Shakespeare's Christmas (Conclusion)

Shakespeare’s Christmas (Conclusion) 

I guess I’m getting better in this Mystery Reader role, guessing the outcome of a whodunit, or at least how it will play out at the end.  True, my personal prime suspect was not the real killer, but I had suspected that was the case anyway; that the seemingly most incriminating incident was a decoy, albeit a subtle one, designed to distract us from the real killer.  The resolution, or what might be called the Exposition (the explanation near the end of a mystery of how the clues and other details all fit together at last) was interestingly facilitated by letting us listen in on Jack calling his colleague to tell him how it all came down. 

But yes, the babysitting stint was the scene of the culmination of the action in which the crime was actually solved, at least for the reader.  Lily’s lack of experience in babysitting and the subsequent mishaps that occurred before things got serious were amusing, beginning before the parents of the family whose house it was even left.  She burped the baby without putting anything on her shoulder, with predictable results.  Even I know that you’re just asking for a wet mess down your back if you do this!  This is followed by the older girls getting into the make-up, spilled milk going into Anna’s lap, and the boy toddler being stopped just short of applying sharp fingernail trimmers to the baby’s toenails.  Yikes. 

But when Eve’s father shows up unexpectedly to pick up Eve and the baby, Jane, Eve’s reaction is what tips Lily off to what is really going on.  “’Maybe … you could tell him me and Jane need to spend the night here, like we were supposed to?  So he won’t take us home?’  She’s intended to tell me something else.  I wondered how much time I had before Emory came to find out what was keeping us.  ‘Why don’t you want to go home?’ I asked, as if we had all the time in the world.  ‘Maybe if he really wanted me to come, Jane could stay here with you?’ Eve asked, and suddenly tears were trembling in her eyes.  ‘She’s so little.’  ‘He won’t get her.’  Eve looked almost giddy with relief.  ‘You don’t want to go,’ I said.  ‘Please, no,’ she whispered.  ‘Then he won’t get you.’  Thus the stage is set for a very intense confrontation, a fitting climax to a beautifully paced, slow-build of a story. 

On the surface, this is rather a modestly wrought work, minus the chase scenes, the explosions, the numerous fist-fights and brilliantly deduced conclusions made from momentary flashes of brilliance.  No, the author gives her readers much more credit than that, relying on them to fill in a lot of the blanks and to be able to appreciate a much more subtle treatment.  And like Ms. Harris’ other works, the story rides on the strength of the characters themselves, reminding us that it doesn’t matter how clever the plot is if we don’t connect on a deep level with the characters.  The front cover of my copy of the book features a quote from “Booklist”: “Lily Bard is one of the best-drawn and most compelling characters.”  An understatement, in my opinion (which is very strange indeed for a cover blurb!). 

Jack, as a character, is adequately fleshed out (the movie version, if and when, will probably “flesh him out” to the extreme…) but only just.  He does show some complexity on the occasions when he is forced to admit that Lily is right when he is not.  He just manages not to eat crow when, in the aftermath, Lily innocently asks, “’What were you doing last night?’  ‘While you were confronting the real kidnapper?’ Jack looked at me darkly.  ‘Well, sweetheart, I was rear-ending your soon-to-be brother-in-law.’”  In order to get a peek into Dill’s car trunk to see whether there was any incriminating evidence, he was planning to run his car into the back of Dill’s car.  Probably not by-the-book detective technique.  But when you’re running out of ideas while your girlfriend solves your case for you … whatcha gonna do?





January’s book of the month; “The Fault in Our Stars,” by John Green.
(Segment chapters: 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, Conclusion)

 TIME Magazine’s #1 Fiction Book of 2012!

“The Fault in Our Stars is a love story, one of the most genuine and moving ones in recent American fiction, but it’s also an existential tragedy of tremendous intelligence and courage and sadness.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine