The Moon Spinners

author: Mary Stewart
Genre: Romantic Suspense circa 1960's
Grade: B/B+

I spent the holidays reading and not posting as you can see. And let me start by saying that I got a huge kick out of looking at the dust jacket of this hard back and seeing $4.50 for the price. Wow! Those were the days . . . .

Or weren't if you were Mark Langley. Mark finds himself in some dire straits indeed when on a visit to Crete, doing a routine tourist stop he finds himself in trouble with some of the locals. Hiding out in the hills was not in his plan but that is what he is reduced to until he meets heroine Nicola Ferris, a fellow tourist on holiday from her job at the British Embassy in Athens. Mark firmly orders Nicola out of his business but she is not a young lady that takes orders well.

Mark, Nicola, her Aunt Frances and his sidekick Lambis find themselves in a thrilling cat and mouse game within the sleepy hamlet of Agios Georgios, a lovely if isolated fishing village in the center of the Asterousia spine. Stewart is a master of using her location and I got a real feel for this sleepy town, surrounded by rough but beautiful terrain with lush greenery and the scent of lemon blossoms hanging in the air. Nicola and Mark are both very likable characters and even the villains (all but one) are imbued with a certain charm. The book has a definite spring holiday gone bad feel to it but that is to the authors credit. So many books these days lose the sense of location or even time but this one is firmly mired in both. You feel you almost live the action and could tell people at what point everything happened your sense of having been there is so immediate.

The one problem I did run into with the book was the sense of misogyny I felt emanated from both Mark and Lambis. In Lambis, a traditional Greek, it was almost explicable since everyone describes the Greeks as being notorious misogynists but in Mark I found it a tad more offensive. He owes his life to Nicola at least a few times over and yet treats her like an amateur in comparison to himself. I first picked this book up seven years ago and wasn't able to make it past the first ten pages because of that but this time I persevered and it was worth it. While Mark's attitude did still rub me wrong the mystery and setting lured me in in spite of myself. Still, the B rather than A grade came from that.

Tea: Greek Mountain Tea, if you can find it, would be perfect for this. There is some information on it at http://greekfood.about.com/od/mezethesdrinks/a/tsaitouvounou.htm. Otherwise, how about something cool with a gyro or Greek salad made with olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and some lovely feta.