Take My Turban, Please

 

’m turning in my turban and crystal ball. I’m done with baseball prognostication. I officially suck. Every year I get excited by spring training rosters and scouting reports. Every year those rosters change faster than a lane-jumping Massachusetts driver. I’m 1 for 6 in predictions, which is roughly the batting average of a lot of MLB players who should be loading trucks instead of pretending to be professional athletes.

You have the right to make fun of me. Here’s what I predicted.

AL East:  Blue Jays, Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, and Rays. Yep, I had the Rays dead last and, natch, they are in first. The Yankees could still possibly slip past the Rays but that’s unlikely. About all I got right was predicting the Red Sox would do much better than naysayers predicted. Oh yeah, I also predicted that Gerrit Cole would not do well coming back from surgery and that Giancarlo Stanton would go on the IL. Cole probably has neck problems from watching home runs soar over the wall. It was a no-brainer to predict Stanton would get hurt again.

NL East: Mets, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Nationals. I got the well-duh! bottom two, but the Mets have been putrid. I gave the Braves dark-horse status, so I was sort of on the right track with them. But I’m gobsmacked by how the Mets can spend so much money and stink like a New Jersey landfill.

AL Central: Tigers, Royals, Guardians, Twins, White Sox. You’re used to this by now. My pick for the basement is now in first place, though the Guardians are just a game back. My pick for second? In last place, just a few games ahead of the Tigers who played like an endangered species and traded their two most-talented pitchers (Skubal & Mize). I wish KC would change their name to the KC Blues and go back to being a farm team for the Yankees. Bobby Witt deserves better. For what it’s worth, it’s possible that no one in the pathetic AL Central will finish above .500!

NL Central: Cubs, Pirates, Brewers, Reds, Cardinals. The Cubs have had a fine year and Pete Crow-Armstrong should be the MVP, but the Brewers have the best record in MLB. The Pirates? Third in baseball’s second-worst division. With luck they can finish above .500 but there will be no playoff ball in the Steel(ers) City.

AL West: Mariners, A’s, Astros, Rangers, Angels. Okay, I’m totally done with the 10-games under .500 Mariners. They are as overrated as the Seattle’s Best Coffee. Who’s in first? The Astros, though the Rangers despite playing .486 baseball are just three games back. This tells you just how bad the AL West is. The A’s are only 4 games better than the Angels, who have down for so long it (always) looks like up to them. (Old blues song!) How could they have wasted Mike Trout’s career by being so inept?

NL West: Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks, Giants, Rockies.  Bingo! I’m five for five, though how hard was it to pick the Dodgers? They are so loaded that they ran away with the division even with Ohtani on the IL for much of the year. The Padres simply can’t keep up with the Billionaire Dodgers, who are odds-on favorites to win their third World Series in a row. They will be lucky to fend off the D’Backs who are a mere game behind for a Wild Card. Substantial change is needed in San Fran before they can compete, but they’re still miles ahead of Colorado, MLB’s worst team. I propose they change their name to The Rock’ems.

No World Series predictions from me. With my luck, the Guardians will wear the Crown!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twain's End: Speculative History or the Real Deal?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWAIN’S END (2015)

By Lynn Cullen

Gallery Books, 368 pages

★★★★

 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who wrote under the pseudonym Mark Twain, is perhaps the most-heralded American writer of all time. He was also an in-demand public speaker known for his humor and grasp of vernacular language. Millions have visited his home of 17 years in Hartford, Connecticut. Those who dig into biography are often astonished to learn that like many so-called “funny men,” Sam Clemens was not as jolly as his public persona. By the early 20^th century, it would be appropriate to say that he was an imperious, depressed crank who had begun to disappear into his fictional identity. His life had been marked by one misfortune after another.

 

That famed Hartford home was closed in 1891, as the family was deeply in debt, courtesy of Sam having squandered the equivalent of $10 million on failed inventions. They left to live in Europe, which in those days was cheaper. Sam further embarked on a world speaking tour to raise money. In late 1900, Clemens retired his debt courtesy of his earnings, a robber baron friend who secured his copyrights, and the management of Ralph Ashcroft. Yet Sam was not a happy man. His favorite child Susie died in 1896 at age 24, and his sickly wife Livy (Olivia) was bedridden by the time they moved to New York. Sam hired Isabel Lyon to be Livy’s personal secretary/nurse, but he commanded more of her time than Livy. When Livy died in 1902, a morose Samuel Clemens began to disappear into Mark Twain.

 

Novelist Lynn Cullen picks up the narrative in 1909, when he was about to move into a large Tuscan-style villa dubbed “Stormfield”* in Redding, CT. Though named for a Twain character, the remainder of Twain’s life were indeed stormy.  Cullen’s Twain’s End puts forth some debatable history; but it’s based upon a diary kept by Lyon. In March of 1909, Twain blessed the marriage of Isabel Lyon and Ralph Ashcroft. One month later, he fired them both and penned a 429-page screed in which he accused Isabel of swindling his money, treachery, and being a “salacious slut.” At least that’s Twain’s story.

 

Cullen pieces threads to give credence to a different tale. Did Isabel marry Ralph because Twain would not marry her? Cullen lays out the possibility that Twain’s flirtations and Isabel’s ambitious mother led Isabel into a coquettish role that blinded her to thing such as Sam’s increasingly eccentric behavior, his cruelty toward surviving daughters Jane (aka/Jean) and Clara, and the enormous difference in their ages. In 1909, Isabel would have been 46 and Sam an over-ripe 74. The last point raises the question of whether Twain and Lyon had ever been intimate. That’s unlikely when Livy was alive, but Cullen is willing to consider that Isabel may have engaged in dangerous flirting, such as giving Sam massages and dropping hints that she would be open to sexual intimacies that he allegedly rebuffed. After the public blowup, Twain even repossessed Isabel’s cottage On Christmas Eve of 1909, Jean died of an epileptic seizure in her bath. Any ounce of sympathy Sam had left went down the plughole with Jean’s life. Cullen casts Jean in a pragmatic peacekeeper role, as opposed to her younger sister Clara (1874-1962), who was (if possible) more vain, cruel, and irresponsible than her father. She hated Isabel and saw her as a gold digger, though she might have been protecting her own anticipated fortune.

 

Barring more evidence, there is no way to resolve these clashing narratives. Twain’s End could be close to the truth, or merely a fanciful work of imagination. You can, however, learn a lot about the vanities of fading Gilded Age elites from Cullen’s novel. Did Helen Keller engage in a love triangle with Annie Sullivan’s husband John Macy? There’s more evidence for this than of Twain being intimate with Isabel, but Twain’s parlor room rudeness toward Lyon during Keller’s visit to Stormfield would been in keeping with class deference expectations. Not to mention Sam’s vanity in building a mansion at a time in which he expected to die. He always predicted that since he was born in 1835 when Haley’s Comet was in the sky, he would “go out with Haley’s Comet.” Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, when the comet was visible. Isabel and Ralph never sued the estate, but what does this tell us? Draw your own conclusions. Guess who got Sam’s money.

 

Rob Weir

 * The original Stormfield burned in 1923. It was rebuilt but is a private home not on public view. 

May December More Dull than Shocking

 

 

 

MAY DECEMBER (2023)

Directed by Todd Haynes

Netflix, 117 minutes, R (nudity, drugs, language, subject matter)

★★

 

May December is a Todd Haynes film based upon the true-life story of Mary Kay Letourneau in which she, a teacher, seduced 12-year-old student Vili Faulaau. When her crime was discovered, Letourneau was pregnant with their first child. She was sentenced to six years in prison for child-rape, which was reduced to 6 months on the condition she avoid contact with Faulaau. She violated her parole, was pregnant with their second child, and spent seven years in prison. She was 35 when she initiated sex with Faulaau, then a 6^th grader. The two married in 2005, shortly after she was released. They stayed wedded for 14 years until they divorced in 1999.

 

May December is a lightly veiled (in more ways than one) version of May Kay and Vili that relocates the affair from Washington State to Savannah, makes her student 13 instead of 12, and rechristens him as Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), who is Southeast Asian rather than Samoan. May Kay is fashioned as Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), who dumps her husband to play rockabye baby with Joe. Director Todd Haynes insisted that his movie was an homage to Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light (1963) and Persona (1966). Yeah, and I’m Henry VIII, I am, I am.

 

The film was reviewed positively, won a few awards, and Melton was singled out for excellence as a supporting actor at various cinema festivals. Yet, it was a box office bomb that lost 75% of its $20 million budget. It seems that audiences found the content creepy, no matter what the critics said. I wasn’t offended by the subject matter nearly as much as I was bored. A very old movie adage holds that if you’re going to go over the top, go way over. May December could have been done as camp and it would have been a better movie.

 

A filmmaker corollary says that if you intend to make a serious film and you aren’t Ingmar Bergman, be sure to have something to say. I generally like Julianne Moore, but May December turns her into a fading magnolia rather than a MYOB spitfire. She just wants people to see her and Joe as good Georgia neighbors and community members. Fat chance when they have three biracial kids, one a college student and twins in high school. You can imagine the hazing they undergo from peers who know the deeper story. As we meet Joe, he’s a big hunk, a lunk, and blue-collar guy with a flat affect.

 

Into their lives comes a movie company wanting to film their story. Sure, there’s nothing like having a famous actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) coming to town to “study” for her upcoming role to protect one’s privacy. Berry talks to people all over Savannah about the Yoo family. Surprise! Gracie is viewed as immoral, a bad role model, and a criminal. It doesn’t help that her ex-husband badmouths her and is happy to play the role of victim, which wasn’t quite the case. Joe is cast in a victim’s role, something Berry presses him on. Did he ever feel he was groomed? Was Joe too young in 6^th grade? Did Gracie took advantage of him? He contemplates the last question, though he mostly rejects it. In more candid moments he admits to having enjoyed the sex. I’ll bet; what 13-year-old boy wouldn’t wish to get up close and personal with Julianne Moore? But he’s flirting with 40 now. 

 

Melton is the best part of the film. He plays Joe as a dim-bulb who, apparently, hadn’t thought about these matters before. That stretches credulity, but Melton almost makes us believe it. If only he hadn’t bedded Elizabeth/Portman, the story would have been more believable. (They are the pair that has the steamiest sex in the film.) Even less believable is his instant guilt, which doesn’t jive with the boredom he displays toward Gracie. We know from later in the film that Gracie and Joe separate, just before Gracie (like Mary Kay) dies from cancer.

 

The Mary Kay Letourneau story is a sad one that should have made for a dramatic retelling. “Boredom” is a word one would never expect from such material.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

Bear With Me: Dan Horowitz and Human/Bear Interactions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEAR WITH ME: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF FAMOUS BEARS (2025)

By Daniel Horowitz

Duke University Press, 209 pages.

★★★★ ½

 

I was watching a movie a few nights ago when I got a warning from my neighborhood listserv that a large potentially dangerous bear had been seen in my neighborhood. I get these regularly and tend to ignore them. What am I supposed to do, lasso it? Besides, Massachusetts has black bears and I’m only in danger if I’m a blueberry bush or if I’m stupid enough to get between a sow and her cubs. Your encyclopedia of choice will tell you that black bears are omnivores, but that just means that an emaciated one might resort to eating road kill. If that’s me, they’re welcome to have a nibble.

 

Understanding how humans perceive bears has been done with more panache by Smith College professor emeritus Dan Horowitz in his newest book Bear With Me. To state bias upfront, Dan is a friend and former colleague. Among the things I admire about him is that he takes popular culture seriously. After all, a solid case could be made that popular culture is American culture. He wants to explore why bears are probably the most represented animal in our culture.  Some–white and brown bears like the polar, Grizzly, and Kodiak–are indeed potentially deadly. But is popular culture to blame for dangerous encounters?  Yesterday, I saw a little girl in a park hugging her Teddy Bear. I hope that her parents have taught her that Teddy is make-believe but wild bears should never be touched.

 

Horowitz opens with “Folkloric Bears and Actual Ones.” Is the lesson of Goldilocks that bears can harm you, or merely that you shouldn’t intrude upon the property of others? Horowitz draws upon global folklore wends his way into African- American tales to highlight the ambiguity: American culture doesn’t send clear distinctions between folkloric and humorous bears from “actual” ursids. How many colleges have friendly bear mascots? What do we do with Brer Bear, Garfield’s Pooky Bear, or Yogi Bear? Fat Bear Week videos from Alaska’s Katmai region give us bears snatching salmon from the air as if they are Joey Chestnut-like competitive eaters. Horowitz follows with tales of Hugh Glass, Grizzly Adams, and Timothy Treadwell to underscore the potential fury of bears, though he speculates that bears can be linked to Manifest Destiny, a manly conquest of obstacles embedded in the wild.

 

In chapter four he returns to children, specifically tales in which bears are personified: the Three Bears, Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington Bear, Care Bears, and the Berenstain Bears. (The latter provide an opportunity to look at backdoor antisemitism.) His dissection of Grizzly Adams again sounds an alarm. The TV series and Adams’ penchant for giving bears human names gloss reality:  “Adams forgot that he was James Capen Adams and [the bears] were not Ben Franklin or Lady Washington but rather wild bears he apparently both loved and violently trained.” In 1858, one captive bear bit through Adams’ skull and into his brain. This ultimately proved fatal.

 

Horowitz often uses the word “domination” when it comes to human/bear interactions. He makes it explicit in “Captive Bears and Their Captors as Workers,” which looks at bruins in zoos, circuses, on TV, and in films and video games. Changing mores have sparked debates over whether captive animals are being denied their natural roles. This may seem obvious, but saying so has also empowered defenders of capture practices. Mark Dumas claims to have domesticated a polar bear; others have “rescued” cubs to “teach” them how to be wild. Horowitz does not use the word “enslavement,” but he implies it. He further pinpoint sthe central dichotomy between bears as veritable monsters– “Cocaine Bear,” for instance–versus “cuddly,” friendly bears. Horowitz takes a deeper dive on Teddy Bears and Smokey the Bear, each of whom has appeared as cuddly and scary. Are bears racialized? His comparison of bears to golliwogs deserves serious contemplation.

 

Although I understand why he went there, his separate chapter on bears and gay subcultures is cursory and could have been reworked and folded into his final chapter on “bears, humans, and dangerous eroticism.” But Horowitz is spot on to make the plight of Arctic polar bears his coda. This intriguing book will please both scholars for its meticulous documentation, and general readers, who will debate his vivid examples.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

STAGE DOOR (1937)

Directed by Gregory La Cava

RKO, 92 minutes, Pre-ratings system

★★★★

 

Stage Door is often tagged as a tragicomedy. Although something quite sad happens to one of the characters, this Gregory La Cava-directed movie is heavier on the second half of that portmanteau. The movie followed the script of a play written Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman that closed the year before the movie appeared. It made money and garnered Oscar nominations, but it was one of increasingly rare incidences in which the play earned more money.

 

If you allow for the fact that this is a Great Depression-era film, your viewing pleasure will increase. It follows the constant flow of aspirant and briefly successful actresses in and out of a boarding house controlled by a booking agency. The cast is large and impressive, though the fame of many of the headliners would come later. This older movie definitely passes the Bechdel Test, as it is a film about women talking to women. Most of the men in the Stage Door are cads. If you know anything about (if not, consult Wikipedia) Ferber or Kaufman, you can count on a lot of barbed, acerbic, and funny badinage between boarding house residents. It’s the kind of movie that could be labeled “catty,” but these women are more predator tigers than domesticated tabbies.

 

The principals include Judy Canfield (Lucile Ball), a good-times gal; Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds), who was a star for a season who hasn’t had a part in ages and needs money; Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers), a sharp-tongued vixen prone to mean acts such as pilfering the silk stockings from Linda Shaw (Gail Patrick) and ruining what was likely an expensive gift from Linda’s beau, Anthony (Adolph Menjou). That was quite a nasty thing to do at a time in which good stockings sold for today’s equivalent of over $36.

 

There are several odd-fitting residents, including newbie Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn), who Maitland and her hangers-on ridicule for using big words, her fancy wardrobe, and her polished demeanor. They assume she comes from money, but that’s only partially true. Her father is loaded, but cuts off her allowance when she insists on pursuing a stage career. They don’t know who her father is, so they assume she has a “sugar daddy.” The implication of that term is that Terry is a “kept” woman who exchanges sex for fancy duds. The irony of this is that just about every woman in the boarding house, except Terry, yearns to have a boyfriend who will treat them. I will again remind you that this is a 1936 movie. In the film the women are “man-hungry” and the men know it. Boyfriends are generally older than their dates, are well-heeled, are clearly trying to bed them, and play musical conquests from among the boarding house population. It’s a mutual exploitation society of sorts. Many of the men are somehow connected to the theatre (directors, producers, underwriters, etc.) and the women are literally hungry as well as looking for a husband. Only Hattie (Phyllis Kennedy) has the chutzpah to date a butcher!

 

The other oddballs are Southern belle Mary Lou (Margaret Early), who finds out the New York isn’t Louisiana.  Ann Miller also has role as “Annie,” a fan-girl companion to Jean who dreams of being a dancer. (Miller succeeded in that quest, though she lied about her age and was just 14 when she scored a part in Stage Door.)

 

As you can see, Stage Door had what might be called an A-level cast: Ball, Hepburn, Miller…. At the time, though, Eve Arden and Constance Collier–two of the residents– and Patrick were better known, and film critics tabbed Early for an Oscar nomination. In a way, a lot of 1930s’ movies were akin to the 1933 version of 42^nd Street in which understudy Ruby Keeler dances to fame. Hepburn-as-Terry gets a similar chance to show off her talent, courtesy of a lot of help from Eve (Eve Arden) and aging resident Ann Lutheir (Collier), though Terry has something more serious in mind.

 

It’s hard to do justice to films with a big cast. There are more serious things in the film–a tragedy, veiled critiques of backstage immorality, and sexism–but the writing is razor-sharp. Give it a try.

 

Rob Weir

Yesteryear and Social Media Hucksters

 

 

YESTERYEAR (2026)

By Caro Claire Burke

Alfred A. Knopf, 391 pages.

★★★

 

In some circles, Yesteryear has been hailed as this generation’s Handmaiden’s Tale (1985). That would be an atmospheric achievement for a debut author such as Caro Claire Burke. Hers is an entertaining novel, but Margaret Atwood was an accomplished poet and had published five well-reviewed novels before she released Handmaiden’s Tale. I do understand, though, how younger reviewers and readers could make a connection, but it misrepresents both authors. Atwood wrote a cautionary tale during the Ronald Reagan years when Second Wave feminism was under attack; Burke’s book is a satire on the shallowness of American culture and the vulture-like extremes of capitalism.

 

Our anti-heroine is Natalie Heller Mills is what is sometimes derisively called a “trad-wife;” that is, an old-fashioned young woman who wants to live a Biblical life. Natalie is college-educated, but much about undergraduate life offended her. If you know the Bible, though, it’s easier to imagine a Biblical life than to practice one. In practical terms it means she and her cowboy hunk-husband Caleb try to simplify and live as much off-the-grid as possible. The latter is very hard to do these days. Rather like the Amish who show up at farmers’ markets, her preserves and eggs attract buyers, word-of-mouth praise, and media attention. On the surface, Natlie is the poster mom for the religious right, as she pops out a new baby even year–six in total. Still, there are lots of things she can’t get the hang of; for instance, her bread comes out of the oven more suitable for building material than human consumption.

 

Before you can say “Trinity Broadcasting System,” Christian TV, bloggers, radio shows, and magazines all want a piece of Natalie, Caleb, and the kiddos. Their household becomes filled with cameras and the Mills family are reality TV show stars. Money starts to pour in from Natalie’s many side projects, but who can actually produce everything from nutritious meals to handmade rugs, books of aphorisms, a clothing line, etc. Who wants to haul water or learn on the fly how to cook venison stew? The viewers know nothing of her hidden industrial stoves, freezers, and refrigerators, or her team of childminders, cooks, product producers, and social media experts.

 

Readers are invited to speculate whether Natalie is a good-girl gone wrong, or if she was always a con artist. Are all those kids really hers? Some of the juiciest parts of the novel juxtapose Natalie’s inner thoughts and unsaid word bubbles with what she actually does and says– with a smile plastered on her face. But is she a fraud? Every time she has a vile thought or is less than kind, she tosses off quick prayesr or apologies to God.

 

Can you imagine being part of today’s gotcha media hounds? Back in the 1970s, a show called An American Family followed the Loud clan. Bill and Pat Loud only had five (gulp!) children, but they also drew 10 million viewers per week, though they didn’t even try to live a pioneer lifestyle. Things didn’t go well for the Louds, who eventually divorced when the cameras that made them famous exposed their warts. Numerous observers blamed their family collapse on the maddening pressure of being under the microscope. Burke avoids that debate, but she does ask us to consider a very different scenario.

 

What if you woke up and had been transported to the past? Natalie finds herself in 1855, without assistants, scripts, or Instagram. Just her, a very different Caleb, a hearth fire, a day filed with chores, and a big kettle filled with lye soap to boil and scrub ragged clothing and send them through a hand ringer. Natalie wants to flee, but how can she leave her kids when Caleb is fornicating with another woman? Is this the work of Satan? Is God testing her as if she were a female Job? Has she gone insane? There is a resolution, but one open to interpretation. Some readers will find this bold; others will feel cheated.

 

What we can say is that Caro Claire Burke has incisively butchered a few sacred cows. Hers is an indictment of materialism, an evisceration of of social influencers, a takedown of hypocrisy, an exposé of fake “reality” shows, and a backdoor condemnation of religious hucksterism. Ultimately, Yesteryear is closer to The Rainmaker than The Handmaiden’s Tale. Does the Devil smile like Burt Lancaster?

 

Rob Weir  

 

 

 

Have You Ever Tried Ngaio Marsh?

 

 

  

 

PICTURE PERFECT (1980 U.K./1982 U.S.)

By Nagaio Marsh

Little, Brown and Company, 252 pages.

★★★

 

When I was a Fulbright scholar in New Zealand, I read as many Kiwi authors as I could. I still adore authors such as Elizabeth Catton, Michael Bennett, Kiri Hulme, and Witi Ihimaera. Other favorites are hard to get in North America–Maurice Gee, for example. A few we’re not to my taste, including Katherine Mansfield, arguably New Zealand’s most famous literary export. Until last week, I had never read Ngaio Marsh (1899?-1992), the only non-British “Queen of Crime.” That put her in the league as Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, and Josephine Tay. When I was teaching and researching full-time, I saved mystery writers for retirement!

 

Photo Finish was a freebie and my first dip into Marsh’s oeuvre. I will read at least one more, as I previously dowloaded one for 99 cents! Her gentleman detective was Roderick Alleyn (her semi- Poirot) was the center of 32 of Marsh’s novels. Her assumed first name is pronounced NY-yo, a Māori name that means either “little tree bug,” or “light on the water.” She was not Māori, but in her day, it was not uncommon for whites to adopt a Māori name, a middle one in her case; her birth forename was Edith.

 

Ms. Marsh was an old-fashioned writer. For instance, instant photography has been around since Edward Land invented the Polaroid in 1948. They were well-known in New Zealand since 1965, and went viral in the 1970s. Instant snapshots factor heavily in Photo Finish, Marsh’s penultimate Alleyn novel. She had a huge vocabulary, though she used outdated terms and cultural references. Social class might have been at play. The novel is about opera and Alleyn and his artist wife Troy are clearly cut from upper- class cloth. Opera itself has long been a refined taste. Photo Finish often reads like a tragic opera set in a New Zealand luxury hotel in the middle of a lake on the South Island.

 

Prima donna Isabella Sommita is fashioned as the most-skilled soprano in the world. Like many divas, she is spoiled and temperamental–the very essence of a difficult star. She embarks on an Australasian tour in part to escape a furtive photographer calling himself “Strix.” He has snapped shots of Isabella in a state of undress, to “prove” that her amble blossom is artificially enhanced by falsies. She and her staff counter that those not-so-clear photographs have been doctored. Madame’s personal life has also horrified everyone around her: manager Ben Ruby; longtime friend Montague V. Reece; Master of Singing Signor Beppo Lattienzo; her manservant (archaic term!); personal secretary, Ned Hanley; her maid, Maria; and even superfan Dr. John Carmichael. She has had previous lovers, but young Rupert Bartholomew is another matter. He has become her protégé and it has gone to his head. He has written an opera for La Sammita with the naïve title, The Alien Corn. Those who have read the score recognize it as an embarrassing disaster, but Isabella has assembled guests to the island to debut a work she declares “genius.” One the eve of production, Rupert gets cold feet and recognizes that his is truly a horrible piece of work. Despite pleas, Isabella insists on forging ahead. It was bad!

 

There is a little reckoning on Isabella’s part for the simple reason that she lies dead in her dressing room, her bosom exposed, and a new photo above her heart secured by a stiletto. Who killed her? Alleyn is drafted to do the initial investigation because – in good operatic form – it was a dark and stormy night. The wind howled, the seas roiled, telephone lines were down, boat launches and the helicopter flights were unsafe, and the local police were stuck on the mainland. Though Alleyn is a high-ranking Scotland Yard figure, this is New Zealand and he wants to respect local customs. He does improvise by using Troy’s face powder to dust for fingerprints, but mainly he tries to keep everyone calm and conducts preliminary interviews. That said, in good Poirot fashion, his is an intuitive investigation that resolves with all the suspects gathered in the same room. That is, after sleepless nights, a search for Strix, a red herring discovery of a lens cap (for a Polaroid?), a search for keys, rumors of a Sicilian vendetta, and a gambit by Alleyn that could backfire.

 

Did I like the novel? If I’m honest, not so much. I found it more stodgy than old-fashioned charming. My view doesn’t mean others won’t conclude differently. It’s short enough to give it a try. You can always tell me I’m wrong but please, no stilettos!

 

Rob Weir