Old, Young, and In-Between

Petrie has a story he wants to tell and through the fog of failing memory slowly dredges up details of an episode whose emotional resonance is still felt.  Lonely and abandoned by his parents he had tried to befriend a new student with “blood red hair” who was more of a misfit than he.  They shared an interest in chess, but it was their mutual connection to Egypt that drew Petrie to Ben-Zion Elefantin.  (I learned that Egyptians can indeed have red hair.  Ramses II was a redhead.)

The memoir of Petrie, once a successful lawyer, is appalling in its casual racism, antisemitism, and resistance to anything different. He belittles the Austrian cook who offers kindness to an old man until he learned she had earned a master’s degree in Europe, but even then…

But what is the compulsion to write this memoir?  What does Petrie want to bring from the past, from his subconscious, into the present?  At the end of this cerebral book, he says that he knows, and Elefantin knew, “the significant thing” about life.  Does he share it with the reader?  He does not.  Ozick ends her story with the words “We two kings,” and leaves it to the reader to ponder what truth or illusion the two chess mates knew.  An exploration of the truth of memory is appropriate for Ozick who turned 93 shortly after this novella was completed.

All three of the teenagers have additional problems.  One girl has been flattened by her mother’s suicide; the other has been molested by a stepfather and ignored by a mother who “didn’t notice;” the boy, once a promising football star, has been severely injured. The community of church is prominent in this black neighborhood, but is not enough to offset the damage of secrecy, lies, and betrayal.  An anti-abortion point of view emerges but is subtly done.

The Mothers is one of those books that hooks a reader at the beginning but isn’t so interesting as the story goes on.  I felt that Bennett kept expanding the story to include everything she wanted to say instead of developing a tight plot with nothing extraneous.

Detective Cal Claxton has a home in the hills of Oregon wine country and a law office in Portland where he does some pro bono work for just causes.  A young woman consults him about her mother, killed in a hit and run, who has left a strange will about her property development company. Before the book is finished, Claxton has made the acquaintance of the Russian mafia and pieced together a complex money laundering scheme. 

Love of coffee, gourmet food, craft beer, jogging, Native American activism, artist colonies, all add to the Northwest flavor.  But wait – Italian white instead of local pinot noir??  Easley redeems himself with Blood for Wine, where he rescues a pinot grower/vintner who has been framed for murder.  These mysteries, with their intricate plots, strong characters, and appealing settings, are a delight to read.

Easley has just won the Spotted Owl Award, bestowed annually for the best mystery book of the year by a writer in the Pacific Northwest.