THE ALCHEMY OF MURDER

I AM READING THIS BOOK  NOW AND LOVING IT




Paris, the capital of Europe and center of world culture. People have gathered to celebrate the 1889 World's Fair, a spectacular extravaganza dedicated to new industries, scientific discoveries, and global exploration. Its gateway is the soaring Eiffel Tower. But an enigmatic killer stalks the streets, and a virulent plague is striking down Parisians by the thousands.

The world's most famous reporter - the intrepid Nellie Bly - is convinced that the killings are connected to the epidemic. Hot off another sensational expose, she travels to Paris to hunt down the mysterious man she calls "the Alchemist." Along the way she enlists the help of a band of colorful characters: science fiction genius Jules Verne, notorious wit and outrageous rogue Oscar Wilde, and the greatest microbe-hunter in history, Louis Pasteur.

This dazzling historical adventure pits Nellie and her friends against one of the most notorious murderers iParis, the capital of Europe and center of world culture. People have gathered to celebrate the 1889 World's Fair, a spectacular extravaganza dedicated to new industries, scientific discoveries, and global exploration. Its gateway is the soaring Eiffel Tower. But an enigmatic killer stalks the streets, and a virulent plague is striking down Parisians by the thousands.

 

I’ve always been attracted to ghosts and people of the past. My dream house is to have a graveyard for a back-yard with old tombstones graced by angels.
As a young child I would sit for hours and listen to my Grandmother McCleary, my Grandfather Lachowich and my Great Aunt Edna, tell me stories of their childhood, the lives of people they knew, and living in the 19th century.

They were born before cars, TV, radio, computers, ATM machines, cell phones, airplanes…so many things we take for granted.
They were just like Nellie Bly, my heroine in The Alchemy of Murder.

My Grandmother McCleary was especially like Nellie—independent, determined, believing that anything is possible if you put your mind to it, and never taking no for an answer.

To me the past has always been much more fascinating than the present. I’ll never forget when I was ten years old and our fifth grade class went to the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art to see an exhibit from Egypt—there was a pyramid, mummies, beautiful artifacts…I became enchanted and fell hopelessly in love with the past.
I also believe my love for the past came from being born in Seoul, South Korea and living in Hong Kong, Japan, and the Philippines...I was weaned on cultures that have been around for millenniums. From the Far East we moved back to the USA and into a charming brick house in Pelham, Westchester County, New York.
At thirteen, we moved to my father's hometown in Colfax, California (population exactly 999), an old western town with six bars, one grocery store, and railroad tracks running down the center.
Today, I live in scenic Cape Cod in an antique house built in 1772. In much of the world, living in a house over 200 years old isn't unusual, but in America it isn't common.

My house, however, is very special because it is haunted by the spirit of Maggie Duffy, a woman born in it over 150 years ago and who lived her entire life in the house. I guess she just didn’t want to leave when it was her time to pass on. Maggie is a very mischevious ghost, so much so that the cautious lawyer who sold me the house listed her spirit in the contract as part of the furnishings of the house.

I’ve also had visitations from a sea captain who is very taciturn. My guess is that he was Maggie’s lover. From the silence, I suspect it wasn’t a public affair.

Like Maggie, Nellie’s life didn’t exactly go the way she desired and neither had mine…but, we move forward constantly trying to make it the best we can, something I learned from my Grandmother and all the wise people I’ve been very lucky to have in my life.

Then one day a friend introduced me to Nellie Bly – a woman who reminded me of my Grandmother and of all the things I love the most…the past. I decided to take an incredible lady whose voice has been set aside and tried to bring it back to life.
The Alchemy of Murder is a labor of love and trepidation as I try to remain true to Nellie Bly, but also bring her back in a way that is entertaining. Hopefully, I have been successful.

Dear Friends,

I love a mystery . . . especially when it involves real people who rose above ordinary lives to “make history.”

Nellie Bly, investigative reporter extraordinaire, had the plucky courage and raw daring that epitomized the Victorian era. When a New York newspaper editor refused her a job, and said that a woman was not capable of being a “detective reporter,” Nellie got herself committed to the notorious women’s insane asylum on Blackwell's Island and did a story that set the city on its head.

When I discovered that Nellie Bly was in Paris in the fall of 1889, I was intrigued because Paris was the Grand Dame of all cites in the Victorian Era-the City of Light was the center of fashion, the arts, and love affairs.
It turns out that Jules Verne, the “inventor” of science fiction, whose stories and the movies made from them still fascinate us, was also in Paris that fall – and had met Nellie. So was Oscar Wilde, the poet and author scandalizing café society with his sex life and witticisms . . . while the “great microbe hunter,” Louis Pasteur, had moved into the imposing institute that the grateful people of France had provided.

The Victorian Era itself was a wonderful “character” - an exciting era of brave hearts and warm souls, of great art and inquiring minds, of duels for honor and affairs of the heart; a time when men and women were experimenting with love while “scientific” journals warned that masturbation caused blindness and insanity . . .

Entities from the dark side of life were also in the city - terrorists called “anarchists” conducted a reign of terror while a deadly microbe swept in from the Russian steppes, causing a deadly pandemic.

Oh . . . did I mention that Jack the Ripper killings in London of the previous year were being investigated?

All the wonderful historical characters and events played in my head . . . it sounds like a lot, but when I thought about it, all the pieces fit together and started ticking like a fine Swiss watch . . . or would ticking like an anarchist bomb be a better analogy?

You can decide, and please, let me know, after you read the book.

Carol

THE WOMEN IN WHITE

I HAD THIS BOOK FOR A LONG TIME AND FINALLY READ IT.  IT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES.

The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859–1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'.
The story is considered an early example of detective fiction with the hero, Walter Hartright, employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narratives draws on Collins's legal training,^[1][2] and as he points out in his Preamble: 'the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness'. In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer listed The Woman in White number 23 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time",^[3] and the novel was listed at number 77 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.^[4]

[edit] Plot

Walter Hartright, a young art teacher, is walking from Hampstead to London late one summer's evening, when he meets a mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress. He helps her on her way to London, but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. The next day he travels north to Limmeridge House, having been hired as a drawing master to the residents of the house; he had been recommended for the job by his friend, Pesca, an Italian language professor. The Limmeridge household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, and Walter's students: Laura Fairlie, Mr Fairlie's niece, and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Several days after he arrives, Hartright is shocked to realize that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, called Anne Catherick. The mentally disadvantaged Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white.
Walter and Laura quickly fall in love. Laura, however, has promised her father that she will marry Sir Percival Glyde, and Marian – knowing that Laura loves Walter in return – advises Walter to forget his love, and leave Limmeridge. Anne, after sending a letter to Laura warning her against Glyde, meets Hartright who becomes convinced that Glyde was responsible for shutting Anne in the asylum. Despite the misgivings of the Fairlie's lawyer over the financial terms of the marriage settlement, Laura and Glyde marry in December 1849 and travel to Italy for 6 months. Hartright also leaves England, joining an expedition to Honduras. After their honeymoon, Sir Percival and Lady Glyde return to his family estate, Blackwater Park, in Hampshire; they are accompanied by Glyde's friend, Count Fosco (who is married to Laura's aunt). Marian Halcombe is also living at Blackwater and learns that Glyde is in financial difficulties. Sir Percival unsuccessfully attempts to bully Laura into signing a document which would allow him to use her marriage settlement of £20,000. Determined to protect her sister, Marian crawls out onto a roof overlooking Percy and Fosco whilst they plot; but it begins to rain, and Marian, completely soaked, falls into a fever which shortly turns into typhus.
While Marian is ill, Laura is tricked into travelling to London. Her identity and that of Anne Catherick are then switched. Anne Catherick dies of a heart condition and is buried in Cumberland as Laura, while Laura is drugged and placed in the asylum as Anne Catherick. When Marian recovers and visits the asylum, hoping to learn something from Anne Catherick, she finds Laura, supposedly suffering from the delusion that she is Lady Glyde.
Marian bribes the nurse and Laura escapes. Hartright has safely returned from Honduras, and the three live together in obscure poverty, determined to restore Laura's identity. After some time Walter discovers Glyde's secret, which is that he was illegitimate, and therefore not entitled to inherit his parents' property. This secret was known only to Anne's mother, and while Anne never knew the secret, she spoke and acted as if she did. Many years earlier, Glyde had forged an entry in the marriage register at Old Welmingham Church to conceal his illegitimacy and hence unlawful inheritance of estate and title. Believing Walter either has discovered, or will discover his secret, Glyde attempts to destroy the register entry, but the church vestry catches fire and he perishes in the flames. Confronting Anne's mother, Hartright discovers that Anne was the illegitimate child of Laura's father, which accounts for their resemblance. On returning to London to resume his battle with Fosco, Hartright marries Laura. When he secretly tails Fosco to investigate him, Hartright also discovers that Fosco belongs to, and has betrayed, an Italian secret society (dubbed "The Brotherhood"), of which Pesca is a high-ranking member with enough authority to dispatch him. Using Fosco's weakness as bargaining chip, Hartright now has the power to force a written confession from Fosco and Laura's identity is restored. Fosco departs from England in haste, only to be discovered by the Brotherhood's agents some time later and murdered. Since Hartright and Laura have married, on the death of Frederick Fairlie, their son becomes the Heir of Limmeridge.

[edit] Characters

• Walter Hartright—A poor young man who earns his living as a drawing master.
• Frederick Fairlie—A fanciful, selfish invalid, owner of Limmeridge House in Cumberland. Laura's uncle. His irresponsibility in handling matters concerning Laura's welfare as her guardian is one of the key factors that lead to the success of Count Fosco's plan.
• Laura Fairlie—Mr Fairlie's gentle, pretty niece, an heiress and an orphan.
• Marian Halcombe—Laura's half-sister and companion, not attractive but intelligent and resourceful. She is described as one "of the finest creations in all Victorian fiction" by John Sutherland.^[5]
• Anne Catherick ("The Woman in White")—A young woman said to be of disordered wits. It's heavily implied that she's an illegitimate daughter of Laura's father.
• Mrs Catherick—Anne's unsympathetic mother, who is in league with Sir Percival Glyde in committing her daughter to the asylum.
• Sir Percival Glyde—Laura's fiancé and then husband, he is an unpleasant baronet with a secret. He is able to appear charming and gracious when he wishes, but his true character appears soon after his marriage to Laura. Walter later discovers that his secret is that his inheritance of his title and estate was unlawful because his parents had never married, and to obtain it he forged a false marriage register entry.
• Count Fosco—Sir Percival's closest friend, his full name is revealed to be Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco. A grossly obese Italian with a mysterious past, he is eccentric, bombastic, urbane, but also unfathomably intelligent and menacing. He takes especial interest in little animals, and keeps many birds and mice as pets. The Count greatly admires Marian for her intellect, so much that he is willing to compromise several weak points in his plan (such as allowing Marian to retrieve Laura from the asylum) for her sake.
• Countess Fosco—Laura's aunt, once a giddy girl but now humourless, cold and in thrall to her husband and his schemes.
• Professor Pesca—A teacher of Italian, and a good friend of Hartright. The professor finds Hartright the Limmeridge job, introducing him to Laura and Marian, and proves to be Fosco's unexpected nemesis.

[

I feel miserable

NEW YEARS

I HOPE EXCEPTING THE INVITATION TO NEW YEARS IS NOT A MISTAKE... I DO NOT NEED ANY CRAP..

I DON'T KNOW IF  I AM STRONG ENOUGH.   

Currently reading A Fatal Winter G. M. Malliet

A tiny village in the English countryside during a storm-wracked winter. A house party at the local castle that ends in two deaths. A dishy vicar, formerly an MI5 agent, summoned to the castle to solve the certain homicide of the lord. Put it all together, and this is one gift-wrapped package for cozy lovers and Agatha Christie devotees. But it is also a pretty cheeky cozy, written by someone who knows how to use the conventions and poke fun at them at the same time. In the second in the series starring vicar Max Tudor (following Wicked Autumn, 2011), Tudor escapes the amorous clutches of the church ladies in Nether Monkslip to visit Chedrow Castle in the wake of the deaths of Lord Footrustle and Lady Baynard. (An old cop friend wants Tudor on the scene to observe the viper’s nest of relatives.) Tudor’s observations on evil, honed by both his spy and vicar backgrounds, are one of the best features of this thoroughly entertaining mystery. --Connie Fletcher


THIS IS A GREAT BOOK I ESPECIALL LOVE THE WAY SHE DISCRIBES THE CASTLE... I AMD 3/4 THROUGH AND DON'T KNOW WHO DID THE MURDER .....  THE CHARACTERS ARE WELL DEVELOPED......

THEVAULT

JUST FINISHED THIS BOOK WOULD GIVE IT A 10/10. I LOVED THE PLOT MYSTERY ABOUT A OLD BOOK AND FINDING WHERE IT CAME FROM...  WOULD LIKE TO READ MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS FOR SURE

I READ THIS DURING MY TRIP TO SEABROOK ISLAND AND WHEN I GOT HOME AND DURING MY FIST FEW DAYS AFTER THE BREAKUP WITH BOB... NOW I MUST DECIDE ON THE NEXT BOOK... ONLY A FEW HUNDRED TO CHOSE FROM....

 

 

Curmudgeonly Chief Superintendent Peter Diamond (The Last Detective, Bloodhounds, The Summons) is once again suffering fools (to which category he currently consigns Americans, antiques enthusiasts, and his immediate superiors) none too gladly. When a skeletal hand is found in the cellar of the abbey churchyard in Bath, Diamond is inclined to write the apparent crime off as the dusty wages of a long-forgotten sin. But then a skull turns up. And then Joe Dougan, mild-mannered American professor and avid literary tourist, unearths the startling fact that in the early 19th century that cellar belonged to the home Mary Shelley lived in as she was writing Frankenstein. Glorious fodder for the sensationally minded press and a monstrous headache for Diamond, who would prefer to cogitate upon the mystery in peace and quiet.

But it seems that the literary connection is as crucial as it is sensational. When Dougan's wife disappears and Peg Redbird, proprietress of the Noble and Nude antiques store, turns up dead after a heated conversation with the professor (in hot pursuit of Shelley's writing desk and sketchbook), Diamond has to wonder whether a thirst for knowledge also implies a thirst for blood. As Diamond immerses himself in Bath's cultural history, however, more and more suspects pop up, linking the long-dead bones in the cellar to Peg's very recent corpse. Author Peter Lovesey, with a nod and wink toward the conventions of traditional British mystery fiction, paints his characters with broad strokes: like the characters in a game of Clue, the suspects are easily labeled. Is it the spoiled heir who dunnit? What about the up-and-coming reporter? Or the cryptic puppeteer? Or (and this is really giving Diamond ulcers) the suave city councilor, who happens to be good friends with Diamond's boss? Lovesey tiptoes agilely just this side of caricature--and has a great deal of fun doing so.

Diamond himself is an enjoyable enough character, though his grouchiness seems to be missing some of the verve it had in earlier books. One might take issue with the novel's sense of pacing (at times funereal), and with Lovesey's narrative gimmick of switching occasionally to the murderer's perspective (too Gothic a trick for a relatively unexciting plot). These complaints, however, don't detract from an otherwise solid entry in the Superintendent Diamond series. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

THE END

ON SEP 16 SUN EVENING ON THE WAY HOME FROM VACATION WITH LINDA AND MARY MY 8 1/2 RELATIONSHIP WITH BOB ENDED.  FINDING OUT THAT HE HAD BOUGHT BUNK BEDS FOR SUMMER'S KIDS, GIVEN HER A NECKLACE, TAKEN HIOUT TO EAT AND TO SHOWS WAS THE LAST STRAW....I CALLED  HIM AND TOLD HIM TO GET OUT OF  MY HOUSE AT NIGHT WHEN i WOULD BE THERE AND TO GET HIS STUFF OUT DURING THE DAY. WITH LOTS OF HELP THIS HAPPENED
I WENT TO THERAPY TODAY AND WILL MOVE FORWARD AND NOT LET SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.  TRUELY THAT PART OF MY LIFE IS DEAD.....


AS JIMMY BUFFETT SAYS BREATHE IN BREATHE OUT
MOVE ON.....