I owe you a back of book blurb for Leavenworth Case!

Which I will get to later. Spent morning moving shelving and tables for a local rummage charity sale and I'm going to Drunken Shakespeare tonight.  Tomorrow I do homework.  So after all the excuses, I'll give you the fun back of book blurb for The Leavenworth Case.

"'Well,' said he, 'this is unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome.'"

Done. Though it took me a bit longer than expected with the real life stuff.  I know who the murderer is, what all the Terrible Secrets are, and that I like Ebenezer Gryce.

Especially how he has a tendency to not actually look at anyone and therefore emotes to buttons, doorknobs, and random flies.

But he's really paying full attention and missing nothing.

He's a quiet character, not given to the dramatics and opium habits of Sherlock Holmes, which might be why Gryce is forgotten, but he is entirely up to the trickery. I am hoping the gentleman narrator is not the narrator for all the Gryce books. In fact I hope the gentleman narrator never shows up again.

But, when I think about it, part of the fun was watching Gryce out think and continually shock and annoy the narrator.

So maybe he wasn't so bad...

Maybe if it was in third person the narrator--who wouldn't be the narrator then and I would be forced to remember his name--wouldn't have annoyed me so much. But honestly, there may be some good points to chivalry being dead.

                                                 ...................Or maybe not.

"I laid my hand upon her heart. It was pulseless as a stone."

Hi. As usual, weekends are the most busy for me.

But I'm back and reading. And....

Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!

The one witness, the girl who has been missing for weeks, just as they find her, is now dead. And she burned all the papers that would be useful! Everything has hinged on this girl and now....

At least Gryce is back from his rheumatism. I can't come up with any more amusing ways to tell you how stupid I find this narrator.

"that is because you are a gentleman. Well, it has its disadvantages"

I like Gryce. He's devious and practical. I don't like the narrator, Mr. Raymond. He needs to be hit over the head many times.

 He refuses to do "ungentlemanly" things that will actually solve the case, like looking at addresses on personal letters or listening to private conversations. Gentleman seems to be synonymous with Willfully Stupid.

Like this conversation (partly paraphrased and edited for space)
Gryce--The murderer may be one of the women.
Raymond-- I cannot listen to it; it is too horrible.
Gryce-- Women murder people too. Read the criminal records.
Raymond--I do not care for the criminal records. All the criminal records in the world would not make me believe.

I'm waiting for later in the book where he says global warming has nothing to do with the carbon dioxide we are dumping into the atmosphere and that the world was created by intelligent design. Because reality is ungentlemanly.

"Death by means of a pistol shot from the hand of some person unknown"

That's the verdict of the inquest. It took them 2 days and a lot of testimony along with the votes of jurors to state the obvious.

It's generally said that if a murder isn't solved in the first 48 hours that the chances of it being solved go way down. Must have been really easy to get away with murder at that time.

The Leavenworth Case Back of Book Blurb!

"'For the most unselfish of reasons,' I urged. She slowly shook her head. 'You think so.'"

And Bam! Eleanor just told it to the guy trying to be the knight in shining armor! Woo!

Of course he doesn't listen, which is good, since then we wouldn't have a story. Also, she is being REALLY STUPID. Yeah. So the girl has secrets. And at the inquest and to the detectives she seems to purposely act weird. Then she is surprised when she is accused of murder. Not just surprised, but offended that her acting suspiciously would then make people suspicious of her.

So to prove to the narrator that she is innocent without having to divulge the Terrible Secrets, she takes him up to the room where the corpse has been laid out for the past 2 days and climbs all over it and kisses it, because how could she do that if she had killed him?

My question is: HOW COULD SHE DO THAT AT ALL?!?
He's been dead for 2 days! Do you know what that looks like?
Me neither. So I looked it up.

• After 24 hours:
• 15} The body is now the temperature of the surrounding environment
  16} In males, the semen dies
  17} The head and neck are now a greenish-blue color
  18} The greenish-blue color continues to spread to the rest of the body
  19} There is the strong smell of rotting meat
  20} The face of the person is essentially no longer recognizable

• After 3 days:
• 21} The gases in the body tissues form large blisters on the skin
  22} The whole body begins to bloat and swell grotesquely. This process is speeded up if victim is in a hot environment, or in water
  23} Fluids leak from the mouth, nose, eyes, ears and rectum and urinary opening

SHE KISSES THIS? EW! EW! EW!

I don't know if she is or is not the murderer, but I know she is really sick. And stupid.

                        And I'm going to go be ill now.

                                                  And keep reading.

"The certainty that the murderer, whoever he was, had not left the house"

We've already had a woman faint! The girl the narrator falls in love with. You know she is worthy of his love because she faints at the sight of the dead man and because she is beautiful.

But she might also be evil and be the murderer.

Nah, after all she is beautiful.

Otherwise, we are still at the inquest, where they have pulled a bunch of men off the street and are listening to evidence while the body is still upstairs cooling. No suspects or anything, just random guys and a coroner talking. The evidence is for them, not the detective, so are the random guys going to solve this thing? In Bleak House they do the same thing the day after Nemo overdoses, so maybe they are deciding if it is a murder? Like the shot to the back of the head isn't a clue. No idea how this works.

Oh, and there is a missing girl and the murderer probably never left the house.

Now if we could just get past the inquest.

"a ghastly wound in the back of the cranium"

Bam! Page one! Dead guy!

I haven't gotten far and I have a busy weekend ahead-- maybe I should have waited for Monday... But I didn't and the horrid comes quickly. No slow starts this time.

And with a start like that, it might be hard for me to do anything else this weekend even if I am supposed to be doing other productive things... Maybe I can sneak my book in and do some reading on the sly.

I wasn't! I was just... uh... okay, I'll get back to work now.

Next Read!--Starting May 9th!

The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green.

I'd have more to say on this book but most of the stuff I can find on it is more about how Anna Katherine Green is the mother of mysteries and how she started this series with Detective Ebenezer Gryce 9 years before Sherlock Holmes. Another unsung woman author. Etc.

Not that I'm against lamenting the unfairness of unsung authors, but... Tell me about the book! So here is the synopsis that I know about.


Big millionaire Horatio Leavenworth is murdered in his library. The case is attended by Ebenezer Gryce with the help of a junior law partner. There are family members with motives, including daughters--one of whom said junior law partner falls in love with (of course!)

And that is what I know. Not much for a back of book blurb, is it? So I'll have to write a better one at the end. Remind me, please.

Anyway, here is where you find it.
Amazon--Free!
Barnes and Noble--Free!
Project Gutenberg--Free!
GirleBooks--Free!

So on May 9th I start reading and we'll find out how Gryce stacks up to Holmes.