I have a big mystery week planned!

I'm going to finish Silverhill by Phyllis Whitney tomorrow, and I only have three stories left in Double Sin. From there, I will move onto a reread of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (yay) and the buddy read of Murder on the Nile, which takes place on Tuesday. 

I've also broken down and bought The Yellow Dog, which is the 6th Maigret, and - according to Tigus - is a good one! I am excited to read it. It should arrive tomorrow.

Last - but surely not least - is Cyanide and Compliments, which is the 5th in the Pollard and Toye series. This series is available through KU, and I've read the first 4 in a couple of weeks. They are silver age, first published in the 1960s, and are a lot of fun.

That's probably enough for a week, right? But if I make it through all of those, I'm going to read Going Wrong by Ruth Rendell, because I need a little psychological suspense in my life.

I've been looking forward to sinking into a Phyllis Whitney, and this one is showing a lot of promise, with a plucky, scarred heroine with an explicable fear of caged birds, and a family mansion full of secrets in New Hampshire.

This has some mild spoilers, so read at your peril. I doubt that many people will end up reading this book, though, so I figured why not?

I had a unique perspective on this book - it was a book that made an indelible impression on me when I was around 12 years old. I had found it on my mom's bookshelves, she was a fan of these old-fashioned gothic romances, or maybe at the used book store, and I remember staying up late one night and reading it. The climactic scene on the Cluny Sands etched itself on my memory quite deeply.

I didn't remember the name of the book, or the author, or even a single character name (how could I forget Decima or Rohan?), but I remembered the sense of brooding suspense and the horror of being trapped in quicksand. I actually looked for this book for several years before stumbling on The Waiting Sands in one of my random searches. I initially thought that it was probably The Shivering Sands, but reading it ruled it out for me. If I had reviewed this when I was 12, I would've given it a breathless, terrified five stars.

But, as the expression goes, you can't read the same book twice. I'm not 12 anymore, drawn to unhealthy, and emotionally abusive, relationships. Things that I skipped right over when I was a girl were unable to ignore as a woman. I'm still giving it three stars, mostly for nostalgia's sake and because the writing was quite good and that climactic scene in the quicksand was still pretty intense.

The romance, though, was just a total no go for me. I was astonished when I read Rachel's self-confession of undying love for Daniel after knowing him for all of perhaps 36 hours, both because she barely knew him and because he'd been a monumental asswagon to her. And then her decision to, in essence, pledge herself to eternal celibacy because some guy that she thought was hot for about two days, who was all mixed up in a murder and whom she actually believed WAS the MURDERER, was no longer available to her made me snort aloud. 

I've known a fair few murderers, guys. None of them are worth three minutes of celibacy, much less a lifetimes worth.

All of the characters were basically vile. Howatch tries to redeem Daniel, and at least partially succeeds, but it's a bit too little too late for my taste. Rachel is a wet mop.

This is a test: You find yourself on the edge of quicksand with someone you believe to a be a murderer. You are in a completely isolated spot and there is no one else for miles. He has fallen asleep and you are able to grab the gun. Do you:

a. Scamper away and dump the bullets into the quick sand and then pretend you were asleep, too or

b. Hold the motherfucker at gunpoint until you can get back to the boat and escape

If your answer is a, you might be the heroine of a gothic romance. Because heaven forfend that you might try to save your ownself.

It was fun to reconnect with that moronic tween who used to think that guys like Daniel were romantic. I'm really glad I grew the hell up before I picked a spouse.

Page 123:

The heroine is dumb as a box of hammers, and all of these characters are vile.

Page 48:

I agree with Linda about the dog - it's a St. Bernard and better not get harmed or killed. I am thinking that this is the book I was thinking of - the reference to quicksand is very familiar. It scared the crap out of me when I saw about 12!

Page 1

This is the cover on my copy of The Waiting Sands - totally lame. Also, it doesn't look anything like Scotland to me. What do you all think?

I'm getting ready to start this one, although I also need to buckle down on The Career of Evil and get it finished as it is due back to the library quite soon! I'm going to work on both of them tonight.

One of the interesting things about these mid-century gothic romances is the surprising amount of time it takes to read a book that is so slender. This book was originally published in 1953 under the title "The Lamb to the Slaughter." This is actually a bit earlier than most of the gothics I read, which are generally from the 1960's.

In The Brooding Lake, Eden, who was born in New Zealand, returns to New Zealand for her story. Alice, the heroine, has been summoned to a tiny community near the small town New Zealand town of Hokitika by her friend Camilla, where she is meant to be a teacher for the small school there.

By the time Alice arrives, however, Camilla is no where to be found. Alice installs herself in the rundown cottage in the woods where Camilla has been living, finding no one there but a (very hungry) cat and a magpie who yells random concerning things like "lend it to me" and "get out." Alice finds a letter from Camilla joyously informing her that she is getting married.

Upon arrival, three men present themselves as possible suitors for our fair Alice: Dalton, the enigmatic, wealthy man who lives in a beautiful home with his friendly sister, Katherine, Dundas, and older widower who lives in a small house with his daughter Margaretta, and Felix Dodson, who is an old flame of Alice's who just happens to be a bus driver in the area.

As the book proceeds, things get weird as they do in gothic romances. On an exceptionally dark and stormy night, Alice is trapped in Dalton & Katherine's home when someone

punctures the tires so Dalton can't drive her home. One of the servants, Tottie, whispers to Alice that she should lock her door. Alice fails to heed the advice and someone comes into her room at night, ties her hair to the bed post, and whispers creepy stuff like "Camilla is here" as she flees in terror into the night. 

The relationship with Dundas takes a turn as well, when Alice is clonked on the head with a branch during the storm and ends up in his home with Margaretta in charge of nursing her back to health. Dundas declares his love for Alice with a disturbing focus on her petite size - the whole thing was weird as all get out, and at one point had me convinced that Eden was going to make Dundas a cross-dresser, which would have been shocking indeed to the 1953 mind. Alas, that was not what was going on.

Anyway, the book comes to an emotional climax in a boat on the brooding lake, with a rather Ripley-esque few moments that Alice must handle. As is also the tradition with gothic romance, the story wraps up very quickly, in a few pages, with one of the suitors proving his love by saving the heroine, one of the suitors being exposed as a murderer, and one of the suitors leaving town.