QUEENAN COUNTRY, by Joe Queenan

Moving away from rants, I return to High Literature. The last book I finished was *Queenan Country,* by Joe Queenan, subtitled "A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country." He reports on his glorious findings and his glorious hatings with equal glee.

He loves the British for their "arch phrasing, infectious understatement, and delightful euphemisms." He also describes Paul McCarthy as "choochy," and John Lennon as "not choochy." He loathes the Pre-Raphaelite painters and Greyfriars Bobby. He advocates visiting the small town of Berkely because "you can be in and out of the village in two hours flat" and have covered "history, art, religion, regicide, tomfoolery, plague, ornithology, revolution, Norman ecclesiastical architecture, home decor, gardens, state-sanctioned sodomy, and Saxon mortuary in a single visit and can devote the rest of your trip to gambling, the theater, alcohol, or napping...it is also the site of the world's first commercial nuclear power plant. So put it on your list now."

He moans that London can't be seen in a weekend, a week, fortnight, or even a month, and advocates seeing it before age 65, because your feet can't take it and you will have to take your chances with your next reincarnation. I'm putting London back on my life-time goal list, even if I have to make it with a walker.

A hearse of a different book

Who knew the world of cozy mysteries was large enough for two amateur detective morticians? The *Hearse* series by Tim Cockey stars Hitchcock "it's a family name" Sewell, from a family funeral home in Baltimore. The *Undertaking* series by Mark de Castrique, features "Burying" Barry Clayton, from fictional Gainsboro, N.C The *Hearse* was first.

Each series has its supporting cast, which de Castrique appears to have copycatted: tragic family circumstances, plucky relatives, dogs with stupid names. Hitchcock Sewell gets a kooky sidekick, his sexy ex-wife. Barry Clayton only gets a grumpy surgeon girlfriend.

In Tim Cockey's debut *The Hearse You Came In On,* Hitchcock horns his way into investigating the death of a young woman who has previously crashed a funeral service wearing a short short short white tennis dress. She claimed she wanted to plan her own funeral. Blackmail, dirty videos, police corruption, and political coverups move the story along. Hitch regards it all with wit and often tenderness.

Mark de Castrique's *Foolish Undertaking* starts well: Barry views his uncle praying in front of the funeral home. Oh, wait--he's only planting petunias. End of humor. Barry is tasked with the funeral of an honored Montagnard soldier. The Montagnards helped the U.S. in Viet Nam- this requires boring exposition. The corpse disappears. Not funny.

In the de Castrique/Barry Clayton book the suspects are nearly identical. They're now a dubious Boston detective, a famous actor, a US Senator, and... something else. But they're all ex-military, and quite similar. Each man has his share of aides, and THEY're suspects, too. The last book I read with so many nearly identical suspects was Dorothy L. Sayers' *Five Red Herrings.* I hate *Five Red Herrings.*

Eccentric Baltimore locals and locales vs. respectfully depicted Appalachian ones. Your pick.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, a mashup book by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Another book I would heartily recommend to fans of the British and weird is PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, "by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith." This is a "mashup," a book which purports to be a collaboration between two authors, advertising itself as "the classic Regency novel now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem!" Elizabeth Bennett is a trained zombie killer, as are her sisters (she and Jane are the best, of course). The book consists of about 85% Jane Austen's words and 15% zombies, fitting better than you'd think. The later passages with Darcy slow the pace, but at other points the book exuberantly lives up to its promise.

During one of Lydia's interminable monologues about why the girls should go to the camp and get soldiers for husbands, Elizabeth fantasizes about cutting off Lydia's head with her favorite katana sword. It brightens the scene considerably.