A Different Sort of Moonstone

 

Sodium potassium aluminium silicate, better known as Moonstone has been a favourite gemstone of mine for, well, many moons. (Insert groan here.) Moonstones have been used in jewelry for centuries. The Romans and Greeks were just two ancient civilizations which revered the stone they associated with their lunar gods and goddesses. A few pieces of my collection are shown above. Of these, my favourite is the ring on the right. I bought it when I was in Ireland. I like the shape, the size of the stone and especially the three small silver balls on each side of the setting.

 If you are familiar with moonstones, you are aware of the mysterious shimmer which changes as the stone is moved. This is known as adularescence. Wearing a moonstone is supposed to enhance your intuition. The ring on the left is set with three small moonstones. It is from one of our Arizona trips. The Celtic Tree of Life pendant has a small stone on the bottom right. It is from an Irish shoppe in the Hollywood District of Portland, Oregon. The Celtic design pendant on the right is one from one of the many Renaissance Faires I've attended.

 When I first heard of Wilkie Collins' book, The Moonstone, I expected it to be about the gemstones I was familiar with. Instead it is about a large yellow diamond. (I've never cared much for diamonds except yellow ones - those I like.) Many years ago a friend loaned me her copy of this book, but I just couldn't get into it. When Kari said she was reading it for this year's RIP Challenge, I decided it was time for me to try reading it again.
The book, published in 1868, is generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. The diamond is given to a young Englishwoman on her 18th birthday. She wears it to her party that night and awakens the next morning to find it has been stolen from her bedroom. The story is told in several sections, each one being related by a different character which sometimes made the reading of it confusing - and a bit tedious. (For a good review of this novel, watch for Kari's write-up of it on Bookishdark.)

 Anne Perry's Acceptable Loss, the 17th in her Inspector William Monk series, is more my idea of an English mystery novel. Monk is still the Commander of the River Police and still trying to discover identities of the rich men behind the floating palaces of corruption on the Thames and bring them to justice. I still really like Anne Perry's writing though after seventeen in this series, I do note a certain formulaic repetition. It is the quality of her writing and my interest in her characters that will keep me reading all her future Monk tomes.

 In the meantime, I have two more Louise Penny Inspector Gamache books to look forward to. A Fatal Grace is her second book of seven so far. I haven't been able to read them in order, but I'll take them any way I can get them. I adore Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. I love Penny's intelligent writing. I can't wait to read the last two of the ones she's written so far - and then I'll be waiting for her to write more. I hope these books get made into Masterpiece Mysteries for television.

Burnt Mountain is the newest Anne Rivers Siddons book, this one set in the North Carolina mountains. Siddons is another author I have followed for many years. "Growing up, the only place tomboy Thayer Wentworth felt at home was at her summer camp in the North Carolina Mountains. It was there that she met Nick Abrams, her first love...and first heartbreak. Years later, Thayer marries Aengus, an Irish professor..." Siddons characters usually are from rich, old family, southerners - not people I identify with. Having a poor Irish man enthused about telling Celtic myths made this book more interesting for me even though I thought the ending was sort of "out there".

Several years ago Mark gave me the audio version of Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness as a Christmas gift. Now that I have finally gotten into listening to books, I have finally enjoyed this one. Boyd Gaines does a nice job voicing all the different characters. Carr brings back the team who tracked down a serial killer in his previous novel, The Alienist, to help find the kidnapped daughter of a Spanish diplomat at the time when Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. I like period pieces. I enjoyed this one set in 1897 New York.