Tag:

Historical

Review

On the Horns of Death

by Brian Kenney

A wonderful sojourn into Ancient Crete of 1450 BC, told through the life of 16-year-old bull leaper Martis. In many ways, Martis is a classic teen, trying to understand the world around her and what her place in it will be. She’s also fiercely independent—training to be a bull leaper without initially telling her mother, for example—and resists many of the traditional female roles, like marriage and motherhood, that her peers are taking up. In this second novel in the series, Martis discovers the corpse of Duzi, one of her fellow bull leapers. He was murdered to look like he was gouged by a bull, when in fact he was knifed and left to die in a bullpen. Martis rebels against the wishes of her mother, as well as those of Tinos, the administrator of Knossos and the High Priestess’s consort, and takes on the investigation into Duzi’s death, a death that is followed by others, all related to the world of the bull leapers. Martis has to move quickly, with little help from the adults around her, to stop the growing violence. Kuhns does a great job of weaving Minoan civilization throughout the book, from religious practices to food preparation, from clothes and make-up to day-to-day life. Young adults will find much to enjoy in this novel as well.

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Review

The Murder of Mr. Ma

by Brian Kenney

A high-energy, rambunctious tale that shares much with Sherlock Holmes—the Guy Ritchie versions, that is—as well as traditional Chinese gong’an crime fiction, in which government magistrates solve criminal cases. It’s London, 1924 and Judge Dee Ren Jie, known as Judge Dee, has just arrived in the country to investigate the murder of a colleague whom he knew during World War I, when both served with the Chinese Labour Corps. No less a personage than Bertrand Russell introduces the Judge to Lao She, a retiring London academic who quickly becomes Dee’s sidekick—they are introduced in a prison breakout, it’s complicated—and the two set off to locate the victim’s family. One murder soon becomes two, then more, all performed with the distinctive butterfly sword, putting yet more pressure on Judge Dee to find the perpetrator before he or she tries to murder him. The authors do a wonderful job of depicting the bustling London of the ‘20s, the Chinese community and the relentless racism and stereotypes it is a victim of, and absolutely fabulous displays of martial arts. There’s word that Dr. Dee may be returning to solve another case; here’s hoping he does!

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Review

To Slip the Bonds of Earth

by Henrietta Thornton

Katharine Wright, a teacher when we meet her in 1903, has her work cut out at home as well as at the high school where she teaches Latin and Greek (but not advanced classes, because “we can’t have a woman teaching upperclassmen”). At home, her father has forbidden her to marry, as her mother has died and he and his sons need a woman to take care of them. Two of those sons are Wilbur and Orville, who at the outset of this informative, fun, and absorbing mystery are in North Carolina attempting to be the first to achieve powered, heavier-than-air flight. After the triumphant telegram, the mysteries start: accompanying his sister to a society dinner, Orville has his jacket stolen, and in its pocket are the men’s notes and drawings of their not-yet-patented work. At the same event, a guest is found stabbed in the heart (you can guess which crime concerns Orville more). The siblings must get to work at finding the papers before Wilbur knows they’re gone and finding the killer before an innocent teen is tried for the crime. The few details about aviation here are interesting and easy for lay readers to navigate; the brothers’ agony over their ideas being stolen is palpable and more germane to the plot. Yet more central, happily, is their sister, the only Wright sibling to attend college and “a teacher, feminist, scholar, and extrovert,” per the author’s note. While waiting for this, try another aviator-related crime novel, Mariah Fredericks’s The Lindbergh Nanny.

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Review

The Wharton Plot

by Henrietta Thornton

Well-known for her excellent historical crime fiction—including the Jane Prescott series and, more recently, The Lindbergh Nanny—Fredericks surpasses even those efforts with this dazzling, magical foray into the life of Edith Wharton. It’s 1911, we are in New York City, and Wharton, nearly 50, is down in the dumps. Yes, she’s the witty, acerbic, and a brilliant conversationalist we imagine her to be. But it’s been six years since the publication of her last bestseller. Husband Teddy is mentally ill. Buddy Henry James is aging quickly. Her affair with Morton Fullerton would seem to be over. And all she really wants is to get back to Paris. In short, things aren’t so gilded. When David Graham Phillips, a handsome young novelist, is shot and killed in front of the Princeton Club, it piques Wharton’s interest. She had just met him the day before at tea in the Palm Court, and while her immediate reaction was disdain, as a corpse, Phillips is far more interesting. Who would want to kill a novelist, and why? What is so very brilliant about this novel is that Wharton’s search for the truth—which takes her from the publishing industry (hilarious) to New York society (terrifying)—is skillfully enmeshed with the challenges she faces as a woman, a writer, and a wife. In a particularly poignant scene, Wharton is walking home and realizes she is being followed. She finally turns to confront the perpetrator, only to discover it’s her feeble, slipper-clad husband, following her for fear she’ll abandon him. Sure to be one of the best books of the year, and a perfect choice for book groups that appreciate a rich context.

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Review

The Lost Van Gogh

by Henrietta Thornton

Artist Santlofer’s previous novel, The Last Mona Lisa, saw Luke Perrone, great-grandson of the man who stole the Mona Lisa, digging into his ancestor’s thievery, with Interpol also on the case. Perrone and the organization are back and chasing a painting that has long been rumored to exist: Vincent van Gogh’s last self-portrait. The work is mentioned in a letter by a friend of van Gogh’s as having been displayed at the artist’s funeral, but was it the mistake of a grieving friend? At the outset of the book, what may be the painting turns up, but greed and the less-savory machinations of the art world soon see it disappear. The book combines fiction and nonfiction, as explained by Santlofer in an absorbing interview that’s a coda to this fast-moving work. A real aspect is the sad dispersal across the world of Nazi-looted art, the tireless work by descendants of the real owners to retrieve it, and the equally tireless work of dishonest art collectors to keep it from being returned. Beauty and horror are wonderfully contrasted by Santlofer, both in the sad life of van Gogh compared to the incandescent art he produced, and in the clash of the love of art and the pursuit of wealth that takes advantage of that passion. Details of post-impressionist art and busting of myths around van Gogh (he wasn’t unknown as an artist during his life) are bonuses. A great accompaniment to this would be Mark Roskill’s Letters of Vincent van Gogh, as van Gogh’s correspondence with his brother Theo is often referenced by Santlofer.

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Review

Jane and the Final Mystery

by Willy Williams

In March of 1817, Jane Austen is struggling to complete her latest manuscript, The Brothers, in spite of her declining health: “I, who enjoyed a riotous constitution throughout my four decades, had felt so little like myself in the previous twelvemonth that I found it hard to remember being free of pain.” But when the 15-year-old son of her widowed friend Elizabeth Heathcote (whose brother once proposed to Jane) is accused of the drowning death of a senior classmate at the prestigious Winchester College boys’ boarding school, she summons the energy to travel to Winchester with her beloved 19-year-old nephew, Edward, to investigate. There, she learns from Elizabeth that for the past three years, William had been the “subject of relentless attacks on his spirit, his mind, and his standing in the world.” He had been especially bullied by the sadistic late Arthur Prendergast, who enjoyed hazing the younger boys. Is there a connection between Prendergast’s murder, the malicious campaign against William, and an entailed inheritance that would benefit William? Jane is determined to clear William’s name before she succumbs to her illness. Over the course of 14 books, the multitalented Barron, who also pens spy thrillers as Francine Matthews, has brilliantly combined authentic historical and biographical details with skillful plotting and a credible evocation of Austen’s wry, distinctive voice. She brings the English author’s final investigation to a poignant, unforgettable close. Fans of this historical series will not be disappointed, and kudos to Barron’s excellent double-entendre title. While the earthly crime may be solved, the final mystery is one that we all will face.

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Review

The Mayor of Maxwell Street

by Henrietta Thornton

Nelly Sawyer’s father is a Kentucky horse breeder and the richest Black man in America. The family is in prohibition-era Chicago for Nelly’s coming out, when she’s expected to meet the country’s most eligible young Black men and find one to marry. She doesn’t fit in at the events, disdains the whole charade, and just wants to be alone to grieve the recent death of her brother. She’s also eager to pursue a career in journalism, not easy for a woman, let alone a Black woman who’s been raised in genteel isolation. Outside the cotillion and other events are no better, as white Chicagoans take the young woman for a servant. Nelly is soon distracted, though, when she’s surprised by potential love interests: Jay Shorey, a mysterious, beautifully dressed speakeasy manager, and the more suitable, at least in society’s view, Tomás Escalante y Roche, a Marquis who is this season’s catch. When Nelly is challenged to find and identify the dangerous Mayor of Maxwell Street to keep the newspaper job she’s threatened with losing, both men and Nelly herself are thrown into a vicious game of deceit that adds high suspense and sometimes terrible danger to the politics-laden season. An evocative and thought-provoking debut, and just look at that cover!

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Review

The Darkness Surrounds Us

by Henrietta Thornton

Can a house hold evil? Can it hold memories? Nellie Lester fears the worst when she accepts a nursing job in New Harmony, Michigan, an island town where she spent her early life. But she’s desperate to get out of the flu pandemic that hit her Chicago hospital and everywhere else, in the aftermath of the Great War. Perhaps even more compelling is her need to find out who her father was. The only remnant of the man is a photograph that might show Nellie and her parents years ago in New Harmony. Arriving, the nurse finds that Ravenwood Manor and its owner, William Thiery, hold forbidding reputations in the area—the house is haunted, they say, and William is a frightening man who cares little for his wife and the baby that Nellie is there to deliver. Then a body is found with a fatal head wound, and Nellie doesn’t accept that the death was an accident. She’s not there to be a detective, her boss is quick to point out, but the danger is mounting. Nellie must solve mysteries from the past and in the present to save herself and, she hopes, get out of New Harmony. Supernatural elements —scariest is a death portrait of a child in which the subject seems to progressively rot—add to the domestic drama and historical wrongs, creating a gothic suspense and a feisty protagonist to remember.

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Review

The Secret Hours

by Willy Williams

It’s not all Aston Martin sports cars and martinis (“shaken, not stirred”) In Herron’s (Slow Horses) spy world. The reality is more mundane and bureaucratic in post-Brexit London, where British intelligence services have been the subject of a two-year inquiry, codenamed Monochrome and launched by a vengeful, now ex-prime minister. Thanks to the best efforts of First Desk, the agencies’ top banana, the panel headed by civil servants Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle has been unable to uncover any wrongdoing. But as the probe is about to be shut down, Malcolm mysteriously receives a classified file exposing a long-buried operation in post-Cold War 1994 Berlin that ended in tragedy. How does this connect to a recent botched attack on a retired “joe” in rural Devon? Herron skillfully ties the loose threads together in a satisfying, yet melancholy conclusion that reflects upon the collateral damage caused by betrayals that are the lifeblood of espionage: “The cost of heroism—of betrayal—was high; it was the same cost, seen from opposite sides. And the same cost applied, it seemed, if you were neither hero nor traitor, but simply occupied the same neighbourhood.” Billed as a standalone, this smartly written, funny, and complex thriller is a good introduction for newbies, but fans of Herron’s “Slough House” books will recognize a few crossover characters.

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Review

The Last True Templar

by Jeff Ayers

The brother/sister team of Boyd and Beth Morrison delivers a stellar sequel to The Lawless Land. Gerard Fox and Lady Willa are adventuring together in 1351 Italy, hoping to overcome their problematic societal pasts to marry. They stumble upon an ambush and help an older woman, Luciana, escape the attack. That act of kindness plunges them into a decade-old search for the location of the Templar treasure. It doesn’t help that Luciana’s greedy husband wants her dead and the treasure for himself. To succeed in their quest, Gerard and Willa must overcome betrayal, villainy, and deception while keeping the truth of their heritage secret. The Middle Ages comes to glorious life mixed with a plot from a Clive Cussler novel. The Last True Templar is adventure at its finest, and the pacing never slows down for a second. The story reads like the authors somehow have a time machine and are merely transcribing actual events. Readers will be anxious for the next book in the series, and hopefully a big-screen adaptation is not far behind.

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