Quote for the day: "The story of how the Upper Peninsula finally became a part of Michigan must have made the angels weep. And doubtless also giggle. John Voelker in a "Forward" to They Left their Mark by John Burt. 1985.
Reviews
Grim Paradise: The Cold Case Search for the Mackinac Island Killer by Rod Sadler.
On July 23, 1960, the widow Francis Lacey accompanied by her daughter, her son-in-law Wesley, and his sister arrived for a weekend on Mackinac Island. Wesley's mother had rented a cabin on the west end of the island and invited everyone to stay with her. Francis decided to rent a room in a hotel in the village and said she would walk to the cabin the next morning. On Saturday the 24th she never reached the cabin. As the day wore on her family became worried and finally notified the police she was missing. The village on Mackinac Island had a three-man police force and the Michigan State Police assigned three officers to the island every summer. The local officers combed the village looking for anyone who had seen Mrs. Lacey the morning of the 24th while the State Police organized large search parties that combed the island. It was four days before her body was discovered. She had been raped and strangled. Francis Lacey's killer was never found.
Rod Sadler is a retired law enforcement officer who turned to writing and is an award-winning author of an earlier true-crime book. This exhaustive history of the search for Mrs. Lacey's killer could be his second award-winning book. Over twenty State Police officers were sent to the island in search of the killer. Their task was daunting. Thousands had been on the island on that weekend and most of them had headed home before the body was discovered. The killer also had four days to leave the island. The author recounts the work of the police in meticulous detail. They followed hundreds of tips and interviewed and investigated numerous persons of interest without results. The author explains in detail the scientific methods employed in the mid 1960s in solving murders and the dramatic advancements made since then. A reader can't but be impressed by the dedication and dogged pursuit of the killer by police as the months and years go by. When tips came in twenty years after the murder they were tracked down and thoroughly investigated.
In a conclusion the author does suggest a suspect that escaped attention but is beyond reach because he died in jail several years ago. And although DNA has been employed to nail killers in cold case murders it can't be used to try and find Francis Lacey's killer. In 1976 all the evidence collected in the case was moved to long-term storage and presently can't be found. In short this is a relentlessly readable book.
Grim Paradise: The Cold Case Search for the Mackinac Island Killer by Rod Sadler. Wild Blue Press, 2023, 332p., $13.99 pb.
Michigan Scoundrels: Rogues, Rascals and Rapscallions by Norma Lewis.
I would love to know how the author went about selecting her subjects for inclusion in this book. And furthermore, how she decided to include Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, of Kellogg cereal fame, in the book alongside the likes of the bomber of the Bath school, the Black Legion and James Jesse Strang. Well, I suppose any man who underwent a circumcision by Dr. Kellogg who performed them without anesthesia as a way of punishing his patient for presumed self-abuse as a child might agree to his inclusion. Jim Bakker was convicted of mail and wire fraud for bilking his worshipful TV audience out of their hard-earned money and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. He was paroled after 5 years and was soon back on the boob tube selling a cure for Covid 19 to viewers. Which should make his parole board worthy of inclusion in the book. Whatever the author used as a benchmark for inclusion, the result is a captivating collection of miscreants ranging from TV evangelists to heartless murderers.
The author is an accomplished writer with a sly sense of humor that is much appreciated. She devotes an average of six pages to each subject and crams those pages full of provocative information. A fine example is the chapter on the Black Legion that rose to power in Michigan in the 1930s and was more vicious than the KKK. The Legion hated Blacks, Jews, Unions, immigrants, and fraternal organizations. It was estimated they were 300,000 strong in Michigan in the mid 1930s and members included elected officials, and even police. In a large part, they grew their organization by taking unsuspecting men to a Legion meeting then holding a gun to their heads and threatening death if they didn't swear an oath to the group and then were told they would be killed if they broke the oath. This was not an idle threat. One member was killed for not divorcing his Catholic wife. Another member chased an unlucky Black man, who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and gunned him down because he wanted to know how it felt to kill a Black man. The Legion is credited with murdering at least 50 men but the number is probably much higher because they staged many murders to look like suicides.
I have two complaints. The brief chapters made for great reading, but the characters were so fascinating I wished for more pages on each and every one. Secondly, based on who the author collected between the covers of this slim volume it could have easily been twice as long. Ms. Lewis owes readers a second volume filled with more characters based on her criteria. In short, the author leaves you wanting more and that is the mark of a very good book.
Michigan Scoundrels: Rogues, Rascals and Rapscallions by Norma Lewis. History Press, 2023, 123p., $23.99.
Roadkill Justice by Terri Martin
This is the author's third book of short stories featuring a cast of engaging, strikingly unique, and amusing characters living on the ragged edge of normality in a remote corner of the U.P. Once again, the stories are stitched together by a main character's you-are-there narration of her trials and tribulations, many of which are the result of her own foibles.
Nettie Bramble lives with her mom in a primitive cabin. No electricity, no running water and that's the way Nettie's mom likes it. There is a running battle throughout the book over the issue of modernization, as if they could afford it. Nettie's brother-in-law owns and operates a sewage pump truck and fancies himself a skilled jack of all trades. He offers to do much of the plumping and electrical work when in reality he couldn't screw in a light bulb. The other running storyline is based on Nettie's refusal to buy hunting and fishing licenses which results in constantly running afoul of Wildlife Officer Ketchum.
Poor Nettie can't help outwitting herself and when she can't pay a fine, she is sentenced to public service at the Gnarly Woods Senior Complex. She finds herself teamed with Miss Bea Righteous (the lead character in the author's previous book) in running the annual Prom Bomb Dance which went fairly well until the band played the Hokey Pokey with disastrous results. The best piece in the book covers the running of the Road Rage Rally in which Nettie drives her brother-in-law's sewage truck. Bea and friends compete in an electric car, and Tami and Evi who own the Wikiup Wine & Fudge Shop, who also appeared in an earlier book, drive a truck their husbands put together from spare parts.
When you need a break from politics, famine, wars, and climate change pick up this silly, funny, amusing, absurd, and delightful antidote to the afore mentioned.
Roadkill Justice by Terri Martin. Modern History Press, 2023, 146p., $19.95.
Chagon and the Vision Quest: A Native American Novel by Larry Buege
This captivating YA novel immerses the reader in Ojibway life and culture through a twelve-year-old boy's life and adventures. The novel is set in the Upper Peninsula near the shore of Lake Superior nearly 1,500 years before Europeans set foot on North America. The narrator is Chogan and through him we learn of the long ago, everyday life in an Ojibway village and a serious threat to its very existence.
His village depends on wild rice to survive winters when it is much harder to hunt or snare animals and summer's edible plants are gone. The village faces a winter food shortage and possible starvation when a storm wipes out the year's wild rice crop. Chogan's grandfather hopes a long journey to the Winnebago and trading for corn can replace the wild rice. Chagon and his sister accompany the traders because it is hoped that seeing children in their party the Winnebago will know they come in peace. The trip involves crossing the U.P., building canoes, and then a long voyage down another long and dangerous huge body of water. It is all a great adventure to Chagon. But the Ojibway find the Winnebago had a poor corn crop and the traders don't return with enough to feed their village through the winter. Back home Chagon is of the age to leave the village and go days without food in a vision quest as his entry into adulthood. When winter comes villagers slowly weaken and start to suffer from scurvy. It is up to Chagon to attempt a two-day slog in the depths of winter to a village where a medicine woman may have a cure for his villagers' illness.
What makes this such a fine book is as readers helplessly fall under the spell of Chagon's adventures and come to know him they vicariously experience life as it was lived in the U.P. in 100 A.D. It is also a major reason why the Chagon novels (this is the fifth in the series) are probably as popular with adults as YAs. As an added plus the author has inserted six websites in the novel where readers can go to learn more about the Winnebago, scurvy and other subjects pertinent to the novel. Clearly the author's commitment to the amount of research necessary to write with such authenticity marks this book and the series as a labor of love.
Chogan and the Vision Quest: A Native American Novel by Larry Buege. Gastropod Publishing, 2024, 148p., $14.95pb.
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