by Mary In my early teens the grammar school I attended arranged for groups of girls chaperoned by a teacher to spend a weekend at its camp, housed in the former school building in Muggleswick, a hamlet in County Durham. Having travelled by coach from Newcastle we were set down amid bleak, wind-swept moorland, dominated by knee-high ferns but with few trees. Continuing the journey on foot we marched through what was an alien landscape for us city girls. I have since learned that in 1890 Muggleswick consisted of three farms and a few cottages. In our time it was not much bigger. Our first night ..read more

by Eric Astute readers of this newsletter -- and what mystery reader is not astute? -- will deduce from subtle clues herein that whereas I am American, Mary is British. The clues I am speaking of are spelling conventions such as the telltale 'u' those of the British persuasion insert into certain words. As an American I eschew the 'u'. Take for example the following quote from one of Mary's essays: "Our window looked out over the grimy industrial city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where grass and open spaces were uncommon. Uncommon, that is, unless you counted weedy World War II bomb sites coloured ..read more

by Eric I just finished reading The Secret Adversary and The Mysterious Mr Quin so I figured I might write something about their author, Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, whereas Mary has read pretty much all of Christie's works, I've read only a fair number. Then too, it's difficult to write about mysteries intelligently without giving too much away. Don't you hate it when the blurb on the back cover of a book recounts half the plot? Nevertheless, I'm going to make a few random observations, the first of which is that I have never read a Christie I didn't like. For example, I've seen some bad r ..read more

by Mary Why yes, since you ask, I am indeed a fan of Alistair Sim and the film in which he plays Inspector Poole is a particular favourite. But what has my header to do with happenings at Maywrite Towers you may well ask. Well, early one morning in late October, hearing a racket we got up, looked out our back window, and discovered an industrial-sized excavator was parked close to the wall just a few yards from our buggy, a scene presenting the appearance of, to lift a phrase from Dickens' American Notes, a light-house walking among lamp-posts. The excavator was scooping up huge buckets of soi ..read more

by Mary The first thing the horrified technician said was "You were lucky not to have had an explosion." Since last we darkened subscribers' in-boxes, some days at Maywrite Towers have been less dances of delight than Fortuna deciding to play the cat and banjo with our plans.* A couple of examples. The ongoing Rebellion of Household Machinery struck last month when an out of season cold night triggered the heating. The boiler leapt into life, hummed through its cycle, and shut down. Unfortunately there was no heat. Soon afterwards, the water heater attempted to balance out our lack of warmth b ..read more

by Eric Here in the northeast leaves are starting to fall. I simply grind them into lawn fertilizer with the mower. But when I was growing up in the suburbs homeowners raked the leaves up, hauled them to the curb, and burned them. A wall of smoke and swirling sparks rose from bonfires lining the street. It was a spectacle second only to the colored Christmas lights strung between the utility poles after Thanksgiving. And second only because the fires didn't foretell the coming of a bearded man bearing gifts. Children are elementals. They love to play with water and dirt and fire. A street in f ..read more

by Eric Who are your favorite mystery authors? What are your favorite genres? For me, the first answer is easy. There are authors whose work I've enjoyed for decades. The second question is much harder because my favorite authors' books are oddly divergent. For instance, both Agatha Christie and John D. MacDonald are among my favorites. But how can I like both the elderly spinster Miss Marple and rugged beach bum Travis McGee? I've always been attracted to the intellectual nature of classic mysteries even though I rarely, if ever, solve the puzzles presented. In Death Comes as the End, Christi ..read more

by Mary We were among those affected by smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Considering it carried particulates of whatever materials they burnt and thus presented serious health affects, we at Maywrite Towers consider ourselves fortunate to have got away with scratchy throats, runny noses, and a touch of hoarseness. What was intriguing was the sky turned dirty yellow but caused an eerie pinkish twilight all day, followed by spectacular tomato-coloured sunsets. Having grown up in an industrial city permanently swathed in smoke from satanic mills of all descriptions situated amid rows of terrace ..read more

by Eric Have I written about my earliest memories already? I can't remember so why not give it a try? Not that my first memories are very exciting. I'm not one of those people who claim to recollect the obstetrician slapping his bottom. And just as well since an initial memory so traumatic might warp a person's whole view of life. In fact I don't retain much prior to my school days. A few jumbled up snapshots taken with a mental Brownie camera, colors leached away by time, out-of-focus, heads cut off, undated. There's a picture of a dark room illuminated only by a tiny black and white televisi ..read more

by Mary We both love musicals, those lively productions when anything, even the most unlikely occurrence, may happen and frequently does. However, it recently occurred to me these bright entertainments often feature characters who walk on the darker side of the footlights. Take for example Les Miz's prize pair of villains, the innkeeping Thenardiers. Master of the House Monsieur T gloats how he cheats, overcharges, and robs his guests, not to mention watering their wine, admitting the beef on the menu is minced organs not sourced from cows and hinting the sausages will not bear close scrutiny ..read more