Books in June
Fewer books than I've been reading of late, but then it's summer now and I'm getting out more!
The Hon. Phryne Fisher is invited by Captain Spencer to visit his health spa near Daylesford, with the aim of inspecting his holistic treatments for shell-shocked veterans; hopefully Phryne will then donate generously to his cause, one that is, after all, close to her heart too. While there, she and Dot encounter Annie and Jessie, two sisters running the hotel bar in Daylesford, and learn that pretty much the entire male population is in love with the perfect, perfectly beautiful and perfectly kind Annie; they also meet Colleen, another young woman who has her own share of suitors overlapping Annie’s. When some of said suitors suddenly die under suspicious, yet very public, circumstances, Phryne’s curiosity is aroused. Meanwhile, Jane, Rose and Tinker have their own mystery to solve when a young woman in the girls’ class is found dead; Detective Sergeant Hugh Collins enlists their help in his investigation, as his boss Jack Robinson is away and Jack’s replacement is useless at best…. This is the 21st novel in the Phyrne Fisher series and the first in quite a long time (the 20th was published in, I think, 2013). I had wolfed down the earlier books over a period of about two months over the winter, until I was thoroughly saturated - and quite unhappy with the 20th in the series. Maybe it’s having a several-month gap before this new entry was available to me, maybe it’s lingering distaste from the previous novel, but, well, “Death in Daylesford” left me cold. As in, both storylines elicited a “ho-hum” in me, and the only things I really noticed were how often Ms. Greenwood chose a $2 word when a 10-cent one would do, and how randomly she chose to capitalize certain words; annoying. I’m afraid that, for me anyway, the thrill is gone.
“The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, Volume 3,” was published in 2005 and contains some 26 stories of which 15 are original to this anthology. As with all such volumes, each reader will prefer some stories over others, but generally speaking, all of these tales are well-written and entertaining in their own way. My favourites included Peter Tremayne’s “The Spiteful Shadow,” in which Sister Fidelma saves the tinnitus-suffering Sister Scathach from a murder charge (admittedly half my enjoyment was the name Scathach, which means “the shadowy one” and who was the Warrior Queen/Goddess who taught Cuchulainn how to fight; also the name of one of my mighty warrior cats); “Catherine and the Sybil,” by Sharan Newman, in which her series character Catherine meets Hildegarde the visionary; Alan R. Gordon’s “The Jester and the Mathematician,” featuring his jester/diplomat Theophilos saving a mathematician accused of murder in 1198 Pisa; “The Stone-Worker’s Tale,” by Margaret Fraser, whose 15th Century Oxfordshire Dame Frevisse solves a double murder before it happens; Martin Edwards’ “The WItching Hour,” in which a clerk foils a plot to convict a young woman of witchcraft in order to steal her land with its hidden Roman treasures; “The Serpent’s Back,” by Ian Rankin, set amongst the shady denizens of late 18th-Century Edinburgh; “Botanist at Bay,” by Edward Marston, whereby a convict transported to Australia becomes respectable - but not innocent; and a reprint from 1945, “Murder in Old Manhattan,” by Frank Bonham, involving thievery and blackmail in 1857 in New York City. There are perhaps a few too many stories set during wartimes for my tastes, and as the stories venture from Ancient Egypt to the sinking of the Titanic, the majority of tales are set in either the US or the UK, but those are generally minor quibbles and the series as a whole is well worth searching out; recommended.
Greer Hogan has a new life after the death of her husband; she has left New York City and her high-powered corporate job for a Master’s program in library sciences and her first new job, that of librarian at Raven Hill, a small New York village. But when her closest friend there literally turns up dead at her feet, she realizes that she must use her investigative skills, honed as a librarian, to uncover a murderer. As her discoveries multiply, she finds herself reliving the final moments of her former life, as her husband, too, had been murdered - and she herself was a suspect…. This is the first book in a planned series featuring Greer, and it’s an entertaining cozy with frequent references to Golden Age detectives and childhood mystery favourites while being thoroughly grounded in 21st Century tech. The ending suggests that our heroine might have to return to NYC for a further investigation, but I hope not because Raven Hill is quite a lovely location and, of course, reminiscent of numerous small-village mystery novels through the years. Ms. Hilliard is herself a corporate-worker-turned-librarian, and her librarian as investigator theme rings authentic; the writing, while not amazing, is quite serviceable and I found myself liking the good guys and booing the bad guys pretty quickly; another reason to keep the setting of Raven Hill is the plethora of memorable characters who populate this small village. Altogether an auspicious debut, and I look forward to reading more of Greer’s adventures in sleuthing; recommended.
Born in 1848, Princess Louise was the fourth daughter and sixth child (of nine) of Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert; she lived to the age of 91, dying in late 1939, thus witnessing the two World Wars and a number of “smaller” wars in which the UK was involved. She traveled extensively, became a noted sculptor and artist, served on innumerable boards overseeing “good works,” championed women’s rights, led the fashionable world, and was friendly with and patronized some of the Victorian era’s most bohemian and feted artists. She married slightly late in Victorian terms, at age 23, and her husband, the 9th Duke of Argyll, was considered by her family to be a “commoner” because all the other siblings married European royalty and a mere Duke was, well, practically a peasant in their eyes, but Louise was determined to marry a Brit and to stay in England. However, her husband was soon appointed Governor General of Canada, and Louise traveled with him to that country, although she appears to have disliked the cold and didn’t really spend much time there. Also, her husband was most probably gay, and they seemed to have gotten along the best when they saw each other the least. Her life was unconventional by Victorian standards, and given its longevity and her wealth, it was full of interesting events, people and activities; she herself, having been unloved by her mother (as were all Victoria’s children except Beatrice, the youngest) seems to have gone to great lengths to be loved by “the people,” for the most part successfully so. This biography is very entertaining and full of interesting tidbits about life in the 19th and early 20th Century, but there is one major flaw (which I hasten to add is not the author’s fault): the royal archives concerning and by Louise have long been sealed and the author had no access to them, meaning that she had to rely on secondary sources entirely. This means that the book is full of speculation: Princess Louise “must have” felt this way or that, or “given situation A, it’s likely that her response was B,” and so on. I also noted, as an immigrant to Canada, the author hasn’t done her homework completely, as she refers to the country’s first Prime Minister as “John McDonald,” when even I am fully aware that he was always referred to as “Sir John A. McDonald,” that middle initial being utterly necessary. But she *does* note that Louise steered clear of him after he drunkenly propositioned her, and as all Canadians know, the man was a famous drunkard even during his lifetime, let alone in the annals of history. As an entertaining read about an historical time and place, recommended; as a thoroughly documented biography of one of the more interesting characters of Victorian Britain, alas we will have to wait for the files to be unsealed.
Wendy Darling has had a hard time since returning with younger brothers John and Michael from Neverland; well, they *all* have had difficulties of one sort or another. She, refusing to give up her memories of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, has been institutionalized; youngest brother Michael, serving in WWI, has returned shell-shocked and broken; and John, forced to carry the burden of his two siblings, has become very much a “company man.” Wendy is released from the asylum in order to marry the son of John’s boss, sight unseen, and against all expectations, the marriage is a success and she feels at least somewhat content. Content, that is, until Peter returns and, eschewing Wendy for having grown up, steals her daughter Jane away to Neverland, to be the new Wendy, mother to the Lost Boys. Wendy must summon all her courage, skills and memories to find a way to bring Jane safely home again…. If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the Darling children after the end of “Peter Pan,” wonder no more, for A. C. Wise has figured it all out for you! This is a much darker book than the original novel, and Peter is a much darker character than I remember him as being, but that is entirely in keeping with the British world moving from the early 1910s of Edwardian England to the eve of World War II. This is a beautifully imagined “sequel” of sorts, but beware, because all is not sweetness and light in either of Wendy’s two worlds, and you might find yourself shivering or tearing up (or both) while following her journey. Recommended.
“Wicked” tells the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz,” a huge hit of a book and subsequently a major Broadway musical, etc., etc. It begins with humour, some of it quite ribald, but over time the sorrows and losses of Elphaba just pile on and on and *on* (it’s a very long book, over 500 pages). And by the halfway point, well, I’d just had enough - this got way too depressing for me. So, Did Not Finish.
Hayley Burke has found her dream job, as the live-in curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling’s First Edition Library at Middlebank House in Bath, a home she shares with the late Lady Georgiana's secretary, Glynis Woolgar. But Hayley has a secret: despite having worked as an assistant to the assistant curator at a previous job, she herself has no knowledge whatsoever of the content of the First Edition Library, that being female authors of the Golden Age of mystery writing, back in the 1920s and 1930s. She figures that she can “fake it ‘til (she) makes it,” but her plans are thrown asunder when one of the members of a rather unlikely fan fiction writing group turns up murdered in the library. Upon her first reading of an Agatha Christie novel, Hayley decides to go full-on Miss Marple and attempt to solve the crime herself, an undertaking of which the local police do not approve…. This is the first in a projected series of cozies featuring Ms. Burke, and it’s got all the requirements for a good cozy: outstanding setting (both the city of Bath and the house itself), spunky but amateur sleuth, complicated love life complete with new love interest, assorted eccentric characters and, above all, a murderer bent upon mayhem. I enjoyed the fact that the main character becomes a mystery-book zealot after reading one Agatha Christie novel (after all, there’s no zealot like a new convert!) and I also wanted to slap her for letting her grown daughter walk all over her; both characteristics are enough to keep me reading, and I’ve already bought the second book in the series. I wouldn’t call this book groundbreaking, but it’s a good deal of fun; mildly recommended.
Hunt Jackson is an ordinary guy, newly divorced and returned to his childhood city of Tucson, Arizona, where he rents a house, finds a job, reconnects with a childhood pal, meets a new woman….and finds he needs various forms of insurance in his new life. But his insurance agent is *very* unusual, popping up at his home at odd times, demanding that he buy policies for more and more insurance against some ordinarily uninsurable life events. Like keeping his job, or not being convicted of crimes he didn’t commit, or living forever. The agent’s demands keep rising, until finally Hunt has no choice but to fight back, against astronomical odds…. This is a nice example of what my husband calls suburban horror, meaning the horror-fication of ordinary suburban hassles, in this case the need for insurance policies for home, vehicle, health, life. I’ve read other books by Bentley Little and I like his matter-of-fact style, all the while increasing the tension and the stakes until the story reaches (and passes) the heights of, well, absurdity. This *is* horror fiction, after all. I found the marginalization of the female characters a bit grating, and it’s always a crapshoot to throw contemporary pop-culture references into the mix; in this case, the book was published in, I think, 2003, whereas I’m reading it in 2021 - yes, there’s still an internet, but far different from that depicted here, and while I remember Encarta, most young people wouldn’t have a clue, to cite a couple of examples. Still, a fast read which delivers the chills it promises; mind you, I’ve always been terrified of *all* suburbs, just never thought to add insurance salesmen into the mix!
Happy Canada Day (tomorrow)!
The Hon. Phryne Fisher is invited by Captain Spencer to visit his health spa near Daylesford, with the aim of inspecting his holistic treatments for shell-shocked veterans; hopefully Phryne will then donate generously to his cause, one that is, after all, close to her heart too. While there, she and Dot encounter Annie and Jessie, two sisters running the hotel bar in Daylesford, and learn that pretty much the entire male population is in love with the perfect, perfectly beautiful and perfectly kind Annie; they also meet Colleen, another young woman who has her own share of suitors overlapping Annie’s. When some of said suitors suddenly die under suspicious, yet very public, circumstances, Phryne’s curiosity is aroused. Meanwhile, Jane, Rose and Tinker have their own mystery to solve when a young woman in the girls’ class is found dead; Detective Sergeant Hugh Collins enlists their help in his investigation, as his boss Jack Robinson is away and Jack’s replacement is useless at best…. This is the 21st novel in the Phyrne Fisher series and the first in quite a long time (the 20th was published in, I think, 2013). I had wolfed down the earlier books over a period of about two months over the winter, until I was thoroughly saturated - and quite unhappy with the 20th in the series. Maybe it’s having a several-month gap before this new entry was available to me, maybe it’s lingering distaste from the previous novel, but, well, “Death in Daylesford” left me cold. As in, both storylines elicited a “ho-hum” in me, and the only things I really noticed were how often Ms. Greenwood chose a $2 word when a 10-cent one would do, and how randomly she chose to capitalize certain words; annoying. I’m afraid that, for me anyway, the thrill is gone.
“The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, Volume 3,” was published in 2005 and contains some 26 stories of which 15 are original to this anthology. As with all such volumes, each reader will prefer some stories over others, but generally speaking, all of these tales are well-written and entertaining in their own way. My favourites included Peter Tremayne’s “The Spiteful Shadow,” in which Sister Fidelma saves the tinnitus-suffering Sister Scathach from a murder charge (admittedly half my enjoyment was the name Scathach, which means “the shadowy one” and who was the Warrior Queen/Goddess who taught Cuchulainn how to fight; also the name of one of my mighty warrior cats); “Catherine and the Sybil,” by Sharan Newman, in which her series character Catherine meets Hildegarde the visionary; Alan R. Gordon’s “The Jester and the Mathematician,” featuring his jester/diplomat Theophilos saving a mathematician accused of murder in 1198 Pisa; “The Stone-Worker’s Tale,” by Margaret Fraser, whose 15th Century Oxfordshire Dame Frevisse solves a double murder before it happens; Martin Edwards’ “The WItching Hour,” in which a clerk foils a plot to convict a young woman of witchcraft in order to steal her land with its hidden Roman treasures; “The Serpent’s Back,” by Ian Rankin, set amongst the shady denizens of late 18th-Century Edinburgh; “Botanist at Bay,” by Edward Marston, whereby a convict transported to Australia becomes respectable - but not innocent; and a reprint from 1945, “Murder in Old Manhattan,” by Frank Bonham, involving thievery and blackmail in 1857 in New York City. There are perhaps a few too many stories set during wartimes for my tastes, and as the stories venture from Ancient Egypt to the sinking of the Titanic, the majority of tales are set in either the US or the UK, but those are generally minor quibbles and the series as a whole is well worth searching out; recommended.
Greer Hogan has a new life after the death of her husband; she has left New York City and her high-powered corporate job for a Master’s program in library sciences and her first new job, that of librarian at Raven Hill, a small New York village. But when her closest friend there literally turns up dead at her feet, she realizes that she must use her investigative skills, honed as a librarian, to uncover a murderer. As her discoveries multiply, she finds herself reliving the final moments of her former life, as her husband, too, had been murdered - and she herself was a suspect…. This is the first book in a planned series featuring Greer, and it’s an entertaining cozy with frequent references to Golden Age detectives and childhood mystery favourites while being thoroughly grounded in 21st Century tech. The ending suggests that our heroine might have to return to NYC for a further investigation, but I hope not because Raven Hill is quite a lovely location and, of course, reminiscent of numerous small-village mystery novels through the years. Ms. Hilliard is herself a corporate-worker-turned-librarian, and her librarian as investigator theme rings authentic; the writing, while not amazing, is quite serviceable and I found myself liking the good guys and booing the bad guys pretty quickly; another reason to keep the setting of Raven Hill is the plethora of memorable characters who populate this small village. Altogether an auspicious debut, and I look forward to reading more of Greer’s adventures in sleuthing; recommended.
Born in 1848, Princess Louise was the fourth daughter and sixth child (of nine) of Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert; she lived to the age of 91, dying in late 1939, thus witnessing the two World Wars and a number of “smaller” wars in which the UK was involved. She traveled extensively, became a noted sculptor and artist, served on innumerable boards overseeing “good works,” championed women’s rights, led the fashionable world, and was friendly with and patronized some of the Victorian era’s most bohemian and feted artists. She married slightly late in Victorian terms, at age 23, and her husband, the 9th Duke of Argyll, was considered by her family to be a “commoner” because all the other siblings married European royalty and a mere Duke was, well, practically a peasant in their eyes, but Louise was determined to marry a Brit and to stay in England. However, her husband was soon appointed Governor General of Canada, and Louise traveled with him to that country, although she appears to have disliked the cold and didn’t really spend much time there. Also, her husband was most probably gay, and they seemed to have gotten along the best when they saw each other the least. Her life was unconventional by Victorian standards, and given its longevity and her wealth, it was full of interesting events, people and activities; she herself, having been unloved by her mother (as were all Victoria’s children except Beatrice, the youngest) seems to have gone to great lengths to be loved by “the people,” for the most part successfully so. This biography is very entertaining and full of interesting tidbits about life in the 19th and early 20th Century, but there is one major flaw (which I hasten to add is not the author’s fault): the royal archives concerning and by Louise have long been sealed and the author had no access to them, meaning that she had to rely on secondary sources entirely. This means that the book is full of speculation: Princess Louise “must have” felt this way or that, or “given situation A, it’s likely that her response was B,” and so on. I also noted, as an immigrant to Canada, the author hasn’t done her homework completely, as she refers to the country’s first Prime Minister as “John McDonald,” when even I am fully aware that he was always referred to as “Sir John A. McDonald,” that middle initial being utterly necessary. But she *does* note that Louise steered clear of him after he drunkenly propositioned her, and as all Canadians know, the man was a famous drunkard even during his lifetime, let alone in the annals of history. As an entertaining read about an historical time and place, recommended; as a thoroughly documented biography of one of the more interesting characters of Victorian Britain, alas we will have to wait for the files to be unsealed.
Wendy Darling has had a hard time since returning with younger brothers John and Michael from Neverland; well, they *all* have had difficulties of one sort or another. She, refusing to give up her memories of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, has been institutionalized; youngest brother Michael, serving in WWI, has returned shell-shocked and broken; and John, forced to carry the burden of his two siblings, has become very much a “company man.” Wendy is released from the asylum in order to marry the son of John’s boss, sight unseen, and against all expectations, the marriage is a success and she feels at least somewhat content. Content, that is, until Peter returns and, eschewing Wendy for having grown up, steals her daughter Jane away to Neverland, to be the new Wendy, mother to the Lost Boys. Wendy must summon all her courage, skills and memories to find a way to bring Jane safely home again…. If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the Darling children after the end of “Peter Pan,” wonder no more, for A. C. Wise has figured it all out for you! This is a much darker book than the original novel, and Peter is a much darker character than I remember him as being, but that is entirely in keeping with the British world moving from the early 1910s of Edwardian England to the eve of World War II. This is a beautifully imagined “sequel” of sorts, but beware, because all is not sweetness and light in either of Wendy’s two worlds, and you might find yourself shivering or tearing up (or both) while following her journey. Recommended.
“Wicked” tells the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz,” a huge hit of a book and subsequently a major Broadway musical, etc., etc. It begins with humour, some of it quite ribald, but over time the sorrows and losses of Elphaba just pile on and on and *on* (it’s a very long book, over 500 pages). And by the halfway point, well, I’d just had enough - this got way too depressing for me. So, Did Not Finish.
Hayley Burke has found her dream job, as the live-in curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling’s First Edition Library at Middlebank House in Bath, a home she shares with the late Lady Georgiana's secretary, Glynis Woolgar. But Hayley has a secret: despite having worked as an assistant to the assistant curator at a previous job, she herself has no knowledge whatsoever of the content of the First Edition Library, that being female authors of the Golden Age of mystery writing, back in the 1920s and 1930s. She figures that she can “fake it ‘til (she) makes it,” but her plans are thrown asunder when one of the members of a rather unlikely fan fiction writing group turns up murdered in the library. Upon her first reading of an Agatha Christie novel, Hayley decides to go full-on Miss Marple and attempt to solve the crime herself, an undertaking of which the local police do not approve…. This is the first in a projected series of cozies featuring Ms. Burke, and it’s got all the requirements for a good cozy: outstanding setting (both the city of Bath and the house itself), spunky but amateur sleuth, complicated love life complete with new love interest, assorted eccentric characters and, above all, a murderer bent upon mayhem. I enjoyed the fact that the main character becomes a mystery-book zealot after reading one Agatha Christie novel (after all, there’s no zealot like a new convert!) and I also wanted to slap her for letting her grown daughter walk all over her; both characteristics are enough to keep me reading, and I’ve already bought the second book in the series. I wouldn’t call this book groundbreaking, but it’s a good deal of fun; mildly recommended.
Hunt Jackson is an ordinary guy, newly divorced and returned to his childhood city of Tucson, Arizona, where he rents a house, finds a job, reconnects with a childhood pal, meets a new woman….and finds he needs various forms of insurance in his new life. But his insurance agent is *very* unusual, popping up at his home at odd times, demanding that he buy policies for more and more insurance against some ordinarily uninsurable life events. Like keeping his job, or not being convicted of crimes he didn’t commit, or living forever. The agent’s demands keep rising, until finally Hunt has no choice but to fight back, against astronomical odds…. This is a nice example of what my husband calls suburban horror, meaning the horror-fication of ordinary suburban hassles, in this case the need for insurance policies for home, vehicle, health, life. I’ve read other books by Bentley Little and I like his matter-of-fact style, all the while increasing the tension and the stakes until the story reaches (and passes) the heights of, well, absurdity. This *is* horror fiction, after all. I found the marginalization of the female characters a bit grating, and it’s always a crapshoot to throw contemporary pop-culture references into the mix; in this case, the book was published in, I think, 2003, whereas I’m reading it in 2021 - yes, there’s still an internet, but far different from that depicted here, and while I remember Encarta, most young people wouldn’t have a clue, to cite a couple of examples. Still, a fast read which delivers the chills it promises; mind you, I’ve always been terrified of *all* suburbs, just never thought to add insurance salesmen into the mix!
Happy Canada Day (tomorrow)!