"Or Persons Unknown"

"Or Persons Unknown"
from They Return at Evening
by H.R. Wakefield


They Return at Evening is a collection of ghost stories by H.R. Wakefield.  It's his first such collection, published in 1928.  I'll be posting reactions to stories individually.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.


Synopsis:
A butler tells a tale of the ghostly terror he witnessed at his last place of employment, where his master was haunted by the spirit of a gypsy-poacher's dog.

My Reaction:
...It was ok.  I didn't feel very sympathetic toward the hauntee, though... (Not to say that I liked "Black Jack", either.) I just didn't feel much of a response to this story, period, except for at one point-- to be detailed below.

Specifics:
--  "He spent some time in America, Millin.  The United States have much to be said for them, but they're not good for British butlers.  Have you been abroad?"  Ha!  I guess visiting the U.S. gave the old butler "ideas" and weakened his allegiance to the old ways, feudalism, etc.

--  The dog is described as "a big mongrel, a mixture of collie and lurcher".  Apparently a "lurcher" is a type of dog, but not one I remember hearing about before.  It sounds kind of scary... Lurcher...

--  This was the most disturbing part of the story, in my opinion:
The hauntee (whose name I cannot remember) has just hit the dog with his car.  Purposely hit it after failing to hit the dog's owner.  Black Jack picks up the dead animal and holds him by the back of his neck.  ("'Its face was all bloody and dusty and smashed up.'")  The two men exchange threats-- and this happens:
"'Then suddenly his face went hard and fierce and there were tears in his eyes.  He shoved the dog's muzzle right into the Guv'nor's face and gave a funny little sharp whistle which seemed to scream in one's head, and he muttered something in some foreign language, gipsy, I guess, and I got the idea that the dog was listening as if it was alive again..."

--  When the butler finds his master dead, he notices something strange about his eyes:  "'There was something sort of photographed in them. ...  It might have been the head of a dog smashed up and bleeding.'"   ...That's something I have heard of before.  In the past (or maybe even still), some people believed that the eyes of the dead captured and revealed (temporarily?) the last image the person saw before dying.  In the case of the murdered, this might leave a clue to the identity of the murderer. It's a creepy thought.

--  At the very end, there's a reference to "an account of a very, very similar happening in the year 1795 in this country, not ten miles away", which is supposedly called "A True Account of the Curious Events connected with the death of Mr Arthur Pitts".  A quick Internet search reveals nothing about it, so I'm not sure whether or not it exists...

"That Dieth Not"

"That Dieth Not"
from They Return at Evening
by H.R. Wakefield


They Return at Evening is a collection of ghost stories by H.R. Wakefield.  It's his first such collection, published in 1928.  I'll be posting reactions to stories individually.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.


Synopsis:
A baronet marries unwisely, grows to hate his wife, and finally gives in to the impulse to kill her.  She returns the favor by haunting him-- or is he going mad?  (Nah, she's totally haunting him.)

My reaction:
Eh... I wasn't really creeped by this one.  The first, pre-murder half of the story was much more disturbing than the haunting half.  Maybe it was just me-- and my modern, desensitized perspective-- but most of the haunting (except one part, to be addressed later) seemed fairly mild and lacking in nuance.

Specifics:
--  Of his wife:  "She was highly intelligent in a debased feminine way."  ...What?  Can intelligence be qualified, categorized, whatever by gender? 

--  Sadly, I have to admit that I relate to the murderous narrator in his wish to avoid the social scene.

--  The narrator sometimes expresses himself with a sharp, rather cruel wit that reminds me of the little I've read of Oscar Wilde. 

--  "And then Ethel went off to twitter in butts..."  And then I said, "She whaaaaa...?"  I don't know what that means.

--  "To think that I could have been such an utter flaming fool as to have ruined my life by a fortuitous combination of pigment, cuticle-- and the way the blood shone through it, hair-- and the way the light caught it, bones-- and the way their envelope draped around them."

--  "Once I had been fool enough to regard women as mentally almost indistinguishable, and it had been merely by the physical criterion I had separated one from another in my mind."  What a great guy!

--  "'Nothing,' I said, 'is worth an awkward pause, not even the exposure of notorious evil-livers.  Some people have a sixth sense for knowing how to avoid them.  Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.'"

--  The narrator doesn't think too highly of the Riviera:
"What a region!  I have cruised the Mediterranean fairly extensively, and it is no Sea for me.  What merits the Southern Latins may once have possessed is a matter of opinion; that they retain any today seems to me untenable. A breed of pimps, parasites, and horse-torturers, the choicest surviving examples of that cretin civilisation which is Catholicism's legacy to the world.  And it has always seemed to me that members of races vastly their intellectual and moral superiors become debased and degraded when brought into contact with them, though I know the region attracts the worst."
...Wow.  How much of that is the author's own opinion?

--  The narrator's wife does seem pretty awful.  Are we supposed to sympathize with the murderer-- or just conclude that they deserve one another?

--  The narrator, when meeting Margaret, notices "the lovely junction of her legs and feet", which sounds pretty funny.  Are there any "ankle men" out there, these days, or is appreciation of a slender ankle mostly a thing of the past?

--  Until the appearance of a car (and the mention of a "flat-tyre" personality or somesuch), the story felt like it could've been set further in the past than it actually was.  Instead, we get a technophile ghost who chooses to make her first appearances through the telephone and radio.

--  Some of Ethel's hauntings fail to give me the shudders-- though the "haunting via technology" concept has endured.  (Some of the fairly recent famous Asian horror films come to mind.  The Ring... The Grudge... Pulse...)

-- The Grodiest Moment award goes to...
...that time when the narrator wakes in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone slipping into his arms... and the sense of a beating heart... At first, he thinks it's his new wife, but then he gets that creepy-crawly, something's-wrong feeling-- looks-- and sees that it's his dead wife, the woman he murdered several months ago.  "For a moment she was warm and whole, and then she glazed, swelled, and burst asunder, and became a seething bladder of corruption."  Well, gross.

-- There was an introduction that I skipped because sometimes introductions have a way of assuming that you've already read the book (which is incredibly stupid, since they come at the beginning of the book!) and proceed to give away the story.  I intend to go back and at least skim it when I'm done, though...

Hooked on Murder

Hooked on Murder  
(Crochet Mystery #1)
by Betty Hechtman

Publisher's Blurb:

When bookstore event coordinator Molly Pink stumbles across the dead body of a crochet group's leader, her complicated past with the woman makes her a prime suspect.

But while Molly's fending off a detective with a personal grudge and navigating the pitfalls of crochet group politics, the real killer remains at large. And it's up to her to catch the culprit-- before she winds up in a tight knot.

My Reaction:
It was kind of boring, to tell the truth.  (I know that you non-crocheters are shocked.  What?!  A "crochet mystery" is boring?!  Alert the media!)  However, I happen to find crochet very interesting-- and some mysteries, also-- so I was disappointed that this combination of the two fell so far short of the mark.  It wasn't unreadable, but I'm not making urgent plans to follow up with the next in the series.

Unless you count Agatha Christie as "cozy mysteries", this may have been my first exposure to the genre.  Sadly, I suspect that many "niche cozies" are formulaic and not very well-written-- but that's just a suspicion, and given my lack of experience, I can't really compare Hooked on Murder to the genre as a whole.

Judging it as a standalone novel, I'm afraid I'm somewhat unimpressed.  I had to make myself keep reading.  Maybe the series improves with the next book...


Specific Comments ("Now with SPOILERS!"):
-- The title feels weird and... misleading.  There's no-one "hooked on murder" in the book, as far as I can recall.  Clearly the author just wanted a crochet-related title, and this was the best she could come up with.  I don't know that I'd do any better, but... it sounds weird.

--  Most of the central characters are in their late 40s or older.  (Well, actually there are one or two whose ages I must've missed...)  On one hand, this plays right into stereotypes about who crochets.  On the other hand, maybe that's the author's target audience.

--  One positive with an older protagonist?  When the main character is in her 20s, the 30-somethings always seem faded and "old" by comparison.  (That's how they're often portrayed, I mean.)  In this case, our protagonist tells a detective that she's 48, "which compared to her perky mid-thirtysomething probably seemed ancient".  ...Yeah, it's nice to be in the young, perky age range, for a change!

--  Barry's reaction to the news that his son has joined the drama club at school seems a bit over the top.  So you don't want him to go into acting?  I get it, but it's just a fun extracurricular at school.  Calm down!

--  ...But then the kid wants to be known by his "stage name, Columbia"... :o\

--  I thought it was funny that the main character (Molly, by the way) refers to that one guy as "Lawrence, not Larry" because... either he doesn't "do" nicknames or she can't imagine anyone ever daring to call him "Larry"... (I can't recall which!)  And... so what?  Maybe he prefers "Lawrence" to "Larry".  (I know I do!  Of course, I'm also not crazy about her boyfriend's name, Barry.  Yick.)  Not everyone wants to be known by a shortened version of his/her name.  If you "allow" people to call you by a nickname, chances are it will stick, and maybe you don't want to be known as "Mike" or "Micky" or whatever other irritating nickname someone else decides they want to call you.  My sympathies lie with Lawrence in this matter.  

--  I don't want to overstate my level of crochet expertise, but I'm not a beginner-- and I found some of the tidbits of wisdom from the "experts" in this book to be questionable.  Such as...

--  "'Remember, the correct gauge is essential, dears.  That's the only way we can be sure the squares will all turn out the same size.'"  Eh... Well, gauge is important for garments, yes.  And of course all the squares going into the same blanket need to be approximately the same size, but there are other ways of getting them to the same size than obsessing about something that can fluctuate with mood... I don't know; it felt to me like someone just wanted to write about gauge.  (Weirdo.)

-- "'Dear, it's not a good idea to mix yarn types in a square.  Only a master like Ellen could pull it off.'"  Pfft!  No, dear.  Actually, you can do whatever you want.  Maybe since this is a group project you need to all use the same type of yarn-- if that's what you've agreed to do-- but you don't have to be a "master" to mix yarn types.  People do it all the time.

--  The difficulty of finishing the afghan felt incredibly contrived to me.  I guess the author needed some crochet-related conflict for the book, but how many squares does one blanket need?  Even with some of the contributors gone or working slowly, they had two or three experienced crocheters.  This book made it sound much more difficult and time-consuming to whip out a blanket than it really is.  Yes, it's a lot of work and requires a lot of time, but they made it sound like a monumental effort-- and it's just not--  especially with that many people working on it.

--  The open rivalry between the crocheters and the knitters also felt silly.  Maybe that's how a very few crafters behave, but most are adults who behave normally.  Which means they don't have noisy, public confrontations over the comparative merits of crochet and knitting.  We all have our preferences, but... I don't expect anyone to care what I think, one way or the other.

--  "'Dear, we have to let her go.  If she wants to join the knitters, so be it.  I never felt she was a committed crocheter anyway.'"  ...So, do you have to sign a pledge or take an oath or something to prove that you are committed to crochet?  "I solemnly vow to keep to the hook-- and only the hook-- for so long as I may craft."

-- More of the knit vs. crochet stuff at the yarn shop.  The knitters look up with (perhaps) "just a note of superiority in their expressions", but the owner/manager says that "crocheters are welcome here." *snort!*  Like she's granting them asylum or something!  (Well... on Ravelry, I've read "friend-of-a-friend" horror stories about shops that didn't want the business of crocheters, which is hard to believe.  If it's true, those must be hobby-businesses instead of real businesses.  Anyone who wants to turn a profit wouldn't care if the yarn s/he sold was to be knitted, crocheted, or used for children's cut-and-paste crafts!)

--  I was amused that Molly thought granny squares looked "complicated to make and something [she] could never learn".  Molly really needs to work on her self-confidence.  Granny squares are easy.  I thought everyone knew that... (But yes, they do take a little practice.  My first granny squares were far from perfect.)

--  Hook Down the Pounds:  The Magic Way to Lose Weight with Crochet.  Ah... Well, good luck with that.  Unfortunately, I've found that crocheting hasn't done much to reduce my own weight.

--  The audience's reaction to the "hooking down the pounds" concept felt farcical.  The whole idea seems to be that if you crochet for five minutes instead of eating a 400-calorie cupcake-- ta-da!-- you've just magically saved 400 calories!  Yes, I suppose that's true.  Of course, you could spend five minutes doing anything-- including absolutely nothing-- and "save" those same calories.  It has nothing to do with crochet.  But of course the audience is gushing with excitement, "pushing and shoving" to get to the limited stock of crochet supplies, snatching things out of one another's hands, and walking around in a crocheting daze, not paying attention to where they're going.  (Yikes.  Evidently there are a lot of simple-minded sheeple in Tarzana.) "The people who were still empty-handed were milling around, looking angry." ...Then "the hookless crowd" notice a celebrity in their midst and ask for his help.  "They started complaining to him about the lack of hooks and string."  (Ohmybarf.  Tell me that's not what it's really like in Hollywood.)  Molly comes to the rescue with the most obvious solution ever.  (It's embarrassingly obvious.)

--  Some newbies come in asking to see the "murder blanket".  Ha!  "'Dear, we like to think of it as Ellen's legacy, or the tribute afghan.  Nobody is calling it a murder blanket.  "Murder blanket" sounds so negative.'"  No!  Ya think?!

--  Another peeve-- the group politics.  The constant jockeying for position.  So adversarial.  I'm assuming most crochet/knit groups aren't like that, though I've never been part of one-- and if I thought they'd be like this, I'd go out of my way to avoid them.  Why does the group need an assigned "leader", anyway?  Seems a bit juvenile.

--  ...Regarding the mystery part of the mystery...  It was pretty predictable.  ...Not much to say about it, really.

--  The protagonist's main character trait is a fondness for red-eyes.  (That's a coffee mixed with espresso, apparently.  I don't know... I haven't had coffee in years.)

--  The romance segment didn't really do anything for me.  I just didn't care one way or the other-- and then there was this:  "Barry quieted me the way he knew best.  He kissed me with a long, slow, mind-blowing dance of tongues."  Ugh!  No, no, no!  Do not refer to a kiss as a "dance of tongues", I beg you! *gag*

--  On multiple occasions (iirc), people in this book whip out a single crochet hook and hold it aloft-- like, "Behold, I yield my trusty hook, Excalibur!" -- like any size crochet hook will work for any project that comes up.  But these are people who obsess about gauge.  If you're obsessed with gauge, any random hook won't really work for any project.  Most likely it'll work out, but... Just seemed odd to me.  Unless you know what size hook you need, you'd bring a range of sizes.  At least, I would.

--  "'Yeah, I've taken up the hook.'"  ...Why does that make me think of someone "taking the cloth"?

--  "She took a step closer, and I could smell the metal of the gun."  Whoa.  That must be some seriously smelly metal.  But really, how smelly can the metal of a gun be?  I think I have a fairly sensitive sniffer, but I don't usually smell metal unless I've been handling it...

--  Molly's inability to get the heck out of the room while Meredith messes around with the duct tape defies belief.  Then when she manages to pull the tape off her mouth, she can't summon her voice to call for help?!  I know it probably happens, but in this case, it was clearly just to give her an excuse to hang around longer and use her strip of crochet to bind Meredith's feet. 

-- The pattern for the granny square washcloth and the recipe for the cake and icing are a fun touch, I guess... but how many people will read a crochet-themed mystery without knowing how to make a granny square?

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Bill Bryson


(Edited) Blurb:

Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends.

Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.

 
My Reaction:
First, I edited the publisher's blurb mainly because it was way too long-- but also because parts of it felt misleading-- as does the title itself, imho.

This (a read-aloud with Donald) was my third time reading Bryson's works.  The first was A Walk in the Woods, which was amusing or educational in parts, odd in others.  The second was... I'm not sure of the title... Life on a Small Island, I think.  We were disappointed that it seemed to be geared toward the English-- or at least people more familiar with the lay of the land than we were-- and spent too much time talking about how much things had changed since his first time passing through the area.  (Fascinating for a native, but not for us.)  We eventually decided that since we weren't enjoying it, it wasn't worth our time, so we left it unfinished. 

So, this one... It was extremely uneven, from my perspective.  I enjoyed some of it, but not all-- or even most of it...


--  The parts about Bryson's family were probably the strongest sections of the book.  Some of the other reminiscences were also entertaining (such as the chapter about the rural town where his grandparents lived).

--  If you grew up in Des Moines, Iowa -- especially in the 1950s/1960s-- you're probably more likely to enjoy this book than are the rest of us. 

--  The little "history lessons" took up too much of the book.  A few of them were interesting, but at some points, I skipped paragraphs.  (Honestly, I wondered if some of them were even accurate.  It's difficult to inspire confidence when you bounce back and forth among obvious hyperbole, "embellished" memories, and history.)  I wanted a book of humorous personal recollections-- not this author's version of national history.  I was annoyed that Bryson couldn't resist the temptation to occasionally inject his political opinions into the book.*  It's not funny, Bill.  It seems petty, and it alienates a good portion of your audience-- not that you care.  (Also, you've spent most of your adult life in England, so... You know what?  I don't really give a flying fig what you think about the U.S., politically or otherwise.  ~insincerely sweet smile~)

--  There was a little too much "Oh, how things have changed for the worse!" -- "So much has been lost!"  --  "Big chain stores and fast food franchises killed the glory of the tiny, mom-and-pop shops and charming diners!"  --  "Americans work too much!" -- "Consumerism is evil!" -- etc.  I think he tried not to be too preachy, but... I still got that vibe.  That obnoxious Baby Boomer attitude.  That insinuation of "Thank God I was born when I was, because the world's gone to hell in the meantime, and you kids of today will never know what you missed!"   

--  What was with all the gross stuff?  I could've done without it-- but if you took it all away, goodness only knows how many pages you'd have to remove.

-- On a similar note: What was with all the profanity?  Yeah, I know the 50s weren't as squeaky clean as black-and-white sitcom reruns might have us believe, but... Meh.

--  Some of Bryson's memories that were meant to be humorous were actually more disgusting-- or shocking-- or just plain unpleasant and mean-spirited than they were funny.  Take, for example, the bit about going to the lake with that kid he didn't like.  We were waiting for something funny to happen, but no.  The funny/wonderful part was that some people little Billy didn't like got hurt while he watched.  (They hadn't even done anything to him to give him a reason not to like them-- or at least, the memoir made no mention of it, if they had.)  Then there's all the hooliganism.  (Glorified hooliganism, at that.) Exaggerated for humor's sake?  Maybe, but... still not funny.  Also, I realize that at a certain age boys develop a natural curiosity about and fascination with the female form, but it was emphasized perhaps a little too often for my tastes.  (Didn't the rotten little brat think about anything but naked women?)


Based on other reviews I've skimmed, it seems that Bryson's "travel books" are better than this memoir, so maybe I'll still try one or two of the others-- In a Sunburned Country sounds promising-- but I won't be keeping our (library book sale) copy of this one.


* One of his more obnoxious political comments comes near the end of the thirteenth chapter:

"A quarter of young American males were in the armed forces in 1968.  Nearly all the rest were in school, in prison, or were George W. Bush.  For most people, school was the only realistic option for avoiding military service."

For your reading pleasure:  Was author Bill Bryson a draft dodger or draft evader during the Vietnam War?  (I leave you to draw your own conclusions regarding the pot calling the kettle black.)

The Dancing Floor

The Dancing Floor
by Barbara Michaels


Publisher's Blurb:

For years, Heather Tradescant had dreamed of the journey she and her father would take to England--a pilgrimage to the great gardens of history. Now that her father is dead, Heather is determined to fulfill his dreams. Unfortunately, her request to see the fabled 17th-century garden of Troytan House is denied by the owner. Though unwelcome, she braves the walls of briars and reaches the Victorian manor house beyond. She senses a strange mission of evil lurking, tainting the manor's peaceful beauty. Only then does Heather begin to wonder whether it is only stories of long-vanished witchcraft that haunt Troytan House or whether there is some more modern horror, hearer at hand, and far, far more dangerous. 

My Reaction:
For mindless escapism, this was fine.  It kept me entertained and reading until the end-- but great literature it ain't.  If you know what you're signing up for, there's no call for anything worse than minor disappointment, with this type of book.  Personally, I wasn't even that disappointed!  (Though... I will admit that it could've been better.  See the "tid-bits" section, below.)

(As an aside, I don't really expect great literature from the modern authors I choose to read-- because the modern writers who try to or think they are writing "Literature-with-a-capital-L" tend to churn out the most depressing, dull, utterly hopeless piles of excrement I've ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on-- not to sound too harsh.  No thanks.  I'll stick with unpretentious authors who know how to write an interesting story that doesn't sap you of your very will to live.)

Some of the reviews I've skimmed have indicated that in this late (1997) novel, it is obvious that when Michaels wrote this, the author was finally beginning to lose her touch or reach the bottom of her creative well.  (Incidentally, I think this is the first book of hers I've read since learning that Barbara Mertz-- a.k.a Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters-- had died.  She was a prolific author, and she gave her many fans countless hours of amusement and pleasure.)  Perhaps I haven't read her best works, yet (because I'm selecting them willy-nilly, with neither rhyme nor reason), or maybe I'm forgetting how wonderful some of the books I have already read were... but I didn't see all that much difference between this and the others I've read.

If you're a die-hard Michaels fan, you'll find this one at least passable.  If you've thought the others Michaels books you've read have been only so-so, you might find this one even more lacking than usual.  If you're new to the author, maybe this isn't your best introduction.  --But I thought it was ok!


SPOILERy Random Tid-Bits: 
--  When I first got to know our heroine (Heather), I was glad that at least she wasn't a dazzling beauty.  She's a little overweight, taller and more masculine in shape than the supposed "ideal" woman, not especially pretty, and just generally not the feminine perfection that irks the living soul out of readers who are... well, average in the looks department.  However happy I was that she wasn't an indisputable beauty queen, I was a bit ambivalent about the early repeated references to her weight/size.  I was hoping this wouldn't turn out to be one of those books where a chubby heroine eats a few salads, turns away a couple of desserts, jogs once or twice, and miraculously drops 30 pounds in two weeks.  I am glad to report that it wasn't.  Heather maintains a strong appetite throughout the book, she does very little exercise just for the sake of exercise, and she doesn't lose weight.  (Not that there's anything wrong with exercise and losing pounds to achieve a healthy weight-- but gosh, I just don't want to read about it in a novel that's supposed to be a pleasant escape from reality!)

-- So... We've established that Heather's not "all that" in terms of appearance-- or so she would have us believe.  And yet somehow she manages to be the center of nearly all male attention, throughout most of the book.  Maybe you think it's her sparkling conversation and sharp wit?  Yes, except that most of these men seem to have been captivated before she would've had the chance to display her personality (and her personality, as written, isn't that captivating, anyway).  Possibly some people exude a degree of charisma that attracts people, blindly and immediately-- but I think a more likely explanation here is that the author thought that the women reading this book would like to put themselves in Heather's place-- so multiple men at her beck and call it is!  It's just... kind of silly.

--  I knew from the beginning that Heather and Jordan would end up together.  (Look, I told you last time:  It's whichever eligible bachelor she meets first.  Well, maybe not always, but the formula does seem to hold true with alarming frequency.)  He treats her rudely from their first meeting-- and he's handsome-- so... Yeah, you know the characters that antagonize one another will end up together.  It's a tried and true system-- in these types of novels, at least.  (Not so sure it holds up in reality!)  I didn't mind the predictability... I didn't even mind the fact that they were so mean to one another, at times.  I just wish there would have been a little more "promising" interaction between the two before the last scene in the car.  C'mon!  Give us a little more sizzle.  It would make their final admissions of love slightly more believable.

--  Egyptology Watch:  "It was carved with designs as exotic as any that ever graced the coffin of an Egyptian pharaoh-- crocodiles, dragons, temples."  Also: "a grinning mummy".  Must get in those references to Egypt!  ;o)

--  "...the infamous Lancashire Witch Craze, which was to end in the death of a dozen innocent people."  I don't think I've ever heard much about any of the European "witch hunts", because over here, our focus is always the Salem witch trials.

--  Some of the indicators of Heather's supposed "homeliness" hit a little too close to home... "shoulders broad and square, not gently sloping"... hair that is "dull brown"... eyes "an equally undistinguished brown"... "high forehead, thick unshaped brows"... How rude, actually!  And why is it that when an author wants to emphasize that a character is plain, she usually has "boring"-- oh, excuse me, in this case it's "DULL" brown hair and brown eyes?  Makes me a little mad.  Brown is beautiful!  Eh, or something. 

--  I had to laugh when the voodoo doll / poppet / whatever that was supposed to look like Heather had "insultingly small" blobs of clay for breasts.  Ha ha!  Well, at least we won't suffer from undue back pain all our lives, Heather, m'dear.  Also-- Whatever you do, if your large-busted (...well, large-everythinged) cashier is making small talk about a pretty bra you're purchasing, and you're trying to be friendly and find something to say back to her on the subject-- whatever you do, don't remark upon the difficulty of finding undergarments that are comfortable.  She will make a rudely scoffing sound and you will blush uncomfortably and beat a hasty retreat ASAP.  Hey, lady-- shopping for bras is universally awful.  Smaller-chested women suffer through it, too!

--  "Resolutely avoiding mirrors (just like a vampire, I thought wryly) I used the comb that had been supplied.  I didn't need a mirror to know what I looked like."  ...I relate to this a little too well.

--  "He looked me over.  I had seen the same expression on the faces of farmers checking out a prize heifer..." Ha!

--  She refers to herself as a "spinster school teacher".  What?!  She's twenty-five!!  Twenty-five!!  And it's the late 1990s!! 

--  "This piece of paper had survived the man who wrote it by over three hundred years.  Even his bones were dust, but his handwriting-- distinctive, individual, personalized-- lay before me.  It's impossible to explain the impact of something like that to a person who doesn't feel the pull of the past."

--  Bobby is awful-- a child-psychopath-- but it's still surprising when a child is murdered in one of these books...

--  "Maybe he was the ghost.  There had to be one.  No servants living in, the cold meal, prepared by a cook who wasn't willing to hang around after nightfall-- yes, it sounded like a conventional Victorian ghost story."   Ha!  Hilarious, since the last book of this author's that I read (Wait for What Will Come), most of the servants were unwilling to stay around after dark!  Of course, in this one, we later learn that the cook goes home because she's married and wants to spend her evenings with her husband. 

--  There's a reference to a "heavy date", which sounds very 70s/80s to me.  I don't remember people talking about "heavy dates" in the late 90s.

--  It's interesting to see the author's other interests peeking through in all these books.  Of course there's Egyptology/archaeology-- that's in just about every book I've read so far.  But ever since reading the novel about the jewelers, I've noticed that she regularly works jewels into her books-- either through metaphors or in actual, physical jewelry.  There were the fire opal earrings and the cat's-eye ring, for instance.

--  "Cats have long memories, not like dogs."  Hmph!  Spoken/written like a true cat person.  Maybe some dogs forget, but I think most of them are just extremely willing to forgive our failings.  I know dogs have excellent memories, because I see evidence of it every day, with my own dogs.  Also, hasn't everyone met or at least heard about a dog that was terrified of or aggressive toward men-- or men with a specific feature, such as baldness, let's say-- because it had been mistreated by a former bald, male owner?  Many dogs remember things very well.

--  "Have you read Ainsworth and Mist Over Pendle?"  More books and authors to look up!

--  When a man-- whom she's literally just met-- calls her "Miss Tradescant", she rather rudely corrects him.  Apparently it's "Ms. Tradescant".  UGH.  Look, woman, get over yourself.  "Miss" and "Ms." are both accurate.  If you want to write your name or introduce yourself as "Ms.", that's your own business.  Personally, I don't see what the big deal is, these days, but by golly, you've got a nerve to jump down some poor guy's throat just because he didn't happen to select your title of choice.  Also, maybe it's just me, but the whole petulant insistence on "Ms." feels very 1980s to me.  Out-dated, in other words.

--  I was amused/annoyed by everyone's reaction to the crackers, when Sean offers them around.  "Some common commercial brand, I presume."  "They look vile, Sean.  If you like mass produced junk, you should stick to your favorite pretzels and chips."  ...Wow.  That's the most heated reaction to a snack food that I have ever seen.  Who refers to food as being of a "common commercial brand", anyway?  And "mass produced junk"?  It's a cracker.  Of course it's mass-produced!  Who makes crackers from scratch (as of the late 1990s)?!

--  The note that's supposed to be from Bob, the missing monster kid, is a print-out.  Later, we learn that his mother typed and printed the note, because she had already killed him.  So we know why it had to be printed-- but in a feeble attempt to make it seem less strange that the note should be printed, the author has Heather comment (internally) that "today's computer-habituated children don't write unless they are forced to".  Uh... Well, if it was an e-mail, alright.  But in the 1990s, how many kids would rather type and print a short note than grab a piece of paper and write it out?  It seemed like a strange and not really accurate observation. 

--  For the sake of the story, Frank had to take a sudden liking to Heather and decide for some superstitious reason that she must stay in his house and help him restore the gardens.  I get that-- but at some point, you wonder why he has such a strong fondness for her when he's known her so briefly.  I guess he's just an eccentric trillionaire (or whatever he's supposed to be)-- and there are some emotional barriers between his son and himself-- but it still feels very odd when he remarks that his son's opinions are "inconsequential" when compared to Heather's. 

--  I have to admit that it didn't even occur to me, until I saw it mentioned in someone else's review, that the book never resolves the issue of the very title of the book.  Ha!  There are occasional references to "the Dancing Floor", and various characters react strongly whenever Heather casually mentions it, but I don't think we ever get a good explanation of it.  (If we did, I must've missed it.)

--  More loose ends / red herrings:  We are given the distinct impression that Heather may have some latent magical abilities-- or something of the sort.  She stumbles through the maze and finds the only relatively safe exit.  She just happens to have that famous surname-- her ticket into the story.  She has that creepy dream about the witch.  The cat's-eye ring goes on her finger easily and refuses to come back off.  The mysterious cat seems to have a special connection to her and even wakes her when the house is burning. --And so on.  But none of it comes to fruition.  I guess we're supposed to be satisfied by Jennet's explanation that Heather is part of the "pattern" and has a role to fulfill.  It's a little feeble, though.