I will look forward to getting to know her better in the second in the series, The Janus Stone.

Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper by C. Marina Marchese

Let's talk honeybees. 

On impulse, I recently picked up Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper (2009) from a display table at the library. This is the true tale of C. Marina Marchese's love affair with the little buzzing insects that make delicious honey that we get to enjoy on our buttered toast in the mornings.

Ms. Marchese, who lives in Connecticut, took a tour of a neighbor's bee yard and that led her to eventually leaving her position as a creative director for a giftware company to founding her own business, Red Bee Apiary, and beginning a successful new career in beekeeping.

Not only does her book offer a perspective of honeybees as clever and industrious, there are also stories of how Ms. Marchese got involved with the local Back Yard Beekeepers Association, built her own first beehive, got stung a few times, but persevered. She learned a lot and writes clearly about her adventures and the ins and outs of beekeeping, products of the hives in addition to honey, and some of the history of beekeeping as well. 

Honeybee is fun to read and very informative without being overwhelming. The author packs a lot of information in 200 pages. It is fascinating to read about these little critters that do so much for the planet. 

I have had some personal experience with honeybees. A couple of years ago, I lived with a friend and her family on their farm for six months. The farm was home to three sheep, two goats, seven chickens, three cats, a Labrador Retriever named Max, and 30,000 honeybees. I was there when the bees arrived and watched, from a respectful distance, as Brian set up the hives. Eventually I got to taste the fruits of the honeybees' labors. The best part!

A Country Year (1986) by Sue Hubbell is another book about a woman who left the corporate world, moved to Arkansas, and began raising bees. I read this one quite a few years ago. Hers is more of a look at adapting to country life, noticing the changing the seasons, and of course, her life with the bees.

If you have watched Lark Rise to Candleford, you will know that Queenie raises honeybees. There is a scene in one episode where she goes out to the hives to tell her bees of the death of someone in the hamlet. This is based on fact. Here is a bit from Honeybee on The Telling of the Bees:

There is an old beekeeping tradition known as "telling the bees". First the bees must know everything that goes on in their keeper's family, including births, deaths, illnesses, and marriages. Then, upon the death of the beekeeper, a close family member should approach the hive, knock three times with the key to the house, and whisper the news to the bees. The bees, it is said, need to be assured that someone will take care of them after their keeper has died; otherwise they will abscond or not produce honey. 

Reading Out the Weekend

It was a dark and stormy day...so I read and read and read. What luxury.

I finished Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper by  C. Marina Marchese. This was a book I picked up on impulse from a display at the library and I really enjoyed it. 

Then, because I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen to Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist, I jumped in and finished the last chapters of The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths.

I will write more about both books in the future. 

I am not sure if furiously flipping pages in a book qualifies as an aerobic exercise but the intellectual exercise of today left me breathless.

What did you read this weekend?

Still Lost in the Stacks

Woman Reading with Parasol
Henri Matisse
1921

If you are stopping by from Danielle's "Lost in the Stacks" feature, Welcome! I write an entry here every day so there is always something new at Belle, Book, and Candle.

If you scroll down and check yesterday's post, you will see more photos of my bookshelves. Please look around. I am glad to have you visit.

If you are not a first-time visitor, check out Danielle's site, A Work in Progress, and read all about Belle and Her Books.

What am I reading now?

Headlong by Michael Frayn - A comic novel of Old Masters and Mystery. Informative and amusing at the same time.

Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper by C. Marina Marchese - The true story of a woman and her beehives. I love tales like this - a woman abandons the corporate world and takes up country life.

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths - A new mystery author to me. The main character is Ruth Galloway, a forensic 
archaeologist living and teaching on Britain's Norfolk coast. So far, so good. I liked Ruth right away and the mystery begins on page one. 

Belle is Lost in the Stacks!

I am very excited to be starring this weekend in Danielle's Lost in the Stacks feature on A Work in Progress. Here you will get to see my bookshelves and read about a few of the books that hold special meaning for me.

Danielle's is one of the book sites I followed for a year before I stepped out and started Belle, Book, and Candle on January 1, 2012. Danielle and I also exchanged snail-mail postcards as part of this year's Month of Letters Challenge held in February. 

I am posting here some additional photographs showing my bookshelves in situ. Closer shots of my shelves are on Danielle's site.

If this is your first visit to Belle, Book, and Candle, please stop by again. 

Abraham Lincoln by Senator George S. McGovern

I rented Steven Spielberg's movie Lincoln and in preparation for watching it I thought I would read the biography of our sixteenth president written by Senator George McGovern for the American Presidents Series.

You can read how I came to have an autographed copy of the biography, Abraham Lincoln, here. 

It is an overview of the life and times of this most admired and respected president all presented in 155 pages. (This suits me as I don't need to know Lincoln's shoe size or what he ate for breakfast or how many whiskers were on his chin.) I spent the morning reading about his early life, his rise in political circles, and am just now getting to his presidency and the Civil War. 

The book is quite well written and although I know a little of this and a little of that about Mr. Lincoln, I am enjoying reading this thoughtful record of his life.

A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer

I awoke this morning to the sound of rain on the roof. It seemed the perfect morning to snuggle in and finish reading Georgette Heyer's A Blunt Instrument (1938) featuring the intrepid Scotland Yard Superintendent Hannasyde and his sidekick Sergeant Hemingway. 

When wealthy Ernest Fletcher is found dead at his desk in the library of his home Greystones by the bobby on the beat, the Bible-quoting PC Glass, there are plenty of suspects but no murder weapon to be found. 

Was it his nephew and heir, Neville Fletcher, he with the devil-may-care attitude and in debt up to his worn-out hat? Or maybe it was Helen North, a neighbor who had a mild flirtation going with the deceased in an effort to recover her gambling IOUs? Perhaps it was her husband, Mr. North, who in a fit of jealousy, bashed poor Ernie over the head. One might also suspect Helen North's sister, Sally Drew, the plain-speaking, monocle-wearing crime novelist. Then again, who were those two mysterious visitors that came and went through the side gate to the house and were spotted by PC Glass?

Of course it is all a delightful puzzle in the hands of Ms. Heyer. She has much fun with the timing of the murder and at one point Superintendent Hannasyde doesn't see how the murder could even have taken place considering the time of the sighting of suspects, the chiming of the hall clock, and the time of Fletcher's death. But, of course, dead bodies never lie. Or do they?

I have quite a collection of Ms. Heyer's mysteries, she wrote nine of them, and am always happy to be in her world of manners and witty dialogue. It doesn't really matter to me whodunnit. With her, the joy is in the journey to the dénouement!