June 24, 1994

Leon McLaren (September 24, 1910 to June 24, 1994) was a Scottish born seeker of mystical teachers, rather than mystical truth, an assessment I base on his background of studying Gurdjieff and Ouspensky after their deaths, as well as Shantananda Saraswati, Francis Roles, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Henry George. He promoted a group he called the School of Economic Science, which prominently insisted on no modern conveniences for its adherents.

I mention him because the daughter of a couple committed to following his precepts, grew up to write fiction. She also has shared her own bitter story of a childhood of deprivation and household drudgery although her parents as well as the other followers of what she describes as a cult, were comfortably middle class. Laura Wilson, born in 1964, went to Somerville, an Oxford College, and there found the courage to just walk away from her family and their beliefs. She is now a successful writer of detective fiction and is currently the detective fiction reviewer at the Guardian newspaper. Her own latest book, A Willing Victim, (2012) involves a cult, and a murder, in East Anglia.

Our interest though is drawn to her earlier book, An Empty Death (2009). Specifically the part about George, a cat. An Empty Death features, as do multiple mysteries Wilson wrote, Scotland Yard's Detective Inspector Ted Stratton. This book centers around Stratton's investigations of suspicious hospital deaths, and a psychopath posing as a medical doctor. Stratton though is also a cat expert, who realizes a cat's distressed actions indicate George is looking for a safe place to have kittens.

One has to wonder if Laura Wilson's deprived childhood explains her ignorance about what constitutes common sense, rather than extraordinary knowledge, about felines.