Review of "At Midnight Comes The Cry: A Reverend Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne Mystery' by Julia Spencer-Fleming

In this 10th book in the 'Reverend Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries', Russ and Clare - who live in Miller's Kill, New York - confront members of a White militia in the area. The series does have an arc for the main characters, but the mystery can be read as a standalone.

*****

Background: The Reverend Clare Fergusson was a military helicopter pilot for ten years until she retired to become an Episcopal priest and a major in the National Guard.



Clare's husband, Russ Van Alstyne, was the police chief in Miller's Kill until recently, when he was forced to retire for political reasons.



As the story opens, the Thanksgiving-Christmas season is gearing up, and Clare and Russ are celebrating with their 8-month-old son Ethan. At the moment, the family is watching 'The Greenwich Annual Lighted Tractor Parade' at the home of a friend, and enjoying the spectacle.



In the midst of the procession, a float passes with a woman giving out candy, and holding a banner that reads White Families Unite! Blood and Soil Are Our Heritage! Diversity Is A Code Word For White Genocide. Then the float's driver unfurls a sign that says Keep America's Christmas White.

The spectators start shouting, and Russ's friend jumps on the vehicle and starts a ruckus.



Clare and Russ rush over to quell the disturbance, and Clare even manages to 'befriend' the banner-wielding White supremacist woman, whose name is Meghan Smith.



This amity gets Clare and Russ invited to a barbecue at the home of Meghan and her husband Rick Smith, where Clare and Russ meet members of a local White militia.



This turns out to be auspicious for two reasons: an undercover police officer is missing, and a woman needs help - and both situations involve White supremacists.

» Police Officer Kevin Flynn, who worked in Miller's Kill until he transferred to the Syracuse Police Department, is on leave and hasn't contacted his family for months.



From Assistant State's Attorney Yíxīn Zháo, who worked with Kevin in Syracuse......



......Russ learns that Kevin infiltrated a group of militia types upstate, in the Adirondack Park. Russ also finds out that the militia types call themselves 'Knox's Noble Train', and talk a lot about defending their liberties and their way of life.



With this information, Russ and Police Officer Hadley Knox - who was Kevin's girlfriend when he was a cop in Miller's Kill - plan to locate the militia's campsite in Adirondack Park, find Kevin, and get him out.



Russ and Hadley are joined by Native American forest ranger Paul Terrance, whose uncle - also a forest ranger -went missing in Adirondack Park.



Clare borrows a spotter plane, and flies Russ, Hadley, and Paul over the park to locate the militia's campsite.



Afterwards, Russ, Hadley, and Paul head into the wilderness, and find the body of Paul's uncle in a shallow grave.



Paul heads back to inform law enforcement agencies, and Yíxīn Zháo works on the bureaucratic side of arresting the guilty parties.



Meanwhile, Russ and Hadley locate the Knox's Noble Train encampment, and observe that the militia - whose members include law enforcement and military personnel - are organized, savvy, and well-protected.



The militia also has the makings of bombs and explosives, which they presumably plan to use. The 'good guys' just have to figure out what the target is, and how to stop the attack.

While all this is going on, Clare is back in Miller's Kill, attempting to help a woman in a domestic abuse situation.

» Tiny, a mother Clare met at the home of Meghan and Rick Smith, is married to Calvin March, a fanatical White supremacist. Calvin is controlling, barely lets Tiny leave the house, doesn't allow her to have any visitors, and hits her when he gets angry.



Clare makes it her mission to extricate Tiny from the abusive home, but Tiny is frightened, cowed, and unwilling to involve the police. As for Calvin, he's vengeful, wily, and a core member of 'Knox's Noble Train'. All this leads to big trouble.



As the story unfolds, Russ's and Clare's plotlines merge and lead to an exciting climax.

Like other books in the series, this novel is chock full of danger, action, and adventure. The story is also very relevant to current times, with bigots spewing toxic hatred.



Assuming the series continues, I'll be curious to see where Russ goes from here. Without his job as police chief, Russ is at loose ends, and he needs something to do besides helping raise baby Ethan.



This is an exciting adventure/suspense story, recommended to fans of the genre.

Thanks to Netgalley, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and Minotaur for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Everyone In This Bank Is A Thief: An Ernest Cunningham Mystery" by Benjamin Stevenson

 

In this fourth book in the 'Ernest Cunningham' series, set in Australia, the amateur sleuth investigates the disappearance of a banker. The book works fine as a standalone.

*****

The premise of these clever mysteries by Benjamin Stevenson is that an author named Ernest Cunningham writes books about real murders he's helped to solve.



Cunningham prides himself on the fact that he adheres to the rules of 'Golden Age' mysteries, such as: nothing supernatural; no surprise identical twins; the killer must be important to the plot; no obvious truths must be concealed from the reader; and so on. Ernest sticks to the rules, but in a rather cunning fashion so it's tricky to suss out the clues.

*****

As the book opens, Ernest is trapped in a bank safe, running out of oxygen, documenting the heist that landed him there.

This is Ernest's narrative, starting that morning:

Ernest and his fiancée Juliette have an appointment at a privately owned bank in a town called Huxley - to apply for a business loan. Ernest wants to open a private detective agency, and he's been turned down by all the big banks, and even by a loan shark.



When Ernest and Juliette meet with the owner of Huxley's Bank, William Huxley, he offers to make a deal.



Winston's brother Edward Huxley, the bank's co-owner, has gone missing, and he's the only one who knows the new code to the vault. If Ernest can find Edward, he'll get his business loan.



While Ernest and Juliette are waiting for a teller to show them around the building, a gun-wielding bank robber comes into the bank, takes everyone in the lobby hostage, and demands to get money from the vault.



Since the vault is shut tight, and the new code is unknown, Ernest is tasked with searching for Edward and/or the code. Meanwhile, Juliette and the others are held hostage by the thief.



During this time, the police congregate outside the bank, and a hostage negotiator arrives, but the bank robber says he has no demands.



It becomes clear that the burglar has more on his mind than money, and soon enough, a murder is exposed. Ernest is constitutionally incapable of NOT investigating a homicide, and he goes to great lengths to uncover the killer.



Along the way, Ernest learns that every person in the bank is a thief with a secret, and Ernest works hard to expose them all.

The people in the bank, in addition to those mentioned above are:

● Felix, the bank guard, who generally just deals with unruly customers.



● Eric, the teenage gaming whiz. He's come to get a safe deposit box for his piggy bank.



● Remy Allard, the show business producer. He's come to make a large withdrawal from his account.



● Father Gabriel, the priest who's made a vow of silence. He's come to consult with the bank manager.



● Michelle, the receptionist who works at the bank's information desk.



● Cordelia Bright, the sick young woman with a portable medical device. She's come to get her crowdsourcing money.



● Laverna Bright, the sick young women's grandmother, who's also her caregiver.



The plot is convoluted, and armchair sleuths will find it challenging to unearth the clues, secrets, and sometimes even the crimes. As in the best golden age mysteries, Ernest assembles everyone at the book's climax, to expose the miscreant(s).

Accolades to author Ben Stevenson for this clever story. Recommended to fans of creative cozy mysteries.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Barton Welch, who does a fine job.

Thanks to Netgalley, Benjamin Stevenson, and HarperAudio/Mariner for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Metronome (Object Lessons)" by Matthew K. Birkhold

'Object Lessons' is a series about ordinary objects. The narratives are "filled with fascinating details....and make the everyday world come to life." The series has covered many common items, such as golf balls; bread; socks; eye charts; high heels; remote controls; magnets; pubs; trench coats; blue jeans; and lots more.



I was curious about Object Lessons, and though I'm not a musician, decided to read 'Metronome'. The metronome is 'a device that produces a regular sound or motion to help with timing and tempo in music and other activities'. The metronome was invented by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel in 1815, for the improvement of musical performance.


Johann Nepomuk Maelzel


Antique Maelzel Metronome

Users could adjust the Maelzel metronome to swing at a specific number of beats per minutes (bpm), from 40 bpm to 208 bpm, and the device produced a steady ticking sound to mark the chosen tempo. Users then assigned a given note value to the objective rate, for instance, quarter note = 60 bpm.



This exactitude was more specific than tempo markings described in words, such as: andante - walking pace; allegro - lively and fast; presto - very fast.



Like anything new, the metronome wasn't immediately popular, and many musicians stuck to their traditional ways. Birkhold details much of the historical controversy over the metronome. For instance, Felix Mendolssohn reportedly asked, "What on earth is the point of a metronome? Any musician who cannot guess at the tempo of a piece just by looking at it is a duffer."


Felix Mendolssohn

Conversely, Ludwig van Beethoven championed the device. In 1817, Beethoven published a table of tempi for each of his then eight symphonies in accordance with Maelzel's metronome.


Ludwig van Beethoven

The controversy was intense because many musicians preferred their own artistic instincts to the metronome's dictatorship. However, the metronome caught on and "it has firmly rooted itself in our lives and purports to exercise absolute authority over time".

Birkhold explains how composers mark their compositions with metronome marks delineated as MM (for Maelzel's Metronome) to indicate tempo, and how conductors and musicians use the MM marks. The author cites numerous examples of historic and current composers, conductors, and players, which should interest music aficionados.




Conductor Leonard Bernstein

Interestingly, metronomes are sometimes made part of the music, as in 'Poème symphonique' by György Ligeti.


Poème symphonique performance at the Buffalo Arts Festival (1965)

Choreographer Trisha Brown even incorporated the metronome into some of her dances. As an illustration, in Brown's 'Figure 8', eight dancers move to the sound of a ticking metronome.


Trisha Brown's 'Figure 8' dance

Though metronomes are probably best known for their associations with music, they're now used in a variety of other disciplines, such as:

➤ typewriting schools - to improve speed

➤ factories - to train assembly line workers

➤ psychotherapy - to treat people with ADHD, PTSD, and traumatic brain injuries

➤ physical therapy - to assist the gait of patients

➤ sports - to improve golf swings, basketball shots, baseball pitches, and for football practice

➤ acting - to improve/rehearse speech and actions

.......and more.

The world's largest metronome is even a work of art, standing in Letná Park in Prague.


Prague Metronome

Of course, modern metronomes no longer look like the object Maelzel designed. Over the years, Maelzel's wind-up metronome morphed into electric devices, battery-powered devices, and today most metronomes exist on smartphones.


Dr. Beat Metronome by Boss

After numerous engaging anecdotes about metronomes, Burkhold winds up with an inspirational story about the Siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944. "After the threat of air raids subsided in early 1942, the metronome transformed from an important warning device to a social connector. Rather than letting silence fill the airwaves between scheduled broadcasts, radio operators played the sound of a metronome. Even in their cold apartments, city residents could hold on to the sound of the metronome. They were survivors. They were united."


German troops on the outskirts of Leningrad

I found the book informative and interesting, and highly recommend it, especially to music lovers.


A Symphony Orchestra

Thanks to Netgalley, Matthew H. Birkhold, and Bloomsbury Academic for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 4 stars