A writer's Random ramblings
Do literary works, especially murder mysteries, teach us anything about humanity? Yes, some recent ones do. C. Hope Clark sent me and advance review copy of the book in which she presents the reading public with another tale in the genre, Dying on Edisto. This novel brings together characters from both of her mystery series and presents other relationships at the same time. The many relationships add interesting layers to the tale of a murder in a high-scale resort area.
A close read of Dying on Edisto allows readers to learn how families and workplaces intersect. As we find out later in the book, Mackenzie, Jackie Ott’s daughter, originally worked on the mainland with those who founded Indigo Plantation on Edisto. As a consolation for an earlier tragedy, the team hired Jackie, bringing her to work with the Indigo Plantation team on Edisto. Jackie picks up the theme of protection from there when Callaway shows up to review the Plantation. She finds creative ways to protect both the Plantation from a bad review by Callaway and to keep those around her alive and well. The protection of family theme also comes about in Rose and her extended kin as they help solve the mystery in a unique way. Wayne Largo and Carolina Slade from the Slade mystery series appear. Slade finds the dead body, starting the story. Later, she identifies the substance used in the death as a weed growing around the plantation. This use of her Agriculture expertise gets her in better standing as being useful to the case. Slade and Wayne team up to extract information from some persons of interest, such as Drummond, the pirate. However, as in her other stories, her frustration with Wayne’s Special Agent badge seeming to trump her existence shows when he convinces people to do as he says while nobody seems to believe her. She also shows vulnerability as a woman when Sophie Bianchi, the yoga guru, tries to sweep Wayne off his feet and away from her. This gives us a new view into the usually tough Slade, and her an idea of the impact of the number of times Callie Morgan has loved and lost various people in her life. Eventually, work relationships arise between Slade, Wayne, and Chief Callie Morgan. Callie enters the case with skepticism. After all, they appear at first to be two vacationers who mistakenly stumbled upon a murder victim. How much help can the really be? As the novel progresses, she comes to see how they can contribute to the case. They eventually help hold crowds and mayhem to minimal levels and question witnesses. Callie also must overcome a huge hurdle in Detective Roberts. She also leads him from resenting into sharing information in the spirit of assisting her. She ends up bringing detectives and officers from several agencies together in teamwork to solve the case. This shows how a small of stature person can dig in and show the raw courage to lead many to a common cause. A novel such as Dying on Edisto deserves space not only on every mystery fan’s bookshelf, but in school curricula as well. It teaches the reader in a readable way about how people learn to co-operate and even make friends while performing job functions. Since the novel makes men and women equally important, it shows a great way for society to function. This, in addition to how the relationships come together, show that many segments of society can integrate into a functional whole, thus teaching important lessons about people.
0 Comments
This Women’s History Month, I turned on the television several times to find pleasant surprises. Amidst the otherwise depressing news, WDVM-25, based here in Hagerstown, Maryland, chooses to celebrate women. In the segments I’ve caught so far, and what I found on https://www.localdvm.com, this effort appears to contain a two-prong approach, leading to their main broadcast about women on March 28, 2019, at 9 PM. The idea so far seems to weave together women in history and those making history today.
The women in history idea, from what I have seen, did not comprise simple lessons from the past. In one main segment, the reporter showed where the Women’s Suffrage movement began. In Seneca Falls, New York, the National Women’s Hall of Fame recently outgrew its building. Building tradeswomen make up the crews reconstructing the Seneca Knitting Mills building across the street from where Women’s Suffrage began into the new Hall. They hope to finish in time to induct the Class of 2019 in the fall. Hearing this report greatly excited me and my daughters, as none of us had heard of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Profiles of women in politics, journalism, music, and everyday life abound in the series. They run the gamut of race, age, and socioeconomic groups. The discussions even include items such as a professor visiting from India who compared the treatment of women in nations around the world. She found that the United States falls toward the middle of the statistical heap, while India still has a long way to go. While the series follows the news in telling how many women have joined the ranks on Capitol Hill in Washington, it also takes time to highlight one in particular. Locally, Senator Shelley Moore-Capito stands as West Virginia’s first female Senator. The series also takes time to tell the story of Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to hold the chair as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and that of Maryland First Lady Yumi Hogan. Going from politics to community service, Alma Powell, the wife of General Coli Powell, helps tell her own story. She brings to light how a military wife, moving all over the globe, can still volunteer time with charities. The series shows Viola Davis, an acclaimed actress, bringing her craft to youngsters in the community where she grew up and attended school. Then, other stories in the group show the community service ideal trickling down in many forms. It shows several stories of first-generation women in law enforcement and journalism inspiring others to join the ranks. The series even shows stories of everyday local women helping others through shining lights on stories of food insecurity and homelessness. With this much work going on, both in history of old and that being written today, a simple post such as this cannot cover everything in trying to discuss a series of television and internet episodes. I highly encourage anyone wishing to learn more about what I mention here to visit http://www.localdvm.com and watch some episodes. Thinking about International Day of the Woman and Women’s History month brings many questions for parents and educators alike. How can we responsibly highlight the place of women in society? After all, many fields would not be complete without “the fairer sex.” If we don’t highlight women’s accomplishments all year alongside men’s, how can we begin to create gender equality?
Literature presents many examples of women, both before and after women’s liberation. In earlier times, women hid behind masculine sounding aliases to procure publication. We could study about why society made it so and how we can notice stylistic differences between women’s and men’s literature. Also, we can draw similarity and difference in how the sexes go about creating poetry, essays, and short stories over time. Many students would probably find lessons of women going from the pseudonym era of George Eliot to those using their real names, as did Louisa May Alcott. The novel form, having evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as women gained fame on their own, gives us a window into how women evolved with the times. In the mystery category alone, a study of how things changed from Agatha Christie to C. Hope Clark can show how people and the societies they inhabit change as literature reflects those values and concerns. Science and mathematics have their own female role models. In math, the ladies profiled in the recent film “Hidden Figures” cross from Black History Month in February to Women’s History in March, as they belong to both categories. These “calculators,” as NASA called their job, did most of the math behind how to launch spacecraft and bring them back to Earth. In science, many people point to Madame Marie Curie in physics and chemistry as an important woman. Although she maintained importance alongside her husband in discovering many elements on the Periodic Table, her generation contained many other seminal women in various branches of math and science. A simple Google search of “important women an math and science yielded articles from http://www.smithsonian.com to http://www.interestingengineering.com giving lists of women who contributed great things to these fields. Women also represent humanity in large numbers in the computer science field, from programmers out of college to upper echelon members like Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Marissa Mayer of Google and Yahoo fame. The arts and social studies teem with women of all kinds, from teachers to ballerinas, actresses to visual artists. Artemisia Gentilischi, an active painter during the Italian Renaissance, brought women from the lowly position of apprentice to owning their own studios. This inspired many painters, sculptors, and later, photographers, to open studios to practice their crafts and teach new artists. The onset of opera around the year 1607 brought women onstage as actresses and singers, igniting a new tradition. The seventeenth through nineteenth centuries welcomed women into artistic dance performances in various places, such as the Royal Danish Ballet. In American history alone, we find everything from Sacagawea leading Lewis and Clark’s expedition to the recent spate of female leaders, including first female Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Thus, no matter the subject or time frame, women provide many important contributions to history. A simple search on Google of “women in” plus the name of a field of interest will give may websites. Looking around Wikipedia for the ones we can rely on will yield many ideas. From there and what those of us who have existed for some time know, we can lead the young on how to acknowledge and recognize women at this important time. Is tasting new styles and flavors of beer your idea of a good time? Looking for new pairings for a meal or snack, or even a beer that can be a snack in itself? Schlafly Stout Bout Variety Pack Beer from St Louis, MO provides beer for these occasions in a 12 pack. It comes comprised of 3 each of Raspberry Coffee Stout, Mexican Chocolate Stout, Dulce de Leche Stout, and Mango Ancho Stout.
Raspberry Coffee Stout presents itself as very coffee-forward with a background of raspberry. Likely good with chocolate desserts or other pastry/Danish type treats, it packs quite a flavor punch due to the coffee and could be a breakfast beer for those wanting something new at breakfast or brunch time. It comes with a label which describes it as having “opulent aromas of raspberry and coffee with a flavor that perfectly balances the sweetness of real fruit and the boldness of coffee.” Raspberry coffee stout lives up to the billing although the raspberry is very subtle. Mexican Chocolate Stout tastes like a Mexican hot chocolate in beer form. It has cinnamon, coffee, and chocolate undertones which add to the depth of flavor in this beer. Mexican chocolate stout comes across as a mocha style coffee-chocolate combination with the cinnamon. Its label claims it is “brimming with chocolate and cinnamon flavors balanced with the creamy roastiness of a sweet stout.” This gives it a very apt description even for those of us who don’t often drink sweet style beer. This would pair well with chocolate or fruit-based dishes and pastry in general for brunch as well as dessert or snack, or one could drink it as a dessert or snack in and of itself. Dulce de Leche Stout bears the flavor of a tres leches cake. It contains caramel and coffee undertones to balance out the rich, dark beer. The label says it is “unapologetically rich and creamy” where “cinnamon, mocha, vanilla, and caramel flavors blend with a silk foundation in this decadent dessert stout.” True to this description, it has a style that is very creamy for a beer and would work great as its own dessert/snack or accompaniment for those eating occasions. It also presents itself as a wonderful nightcap for lovers of fancy mocha and other coffee drinks. Mango Ancho Stout easily contains more ancho pepper flavor than mango. It gives off only a slight hint of the latter for balance so it would a match with spicy food rather well. It would also make a good pairing for burgers, stir-fry, and any dishes with avocado or artichoke hearts. The label says Mango-Ancho Stout “opens with the sweetness of mango and finishes with spicy sting of ancho pepper,” which rings true as one drinks it. Fans of any type of hot pepper would love this style of beer alone or with food. In short, beer sampler boxes give people a method of trying new flavors. The Schlafly Stout Bout Variety Pack will not disappoint those who enjoy variety. With it range of peppery to chocolate to smooth mocha caramel, it gives a great range. This makes the grouping well worth the try. |
AuthorStuff about me: Archives
June 2020
Categories |