just that. Dams lives in South Bend, Indiana, with a varying population of cats.
Her new Dorothy Martin mystery is A Thief's Folly.
Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Dams's reply:
I'm usually working on at least three books at a time. Many of them are re-reads from my copious library. Right now I've read through almost all my Miss Silver books by Patricia Wentworth. This series, begun in the late 20s and continued through 1961, seems old-fashioned now. But then I'm 84 and enjoy a lot of things that are somewhat dated. The heroine/detective in this series is an elderly maiden lady, sometime governess,Visit Jeanne M. Dams's website.who has an insight into human nature and a comforting manner, that enable her to tease out answers to difficult cases, often cementing a romance in the process.
I just finished reading through Brother Cadfael. As he was in a TV series starring Derek Jacoby a while back (on PBS), some may be more familiar with him. The excellent series written by Ellis Peters, pseudonym of Edith Pargeter, stars a 12th century Benedictine monk of Shrewsbury Abbey. His worldly background as a crusader gives him a slant on life that is lacking in some of his more sheltered brothers. The Abbey, by the way, was a real place before the Dissolution; the church still exists in this fascinating city on the Welsh border.
And in an entirely different vein, I'm reading the biography of one Julian, and the book she wrote. That is the only part of her name that we know, and even that is somewhat uncertain. She's often called Julian of Norwich, as she lived, in the 14th century, as an anchoress attached to the church of St. Julian of Norwich, England. An anchoress (masc. anchorite) was a person who lived in a small cell attached to a church, never leaving it; a hermit of sorts. She was literate, which was amazing for anyone at that time, and especially for a woman. She wrote a book of theology, detailing visions she had over a period of time. The book was written in Middle English (think Chaucer), so what we read today is a translation. One small passage from that book has become famous, her declaration that "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." That's become my philosophy of life!
--Marshal Zeringue
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