Another Quiet Week

 A New Resolve

We rejoined the fitness center that we dropped during the pandemic. (Ok, that’s a long time!)
No photos allowed inside so I used the picture from their website.

An Interesting Mystery

Black Beadle (published 1938). E.C.R. Lorac (1894-1958) wrote a huge number of
police procedural novels about the detective Robert MacDonald (Goodreads lists 45 of them!)

After the murder of a quite unpleasant man at the beginning of Black Beadle, Inspector MacDonald investigates four suspects. These possible murderers represent four social types in England just before the war. As the inspector says they were “men of such different types that it seems almost ludicrous to group them under a common heading.” (p. 161) 

It’s a tightly plotted novel with an interesting theme underlying MacDonald’s efforts: the exploration of contemporary views on Jewish people and Jewish stereotypes in England, mainly by the focus on one suspect who is Jewish and one upper-class suspect who despises Jews. There is also a heavy consciousness of the persecution of Jews that was underway at that time in Germany. 

I think the author meant well, but I found the book to be uncomfortable reading because I see even these well-intended attitudes as condescending and now outdated. Just one example, the Jewish character is often identified as “the Jew” — for example:

“The appeal made to him by the Jew had been, in its essence, an emotional appeal.” (p. 112)

 

“He sensed that the Jew was upright, humane, and sincere, but there was in him that touch of the fanatic which rendered him doubly dangerous.” (p. 105)

 

I’ve read one other novel by this author, and I may read more. Quite a few of them are still in print or in e-book form. 

Kerrytown Lunch and Shopping

Lunch at one of our local favorites, Miss Kim in the Kerrytown shopping center downtown
Carrot salad, broccoli salad, Korean fried chicken, and spare ribs.
A Zingerman’s chocolate cupcake for dessert

From one of the interesting shops in Kerrytown: a ceramic light-switch cover.

Horror Show in Washington

Shared with Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz.

Blog post and photos © 2025 mae sander