Libi Astaire

Thanks to a handful of nasty falls, mystery writer Agatha Krinsky is moved into an assisted living facility with the help of her nephew Sheldon. On her first day she gets lost and finds herself inside the library with a dead body. To her dismay, no one believes her story or offers to call the police. She is taken to the dining room where she meets Ukrainian PI Herschel Perlow, knitting enthusiast Miss Eppel, and husband and wife team Ronny and Rubles Bernfeld. As they take turns reminiscing a la “The Tuesday Night Club,” Agatha impatiently waits for another opportunity to bring up the body in hopes that someone will do something. Will her new friends help, or are they too distracted by their mystery-solving memories?

In my search for Hanukkah books, this short story collection caught my eye because Agatha Christie is my favorite author. I was excited to start reading but also nervous because those are big shoes to fill. I couldn’t help but smile at all the details added to make her characters and stories Jewish. The names and Yiddish vocabulary and mentions of Hanukkah were great, but the transition was not flawless. The mystery-aspect got lost in the shuffle, leaving behind more novelty than quality. I know this is a short read for the holiday season, but don’t promise me Agatha and not deliver on the intrigue.

It’s hard to rate something that tugs on my Jewish heartstrings, but I have to be honest. 3 stars for novelty and 2 stars for quality which averages out to 2.5 Stars. If you’re a Jewish Agatha Christie fan, this book is good for a one-sitting read and some fun. Don’t expect too much from the mysteries and enjoy it for what it is.

If you’re not knowledgeable about the works of Agatha Christie, here’s a cheat sheet:


Characters:
Agatha Krinsky - Agatha Christie
Agatha’s nephew Sheldon - Miss Marple’s nephew Raymond West
Ukrainian PI Herschel Perlow - Belgian PI Hercule Poirot
Miss Eppel - Miss Marple
Ronny & Rubles Bernfeld - Tommy & Tuppence Beresford
Inspector Haddock & his grandfather Sir Harold Withering - Sir Henry Clithering & his godson Detective Inspector Dermot Eric Craddock

Stories:
“The Latke in the Library” - “The Body in the Library”
“Evil Under the Wick” - “Evil Under the Sun”
“And Then There Were Gornisht” - “And Then There Were None”
“The Olive Cracked” - “The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side”… (mere)

Astaire is trying to do a couple of things with this book; some worked, some didn't. Still, it's a good Regency Era mystery with a loving look at the little-known Jewish community of the time.

I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery. The well-off Lyon family has been ruined. Much of their wealth was in a bank, and in those days there was no FDIC, or I guess Royal Deposit Insurance Company in Britain. If the bank went bankrupt, there went all your savings -- Jane Austen's favorite brother, Henry, was a partner in a bank that failed -- taking some of his relative's funds. Paper money was issued by the bank, not the government, and it was worthless in case of failure. Mr. Lyon had prudently hidden some gold, but someone found the hiding place, and the best suspects are friends that he loves, trusts, and cannot find it in his heart to doubt. Ezra Melamed, the pillar of the community, remarks somewhat drily that if no-one stole it, where did it go? To make matters worse, his oldest daughter just became engaged, and now he has no dowry for her, just a lot of bills for her trousseau.

The setting and characters are beautifully written. Regency Era London is vividly created, and so is the tightly knit Jewish community. We see wealthy shopkeepers and manufacturers, street gangs, orphans that the community is providing for. An unmarried man has all the matrons thinking about a suitable wife. It is also clear how complicated it is living as observant Jews in an overwhelmingly gentile world. They frequent a coffee house kept by a Jewish couple -- it apparently doesn't cater exclusively to Jews. The proprietors don't allow outside food to be brought in, lest some gentile lay food that isn't kosher, or simply the wrong food on the wrong plate. When they travel, they have to find Jewish inns to stay in, or perhaps find a Jewish family that will take them in. It must have been complicated building this world in which they can more or less freely move.

This is something I admire about Jews -- a contemporary woman wrote about her family being exiled from their country, but a Jewish help agency was there, putting them up in hotels, feeding them, helping them emigrate to other countries, loaning them airfare, and although she didn't say it, likely arranging for Jews in their new country to meet them and show them the ropes.

What doesn't work too well is Astaire's "Watson." The mysteries are supposed to be narrated by the teenage Rebecca Lyon, in an Austen-like manner, but of course she can't join Melamed in his investigations, and she often knows things that it is hard to imagine how she learned. There are insertions in the story where she does speak, and they are good -- her voice just isn't apparent most of the time. I am going to continue with the series, and perhaps Astaire will work this out.

Just one thing -- there are three series featuring Ezra Melamed -- in the Ezra Melamed series consolidated I have tried to put all the works in chronological order.… (mere)