WILL UNWOUND #326: “Will’s Mystery Project – ‘Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow’ by Patricia Harwin
January 8, 2011Lots of opinions being bantered around about e-books.
Here’s a thought: Would have I ever found out about Patricia Harwin on an e-book format?
Who is Patricia Harwin? I’m not completely sure but according to the backflap of the paperback book I am holding, she is a librarian who writes mystery books.
Where did I find out about Patricia Harwin? Not from my public library who has none of her books.
I was browsing around in the book section of a local thrift store and I happened upon a paperback copy of her murder mystery, Slaying Is Such Sweet Sorrow.
I picked the book up and read the cover and the back page and discovered that she is a librarian. So naturally a paid my dime and bought the book.
Rarely have I had such a big return on my investment.
Patricia Harwin is an excellent writer. I am on my 23rd or 24th mystery and she definitely is holding her own with the classic authors of this genre. In a word I loved Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow. It is incisively written. The characters are all colorful but quite believable. The plot takes as many twists and turns as a dipsy doodle road. And best of all, as you might hope to expect from a librarian-author, the literary references range from William Shakespeare to Beatrix Potter.
Am I a fan of mysteries? Yes, that has already been established. Am I a fan of Patricia Harwin? Absolutely, positively, imperatively ….yes!
I loved this book. It is a murder mystery for readers who love literary illusions. It takes place in the vicinity of Oxford, England. The sleuth is a retired librarian named Catherine Penny. She is a sharp tongued protagonist who won’t take no for an answer. Through many obstacles and challenges, she perseveres to discover the whodunit and whydonit of two very puzzling murders.
This book totally held my attention until the very last page. It also made me very proud to be a librarian.
I give Slaying Is Such Sweet Sorrow four stars (out of five).
I follow your blog all the time. Just finished with Joyce Sarriks RA on-line course .And for our main project , I choose cozy mysteries as ones that I loved .so very corious as which mystery author got you to love mysteries.If it is ok with you I am going to put he ron my list of mystery authors in my blog.
Huzzah…and a big thank you.
Mary Jane Maffini is another librarian/mystery author. Her stuff reflect a 5 degrees off-center world view and a particular sense of humor. (I guess that’s better than saying that she’s a nutbar.)
She has a couple of series. Her sense of place may not be as elevated as Oxford, but Ottawa ahs something going for it…doesn’t it?
Oh Canada…our home and native land
Always love discovering a ‘new’ author. Not available in our public library system but the local used bookstore has two of her novels…but not for a dime, I’m afraid.
I have a question for you, Will. If your absolute favorite author had a new book out (let’s say unearthed if said author is no longer with us), but it was only available on an e-book, what would you do?
E…first off…love finding great unknown authors in thrifts. Give me a high 5! Second…if they found an undiscovered Updike, I would maim, injure, or kill to get ahold of the text..e or non e.
Will, I’ve steered clear of reading Updike just because he was so over-sold to us students in the academic literary community. Should I read his work without passing “go” or collecting $200, and if so, where should I start?
Updike is my literary hero. He is Babe Ruth, Knute Rockne, and Red Auerbach rolled into one. Dammit why did he have to die this past year at seventysomething. Damn that freaking freaks me out. When Updike was born there was a nova star shining over his hospital. This dude had entirely otherworldly talents. His lyricism, his insight, his freaking ability to capture the stains that wet autumn leaves make on sidewalks was what? Unparalled…no that’s not strong enough. He could just capture the essence…the essence of what…of life you damned fool. His critics said he was like an elephant picking up a pea. To that I say bullshit. The man was a master wordsmith. Okay that’s half of it. The other half of it is that he could see through life. Put those two things together and you’ve got Rembrandt, Mozart, and yes, Updike. Damn why did this man have to go and get lung cancer. Yes, I understand smoking was part of the art of making miracles with words but dammit this man should still be alive. He did it all.
Dammit, Jessa, I know I didn’t answer your question, but when I get done weeping I’ll try. This man was everything to me.
*hugs you and hands you Kleenex, the really good aloe-built-right-in kind* You did answer my question, Will. Really. Updike’s going straight to the peak of Mt. Bookmore.
Jessa, thanks for the hugs (he needed that). And sorry for the incoherence. Here is a piece I wrote about Updike in a more coherent state: http://willmanley.com/2010/04/10/will-unwound-77-weekend-book-chat-who-are-your-favorite-living-authors-by-will-manley/. I will write more later when I get my wits about me.
Good to know your loathing of the ebook doesn’t extend to avoidance of beloved literature. I’m so sorry to have opened such a raw wound….
E..it’s okay. It’s just that I’ve been in denial about Updike’s death. Need to deal with this sooner or later.
If I may…to ease your heart…listen to your beloved Mozart
*sets up a free hug and quality Kleenex booth, manifests a couple of couches suitable for curling up while grieving, and brews Will some Earl Grey*
* … and discreetly sets out the Knob Creek in case the Early Grey needs to be fortified.*
Jessa, when Will is feeling a little better he will be able to make some fine and astute Updike recommendations. I’ll just mention two. One is the standard classic, or set of classics: the Rabbit books (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit at Rest; and I believe there is a novella as well, Rabbit Remembered. The first four at least have been republished in a single big volume, as well as still being available separately of course. Now I have to admit that I’ve only read the first entirely, many years ago, and part of the second. Isn’t that the definition of a classic? Mark Twain said so. But they are on my “to-read” list.
Updike is a little like Mozart for me, coincidentally. He’s not actually my favorite author, because he can seem a little too serene, to the point of being aloof, though in a friendly and benign way. But when I actually read his writing (as when I listen to Mozart’s music), I am just blown away by how sublimely he writes. And the feeling is there, as is the spirit–it’s just expressed in a subtle, restrained, almost 18th-century way.
Which brings me to my second recommendation–The Centaur. Updike has written about his childhood and his father in at least a New Yorker essay or two, but among his novels this is the most clearly drawn from his early life that I am aware of. The narrator is a socially awkward high-schooler, plagued by psoriasis (as Updike was) and both embarrassed by and deeply attached to his father, a high-school science teacher … you know what, I could go on and on and not do it justice. You just have to read the book. I’ve read and admired a fair amount of Updike’s reading. This is the one book of his that I truly, truly love. The one book of his that I sometimes had to, and sometimes could not, put down, and whose last pages I could hardly make out because I was crying so hard.
RA…Thanks for the Knob Creek and the interesting take on Updike and Mozart. That’s basically what I had in mind. By the way, here are my Updike recommendations from a much earlier post: http://willmanley.com/2010/04/10/will-unwound-77-weekend-book-chat-who-are-your-favorite-living-authors-by-will-manley/
What a great conversation, Will! I think that must have been before I discovered WU. You write convincingly and eloquently of what made Updike a great author.
And I’m glad to see The Centaur on your list of favorites. My intense response to the book has some very personal elements, including–as you might suspect–my feelings about my own late father. I can’t always trust my own critical judgment in a situation like that.
I’m tired tonight so I’m not going to rush to the defense of ebooks for a change.
However, as the acquisitions person at my library I will take your tip and see to it that our libraries purchase a copy of both Harwin books Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow and its prequel Arsenic and Old Lace and I’ll even check tomorrow when I get to work and see if we can purchase one or the other as an ebook for our digital catalog!
Thanks, Linda. You do get my point about serendipity though right?
I knew I should have checked back in sooner instead I got distracted playing Angry Birds! Yes, I did get the point about serendipity though!
Angry Birds … I’ve heard of it and know nothing about it, but I love that name.
Angry birds sounds well, very Hitchcockian.
Angry Birds is a very silly game I play on my iPad – and as the cliché now goes – there’s an app for it and I think there is an app for Android products too.
And I’m not usually into silly games but I find Angry Birds is a great stress reliever. The general premise is that these green pigs have stolen the eggs of several multicolored birds and the birds are angry! With that in mind, each scene on each level features a tall sling shot with several birds next to it the birds are on the left side of the screen and on the right side of the screen are a bunch of green pigs, who do this lowly ha-ha you can’t hit me chuckle thing and who are housed in a variety of stone, ice and wooden combination structures – and the object is to sling shot the birds at the green pigs – if you hit one you get 5,000 points and you have to hit them all to clear the level.
Some of the birds will fly faster if you tap the screen, others in cannon ball shape will explode on impact (or if you tap the screen) and still other drop exploding eggs all intended to get those egg stealing pigs.
Did I mention it was a silly game? However, it has been exceptionally popular – a great iTunes seller and as I kept reading about it, even in the New York Times, I thought I’d check it out and it is rather additive in the same way as Pringles potato chips!
I just did an online search for the author and found — on her publisher–Simon & Schuster– page that she really is a librarian. No wonder she a good writer!
The page also indicates she’s hard at work on third book in the series.
Hope it comes out soon!
Whenever you recommend a title, I check it in Amazon, or Google Books, depending on availability. Amazon, fiendish people that they are, have it and recommended a dozen similar books. Three of those have moved onto my wishlist, which is my digital Mt. Bookmore.
Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow is also available as an ebook in Sony and Kindle formats.
However, you got the best price. Amazon shows used copies available for a penny, but then there is shipping…
So, to answer your question, would you have found out about Patricia Harmon on an ebook format? Not on the sale rack of a used book store, no, but browsing the online bookshops, perhaps
emeritus…I have to quibble with you here. I found the book by randomly browsing through the haphazard bookshelves of a local thrift store. I was attracted by the cover (a picture of Oxford) and happened to notice on the back flap that the author, whom I had never heard of, was a librarian. Ergo I bought it, read it, and raved about it. Had this book not been in a physical form on physical book shelves in a physical thrift store I would never have found it. Do you understand where I am coming from? I may have found it in my local library had it been there, but it was not an author they carry. Can you say serendipity
Serendipity, indeed
Serendipity
Serendity squared…I will now check out Carlisle. Thanks, emeritus.
ARRRGGGHHH! My library doesn’t have her either!! I guess I’ll have to go hit Amazon, assuming other Unwinders haven’t wiped those copies out!
Send me your address and I’ll mail you my copy gratis from one library lifer to another.
Will, you’re an absolute sweetheart! Since I already grabbed a copy for $4 off Amazon, let the first Unwinder benefit instead….after that person promises cashews of course and a supply of Earl Grey!
Um, let the first Unwinder who asks you I mean! I’m beat from ALA and incoherent!
Many fine books are published in paperback and don’t get the critical attention or other publicity to really catch on. Those who find them are fortunate. Here are three such mysteries that I have enjoyed over the years.
Living in eastern Turkey forty-five years ago, I was laid up with a sprained ankle and an American neighbor brought over several paperbacks to help me pass the time. One was an English edition (not American) of an early mystery by Agatha Christie titled “The Secret of Chimneys.” While not all that much of a mystery, it is the most entertaining book Christie wrote, because it is an absolutely delicious satire. The exiled heir to the throne of a Balkan state is murdered at the country estate of an English lord. By the time things are worked out, Christie has sent up the nobility, the government, high society, and the mystery conventions of the time. There is one catch, though. When Dell published it in paperback in America, they bowdlerized it, absolutely ruining it. You will have to get an English edition (I have a 1958 hard cover from Bodley Head and I see that a 1965 paperback from Pan is available from Amazon). Try it. You will be well rewarded.
Then there was the paperback I borrowed from the library of an American military advisory group. It had the unusual title “Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre.” It was the second in a series of parodies of S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance mysteries by an American journalist and writer named Elliot Paul. Set in Paris in the 1930′s, it was considered extremely risqué for its day. But the first book in the series, “The Mysterious Mickey Finn” was so well done that it launched a series. Dover republished them as trade paperbacks in the 1980s. The books feature a rich American dilettante named Homer Evans, who lives on the Left Bank in Paris, and is a man of exceptional abilities, which he prefers not to use. In sorting out mysteries involving the arts, he is assisted by his mistress, a young pianist from Montana, who grew up on a ranch and is a better shot than Annie Oakley. For richly entertaining mysteries, you can’t do better.
I discovered the Tommy Hambledon series by the English writing team known as Manning Coles when I was in high school. The books are a combination of international intrigue and mystery. But I discovered one of the best in the series as a paperback. “With Intent to Deceive” is set in post-World War II London, with a colorful cast of Nazi fugitives, Argentine gangsters, and English detectives, all trying to locate a fortune in stolen Nazi money. Into this intrigue comes a newly-retired leather manufacturer, who discovers an unsuspected talent for derring-do after the man in possession of the money is murdered in his driveway. He is helped in keeping ahead of both the police and the crooks by a couple of shopkeepers with a talent for deception. It’s a delightful tale of a man finding himself while seeing that justice is done.
And by the way, I’m one of those who has already ordered Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow from Amazon. They may be sold out by now.
I ordered last night. I just checked. Presumably Amazon still has copies including from the seller I used for one cent ($3.99 shipping as noted upthread). Or maybe even with computerization they don’t update their info instantaneously? It is rather hard to believe they have tons of copies when at least two library systems do not. And likely three since Wayne says he ordered it as well! Speaking of Agatha, HarperCollins at ALA is offering you a choice of one of two titles of her works: Endless Night or And thenthere were none. Booth 2016 for anyone in SD reading this….leave one for me!
Thanks for the tip! Our library had the one you read + ARSON & OLD LACE(?). Have put both on reserve. How delicious to look forward to a new author experience!
Enjoying an E.X. Ferrars right now! Will finish THE MARCH HARE MURDERS tomorrow and start BLOOD FLIES UPWARDS. Fun! See—your mystery project is expanding all our collective horizons!
Wow, Wynette, you must have a primo mystery collection in your library. It’s the first one among the Unwinders to have it. *blushes with envy and with a blush chablis*
*Takes a bow*—-for no apparant reason—in the way people do when they take credit for things they didn’t cause.
Well, and I must clarify. Fort Worth owned A&OL—-but SISSS was technically owned by one of the consortium libraries—but same delivery truck makes the rounds and I will possibly even get it first. Fort Worth has 6 neighboring towns who participate in the “Metropac” system.
Actually when I was still working the mystery lovers were quite the force to be reckoned with. I remember when the spine labels changed from a “dagger” to the word MYSTERY—there was a near mutiny. And they are quick to point out selection omissions! I think the word might be voracious! Love it! Love the blush chablis as well. *Takes a sip*
Wynette…the dagger, despite its Macbethian importance, is not the only way to ummm kill. *Sips morning coffee and ponders that statement*
You’ll find her books in my library!
Perfect for a cold winter’s day when one should be wrapped up in a blanket on one’s couch rather than working in a library.
Congrats! Another first rate librarian…at work no less.
My local library has both Harwin titles, I’ve requested them both. Good reading for the 2-6 degree temps we’re experiencing here this week.
Now I don’t feel so bad about our 40 degree weather here in Northern California.
Both of Ms Harwin’s mysteries were sitting in the large print section of my little library. Can’t wait to get started! Thanks for the recommendation, Will.
Melissa…sounds like you have a great library. I find myself more and more in the Large Print section.
Easier on the eyes. I have also discovered that a kid with reading issues finds the large print less intimidating and will tackle something that looks daunting in regular print–Harry Potter comes to mind.
I think it may have been about ten years ago that I started to appreciate large print. I don’t yet seek it out but am sometimes happy to take advantage of it.
I’ve found, though, that a little diplomacy is sometimes in order when mentioning to a patron that a title is available in LP–even if I am just suggesting it as an alternative when the regular-type edition is checked out!