Quote It! Saturday

Freda's Voice has an awesome Saturday meme for quote lovers called Quote It! and I have another blog, Quote Mistress, which is entirely devoted to the quotes I have collected over my lifetime. So my Quote It! may be found on my quote site. I'd love for you to visit...and be sure and visit Freda's Voice too!

Saturday Snapshot: May 26 (Birds!)

Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books. All you have to do is "post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mr. Linky on [her] blog. Photos can be old or new, and be of anything as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give is up to you." All she asks is that you don't just post random photos that you find online. (Click picture for close-up).

 

A tree full of birds....found on a walk with my parents in November 2010.  Nearly every branch had an occupant.

So Many Steps to Death: Review

So Many Steps to Death (originally published in 1954 as Destination Unknown and first published in the US under this title in 1955) is one of Agatha Christie's non-series books.  As seems to be usual for her stand-alone books, this is a foray into spy/thriller territory.  This time we have scientists and chemists and medical researchers disappearing at an alarming rate.  In the Cold-War-Era climate, this is particularly disturbing and England's secret service becomes especially interested when a young scientist by the name of Thomas Betterton vanishes. They suspect that his wife knows where to find him and when she suddenly decides to leave England for her health on "doctor's orders" they decide to keep close tabs on her.  Then her plane crashes and she isn't expected to live.

Enter Hilary Craven.  Hilary's husband has deserted her for another woman and her daughter has just died from a long illness.  She thinks that taking a trip will somehow change her life.  But when she arrives in Morocco she finds that what she has been trying to run away from is herself...and you can't do that.  Thinking that she has nothing left to live for, she goes from pharmacy to pharmacy gathering enough sleeping pills to end her life.  But Hilary has caught the eye of one of the secret service men...or rather her red hair has.  And he offers her a bargain...take an assignment that means almost certain death (and which might just get her interested in living again) rather than taking pills which may not be as pleasant a way out as she anticipates.

What is wanted is for Hilary to take the place of Mrs. Thomas Betterton and her particular shade of red hair makes her the perfect candidate.  The scientist's wife is definitely not going to survive her injuries and Hilary is to take on her persona.  If anyone contacts her about joining her husband, she is to follow along and lead the agents to where the scientists have been taken.  It will be dangerous and she's going to have to be letter-perfect in her role.  Will she do it?  Hilary decides she will.  Off into the unknown, taking what seems to be So Many Steps to Death.

Generally speaking, I haven't been as big a fan of Christie's stand-alone novels as I am of Poirot and Miss Marple and Tommy & Tuppence.  The one big exception is And Then There Were None (aka Ten Little Indians, etc), which I think is absolutely awesome.  But this one is pretty darn good. Christie loves to take the standard of various plots in the mystery/detective world and give them her own little twist.  Here she does it with the "scientists defecting to the other side" motif.  Only....are they?  Or, rather, are they going where they think they are and for the purpose that they believe in?  That's the real question.

Hilary Craven is a very intelligent and likeable character.  It is easy to see why she might have been full of despair, but being the type of woman she is, it's also easy to see why she would take up the challenge offered her by Jessop.  It's not that she despises life in general--she just wants a reason for living.  And he provides that for her.  The plot--her taking on another woman's persona--may be a bit shaky, but it's got enough grounding to make the reader willing to believe it.  A fun and quick read.  Four stars.

Quotes:

W: Nobody's so gullible as scientists. All the phony mediums say so.  Can't quite see why.

J: Oh, yes, it would be so. They think they know, you see. That's always dangerous.

~Wharton; Jessop (p. 3)

As for Nigel, she had no wish to burden him with useless remorse even if a note from her would have achieved that object...."Poor old Hilary," he would say, "bad luck"--and it might be that, secretly, he would be rather relieved. Because she guessed that she was, slightly, on Nigel's conscience, and he was a man who wished to feel comfortable with himself. (p. 23)

HC: You think I shall differently tomorrow? [about suicide]

J: People do.

HC: Yes, perhaps. If you're doing things in a mood of hot despair. But when it's cold despair, it's different. I've nothing to live for, you see.

~Hilary Craven; Jessop (p. 26)

I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people if they are sorry for themselves. Self-pity is the biggest stumbling block in our world today.

~Jessop (p. 36)

E: When one has at last reached freedom, can one even contemplate going back?

HC: But if it is not possible to go back, or to choose to go back, then it is not freedom!

~Ericsson; Hilary Craven (p. 83)

One must have common sense, nothing is permanent, nothing endures. I have come to the conclusion that this place is run by a madman. A madman, let me tell you, can be very logical. If you are rich and logical and also mad, you can succeed for a very long time in living out your illusion. But in the end....in the end this will break up. Because, you see, it is not reasonable what happens here! That which is not reasonable must always pay the reckoning in the end.

~Dr. Barron (p. 118)

There speaks the passion and the rebellion that go with red hair. My second wife had red hair. She was a beautiful woman, and she loved me. Strange, is it not? I have always admired red-haired women. Your hair is very beautiful. There are other things I like about you. Your spirit, your courage; the fact that you have a mind of your own.

~Mr. Aristides (p. 144)

Friday Memes

Book Beginnings on Friday is a bookish meme now sponsored by Rose City Reader (who originally inspired the meme). Here's what you do: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments section. Include the title and author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you are so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line and if you did or did not like that sentence. Link up each week at Gilion's place.

Here's mine from So Many Steps to Death by Agatha Christie:

The man behind the desk moved a heavy glass paper weight four inches to the right. His face was not so much thoughtful or abstracted as expressionless.

{Sounds like a very precise fellow.  If I didn't know that this isn't a Hercule Poirot book, I would suspect that the man behind the desk was Poirot.}

The Friday 56 is a bookish meme sponsored by Freda's Voice. It is really easy to participate. Just grab a book, any book, and turn to page 56. Find a sentence that grabs you and post it.

Here's mine from So Many Steps to Death by Agatha Christie:

What was the idea of shutting her in there? Then she noticed that there was another door in a corner of the room.

Bloggers Recommend: Non-US & Non UK Books

1 Question - 5 Answers - from 5 (sometimes more) Bloggers

Tanya over at Girlxoxo sponsors Bloggers Recommend--a nifty little series where she asks five (or more) of her fellow book bloggers to recommend one (or sometimes two) favorite books for a given topic.  The most recent installment is Favorite Book(s) Set in Countries Other Than the US & UK and I am one of the lucky bloggers who has been asked to offer up some recommendations.  Please hop on over and see what my fellow bloggers & I have chosen. 

The Inn at Lake Devine: Review

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman is narrated by Natalie Marx.  Natalie's family is Jewish.  And in the "enlightened" times of the 1960s, racial barriers are falling.  Supposedly.  But when Natalie's parents are looking for a place to spend their vacation in the summer of 1962, they receive an answer from Vermont that sounds very much like a challenge to Natalie.  The guests of the Inn at Lake Devine are all Gentiles--they're the ones who "feel most comfortable here and return year after year."  After her mother shows her the letter, Natalie becomes almost obsessed with the Inn.  She is determined to cross the threshold as guest. 

What follows is a wonderful novel coming of age novel.  It is all about growing up with racial and religious differences.  It's an insightful commentary on the prejudices and bigotry that kept Jewish people and others out of certain establishments and forced them to create their own places.  It shows how one girl's determination can bring understanding to at least a few people.  And it does it without being heavy-handed, without hitting the reader over the head with platitudes.  It even manages to produce a lovely romantic story along the way.

I picked this one up for the Getting Lost in a Comfortable Book Challenge.  Not my normal reading fare, but a wonderful story and a very quick read.  Natalie is a marvelous central character--someone that I wish I knew in real life.  And the supporting characters are just as finely drawn....there are no cardboard cutouts here.  Real people facing real problems....and dealing with events in a very realistic way.  Highly recommended. Four stars.

Quote:

That's how it was on Irving Circle and how I was raised: You made the best out of what was within reach, which meant friendships engineered by parents and by the happenstance of housing. I stayed with it because we both had queenly older sisters who rarely condescended to play with us, because Shelley was adopted and I was not, because Shelley had Clue and Life, and I did not. (p. 11)

Theme Thursday: Friend

Hosted by Reading Between the Pages

Rules

• A theme will be posted each week (on Thursday’s)
• Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
• Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
• It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word)
  

*Link back to Reading Between the Pages

And this week's theme is Friend (buddy, confidant, comrade, etc.).


Here is my selection from The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman (p. 11):

That's how it was on Irving Circle and how I was raised: You made the best out of what was within reach, which meant friendships engineered by parents and by the happenstance of housing. I stayed with it because we both had queenly older sisters who rarely condescended to play with us, because Shelley was adopted and I was not, because Shelley had Clue and Life, and I did not.


AND (p. 56):


The night his letter arrived, my parents asked at dinner--a dinner at which I had picked the canned gray button mushrooms out of my mother's pot roast--what it was that was making me and Mr. Berry such fast friends.

The Lady in the Loch: Review

Soooo, once upon a time I put The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough on my long TBR list.  I'm thinking I probably did that because it was billed as a historical/literary mystery. 'Cause, you know it's set in the late 18th century and stars Walter Scott before he became a "Sir" and before he had written/published most of his best known work.  And I do love me a good historical mystery.  I'm sure the basic synopsis grabbed my attention too.

Because Walter Scott has just recently been appointed as a sheriff of Edinburgh.  He expects the job to be a pretty simple one--giving him a nice steady income and time to work on his writing.  But shortly after taking office he is called to the banks of the half-frozen loch where workers who have been draining off the water have found the bones of some poor soul who was disposed there.   Before he has time to really investigate this find, a young gypsy woman named Midge Margaret comes to him with a story of missing women from the gypsy camp.  One young girl disappeared while gathering wood for the fire and another was snatched from her very bed during the night. 

Midge Margaret gets more attention from Scott than most townsfolk are willing to give the "tinklers" as the gypsies are called--in part because their paths had crossed years earlier in one of Scott's first encounters with sheriff duties (more as a bystander than a law-enforcer).  At first it is thought that body snatchers or "nobbins" as the gypsies call them are responsible for the disappearances.  Because after all, nobody will miss a few gypsies here and there and the university can always use extra bodies to learn medicine and anatomy from.  Scott promises to look into the matter, but before he can make many inquiries Midge Margaret and her brother are attacked in town and her pregnant sister-in-law is taken as well.  Now the race is on...for the attacker is working to a schedule and for a design of his own and Scott and Midge Margaret will have to be quick if they are going to prevent Jeannie (the sister-in-law) from becoming another body in the loch.

All that sounds like the basis for a pretty good mystery story, don't you think?  But nobody told me in the various synopses that I read that we'd be dealing with ghosts and dead people sitting up and talking.  Nobody told me that a sheriff would have the mystical power to call upon a murdered girl and ask her who her murderer is--and that she'd answer.  Nobody told me that we had the belief (and reality) that if murdered people are touched by their attacker then their wounds will bleed afresh and proclaim the guilt of the killer.  Nobody told me that we'd be dealing with spirit possession of living people.  And nobody, after getting me to suspend my disbelief long enough to swallow a historical mystery that contains such things, can tell me why a murdered man later in the book doesn't jump up and proclaim the murderer when he's examined by him/her.  Oh....but that would end the book about two chapters too soon and we can't have that, so that whole murdered people can identify their murderers thing only works when it's convenient for the plot. 

So, that's my major quibble with this book.  After getting me to travel back in time and making be believe in the Walter Scott (and the gypsies and the other characters...) of the time period and making me believe that all this mystical stuff is true, Scarborough does not use the paranormal trappings consistently.   Or at least doesn't give a very good reason why it only works part of the time.  If it works, then it works. Period.  Not just when the author needs it to.

The characters are great. I don't know Sir Walter Scott's work and I don't know much about him, so I can't say whether Scarborough's Scott is true to life.  But I like her portrayal of him.  And I like Midge Margaret a lot.  She's a very intelligent and brave young woman--and the reader is rooting for her and her companions.  The plot itself is an interesting one.  All pluses.  I'm not sure if Scarborough meant the identity of the killer to be a big secret and the reveal to be a surprise--but it wasn't.  It didn't take me long to figure out who was behind the disappearances and deaths.  Overall, a fairly decent story--not quite what I expected and not as consistent within its own world as I would like.  Two and a half stars--mostly for character development.

Teaser Tuesdays

MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesdays. Anyone can play along. Just do the following:

*Grab your current read.*Open to a random page.
*Share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.

*BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! You don't want to ruin the book for others.

*Share the title and author too, so other TT participants can add it to their TBR lists if they like your teaser.

Here's mine from The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (p. 153):

"Thon lassie is no common fortune-teller, Deacon," Hogg said to Primrose. "She's a verra fine singer, and a seventh dochter of a seventh deochter, as was her mither before her."

"Is she noo?" Mac Rae asked. "I'd like a word with her.  Could be she could use the Sight tae gie me a clue as tae the identity o' yer lady in yon loch."

(a bit heavy-going through that Scottish accent at times....)

The Cat Who Saw Red: Review

The Cat Who Saw Red is the fourth book in Lilian Jackson Braun's popular "Cat Who..." series.  Once upon a time I read one of these books (The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern, the second book)--I got it through the Mystery Guild book club--and thought it a decent read.  But I never really bothered to go on with the series.  It's an interesting concept.  You have Jim Qwilleran, a news reporter for the The Daily Fluxion, and his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum.  Qwilleran used to be a crime reporter--quite a good one--until a rough divorce resulting in depression and a problem with alcohol caused him to lose his job.  When the series begins, he has taken a job with The Daily Fluxion and is working his way back to respectability.

This book finds Qwill (as he's known to his friends) assigned to cover the restaurant beat.  And for his first story, he decides to interview Robert Maus, a lawyer known for his culinary skills and also the owner of Maus Haus--a boarding house for artistic and culinary types.  As a result of his initial contact with Maus and, coincidentally finding that an old flame is a boarder in the house, Qwill takes up residence in the coincidentally vacant apartment #6.  He's hoping to see more of Joy Graham (never mind that she's now married), but soon he's interested in more than just stirring up the embers of old love.  He learns of an unsolved "suicide" from years ago and then odd things begin to happen--Joy's cat disappears and then Joy herself.  The young houseboy, William, becomes a source of gossip and information until he too disappears.  There's also the mystery of who is sabotaging the reputation of Max Sorrel's restaurant, The Golden Lamb Chop.  Sorrel is another inmate of Maus Haus--and someone has been spreading rumors that his meals are made with less-than-savory ingredients.  Are all of these incidents connected....or are the disappearances unrelated?  Qwill and his detective-minded cats will soon find out.

As you might have guessed from the sprinkling of the word, there are a fair number of "coincidences" in this one.  You also have to suspend your disbelief regarding cats and how much they really might know about human nature.  But once you get past that, this is a pleasant little cozy mystery.  Fairly well-clued and a bit of suspense thrown in (albeit in a nice, soft-touch sort of way).  Qwill is a fairly likeable guy and I do like his interactions with the cats.  I picked this one up primarily for the Getting Lost in a Comfortable Book reading challenge and I can certainly see why this would be considered comfort reading.  Nothing too challenging here.  Just a nice little murder with cats as the window dressing. Three stars.

Favorite Quote:

..if you've never been cussed out by a Siamese, you don't know what profanity is all about! [Jim Qwilleran] (p. 4)

Top Ten Tuesday: Non-Bookish Blogs

Top Ten Tuesday is an original bookish meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week a new top ten topic is posted for followers to write about. This week we are asked to list our Top Ten Non-Bookish Blogs/Sites.   I'm not sure I can come up with Ten...but here goes:

1. Retronaut: Which has all sorts of cool pictures from days gone by. 

2. Awkward Family Photos: Because they're just so funny....

3. The Day After Yesterday: blog by Anne Dickens of the UK--a lovely, outspoken, funny Brit

4. Sleep Talkin' Man: mild-mannered English husband by day, hysterically funny sleep-talker by night.  His wife captures it all for our enjoyment.....

5. Content in a Cottage: lovely, homey pictures--taken by the blog owner or sometimes just discovered by her on the interwebs.

6. dailypaxil: owned by my good friend, Richard. The one who got me started on this whole blogging journey.  He doesn't post nearly as often as he planned (or should)--but when he does, the posts are delightful, animal-centric posts and musings.

 

That's it...the best I can do.  Most of my blog-hopping has to do with books..... 

Garden of Malice: Review

In Garden of Malice by Susan Kenney, Rosamund "Roz" Howard is an associate professor at Vassar who is looking for an extraordinary bit of research that she can publish and help her case for tenure.  She's ecstatic when she is offered the plum job of editing the diaries and letters of Lady Viola Montford-Snow.  Lady Viola was a well-known English novelist as well as the creator of gorgeous gardens at her home at Montford Abbey.  Wondering why she was chosen out of all the qualified candidates, but not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Roz travels to England only to find that it is not exactly the ideal scholarly situation she had anticipated.

For example, her employer and Viola's son, Giles Montford-Snow is holding the letters tight to his chest--only allowing Roz to view copies, and only in his presence and in the order he deems proper.  Giles is intent on maintaining his mother's memory exactly as is, just as he has made every effort to keep Montford Abbey and the surrounding gardens exactly as they were when Viola was alive.  And he's not about to let anything interfere with that.  He is, however, counting on secrets to be revealed in his mother's papers--secrets that will help sell books and, ultimately, help fund the continued existence of Viola's precious gardens.  Roz chafes under his absolute control of the materials.

Added to the situation, someone fears the secrets contained in Viola's letters and will do anything to prevent those secrets from coming out.  A campaign of intimidation is begun--first by destroying several of the gardens and then things begin to get more serious.  Giles is found unconscious after a run-in with a deadly weed-killer and Florence, one of the many relatives and off-shoots of the Montford-Snow clan, falls prey to poisoned tea.  Roz receives a message telling her that she is next...but she is determined to stick it out and find out who is responsible and what secrets Viola's papers hold.  But will she live to tell the tale?

This is an obvious debut novel.  Rather heavy-handed in its attempts to create atmosphere, it never quite comes off.  One should be just as interested as Roz in finding out what the "big secret" is, but one isn't.  And when the secret is revealed...well, it's rather a let-down.  It just doesn't seem to be as big a deal as we're led to believe.   And rather a lot is made of Roz being able to trust a certain character....but there really isn't any reason why he should be more trustworthy than anyone else.  Later, he has an alibi of sorts for some of the mischief--but early on, he could be just as guilty as any of the others.  But, of course, Roz just knows that he's okay.

On the one hand, Roz seems to be a good scholar, asking a lot of the right questions about the materials.  But then, she misses all the questions she ought to be asking about the situation she finds herself in.  She really ought to be questioning what people are telling her and what she overhears a heck of a lot more.  Where's that inquisitive brain when it comes to the strange circumstances she finds herself in the midst of?

I expected to like this one more than I did.  I had previously read Graves in Academe by Kenney and thought that Roz Howard showed real promise as a character.  I didn't realize till I began reading this one that Garden was the debut.  I've since seen ratings of the third novel One Fell Sloop and it seems that there is little improvement.  Two and a half stars....and I don't believe I'll be looking for that third book.

Quotes:

Perhaps the habit of intrigue is catching--in the air or the walls.  Like secret passages, only in the mind. [Alan Stewart] (p. 85)

Did you know a good belly laugh can bring a person's blood pressure down thirty points in a matter of seconds? I've often wondered if that were the basis of comic relief in tragedy, or the reason why people invariably giggle at horror shows. It's a much nicer way of letting go than screeching hysterics, but then I suspect you're about as hysterical as Whistler's mother.  I'm quite sure you never screech. [Alan Stewart] (p. 142)

Sometimes I think I'm suffering from a permanent case of jet lag. Most of the time I feel as though I'm hearing only half the conversation, and the rest is going on by mental telepathy or osmosis or something, and I'm the only one who's missing the right equipment. The auditory equivalent of trying to read between the lines. [Roz Howard] (p. 147)

Ah, fair Rosamund. Books. I doubt whether anything most of us write should be taken precisely as read. [Stewart] (p. 150)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a bookish meme hosted by Book Journey. It's where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It's a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list. So hop on over via the link above and join in...and leave a comment here so I can check out what you are reading.

Thanks to the Bout of Books 4.0 Read-A-Thon, I knocked out a heap of books this week! 

Books Read (click on titles for review):

The Last Escape (aka: Dishonour Among Thieves) by E. C. R. Lorac

The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart

A First Class Murder by Elliott Roosevelt
A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong
Such Friends Are Dangerous by Walter Tyrer

Currently Reading:

Garden of Malice by Susan Kenney :  Roz Howard, a young professor of English at Vassar, is offered the coveted job of editing the diaries and letters of the Lady Viola Montfort-Snow and sets off immediately for England and the hauntingly beautiful gardens of Montfort Abbey.  But when Roz arrives, she must contend with a group of dour hosts who have much to hide, including Cory and Stella, the gardeners who have access to a very powerful insecticide, and Alan, the handsome painter whom Roz would love to trust. Sabotage, threats, and attempted murder flourish in this "garden of malice," and it's up to Roz to discover who or what is at the root of the evil.

Books that spark my interest:
Pearls Before Swine by Margery Allingham

King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard

The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman

The Cat Who Saw Red by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough 

Bout of Books Update & Wrap up

Bout of Books Read-A-Thon Update for Day 7:

Number of books I’ve read today: 0 (managed 73 pages of the final book)

Total number of books I’ve read:6

Books:

The Morning After Death by Nicholas Blake (5/14/12)
The Last Escape (aka: Dishonour Among Thieves) by E. C. R. Lorac (5/14/12)

The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart  (5/15/12)

A First Class Murder by Elliott Roosevelt  (5/16/12)
A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong  (5/17/12)

Such Friends Are Dangerous by Walter Tyrer (5/19/12)

Final book: Garden of Malice by Susan Kenney (73 pages completed)

Well, I feel like the Bout of Books has been a success.  I wanted to finish at least five of the seven books and I came pretty close to knocking out all seven.  The mini-challenges were a lot of fun (thanks to all the sponsors!)--my favorite was the Book Spine Poetry with Books & Shoes a close runner-up.  Thanks for another great read-a-thon!  It really helped me get my reading pace back on schedule.

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2012: Leter A

I just signed up for a second year of The Alphabet in Crime Fiction, a community meme sponsored by Mysteries in Paradise. Each week she'll be expecting participants to produce a post featuring a mystery/crime novel or novelist related to that week's letter. We're off and running on with the letter A.

And for me...the Letter A stands for: A Sprig of Sea Lavender by J. R. L. Anderson (Click title for my review). As I mention in the review, this book has been a kind of Holy Grail book for a long time.  I don't remember when I first put it on the TBF/O (To Be Found/Owned) list--sometime in the 80s.  I found it listed in The Mystery Lover's Companion by Art Bourgeau and something about his synopsis grabbed me and held on tight:

Piet Deventer of Scotland Yard investigates the murder of a young woman found dead on a train, with a fortune in artworks in a portfolio next to her. The only clue is a sprig of sea lavender. the trail leads to the seaside in an excellent read. 

 

And here is the synopsis from the back of the book:

 

A young woman races down the platform just in time to catch her train, but too late to save her life. Before she can reach London, she's discovered dead in her seat--at her side a portfolio containing a fortune in unlisted artworks; at her feet, a sprig of sea lavender.  Piet Deventer of Scotland Yard has a passion for painting. He follows the scent to a seaside art colony where casual comaraderie creates the perfect cover for a killer and a master criminal intent on pulling off the most daring swindle of the decade.

 

This isn't really a book that you need to hunt high and low for (as I did), but it is a pleasant read.  A decent example of late-1970s detective fiction set in an interesting location and with plenty of action in the denouement.