…and now somehow it’s nearly 1 am and I’ve just finished it, and I am wide awake and FULL OF FEELINGS. Mosca! Cakes! Petrellis! (I will never not giggle at the school children literally dragging him into an alley and forcing him to teach them. You sweet, optimistic darling.) Poor Blythe the highwayman.
And of course Saracen the very angry goose. (Please tell me someone wrote the ballad of that last battle, with Blythe versus spoiler and Saracen’s shining moment. PLEASE.)
…god, now I want to reread Westmark all over again…..
The Dead Witness (edited by Michael Sims) is, as the title suggests, a collection of Victorian detective stories. Stories include, naturally, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the first chapter or so of the first Sherlock Holmes novel, and works by Mark Twain and G.K. Chesterton, but it also includes a few more obscure stories as well as a few that have never been re-published before.
I’m about halfway through and so far I’ve enjoyed and/or am looking forward to reading:
In our opening chapters, we meet Mrs. Pollifax, an older woman who has been widowed for eight years, whose children are grown and have children of their own and live far away, and whose life consists of helping one charity after another. It’s a good life, though a thoroughly unsatisfying one.
When Mrs. Pollifax begins contemplating how easy it would be to step off her roof while watering her geraniums, she visits a doctor, who pronounces her in the best of health and asks, “Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do?”
Mrs. Pollifax looked at him. “When I was growing up—oh for years—I planned to become a spy,” she admitted.
The next day, Mrs. Pollifax packs her things and heads to Washington, D.C., where she politely and cheerfully harasses her congressman into writing her a reference letter, and then to Langley, Virginia, where she presents herself at the recently opened C.I.A. building and asks if they have need of a spy.
It just so happens that they do, a courier job that needs an unknown face to pick up a package. It’s a simple enough job— wander around Mexico City pretending to be a grandmotherly tourist for two weeks, and then on a certain day go into a certain bookshop and ask for a certain book. A simple job that gets complicated, and Mrs. Pollifax finds herself kidnapped and spirited away to places unknown.
But never fear! Mrs. Pollifax is not going to take being kidnapped and threatened with death lying down! No, sir! You can just ask the long-suffering actual spy who has been captured with her, who finds himself asking the following questions:
"Ma’am, are you befriending our jailers?"
"…Ma’am, are you giving one of our jailers a back-rub?"
"…Ma’am, are you trying to convince our jailers that democracy is awesome? Okay, as an agent of the United States I should approve of that, but do you have to do that while taking nice long walks with the jailers?"
"…..Ma’am, did the jailers just invite you to a party? With singing? And alcohol? Ma’am?"
It is a great book, with caveats for this being very much a pro-democracy stance and violence and murder and some torture because, well, spy stuff. But I read it in one sitting and am definitely looking forward to the rest of the series even if my library doesn’t seem to have the second book….
A. Author You’ve Read The Most Books From
B. Best Sequel Ever
C. Currently Reading
D. Drink of Choice While Reading
E. E-Reader or Physical Books
F. Fictional Character You Would Have Dated In High School
G. Glad You Gave This Book A Chance
H. Hidden Gem Book
I. Important Moments of Your Reading Life
J. Just Finished
K. Kinds of Books You Won’t Read
L. Longest Book You’ve Read
M. Major Book Hangover Because Of
N. Number of Bookcases You Own
O. One Book That You Have Read Multiple Times
P. Preferred Place to Read
Q. Quote From A Book That Inspires You/Gives You Feels
R. Reading Regret
S. Series You Started and Need to Finish
T. Three Of Your All-Time Favorite Books
U. Unapologetic Fangirl For
W. Worst Bookish Habit
V. Very Excited For This Release More Than Any Other
X. Marks The Spot (Start On Your Bookshelf And Count to the 27th Book)
Y. Your Latest Book Purchase
Z. ZZZ-Snatcher (last book that kept you up WAY late)
(I did this meme on Tumblr and already answered K, M, T, U, V, and Y.)
Kinds of Books You Won’t Read:
Unapologetic Fangirl For:
Rod Albright Alien Adventures, the entire quartet, by Bruce Coville. No, I don’t care that it’s aimed at children ages 8-12, or that the prose is pretty basic, I LOVE THIS SERIES and will always be convinced Snout and Grakker are married and that Elisabeth grows up to join the Galactic Patrol as well, and that Madame Ping is the best ever.
Very Excited For This Release More Than Any Other:
The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones and completed by her sister Ursula Jones after her death. A whole new DWJ book, guys! A NEW ONE.
Your Latest Book Purchase:
Well, I purchased a bunch of books in one go after discovering a gift card in my desk drawer, haha, so:
When they were still both generals in the French Revolution, Napoleon celebrated Alex Dumas’s deeds in the classical terms favored at the time, proclaiming him the incarnation of Horatius Cocles, the ancient hero who saved the Roman Republic by keeping invading barbarians from crossing the Tiber. (French revolutionaries, like American ones, lived in a world of classical allusions—everyone referred to George Washington as Cincinnatus.)
When Napoleon launched the French invasion of Egypt, Dumas went as his cavalry commander, but it was there that the two very different soldiers came to loathe each other. The clash was ideological—Dumas saw himself as a fighter for world liberation, not world domination—but it was also personal.
"Among the Muslims, men from every class who were able to catch sight of General Bonaparte were struck by how short and skinny he was," wrote the chief medical officer of the expedition. "The one, among our generals, whose appearance struck them more was…the General-in-Chief of the cavalry, Dumas. Man of color, and by his figure looking like a centaur, when they saw him ride his horse over the trenches, going to ransom prisoners, all of them believed that he was the leader of the expedition."
Of course, Dumas, while brilliant at military strategy, does not seem to have known how to do politics at ALL, judging by his letters to Bonaparte during the Italy campaign. Oh, at first he is pretty smooth, sending Bonaparte letters that are pretty much "sir, sir! I am sure you will be SHOCKED to discover there is corruption in your army!"
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