mystery – Triple Take

Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett

From the back cover:
It is the time of the annual Midsummer Fair in the royal city of Astreiant, and the time of the conjunction of the spheres approaches, heralding the death of the monarch. Each year a few youngsters run away from home to go on the road with traders, but this year a far larger number of children than usual have gone missing during the Fair. Someone is stealing them away without a trace, and the populace is angry.

Nicolas Rathe, a city guard, must find the children and stop whatever dark plan is being hatched before the city explodes into chaos.

Review:
It took me nearly three years to finish reading Point of Hopes, and two months to write this review after I finally completed it. Those facts should give you a good indication of just how riveting this mystery isnâ€™t.

Nicolas Rathe is a â€œpointsmanâ€ (basically a policeman) in the city of Astreiant. When dozens of children suddenly go missing, Rathe is on the case. He enlists a few friends to helpâ€”Philip Eslingen, a foreign mercenary to whom Rathe seems to be attracted, and a necromancer buddy from the local university who was, for some reason, played in my head by Paul Bettany. Primarily, Ratheâ€™s investigation consists of visiting various parts of the city and talking to people to no avail, until finally a bit of evidence turns up on page 279. The three guys collectively put the pieces together, and I really liked the bits where they were working in concert. Too bad they were only together in the final 70 pages!

Thankfully, the setting of Point of Hopes is more intriguing than its central mystery. For one, gender equality is absolutely the norm. Just as many women as men participate in professions seen as traditionally male in our society, and many women are in positions of power. In the fantasy setting of Astreiant, your occupation is determined by the alignment of the stars at your birth, which reads to me as a metaphor for objectively selecting people for a job based solely on their abilities. Equality of sexual preference is also a facet of life in Astreiantâ€”itâ€™s not that same-sex relationships are merely tolerated: theyâ€™re commonplace. No one would think of considering them invalid or sinful.

Aside from not being very exciting, the most irritating aspect of Point of Hopes for me was the dire need for better editing. There were many, many, many instances where a comma was used in a spot that needed a semicolon and many pages that suffered from wall oâ€™ text syndrome. I canâ€™t help but feel like it wouldâ€™ve read faster if it werenâ€™t so dense-looking. Lastly, I wonder at some of the names. I tend to think charactersâ€™ names â€œaloudâ€ in my head, and while this is obviously not a problem for the lead characters, I was stymied by names like â€œCijntien.â€ Plus, itâ€™s weird to have fantasy names like that alongside such normal ones.

Anyway, there is a sequel to this entitled Point of Dreams. I own it, so will likely read it someday, but at the rate Iâ€™ve gone with this story thus far, I wouldnâ€™t expect a review until at least 2015!

Hallowed Murder by Ellen Hart

From the back cover:
The police call Allison’s drowning a suicide, but her housemates at her University of Minnesota sorority insist it was murder. That’s when alumnae advisor Jane Lawless steps in to find out the truth.

Abetted by her irrepressible sidekick Cordelia, Jane searches for clues, and what she finds is as chilling as the Minnesota winterâ€”for in those icy drifts, at a lonely vacation house, she risks everything to ensnare a cunning killer…

Review:
Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless has volunteered to serve as an alumnae advisor for her former sorrority, Kappa Alpha Sigma. One morning, while out exercising with her reluctant friend, Cordelia Thorn, Jane discovers the body of one of the girls, Allison Lord. When the local police are quick to dismiss Allison’s death as suicide (which they attribute to confusion over her sexuality), Jane decides to do a little investigating of her own, eventually concluding that she’ll need to set herself up as bait to catch the killer.

I didn’t outright dislike Hallowed Murder, but it does have some major problems. Most significant is the fact that the culprit is not a surprise, thanks to a brief opening chapter that reveals their motive. Other aspects of the mystery are less transparent, though, and Hart at least managed to make me briefly suspect other characters. Speaking of the characters…. Jane is okay, and I like the aura of sadness that clings to her after the death of her long-time partner, Christine, but her friend Cordelia seems to have just one modeâ€”obnoxious. Jane’s brother makes a couple brief appearances, but he is utterly insubstantial. Then there are the victim’s three closest friends, one of whom we scarcely meet before she apparently drops out of the sorority off-camera. Again, it’s not exactly bad, but it’s all quite superficial.

The same can be said of Hart’s writing style. As I look now at the quotes I jotted down, they don’t look so objectionable, but while I was reading they were jarringly simplistic. Too much tell, not enough show. Here are a couple of examples:

The early morning mist had settled around the base of the old bridge, making it appear to float above the water. It looked like a stage set. A perfect setting for a murder. Cordelia shuddered at her own morbidity.

Jane looked around at the young man taking notes. She had never been interrogated by the police before and did not like her words being cast in stone on some stenographer’s pad.

That second one could’ve been â€œJane looked uneasily at the young man taking notes,â€ and it would’ve communicated all of that without seeming so… prim. This was a common problem, with dialogue and character thoughts frequently coming across as stiff and unnatural. Characters were also exceedingly forthcoming with their prejudices. Now, true, this was published in 1989, so perhaps open homophobia was more common, but characters with these opinions don’t even try to disguise them, and generally have no other positive attributes that would make them more three-dimensionalâ€”they’re just being used as ignorant mouthpieces. Here’s a quote from Susan Julian, another sorority advisor, after she learns about Allison’s sexual preference:

Having allowed aâ€”I even hate to say the wordâ€”lesbian in our midst would destroy our reputation. We can only hope it doesn’t make the papers. I mean, no one would feel safe joining.

I haven’t yet decided whether to read Vital Lies, the second Jane Lawless mystery. The excerpt included in the back of my paperback was not very promising, but some mystery writers do improve over time. And, of course, Hart earns bonus points for managing to mention both Richard III and Doctor Who.

Hallowed Murder (Ellen Hart)

The Plot
Minneapolis Restaurateur Jane Lawless is not a detective and has no aspirations to become so. And yet she can’t agree with the police department’s blithe dismissal of college student Allison Lord’s death as a suicide — she knew the girl slightly, and moreover, she found the body. She feels obligated to investigate, and as an alumna of Ally’s sorority, she’s perfectly poised to do so. She soon discovers the situation is about as clear as mud; Ally’s girlfriend, her ex-boyfriend, her strange brother and a host of other interested parties seem like they may have had at least some motive for murder, but no one person stands out. Eventually Jane realizes she may need to put herself out as bait in order to flush out the killer.

My Thoughts
Except for special reasons, we typically disqualify a book from Tripletake consideration if one of us has already read it. In the case of Ellen Hart’s Hallowed Murder, the first book in the Jane Lawless series, the one who had already read it was I. I picked it up ten years ago at the same time as a few other books featuring LGBT characters (as I can see from the amazon order) and my book list from that time indicates I read it. However, all I could remember about the plot was that the sleuth was a lesbian restaurant owner from Minneapolis – so reading it again would be practically as good as reading it for the first time.

The book opens with Jane and her friend Cordelia out for a brisk morning walk around one of Minneapolis’s lakes. (I lived very near the location of this opening scene and reading it brought back feelings of guilt for having not taken full advantage of living in the Twin Cities for two years.) Jane’s two dogs are attracted by something in the frigid water and when she goes to retrieve them, she discovers the body of Allison Lord, a senior at UMN and a current member of Jane’s sorority. There’s nothing to indicate foul play and the death is soon classified as a suicide/accident and the police are prepared to close the case. This does not sit well with Jane or with Allison’s friends, and Jane begins to do a bit of nosing around.

It comes out (ha ha) almost immediately that Allison, after some years of attempting to deny it, has recently accepted that she’s a lesbian. She’d been involved with a young grad student by the name of Emily and had been cut off by her father who couldn’t accept her sexuality. As Jane continues to question the people around Allison, it seems like almost everyone is hiding something that could be relevant. Allison’s friends at the sorority house have been party to covering up some thefts and peeping-tom incidents; Allison’s ex-boyfriend was meeting with her the night of her death for reasons unknown; the ex’s new girlfriend may be lying to give him an alibi; the born-again Christian sorority board member who is loud in her insistence that homosexuality is a sin has a very weak explanation for where she was at the time of the death.

In the end, Jane manages to mostly untangle the irrelevant information from the relevant and sets a trap to lure out the killer with the assistance of Cordelia and some other unexpected sidekicks.

Going into the book, I had forgotten how long ago it had been published — 1989! — and as it would probably have been written a year or two before it was published, we’re talking about 25 years ago. Which isn’t so very long, except that in that time period a great deal has changed, both technologically and socially. Though maybe not as much as one would hope. The mechanics of the crimes and the actual events of the book would need considerable retooling to match today’s technology and cultural mores. But I think the central seed of the plot is still viable even now. The idea that a sorority girl might feel the need to stay closeted? Depends a bit on the sorority and the location and nature of the college, but that’s definitely possible. That a Bible-obsessed fundamentalist might feel the inclination to go out and begin casting some stones? Very believable. Realistic even.

The mystery here does have a number of weaknesses. I’m not 100% positive this was Hart’s first book, but it definitely feels like the work of someone without a lot of experience. The writing and characterization is uneven, and there are several places where characters who seemed like they ought to be important just disappeared or weren’t involved. For instance, at the very start of the book we’re told that Allison was close friends with three other girls: Sigrid, Maggie and Kari. The four of them were close friends who apparently did everything together, including filling the important officer positions at the sorority. And yet Kari, the fourth girl, completely disappears from the story after she’s established as one of Allison’s best friends. We don’t even discover where she’s gone until well into the second half of the book where we find she’s fled the sorority house (and apparently resigned and quit?). But neither of her remaining ‘best friends’ finds this anything worth talking about or mentions attempting to visit her. Maggie and Sigrid fare better, getting significant page-time, but their interactions make it difficult to feel as if they’re really friends. They come off more as casual acquaintances.

There’s also the question of why Jane Lawless, a not-quite-closeted lesbian herself, was a member of this seemingly reactionary sorority during her time at school. At least here the incongruity is mentioned in character — by Jane’s still incredulous friend Cordelia — but I wasn’t satisfied by the response. And how did she manage to remain friends with Cordelia, an outspoken activist type if I’ve ever seen one, and still keep her own secret under wraps to everyone else? Perhaps these questions are answered later in the series, but here we’re just supposed to accept that the past happened as described and move on. Fine, but I do want my backstory to make sense.

But in spite of these weaknesses, the story was certainly no worse than the plethora of gimmicky crafter/orchard owner/bookstore owner/knitter/cat lover/librarian/reporter/party planner/cupcake baker/cookie baker/ice cream shop owner-solves-a-murder series that have been churned out over the past few years, and quite a bit better than many. Even if the premise can be boilt down to restaurateur-solves-a-murder, at least we have the pioneering fact that Jane is not straight and a well-drawn portrait of the Twin Cities to lend it additional interest.

In Short
Though the actual events of this 20 year old mystery are beginning to be dated, the plot central to Hallowed Murder is still very relevant to today: the risks and rewards of coming out of the closet and the sometimes surprising reactions of people to the news. This is the first of a series which features the Minneapolis restaurant-owner Jane Lawless as the investigator and even though the book is not unflawed, it still presents Jane as a character I’m willing to read more about. And that really must be the main goal of any series.

Nancy Drew: Vampire Slayer + Bonus Hardy Boys (Stefan Petrucha et al.)

The Plot
When Nancy, Bess and George meet the pale and creepy Gregor Coffson one night in the graveyard, they might be excused for wondering if he might be a vampire. Especially when, as time goes on, the evidence continues to mount in favor of that conclusion. But Nancy Drew is not so superstitious as that, and she’s determined to figure out what’s the real secret that Gregor is hiding. In the meantime, Bess, George and Nancy’s increasingly jealous boyfriend Ned attempt to protect Nancy from the dangerous vampire threat.

My Thoughts
Several years ago, when the first Nancy Drew graphic novel arrived, I was quite excited. While the literary value of Nancy Drew has been debated, the books have always been brisk and entertaining no matter what their incarnation. (Though I’ll be upfront: if forced to choose, my preference is for the original originals, the long form versions of 1-34.) Unfortunately, the quality of the first graphic novel was poor and, disappointed, I avoided them after that. But when we discovered there was an apparent relaunch of the graphic novels with the intriguing title of Nancy Drew: Vampire Slayer it was impossible to pass up.

It seemed we were the only ones who felt that way, however, as the volumes proved extremely difficult to acquire through ILL — only one or two libraries in the state would even admit to having a copy, and in the end we weren’t able to borrow volume 2 at all. So I ended up buying them, and in the process discovered that while Vampire Slayer 1+2 provided a “complete” story there was an even more complete story comprised of five total graphic novels: the aforementioned Vampire Slayer 1-2, Hardy Boys relaunch volumes 1-2, and Nancy Drew volume 3, which was a Hardy Boys crossover and promised to tie up all of the plotlines. Immediately, my completist compulsion kicked in and I ended up with all 5 of the volumes.

First impressions were not great: the volumes themselves are disappointingly slender, with most of the money apparently gone to glossy full-color pages when it would be better spent on a longer script with black and white line drawings (because let’s face it, the crowd they’re trying to attract is fans of manga, not American comics). Nancy Drew 1 and 2 were written and illustrated by the same team responsible for the initial line of Nancy Drew graphic novels, a fact which immediately put me on alert.

Nancy Drew: Vampire Slayer opens with Nancy and her friends Bess and George on their way to a movie, all three of them in costume for the ticket discount they’ll get. George, always described as a tomboy, is nicely androgynous and ungirlified (she’s even dressed up as a teen wolf to start with) in contrast with her cousin Bess, who’s always been the girly girl of the bunch. Unfortunately, Bess’s other defining trait — her weight (by no means fat, she’s definitely not supposed to be really slender) — is not conveyed in the drawings well at all, as she appeared to me about the same size as Nancy. But then, the Sho Murase’s art overall was fairly uneven; the characters’ body shapes and faces often elongated or altered depending on the panel.

Our trio soon finds themselves being chased by a vampire, or at least a boy with fangs which are never adequately explained. But then, in a shocking twist, it turns out he’s not actually chasing them but fleeing from Nancy’s dog who we never see or hear of again. The boy’s socially-awkward and odd behavior cause Nancy’s mystery-sense to tingle, and by the time the three of them have finished watching the movie, she’s worked herself up to fever pitch.

Her fever is not relieved when the ‘vampire’ approaches the girls after the movie and introduces himself as Gregor Coffson. His secretive behavior only drives Nancy wild with curiosity and she’s soon devoting all of her time to cultivating him in the hopes he’ll spill the beans. Bess and George and Nancy’s boyfriend Ned, left pretty much completely out of the loop, are thus left to their own devices as they spin ever more ridiculous theories as to what Gregor’s secret might be.

The editing in these two volumes is truly horrid, as evidenced by the fact that no one managed to catch the fact that “Garina” is identified by name several pages before her identity was supposed to be revealed. But even a good editor couldn’t rescue a plot this lame. It reads like something I wrote in the seventh grade.

In contrast to Nancy’s inane outings, where we take two entire volumes to meander through Gregor’s amazing secrets, the two associated Hardy Boys volumes (Crawling with Zombies and Break-up!) are not completely awful. Written by Gerry Conway (famous as the killer of Gwen Stacy) and drawn by Paulo Henrique, the main weaknesses here seem to result from a lack of pages: more space would have given more time to develop character motivations which must necessarily remain very shallow. I again think the series would benefit from a more manga-esque treatment, meaning a longer B&W book instead of a short color one.

Each of the Hardy Boys volumes contains a complete adventure tied together with several underlying plot threads — the shady person or persons behind both schemes, and the growing frustration with one another that’s causing the unravelling of Joe and Frank Hardy’s relationship. Though the plots are simple, I found them better executed, and the artwork was far more consistent (and thus less distracting). Henrique’s artwork appeared to me heavily influenced by a combination of shonen manga and video games. There were several panels I felt might have come straight out of Dragonball Z or Double Dragon. My only complaint was a very weird continuity error introduced by the artwork in the volume Break-Up: Joe and Frank are knocked out and captured wearing one outfit and then when they next appear, they’re wearing something completely different. Are we supposed to believe that the kidnapper took the time to remove their clothing and redress them like a pair of Ken-dolls? If we are, that opens up a whole new can of creepy worms that’s not actually addressed anywhere by the script.

Naturally, the Hardy Boys soon discover that the only clue as to the criminal mastermind behind the rash of Bayport happenings is a phone number in River Heights. Coincidentally the home of Nancy Drew. So the boys head off to meet up with her in Nancy Drew Together With the Hardy Boys. This volume is pegged as Nancy Drew: The New Case Files #3, though I have to wonder if it’s also serving in that capacity for the Hardy Boys series. It’s not clear. The script for this volume was penned not by the Nancy Drew regulars, but by Gerry Conway, which gives it a tone far more in keeping with the Hardy Boys books than the Nancy Drews. Unfortunately, Conway is saddled with the ludicrous plot introduced in the two Vampire Slayer volumes, so after some random happenings in River Heights, everyone heads off to Romania — because, of course, Ned has fled the country in the wake of his supposed ‘breakup’ with Nancy and is now in need of rescue.

In the end, my biggest disappointment with the “New Case Files” series was perhaps the discovery that it wasn’t really new at all: even though the books are starting again at #1, they’re actually a direct continuation of the initial graphic novel lines and frequently reference previously established graphic novel canon. It’s not clear to me why the decision was made to return to #1; perhaps there was just a hope that more people will buy something labelled #1 as opposed to #21. Because this is the case, the “New Case Files” have all the same weaknesses and flaws that were inherent in the graphic novels before – no efforts have been made to improve the product – so they’re just as lousy.

It’s unfortunate, because there was a real opportunity here to reboot Nancy into the 21st century. Giving George and Bess some real skills to make them helpful to Nancy was also wise. But like the “Nancy Drew Case Files” series from the 80s, there were some missteps. For instance, in Nancy Drew Together With the Hardy Boys, Nancy loses her temper with the sniping Frank and Joe and tries to remind them how good they are together as a pair. But really, she is angsting about her breakup with Ned, and concludes by equating “Nancy and Ned” with “Frank and Joe”. Which is just patently ridiculous. Ned is and always has been a sidekick – not even the most important one – and nothing more. Mysteries come first with her, not him.

In Short
The Nancy Drew graphic novel series continues to disappoint with the latest installments, which have been labelled as “New Case Files” and marketed as #1 and #2 of a series. But actually they’re just a direct continuation of the previous graphic novel line, which favors gloss and show over actually taking the time and effort to tell a coherent and reasonable story. Take a pass and reread The Secret of the Old Clock which is infinitely better in either incarnation.

J’s Take on Nancy Drew: Vampire Slayer

It turns out Nancy Drew: Vampire Slayer didn’t mean Nancy Drew was taking on the role of a vampire slayer. It’s just that the so-called mystery involved a vampire slayer. This is a two-part graphic novel story about Nancy Drew, which turns out to be ridiculously difficult to get through interlibrary loan. You’d think Nancy Drew + vampires + graphic novel would’ve been a definite library buy.

Not that I can recommend it to any library book selectors, because it’s pretty bad.

Nancy Drew has two friends, Bess and George. I was a little surprised to learn George was a girl, as two girl sidekicks is a little unusual. By the middle of the second volume, I was fantasizing they were a couple, just because it would’ve made things a little more interesting. And believe me, it needed all the help it could get.

Nancy also has a boyfriend, Ned. And she likes finding mysteries to solve. Even when none exist. In this story, she befriends a pale dude whom everyone thinks is a vampire. He’s being stalked by a vampire slayer even.

Let’s start with the artwork, because that’ll be quick and easy. It struck me as uninteresting, uninspired, uncreative. It just was sort of there.

Characters:
Nancy — Man, is she annoying. Mostly because of all the narration. A lot of narration. Excessive narration. Superfluous narration. And do people really refer to their friends as ‘pals’? Like, repeatedly?

Bess and George — Of course one of them, I already forget which, is like a computer hacker. Because every detective needs one of those if they aren’t one themselves. But mostly they just hang out and be girly and get themselves into trouble.

Ned — Dude sports a collared shirt and a sweater! I mean, probably this is a hangover from the original books.. that’s the only reason I can think he’d be dressed like that. Unless he’s on his way to prep school. He also gets totally jealous of Nancy hanging out with this vampire, but never actually talks to her about it in any useful way.

Vampire — This is going to be a total spoiler and ruin the mystery for you!!!! Okay, you’ve been warned. He has porpheria which means he can’t handle light and is totally obsessed with his homemade vegetable juice chock full of beta carotene. To the extent that he doesn’t seem to actually eat anything. Also, he’s rich. And he totally faints for some reason. And he’s a recluse, for some reason, so he doesn’t know how to socialize with people. And Nancy feels all protective and ‘poor guy’ because of his illness and his inability to socialize and just ugh, ugh, ugh. I was given no reason at all to like this guy. Towards the end I was hoping he really was a vampire and the whole porpheria thing was a lie, because then it wouldn’t have been so totally lame!

Yea, I won’t even bother to go into the whole… twin thing.

The mystery, was no mystery. The plot, was totally contrived. (Ohnoes, we’re trapped in the house with a vampire slayer. And I have no idea my plucky pals are right outside spying on us through the security cameras.)

Nancy’s girlfriends (ah, if only they were her girlfriends and not just friends who are girls) are obsessed with this vampire movie, “Dielight”. Which I thought was silly.. why not just name the movie you’re really thinking of? Or create a completely different movie they’re obsessed with, like “My Creepy Stalker is a Vampire” or, y’know, something. But I was willing to let that pass without comment until there was a reference to Myfacespace or.. something like that. It just gets ridiculous.

I did have to look at book 1 again to doublecheck, but nope, not a single person of color in either volume. Not even in the audience in the movie theatre. The characters come in just two shades: white and whiter.

Finally, protip — it’s spelled straitjacket, not straight jacket, ‘k? Thnx.

Also, did you know Nancy was in this vampire’s house before? In a previous graphic novel adventure starring a magician? What? You didn’t? Good thing they mention it at least three times in this one! Otherwise you’d miss out on running out to purchase it to find out what happened before in this house!!

Did I mention I hate footnotes that try to sell you other books by the same author/publisher? It’s like… let me just jar you out of the story for a minute for a commercial.

In short: Save yourself time and money and skip this.