Readers and writers: A cozy mystery, the lure of fish, and a tale of a female Viking’s grave
Murder, fishing, and old Viking bones. Here’s a varied offering of good books for spring reading on the deck (if spring ever comes).
“Lemon Curd Killer”: by Laura Childs (Berkley Prime Crime, $28)
And the very last thing Nadine was cognizant of before she winked out for good, for all eternity, was being dragged … dragged into a place that was cold and dark and sticky.
Theodosia Browning, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston, S.C., is catering an event during the old city’s Fashion Week when she steps into the cooler. Since this is Theo, it’s not surprising she finds the body of a woman, face down in a bowl of lemon curd.
So begins the 25th installment of this popular cozy series by Minnesotan Gerry Schmitt, writing as Childs. This plot is a little more complicated than previous books in the series, with all kinds of suspects. Nadine, the corpse, is the sister of Theo’s sort-of friend Delaine, owner of a fashion boutique. The sisters do not get along and Nadine is especially obnoxious as she has just become an executive of a startup fashion line. Suspects abound, including a fashion photographer, a film producer, a designer, two shady investors in the fashion company and a couple with rival fashion companies.
As usual, Theo is asked to look into the murder, and, as usual, she reluctantly agrees although there’s no doubt she enjoys sleuthing. She’s more aggressive in her poking around than in previous books. And, as usual, she is lectured by her boyfriend, a detective who worries about her safety. (When will she learn to stop running down that narrow alley at night, with her dog Earl Grey, where she keeps getting attacked?) Although this is a mystery and not a romance, it would be nice to see Theo and her guy have a few hot encounters that don’t involve sharing info about murders.
Aiding and abetting Theo is her tea sommelier, Drayton, an elegant, calm gentleman who gets sucked into Theo’s adventures, and Haley, the tea shop’s Wonder Woman chef who easily turns out three-course luncheons as well as food for catered events. (Some of her recipes are in the back of the book.)
What Childs does so well is describe the workings of the tea shop and the beauty of Charleston. What dish pattern to use for the annual Silver Tea? What appetizers for the ritzy annual car show. Descriptions of how the cozy tea shop looks when it’s all dressed up for a special event is like sitting right next to the fireplace.
The crime is solved and fans of Theo’s nemesis, Det. Burt Tidwell, will laugh at how the big guy who dislikes Theo but loves her scones takes a bow at the end.
“At the Lake”: by Jim Landwehr (Cornerstone Press, $22.95)
For myself, perhaps the biggest thrill of the sport is the unkown. No one knows what lurks below the dock or the boat. No one knows how big the next fish you catch will be, or what species. Are they biting today, or not? All these intangibles add up to the eternal mystery that keeps fisherpersons coming back for more. It’s a strange, inexplicable obsession or, I daresay, affliction, which stays with a person throughout their lifetime.
Landwehr, who lives in Waukesha, Wis., grew up in St. Paul. His previous memoirs include “Cretin Boy,” about attending Cretin military high school, and “The Portland House,” about living on St. Paul’s Portland Avenue as a kid in the 1970s His love for camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area inspired “Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir.”.
“At the Lake” is about Landwehr as an adult. Although he writes about lakes, what he’s really interested in is what’s beneath the surface. That would be fish. Sunfish, northern pike, bass, walleye, trout, and the mighty muskie, known for its aggression and fighting spirit.
His book is divided into 15 chapters, each set at a different lake in Minnesota or Wisconsin, from Hibbing and Forest Lake to Lake Arbus near Black Rvfer Falls, Wis., and one in Alaska.
Surrounding the fish tales is Landwehr’s dedication to his extended family. He and his brothers joined their mother first at Forest Lake. As the family grew, they found places big enough for everyone, leading to great times with cousins wandering in and out of cabins, long days in the sun and lots of laughter. His memories of those times, as Jim and his siblings got to know one another as adults, is his best writing. His unspoken message is that it’s easy to lose touch with siblings unless you work to get together. Happily, his mother knew that.
Landwehr’s nonfiction has been published in national literary journals and his poetry earned him the title of poet laureate of the Village of Wales, Wis.
He will read from “At the Lake” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 17, at Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.
“The Bones of Birka”: by C. M. Surrisi (Chicago Review Press, $19.99).
Must we conclude that the person in the Birka grave was a female-bodied warrior woman or not? The researchers on the team firmly believe she was and they have stated their reasons. But the person also may have been transgender, non-binary, gender fluid, intersex, or some other classification that we have yet to identify.
In 1878, Hjalmar Stolpe, a bug scientist looking for amber, made a remarkable grave discovery on the island of Bjorko off the coast of Sweden. The small island had been a Viking trading post where artistic goods were produced, and burials dating from that era were common there. But this one was magnificent. The corpse was lying on its side, but had once been seated. It was surrounded by handsome grave goods, including games, excellent weapons, pricey clothing and the bones of two horses. This was a person of high status and it was considered the most significant Viking warrior grave ever opened.
And that’s where things stood until archaeologist Charlotte-Hedenstierna-Jonson and her team discovered, thanks to new ways of researching bones, that the body in grave BJ 581 was female. Their revelation touched off a storm in the scientific world, although the team carefully laid out their reasoning in 2017 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology after being turned down by other science-related publications.
Although Surrisi, who lives in St. Paul, writes for young adults, anyone who enjoys archaeology and the mystery of graves will enjoy this adventure into the past and the lives of Vikings, ancestors to many Minnesotans. She writes in her acknowledgments that she knew in 2018 she wanted to tell the story of the Birka warrior when she heard Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson explain the research and results at the American Swedish Institute. “Before long, I learned of the academic disputes that arose out of the research, and I quickly realized the greater implications for gender discussions. A three-year deep dive into Viking studies and related research ensued,” she writes.
Surrisi’s book, subtitled “Unraveling the Mystery of a Female Viking Warrior,” packs a lot of information into just 156 pages, not counting a glossary of scientific and Viking words and discussion questions. The author gives readers just enough information about the Vikings and when and why they conquered so many countries, as well as women in Nordic sagas, scientific developments in interpreting information from bones, and the whole question of gender roles and what a woman warrior might be like during her lifetime. Bottom line: Why were so many scientists for so many years comfortable thinking the Birka bones belonged to a man? Why so much resistance to the idea the corpse could have been a warrior woman?
Surrisi also writes middle-grade fiction, including her Quinnie Boyd mystery series. A former lawyer, she is past president of the Minnesota chapter of Sisters in Crime.
She will celebrate publication of her new middle-grade novel, “The Unofficial Lola Bay Fan Club!” and “The Bones of Birka” at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 6, at Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Ave., St. Paul. It’s free but registration is suggested. Go to redballoonbookshop.com/events.
At 6 p.m. Friday, May 19, Surrisi will launch “The Bones of Birka” at the American Swedish Institute, 2600 Park Ave., Mpls., joined by Neal Price, who holds the Chair of Archaeology at Uppsala University in Sweden and is a leading expert on the Viking Age, and Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson. $17. Registration and information at asimn.org/events.
