The Cater Street Hangman

"Anne Perry," who as a teenager committed murder with her friend, recently died.  I got a copy of her first book, which came out in 1979 and is the first in a long series (the last few books were part of a follow-up involving the son) of mystery novels.  

The first is The Cater Street Hangman though (1) the deaths are by a garrotte and (2) it isn't actually a man.  The Wikipedia entry notes that the author did not expect it to be the first of a series. The series in some fashion changed certain details.  Okay.  Well, I'm going to read the second novel and will see how this plays out. 

The book was overall very good.  It uses various narrators so that we get the viewpoints of various characters, including one man. The main character is one of the daughters of an upper-middle-class Englishman in the year 1881.  We also see things through the eyes of her two sisters (the book jacket suggests two sisters will be the key characters), her mother, and (to a limited degree) her brother-in-law, who she is sorta in love with.  And, in one scene we also get the thoughts of the paternal grandmother. 

The book is a combination mystery novel and character study as suggested by the opening scene when the young twenty-something daughter is shown rebelling by wishing to read the newspaper.  She eventually falls for a policeman.  Her younger sister in effect also marries above her station.  The third sister becomes (fairly late) one of the victims. 

The character drama dominates more than the mystery, especially since we never see things directly through the eyes of the police detective. We only see him working when his future wife is around.  The killer turns out to be the unhinged vicar's wife (I guessed the vicar midway and then figured it was one or the other).  Even the policeman never assumes until late it might be a woman. All the victims are women. 

I have trouble enjoying fiction, often even nonfiction is a struggle these days, so appreciate a good book.  The book at times seemed a bit heavy going but that mostly seems to be me.  Once I got into the groove, it read pretty fast.  I guess it not being totally quick to read is to its credit. 

They insist they will get better.

But the Mets have yet to get better.

Two missed popups, an error and a wild pitch cost the Mets a total of five runs Friday night against the Philadelphia Phillies.

The game was on Apple T.V. -- many more games in baseball are on these platforms -- but Wayne Randazzo, the former Mets radio guy, did call it.  I don't use those things so did not see their latest mess. They always seem to find a way to lose, including finding new ways (Alonso the other day blew a chance by running outside the baseline) to screw up. 

My sentiment for a while was that with three wild card spots, the Mets just had to go on a winning streak, get into a groove, to be back on track. Stop with the "first place."  Yes, the current format gives the top two seeds a bye. But, okay, third place or a wild card still gets you to the playoffs.

It's getting harder. This is the Phillies. The Mets are supposed to "own" them.  Still can win two out of three, but the Phils are now playing better.  They aren't a wild card yet but are not that far away.  The Reds and San Franciso raced ahead with long winning streaks, the Reds now in first place.  Miami (if they slip out, Phils can slip in) and Dodgers (third place now with the Diamondbacks in first!) are the other two wild cards.

Taijuan Walker (8-3), the former Met, won tonight.  The Mets eked out three hits. They are seven games under .500 (the first step) and 7.5 games out of the wild card race. That's tough with a bunch of NL teams competing for around five (Atlanta got the division and let's see if the Dodgers keep on scuffling) slots.  The Mets are not so good that they will dominate. 

Meanwhile, in basically a tweak move, Escobar was changing to the actual in competition Angels for some minor league arms. He's not doing great but the Angels need a third baseman.  The rookie Baty is up so he's basically superfluous.  The talk is about how great of a teammate he is.  

Vogelbach, who was out for a bit with a mental health break (which at first was not reported), is showing some life of late as a DH.  Good for him. He seems like a good guy, and he was just so bad until recently.  

ETA: The trade of an IF provided space for a back-up who was out for a while with a serious injury to get a chance.  

Scherzer did his job.  He's 7-2 though struggled enough times that the record is a bit misleading.  Of course, he was also out for rosin violation, another way he hurt the rotation.  The arbitrary nature of that makes his own blame questionable but it added to his own struggles.  

So, that left the Sunday game to be a must win -- got to win against your usual whipping boys when you struggle like this.  Things looked well into the eight with Cookie bending but not breaking and the Mets scoring off Wheeler.  It was a long tedious game, over three hours long.  

(I'm not really into bad baseball of late, including Phillies hitters looking lost at the plate and blowing prime scoring opportunities. And, the Mets had its share of bad play as well as too much mid-relief pitching.) 

But, Cookie only went four (two runs) so they had to stretch the middle relief, especially with Drew Smith (who has been questionable) out on that rosin violation. They gave up a four run eighth, so Phils were ahead 7-6 (traditional l Mets/Phils game, run-wise, though usually the Mets came out on top).  

Final result: same.

Final four runs: fielder's choice on a misplay, walk and two hits by pitch.  Okay.  Also, the closer has barely been used of late, helped by the Mets losing a lot.  Finds a way to lose.