"The Author's Guide to Murder," A Review

As many of you know, Beatriz Williams is my daughter-in-law. Most of what she writes – and her good friends and co-authors – falls into the category of historical romance. This is different. It is clever, witty with a plot that would be the envy of Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh or Agatha Christie. If you like mysteries and wit, this is your book.

 

Happy Thanksgiving. After a hearty meal, find an armchair next to a roaring fire, with a single malt near-by, and let your mind wander to the island of Kinloch off the Scottish coast.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

“The Author’s Guide to Murder,” Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, & Karen White

November 23, 2024

 

“Americans. Why did they always have to be Americans?”

                                                                                                      The Author’s Guide to Murder, 2024

 

This fun-filled mystery, which takes place on a remote Scottish island, will keep you guessing and have you smiling, as it combines elements of Agatha Christie, Jonathon Swift, and Will Rogers.

 

Like Agatha Christie, who plotted her crime stories starting with the murder, this story begins with the crime scene. Like Jonathon Swift who once wrote, “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own,”^[1] the story is laden with clever innuendos. For example, the fictional Kinloch Castle, scene of the murder, derives from a real clan’s name whose motto is Non Degener (not degenerate), a deliciously inappropriate motto. Like Will Rogers who infused his books with one-liners, the story is comedic. There is a sheep named “Beatrice,” a Sheep Dog named “Loren,” a writer of romance novels named Karyn Black, and an editor named Rachelle, “brilliant and well-shod,” who, out of fondness, is named for the three women’s real editor, Rachel Kahan.

 

The story centers around a writers retreat at Kinloch Castle, to which three American novelists have been invited: Kat de Noir, Cassie Pringle, and Emma Endicott. They know one another, having met some time earlier at Yaddo, a retreat for artists in Saratoga Springs. And they have a secret in common, but are not really friends, at least not at the novel’s start. Their host, as we learn on the opening page, is the murder victim, Brett Saffron Presley. 

 

A few other characters populate the story, well-drawn and engaging: Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Euan Macintosh; his sister – the only medical professional on the island – Fiona; the castle’s factotum Calum MacDougal (owner of Beatrice); his mother, the housekeeper Morag; and Archie Kinloch, the financially-strapped Laird (and owner of Loren) who has rented his castle to Mr. Presley.

 

A passage that caught my attention, which will surprise no one, but which is indicative of the three authors’ humor and of how much fun they had writing the book. Emma speaks of the past, how it matters, and how, “sooner or later the past will find you.” Kat responds “dismissively:” “You stole that from Beatriz Williams’s website.”

 

This is my first write-up of a mystery, and mysteries are best kept mysterious, so this is short. As Will Rogers once said: “Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier’n puttin’ it back.”^[2]

 

So, pick up a copy, put up your feet, a glass of Lagavulin in hand, and enjoy a couple of hours of fun. And you will watch this mystery unfold, as neatly as if Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple were on the case.

"Liberal World Order"

 

Like most of you, I look upon our national politics with dismay. I recognize there are good people out there, but they are swamped by so-called leaders of both parties who do not seem to have any sense of duty or honor. Using the right pronoun is more important than respect for differing opinions, tolerance of those unlike ourselves and civility in comportment. Nevertheless, we must carry on.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Liberal World Order”

July 15, 2022

 

“Isn’t muddle a better breeding ground for kindliness and individuality than a world

order that’s imposed, a world order that may be right today and wrong tomorrow?”

                                                                                                                                         Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

                                                                                                                                         Destination Unknown, 1954

 

War has always been man’s nemesis, combatting his desire for global peace. Unfortunately, war has won, perhaps because the latter is an unrealistic ideal, not possible given man’s imperfections. Nevertheless, just because world peace has never been achieved does not mean the search for it should cease, though any search should be leavened with realism. We live in a world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.

 

Does global peace depend on a governing world order, or does it depend on maintaining a balance of power among sovereign nations having membership in organizations like the UN, the IMF and the WHO? If so, how much authority should each state cede to global authorities? A more basic question: Is lasting peace even possible given the fallibility of humans and with states having myriad views on governance? Limited wars may be unavoidable. What should be paramount is reducing the risk of annihilation by nuclear weapons. Should not nations and societies, instead of attempting a world order, first build cultures of respect, tolerance, civility and decency?

 

In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger wrote: “No truly ‘global’ world order has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised in Western Europe nearly four centuries ago, at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia.” The Peace of Westphalia concluded the Thirty Years War, and it established modern Europe with sovereign states. Yet their efforts did not prevent Napoleon from trying to unite Europe in the first two decades of the 19^th Century, nor did it stop Hitler from trying to do the same 120 years later. It did not prevent lights from “going out all over Europe” in August 1914. 

 

Ironically, it was less global institutions and more the threat of mutually assured destruction between the Soviet Union and the United States that prevented a holocaust between 1949 and 1991. Since the end of the Cold War, however, concern about a nuclear winter has lessened, while the threat has not. India and Pakistan, long-time foes (both nuclear powers), stand toe to toe. North Korea has the material to produce weapons and appeasement of Iran will only accelerate her becoming a nuclear power. With over 17,000 nuclear weapons, some in the hands of countries with little stake in the status quo, should we not be concerned? 

 

The concept of a “liberal world order” has allure, but are the words, by definition, an oxymoron? There is no question that forums for leaders to meet and debate are important. But a “liberal world order” suggests a supranational organization that would dominate sovereign states, which would require an unlikely consensus of political, economic and cultural beliefs. Absent a dictatorship, that would seem impossible in the real world, where capitalism vies with socialism, where rule of law exists in some countries but not in others, and where a belief in individual freedom is true for some but not for all. There are honorable people who seek a liberal world order, some with unrealistic altruistic expectations; but there are others who see such institutions as means to gain personal power.

 

A preview of how a “liberal world order” might morph into autocratic governance can be seen in the expansion of the administrative state in the U.S. Agencies like the FTC, EPA, DOE and CDC, established by Congress for specific purposes have expanded beyond their mandates through legal loopholes. They have imposed laws, passed judgements and implemented policies never originally intended. It is natural for unaccountable bureaucrats to want to increase their influence and power, just as it is natural for accountable legislators to choose to avoid tough decisions by “passing the buck” onto an agency. Fortunately, for freedom loving Americans, the Supreme Court has recently and successfully challenged many of those expansions. But would that be possible with a supranational governing body?

 

In my opinion, a “liberal world order” is not axiomatic. Despite the desires of the Davos set, it is not inevitable. It assumes all states would willingly give up sovereignty. It assumes those in charge would always operate in the interest of their subjects. It assumes a goodness on the part of politicians and bureaucrats that experience tells us is unwarranted. It assumes an obedience of citizens to rules that may be alien to those to whom freedom is sacrosanct. In a sea of self-important global grandees, the simplicity in Agatha Christie’s quote, in the rubric above, reflects greater wisdom. It recognizes the importance of individuality and the need for kindliness, which are values learned through a good education, religion, a caring community, and strong families. Like the quest for the Holy Grail or Stuart Little’s search for Margalo, a liberal world order is illusive. It may never be found. In fact, and in my opinion, the world is better off if it never is. But that does not mean a pursuit should be suspended, for the crusade and the questions raised have value.

"Nemesis" by Agatha Christie

Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

“Nemesis” by Agatha Christie

November 20, 2019

“I would only say that certain people remind me of other certain people I have known;

and that therefore I can presuppose a certain likeness between the way they would act.”

                                                                                                            Jane Marple speaking

                                                                                                            Nemesis, 1971

                                                                                                            Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Nemesis: noun meaning an inescapable agent of someone’s or something’s downfall.

Agatha Christie did something right. The Guinness World Records have her as the best-selling novelist of all time – two billion copies! In the rankings of most published works, her novels rank third, behind the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. She has been translated into 103 languages. Her best-selling book, And Then There Were None, has sold 100 million copies. Her stage play “The Mousetrap” is London’s West End’s longest running play, having opened November 25, 1952 and still going strong. It behooves any reader to periodically remind themselves why this woman’s stories are so popular. To do so, all one must do is visit your local bookstore or library and pick up a copy. Reading one, the answer becomes obvious.

Nemesis is the thirteenth novel (and the last) to star the intuitive (“’Yes,’ said Miss Marple, ‘I can imagine it. I’ve always been able to imagine things.’”), but physically frail Jane Marple (Her left knee was always a little uncertain). The story was originally published in 1971. The first of Miss Christie’s mystery novels to include Jane. Marple was The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930. This one tells of a crime committed years ago, a murder for which the wrong person was accused and went to jail.

In a previous novel, A Caribbean Mystery, Miss Marple had met Jason Rafiel, a wealthy, but somewhat shadowy financier. Together, they had solved a mystery. Rafiel, recognizing her cleverness and genius for justice, had given her the moniker Nemesis, after she had uncovered the murderer. In this novel, Jane Marple receives a communication from the now deceased Mr. Rafiel asking her to investigate a crime, but without telling her what the crime was or who was involved. If successful, she will receive a reward of £20,000. Her only instructions are to attend a week-long garden tour, tickets for which have been paid by the estate of Jason Rafiel.

Miss Marple accepts the challenge and, as expected and after surviving a harrowing ordeal involving a third murder, she solves the original, and subsequent, crimes, so pockets the £20,000. Agatha Christie’s genius lies in providing the reader clues, which are revealed to less astute readers like me at the conclusion.

Unlike crime writers today who rely on shock and violence, Agatha Christie challenges the reader to think through the mystery, to understand the psychology of those involved. Murder in her novels, one might argue, is thus sanitized and therefore less realistic. It is the solution that makes her mysteries compelling. The reader is left with an ‘Aha!’ moment – so that is how it happened! Her suspenseful stories are demanding of the reader, as true today as when they were written fifty to a hundred years ago. On snowy, cold winter nights, one could do worse than curl up before a fire with hot cocoa and an Agatha Christie mystery.