Love is a Pink Cake - Claire Ptak

Life really does keep getting in the way at the moment. I've got a jumper minus its sleeves that I really wanted to finish before the weather warmed up too much to wear it, an almost literal ton of books to read, work is busy and a whole lot of personal stuff going on in the background. The days are flying by. There are books to write about as well, but they deserve a slightly more positive frame of mind than I'm feeling today so this is a quick post to celebrate an impulse buy that's come through with the feel good factor.

I don't need anymore cook books, specifically not baking books, and pink isn't really my aesthetic but when I unpacked Claire Ptak's Love is a Pink Cake at work the other day I decided to bring it home, reasoning that if it was't for me I'd pass it on to my youngest sister. 

The recipe that grabbed me was for Ras el Hanout Snickerdoodles, the one I've made this morning was the blonde peanut butter cookies. Sorry Sophie, I think this one's a keeper. Claire Ptak has the Calafornia style Violet bakery in East London and whilst I think I had her earlier book I also know I didn't keep it - the combination of London and California isn't really my thing, and the Americanised measurements, although practical for a book to be sold on both sides of the Atlantic normally put me off a bit.

On the other hand you can't argue with the perfect salty, nutty, chewy, sweet, cookie - so what do I know. Blonde chocolate has started to appear everywhere recently, though in some ways the Caramac's of my childhood remain unbettered (yes, a Caramac is weirdly waxy and gritty in texture, but it tastes of nostalgia and quality has no chance against that). I want to like it, but it's toothachingly sweet and again not really my thing. It blends perfectly with peanut butter though.

This recipe also adds a touch of lemon juice to balance the sweetness and some wholemeal flour (I had rye and used that instead which I like for it's nutty edge). It said it would make 12 cookies, but I ended up making 18 because I like them slightly smaller and it's handy to have a couple of batches worth in the freezer against a rainy day. I had M&S chocolate this time and was glad to use it up, but I'm thinking of making these again with the Caramac's that I spotted in a pound shop whilst looking for coronation  window dressing (and doesn't that say everything about the general level of excitement for the first coronation this country has seen in 70 years). If they work out I'll post the recipe. 

The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer #1940Club

If I remember rightly Simon and Kaggsy's last club didn't fall in a Georgette Heyer year and I didn't manage to read anything for it in time. Honestly, at the moment between work and peri-menopause symptoms, I don't have much energy for anything - even reading. It's disheartening but as the general consensus is that when you come out on the other side of menopause it's amazing, I'm gritting my teeth and getting on with it (not that there's much choice). 

1940 is a Georgette Heyer year though and I read The Corinthian not so long ago with the Georgette Heyer readalong on twitter (I also have it playing via audio book whilst I write this). Heyer has been my comfort read since adolescence and she's proving as effective now as she did when I hit puberty. Her blend of humour, adventure, and romance was clearly a welcome bit of escapism during the war too given her popularity. 

Before the readalong The Corinthian hadn't been a particular favourite, but reading it with at least one person who absolutely adored it (Emma Orchard has now written her own Regency romance which I'll be writing about soon) changed my view of it. The corinthian of the title is Sir Richard Wyndham who opens the book about to make his proposal to a woman he doesn't much like. He's 29, hasn't met anybody else, their families are keen and it's by way of being a duty for him. His prospective bride is a good looking but otherwise deeply unappealing woman who makes it clear that Richard's only appeal to her is his vast fortune which can be used to bail out her irresponsible father and brothers.

Richard gets drunk the night before going to propose, finds a young man, who turns out to be a young woman in boys' clothing, escaping from a window on his way through late-night London, and thanks to a lot of brandy making it seem like a good idea decides to accompany her to her childhood home and sweetheart. By the time he wakes up sober again, he's on a stagecoach and committed to this adventure.

Penelope Creed is an heiress set on escaping from her aunt/guardian who would like Pen, and her fortune, to marry her cousin - who looks like a fish. Along the way, the couple are involved in a crash, meet a pickpocket, become embroiled in a diamond heist, find a dead body, an eloping couple, and obviously fall in love in a matter of days. It could, and maybe should, be ridiculous, but Heyer is so good at side characters that it's charming and funny.

She's also very good at sketching in Pen and Richard's romance. We see him quietly fall in love with her as she chats with the other stagecoach passengers. What starts as a bond built on the shared experience of social pressure - and it presses on him as hard as it does on her, quickly becomes liking and trust. Heyer dangles the possibility of the shared room trope before us and then neatly whisks it away because that's not her style. Her heroines have to make their choices without convenient devices designed to abdicate responsibility for them. 

For the most part that's it - a fun story with a sweet romance at its heart that anybody might enjoy and be distracted by - apart from the ending. When Richard finally convinces Pen that he loves her and isn't being chivalrous he kisses her by the side of the road in full view of another stagecoach full of passengers. A public display of affection that might have been mildly shocking anyway, but she's still dressed as a boy, and crucially everyone watching believes she is a boy - so what they're doing would have appeared illegal both in the early 1800's when it's set and in 1940 when it was written. When I first read this in the late 1980s section 28 would just have been coming into effect. 

I can't judge how shocking or not the original audience would have found it, but it definitely felt transgressive in my teenage mind and I still think it's deliberately provocative in all the best ways. 

Sea Bean - Sally Huband

I'm wondering if I have a favourite time of the publishing year? I used to think it was autumn, super Thursday, and all the big releases landing before Christmas - but a lot of those books aren't very interesting to me. Right now though interesting books are landing thick and fast on every subject and in every genre and I've struck metaphorical gold a couple of times already.

Sally Huband's Sea Bean is the first of these hits - it will easily be one of my books of the year, but more than that, it's one of a handful of things that I've read early or in proof and felt that it's something special. I hope my instinct is right on this one too.

I've followed Huband's work for a couple of years - she's been in a couple of anthologies that I've really liked, including Antlers of Water, was mentioned in one of Stephen Rutt's books, and had generally become a name to watch out for. I'm not quite sure what I expected after I read the first short description of Sea Bean in The Bookseller which focused on trauma and the restorative effects of beachcombing in a way that frankly put me off. I'm well aware of the beneficial effects of immersing ourselves in nature, but wary of taking that to far, or making a sort of cult out of it.

Huband emphatically does not do this. She moved to Shetland in 2011 with her husband and baby son. He is a helicopter pilot working in the oil industry. It's not a flexible job in terms of childcare so starting a family meant some difficult decisions for Sally - children weren't compatible with her academic career either where progression, and this is common to most jobs - is reliant on overwork in early years and often the need to move to where the jobs are. When he's offered a job in Shetland it sounds like taking it was an easy decision for the family.

Unfortunately pregnancy triggers chronic illness for Sally, and her hopes of finding a job in Shetland that would cover the costs of childcare don't come off. The specifics of her experience are unique, but the often painful experience of reinvention to accommodate a partners better paid profession, beginning a family, and indeed bodies that we can no longer assume will behave as we think they should are not. The way Huband writes about undoubtedly difficult things is matter of fact and honest. I'd say brave, but that has a slightly condescending ring to it which feels wrong to me - unselfish is a better description, because the more personal things seem to me to be shared in the spirit of letting others know they are not alone if they've felt the same.

The summery on the back of my proof describes Sea Bean as "..a message in a bottle. An interconnection of our oceans, communities and ourselves, and an invitation to feel belonging when we are adrift." which sums it up well. Sally finds a home and a community both in Shetland and beyond it through beachcombing, volunteering for research projects related to wildlife, and through her writing. I can't think of anything I've read off hand that better describes the rewards and challenges of island life, and how it can offer both freedom and a feeling of being trapped depending on circumstances. 

When I got my copy it came with a promotional postcard showing a message in a bottle which prompted me to message the publicist to tell her the story of my father finding this message in a bottle . She replied that this was the sort of connection the book was full of, it is, dad's story is mentioned in passing. It's also these connections, finding the things that draw us together that make island life work. Huband talks about building a community of care in a sometimes stifling community of place - she hasn't been afraid to speak out on contentious local issues - build enough connections with people and you can withstand the pressure to keep quite and keep the peace. 

Shetland is at the centre of this book, but it reaches far beyond following the path of the things that wash up on it's shores from all over the world. Inbetween there are bits of history and folklore, local issues that have national significance, meditations on what the proliferation of plastic in our environment means for all of us, and a myriad of different connections to make.

It's an extraordinary book. Generous, profound, curious, wide ranging, warm, challenging, beautifully written and endlessly interesting. I can't recommend it highly enough, it's filled me with hope for what is possible and for the resilience of women and islanders.

 

Portrait of his Sister - Francis Swithin Anderton

Once upon a time, I had a project in mind to research my great grandfather's career as an artist in some thoroughness - it hasn't as yet come to anything, though I have successfully managed to get Doug interested and he may yet make a job of it. Meanwhile I have been lucky to secure a second unfinished portrait for my own small collection of family portraits. 

This one is the kind gift of the couple who bought our old family home 30-odd years ago. It had been left in the attic, abandoned I think because the canvas had fallen back on some exposed nails on an old packing case and had been punctured in a couple of places. In all the bother of removing the accumulated rubbish of the previous century, it might well have ended up on a bonfire. 

Just back from the conservator

Before restoration

Stern Mrs Foster.

Fortunately, the new owners opted on a restoration instead, the painting was cleaned, patched, re-stretched, and framed. They have now sold up in turn, and as part of their downsizing very kindly passed it back to me. Somewhere along the way she had picked up a little bit of mildew, and the original repair job was in need of a touch-up. I also wanted to get her varnished for better future preservation (it's much easier to clean dirt off varnish than it is from paint, and modern varnishes do not yellow the way old ones used to). She won't have glass on her and I'm all too aware of how much dust, candle soot, and other sundry grime accumulates on my windows to be complacent about a canvas. 

I got her back today looking particularly vibrant and full of the joys of spring - and I'm very happy to have done so. Florence Ruth Anderton married Edward Hornby Foster, and was by all accounts a formidable woman. She is popularly rumoured to have haunted at least two of the houses she lived in, and for all I know maybe she left some part of her spirit in a few others as well. I never heard her referred to as anything but Mrs Foster by anyone, family included, who could have remembered her - but there are photographs of her in fancy dress, many taken with her brothers which suggest a lighter side to her personality. I would dearly have liked to meet her. Dad has another, finished, portrait of her that I covet where she looks remarkably stern, although maybe she's just trying to balance her hat and maintain some gravity.

Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers

I'm not quite sure how another week has gone by, except that I've not been very well in the last few days and they're a bit of a blur. I've also been working hard on a jumper which I want to finish whilst the weather might still be cool enough to wear it before it needs to be put away for the summer. To this end I've been listening to audiobooks rather than reading. Oh, how the reading is stacking up.

I've also been falling asleep to audiobooks fairly regularly because of the not being very well, so it's made sense to listen to something familiar where I can go back or not as I can be bothered. Gaudy Night seemed like an obvious choice for this; long enough to get through the main part of the body of the jumper, and a book I've read so many times it really doesn't matter if I pay a lot of attention or not.

I still have a mixed relationship with audiobooks. They're excellent company for making things, but I feel I miss a lot and far too often do fall asleep listening if I'm not doing something else. The interesting thing about listening to a book that's been familiar to me for 35 years is that the narrator will alert me to things that I've possibly got in the habit of skipping over. 

For this listening I've been struck again by the casual snobbery at play, especially where servants are being talked about, the equally casual and pervasive antisemitic tropes in Sayers (which seem to pass under the radar compared to writers like Heyer, but which I honestly find worse), and in this book how much the rise of the Nazi's in Germany is discussed - I don't think I'd entirely picked up how many references there where before, although the references to eugenics I had remembered.

Less obvious in some ways when I'm not reading myself is the love story. Or maybe I was more sensitive to Nazis than romance this time - who can say? Written in 1935 it's fair to say the attitudes are interesting. Harriet Vane has been traveling in Germany, Lord Peter spends a lot of time off stage in Rome helping avert war, there is much talk from visiting Americans and biology professors about selective human breeding to promote intelligence and physical fitness. And even more talk towards the end about medical solutions to dealing with criminals - both to rehabilitate and for scientific experimentation (frankly chilling knowing what would come next). 

I fell in love with this book when I was 13, it made me long to go to university and learn things (not solve murders), it's hard to say what a contemporary 13 year old would make of it. Would they be as oblivious to the discussion of eugenics as I was back then? I hope not, and whilst on the one hand it's interesting to see a certain amount of what almost feels like approval for what's happening in 1930's Germany here - it must after all have been a fairly widespread attitude I'm also uncomfortable with it. Sayers characters feel less sympathetic with each reading. 

Orange Cardamom Upside Down Cake

Sometimes I find myself looking back on lockdown with a certain fondness - right now I need to change my bedclothes and put on a wash, I want to read, knit, and write. I have a couple of hours before bed, so can only really do one of those things justice. I love my job but the thought of a few months not having to juggle everything around it is seductive.

I did make a cake today to use up some on the verge of going over blood oranges - I love blood oranges, the end of their season is one of the regrettable things about the coming of proper spring. I might just get a couple more decent bags of them, but they're losing their sherbety sharp acidity and the colours are going from delightful sunset to something that might be puce. 

The cake is an adaptation of Catherine Phipps recipe for Orange and Cardamom tarte tatin (to be found in Citrus). She suggests using cake as an alternative to pastry, which was exactly what I wanted for the first time I made it - as a cake it goes a lot further, and I've been tinkering with it ever since. I messed up a rhubarb version by adding vanilla - it's a combination I find too sweet and bland, but maybe sometime I'll revisit that with orange bitters instead.

Oranges, and particularly blood oranges look fabulous though and the result is a cake that works brilliantly as a smart dessert with whipped cream and is great for a coffee break too. It's also a recipe that feels endlessly adaptable and which gives me an excuse to use the tarte tatin dish Doug bought me for Christmas quite a long time ago and which I particularly love. It's a cast iron beauty with particularly well-designed handles which make it easy to turn out whatever is in it, and there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of using something that works perfectly for its purpose. 

To make the cake you need an oven proof skillet or dish about 23cm across that can also sit on a hob. Put 2 tablespoons of water and 100g of granulated sugar in it, let the whole lot spread evenly across the pan, and heat until it starts to go golden. No need to stir but you might want to shake it occasionally. When it's a good colour take it off the heat and add 75g of butter, stir in and add the light crushed seeds of 2 teaspoons worth of cardamom pods plus any extra juice or flavourings you might want to add to the caramel. 

Thinly slice 2 oranges and arrange the slices in the bottom of the pan - you'll have more than you need and can decide exactly how much to use based on preference. I've used a basic pound cake recipe for the sponge - 3 eggs, 6 ounces of self raising flour, butter, and sugar, but I could happily add semolina, or ground almonds or walnuts. I like to use a golden or light brown sugar to carry on the caramel flavour, but again that's a matter of preference. I think some rye flour would add something interesting as well - the important thing from my point of view is that these basic quantities gave a good sponge-to-fruit ratio that soaked up excess caramel without becoming soggy. Cover the fruit with the batter.

Bake in a moderate oven (I have no idea anymore, mine runs really hot and I keep having to turn it down well below any recipe recommendation to avoid burning) for about 25 minutes and then check. If a knife comes out of the sponge clean, or it's come away from the sides of the pan, it's done. 

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for a few minutes, and then turn it out onto a plate to cool properly before it can weld itself to whatever you've cooked it in!

A Table For Friends - Skye McAlpine

This book was, appropriatly, a gift from a friend for Christmas a couple of years back. A Table Full of Love reminded me of it when I was planning food for mothers day last week and so I had a browse through. Everything I did from it proved a massive hit which was extremely gratifying, not least because everything I did from it was really simple - the sort of low effort high reward cooking that's always good to have at the back of your mind. 

It's also further convinced me that somebody really needs to pout  together a collection of not really even recipes (although please for the love of god don't call them hacks) in one handy place. New to my list is the concept of a roasting tin of fruit, in this case grapes, but also mentioned were apples and plums, in the oven with whatever else is cooking to use as an accompniment.

I had grapes, so in they went, and then came out with everything turned up to 11 from the rich purple of their juice to the flavour of a normally not very interesting supermarket bunch. No seasoning necessary, just heat. It's a great alternative to a jelly, much lower in sugar and a happy partner for all sorts of things. Apples (which I've just had with sausages) do the same thing - an excellent stand in for an apple sauce when I wouldn't have bothered to make one, that used up an apple which was on the verge of going wrinkly. 

Another almost none recipe was red onions cut into chunks roasted with olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. I love onions like this but forget about them as a possible side dish. I won't now. A salad of blood oranges, black olives and red onions dressed in olive oil with a handful of basil torn over it was only marginally more elaborate, and another hit. Fresh, colorful, excellent with the chicken we had. I'd assumed there would have been left overs of it which I'd planned to finish with some feta cheese. No chance. 

There are much more formal recipes in McAlpine's books, lots of things I want to make and eat, but what's really caught my imagination is her genius for these really simple extras. I've just had a quick look online at her Venice book and see that she does an excellent looking cheat version of an almond croissant with ready to roll puff pastry, which again sounds perfect for anyone who doesn't have the time to make croissants from scratch (instructions for those also given in another recipe) or who doesn't have enough people to feed to make the effort worthwhile. Obviously I'll be buying tat book tomorrow.  

The Luminaries - Susan Dennard

I bought this book almost entirely because I loved it's sprayed edge decoration, and a little bit because it always seems like a good idea to sometimes step out of my normal reading choices into a genre I wouldn't normally bother with. In this case, I thought I was getting Sci-Fi/Fantasy but was actually getting young adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy. 

Either category come under the general heading of not my normal reading, and I see now that on  Waterstones and Amazon's websites, this is listed as both, but it was in the adult part of the shop where I bought it and I'm vaguely annoyed about it. 

It's an enjoyable book, a bit formulaic (a young girl whose family is outcast from their community has to overcome almost unbeatable odds to be the next super warrior kind of thing) but the main character is reasonably engaging and the logic behind the monsters she has to fight is believable. I will happily recommend it to teen readers looking for a decent fantasy to get stuck into. But what is it ever doing in the not teen section?

I've been unlucky on this front - almost every fantasy type of book I've read over the last decade from Naomi Novik's Uprooted, through to this has honestly been teen fiction however it's actually classified and I'm a little bit over it. With the single exception of Tricia Levenseller's The Shadows Between Us, they've been good, but they've all lacked the emotional maturity and complexity that I actually wanted. Holly Black's 'Book of Night' convincingly made the leap from young adult to adult writing, and I suppose my sample size is too small to be really meaningful, but honestly, we need to better define what these categories mean.

In the world of the luminaries, spirits live in 14 sites around the world, they create living nightmares with their dreams, and each spirit's nightmares evolve independently. America's spirit appeared around 1902 and is still exceptionally young. It's the job of the luminary clans to hunt down the nightmares and kill them before they can hurt the rest of us. There's a werewolf who we can all guess the identity of with no problem whatsoever, and an ex best friend who's got some big red flags going on too. The luminaries sworn enemies are the Diana's - witches, and our heroines father turned out to be one which left the whole family outcast. Winnie needs to survive a series of hunter trials to change that - but will the prize be worth winning?

It's all done fairly well, a second instalment drops in November, and if you're looking for a good series for a younger reader I'd absolutely have a look at it. If you wanted something undemanding that rattles along quickly enough it's okay too. 

The Stranger Times - C. K. McDonnell

 I found my glasses, they were right behind their case - I had looked in it, but apparently not near it. I really do need to make that appointment. Otherwise, it's been a hectic couple of weeks, full on at work as we get ready for a stock count and a quick visit to see family in Scotland. I returned with treasure - images of which I'll share in due course.

In terms of reading, I've mostly been knitting and listening to audiobooks. This has been a combination of Georgette Heyer who I know so well I can listen, relisten, and not worry if I miss bits - but cannot reasonably keep writing about here, and a couple of C. K. McDonnell books which are outside of my normal reading, but which I've enjoyed enormously. 

I'm on and off with audible, it took me a while to discover how it best worked for me. I like it for funny books and books I know well and am comforted by but have found it unsatisfactory for new literary fiction. The biggest issue is probably how uneven narration can be, one of the Heyer's I listened to recently was fairly bad, but Brendan McDonald did The Stranger Times, and This Charming Man, proud. 

I suspect I probably enjoyed listening to The Stranger Times more than I would have enjoyed reading it, just as I enjoyed the Terry Pratchett audiobooks I listened to last year more than the books I re-read. It's plot that makes me read; much as I enjoy the jokes I'm easily distracted from them. We had a little rush on C. K. McDonnell at work and the titles along with the Manchester setting appealed to me. A colleague who had read him encouraged me and now I'm a fan. 

The Stranger Times is a newspaper that reports the supernatural, at first under the assumption that it's all nonsense, albeit nonsense that some people believe. Increasingly odd things are happening though and eventually, the staff is forced to accept that some of it might be true. Which is a lot to take on board. 

There's a decent ensemble cast of characters and the focus on them changes a little between the two books I've listened to so far. This bodes well for future books in the series, as does McDonnell's obvious affection for his creations - they're easy to like and stay the right side of parody. I have an affection for Manchester too, based mostly on the kindness of some random people on a bus there who not only made sure I found my stop but accompanied me to the street I was looking for once I'd got off at it. 

I'd been at a Bowmore whisky training and tasting session for the day, I absolutely wasn't drunk, but in a pre-smartphone world it wasn't so easy to navigate strange cities and I was definitely in a mellow enough state to forget instructions. My next visit to Manchester involved meeting an unexpected fisherman from Shetland in a pub. Months later he bumped into my father in a local shop and really put the wind up him*. McDonnell's Manchester, supernatural entities aside, sounds a lot like the city as I've seen it. 

I currently have 1 audible credit remaining and a little bit of a dilemma as to how to use it. The weather says go for something cosy, but I'm also thinking it's a great way to explore genre's I might not normally spend much time on. I wondered about Samantha Shannon's Priory of the Orange Tree which is too long to appeal as a novel, but would probably see me through the next jumper I want to knit - but the reviews all make the same complaint about terrible narration. Is this the time to start on a Jodi Taylor?

*Dad swears he doesn't remember this, but he called me, deeply suspicious, to ask what the hell I'd been up to. I'd been playing pool, badly, in the Peveril of the Peak pub when I recognised the accent of the next person who wanted the table. 

Death of an Author - E.C.R. Lorac

Somewhere in my flat my are my glasses, I don't know where which is becoming increasingly annoying. I can't remember exactly when I last wore them either (they're more or less just for reading and sewing in ends on knitting - or picking up tiny stitches, I couldn't find them last night, but they might have had a good 48 hours to get lost in before that). I hope they haven't been through the washing machine. I check my pockets, but given how frequently a tissue gets through that process, it's not impossible that I've washed them. It's even possible that they've got into the duvet cover. It's all upsettingly middle-aged. 

I'm at the point of frustration over the missing glasses that I feel solving a murder would be easy by comparison, even one as fiendishly involved as in 'Death of an Author' where the exact identity of the victim is as big a mystery as that of the murderer. 

Originally published in 1935 and out of print until now there's something unexpectedly current about the plotting here - it hinges on the identity of a reclusive author, Vivian Lestrange, who so jealously defends their privacy they send their secretary to masquerade as them to their publishers. It's such a successful ruse that the police aren't entirely convinced that Eleanor really isn't Vivian.

In an online world where it's remarkably easy to build whatever identity we wish for ourselves and to have everything we need bought to our doors without so much as having to visit a bank for cash the concept of a celebrity that nobody has seen isn't much of a stretch. As anybody who has ever had to deal with identity theft will tell you, proving who you are isn't that easy either. This is Elanor's problem as she tries to prove there's both a case to investigate and that she's innocent of any wrong doing.

E.C.R. Lorac was a pen name for Edith Caroline Rivett, she also wrote as Carol Carnac so it's interesting to see how she talks about the differences between male and female writers. A recurring theme throughout the book is could Vivian Lestrange's novels have been written by a woman? All the men think not - I did make a pencil annotation of a passage where a list of women writers are given (definitely Dorothy L. Sayers and F. Tennyson Jesse get a mention, but apparently without my glasses I can't find it again).

I wonder how tongue-in-cheek Lorac's comments are as I don't think anybody would ever think that Sayers's Gaudy Night was written by a man, and F. Tennyson Jesse's sympathy for her female characters - especially in A Pin To See The Peepshow also seems specifically female. Lorac's insistence that you can't tell the difference also marks her out as a woman writer - though it's the idea of feminine that she seems to particularly object to, and I certainly wouldn't describe her so. 

Altogether this is my favourite Lorac so far (though as Carol Carnac 'Crossed Skis' is stiff competition). It's a view of 1930's literary London that I found particularly appealing, even more so than 'These Names Make Clues'. Without giving spoilers the motivation for the murder is particularly strong here and all things considered, the ending is particularly satisfying if you feel as I did about the characters involved.