Shakespeare's Christmas (Chapters 1-2)

Charlaine Harris never lets me down.  She has a huge and loyal fan base because of this, and I’m definitely one of them!  In the first three pages of this story, I was already chuckling at her acerbic wit and admiring her technique.  Lily Bard, the reluctant protagonist of this series, is a distinct personality, and a stark contrast to Sookie Stackhouse of the outrageously popular “Trueblood” series.  Lily comes with a lot of emotional (as well as physical) scars from her past and just wants to be left alone.  “In what I thought of as my previous life, the life I’d led in Memphis … I had believed that all women were sisters under the skin, and that underneath all the crap, men were basically decent and honest.” 

A LOT happens in the first chapter, enough to fill 4 or 5 chapters in a similar book.  This economy of writing space is refreshing and appreciated.  It’s a relatively short book, just over 200 pages with only 7 chapters, but it doesn’t feel “skimpy” at all.  And, although the early action centers around an event as commonplace as the preparations for a wedding, the perspective of our heroine keeps the narrative interesting, focusing as it does on her discomfort with people in general, and this crowd in particular. 

The occurrence which makes this a mystery is completely absent – not even hinted at – until the book is one quarter underway: this might have been frustrating to someone who was dying to sink their teeth into a whodunit right away, but I hadn’t even missed it.  The storyline minus the murder mystery element, plus the engaging writing style had me satisfied for the moment.  But the discovery of the bodies is especially jarring in light of the relative mundaneness of the preceding events. 

Lily’s hometown, Bartley, where all this is taking place, is about as “small town” as small towns get.  It’s described as being in “The Delta,” - apparently there is a large section of Arkansas a few hours east of Little Rock that is as flat as Kansas is supposed to be, and the Texas Panhandle really is.  This is where Lily grew up and it hasn’t changed much; even the names of her old acquaintances and relatives - most of the townsfolk - have a “backwoods” ring to them.  The latest crime news in town is that there is a purse snatcher on the loose.  “A purse snatching did not seem as remarkable as it would have a few years ago.  Now, with gang presence and drugs in every tiny town up and down the interstate and all in between, what happened to Diana Dykeman, a sales clerk at one of the local clothing stores, didn’t seem so bad.  She seemed lucky to be unhurt, rather than unfortunate to have her purse snatched at all.”

 

When Lily and her sister, Varena (country enough fer ya?), discover the dead and dying victims at the doctor’s office, it takes a moment for Varena’s nurse experience to kick in.  It also seems to take Lily a few minutes to realize that the danger may not be entirely gone.  But she hustles her sister out of the building as soon as it dawns on her.  In an odd twist, the policeman who responds to Varena’s phone call turns out to be a black man.  Yes, this story is set in “modern” times, and yes, the law enforcement profession is one in which blacks are well represented.  But in small-town eastern Arkansas – not that far from Memphis – this is probably a rarity.  He seems to be nervous at first, but settles into his professional policeman persona after checking out the scene, and questions the sisters at length, a model law enforcement officer.  And thus, the plot swings wildly into a full blown murder mystery.




Next week:  Chapters 3-4