Worldwide Mystery, paperback, September 1994.

I picked this up in a bookarama in 2007 and some time later heard that the author was dead. I was annoyed about that, as I was also given to understand that this was her only book. I liked the background and the characters and muttered again my mantra that, ‘good authors have no right to stop writing or die!’ What was my surprise when looking up something else, I found that the lady had gone on to write four further books in this series before her death in 2005. I now need to see if I can lay hands on those. Would anyone who can offerme  paperbacks of the other 1-4 either free, in swap for a book or two of mine, or at a fair price, let me know.

The mystery’s background locale is the small town of Purple Sage, Jolie Wyatt is very recently divorced from her second husband and Jolie and her son Jeremy (from her first marriage) are living in the town now, and not on the Wyatt ranch with Matt. Jolie is managing, having a job as campaign manager for her friend Diane’s husband who is running for mayor and attending meetings of the Purple Sage Mystery Wtriters group. All is well until the judge, regarded as the patron saint of Purple Sage is murdered, using the exact method and poison Jolie created for the mystery novel she’s writing. So was her method stolen by one of the writers, by the policeman who helped with her research, or by someone they told? And why should anyone kill an old man who had done so much for the town? Or was he, perhaps, not quite the saint that everyone claimed him to be?

For her own sake as chief suspect, Jolie starts investigating, and finds that either the town really believes she did it, or someone is stirring up the inhabitants against her. A rock through a car window, an physical attack on Jolie in the dark of her own garage, a car following her, where will it end, in her death or her discovery of the killer, and what about Matt, her ex-husband who is still around? I liked this book, it was a good read with interesting characters, a clever murder method, and well-written peripherals such as the other writers in Jolie’s group, the Mayoral campaign, and the problems that Jeremy has with his mother being chief suspect. I recommend it (and hope to lay hands on the other four at some stage.)

Published 1999, paperback. Firebird books.

The truth is, and some readers will think it heresy, I never much liked Peter Beagle’s writing until I ran across this book. Jennifer Gluckstein moves with her mother to a 300-year-old farm in Dorset, England, to live with her new stepfather and stepbrothers, Julian and Tony. Jenny discovers Tamsin Willoughby, the ghost of the original farm’s owner’s daughter. Jenny befriends Tamsin and is drawn into reliving the tragedy of Tamsin’s peripheral involvement in the Monmouth Rebellion and through Tamsin finds herself confronting The Billy Blind, a pooka, the Wild Hunt, and the ghost of the notorious Judge Jeffries.
I found it a story that is engrossing on a number of levels and very re-readable. Since 1999 I’ve gone back and read it three times since the original reading and found it excellent each time. One of the fascinating things to me has been how very well the author, an elderly male, managed to transpose himself into the skin of a thirteen-year-old girl. I loved Jenny’s relationship with her cat as well. This is a terrific book and I recommend it strongly as a gift to any teenage girls in the family in particular, and to fantasy-lovers in general. It left me too feeling wistful that I am unlikely to ever visit Dorset.

Published May 2014, paperback, 20 stories, also bios, glossary. Minor internal (attractive) artwork

Reviewed Steve Johnson.

As a theme anthology this worked quite well. I didn’t like several of the stories, but all over it had more that I enjoyed than those that I didn’t, and some of the ‘didn’t’ was personal taste rather than quality. The opening story by Lorraine Williams, First Day On The Job, set the tone extremely well, and that continued through Lyn McConchie’s Unbroke to the Potter, (a terrific retelling of an old tale) past fine stories by Eileen Mueller, another by Ms Williams, and one from Tracie McBride. The anthology is more solidly linked to its theme than is usual with many theme anthologies and I felt that perhaps some of the authors had strained a bit to make that bond. Overall, however, a nice job, with cover, art, and presentation all well up to quality.