Reviews for The Rings of Hubris

 

WEB SYNOPSIS: Professor Josh Blagsdale's self-love and arrogance impels the murders of two wives, a lover, and a young man. As the story unmasks his character, you wonder if "hubris" is inherited.

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More About the Book

A flashflood in northern New Mexico washes out the body of a woman who had been missing for eight years and presumed murdered by a Mexican cartel. Now, the evidence begins to point to the husband, Josh Blagsdale, a respected professor at the local university. Suspicion is compounded by the fact that the police are going to disinter the body of the professor's former live-in girl friend who had apparently committed suicide in his garage a few years before. As his life begins to unravel, the professor commits suicide rather than succumb to the approbation of his family and peers.

Ironically, at the time of Rosa Blagsdale's disappearance, Ted Thompson, a young man about to graduate from high school also went missing and had never been found. When the professor's suicide made the local headlines, Nora Thompson, the mother of the missing boy, is worried that her vague suspicions about the professor might go unresolved. Her husband, Joe Thompson follows a lead from the newspaper and contacts Sue Wilson on the off-chance that she might have some clue to finding their son. The local sheriff and the boy's father examine a remote area where Sue's divorced husband, Paul Wilson, and Professor Blagsdale sometimes camped.

In the end it is the professor's two daughters and son who pay the steepest price of their father's misdeeds. As John Blagsdale cleans out his father's office, further evidence of the hidden motives are revealed. The son begins to wonders if the hubris his father exhibited might, after all, be an inherited trait.

 

 

READERS’ COMMENT

Posted June 10, 2009, 3:48 PM EST on Barnes and Noble ebooks

Character                              5/5

Plot                                    5/5

Writing Style                   5/5

Originality                            4/5

Cover                                   5/5

Drama                          5/5

Touching                          3/5

Thrilling                              4/5

Book Club                             5/5

Rainy Days                    5/5

Topical Conversation          5/5

Permanent Library          5/5

 

It is a fascinating book filled with suspense and glimpses into what drives our actions. The geological and cultural descriptions are wonderful jewels from your on personal observations and experiences. A GREAT READ!  My husband, who rarely reads books written by women, enjoyed it too! I read it in one sitting; staying up late the night it came. It is a page-turner--thanks so much for sending it. I feel it definitely could be a screenplay as it has suspense and raises the eternal questions of why people do what they do. It was also amazing that he came so close to getting away with it all! Coleen from Australia

 

I just finished reading your book and must tell you how much I enjoyed it.  You are such a good writer and have such a way with words.  It was so good in every way and thanks so much for sending it to me.  I laid aside all I have been reading and so glad I did; you just get a big Congratulations from me.  I hope it becomes a best seller. I like the art on the cover also. reader

 

Like you said, for such a "dark" subject, you made it realistic but not

scarry for the reader.  At least for me.  Somehow you got into the mind of a Hubris and made it understandable to the reader---even though it is a sick way of thinking.  Wonder how many people think like this?  You must have had to do a lot of research.  Was so realistic and being in NM was a good setting for sure.   Maxine W.

 

 

It is always a delicate situation when viewing another artist’s work because I never want to hurt any ones feelings. 

Glad to report I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look forward to reading the next one.  Will pass it on.  Tom L

 

I read the first part and it looks like it might be an interesting story. But starting out with a telephone conversation between two people who hardly know each other and summarizing the whole story is absolutely brilliant.   Terry Riley

 

Hello Carol,

What a nice surprise! Many thanks for your book "Rings of Hubris". I am devouring it right now so that I can tell my Swedish friends all about it tomorrow at our spring dinner, and see if I can generate some interest among the members of the book club. It is a fascinating book filled with suspense and glimpses into what drives our actions. The geological and cultural descriptions are wonderful jewels from your on personal observations and experiences. A GREAT READ! Burl, who rarely reads books written by women, enjoyed it too!

 

Annika Sanfilippo, Ph.D.

GRD - Vaughan Hall 106

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

University of California, San Diego

 

 

It has arrived and I read it in one sitting; staying up late the night it came.    It is a page-turner--thanks so much for sending it.  I know Jerry will want to read it and then we will send it off to Rob.  I feel it  definitely could be a screenplay as it has suspense and raises the eternal questions of why people do what they do.  It was also amazing that he came so close to getting away with it all! And even more amazing that you were able to intuit so much of the truth in writing it.

 

Anne Raisch

 

 

"The book sounds juicy--my favorite kind!"

 

 

It sounds like a very interesting story. I've always thoroughly enjoyed Tony Hillerman's Mysteries, being set in Az. and NM

 

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Mom said she read your book and enjoyed it very much.  She is a reader.  She always wants to have a good book to read. Ida Morrone 85 years old- from daughter Rhio

 

"Totally enjoyable, engrossed in it. What an ending? Human behavior aspect [is the question the reader must answer]."  Yvonne from Montana

 

 Facts revealed

after the novel's debut

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May 23rd Dinner Party conversation: Margaret had the son, Sonia was the professor’s banker and lent him money for his gunshop

 

On May 29, 2009, at 4:29 PM, Barber, Margaret M wrote:

 

Hi Carol,

 

I already have enjoyed the novel.  I read it last week before I came to dinner.  It's good -- congratulations! -- and I plan to read it again (in fact, I already have reread some parts).  It was fascinating to compare my "hunches" with what you told us.  Wayne Smyer, the psychologist I mentioned who had a theory that the Lepley boy was buried on Humphrey's Rye property, could see that property from his cabin.  I know his cabin was on the street above ours.  So now I'm wondering where the Humphrey's lot was, and how close it would have been to ours.  There is lots of vacant land around us, hidden in the trees, where all sorts of shenanigans could have taken place. Several of these lots (near the gravel pit) are for sale right now, and only one has a cabin on it that is in pretty bad shape.

 

With wild animals rooting around, I doubt there's be anything left, but it wouldn't be hard to explore the area.  I've thought about suggesting it to Kirk Taylor (sheriff, an old friend and student of mine), but haven't done so yet.

 

Now that I "know" he was dumped into a mineshaft, I can rest easy, right?

 

Hi Margaret

 

 

Only rest easy if you believe more in fiction than in cold case facts.  I hope someone will get interested in this case again for the sake of the parents.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

Carol

 

 

On Jun 1, 2009, at 10:16 AM, Barber, Margaret M wrote:

 

Do you know where the Humphrey's cabin was?  I wonder who owns it now and how close it is to my house.

 

I'm willing to play amateur sleuth in my spare time.  Luke Lepley (brother, I believe) was one of my students, and I'd do it for him.  

I'll see if I can interest Kirk Taylor.  He would know all the background.

 

Reply  June 1, 2009  I have no idea- that is fiction on my part.

 

 

To Rhio and Ted

A couple more answers.  It took years to write here and there until I secreted myself away at a cousin's condo with only my computer and finished it.  Then the editing takes time as you have to step away awhile.  I had science friends, English friends, my mom (who told me to flesh out the characters) and other writer friends read and proof it.  I really went on the skeleton of gossip until the book was practically finished and then I had time to do some actual newspaper research when I moved back to Pueblo.  The other night I had friends over and one person had the brother of the murdered boy in class and the other lady was a bank vice-president who lent the real professor the money when he opened a gun shop.  In this case truth is stranger than fiction.  One couple now lives in the small town where the cabin is and now thinks this issue should be followed up as a cold case file.  I set in in New Mexico so as to not get anyone's hopes up that I actually knew what happened to the high school boy.  All that is fiction. 

 

I did struggle with the framing of the story- finally deciding on using the alcoholic woman  and then spent a long time on deciding what the wife Rosa could do that would legitimize her being gone periodically and not cause suspicion as to her death. Now I hope someone doesn't think I know more about Mexican cartels and human trafficking than I got from the newspapers.  If I come visit, I tell you the real story.

 

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Hubris in the news:

Tiger Woods,

Big Business

Dick Cheney

Donald Trump

 

The Omnivores Dilemma” Michael Pollan, p. 581

“ Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on a denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris.”