Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson: A review

When I read that Kate Atkinson had released another book featuring former police detective and now private detective Jackson Brodie, I put my reading list aside and picked it up. I never miss a chance to spend time in the company of Brodie.

This entry is, it seems to me, an homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None which I read long, long ago and which, along with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd engendered and confirmed my love of mysteries. 

Atkinson takes us to Rook Hall, the east wing of one of England's stately homes called Burton Makepeace where a "Murder Mystery Weekend" is being hosted by the cash-strapped owners of the home as a way of raising money. For only £1250 per person, the guests which include a vicar who has lost his faith and his ability to speak, an army major who lost a leg and his interest in life, a countess, and the Dowager Lady Milton as hostess will have the opportunity to solve a murder mystery. 

But then a real mystery intervenes when a convicted murderer on the run is thought to be hiding somewhere in Burton Makepeace's surrounding moors.

To further complicate matters, Jackson Brodie shows up along with DC Reggie Chase. They are there because of the theft of some paintings including a rather valuable one by J.M.W. Turner. The suspect is the housekeeper, Sophie, who has now gone missing. 

Moreover, there was another recent art theft from the home of a recently deceased widow, a Renaissance painting titled "The Woman with the Weasel." The suspect there was the widow's caregiver named Melanie. Are Melanie and Sophie actually the same person?

So all the plot elements are set for a typical Christie-like mystery, but wait! There's more! There's humor and quite a lot of it, actually. Much of the humor comes from Brodie's internal dialogs and philosophical musings with himself.

The plot was fairly intricate and engaged the little gray cells (as Poirot would say) in trying to sort it out. The result was a highly entertaining read that made me a bit sad to turn that last page.

 
 

Poetry Sunday: Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson

There are no autumn fires where I live in Southeast Texas unless they are the fires of neighbors burning their leaves. If we are lucky and actually get a winter this year we may have fires in the fireplace at some point. We can hope for that. In the meantime, let us enjoy Robert Louis Stevenson's take on the seasons: "Something bright in all! Flowers in the summer, Fires in the fall!"   

Autumn Fires

by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens
   And all up in the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
   See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over, 
   And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
   The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
   Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
   Fires in the fall! 

This week in birds - # 603

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

It's the cutest of the waterbirds - a Pied-billed Grebe enjoys a swim in the afternoon sun.

*~*~*~*

Climate change is a reality that even the most adamant deniers must now admit. Some believe that polluting the atmosphere will help to slow it. Meanwhile, climate scientists warn that we have already breached seven of the nine boundaries of Earth's ecosystems.

*~*~*~*

But some astronomers see a possibility that Earth may actually outlive its star.

*~*~*~*

Methane emissions keep rising which is not a good omen for the continued survival of life on Earth.

*~*~*~*

How can you help? Well, you could plant a garden.

*~*~*~*

Another way to help may be to bury wood in the soil.

*~*~*~*

This autumn will be an exciting time for skywatchers.

*~*~*~*

Native American farming practices have evolved to deal with heat, drought, and water scarcity. 

*~*~*~*

How can a lake the size of New York City simply disappear?

*~*~*~*

Is it possible we are loving some endangered species to death?

*~*~*~*

This is a Yellow-crested Helmetshrike, a "dream bird" from the cloud forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

*~*~*~*

It turns out that the invasive spotted lanternflies have not been so invasive in the Northeast this year.

*~*~*~*

Greenland sharks are known to live up to 400 years. How do they do that?

*~*~*~*

Nature's permutations are truly amazing. For example, there is a fish that tastes things with its legs!

*~*~*~*

There was apparently a population of tyrannosaurs, relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex, that lived in South America. 

*~*~*~*

How do you survey rare vegetation in inaccessible places? Determined botanists are using paragliders. 

*~*~*~*

Archaeologists have found a new use for artificial intelligence. They are using it to discover previously unknown geoglyphs near the Nazca Lines in Peru, some of them dating as far back as 200 BCE.

*~*~*~*

More proof that all things in Nature are connected: When the menhaden disappeared from Chesapeake Bay, the Ospreys also disappeared.

*~*~*~*

Phoenix continues to swelter with record-breaking temperatures.

*~*~*~*

The ecology of the Arctic is threatened because of climate change.

*~*~*~*

Stephen Moss writes of birdwatching in Somerset for 32 years.

*~*~*~*

Octopuses and fish form mutually beneficial hunting parties on the ocean's floor with octopuses as the leaders.

*~*~*~*

There were fears for the survival of Africa's baobab trees in a world of climate change but many of them seem to be thriving.

*~*~*~*

Here are some award-winning wildlife pictures from 2024.

*~*~*~*

A First Nation in Canada is fighting to save old forests.

*~*~*~*

Her name is Moo Deng which means "bouncy pork" and this baby pygmy hippo is the star of the show at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, as well as an internet star.  

Poetry Sunday: Calling Things What They Are by Ada Limon

It is important to call things what they are. The poet Ada Limon agrees.

Calling Things What They Are

by Ada Limon

I pass the feeder and yell, Grackle party! And then an hour later I yell, Mourning dove afterparty! (I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the afterparty.) I am getting so good at watching that I’ve even dug out the binoculars an old poet gave me back when I was young and heading to the Cape with so much future ahead of me it was like my own ocean. Tufted titmouse! I yell, and Lucas laughs and says, Thought so. But he is humoring me; he didn’t think so at all. My father does this same thing. Shouts out at the feeder announcing the party attendees. He throws out a whole peanut or two to the Stellar’s jay who visits on a low oak branch in the morning. To think there was a time I thought birds were kind of boring. Brown bird. Gray bird. Black bird. Blah blah blah bird. Then, I started to learn their names by the ocean, and the person I was dating said, That’s the problem with you, Limón, you’re all fauna and no flora. And I began to learn the names of trees. I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.

This week in birds - #602

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment: 

My yard is still alive with migrating Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Sitting on my patio today, I counted nine at one time who were jostling over access to my feeders that hang next to the patio. But so far, I am seeing only adult females and immatures - nary an adult male like the one in this picture that I snapped last fall. I assume the males will be passing through soon.  

*~*~*~*

Floods and wildfires in Europe are a direct result of climate change according to authorities there. And it is not only in Europe that rising global heat is causing catastrophic damage.

*~*~*~*

Moreover, a new reconstruction of prehistoric Earth shows that it was indeed a very hot place.

*~*~*~*

Why do birds migrate?

*~*~*~*

The Zimbabwe government has ordered the culling of 200 elephants because an extended drought has caused food shortages for the animals.

*~*~*~*

Rising sea temperatures have contributed to a decline in the population of Florida's queen conchs. Now scientists are stepping in to try to aid the endangered shellfish.

*~*~*~*

Some states are petitioning the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate "forever chemicals" air emissions.

*~*~*~*

The nearly extinct Sihek, aka Guam Kingfisher, is getting an assist from biologists who are intent on saving the species.

*~*~*~*

Are Indigenous peoples protecting Earth's biodiversity? That has been a widely spread factoid but it is now being debunked by scientists.

*~*~*~*

Vultures are essential to the proper functioning of Nature and when they die out it is bad news for Nature and that includes humans.

*~*~*~*

The Fish and Wildlife Service has petitioned the court to delete the gray wolf from protections of the Endangered Species Act, saying that the species has now sufficiently recovered to no longer require protection.

*~*~*~*

The shy and secretive Bachman's Sparrow is decreasing in numbers. It is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week.

*~*~*~*

Scientists are using in vitro fertilization to produce young corals that can survive record heat events and reverse the widespread bleaching of reefs. They are planting them in reefs around the Gulf of Mexico.

*~*~*~*

White-nose syndrome has devastated North American bat populations but scientists are finding ways to combat it.

*~*~*~*

Eelgrass is an important part of a coastal environment so its decline along the coast of Maine is cause for concern.

*~*~*~*

Thousands of people gather in Portland, Oregon to watch the nighttime routine of migrating Vaux's Swifts. (Maybe there is hope for humanity, after all.)

*~*~*~*

Did you know there is a contest to see which water lily can hold the most weight? The answer is "quite a lot," as it turns out.

*~*~*~*

A high school in Los Angeles was built over a bone bed from the Miocene era and a shell bed from the Pleistocene era and now researchers are revealing some of the secrets buried there.

*~*~*~*

A federal study has found that climate change will boost the use of hydropower in the Pacific Northwest.

*~*~*~*

The Canada Goose is familiar across the continent, at least in migration. But familiarity does not necessarily mean understanding.

*~*~*~*

The rock art of the San people of South Africa may reveal a knowledge of paleontology that predates the Western study of that field.

*~*~*~*

Native to eastern Asia, the giant joro spider has found its way to North America. First seen in Georgia in 2014, they've recently been sighted for the first time in Pennsylvania.

*~*~*~*

The Dodo lived quite successfully on Earth for millions of years before being wiped out by humans. The last one died in 1662.

Poetry Sunday: The Magnificent Frigatebird by Ada Limon

On trips to the coast, I have sometimes seen frigatebirds and truly they are magnificent! A bird that lives up to its name.

The Magnificent Frigatebird

by Ada Limon

Is it okay to begin with the obvious? I am full of stones—
            is it okay not to look out this window, but to look out another?

A mentor once said, You can't start a poem with a man looking

            out a window. Too many men looking out a window.

What about a woman? Today is a haunting. One last orange

            on the counter: it is a dead fruit. We swallow dead things.

Once, in Rio near Leblon, large seabirds soared over the vast

            South Atlantic Ocean. I had never seen them before.

Eight-foot wingspan and gigantic in their confident gliding, black,

            with a red neck like a wound or a hidden treasure. Or both.

When I looked it up, I learned it was the Magnificent Frigatebird.

            It sounded like that enormity of a bird had named itself.

What a pleasure to say, I am Magnificent. And, too, they traveled as a team,

            so I wondered if they named each other. Generously tapping

one another's deeply forked tail or their plumage, glistening with salt air,

            their gular sacs saying, You are Magnificent. You are also Magnificent.

It makes me want to give all my loves the adjectives they deserve:

            You are Resplendent. You are Radiant. You are Sublime.

I am far away from tropical waters. I have no skills for flight or wings

            to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself. But from here,

I can still imagine rapture, a glorious caught fish in the mouth of a bird.

This week in birds - #601

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

                                                                                                         Photo by Susan Borders Evans

The orb weavers are out and doing their thing. They are wonderful critters. Please be kind to them.

*~*~*~*

Defending Nature is a dangerous business in a world where at least three defenders are killed every week.

*~*~*~*

Unfortunately, Nature must be defended not only against those who harm intentionally but also those who harm through carelessness. 

*~*~*~*

Fall migration is in full swing. According to BirdCast, nearly two million birds passed over my county last night.

*~*~~*~*

Sometimes humans actually manage to assist Nature. This was the case of the Bald Ibis in Europe.

*~*~*~*

A scientific investigation has concluded that Earth vibrated for nine days after a landslide and mega-tsunami in Greenland in 2023. Figuring that out took the efforts of about seventy people from fifteen different countries.

*~*~*~*

It is for good reason that the Amazon is referred to as "Earth's lungs.

*~*~*~*

Some orb weaver spiders are known to use captured fireflies to lure in more prey.

*~*~*~*

At least three major wildfires are burning in southern California displacing tens of thousands of residents.

*~*~*~*

It seems that Earth may have a new mini-moon at least for a couple of months.

*~*~*~*

The Brazilian city of Linhares has granted its ocean waves the status of legal personhood in order to pave the path to marine protection.

*~*~*~*

We have recognized the need for wildlife bridges over busy highways, but do marine animals need such bridges also?

*~*~*~*

Studies have found that methane emissions are rising faster than ever.

*~*~*~*

Those methane emissions could contribute to the fact that this year has seen the hottest summer on record and could lead to the warmest year that humans have measured.

*~*~*~*

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week this week is a seabird, the Parkinson's Petrel, also called the Black Petrel because its only spot of color is its pale yellow bill with its black tip. 

*~*~*~*

Hundreds of sea lions took over a popular California beach during their migration, causing officials to close the beach down for a period of time.

*~*~*~*

Pompeii was destroyed by a volcanic eruption 1945 years ago, but it is still yielding up its secrets to archaeologists.

*~*~*~*

There is evidence that birds that live in the city have less vibrant colors than the same species living in more rural areas.

*~*~*~*

The new Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary in California will protect more than 116 miles of that state's coastline.

*~*~*~*

This is a new tarantula species (Aphonopelma jacobii) that has been discovered in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves: A review

So, I had my reading list all set, and then I heard that there was a new Vera Stanhope mystery out. Reading list tossed aside, I jumped right into that new book. I regret nothing. I will always drop everything for a new Vera mystery for she is probably my favorite of all the fictional detectives of my acquaintance. I strongly identify with the middle-aged, frumpy, overweight Vera. (I wonder why that is?)

The Dark Wives of the title refers to a stone monument in the Northumberland countryside. But the story itself revolves around Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. 

The mystery begins when a dog walker discovers a man's murdered body outside Rosebank one early morning. The victim turns out to be a Rosebank staff member named Josh. He had been scheduled to work the previous night but he never showed up. 

At the same time, one of the home's residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence has disappeared. Is it possible that this child committed the murder? Or perhaps that she saw something that caused her to run away?

DI Vera Stanhope and her team are called in to investigate. Her team now consists of the stalwart DS Joe Ashworth and a new member DC Rosie Bell, replacing DC Holly Clarke who died in the previous book in the series, The Rising Tide.

The team has hardly begun the investigation when a second murder occurs. This time the body is discovered near the Dark Wives monument. Vera believes that the key to solving the mysteries will be finding Chloe because she is sure that she must know something that relates to the killings.

Watching Vera work is an unadulterated pleasure. What she lacks in tact she makes up for in an unerring instinct for ferreting out the truth and recognizing it when she finds it. That instinct and her no-nonsense pursuit of the truth have served her well and have earned her the respect of her community.  She is a brilliant investigator.

And now I am left to wonder if we will ever get another television adaptation of the books in the series. I don't know if Brenda Blethyn who played the character of Vera so well is still available to play her again. It would be a shame if she isn't. Still, no doubt there is another actress out there somewhere who would be a good fit. Make it so, television producers! 

 

Poetry Sunday: September by Helen Hunt Jackson

The beginning of September means that the year is winding down. But wasn't it only yesterday that it was February? It must be true that the older we get the more time flies. This year has seemed but a brief moment. Now my yard is aflutter with the autumn's yellow sulphur butterflies and I wonder what happened on that day of one September that the poet never could forget...

September

by Helen Hunt Jackson

The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.
From dewy lanes at morning
the grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather,
And autumn's best of cheer.
But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.
'T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.

This week in birds - #600

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week is one that most of us have not seen and perhaps will never see. It is the largest of North America's auklet species, the Rhinoceros Auklet. It is a seabird that nests in burrows or deep crevices on rocky islands and cliffs and winters at sea and is decreasing in numbers.

*~*~*~*

Electricity generated by solar power is increasing across the country. Moreover, solar farms not only produce power, in many cases they produce habitats for pollinators and other wildlife.

*~*~*~*

Expeditions to the sunken RMS Titanic are still making discoveries.

*~*~*~*

More proof that everything is connected: New research has linked crashing bat populations and infant mortality.

*~*~*~*

Chimpanzees and other apes, just like humans, use meaningful gestures to help communicate and make their point.  

*~*~*~*

Flash floods can happen even in deserts.

*~*~*~*

According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, extreme heat killed more Americans in 2023 than in any year in the past quarter century.

*~*~*~*

Cambodia is celebrating the return of artifacts that were looted from that country in previous decades.

*~*~*~*

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna) has suspended Bangladesh due to its illegal trade in birds.

*~*~*~*

The Navajo Nation has adopted changes to tribal law that regulate the transportation of uranium across its lands.

*~*~*~*

Bats are sometimes victims in illegal wildlife trade.

*~*~*~*

The California coast has been suffering through excessive heat that extends all the way through midnight each day.

*~*~*~*

Researchers in Oregon are painting wind turbines partially black in order to try to reduce bird deaths from them.

*~*~*~*

The National Audubon Society explains what a songbird is.

*~*~*~*

Drought and heat are taking their toll on Nature, but Nature is nothing if not resilient.