James W. Ziskin

Ellie Stone, the heroine sleuth of this engaging, clever mystery, is a reporter for an upstate New York newspaper. It’s August 1962, height of the racing season in nearby Saratoga Springs, when Ellie happens on a fire at the abandoned Tempesta Farm, once a quality breeding place for Thoroughbreds.

A barn has burned, which should have no particular significance, since it’s been years since Tempesta operated. However, Ellie finds human remains in the ashes and a bit of racing silk that show more suggests the victim was a jockey. A bullet hole through the head confirms that it’s murder, which leads the police to suspect gamblers as the criminals.

Ellie isn’t so sure, and, as is her wont, she pursues the case from every conceivable angle, like any good reporter; for about a week, she seems never to get any sleep. Knowing nothing about racing, she relies on a good friend to teach her, whereupon she drops the nuggets she’s learned into conversations with gamblers, horsemen, and racetrack swells, often with comic results.

Ellie befriends a beautiful, temperamental horse named Purgatorio, and crosses paths with hoods who have no beauty but plenty of temperament. Her allies in the police department worry about her, especially the closer she gets to the truth, and the more heat that results.

Ziskin tells his story with brisk economy, and despite a large cast of characters, he never loses you. That should be a given, but I’ve read many mysteries in which I’ve had to stop and say, “What just happened, exactly?” Yet the clarity never reveals too much, and the solution to the mystery comes as a complete surprise — another quality that eludes some authors.

The prose is nicely seasoned without being cute or cloying, and that helps too. As for historical flavor, I would have liked more than random details of dress, popular music, or news headlines. To his credit, though, Ziskin involves social issues hovering on the mainstream horizon in 1962. I particularly like how he handles the office politics, which conveys both background and contrast.

Ellie has an assistant, an older woman with a developmentally disabled child, who does a lot of the spade work, for little money and no recognition, except from Ellie. The younger woman, educated at Barnard and blessed with the more glamorous, better-paying job, realizes how unfair this is.

However, her status cuts two ways, for Ellie endures the sobriquet of “girl reporter,” symbolic of the hostility she faces on her beat and in the newsroom. Ellie never describes herself physically in her narration, but you get the idea that she’s very attractive, often more of a hindrance than an advantage. When an old-timer at the paper makes a remark about her derrière, she photographs his and posts the prints where other staffers can laugh at them.

But it’s not all fun and games, for Ellie faces constant sexual harassment, and she fights an uphill battle to be taken seriously. Luckily, her editor believes in her reportorial skills— but nevertheless, she depends upon a man’s good graces.

Also, Ellie’s Jewish, and Ziskin does a fine job portraying the shades of anti-Semitism she encounters, whether from the Saratoga blue-bloods or the underworld types. The blue-bloods also have no idea how racist they are toward African-Americans, even as they raise money to aid poor black schoolchildren. Properly, Ziskin never mentions the national movements or leaders campaigning for women’s rights or against racial and ethnic prejudice, a low-key approach that avoids earnestness or exaggerated significance.

These are some of the pleasures of A Stone’s Throw, an excellent, satisfying mystery. show less

It is late January of 1960 as Styx & Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery begins and Ellie Stone gets some bad news from the local sheriff. Her father was found unconscious in his New York City apartment and is now in the hospital in critical condition. Eleonora “Ellie” Stone, a reporter and the only living child of Professor Abraham Stone, is going to have to take some time off from her job in New Holland and go back home to see about her dad. Their relationship is not a good one as they are show more estranged and now she is faced with dealing with their past issues as well as the current crisis.

Upon arrival she soon learns that it was not a stroke or a heart attack that put her father in the hospital. He was violently assaulted and his home office and library was ransacked. This occurred just days after her brother’s grave was severely vandalized. While the police believe the events are not related and the assault on her father, a renowned Dante scholar and esteemed professor, was nothing more than a random burglary, Ellie has her doubts. Especially since another professor, well known to her father and a colleague, died in somewhat mystery circumstances in close proximity time wise to the assault on her father.

That fact, what happened to her brother’s grave, the very specific damage in her father’s apartment, and more makes Ellie question the police investigation from the start. Ellie considers herself a “modern woman” and has no problem with asking questions and pushing for answers when she isn’t thinking about the past or enjoying the pleasures of the present. She drinks, she smokes, she likes a good time with a man who strikes her fancy, and Ellie won’t put up with nonsense from others.

Styx & Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery is the start of a series and a good one. While all the characters are complicated in this tale to some degree (no cookie cutter cardboard cutouts need apply), Ellie Stone is exceedingly complicated. There is depth and nuance to this character that is rarely found in the first novel of a series. She also has a subtle sarcastic streak that appealed very much to this reader.

While historical mysteries are not my usual reading material, I thoroughly enjoyed Styx & Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery. A complicated tale with characters of depth and nuance, the mystery itself was a difficult one to solve kept this reader engaged, and the read was flat out very entertaining on all levels. Styx & Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery was a very good book and is strongly recommended.

Styx & Stone: An Ellie Stone Mystery
James W. Ziskin
http://www.jameseziskin.com
Seventh Street Books
http://www.seventhstreetbooks.com
October 2013
ISBN# 978-1-61614-819-5
Paperback (also available as an eBook)
270 Pages
$15.95

Material supplied by the good folks of the Dallas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2018 show less

Well, that was just grand. I'm a sucker for well-done historical fiction, especially when there's a sassy protagonist ahead of her time. Throw in some well-drawn characters, a baffling murder, and some solid head fakes and I really enjoyed this. The pacing seemed kind of uneven, though, and Ellie's emotional lability and jumping into bed with Isaac so rapidly strained my credulity just a little (there's a big difference between sassy and stupid).

Thank you to Seventh Story Press for the show more advance reading copy. show less

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