STARTLING TOMES

NEMESIS . Agatha Christie. 1971. This edition published by William Morrow. In the next-to-last Miss Marple novel, the elderly amateur detective is sent on a mission by a deceased acquaintance, Mr. Rafiel, who gives her precious little information on exactly what it is he wants her to do, The two met during  A Caribbean Mystery , in which the old lady saw herself as "Nemesis," a role that Rafiel wants her to continue in. Miss Marple learns that the dead man has booked her on a tour of stately British homes and gardens, and that somehow as the trip continues she will figure out what it is she needs to do -- right some wrong, fix an injustice, solve a murder. She later learns that there is a dead girl, and Rafiel's son is somehow involved. Also owing to the manipulations of Rafiel Sr., she winds up in the home of three sisters who live in a crumbling mansion, and were intimately acquainted with the dead young woman. Miss Marple sets out to solve the crime and succeeds. For m...

     WHAT HAPPENED TO ELLEN? Nancy Grace with Benee Knauer. 2025; Regalo Press.  In this tome news commentator Nancy Grace expresses understandable outrage over the murder of Ellen Rae Greenburg, who died in 2011. At first her death was labeled a suicide, even though the great many wounds could hardly have been self-inflicted, and indeed one was inflicted after she was dead. There was also the fact that Greenburg was in the middle of making a salad when she was attacked and was looking forward to her wedding (although there were signs that she may have been having misgivings about that). Greenburg's parents spent years trying to get the authorities to reverse the suicide ruling and begin a real investigation into the crime. To this day, no arrest has been made, and although Grace is careful in her statements, a careful reading of the book points inevitable to the rather obvious main suspect, who may have gotten away with murder -- so far. As for the book itself, it i...