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Reviews

Review: Low Treason

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LowTreason
Low Treason
Leonard Tourney

Title: Low Treason
Author: Leonard Tourney
Series: Matthew and Joan Stock – #2
Published: 1984
ISBN: 0704324334
Publisher: Quartet Books

100 Pages a Day:  Part One – Part Two

See also:
The Player’s Boy is Dead  – Review

High treason they call it in the law.  They would with more reason call it low treason, for a man must stoop low – indeed, must crawl upon his belly like a serpent – to practice it.
(Robert Cecil, p. 211)

Leonard Tourney’s Elizabethan mysteries featuring Matthew and Joan Stock of Chelmsford, England are slight books.  Of the two I’ve read, whodunit has been fairly obvious from early in the book, the protagonists must provide proof so justice can be served.

In Low Treason, the Stocks’ son-in-law tell them his brother has gone missing.  William Ingram has received a letter from Thomas’ employer, a jeweler in London, stating that Thomas has left for adventures on the sea.

Knowing this to be untrue, Matthew sets off to London to visit the jeweler and find out what’s really happened.  Shortly after he leaves Chelmsford, Joan answers her door and finds a filthy and nearly naked Thomas asking for Matthew.

After sorting out that Thomas’ life has been threatened and he was nearly killed, Joan packs her bags and heads for London to apprise Matthew of the new situation.

Once they are both in London, it becomes obvious that the plot against Thomas is based on the possibility of his having overheard something which puts the jeweler’s plot against England with Spain in jeopardy.  Because Matthew and Joan have also stumbled onto this information, their lives are in danger as well.

They are arrested on trumped up charges and sent to Newgate Prison, a horrible place which makes the American prison system seem fair and just in comparison.   During service in the prison chapel, an explosion goes off setting the chapel on fire and allowing the Stocks to escape, despite the intentions of their enemy and his bomb.

Matthew has a very powerful friend, Sir Robert Cecil, chief minister and spymaster for Queen Elizabeth I.  It is Cecil, working with Matthew and Joan, who puts plans in motion to catch the jeweler and prove he is plotting with Spain against England.

I enjoy reading these books as a break from some of the heavier fare in my stacks, but find Tourney’s pseudo-Elizabethan style uneven. and some of the plot devices annoyingly convenient.  Nonetheless, Matthew and Joan are sweet, lovely characters who stay true to their convictions and their love for each other.  They prove whodunit and go back to their simple lives in Chelmsford.

Reviews

Review: People of Darkness

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People of Darkness Tony Hillerman
People of Darkness
Tony Hillerman

Title: People of Darkness
Author: Tony Hillerman
Series: Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee (#4)
Published: 1982
ISBN: 038057778-x
Publisher: Avon

Part One – Part Two

Tony Hillerman is a part of my formative years.  I discovered him while living in New Mexico, probably during high school.  Reading his books are sort of like coming home for me.  Even though I lived along  north I-25, and the books take place along west I-40, the descriptions of Navajo culture resonates deeply.  I can still see the vivid colors and smell the Indian Fry Bread.

In the Navajo language, the word for mole translates to People of Darkness, those who come from below.  The book hinges on the origin of the mole fetishes carried by six Navajo men, who survived an oil well explosion in the late 1940s.  These men also belonged to a peyote church whose leader had a vision which warned them to stay away from the well on the day of the explosion.

People of Darkness is the introduction of Jim Chee into the world Tony Hillerman has created.  Chee is faced with big decisions; FBI or Navajo Police, cop or singer and healer for his people.  As he gets pulled deeper into the mystery of a stolen box filled with mementos, a hired assassin and six deaths from cancer, Chee nearly gets killed himself.

Hillerman’s mysteries are kept from being run of the mill by the intersection of white and Navajo culture.  Since they’re set on Navajo land which has sketchy boundaries at best, there’s always jurisdictional issues.  FBI or Navajo Police?  Sheriff or BIA?  Some combination of that or someone else?  In Hillerman’s books, FBI almost always thinks it’s their jurisdiction.

What I’m most appreciative of are the descriptions of manners and customs.  One does not drive up to someone’s home and knock on the door.  One parks 30 feet away and waits for someone to come to the door and invite you in.

Navajo religion plays a big part in these books as well.  Navajos seek harmony and believe that a person’s illness is caused by being out of harmony.  A healer determines which ceremonies must be performed in order to bring the person back into harmony.  Cancer isn’t a disease of uranium poisoning through mole fetishes, it’s being out of harmony.  It’s Chee’s understanding of this concept and his training to be a singer which helps him understand how the pieces fit together.

People of Darkness is also the introduction of Mary Landon, a white teacher from Wisconsin.  Hillerman has Chee and Landon do the dance of inter-racial suspicions before they settle into a friendship.  She’s described as the typical white woman Chee knows so well as someone looking for a good time with him because he’s Native American.  He’s described as the typical Navajo who is suspicious of anyone white.  It’s fun to read how the dynamics change between them as the story progresses.

Tony Hillerman’s mysteries are not deep, most books run right around 200 – 300 pages.  They’re a fun way to pass an evening, and some days that’s all anyone can want.

Reviews

Review: The Players’ Boy is Dead

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The Players’ Boy is Dead
Leonard Tourney

… in the last few days she had found herself nearly overwhelmed with a sense of futility.  There was, she now accepted, no evidence for what she knew intuitively, and no safe way to bring the evildoer to justice even were there evidence to substantiate her intuition.
(pp 160-161)

Matthew Stock is a clothier with a bustling business in Chelmsford (32 miles away from London).  He is also the town constable and so is called on to solve crimes from time to time.

A troupe of players have arrived to perform at Sir Henry’s, the Magistrate, home.  But the young man who plays all the women’s parts in their entertainments has been found dead in the stable at the inn.

This sweet Elizabethan mystery features questions Matthew is quite shocked to have the answers to.  He and his adoring wife, Joan, solve the murders, which keep multiplying, together.

Fairly early on, the murderer/s are alluded to, but proving they did the deed is almost beyond the reach of Matthew because of class status.  In the end, justice will out with some help from a highly placed official in London.

Although there were rather abrupt changes in character and point of view with no indication the character had changed, I found The Players’ Boy is Dead to be engaging and entertaining.  A nice interlude from the heavier works I have been reading.