Friday, August 1, 2008

From the Rector’s Lawn Chair - Wholly Mysteries

With no new HARRY POTTER books to read, I’d resigned myself to a summer bookshelf stocked with heavy stuff like LEGACY OF ASHES and DESCENT INTO CHAOS. Then a friend, the Rev. Mary Allen, leapt to the rescue – with lists of mysteries featuring Episcopal/Anglican clergy, or by Episcopalian/Anglican writers.

My own revived interest in reading detective fiction came from two stimuli: Laurie R. King, a seminary classmate, had published her first novel, A GRAVE TALENT, and I was curious.

And then my cat – Willie – whom I’d trained to leap into the lap of a man reading a book, and who had needed no training in climbing telephone poles and trees, crossed the street from my house, climbed a neighbor’s tree, and, seeing a man reading a book, jumped into his lap. The door of the room, a second-floor bedroom, was closed. The man was Father Charles Sheedy, C.S.C., aka “Mister Notre Dame”, the retired Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Notre Dame du Lac, South Bend, Indiana.

Charlie Sheedy was an inveterate reader. He was living in Berkeley at the study house for the Holy Cross Fathers. One of the younger students living there told me, “Your cat jumped in Charlie’s lap.” So when I saw him the next day, I apologized – and then, I asked him his favorite question: “What were you reading?”

Ah.

Elmore Leonard. Olivia de Manning. The list grew…

Between Laurie King and Charlie Sheedy I soon found myself with a two-foot high TBR (to be read) pile bedside. On it were mysteries of all sorts. Since then I’ve winnowed it down. Mostly now I read mysteries set in foreign climes or countries, often in translation, by natives of the place or expatriate English or American writers.

On the shelf now are titles by Donna Leon (set in Venice), Fred Vargas (Paris), Andrea Camilleri (Sicily), Magdalen Nabb (Florence), and other novels set in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, or Havana Cuba. Sometime when the weather is hot I’ll add Iceland to my consumption – or perhaps Sweden or Denmark. Spain often pops up, thanks to Arturo Perez Reverte and other novelists of Andalusia. Ian Rankin (Edinburgh) is always near at hand.

Of course this is a bit like armchair tourism. But there is more to it – at least a broader meaning is given to escapist literature. In many of these, good triumphs – eventually. Or the truth comes out. It is not always easy to sort out what the truth is – or where the right lies. But, as Raymond Chandler said in “The Simple Art of Murder”, down these mean streets must go a man who is not himself mean… somebody has to sort it all out.

What are you reading this summer?


Selected titles from Mary’s lists of mysteries:


Episcopal/Anglican Clerical Mysteries

Charles, Kate, A Drink of Deadly Wine

Gallison, Kate, Bury the Bishop

Holland, Isabelle, A Fateful Advent

Meyer, Charles, The Saints of God Murders

Blake, Michelle, The Tentmaker

Spencer-Fleming, Julia, In the Bleak Midwinter

Sumner, Cristina, Thieves Break In

Cranston, Pamela, The Madonna Murders

Rickman, Phil, The Wine of Angels

Lovesey, Peter, The Reaper

Schweizer, Mark, The Alto Wore Tweed

James, P.D., A Death In Holy Orders

Davidson, Diane Mott, The Last Suppers

Delffs, Dudley J., The Martyr's Chapel

Holland, David, The Devil in Bellminster

Malone, Michael, Handling Sin

Bernhardt, William, Criminal Intent

Lister, Michael, Flesh and Blood

Truman, Margaret, Murder at the National Cathedral

(And to these I add one set in my own seminary, among other Bay Area places)

King, Laurie R., To Play the Fool

(and three by the recently retired rector of Grace-St Paul's, Tucson)

McBride, Gordon, Flying to Tombstone (2003)
McBride, Gordon, Ghost of Midsummer Common (2008)
McBride, Gordon, The Vicar of Bisbee (forthcoming)


JRL+


For the Gospel Grapevine (www.stalbansedmonds.org) August 2008


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