The Murders of Richard III, by Elizabeth Peters

The Murders of Richard III will always have a special place in my heart. I read it when I was about 14 or so... it was the first Elizabeth Peters mystery I read, and started my lifelong fascination with Richard III.

It is not the first, but rather the second novel in the Jacqueline Kirby series, written by the prolific Elizabeth Peters.

Here are is the complete list:

The Seventh Sinner (1972)
Murders of Richard III (1974)
Die for Love (1984)
Naked Once More (1989)

Librarian Jacqueline Kirby is visiting London, and being squired around by Thomas Carter, a friend of hers and an American expatriate. Thomas is a member of a society that wishes to rehabilitate Richard III - Shakespeare's play has cast him as a villain who usurpred the throne from his nephew, and then had the rightful king, and the king's brother, smothered in the Tower of London. In actual fact it was probably Henry VII who ordered that dirty deed done.

In any event, Thomas and Jacqueline attend a houseparty, in which the guests, all who believe Richard to be innocent of the murders, dress up in costume of the period. One of them has found a document that they beleive will clear Richard's name. But as the party goes on, practical jokes, in the manner of the way Richard's alleged victims die, begin to occur.

Why...and who is behind it?

The portrait [of Richard III] had an odd effect on some people. Thomas Carter was one of them. He had seen it innumerable times; indeed, he could summon up those features in memory more clearly than he could those of his own father, who was enjoying an acrimonious eighth decade in Peoria, Illinois. Thomas could not explain the near-hypnoric spell cast by the painted features, but he sincerely hoped they were having the same effect on his companion. He had private reasons for wanting Jacqueline Kirby to develop an interest in Richard III, quondam king of England, who had met a messy death on the field of battle almost five fundred years earlier.

And
"I don't know! I'm sure the letter did exist. Buck couldn't have invented it out of whole cloth. But it's too damned fortuitous to have it turn up now, after all these years. The scholarly world and the press think we're a bunch of crackpots now. If we make a big public spectacle of this - as we are planning to do - and then some goateed expert strolls in and says, "You've been had, ladies and gents; this is Woolworth's best stationery..." You can see how idiotic we would look. And...maybe you won't understand this. But we honestly are concerned with a little matter of justice, even if it's five hundred years late. A fiasco like this..."

"...could hurt Richard's cause," said Jacqueline, as he hesitated. She spoke tentatively, as if the words were too bizarre to be uttered; but as she studied the flushed face of the man across the table, her own face changed. "My God. You really feel..."

"I guess it sounds silly," Thomas said, with no sign of anger. "I can't explain it. In part, it's the fun of an unsolved puzzle; in part, the famous Anglo-Saxon weakness for the underdog. But it's more than that. Do you remember what they wrote about Richard in the official records of the city of York, after they heard the news of Bosworth? "King Richaers, late mercifully reigning upon us...was piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this city." The men of Yorkshire knew him well; he had lived among them for many years. It took guts to write that epitaph with Henry Tudor on the throne and Richard's cause buried in a felon's grave at Leicester...If there is such a thing as charisma, maybe some people have an extra large dose. Enough to carry through five hundred years.

Dated Death: The Gold Bug, by Edgar Allan Poe

Long before Sherlock Holmes of London burst on the scene, Edgar Allan Poe had invented the detective, C. Auguste Dupin, in his novella, The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

However, "The Gold Bug", which appeared before The Murders in the Rue Morgue, involves a cipher and a mystery, so I've started with that.

"His chief amusements" (the character the narrator is describing) "were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens - his collection of the latter might have been envied by a Swammerdamm.

In these excursions he was usally accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reversals of the family but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will."

SWAMMERDAMM: Dutch naturalist known for his pioneering microscopic research. He was the first to describe red blood cells (1658).

MANUMITTED: to release from slavery or servitude.
Origin:
1375–1425; late ME < L manūmittere, earlier manū ēmittere to send away from (one's) hand, i.e., to set free.
(Note that "The Gold Bug" was published in 1843, before the Civil War. Indeed, Poe died several years before the Civil War, in 1849.

HUGUENOT FAMILY: The Huguenots (French pronunciation: [yɡno]; English: /ˈhjuːɡənɒt/, /huːɡəˈnoʊ/) were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France (or French Calvinists) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Since the eighteenth century, Huguenots have been commonly designated "French Protestants", the title being suggested by their German co-religionists or "Calvinists". Protestants in France were inspired by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s and the name Huguenots was already in use by the 1560s. By the end of the 17th century, roughly 200,000 Huguenots had been driven from France during a series of religious persecutions. They relocated primarily in England, Switzerland, Holland, the German Palatinate, and elsewhere in Northern Europe, as well as what is now South Africa. A few thousand went further and settled in British overseas colonies, primarily in New York and South Carolina. The last active Huguenot congregation in North America worships in Charleston, South Carolina, at a church that dates from 1844.

According to Wikipedia, "The Gold Bug" was the most popular of Poe's stories during his lifetime, and instigated a fascination for secret codes and cryptograms (not to mention the treasure of Captain Kidd).

The black character of Jupiter has a large role in the story. He speaks as an uneducated black person spoke in those days (or, possibly, just how Poe believed that they would speak)... however, that was just the way it was back in 1843. Most blacks in the southern states were prevented from getting good educations, and their uneducated speech patterns are the result.

This island [Sullivan's Island] is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breath at no point exceeds exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some misrable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto, but the whole island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white sand on the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The scrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.

The story takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, and regards the buried treasure of Captain Kidd.

Fort Moultrie will become famous, twenty-odd years later, as the place where the American Civil War started.

Grandmother Spider, by James D. Doss

James D. Doss is the creator of detective Charlie Moon. In Grandmother Spider (2001), he is "Southern Ute Acting CHief of Police."



The Charlie Moon series takes place on the Southern Ute Reservation in Colorado.

Southern Ute tribal policeman Charlie Moon has a problem. It seems that, thanks to the imprudent squishing of a wayward spider, the giant spirit Grandmother Spider has risen from her cave below Navajo Lake and exacted revenge on humanity by snatching the research scientist William Pizinski and Tommy Tonompicket, the local carouser with whom he was drinking. Charlie knows this because the squisher was Sarah Frank, the 9-year-old ward of his elderly, shamanic, and altogether elsewhere aunt, Daisy Perika. And Daisy got it straight from a dwarfish spirit called a pitukupf.

The pitukupf half smiled, exposing jagged rows of yellowed teeth. He vigorously stirred the crooked stick in the embers under the apparition, kindling new flames. The dwarf ceremoniously lifted the helical baton like a conductor calling dark chords from an unseen orchestra. The glowing sparks swirled up the column of heated air... and the hideous image of the eight-legged creature followed. As it ascended, the grayish form took on the bright orange hue of the yellow flames beneath it. The apparition grew larger, the entrapped man struggled vainly in hope of release. And screamed piteously for someone to help him.

Before long, Charlie and his friend, Granite Creek Police Chief Scott Parris, are up to their gun belts in national security issues, mutilated bodies, hideous creatures roaming the countryside snatching sandwiches from the mouths of 80-year-olds, and the bizarre reappearance of the two missing and now-amnesiac tipplers.

Grandmother Spider is Charlie Moon's sixth mystery.

From Wikipedia:
The Southern Ute Indian Reservation lies in southwestern Colorado, USA, along the northern border of New Mexico. Its territory consists of land from three counties; in descending order of surface area they are La Plata County, Archuleta County, and Montezuma County. The reservation has a land area of 1,058.785 sq mi (2,742.24 km²) and a population of 11,159 as of the 2000 census. Its largest communities are Ignacio and Arboles.

Fellowship of Fear, by Aaron Elkins

Fellowship of Fear, by Aaron Elkins, is the very first Gideon Oliver mystery, and it is atypical of the series. It is more of a spy novel than a detective novel.



Gideon's past history is introduced, including the death of a beloved spouse. He comes to Germany as a guest-lecturer at Army Air Bases in Germany...only a lot of people seem to think he's much more... like a spy.

Here are a few sample paragraphs:

Gideon Oliver was not a conventionally handsome man, and he knew it. He also knew that his big frame, broken nose, and soft borwn eyes gave him a gentle ruggedness that many women found attractive.

He was by no means on the prowl. His wife of nine years, whom he had loved wthi all his soul, had died in an automobile accident two years earlier, and just as he had found no one to compare with her when she was alive, he had found no one since, and he wasn't even looking hard. Still, even if not overtly susceptible to women, he was by no means immune, and felt, through the wine-induced lassitude, a familiar stirring whenever Janet rearranged her long legs and looked briefly at him wiht unmistakeably friendly intent.

The other two at the table had contributed less to the evening's pleasures. Bruce Danzig, the faculty librarian, was a fussy little man with fussy little hands and feet and a neat little lump of a pot belly - like a cantaloupe - across the exact center of which his belt lay. He delivered his words with irritating precision, pursing and stretching his lips lest a single phoneme emerge incompletely rounded.

On Gideon's other side, between him and Janet, saw Eric Bozzini, assistant professor of psychology. Three times during the meal he described himself as a laid-back Californian, and groomed himself for the part: long hair, neatly trimmed into a sort of boy cut below the ears, a Pancho Villa mustache, tinted glasses that never seemed to come off, and an open-throated shirt revealing some sort of canine attached to a thin, gold chain and nestling on a tanned, hairy chest. But at something near Gideon's own age of thirty-eight, the image was wearing a little thing; a widow's peak was discernible under the brushed forward hairline, the face was a little fleshy, the chest a trifle puffy and soft-looking. Even the bronze skin seemed sunlamp induced.

The series
Fellowship of Fear (1982)
The Dark Place (1983)
Murder in the Queen's Armes (1985)
Old Bones (1987)
Curses! (1989)
Icy Clutches (1990)
Make No Bones (1991)
Dead Men's Hearts (1994)
Twenty Blue Devils (1997)
Skeleton Dance (2000)
Good Blood (2004)
Where There's a Will (2005)
Unnatural Selection (2006)
Little Tiny Teeth (2007)
Uneasy Relations (2008)
Skull Duggery (2009)

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, by Carola Dunn

1923 Remington Portable typewriter

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker, by Carola Dunn, takes place in 1923. It is the tenth Daisy Dalrymple mystery. Daisy is now married to Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard. They are on their honeymoon. While ALec is in Washington consulting with the US government Daisy visits New York to see her magazine editor (for she is a writer, making her living by selling articles to magazines, a British Nellie Bly).

While at her publisher's, she sees Otis Carmody, the "murdered muckraker" of the title, shot, and then plummet to his death down an elevator shaft. Daisy at once sets out to solve the mystery.

At one point in her adventure, she meets Bessie Coleman, the first black woman to earn a pilot's license, who had a barnstorming career from 1921 to 1926, when she will die after falling out of a plane (in which she was not the pilot) while scoping out her stunt flying routine at the local airport for an up-and-coming airshow. (Bessie Coleman's presence is incidental to the plot, any aviator would have done. It's strictly an "appearance."

Some sample paragraphs:

Voices raised in anger: in the quiet when the clacking of the typewriter keys ceased, as Daisy reached the bottom of a page, the uffled sound came through the wall from the room next door.

It was not the first time. Apparently her neighbor was not of a conciliatory nature. This time there were two men and a women, Daisy was pretty sure, but try as she might, she could not make out the words. None of her business, she told herself firmly, and turned her attention back to her work.

Squealing, the REmington reluctantly released the two sheets of paper and the carbon between. Daisy ysed them to fan herself. Not yet accustomed to the indoor temperature preferred by New Yorkers, and bred as she was to an age-old tradition of roaring fires tempered by icy draughts, she found the hotel room stifling. Her battle with the balky radiator had been less successful than that with the typewriter provided by the management.

A Question of Motive, by Roderic Jeffries

Inspector Alvarez is a Mallorcan detective, and A Question of Motive (2009) is the latest book in the series. Alvarez is unmarried, straight, who enjoys drinking (but not to excess), and, while slow to get started on an investigation, invariably finds his man (or woman) once he gets on the scent.

Some sample paragraphs:

Alvarez drove slowly through the streets of Llueso, made even more narrow by badly parked cars, to his normal parking space. It was occupied by a car with French number plates. In an alternative space was an English-plated car. Foreigner's money might be necessary to the economy, but they weren't. He finally found a space, but this left him with a fifteen-minute walk through streets whose buildings trapped the breathless heat.

At the Guardia Civil post, the duty cabo pointed at the wall clock. Alvarez ignored the unnecessary indication that his siesta had been prolonged. He climbed the stairs, went into his office and slumped down on the chair behind the desk. Man was not made to work in such heat. Man was not made to work.

Author Roderic Jeffries lives in Mallorca. Here's his bio from Fantastic Fiction:

RODERIC JEFFRIES was born in London in 1926 and was educated at Southampton's School of Navigation. In 1943 he went to sea with the New Zealand Shipping Company and returned to England in 1949 where he was subsequently called to the Bar. He practiced law for a brief period before starting to write full time. His books have been published in many different countries and have been adapted for film, television, and radio. He and his wife live in Mallorca, and have two children.

His Inspector Alvarez novels
1. Mistakenly in Mallorca (1974)
2. Two-Faced Death (1976)
3. Troubled Deaths (1977)
4. Murder Begets Murder (1979)
5. Just Desserts (1980)
6. Unseemly End (1981)
7. Deadly Petard (1983)
8. Three and One Make Five (1984)
9. Layers of Deceit (1985)
10. Almost Murder (1986)
11. Relatively Dangerous (1987)
12. Death Trick (1988)
13. Dead Clever (1989)
14. Too Clever by Half (1990)
15. Murder's Long Memory (1991)
16. A Fatal Fleece (1991)
17. Murder Confounded (1993)
18. Death Takes Time (1994)
19. An Arcadian Death (1995)
20. An Artistic Way to Go (1996)
21. A Maze of Murders (1997)
22. An Enigmatic Disappearance (1998)
23. An Artful Death (2000)
24. The Ambiguity of Murder (1999)
25. Definitely Deceased (2001)
26. Seeing Is Deceiving (2002)
27. An Intriguing Murder (2003)
28. An Air of Murder (2003)
29. A Sunny Disappearance (2005)
30. Murder Delayed (2006)
31. Murder Needs Imagination (2007)
32. An Instinctive Solution (2008)
33. Sun, Sea and Murder (2009)
34. A Question of Motive (2009)

Mallorca

Majorca (Spanish and Catalan: Mallorca) is the largest island of Spain. It is located in the Mediterranean Sea and part of the Balearic Islands archipelago, one of the autonomous communities of Spain. The name derives from Latin insula maior, "larger island"; later Maiorica.

The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca (in the municipality of Palma). The anthem of Majorca is La Balanguera.

Like the other Balearic Islands of Ibiza, Formentera, and Minorca, the island is a popular tourist destination. In Germany, the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent, Ireland, where package tourism to the island started in May 1952, Majorca has remained a popular destination.

Majorca's own language is Catalan. The two official languages of Majorca are Catalan and Spanish. The local dialect of Catalan is Mallorquí, even though the dialects are slightly different in most villages. Typically, young Majorcans are bilingual in Catalan and Spanish, with some knowledge of English.

(from Wikipedia)