Saturday, September 29, 2012

Legend in Green Velvet, (Conclusion)

This segment begins with perhaps the most tension-filled scene in the book; Susan and James have been captured by the “bad guys” and are taken to a secluded place for questioning.  The secluded place just happens to be the torture room in an old historical building which is open to the public for viewing during business hours.  The torture devices are authentic, however, and at least one of the bad guys is just itching to use them.  Nice ambience here, and, as Susan admits to herself, a good representation of the darker side of Scottish medieval history. 

The story’s pace, characterization and rather chaotic action sequences begin to take on a decidedly “Disneyesque” aspect toward the end of the book.  Looking back, I realized that much of the book could very well have lent itself to being recast as a 1960’s or ‘70’s Walt Disney movie.  (The script would have to have had some expletives deleted, and to have been polished up a little, but many of the lines might have come directly from the scriptwriters of That Darn Cat or Mary Poppins.) 

The ending, especially, has a somewhat campy scripted feel to it, complete with a sort of nudge-nudge wink-wink interchange between characters who would rather not have everything disclosed at the moment.  It does manage not to be trite enough to make me roll my eyes; heck, even I enjoy a good family-feel wrap-up to an engaging story such as this.  It is actually a pleasant change from the darker semi-tragic feel of many of the works I have been reading lately!

Refreshingly absent for the ending of a book like this is the long-winded explanation usually delivered by one or more of the characters that ties up all the loose ends of the plot, revealing why things happened a certain way earlier in the story.  A couple of brief asides by a couple of characters, and all is clear.  There is a moment when the heroes are chagrined to be told that all the risks they took, and hardships they endured were unnecessary.  (“Oh, no,” Susan said slowly.  “Don’t tell me all this was un-” She can’t even bring herself to say the word.)  But then some doubt is cast on just how unnecessary it was as Mr. I-Have-All-The-Answers is stunned by further revelations.
 
Will I read more Elizabeth Peters?  Absolutely!  Have I been converted to a Mystery Reader?  Probably not, though I’m thinking of reading Ian Rankin next.  Mostly because he sets his detective novels in Edinburgh as well!  Legend in Green Velvet has mostly delivered us a novel in which the setting of Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside is engagingly explored.  Her novels set in Egypt sound intriguing as well; after all, she has a Ph.D.  in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute.  Egyptology?!  Maybe I should pursue a Ph.D. in Edinburghology!



Our book for October will be "Witches on the Road Tonight," by Sheri Holman!  The first comments can be posted October 5th, and cover up to page 64 (Wallis / New York City / Midnight).  Enjoy!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Legend in Green Velvet, (Chapters 5-7)


This segment begins an escalation of the chase.  The hero and heroine are discovered in his father’s castle by someone who is more than happy to turn them in, and off they go, on a desperate run to avoid capture.  If the sequence of events from this moment until the “bad guys” finally catch them seems to be unnecessarily drawn out, at least we see story and character development along the way.  We pick up clues with the main characters along the way which further develop the plot as well as the suspense. 

The love interest between Susan and James threatens to get out of control at one point, but the author deftly reins it in with a slip of the tongue by … Susan!  Gee, it’s not the guy for a change; what a nice touch!  Although, as excited as James seemed to have been getting, it’s hard to imagine most men being put off much by being accidentally referred to as a famous royal personage.  And the fact that he uses his resemblance to that person to strategic advantage on a couple of occasions, to get them out of a sticky situation or two, would seem to be enough to mitigate his attitude somewhat.  Maybe we’ll learn more later in the story why the resemblance bothers him so much.   

The introduction of the three elderly women doctors with their motorcycle which they gladly part with, thinking that they’re helping a famous national hero that James resembles seems a little unnecessary to the story.  But again, maybe this is more than just “filler.”  Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, maybe these ladies will somehow work their way back into the story later on to become a factor contributing to its satisfactory conclusion. 

Toward the end of this segment, we finally get to know our antagonists a little better as the heroes locate them and attempt to spy on them.  The fact that they’re caught almost instantly is a nice touch of hardcore realism, and a good demonstration that their number one nemesis really is as effectively dangerous as he seems to be.  That this section ends with them being led to a torture chamber of sorts is another nice, unexpected touch  

James’ rocky relationship with his father and the older man’s involvement with some vaguely questionable people seem to hint at complications that we will see some resolution of later in the plot.  It’s tempting to conjecture that perhaps the father and his associates will, in some direct or indirect way, come to the rescue.  But that seems to be assuming far too much.  Ms. Peters appears to be leading the reader to something altogether unexpected, not something that an experienced reader of Mysteries would necessarily be able to predict with any confidence.  Whether the resolution of the mystery will be as satisfying as the tale seems to warrant remains to be seen.  I am, however, rather optimistic that this will indeed be the case!

 
Next segment: Conclusion

Our book for October will be Witches on the Road Tonight, by Sheri Holman! Start looking for a copy right away, as this one is a little newer (copyright 2011), so it might be a little harder to find in used book stores or libraries.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Legend in Green Velvet, (Chapters 3-4)

The second quarter of this book now begins to feel more like a Mystery.  Characters we met in the first two chapters turn out to be something other than what they seemed.  We finally have a corpse (though the “mystery” appears to be somewhat more than just a “murder mystery”) and a lot of unanswered questions that will occur to the reader are directly articulated by the characters themselves.  Now that the premise and the setting have been thoroughly established, the plot seems to develop a momentum and an inevitability that one would associate with the genre. 

Also, now that the main characters are under extreme pressure and being chased by “the law” as well as “the bad guys” they are taking things more seriously, and the occasional triteness I mentioned earlier is absent … for the most part.  Susan, our heroine, still seems determined, however, to get the most out of her little vacation, and inexplicably seems to forget the danger she’s in from time to time.  When she meets James’ father and finds that he is more inclined to sing traditional songs and play the guitar than help them find a way out of their mess, she joins right in and happily sings and strums along.  I’m reminded of when I used to roll my eyes as a child while watching a musical, and the action would suddenly come to a screeching halt as the characters, no matter how desperate their situation, would suddenly break into song. 

The author continues to do an admirable job of blending the Scottish culture and countryside into the weave of the plot.  The descriptions of the topography in the Scottish highlands, the inclusion of the old rundown castle and the ruins of the old Pictish settlement are all quite engaging, stopping well short of turning the narrative into a travelogue.  The addition of the ancient underground tunnel from the village to the lower keeps of the castle is a nice touch, especially if it comes into play later in the plot. 

Ms. Peters demonstrates that she really knows her craft in keeping the reader as much in the dark as the hero and heroine, while creating a rather sinister aura around the “bad guys” in the form of Mr. Jackson.  The reader is confident that all will be revealed in due time and is not (at least if “the reader” is like me) at all impatient to find out who and what is behind it all, preferring to let the plot unfold and simply enjoy the ride.  I suppose this is one of the considerations of the judges who award those literary awards for mystery books that you hear about.   

It’s interesting to note the difference between a work like this that falls squarely into the mystery category and the works of, say Stephen King or Dean Koontz, that use many of the same techniques, such as leaving the reader in the dark until close to the end as to who exactly is committing the murders.  Suspense, Mystery, and even Horror share a lot of commonality.  Certain structural and procedural conventions are in play in this book that leave us in no doubt as to what kind of story we’re reading.  Anyone not used to reading true Mysteries and curious about what they really are would do well to give Elizabeth Peters a try!
 
Next segment: Chapters 5-7

Our book for October will be Witches on the Road Tonight, by Sheri Holman!  Start looking for a copy right away, as this one is a little newer (copyright 2011), so it might be a little harder to find in used book stores or libraries.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Legend in Green Velvet, (Chapters 1-2)

Elizabeth Peters is one of those authors that I have been curious about for a long time, having noticed that she has accumulated a large following of readers (evidenced by the large selection of her books available at used book stores and libraries). Mysteries, as a genre, have not appealed to me all that much in the past; they always struck me as being too stereotyped.  Silly me.  I have discovered some extremely entertaining writers lately that write mysteries. As discomforting as it is to admit it, it was the artwork of one Philip Singer on the covers of many of her books that first caught my attention; the hippo on the cover of The Hippopotamus Pool in particular.  When my mother asked me if I wanted her used copy of this book, it was the fact that it is set in Edinburgh, Scotland – not Egypt, as many of Peters’ books are – that sealed the deal.   

Having read somewhere that the book does a nice job of evoking the ambience of Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside, I was particularly interested in that aspect of the story.  So far, in these first two chapters, I have not been disappointed, though the little history lessons sandwiched in border on being a little too much for my tastes.  (Anyone who has read Alexander McCall Smith, e.g. The Sunday Philosophy Club, may have noticed that he has a similar quirk with philosophical asides.) 

The unexpected surprise for me was how fast-paced the book is and how much action there is early on.  The author is very aware of pacing, and how to keep easily bored readers engaged.  This is a plus, and yet it feels at times like the book is edging toward the Young Adult crowd, with the substance thinning a little.  Contrast that with the Twilight books or the Hunger Games trilogy, which are ostensibly written for young adult readers, but have enough real depth for more “mature” readers like me.  Here, I’m occasionally reminded of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. 

Which brings me to the only real problem I have with the book so far.  Once in a while, Peters seems to be talking down to her audience just a bit.  Chatty clichés and trite turns of phrase can kill an otherwise good read.  This is not near as noticeable here as in books by, for instance, James Patterson or Danielle Steele, but even a hint of it sets off my Triteness Alarm.  Example: “Only her feeling that she must uphold the reputation of the entire United States, from sea to shining sea, kept Susan from turning tail.”  Ouch.  But as I mentioned, this is a rare enough event in this book not to be a serious detraction. 

To be fair, this book has a copyright date of 1976.  A lot of things that make us roll our eyes now were not considered uncool then.  At least there are no leisure suits or mentions of discos here.  Yet.  The characterization is good, though our heroine can be a little hard to relate to at times, singing and reciting poetry in public – on a bus of tourists, for example – while no one around her seems to mind.  She has enough spunk and intelligence to make up for this, again calling to mind the Nancy Drew mysteries.  And yes, I do find myself eager to find out what happens next.  That’s the litmus test of a good mystery, after all, right?

 

Next segment: Chapters 3-4