October 2012 / MAPLESTONE

What I've Read | Oct 2012 {Murder of the Century. . .}

Among the many genres of books I love to read, true crime is right up there at the top. I believe the very first true crime novel I ever read was "Helter Skelter". Have you ever read it?

Well, this next true crime, is a culmination of news reports, court transcripts and the like. It isn't exactly a quick read (IMO), BUT, it was a good read.

If you find it fascinating to read how murders, the investigations and newspaper stories were handled not so long ago, then this is the book for you. If you have ever wondered how tabloid journalism got its start, then this book is for you.

I came away from this book realizing that we as a society haven't veered to far from this type of journalism. In fact, we are faced with it everyday, to the point where the truth is untrue and the untrue is the truth!

Maybe you will come away feeling differently?

(book description:amazon.com)

On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime are turning up all over New York, but the police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects.

The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives
headlong into the era's most baffling murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Reenactments of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell's Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio--a hard-luck cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor--all raced to solve the crime.

What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim whom the police couldn't identify with certainty, and who the defense claimed wasn't even dead. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale--a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.

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Reading Nook

What I've Read | Oct 2012 {NC Author}

Last weekend my hubby and I went to Southport, NC for a surprise birthday party. While there we visited many of the local shops. This is where I found the book I am going to talk about today.

The title caught my eye first, then the authors name, when I flipped the book over and read the exert...I knew I had to read it. Let me say now, that was the best six dollars and change I spent on a spur of the moment book purchase in a while.

ISLAND MURDERS

Author: Wanda Canada

This story takes place in Wilmington, NC. From the very first the murders begin. Carroll Davenport is the main character. She is spunky, stubborn, has dealt with some rather harsh situations in her life, and has a tendency to react before she thinks, which lands her in some rather tight spots.
Island Murders is a fast paced read. I read it one day (between all the other things I am working on), it draws you in and you can't wait to read who is going to be the next to die, or who will be the next suspect.
Will you be able to figure out who is doing what and why?

(excerpt)
Figure Eight Island is not what you'd call a sleepy little hamlet. Home to million-dollar houses and wealth, the island near Wilmington, North Carolina is the place to live and vacation for the South's privileged class.

Contractor Carroll Davenport doesn't party with the jet-setters; she builds houses for them. But when an arsonist destroys a house she's building and her job supervisor is found buried under ten feet of topsoil, Carroll is drawn into a world of drug smuggling, corruption and murder. It's enough to wreck her day.

The challenging task of keeping Carroll safe becomes perilous when a rogue cop pegs her as the murderer. Under the protective eye of Sheriff Stan Council and with the help of a not-unattractive off-duty FBI agent, Carroll struggles to clear her name—but what she doesn't know could get her and everyone she loves killed.

I love quick reads. Hopefully you will check this one out.

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Holiday Decor

Welcome To.......The Black Widow Cafe

Black Widow Cafe!!!

Well, I didn't get a lot of Halloween decoration up; But I did get the dining room table set up for my Grandson.

Let me show you around........

(Majority of the things used came from the Dollar Tree and things I had laying around the house.)

The menu for the Black Widow Cafe was created on Microsoft Word then stained with tea and the edges burned, placed in a Dollar Tree frame I bought sometime ago, which was spray painted black.

Here is a close up

Some of it can't be seen, here is what's on the menu:

Shrunken Skull soup

Zombie hearts with Wolverine blood glaze

Boiled spiders and roaches

Candied centipedes

and

Arsenic pumpkins with bats and skulls

SOUNDS DELISH...........YUUUUMMMM!

Here is the table

(excuse the mess)

OH LOOK! We have two guest already!!!!

Here are the Arsenic pumpkins.

I used some faux sugared pumpkins, haphazardly painted them with brown craft paint, added plastic bats and skulls, glued to a black plate and added spanish moss. Very easy to do.

The shrunken skulls, spiders and roaches................

Next, I took some deviled egg trays (that I never used), painted two black, found an unused glass candle holder, put a little spanish moss in the bottom, added a spider, glued the candle holder to the center of one plate and glued the other on top of that. I then took some skulls and glued them in the area for the eggs, took some more plastic bugs and placed them in the center; the finished product.

Candied Centipedes.........

The candied centipedes are in another glass candle holder that I also painted black.

Zombie hearts with wolverine blood glaze..........

For the Zombie hearts. I purchased hearts from the Dollar Tree, placed them on a cheese and cracker tray that has been placed upside down on a big margarita glass. Under the glass is more spanish moss and spiders. Over the top, on the edges and on the runner I placed faux blood, also purchased at the Dollar tree.

Would you care for some?

I also did something small in the kitchen...........

I took a metal tray, purchased from Kirklands, placed some spanish moss, two wine glasses, a bowl filled with eyeball ice cubes, some skulls, and a bottle that was spray painted black with a label purchased from Michaels last year.

Care for a drink?