What I've Read Lately

I love reading mystery novels. I have probably read twenty to thirty this year when I should have been working on my thesis. Usually I read Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, or borrow one of my mom's Janet Evanovich-esque chick-lit mysteries, but Gabe suggested that if I insisted on reading mysteries, I might as well check out some of the "classics" of the genre. So.

I got my brand new Clark County library card last week and put it to some use. I decided I had better start with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the deducing Sherlock Holmes. (I realized after I got home that I really should have started with Poe's Dupin. Oh well.) So far I have read the first two Holmes stories/novellas: A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four.

A Study in Scarlet is particularly interesting because motive for the crime Holmes solves is a double murder essentially commited by a group of Mormons led by Brigham Young. It was interesting to read because it was pure melodrama. You could practically hear the bad guy music playing whenever one of the elders comes on scene. Of course, the plot involved a beautiful and innocent young girl being kept from her true love and kidnapped to become one of a powerful elder's "harem." It reminded me quite a lot of a silent film I saw at BYU a few years ago called Trapped by the Mormons! (I'm not sure if there is really an exclamation point in the title, but I think it fits.)

These texts just demonstrate really how much perception of Mormons has changed over the past 150 or so years. It's amazing to me that a group of people widely considered to be kidnapping mindcontrollers not that long ago are now simply considered a bit weird. I think it's a tremendous improvement.