Thursday, October 30: Femme Fatale
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
This past week mystery writers have suffered through a bad time. We’ve lost two of our best: Elaine Flinn and Tony Hillerman. Elaine was the creator of the Molly Doyle series and Tony of the Navaho tribal police team of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Although I never knew Elaine Flinn, I had certainly admired her from afar. I did meet Tony Hillerman and was privileged to hear him speak at several workshops over the years, most of them in Albuquerque during Southwest Writer’s conferences. Thank God for the talents of Elaine and Tony and the many hours we are able to spend enjoying their tales. Thanks, Elaine and Tony. We miss you already and are blessed by the legacy of stories you have left for us. You will not be forgotten and your words will be treasured forever.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. —Ecclesiastes 3:1
It’s been said, “Timing is everything.” I don’t know about you, but I enjoy time traveling with some of my favorite detectives.
- James Lincoln Warren’s Alan Treviscoe stories occur in the 1771 era.
- Peter Lovesey writes of Bertie, Prince of Wales in Victorian England
- Susan Wittig Albert writes mysteries featuring author Beatrix Potter. With her husband, Bill, Susan also co-authors the Robin Paige Victorian Mysteries set in the late Victorian era.
- Rhys Bowen’s creation is Molly Murphey in 1890s New York City
- Jacqueline Winspear is creator of Maisie Dobbs, private investigator in 1920s Great Britain
- Bill Pronzini’s 1890s stories about John Quincannon take place in America.
Of course, the original Ian Fleming stories were set decades ago, but who can resist globe-trotting with James Bond?
I like to step back in time, stand side-by-side with Dr. Watson and attempt discerning the clues faster than Sherlock Holmes – only that never happens for me or Watson it seems.
I enjoy spy thrillers set during wars that keep me turning pages long into the night like Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett.
Although I probably wouldn’t want to live with or be married to either of them, I enjoy an occasional romp with Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Contemporary fiction is great, but sometimes I like to be swept up into another time and place and just be a visitor in another writer’s fantasy world. What about you? Where do you like to go on your reading adventures and with whom?
Audiobooks were a new concept when I discovered them in 1991. The assortments on booksellers shelves were mighty slim. Mystery, fiction and personal growth were the first titles, probably because they sell the best. Audio publishers stole the idea from Reader’s Digest to use abridgments, probably to keep the cost down until the idea either flopped or flew. The media then was two-sided cassettes, usually two or four tapes in a box. The tapes tangled, tore, got stuck or stretched no matter how much care was given. I remember being on a city bus once, slapping a cassette on the plastic seat over and over to get it going again. When I looked up, I was the center of attention, a difficult feat to accomplish on pubic transit. People who suffered with cassettes usually required anger management classes after awhile.
For 30 years I’d read no fiction, so all the titles and authors were new to me. Stephen King had a whole shelf to himself. There were also a slew of titles by Tony Hillerman, so I started at the beginning with THE BLESSING WAY. and kept on with them until I hit 17 books. Hillerman read most of them, and I fell in love with the Navajos, the media and the voice. I have always considered it the greatest privilege to have a well-known author read his or her work.
One day I was listening to a program on National Pubic Radio and the moderator, a psychologist and professor, said that her idea of a perfect afternoon was to curl up on the sofa under an afghan and read a Tony Hillerman book. I remember thinking “You mean that someone else besides me knows about Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn?”
News of Tony’s death saddened me, as though a close friend had died. We had passed many happy hours together.
There was an excellent obituary of him in the New York Times on October 27 by Marilyn Stasio.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/books/28hillerman.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=tony%20hillerman&st=cse&oref=slogin
Thanks for the plug, Deborah! Alan Treviscoe will soon return.
For very clever and extremely well researched Regency mystery stories, allow me to recommend Agatha Award-winning Rosemary Stevens’ Beau Brummel series. (Rosemary was one of the folks that Steve and I loitered in the vicinity of during Bouchercon,)
I’m willing to go anywhere at anytime as long as I have an interesting tour guide.
I wouldn’t want to be a dinner partner to Hannibal Lecter but I love reading about him.
I would like to be an observer of James Bond’s escapades, but not totally. I don’t share well.
I’ve been reading a few my mother read and have found Mike Hammer is to detective that House is to diagnostic doctor–I am learning to really like him. So I might like to follow him around.
I think I’ll stop there. Looking over the two, I must be one sick puppy.
Enjoyed the article.
Lillian DeLaTorre’s stories casting Dr. Sam: Johnson and (the original!!!!) Boswell as Holmes-And-Watson figures in 18th Century London are fantastic! And I’m hooked on Mellville Davisson Post’s stories about Uncle Abner (set in about the 1840’s) and Col. Braxton (set in 1he 1880’s). Both set in rural Virginia, which is the other side of the moon to this kid from the suburbs.
Nice column. Timing is everything. I’m currently reading the novel A Toast to Tomorrow by Manning Coles, written in 1940 but set during the decade leading up to the war. Even within that decade the reader gets a sense of change, moving from the late 1920s to the late 1930s. Good book. Incidentally, since timing is everything, note that A Toast to Tomorrow is the sequel to Drink to Yesterday.
Sacré Tommy Hambledon. That takes me back a bit. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
Leaving a legacy of words that make a difference in people’s lives – now, that is a gift to be treasured!
The stories I love most are the ones that feel so real I forget I am reading paragraphs of words. It feels more like I am an onlooker as events unfold.
Thanks for the column.