International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Artwork for CAPTAIN BLOOD by N.C. Wyeth

Best. Pirate. Book. Ever

Second. Best. Pirate Book. Ever.

Best. Pirate. Movie. Ever. (This is the French poster, I think.)

Best. Pirate. Hero. Ever. Errol Flynn. Swoon.

Favorite. Pirate. Villain. Ever.

Second. Favorite. Pirate. Villain. Ever. Captain Hook, of course.

Funniest. Pirate. Book. Ever. Well, one of them anyway.

And a pix of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow - just because.


As I always like to say: what's a day without a good snarl! Aaaargh!

Read More

Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film Tuesday: MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (1959) starring Frederic March and Kim Novak

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (1959) is a film directed by Delbert Mann with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky based on his own play. It stars Frederic March and Kim Novak with a stellar cast of secondary character actors including Albert Dekker, Glenda Farrell, Martin Balsam and Lee Grant. (Edward G. Robinson starred in the Broadway production.)

It was Jacqueline's splendid review of MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT a while ago (at Another Old Movie Blog), that  brought it all back to mind, a film I'd long forgotten but suddenly craved to see again. Last seen: either on the big screen or perhaps on TV - can't remember. But I know it was in the dark ages.

Thanks to Jacqueline's kindness, my viewing is now a fait accompli.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT is the engrossing story of a May/December romance, a bit shocking then - not so much now.

I must say my first reaction while watching the opening credits was a total feeling of deja vu all over again, if you know what I mean - just seeing the busy streets of the city's garment district made for an unsettling kind of emotional time travel. The film is set in that busy few blocks of Manhattan's West 30's - the sidewalks cluttered with garment racks and hand trucks - where I too toiled for a time many eons ago - scrambling down the street in high heels (!), rushing to work at a dress manufacturer very similar to that shown in the movie. (I was later fired for disconnecting the owner's overseas phone call to his son. An understatement: I've never been technically inclined.)

A few years later I would return again to the garment district (though in an entirely different capacity) while working in the fashion department of a major magazine. So the setting of the film was very familiar to me.

But I don't remember it all being so damned bleak. Maybe because I prefer to remember New York as it appears in the 1949 MGM musical ON THE TOWN. I know, I know, I live in a dream world. But in truth growing up in Manhattan was a great deal of fun.

Back to the movie:

The black and white camera work by Joseph C. Brun has that gritty, sweaty quality reminiscent of most films shot in this era. But direct lighting, harsh shadows and a general unkempt air is not the way I like to remember my carefree youth. Were women that unattractive or was it the make-up and the fashions? Were the clothes really that clunky? Did everyone look older than they were? Were the men all pear shaped? These are questions I ask myself.

I'm very much afraid the answer is YES. Looking backwards is always dangerous and it's easy to feel superior, but except for Kim Novak, most everyone in this film looks pretty ancient or else has that 'used up' desperate look so popular at the time. I think it was all that smoking and drinking. As for that telltale 'pear shape' I speak of - well that's what made so many men look old beyond their time. And maybe the hats.

At any rate, Academy Award winning actor Frederic March seems ancient, or at least that's how his character has come to feel in the bosom of his quarrelsome, meddling, well-meaning, but ultimately selfish family. March - though he looks older - is supposed to be 56 (and right now 56 sounds pretty good to me, let me tell you) and he is right smack dab in the middle of a mid-life crisis, fighting the strangle-hold of creeping old age. His melancholy friends and fellow workers speak as if they are at death's door - comfortably complaining about their various aches and pains and who's who in the obituary columns.

March plays widower Jerry Kingsley, a self-made man, proud owner of a successful dress manufacturing business. He is a hands-on boss, always on the scene, pitching in, dealing with the unions, handling clients, cutting patterns if he must, sweating the details and in general making sure everything is working the way it's supposed to. The business is his life.

Kingsley's employees toil in a cramped, dark workplace, the men in suspenders and rolled up shirt sleeves, the women in dowdy clothing. It is an apparently window-less, airless enclosure wall to wall with samples on hangers and large wooden pattern tables. Even the small showroom has the same dismal ambience. Yet we know it's a successful business. But thinking back on my own experience, the place I worked in had a similar look - except for the showroom. So that must have been how things were.

One of the employees, a middle-aged hustler named Walter Lockman (played by Albert Dekker) is a sleaze of a salesman, unhappily married and forever chasing after young 'tootsies' in an attempt to recapture his youth and stave off his terrible loneliness. Walter is the direct opposite of his friend Jerry Kingsley who internalizes his unhappiness in a more quiet, dignified way.

Kim Novak, an actress known more for her beauty than her acting prowess (she confounds expectations by being quite good), plays Betty Preisser and when we first see her, we assume she's playing against type, attempting to seem awkward and plain. But something else is at work. She is Kinglsey's receptionist/model, uncomfortable in her own skin, wary of men who see her as just another 'tootsie' and suffering still, from the aftershocks of a recent divorce. She's bristly and nervous and kind of a hairs' breadth away from some sort of breakdown. At least so she seemed to me. She's supposed to be 24 (Marsh never tires of calling her a 'kid') though in truth, she looks older as - all together now - everyone did back then.

Speaking of 'everyone' - here's something you have to know: EVERYONE in this movie is unhappy. I mean, EVERYONE. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's words: 'We're all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.'

Well, can't think who in this film might be looking at stars, maybe Frederic Marsh. But let me tell you, it takes him a while.

Kingsley lives in a large Manhattan apartment with his sister, a meddling 'spinster' who moved in when Kingley's wife passed away. She is unhappy unless she is fussing over her brother, telling him what to do and trying to set him up with lonely widows of a certain age.

There is a rather unsettling scene in which Kingsley rushes home in the afternoon to change a soiled shirt before heading out again and he is corraled by a friend of his sister's brought over to the apartment for the express purpose of catching his interest. She is played beautifully in a rather heart-breaking way by Betty Walker as a desperate, lonely, impervious woman who just can't stop talking. All the while trying to be a gentleman (he is a nice man), Kingsley is forced to run into the bathroom for a moment's breather - a sad/funny moment.

Kingsley has a grown married daughter, Lillian, and a new grandson. Lillian (Joan Copeland) and her hubby Jack (Martin Balsam) live in New Rochelle but spend an awful lot of time hanging around daddy's apartment. Naturally enough, hubby resents this. He is unhappy because he feels slighted since the baby's birth (back then hubbies had little to do with babies) and what's more, it's implied that Lillian is too busy worrying about her father to pay much attention to his (Jack's) needs. He wants to go to Florida on vacation - just the two of them. Lillian resists because 'her father needs her'. More unhappiness.

Here's the basic plot: Up until one fateful day, Kinglsey has paid little attention to Betty (Kim Novak), treating her as just another employee. But when one afternoon he has to stop at her apartment to pick up some papers she inadvertently took home (she wasn't feeling well and fled the workplace), he is drawn into her slightly incoherent tale of woe and spends the rest of the day listening to her talk about her loveless marriage and the nuts and bolts of her divorce.

To me she seems jumpy and ill at ease as if she's on some kind of drug, but that's how she plays the scene and it appears that Kinglsey is intrigued enough to notice that hey, she's a pretty little gal who's had a sad time of it.

A short time later, he asks Betty out to dinner and the die is cast. He is bowled over by her beauty seen in a new light, her neediness, her youthful gaucheness and well, her beauty - did I say that already?

Betty is one needy, unhappy woman. But sometimes that's the attraction and in this case, we have need on both sides. Betty was abandoned by her father when she was a child and her mother, played caustically by Glenda Farrell is not all she should be. Betty is attracted to an older man because she equates age with wisdom (she's the type that needs to be told what to do and what's going to happen) and besides Jerry Kingsley is a nice gentle man and not just some lout looking for a good time.

Jerry is in love. He asks Betty to marry him despite the age difference and despite the fact that there is just the slightest chance that Betty is still hung up on her ex-husband, a musician played by Lee Phillips.

Anyway, once the respective families find out about Jerry and Betty, there is hell to pay. Betty's mom calls Jerry 'a dirty old man'. Jerry's sister is appalled - 'You are making a decision that you will regret for the rest of your life!' Jerry's daughter Lillian is resentful and miserable - Betty is younger than she is. Lillian is full of psycho-babble and unresolved issues. She can't go to Florida her father needs her, she tells her furious hubby, Jack - he's already postponed the initial trip. Their's is not a marriage made in heaven, but maybe that's the way marriages were then. The two seem so unhappy and ill-at-ease with each other. Jack realizes suddenly that Lillian doesn't consider him 'family'. He is told to bow out when he offers his advice on the upcoming marriage.

In the meantime, Betty's friend Marilyn (Lee Grant) thinks she's crazy to even think about marrying 'an old man'. 'In ten years he'll be 66!' She tells Betty that life isn't meant to be happy - you get up in the morning, you struggle and then you die (I'm paraphrasing, but close enough). This is another unhappy, brittle woman whose misery is tangible. I warned you about everyone in this film.

Jeez, no wonder Betty wants to find shelter in Jerry's arms - ancient though they may be. Even if she is still confused and unsure if she loves him. But she likes to think that events have spiraled along and swept her up. Most of all, she hates being lonely and unsure of her next step.

One evening Betty's sleazy ex-husband George (Lee Phillips) shows up at the apartment wanting another chance. She tells him no but allows him to make love to her.

When Jerry finds out (because Betty tells him thinking it will be all right since it meant nothing to her) he is humiliated and breaks off the engagement - he was having second thoughts anyhow what with all the drama back at his apartment. They argue and he tells her he must have some peace, that this is all too much for him. He tells her that hers is a lousy kind of love. And she tells him that it's the only kind of love she knows.

But when his unhappy friend Walter Lockman, facing the ugly truth about himself, attempts suicide. Jerry rushes to his side and decides then and there to seize at happiness with Betty no matter what. He'll have enough peace of mind when he's dead.

A compelling movie with the feel of the old Playhouse 90 telecasts (you of a certain age will know of which I speak) and fabulous acting from Frederic March and the entire cast.

Since it's Tuesday, please remember to check in at Todd Mason's blog, Sweet Freedom, to see what other films and/or audio visuals, other bloggers are posting about. Due to a family emergency, Todd will be playing catch-up with the listings at some point but feel free to check last week's list and the weeks before that. Lots of interesting stuff there.

Read More

Saturday Salon: The Rendition of Goldfish

English genre, social realist and portrait painter,Thomas Benjamin Kennington (1856 - 1916)

Australian digital artist, designer and art director, Ken Wong

Australian modernist painter and printmaker, Margaret Preston (1875 - 1963)

Contemporary American realist painter, Janet Fish

R. Humphrey (unable to find further info) But it's such a lyrical painting, I had to include it.

French modernist painter Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)

German Impressionist/Expressionist painter and printmaker, Lovis Corinth

American Impressionist painter Charles Courtney Curran (1861 - 1942)

Dutch painter Maria Vos (1824 - 1906)

American painter Ben Frank Moss (Born 1936 - )

French painter and photographer, Jacques Henri Lartique (1894 - 1986)

American Contemporary painter, Barbara Smith Ott

English genre painter, author and illustrator, George Dunlop Leslie 'The Goldfish Seller' (1835 - 1921)

Henri Matisse

British Academic Classical painter William Stephen Coleman, (1829 - 1904)

Scottish painter and printmaker, Elizabeth Blackadder (Born 1931 - )

British painter Charles Hodge Mackie (1862 - 1920)

American genre, portrait and landscape painter, Elizabeth Nourse (1859 - 1938)

American illustrator, Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863 - 1935)

American painter, Gertrude Fiske (1878 - 1961)

While perambulating across the Internet, I noticed that goldfish appear to be a popular subject for painters working in just about every style. These attractive little Technicolor fish show up at least once in a variety of artist portfolios. Common enough subjects can make for uncommon works of art as we all know. I love viewing the same subject through the eyes of different artists.

Read More

Forgotten Book Friday: MIDNIGHT IS A PLACE (1976) by Joan Aiken (1924 - 2004)

Joan Aiken was a prolific and very talented English writer who specialized in creating intriguing books for children and young adults. She also turned out some pretty terrific Gothic romance novels as well as stories based on Jane Austen characters.

I suppose Aiken is most well known and best remembered for the classic, WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE - especially the version with the Edward Gorey illustrations. (My own personal favorite is MIDWINTER NIGHTINGALE (2003), which is part of the 'wolves' series.)

But in truth, Aiken was such a splendid writer that several of her books can be defined as 'classics' including MIDNIGHT IS A PLACE, a historical novel with an intense and very definite Dickensian flavor. This is a decidedly dark and forbidding 19th century 'orphans of the storm' story starring two rather plucky young orphans (Aikens' specialty), one English, one French, who must learn to survive on their own when their cruel guardian's mansion goes up in flames. No real loss since the house was grim and forbidding and falling apart to begin with (as was its owner).

Parent-less, Lucas Bell has been sent to live with his guardian, Sir Randolph Grimsby. Grimsby (you can tell by his name) is a surly, nasty piece of goods who'd won 'his' estate, Midnight Court and a nearby carpet mill which provides all his income, as the result of a crooked wager many years before.

Lucas has lived a sad, solitary existence for two years with no one for company save his humorless tutor, Mr. Oakapple. This all changes one day when little Anna-Marie arrives. At first extremely weepy and not at all the type of child Lucas was hoping to have as a friend (she can barely speak any English), she will soon prove her mettle to the unhappy boy.

Anna-Marie is a French orphan dropped out of the blue on an outraged Sir Randolph's doorstep. Mysteriously, it appears she belongs at Midnight Court but before we can learn the raison d'etre, there is an ugly Twist of Fate to contend with.

One gloomy night Sir Randolph meets his grisly end in a conflagration which destroys Midnight Court. The children's tutor Mr. Oakapple is gravely injured and insensible. The two orphans are cast out into the dingy, unfriendly streets of Blastburn, a dismal industrialized English town where the sun never shines and the steam and smoke clogged skies never clear. With no one to care for them, they must learn to survive on their own.

I know - oh woe is me - but it works.

Most of the townspeople toil in the dreadful carpet mill owned by the late Sir Randolph. The factory is a dark, dangerous and forbidding place, its managers unconcerned with workplace safety - it is the 19th century, after all. Child workers are regularly killed there by the hideous machinery which is used in the manufacturing process.

Author Joan Aiken doesn't stint on any ugly realities when elaborating on the life lived by the downtrodden workers. We were earlier given a grand tour of the terrible building when Lucas is shown over the mill and told (to his dismay) he will someday inherit the business. But since Sir Randolph never paid any back taxes, the whole inheritance situation is mostly moot.

After the fire, neither child is especially eager to work in the factory (and who can blame them?) but they must quickly find shelter and figure out a way to earn some sort of living until Mr. Oakapple, the tutor, is back on his feet and can help Lucas lay claim to the burnt out estate.

The resourceful Anna-Marie is just six years old but clever enough to pick up discarded cigar butts in the streets and fashion them into full cigars which she will sell. Lucas becomes a 'tosher' apprenticed to an ugly unreliable sort who goes through apprentices at a suspiciously fast pace. They will toil in the nightmare world of the town's sewers picking up discarded refuse to sell, occasionally fighting off rats as big as cats and wild rampaging pigs which inhabit the sewers.

How these two children overcome their unfair share of ugly adversity and survive several frightening near-death experiences - one in the factory itself - is a hair-raising, well-told tale by an author who is an old experienced hand at spinning complicated webs full of doom and gloom - though never without a glimmer of sly humor.

MIDNIGHT IS A PLACE has a very Dickensian ending full of happy coincidences and an 'all's well that ends well' good enough for any reader unsettled by the earlier dismal doings.

An engaging book easily read in one evening. It would make for a good read-aloud (not for small children), especially at this time of year. It might also lead to some pretty interesting discussions with older children.

This being Friday, don't forget to check in at Patti's blog, Pattinase, to see what other Forgotten (or Overlooked) books other bloggers are talking about today.

Read More

Remembrance

September 11th, 2001. A day to honor and remember.

Read More

Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Film: THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER (1982) starring Tom Burlinson and Kirk Douglas

THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER (1982) is a film directed by George Miller based on a poem by A.B. 'Banjo' Patterson and written by Fred 'Cul' Cullen and John Dixon. It stars newcomer Tom Burlinson and Kirk Douglas.

If you, like me, thrill to the vision of men on horseback riding across the screen accompanied by sweeping romantic feel-good music (by Bruce Rowland), then this is the film for you.

Aside from the beautifully rugged Australian scenery, I can't really think of anything else to recommend this movie except for the scenes of competent men who know their expert way around a horse or two. But hey, that's often enough for me. (You knew that - right?)

I love the term: Master of the Horse - which is used in the credits at the end. PLENTY of horses used in the film meant plenty of work for such men.

Tom Burlinson as Jim Craig, the soft-spoken leading man (in, I believe, his first major role) is engaging enough as the young hero, but it is his wondrous way with a horse that won my admiration. I find it very hard to believe that the actor, a riding neophyte, had to be taught to ride before the start of filming. Obviously Tom Burlinson is a very quick study, his mastery is superb. Anyone seeing him on horseback would immediately assume this young man had been riding all his life.

Here's the story: Jim Craig has spend most of his 18 or so years up in the hills on his father's secluded farm. But on his father's death, he has come down to the lowlands to earn enough to get the family farm back on its feet.

He hires on at a large ranch (station) owned by the wealthy and overbearing Harrison (Kirk Douglas) who, of course, has a pretty daughter to catch Jim's eye.  Harrison and his men look their noses down at Jim, a mere rustic boy of the mountains yet to prove his mettle as a man. Jessica Harrison (Sigrid Thornton) likes the look of him - as we knew she would. This is something her father doesn't take kindly to.

Taking an instant dislike of Jim, Harrison is ready to accuse him of allowing a prize colt to run loose and fires him.

The main weakness of the film is an entirely unnecessary secondary plot coupled with the overwrought performances of Kirk Douglas in two roles. First as the American ex-pat rancher Harrison then as his twin brother Spur: a no-account one-legged miner (very much in the Gabby Hayes mold) still searching for his pot of gold. (Though in the film he, at last, appears to have found some vein or other of gold up in the hills.)

The two men have not spoken for twenty years and Harrison claims to have no brother at all. As the rancher, Douglas is a stiff-necked, unlikable boor without a glimmer of fatherly love or even for that matter, any glimmer of likability. As the miner he is a character straight out of an early Walt Disney film. (Turns out that long ago Spur and his brother were both in love with Jessica's mother but really, who cares?) Douglas over-acts to the point of embarrassment. In effect, he ruins the film with his ham-bone antics. It is a disastrous bit of casting. I always fast-forward through his scenes.

But then, why am I recommending this movie?

Well, there is that gorgeous Australian mountain scenery. And, as it turns out, there is a 'mob' of wild horses (called 'brumbles') with whom the prize stallion has been seen running. So Harrison decides to send his hands to round up the wild horses trying to exclude Jim Craig who, we are given to understand, is the best horseman of any of them. But Harrison remains blind to Jim's charms. Though eventually, grudgingly, he allows that Jim may follow along if he chooses. (Big of him, I know.)

At any rate, here is the raison d'etre for viewing this movie: the scenes of rugged men on horseback riding hell bent for leather across the Australian outback at breakneck speed. All filmed quite beautifully on location. I've been a fan of this sort of thing since I was a kid growing up in the city. It always seemed both reckless and magnificent to me. But if you don't feel the same, forget about this movie.

There is one grand, hair-raising scene of Jim Craig and his horse careering down a steep slope of mountain that makes for as thrilling a few bits of film as any I've ever seen. I held my breath the whole time. This scene alone makes the film worthwhile.

The ending is also very satisfying. Harrison's exhausted riders have abandoned their quest and downhearted, head back to the ranch without the 'brumbles'. But Jim later shows up (cracking his whip) with the 'mob' of horses in tow much to the chagrin of Harrison and the admiration of his men, not to mention Jessica, the boss's daughter. Though Harrison will never agree, as far as Jessica and the ranch hands are concerned, Jim Craig has proved his mettle.

If you'd like more details about the plot, check out the Wikipedia page.

Watch the trailer here: link.

And don't forget to check in at Todd Mason's blog, Sweet Freedom to see what other Overlooked or Forgotten Films (or Audio/Visuals) other bloggers are talking about today.

Read More

Listening to Books

Artist: Eleonora Arroyo

I'm doing something a little different this season - I've joined www.audible.com so I can listen to my favorite books on the computer. It's not a bad price - certainly it's cheaper than buying the CDs and less stressful than borrowing them from the library and being on a deadline. (I can manage that with books, but find it extremely annoying with CDs - go figure.)

I'm currently listening to Georgette Heyer's book, COTILLION - one of my all time faves. Here's the thing for me, I like to listen to books I've already read and am fond of. Nothing new. I'd rather read the new stuff (by that I mean anything I haven't read before) in book form. An idiosyncrasy of mine.

This would also be a terrific way for me to FINALLY 'read' some classics I've been meaning to get to. Those I would listen to even if I hadn't read them previously. Another idiosyncrasy. I'm just full of 'em today. Confusing, I know.

For now I've got several of Laurie R. King's books and Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody adventures and even H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Obviously, since I am an Anglophile, I like having an English accent surrounding me during the day. But not always. In the past I've bought tapes and CDs (before Audible existed, that is) and listened to Robert Parker's Spencer books read by various actors and such. (One was even read by Burt Reynolds!) I've also loved listening to Sherlock Holmes CDs and even Jane Austen and Jim Dale's reading of the Harry Potter books are not to be missed.

But this time out it's all through my computer. Audible has several plans for the new-comer and really it's not bad at all. If in the end it gets to be too pricey for me, I'll simply cancel. They make it easy enough. For those of you more computer literate than me (that would be most of you) - you can hook up audible books to several gadgets at no extra cost.

Here's the thing, the books you order are yours to keep no matter what. They're NOT rented. (No, I am not getting paid to tell you about Audible - it's just that I like the whole idea of it.) So you can listen to them over and over again as long as you like - as long as you own a computer or ipad or whatnot.

I'm trying to figure out how to listen in other rooms of the house late at night since my computer is in the studio/living room. There might be a way to hook up my ipod - if I knew how to work the damn thing. I'm hopeless, I know.

Read More

Book Review: SPEAKING FROM AMONG THE BONES by Alan Bradley

1) THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE

2) THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG

3) A RED HERRING WITHOUT MUSTARD

4) I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS

5) SPEAKING FROM AMONG THE BONES

Coming soon:

6) THE DEAD IN THEIR VAULTED ARCHES

As you can see, the titles of award-winning author Alan Bradley's 'Flavia' books are as intriguing, well, almost as intriguing as his main character: an eleven (or possibly twelve) year old prodigy-sleuth with the unlikely name of Flavia de Luce.

I've read them all (except for the last title due out soon, if not already) and never tire of recommending this series set in 1950's England. The English countryside (in and out of fiction) is endlessly fascinating to me so that might have something to do with my affection for these books. But if the writing weren't so top notch and I didn't like Flavia so much, nothing would induce me to keep reading. You know how merciless I can be.

Canadian author Alan Bradley is able somehow to write from the point of view of a precocious eleven year old girl, that in itself is a kind of miracle and a very special talent. But this is no ordinary 'child'. First of all, Flavia is brilliant, second of all she has a penchant for poisons and messing about in an old family laboratory on the top floor of Buckshaw, her family's large ramshackle house. Third of all, she is very adept at solving crimes which occasionally occur in the small village of Bishop's Lacey - a seeming hotbed of murder and nasty doings.

But no matter what mysteries happen around her, Flavia remains a young naive girl, wise in certain ways, but often bewildered by grown-up actions. She is never someone pretending to childhood - her voice is true. She IS a child in many of her thoughts, comments and occasionally her conclusions - but a child who just happens to be a science prodigy. Much to the chagrin of the local constabulary.

It is the 500th Anniversary of the death of Saint Tancred whose bones are buried in a vault within the local village church. Flavia, curious as ever, is anxious not to miss the planned excavation of the saint's bones. Along with her faithful bicycle Gladys, mute witness to all her adventures, Flavia is determined to watch the midnight doings down at the church - a determined Flavia is a small force of nature.

Sneaking around at night is a common enough occurrence for our heroine since she sleeps in a separate wing of the house (near her handy chemistry lab 'inherited' from a great uncle) away from her two older sisters (of whom the less said, the better) and her distracted father, a sad widower who seems only interested in his stamp collection. As a result of her lonely family life in a decaying pile of bricks about to be foreclosed upon (the tax man must be obliged), Flavia is pretty much on her own, left to find her own entertainment. There is an inchoate sadness in Flavia which adds depth to her character and explains some of the willfulness of her behavior. This is a lonely young girl who, nevertheless, is eager and determined to make her existence worthwhile.

So it is not at all unusual that she is on hand in the dead of night when the body of the church organist is discovered in St. Tancred's vault. It's Flavia on the case when no one can figure out how the man was killed or for that matter, why.

With Gladys in tow, the inventive Flavia is off and running.

Now if only Flavia's willfully stubborn father will sell the Shakespearean folio found in his library and pay off the damn taxes on the house! Oh wait, isn't there a jewel that is part of a long-lost de Luce family inheritance? A historic jewel discovered by the dead organist? Hence his untimely death?

The book has a cliff-hanger sort of ending which makes me wish I had the next book clutched in my hot little hands.

This is series that probably should be read in order, though reading the first two will set you up for the rest quite nicely.

Read More