17th Century New England Witches: Fact and Fiction

For the past two weeks, I haven't been reading much because I wasn't taking the bus every day, but I did manage to finish a novel by Alice Hoffman, The Probable Future.  As with all her novels, this one was about generations of women and their relationships with each other and the men in their life.  And there's always an element of magic with Hoffman's work; this story was no exception. In the case of the book's main characters, the Sparrow women, the magic goes all the way back to the 1600s in Massachusetts, with the appearance of a mysterious girl who walked out of the woods one day speaking gibberish, who attracted flocks of sparrows that perched on her as she worked in her garden, and who was later found to be unable to feel pain.  They took her for a witch, of course, and executed her for her supposed "crimes."

Her descendents all suffered in some way for their ancestor's deeds, and the story is in part about how they deal with that legacy.  It was a good story, compelling but with a nice, comfortable pace. There were mysteries to be unraveled for each generation of Sparrow women, and problems that found satisfying solutions by the end of the book. I recommend it highly.

In keeping with the theme of early Massachusetts, witchcraft and mysterious happenings, I'm now reading a history book, The Devil of Great Island: Witchcraft & Conflict in Early New England, by Emerson W. Baker.  Mr. Baker is a history professor at Salem State College, and so he knows his witches.  The book tells about some strange doings in Maine and Massachusetts in the late 1600s (incidences of lithobolia, for instance) that many people of the time attributed to witchcraft; since then, they've been attributed to ghosts, poltergeists, and extraterrestrials.  It's pretty interesting so far, though I'm only about a quarter of the way through.

I started this book once before when I bought it to read about one of my ancestors, Jane Walford, who was one of the people featured in the stories.  I had put it aside because I was already involved in another book.  But now I'm committed to finishing it.

I'll let you know how things come out next time.

From a Pirate King to an Old, Bold Detective

I finished the Laurie King novel, Pirate King, then went on to the latest Michael Connelly mystery novel, The Drop, featuring Harry Bosch, aging police detective.  Pirate King finally got fast paced at the end, when the principals got kidnapped, managed to escape and unravelled the mystery at last.  It was quite satisfying and I was sad to see it end. As I've probably said before, I recommend this Sherlock Holmes' wife series highly.  Start with The Beekeeper's Apprentice if you want to get into it.

Michael Connelly is a very good writer; his plots are complex and his characters flawed and therefore quite believable. This one had me guessing until the very end--always a good thing in a mystery novel.  It was about two cases: one a cold case that caught a break when a DNA search came up with a hit. The other was about a councilman's son who took a dive off a building but it wasn't clear that it was a suicide.  There were complications in both cases: the cold case's suspect had been only 8 years old at the time of the rape and murder of a young woman.  The hot case was complicated by the councilman's son being the son of Harry's old nemesis in the department--former police chief Irving, who claimed he wanted the truth to come out, and let the chips fall where they may.

I'm not sure what I'll get into next, but I'll let you know next time!

From Nazi Beasts Back to Pirate Kings

Well, I finally finished In The Garden of Beasts and it was a very interesting book. I highly recommend it.  The Dodds managed to complete their tour of duty in Nazi Germany without being physically harmed, but in the end their eyes were opened to all that was going on and could not, by that time, be prevented. 

The Dodds actually stayed only until 1937, but by 1934 William Dodd knew that he had been wrong about Hitler and his regime.  He stayed, trying to show his distaste for the regime, but his actions changed no minds at home and he was ultimately replaced by an ambassador who somehow managed to be more accomodating to the Nazis.

Back in the U.S., Dodd spoke out about what was happening, urging people to get involved in stopping Germany's aggression.  Starting out as a neutral party who wanted to stay out of Germany's politics, Dodd ended up a hero of sorts, though one who tried and failed to get the predominately isolationist U.S. to intervene before it was too late.

I had a chance to go to a talk by the author recently, in which he mentioned the goals he had in writing the book.  It was gratifying to find that what he wanted me to get out of In the Garden of Beasts is exactly what I got. Erik Larson is a great writer; I highly recommend any book written by him.

Once I was done with In the Garden of Beasts, I returned to my Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes novel, Pirate King.  It's pretty detailed and doesn't have the breathless pace of some mysteries, but I'm enjoying it, nonetheless.  I'm about half-way done, and Sherlock Holmes has finally arrived on the scene, so it should get even more interesting from here on out.

I'll let you know how things turn out in my next report.