Customer Reviews

Stillness in Bethlehem, A

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Haddam repeats a holiday here (Christmas was previously covered in _Not a Creature Was Stirring_, the first volume of the series). The events of _A Stillness in Bethlehem_ take place immediately after _A Feast of Murder_; at a minimum, you should try to read that one before reading this one. This is one of the few Demarkian mysteries that *don't* involve poison. (The recurring use of poison makes sense, actually, since Gregor made himself an expert on poisons during his tenure at the FBI.) You'll also be treated to a varied menu of conspiracy theories of one sort and another, but nothing so ordinary as Oliver Stone's. :)

Since Armenia declared independence only a few months before, Cavanaugh Street has been inundated with refugees, and Father Tibor has worked his fingers to the bone organizing food and shelter, and sending supplies back to Armenia. (For a couple of books, everyone on Cavanaugh Street put up a few refugees until they got on their feet - after all, you never know who might be a 3rd or 4th cousin. Changes phased in gradually after that: the neighborhood expanded a bit, and Tibor's church had enough kids to have an Armenian Orthodox parochial school, and so on. But that's in the future at this point in the series.)

Soon after Bennis and Gregor get home from the Thanksgiving fiasco in _A Feast of Murder_, Tibor collapses from exhaustion and from not eating enough. ("I'm still furious...I mean, I'm rich, Gregor. Tibor doesn't have to starve himself to feed a lot of refugees." "I think you got that across to him in the long run, Bennis." "I should have been able to get it across to him in the *short* run.")

Anyhow, Gregor and Bennis are now checking Tibor into a hotel in Bethlehem, Vermont, for a much-needed rest. Why Bethlehem? Tibor's always wanted to see the Christmas pageant held there every year. He first heard of it in his early days as a refugee in Israel, before he immigrated to the U.S. And Bennis, whose connections put Gregor in mind of a spy ring, managed to get hold of some good hotel rooms, even though it's the height of Bethlehem's tourist season.

The ACLU, of course, has a standing offer to sue the town over the pageant, but nobody's bitten so far. The pageant, after all, turns such a profit that Bethlehem's budget for the year doesn't need too much in the way of higher taxes. Nobody wants to be first to complain, certainly.

Until now, that is. Patricia Feld Verek, a writer of true-crime novels and a spiteful woman, has moved to Bethlehem with her husband, Jan-Mark (an artist in the most offensive modern mode). She's working on a book about children who commit murder, with case histories; he's spending his time having affairs with various local figures, both male and female. (Some are prominent, some aren't.) Tisha decides to take up the ACLU's offer - not because she cares about the pageant, but because she has a taste for a bit of drama. She gets more than she bargained for - she's shot to death before she can actually see her lawyer. But was the lawsuit the motive for her murder?

Gregor happens to have arrived not only after Tisha's recent murder, as well as that of gentle old Dinah Ketchum, expert quilt-maker; the local paper has been running a 3-part series on his most recent case. So he's asked to consult by the local police department...

There are more subplots and interesting characters than I can list here; Gregor himself is having trouble keeping track by the end. Don't worry about Tibor; he perks right up when he finds out about the newspaper series on Gregor, then becomes obsessed with the idea that Bennis might be trying to go on a diet. (He has an interesting conspiracy theory about diets.) Candy Spear, who has the role of Mary in the pageant, is in an abusive marriage, but she's been gaining confidence from her work on stage, so that story has a satisfying ending. Bennis made the mistake of giving Gregor a book about J. Edgar Hoover as an early Christmas present; he now has a kind of anti-conspiracy theory that's driving her crazy.

A few final things I should mention. If you're a big fan of contemporary art (e.g. the kind that seems designed to get into controversies over public funding), or of true crime writers, etc., be warned that the Vereks are not nice people. The woman who is Bethlehem's Episcopal priest is into New Age fads of various sorts; she's not a sympathetic character either. (All of these characters are handled well enough, as far as I'm concerned, but a reader who's into these sorts of things might be miffed that Haddam doesn't take them seriously.)

A Stillness in Bethlehem is one of Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian mysteries, with clues fairly given, plenty of movement upon the stage, and a satisfying, surprising solution.

The story is set in Bethlehem, Vermont, where a three-day annual nativity play has piqued the ire of the ACLU and of a writer who has settled there. Her specialty, true crime, is perfectly suited to her character: spite is her first principle. And, no surprise, she is soon murdered. The second victim, however, is a local handwork artist whom everyone loves and respects.

Gergor and Bennis have taken Father Tibor to the festival to help him recover from a long bout of overwork. While Tibor finds new things to fuss over, Gregor is drafted for the investigation. The motive and identity of the killer is hidden in a parade of local characters, conflicts, and crises in a town straining to host its annual cash cow.

This is one of the very best Gregor Demarkian stories, either in the earlier "holiday mystery" series or the later every day mysteries. And it is a very good story indeed.

This is arguably the best Demarkian mystery. There's very little Cavanaugh Street in this mystery. All except the epilogue takes place in Bethlehem, Vermont which has been putting on a Bible-based Christmas play since the mid-1930s. The money raised by the Christmas play and all of the visitors it draws to the town keeps the town in high style with state of the art police equipment (but only two policemen) and other improvements to the town.

The novel opens by introducing the first murder victim before she is murdered and various characters from the town in Vermont, one of whom is the murderer. This is a frequent device in Haddam novels -- one of the characters introduced in the beginning is usually the murderer but the internal thoughts of the character are cleverly written so that it is not obvious which one it is.

Just after the beginning of December, a week before the start of the annual Christmas pagent, Away-born town resident Tisha Verek (a true crime book author) calls her lawyer to help her file a federal injunction against the Christmas play. The rumor of the injunction travels around the town like lightening. As Tisha is waiting in her driveway for her lawyer to arrive, she is shot dead. Nearby, at approximately the same time, another elderly town resident, Dinah Ketchem, is also shot dead in exactly the same way. The state police are called and they rule both deaths hunting accidents.

Two weeks later, Gregor Demarkian, and his friends Bennis Hannaford and Father Tibor Kasparian arrive in Bethlehem to see the play -- a vacation arranged by Bennis to help the exhausted Father Tibor recover from helping hordes of immigrant Armenians find homes and jobs in the USA in the previous novel. Gregor is approached by the 70 year old town chief of police to look into the shootings from early December because the chief of police does not believe they were hunting accidents.

After the end of the first night of the play, Gregor discovers that the woman sitting next to him has been shot dead in the same way as the two earlier "accidents" and it now becomes clear to all that none of them were shooting accidents but premeditated murders. Determining who the murderer is means determining what all three of the dead women had in common.

Since Bennis and Father Tibor are my two favorite characters from Cavanaugh Street, this book is delightful because we have many scenes with both Bennis and Tibor. After noticing Bennis reading a diet book, Father Tibor spends the entire novel harrassing Bennis to eat. He brings her brown bags full of donuts, cookies, and other kinds of fattening food he finds in the shops of the town.

The clues are there for the reader who wants to solve the mystery. Gregor, who likes to compare himself to Nero Wolfe, is much more active than normally: hiking over snow-covered countryside hunting for clues, defusing a lynching, and physically stopping the final murder attempt.