Christmas is on the way, and Central Valley towns are getting into the spirit of the season with parades, parades, and more parades! Last weekend I attended three in a row, each representing the values and histories of the communities in which they took place.
My first parade experience was during WWII in Fort Worth, Texas at P.T. Barnum’s circus. It was under the big top and the ringmaster shouted “Strike up the Band!” The parade was led by elephants ridden by beautiful girls wearing brightly colored head dresses of ostrich plumes. They were followed by other circus performers, wild animals and clowns. It was quite a sight.
While we ready ourselves for Benedict Cumberbach and Martin Freeman in Arthur Conan Doyle’s nineteenth century London adventure, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride on PBS January 1, 2016, you are probably in the mood to start your holiday early by reading a Christmas cozy. The Mrs. Jeffries and Inspector Witherspoon series by Emily Brightwell (AKA Cheryl Lanham) is just the ticket. It’s murder most Victorian in Mrs. Jeffries and the Yuletide Weddings (2009), Mrs. Jeffries and the Mistletoe Mix-up (2011) and Mrs. Jeffries and the Merry Gentlemen (2014).
It was inevitable that the Molly Murphy series should have a Christmas tale, and now it does. It is the winter of 1905 in Little ‘Ol' New York, and the streets are filled with Holiday shoppers, beggars and pickpockets. Molly, now Mrs. Murphy, with a little boy and married to police Captain Daniel Murphy, is looking forward to celebrating Christmas with her family and her husband’s visiting mother. Instead, of course, she becomes involved with a murder mystery.
What if Lizzie Borden wasn’t a patricidal maniac with an axe? What if she was trying to save the world from the Old Gods who want to take over and destroy everything? What if there was a “church” trying to bring the return of these all-consuming creatures? What if a mathematician was using his computations to kill the chosen sacrifices to spoil those plans? If all those what-ifs were true, you’d have “Chapelwood,” by Cherie Priest.
I feel very certain that had I not visited Miyazawa-san that morning, he would have died.
On the other hand, I also wonder whether it might not have been better had he died, as he is today a nervous wreck, unable to function normally, with a fear of books, magazines and newspapers that is beyond the ken of normal understanding.
While a weekend hunting trip in rural Swinton, Georgia, wouldn’t seem to be the preferred choice for a Christmas-season getaway, portrait artist Cherry Tucker is looking for an escape from her family problems in Forks County. A timely opportunity arises when the owners of the Big Rack Lodge host a ten-thousand dollar buy-in competition to hunt down the mythical hogzilla that is one of the feral hogs wreaking havoc throughout Georgia.
Children’s theatre helps young audiences learn how to act at a live performance, and helps performers learn confidence, how to express themselves, and control. The Enchanted Playhouse production of The Elves and the Shoemaker in Visalia is a good example of this.
The Good Dinosaur is the newest Disney/Pixar film. It is about an Apatosaurus dinosaur named Arlo who is afraid of everything and he wants to make his mark on the world like his brother and sister have. However, he finds it difficult to overcome his fears.
This week we have a fun group of 3 Christmas mysteries from Penguin authors-Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue by Victoria Thompson, Trimmed with Murder by Sally Goldenbaum, and The Iced Princess: A Snow Globe Shop Mystery by Christine Husom. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win all 3 books & a link that you can use to purchase them.
