Historical Novels Review | Issue 19 (February 2002)

THE HISTORICAL NOVELS Review The Third WITCH

B E I N G a known true S TO RY compiled into

TRAGEDY

PUBLISHED BY THE IDSTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY© 2002

Founder/Publisher : Richard Lee, Marine Cottage, The strand, Starcross, Devon, EX6 8NY, UK (histnovel @aol.com)

SOLANDER

EDITOR : Sarah Cuthbertson, 7 Ticehurst Close, Worth , Crawley, W Sussex, RHIO 7GN, UK (sarah76cuthbert@aol.com

Contributions Policy : Please contact Sarah with ideas in the first instance. Please note that the society does not usually pay for contributions, except for short stories

Letters to the Editor : Please, if you want a reply , enclose a stamped , addressed envelope FICTION EDITOR : Richard Lee, Marine Cottage, The Strand , Starcross, Devon, EX6 8NY, UK. (histnovel@aol.com

THE IDSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

CO-ORDINATING EDITOR (UK)

Sally Zigmond , 18 Warwick Crescent, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG2 8JA. (sallyzigmond@hotmail.com)

CO-ORDINATING EDITOR (USA)

Sarah Nesbeitt , 502 Fox Lane Dr, Charleston, IL , 61920, USA. (cfsln@eiu .edu)

REVIEWS EDITORS (UK)

Sarah Cuthbertson, 7 Ticehurst Close, Worth, Crawley, W Sussex, RHIO 7GN (sarah76cuthbert@aol.com)

Towse Harrison, 12 Ascott Road, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP20 lHX (towse@sunjester freeserve co uk)

Ann Oughton, 11 , Ramsay Garden, Edinburgh, EHl 2NA. (annoughton@sol.co uk)

Mary Moffat (Children ' s Historicals), Sherbrooke, 32, Moffat Road , Dumfiies, Scotland, DGl lNY (sherbrooke@ mary .moffat.ndo.co.uk)

REVIEWS EDITORS (USA)

Trudi Jacobson , (tj662 @csc .albany .edu) : Ilysa Magnus , (goodlaw @aol.com)

THE IDSTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY ON THE INTERNET :

WEBSITE : www .historicalnovelsociety .org .

NEWSLETTER : Write to Lucienne Boyce (lucboyce@blueyonder co uk) for our fortnightly ernial newsletter - it ' s free of charge LISTSERVE : Join in the discussion on the society's internet listserve - go to the society website and sign up CHAT ONLINE: At the society website From time to time we will invite authors along to field your questions.

MEMBERSHIP DETAILS :

Membership of the Historical Novel Society is by calndar year (January to December) and entitles members to all the year ' s publications : two isses of Solander, and four issues of The Historical Novels Review Back issues of society magazines are also available. Write for current rates to : Marilyn Sherlock, 38 , The Fairway, Newton Ferrers, Devon, PL8 lDP , UK (ray sherlock@macunlirnited net) or Tracey A. Callison, 824, Heritage Drive, Addison , II , 60101 , USA. (callison@wwa com), or Teresa Eckford , Windcrest Court , Kanata, ON Canada K2T 1B5 (eckford@sympatico ca), or Patrika Salmon, Box 193 , Whangamata, New Zealand (pdrlindsaysalmon@hotmail.com)

It is also possible to join the society by credit card online at www .historicalnovelsociety .org

OUT OF PRINT BOOKS

The following are dealers in out of print historical novels :Forget-Me-Not Books, 11 Tamarisk Rise, Wokingham , Berkshire, RG40 lWG judith ridley@hotmail.com

Rachel Hyde , 2 Meadow Close, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, EX9 6JN rachelahyde@ntlworld com

Rosanda Books, David Baldwin, 11 Whiteoaks Road , Oadby, Leicester LE2 5YL dbaldwin @themutual.net

David Spenceley Books, 75 Harley Drive, Leeds, LS 13 4QY. davidspenceley@email.com

Legend Books -www Legendbooks com

COPYRIGHT remains in all cases with the authors of the articles No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form , without the written permission of the authors concemed.

When does hi,story end?

I was pondering what words of wisdom to inflict on you this quarter when I heard from Richard Lee that his wife , Jane, had given birth to their second child, Elizabeth Although he was quick to stress the name had not been chosen because 2002 marks 50 years since Queen Elizabeth II succeeded to the throne , my thoughts began to wander along those lines and I couldn't help contemplate how much history has been made in the past halfa century. When The Times issued a facsimile of the edition it published on that day I couldn ' t help but recall LP Hartley ' s pronouncement that ' the past is a foreign country .'

There has been much discussion ever since the Historical Novel Society was founded about what makes a novel historical. Many members , I know , object to the inclusion of novels set during or after the Second World War, claiming that the events are too recent.

To some people this may well be so, but in a world where the majority of its inhabitants were born after 1945 , the era is only hanging on to collective memory by the skin of its teeth Most people ' s knowledge ofit comes from lessons at school, watching films and reading books. It is fortunate for those like me who only just missed those times to have living parents I can refer to when I need to know 'what it was really like '. Having said that, however, whenever a documentary or drama appears on television or on the cinema screen they are quick to pour scorn on it. ' They got it all wrong It wasn't like that at all,' they say

So what exactly was it like? Ask a thousand people and you'll get a thousand answers And that ' s the beauty of historical fiction . It is one person 's idea of how it was. It may not be your idea, but if it makes you see history in a new light , that can only be healthy.

This made me think of baby Elizabeth Lee and how she will come to view history To us , the events of September 11 are still branded like laser burns on our consciousness I know I will never forget those appalling live TV images. But to her, they are already history and no doubt people will be mulling over their significance

THE 1-IlSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

and writing novels about them when she is old enough to browse these pages Already they have become a catalyst for more history and newspapers are as I write engaging in speculation as to how it could have been avoided . How wise we aU are with the benefit of hindsight . History is a curious mixture of what happened , what might have happened and how it comes to be interpreted in subsequent periods It is always evolving Historical fiction plays an important part in this process. Indeed, it may even be better in capturing the zeitgeist. Memory is unreliable and soon lost. Often , ficton is better equipped to encapsulate the spirit of the age .

Sally Zigmond

'Iowse's Qyarterly Comment

I have followed with interest letters and especially comments in the e-mail Newsletter, edited by Lucienne Boyce, the hugely varying opinions as to the purpose of historical fiction, the need for accuracy and, perhaps most importantly, the idea that only ' proper ' academic texts can give a true picture of people and life in the past. Members may be aware that my own area of expertise is in Lifelong Learning in the context of Museums, Galleries and Heritage sites so public interpretation is a subject close to my heart . Recently I have been reading a classic title about oral history by Paul Thompson (The Voice of the Past , Oxford University Press , 1990 :99) I believe that the following quote is an excellent , if provocative, addition to the debate. ' While historians study the actors of history from a distance , their characterisations of the lives, views and actions will always risk being misdescriptions, projections of the historian ' s own experience and imagination: a scholarly form offiction'. (My italics)

'Towse J-Iarrison

'True Murder: Guilty <Pleasure or Vseful 'fool?

I don't read much crime fiction, historical or otherwise, but true-life crime books have long been a guilty pleasure - guilty, I suppose, because innocent people have had to die in agonising ways to make my pleasure possible Despite this, I was delighted to see Sally's review of Death at the Priory by James Ruddick in the Non-Fiction section oflssue 18 . Naturally, I leaped with gusto upon it and devoured it at one sitting. This cost me the best

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

part of a night's sleep but it was certainly worth staying up for. Not only did the book offer a solution to the famous mid-Victorian mystery of Charles Bravo's murder (and a very plausible one, as Sally says in her review) , but it reminded me of all the other real-life murder tales I've enjoyed in the past , and why I so relish them

The vintage era for me is the period that stretches from the Victorian age to the 1930s, especially the 19th-century ' greats ' who , like Florence Bravo , were suspected but not always charged , or convicted: Madeline Smith, Adelaide Bartlett , Florence Maybrick, Lizzie Borden - respectable middle-class women trapped by intolerable domestic circumstances or illicit affairs (sometimes both). Dr . Crippen, of course And in the 1920s and '30s, Buck Ruxton, William Herbert Wallace, the Hay Poisoner (whose name I forget) , and more obscure cases with such intriguing names as The Green Bicycle Murder, The Otterbum Taxi Murder, The Riddle ofBirdhurst Rise, The Murder at the Villa Madeira

Some of the most gripping accounts are those , like the Edith Thompson case, where many feel a miscarriage of justice happened because of the social mores of the time No less riveting are the murders that remain unsolved to this day. The Julia Wallace case, for example, always gives me a frisson , partly because Julia's husband so nearly was hanged and partly because of the mystery surrounding his alibi and the names he used in it : 'Mr R.M Qualtrough ' and the non-existent ' Menlove Gardens East' (although there was a Menlove Gardens West)

But apart from the pathos or the intellectual puzzle, what really fascinates me in all these classic cases is the wealth of detail , domestic , social , psychological , and sometimes legal and political too , that builds up as the story fills in the background and traces the actions that took place (or may have taken place) in the days and hours leading up to the murder. In the hands of a skilful and painstaking author, the result is a zoomed-in, sharp-focus snapshot of a social milieu and its mindset , customs, and taboos that no amount of academic research can convey quite so vividly. To the police on the case and to later authors , nothing is beneath recording and nothing is more revealing than these most trivial but telling details of daily life .

Here, as well as I can recall it , is an example that stuck in my mind because of the sheer culinary horror of it , though it must be twenty years since I read the book. For obvious reasons , the police investigating the 1920s Birdhurst Rise poisonings meticulously recorded the eating habits of the Croydon family at the centre of the case : mutton, roasted on Sunday, cold on Monday, curried on Tuesday, shepherd's pie on Wednesday , finishing with mutton broth on Thursday . If memory serves, they had boiled fish on Friday and, one might mischievously imagine, a gourmet blow-out on Saturday before the dreary mutton set in again on Sunday

True-life crime books are crammed with such detail and are often further enriched with contemporary photographs, reproductions of newspaper reports , and occasionally even gory scene-of-crime pictures All in all , these books must be a priceless research gift to historical novelists of those periods, whether they write crime or not. So maybe if I planned a novel , I wouldn't need to feel guilty about reading them after all. ..

Sarah Cuthbertson

It' S hard for me to believe that it has been two full years since the Review began coverage of historical novels published in the US and Canada The North American reviews team has been keeping very busy over this time , writing approximately 120 reviews per issue, with books corning from the majority of US publishers I hope that all of you have enjoyed the results as much as I have With so many great-looking historical novels being published , both here and in Britain , it has been a challenge for me to balance the number of books I want to purchase with the limited amount of bookshelf space in my house . As always , I welcome comments from readers , either via e-mail or the traditional pen and paper Just recentl y I was pleased to receive inquiries from HNS members as far away as France and Australia who were interested in finding how to purchase titles reviewed in the North American section (Publishers, take note : reviews of your books are being read far and wide!) But I'd also like to encourage you to write in, either to Sally or myself, with your opinions on the content of the Review, your own news from the field , or anything on historical fiction in general . Here ' s to another successful and productive year!

Sarah JYesbeitt

The Forum NEWS, VIEWS, YOUR LETTERS

from Muriel Smith, Maidenhead

I see from Martin Bourne ' s review in issue 18 that C J Almqvist' s Th e Que en 's Tiara has been published in an English translation, about 150 years after the Swedish original and 200 after the event: the assassination of King Gustav III in 1792 . The same episode in

ISSUE 19. FEB 2002

Swedish history was the subject of The King with Two Faces of 1897 by Mary Coleridge (1861 - 1907).

A minor point of interest is that the hero, Count Nibbing, celebrates escaping a plot to kill him by singing, as he rides away, what he had once heard a beggar chant in one of the lowest streets in Stockholm:

We were young, we were merry, we were very, very wise,

And the door stood open at our feast; When there passed us a woman with the West in her eyes,

And a man with his back to the East.

This is, of course, Mary Coleridge's own poem, Unwelcome, which is included in the Penguin Dictionary of Quotations (1960). It was apparently quite a favourite quotation about the time of her death. G K Chesterton in his autobiography says on one occasion that Hilaire Belloc, 'who always had a trick of repeating scraps of recently discovered verse which happens to please him volleyed out her lines at intervals.' I suspect they had been quoted in her obituary notices and thereby popularised.

NEWSFLASH!

The Flashman Society AGM and Conference will be taking place on 16th March 2002 at the Falstaff Hotel, Leamington Spa . A full day of Flashman related trickery and discussion is promised, followed by a dinner in the evening. Black tie or Victorian costume at your discretion.

For further details, please contact Max Wormald, 87 Ingleton Road, Edgeley, Stockport, Cheshire, SK3 9NR.

MACBETH AND 1HE TIIlRD WITCH

Sarah Cuthbertson talks to Rebecca Reisert

American author Rebecca Reisert has directed Macbeth four times and taught it over 50 times, so it isn't surprising that her first novel was influenced by the Scottish play. What is surprising, perhaps, is that it should centre not on the Macbeths themselves, but on the witches The main character of The Third Witch is Gilly, who is portrayed as the youngest, taken in by the others whom she persuades to help her avenge herself on the man she believes destroyed her happy childhood .

Rebecca's first love is the theatre . She was an English and Theatre major at college and studied playwriting at graduate school. She planned to work for a time in New York theatre to help pay off college loans, but the lifestyle was not for her, so she went on to teach English and Theatre in high school and college, which she has been doing now for 26 years.

'A New York theatre friend who directed and wrote the musical, A Little Shop of Horrors, and wrote the lyrics for Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast told me that no theatre would do the large-scale plays I wanted to put on. He said, "You need to be a novelist if you want an epic cast." A novelist was something I'd wanted to be since I was a child, and as a teacher every summer I would start a novel, but by the next summer I'd lost interest.'

Each of these novels was a historical and Rebecca found the research so much fun that she never got around to the writing. 'What finally got me focused was the diagnosis of ovarian cancer eight years ago. The knowledge that I had only a 30% chance of survival forced me to decide my priorities.' So she began The

Third Witch and was lucky enough to meet an interested agent at a writers' conference . When she got home he emailed to say he wanted to see the novel when it was finished. He liked it , agreed to take it on and it was sold at auction to a British agent and publisher. 'It was my dream to publish before I was 50 and I just made it! '

Rebecca spent plenty of time in Scotland while researching the novel ('a great way to visit places you've dreamed of1'), including an unscheduled stay in hospital when she broke her arm while looking for Macbeth's grave on Iona

I asked Rebecca about period and authenticity. ' It was my love of the medieval period that led to my interest in Macbeth and I loved directing plays set in that period (Rebecca has also written more than 30 plays herself) I'd got interested in costume and my original plan was to do historical interpretation . But with Th e Third Wit c h I realized I couldn't be faithful to both history and Shakespeare , so in the end I chose Shakespeare .'

And the witches? ' My agent wanted me to put in more of the supernatural to appeal to sci-fi and fantasy readers , but my take on witches is that they were herbalists and early scientists , really . So I refused to do any hocus-pocus .'

I remarked on the fact that the novel is written entirely in the present tense . ' It came naturally out of Gilly's character,' Rebecca said. ' She's so impassioned and only the vivid present gave the necessary immediacy .' We talked a little about Rebecca's future writing plans 'I've just sent off a contemporary novel - a mystery - set in the world of rape crisis , where I work as a counsellor. And now I've started a second historical novel , a variation on Hamlet . I'd also like to write a novel based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, a more serious approach, explaining the dark side And then maybe The Tempest . . . ' But Rebecca isn't finished with The Third Witch yet. In the middle of our interview, her

publicist Lucy Dixon took a phone call to say that the novel , already optioned by a major U.S . film company, will shortly go into production. Would Rebecca be writing the screenplay , I wondered? ' No , but the company promised to keep me involved .'

Who said the Scottish play was unlucky?

Th e Third Witch is published in hardback and paperback in the UK. by Hodder & Stoughton and in hardback in the U.S by The Washington Square Press . It was reviewed in Issue 18 of the Hi s torical Novels Review (U.S ./Canada section) .

THE HNS BOOK ORDERING SERVICE

UK Members

Contact Sarah Cuthbertson (01293 884898 ; Email : sarah76cuthbert@aol.com (please note this new address) with details of the book(s) you want. I' ll send you a quote from the cheapest Internet source (most online bookstores give 10-20% discount) , including shipping options You pay me (+ 50p adm in per book) & I' ll place your order and have it shipped directly to you

Alternatively , US Reviews Editors Sarah Nesbeitt (cfsln@ eiu.edu)

) , Trudi Jacobson (tj662@csc albany edu OR readbks@localnet Home tel : + 01 518/439-3989) and Ilysa Magnus (goodlaw2@aol.com) have offered to buy books in the US and trade them for UK titles If you don't have Email, I can contact them on your behalf with any requests.

Overseas Members

The following UK members are interested in trading books with overseas members , incl wishlists & 2nd hand : Sarah Cuthbertson (for contacts see above)

Rachel A Hyde: rachelahyde@ntlworld com 2 Meadow Close , Budleigh Salterton , Devon EX9 6JN +44 (0) 1395 446238 (Rachel also will trade Fantasy & SF)

Wherever you live, you can order English language books in print from THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE by catalogue order form (subscribers) , by phone : +44 (0) 20 7490 9911 (24 hrs) or www thegoodbookguide.com

If you know of any more possibilities or would like to join the trading list, please let me know

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

I UK TITLES I

airships/from hangars nosing/pearly with the

vapour of re-entry friction '.

It's a bold vision, but does it work ? Take .________________.. the battle scene, which mingles reference to

Titles are classified by period and then alphabetically by author surname.

ALL BOOKS REVIEWED HERE CAN BEORDEREDTHROUGHTHEHNS BOOK ORDERING SERVICE, INCLUDING THOSE PUBLISHED OUTSIDE THE UK.

SEEPAGE 4.

PRE-IDSTORY

GILGAMESH

Derrek Hines , Chatto Poetry, Chatto & Windus , 2002 , £8 99 , 66pp

ISBN 0701172525

Gilgamesh, a historical king of Uruk in Babylonia (in modern Iraq) was a hero of Sumerian, Hittite, Akk.adian and Assyrian legend Many stories were told about him, some of which were written down in the Sumerian language in 2000 BC These Sumerian stories were integrated into a longer poem, versions of which survive in Akkadian, and also in Hurrian and Hittite The fullest surviving version is derived from twelve clay tablets written in Akkadian in cuneiform script, which were commissioned by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in the 7th Century BC.

Derrek Hine ' s poem is not a new translation, but a reinterpretation of the tale , made up of a number of reflections or evocations of key events in the narrative, so it does help to read his Outline of the Received Text before the verse Gilgamesh is an oppressive ruler, particularly in his claim to droit du seigneur, so the gods create a wild man named Enkidu to destroy him However , the two become friends The goddess Ishtar falls in love with Gilgamesh, who rejects her. She appeals to heaven for revenge Gilgamesh and Enkidu survive her attempt to destroy them To end their career the gods kill Enkidu, leaving Gilgamesh inconsolable After many years wandering , Gilgamesh returns to Uruk to face his own death

In an attempt, as he explains, to recreate the excitement that the story ' s ' original audience ' might have felt , the poet employs hi-tech images - electricity, radar, atomic blasts This is Gilgamesh for our technological age lt is pistons and chrome, the ' cock like a trip-hammer ', the ' praise of male hydraulics ', a poem where Ishtar ' s breasts are ' taut as

TI-IE

chariots and tanks , grenades and scythes , and incorporates fighter pilots , rifles , mortar and gunpowder The scene deliberately evokes the battlefields of the First World War, with its trenches and barbed wire But for me , the effect was to render the scene less , not more , immediate. Not only are these images of technological warfare almost too familiar now , I do not think that it is impossible for a modern reader to be excited by a battle fought without tanks .

Overall I felt the images were too contrived They seemed to be straining after an Nevertheless , the poem is strong and purposeful , and repays reflective reading Lucienne Boyes

BIBLICAL

THEREDTENT

Anita Diamant, Macmillan 2001 , £9 99 , pb , 32lpp , ISBN 0-333-90647-0

First published as a Wyatt book for St Martin ' s Press , New York

The red tent is the woman ' s world, the place of menstruation, childbirth and often death ; a place of laughter and tears ; a sacred mystical place from which men are barred . The husbands are men of the land, shepherds Education comes from toiling on the land and day to day survival. As soon as a girl reaches womanhood she is potential bride material

It is hard for modem women to identify with this world of under age sex and polygamy so it is no mean achievement that the author manages to engage and sustain the reader ' s interest with her sympathetic and moving narrative .

I was curious to find the name of Dinah mentioned in the Old Testament so I checked out the Book of Genesis Sure enough, all the characters are there including Jacob ' s beloved Rachel Dinah ' s beautiful aunt and Leah who is des~ribed there as being ' dull-eyed '. She becomes the mother of Dinah and numerous other offspring. Poor old Rachel takes a long time to produce and eventually gives birth to Joseph, (think of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat) and Benjamin Sadly, she dies during that final birth.

I found Dinah in Genesis 34 where she meets and falls in love with Shalem (Schechem) , son of Hamor the Hittite, the local prince I don ' t want to spoil the plot but it all gets pretty nasty here and poor young Dinah has a lousy time when two of her brothers organise a coup to avenge her being dishonoured by an uncircumcised man

Her mention is brief and sadly inconclusive in the Bible but here Dinah takes centre stage. It is a moving and finely written novel.

Sarah Crabtree

ANCIENT EGYPT

THE OASIS

Pauline Gedge, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001 , £17 99 , hb , 532pp , 0-340-77095-3

Reviewed in Issue 14, US/Canada section.

MURDER AT THE GOD'S GATE

Lynda Robinson, Allison & Busby, £6 99, pb , 264pp, ISBN 0-74900-581-5

During the rule of the young pharaoh Tutankhamum, a priest falls to his death from the top of a newly built monument. At first it seems that it is an accident, so Lord Meren, and his adopted son Ky , hold back from investigating. But then there are more deaths , and it becomes evident that there is a plot against the pharaoh

Robinson is clearly very knowledgeable about her chosen period. There is much convincing detail, and the plot is intricate, but for most of the time the reader is held at a distance from the main characters When, occasionally, the story becomes more intimate, and insights are given about the charactersparticularly Meren - the story starts to shine By chapter three , too many characters have been introduced and this reader could not keep up with them all. However the mystery element is effective and well woven into the politics of the time

S. Garside -Neville

CLASSICAL

ALEXANDER: The Sands of Ammon

Massimo Manfredi, Pan, £5 99, 494pp , ISBN 0-33039171-2

Translated from the Italian by Iain Halliday.

First published 1998

This is the second book in the Alexander trilogy covering Alexander ' s quest to conquer Asia Cities and fortresses fall like ripe plums into Alexander ' s hands until he finds himself up against the powerful mercenary Commander Mammon at Halikamassus The battle rages to and fro , counter tactic follows counter tactic until that too falls to Alexander. The lighter romantic element is provided by Leptine, Alexander ' s handmaid, and Bassine, wife of Memmon.

The story moves along well in places but there are long passages which one is tempted to skip. The author, having done his research

IS SUE 19.FEB 2002

thoroughly is reluctant to waste a word of it. Perhaps in the translation Iain Halliday has tried just a little too hard to be faithful to the original text. Sentences tend to have that one clause too many which results in unnecessary explanation and commit the classic error of telling rather than showing.

Nevertheless, I learned a great deal from this book and look forward to the third and final volume (The first book in the trilogy, ALEXANDER: Child of a Dream , was reviewed in Issue 16 May 2001.)

Marilyn Sherlock

91HCENTURY

SCHEHERAZADE

Anthony O'Neill , Hodder Headline, 2002 , £10 99, pb , 608pp, ISBN 0-747-26868-l Baghdad, 806 AD Twenty years ago, the young Scheherazade saved her life by regaling the cruel King Shahriyar with her fantastic , exotic tales for a thousand and one nights . Now the ruling pair of the Indian kingdom of Astrifahn , Scheherazade and her ageing husband are invited by the Caliph of Baghdad to pay a long-awaited visit to the land she had celebrated through her stories However, an ancient poem has prophesied Scheherazade's abduction from the city, as well as her eventual return by seven rescuers - only one of whom is predicted to survive.

The prophecy holds true . Sent to free the storyteller is a motley band comprised of seven unlikely heroes Unused to the harsh conditions of the desert and its hidden dangers , one by one they lose their lives As in the Agatha Christie classic, we begin to wonder who the final survivor will be . In the meantime, suspense builds as the still-beautiful Scheherazade holds her captors at bay, with ever-increasing difficulty

The characters are wonderfully drawn, particularly the rescuers , among whom are several sailors , a former slave, and a mysterious ascetic . Their language is coarse, bawdy, and completely true to form For the historical setting alone, the author deserves points for uniqueness and creativity Two minor complaints , however Despite the title, the story's focus is on the rescue and not on Scheherazade herself, who remains an enigma I also found part of the ending to be a cop-out, for it is not completely believable. Still, the novel moves quickly despite its length and, in all, is well worth the read

Sarah Nesbeitt

~l_l_lH_C_ENTUR__Y_I

THE WINTER MANTLE

Elizabeth Chadwick, Little Brown, £ 17. 99, hb , 506pp, ISBN 0-316-85151-5

The subject of this twelfth novel is one very close to my heart Nearly twenty years ago I discovered that there was an Englishman of noble blood (even royal blood) who survived 1066 and event went on to marry William I's niece, Judith Earl Waltheof has the dubious honour, I believe, of being the only man William executed for treason But the circumstances of his life and death are the stuff of legend and after his death he was treated as an English martyr, and his tomb in a Fenland abbey a place of pilgrimage and miracles.

Waltheofs daughter married Simon de Senlis, a Norman who, again according to legend, Waltheof had once saved from death Simon, about whom little is known , took over much of Waltheof s estate, went on crusade and built a round church in Northampton that still exists and deserves a visit.

Part of the legend is that Waltheof inherited from his Danish father a cloak lined with the fur of a polar bear and this, the winter mantle of the title , is the thread that links Waltheof and Judith and Simon and Matilda, all major characters in this story My discovery and subsequent research into Waltheofs story was the trigger for my deciding to do a History degree, so I was fascinated to read Chadwick ' s interpretation of the tale. I have to say she has done it proud.

Most of us will never understand the part that religious feeling played in the minds and thoughts of people in the past. Would we as a society be so afraid of death if we had an implicit belief in a better life to come? These are real people leading real lives at a time when the word of a king (or even an overmighty subject) had the power of life and death ; a time when, effectively England was a country occupied by a foreign invader with all the frustration and horror that entails.

As always Chadwick ' s research is impeccable, her characters fully formed and her storytelling enthralling. This is a story about relationships , the often fine line between love and hate and the way in which people all too easily replicate the mistakes of their parents Was this the way it really happened? Who knows? But the important thing is that Chadwick has created a believable version of what might have been. I commend it to you and if you haven ' t previously read her work this would be a good time to start

Towse Harrison

THE OIATTER OF THE MAIDENS

Alys Clare, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001 , £17.99 , hb , 247pp, ISBN 0-340-79327-9

Yet another Medieval mystery touting the author as the next Ellis Peters

In 1192, the peace of Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye is shattered by the arrival of three sisters claiming sanctuary. The eldest, Alba, proves a disruptive influence and there are worrying undercurrents that lead Helewise to travel from Kent to Ely and investigate what really lies behind the sisters' flight. The plot thickens when a body is discovered , dreadfully murdered Added to this, the Abbess' old friend Josse d'Acquin is lying in Hawkenleye's infirmary seriously ill and Helewise has him to worry about.

While undemandingly readable, the novel is completely transparent in the whodunnit stakes The dialogue is occasionally wooden and frequently anachronistic with no sense of period . I laughed aloud at the scene where Eleanor of Aquitaine teaches the Abbess about the pyramid theory of managerial delegation!

It might while away a rainy afternoon, but be prepared to be underwhelmed. For the moment , Ellis Peters remained unchallenged Susan Hicks

131H CENTURY

THE CRUSADER

Michael Eisner, Doubleday 2002, pb , £10 99 , 320pp ISBN 0-385-60299-5

This book is not at all what I had anticipated ' The thinking man's swashbuckler, a ripping yam that packs a cerebral wallop as well .' is Steven Pressfield's quote on the front cover

The tale is told by Brother Lucas, the crusader Francisco de Montcada ' s exorcist. who is an ambitious , self-satisfied and self-serving although relatively honest Cistercian monk He includes long passages of the crusader ' s adventures in Francisco ·s own words

Francisco returns from the Holy Land a broken man. Today he would be diagnosed as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In 1275 he was considered to be posessed by the Devil and the Inquisition decreed the need for his tortured soul to be exorcized

The tale is a sad and bloody one of betrayal and suffering ; exciting to a degree once Francisco begins to relate his adventures but by no means is it a ' ripping yarn .' Courageous and devout, Francisco only took the Cross in

I 9.FEB 2002

order to save his dead brother ' s soul Guilt, fear of failure and self-doubt in the face of brutality and betrayal prevents him from being a conventionally heroic character. Only the close friendship of his cousin, Andres keeps him sane - then Andres is killed . The book is well researched and the results are presented in appalling detail . Not exactly an enjoyable read but it makes one think In the light of the events of September 11th it is perhaps a salutary thought that fanaticism and cruelty are not confined to any age or any single religion

Monica Maple

141H CENTURY

THESTICKLEPATHSTRANGLER

Michael Jecks , Headline, 2001 , £17 99 , hb , 366pp, ISBN 0-7472-6919-X

This is the 12th FurnshilVPuttock book. Set in 1322, the story combines murder with the supernatural to create an intriguing and complex whodunit. The village of Sticklepath is hiding a serial killer When a stranger to the village stumbles on the buried remains of a young girl missing for four years, he reports the matter to the coroner Enter Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Simon Puttock. They discover this is not the first such murder in Sticklepath, murders that were not reported Evidence of cannibalism adds a gruesome touch The unwholesome atmosphere in the village, veiled threats and a conspiracy of silence make for a difficult investigation

Michael Jecks has created some very unsavoury characters here , but their actions are balanced against the author's powerful portrayal of a time when life was brief and brutal and when religion and superstition governed men's thinking It's an absorbing tale with many twists and turns that will not disappoint FurnshilVPuttock fans .

Celia Ellis

151H CENTURY

FALSTAFF

Robert Nye , Allison & Busby, £9 99 , pb, ISBN: 0 7490 0596 3

Who killed Hotspur? What made the wives of Windsor so merry? What really went on at the battle of Agincourt? Falstaff answers all of these questions in this epic account of his life. In his own words , at the end of his life , he dictated it to a number of scribes, secretaries and a much hated step-son, just as he spoke it (including asides) . It is fantastic, egocentric, larger than life and very bawdy

It is difficult to adequately describe this book. A clever concept and well put together The character of Falstaff gives us his life almost in retrospective diary form His personality shines through with his over-active imagination, his bombastic opinions and usually first hand accounts of the major events of his time, all amusingly told and grossly unbelievable Personally, I preferred Nye's last novel , The Late Mr Shakespeare, finding this story a little long winded and over spun by the time it was two thirds through But that possibly says more about my attention span than the book itself. However, I did especially like the end which became poignant and rather moving If you like the idea of a lecherous romp through the Middle Ages , you will definitely love this

Bronwen Harrison

THE SEVENTH SON

Reay Tannahill, Headline, 2001 , £9 99, pb, 330pp , ISBN 0-7472-7043-0

Also in hb , £14 .99 , ISBN 0-7472-7042-2

Another addition to the collection of books concerning the life and times of Richard III , this novel begins with Richard's courtship of Anne Neville and the consequent antagonism of his brother, George , Dulce of Clarence From there the book follows the known story fairly closely tothe final culmination of it all in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485

This author presents a fair and reasonable account of the events of the day and at least portrays Richard as a man of normal , physical appearance and doesn't lay the blame for the death of the princes at his door. But I found this a dull book, more like a readable textbook. Events were glossed over, robbing the story of pace and excitement and that all-important page-turning element, and Richard himself did not come across as the dynamic , fiercely loyal, complicated man that, by most accounts , he was Having been told how lucky I was to have been assigned this book, I checked out the opinions of a couple of members of the local branch of the Richard III Society whom I knew had also read it. Sadly their opinions were the same as mine and neither of them reached the end of it.

Marilyn Sherlock

161H CENTURY

THE FRENCH EXECUTIONER

C C Humphreys, Orion, 2002 , £9 .99 , hb , 380pp, ISBN O 75284 639 6

The starting point of this novel is the execution of Ann Boleyn From three known facts : that she was beheaded by a French swordsman, that his name was Jean Rombaud and she had an extra finger on one hand

Humphreys has spun a thrilling yam that gallops across France, Germany and Italy, taking in a not very pleasant a Mediterranean cruise along the way

The unlikely plot hinges on the promise Rombaud makes to Anne before remving her head is that he will also remove the special hand and bury it at a certain crossroads in France An easy task one would think but unknown to our hero there are many others who crave this magic talisman - for magic it most certainly is

Rombaud ' s chief adversary is a corrupt Bishop who will stop at nothing. to possess the hand But Rombaud has gathered a motley crew of helpers along the way and we know right will triumph in the end.

The novel is described as a ' story of courage, the pursuit of power and loyalty beyond reason .' In truth, it is a load of old hokum, but none the worse for that. Our heroes become embroiled in fight after fight and although they are often tortured and beaten within an inch of lives , they always bounce back to fight again For this is a world where soothing herbs cure the most malignant of wounds and rescue always arrives at the eleventh hour There are twists galore and someone turns out to be not what he seems Rombaud is a noble hero in the Robin Hood mould His companions form a likeable bunch of Merry Men and to cap it all Rombaud finds his ' maid Marian '. What more could a reader want?

Humphreys knows how to tell a good story And who cares about the ridiculous plot? I warmed to his characters and the pages kept turning. I loved it although I didn ' t believe a word of it.

Sally Zigmond

I, ELIZABETH

Rosalind Miles, Pocket Books (originally published 1993), £6 99 , pb , 602pp, ISBN 0-7434-1568-X

Following Elizabeth through her seventy eventful years of life , this novel depicts a colourful history of her experiences touching not only the positive but also being truthful to the negative During a lifetime attempting to prove her legitimacy as daughter to Henry VIII, she triumphs time and time again through sheer determination and strength of character As monarch there is no doubt that she was equal to the challenge and with her intelligence, learning and astuteness she executed her reign with excellence However , Elizabeth ' s less attractive characteristics are not hidden as we are exposed to her rantings and ravings in the face of opposition., and her extreme self-centredness when it came to love . Though ' Virgin ' Queen by declaration, her ability to have remained so is questionable

ISSUE 19 .FE B 2002

The colloquial style chosen (pseudo-autobiographical) gives a rounded storyline although at times it is too self-opinionated and tends to give unnecessary padding Chronologically recalling the people around her and their impact on life in her time , this is a valuable reacl.

Cathy Simmons

l 7TII CENTURY

THE RIVAL QUEENS

Fidelis Morgan, Collins Crime, 2001 , £9 .99pb, 384pp, ISBN 0-00-232696-5

This is the second in the Anastasia, Lady Ashby de la Zouche, Countess of Clapham series Set in London 1699, the Countess , accompanied by her trusty and feisty maid Alpiew , dashes around London on an absurd and farcical murder investigation. They are assisted or hindered by a range of eccentric characters , some of them historical, such as Colley Cibber and a superannuated Samuel Pepys.

The book is intended to be a light-hearted romp , full of zany characters and rollicking hwnour with the appropriate degree of Restoration bawdy I have to say I found it profoundly irritating, but this is probably a reflection of my own tastes and other readers may well lap this sort of thing up The plot has no real structure and the characters lack depth and any degree of credibility The narrative is a breathless, slapdash affair The writer displays her obvious knowledge of the period, which can be found in her writing on 17th Century female dramatists, but the overall effect is negated by the characters employing a strange mixture of period language and modern 21st century slang The whole effect is frustrating in a relatively lengthy book

If you are looking for nothing more than a novelisation of a pantomime, then this is the book for you If you require a book with a little more depth, structure and considered writing, then avoid like the Plague of 1665

Doug Kemp

This is the sort of novel that appeals to me, one based on historical fact. Nigel Tranter, author of many books, is comfortable with his subject matter and the history flows with confidence Unfortunately for me, however, the three central characters never really come to life In view of the author's success and popularity it might seem arrogant to say so, but I felt that the book suffered from a failure to employ that most basic of writing maxims - show. don't tell. Much of the action is reported in considerable detail and as a result I never felt that we really got under the skin of the protagonists In addition, the immediacy of the story seemed to suffer from sentences that were in some cases as much as ten lines long That said, I am sure that his many fans will enjoy this otherwise well-researched book.

Janet

Mary Tomson

181H CENTURY

BREAKING THE LINE

David Donachie, Orion, 2001 , £17 99 , hb , 400pp, ISBN 0-75282-474-0

As with the first volwne of Nelson's life, this book has a splendid sequence of maps and diagrams to assist the reader This volwne covers the latter stages of Nelson's life and career and also deals with the relationship between Emma Hamilton and Nelson . Both characters are dealt with sympathetically and it is clear to see that the author is keen to explore Nelson's fascination with Lady Hamilton and his reasons for deviating from his strong religious principles as well as his usual code of conduct. Donachie also fleshes out the character of Sir William Hamilton, which is refreshing since he is often portrayed as either an elderly duffer or a complacent cuckold.

TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Nigel Tranter, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001, £18 99, hb , 228pp , ISBN 0-340-77016-3 Triple Alliance is set in 17th century Scotland, following the execution of Charles 1 His son has been crowned King of Scotland but the English intend to impose their own rule This book tells the story of two Scottish soldiers and friends and their relationship with an English colonel, James Stanfield, who settles in Scotland following the battle of Dunbar Based on fact , it chronicles the growth of the textile industry at Haddington .

TiiE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

The sea battles and details of life on board ship are intelligible to the lay reader and I found some of the sequences compelling Nelson's death is well written, being neither maudlin nor grandiose but rather dignified and moving Reading that episode alone leaves the reader in no doubt of Nelson's character as both man and leader

I do have two quibbles, however and they are common to many historical novels Firstly, Emma's mother, Mary Cadogan and Nelson's servant, Tom Allen are burdened with a multi-regional cod lower orders speak which just doesn't convince. Secondly, the politics of the time tend to be declaimed to the reader via unconvincing dialogue of the I-shall-now-explain-late-eighteenth-century-Si cilian-politics variety or the planting of ill-disguised information among the narrative This latter is a difficult hurdle to clear. That

said, the novel is well-balanced between the historical and the human . For those who are unfamiliar with the complexities of naval warfare of the time , there is no need to fear the detail It is well-written and easy to follow It is one of Donachie's strengths as a writer that he does not patronise the reader Well worth reading

NB. This sequel to On a Making Tide was to have been called Taken at the Flood but now has the above title

Geraldine Perriam

ANYTHING BUT A GENTLEMAN

Amanda Grange, Robert Hale, 2001 , £17 99, hb , 22lpp , ISBN 0-7090-6906-5 . Marianne is struggling to manage their estate because her father , believing her brother Kit is disgraced by gambling debts , has become ill. Then she discovers that their new neighbour , Luke, Lord Ravensford, is ungentlemanly enough to imagine she is a lightskirt , and tries to seduce her Set during the French Revolution. intrigue and danger soon draw them together despite this unfortunate first meeting

There is a feisty heroine and a suitably menacing, handsome hero. The dialogue is good , but the plot is weak, depending too often on unconvmcmg motives and partly-overheard and therefore misunderstood conversations . More might have been made of the dangers , which were confronted and over very swiftly However, this is a light, pleasant and undemanding read for a lazy afternoon

Marina Oliver

EYE OF THE WIND

Jane Jackson, Robert Hale, 200 l , £ 17. 99 , hb , 303pp, ISBN 0-7090-6995-2

Cornwall, 1795 . Melissa Tregonning, unconventional , beautiful but too tall for her time, tries to save her late father's boatyard which is encumbered by debt. After a tedious first chapter the story only comes alive when a stranger arrives , with a flayed back and wounds caused by manacles in a French prison It is hinted that he is not what he seems (aristocrat rather than artisan) , and in danger of his life if his identity becomes known Melissa takes one look at his 6'5 " frame , and falls in love.

Conventions keep them apart ; Melissa strives to cover her father's debts and the stranger, Gabriel , helps The details of this struggle are unfortunately extremely dull and it is not until the last third of the book that the story becomes exciting and prepares us for the happy ending If only 'Gabriel's' reason for hiding his identity had been revealed earlier than p 227, it would have been a more enjoyable read . Pamela Cleaver

ISSUE I 9.FEB 2002

THE HANDSOME SMUGGLER

Gillian Kaye, Robert Hale, 2001, £16 99 , hb, 206pp, ISBN 0- 7090-6925-1

It's 1792 and Fenelia Hadleigh, exiled by scandal to Dorset, is bored with the rural life until one day while walking a coastal path she meets smuggler Tom Alexander, who turns out to be neither a smuggler nor Tom Alexander. Soon she's mixed up in his secret activities involving aristocratic French exiles and finds herself falling in love with him, despite his engagement to flibbertigibbety Juliet.

The ending is signalled early on and frequently flagged up during the course of the story, so no surprises there But surprise isn't the point. Gillian Kaye obviously knows her market well and presses all the right buttons to create this frothy confection

Sarah Cuthbertson

DEATH'S

ENEMY (The Pilgrimage of Victor Frankenstein)

George Rosie , Heinemann , £12 99 , hb , 342pp , ISBN 0-434-00827-3

This is the imagined autobiography of Victor Frankenstein taken from information in Mary Shelley's novel. The story begins in 1790 in Geneva and details Frankenstein ' s career via his study at the University of Ingolstadt, his time spent as a military surgeon in Napoleon ' s army and his work with other doctors working with electricity in Scotland and other parts of Europe . It traces his self-alienation from his family following his mother ' s death and his increasing belief in electricity as the source of life Rosie ' s Frankenstein is depicted as a true 18th century ' man of science ' and the journalistic style in which it is written adds credence and a somewhat authoritative voice to the characters Friendships and encounters with well-known historical figures , such as Madame de Stael and the Scots chemist and philosopher Andrew Ure , add to the authenticity However I felt that walk-on parts for others such as Byron and Napoleon were unnecessary distractions.

This is not a novel for the squeamish as in-depth descriptions of body snatching, dissection and surgery on the battlefield are told in vivid detail. In my opinion Mary Shelley' s character has the immediacy of the period which a novel written today could never grasp. However Rosie ' s novel does give a good account of the late 18th and early 19th centuries when political turmoil was rife and the rise of scientific knowledge was stirring into life An interesting and for the most part convincing ' autobiography '.

Greta Krypczyk-Oddy

BEHIND THE MASK

Jasmina M. Svenne, Robert Hale, 2001 , £17 99 , hb , 269pp, ISBN 0-7090-7023-3

In 1777 respectable young women did not become actresses. Never one to be deterred by convention, Elizabeth Hathaway joins a company of strolling players. Then she meets Edward Holbrook, who at first wants her to become his mistress and then falls in love with her. Elizabeth never wanted to be any man's mistress and never thought she would be a rich man's wife Nonetheless , after their marriage she tries to be a good wife and stepmother, but always the stage is calling her back If he is to keep her love , Edward eventually realises he must let her go.

The first thing to be said is that this is an accomplished first novel, written with a light touch and an eye for detail. All the necessary ingredients for a thoroughly satisfying historical romance are present: a feisty heroine ; a strong hero ; a series of misunderstandings and mishaps followed by a happy ending But this should by no means be taken as a criticism, because Behind the Mask does most things right and very few things wrong It provides what so many books promise and so few fulfil - several solid hours of entertaining reading

Sara Wilson

THE LOVEDAY TRIALS

Kate Tremayne, Headline, 2001 , £ 17 99, hb , 374pp , ISBN 0-7472-7483-5

This is the third book in the Loveday series but the first I have read It is indeed 'a sweeping Cornish family drama' set in the time of the French Revolution . Kate Tremayne's historical background is excellent, as is her Cornish setting.

It took me a while to get into the book, largely, I believe, because I had not met the many characters before Most are well-drawn, believable and interesting although one or two are either stereotypes or over the top Conflict is a necessary ingredient of any good story but there is so much rivalry , enmity, manipulation, prudery and licentiousness , as well as love, honour and duty involved that at times I wanted to knock all their heads together!

Adam Loveday has married his gypsy love, Senara, but the family and society generally will not accept her Lisette, the French girl given a home by the Lovedays , a scheming minx certainly no better than she should be, causes great disruption in the family and manages to trap the sympathetic and rather naive Naval officer William Loveday , Adam's youngish uncle , into marriage

By the end of the book I had become involved. Kate Tremayne is an excellent story-teller and the novel will certainly please a very wide readership, especially those who

have followed the fortunes of the Lovedays from the beginning

Monica Maple

191HCENTURY

THE BOOK OF THE HEATHEN

Robert Edric, Black Swan 2001 , £6 99 , pb , 352pp, ISBN 0-552-99925-3

For review, see Issue 13 , August 2000

THE HOMECOMING

Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia, Little Brown £17 99 hb , 5 I 8pp , ISBN 0-316-64620-2

The Morland Dynasty series , which spans history from the War of the Roses , continues now in the Victorian Age Henrietta, unfulfilled widow of the unaffectionate Rector Edgar Fortescue has her life turned around by the reappearance of her true love, the handsome Jerome Compton Society ' s disapproval of a match with divorcee Compton means that when the couple marry they leave Yorkshire seeking the anonymity of London. There Henrietta and her daughter, Lizzie, find they like the modem conveniences and social whirl of their new life with Jerome Within a short time they are entertaining the city ' s artistic , scientific and cultural circles Henrietta also befriends her cousin, Lady Venetia , herself once shunned by society for pursuing a medical career, but now a respected doctor and married to Hazlemere, a man she loves A strong friendship is formed between the two women.

The peace and joy of life is shattered when the unexpected happens and, as so often happens , fortunes change The Homecoming illustrates how misfortune can be overcome when a family unites in love Every aspect of life in this period is detailed, not only from the practical way in which people existed, travelled, ate and dressed but also what people thought was and was not acceptable socially or in law. The author ' s extensive research shines though every page The Morland Dynasty continues to be expertly told against a background of real history

Va/Loh

ANNIE'S GIRL

Audrey Howard, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001, £17 99 , hb , 49lpp, ISBN 0-340-76930-0

Only local farmer's son Will Lucas is a match for the spirit of wilful Briar Macauley, but she falls for well-mannered Hal Saunders and becomes a contented wife and mother When tragedy wrecks her world she decamps , shattered and full of guilt, from her beloved Lake District to Liverpool where she's taken in by a kindly landlady But Will , whose love for Briar has never died, comes looking for her

ISSUE 19 .FEB 2002

with his enemy, Hal's troublemaking cousin, not far behind

While it's mercifuJJy free of the overblown melodrama to which some sagas are prone, the rather too leisurely build-up to conflict only succeeds in holding the reader's interest by the quality of the writing and the enthusiastic detail with which Audrey Howard describes the Lakeland landscape and the customs of its people A heartwarming read.

Sarah Cuthbertson

KINGDOM'S DREAM

Iris Gower, Bantam Press 2001, £16.99 , hb , 300pp ISBN 0593-04014-7

The eponymous 'Kingdom' is the great Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. His dream is to extend the Great Western Railway to the growing town of Swansea in South Wales . Disappointingly, Brunel has only a 'walk on ' part at the end of the book and the construction of the railway is no more than a backdrop to the story

The Jove story between Katie Cullen, an orphan servant girl and Bull Benyon, the foreman of the navvies building the railway is the main plot. There is also a strong sub-plot involving a group of prominent Swansea citizens and the tangled web of relationships which connects them

Katie and Bull have their ups and downs but each rift is a replay of the one before. Bull, like most of his railway builders, lives with a woman, in his case a former prostitute Things are only resolved when Bull narrowly escapes being killed and all is forgiven. At this point Bull's partner, Rhiannon conveniently walks out of their lives , into oblivion.

This is the fifth in Gower's Firebird series

The writing is strong and the story alternates between the two sets of characters Though simply drawn the characters make a clear impression on the reader Although some of the incidents strained my credulity I never found the book boring An entertaining if undemanding read which is clearly what Iris Gower ' s loyal readers expect.

Ruth Nash

A MOST UNUSUAL GOVERNESS

Amanda Grange , Robert Hale, 2001, £17.99 , hb , 220pp , ISBN 0-7090-6877-8 Orphaned Sarah Davenport becomes governess to the children at Watermead Grange, just as its owner returns from the Napoleonic Wars Lord Randall is a disciplinarian, Sarah too outspoken for a girl in her position Sparks fly, then the two fall in love But the road to happiness is pot-holed with misunderstandings, coincidences and a couple of subplots One, involving a possible Radical conspiracy, soon fizzles out, while the other goes over the top

THE JilSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

Amanda Grange writes fluently and does believable dialogue and lively characters There are nice touches of humour too But there's a tendency to over-describe (I got tired of being repeatedly told how arrogant the hero was and how shapely his figure) ; and to over-explain feelings and motives, not to mention an ignorant young woman's reference to the ' Nell Gwyn Marbles '.

Sarah Cuthbertson

BELIEF

Stephanie Johnson, Vintage , £6 99 , pb , 485pp, ISBN 0-099-42263-8

William McQuiggan is a man consumed first with self-destruction and then with self-belief. His need to find God is so great that in 1899 he leaves his wife, Myra, and their new-born twins in New Zealand and travels to Salt Lake City. He finds no satisfaction in the Mormon faith and so continues on to Zion City where he falls under the spell of Dr Dowie. Here Myra finds him again and their life together resumes As the family grows William ' s grip on sanity weakens , his binge drinking worsens , and eventually Myra takes their six children and flees to Vancouver. But unhappily her love for William and his dependence on her always forces them to reunite. This time William ' s belief centres on his won religion, which combines parts of many other faiths and it is a belief so powerful that he is willing to risk destroying his own family for it.

Belief is a study of the nature of Jove and belief. It asks two complex questions. Can love forgive everything? And where does belief/faith end and insanity begin? William is a violent, obnoxious man who uses women, religion and drink to shut out the real world He is unsympathetic, fragile and pitiable Myra is both a tragic victim and a martyr to her husband's rages She is unassertive, cowed and yet her profound love for William underscores her life Both are utterly convincing.

It is certainly a powerful novel, unsentimental and unflinching in its portrayal for the potentially destructive power of love and faith. The approach is certainly extremely effective, but it also makes it fairly indigestible in large doses. There is a limit to the amount of bleakness a reader can take and there are no lighter episodes to provide relief from all the despair. That aside it is well worth persevering to the novel's final , compassionate, conclusion.

Sara Wilson

OGILVIE'S ROYAL COMMAND

Philip McCutchan, Severn House Publishers Ltd./Severn House Publishers Inc ., 2001 , £17.99 UK/$26 .00 USA, hb, 224pp, ISBN 0- 7278-5618-9

One of Queen Victoria ' s granddaughters , who has married into the Russian Royal family is sent by the Tsar to lead a Russian delegation to Nepal. Our hero, Captain James Ogilvie of the Royal Strathspey Highlanders , receives the assignment to escort her across Indian territory . Needless to say, everything goes wrong

It is difficult to summarise without giving away the story, but Ogilvie finds himself up against scheming Russians, hostile Pathans from across the border in Afghanistan, and untrustworthy Indian rulers , while all the time feeling the pressure that reaches back all the way past his own superior officers to the Vicerory and to Queen Victoria herself.

I have to admit that the complexities of the plot defeated me . All the stock characters of the military novel set in British India are here : the upright hero , the corrupt Indian Nawab (admittedly, not a Maharajah for a change), the strict but honest RSM , the salt-of-the-earth private soldiers, whose deaths and maimings seem to leave Captain Ogilvie strangely unmoved , and the sneering and arrogant Russian aristocrat.

This novel sets out to be a ripping yarn, a genre that is not to be sneered at , and it's non-stop action all the way. Captain Ogilvie strikes me as being too pale and narrow a character to make a real hero. This novel is not unlike reading one of the Flashman books , but without the humour.

Alan Fisk

DIAMONDS

Sam North, Domhan Books 2001 , $14 95 , pb , 283pp, ISBN l 58345 610 4

If the intention of a historical novel is to transport the reader into a time and place far flung from their own, and immerse them fully in the sights, smells and experiences of the people who lived there, then Sam North's new novel, Diamonds is great historical fiction in the truest sense of the word This is a Western with a twist, taking the familiar concept of fortune-seeking on the new frontier and placing it within a context that, until now, has not been attempted

Set in the 1870s, Diamonds tells the story of Philip Arnold and John Slack, two prospectors who, despite ridicule, are determined to get rich by finding diamonds on American soil When they tum up at the Bank of California to deposit a stash of precious stones they set in motion a diamond rush, fuelled by the greed and ambition of men more powerful than themselves, and their lives are

ISSUE 19.FEB 2002

changed for ever - though not in the way they intended

This is a great tale of adventure and intrigue that, with its fast-paced action and surprising plot turns, will be enjoyed even by readers who (like myself) are usually turned off by tales of the Old West. Its characters, particularly the grizzled adventurers Arnold and Slack, the unscrupulous banker William Ralston and the pompous General Colton, are all entirely believable and give the story human interest as well as a broad historical sweep

However, it is Sam North's grasp of the period setting that impresses above all . His recreation of an age of opportunity and danger, in which men can rise or fall in less time than it takes to load a gun or finish a game of poker, is vivid and compelling It is a time in which places like San Francisco are changing from wild outposts into great cities but in which catching a train still means taking your life into your own hands Sam North clearly has a passion for the Old West and his knowledge of the period is evident on every page. This is a terrific piece of story-telling that, despite checking in at under 300 pages, still has epic proportions. It is highly recommended for lovers of the Old West and, more importantly, for all those who enjoy a good adventure story well told . Chris Lean

STILL SHE HAUNTS ME

Katie Roiphe, Headline Review, 2001, £10.00 , hb , 228 pp , ISBN O 7472-6557-7

See review in US/Canada section

ALBERTINE

Jacqueline Rose, Chatto & Windus £14 99, hb , 205pp , ISBN 0-7011-6976-1 Albertine is without direction Frittering away her time with female friends , supported by an unloving aunt, she seeks to shock. When she is drawn into a relationship with a sickly, asthmatic young man he appears to prey on her and her friends , seeking to feed off their youthful health and beauty But it is Albertine that he wants Lured by the promise of security - physical as well as emotional, she goes to live with him in Paris, but moth-like, she cannot be entrapped. Flitting from female lover to lover, she has to find a way to leave him

This work is intense, sometimes uncomfortable to read and painful to witness , as the self-destructive Albertine embarks on this disastrous affair . Unlike many books about love, or sex, it is convincingly driven forward by the central character ' s motivation Is she predator or victim, deprived or depraved? We see her though her own eyes and also through those of her long time friend

TIIE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

and Jover, Andree . Whose version is the most accurate? Albertine tells us about her lover, how their lives interact, but he remains a shadowy, almost sinister figure Is he in turn the hunter or the hunted?

I am usually suspicious of books purporting to elaborate on another author's work Albertine is drawn from Proust's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu , which I have not read. While this book stands on its own, I was left wondering what he, the lover, thought and felt. The only way to find out is to read the original A finely written and thought provoking book.

Janet Mary Tomson

THE HAUNTED GOVERNESS

Norman Russell , Robert Hale, 2001, £17 99 , hb , 254 pp, ISBN 0- 7090-6972-3

This story of a governess haunted by dreams of macabre monks chanting and a dead face appears at first to hold the promise of more scariness than it actually delivers Mary Grant takes up a new post after being mysteriously ill and a concerned employer calls in a doctor, which leads to the poor girl promptly being carted off to prison After that an honest cop takes on the job of proving or disproving her guilt and an opportunity is lost. There is a perfectly good murderer here but the reader is denied the chance of being chilled because it is all so neat and clean, and a bit too easily solved While the idea was excellent, the fear factor was disappointing except for one or two instances.

This author clearly has the knowledge and the ability to write really good mysteries , but for me the chill factor was disappointingly missing here

Linda Sole

SEEK A NEW DAWN

E.V. Thompson, Little Brown, 2001 , £16 99, hb , 372pp, ISBN 0-316-85716-5

The story begins in Cornwall. Copper mining is in decline and many a Cornishman is off to seek his fortune in Australia Emily Boyce, the local parson's daughter, falls in love with miner Sam Hooper, but for Parson Boyce, this match is not good enough for his daughter and he schemes to have Sam sent to Australia On board ship Sam befriends a young woman and her daughter Jean Spargo is hoping to find her husband who hasn't been heard of since he emigrated. Emily, back home in Cornwall, is resigned to a very narrow life within the parsonage But then her father dies and Emily is free to go to Australia in search of Sam and her new dawn Although I was fairly certain Emily would find her Sam, I couldn't be sure as events twisted and turned constantly

I have read most of Mr Thompson's books and have enjoyed not only the stories

themselves, but also the detail in his descriptions of the Cornish mines, the clay industry and the miners' way of life which bring the stories alive and make for very believable characters . Mr. Thompson travelled to Australia to research this book and his efforts are well rewarded, again, in the detail and colour he portrays without intruding on the story.

This book is , undeniably, a romance, but the social history earns it a place on the historical shelf

Marilyn Sherlock

SHADOW OF THE OSPREY

Peter Watt, Corgi 2001 , £6 .99 , pb , 667pp, ISBN 0-552-14795-8

Australia in the late nineteenth century is raw and unformed A land of potential riches for the canny and a hell on earth for the unwary The Duffys and the Macintoshes are pioneering families with a longstanding feud binding them together Shadow of the Osprey continues the story which began in Cry of the Curlew of the mixed fortunes of several members of the two families

Michael Duffy is returning to his homeland after many years abroad as a mercenary Kate O ' Keefe drives herself hard running a successful trading business so that she can amass enough money to protect herself and her family. Fiona White hides from the truth about her depraved husband and seeks solace in the arms of another woman Lady Enid Macintosh is determined to destroy Granville White, the man responsible for the murder of her son, and establish her grandson as heir to the family fortune

This is a good old fashioned yarn where the bad are really bad and the good are not much better Peter Watt provides plenty of double-dealing , back-stabbing and swashbuckling as befits a writer touted as the next Wilbur Smith. The novel's action is non-stop and its scope is epic In fact the opening chapters are almost too epic since the number of characters and plot strands are rather confusing for anyone who has not read the previous volume . Although this is not a novel to be recommended to the squeamish it is an excellent buy for anyone seeking a well-told escapist read

Sara Wilson

KEENE'S QUEST

Derek Wilson, Severn House, 2001, £17 99 UK/$26 . USA , hb , 248pp

ISBN 0- 7278-5598-0

Reluctant spy George Keene is forced into a mission to France in the Revolutionary turmoil of 1793 by Sir Thomas Challoner, espionage chief for Prime Minister Pitt Keene plans to

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

tum this to his own advantage by seeking and rescuing his lover Therese Gautier, whom he last saw in Auteuil, then a village outside Paris

Nobody can complain that this book lacks action and incident. It's one thing after another, as Keene is pursued around northern France by his nemesis the Jacobin professor Demarche, friend and supporter of the ruthless Marat.

Keene does find Therese Gautier, but receives one of the many surprises that fill this book, and all does not turn out entirely as he wants, as the future assassin of Marat , Charlotte Corday, prophesies to him.

Keene ' s original mission is to find and protect the anti-Jacobin General Dumouriez, to further Pitt ' s strategy of encouraging political turmoil in France as a cheaper defence policy than actually fighting the French This plot strand fizzles out, and Dumouriez, whom I expected to be a major character, fades out of view The Therese Gautier strand also ends up in a twist that suggests more adventures in the next novel of the series .

This novel is one of a series, but it reads more like an extract from what was originally a much longer novel that has been cut into parts The background is filled in rather heavy-handedly , with long 'as-you-know, George ' speeches by characters telling each other at length what they know already

This edition is a reprint intended for libraries , so it is a pity that the opportunity was not taken to correct the numerous spelling errors , or to correct the mislabelling of the ' Austrian Netherlands' on the map that is included I am also not sure that the name ' Belgium ' was in use by 1793 , or that ' kilometres ' were commonly spoken of at that date, but I am prepared to accept that the author knows more about the period than I do

This novel will certainly appeal to those who have read the earlier books in the series and enjoyed them, but it didn ' t inspire me to seek them out.

Alan Fisk

201H CENTIJRY

DISTANT MUSIC

Charlotte Bingham, Bantam Books 2002 , pb, 575pp , £5 99, ISBN 0-553-81387-0

Life was tough in England after WWII At least it was for those who were not part of a particular social elite: the fabulously wealthy or the tiny coterie of British film and theatre stars . Elsie Lanchester longs to become one of that shining constellation Oliver Plunkett shares the same ambition despite his

THE IDSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

pampered background. Groomed from an early age by his father ' s theatre-mad butler, there is no other world to which he aspires

No such ambition infuses the kooky Coco Hampton. Theatre for her is all about costume. That they all become involved with Portly Cosgrove - sometime manager and soon-to-be agent - is part of the flow of theatrical life as is the fact that they become emotionally entangled with each other

You usually know where you are with a Charlotte Bingham novel and having read and enjoyed much of her previous work it was with a keen sense of anticipation that I picked up this book, prepared to be swept into the world of post-war theatre The story begins promisingly with the introduction of Elsie Lanchester who lives with her hard- hearted grandmother and is desperate to be a star. Oliver Plunkett is in a similar situation with his hard-hearted father , but somehow the story failed to catch fire for me There is no sense of the blood sweat and tears it takes to become an actor. All three of the main protagonists achieve success with remarkable facility. Even when they suffer inevitable reversals of fortune there is no sense of despair invoked. The reader knows that within a few pages they will be back on track.

There is no sense of period ; the characterisation and plot are leaden, formulaic and predictable The supposedly koo!..--y Coco is about as kooky as a standard lamp and shows as much animation

Although it is a pleasant enough way of whiling away a dreary winter ' s afternoon, I found this book very disappointing.

Shirley Skinner

NASHBOROUGH

Elsie Burch Donald, Harper Collins 2001 , £9 99, hb, 402pp, ISBN 0-00711898-8

For review see US section, Issue 18.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KA VALIER AND CLAY

Michael Chabon, Fourth Estate £7. 99 PB 659pps ISBN 1-84115-493-8

This novel, winner of the Pulitzer Priz.e for Fiction 2001, is a fantastic read! Set in New York city during and after Word War II, it is the story of cousins Josef Kavalier and Samuel Klayman and their intertwined lives. Kavalier, a Jewish admirer of Harry Houdini and his brand of 'autoliberation' (escaping) is himself recently escaped from Prague and anxious to save his family from an uncertain future in Europe Klayman wants to draw comic books (as well as shorten his name to Sam Clay) Desperate to escape their boring jobs as inventory clerks they create a comic strip hero called The Escapist with a Nazi-busting superhero golem (in Jewish folklore, an

artificially created human supernaturally endowed with life) who liberates the oppressed around the world with his Golden Key. Joe , unable to truly stop Hitler depicts The Escapist punching him on the front cover of their first issue While fighting their way to the top of the comic book world they must learn to cope with war, love and death Along the way they meet the beautiful Rosa Saks , a surrealist artist, who changes everything. As the war continues Kavalier ' s struggle to save his family becomes more frantic and he turns to his love of magic as a way of coping with the pressures .

This story travels from New York to Czechoslovakia to the Arctic Circle and back, all while keeping the reader turning the pages as fast as possible Chabon ' s writing moves one from laughter to tears in mere sentences Although a bit daunting at first glance, checking in at over 600 pages , it holds even those who couldn ' t care less about comic book writers It provides a marvellous depiction of wartime New York as well as the murky world of magic and comic books. This is a comic book without pictures!

Dana Cohlmeyer

THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE

Barbara Cleverly, Constable 200 I , £16 99, hb , 287pp ISBN l-84119-369-0

Joe Sandilands, on secondment from Scotland Yard to India in 1922, is asked by the Governor of Bengal to investigate the apparent suicide of a young wife whose husband is stationed with the Bengal Greys . There were several other deaths before 1914, all apparent accidents but Joe uncovers suspicious circumstances He needs to discover the link before the killer can strike again

The background of army life is well drawn, it is a neatly devised mystery , but the historical details did not pervade the story as much as I would have liked. This could be because ordinary Indian life seems relatively unchanged today so that this aspect appeared modern and only the presence of the Army set the time A good read as a straight crime novel.

Marina Oliver

THE GENERAL'S ENVOY

Anthony Conway, Hodder & Stoughton, 2001 , £18 99, hb, 377pp, ISBN 0-340-76858-4

Captain John Caspasian, who first appeared in The Viceroy's Captain (Issue 15) now continues his adventures - this time in 1920s China After a run-in with a notorious criminal society, Caspasian is sent out of the way on a lone mission His task is to find out more about a certain General Mok whom the British hope to ally themselves with against the

ISSUE 19 .FEB 2002

activities of Chiang Kai-shek's revolutionary army

Unfortunately for Caspasian, Mok turns out to be a sadistic monster Even worse , his right hand man is a certain Daniel Smith, whom Caspasian instinctively distrusts even though he owes Smith his life. A bad situation seems to become worse when Caspasian falls into the hands of General Yuan Except that Yuan turns out to be a man of honour and the father of the beautiful Lilan

Th e General's Envoy is written after the style of the Sharpe novels and John Caspasian is every inch the all-action hero Intrigue and thrills abound as the often-misunderstood hero fights his way out of one tight corner straight into another.

Escapism is the name of the game and Anthony Conway provides it in bucket-loads. There are plenty of treacherous villains to boo and a beautiful woman for the hero to fall in love with . The action-packed pages ensure that this novel's pace never flags from the opening chapter to the final poignant paragraph of the epilogue

Sara Wilson

THE BUITERFLY GIRLS

Anne Douglas, Piatkus, £19 99 , hb , 402pp ISBN 0-7499-0590-5

Staff Nurse Rose Burnett and Nurses Martie Stewart and Alex Kelsie were known as ' The Butterfly Girls ', nicknamed after the Butterfly Wards at the Jubilee TB Hospital in Edinburgh where they worked They had been childhood friends , playing games on the streets of the ' Colonies ', a co-operative housing estate. The fact that Rose was a lawyer ' s daughter and not from the ' Colonies ', set her slightly apart Their characters differ inasmuch as Rose is truly dedicated and down to earth, Martie regards nursing as a means to an end and Alex is more of a romantic . Their individual circumstances dictate that they leave the Jubilee to pursue completely different lives and loves , but they remain in touch throughout.

This story, set in the late 1940s/ early 1950s , gives a real insight into the fight against TB , so prevalent at the time , the dedication of the nurses and the mixed emotions suffered by both patients and staffwell researched The fact that the outcome of each of the Butterfly Girls stories is so unpredictable makes it an engrossing read

Vivienne

Bass

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Timothy Findley, Faber & Faber 2001 , pb , £7 .99, 396pp, ISBN 0-571-20905-X

These ' famous last words ' are more than the usual final utterance of someone about to meet their maker which might be either a pithy

TI-IE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

phrase or at most a couple of sentences. At the end of WWII Hugh Selwyn Mauberly scrawls his last words over the walls and ceiling of what has become his prison in the Austrian Alps

A wartime faction thriller in the style of Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins or Robert Harris , the list of characters includes King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson (later known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor)

When Mauberly ' s corpse is found in 1945 his testament of political corruption and worldwide scandal involves Rudolf Hess , Mussolini , Churchill , Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and Charles Lindbergh among others

Timothy Findley has a good ear for dialogue and there are some very exciting set pieces of action This is more than a thriller however, Findley offers some thought provoking dilemmas , about good and evil , the responsibilities of individuals and nations and the moral choices which affect us all It is a multi-layered story with an intriguing central premise; one which we know from the outset cannot succeed

Ray Taylor

THE WARS

Timothy Findley, Faber and Faber 2001 , £6 99 , pb , 218pp , ISBN 0-571-20799-5

The author has been described as ' Canada ' s greatest living writer ' by The Observer. I think they have forgotten a few even though this book was first published in 1977. It is the story of a young Canadian from a mildly dysfunctional family who joins the army to fight in France during WWI

Written in the style of a documentary , with many flashback scenes, some done as interviews without any indication as to whom the interviewee or narrator is It totally failed to grab my interest. The jerkiness prevented my developing any empathy with the hero The only merit I could find was in the vivid descriptions of the horrific conditions endured by the men in the trenches

It also illustrates the dangers of a writer trying to portray another country ' s customs for there was a distinct lack of research, or a failure to realise the need for it. Findley extends the grouse season for a month, seems to confuse National Hunt racing with the flat when he states that a tall man could not ride in the Grand National . He describes the house at 15 Wilton Place as the home of the D ' Orsey family since 1743 Not only was this street not built until 1825 , an early resident of number 15 was Sir James Macdonnel. These facts I established by looking in a couple of books. Hint to writers who use real places - be vague as to precise addresses

Marina Oliver

SINGLE TO PARIS

Alexander Fullerton, Little Brown, £17 99, hb , 346pp, ISBN 0-316-85881-1

This is the fourth title in the ' Rosie ' quartet and the last fling of SOE operative Rosie Ewing in German-occupied France, this time during the week leading up to the Allied liberation of Paris in August 1944. We hit the ground running , pedalling actually, as Rosie battles against the clock to find and release two agents held by the Gestapo Much of the action takes place in Paris and shows the prevailing chaos with Gaullist and Communist resistantes , as well as pro-Nazi groups , all at each other ' s throats. The particularly vicious activities of one of the latter are based on fact ; reading about them requires a strong stomach and not at bedtime!

When Rosie needs mental respite her thoughts drift to Ben, the Australian hunk she ' s hoping to marry but who, believing her dead, is outwitting Germans in the Norwegian fjords There were loads of characters and a lot of detail about boats and fjords in these sections, which I couldn ' t really follow . I wanted to get back to France Holding up Rosie ' s story in this way didn ' t work for me, especially as Ben' s story just peters out.

The jerky style in which the book is written - incomplete sentences, lots of present participles and contractions - adds to the urgency but palls after a time, while the denouement is rather bland, given what we know of resistants ' treatment of collaborators Read this book if you want an undemanding, fast-paced thriller set at a dark point in French history And have a street map of Paris handy. Jan et Hanco c k

THATSUMMER

Andrew Greig, Faber & Faber 2001 , pb , £6 99 , 26lpp, ISBN 0-571-20473-2

This is the story of a love affair set in England in the Summer and early Autumn of 1940, during what was to become known as the Battle of Britain.

The core of the novel is the relationship between Len Westboume, a gauche, likeable Hurricane pilot and Stella Gardam, the more worldly radar operator, learning the new technology that did so much to preserve Britain ' s fighting resources during those grim days But, this is not merely a heady romance, nor is it a tale of spilling deeds by RAF chappies . It is a novel of great feeling and profound emotion. It is set firmly in the period with an authentic flavour and a wealth of well researched detail

The nature of the commitment comes under scrutiny, not only to one ' s partner to but to oneself, colleagues and family as well as one ' s country and past. It is extremely moving and gives the reader much food for thought. It is

no fault of the author that the ground covered in the book has been used by a number of recent films and other novels, hence many of the events as well as the story line lack originality and are, at times, predictable The writing is a little sloppy using colloquialisms that seem out of place. Nevertheless, it is a fine work. It is a haunting tale which lingers with the reader long after the book has been finished and returned to the bookshelf

Doug Kemp

(This novel is published in the US under the title, The Clouds Above and is reviewed on page 35)

THE REST OF OUR LIVES

Jeannie Johnson, Orion, 2002, £17 99, hb , 330 words, ISBN O 75284 668 X The Second World War has ended and three very different women make their way to Bristol's Temple Meads station to meet the same train Charlotte from wealthy Clifton is there to welcome her husband home; respectable and downtrodden Edna, who nevertheless guards a shameful secret, to greet her wounded fiance, Colin; Polly, a rough diamond, hopes , in vain it transpires, to catch up with her Canadian boyfriend, Gavin

But life and war have a habit of springing unpleasant surprises and these three women from different backgrounds all have difficulties to overcome as their lives continue to cross and re-cross

Jeannie Johnson tells her story well and bomb-damaged Bristol makes a fascinating background to this saga My only quibble is that in telling the involved emotional lives of three very different women, there isn't much opportunity to get beneath the surface cliches. Some very serious subjects, such as racial hatred, domestic violence and illegitimacy are raised but are skimmed over in order to give the story a warm and happy ending.

Sally Zigmond

THE MOOR

Laurie R King, Harper Collins , 2001, £16 99 , hb , 387pp, ISBN 0 00 232657 4

Set in the early I 920s, this is the fourth novel in a series featuring Mary Russell, former apprentice to Sherlock Holmes and now his wife and sleuthing partner. Holmes is summoned back to Dartmoor by his old friend and godfather, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, who is concerned about rumours of sightings of a ghostly carriage and yes, a huge devil dog ' on the moor. A body is found, surrounded by large paw prints . Has the Hound of the Baskervilles returned to haunt the moor, even though the last of the Baskerville family has now moved away? Or

is there a more prosaic, yet sinister reason for keeping the locals away from the scene? It ' s a measure of the quality of the writing that the real-life character of Sabine Baring-Gould blends in seamlessly with that of Sherlock Holmes and of Mary, who narrates the story. Laurie R King manages to give the character of Holmes a softer, more human side without detracting at all from his skills as a detective. Marriage clearly agrees with him. There's a really good sense of atmosphere too, and the descriptions of Dartmoor and its inhospitable climate are splendid. Altogether a very entertaining story and worth looking for the previous books in the series - the ' Mary Russell ' novels - if you don't already know them

Maureen Barton

THEY CAME LIKE SWALLOWS

William Maxwell, Harvill Panther 2002, , £6 99 , l74pp,, ISBN 1-86046-928-0

First published 1937, Harper & Brothers, New York.

Set in Logan, Illinois at the start of the 1918 influenza epidemic this is a story of the Morison family , seen from three viewpoints. Eight year old Bunny, thirteen year old Robert and their father James. Through their eyes we are shown Elizabeth Morison, adored mother and wife

When Elizabeth tells Bunny he is to expect a new baby brother or sister he can only think of the comforts he will lose. His mother ' s loving attention will have to be shared as will his room and probably all his treasured toys Robert sees himself as his mother ' s protector. He shares his father ' s confidence as they talk, man to man, about the forthcoming confinement. Elizabeth does not have a strong constitution and the cases of influenza are increasing daily James Morison cannot begin to imagine a world without Elizabeth.

This is a bitter sweet story, an intensely moving portrait of a close knit family told as only William Maxwell knew how.

Ann Oughton

ECHO OF TRUTH

Connie Monk, Piatkus, £17 .99, hb , 29lpp

ISBN 0-7499-0585-9

Veronica Blakeney ' s life in 1920s Devon revolves around three things : her father , the family bakery and her love for Laurence Chesterton. So when her father becomes seriously ill, the bakery starts losing money and Laurence leaves her for a glittering career in London, Veronica finds solace in marriage to Nicholas Ellis Unfortunately the early passion of their relationship soon withers and, while Nicholas immerses himself in his music, Veronica spends all her time either at the

bakehouse or with business rival Merrick Clampton, a man she is increasingly drawn to. Echo Of Truth is a gentle saga, devoid of the melodrama that so often afflicts the genre The straightforward story is written in fairly unassuming prose and if the heroine is not entirely sympathetic neither is she so obnoxious as to offend Occasionally the odd cliched description slips in ('Critics would see her mouth as too generous , her nose too tip-tilted. ' ) and there are a few clunky point-of-view shifts, but nonetheless it is a good solid read.

Sara Wilson

MOLLY SPARKES

Sheila Newberry, Piatkus , £17.99 , hb , 309pp

ISBN l-85018-120-9

Molly Sparkes , a feisty 18 year old, leaves her Kent convent to become travelling companion and nanny to Alexa Nagel and her grand-daughter, Fay, which takes her to Australia. There she meets new friendsNancy who takes over the care of Fay, and Henning, a stockman, who gives Molly her first real kiss. Later Molly meets the Kellys a circus family who remember her late mother , a little known actress Back in England Molly and Nancy stay with Alexa in Whitechapel and both girls are given employment in Alexa ' s business - House of Leather When the Kellys come to England Molly decides to join them and trains to become part of their world ...

The story begins in 1904 and ends in 1920, covers many places, people and events There is a story attached to each of the characters, each one being interwoven with the main story very successfully by the author The research for this book - the circus, the leather trade, Australia, etc must have been quite considerable and deserves top marks . I found it thoroughly enjoyable and won ' t hesitate to recommend it to my friends

Vivienne Bass

AND ALL SHALL BE WELL

E M Phillips, Replica Books , 2001 , sb, ISBN I 931055 46 7

This is the story of a life - of how World War Two and subsequent relationships mould a talented and independent man. We see his development as an individual, a lover, a husband, a father and as a friend

Those scenes set during his time as a linguist working with the inmates of a former concentration camp are very interesting This moment I felt should have been the starting point of the novel. Unfortunately this comes a third of the way through the book. The first part of the story describes an almost idyllic childhood marred by the death of his parents. This does not drive the story on

THE lllSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

ISSUE I 9.FEB 2002

Had it been written for television or film , in the BBC or Merchant lvoiy style, then the visual accessories such as clothes and cars would have placed it in a time frame However apart from the descriptions of militaiy service abroad it has no sense of period. A sense of period was so absent that I was genuinely surprised by the appearance of the only two contemporaneous comments made in the book.

This novel is the product of an American com company. Unfortunately it reads as such. There are some excellent ideas in this book which have not been developed Neither does it appear to have been seriously edited The jacket says that the author has 'combined creative fiction with strong factual background'. Although the central character is intriguing, this stoiy lacks a consistent historical background

Paul F Brunyee

ALICE IN EXILE

Piers Paul Read, Weidenfeld&Nicolson, 2001 , £12.99 , hb , 244pp, ISBN 0-297-81760-4

In 1913 Alice Fiy - daughter of a radical publisher - is a student of German and French at London University, the sort of girl who thinks nothing of going unescorted to a Chelsea party, teaching a young army officer to dance the Turkey Trot and exchanging kisses with him in the dark. What follows is a sweeping epic spanning seven years , from an aristocratic British household to France : the trenches and the provinces (shades of Birdsong here , although Edward Cobb is no Stephen Wraysford) and Russia : a country estate, the Revolution and the Civil War

This is a passionate stoiy set in cataclysmic times , yet told, for the most part, without passion. Sometimes we are privy to the thoughts of Alice , Edward Cobb and Rettenburg , but much of the time the writer tells us what is happening, almost in a journalistic style, which distances the reader from the characters . Much of the Revolution ' s drama is lost as we learn what happened through Alice ' s letters to her parents A notable exception is when the estate peasants assert themselves , while some of the civil war scenes are particularly gruesome However, there is a lot of detail about the Revolution and the Civil War which doesn ' t concern this stoiy and overshadows the emotional issues

In the first part I felt for Alice, but as the novel progressed and scant attention was paid to her motivation it became difficult to sustain sympathy for her Discrepancies of timing and names began to niggle ; perhaps if I ' d been swept along by the stoiy I wouldn ' t have noticed them. About five weeks separated the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of WW 1, yet it reads as though one followed the other; it wouldn ' t

THE IIlSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

have taken that long for the honeymooners to return from Italy ; Edward ' s leave began in Februaiy 1915, yet a few weeks after his return from the front he's writing a letter dated June 1916; Alice ' s father gave funds to the Russian Socialists in London in 1903 , or was it 1907? Was Edward's sergeant for the raid Johnson or Benson? Was Sylvia writing to Lady Elspeth Cobb or Deverall? Was the Bolshie maid Shura or Sura? I did feel there were far too many characters, a lot of whom had no function The author tells us, ' Alice was confused by the advent of these new acquaintances '; so was this reader!

The ending is clever: only at the last moment do we discover what Alice decides . I'm only soriy other parts of the book did not have the same impact. Nevertheless , anybody interested in these years should read the book. The Daily Telegraph ' s Phillip Zeigler nominated it his book of the year. Perhaps you will agree with him rather than me . Janet Hancock

SHERLOCK HOLMES & THE RAILWAY MANIAC

Barrie Roberts, Allison & Busby, £6 .99 , pb, 19lpp , ISBN 0-749-00546-7

If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes stories you might well have read Roberts ' other fine novel , Sherlock Holmes & The Devil 's Grail , a stoiy with just about eveiything in it crammed into under 200 pages This latest title is a case set after Holmes has retired to keep bees on the Sussex Downs, vowing that nothing will stir him again but he had reckoned without his powerful brother, Mycroft, whose summons can only mean one thing - danger for King and Country. Two seemingly unconnected railways crashes don ' t sound like the stuff of anarchy but it is up to the trusty pair to uncover the connection between train crashes, a foreign astronomer and Russian and German spies as the war looms eveiy larger on the horizon . Holmes pastiches are fairly common but I would say that Roberts writes some of the best. On average he manages to keep to the laconic but action-packed and sensational style of the originals without the addition of superfluous meanderings (although there are some in this book) and out-of-character actions. This is an entertaining stoiy, although the fact that it covers some seven years make it lose some of the momentum that powered The Devil 's Grail and the bewilderingly long list of suspects compiled by Holmes seems confusing and unnecessaiy This is more of a spy thriller than a whodunit really and I personally would have omitted the factual doings of such real folk as the denizens of the Warsaw restaurant and ' Peter the Painter', which seem to belong to another stoiy

altogether You'll guess it - there isn't really much there to guess - and you will probably prefer The Devil's Grail but nevertheless this is still a diverting yarn for a chill evening.

Rachel A Hyde

A LONDON LASS

Elizabeth Waite, Little Brown, £17 99, hb , 3 l 4pp, ISBN 0-316-5899-1

It is London in the 1920s. After a brutal attack by her stepfather, little Jane Jeffrey is sent to a children's home in Sussex, where she recovers both emotionally and physically But this happy time stops when she is sixteen and goes out into the world After an appalling experience as a skivvy, Jane returns to Sussex as companion to blind Mrs Dennison, whose son Charles is veiy attractive. But Charles is emotionally entangled with a femme fatale in the shape of Mrs Hannan. Will Jane ever find true love?

If you like your heroines pure , beautiful and universally beloved; Cockneys to have hearts of gold under their rough exteriors; life below stairs to be on happy family under the benevolent eye of the butler; and sentiment rather than emotion, look no further . This is the book for you

Elizabeth Hawksley

MULTI-PERIOD

THE LOVE OF STONES

Tobias Hill , Faber & Faber, 2002 , £7 99 , pb , 400pp , ISBN 0-571-20998-X

Katharine Sterne has a passion for precious stones She embarks upon a mission to find one jewel in particular; the Three Bretheren, so called because of its three balas rubies the siz.e of domino tiles It was a medieval shoulder clasp commissioned by Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy before his assassination, worn by Elizabeth I and disappeared from historical record after it was stolen from Queen Victoria

Katharine ' s passion turns to obsession for which she forsakes home, family and friends , even her own personal safety

In a parallel narrative almost two centuries earlier, two Iraqui Jewish brothers leave their home after finding a cache of precious stones They travel to London where they establish themselves in the jewelleiy trade . Katharine ' s quest to find something which in all probability has ceased to exist seems doomed from the start; nevertheless this is a fascinating tale of adventure which tantalises the reader to the end It comes as no surprise to find that Tobias Hill is an award winning poet. Poesy shines through his tightly written, elegant prose

Ann Oughton

ISSUE 19 .FEB 2002

KENTUCKY BLUES

Derek Robinson, Cassell & Co. £10.99 , pb, 518pp, ISBN 0-304-36182-8

Kentucky Blues tells the story of Rock Springs, a Kentucky river settlement, and covers two generations from the slavery era through the Civil War and Reconstruction A short epilogue brings us to the present. Robinson concentrates on two rival families , the Hudds and the Killicks , and on their slaves but he also gives us a huge cast of characters, black and white. Although the novel is long, his brisk pacing and witty prose hustle the reader along. Given so many, often similar, characters he manages to keep each one vivid which is all the more impressive as he rarely resorts to physical description. There is not much plot, more a series of connected scenes and incidents, but these are admirably constructed and linked Kentucky Blues is also very funny in a jokey, somewhat anachronistic way

Primitive pioneer life is well caught, the hardships and isolation Robinson builds to the Civil War through rumours and incidents : abolitionists, the election of that ' crook ' Lincoln The war is dealt with briefly ; its aftermath and the predicament of the emancipated slaves form the heart of the book. Chattels , mistreated but fed, encouraged not to think, they are suddenly tossed out into an antagonistic and war-ruined country to fend for themselves No jobs - their former owners are destitute too No sympathy as the whites struggle to cope without slave labour. How the ex-slaves survive or not and how their white neighbours adjust or not is well portrayed

The novel contains a great deal of violence Well, harsh times , harsh country But cruelty is dealt out with relish and Robinson resorts to casual violence to dispose of no longer necessary characters. There is also a tendency to see Kentucky and its people in stereotypes: L'il Abner or future television hillbillies. With a few exceptions, the males, black and white , verge on the moronic yet they built a town . The women are strong, intelligent and likeable, watching the men with cynical amusement. We get slavery and racism in all its ugly manifestations. Every boss is a ' nigger-whuppin ' Simon Legree Many were. But a slave was an expensive investment. Good animal husbandry demands careful treatment of livestock, a morally repugnant attitude to human beings, certainly, but one recognized by successful land-owners . Just one would provide some needed balance

However, this is a jolly good read with galloping pace, funny and vivid while making some serious points. Rock Springs and its population could be pretty ghastly but I miss them

Lynn Guest

1HE l-llSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

TIMESLIP

THE REVENANTS

Geoffrey Farrington, Dedalus , £7.99, pb, 245pp Revised edition of 1983 publication

ISBN 1-903517-04-4

An un-named present day narrator comes upon a manuscript in the garden of a deserted, burning house. It is the story of John Richard LePerrowne which he has 'left to be found and read' as his legacy to humankind LePerrowne was born in 1830 to elderly parents, a sickly, lonely child, haunted by his ancestor, Helena In his early twenties LePerrowne dies and is guided to his rebirth as a revenant - a vampire to you and me - by Helena Through two world wars, he struggles to come to terms with eternal life, his supemature and the temptation of exercising his power of life and death over mortals

The book illustrates the maxim that a writer only needs to research what is relevant to the story There is little historical detailpassing references to the white feather or the invention of the motor car demonstrate no special historical knowledge - save for one informed paragraph on the history of Highgate Cemetery. Yet history is a necessary , if a neglected, element of the tale The character' s understanding of himself depends on it: ' Perhaps .I was but the child of the time and society into which I was born : that used its power to ravage the world, taking all it wanted, serving its own ruthless ends yet seeing always what it chose to see.'

Though the book strives to create the atmosphere of Victorian sensation fictiondiscovered manuscripts, dreams, mysterious figures in white rising at the side of the roadthe writer cannot sustain a style he has not absorbed. Not only does the prose lapse into modem idiom, a reference to 'Dickens' is a dead give-away. Charles Dickens was living during the years in which the tale is set and certainly would not have been referred to otherwise than as 'Mr Dickens ' by his contemporaries Politicians were Mr Writers were Mr. (People were politer to writers in those days!) In this context I came across one of the most idle pieces of writing I have ever seen with a reference to London ' s 'shady and narrow streets ' full of ' prostitutes, destitutes, criminals, and hordes of ragged homeless urchins ; all exactly as Dickens described them ' Not doing your own research is one thing; using another writer ' s quite another

But the book is not without interest. The opening is atmospheric - the reader alone in an isolated cottage - and the sense of LePerrowne's stagnation while history races on around him is well realised The novel makes a serious, if sometimes melodramatic,

attempt to confront questions of evil and death . There are old houses, dusty attics , open coffins, madness, murder and the awful mystery of the First revenant to fathom (in a rather unsurprising denouement by the way). Read The Revenants if you fancy a horror story; but not if you are looking for a straight historical .

Lucienne Boyce

MIDNIGHT BAYOU

Norah Roberts , Piatkus £16 .99, hb , 385pp, ISBN 0-7499-0583-2

Declan Fitzgerald, handsome, intelligent and witty Bostonian rejects life as a lawyer and buys a derelict plantation house in the bayou near New Orleans. Attracted to the house by a night visit as a teenager it is now his ambition to return it to its former glory But the house ; or presences within it; seem to have other ideas. Angelina Simone's family have lived close by for years . They too have a history with the house but Angelina, carrying her own baggage from the past, never expected to meet a man like Declan The gradual unravelling of the plot reveals patterns from the past set to repeat again with disastrous consequences, unless the players take on different roles this time around

I enjoyed Roberts' last book Dance Upon The Air and was equally absorbed in this latest. While I might wish that these 'Dynasty' style heroes weren't always so rich (always makes it easier to deal with the practical problems of life), that's just personal envy. This is a good story, well told and with a hint of the unexpected .

Towse Harrison

SACRED GROUND

Barbara Wood, Little Brown, £10 99, pb, 340pp, ISBN 0-316-85757-2

Somewhere near present day Los Angeles a swimming pool collapses unexpectedly revealing a previously unknown cave. Archaeologist Erica Tyler knows as soon as she see it that this could be the find of the century There is an ancient painting, a skeleton of a woman, a pair of spectacles that pre-dates European colonisation of California and other totally unexpected artefacts Local politics , and the demands of the Native American Heritage Commission that the site be reclaimed for the relevant tribe lead to unexpected alliances and Erica's personal quest for her unknown past. But woven into the fabric of the novel are the stories of all the women over the centuries who have come to the cave and left artefacts there

This was a thought provoking read . The actual story is simply and absorbingly told but what intrigued me was the underlying narrative about bloodlines, the invisibility of

I9.FEB 2002

women in history and the inclinations of a materially motivated society to take the easy option I have no indication whether this was the author's intention or whether the depiction of the relationship between American archaeology and the Native American populations is accurately depicted I can't help thinking that no one seems too bothered here about the excavation of our British ancestors and the removal of the occupants of urban churchyards to mass graves in the suburbs But that's by the by This was a good and interesting story that had the extra dimension of getting me to re-think some feminist principles

Towse Harrison

NON-FICTION

SOLDIER SAHIBS

Charles Allan, Abacus , £8 99, pb , 368pp , ISBN 0-349-11456-0

This is an excellent account of the incredible adventures of the early political officers on the North-West Frontier of India between 1839 and 1857. During this period a handful of British officers and officials , mostly young men in their twenties, were responsible for establishing and maintaining the peace in what must have been the most turbulent border area in the world Allen describes some unique characters who developed a very different relationship between the native inhabitants and the foreign officials sent to govern them, to that normally expected during the colonial period.

The book is written in an easy, readable style. The narrative moves along at a fast pace, indeed the real exploits of these men reads like the plot of half-a-dozen adventure novels I recommend it as a very good background to this particular chapter of the story of the British in India and particularly relevant in view of recent events in Afghanistan.

Graham

Harrison

ABSINTHE

Phil Baker, Dedalus , £9 .99, pb, 296pp , (including Appendices , Notes and Bibliography) ISBN I-873982-94-1 I' ve always felt at home with the low-lives and the decadents of the late 19th century. Oscar Wilde has long been a hero - but then I've always picked the tragic under-dog type Here is a book for anyone who wants to explore the dark side of the fin de siecle and its tragic anti-heroes The following extract is a perfect summary. ' Paris in the later nineteenth century was awash with substance abuse of one kind or another Strawberries soaked in ether were a smart dessert , and morphine was popular

Tiffi HISTORJCAL NOVELS REVIEW

with society women : silver and gold-plated hypodermic syringes could be obtained at upmarket jewellers .' The book is well researched, with excellent notes and bibliographies and written in an erudite, but easy and entertaining style, sugared with humour. There is also an interesting section on the brands of absinthe available in the UK today Now where is my perforated spoon, sugar cube and carafe of cool water!!

Towse Harrison

ON HISTORIES AND STORIES: COLLECTED

ESSAYS

AS Byatt, Vintage, £7 .99 , pb, 187pp, ISBN 0-09-928383-2

This collection of seven essays by one of Britain ' s leading writers includes expanded lectures given at Yale and Emory universities as well as essays written for an anthology and the New York Times Magazine. Byatt, a Booker Prize winning author, states in the introduction that these essays ' are about the complicated relations between reading, writing and the professional and institutional study of literature .' Three of the essays ' Fathers ', 'Forefathers' and ' Ancestors ', provide a lively defence of the renaissance of the historical novel and its struggle for acceptance as relevant writing in the recent past. In ' True Stories and the Facts in Fiction ' she discusses the task of blending historical fact with fiction and uses two of her own novellas to illustrate her arguments brilliantly . The final three essays dissect her argument that myths and fairy tales provide modem writers with much inspiration. ' Ice, Snow, Glass ' is a delightful discussion of the use of these elements in fairy tales as well as by writers such as Tennyson, Keats and George Eliot. Her final essay 'The Greatest Story Ever Told ' is a defence of her belief that the collection of Arabian tales in Thousand and One Nights (instead of the Bible) is the greatest story ever told.

Overall this book is intelligently written and thought provoking, Her lavish use of quotes and references can provide the dedicated reader with a seemingly endless reading list! Byatt ' s tone is pleasant and straightforward ; she uses first person to state her opinions without allowing herself to stray far from the point. However, fans of her fiction may find this collection, aimed at those seriously interested in the study of literature, more difficult to handle. (I know I did) . Dana Cohlmeyer

GOOD WIVES?

Margaret Forster, Chatto & Windus £17 .99 hb , 322pp, ISBN 0-701-16914-l Forster has reviewed the lives and marriages of three women - Mary Livingstone (wife of David, the explorer) , Fanny Stevenson (wife

of Robert Louis) and Jennie Lee (wife of politician Aneurin Bevan) These sections were excellent, no doubt about it. Mary had an appallingly hard life trailing around Africa, having and raising - and losing - children in the middle of nowhere , dutifully putting her husband before either herself or her babies

Fanny, an American, finally left her first husband to marry the younger, and very frail , Robert Louis. She nursed him diligently whilst in search of a climate suitable for his weak lungs, ending up on a South Seas island.

Jenny Lee suited only herself, and I did not find her a sympathetic character at all , but she, perhaps above all , found that aspects of being a wife were as problematic then as they are now Should the children come first? Can a wife remain a person in her own right? Should the breadwinner be master? Can a working wife be an equal in the home when her husband needs clean socks?

We ' ve all been there, and I liked the idea behind the book - to compare and contrast marriages , not just in the past but with the author ' s own, together with current arguments about whether we can ' have it all ' and what exactly a 'good wife ' is . But I also found that, when each biographical section was rounded off with a ' reflection' on her own marriage, that I was being given just a little too much information about Margaret and Hunter ' s personal lives , and became bored

I like Margaret Forster' s books and was just a little disappointed with this latest one But despite this small quibble - and perhaps there is no definitive answer, as possibly there are as many different ideas of what a good wife is as there are men and women, this isas always with this writer - a thoroughly enjoyable and desirable book to have on the shelf.

Val Whitmarsh

IMPROPER PURSUITS: The Scandalous Life of Lady Di Beauclerk

Carola Hicks , Macmillan 2001 , £18 99, hb , 358pp , ISBN 0-333- 78068-X

Born Lady Diana Spencer in 1735, the eldest daughter of the third Dulce of Marlborough, she was married to Viscount Bolingbroke at the age of twenty two. Ten years and four children later Lady Di left her husband and maintained a secret relationship with her lover, Topham Beauclerk, resulting in the illegitimate birth of their first child.

Far from suffering social ostracism Lady Di survived the public disgrace of the divorce court and the later scandal of an incestuous relationship between two of her children but she was forced to relinquish her post as lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte which left her almost penniless A gifted artist she supported herself by painting portraits , ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

illustrating plays and books and providing de signs for Wedgewood Horace Walpole was a lifelong friend and it is mainly through his letters that her character is brought to life.

Carola Hicks presents an in-depth study of a remarkable woman Sadly, it was her determination to live her life on her own terms , flouting convention, which engendered public interest in her art A fact which still holds true today.

Ann Oughton

REDCOAT

Richard Holmes , Harper Collins, 200 I , £20.00 , hb , 466pp , ISBN 0-00-257097-1

This book is sub-titled ' The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket' , covering the period from about 1760 to about 1860 I opened it with great anticipation, having greatly enjoyed Richard Holmes ' s half-hour TV programmes about famous battles

It is organised in sections covering topics such as ' The Age of Brown Bess ' and ' Foreign Fields '. I found that the material is not well org anised into these sections Some of them cover so long a period, in which weapons and military organisation went through many changes , that uni ty is lost. Other sections contain information and anecdotes that don ' t seem related to the stated theme

There is plenty of useful information here for anyone contemplating a military novel set in this period . It would be a good starting-point, which should be followed up by ex tensi ve reading from the works listed in the excellent Bibliography Anyone who has already done much reading in this area , though, will probably already be familiar with most of the facts and anecdotes presented

It is also necessary to point out that for such an expensive book, one is entitled to have expected that it would have received a decent standard of editing and proof-reading. For example, the image of an army ' s camp-followers being ' like a comet's tail' is used three times , and ' buy ' is used for ' by ' on one occasion (You can ' t rely on spell-checkers to do all your proof-checking for you.)

Redcoat seems also to be afflicted by fashionable historical viewpoints. The victory against all the odds in the War of 1812, which saved Canada ' s independence, is dismissed in • six lines , with the capture of Washington described contemptuously as if it were an embarrassing lapse of taste Holmes rightly points out that Scottish and Irish soldiers did more than their share of the fighting in all the wars of the time , but still perhaps gives them undue space.

There is plenty of good information here about the organisation of the Anny at all levels , and about the daily life of a soldier If Tiffi lilSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

only it were better organised. Richard Holmes is a Brigadier in the TA (the British Anny ' s reserve force) If a mere Captain may say so , and a Canadian Air Force Captain at that, this book is idle on parade, sir.

Alan Fisk

GREEK AND ROMAN MEDIONE

Helen King , Duckworth, pb , £8 99 , 74pp,

ISBN l-85399-545-2

Not so much a directory of the 'hows?' and 'whats?' of classical medical practice but more a series of essays , directed at students as well as ordinary readers , showing the development of the thinking and philosophy of the time, and how the works of writers and practitioners such as Galen had such impact on medical thinking until well into the modern period. If you are looking for a book to tell you how your Greek or Roman character might practice medicine , then this is not the one. But if you are looking to develop the inner mind of your character and his thinking then well worth a read

Tow s e Harri s on

A FOREIGN FIELD

Ben Macintyre , Harper Collins , 2002, £14 99, hb , 264pp, ISBN 0 00 257122 6

In the opening skirmishes of WW 1 before it became bogged down literally in the foul mud of the western front , many retreating British soldiers found themselves in enemy-held territory, separated from their regiments , injured, disorientated and hungry Such was the case of four young men who were eventually rescued and hidden by the inhabitants of the Picardi an village of Vi!Jeret, who by doing so , placed themselves in extreme danger They remained in the village for two years , sometimes in attics and cellars, sometimes working in the fields disguised as locals , unknown to the occupiers whose grip on the village tightened as the war dragged on But then someone betrayed them and they were all captured and executed by firing squad One of them, Private Robert Digby had fallen in love with Claire Dessenne and fathered a child, Helene, who was already two years old when he was captured This was no wartime tumble in the hay . This was a true love and did not end with Robert ' s death

It isn ' t often that I read of true events and find myself moved to and beyond tears but this book had that effect on me The cruelty and stupidity of this war has been repeatedly chronicled, but here Macintyre has explored many topics I had not until now thought much about. What was life like for those in enemy occupation? To say it was hard would be to cheapen the awful suffering they endured. The German war machine took everything from them and even hiding one egg from the

occupiers was cruelly punished, although the individual German soldiers billeted on them were largely kind and decent. But the authorities stole their horses , their grain, their homes They took their pots and pans , felled precious fruit trees to line trenches In fact they bled the countryside dry and when the village ' s perfidy in harbouring English soldiers was discovered they exacted a terrible revenge Even old women were beaten and imprisoned and half-starved and when the Germans finally retreated they bombed the village into total oblivion

So who betrayed the young Englishmen and why? Was it merely sexual jealousy or something more sinister? Was Villeret at the heart of a sophisticated spy ring and, if so , is this why the village suffered so much?

Ben Macintyre is a well-respected journalist and his research is , as you would expect, both deep and extensive, but he also writes like a dream and the portrait he paints of the vi!Jage ' s inhabitants and their rivalries reads like a Flaubert novel.

If you think you know all there is to know about the First World War, I urge you strongly to read this magnificent book. lf you don ' t shed one tear then there is no hope for you . Sally Zigm ond

PICASSO

Marina Picasso, Chatto & Windus , £14 99 , hb , 135pp , ISBN 0-701-17360-2

This slight memoir comes from 14 years spent in therapy by the grand-daughter of Pablo Picasso. She was 22 years old when he died, having been brought up in a small apartment near his sumptuous house , dependent on his moods and handouts for food. I had a lot of sympathy for Marina and her older brother, but none for her weak father (who acted as Picasso ' s chauffeur) or even weaker mother, who felt that as the daughter-in-law of a great artist, she was entitled to a meal ticket for life The father took the children to Picasso ' s house every Thursday , when he might be given money , or be turned away by the second Mrs Picasso with the words : ' The Sun does not want to be disturbed .' It does not seem to have occurred to either of Marina ' s parents that they might find lives of their own, and their children grew up disturbed and often hungry

The families of great men often find themselves overshadowed by talent and reputation Great artists , in particular, are often excused inhumane behaviour on the grounds that they are not like ordinary men This sad little story does however have an especially heartening ending It is the story of how Marina has dealt with her past , her inheritance and her future Good on her Val Whitmarsh

THE ICE MASTER, Jennifer Niven, Pan, pb, £7.99, 402pp

ISBN 0-330-39 I 23-2

In August 19 I 3 a scientific expedition set off for the Arctic in a ship that was barely seaworthy let alone suitable for spending months on end in the far north. Soon disaster stikes : the ship is caught fast in the ice abandoned by the cold-blooded expedition leader The fate of some thirty souls , including an Eskimo woman, her two little girls and the ship ' s cat depends on the Ice Master, the ship ' s captain

The plot is a familiar one but Jennifer Niven ' s impeccably researched book deeply involves the reader with the unfortunate people who are left to fend for themselves Who will survive? Miss Niven has a feeling for snow, her descriptions of the struggle to maintain life in a harsh and bitter world made me feel thankful that I was reading the account by a warm fire .

The wealth of detail is astonishing; at times overwhelming though there are some moments of humour and pathos. The account of the Ice Master listening to Chopin ' s Funeral March as his doomed ship prepares for her plunge to the bottom of the Arctic sea brought a lump to my throat. Jennifer Niven writes in a breezy colloquial style that for this English reader became slightly irritating Nevertheless, she tells a terrific story. Like the ship , I was gripped.

Diane Johnstone

MARIA FITZHERBERT: The Secret Wife of George IV

James Munson, Constable 2001, £20 00, hb, 372pp, ISBN 0-09-478220-2

The marriage between Maria Fitzherbert and the Prince Regent (later George IV) is one of the strangest episodes in the history of our Royal Farnily as it defied both English Law and the Rules of Monarchy .

James Munson provides an absorbing biography on the turbulent life of •Mrs George IV' Born in 1756 into a wealthy Shropshire family of Catholic recusants , Mary Ann Smythe lived in a world of county society. She married first Edward Weld of Lulworth Castle and, after his death, Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton Changing her name from ' Mary ' to the fashionable ' Maria ', at the age of 24 she was twice widowed and wealthy Her meeting some years later in 1784 with the Prince of Wales is not documented Being crucial to the affair this leaves the reader with a tantalising mystery

The court of George m had all the dull formality of a petty German principality and the prince found in Maria a woman capable of deep feelings with a lively sense of humour It is a fascinating tale of one of the most grand

TI-IE I-IlSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

and dangerous public love affairs in history 1be author had access to documents and diaries which previous biographers have not. A fact to which he often refers - alas. Letters are quoted verbatim which impedes the flow of the middle of the book and there is a tendency to reach conclusions erring perhaps on the side of righteousness. However Munson's research is prodigious and the reader can feel confident about the historical accuracy .

In an age when morals were not of the highest calibre, Maria Fitzherbert is portrayed as a dignified woman of strength and character, wanting her due but not the rewards of previous Royal mistresses - to become a duchess - after all, she was a wife

Gwen Sly

RIPPING GAMBLING YARNS

Michael Church, Raceform, 2001, £12 .95 , hb, 159pp, ISBN 1-901-110-68-5

At first glance, this anecdotal book about a gambler's misspent youth might seem out of place in the Historical Novels Review In fact, it has that happy combination of nostalgia, social history and humour that is hard to resist.

The author is refreshingly 'ordinary.' His family enjoys a flutter on the Derby, and the occasional visit to the dogs . When the men go on a beer-laden outing to the races, the pre-race sweepstake, so carefully recorded on the wheel of the coach by the driver, is declared void when a passenger thoughtlessly pees against the wheel arch and obliterates the names. Such mishaps abound. Meanwhile , the men study form and the womenfolk pick their winners because they like the names.

Born with a fascination for gambling, young Michael has that 'Just William ' quality that frequently lands him in trouble This is the childhood of half a century ago , before the days of legalised betting shops, where off-course betting was illegal Undaunted, Michael acts as bookies' runner, runs his own book in the school playground, and as one moneymaking venture fails , bounces back with another. His stint doing National Service is likewise paved with near disasters.

His first love is horsera~g, and anyone who enjoys reminiscing about times past will enjoy recalling the horses and jockeys who in their time were household names Yet this book is not just for racing enthusiasts Above all it is an affectionate look at families, at people and how they add spice to their lives. Definitely a feel-good read

Janet Mary Tomson

CHILDREN'S

A CAMP TO HIDE KING ALFRED

Roy Apps, Hodder Wayland, 1997, £4.50, 66 pp, ISBN 075002156X

There are periodic attempts to exonerate the Vikings : the opening of the Jorvik Living History Museum in York some years ago was one; at the moment on BBC2 Julian Richards's Blood or the Vikings is attempting yet another rehabilitation.

This beautiful short novel rejects that trend and shows the Vikings for the treacherous and bloodthirsty crew they actually were It starts with them breaking the peace agreement which King Alfred had purchased with gold It is set, therefore, at the lowest point of King Alfred's fortunes, when he had to take refuge in the Somerset marshes, where the legend of the burnt cakes arose

Twelve year old Wulfric has a favourite 'secret place' on an island), to which he frequently retreats, partly to avoid the company of his sister, but mainly to dream manly dreams such as rowing out into the open sea, which he has never seen, or leading an army of local men to fight in company with the king.

This secret island proves to be just the place to hide Alfred from the Viking marauders after they attack and burn Chippenham, Alfred's winter home He is lucky to escape alive and , on the run and in disguise, even luckier to be admitted to a boy's hideaway Here he stays until his thanes and earls muster their militias to enable him to take revenge on Guthrum at the Battle of Edington. And, like a man, Wulfric is allowed to join his father and the king on the battlefield Even better, the novel ends with Alfred offering Wulfric the chance to become one of the first sea-soldiers to fulfil Alfred's plans, pondered during his enforced idleness, to establish the English navy

All the facts are here, but what impressed me most was the story's psychological truthfulness The boy is at the age when, in traditional societies as in our distant past, initiation into the adult world occurs ; the masculine virtues have to come to the fore Wulfric finds his loyalty , his love of his country and his need for strenuous action (involving even the possibility of self-sacrifice) are all called upon This is his finest hour, as it is Alfred's

I thoroughly enjoyed this beautifully written short novel , which is both engaging and thoughtful It will be enjoyed by readers of 9-12

Linda Hall ISSUE 19 .FEB 2002

SETNA'S JOURNEY

Richard Brown, Anglia Young Books , 2001 , £4 .25 , pb, 55 pp ISBN l-871173-63-9

Set in Ancient Egypt. Setna is fortunate to be the son of a wealthy farmer and artist ; however, he is desperate to have his 'sidelock of youth' cut off to symbolise his transition into manhood Like many aspects of life in this period, the sidelock is clearly explained as the plait allowed to grow on one side of a boy's head, whilst the other side is kept shaved At the age of ten or eleven this is cut off and the hair can then grow evenly. Setna is frustrated because his parents do not think he has shown the degree of maturity required for this important ceremony to take place Therefore, he has to prove to them that he can now act responsibly This proves a challenge for him as he sets out to prove his maturity.

Setna's story is told over the course of a year . The book is in three sections. Akhet: The Nile Flood, Peret: When The Crops Grow, Shemu : Harvest Time This enables the author to explain the importance of the Egyptian seasons as Setna grows and matures

This book is packed with detail and action as Setna's Journey unfolds The author takes us from everyday festivals and superstitions to the Nile temples. It is enjoyable, informative and is clearly illustrated throughout. The glossary is useful and concisely written . The only small criticism I have is in the author's notes . I would have preferred (1294-1279) to include BC as it does in the glossary 7+

Va/Loh

THE SAILING SHIP TREE

Berlie Doherty, 2000, Puffin. Paperback £4 99 195pp ISBN 0140379525

This story is set in the years just before the outbreak of the First World War The tree of the title in this highly entertaining story is a huge chestnut in the grounds of a large Victorian house. It is the bolt-hole of Dorothy and Walter Hollins, twin children of the butler who works at the house and lives with his family in the Lodge.

The story is told in several voices as the twins are joined at various times in the tree by first , Master George, the lonely and somewhat neglected son of the Big House Later when he is being confined to the house , being unfairly punished for some misdeed perpetrated by the village children, the twins are joined in the Sailing Ship Tree by the Tweeny, the least important member of the domestic staff at the big house

We glimpse a picture of early twentieth century childhood through the eyes of those who endured it and it is most certainly very instructive for the reader to understand how differently boys and girls were treated from an

Tiffi HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

early age The story also makes a point of showing that being rich does not necessarily mean being happy because Master George may be surrounded by comfort but his life is bound by harsh rules and regulations that curtail his freedom far more strictly that that of the twins or even the village children who have to contend with a stark poverty that is unknown to the children of today.

This book is a pleasurable and easy read that can be enjoyed by any fluent reader with a taste for learning of past times

Jan Shaw

DRAKE'S DRUMMER BOY. A TUDOR SEA STORY

Pauline Francis, Anglia Young Books, 1998, £4 25. ISBN l-871173-56-6

Covering Sir Francis Drake's three-year-long circumnavigation of the globe and probable discovery of Cape Hom , this story concerns Will Thatcher who , at the ripe old age of 12 , joins Drake's crew aboard the Pelican (later renamed Golden Hind) as his drummer boy. Expecting to sail only to North Africa and back, the crew find Drake intends to go in search of Terra Australis . Inevitably this leads to disaffection with the result that Captain Doughty is eventually executed for mutiny. The men encounter many adventures including hostile natives , the Doldrums in which they drift for weeks , storms and dangerous reefs on which they get stuck, until they return safely to England.

The book evokes very vividly what one imagines to be the atmosphere below decks in the 16th century the stench of fish and salt, the murky gloom lit only by flickering candles, the flea-infested clothing, the stifling heat of over I 00 men packed into a vessel that was only 70 feet from stem to stem. Indirectly the story revolves around the importance of Drake's drum, which uncannily manages to save Will's life, Drake's life and the crew's on several occasions , once by calming a fierce storm, so that it takes on a magical , even mystical significance . The author's note at the end of the book reinforces this when she mentions the legend of the drum and reminds us it was heard beating during both world wars Clearly, the romance of history is still alive and well I particularly like the way it is woven with real historical facts in this novel. There's no more effective way of winning child readers to a lifelong love of history

A similarly rare occurrence in books such as this, which are brimful of action and therefore have boy-appeal, is what can only be described as a transcendent moment. The first time Drake saw the Pacific, like 'stout Cortez' in Keats's sonnet 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer,' he reacted with silence 'like a man who had just seen God.' Yes,

poetic license perhaps , but one feels the truth of it. Surely figures from our past must have been moved to the depths of their being by the beauty or grandeur of some of the wonderful sights they saw. And it's a valuable insight for young readers to be accorded.

Young Anglia Books thoughtfully provide, at the end of each story, a list of places to visit that are either featured in the story or have close associations with the real historical personages Also, to their credit, the authors usually add a note to identify the real characters and the fictitious ones , so that children won't have to pester teacher or parent with the perennial question as to which bits are invented. All in all , then, a lively, informative and potentially rewarding read that will hold the attention of children from 7-11.

Linda Hall

THE PITS

Lesley Howarth, 1996, Walker Books , £3 99 , Paperback, ISBN 0-7445-4767-9 Broddy is a ghost. He lived in the Stone Age , over nine thousand years ago Anna Mae is the daughter of a modem archaeologist, helping on a dig when a Stone Age man is found, perfectly preserved

Who was the man ? How did he live and why did he die? The explanation unfolds as , using Anna's computer, Broddy's ghost writes the story of a turbulent Stone Age summer, when rival tribes Axes and Pits fought for control of the Sandpits, the local supply of food and water

This is a lively, humorous story, in which prehistoric rivalries are described in the argot of modem street-gang warfare, and universal human behaviour is observed with a sardonic eye by an ancient ghost. Broddy, an older boy just coming to terms with responsibilities to family and tribe , makes mistakes about loyalties and priorities, but gradually works out who are his true friends and what part he can play in the life of his group His sparky narration carries the reader along, although you must be willing to accept the idea of a ghost with perfect recall of ancient times as well as total understanding of modem technology!

If you can suspend disbelief, this is an engaging take on Stone Age life, which deals with the universal themes of family relationships and finding one's place in the world, and offers readers of around eleven to fourteen quite a lot to bite on. I found it fun , different, and entertaining

Belinda Copson

ISSUE 19 FEB -2002

THE TIME-TRAYELLING CAT AND THE ROMAN EAGLE

Julia Jarman, Andersen Press, 2001 , £9 .99, hb, 154 pp , ISBN 0-86264-861-0

I really enjoyed this book. It is about a boy called Topher and his cat Ka that can travel in time Ka goes back to Roman times and Topher follows her. When they anive in Rome, Topher is apprenticed to a Mosaic maker Topher gets involved when a precious eagle is stolen and he begins a search with Marcus, the mosaic maker's son and Ka I think this story is very close to how life was like in Roman times and it made me feel I was there

Charlotte Kemp (11)

THE SECRETS OF VESUVIUS

Caroline Lawrence, Orion Children's Books , 2001 , £6.99 , hb , 213 pp, ISBN O 84225 080 2

It is set in the swnmer of AD79 , the year of one of the worst disasters of all time Flavia Gemina, a Roman sea captain's daughter, sails to the Bay of Naples to spend the swnmer with her uncle who lives near Pompeii With her three friends Jonathon the Jewish boy, Nubia the African slave girl, and Lupus the mute beggar boy, she is soon absorbed in trying to solve a riddle that may lead to a great treasure Meanwhile, tremors shake the ground, animals behave strangely, and people dream of impending doom Mount Vesuvius erupts and the four friends find themselves in great danger

I found this book very interesting with a good story line. A lot of the names are hard to pronounce, but once you get the hang of them you can enjoy the book. I like the way the author has some maps at the front of the book so you know exactly what she is referring to The story sounds quite realistic and explains what is happening very well ; you believe you are actually taking part in the adventure

Sophie-Ann Leyland (13)

TREASON AT TREFRIW

Gweneth Lilly, Pont books , 1993 , £2 50 , 68 pages ISBN O 86383 868 5

Couched as a tale of intrigue and conspiracy focusing on the Gunpowder Plot, this is a story about traditional allegiances pitted against new, alien ways . It is set just before 5th November 1605 in North Wales where the old religion of Catholicism, despite the Dissolution and Elizabeth l's Church of England compromise, is still adhered to by older people who now risk persecution by James I. The story begins with Rhys , the twelve year old hero, collecting herbs in a monastery garden, all that is left of Maenan Abbey After a strange encounter with a man called Mason who questions him closely, he realises he doesn't know whom he can trust.

TIIE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIBW

Dr Thomas Wilierns, a learned physician educated at Oxford, is Rhys's master, teaching him Latin and English. But he is dedicated to the past and the knowledge of the monks,especially of herbs and simples Then there is John Wynn, a local landowner, M P and Protestant, while Rhys's older brother who is studying at Oxford gets caught up in the the plot to kill James I and place his nine year old daughter on the throne None is what they seem, except for his grandmother who remains an unrepentant Catholic . An interesting story suitable for 10-12 year olds.

Linda Hall

SHYLOCK'S DAUGHTER

Mirjam Pressler, Macmillan, 2000, £9 99, hb , 295pp, ISBN 0-333-7829-8

Sixteen-year-old Jessica, daughter of the money-lender Shylock from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice , lives in the Jewish Ghetto in Venice in 1568 . This novel, translated from the German, follows the course of the play, but seen from the points of view of Jessica and her younger foster-sister, Dalilah Jessica, a pretty , pleasure-loving girl, is in love with Lorenzo, a Christian, and finds life outside the ghetto , with its parties and pretty things , far more to her liking than her father's exhortations to be modest and virtuous

This is a multi-levelled story of considerable interest. Judaism, as practised by Shylock, adheres to the letter of the law , but takes little account of the needs of the three women of the household Amalia , a widow who has brought up Jessica and DaWah, cannot marry Shylock because he can't marry a divorced woman -though that hasn't stopped him from sleeping with her ; Dalilah, who has neither prettiness nor a dowry , can only look forward to a grim future ; and Jessica, whose possessive father has not arranged a maniage for her as he ought, looks outside the ghetto for love and excitement.

It is also about moral choice and its consequences. Shylock's friend Tubal, a man of sympathy as well as moral probity , sees the dangers of Shylock's disastrous agreement with Antonio and warns him, but Shylock chooses revenge and suffers the consequences

Jessica elopes with a handsome young man and learns , too late , the value of what she has left behind It is ironic that Bassanio, who is portrayed as a mere fortune-hunter , should, in courting Portia, pick the lead casket which contains the lines 'You that choose not by the view/Chance as fair and choose as true' , advice which Jessica would have done well to heed

I have, however, a couple of caveats Occasionally, the writing is a touch wooden,

which may be the translation More seriously, the Christians are more coat-hangers on which to hang unpleasant qualities - arrogance , racial prejudice and so on - than real people. It is a pity that Mjrjam Pressler did not explore Bassanio, Antonio and Lorenzo's characters more fully In this book, only Judaism seems to be capable of offering a way of life that is spiritually and emotionally meaningful .

The book deals with many topics which are relevant today: teenage rebellion, racial prejudice, religion, culture clashes and personal freedom It is published as a Macmilllan Children's Book, though, personally, I think it would be safer to say that it is an adult book which sophisticated teenage girls of fifteen plus might enjoy as well

Elizabeth Hawksley

[Mary Moffat's website contains a feature on the persecution of the Jews in history and its place in books for children which also contains reviews of this book and others She has also written a feature on this topic which will appear in Issue 20 of the Review SZ] (www.marysmoffat.co uk/bibliography/six/per sc.htm)

THE SLAVE BOY: The Life of Olaudah Equiano Laurie Sheehan, Gopher Publishers, 2001 , £8 99 Paperback, 345 pages ISBN 90-76953-64-3

Available over the internet from www ~ophcrpub lishers.com or from Amazon at , \ \ \'W amazon co uk Or from Gopher publishers , 14 Harrow Inn Close, Elgin, Moray.

This is an account, in novelised form, of the life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa In 1787 , under the chairmanship of Granville Sharp , a committee was formed to abolish the slave trade But every member of that committee was a well-meaning white man Granville Sharp was convinced that what was needed was someone who could describe the horrors of slavery first hand from personal experience And Sharp knew who could do that. The former slave Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa Sharp persuaded Gustavus to write down his own story, and The Interesting life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa , the African , Written by himself, was the result. This book earned Gustavus the title of the Father of Black Literature, but it was far from being his only contribution to the fight against slavery Gustavus travelled thousands of miles and spoke at meetings all over Britain subjecting himself to a punishing and exhausting schedule which resulted in a premature death

Based on thorough research this book is a well-deserved tribute to a remarkable man who worked, to the limits of his abilities, to end a great evil

Poignant, heart-rending and illuminating

Laurie Sheehan worked for twenty-seven years for the BBC who gave him leave of absence to write this book. He has also written educational books for Anglia Young Books (Two of which have already been reviewed in the HNS Review) but this is something of a new venture because here Laurie Sheehan is talcing advantage of new technology The S lave Boy is being published by Print-on-Demand That is, the text is stored electronically and books are printed off in a matter of minutes whenever they are required This means that books so published will not go out of print. It also does away with the need to store large quantities of books in warehouses

This particular book is of good quality, with perfect binding and slightly larger than a trade paperback. Teenage to adult

MaryMojfat

THE ROPE CARRIER

Theresa Tomlinson, Random House (Red Fox) 2001 , £3 99 , pb , l23pp , ISBN 0-09-941363-9

It is 1786 in the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire, where generations of ropemakers' families have lived and worked The cavern is famous , not only for its subterranean village, hewn from the rock, but also for its spectacular caves Here lives nine-year-old Minnie Dakin, the youngest of four daughters , who helps her father twist and knot the ropes that are his living The other sisters help on the rope walk : in spinning the hemp , walking backwards as the rope lengthens , stretching it on the high stretching posts and then winding it onto huge reels It is hard and back-breaking work.

When she is fourteen, Minnie leaves the caves for the first time and travels to Sheffield to help her married sister Netty with a dangerous confinement. Netty's husband, Josh , is a 'nicker picker' -a file cutter; a dangerous job, which can cause lead poisoning

Life in Sheffield is grim Enclosures are beginning to erode the common land, where poor people keep pigs and goats ; and however hard Josh works he can never get out of debt. Minnie's days are spent in trailing to the distant well for water and helping with Netty's children Then Josh is imprisoned for debt and things go from bad to worse

Theresa Tomlinson's book is aimed at girls between eleven to fourteen, and she does not pull her punches about the harsh living conditions The desperate grinding poverty is accurately drawn ; Minnie's sisters lose babies and one of them dies in childbirth; Josh gets

1HE IIlSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

the dreaded 'blue lip' disease , which heralds his early death and so on There is no comfortable glossing over the brutal effects of the Industrial Revolution for working folk

The book is greatly enhanced by contemporary engravings of the Peak Cavern and Sheffield, though it is a pity that the quality of the paper does not allow the superb quality of the engravings to be seen more clearly.

However, I am not convinced that Theresa Tomlinson is a natural novelist - I suspect that non-fiction is really her forte Characterisation is fairly minimal ; though Minnie goes from nine to fourteen during the course of the book, she scarcely changes . There is almost no plot ; emotional conflict, personal crises which must be resolved, (the essence of plot) are missing What conflict there is , is generalized, between rich landowners and the poor

Instead of seeing Minnie develop as a person, we get episodes from her life, accurate, no doubt, but lacking in the emotional tension which would make this book more than a worthy addition to a school library and turn it into a children's favourite Elizab eth Hawksley

US/CANADA

TITLES

US/Canada' here means that the following books are published, but not necessarily set, in The United States or Canada.

NOTE: Within this section, if books are available from Amazon UK, these prices are also listed (£) An asterisk next to this price indicates a separate UK edition Canadian prices are also given, if available.

US/CANADA: PREIHSTORIC

DAUGHTER OF THE FIFTH MOON

Lynn Armistead McKee, Signet, 2001 , $6 99 (£4.37) , 378pp, pb, ISBN 0-451-20356-9 When a neighboring tribe attacks her peaceful village, Nyna is set adrift in a canoe Three days later, she comes ashore in a distant land and is found by a boy named Joog, who

belongs to another tribe, the Ais. Although the tribe lets her stay, she is never fully accepted. As Nyna and Joog grow older, they grow attracted to each other but realize that the tribe will never accept their marriage. Meanwhile, Guacana, an Ais boy who has hated Nyna from the beginning, constantly finds new ways to torment her But Nyna is determined to survive, and to find her people again Daughter of the Fifth Moon is enjoyable and certain to appeal to fans of Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear McKee does an excellent job describing the details of life in the prehistoric Caribbean. However, the characters could have been better developed . Nyna is a strong character, but I felt I never really got to know her; other characters are one-dimensional. Though the book is written in a simple style, some of the content is not suitable for children But Daughter of th e Fifth Moon did make me want to read other books by this author

Vicki Konde/ik

US/CANADA: ANCIENT& CLASSICAL

ACHILLES

Elizabeth Cook, Picador USA , 2002 , $16 (£10 .3 9) , l28pp , tpb , ISBN 0-3 12-28884-0 Achilles , son of the goddess Thetis and King Peleus, and one of the greatest of all the Greek heroes of the Trojan War, is the focus of this slender novel.

As a boy, Achilles was tutored by the centaur Chiron, and then hidden away disguised as a girl at King Lycomedes ' court Found there by Odysseus , he joined the war against Troy as the leader of the Myrmidons, and achieved glory by defi:ating Hector Others played a part in his passionate drama : bitter Menelaus and the fabulously beautiful Helen, sly Paris, all-knowing Cassandra, the Amazon Queen Penthesilea, his lovers Patroclus and Briseis, and determined Agamemnon

Cook ' s work is in three parts : the first deals with Achilles ' life and death, the second with the aftermath of his death, including the fall of Troy, and the third concerns a meditation composed by John Keats on Achilles ' life and death Written in lyrical and beautiful prose, Cook ' s descriptions are vibrant and colorful , her characterizations are insightful, and she provides the reader with a memorable portrait of a legendary hero Michael I. Shoop

TROY

Adele Geras , Harcourt, 2001, $17/C$25 (£4 79•), hb , 340 pp, ISBN 0-15-216492-8

Toward the conclusion of the Trojan War, two orphaned sisters, Xanthe and Marpessa, watch events transpire from within Troy Very human teenage girls , they live through the horrors war brings They also fall victim to the whims of deities, especially bored Aphrodite, who decides to amuse herself by smiting the girls with Eros's arrows.

While her novel is easy reading, Geras ' characters have no real depth . Geras also has the assorted gods and goddesses appear to mortals and explain some past, present or future event, which is then erased from that person ' s mind. While this is probably help ful in fleshing out events for the reader, story-wise it seems a bit inane

Understandably, however, it is difficult to take a renowned epic and rewrite it in a way that infuses something new. In this novel appropriate for both adults and young adults , Geras meets this challenge by focusing on the pain and joys of a few obscure teenagers in a ti.me when only the ' heroes ' were noticed

Suzanne Crane

OVER THE WINE-DARK SEA

HN Turteltaub , Forge, 2001, $25 95/C$36 95 (£15 83) , 38 l pp , hb , ISBN 0-312-87660-2 With all due respect to Homer, nautical adventure tales have studiously ignored the Ancients in favor of a prolonged love affair with the sloops and frigates of Drake, Nelson, and the bloodthirsty pirates Our two young heroes from Rhodes , Menedemos and Sostratos, set sail in hopes of redressing this lack of balance The story takes place in the uncertain world of Mediterranean commerce and sea travel after the death of Alexander the Great. The two cousins set sail on an ambitious trading expedition in an atmosphere of political instability and immense commercial opportunity

Throughout, the widely differing personalities of Menedemos and Sostratos serve to heighten the tension as each man applies his own views on handling the multiple crises . Turteltaub has certainly done his homework in setting the stage for his story to unfold A scholar of Byzantine history, the author (a pseudonym for Harry Turtledove) does not do as credible a job in his portrayal of the main characters Despite this , the interested reader wiJI enjoy the drama of adventure onboard ship in ancient ti.mes

John R Vallely

US/CANADA: BIBLICAL

COME UNTO ME: The Kingdom and the Crown,v.2

Gerald N Lund, Shadow Mountain, 2001 , $26 .95 (£16 .85) , 574pp , hb , ISBN 1-57008-714-8

In a tumultuous Jerusalem, a few weeks after the Romans failed to eliminate the anti-Roman Zealots , the summer of AD 30 seethes with political and religious unrest. Simeon, a former Zealot who now follows Jesus , is wracked with guilt over the deaths and capture of some of his old band Plagued with the need to save the few who are awaiting execution, he attempts to ransom them from a furious Pontius Pilate - but is captured himself. With the help of politically powerful petitioners, he and his fellow Zealot prisoners are freed on the condition they quell anti-Roman uprisings occurring through Galilee and eliminate the murderous bandits of Moshe Ya'abin

As in the first of this series, Fishers of Men , Lund ' s strength is in his portrayal of beliefs and emotions of peoples from all walks of life at a ti.me when only events and words were being recorded . Lund subtly conveys in a non-preaching manner that the teachings of Jesus Christ are not to be forced, but wiJlingly accepted and placed above all else, surviving shattered friendships and famil y ties which opposition to this new faith may cause In doing this , the stronger bonds that faith creates survive self-doubt, and the reward is greater than realiz.ed

Su zanne Crane

UNAFRAID

Francine Rivers , Tyndale House, 2001 , $12.99 (£8 12), 212pp , hb , ISBN 0-8423-3599-4

Francine Rivers concludes her five-volume Lineage of Grace series with the inspiring life of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. As with the previous titles , the author weaves a plausible story from the few known details of her character' s life She succeeds admirably in presenting Mary from her birth as another unwanted girl child to a somewhat rebellious teenager, as the loyal wife of Joseph, and as the mother not only of Jesus , but of other children as well

Rivers skillfully depicts a flesh-and-blood Mary with strong emotions, willful , sometimes confused, but not afraid of God ' s plan for her. She is angry when no one believes that her son is the long-awaited Messiah. She is portrayed as eventually becoming somewhat removed from her loving family and determined that her

son Jesus will be accepted as the promised Savior. Using spare, readable prose, Rivers conveys Mary ' s heartbreak at the realization that Jesus was never really her son and that he must fulfill his destiny on the cross This is a memorable , moving story that makes human one of our greatest Christian icons

Michael I. Shoop

US/CANADA: 3RDCENIURY

DAUGHTER OF IRELAND

Juilene Osborne-McKnight, Forge, 2002 , $24 95/C$34 95 (£15.60) , 304pp, hb , ISBN 0-765-30127-X

This is Osborne-McKnight's second foray into the world of Celtic storytelling (I Am of Jrelaunde , Issue 12) An accomplished folklorist, the author has skillfully recreated third century Ireland in the story of a fictional druid priestess , Aislinn ni Sorar, who goes in search of the secrets of her childhood

While Aislinn can see clearly into the future , her past is shrouded in mystery She must undergo a dangerous odyssey through a world of good and evil, where good is not often what it seems and the past shapes the future in peculiar ways Her trust in the high king , Cormac Mac Art (the great leader who introduced the ' one true God '), her veneration for her foster father and teacher, and her love for Eoghan, her husband, are challenged and undermined by those who are of the dark side Aislinn ' s unwiJlingness to fail is a testament to her strength

There is no question in my mind that Osborne-McKnight is one of the most talented new authors writing today Filling her pages are the stuff of Celtic history, myth and legend : Cormac, Fionn Mac Cumhail and his Fenian warriors , Banbh, the dark druid, and the goddess/protector of women, Brighid. While it is undoubtedly a different experience to tell these stories aloud, Osborne-McKnight has the uncanny ability to put them to paper with immediacy and a fine-tuned sense of ti.me and place It is such a joy reading Osborne-McKnight's work that I am saddened to finish her books You just want more!

Ilys a Mag nu s

19 FEB 2002

US/CANADA: 61HCENTURY

THREE FOR A LETTER

Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, Poisoned Pen Press, 2001 , $24.95 (£15 60) , 372 pp, hb, ISBN l-890-20882-5

It is 539 A.D An eight-year-old boy who is being held as a diplomatic hostage by Emperor Justinian and his wife, the treacherous Theodora, is murdered . The boy is not merely a political prisoner; he is one of a pair of twins descended from the last Ostrogoth king, in the direct line of succession, and consequently a threat to Justinian The Emperor, however, has larger plans in mind He is about to reconquer Italy and restore the glory of Rome

But Theodora ' s fun has been disturbed When the boy is killed, her favorite mime, Barnabas, vanishes. She orders John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to Justinian, to find both Barnabas and the murderer Theodora , ever hopeful that John will fail so that she can eliminate him, thrusts John and his friends into complex intrigues that baffle them almost to distraction

The John the Eunuch series is full of the taste and feel of the sixth century Roman Empire . John ' s personality is developing with every installment, and the more I know him, the better I like him Sometimes, though, there are too many subplots Complications pile upon complications Minor characters sometimes blend into other characters . I often wish the story line were a bit less complex; I like these characters too much to lose them in the fray

Ilysa Magnus

US/CANADA:

71HCENTURY

THE ROCK

Kanan Makiya , Pantheon, 2001 , $26 (£16 .25), 368 pp , hb , ISBN 0-375-40087-7

In seventh century Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, the first monument to Islam, is conceived and built. The Rock ' s history from the beginning of time is the focus of this fascinating and brilliantly imagined novel. It is the place that Adam landed when he fell from grace out of the Garden of Eden, where Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac, where Solomon' s Temple stood and where Jesus preached It is also the rock from which Muhammad ascended to heaven. It is the place where three great religions converge

The story is narrated by Ishaq , the son of K' ab , a Jewish convert of great learning and wisdom While the political and religious upheaval of the era forms the glue of this novel , stories of Creation and of virtually every great personage who brought Jerusalem to that place in time are peppered liberally throughout. Through the ancient tales, the Rock's symbolism to all people is the common thread that binds us , despite our differences

Black and white photographs and illustrations appear interspersed within the text to illuminate a particular story being told . Also , the last eighty pages of this novel include historical notes and extensive discussions of source material. Makiya is not only comfortable and familiar with his material ; he has done extraordinary research on the Rock and on the convergence of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in seventh century Jerusalem

Admittedly, I found the going slow at times : there is almost too much information Arab place and other names are difficult to read without some background. But this is still well worth the read and an important book for our times

Ilysa Magnus

US/CANADA: 101H CENTURY

MOTHER OF KINGS

Poul Anderson, Tor, 2001 , $27 95 (£17.47) , 444pp, hb , ISBN 0-312-87448-0

Gunnhild, the daughter of a Norse chieftain, learns the ways of power early in life aught the art of spellcasting from a Finnish witch, she fuels her ambitions by marrying Eirik Blood-Axe, the favored son of Norway ' s king She bears him nine children, all equally ambitious, though not equally clever Eirik and Gunnhild briefly become King and Queen of England, but in this cruel and dangerous era, rivalries abound, and no one who seizes power can ever hope to hold it for long Anderson ' s depiction of the brutal Viking Age rings true But the story is also poetic, stark, and saga-like, with names and relationships rolling off the page as if from a scroll , and at these times one can easily become lost. Comparisons have been made with The Mists ofAvalon , but Gunnhild is too ruthless to be another Morgaine, and Mother of Kings is more historical than mystical (or fantastical). In addition, Gunnhild ' s role is almost obscured in favor of that of her sons and their bloodthirsty exploits Still , this is a dense but fulfilling story worth the read for those interested in the Viking era

Sarah Nesbeitt

US/CANADA: 121H CENTURY

THE WANDERING ARM

Sharan Newman , Forge, 2001, $14 .95 (£9 34), 351 pp, tpb , ISBN 0-312-87733-l

In 12th century France, Catherine LeVendeur and her husband Edgar are recovering from the loss of a newborn child when duty calls A villain, possibly a Jewish trader with many enemies , has stolen and sold priceless Catholic artifacts right under the noses of both Catholics and Jews alike When the trader is murdered, the two groups must work together, with Catherine and Edgar ' s assistance , to identify the murderer and the mastermind behind the robberies

The novel, a slow read at first, becomes quite intriguing as events unfold Readers in search of a detailed portrait of the Middle Ages will be delighted to discover this novel. Melissa Galyon

TIME AND CHANCE

Sharon Kay Penman, Putnam, 2002 , $27.95/$39 .99 (£17 .99*), 528pp, hb , ISBN 0-399-14 785-3

A new Penman novel is always cause for celebration To many, her story will be familiar , but Penman has the gift of presenting it as if we had never read it before.

Here in full color are the trio who brought life to the early medieval world . Henry Plantagenet, the vigorous young king, whose political and religious differences with Thomas Becket cause insurmountable problems Eleanor of Aquitaine , the beautiful, strong-willed heiress whose transformation from Henry ' s beloved queen to his bitter former confidante progresses in an entirely believable manner . And Becket, the king ' s chancellor and boon companion turned man of God, whose inexplicable and sudden devotion to the church sets him against many, Henry most of all.

Another fine creation is Ranulf, half-brother to the Empress Maude, who finds his loyalties torn between England and Wales. Ranulfs fictional nature is almost disappointing, so clearly does he leap from the page. My sympathy for both Eleanor and her rival Rosamund Clifford speaks to Penman ' s mastery of character development. She also eschews the traditional 'turbulent priest ' scene in favor of one that is more historically plausible.

So well does Penman integrate her assiduous research into her tale that we have no doubt that this is the way it must have been I was left waiting impatiently for the

1HE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

next volume in the trilogy, The Devil 's Brood, which hopefully will not be long in coming.

Sarah Nesbeitt

US/CA~ADA: 141H CENlURY

THE GOOD MEN: A Novel of Heresy Charmaine Craig, Riverhead, 2002, $24.95/C$35 99 (£15.60), 389pp , hb, ISBN 1-57322-197-X

In 1320, the Inquisition asked Grazida Lizier, a young widow from Montaillou, France, to testify as to her views of God and Satan, as well as her adulterous, incestuous relationship with the village priest. From her testimony, as well as other primary and secondary sources, the author fascinated by Grazida ' s disarmingly honest approach to life and sin has crafted a thoughtful, impressively detailed siury .

Montaillou was the last stronghold of the Cathar heresy , a perversion of Catholicism in which the soul is considered pure, but the physic11J world i_nJ1erent!y evil. The village's spiritual leader, Pierre Clergue, himself has Cathar sympathies , and his religious ambivalence and sexual proclivities cause the Tnqnic:itinn tn fnrn<: nn Mnntai}lnu PiP.rrP. ' c: first love is for his brother ' s discarded mistress , hut his unrequited passion for her is later fulfilled through his relationship with rml7i,fa , hPr i!IP.gitim tP gr"JldtfanghtP.r

Craig concentrates on the villagers ' interpersonal relationships and spiritual lives rather than their trials by the Inquisition, as if c:hP. r.,.rP.<: tnn mi.ic-h "hnnt her rh,.rnrtP.f<: tn <:P.P. them suffer unduly The novel is simply and directly told , for its suhject needs no melodrama to carry its message further I ri,:mnmend it hig..hJy

Sarah Nesbeitt

SAINTLY MURDERS

C.L. Grace, St. Martin's Minotaur, 2001, $22 95/C$32 95 (£14 39), 256 pp, hb, ISBN 0-312-26993-5

It is 1471. Kathryn Swinbrooke, an acmmplishoo physician, is asked to investigate a recent plague of rats in Canterhury But Kathryn is not in Canterbury more than a brief time before she is asked to art as ' devil's "tlvnr,.tP.,' investigating purported miracles surrounding a beatified friar ls the friar a saint? Or is something more sinister afoot?

C.L. Grace (a pseudonym for Paul Doherty) lovingly develops Kathryn in this, the fiJ:lh Swi_nhrooke mystery Kathryn is so admired for her medical and investigative abilities that she rubs shoulders with the

TIIE lilSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

highest and mightiest in the realm. including Henry VI and his coterie Although the mysteries are of local vintage, they have far-reaching impact.

Grace has created a character both complex and evolving She is a strong woman, not afraid to voice her opinions, but she is also a tender woman ·with needs and desires. As always , too, the author does his historical homework I was pai:ticularly inte.rf:!ited in Kathryn's ability to move in and out of society as a female physician and the advances of medieval medicine Storyline, character development and historical tidhits are interwoven flawlessly This is well worth the read, entertaining and chock full of fun facts. Ilysa Magnus

US/CANADA: 161H CENlURY

THE DAY LAID ON THE ALTAR

Adria Bernardi , Plume, 2001 , $13 (£lt 13) , 210pp, tpb , ISBN 0-45228257-8 Th_rP.P "rtic:tc: wP.,.vP. thP. fahrir nf c:iYteP.nth century Italian artistic life in Bernardi's intriguing novel : Bartolomeo, a pea,;ant farmer who collects shards of colored glass, hoping to rrPMP. hie: lifP. ' c: wnrlc., " many-p"nP.JP.tl mns,.ir ; Martin, who leaves the mountains to become an artisan in Florence; and Titian , the famed Italian Renaissance painter, brilliant, haunted, ""tl <:nrrnnntlP.tl hy " q,rnrrPlc:nmP hnn<:P.hnln

Surely each is as committed to his art as the other, and just as surely, each is burdened and limited by those burdens

R..m..rtli mnvP<: frnm "rti<:t tn "rti<:t , beginning with Bartolomeo and ending with him , in circular fa,;hion . Yet it is not the personalities of these artists that are the driving force of Bmrnrdi's story - it is a..rt itself It is the preparation of frescoes and the making of colors and the artistic methods which Titian and his studio developed. In the midst of plague and poverty !'Jld frunily dissension, it is the lasting nature of art which drives the artist [t is the need to create which defines him.

This is a beautifol, sparse boo.!<., lyrically written with plenty of Italian subtext. Although the novel contains neither a plot nor characters in the traditional sense, it is a rP.warding rP."tl l)P.('"""" nf Bcr•rnrni'c: "hility to capture poetically this place and time Ilysa Magn1Lf

THECANDLEMASSROAD

George MacDonald Fraser, Akadine Press, 2001 (cl993), $15 .95 (£4 .79*), tpb , 177 pp , ISBN 1-58579-023-0

The Candlemass Road is a well-written novel based firmly on fact. Set in the outlaw Border country between England and Scotland in the late 16th century, it tells of Lady Margaret Dacre as she struggles to take control of the recently inherited Askerton Hall . Upon arrival , the family priest, a crumbling home, and crises demanding immediate attention confront her Knowing her decisions will have long-term consequen~, she mu,,;t decide who to trust and what is right. The story, narrated by the priest, begins with him being goaded into answering a question at a college feast. His answer becomes the main story and demonstrates the vagaries of shifting alliances in such turbulent times

Overall, this is an intriguing account of the brutal life in the lawless Borders and is presented in Guthcntic lungu.ugc At times , though, this writing style makes for difficult reading: however, it does set the tone quite beautifully and allows the reader to be drawn deeply into the story It is a delightful tale revisiting ground previously covered by the author in his historical work The Steel Bonnets

Dana Cohlmeyer

THE DEVIL'S APPRENTICE

Edward Marston, St. Martin's Minotaur, 2001 , $23 95/C$33 95 (£14 97), 273 pp , hb. ISBN-0-312-26574-3

Elizabethan London's cruel winter finds the acting troupe Westfield ' s Men looking for work, so an invitation to perform at Sir Michael Greenleaf' s Essex manor seems heaven sent. However. there are two provisos: they must perform at least one original play and take on a new apprentice, Davy Stratton. son of a prominent Essex merchant.

The troupe learns of a good new play, The Witch of Colchester, so that is one condition satisfied Davy, approved by ' book holder ' Nicholas Bracewell , soon creates trouble among the older apprentices and escapes. Hunted down by his angry father , Davy promises to atone but ends up causing more trouble, earning him the nickname ' devil's apprentice.' When the troupe ' s robust lead actor begins having strange physical symptoms that mimic those of his character, the militant leader of the local Puritan sect claims that supernatural powers are involvedan excuse for ridding Essex of the actors. And when a prominent audience member dies suddenly on opening night, it becomes Bracewell' s job to uncover the truth, fend off a mad killer, and keep the actors happy in this

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

action-filled and period-rich novel of suspense.

This is a very satisfying mystery that keeps the reader guessing to the end and enjoying the voyage to discovering the true ' devil's apprentice.'

Tess Allegra

US/CANADA: 171H CENTIJRY

THE GOD WHO BEGAT A JACKAL

Nega Mezlekia, Picador USA , 2002 , $23 , 256pp, hb , ISBN 0-312-28701-1

From the author of the acclaimed memoir of Ethiopia, Notes from the Hyena 's Belly , comes a haunting first novel steeped in African folklore and brimming with the class , ethnic and religious struggles of pre-colonial Africa . Aster, the beautiful and intelligent daughter of a feudal lord dares to love one of her father ' s slaves Gudu is a deep thinker, a gentle soul born into the lowest stratum of a brutal society A captivating storyteller, he is among the most prized possessions of Aster ' s father , Count Ashenafi.

When Gudu and Aster ' s love is discovered, Gudu barely escapes with his life He finds refuge and acceptance among Count Ashenafi ' s enemies, eventually leading them in war against the Count. All the while, the two lovers still dream of being together Gudu builds a mansion for Aster in his adopted city, while Aster plots to avoid a forced marriage to a man of her father's choosing.

Through a spare and lyrical prose, Mezlekia weaves a deeply felt tale that occasionally surprises us with its mythic occurrences , not the least of which involves the ultimate fate of the heroine

Kelly Cannon

BLACK LOTUS

Laura Joh Rowland, St. Martin ' s Minotaur, 2001, $24 95/C$38 95 (£18 .99), 341 pp, hb , ISBN 0-312-26872-6 Rowland's latest novel of 17th century Japan will not disappoint her readers Samurai detective Sano Ichiro's newest case plunges him and his assistant , wife Reiko, into a world of religious deceit and political intrigue that will also test their bonds of love

Arson on the Black Lotus sect's temple grounds unsuccessfully covers up the murder of th.rec people, one a hig_hly placed police magistrate With the only witness a young orphan girl , Sano agrees to see if Reiko can get her to talk. But there is political pressure on Sano to convict the girl and close the case despite Reiko ' s belief in her innocence

As with her previous novels , Rowland superbly portrays life in feudal Japan The rigid societal structure is tested in the course of Reiko's investigation and the danger to Sano's honor is keenly felt. Buddhist temple life and religious fervor are beautifully described. The Black Lotus sect with members and patrons ranging from the highest to lowest born - is a microcosm of feudal Japanese society, full of political intrigue and power mongering Rowland's talent is wide-ranging: to imbue her characters with powerful traits , to plot suspense beautifully and to entertain while te;tching Suzanne Crane

OTY OF DREAMS

Beverly Swerling, Simon &, Schuster, 200 I , $26 95/C$39 95 (£16 70), 59lpp, hb, ISBN 0-684-87172-6

Lucas Turner, English barber surgeon, and his sister Sally, apothec;try , arrive in the New World in 1661 to start a medical practice and are summoned to remove a kidney stone from Peter Stuyvesant. In return for saving the governor ' s he&lth, L\Jci1s requests as his ' fee' a small shop in town for his practice, and a house in the wilderness of Manhattan where Sally can harvest medicinal herbs. Stuyvesant agrees Sally ' s skill cultivating poppies for laudanum supplies her brother with a remedy for patient comfort as well as easing the surgeon's task. B\JSiness grows q\lickly , because unlike other cities founded for religious reasons , this Dutch city has only one goal : making money Difficulties arise as L\Jcas f;tlls in love with " butcher' s µnhappy wife, Marit, but her cruel husband will ' disappear ' only if Lucas pays him sixty guilders, which he doesn ' t have

An offer of marri;tge for Sally from a Dutch doctor who wants her more for her laudanum than herself gives Lucas the money, and with a heavy heart he agrees, knowing now he can marry Marit. Sally is pregnant resulting from an attack by a young Indian savage, and this marriage will also save the Turner reputation. Sally ' s child is born, and inste;td of her bl;tck servant taking the half-caste baby to the slave market , seeing his skin is pale, she leaves him on a doorstep , belonging to Lucas and Marit , who raise the foundling as their own

Thus oogins an absorbing famil y saga following the growth of the Turner medical clan who help change Manhattan change from lush, farmland to a thriving financial and medical center, where a new hospital will be built, called Bellevue

The author has created a realistic saga rich in period detail, multi-layered intrigue and memorable characters, with the history of

medicine and surgical procedure if8phically peppered throughout. It is a satisfying and engrossing story, worthy of a sequel.

Tess Allegra

ARGALL

William T. Vollmann, Viking , 2001, $40 (£25), 746pp, hb, ISBN 0-670-9-030-9

If you are on fire to read a 600-page literary historical novel in recreated Jacobean English, then Argall is for you. The additional 146 pages are epilogue, index and detailed notes , useful to a reader who wishes to pursue prim;try and academic sources The ornate and circuitous language a bottomless, sucking swamp for casual interest is key . Through it, the reader is drawn into a virtually alien mind set, th;tt of the early 17th Century.

The subtitle (The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith) is the slight scaffold upon which Vollmann spreads an enormous , heavily worked tapestry . John Smith had no land, no money , and only an imaginary hold upon the name of 'gentleman.' He took up soldiering, first on the Continent and later in Jamestown, where he hoped to make his fortune Like many adventurers , his industry and his practicality, even his greed and deceit, gained him almost nothing, except the time to write his Generali Historic

The brutal collision of European civilization with the original inhabitants of Virginia is a sorry story, and Vollmann does not shrink from the telling Europeans , with a slight technical advantage , fell like starving beasts upon America, a rich land with few inhabitants Conveniently, the Indians were ' heathens .' They could be butchered, lied to , and dispossessed without fear of retribution-neither human nor divine

The girl-child Pocahontas appears during the second hundred pages Her eventual kidnapping by Captain Argall , her enforced marriage to the planter John Rolfe, her removal to England where she promptly dies , make a dolorous finale All we are left with is a word of her lost language : Mufkaiuwh ( ' flower of a fine thing ' ), as evanescent and evocative as was she.

Juliet Waldron

US/CANADA:

181H CENTURY

A COLD BLEAK HILL: Prelude to Glory #5

Ron Carter, Bookcraft/Deseret, 2001, $22 .9 5 (£14.35), 557 pp , hb , ISBN 1-57345-956-9 l)uri ng the sum_iner of 1777, recurring series character Caleb Dunson is a member of General Washington's underfunded,

ISSUE 19 .FEB 2002

TIIE lllSTORlCAL NOVELS REVIEW

poorly-trained Continental Anny . After the costly Battle of Brandywine Creek, the general and his men have retreated to winter quarters at Valley Forge. There, Caleb embarks on a courtship with a young woman and is unwittingly drawn into an espionage plot. Hope is restored by the time Baron von Steuben arrives

Carter is determined to document his intensive research with lengthy chapter footnotes , but they impede the narrative flow

Although episodes showing effects of war on the local population are captivating, fictional characters are too rarely permitted to pull their own weight. Competently written, occasionally insightful , A Cold Bleak Hill is marred by labored dialogue and repetitive passages of exposition Uneven characterization (von Steuben enters the novel without a German accent, which by the end is nearly unintelligible) and historical inaccuracies (Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey are referred to as 'New England') make this novel heavy going, except for Revolutionary War enthusiasts

Margaret Barr

THE ROY AL PHYSICIAN'S VISIT

Per Olov Enquist (trans Tiina Nunnally), Overlook, 2001 , $26 95 , 312 pp , hb , ISBN 1-58567-196-7

' On April 5, 1768 , Johann Friedrich Struensee was appointed Royal Physician to King Christian VIl of Denmark, and four years later he was executed .' So begins this remarkable book, winner of Sweden ' s most important literary award in 2000.

Abused to madness by his Lord Chancellor before he is eleven years old, Christian lives his life grasping for enlightenment. Extremely intelligent, tortured by manic and obsessive behavior, and walking a very fine line between sanity and insanity, one can only pity the young Christian, an absolute ruler and a ruler of absolutely nothing, including himself

Eight years later , in 1768 , Struensee, a man committed to the Enlightenment, is appointed Royal Physician During a long trans-European journey, Struensee wins Christian ' s trust and favor. He also wins Christian ' s wife, Caroline Mathilda of England, to whom Christian is not a husband Ultimately, Struensee one-handedly spearheads the Danish Revolution by signing 632 decrees of far-reaching social, economic and political significance. Many of these tenets formed the basis of the French Revolution . Using his unlimited power for change so dramatically, Struensee is bound to alienate those in power who do not want change. Surrounded by enemies, and with Christian

TI-IE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

unable to protect him, Struensee forfeits his life

This is a sobering book. At times depressing, at times enlightening, there is no question that Enquist , with his idiosyncratic style, captures a read~ It is difficult to put down.

Ilysa Magnu s

THE FIERY CROSS

Diana Gabaldon, Delacorte, $27 95/C$39 95 , 979pp , hb , 0385315279

2001 , ISBN

In the fifth book in Gabaldon's popular Outlander series, we find Claire and Jamie Fraser, their daughter Brianna, her husband Roger and their son, Jemmy, dealing with the joys, uncertainties , trials and mundane details of life in 18th century North Carolina The catch is that Claire, Bree and Roger were all born in the 20th century and have travelled back in time to be there All of the action takes place between 1770 and 1772 , so while the rumblings of dissent are marked, the rebellion hasn't full y begun

At the end of book four, there were some loose ends invol ving relationships within the Fraser family. Whil e I had hoped that other foreshadowed events would play out in this novel , Gabaldon was wise to devote some time to establishing bonds between these characters before moving the story forward to incorporate the American Revolution. Jamie and Claire's devotion and passion for one another is as rare and strong as ever as they settle into middle age. But they have other concerns and responsibilities that can't be taken lightly.

Gabaldon is unsurpassed as a storyteller. With a keen sense for historical detail , she interweaves narrative threads deftly, the end result being a rich tapestry of events, liberally accented with humor, suspense and sizzling passion. Characters and references from the other books are widespread, but always in a way that a first time reader could follow For those interested in nonstop romance, this book may disappoint, but for everyone else, this book will be quite satisfying. Plus , she leaves plenty of loose ends for book six

Alic e Logsdon

GEORGE WASHINGTON FRONTIERSMAN

Zane Grey, Forge, 2001 , $13 95 (£8 72 ), 268 pp , tpb , ISBN 0-76 5-30023-0

Zane Grey, one of America's foremost writers of western fiction , died in 1939. This book, a fictionalized narrative of George Washington's early life, and one of the last books he wrote, was first published in hardcover in 1994 What caused the long delay? Carlton Johnson, who edited the manuscript for

publication which included adding several pages which had gone missing in the meantime says that Harper, his long-time publisher, did not feel that the book lived up to the ' Zane Grey image .'

Indeed, it most assuredly does not. Grey's tendency to write of characters larger than life is tremendously subdued by having to write of people who actually lived Whenever he can insert fictional characters Red Burke, for example, the childhood bully who pestered George in his youth, and who plagued him throughout his early days or interject possible (but not probable) other influences on George's life his early love for Sally Fairfax, who later introduced him to the young widow, Martha Custis the book comes to life

Otherwise, not. Grey's love of the out-of-doors shines through bright and clear. When describing battles or political maneuvering, the novel is deadly dull Steve Lewis

A CASE OF CURIOSITIES

Allen Kurzweil , Harcourt Harvest, 2001 (cl992) , $14 (£8.54) , tpb , 360pp , ISBN 0156012898

A memento hominem is a collection of items memorializing a life , and a case full of such items gives structure to Allen Kurzweil's novel. Claude Page, a creative craftsman and inventor during the period before and during the French Revolution, has a fin ger cut off during an operation to remove a mole shaped like Louis XVI This begins the action

Intricacies abound in this novel as the hero drifts from herbs to dyes to watches to pornographic mechanical curios . A bookseller with the most profound scatological contempt for books serves as a vehicle for satirizing the modem book business . The most memorable of the hero's mentors is an anti-clerical abbe who poses a math problem. ' ... if the foreskin of my manhood were multiplied by three-quarters of my member's length , the result would be equal to the length of the whole, further that my foreskin represented a twelfth of the whole .' The hero quickly calculated the answer as sixteen inches , which one might have thought to be an extraneous root. This is one of a series of choices in which the author prefers the bizarre to the believable.

Physical culture is prominent throughout the book, in the form of enameled cases, elaborate watches or displays which show society women in the position of dogs in heat and vice versa The characters and the plot are of less interest than the objects described, and the history of the period plays an equally subsidiary role

James Hawking

ISSUE I 9.FEB 2002

KATE

AYLESFORD, Or, The Heiress of Sweetwater

Charles J. Peterson, Plexus, 2001 , $22 95 , 276 pp , hb , ISBN 0-937548-46-4

Originally published in 1855 and out of print from 1873 until 2001 , Kate Aylesford has attained legendary status among residents of New Jersey in recent decades . A new edition makes it available to a wide audience

This historical romance is set in the New Jersey Pine Barrens during the American Revolution Its heroine, Kate, is beautiful, kindhearted, and honorable as expected. She is also well-educated, resourceful, and assertive more unusual for a novel of this period and genre Shipwrecked with her aunt at the beginning of the book, she is rescued by the hero, Major Gordon a brave, quick-thinking patriot. This episode sets into motion their romance

The imaginative plot mixes actual history, local myth, adventure, and romance George Washington makes a cameo appearance, and secondary characters are vigorous and recognizable Short chapters contribute to a quick pace. Peterson describes the natural setting of the eighteenth-century Pine Barrens vividly

The novel is typically Victorian, with its wordy phrasing, insertion of the narrator's opinions, females collapsing from stress, and stereotypical portrayals of African-Americans. Enjoyable, though dated, Kate will appeal most to readers interested in New Jersey history and the Revolutionary period

Mary L. Newton

THE DUCHESS

Bertrice Small , Ballantine, 2001 , $14 95/C$22 95 (£9 34), 372pp , tpb, ISBN 0-345-43435-8

Although Allegra Morgan, daughter of the richest man in England, has a flawed pedigree, her father arranges a marriage between her and the arrogant but impoverished Quinton Hunter, Duke of Sedgwick. Because Allegra is convinced that love causes misery, she agrees to the marriage but only on condition that the duke never ask for her love.

I found the storyline, at best disappointing, as is the case with so many of today ' s other mislabeled ' historical ' romances There were no surprises, little in the way of historical relevance, and no real adventure to speak of; instead, the novel focused mainly on the sexual antics and interchanges between the two main characters I appreciate well-written love scenes, such as in Gabaldon ' s great Outlander series, but this novel was so lacking in substance that it went right into my ' most forgettable ' category immediately upon finishing the last page

Pat Maynard

1HE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

THE RIDDLE OF THE SHIPWRECKED SPINSTER

Patricia Veryan, St. Martin ' s, 2001 , $24 95/C$38 99 (£15.60), 352pp, hb , ISBN 0312269420

Miss Cordelia Stansbury succeeds in setting tongues to wagging twice in a year - first when she snags the town's most eligible bachelor, then again when she returns from a year spent shipwrecked on an island In order to save his family's name and thus ensure his great-uncle's financial support, Piers Cranston proposes to her. His estate is being plagued by mysterious vandalism, and he must find out who is behind it or lose everything. A chance meeting with neighbour Miss Mary Westerman results in a blossoming romance , but he soon learns there is more to the lady than she first reveals.

Although the writing is good, the main characters appealing and the setting well depicted, this book didn't work for me. The main plot does not integrate well with the sub-plots , and it was never clear which mystery was the main one The pacing is a little uneven, while the narrative and dialogue are not always well balanced. It seemed as though the author wasn't certain if she was writing a mystery or a romance, so fans of both genres might feel somewhat shortchanged . Still, fans of the Georgian era who enjoy both the mystery and romance genres might want to give it a try.

Teresa Eckford

US/CANADA: 19TII CENTURY

THE THIEF-TAKER: Memoirs of a Bow-Street Runner

T.F Banks, Delacorte, 2001, $23 95/C$32 95 (£14.97), 278 pp , hb , ISBN 0-385-33571-7

In June 1815 , as Wellington's army faces down the French somewhere in Belgium, in London the officers of Bow Street wage war against thieves and murderers.

Officer Henry Morton is urgently called to Lord Arthur Darley's Portman Square by his sometime mistress , the actress Mrs. Malibrant, after Halbert Glendenning is discovered unconscious in a hackney coach After a physician summarily pronounces him dead, Bow Street declines to pursue the case. Morton, suspicious of the circumstances, is immediately employed to investigate by the deceased's grieving fiancee Morton's effort to link the murder to the recent theft from the collection of Elgin marbles not only imperils him and Mrs . Malibrant, but it threatens his reputation within the Bow Street establishment. It also thrusts him into a friendship with Lucy , a child trapped in the

seamy, sexually charged atmosphere of a notorious flash-house.

Regency England and its popular culture are depicted with accuracy and insight. A tour-de-force of suspense and historical writing, this new series is assured a devoted following

Margaret

Barr

THE DEVIL'S HEIRESS

Jo Beverley, Signet, 200 I , $6 99/C$9.99 (£4 37), 374pp, pb , ISBN 0451202546

Clarissa Greystone, known as the Devil's Heiress, is haunted by the circumstances surrounding the death of her despised fiance Forced to take her place in society, she is intrigued to meet Major George Hawkinville Little does she know that he is trying to prove her guilty of murder and fraud Major George Hawkinville needs Clarissa's ill-gotten fortune to save his family's estate Expecting to find a devious beauty, he is surprised to find a rather ordinary, yet appealing young woman - one who does not seem capable of murder. Danger from the past lurks in the background, threatening both Hawk and Clarissa. It seems Hawk is not the only one after the Devil's legacy

Jo Beverley has crafted a well-written and historically grounded piece of romance fiction. Though the book is a little slow to take off, the unique characters and well-paced romance soon draw the reader in. The setting comes alive and the secondary characters sparkle Fans of the author's Company of Rogues series will be delighted to encounter Nicholas , Lucien and Con again and will be especially thrilled by one of the final plot twists If you want to step back in time to Regency England and enjoy a well-written historical romance , this book is for you . Teresa Eckford

MYSTIC WARRIORS

Rosanne Bittner, Forge, 2000 , $24 95/C$35 95 (£15.60) , 366 pp , hb , ISBN 0-312-86513-9

This, Bittner ' s final installment in the 'Mystic' trilogy (Mystic Dreamers , Mystic Visions) continues the story of Buffalo Dreamer and her husband, Rising Eagle, as the Sioux fight to save their land and way of life in the American West.

In 1855 , the Sioux struggle against the expansion of settlers, gold miners, and soldiers into their territory . Clashes between cultures are frequent and bloody ; treaties are often made and often broken. Many but not all of the visions Buffalo Dreamer and Rising Eagle have experienced have come to pass For twenty years they work to unite the tribes against their enemies , ultimately in vain, despite the victory against Custer and his men

ISSUE 19 .FEB 2002

at Little Bighorn. Bittner imbues the ongoing struggle with dignity, empathy, and passion. With keen insight, she shows how the Sioux were defeated from within by the conflicts among different tribes, the differences of opinion among chiefs, and even the hatred between Sioux father and half-breed son.

Bittner's deep roots in historical romance are evident here. The story contains more than a touch of magic, the aging protagonists are still ardent lovers, and all the good people are strong and handsome. Still, she does not shy away from the ugly , gritty, or tragic, nor does she hesitate to illuminate Indian as well as white brutality. Mystic Warriors is the powerful culmination of an expansive, emotionally gripping story.

Lisa Ann Verge

AN UNCOMMON ENEMY

Michelle Black, Forge, 2001, $26 95/C$37 95 (£16 85), 398pp, hb, ISBN 0-765-30103-2

In November 1868, General Custer penned a letter to his wife in which he mentioned the arrival of a white woman, presumably an Indian captive, in his camp In Black ' s version, the woman is Eden Murdoch, forcibly taken into custody when Custer's frontier army attacks a Cheyenne village. But Eden, who had found happiness with her Cheyenne family , did not want to be rescued To white society, where all natives are deemed savages, Eden is an embarrassment.

Among the few willing to hear Eden ' s story is Brad Randall, Custer ' s young aide-de-camp Although Custer wants to use her as an example to justify violence against the Indians, she will do anything to prevent this from happening. Captain Randall , sworn to Custer but fascinated by Eden, finds his loyalties tom.

This is a fast-moving, ambitious western that successfully takes on a number of complex issues. Its characters refuse to be pigeonholed into stereotypes, and good and evil are found in equal measure on both sides There is romance, too, but in this as in all else, the novel is anything but predictable The author ' s message is presented with both strength and compassion. Why haven ' t I heard of Michelle Black before now? After finishing An Uncommon Enemy, I went out and purchased her earlier novels

Sarah Nesbeitt

THE HOLY ROAD

Michael Blake, Villard, 2001, $24.95 (£15.60), 339pp, hb, ISBN 0679448667 In 1874, the US wants to extend their railroads into the southwestern territories, but to do so they must overcome the resistance of the remaining Indian tribes. Through a misunderstanding, the Indians come to call

Tiffi HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

the encroaching rails the Holy Road. Throughout the book, such instances of miscommunication between white men and tribal leaders confound efforts to make a lasting peace.

The first few chapters in this sequel to Dances With Wolves reintroduce two Comanche warriors and describe two talismans in their respective lodges Wind In His Hair, returning from a raid into Mexico, has brought with him the long, red-haired, scalp of a white woman. Although he took it in self-defense, it makes many villagers skittish Kicking Bird, one of those unnerved by this prize, has a medal in his lodge He has just returned from peace talks with US representatives Both of these items are ominous symbols of the encroaching threat to the tribe's way of life They also represent the equal pull within the tribe to make war and peace

This tragic epic is related with insight and emotion Blake hits hard, depicting intense brutality and harsh justice. He balances these scenes with those of quiet contemplation and counsel as tribal leaders seek to fathom the unfathomable. This is an anti-western, in that his sympathy lies on the side of the Comanche rather than the white man I hope this novel reaches a wide audience.

Alice Logsdon

THE STONE GARDEN: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid

Bill Brooks, Forge, 2001 , $23 95/C$34 95 (£14.97), 284pp, hb, ISBN 0-312-87508-8 Whether psychopathic killer, misunderstood outlaw, or product of the Lincoln County, Nebraska range war (which pitted honest ranchers against corrupt ones) , Henry McCarty was a legend known as Billy the Kid In 1881 Sheriff Pat Garret claimed he killed Billy, but what ifhe shot the wrong man? That is the story that Billy tells in The Stone Garden, the cemetery where lie all his friends waiting for the day that he truly does die

Brooks takes a gritty and realistic look at the man behind the legend, but maintains an element of the romanticism that surrounds him Billy tells the first half of the story while he and Manuella, the woman with whom he lives , relate the second half of his life Their relationship is a strange combination of love, fear, and hate since she was once the wife of his friend, who died by Garret's hand while wearing Billy ' s hat.

The sudden switch to a second point of view is a bit jarring Some readers may object to the blunt language and sexual references. At times I found it difficult to determine whether the events being described were happening in the present or the past and who was who

While an interesting tale, I found myself wondering by the end of the book exactly why anyone would consider Billy' s life epic

Cindy Vallar

EDUCATING CAROLINE

Patricia Cabot, Sonnet, 2001 , $6 50/C$8 99 (£4 02), 439 pp, pb, ISBN 0-7434-1026-2

Lady Caroline Linford is horrified to discover her fiance having an affair with another woman! True to her Victorian upbringing, she says nothing Instead she determines to become even more appealing to her soon-to-be-husband than the woman he was with She asks the not quite proper Braden Granville, the Lothario of London, to teach her the art of seduction Incidentally, it was Mr Granville's fiancee whom she found atop her own, but Caroline guards that secret closely.

In Educating Caroline, Patricia Cabot tells a delicious tale full of sensuality and humor, with a hint of danger thrown in just for fun. The cast of supporting characters include Caroline ' s friend Emily, who ties herself to statuary for the sake of women ' s rights , and Braden's unusual household staff made up of shady characters from his underworld past. The effect is charming, engaging and definitely worth reading

Nan Curnutt

MEDICINE WAR

Robert J. Conley, Signet, 2001 , $5 .99/C$8 99 (£3 74), 298pp, pb, ISBN 0-451-20435-2

In Medicine War , the good guys wear white, the bad guys wear black, the violence is swift and detached from human emotion, and in the end, true justice prevails The twist that sets Medicine War apart is the choice of protagonist, George Panther, a full-blooded Cherokee medicine man. When a red-eyed shaman loses money betting against George ' s horse in a local race, the villain spreads bad medicine among the community. George works night and day to protect his friends and family . Escalating the battle, the villain infects a white horse trader with envy for George ' s prize-winning stallion, and George is forced to kill the trader in self-defense He turns himself in to the local Indian authorities, where he is released on his own recognizance But the death of a white man in Cherokee land is deemed by the American authorities to be U.S business, so George becomes a wanted man, and violence and vengeance spin out of control.

The author includes a short ' Prologue,' which is really a Foreword, discussing the political and social aspects of 19th century Cherokee history in relation to the United States -a nice addition, but unnecessary, since the plot itself illustrates the issues more strongly than any preaching. Medicine War is

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

a solid story with comfortable roots in the genre -a good read for lo vers of the classic western Li s a Ann Verge

SPANISH JACK

Robert J. Conley, St Martin ' s, 2001 , $22 95/C$32 95 (£14 35) , 210 pp , hb , ISBN 0-312262-310

This is the eleventh book in the acclaimed Real Peopl e series that describes the history of the Cherokee Nation ('The Real People ' ) from the early 16th century on

This book starts in I 841. Jack Spaniard is a bitter man after his people, the Chickamauga, are vanquished by the Cherokee Nation They have been removed from their own land to that already occupied by the Osage, responsible for killing Jack ' s young wife The Osage are Jack ' s mortal enemies until Jack befriends an Osage brave after a fight. When Jack is rescued after being robbed by white settlers , his view of the world expands.

All this describes too baldly the plots of this book and conveys nothing about what makes Conley ' s work so compulsively readable. Conley is a wonderful storyteller with a way of writing that made me think of folktales , a simple straightforward style that suits the material and somehow conveys the Cherokee way of life He packs a lot of story into a short novel ; Jack ' s adventures with ri verboat gamblers , braves, white settlers and remorseless villains make for page-turning reading I can recommend this series for its perceptions about Native Americans , likeable characters and plainly told but exciting stories that aren ' t gratuitously violent but aren ' t coy about telling it like it was either. Highly recommended - when is book twelve coming out ?

Rachel A Hyde

TO TAME A WILD HEART

Tracy Fobes , Sonnet, 2001 , $6 50/C$8.99 (£4 02) , 368pp, pb , ISBN 0-7434-1278-8

Although this novel is set in the Scottish Highlands in 1813 , it begins with a flashback to 1796 when the Duke of Argyll ' s wife and daughter are in involved in a deadly carriage accident. His wife is killed and their only child, four- year-old Sarah, mysteriously disappears Seven years later some information comes to light that convinces the Duke of Argyll that a young woman going by the name of Sarah is his long-lost daughter He offers to bequeath his estate to her if she will take her place in society. To do this she must learn to be a ' lady ' and the Duke of Argyll chooses the ' dangerously provocative ' Earl of Cawdor to help her accomplish these ends

From there on, it's pretty predictable Add to this mix the fact that Sarah also has some paranormal abilities with animals and you end up with a brew that stretches the reader ' s belief system to the limit. I also noted a mistake or typographical error which places Scotland ' s King James IV during the time period of King James VI. The characters are shallow, and the plot is nonexistent for all practical purposes

Pat Maynard

THE JEWEL OF THE NORTH

Peter King , Signet, 2001 , $5.99 (£3 74) , 264 pp , pb , ISBN 0-451-20383-6

Call of th e Wild author Jack London adds gumshoe to his list of professions in this mystery set on the Barbary Coast, the sleaziest part of San Francisco Crime is common Strangely, the murders of several dancers grasp the attention of local authorities and prominent businessmen who seek London ' s assistance in catching the killer

The premise of Jack London as an uncover investigator is quite plausible, as London actually grew up in the area and led the life of a starving artist, relying on the music halls for their nightly buffets and writing inspiration Therefore, he could snoop around without attracting suspicion Peter King"s obviously thorough research of the time period and Jack London ' s contemporaries provides for a large cast of characters and cameo appearances

As a new series , this one could be a hit. The protagonist and setting are interesting, King ' s writing is smooth, and the events leave one wondering first how Jack got himself into the situation, and next , how he will get himself out. Highly recommended for mystery readers . Suzann e Spragu e

SUMMER MOON

Jill Marie Landis , Ballantine, 2001 , $15 95 (£9 .97) , 354pp, hb , ISBN: 0-345-44039-0

Born the daughter of a prostitute in Appleby, Maine , in the 1840s, at the age of nine Kate Whittington is abandoned by her mother at a home for orphan girls Brought up the sisters at the orphanage, Kate is resigned to being a spinster all her life - until at age 29 , a newspaper ad changes her life forever:

' Rancher seeking wife Send a photograph with an introductory letter to Reed Benton, Lone Star Ranch, Texas. '

There's only one problem, and it's a big one Reed Benton, a Texas Ranger, did not place the ad His overpowering father (now deceased) did , and now Kate is married (by proxy) to a man who has never heard of her.

Well , that's not quite true : there are some other problems , like Reed's son Daniel , just rescued from being brought up by the Comanches, and as wild as they Like Charm

Riley, just rescued from a life at Dolly's Social Club and Entertainment Emporium

Somehow Landis brings all of these disparate characters to life Her story falters only when the conventions of the contemporary historical romance intrude--no , even more--override what these beautifully rendered people would actually do , if left to their own natural instincts

S teve Lewis

WEDDING OF THE YEAR

Victoria Malvey , Sonnet, 2001 , $6.50/C$8 99 (£4.02) , 400pp , pb , ISBN 9-7434-1884-0

It is 1830 and Elizabeth Everley has been ' out' for several years However, she finds fitting in with the demands of the ton difficult, and would rather putter in her workshop , building catapults . It is her sister ' s first Season Catherine fits into society as Elizabeth never has However, when Elizabeth decides never to marry , her father decrees Catherine cannot marry until after Elizabeth does . They have just met a pair of intriguing and exasperating brothers , but who is destined for whom ?

In her acknowledgements , Malvey mentions that this book was written during a difficult period in her life , and that it might not have been completed without her editor ' s encouragement. 1 would expect these conditions might explain several faux pas in the book : a gentleman uses the word ' bloody ' in the company of a lady without thinking a thing of it, and Elizabeth decides to call a gentleman by his first name on extremely short acquaintance While I found jarring errors such as these in the first part of the story, Malvey builds a real sense of suspense later in the novel , with a subplot that had me hurtling through to find out what happens Trudi E. Ja cob s on

THE MOON PEARL

Ruthanne Lum McCunn, Beacon, 2001, $14 (£8.75) , 316pp, tpb , ISBN 0807083496 Set in the Pearl River Delta of China in the 1800s , The Moon Pearl tells of three girls born into the silkworm-growing families of the area Destined by sex and station to become nothing more than obedient silkworkers and daughters-in-law, Shadow , Mei Ju, and Rooster rebel against fate Taking vows of eternal spinsterhood, they support themselves by embroidery . Fighting tradition and prejudice, they manage to carve out a new, more hopeful future for themselves , and provide a promise of change for other girls trapped as they were

While the story feels a bit ' preachy,' and the ending seems rather abrupt, The Moon Pearl nevertheless offers a fascinating look at

the silk industry and the position of women in 19th century China, and is exquisitely told India Edghill

A KISS TO REMEMBER

Teresa Medeiros , Bantam, 2001 , $21.95 (£13 72), 325 pp, hb, ISBN 0553802097 Laura Fairleigh's dear friend and benefactor has died, leaving Laura and her siblings homeless unless they can prevail upon her son for help Unfortunately, the Duke of Devonbrooke has no intention of helping anyone Sterling Harlow, the embittered Duke, has hated his mother ever since she allowed his gambler father to sell him to the prior Duke of Devonbrooke to raise

Riding to his mother's former home , Sterling is thrown from his horse and, in a reversal on the ' Sleeping Beauty ' theme, awakens as he is kissed He has amnesia and while he is sure that Laura is not his fiance, he needs to discover exactly who he is and what game she is playing.

Medeiros has a legion of fans in the romance field, and this novel succeeds as such However, it is not an accurate historical portrayal of the Regency period. There are elements that reflect aspects of the time, particularly the dominance of men, both legally and physically, over women and children However, the characters and their dialog reflect a 20th century psychological and social sensibility This book is recommended to avid romance readers , but not to readers who treasure historical accuracy

Kathleen Sullivan

TREASON

David Nevin, Forge, 2001 , $27 95/C$38 95 (£17 .47) , 43 lpp , hb , ISBN 0-312-85512-5

Aaron Burr is a man who thinks big, especially about himself Always ready to grab the gold ring when it passes by, he often finds himself at odds with his former friends , now leaders of a new nation. His attempt to exploit a Constitutional loophole and propel himself into the Presidential office leaves him an outcast in early Washington, DC society. Out of favor but never disgraced, Burr tries another path to the White House When this path is closed by Alexander Hamilton, Burr kills him in a duel. With no place to go , Burr heads west and meets with his old friend General James Wilkinson Together they hatch a plot with more twists than the Mississippi River Soon it becomes difficult to distinguish between loyalty and betrayal

If you ' d rather your historical fiction not wander too far from historical fact, this book is for you Nevin does an admirable job of fleshing out long-dead personages and portrays his subjects in a manner befitting the audacity of their plot: that is, to conquer

TIIE

Mexico and coerce the western half of the young United States into forming a new nation.

Mark F Johnson

THE CONTRACT SURGEON

Dan O'Brien, Mariner, Houghton Mifllin, 2001 , $12 (£7 .51), 22lpp, tpb , ISBN 0-618-08783-4

As an old man on the eve of WWII , Valentine McGillycuddy remembers an earlier conflict when he served as contract surgeon in the U.S Army - the Great Sioux War, which ended in 1877 with the final surrender of Crazy Horse and his holdout band of Lakotas. Four months later, McGillycuddy tends Crazy Horse at Camp Robinson, Nebraska after the chief is stabbed while being taken into custody McGillycuddy recalls a chance encounter in 1873 , and the mutual regard that developed between them after Crazy Horse ' s surrender, while he was treating the chiefs sick wife

At first McGillycuddy is desperate to save his friend and avoid an uprising But as the hours wear on, things begin to look very different , and the young surgeon must make a tough decision

The novel ' s structure is complex. McGillycuddy ' s philosophical old age bookends the story The fateful day stands inside as a framework upon which threads from both men ' s pasts are interwoven in flashbacks and reminiscences that reveal the startling differences (and the fewer but even more startling similarities) between their respective outlooks . Tenderness and atrocity, love and hardship , all are described with an emotional economy that avoids the lurid or mawkish. Although McGillycuddy admires the courageous tenacity of the Sioux, he doesn ' t gloss over their barbarity. Nor, while he knows that civilization must win, does he excuse American duplicity

This is an insightful novel, moving yet hard-edged, on a period about which it's all too easy to get sentimental or angry Dan O ' Brien puts the tragic, inevitable clash of cultures in perspective and his spare, muscular and occasionally poetic prose evokes the beautiful, harsh vastness of the Great Plains, which he obviously knows and loves

Sarah Cuthbertson

GUNMAN'S RHAPSODY

Robert B. Parker, Putnam, 2001 , $22 95/C$33 99 (£14) , 289 pp, hb , ISBN 0-399-14 762-4

Best known for his Spenser detective series, Robert Parker changes his focus from a private eye in contemporary Boston to a late 19th Century man-on-the-make Wyatt Earp in this extraordinarily well written western The enigmatic Earp and his brothers relocate to the

wide-open mmmg town of Tombstone, Arizona in 1879 In an environment like Tombstone, the Earps ' attempts to make their fortunes plunge them into conflict with the corrupt and dangerous lawman/politician Johnny Behan Wyatt compounds the family difficulties by falling in love with Behan ' s girlfriend, the beautiful Josie Marcus. The Earp-Behan rivalry is quickly exacerbated by gunfire, and the action that follows is more than enough to satisfy the most ardent western fan . Parker portrays Earp and the people around him with the intelligence and craftmanship one has grown to expect from his work. The Wyatt Earp in these pages is not the Hollywood version, but a historically accurate figure given new life through Parker ' s stylish prose and attention to detail John R Vallely

CALL EACH RIVER JORDAN

Owen Parry, Morrow, 2001 , $25 (£15.62) , 321 pp, hb , ISBN 0-06-018638-0

Third in Parry's excellent series (after Shadows of Glory) , this mystery will only serve to increase the author's reputation as one of the best historical fiction writers today. Abel Jones is asked to investigate an atrocity that had taken place at Shiloh : forty escaped Negro slaves were slaughtered. General Grant needs to make sure that the responsible person is brought to justice before the newspapers get hold of the story General Beauregard, on the Southern side, also must discover the killers before possible allies in Europe are made to believe that the South caused or countenanced the murders

As usual, Parry's descriptions of the battles , his depiction of the characters ' motivations and beliefs, and his unflinching descriptions of horrible actions are true to the time and place . Some of this makes for hard reading, but the character of the protagonist makes the exercise possible. Abel Jones is no saint, as his remembrances of his past actions in India make clear He is now , however, a changed man whose strong faith and unswerving sense of duty ensure that justice will be served

This book is highly recommended to all readers who have enjoyed the military fiction of Bernard Cornwell However, this book can also be recommended to readers who are interested in the cultural and social background against which the American Civil War was fought.

Kathleen Sullivan

ISSUE I 9.FEB 2002

THE COCK'S SPUR

Charles F Price, John F. Blair, 2000, $19 95 (£12 47), 3llpp, hb , ISBN 0-89587-230-7

The Cock's Spur is the third novel in Charles F Price's trilogy about life in North Carolina in the late nineteenth century Although a follow on from Hiwassee and Freedom's Altar, The Cock's Spur can be read in its own right without recourse to the other two There are various individual stories unfolding in the novel , but all weaving in and out of each other to form a coherent thread. Price's writing has tremendous power and clarity, and I say with delight that his characters are firmly of their time. There is not a shred of political correctness in the pleasure that the character of Hamby takes in fighting his cocks in the pit, no delicacy in the descriptions of the terrible symptoms of consumption and dementia, or the torture of an informer by moonshiners.

The novel is very dark at times and is not for the squeamish, but it is also tremendously uplifting and possessed of a spiritual resonance In my opinion it well deserves the accolade of being the Independent Publisher's outstanding book of 2001

Susan Hicks

FREEDOM'S ALTAR

Charles F Price, John F Blair, 1999, $19 95 (£12 47), 291 pp, hb ISBN 0-89587-177-7 Freedom's Altar is a lyrical, beautifully written tale of ordinary families struggling to remake their lives in post Civil War North Carolina Fonner slave owner Judge Madison Curtis has to come to terms with matters on his conscience - including the former owning of slaves. Daniel Mcfee, one of those slaves, has to work his way through his own ambivalent feelings towards the man once his master Nahum Bellamy, freedom fighter and now dangerous maverick, has scores to settle, as do others eking out a living in a world turned upside down by war

Although there is no main character in the novel , it is a tribute to the author's skill that all the individual voices are clear and the cast carries the story forward in an engrossing and coherent manner The descriptions of North Carolina are evocative, and although I'd never been there , by the end of the novel I felt as if I knew the place. I was also put in touch with a period of history about which I knew absolutely nothing

Well worth reading

THE ROSE IN THE WHEEL

Susan Hicks

S K. Rizzolo, Poisoned Pen Press, 2002 , $24 95 , 328 pp , hb , ISBN l-890208-85-X

In S K. Rizzolo ' s first novel , set in 1811 London, we witness a crime in progress A wealthy spinster, Constance Tyrone, is

THE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

murdered one cold, rainy night on the steps of the church of her patron saint, St. Catherine. The similarities between St. Catherine and Constance, the co-founder of the St. Catherine Society dedicated to assisting impoverished women, are both unavoidable and discomfiting However, while St. Catherine withstood the trial of the wheel and escaped into glorious martyrdom, Constance Tyrone ' s life and death are but those of a fallible human woman But why would Constance be targeted?

During the murder investigation, we are introduced to Bow Street Runner John Chase, a savvy detective with humanity and decency, and Penelope Wolfe, a liberated young woman married to a talented artist and marginal gentleman .

Regency London comes to life in this novel. The judicial system and its indifference to the poor, the hard-and-fast rules of social behavior, the lack of health services , the filth and grime of the city are all described in narrative, but not pedantic, fashion We get caught up in the lives of these people and develop a fondness for them

My only criticism is about the finale We learn what has ultimately occurred when the characters meet at a Christmas dinner and discuss the resolution of the investigation This method of ' tying up loose ends ' lacks immediacy. Overall, though, a terrific beginning for a talented writer.

STILL SHE HAUNTS ME

Katie Roiphe , The Dial $23.95/C$35 95 (£10*) , ISBN-0-385-33527-X

Ilysa Magnus Press, 228pp, 2001 , hb ,

The life of Rev . Charles Dodgson shy Oxford mathematician, pioneer photographer and author Lewis Carroll is studied in this novel of creeping obsession In 1856, Dodgson meets Alice Liddell, the dean ' s daughter, and is immediately attracted to this pure, virginal ' muse .' Photographing the entire Liddell family , Alice soon becomes his main focus. Falling under her spell in the darkroom, he ' possesses ' his goddess on film, worshipping her as her features come slowly into view in the chemical bath

As Dodgson ' s obsession grows , he seems innocently childlike yet oddly sensual Photographs of Alice soon become more intimate as Dodgson tells himself she deserves to be shown as she is Out of the blue, a message arrives from Mrs. Liddell: ' It is no longer desirable for you to spend time with our family .' He feels himself vanish into ' a single point of pain.' Dodgson ' s naivete is his downfall , with his haunted love for Alice , reaching out to her, not realizing that she is no

more than a self-absorbed child evolving into normal adolescence.

Although Roiphe writes beautifully about a touching subject and gifted man, readers will have to suspend disbelief willingly She admits altering ' geography, chronology and history where it served the purpose,' and diary entries are also invented The author ' s fictional projections may be a sharp disappointment to those who crave more of the truth in the mystery of Alice and the author

Tess Allegra

A DREAM TO FOLLOW

Lauraine Snelling, Bethany House, 2001 , $11.99 (£7 50), 304 pp, tpb , ISBN 0-7642-2317-8

Lauraine Snelling captures the hearts of two young adults as they work towards their life ' s dreams in the late 19th century She keeps the main characters separated through most of the novel, only bringing them together near the end of the story

Thorliff Bjorklund wants to go to college and become a writer, though his family needs him at home to work on their North Dakota farm. Elizabeth Rogers longs to be a doctor, but her mother prefers that she become a married woman in Minnesota high society When Thorliff goes away to school in the fall , he finds work and room and board at Elizabeth ' s family newspaper. Snelling gives a few subtle hints that the next novel in the Red River series may lead to love between Thorliff and Elizabeth

A Dream to Follow promises wonderful experiences for readers looking forward to future novels by Snelling. In the meantime, the Red River of the North series, starting with An Untamed Land, features Thorliff's family as they arrive in North Dakota

Melissa Galyon

FRENCH LEAVE

Sheri Cobb South, PrinnyWorld, 2001 , $14 95 (£9.34), 229pp, tpb, ISBN 0-9668005-4-0 Lisette Colling, escaping from a French convent to avoid a forced marriage, literally runs into an unexpected savior: the dissolute sixth earl of Waverly In exchange for his returning her to her English grandfather ' s estate, she will reward him sufficiently to pay off his numerous gambling debts. Lisette ' s grandfather has passed away, however, and a coach accident forces them into the company of the happily married Brundys, a couple whom Waverly unfortunately knows all too well To save Lisette ' s reputation, Waverly offers her a marriage of convenience

The historical atmosphere of 1820s England is beautifully rendered, and the characters ' language and mannerisms are witty ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

and charming However, the plot relies heavily on coincidental meetings, and the growing attraction between the too ruuve Lisette and the experienced Lord Waverly seems forced. Several scenes of great potential, which could have shown their developing romance firsthand, are related only in retrospect. Instead, I found myself wanting to read more about the Brundys . The subplots featuring this couple, whose romance was detailed in the author ' s earlier novels, sparkle with humor and the true affection they feel for each other.

Sarah Nesbeitt

THE LAST CANYON

John Vernon , Houghton Mifflin, 2001 , $24 (£15) , 33 lpp , hb , ISBN 0-618-10940-4

In the first of two parallel stories, John Vernon chronicles Major John Wesley Powell's 1869 expedition through the Great Canyon On May 23, Powell leaves Green River, Wyoming with 4 boats, 9 men, and enough provisions for a 10-month journey . His goal is to study and map a stretch of the Colorado River that no man, he believes, has ever seen He and his companions are clueless about the trials they will face or the many ways in which their loyalties to one another will be tested.

Leaving their village at the south end of the Grand Canyon at roughly the same time, a family of Shivwits Paiute sets out on a journey to find a missing daughter Toab and his companions also travel in unknown territory and must overcome fears and personal doubts in order to continue Though their paths intersect closely at one point, the two parties don't actually meet until they have both nearly completed their journeys What results , considering the hardships and deprivation both groups have faced, is hardly unexpected

This novel contains a nice blend of historical facts and imaginative recreation. Though a couple of passages, one in particular dealing with geology , seem a little text-bookish, Vernon has clearly done his research. The characters, both historical and fictional, are well developed, making the tensions that ensue believable. I appreciated the inclusion of a map charting the paths of both parties In addition, he cites his source material and provides follow-up details on many of the historical figures in his afterword Alice Logsdon

GRASS HEART

M M . B. Walsh, Univ of New Mexico Press, 2001, $22 95 (£14 .35), 176pp, hb , ISBN 0-8263-2338-3

The fate of the Mandan Amerindians (the ' White Indians,' also once thought to be migrant Welsh) of the upper Missouri River

THE lilSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

makes up one of the classic cases of the horrible effect of a white man ' s disease - here smallpox - on a Native American people, so when we identify the scene and the 1830s we know that a human disaster will inevitably follow The Mandan heroine, Grass Heart, has a dramatic (and occasionally comic) emotional life; she falls in love with a ' warrior ' who becomes a berdache - a female impersonator (whom Walsh unfortunately gives drag-queen mannerisms) - then she marries a completely unsatisfactory man, is captured and carried off by a Lakota, and finally finds surcease with a sexy Cheyenne warrior, all this before she is eighteen years old. But the center of her existence is her father , Good Plume, and when the fatal epidemic strikes , and she tries to protect him, she becomes part of a sequence of events of near-epic intensity and duration.

Walsh creates some good and complex characters; her savages are neither noble nor bestial, and the white actors , while seldom very admirable, are not caricatured Her re-creation of the great river in its seasons, as its permanence contrasts with those who lived or died on it, or came to it to trade and explore, is easily and sometimes brilliantly done.

This is not a great novel of the West , but an emphatic, if sometimes carelessly written work of well-combined history and imagination The author seldom puts a fictional foot wrong , and builds toward a solid, believable (if slightly melodramatic) ending.

Dean Miller

US/CANADA: 201H CENTURY

FIRE IN BEULAH

Rilla Askew, Viking, 2001, $25 .95 (£8 . 13), 376pp, hb, ISBN 0-670-8843-5 Fire in Beulah examines events , including lynching, racial warfare and land grabbing, that occurred during Oklahoma's oil boom of the l 920's. It with opens with one of the most brutal and disturbing birth scenes imaginable, a scene which introduces three of the novel's principal characters and provides the background needed to understand their motivations and complexities when we meet them again twenty years later

Althea Dedmeyer, the wife of a prospering but not rich enough wildcatter, her black maid Graceful Whiteside , and self-described ' Creek freed woman ' Iola Bloodgood Bullet Tiger Long offer very different perspectives on the events leading up to the 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Japeth, Althea's brother,

insinuates his way into all of their lives , leaving a trail of emotional and physical devastation that parallels that of Tulsa's black community.

This novel is based on historical events The discovery of oil in and around Tulsa unleashed currents of long simmering greed, hatred, fear and envy , and revealed the underbelly of humanity Askew doesn't tie things up with a pretty bow. But she writes compellingly and takes great care in giving each character a distinct voice. I found it to be highly worthwhile reading

Alice Logsdon

ODNATOWN MISSION

Geraldine Burrows, Five Star, 2002 , $25 95 , 38lpp, hb , ISBN 0-7862-3613-2

In tum-of-the-century San Francisco, Lorna Davidson is a feisty , independent schoolteacher whose lifelong ambition is to go to China as a missionary Since that is deemed an unfit occupation for a young, single female , she opts for the next best thing and goes west to join the Presbyterian Mission Home The Mission rescues young Chinese girls who are being sold in illegal slave auctions to serve primarily as prostitutes.

Almost immediately, Loma is exposed to every sordid vice that thrives on the Barbary Coast. One of the most profitable vices is gambling, and one of the most notorious gamblers is Johnny Black. Tall and handsome with more than his share of intelligence and charm, Johnny Black woos and wins Loma He has competition, however, in union organiz.er Connor MacDiarmond

The author has thoroughly researched the time and setting Based partly on fact , this is a fascinating fictional portrait of the end of the lawless West. The main characters , including the heroine, have unexpected flaws as well as virtues. Burrows is a spellbinding storyteller. Her description of the Great Earthquake of 1906 is vivid and engrossing The reader is swept along at a fast , cannot-put-<iown pace Audrey Braver

THE TORTOISES

Veza Canetti (trans from the German by Ian Mitchell), New Directions , 2001 , $24.95/C$35 99 , 244 pp , hb , ISBN 0-8112-1468-0

The Tortoises focuses on a tense waiting period endured by a Viennese Jewish couple. In late 1938, Andreas and Eva Kain expect their visa to arrive any day They do not want to leave Austria, but as Nazi power gains momentum, they realize leaving is the only wise choice . Yet this same momentum prevents the Kains from easily obtaining their visa. When an SA officer commandeers their apartment, the normalcy of their life erodes

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

With Andreas ' s brother Werner, and their friends Herr Felberbawn and Hilde, they face a very uncertain future

Since this novel was published posthumously, Veza Canetti missed sharing it with a wide audience It is clearly autobiographical I did not need the notes about the author to know that she experienced the events of which she wrote Associating tortoises with longevity, privacy, and peaceseemingly lost to Viennese Jews in 1938- she weaves references to this dignified reptile into her prose . She writes with intensity and irony, and shapes characters well Their voices, however, are not distinguishable in the frequent unreferenced blocks of dialogue

I found this novel extremely depressing, but my response testifies to its realism

Claire Morris Bernard

THE PEARL HARBOR MURDERS

Max Allan Collins , Berkley Prime Crime, 2001 , $6 .99/C$9 .99 (£4.37) , 251 pp , pb , ISBN 0-425-17943-5

Collins ' thrilling new mystery is spellbinding. World-famous author Edgar Rice Burroughs is too busy basking in the warm Hawaiian sun to pay much attention to the rumors that war with Japan is imminent. However, that all changes when he finds a popular Japanese-American singer murdered on the beach As people speculate that Pearl Harada ' s death was race-related, Burroughs begins to fear her murder was a result of knowing too much Worried that a friend ' s son may be involved, he begins the hunt for the murderer only to have his search tragically interrupted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. As Oahu struggles to deal with the tragedy, he must continue his search for the murderer in the ensuing devastation and mayhem.

This latest offering from the multiple Shamus-award winning and Edgar-nominated author is a great read that leaves the reader trying to keep up .

Dana Cohlmeyer

MAMZELLEDRAGONFLY

Raphael Confiant, Univ. of Nebraska, 2001 , $12 95 (£8 .09), 169 pp , tpb , ISBN 0-8032-6418-6

Mamzelle Dragonfly describes the turmoil of Martinique in the 1950s when the island sought independence from France The novel , written in Creole and then translated into French by Confiant, has been translated into English for this edition 1be novel flows well and contains a glossary of several Creole terms that may be unknown to the average reader

Adelise , a young black woman, leaves behind her mother and the laborious life on a

TIIE HI STORICAL NOVELS REVIE W

farm. She travels to the city to live with her aunt Philomene hoping for a new life. The novel follows Adelise ' s individual experiences as the city around her fights the political battle against the mainland A short novel that may entertain fans of Toni Morrison, Mamzelle Dragonfly is an interesting read . Melissa Galyon

THE MAGDALEN

Marita Conlon-McKenna, Forge, 2002 , $14 95/C$21.95 (£9 34) , 352pp , tpb , ISBN 0- 765-30513-5

How awful would it be to be an unwed mother in Ireland in the 1950s? According to Marita Conlon-McKenna, it would be awful indeed Esther Doyle is the oldest daughter in a predictably large, poor, Catholic family in Connemara. She finds escape from her role as family nanny , cook, and maid through a romance that any avid reader could tell her would go wrong after the first kiss Pregnant, abandoned by her lover, castigated by her family , she is sent to Dublin to work in the Magdalen laundry run by nuns , staffed by unwed pregnant women The women in the laundry are treated as badly as its namesake, doing back-breaking work and constantly reminded by the nuns of their sins 1be courtesy usually afforded to pregnant women certainly does not extend to them

Esther is treated as a pariah by her family and labeled as an unfit mother by the nuns Obviously, any woman who could use a wayback machine would not want to be in Esther ' s shoes . Although Conlon-McKenna comes close to cliche-to be pregnant and unmarried in Catholic Ireland is a fate worse than death-the story rings true with the varying tales of the other women in the laundry and the struggle between their reality and their religion I put this book down in a somber frame of mind, relieved to be living in the present and also sure that this had actually happened to countless women in Ireland.

Ellen Keith

THE MAGIC OF ORDINARY DAYS

Ann Howard Creel, Viking, 2001 , $24 95 (£15 .60) , 274pp, hb , ISBN 0-670-91027-9

During the latter years of WWII, circumstances in Olivia Dunne's life suddenly change The death of her mother followed by a failed Jove affair leaves her unable to realize her dream of studying archaeology in far-off places Her father hastily arranges her marriage to a farmer in southeastern Colorado Seeing no other choice, she leaves her home in Denver and takes the train to meet her husband-to-be. The world and work of Ray Singleton couldn't be more foreign With no close neighbors or work of her own to do, Olivia

reaches the point that she fears for her own sanity Then she meets two young women, Japanese-American sisters interned at a nearby camp. They offer her companionship and take her mind off of her own despair. But the way in which they ultimately change her life is quite different from what she could ever suspect.

Ann Howard Creel captures the quiet vastness of the landscape and the secret, hidden spaces in the heart with eloquence She shows how life's disappointments can sometimes lead to surprisingly fulfilling opportunities. This novel is based on actual events

Alice Logsdon

A FINER END

Deborah Crombie, Bantam, 2001 , $23 95/C$35 95 (£13 59*), 325 pp , hb , ISBN 0-553-10956-1

The seventh book in the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery series maintains the high standard of the previous entries Jack Montfort, Duncan ' s cousin, asks him if he can come to Glastonbury and delve into the hit and run accident that has put his Jover into the hospital Duncan asks Gemma to come with him for a leisurely weekend, which turns out to be anything but. Jack has been experiencing odd bouts of auto-writing in Latin, supposedly messages from a medieval priest from the Abbey . Through this , he has become linked with a nwnber of people who have ties to Glastonbury ' s potent history and legends This is where Joseph of Arimathea arrived 30 years after the Crucifixion and buried the Holy Grail , where King Arthur ' s and Guinevere ' s supposed bones were discovered, and where pagan religion exerted and continues to exert a strong force . Glastonbury ' s past plays a very powerful role in the novel , though the action all takes place in the present. Duncan and Gemma ' s relationship continues to evolve, and the characters we meet for the first time are convincingly drawn - and a pleasure to spend time with.

Trudi E. Jacobson

THE LAST REPORT ON THE MIRACLES AT LITTLE NO HORSE

Louise Erdrich, HarperCollins, 2001 , $26/C$39 50 (£16.25) , 36lpp, hb , ISBN 0060187271

The novel's setting is an isolated reservation in North Dakota. It is 1996, and the old priest, Father Damien Modeste , is writing his regular report to the Pope, something he has been doing since arriving in 1912 But this is his final entry, and it contains strange revelations not only about Father Damien, but also about

the inhabitants of the reservations , particularly Sister Leopolda

The plot centers on the arrival of Father Jude Miller, who has come to investigate the background of Sister Leopolda and to confirm her alleged miracles As Father Miller interviews Damien, the narrative moves back and forth in time Through Damien's reports , the reader learns that on the reservation, people and events are not as they appear For instance, readers discover that Father Damien is a woman. It is slowly revealed that through Damien's unique character, dedication, and sacrifice, the natives accept and cherish her ; and, so , filtered through her memory and experience, readers discover the Ojibwa's intricate existence, both corporeal and spiritual , that otherwise they would never see Erdrich's poetic prose traverses a landscape infused with both comic and tragic complexity and creates a subtle yet beautiful richness that is stunning

Gerald T. Burke

ESTHER'S PILLOW

Marlin Fitzw ater , PublicAffairs, 2001 , $25 (£ 15 62 ), 242pp, hb , ISBN l-58648-035-9 Nickerly, Kansas in 19 11 is a small, insular, religiously conservative farming community in which the townswomen ' s major recreation is membership in the Civic Improvement Association The community ' s uncompromised principles are thrown into disarray upon the return of one of its natives , Margaret Chambers. After accepting a teaching position in town, she becomes the object of disapproval and disdain Within weeks of her return, a rumor that the young teacher has seduced one of her students takes hold, and the populace decides it is time to drive Margaret out of the community. Snared into a trap during which she is tarred and feathered by several of Nickerly ' s leading citizens , Margaret fights back by bringing her assailants to trial.

This fictionalized account is based on a true story involving the author ' s great-grandfather and great-uncle In his role as press secretary to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Marlin Fitzwater gained an insight into the power of the media. This insight is utilized when Margaret's story is taken up by Temple Dandridge, a reporter for the Kansas City Star

Esther 's Pillow marks Mr Fitzwater' s first foray into literature. While the story is a gripping and powerful one, the novel suffers from underdeveloped characters and a lack of focus near the book ' s end. Esther 's Pillow would have been better told in its true genrenon-fiction

Deb Schmidle

SOUVENIR OF COLD SPRINGS

Kitty Burns Florey, Counterpoint, 2001 , $25/C$37 95 (£15 62), 256pp , hb , ISBN 1-58243-153-1

The old saying ' The more things change, the more they stay the same ' often came to mind while reading this compelling and poignant multigenerational tale about the lives of the women in an extended family .

Beginning in 1987 with Margaret's narrative about having to drop out of Harvard because of an unplanned pregnancy, this novel continues on back through the years via narratives of the women in her family . The reader gets intimate insights into each woman ' s experience, culminating with that of Margaret ' s great Aunt Peggy in 1938 Her own life dovetails Margaret ' s in spite of the disparity of years between the two, the only difference being that today' s women have more choices

Souvenir of Cold Springs is filled with finely drawn characters, such as Margaret's Aunt Nell, a quiet rebel of her own times , who , along with her friend and lover, Thea, hosts the family' s yearly Thanksgiving dinners Although the switching back and forth of narrators can be a bit confusing, it's well worth the concentration necessary to fit together the scattered pieces that comprise the puzzle of this large , loving and highly dysfunctional family.

This fine author ' s insights into the complexity of family life were impressive They evoked a myriad of emotions in me , including a strange sense of deja vu at times where my own extended family is concerned.

Pat Maynard

THE WESTERN COAST

Paula Fox, Norton, $13/C$19 (£8 05), 332 pp , tpb , ISBN 0-393-32286-6

The Western Coas t is a picaresque narrative in which place is the theme. In this gritty urban reality, everyone is flawed Seventeen-year-old Annie moves from New York to California where she meets a series of eccentric characters, lives in a series of shabby apartments , and works a series of mindless jobs. She ' s an innocent surrounded by unsavory types , Alice in Sleauland

Acting on a lead from her Communist friend, she finds an apartment and meets Jake Dialogue on the fly evokes the verite style Jake sets up anticipation that Annie will meet his buddy Carson, but like so many threads in this novel , this one leads nowhere. At the ' freak house ' Annie meets screenwriters who eviscerate their acquaintances with comments like, 'Why should he have gotten away with his delusions any more than the rest ofus do?'

Our hopes for amusement are lower than the basement where Annie works.

There is some good wntmg, such as Annie ' s daydream of the Catalan welder, a simple youth who becomes the object of Annie ' s fantasy A tone of controlled insanity is maintained throughout. In plot, goal and conflict, the story is lacking, meandering with too many details. We zoom in to a painfully intimate closeness while Annie is buffeted by the events of WWII on the home front.

Marcia K. Matthews

THE CLOUDS ABOVE

Andrew Greig, Simon & Schuster, 2001 , $24 (£14 85) , 254pp, hb , ISBN 0-7432-0640 - 1

This extremely affecting novel follows Len, an RAF Sergeant pilot, his friend Tad, a Polish pilot serving in the RAF, Stella, a WAAF radio operator, and Stella ' s friend, Maddy , during the course of the summer and early fall of 1940 Sections are alternately narrated by Len and Stella, which brings the time of the Battle of Britain to us with great immediacy . The realization that one has to throw oneself into living fully despite the uncertainty , fear and worry of the times , permeates the lives of Len and Stella and their friends With this comes the realization that life will never return to what it was Stella is haunted by an imagined Fraulein, her counterpart on the German side . The characters struggle with thoughts of the destruction, the killing on each side, but slowly conclude that it has to be.

Len ' s narration gives a vivid glimpse into the lives of fighter pilots , both their feelings in the air, and the camaraderie that exists between them, often for too short a time , on the ground Like Nevil Shute ' s Pastoral, this book Jets us celebrate the little joy s in the midst of such a difficult period

Trudi E. Jacob son

(This novel is published in the UK under the title, That Summer , and is reviewed on page 13)

AMBROSE BIERCE AND THE DEATH OF KINGS

Oakley Hall, Viking, 2001 , $22.95 (£14.35) , 288pp, hb , ISBN 0-670-03007-4

Hall ' s latest novel is set in tum-of-the-century San Francisco Journalist/sleuth Ambrose Bierce and sidekick Tom Redmond are fervently seeking a missing Hawaiian princess attached to the dying King Kalakaua ' s followers San Francisco is soon flooded with Hawaiian roy als in a convoluted bid for the success10n

Murder, politics and evil sorcerers pursue Bierce and Redmond through out this somewhat disjointed tale Its numerous characters and an influx of Hawaiian terms create a muddle that the reader must journey through to comprehend the copious events of

THE lilSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

Hall ' s plot While the background of Hawaiian royalty is compelling to read, it's the only sparkling complement to a dismally drawn out mystery

Wendy Zollo

STAIRCASE OF A THOUSAND STEPS

Masha Hamilton, BlueHen, 2001, $23 95/C$34 .99 (£14.97) , 274pp, hb , ISBN 0-399-14725-X

From the opening paragraph, we're in the hands of a master Hamilton reckons with the language The voice is present tense, the style fresh and descriptive. The story begins in Jordan, 1966 The child Jammana is a rebel against tradition She identifies with her grandfather Harif and with the midwife Faridah; they too are outcasts. We root for these characters to triumph over the opposition In the rallying of the village women around a shrine to one of their own, there is a streak of sixties feminism, Middle Eastern style

Descriptions are surrealistic : ' Under the soothing moon-breast of night and the sharp sun-elbow of day, in time's shuddering, all must be as it was before .' Jammana sees visions; magical realism takes on mystical overtones The love story of two old people, Harif and Faridah, intrigues the reader One touch and they would tumble.

On the staircase of a thousand steps in Bethlehem, Harif met Hannan, who became his wife . When Rafa, Jammana's mother, was born, Haridah attended Hannan as midwife Jammana senses that something went wrong . The secret is revealed in a cave where Rafa is hiding from her husband. Jammana longs to understand, but when the truth comes out, she'll have more sorrow than an eleven-year-old should have to endure

Marcia K. Matthews

THE JAZZ BIRD

Craig Holden, Simon and Schuster, 2002 , $25 (£15 25), 314 pp , hb, ISBN 0-7432-1296-7

The Jazz Bird is an imaginative retelling of the true story of the murder of Imogene Remus by her husband George, a bootlegger On the surface, this was an open-and-shut case. In 1927 , Remus , on his way to divorce Imogene, instead chased her into a park in Cincinnati and shot her The ' why ' of this case tantalizingly unfolds The prosecuting attorney , Charlie Taft, falls a bit in love with the victim, the jazz bird of the title , and when he reads her journals and letters , we segue into her voice. Little by little we get the details of her life and marriage to Remus ls she a loving wife or Remus ' s betrayer?

Holden ' s strength is in his telling of all sides of the story The Prohibition era is vividly recreated with its world of federal

TIIE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

agents, lowlife cronies, and society people who had no compunction about buying a bootlegger' s product but more reservations about mingling with him socially Imogene, a lawyer's daughter, aims to break down those barriers when she takes up with Remus . The framework of the story is the murder trial where Remus pleads insanity Will he be found guilty or get off? Holden sticks mostly to the facts while presenting credible alternatives that flesh out the case and make this an engrossing tale up to the last page

Ellen Keith

THE WRITING ON THEW ALL

Dean Hughes , Deseret, 2001 , $22.95 (£14.35), 554pp, hb, ISBN 1-57008-725-3

Gene Thomas , a wholesome, church-going youth in 1961 , hears about the construction of the Berlin Wall His Uncle Peter will be trapped in the Russian Zone Cousin Hans Stoltz is a practicing Mormon who finds it difficult to observe his faith in East Berlin When he hears the government has closed the border, he comments, ' Most of the best nations lock up their people .' His sarcastic remarks cause a friend to warn him that the STASI, secret police, have spies . The Wall becomes a metaphor for his future prospects. Family relations drive the plot. Generational conflict is mirrored by the Stoltz family Hans and his friend try a desperate escape on air mattresses in the Baltic Sea A second attempt includes the whole family Their love of freedom inspires them to risk all. When they have to turn back, Hans loses his faith

The narrative style is accessible, with straightforward action and dialog. Hughes's work demystifies Mormons and gives us enough diversity in the characters that everyone should find someone with whom to identify He stops short of exercising some plot options Perhaps he's saving them for the next volume in the Hearts of the Children trilogy

Marcia K. Matthews

SEASON OF STORMS

Susanna Kearsley, Jove , 2001 , $6 99 (£4.37) , 434pp, pb, ISBN 0-515-1311-3

Kearsley ' s books all have the same elements : a beautiful setting, a romance in tandem with a mystery, and a dash of the supernatural That being said, though, her books are not formulaic , Season of Storms tells the story of Celia Sands, a young actress tapped to play the lead in a play that went unperformed in the 1920s when the leading lady, also named Celia Sands , disappeared . Celia the First had been the mistress of the playwright, Galeazzo D' Ascanio, and now his grandson Alex is reviving the play on the grounds of the

family's estate in Italy ' s Lake District. The present day Celia finds herself haunted by Celia the First, intrigued by Alex, and increasingly concerned about mysterious happenings on the estate

Kearsley ' s strength is in her vivid depiction of people and place: she has added the Italian Lake District to the list of places she makes me want to visit. Less successful are the flashbacks to Galeazzo and the first Celia There are a few inconsistencies in Galeazzo ' s character that are never sorted out, and Celia the First is not as interesting as Celia the Second Kearsley has written more compelling parallel stories in previous books Nevertheless , readers new to her will want to read more.

Ellen Keith

LAKE WOBEGON SUMMER 1956

Garrison Keillor, Viking, 2001 , $24 95 (£16 99*), 29lpp, hb, ISBN 0-670-03003-l Gary is a fourteen-year-old boy living in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota in 1956 His family is a member of the strict Sanctified Brethren, who make Lutherans and Methodists look like amateurs His life is average for a midwestern boy in the fifties , but you wouldn ' t know it to hear him tell it. Gary is convinced he ' s going to hell, and with good reason . All he thinks about is sex. He even manages to obtain an illicit magazine called High School Orgies , which he keeps tucked into his Foxx ' s Book of Martyrs He has evil thoughts about his big sister, and he writes booger jokes for his classmates What he doesn ' t realize is that he is just a healthy fourteen-year-old.

Garrison Keillor has written a warm, funny story of a young boy in the throes of puberty Gary is convinced that he looks like a tree toad and will never find a girl to like him But he is also a very creative boy, and when his uncle gives him a typewriter, he takes off with it. His first attempts are graphic pornography, at best, and his unfortunate inspiration is his cousin Kate Kate is a wild girl who actually went to school once without a bra, and who talks casually about kissing boys Gary has a major crush on her, and what young boy wouldn ' t?

This is a light story for warm summer days. It is just as funny as Keillor ' s Prairie Home Companion, while being, perhaps, a bit more thoughtful

Alexandra Ceely

VICTIM OF THE AURORA

Thomas Keneally, Harcourt, 2001 (cl978) , $13.00 (£8 05), tpb , 219pp, ISBN 0-15-600733-9

Expeditions to the South Pole were the rage at the beginning of the twentieth century. Men braved extreme conditions to conquer the

ISSUE 19.FEB 2002

unknown and WtCOvered new scientific discoveries Thomas Keneally, the renowned author of &hind/er 's List, has written a thrilling novel of adventure and murder in Victim of the Aurora.

Anthony Piers , the main character and artist, is asked to become a member of the New British South Pole Expedition He believes his only contribution to the group is to paint pictures of the Artie landscape, but he soon becomes involved with solving a crime. Piers finds himself in isolated living conditions with a murderer The victim is a journalist who knows a secret about every man in the group and has left the secrets in a journal. Anthony discovers who the murderer is , but is faced with a decision that will change his life forever.

Keneally vividly writes about the endurance of the extreme polar environment and how individuals cope with the conditions. This book was worth reading even though the murder-mystery aspect was not complex. The book reveals the darker side of human nature and man·s fight for survival

Kathy King

JUSTICE HALL

Laurie R King, $23 95/C$35 .95 , 320 0-553-11113-2

Bantam, pp, hb , 2002 , ISBN

King ' s sixth Russell/Holmes mystery involves the couple in the travails of friends from an earlier volume in the series (0 Jernsalem), Ali and Mahmoud, who, we learn, are actually petty royalty named Alistair and Maurice (Marsh) Hughenfort . Marsh has returned from the desert to his ancestral home , Justice Hall , to become the seventh Duke in his line since there appears to be no other living successor to the title .

Holmes and Russell (Sherlock and Mary just won ' t do here!) decide that, if their brotherhood with Mahmoud/Marsh means anything, they must find an heir and relieve him of the horrendous burden of living out his life as a titled gentleman Someone else has the same idea but intends to eliminate Marsh permanently.

While they search, Holmes and Russell encounter the typical cast of eccentrics, including Marsh's lesbian wife, Iris, Marsh ' s uppity sister Philidda, and her Nazi-loving husband, all of whom , at one time or another, raise susp1c1on

A strange cast of characters? Not in the least, if you're a King aficionado. It's the eccentricity of the characters that makes the Holmes/Russell series so entertaining, present volume included It's clear that King has done her research, particularly in retelling the horrors of World War I. This is made all the

more poignant by the story of Gabriel, who would have been the next Duke King is a wonderful writer Enjoy Ilysa Magnus

DEATH IS IN THE AIR

Kate Kingsbury , Berkley Prime Crime, 2001 , $5 .99 (£3 74) , 199 pp, pb, ISBN 0-425-18094-8

Fans of the short and sweet murder mystery will no doubt enjoy this light and fluffy novel , the second in the Manor House Mystery series set in WWII-era England starring Lady Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton of the Sitting Marsh Manor House. A German pilot parachutes into the middle of Sitting Marsh, where the townsfolk are alternately thrilled and horrified at the thought of an enemy in their midst. Panic leads to hysteria when one of their own, a young farm volunteer with a penchant for handsome American soldiers, is found murdered near her residence. It's up to Lady Elizabeth to find the killer before the town sets off on their own investigation . The novel will surely satisfy a reader looking for a temporary escape For a good introduction to the Manor House residents , start with A Bicycle Built for Murder , book one in the series

Melissa Galyon

AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

Richard Marius, Knopf, 2001 , $26 .95/C$39 95 (£16.85) , 592pp, hb , ISBN 0-375-41239-5

Just as I was thinking it wasn't my cup of tea, this story pulled me in like quicksand A WWII hero raised in the mountains of Tennessee and fed the ' Code of the Hills ' his whole life murders his cheating wife and her lover. The well-planned murder goes astray when it is witnessed up close and personal by a young college student working his way through school at a newspaper The murderer extracts at gunpoint a promise of silence from the student and then lets him go The student, of course, crumbles under the lightest of police interrogations In doing so he launches the small town into a soul-searching quest for the answers , not only in the murder, but also in a myriad of other issues such as honor, segregation, and most notably, the Bible.

Several times I felt that the novel was drawing to a close only to find the author unveiling a new twist and renewing my interest. There are so many personal demons floating around this small 1950s town that it's sometimes difficult to keep track of them all. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Mark F Johnson

INCUBUS: I, Fast Friends

INCUBUS: II, Hippieville

Marcia K Matthews, Xlibris, 200 l. Book I: $20 99 (£14 58), l69pp, tpb , ISBN 0-7388-6636-6. Book II : $21.99 (£15.27), 23 lpp, tpb, ISBN 0-7388-6664-4

Most novels taking place in the Elysian days of the late 1960s sex, drugs and rock & roll seem to center around San Francisco, or if not, at least in California But hippies and anti-war protestors were a national phenomenon. The West Coast did not have a monopoly. These two books, really one long novel, take place in rural-suburban New Hampshire and nearby Boston, where Ben Zacharias takes a crash course in growing up Did I mention sex, drugs and rock & roll?

Sobering him up a bit is a late night hazed-over sleepover with the wrong girl, slightly shy and her very first time One more criminal offense will put Ben in prison for quite a while. Reality often has a way of interfering with childhood, but for some people it takes longer than others . Vietnam, unplanned pregnancies, overdosed drug trips , they all take their toll on Ben and his friends

A novel of considerable character development, to be sure, but also cramped in scope and too narrowly focused to be great literature. It's nothing if not honest , though, and once begun, it's tough to put down. If it never happened, it could have!

Steve Lewis

THESALTOFBROKENTEARS

Michael Meehan, Arcade , 2001, $24 95/C$36 95 (£5 59*), 297pp, hb , ISBN l-55970-567- l

Reviewed in Issue 17 (August 200 l ), UK section.

THE FAR FIELD

Edie Meidav, Houghton Mifflin, 2001, $25 (£15 62), 584pp, hb, ISBN 0618013660 Ceylon just before World War II is the setting for this long novel. ' The characters and events,' we are warned in the Author's Note, 'as well as much of the topography are conflated or invented,' yet all is given a slithery truth by a writer who lived in the country as a Fulbright fellow.

1lffi lDSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

Henry Gould leaves wife, child and a Theosophical sort of Buddhist soiree in New York to found a model village in the British colony - to teach, our protagonist says, the people their own culture. It's a difficult pilgrimage, and Meidav does not make it easy to watch the unrelieved ugliness of this American. Gould expects villagers to volunteer for projects he doesn't lift a finger to further himself, requires the watchful care of servants to bumble through native life, leads iconoclastic raids on shrines of the lower ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

castes to turn their offerings into his model compost heap (the most powerful scene in the book), and can't even bother to answer the letters of his own eight-year-old son Meidav's lush style evokes the time and place well and offers that inducement to follow this mid-life crisis. Yet some scenes are denied us all together in favor of navel-gazing: Paddy tapping, for example--requiring men to walk tightrope from tree to tree--we never actually see. And whatever happened to that two-headed calf, besides giving Gould the opportunity to have an affair with his maid? Colonialists are certainly bad guys , whether British, or of the more insidious American variety. ' He is not at the edge of a crater,' Gould realizes , ' he is the crater.' Not every reader will enjoy performing this act of penance

Ann Chamberlin

THE WORLD BELOW

Sue Miller, Knopf, 2001 , $25/C$37.95 (£8*), 275pp, hb , ISBN 0-375-41094-5

In 1919 Georgia Rice, a teenager, is sent to a tuberculosis sanitarium. The doctor ' s decision, while typical of the times , has a second benefit to the patient. Georgia is freed of responsibilities for her father and siblings Catherine Hubbard, her 52-year-old granddaughter, tells this story She is a twice-divorced teacher who moves into Georgia ' s old house While Catherine sorts through her own life , she begins reading Georgia ' s diary. Catherine pieces together Georgia's life including her marriage to a country doctor The two women have remarkably similar experiences of being forced into adulthood at early ages

This story is recommended for those who enjoy reading about romance , regret, misunderstanding, and the hopes of marriage It is well presented by a skilled writer of domestic fiction who explores enduring marriage as well as divorce Like other novels by the author, The World Below deals with the question of how much control should one person have over another.

Jetta Culpepper

SHENANDOAH HOME

Sara Mitchell, WaterBrook Press, 2001 , $12 95 (£8.09), pb , 408 pp , ISBN 1-57856-409-3

In this first novel in the Sinclair Legacy series, set in 1888 , Sara Mitchell tells the love story of two sisters, Garnet and Meredith Sinclair The novel, rich in detail , describes the obstacles Garnet and Meredith overcome to find love

Garnet, a beautiful redheaded artist , lives with her father Jacob and younger sister Leah in the north end of Shenandoah Valley,

Tiffi HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

Virginia. Their home in Sinclair Run houses Jacob's woodworking business and Garnet's artwork. Garnet meets a newcomer one afternoon, and suddenly her life is turned upside down Doctor Sloan MacAllister, fresh from Pennsylvania, has chosen the Shenandoah Mountains to escape his former life and begin anew Their prayers for new beginnings lead them in new directions , creating a possible romance.

Meredith has moved to town to manage the hotel office for Benjamin Walker. His seeming stolid ways fall away when Meredith expresses interest in one of Walker's business rivals They both fight through their own pasts to find that their futures may become one.

Shenandoah Home is another good offering in historical inspirational fiction Though Garnet's story moves rather slowly, Meredith ' s story more than makes up for it. I' ll definitely be on the lookout for book two Melissa Galyon

THE SWAN HOUSE

Elizabeth Musser, Bethany House, $11.99 (£8 12), 442pp, tpb , ISBN 0-7642-2508-l 'There are some tragedies too great, some shocks too severe, for the human spirit to understand and encompass at once.' The author refers to a plane crash in Paris that claimed the lives of Atlanta artists returning from a European tour.

A Southern girl in 1962, Mary Swan's tragedy is that her mother was on that flight. When Mary meets Carl , she goes from depression to compassion for the underprivileged young man of color. The gradual buildup of the relationship recalls how to an adolescent, a boy's touch could cause unfamiliar feelings and secrets to be kept from grown-ups

The author excels at depicting the civil rights struggle In one striking image, she recalls , ' Depression and prejudice wandered the city like beasts devouring hope .' She achieves great tension in the scene where Carl's jazz band plays at the club and Carl meets Robbie, Mary Swan's privileged, white friend . The Christian slant is present but not preachy. As Carl tells Mary Swan, ' Ain't no rich or poor They pray for the down-and-out and the up-and-out. People who've got everything on the outside but are hurting mighty bad on the inside.' That's me , thinks Mary Swan.

Marcia K. Matthews

HALFALIFE

V S Naipaul, Knopf, 2001, $24 (£12.79*), 21 lpp, hb, ISBN 0-375-40737-5

One can hear the East Indian cadence in the narrative voice of Willie Chandran's father. He threw himself into experience like Henry Miller and played with social caste. Willie is left with a challenge to reconcile the disparate castes of his parents. His father considers his mother ' a backwards .' Willie defends her in school compositions that serve as parables His father arranges to send him to London Willie has something in common with his father : an iconoclast, he sees the accepted truths and traditions of Britain as make-believe , and finds skewering them a source of comedy. He invents a new past for himself and gets a job writing for the BBC. He befriends Percy, a ' front of house man ' at a club, who acts 'smooth with the smooth. and rough with the rough .' Percy advises him to practice sex by ' raping young girls .' Willie reflects on this , uncomfortable because he feels compassion for his sister

Years later, a journey takes him to Berlin to see his sister In first person, he tells her about Africa Ana's father claimed to be an artist who created half-rough, half-polished bronzes Ana found out he had bought them His make-believe gave her a reason to identify with Willie in their half-and-half world of colonists and Africans . Like the bronzes, the book seems like a work of art deliberately left half-rough, unfinished

Marcia K. Matthews

AT PLAY IN THE PROMISED LAND

Diane Noble, Waterbrook, 2001 , $11.95 (£7.47), 370pp, tpb, ISBN l-57856-091-8

This final installment in the California Chronicles trilogy takes the two families into the twentieth century The main character, Juliet Rose Dearbourne, is only temporarily delayed from following her dream of becoming an actress when responsibility for her younger siblings is passed her way Struggles within the family take Juliet's brother and father to Brazil in search of profitable investments. Clay MacGregor, private detective and later military pilot, holds a private infatuation for the headstrong Juliet. Three captivating stories, each influencing characters in the other, culminate in an unanticipated surprise.

By facing numerous tragedies with prayer, family members offer strong evidence of faith Daily, they go about life in an inspirational manner of love and hope. The author uses a rich plot and a writing style that intrigues with elements of personal danger coupled with a dab of mystery to attract a broad readership

Jetta Culpepper

ANGELS FLIGHT

Tracie Peterson and James Scott Bell, Bethany House , 2001 , $11.99 (£7 50), 38lpp, tpb, ISBN 0-7642-2419-0

This story takes place in Los Angeles at the turn of the century and points out the plight of the Chinese and Mexican population A Chinese immigrant is threatened with deportation, as she is accused of being a prostitute . Whether she is or not is immaterial to Kit Shannon, a female lawyer.

A Mexican yard worker is accused of raping and beating a young maid from one of the mansions , and his sister turns to Kit for help Prejudice raises its ugly head in both of these cases, and Shannon must find the truth Another aspect is brought forth when Clarence Darrow is brought in to defend a man whom Kit has already convicted. Kit is also put in a comer by a challenge from a reformed preacher and Clarence Darrow to debate evolution and religion .

Romance is present in the form of a very gentle man who strives to help Kit with her cases Another suitor, her old friend Fox, is tied up in trying to design a plane with only one wing The consequences are startling, at the very least, and cause the reader to look forward to the next story.

Don E. Hill

AUSTERLITZ

W. G. Sebald, Random House, 2001, $25 95 (£16 99*) , 298 pp, hb , ISBN 0- 375- 50483-4 While this review was being written, W. G Sebald's obituaries appeared, describing the author's death in a car accident, possibly from a heart attack while driving. In the preceding weeks , he had been the subject of admiring profiles while the book received enthusiastic reviews and numerous appearances on lists of best books of the year.

Austerlitz is not so much an historical novel as a novel about history and memory Jacques Austerlitz realizes that he was one of the Jewish children transported from Czechoslovakia to Wales just before the outbreak of World War II An unnamed narrator meets with Austerlitz in the l 960's, 1970's and 1990's to hear his story. After discovering his birth name, Austerlitz sets out on a quest which eventually leads him to his mother's house in Prague where he recaptures significant memories of his past , some of them occurring involuntarily in a Proustian fashion, with a memory of his childhood triggered by stepping on uneven pavements in Prague. With the help of friends , travel , and memoirs of the period, Austerlitz begins an effort to understand the world of the mother and father he lost.

The narrative flows almost without interruption, with the entire book divided into

only eight paragraphs and a few scattered stars to indicate sections Photographs and drawings appear throughout the text, often illustrating Austerlitz's observations on architecture and art history The Holocaust is the central event of the book, even though events are reconstructed in a fragmentary and distant fashion By telling the story through a displaced European intellectual years after the events , Sebald creates an indirect evocation of the Holocaust, a story too horrible to confront directly.

James Hawking

BILLY BOY

Bud Shrake, Simon & Schuster, 2001, $21 (£13) , 235pp, hb , ISBN 0743224809

This highly recommended story of Texas golf entertains with lessons of life, love and honor. It is the 1950 ' s when Billy, a sixteen-year-old, enters Fort Worth with his father , Troy Both are still troubled by the recent death of Billy' s mother, a teacher at the university back home in Albuquerque Troy ' s drinking and gambling bring financial devastation Billy ' s introductions to Ben Hogan and John Bredemus, two prominent figures in the history of golf, are not by chance Amazing things occur under the watch of his guardian angel. Billy ' s hurdles in coming of age will appeal primarily to young boys, but all readers will experience an unforgettable and poignant story.

Jetta Culpepper

THE GOLDEN RING: A CHRISTMAS STORY

John Snyder, Warner, 2001 , $15 95/C$22 95 (£9 87), 18lpp, hb, ISBN 0-446-53006-9

It was 1918 and Christmas was approaching This was a favorite time of year for Anna and her family as they prepared their hearts and their home for the holiday. But soon, events taking place both in dreams and in the waking world would forever change both Anna and her beloved father

The world probably doesn ' t need another Christmas story. Furthermore, while a tender and lovely story, this one will probably not gain such popularity as 0 Henry ' s The Gift of the Magi and other famous Christmas legends . However, drawing upon inspiration from the life of the author ' s grandmother, this chronicle is definitely a special piece that would make an outstanding addition to any family Christmas literary repository.

It weaves a warm tale of family life in the early part of the twentieth century touching on aspects of small town existence that would mirror most any town of that time period. There are vibrantly described aspects such as hunting for a Christmas tree , descriptions of shop windows, and church programs It is a

snapshot of Christmas in its period as well as a heartfelt lesson on the meaning of Christmas for any time period . For a change of pace with a timeless message , this book is sure to be enjoyed by most any reader

Alycia Harris

SOPIDE AND THE RISING SUN

Augusta Trobaugh, Dutton, 2001 , $22.95/C$33 99 (£12 99*) , 213 pp, hb , ISBN 0-525-94627-6

In 1939, Mr Oto arrives in Salty Creek, Georgia, by accident. Taken off the bus because he is ill, he is nursed back to health and soon goes to work for ' Miss Anne ' as a gardener He is assumed by all in the small town to be Chinese Miss Anne , the narrator, watches as Mr. Oto's care transforms her garden. But he remains a hired worker, and a foreigner.

Sophie Willis is a well-off maiden lady who has spent her whole life in Salty Creek. Caring for her mother and two elderly aunts has been her life Free at last, she cares for her house , her crab traps , and her painting Mr Oto sees Sophie as the image of mature wisdom and gentleness She does not fall instantly in love with the poor gardener, but gradually, a relationship develops , one which transcends the boundaries of race and class . The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , leads to upheaval in the lives of Miss Anne , Mr Oto, and Sophie, as it exposes the townspeople ' s fears. What choices will be made?

This short novel moves at a gentle, lyrical pace. It captures the small town, Southern atmosphere lovingly, though honestly. The Atlantic coast of Georgia is a presence through the story. Unusual for its focus on a romance involving older adults , it draws the reader into a world that is slower paced, more innocent, but with more defined boundaries between members of society. Mr. Oto, Sophie, and Miss Anne are fully realiz.ed, recognizable people. This is a wonderful story about people who move beyond the bounds of race and class to find a fellow human being Mary L. Newton

ALL THE KING'S MEN

Robert Penn Warren, Harcourt, 2001 (c 1946), $30 00 (£18 59) , 642pp, hb , ISBN 0-15-100610-5

The most important thing about this ' restored edition of Penn Warren ' s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 1946 is that it stands up very well indeed, after 5 5 years and several novelistic ' revolutions .' Partially this roman a clef is centered on the career of the populist demagogue Huey Long of Louisiana, who had been assassinated about ten years before the book was published; the title refers to one of

ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

Long ' s oily and persuasive slogans : ' Every man a king .' The book is also a Southern School masterpiece redolent of the Deep South before air conditioning, with its attachment to the land and to a Southern version of history, its casual or sometimes psychotic and deadly racism, its tribalism, its brutal social divisions , and its foul politics There is a sort of love-story involving the narrator, Jack Burden, who works as a publicist, pet ' historian ' and gofer for ' the Boss,' here named Willie Talos (the original published text dropped the Greek-mythical reference and called him Willie Stark), and there is a nearly obligatory narrative reference to The War and one of Burden ' s self-doubting Confederate ancestors Finally, there is the manipulation and seduction of the innocent and not-so-innocent , some fairly strange sexual competition and complication, and corruption a-plenty, all laid out in unforced, flowing and usually convincing prose Penn Warren chose not to anchor his novel too deeply in the actual process of Louisiana politics in the 1920 ' s and 1930 ' s

The novel remains highly, almost compulsively readable, and a valuable , gritty and lyrical antidote to something like that unspeakable ' classic ' Gone with the Wind The Editorial Afterward (by Noel Polk of the University of Southern Mississipi, who did the restoration) is helpful in the main, but Polk throws in two interpretive conclusions of his own-having to do with the pi votal nature of the novel's Civil War interpolation, and the nature of the relationship between Burden and his high-class love interest- which are not, I think borne out in the text Ignore them, and enjoy a modern fictional near-masterpiece Dean A. Miller

THE DRY DANUBE

Paul West, New Directions, 2000, $21.95 (£14 88*), 152pp, hb , ISBN 0-8112-1432-X Adolf Hitler narrates , ranting and raving , his own life story during the years prior to the First World War In Vienna, trying to achieve recognition as an artist, Hitler is obsessed with two leading artists , Kolberhoff and Treischnitt Dramatic efforts to woo them failed completely, as do Hitler ' s efforts to develop his career in this area

The novel is essentially one paragraph divided into four parts The lyrical writing style clearly reveals the main character' s unbalanced fixation on two individuals he considers to be the leaders in art as well as his own insecurities . The reader may quickly think there is little that the author will not put in writing. The private, demonic and twisted thoughts assumed to be Hitler ' s flow across the pages Hints of Hitler ' s later political life are planted throughout the book. The fact that

TIIB IBSTORICAL NOVELS REVIE W

the reader knows the future adds power to the story

This book requires determined readers who are undaunted by a representation of insanity Even the author suggests that a second reading may yield a different reflection on the novel. Recornmended for those who enjoy a challenge

Jetta Culpepper

WHEN MOUNTAINS WALKED

Kate Wheeler, Mariner Books , 2001 , $13 , 375pp, tpb , ISBN 0-618-12701-l

Kate Wheeler tells the story of two strong women living in an unciviliz.ed location in Peru. In the 1940s , Althea Baines and her husband Johnny live in Piedras , where Johnny searches for the signs of an earthquake Decades later, her granddaughter Maggie and her second husband, Carson, work in the village at the medical clinic

Alternate chapters serve as the voice for Althea and Maggie We meet Althea again in her later years , as Maggie and Carson work towards saving the children in Piedras from the polluted drinking water Ultimately, Althea and Maggie have difficulties in their marriages , and the analogies drawn between the two women are infinite. They both desire true happiness but create impossible obstacles . When Mountains Walked is a good read sure to entertain readers who enjoy exotic locations in their fiction

Melissa Galyon

JOHN HENRY DAYS

Colson Whitehead, Doubleday, 2001 , $24 95/C$34 95 (£12*) , 389pp, hb , ISBN 0-385-49819 -5

July 12, 1996. J. Sutter, New York native and junketeer journalist, is en route to Talcott, West Virginia to cover the launch of a new postage stamp of nineteenth century legend, John Henry, who in 1870 , won a race against a railroad steam drill , only to die minutes later with the hammer in his hand

J. brings with him ' the standard amount of black Yankee scorn for the South ' along with an appetite for the usual dinner buffet and opportunities to pad his expense account as he races through a nonstop series of junkets Meeting up with a motley crew of fellow journalists who rehash chronicling the American way of life, J . also meets Pamela Street, whose father hoarded John Henry memorabilia until he died Talcott wants to buy her stash, but she's not sure she wants to sell her father's lifelong quest. A shocking event on the final day gives J. a personal jolt to reconsider his junketeering ways as he bonds with Pamela seeking what matters most.

Although most of the story is modern, the author flashes back to flesh out not only the story of John Henry, but the ongoing black experience in America since then With a striking parallel of performer Paul Robeson with other newsworthy events through the decades , we learn about the seeming powerlessness that can bring down a man like John Henry.

Tes s Allegra

ONE MAN'S JUSTICE

Akira Yoshimura, trans Mark Ealey, Harcourt, 2001 , $23 (£14 03) , hb , 276 pp , ISBN 0-15-100639-3

During World War II , Takuya was an officer in Japan ' s Imperial Army Now , he is a fugitive , accused of a war crime that he did commit, but under the orders of his superiors With limited funds , rationing and starvation throughout the country, and an increasing sense of desperation, Takuya travels across Japan seeking refuge . Because of the Allied Occupation, travel for him is dangerous But so is staying in one place Friends and relatives who Takuya thought could help him turn out to be fearful of becoming involved, making Takuya ' s situation only slightly better than the inevitable death by hanging if he is caught.

One Man 's Justice instills a sense of suspense while imparting an uneasy sympathy for Takuya The part he played in the deaths of the American soldiers seems minimal compared to the destruction levied by their aircraft Although marred by a few translation errors and typos , the writing evokes images and odors of overcrowding, the prickly feeling of anxiety over eventual disclosure , and the sense of confusion which can only be attributed to someone malnourished, persecuted, and unwanted In addition, Takuya ' s flashbacks of the air raids , the atomic bombing, and the resulting poverty provide an enlightening perspective

Highly recommended for those who enjoy World War II fiction, Japanese history , or a psychological thriller . Su z anne Sprague

US/CANADA: MULTI-PERIOD

BONE WALKER

Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W Michael Gear , Tor, 2001 , $26.95/C$37 95 (£16 .85) , 445pp, hb , ISBN 0312877420

In this novel , the third in the series, the authors weave together twin plots Set in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, both stories are geographically parallel , but, chronologically, ISSUE 19 FEB 2002

they are centuries apart. Eight hundred years ago, with the Anasazi world disintegrating , War Chief Browser and his loyal deputy, Catkin, struggle to restore order to their fractured society. Through battles, betrayals , and treachery, they hunt for a powerful yet elusive witch who incites the evil that plagues them.

Meanwhile, at a modem day dig in Chaco Canyon, renowned archeologist Dale Emerson is found dead, the victim of ritual witchcraft Swearing never to rest until the killer is found, his adopted son, archeologist Dusty Steward, recruits the help of colleague and friend Maureen Cole, a physical anthropologist. Together they unravel the mystery, uncovering surprising secrets of Dale and Dusty's past that are both revealing and shocking.

The authors maintain a wonderful balance as they move back and forth between stories . They keep the suspense tight and both narratives full of surprises. In addition, readers are treated to a healthy dose of historical and archaeological detail that makes this a fun yet instructive read

Gerald T Burke

THE JERUSALEM SCROLLS

Bodie and Brock Thoene, Viking, 2001 , $24 .95 (£15.60) , 272 pp , hb , ISBN : 0670030120

During the battle for Jerusalem in 1948, two young Israeli patriots take refuge in a secret underground library where they find some ancient scrolls. One of the scrolls tells the story of star-crossed lovers, a Jewess , Miryam of Magdaia and Marcus Longinus, a Roman centurion As Miryam and Marcus struggle with their separate demons , their lives are changed by contact with an itinerant teacher, Yeshua of Nazareth Marcus is intrigued by the wonder of the miracles he witnesses while Miryam's tortured soul finds peace in Yeshua's compassion

The Jerusalem Scrolls is the fourth book in the Zion Legacy series. The authors, a husband and wife team, have written a compelling narrative. The Thoenes take some literary license. There are a few historical anachronisms , and Yiddish is mixed with Hebrew and sprinkled among modem English, which may cause the reader a little confusion Nevertheless, that is a small distraction from an otherwise extraordinary biblical love story

Audrey Braver

US/CANADA: TIMESLIP

KNIGHT ERRANT

R. Garcia y Robertson, Forge, 2001 , $27 95/C$38 95 (£17.30) , hb , 479pp, ISBN 0-312-86996-7

Robyn Stafford has flown from Los Angeles to England to surprise her lover on his birthday. Unfortunately, she finds that Collin is married and has children But Collin also has a sister, Jo, and a niece, Joy, who take Robyn in while she recuperates from the shock. One day while hiking in Wales, Robyn comes across a fully equipped medieval knight whom she finds very sweet, but whom she is sure is crazy. The Earl of March isn ' t; he is a victim of a displacing spell, just as Robyn is to be herself She soon finds herself in 1460, arrested as a witch and in dire circumstances An earlier and improved version of Collin arrives on the scene, soon to be joined by an earlier Joy and Jo Robyn ' s adventures are aided by her ability to understand and speak any language spoken to her She clings to her illuminated digital watch, lighter, and electronic notebook (whose batteries seem to last suspiciously long) as mementos from her real life, while hoping to run into her knight again.

The sense of the period is vividly rendered Since Robyn is an outsider to the period, the explanations she receives help the reader as well. She tends to compare things from the Middle Ages to things in the 21st century, and some of these juxtapositions are forced and jarring. The author is prolix, though the pace does pick up in the second half of the book. A check of history books shows that the Earl of March, later Edward IV , isn ' t quite the paragon portrayed in this novel, particularly in regard to true love and fidelity But he is a pleasure to spend time with in this incarnation

Trudi

E. Jacobson

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Sarah A Hoyt, Ace, 2001 , $21.95 (£13 72), 278 pp , hb , ISBN 0-441-00860- 7

When young schoolmaster William Shakespeare's wife and child are discovered missing, he assumes they must be off visiting family . A later walk through the forest shows otherwise as he finds her dancing with King

Sylvanus, Lord of Elven Realm . Teaming with Quicksilver, the true heir to the Fairyland throne, Shakespeare works to retrieve his family while resisting the fatal elven charm. Hoyt's premise that this encounter with the folks under the hill is the fodder for some of Shakespeare ' s plays is quite clever Dialog from his plays are scattered throughout and provide amusement as one tries to identify them. Starting each chapter with stage directions also foreshadows Shakespeare's future success as a playwright. However, an excess of character introspection and repetitive dialog becomes maddening as the action is halted each time a character pauses to lament his or her situation

More fantasy than historical, this book is appropriate for fantasy fans that enjoy long forays into each character's thoughts Those wishing a novel about Shakespeare with a more historical bent should look elsewhere

Suzanne Sprague

LANCELOT DU LETHE

J. Robert King, Tor, 2001 , $25 95 (£16 22) , 46lpp, hb , ISBN 0-765-301-180

In this continuation of the story first laid forth in Mad Merlin , the focus shifts from Merlin to Lancelot, born to King Ban and almost instantly orphaned by war Raised in Avalon, Lancelot knows his destiny is to be the greatest knight that ever lived - but when he makes his way to Camelot and first sets eyes on Guinevere, Arthur's chastely married bride, he knows his dreams and loyalties will be sorely tested.

While staying within the broad outline of legend, King gives the characters depth and nuance rarely seen in Arthurian fiction Their actions not only make sense but are inevitable given who (and what) they are The setting is somewhere between the more gritty, realistic Arthurian fiction that has been prevalent lately, and the courtly love versions of old, borrowing from each as is needed .

Lancelot does not have the sheer emotional force of its predecessor By shifting the focus to Lancelot it also strays away from the questions of religion and identity that gave Merlin such a unique take on the legend It is, however, a fine novel in its own right, and well worth reading by anyone interested in a good tale

Tracey A Callison

US/CANADA: CHILDREN'S

LORD OF THE NUTCRACKER MEN

Iain Lawrence, Delacorte, 2001, $15 95/C$23 95 (£9.97), 212pp, hb , ISBN 0385729243

Johnny loved to play with the nutcracker men his father had made; 30 of them They had been made by the 'finest toymaker in London.' At least, that is what Johnny thought. Johnny 's ideal life is about to change, as England is at the brink of World War I. When Johnny ' s father enlists to go fight and his mother goes to work, Johnny goes off to live with a relative in the country

Johnny ' s father writes to him regularly and starts sending him more soldiers for his nutcracker men to fight. One by one , the soldiers begin to reflect the nature of his dad ' s war. Johnny takes them out to the garden and engages them in furious battle. But when the battles he plays in the garden begin to resemble the battles his father writes about, Johnny fears that he has ' god-like ' control over his father ' s fate

A poignant tale that is geared toward readers a little older than the intended age of 9-12, this is definitely a coming of age story It vividly portrays the time period and the horrifying effects of war upon men, women and especially children It delicately entwines the almost mundane day-to-day activities that must go on despite war with the intense, yet aching sadness of a war that was fought so close, yet so far away Lawrence draws upon many actual events to create a portrait of London ' s World War I history that will be enjoyed by readers of all ages

Alycia Harris

IN SEARCH OF A HOMELAND

Penelope Lively, Iain Andrew , illus ; Random House, 2001 , $29.95 (£14.99•), 120pp, hb, ISBN 0-385-72937-5

Prize-winning fiction author Penelope Lively provides a treat for all ages in her retelling of the story of the Aeneid. Beautifully illustrated by Iain Andrew, this rendition of Aeneas ' s long journey from Troy to Italy is a highly-accessible introduction to Virgil's masterpiece The story follows Aeneas and his men as they leave embattled and burning Troy and travel to Crete, Libya, Sicily, and finally , to the city that would become Rome; along the way the band of soldiers encounters monsters, giants , death, and for Aeneas , love in the form of Dido, queen of Carthage, as well as a treacherous journey to the Underworld. Mixed among the human travails are the ploys and trickery of the gods, especially Juno and

TI-IE lilSTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

Venus, who engage in a power struggle of their own.

Obviously, reducing the Aeneid this much means that many details are left out, and only rarely does the reader get a sense of time . When Aeneas explains his travails to Dido, the events he recounts seemed to happen one right after the other but in reality occurred over a period of seven years. All in all, though, this book is a wonderful introduction (or refresher!) to a classic tale.

Helene Williams

JOHN'S STORY

Joan Lowery Nixon, Delacorte, 2001, $9 95/C$14 .95 (£6.22), 167pp, hb, ISBN 0-385-32688-2

Joan Lowery Nixon's latest foray into the past for children is a charming story The hero, young John Nicholas, is caught up in the events of the pre-Revolutionary period in 1775 Virginia . His father is a leading figure in the colony of Williamsburg, determined to find a peaceful solution to the colonists' grievances But John's older brother, George, is more radical and leads the Williamsburg militia into action, much to the distress of their father . Based on the lives of a real colonial family , this novel is well written, fast-paced and educational. Told from John's point of view, it reveals the life of young boy in exciting times, one who is both scared and determined to participate The author, who knows how to integrate her research into the narrative, evenly mixes history and action. The characters are distinctive and appealing, though at times the dialogue seems slightly stilted. John also seems a little too mature for his age, even for a time when children grew up more quickly

Overall, though, highly recommended for children love history , and more especially for those who don't, as its compelling story may spark their interest.

Teresa Eckford

US/CANADA: NON-FICilON

THE RIDDLE OF THE COMPASS Amir D Aczel, Harcourt, 2001, $23 (£14.03), hb, 178 pp, ISBN 0-15-100506-0 Azcel, characterized as ' one of America's most lively and nimble science writers ,' has written a lucid and engaging history of the discovery and pioneering use of the compass He starts the journey in Amalfi , Italy, where stands a statue honoring Flavio Gioia , a native son who invented the compass sometime between 1295 and 1302 But did he really?

Digging in the archives of Amalfi, he is unable to locate anyone of that name, a surname not even found in that area at that time

During the course of our voyage in pursuit of the true origins of the compass , we learn about navigation in ancient and medieval times, we follow the trail of the compass as mentioned in medieval writings , we journey to China, where compasses were found much earlier than they were in Europe (though used for other purposes), and we observe the shifting fortunes in Europe as Amalfi loses its prominence as a port and Venice rose to mighty heights Aczel eloquently makes the case that ' the magnetic compass was the first technological invention after the wheel to change the world, ' the right invention at just the time when there was a maritime power with the ships to exploit it.

Trodi E. Jacobson

REBELS, PRETENDERS & IMPOSTERS

Clive Cheesman and Jonathon Williams, St. Martin 's, 2001 , $26 95 (£17 99•) , 192pp, hb , ISBN 0-312-23866-5

Throughout history , there have been those who have pretended to be other than what they are If you didn't know this before reading this work, you will be left in no doubt afterwards. The authors' basic thesis is that not all those who made claims to thrones did so falsely or with malicious intent. From there , Cheesman and Williams outline various imposters , rebels , and pretenders, beginning in antiquity and ending in the 20th century The narrative is both thematic and chronological

Though at its core an interesting read, this book was in many ways a tough slog due to the sometimes convoluted writing style And while the text is referenced, I found the lack of primary sources to be a problem, especially as the book seems more aimed at the academic rather than the lay reader If primary sources were used, it's not immediately evident, as the bibliography does not distinguish between the various references works consulted On the positive side, I found many of the stories quite engrossing and informative The global approach was quite refreshing , as so much history is very Eurocentric. The illustrations complement the text and are a welcome addition.

I recommend this book more for those who don't mind wading through some rather dense prose and who are interested in the topic than for the general reader

Teresa Eckford

THE STEEL BONNETS: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers

George MacDonald Fraser, Akadine Press, 2001, $22 .95 (£7 .99*), 384 pp, tpb , ISBN 1-58579-025-7 (available from www.commonreader com)

Himself a child of the Borders, Fraser writes with an insider's love and a scholar's knowledge, taking us from the very moment Hadrian builds his wall, through the beginning of the problems between England and Scotland in 1286, through the Long Good-Night of 1603 which ends the reiver period

Fraser keeps his focus squarely on the Borders and the impact of more than three centuries of war and banditry there, never allowing himself to be distracted from the people by the larger picture of the politics of the time Along the way we meet such notables as the Goodwife of Kirkudbright, who in Henry VIII ' s reign is forced to turn her husband over to the enemy for safekeeping, and learn how the reivers lived, about their family backgrounds and clan alliances , and most of all , about how they operated what to them was simply a way of life, though others saw it as thievery, extortion, kidnapping, torture, blackmail, cattle-rustling, terrorism, and more.

This is the only book I know of dealing directly with the reivers themselves , and it is wonderfully written in Fraser ' s clear and compulsively readable style, intensely resonant of its tune and place. Even if you think you have absolutely no interest in 16th Century Lowland Scotland, you will find this book fascinating, like a package tour into the past.

Rosemary Edghill

SAVAGE: The Life and Times of Jemmy Button

Nick Hazlewood, St. Martin's, 2001, $25 95, 384 pp, hb , ISBN 0-312-25213-7

In 1830, Robert Fitzroy, commander of the Beagle, took on board his ship a young native from Tierra del Fuego, later called Jemmy Button. At a time when Britain was fascinated by all things different, Jemmy and the other Fuegians who were brought to England were introduced to British society, dress, manners and Christianity Jemmy and the others were then returned to Tierra del Fuego

The British decide they want to convert the natives and think that they will have Jemmy" s help Unfortunately, they don't understand the Fuegians any more than the Fuegians understand the British When the two societies collide, the results are aggravating, interesting and a whole lot more Surprisingly, this book was hard to put down . It is a highly readable history of British

TIIE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW

expansionism and nineteenth century thinking. It accurately portrays the British desire to 'civiliz.e ' the world. There is a vivid depiction of the British fascination with things foreign and of the frustration felt by both sides in the battle to convert. Punctuated by first person narrative, Hazlewood has thoroughly researched his story and has enhanced it with several photographs and illustrations, as well as a detailed bibliography.

Alycia Harris

THE BOXER REBELLION

Diana Preston, Berkley, 2001, $15 (£17 hb, published as Besieged in Peking), tpb , 436 pp, ISBN 0-425-18084-0

China's experiences with foreign powers have traditionally been acrimonious and have ended in war more often than not. The Chinese state in 1900 was weak, corrupt, and relatively powerless to resist the demands placed upon it by the military and economic might of several Western powers aided and abetted by the Japanese These nations all controlled a significant portion of China ·s economy through their embassies in the capitol city of Peking

Seeking to take advantage of the peasantry·s hatred of the foreigners, the Imperial Court tacitly encouraged the ' Boxers ' (an insulting Western term) to attack the foreign presence by besieging their embassies and killing Christian Chinese. The result was an unlikely alliance between British, French, American, Italian, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Japanese forces in the defense of the Peking compounds and in relief expeditions mounted to both relieve them and to punish the Chinese for the rebellion The conib.ct ended with a resounding foreign victory, a looted Peking, the deaths of thousands of Chinese peasants, and a Chinese state made even weaker than before.

Preston makes imaginative use of Western diaries and secondary sources to narrate these series of dramatic events. History, when written well , is as arresting as the cleverest novel. Diana Preston proves this point yet again

John R Vallely

THE AGE OF HOMESPUN

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Knopf, 2001, $35/C$53 (£21.88), 502pp, hb , ISBN 0-679-44594-3

Like the women she writes about, historian and academic Ulrich (a Pulitzer Prize recipient) has herself spun an intricate and wonderful work. Through her examination of textile artifacts, she illuminates the varied lives of those whose handiwork has been preserved by historical soc1et1es and collections throughout New England.

43

Each chapter focuses on a specific object of domestic manufacture during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries: baskets woven by Native American women from various materials, spinning wheels for flax and wool, an elaborately pa~ted wooden cupboard, an embroidered chimneypiece, a pocket-book, a counterpane, linen for adorning table and bed, and more. In her account of an item's creation and provenance, Ulrich delves into the personal history of the maker, characterizing that individual's larger community--village, farm, factory town, or forest

Amply illustrated with photographs and maps, the book pulls the reader back to an vital era in which regional and national identity grows and changes No dry compilation of facts , this book is as readable and entertaining as it is iniormative The representative subjects of Ulrich's scrutiny, men and women alike, are brought to life through their letters, diaries , genealogies, poems, and newspapers

Whether viewed as early American social history, textile documentation, or gender studies, The Age ofHomespun is a remarkable achievement.

Margaret Barr

A PRESIDENT IN THE FAMILY

Byron W Woodson, Sr., Praeger, 2001, $24 95 (£21.50) , 312pp, hb , ISBN 0275971740

The president is Thomas Jefferson, the family the Woodsons, putative descendants of Thomas Woodson, debatably one of Jefferson·s children by his slave Sally Hemings This liaison caused scandal at the tune, and agam m 1914 when Fawn Brodie covered it in Thomas Jefferson : An Intimate History Plenty has been written about the children who bore the Hemings surname and their descendants, but not about Thomas Woodson and his . (He apparently became Woodson on being sold to a plantation of that name at age 12 ) Byron Woodson contributed to DNA testing in 1997 and is forthright in his anger at what he sees as the reasons for its failure to prove that Jefferson fathered a Thomas Woodson Here he attempts two things: to bolster the family ' s long oral tradition of Jefferson ancestry with more solid proof, and to recount the family ·s history to the present day. In the first he stretches the evidence too far and allows his DNA outrage too much rein. But it's the second that proves to be the real strength of this very readable book: an inspiring story of triumph over disadvantage and prejudice featuring, among other memorable characters, an eminent black educator and founder of black nationalism Sarah Cuthbertson

ISSUE I 9.FEB 2002

IAUSTRALIA

TITLES

Australia' here means that the following books are published, but not necessarily set, in Australia.

AUSTRALIA: 191H CENTURY

GOULD'S BOOK OF FISH: A Novel in Twelve Fish

Richard Flanagan, Picador Australia, 2001 , AU$50 , 404pp , hb , ISBN 0330363034

In 1828 , a convicted forger is exiled to Van Dieman's Island, i e., Tasmania Thus begin the fabulous adventures of William Buelou Gould This liar and murderer is also an artist so he is ordered by the penal colony'~ deranged surgeon to paint a book of local fish This allows Gould unusual freedom, so readers are introduced to characters such as the eccentric Capois Death, the delusional Commandant, Castlereagh the pig , and many others

This fantastic tale is told by a modern narrator Sid Hammett, a cheap huckster who discovers the book of fish in a junk shop in Hobart, Tasmania Through this narrative technique, Flanagan creates a story that is both history and fairy tale It is comical , horrifying, and at times frighteningly real in its unreality Frequently, characters are transformed into other characters or the story digresses , but the narrative always returns to the main plotline This is one of the charming aspects of the novel ; unfortunately, for some readers , it will be confusing and a turnoff. Still, this labyrinthine story is a rewarding excursion into humanity's dark history Besides, the fish illustrations are marvelous Gerald T Burke

THE FALL OF LIGHT

Niall Williams , Picador Australia 200 l AU$28 , 382pp, tpb, ISBN 0-330-48879-l , The story opens in early nineteenth century Ireland. Francis Foley ' s wjfe leaves him after he steals a telescope from their landlord Francis flees and is determined to lead his four sons to a new and better home on the west coast of Ireland. In his uncompromising

TI-IE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVJEW

I

stubbornness, Francis forces his sons to cross the swift-flowing River Shannon, which separates the family . Francis searches for his

sons and a new home, and his sons follow

individual paths that lead them to various parts of Ireland, Europe, Africa, and North America.

Rather than being the epic adventure the plot indicates, the novel focuses on the themes of home, love , and famil y. Much of the story is told in a narrative form Williams writes in a dreamy prose that is near poetic at best but lethargic at other times , and the pace of the story is uneven. On occasion, journeys and events are unsatisfactorily condensed into a few pages , and the story , which is burdened by many unbelievable circumstan ces occasionally approaches a fairy tale Historic.tl events such as the potato famine are described briefly and movingly , but remain firmly in the background .

Lisa Sweeney

AUSlRALIA:

201H CENTURY

THE DAY WE HAD IDTLER HOME

Rodney Hall , Picador Australia 200 l AU$21 , 351 pp, tpb, ISBN 0-330-36305-0 , At the end of World War I, 17-year-old Audrey McNeil joins the rest of her small Australian town to welcome home the returning soldiers A stranger also disembarks Audrey ' s older sister and guardian, Sylvia, mistakes the battered young man for the son of a German acquaintance and insists he accompany them home However, they soon discover that the stranger is actually Adolf Hitler, a low-ranking soldier of the German army , and plans must be made to return him to Germany before anyone accuses them of being enemy sympathizers

Told from Audrey ' s point of view, this story flows from Audrey's sense of teenage confusion to her catalytic encounter with Hitler to her eventual maturity and escape from familial oppression. Audrey ' s obsession with filming Germany after the war leads her to leave her own role as observer of the increasing unrest to become an opponent of the fervor stirred up by the angry Hitler. Hall's attention to detail and insight on the thoughts of a young woman abroad is amazing The only detraction is the literary device of a dash beginning each bit of dialog rather than the traditional quotation marks

Although the novelist admits to taking liberties with a few historical facts , this book is thought-provoking, entertaining, and provides context for the events leading up to Hitler's Germany and the atrocities that were

permitted Recommended for those who enjoy war novels or coming of age stories

Suzanne Sprague

THE AUSTRALIAN FIANCE

Simone Lazaroo , Picador Australia 2000 AU$21 , 21 lpp , tpb , ISBN 0-330-36266-6 , The aftermath of war is examined in this love story of two individuals from two completely different worlds : a young Eurasian woman from Singapore and an Australian photographer from Broome . Set in the late 1940s following the Japanese occupation of China, the couple meets and falls in love. The young woman, living with her mother and baby sister in the famil y shophouse, reluctantly leaves her family behind as she travels to Australia as his fiance .

Once in Australia, the young woman attempts to fit in Eventually, it becomes apparent that she faces racism and abandonment when his parents express disapproval of his choice. Dealing with past transgressions during the war and the unfulfilled need for acceptance from her fiance , the young woman must come to terms with her past, present and future.

The young woman ' s need for forgiveness and love recurs frequentl y, even as she varies between the basic needs for nourishment and security The author takes tremendous care in bringing life to specific, nameless characters immersed in their own daily struggles while the world surrounding them works on reconstruction from the war The Australian Fiance serves as more than a superficial glance at times of turmoil It examines realistic human relationships under extraordinary circumstances

Meli ss a Galy on