By Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte

Monday, April 21, 2025. “Jorge Bergoglio,” the Camerlengo tapped Jorge’s forehead gently with a silver hammer and repeated his birth name three times. The Camerlengo received no response and declared Pope Francis, the 266th successor to Peter, dead.

Of course, in today’s world, medical devices inform the state of man’s being, but the Catholic Church retains many of its rituals, and this is one. After declaring Pope Francis deceased, his ring was taken and destroyed using a special hammer to ensure it could not be stolen and its seal reused—a practical as well as ceremonial action.

The world is aware that the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics is dead, and Peter’s seat is empty until a new Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals. The world will observe the beloved rituals and ceremonies of the highest levels of clergy in the Catholic Church, and perhaps at this time, it is fitting to observe the lives of those of us who live the everyday, less exalted existences. Enter author Jon Hassler.

Catholicism, love it or hate it, is filled with traditions. Even today, after so many of the rules, ceremonies, and rites have been watered down, Hassler shows how Catholics are still impacted by their faith and how the changes have been received or rejected. He infuses his characters with insights and the deeper longings of our souls, to be respected, needed, loved, and part of a community. Being Catholic, Hassler writes with great authority about the perspectives and outlooks of this group of fictitious Catholics in the fictitious town of Staggerford, Minnesota. And, of course, non-Catholics will recognize and relate to these people. But why do we read fiction?

We read fiction to escape. Great adventures, mysteries, romance, and Sci-fi. But why read a book about a cast of characters whose lives are nothing special? Lives like our own, possibly? One can read these books and identify with different characters, their likes, dislikes, and situations. The progressive, touchy-feely nun, Sister Judy Juba, her obnoxious but elderly father. He wants a wife, but not for companionship as much as someone to care for him. Janet, Randy, and their young children. Father Finn and French, the Vietnam veteran with lingering PTSD, Who are these people? They are us!

Like sleepwalkers, we often move through the repetitive routines of life with our eyes half open or sometimes closed, as do the characters in Hassler’s books. In A Green Journey, we are introduced to his small town and its residents as they work their way through days of routine, nothing-special tasks. They’re not Hollywood stars, singers, or men and women of great wealth or political power. What this core group has in common is they are all influenced by the rules and requirements of being Catholic, and they are influenced by a steadfast, and still devout Catholic heroine, Agatha McGee.

Agatha is a crusty, disciplined disciplinarian and an ‘old maid’ who wants the best for everyone. She’d taught most of them over decades in St. Isadore’s elementary school. Agatha is also an old-fashioned Catholic who voluntarily observes rules that had been relaxed by the Second Vatican Council, like not eating meat on Friday.

While she does her best not to become despondent over the changes in the church, the end of her teaching career, and her aloneness without a husband or children, she involves herself in the lives of other residents of Staggerford, including her dearest friend, Lillian Kite, Lillian’s daughter Imogene, Father Finn, the pastor at St. Isadore, and a host of others. They all slog through life’s ups and downs with Agatha’s advice and assistance – or interference, depending on the point of view. While doing her best to help her neighbors, Agatha begins an innocent long-distance pen-pal relationship with James O’Hannon, a kindred spirit, in Ireland. She pours out her heart and the troubles and opinions of the community to him. After five years and a mutual growing affection, she can travel to Ireland to meet him. That trip holds great surprises for our heroine and James O’Hannon.

In the second book, Dear James, Agatha is back in Staggerford after her trip to Ireland and continues to respond to James’s letters but doesn’t mail them. Instead, she saves his in her desk drawer, unsure if she will ever fully reestablish their communications. After Thanksgiving, Father Finn invites her to join a pilgrimage to Rome with him and his brother, a college professor. There, she reconnects with James. As they work through what their relationship can and cannot be, at home, in Staggerford, Lillian’s spiteful daughter, Imogene, invites herself into Agatha’s house, searches it and finds James’s letters. Imogine reads them and is furious by what Agatha wrote. She takes an evil delight in spreading the news that Agatha has been sharing unflattering gossip about the townspeople. Upon her return from Rome, Agatha is greeted by a chill worthy of the deepest Minnesota freeze. How will they rise above their hostilities? Can they come together again?

Hassler was a gifted writer whose ability to infuse what we’d consider the mundane with deep insights into the greater, profound life that each of us contains is brilliant. As no two people on Earth have the same fingerprint, no two have identical soul prints. And therein, we find the truer meanings of the small, seemingly commonplace things in life.   

A New Woman is book three of the Staggerford Series. I look forward to reading about the later phases of Agatha’s 88-year life.

Until next time, Happy Reading.

by

Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte

People don’t stand or sit like stone statues, unless there’s a reason. They move, breathe, and respond to situations with emotions, internally and externally, and so they should in stories. Thus, the author must find words to bring the reader into the character’s heart and mind. Writers spend hours thinking about what their characters are feeling. How do we show the reader those emotions?  Eyes are one of the most popular tools to convey feelings.

Yes, those spherical bodies of different shapes, colors, and densities are called the windows of the soul. Thousands of pages have been dedicated to the power of the eyes.  There are hundreds, of eye expressions, including wild, frightened, gooey, flinty, evil and the list goes on. Each one of those words or phrases evokes a sense of the person’s feelings. For a writer, those eyes may be a windows of the story. But wait— Are they enough? How else may we show a character’s emotions?

Body language is one. He slouched, lowering his eyes. That may indicate disappointment to the reader. She flung her long blond hair back over her shoulder and lifted her chin. Conceit? Defiance? It could be either, depending on the scene. However, there is another often overlooked part of the body that exhibits emotions: hand gestures.

Hand gestures may emphasize words, or be used in place of words. Communication experts have recently added hand gestures to the lexicon of terms revealing emotions and thoughts.

An NIH, National Library of Medicine, 2014 article on gestures’ roles in speaking, learning, and creating language concludes, “gestures provide both researchers and learners with an ever-present tool for understanding how we talk and think,” and hand gestures are used in many cultures and societies.

In Around the World in 42 Gestures, we travel with examples of hand motions and their meanings and learn reasons to familiarize ourselves with them when visiting foreign lands. While polyglots speak many languages, for the majority, some prep time learning a few regional hand gestures would be easier and more effective than trying to master language skills. With hand gestures, one can say a lot with one move instead of struggling through vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation combinations, and it would be wise to understand if a positive Western gesture isn’t welcome in a foreign land. For example, the gesture we use—crossed fingers to wish good luck, in Vietnam is an anatomically-themed insult.

Tapping your forehead with bunched fingers in Peru means, “I don’t get it. I’m not smart enough, and in France, touching your index finger below the eye indicates, “I don’t believe you.” Moving on to Spain, passing your forefinger and middle finger (V formation)  down your face from your eyes indicates, “I’m broke.” Moving east to Russia, pulling your left hand behind your head and scratching your right ear, says, “This is getting too complicated.” Indeed, that is the right gesture for such a sentiment.

Coming back west, we end our short tour in Italy, a country one cannot visit, in reality or in fiction, without understanding the loaded meanings of at least some of the gestures so common in Italian culture.

Italians are universally known to incorporate hand movements with words and often in place of them. The Italian Language Center identifies roughly 250 hand gestures that are part of Italian conversations. Why so many?

“Theories suggest that the iconic hand gestures result from a long history of Italy being invaded by many nations that imposed their languages, cultures, and mannerisms. From the Ancient Greek colonization along the Mediterranean coast to subsequent invasions by the Carolingians, Normans, Visigoths, Arabs, and Germans, these hand gestures developed as a means of communication among people with no common language – and have stuck around ever since. The hand gestures may have sprung up to ease communication.”

Although many of these motions vary by region, among the most common and generally understood by all are bunching all five fingers on one hand and bringing them to the lips in a symbolic kiss, which expresses appreciation for any masterpiece, even in cooking.

There is one Italian gesture, however, one should use sparingly, if at all. Holding four fingers together and swiping them outward from under the chin can mean, “I don’t give a damn,” but it also has a ruder meaning. As a visitor to Italy, I think it’s best not to test that one.

In book four of the Housekeeper Mystery Series, Murder in the Cat’s Eye, Father Melvyn and Mrs. B. take a group of eccentric parishioners to Rome to learn about the lives of the earliest Christians. In this adventure, the reader will encounter the quirks of the travel group that could land them in the hoosegow, a series of crimes that engulf the unsuspecting travelers from Austin, Texas, an Italian detective, and several characters who are not what they seem. It will serve the reader well to understand the hand motions that are part of Italian communications. Perhaps this book will require a glossary of gestures.

Buon viaggio e buona lettura.

 (Have a good trip and happy reading.)

https://www.worktheworld.com/infographics/around-world-42-hand-gestures,

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22830562/

by Fran Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte

Coffee is a staple of life all around the world. Something I can understand and agree with. In “Coffee Facts and Statistics,” Lark Allen offers fascinating stats on the American Coffee habit.

A once famous bishop said, “Americans may not consider themselves ‘addicted’ to coffee, but the average American is physically, biologically, psychologically, and neurologically unable to do anything worthwhile before he has a cup of coffee. And that goes for prayer, too.”  The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen.

 What is coffee, anyway? A scientific answer can be found in The New Rules of Coffee: A Modern Guide for Everyone, where authors Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlson go into lengthy detail about different types, brands, and varieties of coffees. They point out, “Like wine grapes, arabica or robusta plants have their own typicity and genetic diversity.” After more botany details than one might want to read, they conclude, ‘… you’re talking about a piece of fruit with seeds inside.’ Just like wine grapes. Yes? And like wine, coffee has an ancient history.

There is much speculation about the origins of coffee. Still, all agree that coffee originated in the high-altitude forests of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya and goes back to a time when North America was yet unknown to the extant world. My favorite possibility/story/myth about the discovery of coffee is the legend of Kaldi, first told by Antoine Faustus Nairon, a Maronite who became a Roman professor of Oriental languages. His treatise is considered one of the first ever written on coffee, in 1671, Rome.

The legend takes us to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), where a goat herder named Kaldi noticed that his unfriendly goats changed after eating berries from a particular tree that grew in the forest high up on the Abyssinian plateau. They became lively and more pleasant and couldn’t sleep at night. Kaldi decided to eat the berries and found himself filled with energy. Not knowing what to do, Kaldi brought some to the Islamic abbot of a nearby Sufi monastery. The abbot brewed the berries into a drink and found that it kept him awake throughout the long, required hours of night prayers. The abbot informed other monks who tried the brew made from these berries, and word spread rapidly eastward and reached the Arabian Peninsula, then spread throughout the world. Before coming to the United States, coffee found its greatest fans in European cities.

America’s love affair with coffee is estimated to have begun as early as 1607, when John Smith, founder of Jamestown, Virginia, introduced it to the colonists. Here are other fun facts, supplied by A.I., about coffee’s rise to power in the U.S. Tracing coffee in the United States, one can find specific dates and activities. In 1670, Dorothy Jones became the first person to sell coffee in Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1697, the Dutch opened the first coffee house in New York. In 1713 a Dutch merchant presented a coffee tree to King Louis XIV of France. George Washington recorded in his diary in 1760 that he attended a ball where coffee was served. Coffee grew in popularity after the 1773 Boston Tea Party. Understandable, I’d say. One of the most interesting activities around coffee took place during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. Coffee was a standard issue ration for the Union and Confederate armies. The soldiers on both sides often ran out of food and supplies, including coffee and tobacco. Union and Confederate soldiers occasionally exchanged northern coffee for southern tobacco along the quieter fronts.

Today, in the U.S., we no longer worry about north and south for our coffee supply. We may buy it in coffee shops such as Starbucks and sometimes sit down, but we most often take it away.  In Europe, however, the takeaway culture hasn’t taken over. In Italy and France, it is customary to drink a small, strong shot of espresso standing at the bar. This is considered a quick, social interaction, with many people opting to savor it at the bar while chatting with the barista or friends. 

Some key points about European coffee bar customs: Espresso is the norm. Most European coffee cultures center around espresso as the standard coffee order, with variations like “lungo” (longer shot) or “ristretto” (shorter, stronger shot) available depending on what one prefers.  Standing at the bar to drink it is common, and it’s paid for before receiving the drink.  Morning coffee is different. While espresso is enjoyed throughout the day, milk-based drinks like cappuccino or café au lait are often considered more of a breakfast item. 

Country-specific nuances: In Italy: “Un caffè” means a single espresso, and it’s considered a faux pas to order a cappuccino after lunch. In France, “Café” refers to a standard espresso, and a “café au lait” is a coffee with a more significant portion of milk.  In Spain, the term ‘solo’ is received as a request for espresso coffee served in a small glass.  

Here in the United States, we drink our coffees sitting, on the go, in large or small containers or cups. Most Americans prefer their coffee with at least some milk and often with sugar or artificial sweeteners.

I love my coffee any time of the day, but in the late afternoon, I bow to caffeine’s power to keep me awake at night, so I cheat and switch to decaf.  

Thus, it is no surprise that the protagonists in the Housekeeper Mystery Series, Father Melvyn Kronkey, is an unusual Irishman who prefers coffee to tea, a habit instilled in him by his trusty right hand, Mrs. B. Over many a cup of coffee, they use wit, intellect and intuition to reason out motives and solve crimes.  

In book four, Murder in the Cat’s Eye, now underway on the pages and in Italy, Father Melvyn, and Mrs. B. take a group of parishioners to Rome to study the lives of ancient Christians, living in a harsh, pagan society, and how they flourished after being outlawed, and punished by gruesome deaths. But will Father Melvyn and Mrs. B. only deal with the ancient world, or will they find themselves embroiled in current crimes, death, and destruction in a strange country? Watch for it in late spring or early summer.

Meanwhile, Happy Reading!

By

Francine Paino a.k.a. F. Della Notte

     Thanksgiving fell at the end of November this year, making Christmas feel like tomorrow instead of a few weeks away. The urgency to get everything done makes it more challenging to stay in the true spirit of what Christmas is supposed to mean. Add to that the extreme commercialism that, despite our best efforts, most of us fall into at least a little, and spirituality falls to the wayside. Enter the curmudgeons who think it’s all crass, and we have a diverse group to interest.
     My offering? Instead of the commercialized pap on TV with Christmas movie after movie adding to the wreckage of the true spirit of Christmas, I prefer good mysteries with a holiday theme. Here are a few of my favorites – and not so favorite, but judge for yourselves. Of course, the list leads with the gold standard in Christmas stories.
     A CHRISTMAS CAROL, by Charles Dickens. It’s not a mystery in the truest sense of the genre, but the first time one reads it, one must wonder if Scrooge will have that epiphany. And after that, no matter how well we know the story, we cannot help but take the voyage with poor old cranky, miserable Ebenezer as he evolves from a miser and a wretched human being into a man who becomes revered by all. Even if we don’t reread the book, according to the Internet Movie Base, there are over 100 films to choose from. After our re-acquaintance with Scrooge, many other worthy stories with a holiday theme are available.
     My favorite contemporary is THE SPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS by David Morrell. This five-star mystery is set in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Morrell combines the artsy community and the beauty of Santa Fe with an outstanding spy mystery that will keep you turning the pages and holding your breath. Excellent storytelling and scene setting.
     Another five-star mystery is HERCULE POIROT’S CHRISTMAS by Agatha Christie.  Hercule’s holiday turns out to be anything but restful and merry. He’s a guest at Gorston Hall, where family intrigues and secrets are revealed and are deadly.
     DANCING WITH DEATH, by Joan Coggin, written in 1947, is interesting and fun most of the time. The middle is a bit verbose, but still an entertaining read. It takes place during the aftermath of the Second World War. Despite the ongoing rationing and shortages, Duds Lethbridge dreams of celebrating Christmas with an old-fashioned house party, the way it was before the war. She invites several friends and family to stay for the week to relieve the continued dreariness, hoping to recreate the prewar Christmas spirit, but nothing stays the same. Within a short time, Duds regrets having started this.
     New Year’s Day approaches, and Duds looks forward to being rid of her houseguests, but one of them turns up dead, and it’s believed to be suicide. In a panic, Duds sends for her dear friend and amateur detective Lady Lupin, but things get progressively worse. Everyone has a motive for wanting this guest dead.  In the end, the mystery is solved, but Duds and her guests will remember this Christmas celebration forever – for all the wrong reasons.
     MURDER ON THE CHRISTMAS EXPRESS, by Alexandra Benedict. A fun book for the season. Not the quality of Murder on the Orient Express, but it examines relationships in the setting of a train derailment and crime.
     Keeping within the confines of mysteries, for curmudgeons and sunshiners alike, If you are not in the mood to read a full-length novel, or just don’t have time, here are a couple of Christmas-themed short stories.
     THE TRINITY CAT, by Ellis Peters. Edith Pargeter, writing as Ellis Peters, first published The Trinity Cat in 1976. Sadly, crimes don’t stop because it’s Christmas, and we do well to remember that victims are not numbers, they are relatives and friends, people we know and love, even in fiction. In the Trinity Cat, beloved old Miss Patience Thompson is found murdered on Christmas morning. There are no clues to help Sgt. Moon solve the crime, until the town’s local black furry, no-name feline and local resident, called Trinity Cat, inserts himself into the mystery. Can he help, or is he just another mouser looking for number one?
     THAT’S THE TICKET. In this Mary Higgins Clark Christmas story, Wilma and Ernie Bean of New Jersey have hit the jackpot. On Christmas Eve, they’re holding the winning lottery numbers. Wilma, who is in Philadelphia visiting her sister, doesn’t know, but hubby Ernie does, and he can’t control himself. Pinning the tickets to his undershirt to keep them safe, he hits the bars in celebration, envisioning how he intends to surprise Wilma when she returns home the next day. He didn’t mean to tell anyone, but liquor loosened his tongue, and a barfly named Loretta loosened the pin holding the tickets. After hearing Ernie’s story, Loretta volunteers to drive the inebriated man home. She relieves him of his tickets after he passes out on the bed.
     The next day, hungover and terrified, Ernie asks a neighbor to pick Wilma up at the train station, and at home, it doesn’t take Wilma long to find out what happened. The only question remaining is whether or not this will be the worst Christmas of their lives or whether or not Wilma can con the con artist and get the tickets back from the thieving Loretta?
     So, whichever side of the Christmas sentiments you fall under, enjoy some good reads to relieve the stress of the holiday.
     I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Healthy New Year, and may all your readings in 2025 be satisfying and fun!