Review of "Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death: The First Book in the Agatha Raisin Series" by M.C. Beaton

I've read several books in the Agatha Raisin series but didn't read the first one until now. In this story we're introduced to Agatha and several other recurring characters.

*****

Irascible, fiftysomething Agatha Raisin - a stout, square-faced woman with good legs and a brown bob - fought and scraped to establish her successful public relations firm in London.



Now that Agatha is financially secure, she decides to retire to the picturesque Cotswolds, which she once visited as a child. Agatha buys a little cottage in the village of Carlsey, but she lacks the social skills for life in a small town.



One of Agatha's first faux pas' is to steal the cleaning lady, Doris Simpson, from her next door neighbor, Sheila Barr. Agatha lures Doris away by offering higher pay, and Sheila is furious.



After knocking around for a while with no village friends, Agatha hits on an idea. She'll enter Carsley's annual quiche baking contest, and her first place win will make her a local celebrity. The problem is Agatha never cooked (or baked) a thing in her life! So Agatha purchases a spinach quiche from a good quicherie in London, puts her name on it, and enters it in the contest.....fully expecting to win.



What Agatha doesn't know is that the quiche contest's judge, Mr. Cummings-Browne.....



......ALWAYS awards first place to a woman called Ella Cartright.



So Agatha loses the contest and angrily leaves her quiche behind to be thrown away. Instead, Mrs. Cummings-Browne takes the quiche home......



.....and that night, while Mrs. Cummings-Browne is out, her husband eats two large pieces. Mr. Cummings-Browne then drops dead, poisoned by cowbane in the quiche.



The police, Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes and Constable Bill Wong, question Agatha, who has to fess up about cheating in the quiche contest.





After investigating, the police decide that cowbane got mixed up with spinach, and Mr. Cummings-Browne's death was accidental.

However, Agatha isn't so sure, and when she starts looking into the victim's death, she gets anonymous threats. So Agatha decides to do some amateur sleuthing, and she's helped by flamboyant Roy Silver - one of the employees in her old public relations firm.



Agatha learns that Mr. Cummings-Browne was a flagrant philanderer, and one of his many 'girlfriends' was quiche contest winner Ella Cartright. In Agatha's eyes there are any number of suspects, including her neighbor Sheila Barr - who may have wanted to frame Agatha; Mr. Cartright - whose wife was cheating with the victim; Mrs. Cummings-Browne, who was embarassed by her husband's behavior; and others. Agatha's investigation is assisted by Constable Bill Wong, who wants to see justice done.

As the story unfolds we meet other ongoing characters, like the vicar's wife Mrs Bloxby - who becomes a friend of Agatha's;



and Colonel James Lacey - a handsome incomer on whom Agatha develops a huge crush.



This is a good introduction to the Agatha Raisin series, recommended to both newbies and fans who haven't read it yet.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Flags on the Bayou: A Historical Novel" by James Lee Burke

Author James Lee Burke, who pens the Detective Dave Robicheaux series and the Holland Family Saga books, often addresses good vs. evil in his novels. In 'Flags on the Bayou', a standalone novel about the Civil War, Burke once again focuses on the malevolence in humanity, exacerbated by the institute of slavery.

*****

The story opens in the middle of the Civil War, when things are going badly for the South. The Union Army controls the Mississippi River and occupies much of Louisiana, the Confederate Army is reeling from its losses, and maundering irregular troops are killing, burning, and destroying. Slaves dream of freedom, slave owners fear losing their 'property', and death and destruction are rampant.

The story revolves around six main characters:

⦿ Wade Lufkin: a former Confederate soldier who marched with the Eighth Louisiana Infantry, having been promised he would serve as a surgeon's assistant and never shed the blood of his fellow man. Lufkin recalls, "I sawed limbs and stacked them in piles at First and Second Manassas and especially at Sharpsburg, where the Eighth Louisiana was mowed down in a cornfield near Dunker Church."



One day Lufkin took a stroll in a snow-covered forest in Virginia and came upon a Union soldier reading a book. Lufkin tried to start a friendly conversation, but the frightened soldier fired a revolver. Lufkin became enraged and savaged the man with a bayonet. Lufkin now has a Minie ball in his left leg and is recuperating on his Uncle Charles's Lady of the Lake Plantation in New Iberia, plagued with guilt about the Union fighter he killed.



⦿ Pierre Cauchon: the oversight constable for Negro legal problems in New Iberia. Cauchon rides up to Lady of the Lake Plantation on his beloved horse Varina, to question a slave called Hannah Laveau. Laveau is suspected of being an insurrectionist and voodoo practitioner who's stirring up her fellow slaves.



Plantation owner Charles Lufkin insults Cauchon by telling him to go to the back door, brushing off his inquiries about Hannah, and calling him white trash.



As the humiliated Cauchon leaves, he notes, "I feel small and my head is dizzy....I would prefer to be disemboweled and have my entrails set afire, as was done to felons in ancient times, rather than re-live the last ten minutes of life."

Cauchon is haunted by another incident as well. When Cauchon's battalion fought at the Battle of Shiloh Church, Major Ira Jamison - who was supposed to be on their flank - just didn't show up. Thus Cauchon's battalion was mercilessly mowed down, and Cauchon's fury has not abated.



Rising tensions result in a gun duel between army veterans Wade Lufkin and Pierre Cauchon, an incident that has long-term consequences for both men.

⦿ Hannah Laveau: Alleged voodoo priestess Hannah is an attractive slave owned by Charles Lufkin.



Owing a debt, Lufkin loaned Hannah to a fellow plantation owner named Minos Suarez. Suarez tried to convince Hannah to 'lie with him', and when Hannah refused, Suarez brutally assaulted her.



Hannah dreams of getting revenge against Suarez, and recalls, "As he got off me, his naked body silhouetted against the moon, his chest heaving, I could feel my hand curling around an imaginary knife that one day would be real."

Hannah also dreams of being reunited with her young son. Hannah was a cook for Confederate troops at Shiloh Church, and was separated from her little boy during the horrific battle there.



When rapist Minos Suarez is murdered with "his reproductive equipment lopped off with a butcher knife", Constable Cauchon comes back to arrest Hannah for the crime.

⦿ Florence Milton: a Northerner from Massachusetts who runs a private school in New Iberia.



Florence is an abolitionist who has little use for the authorities in New Iberia, especially Sheriff Jimmy Lee Romain. Florence observes that Romain "is not a bad man but, unfortunately, a nincompoop." She goes on, "Maybe Mr. Darwin is right about the fish crawling onto the land and becoming simians and eventually the human species. If so, I suspect that someone stepped on the head of Sheriff Romain's ichthyological ancestor."



Florence manipulates Romain, "who probably cannot count his toes without an abacus", to allow her to visit alleged murderer Hannah Laveau in the Negro jail. Florence helps the slave escape.....



.....and when the two women are hunted by Constable Cauchon and slave catchers, the ladies show their mettle.



⦿ Colonel Carleton Hayes: leader of a renegade troop of filthy raggedy Confederate men. Hayes has burned colored settlements, robbed the bank in Opelousas, lynched people he believed to be abolitionists, killed and wounded Union soldiers and civilians, and fired a cannon at Union General Nathaniel Banks in New Iberia. Hayes is cross-eyed with a syphilitic face, and he bemoans his appearance.



When Hayes is confronted about human heads hanging from the saddles of his men, he alleges, "Those are redbones who raped a white woman. Their heads will be on pikes outside St. Martinville before the sun is set, a reminder to the Negro population as well as redbones."

Colonel Hayes and his marauders camp at the Lufkins' Lady of the Lake Plantation.....



.....and when Charles Lufkin is chastised about allowing this, he responds, "Our boys gave their best, but they're outnumbered and without food and ammunition. In a short time we will be at the mercy of the Unionists, many of whom are depraved. Colonel Hayes will not let us down."

⦿ Darla Babineaux: a freed slave woman who lives on the Minos Suarez plantation. Darla likes to wear purple and takes a shine to Constable Pierre Cauchon.



Darla offers herself to the lawman, who refuses because it "would be an abuse of power." Darla replies, "No, it ain't. Men did that to me many years ago. I killed one man and almost killed another. They were both white. Ain't nobody bothered me since. You're a different kind of white man, Mr. Pierre."

Darla tells Pierre about treasure (gold plates, silverware, jewelry, etc.) buried by Minos Suarez, to hide it from the Union army, and reveals that she knows the location of the cache.



Cauchon tries to protect Darla from a predatory Union officer named Captain John Endicott, who wants both Darla and the Suarez treasure. All this results in Cauchon and Darla fleeing, followed by Endicott and his men.



*****

All the action comes full circle by the end of the story, after much death, devastation and havoc, and an epilog describes the fate of the main protagonists.





The story emphasizes that humanity's worst instincts come out in war, and points out that the North means to conquer the South by burning it to a cinder and starving the population. Meanwhile, individual evil people, such as slave catchers, depraved soldiers, and entitled officers, think nothing of raping, robbing, murdering, and so on.

As always, Burke's prose is very evocative, and the reader can picture the bayous and swamps of Louisiana; imagine the tents of the prostitutes, and the dirty smelly pimps that monitor them; taste the blood and poison sucked from a snake bite, and so on. For example, when a coffin containing a dead soldier is pried open, a nauseated observer reports, "From my horse I can smell it....I saw a lot of woe at Shiloh and Corinth, but this is the worst. The body was probably submerged in sawdust and chopped-up ice weeks ago, but some other kind of preservative was probably poured into the soup as well, chemicals that had the opposite consequence. The skin has shrunken and looks webbed on the bones and painted with yellowish-tan shellac, the bones sticking through, like a pterodactyl that has fallen from the sky. I put my handkerchief to my mouth because I'm fixing to throw up."



Burke believes that Flags on the Bayou is his best work, but its hard for me to judge, as I'm a big fan of all his novels.

Thanks to Netgalley, James Lee Burke, and Grove Atlantic for a copy of the manuscript.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "Off The Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything" by Kelly Weill

 

Author Kelly Weill

Kelly Weill, a reporter for 'The Daily Beast', found it hard to believe Flat Earthers really thought our planet is as flat as a pancake. But after Weill spent years hobnobbing with Flat Earthers at conferences across the United States, and interviewing them on weekends, Kelly realized that "Flat Earthers are as serious as your life."



In this book Weill traces the Flat Earth movement from its beginnings in the 1800s to current times, when Flat Earthers tend to get tangled in additional conspiracy theories.

The first 'modern' proponent of a flat Earth was Samuel Birley Rowbotham, a 22-year-old radical who was "occasionally high off his mind on laughing gas when he began imagining a new world in 1838....a moment ripe for conspiracy theories."


Samuel Birley Rowbotham

This was a time of rapid industrialization and income inequality, and laborers worried that new technologies would leave them unemployed. In addition, early evolutionary biology was starting to challenge biblical descriptions of creation. Weill writes, "Conspiracy theories help us feel safe by providing an explanation for things that feel incomprehensible and beyond our control. This dynamic can influence us in measurably silly ways."

The modern configuration of the solar system has been known since the 1500s, and by Rowbotham's time (most) people knew the Earth is round.


Configuration of the Solar System

Rowbotham didn't accept this, however, and referred to the Bible for confirmation, saying a round Earth would mean "there could be no heaven for man's future enjoyment; no higher existence than on this Earth; no spiritual and immortal creatures, and therefore no God or Creator."

Rowbotham suggested that scientists, intellectuals and academics - who said the Earth is round - had some evil agenda, and he railed against them in his speeches. Rowbotham managed to convert some some people to his way of thinking, though LEGITIMATE experiments ALWAYS proved the Earth is round.

Nevertheless, Flat Earthers couldn't accept the truth. In 1870, a wealthy Flat Earther named John Hampden placed an advertisement in the publication 'Scientific Opinion' offering £500 (about £60,000 present day) for proof the Earth is round.


John Hampden

The well-known scientist Alfred Russel Wallace took up the challenge, and a test was conducted at the Bedford Canal, "the mecca of England's Flat Earth scene." After a series of experiments that Flat Earthers tried their best to sabotage, Wallace won the £500 prize.


Alfred Russel Wallace

Hampden was furious and sent letters full of violent abuse to Wallace and many of his friends, charging the scientist with fraud and conspiracy. For example, a letter from Hampden to Wallace's wife read, "If your infernal thief of a husband is brought home some day on a hurdle, with every bone in his head smashed to a pulp, you will know the reason....he is a lying infernal thief, and as sure as his name is Wallace he never dies in his bed. You must be a miserable wretch to be obliged to live with a convicted felon...." Hampden eventually had to pay libel claims, lost all his money, and went to prison because of his behavior.

Rowbotham's Flat Earth movement was continued by John Alexander Dowie, then by Wilbur Glenn Voliva, who was exceptionally aggressive about spreading the word.


John Alexander Dowie


Wilbur Glenn Voliva

In the 1900s, Voliva pushed his Flat Earth agenda by launching a religious radio station, publishing newspapers, making speeches, going on world tours, and establishing his own town called Zion City - where schools taught the Earth is flat. After Voliva died in 1942, his movement abated....but didn't completely go away.


Sign in Zion City

One would think Flat Earthers would be forced to admit the truth in 1966 when NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1 sent back pictures of the Earth that showed a clearly round planet.


Photo of Earth from NASA's Lunar Orbiter 1

These images didn't convince Flat Earthers, though, who claimed they were doctored, staged, and so on. This was a harbinger of the conspiracy theorists who questioned the moon landing in 1969, insisting "the government and the news media conspired to hoodwink the public."


Neil Armstrong walking on the moon

Weill writes that after a Flat Earth evangelist called Charles Johnson died in 2001, the Flat Earth movement became relatively dormant.


Charles Johnson

The author goes on, "Then in 2015, the year Donald Trump launched a conspiracy-laden presidential campaign that many dismissed as a joke, Flat Earth began a much-mocked comeback....By November, 2018, Trump had spent two years in the presidency shaping U.S. policy after his paranoid impulses, and the Flat Earth movement was bigger than ever."

The Flat Earther resurgence was largely due to the internet. Weill observes, "conspiracy theorists became experts in exploiting the web, breaking the internet in ways that shaped how we use it today." Of course Flat Earthers were not the only conspiracists spreading their ideas on the World Wide Web.

Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter were employed to promote anti-vaccine conspiracies; claims that Covid-19 was a hoax; Pizzagate (a conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton's emails contained coded messages connecting Democrat Party officials and U.S. restaurants with a human trafficking and pedophile ring); QAnon (a theory that President Trump was waging a secret war against Satan-worshipping pedophiles in government, business and the media); the belief that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.....and on the extreme right, Neo-Nazis, other anti-Semites, and people against LGBTQ rights.

Moreover Flat Earthers, who are frequently on the internet, tend to embrace additional conspiracy theories. (This is not to suggest they're all Neo-Nazis or anything like that.)


In 2019 Flat Earther Mike Hughes planned to launch himself into the sky to prove the Earth is flat

Unfortunately for Flat Earthers, they are often the victims of their beliefs. In 2018 an Ohio pastor named Nate Wolfe was fired for planning a Flat Earth sermon.



Wolfe says his firing was traumatic, and his family was devastated. He notes, "The church was most of our family and close friends. When I got fired, there was only a handful, like literally four or five people out of two hundred, that reached out to us....It was like, all of a sudden, we didn't exist." According to Weill, Flat Earthers are often shunned by family, friends, and the general public, and believers claim they've been called things like crazy, retard, flat-tard, etc. On the part of the Flat Earthers themselves, they tend to form a kind of cult that has "Jesus and the online Flat Earth community."



Weill is fair-minded in her approach to Flat Earthers, some of whom she considers friends. The author writes that Flat Earthers can't be 'converted' to Globe Earthers with facts, which they'll reject. Psychologists offer the following advice for people trying to pry someone from a cult like Flat Earth: "Keep in communication with that person. Remind them that another world exists outside their faith community. This, in itself, can be difficult, especially when the group preaches ideals that are baffling, even amoral, to the person on the outside."

However, two 'reformed' Flat Earthers, Jose Gonzalez and Craig Pennock, were able to move on from the Flat Earther cult "with support from real-world communities who welcomed them back when they returned to the globe." Gonzalez says about the time he was a Flat Earth conspiracy theorist, "I was laughed at. I had a lot of issues with my family." But after Gonzalez left Flat Earth, "everything came back to life."


Former Flat Earther Jose Gonzalez

Weill has done extensive research and covers all facets of Flat Earthism, as well as various other conspiracy theories, in detail. If you're interested in the subject, this is the book for you.

Rating: 4 stars