bookshelves of doom

Semi-Grown-Up Gumshoes: Three Adult-Market Girl Detectives.

I've been meaning to read Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead for, well, years.

Finally, tipped over the edge by Colleen Mondor's response to a recent Kirkus column of mine...

That one sounded like a poor attempt at a teenage Claire DeWitt to me... @bkshelvesofdoom

— Colleen Mondor (@chasingray) June 3, 2014

...I did.

In so doing, I was inspired to compile a SHORT list of girl detectives who reside in the Adult Stacks.

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, by Sara Gran

Claire is now in her thirties, but she STARTED OUT as a teen detective: first, running around Brooklyn solving mysteries with her two best friends according to the tenets laid out in Jacques Silette's detective handbook/philosophical treatise Détection, and then, investigating the disappearance of one of those friends.

She never found her.

It's been years since she's been in New Orleans—she left after her beloved mentor was murdered—but now she's back, investigating the disappearance of a District Attorney who went missing during Hurricane Katrina. It's full of great descriptions and depictions of post-disaster wreckage, New Orleans culture, and gentrification; the dialogue is excellent, there's a fantastic sense of place and atmosphere, and the mystery itself is tight tight tight. It's about innocence lost and about lost innocents, about history repeating itself, about different ways of dealing with tragedy and about how easy it is to lose one's self.

All that would be fantastic on its own, but where the book really shines is in Claire's voice, which reads both totally original AND classic noir. She's got a deep well of sadness and anger, but she's also understatedly hilarious. To say that she's not entirely reliable is probably an understatement—she's got a history of psychiatric problems as well as a penchant for abusing drugs and alcohol on a regular basis—but, at the same time, I never doubted that she was speaking her own truth.

I had a few issues: there is some unnecessary repetition in description and explanation (her truck, what wet is, info about OPP), but more bizarrely, there is a refrigerator that mysteriously appears out of nowhere (at first I chalked it up to her semi-instability, but as there was never another moment like it, I'm pretty sure it was a weird continuity error):

Newish appliances in the kitchen and a hole where the refrigerator had been. p28

Next I took prints from some spots around the house a visitor was likely to touch, labeling them as I went. The doorknobs. The refrigerator. p36

And, this is completely a matter of personal taste, but the Quaker parakeets as a metaphor for the forgotten/lost/unwanted of New Orleans was a little too LOOK IT'S A METAPHOR for me.

But, overall, HOLY COW I LOVED IT, and I'm going to request book two from the library TODAY.

What Was Lost, by Catherine O'Flynn 

I read this YEARS ago, and apparently never wrote about it. Which is sad, because it was great.

It's about a 10-year-old girl detective who skulks around a shopping mall, trailing suspects and investigating imaginary mysteries... until she disappears, never to be seen again. Twenty years later, a mall security guard—who was a classmate of hers—spots her on the surveillance footage...

A Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley:

June, 1950. When we first meet eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, she's tied up, gagged, and locked in a dark closet. Not for long, though: her older sisters Ophelia and Daphne may have her beat in terms of pure physicality, but they'll never be a match for her brain.

So when a real tangle of a mystery arrives at Buckshaw—quite literally at the front door—Flavia isn't just intrigued: she's ecstatic. She doesn't know what the dead jackdaw means, or why it has a Penny Black postage stamp impaled on its beak. But she does know that it means something to her philatelist father: and whatever it is, it isn't good. When she finds a dying man in the cucumber patch later that night—a man who she saw arguing with her father just hours before—the mystery becomes that much more intriguing... and with her father as the most logical suspect, her need to find out the truth becomes that much more urgent.

Others? There MUST be more.

Today @KirkusReviews...

...I wrote about Jex Malone, a book I thought I would like a whole lot more than I did:

But, as Kirkus and I don’t always agree, I went ahead and read it anyway. The premise ALONE demanded that I read it; knowing it included quotes from famous girl detectives ranging from Jessica Fletcher to V.I. Warshawski to Jane Marple to Nancy Drew was just icing on the cake. Sadly, underneath that lovely frosting, the cake was lumpy and underdone. As I have a tendency to let metaphors get away from me, I’ll just say it flat-out: Kirkus was right about this one.

Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #12: The Message in the Hollow Oak -- Carolyn Keene

Headlines from Nancy Drew #12:

Girl enters radio contest on whim, wins tract of land! IN CANADA!

Intrepid young sleuth helps old lady cross street; carries her suitcase!

River Heights overrun by Canadians, some of them crooks!

Girl detective receives answer to message... BEFORE EVEN SENDING IT!

In a sudden burst of activity after eleven books of avoiding physical exertion, Bess Marvin CLIMBS A TREE!

Continuing the trend of Bizarro Sidekick Behavior, George Fayne shrieks in fear!

Posse rides in; posse rides out!

Carson Drew dispatches word... telepathically? Via carrier pigeon? THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW!

Teenage girl blows up power-generating dam and floods entire valley, no one takes issue with her!

Opening scene:

• As you may have gathered from the headlines, Nancy enters a radio contest (for the first time ever) and wins. A tract of land. In Canada. That might be full of gold. Because Nancy.
• Even though Canada is the SECOND LARGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, said piece of land JUST SO HAPPENS to be located right next to some land related to her father's current case. Because Carson.
• Of course, Nancy wants to go and check out her land, but needs an "older person" (<--Carson's words) to go with her. LUCKILY, Carson's client ALSO coincidentally has a friend coming in to town who ALSO has a place in the vicinity of her land and so CAN DO THAT VERY THING.

In River Heights:

• Five minutes later, Nancy's on her way to see Bess and George to invite them along. Seeing an older lady struggling to haul a heavy suitcase across the road, Nancy does what Nancy does best and TAKES ACTION. She not only carries the suitcase across the street, but offers to wait with it outside the bank while the lady goes in to "get change for a twenty". Because Olden Days.
• A "dapper man in his late thirties" drives up, claims to be the lady's grandson, takes the suitcase, and drives off!
• The lady, of course, doesn't have a grandson. Nancy waves down a nearby police officer, and at first he and the old lady seem to suspect HER. Of course, once she pulls the DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM routine, they back off.
• A FULL TEN MINUTES LATER, NANCY DECIDES WAITING FOR BACK-UP WILL JUST TAKE TOO LONG, SO SHE ENGAGES IN A HIGH SPEED CAR CHASE TO RETRIEVE THE STOLEN SUITCASE. And yes, OF COURSE she succeeds in A) CATCHING UP WITH HIM, and B) getting him to pull over, and yes, OF COURSE the crowd believes her when she makes her case!

A brief moment of non-snark:

Yes, Nancy is ridiculously lucky, beautiful, wealthy, has a hard-to-conceive-of number of skills, and her detecting skills probably wouldn't carry over very well into the real world. But that's not why we love her: We love her because she never gives up, never gives in, never says die. She always puts others before her, and while she has a tendency to judge by appearances, to be fair, she IS almost always right.

Okay, back to River Heights!

• The old lady recognizes the suitcase thief as Tom Stripe, a "mean and low-down" man who has caused problems for her in the past! Also, she is from Canada! And is now Nancy's friend for life! AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT SHE'S CARSON'S CLIENT'S FRIEND AND ABOUT TO BECOME NANCY'S CHAPERONE! (I bet you TOTALLY didn't see that coming!)
• It should be noted that Bess has to be talked out of bringing all of her best dresses along on a multi-week camping trip.
• While Nancy and Carson are having dinner at his client's house, NANCY GETS A PHONE CALL FROM SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO BUY HER LAND. Because that's how business is done: By calling people while they are ATTENDING DINNER PARTIES AT OTHER PEOPLES' HOUSES.

The next day:

• Nancy is accosted by a young man with a "sophisticated smile" wearing clothes that "cut far too elegant an appearance for River Heights". DANGER ZONE! Surprise, surprise, Raymond Niles wants to buy her land. ALL I WANT TO KNOW IS THIS: WHERE'S NED? HE DOESN'T GET A SINGLE MENTION IN THIS BOOK. Poor old Ned. It can't be easy being that boring.
• Nancy tells Carson about this Niles character—who, by the way, OUT-AND-OUT THREATENED HER—and this is his response: "It seems to me we ought to let the matter rest for a while. In any event, you will be rid of this fellow in a few days, for soon you'll be on your way to Canada." YES, CARSON. BRILLIANT LOGIC. DUDE THREATENS YOUR DAUGHTER, SO IT'S A GOOD THING THAT SHE'S HEADED OFF TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE... BECAUSE IT'S NOT AT ALL LIKELY THAT THE GUY KNOWS WHERE THE LAND HE WANTS TO BUY WOULD BE LOCATED, RIGHT?
• Meanwhile, Hannah Gruen doesn't like the idea of the girls gallivanting off to "foreign places". Because Canada.

Two days later:

• Hannah, who is only suspicious when it suits the plot, lets Raymond Niles into the house and he ALMOST SUCCEEDS in stealing Nancy's property deed.
• At this point, you'd think that Carson would, like, register the deed or make a copy of it or do whatever lawyer-y thing you do with these things, but no. Because the Drews have a lot of great qualities, but logic isn't one of them.
• Tom Stripe is out of prison, and it was Raymond Niles who posted his bail! They are, as Nancy puts it, "friends and crooks"!

On the train to Wellington Lake:

• Remember the radio contest that started this adventure? Well. To win it, Nancy had to name a mystery serial... and on the train, Nancy runs into Ann Chapelle, the author of said mystery serial! 
• Miss Chapelle has a Secret Sorrow, though for someone with a Secret Sorrow, she's quite open about it. In fact, she was about to spill the beans to Nancy WHEN THE TRAIN CRASHED AT THAT EXACT MOMENT.
• YES, THE TRAIN CRASHED. LIKE, ALL OF THE CARS, OFF OF THE TRACK.
• Nancy bumps her elbow! George is buried under a pile of chairs! Bess goes pale! Random passenger breaks his leg! Tom Stripe and Raymond Niles were spotted shortly before the crash! The train catches on fire! Miss Chapelle and the chaperone are missing!

At a hotel:

• The girls hole up and wait for news. In the middle of the night, Nancy wakes up and discovers Bess sleepwalking. On the window ledge. So Nancy, being the quick-thinker that she is, GRABS A COIL OF ROPE (because they're generally lying around in hotel hallways), and, just as BESS FALLS OFF OF THE LEDGE, LASSOS HER BEFORE SHE HITS THE GROUND. (Yes, she credits her Shadow Ranch adventure for the ability.)
• As if that wasn't ENOUGH ACTION FOR THE NIGHT, it turns out that Bess, while sleepwalking, took the deed to Nancy's land and dropped it outside.
• Sure enough, George pops her head out the window and sees a dude walking off with it. But they don't pursue him because... THAT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE?

The next day:

• They receive word that both the author and the chaperone are at the hospital.
• Nancy stops by the newspaper to place an ad about her lost deed... and discovers that someone has already left her a letter, instructing her to call at Ranny farm, six miles away.
• The girls check in with the ladies at the hospital, and Ann Chapelle is A) convinced she's going to die and B) manages to say, "The message—in the hollow oak—" before passing out. So that's helpful.
• Our Girl Wonders rent a jalopy—it's so decrepit that even Our Nancy needs a lesson in starting the engine—and they head out to the farm, promptly get a flat tire, and then they get lost because they don't know how far they've gone because "the speedometer was broken" even though HELLO, unless Nancy's got Bess and George doing constant Distance = Rate x Time math problems, it's the odometer that matters. 
• ANYWAY, for whatever reason, they decide to leave the car and hike across a pasture to a nearby farm, but Bess is wearing a red sweater, which enrages the bull (*coughbullsarecolorblindcough*), and it charges them and they almost die but then the farmer opens the fence for them and it turns out he's Farmer Ranny himself. HOW SURPRISING.

I'm going to fast-forward here, because good lord, I'm only up to page, like, 60.

• SO. Farmer Ranny's wife has a long-standing feud with the chaperone. Because gold. Or land. Or something.
• The Rannys are ALSO the parents of Norman Ranny, Ann Chapelle's long-lost love, who she used to pass messages with via the Hollow Oak and who she ran away from home to elope with except he never showed up, the jerk.
• Thinking she's about to die, Ann Chapelle gets Nancy to make a promise to A) find her Grandfather Chap and apologize for running away and B) find Norman Ranny and tell him that she loves him. Or something.

Canada, FINALLY:

• There's a story in the local paper about A STRANGER almost getting creamed by a falling branch from the OAK tree he was sitting under, because THAT'S NEWSWORTHY IN CANADA. (<--I'm from Maine. That would totally make the paper in my town. Anyway.) 
• The girls get outfitted in "riding breeches and knee-high shoes" (known as BOOTS in more succinct circles) and HEAD OFF INTO THE WILDERNESS WITH PETE ATKINS, GUIDE EXTRAORDINAIRE.

Fast-forwarding again, because their adventures in the wilderness are ENDLESS:

• Almost immediately, they run into Tom and Ray, who are terrible at canoeing.
• Tom and Ray try to strand the girls in the wilderness (...with the best guide in the area, that'll show 'em!), but, after a brief struggle, end up neck-deep in the lake while Nancy & Co. paddle away. Tom Stripe, logical as ever, vows revenge on them even though he was the one who started it.
• Ray, not unlike that jewel thief in The Facts of Life Down Under, has developed QUITE THE CRUSH ON NANCY.
• The crooks, miserable and soaking wet and in the middle of nowhere, run into NORMAN RANNY, because of course they do. 
• Norman, it turns out, thinks that Ann is dead. Because these are the things you should assume to be true without proof.
• Tom and Ray tie Norman up and throw him into Grandfather Chap's fruit cellar. No, not root cellar, FRUIT CELLAR. Because that's what they call it.
• Nancy, while exploring a nearby abandoned mill, is "...impelled by some impulse which she could not explain..." to look through a crack in the wall, sees Tom Stripe in the house. Seriously, I don't know how she'd solve mysteries if she was slightly less lucky.
• Once our heroines take over the house, Bess and George become convinced that it's haunted due to the moans coming from the FRUIT CELLAR.
• Nancy, brave girl that she is, heads down there and returns... WITH A CAT.
• THEY ALL LAUGH MERRILY ABOUT THAT.
• The moans continue, causing Bess to FAINT, AND PETE HAS DISAPPEARED, so it's up to Nancy to head down there again... which she does, AND FINDS ANOTHER CAT BUT ALSO, THANKFULLY, NORMAN.
• Nancy jumps to the conclusion that Pete abandoned them, which seems like a REALLY LOGICAL ASSUMPTION, considering how there are bad guys around who have it in for him.
• The girls—who have now adopted Norman as the requisite adult male in their party—stay the night with a trapper and his wife, enjoy some banjo music (yes, really), tell said trapper and his wife about the big city (yes, really), and then Pete shows up all beat up because, duh, of course Tom jumped him.
• I told you it was endless. I'm going to have to read the '70s revision to see if they tightened it up.
• ANYWAY, panning for gold on Nancy's land, they all get a nugget (except Bess, but Nancy gives her one so she doesn't whine), and Norman strikes a vein in the very first spot that he swings his pickaxe. Because that's how things roll around Nancy Drew.

ENTER THE EVIL MINING COMPANY:

• A plane lands, and a bunch of evil miners arrive. Nancy realizes she and her crew are outnumbered, so she PAYS THE PILOT TO TAKE HER AND HER FRIENDS BACK TO CIVILIZATION, LEAVING THE MINERS SEMI-STRANDED. Which, you've got to admit, is both hilarious and badass.
• In a considerably less badass move, she wires Carson for help. 
• Buck Sawtice, the owner of the EVIL MINING COMPANY—when they find out it's named Yellow Dawn, George asked, "Is that a company or a disease?" which made me laugh out loud—ALSO cost the Mr. & Mrs. Ranny their life-savings. So, you know: Good to know that he's an equal-opportunity swindler, and not ageist or anything.

SUPER FAST-FORWARD:

• Carson rounds up some local law enforcement, and they put together a POSSE and go in there ON HORSEBACK:

"Now, Father, don't tell us we can't go," she forestalled him. "With all these men along to protect us, you surely can't say it won't be safe."

"That's just what I did intend to say, you young tease!"

NO COMMENT.

• Pete gets attacked AGAIN. Poor guy, for a minor character and a good guy, he really takes a beating in this book.
• Turns out Grandfather Chap buried a treasure under the Hollow Oak and left a message for Ann there, including a confession about switching out the message she left for Norman way back when, which is why he never showed up to marry her. Nancy and Norman dig it up and then BURY IT ELSEWHERE, because they're tricky like that. 
• But Nancy loses an engraved bracelet, so they have to go back for it, and then they catch Tom (since Norman's there, he does the lassoing this time, presumably because he's got manparts), tie him to a tree, AND THEN THREATEN TO SET HIM ON FIRE UNLESS HE TELLS THEM WHERE GRANDFATHER CHAP IS, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT "THE INDIANS" WOULD DO. I don't even.
• They bring their info back to the posse, the posse acts on it... but no Grandfather Chap, so they disperse, leaving Nancy, Carson, the girls, and Norman with the Yellow Dawn guys.

I swear we're almost at the end:

• Nancy offers to sell her land to Buck if Grandfather Chap is returned unharmed, so Buck sends the airplane off for some money.
• Of course, Buck plans to double-cross her, but she HAPPENS TO BE AT JUST THE RIGHT PLACE AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME TO OVERHEARD ALL OF THE EXPOSITION (IN FRENCH), so she's able to make a counter-plan.
• Which involves stealing a key right out of Ray's hand WHILE HE'S AWAKE AND AWARE AND EVERYTHING, CLEARLY SHE'S MAGIC, swiping all of the gold out of the cabin the bad guys have been squirreling it away in, getting all of her loved ones (and Norman and Grandfather Camp, who's been being tortured this whole time, YES, TORTURED) out of the way, and then BLOWING UP THE DAM. BECAUSE NANCY DREW, AS I'VE MENTIONED, IS KIND OF BADASS, AND ALSO HAS AN UTTER DISREGARD FOR PUBLIC UTILITIES.
• Ann and Norman are reunited, Ann and her Grandfather make up, Nancy gets all of her gold melted down into gold coins, and everyone in River Heights is at the train station to meet them when they get home.

And just because it wouldn't be a real Nancy Drew book without one more semi-creepy moment with Carson:

After discussing the events Nancy seated herself upon the arm of her father's chair, and playfully tweaked his ear.

[I'm sparing you the twinkling eyes and smoke rings, ag.]

"Father, if anyone should ever offer me another deed, I'd run a mile!" she said. "After having so many adventures up North, I think I'll agree to your holding title to all the property that comes into the Drew family!"

THE END.

New skills: 

• When it comes to chocolate cake, Hannah Gruen believes that "the pupil has gone beyond the master".
• Nancy knows French.
• And also all about dynamite.

_________________________________________

Previously.

Killers in Plain Sight: Five Stories about Assassins in High School.

Teenage assassins are a dime a dozen in fantasy and in dystopia, and they aren't ALL that uncommon in historical fiction, but they appear far less often in contemporaries—even stories about teenage spies usually cast the protagonist in an unquestionably heroic role (like Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series) or focus on less-problematic skills (like Robin Benway's safe-cracking heroine in Also Known As and Going Rogue).

So, let's look at a few slightly more Questionable Characters!

I Am the Weapon (formerly Boy Nobody), by Allen Zadoff

Four years ago, he learned the truth about his parents, and four years ago, The Program took him in. He was trained physically, mentally, and emotionally, and now he works for them. They give him a target, he infiltrates that target's life, gets close enough, and then moves in for the kill. (Literally.) Then he moves on. Always moving, always alone.

He doesn't know it yet, but this next job will be different.

I Am the Weapon will not be a good fit for every reader: If you dislike the present tense, it won't be a good fit, ditto sentence fragments and antiheroes. Me? It was a GREAT fit.

Benjamin (not his real name) has a voice that is strong and distinct, both emotionally distant and emotionally fragile. He reads like someone who has been programmed, but not entirely brainwashed—he feels trapped in his situation, but hasn't entirely reconciled himself to it; sometimes, he reads like a sociopath, but it's always clear that it's a created state, not a natural one—because he remembers his past, remembers how he came to The Program, he doesn't entirely trust them, isn't entirely in their corner. But he doesn't feel that he has any direction to move in OTHER than theirs, so he falls back on the rules of the game again and again as a way of justifying his actions and of convincing himself to keep moving forward, of not giving up. His keepers see him simply as a tool, as an asset, as a weapon to point at their enemies... but he's more than that: he's a survivor.

Because of his emotional and mental conditioning, because of the way he's lived for the past four years, he doesn't entirely understand human connection—even though he craves it. Although he has been programmed to follow orders, to kill without hesitation or regret or guilt, he remembers the warmth and love he knew as a child, and those memories, in tandem with getting to know his target—not to mention his target's beautiful daughter—are making it more and more difficult for him to perform his duty. 

As I read, I found the romance element FAR less interesting and satisfying than in Benjamin's slowly-growing friendship with bullied hacker Howard, but ultimately, Zadoff makes it all work, AND HOW. The sequel is due out in a few weeks (<--Oh, look, it's a Little, Brown title, so Amazon won't let us pre-order it, the jerks), and I'm VERY MUCH looking forward to reading it.

How to Lead a Life of Crime, by Kristin Miller
Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks

While neither one focuses on a teenage assassin—Miller's is about a pickpocket and Jinks' is about a hacker—and while an argument could be made that they're science fiction OR fantasy OR both, really, I'm including them anyway. They're both about schools for the criminally-minded, and both include characters who're being taught to be assassins. While I was a big fan of both books, I felt that How to Lead a Life of Crime, especially, deserved WAY more attention than it got when it came out.

And here are a couple that I haven't read:

Dear Killer, by Katherine Ewell

This one has been promoted as a story about a teenage girl who happens to be a serial killer, but everything I've read about it suggests that she's actually an assassin with little-to-no conscience. Which is different. Judging by reader reviews at Amazon and GoodReads, response has been EXTREMELY VARIED, so I just ordered a copy so I can make up my own mind.

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, and Perry's Killer Playlist, by Joe Schreiber

Boy is forced by his mother to take their Lithuanian exchange student to the prom, it turns out she's an assassin. Hijinks ensue! In the sequel, Perry runs into Gobi in Venice, and there are MOAR HIJINKS. These sound like big, action-movie-esque fun, and I'm going to make a point of reading them soon.

So, I'm sure you've got others to recommend, right? Right?

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I Hunt Killers -- Barry Lyga

Today @KirkusReviews...

Kindle Daily Deal: Jim Butcher!

Seven of Jim Butcher's TOTALLY AWESOME Harry Dresden books are $1.99 today.

Even though we have them all in paper, I am sorely tempted to buy them. Sigh. The trials and tribulations of being a book addict.

"These are for you. NOT for the book sale. FOR YOU."

That's what one of my library board members just said before handing me a box containing these:

I AM IN TOTAL MELTDOWN SQUEEMODE.

Like, I am FREAKING. OUT.

Where did Hercule Poirot come from?

Belgium, yes, and Agatha Christie's brain, yes.

But also maybe this guy:

A real-life Belgian policeman who came to the West Country as a refugee during the first world war has been tipped as a possible inspiration for one of the literary world's most famous fictional detectives, Hercule Poirot.

Regardless of whether it's true or not, suddenly I feel like re-reading some Dame Agatha.