by Helen Currie Foster
New reads! If, like me, you desperately miss John le Carré, consider A Spy Alone, the 2023 debut spy thriller by Charles Beaumont, a field operative veteran of Britain’s MI-6. https://bit.ly/3ZzHjHs His premise is fascinating: we know of the “Cambridge Five” who spied for Russia from the 1930’s to 1950’s—Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five But has there ever been, or could there be, a spy ring linked to Oxford? Beaumont’s protagonist Simon Sharman feels real, right from the first page:
“It is their shoes that give them away. As a lifelong fieldman, Simon Sharman hasn’t forgotten the lesson: walkers might change their jackets, pull on a pair of glasses, even a wig. But nobody changes their shoes on a job. Look at their shoes. “
I was hooked. Warning: Beaumont’s book is contemporary, well-written, tense, and may interfere with sleep.
Two other recent reads: old adventure and a new “adult fantasy.” I’d never heard of The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson (1954).
Set from 980 to 1010 A.D., the book recounts the wide-ranging adventures of Norseman Red Orm Tostesson, and the collision between Christian priests (the “shaven men”) and the Norse culture of Skania at the south tip of Sweden. Now I know what it meant to go “a-viking”—to go sea-raiding! 500 pages, with Red, a very engaging Norseman. Great maps, too.
The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods (2024), offers time travel between the 1920’s and 30’s in Britain, and the present; a search for a lost Brontë manuscript; a disappearing attic; and disappearing and reappearing characters. I confess I flipped through big chunks, relieved when true love finally won out after two women, generations apart, survive appalling treatment. The disappearing attic reminded me of Susan Cooper’s Over Sea, Under Stone, and of course the wardrobe into Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I’m always up for secret doors.
I’m rereading a fascinating and fairly demanding study by Graham Robb, who has probably bicycled and walked further in Britain and France than most humans:
In The Search for Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts (2013), he describes how the Keltoi, or Celts, developed a system of surveying based on a midline transected by the lines of the summer and winter solstice to estimate travel distances and times—a feat not replicated for centuries. He maps the Heraklean Way, the path from southwestern Iberia that runs northeast across the Pyrenees to the Alps along the diagonal of the solstice sun, which Hannibal took when he invaded Italia. He describes Druid schooling (20 years to learn) and maps out protohistoric forts which turn out to lie along survey lines. He provides amazing maps. Two ongoing lessons from Robb’s devoted research: the winners write history; and humans tend to underestimate the accomplishments of earlier civilizations.
Several of you asked about the three burros, given the recent cold snap. Thank you, they’re well. Their hair’s not waterproof so in cold rain they gather on the south side of the stable, under the roof, safe from rain and the north wind. They were relieved to see green grass again after the drought broke, but they’re also eating—and rolling in––green hay. And mud!
Yet despite hay, they gather outside the gate every morning and afternoon for carrots. They consider this part of their deal.
Burros are curious. They amble over to watch us garden and hang up laundry. They need company. They graze near each other. They may live into their 40’s. Sebastian, the short stubby knock-kneed male who invited himself to live here, may be 35 or more. Amanda (who insists I tell you she’s registered, with papers) may be 20. Her daughter Caroline is 12. Sebastian deems it his duty to bray loudly when any person or car appears at the end of the driveway, and to welcome the sun every morning with a stunningly loud bray. Now both Amanda and Caroline have begun to bray occasionally.
Only donkeys can bray. Unlike horses or zebras, donkeys begin a bray on the inhale and continue braying on the exhale. They have great hearing—supposedly they can hear another donkey bray 60 miles away.
They especially detest canids and will attack, dance on and kick dogs, coyotes, bobcats, foxes. A spooked horse will run away: donkeys stand together until they decide what they’re going to do. This morning, leaving for the post office, I saw the three donkeys standing together, knees locked, ears cocked, eyes fixed on two trespassing dogs who’d strayed across the cattleguard and into the donkeys’ domain.
The dogs immediately acknowledged their gross error of judgment, raced frantically away and never returned.
If donkeys could read (wait—maybe they can, but have trouble turning the pages), I predict they’d prefer mysteries. They enjoy puzzles (like how to lift the chain and invade the fenced garden).
Humans and donkeys. We are both curious animals.
Helen Currie Foster lives and writes the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery Series north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. She’s drawn to the compelling landscape and quirky characters of the Texas Hill Country. She’s also deeply curious about our human history and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party! Currently she’s working on Book 10. Her protagonist, Alice, gets into legal drama, and matters of the heart. Alice does have a treehouse…
Follow Helen at http://www.helencurriefoster.com and on Amazon and Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/helencurriefoster
Austin Mystery Writers 