A conversation about an idyllic nightmare

A conversation about two books between Sharon and Michelle.

M:  There is a book that has been haunting me.  First, it haunted me as a movie, which I watched back in the 1990s.  Then, it haunted me because I hadn’t read the book yet (that took a while, finally read it in 2022, phew).  Finally, several months later, it haunted me within another book!!!  Madness!

 

What is this willful book?  It is none other than the Australian masterpiece, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joanna Lindsay.  

 

The dreamlike movie of the same title (1975) was directed by Peter Weir, in his iconically surreal manner (his Last Wave also made a deep impression on me in my 20s).  The novel was written based on a series of dreams Joanna Lindsay had, and wasn’t published in the US until Penguin brought it back to life in 2014 (so I guess I can be excused for not having read it until recently). 

 

And the third element? 

Well… that’s how this post happened.  I had picked up Riley Sager’s The Last Time I Lied and was intrigued by it immediately.  It wasn’t the first Riley Sager I’d read, that was Home Before Dark.  The book starts by introducing us to our narrator, Emma, an artist who is gaining notice for her mysterious paintings.  What no one know is that these dark wooded landscapes each hide three missing girls from Emma’s past.

 

I devoured The Last Time I Lied in a matter of days (rare for me), and found myself haunted by it in a way which distinctly reminded me of Lindsay’s book.  I mentioned this to Sharon as I was in the process of reading it.  It wasn’t even so much the matching set of missing girls, three from Appleyard College in Picnic at Hanging Rock, and three from Camp Nightingale in Sager’s book.  It was moreso the dreamlike summer atmosphere, the liminal spaces being explored by the girls outside of their normal lives while away at camp, and then off-hours in forbidden adventures outside of the camp.  

S:  Michelle first pointed out the connection between Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (1967) and The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager (2018). It’d been a few years since I read the latter and more than a few since I read the former. I don’t need much encouragement to reread anything by Sager and I knew Picnic was an excellent book. What’s funny to me is how it felt like I was reading it for the first time. See, I didn’t watch the TV mini-series starring Natalie Dormer even though I think she’s terrific. It’s the books I love, not as much the adaptations.

 

I read Hanging Rock and The Last Time I Lied pretty much side by side. Two or three chapters in one then the other. I did this over a period of two days. Taking notes throughout.

 

It had escaped me that Joan Lindsay’s book had inspired The Last Time I Lied, but rereading them the way I did it was so obvious. I mean that in the best way possible. It’s as if Sager extended this beautiful haunting classic story into something modern and more relatable with a power all its own. He absolutely captured the atmosphere of Picnic at Hanging Rock.

 

Opening lines:

Lindsay – “a shimmering summer morning warm and still w/ cicadas shrilling all through breakfast from the locust trees outside the dining room windows and bees murmuring above the pansies bordering the drive”

 

Sager – “This is how it begins. You wake to sunlight whispering through the trees just outside the windows. It’s a faint light, weak and gray at the edges. Dawn still shedding the skin of night.”

 

The image of Lindsay’s book is blurred and distant with Sager telescoping in so it becomes granular. With Lindsay it is gorgeous and dark and you can only guess. There is no opportunity for closure. Sager gives us that as much as is possible.

 

M:  The setting (beyond the warm weather) couldn’t be more different between the two books.  Picnic at Hanging Rock is sunstruck late Victorian Australia, arid, all sandstone and dust, peppered with desert-dwelling plants, parched and sparse with a fringe of greenery and forest.  The Last Time I Lied is a wooded lake, rich with birdsong, treeshadow, and moss, carpeted and cloaked by water and woods.

 

At Hanging Rock, there seems to be no space for secrets, no place to hide, which makes the disappearances all the more unsettling.  At Camp Nightingale, there are too many places to hide.  While the disappearances are upsetting, they don’t defy explanation.  The wilderness around the lake’s dark water closes in and thwarts searchers.  The sunbleached stony heights of Picnic Rock stand brazenly out and dare searchers to exhaust and dehydrate themselves in their futile quest.

 

S:  Hanging Rock is a real-life geological formation in southeastern, Australia. Sager’s fictional Camp Nightingale is a formerly prestigious summer camp marred by tragedy. It is set next to the eerily dark Lake Midnight.

 

Both settings draw on the unrestrained dangers of the natural world and its bond with isolated ancient places. How that wildness encourages these young ladies to break the rules or at the very least creates a space for them to do so.

 

In both books the female characters are not exactly heroines and not entirely innocent though they seem it. Like the wild places they inhabit in the story they cannot be held back.

 

A comparison in characters:

Lindsay’s Miranda to Sager’s Vivian:

Miranda is described as tall and pale, with straight corn-yellow hair. She is seen as a swan – a beautiful creature. Vivian is bold in every way, pale and with The blond hair right out of a shampoo ad.” Both popular and written with a depth not afforded the usual cliché.

 

Lindsay’s Natalie to Sager’s Allison:

Much is made of both their facial structure (Natalie’s geometric with a high forehead and square chin and Allison has apple cheeks and a slender nose). Both look wholesome.

 

Lindsay’s Edith to Sager’s Emma:

Emma definitely made out better than Edith. The former was described as “plain as a frog,” “pasty-faced fourteen-year-old with the contours of an overstuffed bolster,” the fat one, the one with limited intelligence. This is what Lindsay sees and we are not provoked to think more.  Emma thankfully, has grown from whatever ugly duckling stage she might have had into a rising star in the NY art scene.

 

Woe be the person to cross these women! Mrs. Hester Appleyard is Lindsay’s harsh and terrifying head mistress/founder of the school. Wealthy, determined, secretive, and daunting.  Francesca Harris-White owner/founder of the camp is all of these, but not as frightening as Mrs. Appleyard. Not a criticism, merely how I read them.

 

I enjoyed both books. As someone who spends a lot of time outdoors, occasionally on my own in the woods, I can tell you I have the utmost respect for the natural world. And yes, I would absolutely have climbed up those rocks and swum in that lake. Fortunately, I’m still around.

 

Criterion's cover art for their rerelease.

M:  It wasn’t until I finished The Last Time I Lied and read the afterword by Sager that I realized how right my instincts were!  He had deliberately riffed on the dreamy haze / nightmare sharp glow of Picnic at Hanging Rock, drawing from the haunting mood of Peter Weir's excellent movie, but not allowing himself to read the original book by Joanna Lindsay until long after he'd completed his own novel.

Both books are well worth your reading them.  Lindsay’s book was a perfect read in the thick of winter for me, especially February and March where everything seems to slow down to a trickle and reading about hot, dry places on the other side of the world is a balm, no matter how intriguingly nightmarish they might be.  And I would recommend reading The Last Time I Lied in the thick of summer, when the sun is so hot you flee for the wooded shadows, and the humidity makes you not want to move any more.  

 

Criterion was kind enough to rerelease the film in recent years, so you can watch it via their streaming channel or by picking up a DVD or Blu-ray of the film.  There's a good trailer here, if you'd like to get a taste of the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_XNrF6lsvw

Books I’ll be reading in 2023 by Sharon K.

Just to be clear, I tried and failed to keep a running log of my favorite books. I had a cute little notebook and for a few weeks - success, but then well life happens. Books to read, errands to run, etc. etc. My idea for the list was that I’d go through it periodically to figure out which authors to Google to see who was coming out with a new book. Those new titles would either be pre-ordered via Michelle at Green Hand Books or added to my library queue.  

Well, folks turns out I was able to figure it all out sans list. Bonus, less time chronicling more time reading. 

January 3

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins 

I thoroughly enjoyed her quick and easy read The Wife Upstairs, a modern take on one of my favorite books of all time - Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I didn’t love her follow up Reckless Girls, but The Villa went on my pre-order list because it’s inspired by the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at Lake Geneva castle. Yes, folks – the birthplace of Frankenstein. Another all-time favorite book. Here’s a link to the book details on Macmillan’s site. 

 

January 10

All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham 

Her debut novel A Flicker in the Dark is a favorite! I found it intense, chilling, and atmospheric page-turner. Here’s a link to the book details on Macmillan’s site.

 

January 17

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix   

Hendrix’s work is diabolically clever - a breathtakingly fresh approach to the most thrilling ride at the park. You don’t even know how lucky you were to have scored a ticket until you’re on it.  I’m a tad late to the party having only begun reading Hendrix when I fell wantingly head first down his literary horror hole with his 2020 book The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. It has been described as “Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula” and more. He writes about contradictions, secret layers, societal pressures, and everyday folks in some extraordinarily precarious situations. He digs deep and takes his time telling his stories. 

 

*How to Sell a Haunted House was the first book I preordered with Michelle. 

Here’s a link to the description of the book on Penguin Random House’s site. 

 

January 31

This Tuesday ushers in releases from two of my must-read thriller writers. Both bring just-one-more-page pacing that will genuinely keep you up reading all night. 

The Drift by C.J. Tudor 

The Exiles by Jane Harper is the third and final book in the (Australian) Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk series, which began in 2016 with The Dry.  

            

February 21

The Girl Who Took What She Wanted – No. 14 in the Stewart Hoag Mysteries by David Handler

Hugely enjoyable. Celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag and his adorable (and so intelligent) basset hound Lulu are two of my favorite literary characters. And I’ve Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop (my other favorite bookstore) to thank for introducing me to Handler. The original eight books in the series were published in the late 1980s and 90s and are difficult to find. I’ve only been able to read No. 12 The Man Who Wasn’t There and No. 13 The Lady in the Silver Cloud.   

 

April 11

The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda    

Miranda is one of my favorite authors. Anything she writes, I will read. She tells edge-of-your-seat stories with plot twists you don’t see coming. 

 

April 25

The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths 

Across the fourteen books in her Dr. Ruth Galloway series, Griffiths has created compelling stories that keep me turning pages long past my bedtime. I’m a huge fan of Dr. Galloway herself – a forensic archaeologist, DCI Harry Nelson who really isn’t as tough as he looks, and Galloway’s cat Flint who has just enough attitude. That a good bit of the series is set in a remote cottage on edge of saltmarsh in rural England only endears the series to me so much more. 

 

May 23

Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda 

Put this way Pochoda is one bad ass human being writing truly soulful material. Check out Wonder Valley and These Women (in that order). 

 

May 30

Killing Moon, a Harry Hole Novel (13) by Jo Nesbo

Harry Hole Jo Nesbo. Enough said.

 

June 20

The Only One Left by Riley Sager  

I look forward to the annual Sager release the same way I do some holidays. His characters are perfectly formed, his settings lustful, and his highly entertaining plots. Each book is a masterful do-si-do with some aspect of the thriller genre: Final Girls (Scream and Halloween), The Last Time I Lied (Picnic at Hanging Rock), I Locked Every Door(gothic), Home Before Dark (haunted houses), Survive the Night (the 90s campus creepy stalker movie) The House Across the Lake (Hitchcockian), The Only One Left I’m told is inspired by Lizzie Borden.    

 

July 11

Thicker Than Water by Megan Collins

Anyone who is going to write a book about a family obsessed with true crime who live in a secluded island mansion is going to get my attention. Cue her 2021 book The Family Plot. Collins is a good enough writer to have pulled me in once. I’m hoping this book will stun me the same way.  

 

The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey.

This is the 4^th in her exquisite Perveen Mistry series set in 1920s India. I’ve loved every one. Please read in order starting with The Widows of Malabar Hill, the first in the series.  Note, probably a good idea to have some tea and cake nearby. If you can get Gulab jamun or another traditional Indian dessert all the better. Also, set the scene with some flowers maybe wear a light colorful scarf. I think Ms. Massey would appreciate this. She surely appreciates details and beauty and baked goods. 

 

August 8

Dead and Gone by Joanna Schaffhausen

I’ve no idea how some authors come into my life. Whether a friend suggested them or maybe I caught a tailwind of them from someone’s Instagram site. Regardless, Schaffhausen is one who I’m eternally grateful did.  I’ve been a fan since the first page of her first book The Vanishing Season featuring police officer/survivor Ellery Hathaway and FBI agent Reed Markham. Schaffhausen is an expert at unputdownable plotting and writes strong, believable, smart female leads. Dead and Gone is the third in her newer series featuring Chicago police detective Annalisa Vega, a woman bound by a childhood trauma and legendary police officer father. I recommend reading either (both!) series in order. 

Images: Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan

Welcome to the Mystery Detection Club.

This is a space for us to write about mystery fiction, a genre we both love and find ourselves returning to, time and time again.  In the coming months, we will be discussing a wide range of mysteries that we hope you too will enjoy.

 

This blog emerged from many conversations over the course of the last couple of years, culminating in one of us saying, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do this?”

 

This is how you get in trouble, people!  Ha!

 

 

Michelle Souliere – loves her husband and her cats (Meep and Mr. Biscuits), drinking ginger beer and tea (although not combined), oatmeal cookies, hiking the Maine woods, and wondering about our strange planet.  She owns the Green Hand Bookshop and has written two books (so far!), Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State and Bigfoot in Maine.  Can most often be found obscured behind several stacks of books.

 

 

My favorite all-time reads in no particular order, but limited to ones with a mystery/crime element:

 

The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale – Dark and tantalizing, the Depression-era Texas landscape is introduced to readers through the eyes of the young narrator, who finds out bit by bit how hauntingly strange the adult world can be.  Peppered with ghostly tales of local folklore and mysterious crimes in the obscure but too-close-to-home Big Thicket, this book calls out to horror, mystery, and true crime readers alike.

 

The Cass Neary series by Elizabeth Hand – After staying up way too late finishing the first book in this series, Generation Loss, I emailed Liz and explained to her, “Rarely have I read a book whose main character has made me want to smack them upside the head so often and made me want to hang out with them the other half of the time.”  Cass Neary is warped and wonderful.  Elizabeth Hand is a magician.  No matter the setting, she captures it, and places you in it.  With mere words on paper she can create vivid phantoms in your mind the way few other writers can.  Her visual imagery does not beat you over the head with descriptive terms, instead it infects your brain and haunts you (in the best way possible).

 

Agatha Christie, in particular but in no way limited to: N or M? (the first Tommy & Tuppence book I ever read, though 3^rd in the series), The Man in the Brown Suit (a rare standalone novel from Christie), and Nemesis (wherein Miss Marple is set to solve a mystery without being told what it is or who it involves)

Least favorite: Endless Night which seemed horribly pessimistic to me.

 

John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series – I started reading John Connolly because I ran across a reference to Massacre Pond in Scarborough in the text of one of his books, Dark Hollow (you will soon find out that I often sample mystery series by jumping in at a random title that appeals to me rather than being sensible and starting from the beginning).  I read it and liked it – great characters, peppered with adept wit for humor.  So I kept reading them!  If you want a dark, intriguing, no-holds-barred series, some of which is set in Maine, this is it.  Especially if you like the cathartic feeling of reading a book where by the last page everything is burned to the ground, these are for you.  They are not light and fluffy, but boy are they good.  I could say more, but I don’t want to spoil it.  You should probably go and sign up for his monthly email, because John Connolly is delightful, and every time one arrives it makes me laugh while reading it.

 

Raymond Chandler – I’ve read both Hammett and Chandler, and let me tell you, Chandler is the one for me.  Something about his ability to paint a scene, and his careful choice of words and phrasing, sticks with me.  From Killer in the Rain (so evocative!) to his collected short stories (did you know he wrote stories in the weird fiction vein, as well as noir crime writing?), Chandler does not waste your time.

 

Ngaio Marsh – For a long time, I only read Agatha Christie.  No one had told me that there was another author, equally adept, equally witty, who had written stories in a similar vein, although hailing from New Zealand instead of Britain.  Almost as prolific as Christie but not quite, (she wrote 33 novels, while Christie wrote 33 for Poirot alone), she left behind a treasure trove of cases as related by her main character, Chief Inspector Alleyn, possessor of a sneaky sense of humor.

 

Jan Willem van de Wetering – I first read one of his Amsterdam novels because (you guessed it) I was going to Amsterdam.  I loved it!  The understated humor of the main characters was right up my alley, and the immersion in a city in another part of the world sealed the deal.  But the first book by him I read was in its graphic novel format, The Maine Massacre.  Yes, he was Dutch, but he spent the latter part of his life in Maine, and after almost three decades here, he died in Blue Hill, ME, in 2008.  In other words, he’s got a lot going for him.

 

RECENT READS that I’ve loved:  Riley Sager’s The Last Time I Lied, Simone St. James’ Sun Down Motel, Maureen Johnson’s The Box in the Woods, Adam Sternbergh’s The Blinds, Jean Luc Bannalec’s The King Arthur Case, M.C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series (the books and the AcornTV series), Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, and Robert Thorogood’s Death in Paradise (the books and the BBC series).

 

OLD FAVORITES that I haven’t read in a long time:  Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody, Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy, Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane

 

 

Sharon Kitchens – loves her cats (Faulkner and Tennessee), drinking Tandem coffee, Taylor Swift, hiking in the White Mountain National Forest, and baking cookies. She has a rose-colored dining room and a collection of vintage marble ashtrays. Can most often be found at Green Hand Books checking out the mystery and horror sections.

 

I profess my love of the following…

 

Los Angeles crime noir at its very best: Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain, The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy, and Heat 2 by Michael Mann. Novels by writers who so thoroughly understand the landscape they are writing about. Their appeal has extended far beyond the field of crime fiction. 

 

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. The friendships, the battle between good vs. evil, the food (!!), the creation of this extraordinary wizarding world, life lessons like never be afraid to stand up for what you believe in, live life to its fullest, and don’t judge a book by its cover. 

 

Call Me a Cab by Donald Westlake is amazing, but also 361. I think the only thing wrong with identifying him as an iconic crime writer is the word “crime” – the man is a genius and an iconic writer. I’ve only just gotten started reading him. 

 

Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt is a book I reread every few years and listen to for some reason around the holidays when I’m in the kitchen a lot baking. It’s a bizarre and glorious example of southern gothic writing.  

 

The grand dames. Daphne du Maurier’s work is gorgeous, strong, and stunning. I fell in love with her masterpiece Rebecca as a young woman. Two Little Rich Girls by Mignon G. Eberhart – If you love Agatha Christie check out Eberhart. 

 

Pretty much everything by Megan Miranda, Simone St. James, Riley Sager, and Michael Connelly. They each consistently come up with smart stories that are written really well. Reading them is like taking a deep breath and diving into a big gorgeous totally mysterious pool where you are taken in by everything and all the while know you really do need to come up for air…but just one more page… 

 

Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens takes that sinister story of women who go missing on a deserted highway and digs deep with the setting and characters. It’s pretty intense and surprising. Maybe the best coming-of-age story set inside a thriller I’ve read outside of Stephen King’s work. 

 

Joanna Schaffhausen’s Ellery Hathaway series is deeply thoughtful, well-plotted, violent, dark, just believable enough, and straight-up good. I think from the very first page I knew Ellery Hathaway was going to be a police officer I could get behind. The woman is a survivor. 

 

The Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths – Michelle turned me onto this series. I’ve read them all, usually each in one sitting and then gone back and listed to the audio versions. Some I’ve read twice they’re that good. Dr. Ruth Galloway (a bookish woman with a beautiful smile who thankfully isn’t intimidated by a bowl of pasta and a piece of cake god love her) is the Head of Forensic Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. She drives a rusty car and lives in a small house by miles and miles of marshland. Oh, and she loves cats! She solves crimes with Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson a skeptic with a heart of gold who enjoys beer and gets nervous in the countryside. He loves dogs, not cats. They make me laugh and also crave tea and cookies. 

 

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. The Final Girl Support Group is a horror novel that digs deep and holds on. I LOVED The Southern Book Club, but find myself going back to Final Girl a lot. Hendrix’s books are layers of finely crafted writing. 

 

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff – Flawless. There’s a prehistoric monster and the perfectly written small lakeside town harboring oh so many secrets.  

Stephen King is my favorite writer. It, The Dark Half, The Outsider, and Billy Summers are the novels I love the most. His collections Night Shift, Different Seasons, Skeleton Crew, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, and Everything’s Eventual (specifically “The Man in the Black Suit”) are in my opinion some of the greatest examples of storytelling in the modern era.

 

Stories I loved in 2022: A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham, The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh, Into the Dark by Fiona Cummins, The Resting Place by Camilla Sten, Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak, The Midcoast by Adam White, More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez, The Maid by Nita Prose, City on Fire by Don Winslow, Hide by Kiersten White, His & Hers by Alice Feeney, and Lisa Gardner’s One Step Too Far.