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ANCIENT EGYPT
THREE NOVELS OF ANCIENT EGYPT: Khufu’s Wisdom, Rhadopis of Nubia, Thebes at War
Naguib Mahfouz (trans. Raymond Stock, Anthony Calderbank, and Humphrey Davies), Everyman’s Library, 2007, $26.95/C$34.95, hb, 588pp, 9780307266248 / £14.99, hb, 632pp, 9781841593050
Go figure. Just when you think you know the rules of historical fiction—pitfalls to avoid such as anachronisms, being moralistic, or threading plots with unbelievable coincidences—along comes a writer such as Naguib Mahfouz, who, without much solemnity, casually pulverizes the aforesaid set of laws. What would cripple other writing is peppered across the pages of Three Novels of Ancient Egypt, the earliest published work of the Egyptian writer and 1988 Nobel Prize winner. Only here it doesn’t matter. The lyrical strength and seductive power of this master craftsman’s prose is such that the reader becomes the proverbial snake caught in the hypnotic melody of a cunning charmer.
The three novellas of this volume are, in Nadine Gordimer’s words, an example of Mahfouz’s “nascent brilliance.” (By the way, read the introduction after the novels, as Gordimer gives the plots away.) Written in the thirties, shortly after Mahfouz graduated from Cairo University, they give a taste of Mahfouz’s later style and interests. True to his Arab heritage, he is fatalistic, ironic, and deeply philosophical. In the first piece, Pharaoh Khufu, an able and seemingly wise monarch, is prompted by a sorcerer’s foresight to start a war against the Fates. What will he not do to hang on to power? The second work is a cautionary tale in which a reckless young king falls for the courtesan Rhadopis, a seductive femme fatale. Their ill-fated passionate affair arouses the hate of the people. The third novella has the grandeur and majesty of an epic. In it the exiled grandson of a murdered ruler of Thebes seeks to liberate his ancestral land, crushed under the colonial rule of Hyksos. In the three stories, Mahfouz numbs you with descriptions that are sensual and intimate. He beguiles you with sparks of genius in the charming conversations between his characters. And if, here and there, there is an inept metaphor, or if cataclysmic events call for characters turning on a dime, by Ptah they do. And, somehow mysteriously, the faux pas is expunged and instantly forgotten.
So there you have it. It is true. Rules apply to the lesser breed of writers. The great ones,
even in their tender years, can thumb their noses at you, and cackle. And you, poor sucker, you. You just love it.
Adelaida Lower
NEFERTITI
Michelle Moran, Crown, 2007, $24.95/$C32.00, hb, 544pp, 9780307381460 / Quercus, 2007, £12.99, hb, 528pp, 1847241522
Nefertiti is chosen to marry Amunhotep IV, heir to the throne of Egypt, and her future of power and wealth seems assured. Her half-sister, Mutnodjmet, has no desire for power; she wants only love and the peace of her herb garden. But Nefertiti’s husband makes an unstable Pharaoh—changing his name, moving the capital, tearing down the traditional gods, and pushing Egypt towards disaster. Mutnodjmet is drawn into the web of intrigue at the shallow but glittering Amarna court as she attempts to balance her desires with the demands of her powerful sister.
As several readers have noted, Moran’s take on the court at Akhetaten and the two sisters at its center is strongly reminiscent of recent Tudor offerings focusing on the Boleyn sisters. Selfish and unscrupulous Nefertiti does whatever it takes to keep her husband enthralled and power within her grasp, while Mutnodjmet endlessly sacrifices to further a cause she doesn’t believe in and help a sister who is domineering and often unkind. Mutnodjmet narrates the tale, and though she is well-drawn, her forgiveness and subordination frequently beggar belief. Nefertiti is not as well developed a character, and unstable despot Akhenaten is a two-dimensional caricature of the browbeaten husband in thrall to his beautiful wife, a fanatic who vents through whining, suspicion, and cruelty.
There are more gaps than record in the historical record from this time period, but Moran also takes liberties with events and timelines generally accepted by scholars. The convincing details Moran has provided of daily life during the 18th dynasty are appealing, however, and add depth to the story. The plotting has promise, but eventually becomes repetitive and predictable. The end of the novel devolves into an abrupt conclusion for the story of The Heretic and The Beautiful One; Mutnodjmet’s destiny, while completely different from that of the historical woman, is resolved more tidily. Moran has planned a sequel to continue Mutnodjmet’s tale, which may bring her fictional fate more in line with her historical one.
Bethany Latham
THE QUEST
Wilbur Smith, Macmillan, 2007, £18.99/ C$34.95, hb, 503pp, 9781405005807 / St. Martin’s Press, 2007, $27.95, hb, 624pp, 9781405005807
In the fourth novel of Wilbur Smith’s Egyptian series, the story of Taita the eunuch continues but delves further into the phenomena of magic.
For seven years the river Nile has ceased to flood, thus failing to nourish and sustain the land of Egypt, causing plague and famine and bringing the country to the edge of disaster. A new religion is emerging, the worship of the one goddess who will restore life to the people if the pantheon of Horus, Isis and Osiris is overturned. The troubled pharaoh Nefer Seti sends Taita to discover the source of the Nile at the end of the known world and, so doing, hopes he will release the waters and rejuvenate the land. During the long years of travel south into unexplored Africa, Taita is reunited with his beloved Queen Lostris in the reincarnated form of Fenn, a foundling child discovered in the malaria-infested swamps on the edge of the jungle. As she grows, he teaches her the esoteric arts to assist him in the fight he knows will come with the malevolent witch who has wreaked these ills on the Upper and Lower Kingdoms.
The Quest is therefore not the story of ancient Egypt as depicted in the earliest books, but a journey into the imagination. Wilbur Smith is a skilful teller of tales, and here he constructs a chronicle of otherworldliness which crosses the line from the true historical novel to a work of fantasy and, so doing, harnesses and recaptures myths out of the mysterious dark continent with which he is so familiar.
Gwen Sly
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THE EAGLE IN THE SAND
Simon Scarrow, Headline, 2007, £6.99, pb, 504pp, 9780755327751
Simon Scarrow’s seventh novel has Roman legionnaires Macro and Cato sent to a fort in Judea to investigate disturbing rumours of a Parthian invasion. Corruption is rife among the higher ranking officers at Fort Bashir and Macro and Cato immediately find themselves up against the odds, beset by problems from within their own enclave as well as an imminent revolt by the native Judeans. The latter are led by Bannus, a member of the early Christian movement, which is divided between the peacemakers and those who would use force to fulfil their aims.
As one would expect from a Macro and Cato outing, there is plenty of action and the novel zings along at a cracking pace. The settings feel authentic and the life and times are well and colourfully portrayed. This is good, solid entertainment and a useful holiday read to pack in the suitcase. Some readers may find the very modern colloquialisms in the dialogue distracting, but others may feel that they give the novel a refreshing immediacy. I make no judgements on this—it’s a matter of personal taste.
Susan Hicks
IN AT THE DEATH
David Wishart, Hodder & Stoughton, 2007, £19.99, hb, 301pp, 9780340840368
Rome, in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius: a young man, with everything to live for, appears to commit suicide and Marcus Corvinius is called in, by the family, to investigate. As always, things are not as they appear. Corvinius is not helped by the fact that Perilla, his wife, has agreed to look after a friend’s dog for a while with devastating results.
There is a great mix of fact and fiction, real people and fictitious characters, and Rome in the 1st century AD comes vividly to life. The plot twists and turns, encounters dead ends, and surprises in plenty before all is satisfactorily resolved.
I have read several of these books now and am gradually getting used to the rather off-beat style of the author who obviously was familiar with Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe. However, as we cannot know exactly how Romans talked to each other it’s as good a way as any.
Marilyn Sherlock
ROMA
Steven Saylor, St. Martin’s Press, 2007, $25.95, hb, 576pp, 0312328311 / Constable & Robinson, 2007, £16.99, hb, 600pp, 9781845291105
Steven Saylor, the award-winning mystery writer of the Roma Sub Rosa series, undertakes the multigenerational historical saga in his latest novel, Roma. Pioneered by the late James Michener and current purview of novelist Edward Rutherfurd, Saylor’s entry into the genre is a noteworthy one. With his meticulous knowledge of ancient Rome, the subject matter seems a perfect match for someone of his impressive talent—a centuries-long journey from the founding of Rome to the rise and fall of the Republic and the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Saylor frames his compelling, fast-moving narrative in elegant prose, using the device of a fictional family whose fates are closely interwoven with the vicissitudes and fortunes of the city. The cast is large and varied, beginning with a salt trader’s daughter in 1000 B.C. who receives a mysterious gold talisman that will become a family heirloom. Through the eyes of her descendants, the Potitius family, we witness the city’s founding by Romulus and Remus, the struggles and intrigues of plebeians and patricians, Hannibal’s invasion, a mass murderer’s scheme to wipe out a competing dynasty, a vestal virgin’s sacrifice, and the tragic attempt of two sibling politicians to revolutionize Roman society. Throughout we are regaled with the aspirations, delusions, brutal expediencies and hunger for immortality that permeated the struggle to build what arguably became history’s most powerful empire.
Readers seeking a central character to identify with may be thwarted by the swift passage of years and events; those who persist will find themselves in awe of Saylor’s command of his sprawling storyline, his penchant for detail, as well as his evident passion for what is truly his book’s only central character—Rome herself, a city whose complex grandeur and enigmatic
allure continue to entice our collective imagination.
C.W.
Gortner
FAREWELL BRITANNIA
Simon Young, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, £16.99, hb, 286pp, 9780297852261
In this collection of linked short stories, Simon Young revisits the territory he occupied so beguilingly in A.D. 500, not only literally revisiting Britain during the Roman and postRoman period but metaphorically with his mix of fact and fiction. Like his previous book, Farewell Britannia is a hybrid, a combination of lively fiction and popular history designed both to entertain and inform.
A young man attending his father’s funeral in 430 AD reflects on the history of his family, the Atrebates, a clan whose fate has been tied to that of Britain’s Roman rulers since Julius Caesar’s expedition in search of pearls and tin in 55 BC. Atrebates have been present over the years at all the great events from the revolt of Boudicca to the final withdrawal of the legions in 410 AD, and Young gives his readers vivid and plausible accounts of all these. More intriguing to me, however, are his ventures into lesser known territory. I particularly enjoyed his poignant account of an ambitious army wife struggling to prepare a feast for a visiting general in the wilds of Northumberland. Whether it be roast flamingo in Briga or balsamic vinegar in Islington, food, it seems, has always served a far more complex purpose than merely sustaining life. Another story tells of the persecution of Christians in 280 AD in language whose very spareness makes it all the more moving. And there are other curiosities, from headhunters in the Pennines to elephants in Essex.
Each story is followed by an extended note on the historical context, which makes the book as educational as it is readable. I have one minor quibble, which is the rather pedantic inclusion of the modern name of each location in brackets after its Roman appellation. This may have been the publisher’s decision, I suppose, but either way I found it unnecessary and distracting and would have preferred fact and fiction to remain separated. It would have been just as easy to include modern names in the historical notes.
Sarah
Bower
is murdered. He seeks out his mother’s people, but only finds a temporary refuge with them. Fighting on the side of the Romans, he becomes a true leader of men. Finally, he seeks to avenge his father, and reaches for something beyond mere survival. Fate takes a hand, and the climax has all the action and startling twists any reader could want.
The relationships between the characters are sketchily drawn, and events that might have been milked for drama, such as Odoacer’s first encounter with the grandfather who never knew he existed, are given cursory treatment. The prose is marred by some glaring bloopers: unfortunately, no editorial eye caught “noisomeness“ being misused as a synonym for “noisiness” in the book’s opening paragraph. The best writing is in the vividly imagined and meticulously researched battle scenes, which are full of terror, gore, heart-jolting excitement, and hair’s-breath escapes.
Any reader hoping for romantic intrigue will be disappointed, as none of the female characters rates so much as a line of dialogue. Even the city of Rome seems to be populated exclusively by power-driven men. In this harsh world, honor motivates but survival and preeminence are the real prizes. This novel is for those who enjoy high octane fictionalized military history with no frills.
Phyllis T. Smith
6th CENTURY
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BELISARIUS, BOOK 1: The First Shall Be Last Paolo A. Belzoni, Arx, 2007, $14.95/C$16.95, pb, 241pp, 1889758787
Belisarius was the great general whose leadership of the Byzantine armies of the Emperor Justinian during the 6th century led to the reconquest of North Africa and most of Italy from the Vandals and Ostrogoths. Belzoni’s first volume deals with his youthful exploits and his first campaign against the Persians, culminating in the Battle of Daras (530 AD).
5th CENTURY
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THE FALL OF ROME
Michael Curtis Ford, St. Martin’s Press, 2007, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 306pp, 9780312333621
Attila is dead. The Western Roman Empire is tottering. As every source of order crumbles, life, already brutish and short, is becoming more so. Michael Curtis Ford’s novel about Odoacer, an actual historical figure, is set in this Hobbesian world. The son of a Hunnish father and a woman abducted from a conquered Germanic tribe, he flees into exile when his father, unjustly accused of revealing the site of Attila’s tomb,
Although it does provide some background on the complex religious and political situation in the empire, the novel focuses upon its hero’s military career. The events described are exciting, but the narrative suffers from stylistic clumsiness. This is unsurprising in a first novel, but unfortunately it invites unflattering comparison with the easy fluency of a more graceful treatment of this story, Count Belisarius (1938) by Robert Graves. Nor does the tone of moral earnestness help, though it probably appeals to the religious leanings of the audience at which the publisher aims. As a result the characters tend to be divided between the strikingly virtuous and those unsavory figures who are marked by pride and ambition, sloth and self-indulgence. The debt to the historian Procopius, who served as Belisarius’s secretary, should have been acknowledged in the Historical Note.
Ray Thompson
10th Century-13th Century
THE ROAD TO AVALON
Joan Wolf, Chicago Review Press, 2007 (c1988), $14.95/C$18.95, pb, 241pp, 9781556526589
First published in 1988, The Road to Avalon has been reissued with a foreword by Mary Jo Putney. Set in a post-Roman world, this is a historical romance, one of the handful that celebrate the love between Morgan (le Fay) and King Arthur: in this version, she is Merlin’s daughter by his second wife, he Merlin’s grandson through his first wife, thereby diminishing the incest motif. Unaware of their relationship, the pair are raised together as children in Merlin’s villa in Avalon. They fall in love, achieving a closeness that allows them to sense not only each other’s feelings, but thoughts too.
The characters are idealized, generous and noble-hearted for the most part (with the exception of Agravaine, who is the villain here): for the good of Britain Morgan refuses to marry Arthur and conceals her pregnancy from him; Arthur knows of and accepts the affair between Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr, who plays Lancelot’s traditional role; Mordred, who is raised by Morgause in Lothian, is a well-meaning, albeit naïve, young man; the queen does struggle with jealousy of Morgan and distress at her inability to provide Arthur with an heir, but she genuinely loves and cares for Arthur.
The focus, however, remains upon Morgan and Arthur, who are linked by a bond of love that cannot be broken. They are admirable figures, but they remain human and sympathetic too, for we witness their pain at their enforced separation. This is a romantic tale, but it captures the spirit of idealism and self-sacrifice for the greater good that is so important to the Arthurian dream. Its return to print is thus doubly welcome.
Ray Thompson
10th CENTURY
SILK DREAMS
Diana Groe, Leisure, 2007, $6.99/C$8.99, pb, 336pp, 0843958690
Set in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the first millennium, Silk Dreams is an adventurous love story between two Northerners, Erik and Valdis. Erik is a soldier who serves the emperor. On a visit to the slave market, he sees Valdis and is immediately attracted to her, but a eunuch in the Emperor’s household outbids him. Valdis is beautiful despite a pair of mismatched eyes and the fact that she has the falling sickness, which combined with her eyes leads her owner to believe she has the gift of a seer—a prophetess. The eunuch hires Erik to teach her to speak Greek, as he plans to make her a spy when he sells her to a wealthy and powerful silk merchant who fancies himself a “kingmaker.”
Ms. Groe writes evocative prose that brings the reader right into the scene. Her description of a staged sea battle is very exciting, and her portrayal of the effects of an epileptic seizure is sympathetic. The pacing, however, is a little pedantic.
THE WHALE ROAD
Robert Low, HarperCollins, 2007, £12.99, hb, 352pp, 0007215282 / Thomas Dunne, 2007, $24.95, hb, 352pp, 9780312361945
This is Robert Low’s first part of a Viking trilogy, and his first novel. Robert Low has been a writer and journalist since the age of seventeen. The Whale Road has sprung from a lifetime’s interest in ancient warfare and recent involvement in Viking re-enactment.
The novel is set towards the end of the Vikings’ raiding days in 965 AD. A crew of oath-sworn warriors continues to raid, owing loyalty only to themselves and any master who will pay them. All around them ambitious rulers are founding great realms in Scandinavia and Russia, and want loyal subjects, not lawless warriors. Most of the oath-sworn remain pagans, but Christianity is victorious, offering the rulers of the new realms a religion more suited to a settled way of life and sanctified kingship.
The Whale Road is the story of Orm the Bearslayer, who joins the oath-sworn to escape a blood feud. The crew of the Fjord Elk are hired as relic hunters and sent to find a legendary sword. Guided by Hild, a weird young woman, they follow the dangerous “whale road”, looting towns, fighting amongst themselves, besieging a great city and dragged towards the tomb of Attila the Hun.
I had misgivings about reviewing this novel. I’d read Henry Treece’s Viking saga as a boy, and Bernard Cornwell has covered the territory. However, it is a gripping saga, a mysterious evocation of the death of the Viking age, and a sympathetic tale of the growth of Orm from an untried youth to a successful warrior. “All sagas are snake knots,” says Robert Low. The Whale Road is a knot which is well worth unravelling. Bill Dodds
Y THE LARK’S LAMENT
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11th CENTURY
RASHI’S DAUGHTERS, BOOK II: MIRIAM
Maggie Anton, Plume, 2007, $15.00/C$18.50, pb, 475pp, 9780452288638
Rashi, living in Troyes, France, in the latter half of the 11th century, was one of Judaism’s greatest scholars. Troyes at the time had a vibrant Jewish community, full of scholars, but also traders, vintners, and estate owners. Anton’s books (the first focused on the elder daughter, Joheved) immerse us in this rich culture, with a focus on Rashi’s three very learned daughters. There was debate at the time about whether girls should be taught Torah, and Rashi was not following the norm in teaching his daughters. Miriam, the central character of this volume, has trained to become a midwife, like her aunt. She also has the opportunity to train as a mohel, the person (almost always a man) who performs circumcisions, because no male in the community steps forward when one is needed. The text is liberally studded with writings from the Talmud, as characters learn and debate various teachings.
The text is also laden with knowledge and beliefs of the time, both general and religious. Miriam’s immersion into the medical world, both as midwife and mohel-in-training, allows the author opportunities to include the current understanding of medical matters, such as the characteristics of foods that should, or shouldn’t, be eaten given certain illnesses or medical conditions. Miriam’s husband is a Talmud scholar, and a theme throughout this volume is the relationships that form between study partners. A timeline, map, afterword,
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Alan Gordon, Minotaur, 2007, $24.95, 272pp, hb, 0312354266
The Lark’s Lament is the sixth of Alan Gordon’s Fools’ Guild mysteries. Theophilus the Fool now shares the stage with his fool wife, Claudia, their baby, Portia, and Helga, apprentice fool and adopted daughter.
In 1204 Pope Innocent III threatens to disband the Fools’ Guild. The Guild needs Folquet of Marseille, erstwhile minstrel, now abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Le Thoronet, to dissuade the pope. But Folquet has been threatened. Scrawled on the librarium wall, in the blood of a murdered monk, is the cryptic message: “FOLQUET: COLD IS THE HAND THAT CRUSHES THE LARK.”
The price of Folquet’s diplomacy is the killer’s capture. Murders compound as Theophilus’ troupe follows the trail through the taverns and manors of Marseille and Montpellier. It all comes back to Le Thoronet in a decidedly non-contemplative climax.
The Lark’s Lament deserves Academy Awards for best acting, best writing, and best fooling in the Medieval Mysteries category. In scenes worthy of Monty Python, and with dialogue of nonstop shtick, the author jests his way through a very sad story of tragic love, betrayal, and revenge. It is the stuff of minstrels and troubadours: a performance not to be missed!
Lucille Cormier N n
Audrey Braver
glossary, and website all provide excellent supplementary information. These books (best read in order) provide a fascinating glimpse into another world.
Trudi E. Jacobson
14th CENTURY
THE MASTER OF VERONA
David Blixt, St. Martin’s Press, 2007, $27.95/£18.99, hb, 608pp, 9780312361440
How much of life is determined by the stars? How much by the choices of men? How far will a man go to achieve his destiny? Those are the questions.
Set in Italy in the year 1314, The Master of Verona is a mesmerizing tapestry of tales written in five acts. The great poet, Dante, arrives in Verona. His patron is Verona’s ruler, Francesco della Scala. In a fast-moving sequence, Dante’s son, Pietro, follows della Scala into battle against neighboring Padua. It is the beginning of Pietro’s story as confidant, friend, and knight in service of the master of Verona—and as witness to the tragic love triangle of his two friends and the girl they both love. The story climbs to a climactic twist, and Pietro must confront his destiny.
The Master of Verona is fast, colorful, and action-packed; plus, there are no flat characters. Even those cast members in cameo roles shine. There is also depth and abundant historical detail to the story. The only troubling aspect of the narrative is that the characters speak in 21stcentury American English.
A confession: it has been a long time since this reviewer stayed up until dawn to finish a novel, but it happened with The Master of
Y DISPENSATION
OF DEATH
Verona. Be prepared to burn the midnight oil. It’s well worth it.
Lucille
Cormier
15th CENTURY
A PLAY OF ISAAC
Margaret Frazer, Robert Hale, 2007, £17.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709083504 / Berkley Prime Crime, 2004, $6.99, pb, 320pp, 0425197514
A 15th-century company of players come to Oxford, where, as well as their planned performances at the Corpus Christi festival, they are invited to entertain the Penteney family. Then a murdered man is discovered by their lodgings, and as strangers they are the natural suspects. They have to prove their innocence. Led by Joliffe, whose own past is gradually revealed, their efforts to solve the murder involve discovering secrets affecting the leading player and the merchant Penteney, and are intertwined with the performances of the plays.
What keeps readers turning the pages? An intricate plot helps, but mainly, I believe, it is when readers feel for the characters, when they care about them. The players here are attractive, varied and interesting, gaining our sympathy and admiration. The Penteney family is rich, but has problems. The background of life in a wealthy merchant’s house is convincing, and the mechanics of staging plays entertainingly described. This is a satisfying plot and an enjoyable read.
Marina Oliver
ST. MUNGO’S ROBIN
Pat McIntosh, Constable, 2007, £18.99, hb, 301pp, 978184292409 / Carroll & Graf, 2007,
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Michael Jecks, Headline, 2007, £19.99/$24.95, hb, 364pp, 9780755332793
1325: the reign of Edward II. England is in the grip of tyranny. Not so much from the reigning king, who though weak-willed is not actually cruel, but his ruthless and greedy lover Sir Hugh le Despenser. Queen Isabella has been very effectively sidelined; robbed of her lands, her authority and her children, she is all but a prisoner in the Palace of Westminster. War threatens: with France, again. Edward must go to pay homage to the French king. But how can he bend his knee to another sovereign and retain his own authority? Sir Hugh cannot go to France with Edward, or the French monarch will kill him; he cannot remain in England or the English barons will murder him—just as they did Piers Gaveston. Isabella is trapped and desperate.
Into this hotbed of intrigue comes Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace in Devon, with his friend and companion, Simon Puttock, bailiff to the Abbot of Tavistock. They are brought to court by Bishop Walter de Stapledon, whom it soon becomes clear is a man of many parts. Murder occurs in the Palace of Westminster, but this being the English court, nothing is quite as it appears. A fiendishly complex intrigue rapidly turns into a compelling game of bluff and double bluff played out for the highest stakes.
The result: a page-turning masterpiece that will keep the reader totally gripped until the very last page. Highly recommended. Fiona Lowe
$24.95, hb, 256pp, 9780786719037
This is the fourth book featuring Gil Cunningham, a notary, working and living in Glasgow in 1493. Suddenly, the warden of the local almshouse is found dead one morning in the garden. First assessment points to him having died the previous night, but there are witnesses who claim to have seen him in the chapel that morning. As Gil investigates he finds himself bound up more and more with the politics and intrigues surrounding the residents of St. Serfs, and then there is the ghost…
This is the first of these books that I have read but found that this did not detract in any way from not having read the others. It stands alone and the characters are easy to follow as they weave in and out of the story. Fifteenth century Glasgow is well described, and the scene beautifully set but, being a mere sassenach, I did find the Scots at times difficult to follow. When the characters were speaking French or Latin, it was simply stated that they were doing so. Maybe the same should have been said of the Scots, and the text kept to plain English or a glossary provided. On the whole, I found this a fascinating read.
Marilyn Sherlock
THE QUEEN’S SECRET
Jean Plaidy, Three Rivers, 2007 (c1990), $13.95, 376pp, pb, 9781400082520
Telling the fascinating story of Katherine of Valois, the mother of England’s mighty Tudor dynasty, The Queen’s Secret opens with Katherine having retired to Bermondsey Abbey to mourn the imprisonment of her secret husband, Owen Tudor. As Katherine reminisces about her childhood as a French princess born to King Charles VI, later known as Charles the Mad, she recounts a stark, neglectful story of surprising austerity. Her story grows somewhat brighter as she finds herself married to King Henry V of England and settles into a life split between a war-torn France nominally ruled by Henry, and a peaceful England.
This book by Plaidy (pen name of wellknown author Eleanor Hibbert aka Victoria Holt), originally published in 1990, is being reissued as part of her Queens of England series recounting the lives of some of England’s queens from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Queen Victoria. She vividly recreates Katherine’s story here with incredible passion, and readers can’t help being drawn into the story through the endless courtly intrigue and constant worries about her secret being found out.
Overall, this is a fantastically well-written, riveting story of a somewhat unknown (at least to this Anglophile) queen. Readers with an ounce of romance always dream of royal tales filled with unimaginable comfort and power. The Queen’s Secret provides a refreshing, downto-earth story of a woman not blessed with everything we imagine her to be, just fighting for her husband and children. It’s certainly recommended.
Dana Cohlmeyer
15th Century-16th Century
THE MANDRAKE BROOM
Jess Wells, Firebrand Books, 2007, $14.95, pb, 210pp, 9781563411526
In the early 1400s, women’s healing arts were respected and encouraged. Mid-century, the plague swept through Europe, changing the atmosphere to one of fear and blame. Luccia Alimenti is a nine-year-old girl living with her mother, an esteemed physician and professor, in 1465 Salerno, Italy. Fiona, her Irish godmother and protector, has healing talents of a more magical nature, and Luccia is becoming a skilled herbalist. Their chief medical text is near extinction, and Luccia’s family of single women accepts the responsibility to reproduce and distribute the texts to other women healers. Concurrently, the male doctors turn their focus to barbaric surgical techniques such as bloodletting and amputation without proper sanitation. Unfortunately, the women become caught up in the European witch hunts enflamed by the Malleus Maleficarum. Luccia’s life becomes dedicated to distributing herbs and literature and helping women escape from their oppressors, which comprises the bulk of this saga, spanning the years 1465 to 1540.
Wells’ detailed bibliography confirms her extensive research. Historical events such as the invention of the printing press and contributions of Paracelsus, an innovative 16th century physician, are elegantly woven into the plot. The origin of the witch’s broom stereotype and a description of early book production techniques are also engaging. The well-rounded characters, constant action, and captivating subject matter unite to enlighten as well as infuriate as the atrocities of the time period become real through Wells’ vivid writing. Perspective from the persecutors’ point of view comprises a small part of the novel, and provides insight into their motivations.
Reminiscent of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon series, Jess Wells’ third novel belongs on everyone’s reading list, especially of those who enjoy books about strong women willing to fight for their beliefs.
Suzanne J. Sprague
16th CENTURY
THE LOST DIARY OF DON JUAN
Douglas Carlton Abrams, Atria, 2007, $25.99/ C$29.99, hb, 307pp, 139781416532407 / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, £12.99, hb, 320pp, 0297851705
The Lost Diary of Don Juan is a fresh, new imagining of a legendary character. Don Juan is made for historical fiction, especially if he’s given a pagan philosopher’s gloss. Abrams transforms his Juan from a cruel seducer, a man who coldly kept lists of his conquests, into a charming and sympathetic lover.
Born poor, this Juan has climbed literally into a new life. Beginning as a boy burglar, he is patronized by a Marquis, who uses Juan’s skills at spying and stealing to blackmail his own way to power at the corrupt Spanish court of Philip II.
Y PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN WOMAN
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Vanora Bennett, Morrow, 2007, $24.95, hb, 417pp, 9780061251832 / Harper, £7.99, pb, 400pp, 9780007224937
In this, journalist Vanora Bennett’s first novel, Meg Giggs, adopted daughter of Sir Thomas More, springs brilliantly to life. Surrounded by a close-knit, complex family with perhaps the most extraordinary man of his age at its helm, Meg finds love with More’s protégé, John Clement. A healer in her own right, Meg is impulsive, clever and deeply intuitive. As she later learns, John, earlier her tutor and later a physician, has been groomed by More. Clement’s story forms a tantalizing part of the plot, and the twists and turns of his life lend suspense and intrigue to what is—even without that convention—a page-turner.
Into the lives of the More family comes painter Hans Holbein. Where Pater More is an intellectual firestorm with a mind unlikely to be matched by his contemporaries, Holbein increasingly becomes, during the course of the novel, a man of such intense artistic creativity that his talent appears to know few bounds. Spurred on by the likes of Erasmus and Kratzer—and his love for Meg—Holbein returns to repaint the More family, seemingly capturing every nuance of their convoluted interpersonal relationships. Indeed, the portrait itself becomes a novel.
This is as rich, satisfying and multi-layered a work as I have ever read. Bennett’s attention to historical fact, lovingly embellished with details of daily life and beautifully drawn characterizations of such historic personages as Erasmus, Holbein and More, make this novel a living, breathing organism. An author’s note puts the subject matter into clearer focus, but it certainly isn’t necessary. There is nothing phony, strained or fabricated in this book. Even Meg’s visceral reaction to the heretic torturing and burning spearheaded by her father makes the reader say, “Yes…that’s right. That’s exactly what I would do.”
Meg Giggs is an unknown woman no longer. An absolute must read.
Juan is a faithful servant; he becomes a favorite of his dissolute benefactor, and is rewarded with the gentleman’s attribution by which we know him. These conquests by the hero are not only motivated by lust, but are also portrayed as acts of mercy. The women of 16th-century Spain are utterly repressed and powerless, and there are plenty of unhappy, neglected wives, war widows, and virgins facing either loveless marriages or the convent for Juan to liberate. Of course, the trap which Nature sets in a life of episodic sexual pleasure is Love. Don Juan finally meets the one woman to whom he can be true. Unfortunately, his choice sets him at odds with his patron, who has his own plans for the lady.
The story is replete with period flair, elegant language, and the musings of the hero as he ponders the equation of love and lust—often while caressing a woman’s body. The Lost Diary of Don Juan is both what you’d expect and a great deal more. If you start this one, you won’t be able to stop.
Juliet Waldron
THE HUNTRESS
Susan Carroll, Ballantine, 2007, $13.95/ C$17.95, pb, 512pp, 9780345490612
It is the year 1585, and a prophecy has foretold the coming of a Daughter of the Earth, the soon-to-be leader of the Silver Rose coven: a young girl whose powers are so astounding she
Ilysa Magnus
could usurp the Dark Queen herself, Catherine de Medici. The young girl is identified as Megaera. Megaera’s father, Martin Le Loup, desperate to protect and keep his daughter away from this legacy, spirits her away and keeps her in hiding. He is also an agent for Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster.
Catriona O’Hanlon, a fiery pagan Irishwoman accused of practicing witchcraft and cast out by her own people, is known as the Huntress. Ariane, the Lady of Faire Isle, asks Catriona to locate the girl and bring her to the Faire Isle to keep her away from the clutches of the Dark Queen and the coven of the Silver Rose, who would exploit her mystic abilities by using her in a plot against Queen Elizabeth I. Although Cat and Martin are at odds with each other, they are drawn to one another and ultimately fall in love.
The Huntress is the fourth instalment in the Dark Queen series. The stories are a charming blend of history, the supernatural, romance, deception, and conspiracy. The saga involves the Cheney sisters, women with unusual powers who live under the threat of being accused of and persecuted for witchcraft.
Even though I did not read the first three novels, I was able to follow the story well enough. The plot was intricate and the characters captivating, but I recommend that readers follow the series from the first book in order to get the full benefit of the previous storylines.
Mirella Patzer
16th Century-17th Century
DAUGHTERS OF THE DOGE: A Novel of Renaissance Venice
Edward Charles, Macmillan New Writers, 2007, £14.99, hb, 374pp, 9780230018129
This is the second in the Richard Stocker series, quickly following on from the first novel published in 2006, In the Shadow of Lady Jane Stocker had become friendly with Jane Grey and had witnessed her brief reign and subsequent incarceration and execution. Three years later, under Queen Mary, the new climate in England is hostile to Protestantism and he decides to travel abroad. Stocker turns up in Venice where he again exercises (for a relative menial) his amazing ability to ingratiate himself with a trio of remarkable and colourful women. Their tales are narrated, and Richard involves himself in a romance and a major dose of intrigue.
Sixteenth-century Venice is depicted with a lively historical brush, and the story rattles along pleasantly. But, I do feel that these are essentially modern characters with 21st century concerns and manners dressed up in Renaissance garb. It is an easy and undemanding read.
Doug Kemp
17th CENTURY
THE BLOOD OF FLOWERS
Anita Amirrezvani, Little, Brown, 2007, $23.99/ C$29.99, hb, 352pp, 0316065765 / Headline Review, 2007, £12.99, hb, 384pp, 0755334191
For those of you who are cosmically tired of the endless spate of historical fiction set in Ireland/England—yes, there is more to the world—The Blood of Flowers will provide a welcome haven. Prepare yourself to be transported to the mysterious and colorful realm of 17th-century Iran!
Y MY LADY JUDGE
Although the setting is exotic, the story is familiar. A poor young woman living a rural life comes of age to marry, but her father dies, leaving the family destitute. She and her mother are cast upon the charity of wealthy relatives in the great city of Isfahan, where they are coldly put to work as servants. In her village, the girl has learned how to knot carpets, and her mind swims with colors and designs. Her uncle has become wealthy as a designer of carpets, and some of his business comes from the legendary Shah Abbas the Great. The uncle shows interest in the girl and allows her to watch as he works. He also teaches her about color and design. Unfortunately, a wealthy customer takes an interest in her, too, and she is forced into accepting a sigheh, a temporary form of marriage which leaves her without security and still a slave to her relatives.
This is not a happily-ever-after story in the romantic sense. The heroine’s struggle to find a way to live independently and to satisfy her creativity in a repressive and male-dominated society makes compelling reading.
Juliet Waldron
THE MUSKETEER’S SEAMSTRESS
Sarah D’Almeida, Berkley, 2007, $6.99/C$9.99, 315pp, pb, 9780425214893
Aramis finds his Spanish mistress, Violette, dead in her palace rooms. Violette, friend to Queen Anne, is married to a French nobleman whom she never sees. Unfortunately, Aramis is the only one locked in her rooms with her when she dies. He doesn’t believe anyone could have entered and exited the rooms, yet he knows Violette couldn’t have taken her own life. When Aramis hears the palace guard preparing to break down the door, he flees, leaving his Musketeers uniform behind. Aramis must leave Paris to
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Cora Harrison, Macmillan, 2007, £16.99, hb, 311pp, 9781405091909 / Minotaur, 2007, $24.95, hb, 368pp, 9780312368364
On the eve of the first of May, 1509, people from all over the Burren, on the western seaboard of Ireland, climb the mountain of Mullaghmore to celebrate the festival of Beltaine. One man does not come down again. Colman, assistant to Mara, Brehon of the Burren, has been murdered and his employer must search for his killer.
Although she has the support and indeed the love of King Turlough Don O’Brien, Mara finds it a difficult task with many suspects and little help from the tight-knit local community. Matters are especially complicated because some of Mara’s young students seem to be implicated, and the murdered man was both unpopular and secretive.
The character of Mara is taken from a real-life female Brehon, or judge, from the 16th century whose case notes are in the British Library. From these brief fragments, Cora Harrison has woven a fascinating and beautifully evocative mystery. The unconventional heroine is well drawn, and there are plenty of plot twists to keep the action flowing.
My Lady Judge is an enthralling murder mystery with a strong historical basis. It is sure to appeal to fans of the detective genre and, in particular, to fans of Peter Tremayne’s Sister Fidelma series.
Sara Wilson
avoid being executed for the crime. His friends, Athos, Porthos and D’Artagnon, are left behind to solve the mystery and save their friend. They are hindered by the Cardinal’s men, who would be happy to see any Musketeer dead, especially one of these four famous friends.
This is the second book in D’Almeida’s mystery series, featuring four Musketeers in early 17th-century France. While the book is true to the style and characters of the original Dumas novel, it easily stands on its own. An entertaining novel of swashbuckling style and adventure.
Nan Curnutt
DEATH OF A DUTCH UNCLE
M. E. Kemp, Hilliard and Harris, 2007, $16.95, pb, 211pp, 1591331854
When Laurens de Noyes dies on Boston Common, right at the feet of Increase “Creasy” Cotton, a minister and cousin to Cotton Mather, Creasy is asked to investigate. De Noyes was the nephew of the Patroon in Albany, but when Creasy announces the death to the Patroon and to de Noyes’s wife, their reactions are oddly muted. Creasy is joined in his search for the killer by the lively and indomitable widow Hetty Henry, a savvy Boston businesswoman who often trades goods in the Albany area.
Kemp vividly depicts the frontier settlement that was Albany in the 1690s, with its Dutch customs and manners that were so different from those of the British. Hetty is good friends with Billy Blue Bear, the Harvard-educated Mohawk leader, but the local population is particularly wary of Indians: the Schenectady massacre had just recently occurred. Hetty is not the only strong female character, and the interplay between the men and the women is a very enjoyable aspect of the novel. The murder does get solved, by the way, but there is so much to enjoy along the way that I’d almost forgotten about it! I very much hope to read more of the adventures of Creasy and Hetty, and plan to hunt up the first book in the series.
Trudi E. Jacobson
HIGHLANDER UNTAMED
Monica McCarty, Ballantine, 2007, $6.99/ C$8.99, pb, 416pp, 9780345494368
From childhood, Isabel MacDonald has longed for the approval of her brothers and father. A deadly feud against the MacLeod clan named “the War of the One-Eyed Woman” provides the opportunity to not only win the respect of her family, but also to save her clan. She must become a handfast bride for one year to Chief Rory MacLeod. The handfasting is only a ruse for her to learn the secrets of her family’s bitter enemy. Instead, she grows to admire her reluctant bridegroom and finds the loving family she has always yearned for. She finds herself caught between loyalty to her family and her growing esteem for her reluctant groom. Rory MacLeod does not like the idea of handfasting with a woman of an enemy clan,
but he will obey the king’s orders, making it clear to all, including Isabel, that it will be only for one year and then he will send his unwanted bride back where she came from. He will then seek a more powerful alliance that will help him avenge the dishonour done to his sister by the MacDonalds.
Highlander Untamed is the first book of a splendidly passionate romantic trilogy set in the early 17th century. The story was compelling enough to make me want to read the next two instalments.
Mirella Patzer
MURDER MOST ROYAL
Jean Plaidy, Arrow, 2006, £7.99, pb, 646pp, 9780099493228 / Three Rivers, 2006, $14.95, pb, 480pp, 1400082498
I first read Murder Most Royal as a teenager. On re-reading this spending looking reprint I found the writing still fresh and sharp, and was gripped by Plaidy’s portrait of an ambitious, brilliant but reckless Anne Boleyn. The scope of the novel is vast and complex, the characterisation rich and fascinating.
It begins with a young Anne leaving her home at Hever and journeying to France, where she is quickly enthralled by the sparkle and wit of the French court. She comes under the sway of the French king’s sister, the clever Marguerite. Anne’s sister Mary, also at the French court, soon captures King Henry’s roving eye. When Anne returns to England it is towards her the king’s attention wanders. Even so, the fate of each sister could not be more different. Mary accepts the status of royal mistress and is cast aside when Henry grows bored; Anne, eager for the crown, gains it, only to lose her life after three short years as Henry’s second queen.
The novel ends with Henry contemplating his legacy after he has had another wife done to death: young Catherine Howard. A classic novel, enjoyable for its in-depth insight into the motivations and actions of key players during a bloody period of English history.
Fiona Lowe
SAINT THOMAS’S EVE
Jean Plaidy, Arrow, 2006, £7.99, pb, 341pp, 9780099493235
Plaidy’s sixth novel in her Tudor series is a compelling reconstruction of the life of Sir Thomas More. The novel commences with More’s decision to marry, at the time of which he is renowned for his scholarship and intellectual prowess. Alas, as a lawyer and London burgess he has caught the eye, unfavourably, of King Henry VII. More is soon contemplating fleeing the country to save his life; then fate intervenes and the old king dies. Happily, the new King, Henry VIII, looks with great pleasure upon Thomas, delighting in More’s charm, wit and literary talent. Honours are heaped on More, and soon he is working for Cardinal Wolsey; upon Wolsey’s downfall, More becomes Chancellor. Plaidy is very effective in bringing to life the
internecine workings of Tudor politics and court life.
The great strength of this novel lies in its profound insight into Sir Thomas’s close relationship with his family, especially with Margaret, his beloved daughter. Margaret’s voice adds focus and depth throughout the narrative. Plaidy makes much of Margaret’s scholarship and learning; she is to face a terrible dilemma when her father is threatened with death. Margaret More’s plight is moving and her bravery immense. Worth reading.
Fiona Lowe
THE SIXTH WIFE
Jean Plaidy, Arrow, 2006, £7.99, pb, 358pp, 9780099493242
Plaidy’s retelling of the story of Katharine Parr is masterly. Those who know little more of Katharine than that she survived Henry will find much to fascinate. Following the death of Catherine Howard, Henry is ill with an ulcerated leg; he seeks a wife who will be both nurse and companion. His attention fixes on twicewidowed Katharine. She, knowing the terrible fate of two of his queens, is understandably not anxious to accept the honour. Henry is not to be put off and Katharine is soon living in
Y
constant fear of the plots surrounding her. The threat to her life lies not from any question of infidelity, but in Katharine’s taste for the new religion sweeping the country. Katharine is a clever woman and her handling of the King is masterful. The story continues with Katharine’s life after the death of King Henry.
I found much to savour and enjoy here, but also to horrify. The account of Anne Askew’s torture and death does not make for easy reading. The desperate lengths to which those who wished to bring Queen Katharine’s life to an end were prepared to go, is never more clearly demonstrated than with the persecution of Anne, Katharine’s lady-in-waiting. A good read.
Fiona Lowe
THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE
Jean Plaidy, Arrow, 2006, £7.99, pb, 373pp, 9780099493259 / Three Rivers, 2004, $12.95, pb, 320pp, 0609810227
Plaidy’s eighth Tudor novel vividly reconstructs the dramatic life of Margaret Tudor, from the time of her early marriage to King James IV of Scotland to her death years later at Methven Castle. Written with great aplomb the novel captures perfectly the enthralling
ROYAL HARLOT: A Novel of the Countess of Castlemaine and King Charles II
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Susan Holloway Scott, NAL, 2007, $14, pb, 384pp, 0451221346
Having previously provided a fictional memoir of Sarah, first Duchess of Marlborough (Duchess, an Editors’ Choice), Scott brings to vivid life another of the 17th century’s most notorious, brazen, and powerful females. If anything, Royal Harlot is an even more assured, nuanced, and colorful portrait of a woman and her age. Well-born Royalist Barbara Villiers, stifled by Cromwell’s Puritanical regime, wastes no time shedding her useless virginity. Her first passion, the faithless libertine Lord Chesterfield, uses her voluptuous body and teaches tricks she will later put to good use. Enter Roger Palmer, a gentleman working in league with those aiming to place the exiled Stuart king upon his rightful throne. Serving as her husband’s courier, Barbara travels to Holland to personally deliver money to King Charles. Their first meeting, followed immediately by their first coupling, is combustible.
After the King’s restoration, Barbara’s barely compliant husband is ennobled and she becomes Lady Castlemaine. As His Majesty’s premiere mistress she reigns supreme, even after her royal lover takes a queen. Catherine of Braganza, Charles’s consort, is heartlessly mocked and disdained—neither her redeeming qualities nor the many miscarriages she suffered while her husband dallied with bad Barbara are mentioned here.
In her intriguing portrayal, Scott tempers Barbara’s rapacious sexuality while presenting a Charles who seems far less frustrated with her tempestuousness than the historical record indicates. And although the real Barbara was better known for her ambition and avarice than her maternal devotion, the novelist incorporates her motherhood to good effect.
Among this novel’s many strengths are Scott’s impressive depiction of time and place, her evocation of the Restoration-era mindset, the exuberance of the period, and her sure, succinct presentation of complex historical events. The reader can well believe that this is a memoir penned by a woman who—in reality—was clearly too busy living to ever write one!
Margaret Barr
Y PEONY IN LOVE
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Lisa See, Random House, 2007, $23.95, hb, 304pp, 9781400064663 / Bloomsbury, 2007, £10.99, pb, 304pp, 9780747582489
Enter the enticing world of the Peony Pavilion, a 16thcentury Chinese opera now entwining the lives of three Hangzhou women over a hundred years later. Peony is a sheltered, obedient girl whose father invites family and friends to a special dramatic presentation of this famous piece. There Peony, who knows the opera by heart, secretly sees and later meets one man her father has invited. For three days Wu Ren and Peony share their deep love for the story of ideal love epitomized in the opera by Liu Meng-mei (Willow Dreaming Plum) and Tu Li-niang.
Obsessed with what she believes can never be true in an arranged marriage, Peony pines away, dies, and inadvertently becomes a “hungry ghost.” Intriguing irony follows as Peony in the afterlife guides first Tan Ze and much later Yi Qian in their marriages to Ren. The story of their rich relationships immerses the reader into stories of love affected by their complex personalities. As these characters learn about ideal love as portrayed in The Peony Pavilion, each undergoes a rich and vivacious metamorphosis.
Lisa See is an immensely talented writer who deftly intertwines Chinese history through the literary parallels of 16th and 17th century poets and dramatists, as woman poets begin literary circles for reading and discussion. This move toward independence from tradition, initially celebrated, was gradually perceived as dangerous by the new dynasty. Peony’s grandmother and mother eventually describe how they had earlier survived the devastating massacre of the invading Manchu army. But what they learned through that experience adds to the respect of their literary peers, for immortal creation arises from deep suffering and love for one’s family and friends.
The language of Peony in Love is exquisite and poetic in itself, conveying a magical, mysterious, powerful, beautiful, and unforgettable story.
complexity of its cast of characters, chronicling in convincing detail the twists and turns of political intrigue at the Scottish court.
Margaret is vain, passionate, and jealous, and James is a renowned lover determined on forging an alliance with France whilst entertaining enmity towards his brother-in-law, King Henry VIII of England; their marriage alternates between displays of affectionate tenderness and outbursts of tempestuous violence.
Following James’ early death at the hands of the English army on the battlefield of Flodden, the murderous intrigue of the Scottish court and the extreme factiousness of Scottish nobles become ever more plain; Margaret engages in a bitter fight to regain her lost Regency and control of her son’s destiny as the future James V. A capricious woman, Queen Margaret is often difficult to admire, but the deprivation of her children will leave you aching with sympathy for her loss. A rich tapestry of a novel, and a highly pleasurable read.
Fiona Lowe
LADY MERRY’S DASHING CHAMPION
Jeane Westin, Signet Eclipse, 2007, $6.99/ C$9.99, pb, 320pp, 0451221923
A case of mistaken identity leads Meriel St. Thomas into a world of courtly intrigue and sensual delights she never thought possible. Orphaned as an infant and later taken in by a kindly benefactor, Merry’s daydreams are
Viviane Crystal
nothing compared to the thrills she receives once she accepts the terms offered by Charles II’s spymaster. “Offered” is the operable word here, for if she doesn’t accept, she will not live to see the light of another day. However, the chance to impersonate the wife of celebrated war hero, Lord Giles, does have its own special allure, one Merry could hardly pass up in any event.
This Restoration romance has everything. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. The period details are rich, yet not so itemized as to distract from a rollicking good story. Humorous, passionate, and quick-witted, Merry is a charming heroine.
Alice Logsdon
18th CENTURY
THE DANTE TRAP
Arnaud Delandande, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2007, £12.99, hb, 336pp, 9780297852025
In his cell in a noisome dungeon languishes The Black Orchid, Venice’s most dashing swordsman, secret agent and lover. But he is blessed with a good friend, who has told the Doge he is the only man to unmask The Chimera, a terrible murderer who has just killed an actor in a gory and spectacular manner. For this is no ordinary murder, but a vast conspiracy to put an end to the glory of La Serenissima…
Now read on! I didn’t know people still
wrote books like this—Dennis Wheatley to the life complete with black magic, plus a Paul Doherty-style set of murders and mysteries. It is all great fun, and mixed in with the thrills are plenty of facts about mid-18th century Venice and its illustrious past. Some of these are presented in a rather obvious way (almost as if a textbook had been interleafed with the novel) but are interesting and important to the tale for all that. The author paints a compelling picture of this unique city at its most decadent, all courtesans, sinister spies and sighing lovers, masks, palazzos and murky politics. I wouldn’t mind in the least if M Delalande decided to write another.
Rachel A. Hyde
THE BELLES DAMES CLUB
Melinda Hammond, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 223pp, 9780709082729
A unmarried Miss—the frivolous Clarissa Wyckenham—does a markedly good deed in helping the dour Lord Alresford out of a vexing predicament. Soon thereafter she arrives in London, only to make the all too shocking discovery that her darling stepmother the Dowager Lady Wyckenham is heavily involved in the running of a risqué club for matrons and widowed ladies. Well, then it’s fairly safe to say life for Clarissa, her stepmother and indeed the sober-minded Lord Alresford, amongst several other personages, will never be truly the same again! The carryings-on of the charmingly named “Belles Dames Club” are certainly highly outrageous, and sure enough Clarissa soon finds herself embroiled in a world of adventure the like of which she has never encountered before.
The style of the whole novel is light, with the emphasis firmly on the humour of the circumstances. It is also true to say the plot zips along, with plenty of subplots involving a host of minor characters, and plenty of action for the reader to become involved in along the way. This Regency, like the antics of the “Belles Dames” themselves, is entertaining in concept and played out for fun.
Fiona Lowe
MEASURING THE WORLD
Daniel Kehlmann, (trans. Carol Brown Janeway), Quercus, 2007, £12.99, hb, 259pp, 9781847240453 / Pantheon, 2007, $23.00, hb, 272pp, 9780375424465
On a prosaic level—and this novel is anything but prosaic—this is the story of two contrasting figures of the German Enlightenment. Alexander von Humboldt is an aristocrat who travels the world, measuring, mapping, scaling mountains, exploring deep caves enduring pain, hunger, fear and disease in the world’s unexplored and inhospitable places. Carl Friedrich Gauss comes from far humbler stock. His genius is mathematics. But he has no desire to venture far from home. He can measure and map the world and even the heavens in his head.
Chalk and cheese and yet so alike. Both
are single-minded to the point of obsession, eccentric to the point of lunacy. One man cannot bear intimacy of any kind. The other craves love and human contact.
This is a deliciously quirky novel, its subject matter and style Monty Pythonesque and not what I would expect from a German novelist. It is hugely funny as well as poignant and thought-provoking. The translator has done a remarkable job in conveying the idiosyncrasies of the language but it is the novel’s structure that holds the central theme. Each section switches from man to man, and cleverly illuminates their differences and similarities, showing them as two faces of the same coin. When they eventually meet and each comes to see that there is more than one way of looking at the world, they slowly merge together so that it is difficult to see who is thinking or doing what. They become one.
A very clever and yet highly entertaining novel, which is justifiably a best-seller throughout Europe.
Sally Zigmond
TO DANCE WITH KINGS
Rosalind Laker, Three Rivers, 2007 (c1988), $14.95/C$19.95, pb, 576pp, 0307352552
To Dance with Kings is a lengthy, absorbing, and richly detailed family saga that follows the lives and passions of four generations of women who are bound to the privileges and fates of the Chateau of Versailles and its inhabitants.
The novel chronicles the rise of Marguerite, a peasant’s daughter, to become part of the royal court of the Sun King. The winds of political change threaten her fairy-tale existence, but through her creativity and wit, she flourishes. When her daughter, Jasmin, catches the eye of King Louis XV, her life is thrown into unexpected turmoil and misfortune. Jasmin’s daughter, Violette, is attracted to the wild side of court life. Violette’s daughter, Rose, becomes a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, and her life is embroiled in the chaos of the French Revolution.
I loved the vivid descriptions of Versailles: the book breathes such life into it that I felt like I was there. The plot is satisfyingly unpredictable with many unexpected twists and turns. The novel is a hefty 576 pages, yet I still felt it wasn’t long enough. While reading the first hundred pages, I was discouraged by what I felt was too much description, rather then having the story tell itself; however, the action soon picked up tremendously, and I found myself unable to put down this entertaining and vibrant book. All in all, I highly recommend this novel for its colorful descriptions, its historical portrayal of 17th and 18th century France, and its dramatic flair.
Andrea Connell
Paris in spring 1788 sees intrepid Anne Cartier and her husband Paul back home after their sojourn in Nice. The crops are failing, and for many young people the only option is to leave the country and seek their fortune in the city. Unfortunately for her this is what Lucie Gigot has done, and now she has vanished. Kindly Aunt Marie wants to find out where her young tenant has got to, and so she hires her nephew and his wife. Her last location was the Palais Royal, in the company of Denis Grimaud, the valet of the notorious Marquis de Bresse. What is most enjoyable about this series of novels is how the seething political scene bubbles under everything, and this is a tale about the type of corruption that caused the revolution. De Bresse is a follower of the Marquis de Sade, whose exploits are viewed as a sign of the times, and thus the mood of the book is set. Settle back and enjoy a gothic cavalcade of sinister castles, prisons and prostitutes that sums up the era rather well. For whodunit fans this is quite a convoluted case for such a short novel, but I would like it all even better if Paul was more than a cipher who stumps up the money and is keen for his wife to act as an unpaid policewoman. He continues to be more like a kindly—and modern—employer than a husband, and this is surely a rather strange thing even in a morganatic marriage. This gripe aside, it is another engagingly readable entry in an inventive and original series.
Rachel A. Hyde
DEVIL WATER
Anya Seton, Chicago Review Press, 2007 (c1962), $14.95/C$18.95, pb, 526pp, 1556526598
Through a youthful misalliance, Charles Radcliffe, brother to the Earl of Derwentwater, is forced to marry a pregnant Northumbrian lass. Ashamed of the marriage, after his daughter Jenny is born Charles is captivated by her. Charles and his brother join the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 to put the pretender, James Stuart, on the English throne. The rebellion fails and the brothers are imprisoned. The earl is executed but Charles escapes to France after begging that his cousin raise Jenny and make a lady of her. Jenny grows to be a beautiful teenager and remembers little of her father. She does remember the North Country boy who brought her to London, Rob. At school she is befriended by Evelyn the daughter of a colonial Virginia plantation owner. Charles, under sentence of death, sneaks back into England to see Jenny. She is shocked to have a traitor for a father, but his charm wins her over. Jenny’s beauty attracts a lecherous duke who kidnaps her, but Rob saves her. The duke orders Rob to be transported as a convict to Virginia.
to try and save him.
First published in 1962, this novel is based on fact and true historical figures. It’s filled with period detail, richly drawn characters, and the battle between the Catholics and Protestants. I found Jenny’s obsessive love for the boorish Rob off-putting, but they seemed to have had a long, contented marriage. A lush, old-fashioned read.
Diane Scott Lewis
BARBARY COAST
Peter Smalley, Century, 2007, £18.99, hb, 366pp, 9781844136889
Avast m’hearties! All lovers of nautical tales in Hornblower fashion: here’s another series for you to enjoy. James Hayter is our hero, and a fine gentleman in the British Navy is he. It’s 1789 and Lieutenant Hayter, at home with his wife and infant son, awaits Admiralty instructions. When they come it’s not the expected command commission. Hayter must find his captain and return with him to London.
Once in London their commission is to take HM Expedient with the ten gun cutter, Curlew, and head for the Barbary Coast. But the orders come from sinister Sir Robert Greer; nothing is written down. Something is strangely awry. Then there is the trouble at Gibraltar and the peculiar Mr Sebastian, not to mention the infamous Barbary pirates. It’s an engrossing yarn.
Well written, with good period dialogue, a nice feeling for the attitudes and behaviour of officers and men, and plenty of knowledge about sailing ships. The cliffhanger ending is a sure hook for the next book.
Patrika Salmon
THE MOTIVE FROM THE DEED
Patricia Wynn, Pemberley Press, 2007, $26.95, hb, 378pp, 0977191338
The latest adventure of outlawed Viscount St. Mars, aka the highwayman Blue Satan, and his friend Hester Kean unfolds in London during the 1715 Jacobite uprising. The German-speaking George I, in the first year of his reign, seems vulnerable to Stuart supporters and their French allies. London bubbles with fears of civil war, as rumors of treason send lords and commoners to the Tower.
CRUEL CHOICES
Charles O’Brien, Severn House, 2007, £12.99/$27.95, hb, 320 pp, 9780727864635
Charles takes Jenny to France to protect her. But Jenny dislikes her new step-mother and pines for Rob. She implores her father to allow her to travel to Virginia with Evelyn, secretly intending to search for this young man. Only her father’s recapture in England will bring her back
Hester, living as a poor-relation companion to her cousin the flighty Lady Isabella, is overjoyed to rediscover her long-lost brother Jeremy. The joy turns to fear when she encounters a murdered bookseller who had employed Jeremy as a pamphlet writer. Was the unknown killer’s motive political, personal, or related to the bookseller’s trade in salacious French pamphlets? Jeremy’s obvious love for the young widow makes him a prime suspect. Meanwhile Viscount St. Mars, ex-Jacobite sympathizer, sneaks back into England seeking to clear his name and regain his confiscated estates. While pursuing an understated romance with Hester, he risks discovery to help clear her brother.
Wynn’s extensive research delves into
London’s literary world, and this enjoyable book features quotes from Alexander Pope as well as a cameo by the great poet himself. Historical notes; third in the series.
Nina de Angeli
19th CENTURY
THE RANCHER’S HEART
C.H. Admirand, Five Star, 2007, $26.95, hb, 297pp, 1594145741
James Ryan, a successful and respected Colorado rancher in the 1880s, catches young Mick O’Toole on his ranch with a gang of cattle rustlers. Rather than punishing the youth, James, known for his big heart, takes the boy and his sick mother into his home. While recuperating, Bridget O’Toole finds herself quickly falling in love with James. As James and Bridget, both proud and fiercely independent, battle their mutual affection for one another, they each find themselves facing their secret pasts. Bridget’s supposedly dead husband turns up alive and leading a gang of outlaws into town, while James must contend with a murder charge from years ago.
While this story includes plenty of conflict, lust, and adventure, it lacks a certain zest. Two massive gunfights raise little dust, and with a predictable and anticlimactic final showdown, the result is rather disappointing. Both James and Bridget lack personality and depth. Young Mick is perhaps the only well-developed character, with his struggle to become a man before his time. With its mundane characters and lackluster plot, The Rancher’s Heart adds nothing new to the genre.
Rebecca Roberts
SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS
Boris Akunin (trans. Andrew Bromfield), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, £12.99, hb, 328pp, 9780297848226 / Random House, 2008, $13.95, pb, 352pp, 9780812978605
In this latest addition to the Erast Fandorin series, Akunin offers his international fans a double dose of intriguing and absolutely unputdownable novellas entitled “The Jack of Spades” and “The Decorator”. They introduce us to a cast of new characters, including one Anisii Tulipov who becomes Fandorin’s promising young assistant for the short period of time covered by the two stories. Fandorin’s lessons to his sparky assistant reveal some of the intriguing psychology underlying his detective powers. Another link between these two contrasting tales, one of a prankster and the other of a maniacal serial killer, is their adopted pseudonym: Jack. To say more would be to give too much away, but those readers who are already fans of the Moscow-based detective will be delighted, and new ones, like myself, shouldn’t wait a moment longer. In an old interview, Grigory Chkhartishvili (aka Boris Akunin) stated, “I don’t want to be a teacher of life. I want to be an entertainer. It’s enough
for me.” Well, this was real entertainment, in cracking style.
Lucinda Byatt
A POISONED SEASON
Tasha Alexander, Morrow, 2007, $23.95/ C$29.95, hb, 320pp, 9780061174148
Garden parties, jewel thefts, romance, and murder—Lady Emily Ashton takes the 1889 London season in her stride. Young, lovely, and newly widowed, Emily collects art and studies ancient Greek when not sleuthing, dallying with a charming suitor, or vacationing in her Grecian villa. Adding spice to the social season is Charles Berry, a pretender to the French throne who may threaten France’s republic and cause a scandal in Britain’s royal house. Is Berry connected to the thief who stole Marie Antoinette’s famous diamond earrings from Emily’s house, and may have poisoned her friend, the owner of the Queen’s silver snuffbox? Emily fends off a mysterious admirer who is stalking her, while investigating the jewel theft and her friend’s death. As she gets closer to finding the truth, threats to her social reputation and even her life alarm but do not deter the intrepid sleuth. Light romantic suspense in a promising new series.
Nina de Angeli
THE CONJURER
Cordelia Frances Biddle, Minotaur, 2007, $23.95, hb, 306pp, 0312352468
This historical mystery is set in Philadelphia in 1842. Martha Beale is the sheltered, unmarried daughter of a wealthy financier, Lemuel Beale, who goes missing while out hunting. The mayor sends Thomas Kelman, his personal assistant, to investigate. Kelman attempts to determine if Beale fell into the river accidentally and was drowned, as his secretary Owen Simms insists, or if he was murdered. Martha is curious about the circumstances surrounding her father’s death, and wants Kelman to continue investigating.
Meanwhile, young prostitutes in the city are being killed in a gruesome manner. The conjurer of the title, Eusapio Paladino, has visions of the killings while appearing at the parties of wealthy Philadelphians. As the two stories become interwoven, Martha finally asserts her independence and finds happiness.
Biddle does a good job of depicting life in Philadelphia in the 19th century for both the wealthy and the poor, especially the disturbing amount of control men had over the lives of their wives and daughters. This is the first in a new series featuring Martha Beale and Thomas Kelman. I would have liked to learn more about Kelman’s background and his investigative methods, but perhaps that will happen in future installments.
Jane Kessler
OSCAR WILDE AND THE CANDLELIGHT MURDERS
Gyles Brandreth, John Murray, 2007, £12.99, hb, 338pp, 9780719569203 / To be pub. in
Jan. 2008 as Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance, Touchstone, 2008, $24.00, hb, 368pp, 1416551743
Oscar Wilde makes his debut as a fictional sleuth in this recent addition to the spate of historical detective novels showcasing famous historical figures (e.g.., The Pale Blue Eye, The Interpretation of Murder).
When Wilde discovers a murdered teenage rent boy, his naked corpse surrounded by guttering candles and incense, he enlists the help of his friend Arthur Conan Doyle to convince reluctant police inspector Aidan Fraser to investigate. They unveil a tangled web of underground male prostitution and vice in finde-siècle London.
Despite its premise, the book is not as suspenseful as one might expect, being so firmly, almost hagiographically, focused on Wilde, rather than on the unfolding mystery. The author delights in quoting Wilde’s witticisms and paints a very affectionate portrait. Unfortunately the other characters suffer in comparison—even Conan Doyle appears a pale shadow—and the female characters are so badly drawn, they border on the farcical.
The power of a successful murder mystery rests on the depth and intelligence of its villain. In this book, the murderer is so unconvincing that the entire dénouement falls flat. Not even Wilde’s most delicious bon mot can save the day.
Mary Sharratt
MRS. JEFFRIES AND THE BEST LAID PLANS
Emily Brightwood, Berkley, 2007, $6.99, pb, 240pp, 0425215830
Emily Brightwood is at the top of her game in this, the twenty-second in the Mrs. Jeffries series of cozy mysteries. Her Victorian inspector Gerald Witherspoon tackles the investigation of a murdered banker. It seems the banker spent his life creating enemies—who are now suspects.
This large number of suspects is met by a small army of sleuths. Constable Barnes has been assigned to assist Witherspoon. Then there’s Mrs. Jeffries, the Witherspoon housekeeper, and the remainder of the household staff plus an eccentric American heiress and her butler. Some of the most enjoyable scenes are when these informal investigators meet for tea to share their clues. It also gives the reader an opportunity to catch up on the detailed plot.
For long-time Brightwood fans, this is a welcome new chapter to the Mrs. Jeffries saga. For cozy fans who have not been introduced to Mrs. Jeffries yet, the number of characters and their respective back stories might seem overwhelming. New readers would be well advised to begin with the first in the series, The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries, published in 1994.
Chuck Curtis
SNOW ANGEL
Jamie Carie, B&H, 2007, $14.99, pb, 304pp,
9780805445336
Noah Wesley, batching it in the mountains near Juneau, Alaska, in 1897, is startled when he finds a young woman huddled in the snow at his cabin door. Drawn to the gold fields as she flees her shady adoptive parents, Elizabeth has been trying to find a guide over the mountains. After reviving her, Noah offers a bargain in which they will instead look for gold on his own property. Then Joe Brandon appears, a detective who previously “took advantage” of Elizabeth, and she evades him this time by joining a group of miners headed for the Klondike. Noah, smitten with Elizabeth from the first, sets off on the difficult overmountain path to rescue her from both her nemesis and herself.
Most chapters end with letters written by a different detective to Jane, Elizabeth’s birth mother, who hired him after being made to give up her out-of-wedlock child. I found the letter device a bit overused, as some of them were repetitive. However, Carie includes some good scenes in the story, notably the one where Noah confides his love to Elizabeth. Other sections need refining, like the über-Hollywood ending. Overall, it’s a generally satisfactory Christian romance by a first-time author.
B.J.
Sedlock
NEVER LIE TO A LADY
Liz Carlyle, Pocket, 2007, $7.50/C$9.99, pb, 401pp, 1416527141
Lord Nash, notorious for his dark, dashing elegance and the string of women he’s left broken-hearted, comes to Town in 1828 amidst a whirlwind of gossip and speculation. When the clever and beautiful Xanthia Neville, who daringly runs her own shipping business and refuses to marry, meets Nash in the moonlight and shares a moment of passion with him, their destines become intertwined. Nash, instantly smitten, must find a way into Xanthia’s heart. She, however, rejects his efforts to form a relationship until the Home Office hires her to investigate Nash’s involvement with armssmuggling. Spying on Nash for his supposed smuggling ring, Xanthia finds that she cannot resist his passion after all, leading them both into a world of pleasure, smugglers, spies, and danger.
Weaving passion and intrigue in this evocative novel, Carlyle crafts an intricate, zealous escapade into the underworld of glittering English high society. Despite its formula plot and Xanthia’s unconvincing traits for a woman of her time, romance fans will find much to enjoy in this Regency espionage tale of love.
Rebecca Roberts
BITTER INHERITANCE
Ann Cliff, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709082217
Sally Mason faces losing her farm home when her parents die leaving her penniless. In spite of her pleas her landlord, Oliver Radford, seems determined to evict her because of the
bitter feud existing between their families.
Things look up when Sally takes in two paying guests and she is befriended by a young man called Marcus. But a series of “accidents” and the discovery that Marcus is Oliver’s son make it unlikely that Sally will keep the farm. Only some luck, love and the solving of an old murder mystery can save the day.
Ann Cliff has used her background in farming to good effect in this Victorian drama—the setting has an authentic feel and her characters sit well in their landscape. The murder mystery gives an added dimension to what could have been just a straightforward regional saga. An enjoyable read.
Sara Wilson
THE BEST OF SISTERS
Dilly Court, Arrow, 2007, £5.99/C$10.99, pb, 534pp, 9780099499626
Sagas, the comfy slippers of reading matter. Nothing demanding in style or content, but a good book for bedtime or after a bout of ‘flu. The Best of Sisters is such a saga.
Eliza Bragg is a true Victorian heroine. She suffers greatly, struggles to succeed, appears to, and then is cast down again. Finally she rises up again triumphant, in best saga fashion. Poor Eliza is only eleven when her brother, Bart, gets in a fight and kills a man. He has to flee to New Zealand, leaving Eliza in the care of their wicked Uncle Enoch. From then on it’s Eliza against the world.
There’s a wide variety of interesting characters, lots happening, including the traditional seduction scene, and a colourful taste of Victorian London. Eliza is such a loving and determined girl that we cheer her along her journey to business success and into the arms of the right man.
Dilly Court is one of the better saga writers, and if you enjoy sagas you’ll certainly enjoy this one.
Patrika Salmon
THE COCKNEY SPARROW
Dilly Court, Century, 2007, £18.99, hb, 535pp, 9781846050848
1889. Struggling to make a living in the slums of Cheapside, London, Clemency Skinner supports her crippled brother Jack and alcoholic mother Edith by pick-pocketing. Edith is in the clutches of the unscrupulous pimp Hardiman, who wants Clemency to go on the game as well. Desperate to escape, Clemency, who has a beautiful soprano voice, finds work with Augustus Throop’s troupe of buskers. When she is talent-spotted by the manager of the Strand Theatre, it looks as if their fortunes have turned.
But Hardiman is a dangerous man to cross and engineers Clemency’s redundancy. Then she meets the mysterious and charismatic Jared Stone, who offers to help. She wants to trust him but, when she discovers that Hardiman is Jared’s business manager, it looks as if she and
her family are running out of options…. My general feeling is that this book would have profited from being pruned. I lost count of the number of times Jack (who had had polio as a child) said something like, ‘If I weren’t only half a man I could beat up Hardiman/support my mother/stand up for my sister,’ etc. etc. And got the inevitably supportive, if clichéd, response: ‘You’re twice the man Hardiman is ’ or words to that effect. Nor was I always convinced by Clemency’s behaviour, which frequently defies common sense, for example, going out by herself when she knows that Hardiman is looking for her.
Still, this is an easy, escapist read with enough twists and turns to keep the reader turning over the pages. Doubtless, Dilly Court’s fans will love it.
Elizabeth Hawksley
TILLY TRUE
Dilly Court, Century, 2006, £18.99 hb/£5.99 pb, 518pp, 1846050839 and 9781846050831
Tilly True is another of Dilly Court’s sagas set in Victorian London. It’s a big read, over 500 pages, spanning several years, and with a large cast of characters. Just the book for bedtime reading, chapter by chapter.
Tilly is determined that she’s not going to stay poor, and a chance meeting with the Reverend Palgrave starts her on a journey out of poverty and into the magical world of India, through a marriage to Francis’s younger brother. But nothing is what it seems and sagas don’t end anywhere except at home. So in true saga fashion Tilly must suffer and struggle, and return to London, before she ends up in the arms of the right man, back home amongst her own people.
Dilly Court is good at tough female characters and Tilly is one the reader cheers on. She might be stubborn, even short-sighted about certain matters, but she’s a fighter and she doesn’t forget her family.
As in most sagas, plot is all, so sometimes character motivation is a little thin, but it’s a good read for saga lovers, with well researched historical detail.
Patrika Salmon
EVER MY LOVE
Gretchen Craig, Zebra, 2007, $4.99, pb, 384pp, 9780821780206
It is 1860 in southern Louisiana, and Abraham Lincoln’s election is on the horizon. After a year at finishing school in New York, where she absorbed the lessons in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Marianne Johnston of Magnolias Plantation has become a firm abolitionist. Though neither her father nor her brother understands her lack of sympathy for the “Southern way of life,” she regularly nurses slaves back to health after slavers catch them and return them home, much worse for wear. Yves Chamard has always thought of Marianne as an insipid southern belle, at least until he sees her devoted care of
Peter, a young slave boy nearly mauled to death by the Magnolia overseer’s trained dogs. In return, Marianne believes Yves to be a ladies’ man and typical Creole slave owner; she doesn’t realize he helps slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. Then Yves’s mulatto half-brother Gabriel, a physician trained abroad, is kidnapped and sold back into slavery—forcing them, their family, and friends to take action.
Craig pulls no punches in describing the dehumanizing conditions slaves are forced to endure; there are several violent and brutal scenes, presented realistically and not gratuitously, and not every subplot ends well. She also excels at describing the complex social climate of antebellum Louisiana, in which unspoken rules govern which relationships are permissible across racial and class lines. As with Craig’s previous novel, Always and Forever, which featured the same families one generation earlier, the pacing is brisk, the characters multifaceted, and the plot compelling. The secondary romances enhance rather than detract from the story. Though the romantic elements are emphasized more heavily than in the first volume, this saga is another winner. It was a pleasure spending time with these families once again.
Sarah Johnson
IN THE TENTH HOUSE
Laura Dietz, Crown, 2007, $24.95, hb, 368pp, 0307352846
In the Tenth House explores the blurred lines between spiritualism and science in London of 1896. The story begins when Ambrose Gennett, an eminent psychiatrist who has already embroiled himself in controversy by advocating Freud’s “talking cure,” literally runs into a mysterious young woman at Victoria Station. Something about her strange, oracular pronouncements leads him to believe she is a candidate for his treatment, but she vanishes completely. This begins an obsessive search on Gennett’s part which adversely affects his professional and personal life.
The young woman, a spiritualist named Lily Embly, is also disturbed by this initial encounter, reading in her cards that the unknown man will have some deep significance in her life. Through a series of events that are part circumstance, part subconscious engineering, the two of them find they are linked through Gennett’s susceptible half-sister, who is caught up in the spiritualist craze.
In the Tenth House is refreshingly free of cliché and uncluttered with conventionalities. However, this clean writing has perils, and occasionally the clarity and arc of the novel suffer when transitions are not clear and dialogue is unattributed or confusing. Also a little disappointing is the sudden shoehorning of an ulterior motive for the sister’s actions—which until then had been inexplicably contrary—at the very end of the novel.
Nonetheless, In the Tenth House provides a
realistic look at a volatile period in the history of psychiatry, and the characters of Lily and Ambrose are sympathetically drawn.
Susanne Dunlap
NO MORTAL REASON
Kathy Lynn Emerson, Pemberley Press, 2007, $17.95/C$22.95, pb, 276pp, 9780977191345
After reuniting with her estranged mother in Fatal as a Fallen Woman, reporter Diana Spaulding is determined to meet the rest of her mother’s family. She enlists her fiancé, Dr. Ben Northcote, in her plan to meet her relatives before revealing her own identity. To that end, they check into her uncle’s hotel-cum-spa, which aims to be the next Saratoga Springs. Pretending to be already married becomes the least of their problems when the remains of her Uncle Howd’s secret girlfriend are discovered.
As the year is 1888, the spa is more primitive than upscale, a lady reporter is viewed with suspicion, and an unmarried couple sharing a room is a definite no-no. Ben, although more respectful of Diana than other 19th-century men may have been, still finds himself wanting to shield her from harm, which causes her to bristle in response and go off on her own, subsequently putting herself in danger. This outing is almost too plot-heavy—the dead girl’s mother is deeply religious; Uncle Myron, who owns the hotel, has questionable business partners; and Diana’s editor hands her the unrelated assignment of interviewing a captured murderer in a nearby town. All these elements coexist rather uneasily, and this third book in the series does not have the “I have to read it in one sitting” feeling that the first two had. Still, I’ll be there for Diana and Ben’s wedding.
Ellen Keith
A BEAUTIFUL BLUE DEATH
Charles Finch, Minotaur, 2007, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 320pp, 9780312359775
Yet another Victorian mystery series, you say? Yes… and this one starts off with a bang! Intelligent, witty, clever and not easily figured out until the end: a very nice combination and a worthy beginning for new author Finch.
Charles Lenox is a gentleman: a bit of a scholar and armchair explorer, nothing makes Lenox happier than to relax in his study with a travel book and a cup of tea. But that peace is disturbed when he learns that his lifelong friend, Lady Jane, has discovered that her former servant, Prue, has been found dead in what appears to be a suicide by poison.
Lenox, who has a dash of the Holmesian in his investigative powers, asks his old friend, Dr. Thomas McConnell, to assist him in determining whether Prue poisoned herself. Dr. Tom has a bit of a drinking problem and has essentially ruined his medical career. But he’s smart. Not a bad fellow to have around when one is investigating a poisoning. Ultimately, of course, Lenox and McConnell uncover the dastardly perpetrators. All sorts of political shenanigans involving
members of Parliament are at play, and not everything is what it first appears.
I must admit I enjoyed this book. Lenox is a likeable fellow. The characters are nicely drawn and a good dose of Parliamentary politics gives the mystery an historical framework. Is it a bit formulaic? Perhaps, but if you’re looking for a fun summer read without a lot of philosophy or soul-searching, this is the book for you.
Ilysa Magnus
MADEMOISELLE VICTORINE
Debra Finerman, Three Rivers, 2007, $13.95/ C$17.95, pb, 368pp, 9780307352835
This engaging novel recounts an exciting life for the nude model in Edouard Manet’s famous painting, Olympia. Mademoiselle Victorine is a young girl of obscure origins when she’s enrolled in the Paris Opera ballet school. Determined to gain financial security, bold Victorine catches the eye of the controversial painter, Edouard Manet. She agrees to model for him, but refuses his advances, for he is famous for loving his models and then leaving them. His first nude painting of her causes a scandal, and brings her to the attention of wealthy benefactors. From there, she steps up, man by man, to unexpected fame, riches, and power. Yet she continues to model for Manet, and their unspoken attraction grows. When she becomes entangled in politics, it is Manet who cleverly saves her, but it takes a war and a revolution before Victorine embraces the truth that love is more important than riches.
Despite one jarring coincidence and a questionable legal issue, Mademoiselle Victorine is a charming, quick-paced novel full of famous people and endearing characters. The historical detail—clothing, furniture, food, carriages, etc.—is exquisitely researched and well integrated. Bravo to Ms. Finerman on her first novel, an accomplished portrait of artistic Paris.
Lisa Ann Verge
HER ONLY DESIRE
Gaelen Foley, Ballantine, 2007, $7.99/C$10.99, pb, 480pp, 9780345480118 / Piatkus, 2007, £6.99, pb, 320pp, 9780749937942
In 1817, Ian Prescott, Marquess of Griffith, arrives in India on a peace mission from the British government. Before he reaches the coach sent by an old friend with whom he plans to stay, he encounters a runaway horse ridden by an Indian maiden on her way to stop a young widow from throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Much to his surprise, the Indian maiden turns out to be Georgiana Knight, daughter of his host. In reflection, Ian realizes he shouldn’t have been surprised because this Georgiana was named for her aunt who had been the center of many scandals when she was alive. From exotic India to the ballrooms of London, Georgiana and Ian are pursued by an assassinkidnapper bent on revenge for an incident that occurred during Ian’s diplomatic visit to the Maharajah of Janpur.
Ms. Foley paints a beautiful picture of India. Her hero is stalwart and intelligent. The heroine is impulsive. Almost instantly she falls deeply in love, although she hates everything the hero stands for. Throughout the story Georgiana does 180-degree emotional turns. This is an interesting story despite the heroine’s emotional immaturity.
Audrey Braver
SUDDENLY, YOU
Shelley Galloway, Five Star, 2007, $26.95, hb, 247pp, 1594145717
It’s the fall of 1872 in Cedar Springs, Colorado, and Jasmine Fairchild is a barmaid at the Dark Horse Saloon. Coming from a poor family, Jasmine has overcome her upbringing to make her own way without tarnishing her reputation by resorting to the oldest profession. And then Quentin Smith arrives...
A former Texas Ranger, Quentin Smith is trying to defeat his past: a violent career that’s so popular with folk that his exploits are immortalized in dime-store novels, and a wife murdered because of him. Now retired and working for the Kansas Pacific Railway, he’s in town on the pretext of recuperating from physical injuries, but he’s actually trying to track down the financial backer for a gang of train robbers. He meets Jasmine Fairchild. They both try not to fall in love.
Shelley Galloway’s characters are good, Jasmine being the atypical bar maid concerned about staying honest, of being a decent woman in spite of her job. The author details how she’s handed the opportunity to mix with the respectable town women; how she longs to dare to think about being in a romance with Captain Smith, even as he is coming to the realization that he might be ready to leave his wife’s memory in the past; how Jasmine’s trust in Smith could cost her her life. Suddenly, You is a highly readable romance with realistic overtones of Western adventure. I recommend it as a great book for a summer weekend escape.
Janette King
THE SNAKE STONE
Jason Goodwin, Faber & Faber, 2007, £9.99, pb, 305pp, 9780571238118 / Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007, $25.00, hb, 304pp, 9780374299354
This is the second novel in the series featuring Yashim the Eunuch. Goodwin has written nonfiction about the Ottoman Empire and Istanbul and uses his familiarity with the history and geography to create a very real and richly detailed early 19th-century background. Yashim is an attractive detective towering over the other characters.
When a French archaeologist arrives seeking lost treasure, Yashim is hired to find out about him. Then the body is discovered and Yashim is the likeliest suspect. There are other murders and gradually these strands come together. It is a complicated plot and much of the action takes place in the underground tunnels and cisterns which bring water to the city. I’ve been there
when they were pleasantly lit, and they must be terrifying in the dark.
Goodwin’s prose style is lyrical and evocative but spare with occasional flashes of humour. I think his familiarity with Istanbul and its history makes him forget that many of his readers do not share his knowledge. I was irritated by unexplained references to historical facts and people I did not know and, Turkish (I assume), words the meaning of which I had to guess. The multiple viewpoints made the reading jerky and did not contribute to the unravelling of the plot.
If you have visited Istanbul you will enjoy this book. If not, I suggest you read a brief history and equip yourself with a city map before starting.
Marina Oliver
THE COMPANION
Ann Granger, Minotaur, 2007, $23.95, hb, 288pp, 9780312363376
London, 1864: Elizabeth Martin, the daughter of a charitable thus penurious country doctor, takes a post as paid companion to a wealthy aunt due to the sudden disappearance of the previous companion. When a woman’s body is found among slums being demolished for a railway depot, Lizzie learns from Inspector Ross that the deceased is the missing companion, cruelly murdered. Arriving to interrogate Aunt Parry about the murdered companion, Ross realizes he recognizes Lizzie from childhood. Her father had rescued the under-aged lad from the dangerous mines and sent him to school, giving him a start in life which Ben never forgot. Lizzie and Ben engage in serious sleuthing: his officially, and hers from a sense of justice for the murdered girl and fear that she might be next!
This novel is written in Victorian style, with informative flashbacks and a clever heroine. Lizzie serves her aunt well while using her curiosity and spare time developing good detecting skills. Although a departure from Ann Granger’s wonderful Mitchell and Markby series, it’s a welcome one for the evocation of time and place.
Tess Allegra
TOM
BEDLAM
George Hagen, Random House, 2007, $24.99/ C$32.99, hb, 448pp, 9781400062225 / Sceptre, 2007, £12.99, hb, 464pp, 9780340752067
The author has Charles Dickens among his favorite authors, but Tom Bedlam reminds me more of Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, or their American counterparts Kenneth Roberts or Robert Lewis Taylor, among others. In other words, this is a novel which draws in a number of characters around the protagonist, introduces many settings and plotlines, and over the course of the book brings each character and plotline to a finish.
Usually in this type of novel, the central character is a much put-upon innocent. Tom Bedlam starts out that way, but he does learn to temporize and compromise. This work is still
old-fashioned in the sense that the subjects’ actions incur logical consequences. Growing up in South London in the 1860s, Tom is not a foundling, but he does have an overly principled mother who went to work in a porcelain factory when she made a bad choice in husbands and was abandoned. It takes Tom a long time to get that much out of her; she has to start sliding off the deep end to open up about it, although it is entertaining when she starts telling people off in place of the usual gentle greeting. Tom plays with and admires the children of the nearby family called Limpkin, but lusts after another porcelain factory maid who throws him over for the factory owner’s son. His mother’s death reveals a legacy for him to go to school and he is set for his own version of the English boys’ boarding school. Here he has to make a most difficult choice and although necessary, it haunts him the rest of his days.
There is much to enjoy in this modern version of the picaresque tale.
Mary K. Bird-Guilliams
BITTERSWEET
Cathy Marie Hake, Bethany House, 2007, $13.99, pb, 399, 0764201662
Bittersweet is the story of a journey of faith. Set in California during the early years of the Civil War, the title is a warning that the plot of this romance does not unfold without tragedy. Laney McCain has been in love with her brother’s best friend, Galen O’Sullivan, ever since she was a child. When Galen hires some new help, including the enigmatic Ivy Grubb, Laney must make him see that she is a full-grown woman before he succumbs to Ivy’s allure. Just as Galen prepares to declare his love for Laney, catastrophe sweeps away all hope that they can have a future together. Now, Laney and Galen must struggle to live godly lives in the midst of their heartache.
While a great deal of unnecessary confusion is fostered by the multitude of characters, dialects, and unusual names, the author’s talent for creating unique and interesting personalities mitigates this flaw. And, again thanks to the author’s skill, the comic relief needed to balance the rather intense romantic dilemma is provided by the thread of “Grubb” (food) that is woven into the story. Those readers who enjoy inspirational Americana will put this one on their keeper shelf.
Nancy J. Attwell
ON THE WRONG TRACK
Steve Hockensmith, Minotaur, 2007, $23.95, hb, 292 pp, 9780312347819
Cowboy detectives Gustav (“Old Red”) and Otto (“Big Red”) Amlingmeyer are back, and the Southern Pacific Railroad’s got them in this rollicking second installment of the Holmes on the Range mysteries. Otto again plays Watson to Gustave’s “deducifying” Holmes to great, folksy effect. This time out, the boys are hired on as railroad detectives on an 1893 run to San Francisco, despite Gustave’s debilitating
Y VOICES FROM THE SEA
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Evelyn Hood, Sphere, 2007, £5.99/C$10.99, pb, 355pp, 9780751537338
In 1865 Eppie has lost her beloved husband to the sea— that eternal danger faced by the fisher folk of Portsoy. Her parents provide a loving home for her young daughter. Eppie, daughter of a schoolmaster and sister of a teacher, is well educated and a suitable housekeeper for wealthy widower Andrew Geddes. Andrew has troubles: a spiteful mother and Lydia, his idle, ignorant daughter. His son Duncan has a passion for the new science of geology; Andrew believes the boy will simply end up labouring as a quarry man. At fifteen Duncan runs away to pursue his dream.
When Lydia meets Eppie’s daughter Charlotte, she has found a true friend and they share lessons with Eppie’s sister Marion. With both sisters now working for Andrew Geddes, Marion has a chance of unlooked-for joy but Eppie seems to be a woman who only loves once.
After five years Duncan returns triumphant with a rough and loud-mouthed stranger—Foy, his experienced mentor in geology who delights in teasing Eppie... Andrew and Foy are old enemies; a long-ago jealousy and present blazing dislike threaten the close-knit village with tragedy. This is a skilfully written, deceptively simple story. The author, while revealing the hardships, allows us in this accomplished novel to share the pleasure of a sturdy, lifeloving community.
motion sickness and their family’s distrust of farm-stealin’, cattle-killin’, money-grubbin’ railroads.
Soon, an unscheduled stop is made to gather a decapitated body, and it becomes clear to the brothers that there’s a murderer on board. An unscheduled visit by the infamous Give ΄em Hell Boys compounds the mystery. Taciturn Gustav and Candide-in-spurs Otto deal with cardsharks, a sharpshooter legend turned drunk and sharpeared twin hellions, undercover train operatives, and a lady who isn’t quite who she seems. The baggage car holds everything from two coffins to a pesky snake to a Chinese doctor’s porcelain collection to the stowaway King of the Hobos.
Y DARK HEARTS OF CHICAGO
Nancy Henshaw
Mysteries compound and bodies multiply as our boys, their friends and enemies try to stay on track in this entertaining journey. Besides the mystery, some secrets of the heart and family come to light as the brothers face murderers, hairpin turns, and their own fears. Despite a quibble against an unnecessary flash-forward opening that confused this reader, Otto and Gustav’s second outing was great fun. Long may the brothers ride the range or the rails!
Eileen Charbonneau
THE MARCHESA
Simonetta Agnello Hornby (trans. Alastair McEwan), Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, $25/
EDITORS’ CHOICE
William Horwood and Helen Rappaport, Hutchinson, 2007, £12.99, pb, 630pp, 9780091796532
Dark indeed. This 1893 version of Chicago is a thoroughly unpleasant place, violent, racist, sexist and corrupt, both politically and morally. Helen Rappaport and William Horwood have researched the city in depth and present it as one of the characters in an engrossing thriller. From the Cook County Insane Asylum to the giant meat packing companies, the threads of the story spread across the city, involving characters ranging from politicians to bell boys.
Emily Strauss, who wants to be a reporter of real news, not the women’s page, tricks Joseph Pulitzer into letting her write a trial story, but she has to have it in the office in only nine days. She is sent to the World’s Fair in Chicago to find out why so many young women are vanishing there. The story snowballs, with many dramatic twists and turns, pulling all those disparate threads together to a sizzling and unexpected ending.
This well written and well researched thriller is one of a planned series following Emily’s career. If the others are as good, then they will also be worth reading.
Patrika Salmon
C$31, hb, 326pp, 9780374182458 / Penguin, 2007, £7.99, pb, 352pp, 9780141023700
During the late 19th century, Amalia and her ailing niece live in an almost inaccessible cave on the rocky coast of Sicily. They spend their days simply trying to exist in such harsh conditions. Amalia loves the child and keeps her entertained with stories of when she was a young nursemaid to Costanza Safamita, the only girl child born to the noble Safamita family. Costanza is born with brilliant red hair, unlike anyone else in her family. Her unusual hair color prompts her mother’s rejection and her father’s love, which displeases her brothers. Because of her mother’s cruelty towards her, she is raised by palace servants and adored by her father, who loves her more than her brothers. As a young woman, Costanza falls in love with an impoverished Pietro Patella, and even though her father disapproves, they marry, giving Pietro access to her dowry. Constanza grows unhappy in her marriage because of her husband’s rejection and his infidelities. Then one day, Costanza decides to allow no one and nothing to impede her life and she grows stronger and more independent. Soon she uncovers long-buried family secrets and for the first time begins to understand the misfortunes of her childhood.
Translated from the Italian by Alastair McEwan, the story unfolds through an opulent omniscient narrative and through the voices of its diverse characters. The tale moved along so interestingly and at such a fast pace that I found myself rapidly turning the pages long past midnight. Its intricate plot twists and tidbits of the odd and unusual were completely engrossing.
Mirella Patzer
BEWARE A SCOT’S REVENGE
Sabrina Jeffries, Pocket, 2007, $6.99/C$7.99, pb, 361pp, 1416516107
In 1822, Sir Lachlan Ross is widely feared in his guise as The Scottish Scourge, but Lady Venetia Campbell remembers her former neighbor as the handsome youth who stole her heart. During a visit to her childhood home in Scotland, Venetia gets kidnapped at pistol point by Lachlan, who is now her father’s sworn enemy. Despite his insistence to use her to avenge a past wrongdoing, Venetia cannot resist Lachlan’s invigorating appeal, dangerous demeanor, or his sizzling kisses.
Misadventures and misunderstandings abound in this delightful romp across Scotland as the two get tangled up beneath the sheets, and in entertaining circumstances. Lachlan and Venetia are engaging characters, and the sparks that fly between them quite amusing. While a typical Regency romance with little unique plot, this newest installment in the School for Heiresses series has an added charming Scottish ring to it, and is sure to appeal to all Jeffries’ fans.
Rebecca Roberts
LETTERS FROM LYDIA
Kent Kamron, Five Star, 2006, $26.95, hb, 384pp, 139781594145285
Lydia Pearlman is orphaned when her father takes his own life at the end of the Civil War. A kindly neighbor takes her in, but soon realizes Lydia must get away from her small Virginia community in order to escape her difficult past. Lydia, who has never been farther than four miles from home, begins a cross-country journey to St. Louis by herself.
Hindered by the twin defects of poverty and homeliness, Lydia struggles to survive. Each time life becomes too difficult, Lydia moves on, hoping to find that elusive happiness. Each time she leaves behind people she loves, and Lydia often wonders if she will ever find love and contentment. The letters Lydia writes along the way mark the progress of her maturity both in form and content.
Kent Kamron’s portrayal of Lydia’s interesting character and even more interesting adventures make this novel an enjoyable read. One finds oneself wincing at Lydia’s poor choices, cheering when she has a victory, and wishing for love almost as fervently as Lydia does herself. Kent Kamron is the pseudonym used for Delray K. Dvoracek’s Western stories. Nan Curnutt
TEXAS SHOWDOWN
Elmer Kelton, Forge, 2007, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 352 pp, 9780765311528
A seven-time Spur award winner, Elmer Kelton has re-published two short novels written in the 1960s about vengeance and conflict in West Texas. The first story, titled “Pecos Crossing,” tells the tale of two cowboys who accidentally cause the death of a wife of a former Texas Ranger. The Ranger vows vengeance and tries to track down the two young men. The second story is titled “Shotgun.” Macy Madock seeks revenge against a rancher who sent him to prison ten years earlier. Madock is ruthless and will stop at nothing to destroy the rancher. Both stories end in a gunfight with surprising results.
I enjoyed both stories; they were fast paced and contained plenty of action. The author is able to combine human emotion with stories of western life in Texas in the late 1800s. With this skill, Kelton has become one of the premier western writers of our time.
Jeff Westerhoff
HEART’S DELIGHT
Ruth Ryan Langan, Berkley Sensation, 2007, $6.99, pb, 280pp, 9780425216330
In this heartwarming romance set at the end of the 19th century, spinster Molly O’Brien is raising four adopted daughters on an isolated farm in Wisconsin. Returning home with her children from their semi-annual trip to town, Molly finds two men who have battered each other into unconsciousness. As she searches their discarded jackets, she realizes that one is a U.S. Marshal, the other a murderer; but how
is she to know which is which? Determined to save them both—and to bring the killer to justice—Molly loads the men onto her wagon and brings them home.
As one would expect in a story with this intriguing premise, Heart’s Delight dishes up both amusement and suspense along with the romance. It is unfortunate that the reader must willfully suspend disbelief at several points, including the acceptance that a four-year-old could speak with the diction of an adult, that a mother would leave her children alone with a possible killer, or that a pioneer woman could retain her beauty while single-handedly running a farm, a thriving cheese business, and a spotless house. These distractions aside, this is a charming story that will bring heart’s delight to all fans of the genre.
Nancy J. Attwell
TO LOVE ANEW
Bonnie Leon, Revell, 2007, $12.99, pb, 304pp, 978080073176X
In 19th-century England, Hannah Talbot’s abusive employer accuses her of theft to keep his own crimes hidden. Meanwhile, John Bradshaw, a wealthy toolmaker and factory owner, accidentally murders a man while protecting his cousin Henry from the results of his own folly. Both Hannah and John are found guilty, imprisoned and put on board a slave ship headed for New South Wales. Living conditions couldn’t be worse. Fortunately for Hannah, she makes friends who help strengthen her faith that God has not forgotten them, despite the suffering they must endure. So begins this story, the first in Bonnie Leon’s Sydney Cove series.
Supporting characters are well developed and play pivotal roles in this inspirational, romantic historical novel. The plot moves quickly, perhaps a little too quickly, and the unresolved issues at the end of the story leave the reader feeling slightly disappointed. However, the vivid descriptions of the horrible conditions aboard prison ships and the lushness of the New South Wales countryside make the book an interesting read.
Nan Curnutt
CAPTIVE OF MY DESIRES
Johanna Lindsey, Corgi, 2007, £6.99, pb, 443pp, 9780552153478 / Pocket, 2007, $7.99, pb, 464pp, 9781416505488
Upon the death of her mother, eighteen-yearold Gabriella Brooks sails from England to the Caribbean in search of her father rather than be forced to live with an unknown guardian. She soon discovers that her father is not the upright shipping merchant she has been brought up to believe. After three years sailing and treasure hunting together, her father decides that Gabrielle must return to London and be launched into society to find a husband. Under the sponsorship of James Malory and his wife Georgina, Gabrielle enters London Society but finds herself at odds with Georgina’s huge,
handsome brother, Drew Anderson. A battle of wills ensues: Gabrielle steals Drew’s ship in an attempt to rescue her father from a pirate stronghold but soon finds that she must work with both Drew and the Malorys if she is to succeed.
This entertaining tale of love and adventure on the high seas moves along at a cracking pace, although detail appears to have been sacrificed to speed, especially at the end. It is one of a series featuring the extended Malory family and new readers might find the number of characters mentioned in the first few chapters a little overwhelming. However, it is a lighthearted action packed story and the many fans of Johanna Lindsey will overlook the anachronisms and modern dialogue in this rollicking yarn.
Melinda Hammond
THE NOTORIOUS MRS. WINSTON
Mary Mackey, Berkley, 2007, $14.00/C$17.50, pb, 340pp, 9780425215128
Trapped in a loveless marriage by a husband who treats her as an art object rather than a wife, Claire Winston is ripe for an affair. When she meets Henry’s dashing soldier nephew, John Taylor, they are instantly attracted. They run away together to New Orleans, intending to take ship for South America, but Henry follows and tricks Claire with a story about John leaving her to return to his wife and child. Claire reluctantly returns home with Henry, just as war is declared between North and South.
Two years later, Claire discovers that Henry lied to her and that John has been wounded during the fighting. Disguising herself as a boy soldier for ease of travel, she finds him with John Hunt Morgan’s raiders. Now she faces a dilemma: fight the North as a Rebel soldier in order to stay with John, or remain loyal to the Union.
The first section of the book, describing Henry and Claire’s troubled relationship, is excellent. The tension between hungry-for-love Claire and the asexual Henry is well-drawn. The later parts, in which Claire masquerades as a soldier, were less successful. I know that some women did serve in the Civil War disguised as men, but I didn’t quite believe Claire’s martial exploits. Also, the action stops dead in the passage in which “Zeke” (Claire) encounters John Hunt Morgan in the field. It reads like a dropped-in mini history lesson instead of being integrated into the story. Despite those two misgivings, the rest of the book was enjoyable enough to rank it a better-than-average romantic historical novel.
B.J. Sedlock
THE DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER
Donna MacQuigg, Five Star, 2007, $26.95, hb, 251pp, 1594145962
At her grandmother’s insistence, Rebeccah, a beautiful aristocrat in the late 19th century, reluctantly agrees to leave England and her fiancé to honor her dying mother’s wish and travel to America to visit her sister and estranged
Y THE ROSE OF SEBASTOPOL
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Katherine McMahon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, £12.99, hb, 394pp, 9780297850922
Mariella Lingwood is a typical Victorian young lady. She is quiet, dutiful, unadventurous, shy and modest. She helps her mother in her charitable works and is an expert seamstress. She becomes engaged to her childhood sweetheart, Henry. Her cousin, Rosa, is the complete opposite, being a wild, adventurous, unconventional, independent spirit. When the Crimean War breaks out, Henry, now a surgeon, immediately goes out to help. Rosa is desperate to join Florence Nightingale’s nurses and when she is turned down she determines to make her own way there. Mariella stays at home, makes bandages, keeps a war scrapbook and finds it difficult to understand what is happening and why. Then she receives news that Henry is now safe in Italy but close to death and needs her. What happens when she gets there shocks her to the core, and leads her to the heart of the war and events that will change her life completely.
I loved everything about this book. With a cracking plot, wide in scope and yet exquisitely detailed, it conveys the world of England in the 1850s— domestic life, medicine, industry and charity—with a confident brush. McMahon also cleverly evokes the gulf between middle-class life in England and its perception of the situation which is at total odds with the reality. She also subtly draws out the similarities between the Crimean War and what is happening in Iraq now without any sense of the didactic. Her portrayal of Rose and Mariella is particularly fine, as is they way they, and our perceptions of them, deepen and evolve as the novel progresses.
I have enjoyed reading all Katherine McMahon’s historical novels but this, to me, is her best so far. I thoroughly recommend it.
father, a doctor in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On her way there, Indians attack her stagecoach. At Fort Union, she meets an Indian fighter, Colonel Sayer MacLaren of the U.S. Cavalry, who must act as her escort. When his payroll wagon is attacked and all the money is stolen, everyone suspects it is another Indian raid, and he is determined to capture the renegades. As Rebeccah finds herself becoming enamored with Sayer, she is caught unaware when her grandmother and fiancé come to America to take her home.
I found myself totally charmed by this frontier romance quasi who-dun-it. The author interjects several scenes of humorous interactions between the hero and heroine that had me belly laughing. The romance between them blooms realistically and at a believable, natural pace. The story culminates with a load of tension and an entirely satisfying ending that left me wanting more.
Mirella Patzer
IN THE COMPANY OF SECRETS
Judith Miller, Bethany House, 2007, $13.99, pb, 384pp, 0764202766
After kitchen maid Olivia Mott, employed by the Earl and Countess of Lanshire, is sexually menaced by the famed Chef Mallard, she suddenly finds herself bound for Pullman, Illinois, in the company of Lady Charlotte, her employers’ spoiled daughter. Charlotte has her own urgent reasons for wanting to travel to America, where she supplies Olivia with a forged recommendation that allows Olivia to find work as an assistant chef at the grand Pullman Hotel—and that threatens to ensnare
Olivia in a web of lies.
Sally Zigmond
Olivia, the competing suitors she soon finds, and her other new acquaintances are well drawn, convincingly flawed characters. I did, however, find it jarring that fresh from her lowly position at Lanshire Hall, Olivia is every bit as well spoken as Lady Charlotte. Moreover, she would surely not use words like “missive” and “plethora” in ordinary conversation.
This aside, Miller paints an interesting picture of an 1890s “company town” where spies abound and few secrets are safe. This book is the first of a planned series set in Pullman; I’m looking forward to seeing how Olivia and her fellow characters develop.
Susan Higginbotham
A MAN FOR TEMPERANCE
Gilbert Morris, B&H, 2007, $14.99, pb, 331pp, 0805432906
In 1850, Temperance Peabody, aged 32, manages her Oregon Territory homestead all alone and tends to her neighbors during a cholera outbreak. Her life is serene and uncomplicated until Thaddeus Brennan, a heavy-drinking, scarred soul in trouble with the law, lands on her doorstep and irrevocably changes her placid life. When God calls on Temperance to take her neighbors’ orphaned children back east, she must rely on Thaddeus to be her guide. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Temperance contends with changing Thaddeus’ coarse ways, keeping the children safe, and learning to maneuver the dangers of the Oregon Trail.
Despite this mismatched straitlaced Christian woman and loutish drifter, the intensities of
their trek help the two find common ground. Interspersed with lively characters and accurate historical detail, this makes for an engrossing read. Morris successfully brings the Oregon Trail to life; readers can almost taste the dust the wagon kicks up as it treks back east. Temperance is a charming heroine with a big heart and caring soul, and although Thaddeus’s overnight transformation into a gentleman rings slightly unbelievable, this is a sweet story spiced with just the right amount of inspiration and romance.
Rebecca Roberts
WAR RELIC
Mackie Murdock, Five Star, 2007, $25.95, hb, 243pp, 1594145209
In prose dry and sparse as his West Texas setting, Mackie Murdock brings us the story of Wilbur Malone, a Civil War veteran who spends his life gathering buffalo bones in the wilderness. Haunted by his experiences fighting for the south in the Civil War, Malone soon finds himself forced to confront long-buried regrets when he learns his childhood sweetheart has moved to the area and started a ranch only to find herself plagued by a gang of notorious rustlers. Shootouts and showdowns follow.
Murdock’s novel breaks little new ground, providing the reader with stock western-types and familiar situations. However, it sports an engaging central character and is a readable and enjoyable novel that successfully conjures the setting and the era, delving into both the historical transformations besetting late 19th century Texas as well as the lingering impact of the Civil War. An excellent read for fans of Westerns.
Richard Dery
THE SINGING
BIRD: A Cherokee Novel John Milton Oskison, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 2007, $19.95, pb, 185pp, 9780806138183
A newly discovered novel set in the turbulent mid-19th century period of the removals and intertribal conflict, The Singing Bird details the lives of a group of missionaries serving the Cherokee people.
The mission’s founding quartet has one squeaky wheel, their pastor’s racist wife Ellen, the eloquently described “Singing Bird” of the title. She has none of her husband’s zeal, nor his right-hand man Paul’s loyalty, nor teacher Miss Eula’s devotion, but she has energy to burn. She uses it to wreak havoc that has the power to bring down the mission.
Along the way, two missions are founded and thrive where planted, and the characters interact with historical figures ranging from John Ross and Sequoyah to Sam Houston. The malcontented Ellen tries to seduce gentle Paul, then leaves her husband, only to return with vengeance in her heart. Once she succeeds in causing a scandal that costs her husband his position, she has a change of heart and seeks forgiveness and atonement. But violence
Y ALL THE TEA IN CHINA
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Jane Orcutt, Revell, 2007, $12.99, pb, 352pp, 9780800731793
Isabella Goodrich is a singular woman. Raised by her uncle, an Oxford Dean, she is a swordswoman and scholar. Since both of these attributes are not considered womanly, it is no wonder she is still single at twenty-five. In 1814, this makes her officially on the shelf. Isabella decides, as a result of what she sees as three “signs,” that she is meant to be a missionary to China. Although those around her try to make her see reason, Isabella is convinced of her calling. She stows away on a ship that is returning missionary Phineas Snowe, a man she detests, to China. She believes that although Phineas dislikes her, his sense of honor will not allow him to leave her unescorted.
Jane Orcutt has written a witty, vivacious, highly entertaining tale of adventure and romance. This book is a work of art. The inspirational elements in the story, though subtle, enhance the plot. The characters are human, imperfect, and amusing. Although this book was intended to be Book One in the Rollicking Regency series, sadly, it will now stand alone. Jane Orcutt passed away in March 2007. Nan Curnutt
remains close at hand for the plain-speaking Singing Bird.
Although written by a Mixed Blood activist and friend of Will Rogers, the story is told in the first person by one of the missionaries, all white Christians, none of whom grow fluent in the language, customs or stories of the people they dedicate their lives to. Those looking for a native point of view or characterization may be disappointed. But the story of Ellen as the “Singing Bird” of Cherokee understanding is both powerful and poignant.
Eileen Charbonneau
HELL’S GATE
Michael Parker, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709082187
Hell’s Gate is set in British East Africa in 1898. The plot is quite straightforward, and would not be out of place in any “Boy’s Own” story. Reuben Cole, a settler, must rescue his son, who has been kidnapped by Piet Snyder, a renegade Dutchman. Snyder plans to give the boy to the leader of 10,000 Masai tribesmen, who, with the connivance and encouragement of the German government, plan to attack the strategically important rail camp at Nairobi. The defence of Nairobi is in the hand of Major Kingsley Webb, who commands only 250 soldiers. Include in the plot Hannah, headstrong daughter of the Reverend Audrey Bowers, who is rescued by Cole when she and her father are attacked by a group of marauding Masai. She must choose between the attraction she feels for the settler and the long- standing understanding that she has had with Major Webb. This book, like the proverbial curate’s egg, is good in parts. The battle scenes are well written, but the dialogue, while reflecting the attitudes of the time, comes across as contrived. This book had real potential, but unfortunately failed to live up to it.
Mike Ashworth
THE SPY WORE SILK
Andrea Pickens, Warner, 2007, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 384pp, 0446618004
Set in Regency London, this first book in a series about female spies trained by the government follows Sienna, a former London street urchin, as she searches for a traitor amongst the members of The Gilded Page Club, a group of male book collectors. Her most obvious suspect proves to be her most valuable ally.
Ms. Pickens is a talented writer. Her characters are real, the setting is beautifully drawn with just the right amount of historical detail, while the dialogue is snappy and period-appropriate. Though a tad slow to start, the story itself soon moves along at a decent pace.
I did not, however, really enjoy the book as I found the plot and its various devices not particularly to my taste. There was too much focus on the sexual games the heroine played with those she was investigating, which somewhat diminished the developing love story. Nor could I truly accept the notion that the heroine and her fellow spies could be so adept at so many different accomplishments.
For readers of historical romance, however, who enjoy tales of fighting women and the men who love them, this book is worth adding to your reading list.
Teresa Basinski Eckford
A PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCE
Shirley Smith, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709082798
Widowed Jane Grayson has decided to move from Westbury Hall, which she has rented from wealthy Sir Benjamin Westbury. Jane has decided to return to nearby Felbrook Manor along with her two daughters—spirited, beautiful Charlotte and shy, sweet Kitty. All bodes well for a happy future: Charlotte has captured the attention of local lawyer Matthew King and everyone
expects them to soon become engaged, and Jane thinks it likely Kitty will wed the village curate. But as everyone knows, the path of true love never runs smooth, and the lives of these two sisters are about to take a surprising turn. Before the Grayson family quit Westbury Hall, there is a violent storm during which a section of library panelling gives way to reveal the skeleton of a murder victim. An event which shatters the calm and ordered existence of Jane Grayson and her daughters. Next, a tall handsome gentleman arrives in the village—he is Hugo Westbury and Sir Benjamin’s heir. Life for the Grayson family will never be the same again.
Peopled with likeable characters, and served with a touch of murder, this Regency is a pleasantly diverting read.
Fiona Lowe
THE SOLDIER’S GIRL
Mary Jane Staples, Corgi, 2007, £5.99, pb, 395pp, 9780552154444
This is the story of how Maisie Gibbs met Daniel Adams and it all began.
Maisie was born in 1876 in London’s East End. Both parents had died by the time she was seventeen and with no money or secure job the spectre of the workhouse loomed until she found employment with a Mr Fairfax as a live-in maid. The life and times of a serving girl in the 19th century are convincingly portrayed and the character of Maisie, a warm, resourceful heroine, is charmingly drawn. Maisie faces many challenges as the story unfolds but she never loses her strong sense of what is right and fair. When she meets soldier Daniel Adams, she finds the love of her life.
This is a cosy tale for all fans of the Adams family novels who wished to know more about Chinese Lady’s first husband, Corporal Daniel Adams of the West Kents. They will not be disappointed.
Ann Oughton
THE HELLFIRE CONSPIRACY
Will Thomas, Touchstone, 2007, $14.00, pb, 336pp, 0743296400
When a middle-class girl goes missing in the notorious Bethnal Green neighborhood of 1880s London, private investigator Cyrus Barker takes the case and soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy involving white slavers, serial killers, and some of the most powerful men of his era. Written in a manner owing much to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hellfire Conspiracy nevertheless manages an identity of its own, with an intriguing plotline and interesting, welldrawn characters.
Will Thomas brings a great variety of historical detail to life in the novel, from the crusading efforts of the socialistic Fabian Society to the political maneuverings of the era’s noble elites. Keen details about the food, clothes and nightlife of the era’s denizens, high, low and inbetween, breathe life into the narrative, and it is all conveyed so naturally within the framework
Y SOUL CATCHER
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Michael White, Morrow, 2007, $24.95/C$31.50, hb, 384pp, 9780061340727 / Quercus, Nov. 2007, £12.99, pb, 336pp, 1847241581
Dark, wounded hero Augustus Cain, Mexican War veteran and son of a Virginia planter, wakes in a whore’s bed and a laudanum haze to an offer he can’t refuse. To pay a gambling debt, he must once more undertake a profession he’d sworn off—again—heading north after a pair of runaway slaves. One of the slaves is the beautiful blue-eyed Rosetta, for whom her master will pay a very high price to recover—and who will herself pay the highest price not to be dragged back to the man who sold her infant son down river.
Michael White teaches us the power of strong characterization and of breathing new life into common human situations. He brilliantly brings the violence and divided loyalties of the antebellum years to life; fiery John Brown is just one of the obstacles Cain must overcome. Fast action, well-crafted scenes and a high body count make this perfect for the bestseller list and big screen, with something of Cold Mountain in it to delight fans. But all is not leveled for the lowest common denominator. He writes beautiful, descriptive passages: the sky is evoked with visceral words—“a vast coffin lid”—which keeps it from being an overused motif. Our hero and heroine are surrounded by exquisite period details and soul-wrenching decisions that get to the very core of America’s dark heart.
of the story as to never bog down the plot with encyclopedic tedium. Anglophiles, fans of traditional detective novels and those interested in 19th century England will find this book more than rewards them for their efforts.
Richard Dery
THE CHALBOURNE SAPPHIRES
Sandra Wilson, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709083139
1817: war between America and Britain has been over for two years, and patriotic Amy Van Allen has left Washington to spend Christmas at Chalbourne Park with her English friend Olivia Chalbourne, sister to Lord Chalbourne. The reason for Amy’s invitation: Olivia’s forthcoming wedding to her lover Charles Pemberton. Amy’s feelings are mixed; happy for her friend, nonetheless, British soldiers killed her brother during the recent war and her family did not wish her to accept Olivia’s invitation.
On arrival in England Amy rapidly learns all is not well. Lord Chalbourne’s wife, Alice, has recently, and shockingly, died in most mysterious circumstances; Lord Chalbourne stands accused of cruelty against his frail wife, Alice is believed to have stolen the famous Chalbourne diamonds and, worse still, Charles Pemberton is accused of conducting a flagrant affair with Alice. Naturally the wedding has been called off.
A Regency with a gothic flavour and more than enough twists and turns to keep the reader satisfied until a happy conclusion is reached. Characters are vividly drawn throughout; the hero is of the tortured variety, whilst the heroine has great aplomb and her verbal sparring with Lord Chalbourne is a delight to read.
Recommended.
JACOB’S RUN
Ann Chamberlin
Fiona Lowe
Bob Zeller and John Beshears, Whittler’s Bench, 2007, $24.95, pb, 371pp, 097852652X
In 1860 in the coastal city of Wilmington, North Carolina, newspaper reporter Coleman Blue makes an insistent new acquaintance: Ira Spears, an investigator for an insurance company that issues slave life insurance policies. Spears suspects fraud, and he wants a highly reluctant Blue to help him uncover the truth. What results will awaken Blue to the evil of slavery and take his life in an entirely new direction—if he lives to tell about it.
Jacob’s Run is narrated by Blue, whose wry, very distinct voice, capable of handling both high comedy and high tragedy by turns, makes this novel an immense pleasure to read. His Wilmington is populated by a host of memorable characters: the depraved Tarleton family; the freedman—and slave owner—Solomon Politte and his college-educated daughter; and Blue himself, plucked from an orphanage to be raised by the proprietor of the Wilmington Standard. Secrets and unsuspected connections between characters abound. The authors vividly depict Wilmington, a city I’ve spent time in; reading this novel made me want to go back to look around some more.
The authors, whose joint effort has produced a cohesive narrative voice, provide a short but illuminating historical afterword. Sadly enough, the slave insurance policies that are key to the plot are not a figment of the authors’ imagination; the back cover has a reproduction of a real one.
Susan Higginbotham
20th CENTURY
THE SCAR OF DAVID
Susan Abulhawa, Journey Publications, 2006, $28.95, hb, 336pp, 0977207889
Amal is only a child in the 1967 war that made refugees of thousands of Palestinians. But her story begins long before she was born, in the first disinheritance of the Palestinians in 1948. That is when her family initially flees their ancestral home in Ein Hod to begin generations of “temporary” living in thrown-together refugee camps. In the mayhem of this forced exit, Amal’s older brother is lost. He is simply taken by a Jewish soldier who longs to be able to give his wife a child.
Amal passes her childhood only hearing rumors of the boy who vanished, only hearing stories of their affluent life in Ein Hod. She becomes an orphan and is sent to a school in Jerusalem where she is a charity student. Eventually she earns a scholarship to study in America. But the haunting sadness of her family’s history follows her there, and her life is a long process of trying to get past the anger and accept her own fate, with many surprising twists and turns—and an encounter with a time before her own memory in the form of her long lost brother.
This complex story is beautifully told, weaving in historical events that are familiar, but which in the U.S. at least have always been filtered through an Israeli point of view. The perspective is brutal, yet ultimately not without hope. And it is elevated by Abulhawa’s use of language, as rich and surprising as an exotic flower. She draws us into the nightmare of her heroine’s existence with convincing passion.
Susanne Dunlap
WHITE SHADOW
Ace Atkins, Berkley Prime Crime, 2007, $7.99, pb, 402pp, 9780425214909
The true-life murder of 1950s-era strawhatted Tampa crime boss Charlie Wall sets off a chain of events in this noir-on-steroids thriller. You want cynical crime reporters? We got them, along with dangerous femme-fatales, Cuban racketeering, revolutionaries, and all the seething discontent you can find in the city’s legendary Ybor City district. Imagine James Ellroy taking a cross-country trip and you’ll get the appropriate vibe for this taut, tense book. The language is appropriately hard-boiled and tight, the characters are smoky, sweaty and appropriately untrustworthy. A motley band of cameos by George Raft, Santo Trafficante, Batista and Castro round out the picture of old and new Florida clashing against a backdrop of cigar factories and circus freaks. This is entertaining and compulsively readable.
William Thornton
KEEPING THE HOUSE
Ellen Baker, Random House, 2007, $24.95/
C$32.00, hb, 530pp, 9781400066353
A two-family saga spanning 1896 to 1950, Keeping the House explores what making a home actually means, and the sacrifices both men and women have to make to maintain a household.
Newlywed Dolly Magnuson has been transplanted to 1950 Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, when her husband lands a job there. Bored with trying to be a perfect housekeeper to an unappreciative husband, her interest is caught by a seemingly abandoned old house nearby, which has more character than her ultramodern tract home.
Dolly’s story alternates with the saga of the Micklesons, owners of the old house. In 1896, John Mickelson brings Wilma, another uprooted bride, to Pine Rapids. Danger starts early in her story, as she is more attracted to John’s brother Gust than her husband. Children and grandchildren become involved in both world wars, with tragic consequences. The stories eventually are tied together in 1950, when alcoholic, disabled grandson J.J. comes home to Pine Rapids because he has nowhere else to go. Housekeeping for J.J., Dolly learns of the dark family secrets that have dodged the Mickelsons in the past, and is in danger of being caught up in them herself.
The plot jumps meant my taking an extensive set of notes in order to keep all the story threads straight enough for a review. The device of short chapters that jump frequently between times and sets of characters is compatible with 21stcentury attention spans. The author certainly kept me guessing as to what would happen next. The chapters set in 1950, headed with ironic quotations from period women’s advice literature, emphasize Dolly’s predicament as an unfulfilled housewife. Despite a few eyebrowraising coincidences in the plot, this is an involving book by a first-time author.
B.J. Sedlock
SHANTYTOWN KID
Azouz Begag (ed. Alec G. Hargreaves; trans. Naïma Wolf and Alec G. Hargreaves), Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2007, $15.95/£9.99, pb, 199pp, 9780803262584
What a delightful little book this is. Azouz Begag, the author, is a novelist, researcher, and, recently, the minister for equal opportunities in Chirac’s cabinet. The son of illiterate immigrants from Algeria, Begag knows what is like to be Arab, poor, and part of a despised minority. Shantytown Kid is the English translation of the autobiographical account of his experiences that Begag wrote in French in the 1980s (Le gone du Chaâba). It narrates his early adolescence and his transition from contentment to academic excellence. It is a comic, heartwarming comingof-age story.
The odds are against young Azouz. Le Chaâba, the shantytown where he lives, is a dismal collection of wooden shacks with
communal toilets haunted by djnouns, evil spirits. The main attraction is the arrival of garbage trucks with “treasures” the kids fight over, risking “embankment disease”—probably tetanus. But Azouz wants more out of life. Obstinate and hard-working, he rises above cultural differences, suffering both the shunning of his Arab friends and the marginalization of the society at large. He struggles, at times ashamed of his origins, of his “frizzy hair.” What does it mean being an Arab and a Muslim in France? His answers make Shantytown Kid light, witty, and full of amusing twists. The translation, we are told, takes pains to reflect the linguistic mix of the original, which must be an absolute riot. In English, the text skips along, intermingling Algerian Arabic, Lyonnais slang, and the phonetic rendition of the heavily accented language of the immigrants. The narrative shifts from one vocabulary to the other, alternating linguistic registers, reflecting the kaleidoscopic world around Azouz. Until the last page, the story keeps the reader totally engaged, and, most of the time, smiling. Thank you, translators.
Adelaida Lower
MATTERS OF HONOR
Louis Begley, Knopf, 2007, $24.95, hb, 307pp, 9780307265258
It is the early 1950s. Three Harvard freshmen from disparate backgrounds are thrown together as roommates: Sam, a scion of an upstanding New England family; Archie, a boarding school alumnus; and Henry, a Jewish holocaust survivor from Poland. Henry—who refuses to be defined by either his ethnicity or his personal history–is intelligent, obstinate, and fiercely determined to remake himself as a member of the American elite. Fascinated by Henry’s passion for success, Sam and Archie contrive to help him acquire the necessary polish to fit into society’s upper echelons.
Narrated in an easygoing voice by Sam, the novel chronicles the adventures of the trio as they wind their way through their college years and then attempt to settle into high-powered careers. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that all three have complex relationships with their parents–relationships that impact the entire course of their lives.
While Matters of Honor is an enjoyable read that highlights the intellectual attitudes of post-Holocaust America, it lacks that “certain something” that would make it a truly great novel. The writing is good, the characters interesting, and the setting authentic. What is missing is conflict: There is no rivalry amongst the friends, no secret waiting to be uncovered, and—thanks to the spoiler on the cover—no surprises either. That, combined with several unanswered questions (why does Sam need daily psychotherapy?), is disquieting. It is impossible to know how I would have reacted to this story if I had not read the jacket material first. Despite these flaws, I heartily recommend
this book to anyone interested in 20th-century American history.
Nancy J. Attwell
DREAM WHEN YOU’RE FEELING BLUE
Elizabeth Berg, Random House, 2007, $24.95/ C$32.00, hb, 256pp, 1400065100
This warm, heartfelt home front novel tracks one American family in Chicago during the Second World War. As the story opens in 1943, Kitty and Louise Heaney (two children out of six in this loving, traditional Irish family) tearfully send their sweethearts, Julian and Michael, off to war. Kitty, Louise, and their younger sister, Tish, soon fall into the nightly rituals of letter writing to keep the boys’ spirits up and patriotically attending USO dances. Life soon takes a more tumultuous and ominous turn as the war progresses and the Heaney children are forced to mature quickly as they begin to face the realities of war.
This novel does an excellent job of weaving war themes into an entertaining story of one family’s life during this era. The plot touches on the horrors of combat, patriotism, the changing attitudes toward working women and single mothers, wartime romance, and family sacrifice; at the same time, it’s an enjoyable and comfortable read. My single complaint is that ending was very abrupt, jumping from the end of the war to 2006. Other than that, I recommend this book as an enjoyable, nostalgic backward leap in time to “the greatest generation.”
Andrea Connell
HER ROYAL SPYNESS
Rhys Bowen, Berkley Prime Crime, 2007, $23.95/C$30, hb, 336pp, 9780425215679
Bowen, author of the Molly Murphy mystery series, starts a new series with this book, featuring the engaging Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie. Fortunately, she goes by Georgie. Thirty-fourth in line for the British throne, she has no skills and little education, but knows that she needs to do something to support herself so that she won’t be married off. Moving into her family’s London home sans servants and having to fend for herself, she hits on the idea of starting a domestic service, staffed by herself with her title as a reference. Queen Mary offers her another job, that of spying on her son Edward and his mistress, Mrs. Simpson, at a house party. These employments take a backseat to clearing her family name when a Frenchman who claimed deed to the family estate is found drowned in her bathtub.
Bowen adroitly mixes the Upstairs and Downstairs worlds with Georgie gaining insight into how servants are neither seen nor heard and mixing with friends whose purses do not equal their aspirations. The inclusion of the queen, her son, and his mistress is not heavy-handed but rather enhances the tone and setting of the story. As it ends, Queen Mary is sending Georgie on another assignment. I know she won’t prevent
the abdication, but I still look forward to reading it.
Ellen Keith
IN DUBLIN’S FAIR CITY
Rhys Bowen, Minotaur, 2007, $23.95/C$29.95, hb, 265pp, 0312328192
Private investigator Molly Murphy is asked by a compatriot to see if she can find his younger sister in Ireland—the sister he never knew he had until his mother’s deathbed confession revealed that the baby sister had been sickly and left behind in Ireland when the family emigrated to the United States. Since things haven’t been going too well with her love interest, Molly decides to accept, despite the fact that she may be a wanted person in her homeland. Molly’s transatlantic trip on the Majestic is far more luxurious than she expected it would be, because she is asked to stand in for an actress who would prefer to remain out of the limelight. Murder soon occurs, and Molly is in the thick of it. Molly has some success starting to track down the sister, but is not untouched by the literary and Republican national movements affecting the country at the time. The change of locale keeps this continuing series, set at the beginning of the early 20th century, fresh and interesting. The books are best read in order, in order to enjoy the developing relationships and plot line.
Trudi E. Jacobson
DRAGON WIND RISING
Frances Burke, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709082965
It is Peking in 1900. Lea Stafford, a fledgling correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, is in China at the time of the Boxer uprising when hatred and rebellion are raging across the country against the ‘foreign devils’. By the fourth page she has met the hero, a mysterious westerner named Michael Attwood, who is in secret negotiations with the Dowager empress in Peking. Lea gets caught up in the middle of it all and barely survives a massacre at a mission station only to find that she is trapped in the British Legation by the Boxers. The book ends in carnage as the walls of the Tartar City are stormed. It is only in the final pages, after keeping you gripping the edge of your seat, that her happiness comes to fruition. This is an easy book to read, narrated in part by Lea and partly by a Chinese scribe who gives you the Chinese side of the action; it is only at the end that the purpose of the scribe’s narration is realised. This is a novel about treachery and malice, but also the way a female has to survive in China in a world dominated by men. The excitement builds up from the first page. Very enjoyable.
Karen Wintle
The classic novel The Tartar Steppe was first published in 1938, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. It tells the story of Giovanni Drogo’s excruciatingly boring life on an isolated fort in the middle of nowhere. In this book Giovanni arrives full of hope that he’s starting a promising career in the Italian army, but he in fact spends year after tedious year executing mindless military routines. He manages to be promoted to major before he dies alone, old and sick, at the end of the book, having accomplished nothing.
This is no doubt a literary masterpiece, indeed it has already received countless glowing reviews comparing it to Kafka’s The Castle, calling it ‘a strange and haunting novel and an eccentric classic’. However it is certainly not a book for someone who wants a light, pageturning read or an entertaining book to take on holiday.
Fenella Miller
THE WEDDING OFFICER: A Novel of Culinary Seduction
Anthony Capella, Bantam, 2007, $22.00, 432pp, hb, 9780553805475 / Sphere, 2007, £6.99, pb, 448pp, 9780751537543
In 1944, war-ravaged Naples was not at her best; food and jobs were scarce, and just about the only way to survive was to sell goods on the black market. Enter Captain James Gould of the British Army, assigned to Field Security Service in Naples due to his linguistic skills. Part of his job is to stem the rampant prostitution (and consequent syphilis outbreaks) as well as the theft of military goods, especially the new wonder drug, penicillin. James’s other duty is to serve as “Wedding Officer,” in which he interviews countless women who need his approval to marry British servicemen. Naïve and idealistic, James discovers nearly all of them are prostitutes, and his efforts to shut down the black market activity in Naples results in the limited food and supplies disappearing further into the underground market. A clever restaurateur named Angelo has a plan, however, to loosen James up and indoctrinate him into the ages-old way of life in Naples, which has always involved back-door dealings and goodlooking women. He arranges for Livia Pertini, a wonderful cook and beautiful widow, to cook for Gould’s officers, and the culinary seduction begins. Livia introduces James to food far beyond the usual British fare of gravy and overcooked vegetables, using ingredients funneled to her by Angelo.
a “Wedding Officer”), making it an even more delightful read.
Helene Williams
SWIM TO ME
Betsy Carter, Algonquin Books, 2007, $23.95, hb, 304pp, 1565124928
Betsy Carter has written a charming book set at Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida in the early 1970s, though the gentle story feels as if it could have happened in the more innocent ’50s. Dolores Walker and her family visit the Springs on a family vacation to Florida, and Dolores immediately identifies with the young women in the mermaid show. When Dolores’s father lifts her in a mermaid-like pose above his head, generating the admiration of other tourists, her fate is sealed. Just two years later, the 16-yearold takes a bus, alone, from her not-very-happy home in the Bronx to try out at Weeki Wachee. She is tall, graceful and a strong swimmer: she is hired. Dolores and the other young mermaids, a rather interesting lot, are managed by Thelma Foote, a woman with quite a story of her own from her mermaid days. Miss Foote does well by her girls, and finds ways to keep Weeki Wachee viable, one of which reintroduces Dolores to the father who abandoned his family shortly after their Florida vacation.
Dolores is as graceful growing up as she is in the water. We see her try to keep close to her adored younger brother back in the Bronx, and to understand the changes her mother is going through. The book comfortably encloses the reader in the warmth of the Springs. Characters that probably would have been bad guys in other novels aren’t in this book, and everything seems to work out. It is a lovely journey seeing just how that happens.
Trudi E. Jacobson
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN SHOES
Colin Channer, Akashic, 2007, $13.95, pb, 172pp, 9781933354262
THE TARTAR STEPPE
Dino Buzzati, Canongate, 2007 (c1938), £7.99, pb, 265pp, 9781841959283
The descriptions of the meals, and James’s seduction into a world of sensory pleasure, are truly sensual, and they don’t take a back seat to the evolving romance with Livia. The beauty of Naples also shines through; the city and its surroundings, including the powerful and threatening Mt. Vesuvius are living, breathing characters in this war romance. Capella’s tale is based on actual events (yes, there was indeed
In 1942, on the fictitious island of San Carlos in the Caribbean, a sexually mature fourteen-yearold girl named Estrella is rejected and cursed because she has greeted a British military scuba diver who lands mysteriously upon the island. Banished from her fishing village home and dysfunctional family, she sets off on a journey to the big city in search of the ideal life of her dreams, which she believes is in Paris. But she must first reach Seville, her island’s capital, and in order to do so she needs money. To get money she must find work, and in order to find work, she must first buy a pair of shoes. This launches her onto a near impossible mission.
Almost immediately, Estrella encounters trouble and finds herself stranded in an unwelcoming town where everything she owns is stolen and then mysteriously reappears. Throughout this journey, Estrella encounters numerous men who sometimes come to her aid or exist simply to extract their price from her.
With every adversity, Estrella discovers more about herself, sometimes holding on to her ideals, sometimes changing and evolving as the demands of society dictate.
This literary novella is written with a brilliant simplicity and in a unique voice. The characters’ dialogue is written in the native Jamaican dialect of Sancoche which brings out the flavour of the Caribbean. The tale has a strong moral backbone as it weaves Estrella’s misfortunes into a short, but powerful, gripping plot.
Colin Channer’s other works have received international acclaim, and I predict this novel will too.
Mirella Patzer
THE CAIRO DIARY
Maxim Chattam (trans. Susan Dyson), Minotaur, 2007, $24.95, hb, 340pp, 0312360991
Translated from the French, this thriller alternates between present-day France and 1920s Cairo. Marion is whisked away to MontSaint-Michel by the French Secret Service after she stumbles into some intrigue. Needing something to occupy her, she begins reading a diary she discovered with some forgotten books belonging to the Mont’s brotherhood.
Written by Jeremy Matheson, an English detective working in Cairo in 1928, it relates his investigation into a series of murders. Since most of the victims are children, these crimes horrify the city, the foreign press, and in the present day, compel Marion to read the diary to its conclusion. Meanwhile, disturbing notes and intrusions make it clear that someone living on the Mont considers the diary their property, and is attempting to prevent her from finishing it.
To say more would spoil the read for others, and it is a page-turning read, even though I worked out the two major plot twists before they were revealed (perhaps too much Agatha Christie when younger!). There are definite shades of Christie here: even a reference to her in the Cairo context. Chattam’s writing is atmospheric, particularly his descriptions of sultry Cairo and the stormy Mont. However, I did not find Marion a very sympathetic character, even though her life situation (thirty-something single career woman) might suggest otherwise. To me, she seemed cold and prickly, and fairly self-centered. I’m not sure whether to attribute this to the author’s characterization, cultural differences, a translation issue, or the tricky business of a male author depicting a female protagonist. Despite this lack of connection, the story stayed in my mind and did, as the jacket blurb suggests, leave me questioning my sense of “truth.”
Claire Morris
THE QUILTER’S HOMECOMING: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel
Jennifer Chiaverini, Simon & Schuster, 2007, $24.00, hb, 320pp, 9780743260220
Elizabeth Bergstrom loves horses and farms,
so it is no surprise when she marries Henry Nelson, a former friend and secret love from Elm Creek Manor, near her family’s famous horse-breeding farm in Pennsylvania. His dream becomes hers, to buy and run a cattle ranch in a small southern California town in the Arboles valley.
But this is the 1920s, a time when laws and honesty don’t always coincide. Elizabeth and Henry are hardly prepared for the devastating shock they find on arriving to claim their land and home. Showing the true grit and perseverance of 20th century men and women, they accept their destiny and decide to work for what they need. As they learn their jobs and establish relationships with their neighbors, Elizabeth becomes aware of a family with medical and psychological needs that calls forth all her compassion and need to do something. The story of the Diaz family weaves through that of the Nelsons in a heartrending manner, enhancing the reader’s appreciation of Rosa’s plight. Moving into the gradual revelations of the mystery, Elizabeth is able to do something that will change the fortunes of both Rosa and Elizabeth’s family.
Throughout this tenth novel of Jennifer Chiaverini’s quilting series, the reader will appreciate the love, stories, and skills of those who embrace this beautiful craft, as well as the magnificent tales left in these artistic tapestries. Chiaverini is highly skilled in smoothly and seamlessly creating a multilayered plot with subtle and stark effects. Finely written and a great read!
Viviane Crystal
JACK THE LAD AND BLOODY MARY
Joseph Connolly, Faber & Faber, 2007, £12.99, pb, 584pp, 9780571234677
Jack is a handsome young tearaway who does well out of at least the first years of the Second World War. Mary is his posher, steadier, certainly duller girl friend. These two are at the centre of this tale of murder, thievery, abortion and general mayhem; around them revolve a cast of characters, almost all of them more or less delinquent, including senior mobster, Jonathan Leakey, a Mr Big called Nigel Wisely who has an unrelenting prediliction for camp insinuations, and Dickie Wheat, a drug-and drink-addicted doctor.
Joseph Connolly is rather good at creating the atmosphere of wartime England, that unique brew of draughty rooms, dirt, snobbery, foul smells and intermittent terror. It gives an intriguing backdrop to what is otherwise a somewhat conventional tale. At times the recreation of the past relies on such familiar detail that it becomes almost parodic. Thus, Mary’s old dad’s memories of the First World War do not fail to include kicking a soccer ball about between the trenches and Mary herself ends up with an American officer called Gary Brooklyn (!) who is tall and handsome and
gives her Chesterfield cigarettes and promises to take her home with him to Tennessee. You can almost hear the slither of ‘One-Yank-andThey’re-Off.’
Connolly chooses to tell his story mainly in a first-person stream-of-consciousness with the protagonists swapping the narrative voice. While it offers the reader a certain intimacy with the characters, there is a risk that the style will degenerate into unfocused rambling. Connolly has not really managed to avoid this danger; in fact the book might well have been twice as good if it was half as long.
Peter Prince
BLACK HATS:
A Novel of Wyatt Earp and Al Capone
Patrick Culhane, Morrow, 2007, $24.95/ C$31.50, hb, 304pp, 9780060892531
Let me start by saying I’m not a huge fan of anything western. So I knew I was taking a chance on a book that promised “the Wild West meets Prohibition.” But by page ten, I was hooked. How could I not be?
In Black Hats, legendary lawman Wyatt Earp is asked to travel to New York to keep Doc Holliday’s son, John Jr., from being killed by a young mobster named Alphonse Capone. Calling on his old friend, Bat Masterson, equally legendary Wild West survivor and currently New York’s top sportswriter, to help him, they set out to save Holliday’s glamorous speakeasy. Told from Earp’s perspective, this story rollicks along at a good clip as readers are drawn into his intoxicating blend of Wild West legend and hip Jazz-era myth. The juxtaposition of two such diverse, yet at the same time quite similar, lifestyles makes for fantastic storytelling. Written by the author of the Oscar-winning film Road to Perdition, this story has many similar elements—crime, violence, loyalty—which make it very hard to put down. So hard, in fact, that I read it in one sitting—a rarity for me!
Dana Cohlmeyer
LOST SON
M. Allen Cunningham, Unbridled, 2007, $25.95, hb, 480pp, 1932961348
The stereotypical view of a poet’s life is that of a tortured childhood/dysfunctional family, experiencing emotions all too strongly, a failed love life, and suffering for one’s muse which includes, of course, living a marginal economic existence. Taking that basic framework and running with it, Cunningham gives us the life story of the early 20th-century writer Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke’s life is interesting enough in its own right, but the basic facts can be gleaned from any quick reference source: born in Prague, lover of Lou Salome, member of the Worpswede artists’ colony, husband of sculptress Clara Westhoff, secretary to Rodin, and accomplished poet.
What makes this book a worthwhile read is the skill of the author. This is no dry biography.
Rather, with beautifully expressive prose, M. Allen Cunningham is able not only to evoke the poet’s angst, but also to get the reader to empathize with it. My only complaint is that the ending was rushed, giving an uneven pacing to the final years of the story. It’s a relatively long book as is, so the rushed ending may have been intentional, but don’t be dissuaded by the length; you’ll want to savor every word. I found myself buying Cunningham’s previous novel and starting to read Rilke’s poems.
Sue Asher
THE WELSH GIRL
Peter Ho Davies, Houghton Mifflin, 2007, $24.00/ C$32.95, hb, 338pp, 978618007004 / Sceptre, 2007, £12.99, pb, 352pp, 9780340938256
This first novel by Peter Ho Davies, named one of Britain’s best young novelists, chronicles the life of young Esther Evans as her rural Welsh community comes to terms with a German POW camp set up outside their village in the aftermath of D-Day. While watching local boys taunt the prisoners one evening, a soldier suddenly calls out to her. Karsten Simmering, a German corporal, is struggling to maintain honor in extreme circumstances. Drawn to each other, these two work towards an uneasy understanding.
The author’s bringing together of such diverse worlds works well to create tension throughout the story. Readers can’t help but be drawn into the world of a close-knit Welsh village and interested in how their lives are affected by the camp, especially as local soldiers continue to die in battles.
When Esther or Karsten is narrating the story, it moves along at a good clip and feels natural. However, when readers are presented with a third point of view in the form of a GermanJewish interrogator working hard to break German prisoner Rudolph Hess, imprisoned in Wales, it feels forced. It’s almost as if the author felt compelled to include this historical tidbit and to have his interrogator be of Jewish descent in order to remind readers of the reason behind the war.
The Welsh Girl is an intriguing read if only for the story of Esther and Karsten’s relationship. Davies evokes a sense of place and time so well that readers can almost hear the radio crackling in the pub. In spite of the sometimes-forced storyline about Rudolph Hess, it’s a well-written, interesting book and one worth reading.
Dana Cohlmeyer
and radiotelephone operator, Robbie a wireless operator on bombers and they are both posted to the same airfield. A mutual attraction soon turns to love but when they introduce each other to their respective parents they discover that some dark secret, shared by both families, threatens their future happiness.
Away from the airfield and the reminders of war, Fleur and Robbie snatch what time they can together in a cottage where Fleur is billeted striking up a close friendship with the elderly owner and her neighbour, but happy occasions contrast starkly with the tragic events that lie ahead.
This is an eventful saga where the lives of the characters are shadowed by the past, but like any good love story all comes right in the end, and fans of Margaret Dickinson will enjoy the journey.
Ann Oughton
THE SAVIOR
Eugene Drucker, Simon & Schuster, 2007, $23.00, hb, 209pp, 1416543295
Late in World War II, violinist Gottfried Keller is taken to a nearby concentration camp to play recitals for a select group of inmates. At first this seems similar to other Wehrmacht assignments, when he has been called to play for wounded soldiers at various hospitals. He soon learns that this time is very different. He is to play a crucial role in the Kommandant’s experiment designed to re-inject some measure of hope into the souls of the catatonic camp prisoners. Gottfried finds, however, that he is as much a part of the experiment as the inmates, as memories of forgotten Jewish colleagues and a lost love come flooding back.
This debut novel is a story of shared guilt, an examination of how the individual reacts when confronted with evil. As his world of music interweaves with the stark realities of a world gone mad, Gottfried struggles with the answers. Ultimately they prove to be as deep and complex as the pieces he plays, the meaning of which seems as elusive as the perfection of their rendition.
stories of three young women who have joined the ATS and are billeted together at Southgate Lodge in rural Lincolnshire.
Carrie has joined up to escape her overpowering mother and her fiancé Jeffrey who is trying to pressure her into marriage. After the death of her father Nan Morrisey has nowhere else to go and so enlists, while Evie is just doing her ‘bit’ as her husband Bob is on active service in the Middle East.
Nan and Evie handle the scrambled phone calls that they receive for mysterious government establishment of Heronflete. Carrie works as a driver. The three women find support and friendship together in their quest to overcome their pre-war lives and to find love in a time of tragedy.
Even the least important characters in this novel have a strong sense of individuality. You can’t help but be intrigued by the strict Sergeant James or the Navy Signalman Jim, who is always surrounded by a cloud of tobacco smoke. The characters are all memorable, which is a remarkable achievement especially when matched by the historical detail that has been used to create a real sense of place and time. The smells from the cookhouse, the board games in the NAAFI, the thrill of being able to buy a new lipstick no matter what colour it was. The ‘icing on the cake’ and a real legacy for future generations of readers is that Elizabeth Elgin has caught the emotional resonance of the time. The anxiety felt by Nan when Chas was airborne, the constant need for hot water bottles and bed socks to combat the lack of heating and the bliss at having a cup of hot cocoa to go to bed with. This is more than just a novel, it is an aide-mémoire to enable readers to smell, taste and feel the war from the point of view of a group of ordinary young women.
Myfanwy Cook
THE GIFT OF RAIN
Tan Twan Eng, Myrmidon, 2007, £12.99, pb, 459pp, 9781905802050
WISH ME LUCK
Margaret Dickinson, Pan, 2007, £5.99/C$9.99, pb, 431pp, 9780330442114
When Fleur Bosley bumped into Robbie Rodwell on a railway station in the blackout she could not have foreseen what a tangled web of family secrets would affect them both in the days that followed.
It is Lincolnshire in 1941. Fleur is a WAAF
The author is a world-renowned violinist, a member of the Emerson String Quartet. Portions of this story are drawn from the author’s own life as well as his father’s experiences in early Nazi Germany. They add poignancy to a tale that seems at times ethereal and transcendent, not unlike his beloved music. Although the story is compelling and thought provoking, it is the descriptions of Gottfried’s playing that resonate most fully.
Ken Kreckel
TURN LEFT AT THE DAFFODILS
Elizabeth Elgin, Harper, 2006, £6.99, pb, 633pp, 9780007210541
This novel set during the Second World War is the last one to have been written by Elizabeth Elgin before her death in 2005. It follows the
In 1939 sixteen-year-old Philip, the half Chinese, half English son of a prominent Malay businessman, forms an unlikely friendship with a Japanese diplomat who teaches him about Japanese culture and particularly the martial art of aikido. Philip swears loyalty to his sensei, his teacher and guru, only to find out he is a Japanese spy and Philip himself is forced into collaboration with the Japanese in order to safeguard his family and their commercial interests during World War Two. Through Philip’s story, The Gift of Rain explores opposing ideas of predestination and self-determination, taking the reader on a journey which embraces the last days of imperial China and the British Empire in the east, as well as the economic resurgence of the Pacific Tiger nations in recent years.
I wanted to enjoy this novel, I really did. Its setting and subject matter are, on the face of it, fascinating and absorbing. The book is beautifully
presented, with an arresting and elegant cover design and some lovely line drawings and hand drawn maps. Most of all, as part of a small press stable myself, I want to be positive about other small presses, and Myrmidon is a new enterprise providing welcome opportunities for fresh voices in fiction. For all these reasons I tried very hard but could not, alas, find much to recommend in the novel.
There is some evocative descriptive writing, but—perhaps due to a lack of rigorous editing— this becomes overwrought. There are careful and perceptive character sketches, minute and truthful observations of the way people behave towards one another and how their physical acts are forever betraying their words. The dialogue is, however, too full of the kind of cod Confucianism beloved of the script writers of Kung Fu, and the narrative drive is interrupted at every end and turn by tedious and unnecessary expositions of aikido. If intelligent martial arts fiction is your bag, by all means give it a go, but this is not how the book is being marketed, so I fear I will not be the only disappointed reader.
Sarah Bower
THE MINISTRY OF SPECIAL CASES
Nathan Englander, Knopf, 2007, $25.00, hb, 339pp, 9780375404931 / Faber & Faber, 2007, £14.99, hb, 384pp, 9780571196920
In Buenos Aires in 1976, a family of Argentine Jews, Kaddish and Lillian Poznan and their son Pato, make personal the untold numbers of the “disappeared” of Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Kaddish’s odd job is removing the names from gravestones in the Jewish burial ground for the lower classes. Kaddish is the son of a prostitute himself and so understands the wish to obliterate the past. Pato is a college student, more outspoken than his parents, who worry over him in the new political climate of repression. Kaddish burns some of his son’s books; Lillian has a steel door installed on their apartment. Neither act can save their son after a police raid.
Lillian enters the Orwellian world of the military junta bureaucracy to find her son. The Ministry of Special Cases of the novel’s title helps Argentinians flee the country as well as assist them in finding their “disappeared” loved ones. But officially, Pato has been erased out of existence itself. While Lillian is determined to find him, Kaddish becomes convinced, through his search of unofficial agencies, that Pato is dead. The parents’ last stop is with the hierarchy of the country’s Jewish community.
Questions about the nature of truth and identity and what should be valued carry this novel beyond its specifics. Englander’s lyrical prose brings grace and beauty to the Poznan family’s refusal to accept the government’s lies. Their son remains alive in their own minds even as his altered face dims, even for his loving and determined mother.
Eileen Charbonneau
THE INCOMPLETE HUSBAND
Ben Faccini, Portobello, 2007, £10.99, pb, 342pp, 9781846270819
This is a study of loss and exile. Elena marries against the wishes of her family, and she and Ricardo dream of a life elsewhere, away from their small Italian mountain village. Ricardo leaves to find a job in Argentina, but before Elena and their son Marco can join him, his dreams collapse, and he dies back in Paris. His brother Giacomo cares for them, and they move to the Camargue. Despite the success of the pottery there Elena cannot let go of the past, and her misery increases when Marco escapes to a life in Paris.
The author portrays equally well life in the isolated Italian village and the bustle of Paris in the second half of the 20th century. This is not a comfortable book to read; there is so much grief and destructive emotion until the characters finally accept the truth that has been for so long hidden.
Marina Oliver
TRUTH DARE KILL
Gordon Ferris, Crème de la Crime, 2007, £7.99, pb, 257pp, 9780955158940
Danny McRae begins this novel as a downat-heel, jaundiced private eye with a taste for drink, in the Philip Marlowe tradition. However, he soon shows himself to be quite a different man and his story far more complex than what appears at first to be a run-of-the-mill crime novel.
The setting is the run-down, bombed out streets of post-war London. And Danny is its human equivalent. Disfigured and damaged by his war experience, with gaps in his memory, blackouts and hideous flashbacks – did he really rape and kill a woman? – he takes on the case presented to him by glamorous Kate Graveney. All too soon his past catches up with him and he finds himself fighting not only to clear his name but to stay alive.
I’m not normally a fan of dark crime novels but I was gripped by this one from beginning to end. I hated Danny at first. But slowly I took his side as I became immersed in his struggle to discover exactly what happened to him during the war. A gripping, if disturbing, read.
Sally Zigmond
COPPER STAR
Suzanne Woods Fisher, Vintage Romance, 2007, $16.49, pb, 286pp, 0979332745
Set on the home front during World War II, this inspirational romance is told through the eyes of Louisa, a twenty-three-year-old illegal German immigrant refugee who is sent to the small mining town of Copper Springs, Arizona. She takes up residence with the Gordon family, headed by Pastor Robert Gordon, who was a seminary classmate of her mentor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Louisa struggles to find her place in the
American community and within the pastor’s family. She forms a quick and deep bond with Robert’s young son William, who is deaf, but has a more difficult time with stern Aunt Martha and the taciturn pastor himself, who is smarting from his wife’s abandonment of the family years before. The richest man in town is also German.
Both Louisa and young William are instinctively wary of him, which proves correct as the whole town becomes embroiled in Nazi espionage.
Louisa’s outspoken but humble and pious personality provides the perfect point of view for anecdotes of small-town life during the war years. Copper Star’s plot builds in conflict and excitement, and its tender romance warms the heart.
Eileen Charbonneau BEYOND THE BLUE HILLS
Katie Flynn, Heinemann, 2006, £18.99, hb, 469pp, 9780434017010
This is a little different from the usual saga. Two groups of people, one family who is Liverpool-based, the other family farming in Herefordshire, find their lives entangled because of the Second World War.
It’s a big and complicated read, spanning the late 30s and war years. Writingwise it’s rather more telling the story than showing it, but the information about life during WW2 is well researched and the details are good. There are many other characters apart from the two families, but we mainly focus on Tess, who becomes a Land Girl, and links Liverpool to Hereford and Sophie, who has to manage a farm with Land Girls. Phillip and Danny, the Hereford farming cousins who want to be fighter pilots, and Mike, the Liverpudlian sailor, are the male leads. If Sophie’s meekness irritates occasionally, at least she is a typical ‘40s woman and not some 21st century heroine planted in the story.
For saga lovers and Liverpudlians everywhere this is a good book for bedtime reading.
Patrika Salmon
THE LISBON CROSSING
Tom Gabbay, Morrow, 2007, $24.95/C$31.50, hb, 320pp, 9780061188433
1940. Jack Teller, rogue extraordinaire and companion of the glamorous movie star, Lili Sterne, arrives with her in Lisbon in a blitz of their own. Their mission is to find Lili’s childhood friend, Eva Lange, before the Nazis do. Murders abound as the hunt moves through the winding streets of Lisbon’s Alfama to Estoril’s casino and glitzy hotels, to a remote peasant farm and an isolated palacio, to the crashing waves of the Boca d’Inferno. Then it’s onto a train into occupied Paris and a gut-wrenching confrontation between Nazi intelligence and members of the nascent Résistance— with Jack Teller and the errant Eva Lange caught in the crossfire.
of time.
THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE
EDITORS’ CHOICE Y
Kate Furnivall, Berkley, 2007, $15.00/C$18.50, pb, 517pp, 042521558X / Sphere, Nov. 2007, £6.99, pb, 416pp, 0751540420
Don’t judge this book by its cover. To look at The Russian Concubine, you might expect a steamy romance novel, but there is much more to it than romance. This stunning debut brings the atmosphere of 1920s China vividly to life. The fictional city of Junchow is divided into two districts that have little to do with each other: the International Settlement, inhabited by Westerners only, and the Chinese Old Town. The Westerners treat the Chinese as secondclass citizens (if that), fit only to be servants. Socializing between the two groups is strictly forbidden.
Then one day, Lydia Ivanova, a teenaged Russian exile living in a dingy attic in the International Settlement with her mother Valentina, a concert pianist, wanders into the Chinese town and is rescued by Chang An Lo, a young Chinese Communist. Lydia and Chang soon become friends in spite of the enormous differences in their backgrounds. Eventually, they fall in love. But Chang is in danger both from Chiang Kai-shek’s forces, who are hunting down the Communists, and from the dangerous Black Snake brotherhood and its leader Feng Tu Hong. Lydia must not let anyone know of their romance—not her mother, not her mother’s new suitor, a British journalist, not even her schoolmaster, Theo Willoughby, who himself keeps a Chinese mistress in spite of society’s disapproval.
Furnivall draws an excellent portrait of this distant time and place. Her characters are not entirely sympathetic—Lydia lies and steals with no regret, although she does it to survive—but that makes them all the more human. There is quite a bit of sex and even more violence in the last part of the book, but this should not deter readers. I hope to see more from this author.
The Lisbon Crossing is a 1940s Bogart-style story narrated à la tough guy and peopled with stock characters, and not especially likeable stock characters. Two of them are historical: Edward, Duke of Windsor and his wife, the former Wallis Simpson. The author makes full use of rumors of their alleged Nazi sympathies and Ms. Simpson’s checkered sexual past.
The story is what carries the book. It’s tightly and imaginatively plotted and packed with made-for-movies action. You can’t not enjoy it. Highly recommended for a weekend getaway— with a pitcher of good cerveza.
Lucille Cormier
THE GLORY GIRLS
June Gadsby, Robert Hale, 2007, £18.99, hb, 224pp, 9780709082446
Although they are from different backgrounds Mary, Anne, Irene and Effie have one thing in common: they long to escape the dull routine of life in the Tyne Valley and decide to join the FANYs when the opportunity beckons in 1939. But the Glory Girls are rudely awakened from their romantic dreams of fun and adventure when they are plunged into action in occupied France.
All four are changed by their experiences. Mary and Anne are put at risk by their work in the SOE. Iris is changed by her lover of a mysterious Resistance fighter. And Effie pays a huge price for her boldness and dedication to duty.
Vicki Kondelik
The Glory Girls is an entertaining tale that demonstrates with remarkable clarity how the most ordinary people can achieve the extraordinary when necessary. Not only is it an exciting and engaging read, it is also a celebration of the important role played by women in World War Two.
June Gadsby has written a lively story and a fitting commemoration of the work of the FANYs, which continues to this day.
Sara Wilson
CHANGING LIGHT
Nora Gallagher, Pantheon, 2007, $22.00/ C$28.00, hb, 223pp, 9780375424519
In the summer of 1945, near Los Alamos, Eleanor, a gifted painter who has fled to the desert to escape a destructive marriage, rescues the survivor of an auto accident. This is Leo, a physicist horrified by the moral implications of his work on developing the atomic bomb, and desperate to stop the U.S. government from using it on Japanese cities. Gallagher portrays the couple’s unfolding love story in lyrical prose. The delineation of character and delicate portrayal of passion in this novel are flawless.
As the lovers’ relationship deepens, and Leo examines his past and decides on a course of action, the reader is aware that soon the bomb will be dropped, whatever Leo does. In one respect, this robs the story of suspense but, in another, it heightens it; we know that all decisions must be made within a small envelope
Gallagher attempts to present the decision to drop the bomb in all its moral complexity—her heroine has a brother in a Japanese prisoner-ofwar camp whose life will be saved only if the war swiftly ends. However, when Leo dismisses the assertion that the Japanese surrender must be unconditional by saying, “But what does it matter?” and receives no answer, one feels he is speaking for the author. We learn, from a newspaper clipping, about the deaths of Japanese soldiers in horrific detail. No other war deaths are presented this way, which skews the book emotionally. American officials are stick figures, mindlessly driven to use “the gadget.” The lovers are convincing, living people, and the atmosphere within the Los Alamos labs rings true, but there is little sense of a nation at war. As a meditation on history, the book falls short of the author’s ambitious aim.
Phyllis T. Smith
THE SECRET
Elizabeth Gill, Severn House, 2007, £18.99/$27.95, hb, 200pp, 9780727864536
Little touches of pure magic redeem this complex, end of World War Two family saga. The intertwining of characters’ aims and shared sufferings lift The Secret out of the ordinary. Twins Margaret and Luke’s father dies in a London air raid. For safety, with their mother, they go to live with his parents, the Wilsons, in the north. The twins’ uncle, benign Callum Wilson, owns a foundry. Well-off, he lives in a big house, which easily takes the evacuees. But Callum’s past indiscretion with a working-class Catholic girl, Jessie Keir, brings complications to light. She has married in haste and Danny becomes the first child of many. The story now involves families of different class and religious persuasion.
Margaret and Luke and Jessie’s children become friends. When Margaret begins to love Danny, her secret half-brother, the cat’s among the pigeons. Despite the recriminations and family anguish we see some of the noblest human qualities during a dark period of British life.
I was frequently arrested by complex syntax and quaint expressions like ‘distracted herself by offering tea’. In 1944-5 there would be black, brown, green and two-toned cars but not a ‘big silver Bentley’. Metallic paint came later.
Despite these minor blemishes The Secret is an uplifting, fascinating, well-told story of love in the most unexpected places. Its twists and turns make it an excellent holiday read and its little touches of pure magic raise the spirits, even bringing tears to a man’s eyes.
Geoffrey Harfield
IN PALE BATTALIONS
Robert Goddard, Delta, 2007, $12.00, pb, 400pp, 0385339208 / Corgi, 1991, £6.99, pb, 400pp, 0552132810
In Pale Battalions is a complex novel. The tale seemingly begins with the death of Leonora’s father in April 1916. The novel itself is dedicated to the memory of Frederick John Goddard who, like Leonora’s father, was declared missing in action and presumed dead in World War I. In Leonora’s case, her father cannot be her father: her date of birth is nearly a full year after her father’s disappearance. A sordid mystery.
The story is told in multiple parts, set across separate time points and is narrated by different characters. Begun by Leonora to her daughter, Penelope, on a visit to the Thiepval Memorial, the story is taken up in Hampshire, England, by a friend of Leonora’s father. But the book’s journey is more than a simple explanation of a child’s illegitimacy.
Robert Goddard tells this story in a style and with details that evoke a sense of the period and the characters. The language of the narratives is precise and captivating. For me there was no question of not turning the page, of not wanting to know what truly happened that could have guided Leonora’s life along its path, right down to the last revelation. A suspense-filled novel that doesn’t disappoint.
Janette
King
A FETE WORSE THAN DEATH
Dolores Gordon-Smith, Constable, 2007, £18.99, hb, 284pp, 9781845295950 / Carroll & Graf, 2007, $14.95, pb, 288pp, 9780786719907
A summer’s day in 1922, a village fete being enjoyed by Jack Haldean, crime writer and exRoyal Flying Corps pilot, then is spoilt by the appearance of the obnoxious Jeremy Boscombe, also ex-RFC. Boscombe is permanently removed, shot while sleeping off his excesses in the fortune-teller’s tent. Later that day another murder happens in Boscombe’s room at the local inn.
Jack, in these days of innocence, teams up with the local police and soon realizes that the answer belongs to a time during the Battle of the Somme and an incident of great betrayal there. As he delves into the past many secrets are revealed. People are not what they seem, and motives proliferate.
Reminiscent of the style of earlier crime novels, this one has been thoroughly researched both for the details of the war and the social conventions of the late 1920s. Jack is an attractive sleuth, and there are plenty of possible suspects, plus a convincing plot, danger in abundance, and a cleverly contrived denouement. An enjoyable read.
Marina Oliver
A
VALLEY OF BETRAYAL: Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War
Tricia Goyer, Moody, 2007, $12.99, pb, 319pp, 0802467679
This novel starts promisingly as a young romantic woman, Sophie Grace, travels to meet her fiancé, who is in Spain. Tricia Goyer writes
with feeling about the protagonist, and about her predicament—finding herself in a foreign country, and doubting the man she has come to marry. Goyer is particularly skillful when, later on, she relates the religious struggle of her characters. The problem is the setting, Spain during its civil war. In a note to readers, Goyer admits that before writing this book “she had never heard of the war.” That’s a good reason to leave the subject alone.
A Valley of Betrayal unravels the moment Sophie sets foot in Spain. The errors show up on almost every page. In Goyer’s Spain, there is no Catalonian (language spoken in Barcelona and all of Catalonia); Basques have thoroughly Castilian names (Manuel Garcia instead of, for example, Josu Etxeberria); Madrid is in La Mancha (it has always been in Castile); the currency is pesos instead of pesetas. Goyer tells us that the muleta is the sword used by bullfighters (muleta is a red flannel cloth), that Sophie exchanges presents at Christmas (try January 6, on Epiphany). There is a long list of misspellings and wrong usages of Spanish words. Incredibly, Goyer insists on attributing fervent religious feelings to the Republican side, when in fact the vast majority of those who fought for the Spanish Republic (half of my family included) were Communist or Socialists, and, as such, mostly atheists. Given the importance of setting in this novel, it is impossible to regard A Valley of Betrayal as anything other than a failed effort.
Adelaida Lower
THE GREEN MILL MURDER
Kerry Greenwood, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007, $24.95/C$29.95, hb, 173pp, 9781590582404
Ah, wondrous Phryne Fisher, detective extraordinaire, Australian playgirl, and womanabout-town (circa the 1920s) is back. Wherever she goes, murder follows. Dancing at the Green Mill dance marathon with the “tedious but socially acceptable escort” Charles Freeman, a man falls dead at her feet. Murdered, of course. Who did it? Phryne doesn’t care, but it seems her partner, Charles, might be involved. His awful mother wants her to “sort it all out,” and also find Charles’s older brother whom Charles was told is dead. The plot thickens delightfully.
Part of the charm of these books is the odd things one learns via Miss Fisher. This time there’s an excellent potted history of jazz, the best explanation of shell shock I’ve read, and the delights of flying a Gypsy Moth. Does Phryne get her man? It depends which man you mean, the murderer or the lover. Read it, enjoy, and find out.
Patrika
Salmon
what he meant. Sarah Harrison is a master of suspense and keeps us hanging on page by page as we follow the workings of a devious mind. We are introduced to the worthy if rather dull Saxon Mariner, amongst others. Vicar and poet, he uses his passion for his wife Vivien as a pleasant recreation, rather as an appendage to his satisfaction with his life and his sense of importance. Hardly surprising that his wife might be tempted by danger—but it is the unfolding of Ashe’s story that tells us why he is seemingly bent on destruction. Hatred is a terrible thing when taken to the extreme. This book will haunt you. It isn’t a pleasant, easy read, but the author never intended it should be. The quality of her work makes it something you will remember for a long time.
Linda Sole
AN EYE FOR MURDER
Libby Fischer Hellman, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007, $14.95, pb, 332pp, 9781590583760
Beginning with an exchange between two men in Prague in August 1944, the book proceeds to explore the ramifications of these events in the present. Ellie Foreman is a documentary filmmaker intent on helping people tell their stories. When an old Jewish man not known to her dies, and her address is found among his belongings, Ellie tries to determine the connection between them. This leads to minor and major crimes, a link to her father, politics, racism and events that happened during World War II.
Ellie is an endearing character struggling to make a living for her daughter and herself despite the shenanigans of her ex-husband and the threats to her family. She becomes an amateur sleuth with believable motives and actions. The other characters are also well-rounded, and we learn a lot about film-making, the history of the Jewish community in Chicago, and politics. There are a little too many coincidences, however, in what Ellie calls Jewish geography, but the pace is quick and the story captivating.
If you prefer historicals set squarely in the past, this book is not for you. But if you enjoy a story where past events affect the present, go for it. You won’t be disappointed.
Nicole Leclerc
A LOAD OF OLD BONES
Suzette A. Hill, Constable, 2007, £18.99, hb, 207pp, 978184529813 / Carroll & Graf, 2007, $24.95, hb, 288pp, 9780786719662
A SPELL OF SWALLOWS
Sarah Harrison, Hodder & Stoughton, 2007, £19.99, hb, 377 pp, 9780340828595
When John Ashe first saw Eadenford, he decided it would do. This cryptic phrase hangs over us throughout the book while we wonder
Maurice the cat’s mistress, the wealthy Elizabeth, conceives an unwelcome passion for Francis, the shy new Vicar. Bouncer the dog’s master, Bowler the bank manager, is angrily jealous at the attention she pays to the unwilling Francis. Then Elizabeth is killed, and Bouncer’s master decamps with the bank’s funds. Francis worries about the Bishop, since he appreciates the calm life in this quiet backwater after a stint trying to be a ‘muscular Christian’ in
Bermondsey.
Homeless, Maurice and Bouncer both move into the vicarage where they can watch and, to some extent, control events. This is neither a whodunit nor a whydunit. Set in the 1950s, the historical background is lightly sketched in but this original novel is a delightful romp.
Narrated in turn by the cat, the dog and the Vicar with their individual, appropriate and revealing voices, their accounts follow the hilarious aftermath of the murder and the complications that ensue. I hope there is more to come.
Marina Oliver
WIVES OF THE EAST WIND
Liu Hong, Headline, 2007, £19.99, hb, 335pp, 9780755329717
Wives of the East Wind covers four decades of China’s recent history, beginning in the 1960s. It features newly trained doctor Wenya who marries Zhiying, a young man working for the East Wind tractor company. Wenya becomes friends with Zhenzhen, wife of the Director of the factory, Korean war hero Laoyin. These are heady times; the people are poor but convinced that their efforts will bring them a better future.
Then the Cultural Revolution in the midsixties brings a change of mood: Laoyin is no longer considered a hero but a traitor, and the two couples discover that their youthful ideals are no longer acceptable. They find themselves living through decades of terror, famine and personal tragedy, testing the friendship of the two women to its limits.
The simple style of the narrative is perfectly in keeping with the story—a tale of ordinary people who are not ordinary at all. There are moments of humour mixed with great hardship and the characters face their trials with dignity. This is a moving, non-judgemental novel set in China’s recent past.
Melinda Hammond
NIGHT OF FLAMES
Douglas Jacobson, McBooks, 2007, $23.95, hb, 368pp, 9781590131367
In the opening days of World War II, Jan Kopernik and his wife, Anna, are separated by the German invasion of Poland. After a heroic but losing struggle against the invader, Jan, a cavalry officer, makes his way to England to continue the fight. Wanting to search for his missing wife, he volunteers for espionage operations in Poland, unaware that she has escaped to Nazi-dominated Belgium. There she becomes involved in the Resistance, helping downed fliers escape the Continent. Jan subsequently takes part in the campaign in Normandy, coming eventually to the Battle of Antwerp—tantalizingly close to the lost Anna, who is in the grips of a danger neither could foresee.
This absorbing World War II novel is well researched and skillfully executed. However,
Y STORMY WEATHER
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Paulette Jiles, Morrow, 2007, $24.95/C$31.50, hb, 352pp, 9780060537326 / Fourth Estate, 2007, £11.99, pb, 336pp, 9780007156450
This is the second novel by Paulette Jiles, a poet and memoirist. Her first novel, Enemy Women, which won a Canadian fiction award, is now at the top of my reading list. She currently lives in Texas and has clearly done her homework on Texas history; she does a masterful job evoking Texas of the 1920s and 1930s with its dust storms, oil strikes and the Great Depression. I could almost feel the dust in my hair and taste it in my mouth. Her spare prose style perfectly reflects the dry, barren Texas landscape.
The story centers on the Stoddard family: the father, Jack, a ne’er-do-well gambler, drinker, horse lover and womanizer; his wife, Elizabeth; and their three daughters, Mayme, Jeanine and Bea. The Stoddards have spent their married life moving around Texas as Jack follows the oil strikes and works delivering pipes and equipment to the oil fields. After Jack’s accidental death, Elizabeth, weary of this itinerant lifestyle, takes her daughters back to the farm on which she was raised, which had been abandoned for years. All Jack left them was a small amount of cash, which Elizabeth promptly invests in an oilcat well and an unlikely racehorse. The girls work hard to survive as they struggle to pay back taxes and get the farm working again. Despite some additional bad luck, they manage to keep the family together while holding on to their dreams of love and success and waiting for better times. However, this is not some saccharine romance. The Stoddard girls have no illusions about men and marriage, thanks to their father.
Don’t miss this story of ordinary people in extraordinary times. Jane Kessler
the title, based on the first night of the bombing of Warsaw, doesn’t do the book justice, as it covers virtually the entire length of the war in Europe. Jan Kopernik, in particular, takes part in many crucial operations over those years, which serve to highlight the notable contributions of Poles to the war. The descriptions of these battles are especially well written. Likewise, Anna’s plight illustrates that of many victims of the war. Although the addition of a nemesis in the person of a psychotic SS officer seems over the top, her character and reactions ring true.
This is a highly readable work which is both informative and imaginative.
Ken Kreckel
THE WIDOW AND HER HERO
Thomas Keneally, Sceptre, 2007, hb, 264pp, £16.99, 0340825278
This book starts with the hero’s death and comes full circle. For the past sixty years Grace has been haunted by the death of her young husband, Captain Leo Waterhouse, who was killed on a covert commando mission during the Second World War, into the heart of Singapore, shortly after their marriage.
Leo’s role in the war was mysterious. He was dashing but reckless, an Errol Flynn lookalike. After a successful attack against Japanese shipping, the commando group come home heroes. A second mission is planned but this time they are captured by the Japanese, tried as war criminals and beheaded. Now, nearly sixty years on, Grace still has to come to terms with his death.
The story of the men’s fatal mission becomes public legend, but the real truth only slowly comes to light. The mission is pieced together by Grace from a Japanese translator who was present at Leo’s death, a visit from an American seeking absolution for letting Leo and his men down, and from part of a diary Leo wrote on toilet paper when he was captured and was somehow saved. Grace finds herself questioning what their sacrifice was for and why men so willingly adopt the heroic code even above the women they leave behind. At times it is a harrowing story. It explores a bitterness between the Americans, Australians and British. Military and domestic courage are contrasted and in some respects Grace does not play that large a part in it; it is rather the facts she reconstructs.
The only doubt I have in the book is wondering how it was possible to smuggle out a diary written on toilet paper and bring it back to Australia. That said, it was a compelling book and satisfied my need for adventure.
Karen Wintle
CONSEQUENCES OF SIN: An Edwardian Mystery
Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Viking, 2007, $22.95/$28.50, hb, 362pp, 9780670038206
Ursula Marlow, Oxford graduate, heiress and budding suffragette, receives a telephone call late one night from her friend Winifred ”Freddie” Stanford-Jones saying she’s discovered the dead body of her lover in her flat. Horrified, Ursula’s father forbids her to interfere, and calls on the family lawyer, the inscrutable Lord Wrotham, to
get the facts while shielding the family name. Angry and determined, Ursula uses unladylike means to uncover details regarding the victim, discovering a complex web of intrigue which spans the globe and may reflect back on her own family. Further deaths reinforce her determination to follow through even at peril to herself. Although well-educated and a product of her class, this character undermines caution and training with impetuous behavior and an ever-present anger that wears thin as the novel progresses. The complexity of the puzzle is intriguing, but the reality of a gentlewoman dashing off for South America unaccompanied seems incredible even for a wealthy suffragette. Despite this, the reader will have difficulty putting this book down as clues appear and the story struggles to its conclusion.
Tess Allegra
FELLOW TRAVELERS
Thomas Mallon, Pantheon, 2007, $25.00, hb, 368pp, 0375423486
Mallon, the critically acclaimed author of Bandbox and Dewey Defeats Truman, mixes McCarthy-era politics, the battle against international communism, and the underground lives of homosexuals in this uneven novel.
Hawkins Fuller is a handsome, charismatic employee of the State Department’s Bureau of Congressional Relations. He’s also gay, sexually insatiable, and without a conscience. One of his victims is Tim Laughlin, a young senatorial aide, who Hawkins initiates (graphically) into sexual pleasure. Tim falls so hopelessly in love that he puts up with Hawkins’ rules: No exclusivity, no talk of love, no promises. While they carry on their clandestine affair, they puzzle over the mysteries not being resolved in various government hearings. When Tim finally realizes how ugly politics can be, he leaves Hawkins and the senator’s employ, and joins the army. There, he seeks peace in Catholicism and the struggles of the Hungarians. He tries to forget Hawkins and politics—only to be drawn back to both, which results in a bitter, ugly betrayal.
Mallon certainly knows his stuff, but Fellow Travelers places a heavy burden on the reader to understand congressional hearings sixty years in the past, and thus lacks the author’s usual deft historical touch. Furthermore, the fact that the main characters are only observers in the gallery—never really in danger—muffles any dramatic effect. Even when Hawkins himself is suspected of being a “sexual deviant,” the brief experience only proves him to be more monstrously inhuman. Ultimately, that’s the most disturbing aspect of the novel: the attempt to evoke affection for a most chilling, smug, and unrepentant character. This novel is a tough read; I’ll put my hopes on Mallon’s next release.
Lisa Ann Verge
211pp, 9781594144813
The Adulteress is based on the true 1920s Thompson-Bywater murder case and is virtually as fascinating. Margolin presents a brilliant case study in skewed infatuation and boredom.
Francis “Rats” Rattenbury, a highly regarded Canadian architect, loses his status and reputation when he marries the already twice-divorced Alma. In a move to re-launch themselves into society, they set off to England. A serious car accident that injures their son Felix brings Percy Stoner into their lives; he chauffeurs Alma about, as Rats forbids her to drive. A puzzling (as they are so dissimilar) affair of desire, tension, taunting control and possessiveness begins between the two—leading to murder.
With the onset of Alma’s pregnancy, Margolin sets a brisk pace, detailing how the social panic of adultery and illegal abortion (described in grisly emotional, see-saw detail) can lead to tragedy. Whilst this is fundamentally told from Alma’s emotional viewpoint, which veers from intense and scattering to brutally detached, The Adulteress retains its heartbeat and intended direction with great delivery and technique.
Wendy A. Zollo
MURDER AT DEVIATION JUNCTION
Andrew Martin, Faber & Faber, 2007, £10.99, pb, 249pp, 9780571229659
An amateur footballer has seriously injured a goalkeeper at a friendly match on the railway grounds in York and railway detective Jim Stringer is in the Iron town of Middlesborough to arrest him.
It is December 1909 and snowing heavily; on his return journey home, the train hits a frozen drift and, on clearing the line, a body is discovered in a disused cabin. It looks to be a suicide but it is the start of the steam detective’s most dangerous case to date.
This is Andrew Martin’s latest book in his Jim Stringer series, but the title, Murder at Deviation Junction, although not an issue with railway enthusiasts, may be misconstrued in the less well-informed 21st century. Mr Martin’s knowledge of steam engines is not to be doubted and I felt that I knew the train journey from York to Middlesborough, change at Whitby, intimately after reading the book. The blighted landscape, littered with mine workings and huge blast furnaces bringing muck and money to the industrialised north-eastern towns, is well described.
The murder mystery at times seems secondary to the author’s tangible interest in the world of magnificent iron monsters but it is rhythmically inserted and the characters are brought to life against this backdrop of steam.
Gwen Sly
THE ADULTERESS
Leslie Margolin, Five Star, 2007, $25.95, hb,
SECRET AGENT GIRL
Rosemary Martin, Signet, 2007, $6.99/C$9.99, pb, 290pp, 9780451220912
Bebe Bennett, 1960s executive secretary
extraordinaire, follows her boss and secret crush Bradley Williams to his third job in as many books, corporate manager of Merryweather’s Toy Shoppe. For those keeping count, he was previously a record executive and head of a modeling agency. In this outing, he’s been charged with reviving a toy store where employees dress as princesses, Raggedy Anns, and cowboys, and the store mascot is Mr. Skidoo, a blackmailing clown—literally. What secret of Bebe’s has he ferreted out? Her secret love for Bradley. Apparently, love is more dumb than blind in her case because when she discovers the clown with a knife in his chest, she pulls it out, thinking he’s playing a prank, and then lies to the police when confronted in front of Bradley as to what secret she’s been keeping. In her first two adventures, Bebe was naïve but plucky and ingenious. After having a hand in solving two murders, she’s suddenly lost her senses.
As with the previous books, Martin captures the more innocent time of the 1960s, preSummer of Love, with fab miniskirts, groovy go-go boots, and backcombed hair. Bebe and Bradley continue their “will they or won’t they” dance, which is finally resolved, but I don’t know if I have the patience to see what Bradley’s fourth job will be.
Ellen Keith
THE DEATH AT AWAHI
Harold Burton Meyers, Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2007, $24.95, hb, 226pp, 9780896725997
The author of The Death at Awahi grew up on Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, and his knowledge of and sympathy for embattled indigenous culture shines from every page. The novel is a sort of delayed-action murder mystery. It is set in the 1920s, when the “Christianize and civilize” program of the Indian Service—the educational arm of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs—was coming under fire from progressives. The Awahi are fictional, but they are such a convincing amalgam of southwestern Native People—Hopi, Zuni, Navajo—that I thought they were simply a tribe I’d never read about. (I learned my error by reading the author’s notes.)
The story concerns a new principal’s arrival at Awahi pueblo along with his new wife, who is a nurse. Both are government employees, but they are also pragmatists who are far more interested in helping the Indians than in toeing an ideological line. Other outsiders living in the pueblo include teachers at the government school, the owner of the local trading post who has an Awahi wife, a Catholic priest, and two hellfire and brimstone Protestant preachers. There are characters who immediately appear to “need killing,” but unlike a genre murder mystery, the death of the title does not occur until almost the last chapter. This proves to be satisfactory because The Death at Awahi is not a standard whodunit, but something deeper, a fable about justice and the long unresolved
culture clash between the U.S. and this land’s First People. An enjoyable read which left me with a lot to think about.
Juliet Waldron
SEA OF LOST LOVE
Santa Montefiore, Hodder & Stoughton, 2007, £14.99, hb, 407pp, 9780340840443
The choice of two picturesque coastal situations—the Cornish ancestral home of the Montague family and a former Italian convent turned guest house—provide the enviable background to mystery and romance. Celestria Montague has led a privileged life thus far until a summer holiday at Pendrift Hall, the home of the Montagues for 300 years, is ripped asunder by the sudden disappearance of Celestria’s father on the night of her Uncle Archie’s 50th birthday. Surrounded by a family who are accepting this tragedy with typical English reserve, Celestria is determined to discover the truth behind what appears to be an unfortunate incident.
With an offer of marriage from a safe lover recently accepted, Celestria follows a lead to Puglia in Southern Italy in pursuit of the facts. Whilst staying in the delightful ex-convent, surrounded by the cloisters and some interesting fellow residents, Celestria delves into the recent history of her father’s business. Her interest is arrested by Hamish, son-in-law of Federica and Gaitaino Gancia, who own the Convento di Santa Maria del Mare, and whose initial hostility and rudeness are almost enough to make her abandon her quest. Despite his best efforts, however, Hamish and Celestria learn to love and discover their differences are only misunderstandings.
Montefiore portrays the characters of the privileged classes of the 1950s in typecast, but the variations in the storyline provide the reader with interest also. There is an unusual linkage between this novel and Santa Montefiore’s previous book, The Gypsy Madonna, whereby Daphne Halifax, one of the minor characters, makes a re-appearance and provides some unexpected continuity of theme.
Cathy Kemp
DANCING TO “ALMENDRA”
Mayra Montero (trans. Edith Grossman), Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, $25/C$31, hb, 272pp, 9780374102777 / Picador, 2007, £14.99, hb, 9780330449328
To young journalist Joaquin Porrata, an assignment writing about a dead hippopotamus seems like another disappointment in a career full of them. Soon, however, he finds a link between the hippo’s death and the murder of Umberto Anastasia, infamous operator of Murder Incorporated. Porrata’s investigations uncover a mob war brewing over control of Havana’s casinos, and he soon finds himself facing an array of ruthless thugs willing to do anything to keep him silent.
Although set in the drama-drenched world of
1957 Havana, Dancing to “Almendra” fails to grip the reader, centering as it does on a weak primary character. Famous figures abound, but their snapshot appearances offer little insight into their characters, and few play an active role in the story. Further, though the author drops the names of famous clubs and songs from the era, one gets little sense of the atmosphere that made 1957 Havana a city of legend. Enthusiasts for stories set in the 1950s will find some delights here, particularly in the character of Bulgado and his fascination with the actor George Raft, but the story ultimately is too lacking in tension.
Richard Dery
WHERE BONES DANCE: An English Girlhood, An African War
Nina Newington, Terrace Books/Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2007, $26.95, pb, 318pp, 9780299222604
Young girls grow up in a world of imagination, but few, like Anna (nicknamed Jake), grow amidst a volatile political state soon to erupt into a brutal war. The time is the 1960s in Lagos, Nigeria. Anna’s parents are trying to deal with an adult understanding of the growing violence. Pacifying themselves with Nigerian customs and artifacts, they live in a state of denial, focusing only on the exotic. Anna seems to alternate between wanting their attention and seeking security in her fantasy world pursued with her friend Dave. Anna is also funny and never anything but honest, qualities which increase the potency of her anger and sadness as she realizes her parents are respectively absent or drunk most of the time.
Christine, their Ibo native maid, is the stark reminder of the killing not far from their world. Although she tells many Ibo tales of bravery, Anna notes she “is guarding a secret place in her mind, and she only lets herself visit it sometimes but she always knows it’s there. I want to know what it is.” She finds out, and her imagination reels as she imagines the thousands of babies being assaulted by the enemy “killer ghosts.”
Sensually and perceptively alive to people and nature, humorously rejecting marriage and its accompanying lack of freedom, absorbing and interpreting the play of sex and its accompanying roles dependent upon gender and race, Anna poetically traces and presents the beauty and horror in her Nigerian world. It leaves the reader breathless.
Viviane Crystal
GENTLEMEN
Klas Östergren (trans. Tiina Nunnally), MacAdam/Cage, 2007, $25.00/C$33.00, 375pp, hb, 9781596922068
First published in 1981, then followed by a sequel (Gangsters) in 2005, Gentlemen has achieved cult status in Sweden, and is now available in translation for the English-speaking world. It’s the tall tale of an aspiring young writer named Klas Ostergren, who falls into the
wild world of Henry Morgan, one-time boxer and touring jazz pianist, in 1979 Stockholm. It’s a time of revolution and change, and Henry and his brother Leo are in the midst of all the happenings, cultural and political.
The narrative is framed by the story of Klas, now holed up in the Morgans’ spacious apartment, frantically scribbling about the events of the last few months, before the disappearance of both Henry and Leo. Flashbacks show the Morgan brothers as children, Henry the strong, confident one and Leo the introverted flower-collecting poet; flashes forward reveal that Henry has reinvented himself many times—as spy, manabout-town, lover, liar, musician—but always earnest, to the point that one wants to believe the preposterous things he does and says. As an adult, Leo is dark and taciturn, hiding his secrets close to him with none of Henry’s bravado. The brothers depend on each other despite their differences, though, since it turns out that some of their secrets are shared. Klas’s naïve attempts to discover the truth ultimately show that he, like Henry and Leo, is self-absorbed and immature, which is perhaps a statement about Sweden at the time. Other characters permeate the story, including the beautiful, seductive Maud, her mysterious lover/patron “W.S.” and the other inhabitants of the Morgans’ apartment building, who all have secrets of their own.
The book is an interesting snapshot during an important time in Sweden, reflecting both the dark and the light of the country.
Helene Williams
THE GHOST OF MARY PRAIRIE
Lisa Polisar, Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2007, $18.95, pb, 273pp, 9780826342096
Jake Leeds and Mikey Savage are best friends, both 15 years old, although Mikey is a few weeks older— entitling him to subject Jake to a summer vacation rite of passage. Jake’s challenge is to sleep overnight in a local field, normally a non-event for anyone in 1961 Grady, a small Oklahoma town. Jake expects nothing more than a scary prank orchestrated by Mikey. However, the horrifying event is not of Mikey’s creation and will change Jake’s summer plans as well as his entire life. In a lazy community where few have aspirations beyond their town, Jake’s obsession gets him access to the world beyond Grady and forces him to make some adult decisions. Subplots regarding Jake’s unwed sister and his parents complicate matters as Jake tries to make sense out of what he saw on the prairie and why he is so drawn to solving the mystery.
Polisar creates a coming-of-age tale that invites the reader to return to adolescence as those young boys, obsessed with girls but not quite sure what to do with them yet, and afraid of authority, especially when it comes in the form of Blackie, Mikey’s older and sadistic policeman brother. The relationships are well developed, illustrating the dynamics between
Y THE DIG
EDITORS’ CHOICE
John Preston, Penguin, 2007, £16.99, hb, 230pp, 9780670914913
In the summer of 1939, as Britain prepares for war with air-raid drills and trench digging in Hyde Park, in the depths of rural Suffolk, an excavation of a very different kind is about to shake up Europe’s perception of its history just as much as the impending war. When local landowner, Edith Pretty, employs archaeologist, Basil Brown to excavate a series of large earth mounds on her land, little can any of them know that they are about to re-illuminate the Dark Ages. As history goes into overdrive around them, and those drawn together at Sutton Hoo become involved in their own emotional upheavals, gradually, painstakingly, with many setbacks and a few blinding revelations, one of the most important, enigmatic and beautiful archaeological discoveries of modern times is laid bare.
The discovery of the Anglo Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in the Deben valley hardly needs the attentions of a novelist to make it any more dramatic than it was. A visit to the site and a tour of its treasures make the hackles rise; you instinctively know you are in the presence of something magical. That said, John Preston has written a wonderful novel about it, excavating the lives of those involved with as much care and precision as they applied to the dig and fashioning from them a small jewel of a book. Not a word is out of place in his meticulously observed account of these variously repressed lives, of Edith’s anxiety for her solitary young son as her health fails, or Basil’s inability to express any feeling at all, or brilliant young Peggy Piggot’s reluctance to step out of the shadow of her husband and former professor.
is good for nothing and gone for good. The plot crackles with suspense as Jack is haunted by the evil he cannot control and Harley has a life-saving experience that forever rivets his faith in a God of blessings and hope. Kim Vogel Sawyer’s style is soft, sweet, poignantly honest, and engaging.
Viviane Crystal
MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE
Linda Sole, Severn House, 2007, £18.99/$22.00, hb, 217pp, 9780727864925
Set in 1924, this historical mystery, the first in a new series, is set in a small Norfolk village with two protagonists who are fast on their way to getting hitched.
Sarah Beaufort is staying with her grandmother in disgrace after running off to go on the stage. Intrigued by the news that the local busybody has been murdered, she decides to investigate on her own. Was it really the woman’s gardener, as the police seem to think? Artist Larch Meadows, son of the local JP, teams up with her, also keen to seek the truth and prevent a miscarriage of justice.
None of these individual stories ends happily because they are all drawn from life, but what a legacy they left us, and what a skilful tribute Preston has paid them in this almost perfect novel.
friends during the awkward transitional years between child and adult, but they do not bog down the plot. Descriptions of the volatile Oklahoma weather, where tornados spawn and the natural beauty of the land is taken for granted, blend in seamlessly.
This fast-moving novel is as satisfying as a popular mystery thriller, but with the more complex layers of literary fiction, giving one fodder for reflection and making it enjoyable to everyone who enjoys intrigue.
Suzanne J. Sprague
DYING DAY
Robert Ryan, Headline Review, 2007, £11.99, pb, 343pp, 9780755329229
In 1944 SOE agent Diana McGill is flown into occupied France. Shortly afterwards she disappears—apparently into the “Night and Fog” of the Nazi death camps. Three years after the end of the war her sister, Laura, is tired with being fobbed of by the Home Office and decides to either find Diana or discover her fate.
In Berlin the man who sent Diana on her final mission, James Hadley Webb, is working as a spy but that doesn’t stop Laura tracking him down and demanding a few answers. Unfortunately for both James and Laura a bloody war is about to break out between the East and the West for control of the city. The Cold War curtain is about to be raised, and Diana’s fate might never be known.
As ever it is Robert Ryan’s meticulous research and imaginative use of actual people,
Sarah Bower
places and events that really impresses. He is the master of the thriller genre and writes with great panache—with prose stuffed full of evocative images and exhilarating action.
Dying Day conjures up all the chaos at the close of World War Two and all the shady shenanigans at the outset of the Cold War. Those readers yet to discover Robert Ryan are really missing out and those that have discovered him already have another real treat in store.
Sara Wilson
WHERE WILLOWS GROW
Kim Vogel Sawyer, Bethany House, 2007, $13.99, pb, 352pp, 9780764201837
Harley Phillips is a man grown bitter with increasingly devastating circumstances in drought- and Depression-stricken Kansas in the 1930s. All he wants to see is a smile, all too infrequent, upon his beloved Anna Mae’s face. Harley represents the thousands of men whose pride was maintained with desperate efforts in trying to eke out a living and for the small, almost unnoticeable, pleasures that bond husband and wife, parent and child together. Anna Mae is horrified to learn that Harley is giving up trying to farm completely barren land and will take a job with the WPA, Works Progress Administration, despite the hard conditions it also entails.
Although this is a familiar story to many, the author increases its compelling nature with the scheming, plotting, and stealing of a “caring” neighbor, Jack, who has decided that Harley
But then a second murder occurs, and with a local coven of devil worshippers added to the mix we have a good story with enough twists to keep the pages turning. The romantic subplot provides an entertaining contrast to the more serious matter of the main plot, and if the characterisation is a bit bland, I’m sure Sole’s many fans will forgive her, as there will be plenty of time for fleshing out later in the series.
Cas Stavert
ESCAPE TO LONDON
Mary Jane Staples, Corgi, 2007, £6.99/C$11.99, pb, 436pp, 9780552151108
Austria in 1938 sees Hitler’s tanks rolling through the streets of Vienna amid crowds of cheering supporters. Baroness Anne von Korvacs looks on in silence as her ex-husband, Count Ludvig Lundt-Hausen, a fanatical Nazi, drives past. When a stranger in the crowd surreptitiously slips something into her pocket she does not notice until later, but her apparent displeasure at the cavalcade when everyone else is frantic in their jubilation attracts the attention of one youth who proceeds to insult and accuse her. The stranger stands up to the youth and Anne is unwittingly drawn into a web of intrigue. Together with her family she must flee Vienna.
In this quick-paced, exciting read, Staples takes a break from the popular Adams Family stories and continues to please with an extensive cast of new characters and a realistic representation of Nazi-occupied Austria.
Ann Oughton
MARRIED LIFE
David Vogel (trans. Dalya Bilu), Toby Press, $14.95/C$19.95, pb, 503pp, 9781592641796
Vienna of the 1920s is the palpitating
backdrop for this tale of an obsessive, destructive marriage between a secular Jewish intellectual and a sadistic baroness.
At first, the thirty-year-old Rudolph Gurdweill, who is being partly supported by a sister in America, cannot believe his luck. Tall, blonde Thea von Takow wants to marry him. But ignoring her distasteful friends and employer, and the “doubts beginning to flicker in the corners of his soul,” the marriage soon becomes a descent into hell.
Thea is vain and abusive to her “rabbit.” She’s unfaithful, neither ending her pre-marital sex with her employer, nor the casual affairs that she flaunts to her coffeehouse associates. She’s dismissive even of the child (Martin) that she bears and Gurdweill cares for. Martin becomes the light of his life and attention, but once the baby dies, Gurdweill’s stability gets precarious. A last hope is offered by the longsuffering Lotte, when she presents the denying, masochistic Gurdweill the picture of his twoyear marriage.
First published in Palestine in 1929 and translated with skill and care by Dalya Bilu, poet Vogel’s Married Life stands well on its own as its central abusive relationship unfolds in the atmosphere of smoky coffeehouses, telling details of casual decadence. The novel has also been seen as representing the relationship between Viennese culture and its Jews by a gifted writer who became a victim of the Holocaust.
Eileen Charbonneau
A LITTLE BLUE JACKET
Lucy Ann White, Liberty Books, 2007, £7.99/$16.95, pb, 369pp, 0955100003
This novel is set in South Africa just before the First World War and before the establishment of the apartheid system. The central character is Ursula, who is based on the author’s grandmother. It begins at a moment of crisis. Ursula’s husband is away and her baby son is dangerously ill. As she watches and waits, she remembers her life leading up to this point, its triumphs and its tragedies.
What I enjoyed most about this novel was the evocation of South Africa during a little known period in its history. Lucy Ann White brings out the beauty of the landscape as well as the stifling and parochial nature of Cape Town at this time. Where I was less impressed was in its structure. The narrative develops incredibly slowly and dwells far too much on inconsequential detail. This meant that the later, more important and far more compelling scenes suffered because they were squeezed and rushed. A radical edit of the earlier sections could have easily overcome this problem.
Sally Zigmond
Set in South Africa in the years preceding the First World War and immediately following the formation of South Africa as a nation, this debut novel is a gentle and moving look into a
marriage. Ursula is a young South African of English descent, orphaned at birth and raised by an emotionally distant older sister. Forced by circumstances to be independent, she works as an office clerk in Cape Town and also occasionally works as a cloakroom assistant in a theater, which is how she meets the handsome young Englishman, David. In spite of her middle-class background, she is passionately drawn to the working-class young man and tries to fulfill her hopes for a warm family life in her marriage to him. A Little Blue Jacket is the story of how they fight to sustain their life together in the face of almost unbearable tragedy.
This is a truly beautifully written book, filled not only with rich historical detail but also with great insight into emotions and human relationships. It begins with a cliffhanger and returns periodically in the narrative to this heart-wrenchingly suspenseful moment in Ursula’s life. The author seamlessly examines the corroding effects of jealousy and class and cultural differences. While the book is not simply a rabid indictment of the beginnings of apartheid, the author does include individuals who exhibit the worst of human nature in their desire to maintain absolute dominion over other individuals, classes and races. This is a book that merits a second reading to fully appreciate its depth and beauty, and White is definitely an author whose second novel will be highly anticipated.
Pamela Ortega
MY FRENCH WHORE
Gene Wilder, St Martin’s Press, 2007, $18.95/ C$22.95, hb, 179pp, 0312360576
Living a simple life as a train conductor and sometime actor, Paul Peachy realizes his wife will never be happy. So he impulsively joins the army and ships off for the trenches of World War I France. Because of his fluency in German, he is given the task of interrogating an enemy soldier, who confides that he is the great spy Harry Stroller. Through a twist of fate, Paul soon finds himself in German hands, forced to impersonate the famous spy to save his life. Now granted a life of unaccustomed luxury, he experiences fine wines, sumptuous dinners, a personal driver, and the services of a beautiful French courtesan named Annie. An unlikely romance ensues, one that changes the worldly Annie as much as Paul.
This is a book you might expect of Gene Wilder (yes, that Gene Wilder). Brief and simply written, it is almost childlike in outlook. The main character, who one will inevitably imagine as Mr. Wilder himself, possesses the dual nature of the clown. Although markedly innocent, there is also a certain darkness surrounding him. The person-behind-the-mask theme is even more sharply drawn with Annie, when he demands she remove her makeup for him. It is as if this act transforms her, restoring her from the object her occupation demands to the woman he can
love. It is a fairy tale perhaps, but an engaging one that walks the fine line between comedy and pathos.
Ken Kreckel
PRELIMINARIES
S. Yizhar (trans. Nicholas de Lange), Toby Press, 2007, $24.95/C$33.95/£14.99, hb, 305pp, 9781592641901
Called “the founding Father of Israeli literature…and master of prose fiction,” Yizhar produced Preliminaries at a time when the majority of scholars and readers thought he had written all that was possible in one literary career. While the majority of the book tells the story of the author’s life in Tel Aviv between 1917 and 1930, this slice of life clearly parallels and represents the broader experience of settlers throughout Israel who are now living the dream of “the birth of the new Jew in the new Land… working the land as a free man, independent, neither exploiting nor being exploited.” The narrator is an adult remembering with an existential, stream-ofconsciousness style, as when he spends chapters describing being stung multiple times at once by hornets, literally and symbolically depicting a naturally hostile environment amidst so much physical beauty and promise. The pre-Israeli independence history of Yizhar’s childhood is presented with all of its famous street names, political groups like the Irgun and Haganah, scholars, Biblical characters, the beginning of Ha’aretz news, British officials and more. Yizhar’s father represents the many socialist and scholarly citizens who cannot forget their religious background despite all efforts at shunning its simple and demanding nature. Childhood memory is overlaid by philosophical questioning and speculation about Israel’s future as it sacrifices its initially clear and clean goals to a more worldly definition of success.
Lest the reader think Yizhar’s perceptions are totally bleak, one captures in this poignant novel the passionate love this author has for the land, religion, scholarship, unity of its people, and so much more; it is deeply compelling reading on every page. Beginning with an intelligent, comprehensive critique of the author and the book by Dan Miron, this masterful novel is a keeper that will stun the reader with its beautiful but searing depth.
Viviane Crystal
MULTI-PERIOD
THE RIVER WIFE
Jonis Agee, Random House, 2007, $24.95/ C$32.00, hb, 393pp, 1400065968
Jacques’ Landing, Missouri, on the shore of the Mississippi River, is a place where life is lived hard, and for some of its inhabitants, lived long. In 1811, in the aftermath of an earthquake, Annie Lark is rescued from her home, after fallen beams have pinned her down and her N n
family has left her. She had thought her life was over, and so is very kindly inclined to French fur-trapper Jacques Ducharme, the man who has rescued her. Jacques and Annie’s life starts out well, despite the hardships they face. However, after they start to build their house on the river, their relationship becomes more troubled. Indeed, troubled relationships are a hallmark of this story, which shares with us the lives of some of Jacques’ descendants, though Jacques himself stays a major character for a surprisingly long period of time.
The book begins with first-person narration by Hedie Rails, who has just married Clement Ducharme, Jacques’ grandson. He has brought her to Jacques’ Landing, where she discovers the journals and sketchbooks left by Annie Lark. As Hedie tells of her life with Clement, interspersed with scenes from the life of Jacques, we begin to see parallels: violence and deceit abound. Violence is a way of life at Jacques’ Landing, and some readers may find a few of the scenes early in the book difficult to read.
Agee has written a book that is solidly grounded in place. The time periods vary from the early 19th century to the Civil War, the last decade of the 19th century, and then again in the Depression. The details she provides create an authentic feeling to the eras, although there is something timeless about Jacques’ Landing, too.
Trudi E. Jacobson
CATALOOCHEE
Wayne Caldwell, Random House, 2007,
Y THE THIEF OF TIME
$24.95/$32.00C, hb, 368pp, 01400063434
Over the course of this summer, thousands of tourists will visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. Drawn by the scenic vistas and 800+ miles of hiking trails, they will likely never wonder what was there before the park. Generations ago these hills were home, first to Native Americans, and, later, settlers attracted by the abundant resources. They raised families, gained and lost, and passed their land on to their heirs. So it went until late 1928, when the U.S. Park Service began buying land to establish the first National Park in the eastern United States.
Cataloochee begins in 1928 with a murder, then goes back in time to the end of the Civil War, when Ezra Banks first leaves his father’s North Carolina farm. The chapters consist of chronological, interconnecting, short stories, each an homage to the landscape, the people, and the traditions of the Appalachians. The characters are authentic, some good and some bad, but in their daily lives they demonstrate the many ways one can live with purpose and commitment to one’s family. As time progresses, so does the realization that soon there will be a choice: uproot or stay put.
Eventually the story catches up to the beginning. I was left wanting by this change of focus. While Caldwell ties up threads from the first chapter, he leaves other plot threads open and unresolved. Regardless, Cataloochee deserves praise for paying tribute to those communities lost in the name of progress.
Alice Logsdon
EDITORS’ CHOICE
John Boyne, St. Martin’s Press, 2007, $24.95, hb, 376pp, 9780312354800
John Boyne has written a quietly profound tale about a middle-aged man who, inexplicably, stops aging. Matthieu Zela, born in 1743, flees Paris with his half-brother after his stepfather murders his mother. He survives as a pickpocket in Dover, but after 256 years, he has become a wealthy owner of a satellite television broadcasting station. Jumping around in time, Matthieu fills the reader in on his long and varied life, but most of the anecdotes concern his stepbrother, Thomas, and Thomas’s children. For the “Thomases,” as Matthieu calls them, are stuck in a seemingly unbreakable cycle: They tend to go bad and die young. One is guillotined in the French Revolution, another dies in a duel in Italy, a third is killed during a bank robbery. Furthermore, each Tom tends to die right before the birth of the next Tom. As Matthieu prepares for the third century of his life, he is determined to break the cycle with the current “nephew,” an insolent drug-addled soap opera star with an ominously pregnant girlfriend.
Matthieu Zela is a wonderful character. He’s a man of dry wit and a deep understanding of human nature, a man who has avoided growing impatient with the unchanging ways of the world, a man who has, in fact, adapted to his immortality. No novel is perfect: Some of the anecdotes feel only vaguely thematically relevant, and the writer ducks a bit, at the end, but The Thief of Time is one of the finest reads this reviewer has enjoyed in quite a while. It’s gripping without cliffhangers, philosophically deep without angst, honest and wise and absolutely charming. Bravo to Mr. Boyne—and when’s the next book?
Lisa Ann Verge
TYPES OF EVERLASTING REST: Short Stories
Clio Gray, Two Ravens Press, 2007, £8.99, pb, 144pp, 9781906120047
This collection is a cornucopia of finely drawn characters in a varied landscape of situations beyond their control. From Italy and Russia, in the time of Napoleon, to the Boy Scouts in Czechoslovakia during World War II, each story unfolds with unexpected twists and turns. I Should Have Listened Harder won the Scotsman-Orange Prize, 2006. The title story, last in the collection, sums up the themes and emotions perfectly. It is often said that the short story is a specialised art form, and Clio Gray has certainly mastered the art.
Ann Oughton
BIRD OF ANOTHER HEAVEN
James P. Houston, Knopf, 2007, $25.95, hb, 337pp, 9781400042029
Houston’s (Snow Mountain Passage) ninth novel is told by the 1987 version of Sheridan “Dan” Brody, a radio host who discovers his family origins thanks to his birth certificate and a grandmother who enters his life full of stories and her own mother’s diaries. Houston weaves Dan’s life in San Francisco with that of his Hawaiian great-grandmother, Nani Keala (“Nancy Callahan”), a consort of Hawaii’s last king, David Kalakaua.
Dan’s got problems of his own: a difficult relationship with his Japanese-American girlfriend and a corporate merger that may soon threaten his job. But he finds help in unlikely sources as he hunts down a wax cylinder recording made of a dying king’s voice. He discovers much more than a quick view of his ancestors. Historical figures such as David Kalakaua (“The Merrie Monarch”), his Hawaiian court, and John Sutter mix with stories of hula dancing, pioneer exploration and Dust Bowl experience, the Gold Rush and the extermination of California Indians.
Dan’s struggle to know more of his multicultural past is a valiant quest aided and abetted by the vibrant women in his life and his past. Although sometimes emotionally distant, it’s so refreshing to see the world from their eyes, touched by generous and wise intelligence, understanding, and forgiveness. Bravo!
Eileen Charbonneau
BEST STORIES OF THE AMERICAN WEST
Marc Jaffe, ed., Forge, 2007, $25.95, hb, 320pp, 0765310899
Best Stories of the American West is the first volume in a series which includes some of the best in contemporary western writing. The twenty stories, edited by Mark Jaffe, are penned by a diverse group of authors, some award-winning and well known, and some just starting their writing careers. The reader will find traditional westerns by Max Evans,
Elmer Kelton, Johnny Boggs and Richard Wheeler. But, along with the West of gunfights and cowboy heroes, Sherman Alexie, Melanie Thon, and Luis Alberto Urrea present stories of cultural conflict and the ultimate clash between Euro-Americans and Indians. This volume also includes more contemporary stories that reflect the diversity of lifestyles and the cultural, ethnic mosaic of American West in the 21st century as represented by Valerie Miner, Bruce Machart and William Kittredge.
The stories present the reader with a wonderful array of characters and themes that should satisfy those who enjoy reading about western America.
Sue Schrems
THE ROSSETTI LETTER
Christi Phillips, Pocket, 2007, $24.00, hb, 383 pp, 9781416527374 / Simon & Schuster, 2007, £11.99, pb, 400pp, 1847370675
Contemporary Harvard grad student Claire Donovan and Venetian courtesan Alessandra Rossetti are heroines of parallel tales told in alternating chapters. The stunning beauty Rossetti is a rising star in the demimonde of Venice in 1617, caught up against her will in a dangerous conspiracy threatening the city. One of her lovers, the Marquis of Bedmar, the Spanish ambassador, is intriguing with the Spanish viceroy of Naples to invade Venice and add the city to Spain’s vast empire. Will she betray Bedmar to save the city, and risk his death as well as her own? Yes, as the prologue tells us.
With the fictional Rossetti, Phillips uses artistic license to imagine the lives and loves of Bedmar and the people around him. She creates her own version of the murky historical story of the Spanish Conspiracy of 1618. The Rossetti Letter is a denunciation of Bedmar supposedly written by the brave courtesan. In the contemporary chapters, Donovan discusses arguments about whether the Conspiracy was really a Spanish plot or an expedient creation of the Venetian Council of Ten. According to the author’s note, this question is still in doubt. Meanwhile, our modern heroine pursues the mysterious details of Rossetti’s life, crucial to her dissertation, on a brief trip to Venice. Her work is threatened by a handsome Cambridge professor researching at the same library and trying to prove the letter a fake.
Phillips’s use of short chapters and frequent shifts between 1617 and the present set a fast pace, but the time shifts are distracting. Donovan’s modern story, often interrupted by historical asides, seems contrived and is less interesting than the romantic suspense of Rossetti’s life as a courtesan and unwilling spy. Phillips lavishes her best prose on Venice itself, enthralling to visitors and natives alike.
Nina de Angeli
319pp, 9781905802067
I doubt that I will risk appearing in court if I say that this is another thriller inspired by The Da Vinci Code. Indeed the blurb describes it as ‘a superior example of a genre whose popularity shows no sign of abating’.
The plot is fiendishly complicated and centres on a mystic secret guarded by the Knights Templar (who else?), currently headed by a crazed English millionaire. Almost all the characters in the New Testament get into the story except (for once) Mary Magdalene. The action is fast and the body count high.
So how does it compare with DVC? The Painted Messiah has an even more complex plot, with several competing sets of adventurers on the same Quest. Smith weaves the different stories together in a most ingenious manner, but I feel that this loses some of the narrative drive of DVC. Also I find it difficult to identify with so many leading protagonists, especially since they are all so alpha-plus—super-villains, super-agents, super athletes, super-climbers, super-artists and generally world class. Part of the appeal of DVC is that the hero is a rather impractical art historian who gets involved almost by accident and who cannot even drive a gear-shift car.
The action is set mainly in present-day Switzerland with a parallel story in 1st-century Palestine. It kept me turning the pages to the suitably ambiguous conclusion, and I had to agree that it is a superior example of its genre.
Edward James
stabilize himself end abruptly about 2/3 of the way through, while in the time travel sequences two of the three boys return to their homes. A short excerpt of the second volume indicates a return to the past. This is going to appeal mostly to guys for the dogged determination of the boys to survive and the tests of strength and will between them.
Mary K.
Bird-Guilliams
ALTERNATE HISTORY
N n N n
TIME-SLIP
BLOOD OF FATHER TIME: Book One, The New Cut
Alan M. Clark, Stephen C. Merritt & Lorelei Shannon, Five Star, 2007, $25.95, hb, 369pp, 9781594145957
Time travel stories are a mix of fantasy and historical settings, and this collaborative effort by three authors manages to mix in elements of horror as well. One of the boys who accidentally follows a new creek cut into the past remarks: this sure isn’t like the Disney movie, and that description would be also be fair advice for the reader as well. The violence is frequent, explicit and relentless, relieved occasionally by flashes of humor and reflection. The series title, from a grandmother’s saying “the blood of father time only runs one way,” will be continued into two more volumes, the second to be entitled “The Mystic Clan’s Grand Plot.”
1945
Robert Conroy, Ballantine, 2007, $14.95, pb, 431pp, 0345494792
Robert Conroy turns history on its head by asking what would have happened if Japan had not surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The answer is a series of bloody encounters between invading Americans and desperate Japanese in a plausible chain of events that begins with a military takeover by hard-line Japanese officers and ends with a rescued emperor signing a peace treaty. Conroy manages to capture the spirit of Japanese militarism in his realistic portrayal of real historical figures engaging in political and military actions that were certainly possible. His American characters, principally the JapaneseAmerican OSS agent Joe Nomura, seem more finely portrayed, at least to this reviewer. Most of the figures in the novel were participants in the Pacific War (Hirohito, Ozawa, Genda, Sugiyama, MacArthur, Nimitz, Halsey) and their actions and interactions in this contrafactual story highlight the author’s extensive research into the time period.
John R. Vallely
MACARTHUR’S WAR: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan
Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson, Forge, 2007, $27.95/C$34.95, 492pp, hb, 9780765312877
THE PAINTED MESSIAH
Craig Smith, Myrmidon, 2007, £16.99, hb,
A number of questions are raised in this first part. The book begins with an alcoholic man remembering the past, and we continue between his attempts to make sense of it and the narrative itself of the three boys who go into the early 19th century at a particularly unsavory spot, where the regular denizens are rough and the river pirates who prey upon them even worse. The present-day efforts of Joel to dry out and
Imagine the U.S. has lost the Battle of Midway. Also imagine the U.S. hasn’t harnessed nuclear power and is forced to invade Japan to bring about an end to World War II. These imaginings are the basis for MacArthur’s War, which opens with MacArthur at Pearl Harbor in June 1942 and follows him through to Washington, DC, in 1948. Readers are drawn into the lives of American POWs captured in the Philippines, Japanese civilians, and soldiers on both sides fighting to save those they love. We also see how MacArthur’s decisions hold sway over them all as he strives to become the hero he believes himself to be and the hero he believes America believes him to be.
Oddly enough, the success at weaving together the stories of people is more apparent and riveting when MacArthur isn’t actually on the page. The character of MacArthur, pompous and arrogant, is a good representation of the
Alternate History-Children & YA
MacArthur most are familiar with; at the same time, the character is so frustrating (constantly speaking of himself in the first person, as in “MacArthur thinks…”) that readers might be forgiven for skimming his contributions to the story.
Portraying the sacrifices encountered in being forced to invade Japan is where this book shines. The horrors of war, no matter the rightness or wrongness of the decisions made, help make this story a well-written one. I understand why the book is called MacArthur’s War, but I’d have been happier if we hadn’t met MacArthur.
Dana Cohlmeyer
HISTORICAL FANTASY
THIRTY NIGHTS WITH A HIGHLAND HUSBAND
Melissa Mayhue, Pocket, 2007, $6.99, pb, 384pp, 9781416532866
Imagine being guaranteed safety for generations and the ability to call upon the “Fae” spirits at will at any time. Connor MacKiernan has need of the Fae folk, as he has made a foolish vow not to wed any lady in the entire land of Sithean Fardach, located in the highlands of Scotland in the year 1272. These mysterious spirits allow Connor to “borrow” and wed Caitlyn Coryll, an engaged woman living in present-day Denver, Colorado. She is presented to the MacKiernan clan as a gift from a Middle Eastern ruler, from the “Outremer” or foreign world. If it all works out, Connor’s sister, Mairi, will not have to marry a most repulsive ogre with powerful political ties. The plot, however, thickens as Connor’s father, Altair, has different plans that he believes will keep his own position safe. When Caitlyn, or Cate, rejects the hand of Blane, an opposing suitor who is part of Artair’s plans, the situation becomes dangerous. So begins events including attempted murder, conspicuous accidents, blatant insults, cultural customs that delay Cate’s arrangement and departure, and a final battle that may end not only a life but the end of the protection by the Fae folk. Delightful!
Viviane Crystal
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BEOWULF, CHAMPION OF MIDDLE EARTH
Brian M. Thomsen, ed., Carroll & Graf, 2006, $14.95, pb, 259pp, 0786718471259
This anthology contains a prose translation of the Beowulf epic by John Earle, comprising more than a third of the whole. New fantasy short stories by Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, Lynn Abbey and Wolfgang Baur, in which the ancient hero takes on dark elves, a Titan, trolls, a wraith and the master Tolkien himself, make up the rest of the offering.
the 19th century. Far be it from me to criticize early sources, but I suspect the reason for its use here is that this translation is now in public domain (and available on the Internet). I like other translations better. The attempt to maintain the lyrical kennings keeps wanting to be the poetry of the original; it seems ill-suited and clumsy in prose. The aura of the tried-and-true must have made the editor think he could sleep through this third of the book. I joined him.
Grubb’s “Beowulf and the City of the Dark Elves” was my favorite of the “Further Adventures,” with a great anthropological study of these creatures. “Geat-folk would not accept a woman’s rule, but they respected her wisdom” in Abbey’s “Beowulf and the Titan” I thought a good way to get around the perpetual problem of modern mores in the past—if a little out of pointof-view focus. Baur’s “Beowulf and the Attack of the Trolls” showed a lack self integration attributable to haste in the construction. Greenwood produced some memorable kennings in “Beowulf and the Wraith,” but the four stories ran into each other, all of the pattern “hero fights supernatural foe and wins.” I found the snippets entitled “Beowulf and the Master of His Critics,” imagining a meeting between Guy Burgess and J. R. R. Tolkien and spliced in between stories, served no purpose beyond a self-conscious “how clever am I” gratification.
Ann Chamberlin
CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT
LETTERS FROM THE CORRUGATED
Y THE COURT OF THE AIR
CASTLE: A Novel of Gold Rush California, 1850-1852
Joan W. Blos, Atheneum, 2007, $17.99/C$21.99, hb, 305pp, 9780689870774
Written in the form of letters, this unusual book is about thirteen-year-old Eldora, who has just moved with her aunt and uncle from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the gold rush bustle of 1850s San Francisco.
Eldora is an orphan. Her mother, ill with cholera, had been refused passage on a ship to San Francisco. The captain promised to take baby Eldora to her father, and her mother sent her along. But in San Francisco the captain could not find Eldora’s father, so he took her home to New England and gave her to his childless aunt and uncle.
But eventually a letter arrives. It’s from Eldora’s mother, who survived and has finally traced her daughter. Eldora has difficult choices to make. Her mother is wealthy, but has great responsibilities. Eldora wants a mother who will mother her. Her mother lives in a remote area; Eldora wants friends and schooling, but she is a girl of the 19th century, so no teenage angst and tantrums for her. She has been taught to reason and think, and with the help of her friends she makes the best decision for herself.
An excellent read with superb research, a genuine 19th century heroine and a satisfactory conclusion. Ages 10-14.
VIKING GIRL
Patrika Salmon
Pauline Chandler, Oxford Univ. Press, 2007, £5.99, pb, 224pp, 9780192754974
EDITORS’ CHOICE
Stephen Hunt, Voyager, 2007, £12.99, hb, 320pp, 9780007232178
The Land of Jackals is a warped echo of Britain during the early 19th century, and at its beating heart is the city of Middlesteel. This is home to young Molly Templar, an orphan at the Sun Gate Workhouse, and Oliver Brooks, another orphan who lives with his mysterious merchant uncle. There is something about both of them that has assassins (and just about everybody else) panting for their blood—but what is it? When Oliver comes home to find his uncle and servant both equally dead and everybody in the orphanage is found butchered, it is time for Oliver and Molly to go on the run.
To date, this has to be the best book of 2007 as far as I am concerned. Think Joan Aiken for grown-ups, with echoes of Susanna Clarke and various other talented crossover writers and you are there. Of course, this is not a historical novel but a fantasy, and if this is not your bag then you won’t necessarily like it. It is true that there are no dragons in here, but you will find plenty of dungeons and an aerial navy, a kingdom ruled by oddly appealing sentient machines, an alternative court floating high above the city, ancient ruins, forgotten gods and more adventures than you can imagine. For once, somebody has actually managed to fill a big book with a big story, and if Mr Hunt isn’t penning the sequel I am going to be very disappointed… it is that good. It might just be the book for you if you are thinking of branching out from reading mainly historical fiction, and wondering what else is out there. Not a lot of this calibre… hugely enjoyable.
Hyde N n N n
Rachel A.
John Earle made his translation of the epic in
This is the story of a young woman, Berengeria—a Viking queen who comes with her people to live on the coast of East Anglia. They are a small, vulnerable group, the survivors of a battle for supremacy between rival kings. Berengeria’s father Thorkil was killed in this battle, and right from the start we sense some mystery about his death and suspect the motives of her uncle, Vasser Wulf. The Saxons in the nearby settlement are hostile, and with good reason. Many of their people were killed in a Viking raid the year before, and the monastery was plundered of its treasure. Berengeria is determined to forge peace with her Saxon neighbours, and ensuing events make the need for peace even more imperative as both groups must unite to face a common enemy. The plot relies less on surprise than on the detailed depiction of Viking and Saxon life and the ways in which the two peoples gradually come together. The differences in language and belief are blended skilfully into the story and serve to enrich a well-written and involving tale—which ends much as expected, but is nevertheless satisfying.
My only query was about Berengeria herself, who seems to have been raised more or less as a boy, with martial training and the expectation of taking part in battles and even in single combat with men. There is no suggestion that this might have seemed unusual, either to her people or to the Saxons.
This book is a pleasure to read, the style evocative of the Viking and Saxon style of storytelling. The characters are simple, but appropriate to their time and to the saga-like nature of the story.
Ann Turnbull
IN THE MORNING
Michael Cronin, Oxford Univ. Press, 2005, £5.99, 153pp, pb, 0192754475
This is the third book in Cronin’s trilogy charting the struggle of two young boys, Frank and Les, against the Nazis. Cronin takes an interesting perspective on the Second World War, and follows the events that subsequently could have happened following a successful invasion of Britain by the Nazis.
The reader joins Frank and Les as they have just been reunited, after being separated during their work for the Resistance against the Nazi forces who are occupying England. Following an attack by an American fighter bomber, they are separated once more, as Les flees the scene quickly, while Frank lies under the rubble of the Nazi fuel tank that has exploded. Les unites with more resistance workers, whilst Frank unwittingly finds himself staying with a family of Nazi supporters. Both fear the other is dead, and Frank is still unsure whether his father is dead or alive; he has not seen him since the night the Nazis invaded their home town of Shevington.
I found that In the Morning became more interesting as the story progressed, although the constant skipping between places and events made the story confusing and difficult to follow. I also felt the end was slightly too predictable, but certainly found that it was interesting to read a novel about what could possibly have happened had the Nazis won the Battle of Britain, and succeeded in controlling the skies above the UK.
Charlotte Kemp
JOURNEY TO SAN JACINTO
Melodie A. Cuate, Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2007, $17.95, hb, 162pp, 9780896726024
Book Two in the Mr. Barrington’s Mysterious Trunk series opens when Hannah, a seventh grader, and her brother, Nick, return from a trip to the battle of the Alamo, taken by means of her history teacher’s magical trunk. When Mr. Barrington disappears, she, Nick, and friends all go back to the past to find him. Nick becomes separated from the rest of the time travelers, who link up with Sam Houston’s army. He finds refuge on the Mexican side, days before the Battle of San Jacinto, and meets the stern and noble General Castrillon, remembered by history for his principled attempt to save Alamo survivors from execution by Santa Ana. Readers see the battle from two perspectives.
This delightful story, laced with humor, will teach elementary school students about a pivotal event in Texas history. The author, a fourth grade teacher, adroitly treads an important line—giving war’s human cost due weight, without presenting the battle in excessive, graphic detail. We meet valiant soldiers on both sides. When, Nick, despite his Texan loyalties, mourns for the brave enemies slain, the reader shares his emotion. History comes alive in this magical book.
Phyllis T. Smith
BLAST TO THE
PAST: Washington’s War Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon, Aladdin, $3.99/C$4.99, pb, 120pp, 9781416933908
Blast to the Past is a marvelous series. The History Club, made up of Abigail, Bo and twin brothers Jacob and Zack, use a hand-held time travel machine made by their teacher Mr. C to convince history’s most important figures not to give up or give in to the dastardly Babs Magee
Babs, always a step ahead and a loony but appropriate villain, is out to persuade George Washington to leave Valley Forge and head back to the comforts of his home, Mount Vernon. Of course, if Washington takes the easy road the Revolutionary War will be lost. The children take George into the future, showing him the possible results of his abandoned efforts.
While Washington’s War is as satisfying and rewarding as most of the books in this award-winning series, I found Babs Magee’s actions to be wanting in this entry. The history
and information and even a terrific recipe for firecakes (a Revolutionary army staple) was there; however, the story itself was just a bit flat. Ages 7-10.
Wendy A. Zollo
WHO’S SAYING WHAT IN JAMESTOWN, THOMAS SAVAGE?
Jean Fritz, Putnam, 2007, $18.99, hb, 59pp, 9780399246449
At thirteen, Thomas Savage becomes a translator between the Jamestown colonists and the Indians. He lives with Powhatan, the chief, and Pocahontas teaches him her language and her people’s ways. Each presents challenges, but the hardest of Thomas’s job is remaining neutral. When 300 new colonists arrive, there isn’t enough room or food for them. A fire injures Captain John Smith, and false accusations force the Indians to break the peace. How will the English survive the Starving Time? Will there be war or a new truce? Can Thomas stay neutral amidst the hostilities of the settlers and the Indians? Will he achieve his dream of being a gentleman landowner with a family of his own?
Many years ago, Jean Fritz introduced children to people behind the American Revolution—men like George Washington and Samuel Adams. Her books asked a question that made these legendary men real and included facts rarely found in traditional biographies. She continues this trend with this book, but the lack of primary documentation on Thomas required her to fill in the gaps with probable, but not provable, information. She does a commendable job bringing Thomas to life and demonstrating what it was like to live in Jamestown 400 years ago. She shows both sides of the story, rather than just the English point of view. The colorful illustrations allow young readers to visualize the historical events that shaped the early days of America.
Cindy Vallar
HOW THE HANGMAN LOST HIS HEART
K. M. Grant, Puffin, 2006, £4.99, pb, 191pp, 14131950X
London, 1746. When Alice’s Uncle Frank is executed for supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite cause, his niece is determined to bring his body home for burial. The executioner Dan Skinslicer, a kind man in spite of his trade— ‘Hand always steady, steel always sharp’—tells her that Uncle Frank’s head is to be spiked on Temple Bar as a warning to others. He advises her to take the body home and be thankful that it wasn’t quartered and sent to various parts of the kingdom.
But Alice is a spirited girl as well as pretty and she refuses to leave without the head, even if she has to climb Temple Bar herself to get it. That night, she is halfway through her dangerous and gruesome task, when she is spotted by the sadistic Major Slavering, who sends Captain
Hew Ffrench up after her. Hew is terrified by heights, so Alice has to rescue him, too. Hew is plainly very taken with her, and Dan Skinslicer is on her side, but what can they do against Major Slavering and his men? They risk being labelled traitors, too, and having their own heads spiked on Temple Bar. How are they going to escape?
Frankly (excuse the pun) there’s not much history here. How a respectable girl can travel several hundred miles alone in 1746 beats me, let alone how Dan’s nagging wife manages to get a divorce at a period when it needed an Act of Parliament and a deep purse. Still, one learns a lot about hanging, drawing and quartering, which I’m sure will appeal to the ghoul in most children.
However, it’s a terrific read: pacy, funny, nail-bitingly exciting and based on the true story of an ancestor of the author’s. Children of 10+ will love it.
Elizabeth Hawksley
IVY
Julie Hearn, Oxford Univ. Press, 2006, £5.99, pb, 332pp, 0192754319
The heroine of the book captures the reader’s sympathy as her naivety, beauty and innocence are abused as her story unfolds. Born into the slums of Lambeth and set in Pre-Raphaelite London, the young woman is sent by her greedy aunt and uncle to be an artist’s (Oscar Frosdick) model in Chelsea. Her home is a London of slums, drug dens, poverty, thieves and con men. Her world takes on an even more sinister existence as her relatives make it clear she must sit for him and do whatever he asks. Unfortunately, he has a very possessive mother who seeks to remove the girl, Ivy, from her son’s life. The woman’s plans fail to devastating effect, leaving Ivy once more a victim to circumstance and vulnerable.
The girl is lost to the drug laudanum as she tries to blot out the reality of being used as a lure for skinners— leading wealthy children down alleys so that they could be stripped of their clothes and valuables.
This is a dark story that describes the abuse of innocence. The vivid characters and historical detail bring a cruel world vividly to life. This is done with great skill and despite the seriousness of the subject matter the book is not without humour. Each chapter heading is a mini revelation in itself. It is with huge relief that Ivy manages to escape and recover control over her own life.
This book is very good value for money and will be a challenge for a confident young reader.
Val Loh
1665. In this sequel to At the Sign of the Sugared Plum, sisters Sarah and Hannah escape from plague-ridden London, together with baby Grace, whose mother has died. Grace’s family fear infection, so the refugees have to spend 40 days quarantined in the pest house. Once freed, the sisters stay with Grace’s aristocratic aunt for some months before returning to their parents’ home.
May, 1666. The plague is over. Hannah and her younger sister Anne go to London to restore their sweet shop. But London has changed and many people have died, including Hannah’s sweetheart, Tom. Hannah is devastated. Then, on a visit to the King’s Theatre (courtesy of Nell Gwyn, who likes their violet comfits), she thinks she sees Tom as the assistant to Count De’ath, a magician performing there. Later, when they visit the famous Bartholomew Fair, she spots him again…
But then comes a further calamity which could destroy everything. Fire! Hannah and Anne flee for their lives and, in the stampede to escape, they lose each other…
I enjoyed this book for its graphic dramatization of a momentous event in London’s history. The noise, smell, terror, etc., are vividly evoked. I also liked the contemporary recipes for rose water, etc., at the back of the book. However, I have to say that plot, that is emotional conflict which will test the characters and show their mettle, scarcely exists. Still, the burning of London scenes are certainly exciting enough to keep one’s interest.
One serious caveat is that the story proper only begins on page 65. Sarah, Grace, and her aunt’s elegant house disappear, and we start afresh with Hannah and Anne returning to London. Structurally, it is not very satisfactory and it could confuse any reader who hasn’t read the first book
For girls aged 10 plus.
Elizabeth Hawksley
This book is the sequel to At the Sign of the Sugared Plum. You really need to have read the first book before you read this one, because it starts off exactly where the last book ended and refers to things that happened in the previous book.
The plot was very interesting, but the blurb said it was about the Fire of London, when actually it was also about the plague and getting over the plague. The part to do with the Fire of London only came right at the end of the book. I enjoyed reading the love story inside the main plot. The characters were described quite well and you get a good impression of their looks and characteristics.
92pp, 9780763634001
I confess I wasn’t sure what to think of Worlds Afire, a book written in verse about a horrific 1944 circus fire, but I tucked it in my bag as I headed off to chaperone a school trip. On the way home, on a noisy bus, I pulled it out and began reading. It wasn’t long before the voices around me were replaced with the voices of long-ago Hartford, Connecticut. Poet Paul Jameczko brings to life the people of that tragic day. His haunting poems of children, animal trainers, parents, policemen, and numerous others grab the reader and tear at the heart. We feel their desperation and their fear as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus big top, waterproofed with paraffin and gasoline (“like one huge candle/ just waiting for a light”) ignites. In a matter of minutes, 167 people are dead and another 500 are injured. This brief book is intense and can only be compared to Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust. It is no wonder Worlds Afire has been recognized as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age.
Nancy Castaldo
THE CHARIOTEER OF DELPHI
Caroline Lawrence, Orion, 2006, £8.99, hb, 242pp, 1842552562
A.D. 80. In this twelfth Roman Mystery, Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus are in Rome for the races in honour of Jupiter at the Circus Maximus between Rome’s four horse-racing teams, the Greens, Reds, Blues and Whites. Then Sagitta, the Greens’ favourite horse, is kidnapped. The children investigate. They are helped by a new friend Scopas, who is a stable boy for the Greens. Back home in Delphi, Scorpas was a talented charioteer, and he’s desperate for the chance to race in Rome. The other stable boys dislike him and make his life a misery.
A friendly beggar helps them find Sagitta, but it’s suspiciously easy. Then he finds a curse against the Greens. As the races start, the dire predictions begin to come true. The first race goes catastrophically wrong and there is a fatal pile-up. Can the children find out who is sabotaging the Greens’ chances before more charioteers die?
The plot is complicated by Nubia forming a close bond with another horse, Pegasus. Pegasus, like herself, has had bad experiences in the past. Nubia wants to take him away from the dangerous world of chariot-racing to somewhere he can roam free. But would she really steal him from the Greens’ stables? Both Nubia and Pegasus must face their worse nightmares before their troubles are solved.
PETALS IN THE ASHES
Mary Hooper, Bloomsbury, 2004, £5.99, pb, 188pp, 0747564612 / Bloomsbury USA, 2006, $6.95, 192pp, 9781582347202
I found the book a very good read.
Rachel Beggs, aged 12
WORLDS AFIRE
Paul B. Janeczko, Candlewick, 2007, $6.99, pb,
Caroline Lawrence is writing on top form. The story has pace and thrills and spills aplenty. It’s a roller-coaster of a read that grips one until the very last page. It is helped by the action being closely focused on the racing world. She
shows us the daily routine of the Greens’ racing stable: how to look after a sick horse, how to ride a chariot, what tricks were used to throw a race and how the charioteers lived—and died. Highly recommended for 8-12-year-olds.
Elizabeth Hawksley
This book is part of a series. It would help you to understand it more if you had read the others because it keeps going on about a fire which isn’t explained.
It got off to a slow start, for example, at the beginning they find a horse and then nothing happens for quite a while. There was no hook and it was hard to get into. However, by the middle I found it incredibly exciting and eventful because they discovered there was more to the mystery than they first thought. The ending was good but a little predictable. There were no descriptions of the main characters, perhaps they had appeared in the previous books, but the author described the new characters very well. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it for girls and boys aged 11-14.
Rachel Beggs, aged 12
TROUBLESOMEANGELSAND THE RED ISLAND PIRATES
Hazel Marshall, Oxford Univ. Press, 2006, £4.99, pb, 186pp, 0192726145
Bianca and Eva are making their way to Venice when they are marooned by pirates on an island en route. They find shelter with nuns and are debating what course of action to take next when they discover their archenemy Count Maleficio is in hiding on the island also.
The Count wants to kill Blanco in an act of revenge and take Eva, who he believes is the key to achieving his ultimate goal, back to Venice. Conflict and drama ensue, aided and guided in some instances by the angels who watch over our characters.
The story moves at a fast pace, with action and drama adding interest to this. The author explores moral issues when Blanco has a huge choice to make testing his loyalties. This is a colourful, lively story, made fascinating with the love of history woven into the fabric of the story and the skilful use of language.
The angels offer an extra dimension to what is already an enjoyable book. The text is broken up into easy chunks for the young reader to absorb and the use of humour and the mixed motives of the characters will also help the reader empathise with the main protagonists. Ages 9-11.
Val Loh
immigrants struggling to make enough money to live but always having enough to eat. When they are sick, Dona Maria helps cure or heal their illness. Martinez conveys the magic in Pedrito’s world where he discovers the delicious taste of ice cold water for the first time or the repeated experience of smashing open a home-grown, huge watermelon and delving into its sweet, fragrant taste. The child has a deep respect for his wise and loving parents, who consistently manage to convey their larger hopes for the future without subtracting one bit from the present.
What’s it like to enter a school where everyone speaks English and one is told how much trouble will be created by speaking Spanish on school grounds? Then what is it like when a teacher, Miss Garcia, mentors a child wanting to learn about this amazing world? What’s it like to be the first in one’s family to read a book and to teach what is learned? What wonder lies in Pedrito’s thoughts and feelings when hearing a radio for the first time? Such are the amazing moments that the reader encounters through a child’s world.
Mexican lore is celebrated in the tales told by Pedrito’s mother and father. The importance of family becomes starkly real when Pedrito loses a young friend and learns about the plight of illegal migrant workers from across the border.
Pedrito’s World should be required reading in all schools. Martinez has written a lively, dignified, and engaging story of so many of our nation’s recent Mexican immigrants.
Viviane Crystal
JULIETTE ASCENDING
R. Poole-Carter, Top Publications, 2007, $14.00, 185pp, pb, 9781929976416
Set among New Orleans’ Creole elite after the Civil War, Juliette Ascending opens with fifteen-year-old Juliette Carondel lurking on a darkened balcony, peering into a dark night in the French Quarter, and tells her story of the days leading up to and just after her first Mardi Gras ball. Of course Juliette meets a Union soldier and falls madly in love. And, of course, her parents have other plans for her future. Having led the cloistered life of a privileged Creole child, she struggles to make sense of her blossoming and finds her beliefs shaken as she witnesses a murder.
PEDRITO’S WORLD
Arturo O. Martinez, Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2007, $16.95, pb, 131pp, 9780896726000
Six-year-old Pedrito is very poor but doesn’t really know it at all until he hears that fact whispered by someone else. His family lives on a South Texas farm in the year 1941, as legal
True to form, this novel blends New Orleans’ finest elements—strict tradition, voodoo, and steamy Southern nights—into the mold of Southern gothic nearly at its best. Readers can’t miss the shadow of Romeo and Juliet hanging heavy over this young adult book; at the same time they can’t fail to be drawn into the lush, slightly sinister mood of Juliette Ascending Dripping with teenage angst, passion and will, this book has more than enough going for it to pull in readers well past the dew of youth!
Dana Cohlmeyer
CELESTE’S HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Eleanora E. Tate, Little, Brown, 2007, $15.99, hb, 279pp, 9780316523943
This is a charming book best suited for about the 10 to 15 age range, but quite entertaining and informative for adults regarding the daily life of African Americans during the 1920s all along the East Coast. In New York, emerging artists of all kinds were generating creative power that would come to be called the Harlem Renaissance. In the Carolinas, where much of this story takes place, the opportunities were more limited, but here also the separation of white and black society was fostering some financial and personal success in this American apartheid for the black population. Very few aspects of the “other half” enter into this story. So that both may learn, that is an effective style for readers of both African American and Caucasian descent. There are enough historical racial incidents to keep the story realistic, so use discretion for younger readers. The author does extensive research for her books, the highlights of which are included in an author’s note following the narrative.
Against all this lush background is the account of a young girl’s hastened entry into adulthood and her decisions about her future. When Celeste’s remaining parent becomes ill, her life with an aunt of the crabby and bossy variety promises to be unbearable. Instead, she travels to New York to be with her mother’s sister, who is believed to be a stage star. Val meets Celeste on arrival and they go right to the theater—to scrub floors because Val has lost her position. Life in New York means working hard to make ends meet, but it also means meeting Duke Ellington and the editor of the Brownies Book, her favorite magazine. An enjoyable history lesson.
Mary K. Bird-Guilliams
THE RED THREAD: A Novel in Three Incarnations
Roderick Townley, Atheneum, 2007, hb, $17.99/ C$21.99, 294pp, 1416908943
In present day Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 16-year-old Dana Landgrave has such bad dreams that they’ve landed her in therapy. But dreams aren’t her only source of conflict. She’s at odds with the yearbook editor, who prefers mundane images to Dana’s vision of photographic expression. Her parents don’t understand her: the only ones who seem to have Dana’s best interests at heart are her disabled brother Ben, her friends Chase and Trish, and her shrink, Dr. Sprague.
It’s Sprague who suggests that Dana’s present difficulties might have their root in the past, but Sprague wants to take Dana past her birth to a previous life! Later, against the more suitable backdrop of London, England, Dana begins to discover real clues to her previous life in the 18th century... but has she gone back far enough? And will remembering really end her nightmare?
Dana’s adventure to solve the mystery of her past is a compelling journey that eventually leads her recollections to the 16th century. Author Roderick Townley has drawn an immensely likable heroine whose teenaged troubles seem to pit the whole world against her over several lifetimes. Townley reveals the relevant details adeptly, so Dana’s search for the origin of her distress feels completely believable. The Red Thread is a book I wish I could have read as a kid. Ages 12 and up
Janette King
MONTMORENCY’S REVENGE
Eleanor Updale, Scholastic, 2006, £12.99, hb, 258pp, 0439950651 / Orchard, 2007, $16.99, hb, 304pp, 9780439813730
1901. Queen Victoria is dying. In this, the fourth of Montmorency’s adventures, Inspector Howard suspects a possible anarchist plot to bomb her funeral—a prime target, as all the crowned heads of Europe will be there. He asks the help of Montmorency and his friends. Someone must infiltrate the anarchist movement, and who better than Frank Fox-Selwyn, who saved the day in the previous adventure. But Frank is known to the anarchists, so he needs a new identity and, worryingly, he chooses ‘Scarper’, once Montmorency’s quick-witted, but amoral, alter ego.
Dr Robert Farcett, who is suffering from a nervous breakdown and about to undergo treatment, agrees to swap identities with Frank: the anarchists will never think of looking for ‘Frank’ in a mental hospital. Then a stranger is spotted asking questions….
There is another worry: Frank is overimpetuous, and his beloved uncle, George FoxSelwyn, was murdered by the anarchist Moretti. Will Frank put his desire for vengeance before the danger to his country?
This is a book which would benefit from a preface outlining The Story So Far, or at least a cast of characters with a brief explanation of each, as Lindsey Davis does in her Falco series. Even I, who have read the previous books, got muddled at the beginning as to who was who and what was going on, hardly surprising as the series covers 26 years and the characters’ relationships have developed over that time.
However, once the story gets going, it zips along at a tremendous pace and there are enough twists and turns and moral dilemmas to keep the readers on the edge of their seats. I particularly liked the way that modern technology— the telegraph and the telephone—and the Magic Shows, so popular at the time, had their parts to play in the plot.
Recommended for 13 plus.
Elizabeth Hawksley
STANDING IN THE SHADOWS
Jennie Walters, Simon and Schuster, 2006, £5.99/$9.99, pb, 0689875274
This is the second in the Swallowcliffe Hall series. The first book, about maidservant Polly Perkins, was set in the Victorian era. This book, which begins in 1914, takes up the story of Polly’s daughter, Grace Stanbury. Fifteen-yearold Grace lives with her parents at the gate lodge, so her life is intimately bound up with that of the Vye family who own the Hall. Grace is employed as a kitchen maid, a job for which she has absolutely no talent. However she loves looking after the horses, and escapes to the stables whenever she can. The story begins with the outbreak of the First World War and the requisitioning by the army of most of the Vyes’ horses. Grace manages to rescue Colonel Vye’s horse by riding him out of sight so that he is not taken.
Much of the book is taken up with the effects of the war on life and relationships at the Hall, and we see Grace coming into her own and growing in independence. When the stable boy joins up, she takes on his job. She also learns to drive the Rolls Royce, which is used as an ambulance when the Hall becomes a hospital for wounded soldiers. But a growing romance between Grace and the son of one of the Vyes seems hopeless.
There is a dramatic plot twist in this story that relates to events in the past and which made me feel I should read the first book again. Although it’s intriguing and cleverly worked out, this revelation is not as involving as Grace’s own story. However, readers are sure to look forward to Book 3 and the changes that World War II will bring to the Hall—and to the final resolution of the mystery that Grace has begun to uncover.
Ann Turnbull
THE QUEEN’S SPIES
Valerie Wilding, Scholastic, 2005, £5.99, pb, 208pp, 043996363X
One of the long-running My Story series, this is the fictional diary of Kitty Lumsden from 1583 to 1586, daughter of a diplomat (and perhaps a spy?) in the service of Sir Francis Walsingham and Queen Elizabeth I. Her eldest brother is also in the Queen’s service, and the whole family is loyal to the Queen.
The diary covers the years when Mary Queen of Scots was the focus of Catholic plots to bring England back to the old faith, kill Queen Elizabeth and put Mary Stuart on the throne. Kitty’s kind but unworldly middle brother, Joseph, who is studying law, becomes friendly with a group of students, including Anthony Babington, who turn out to be involved in a plot which leads to Mary’s downfall.
Most of the story is taken up with Kitty’s interest in these events and her attempts to find out what is going on. She is much given to hiding in closets and listening at keyholes, and she squirrels away all this information in her diary. This makes for an entertaining and fastmoving story that also has the merit of making
the events of that complicated period of history clear to young readers.
The details of Kitty’s family––their everyday life and small misdemeanours, outings and jealousies––bring the young girl, her time, and her city to life. This is a lively, engrossing way into history, and the short diary entries make it easy to keep reading. I found the story gripping and difficult to put down.
Ann Turnbull
NNONFICTION
JUST AMERICANS: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad
Robert Asahina, Gotham, 2007, $15.00/C$18.50, pb, 339pp, 9781592403004
The story of Japanese Americans in World War II is a fascinating drama of mass imprisonment and battlefield heroism. Young Japanese American soldiers volunteered for military service both to prove their patriotism to a skeptical nation and to convince the larger population of the injustice of “relocation camps” for their families. The 100th Battalion of the legendary Japanese American 442d Regimental Combat Team saw combat in Italy and France. Their story is told through the experiences of the soldiers in this unique unit. Readers will recognize Medal of Honor winner, and future U.S. Senator, Daniel Inouye, but other GIs featured will be those largely anonymous members of what is fittingly termed the “Greatest Generation.” Great they were, and equally outstanding is this narrative of their service and sacrifice.
John R. Vallely
GHOST HUNTERS
Deborah Blum, Penguin, 2007, $15.00/C$18.50, pb, 384pp, 9780143038955
The late 19th century was a time of remarkable scientific advancement. New discoveries by scientists, engineers and inventors were transforming the very basis of human society. In this heady atmosphere, it is hardly surprising that a number of these would ultimately turn their attention to the biggest question of all. Led by the philosopher William James, brother of the prominent author, this group began a determined investigation into the very nature of death itself.
Although billed as the “hunt for scientific proof of life after death,” the actual investigations were a rather dull and repetitious look at the world of mediums and spiritualists. More anecdotal than scientific, the results are all too familiar when viewed against a modern background of similar unproven phenomena such as UFOs, clairvoyance and the like. While the fact that such an effort was undertaken by some of the luminaries of the day is interesting, and the details of their lives are intriguing, their actual activities prove to be less so. This book
stands more as a glimpse into 19th century minds rebelling against the headlong acceptance of science, rather than a chronicle of hunting for ghosts.
Ken Kreckel
THE VOYAGE OF THE VIZCAINA
Klaus Brinkbaumer and Clemens Hoges (trans. Annette Streck), Harcourt, 2006, $15.00, pb, 310pp, 9780151011865
The Voyage of the Vizcaina is a non-fiction book about Christopher Columbus’s last ship. Is the wreck found in the Bay of Playa Damas, Panama, the Vizcaina? No one knows, for the Panama government refuses to allow archaeological exploration unless it can sell off the finds to the highest bidder.
The book is the result of sixteen years of collaboration between Der Spiegel magazine and Spiegel Television, which also gave rise to a TV program and a documentary film. Written by two members of the Der Spiegel team, it is a thoroughly researched look at what happened to the Vizcaina and therefore Columbus. It reveals a great deal that is new about the man, his voyages and the world he lived in. An excellent translator keeps the German style of phrase and spare writing, and there is superb use of original documents and charts. Half the pleasure of the book is reading Columbus’s words. The other half is in the way facts are laid out for readers, allowing them to make up their own minds about this difficult character. It’s a revealing and fascinating read, highly recommended.
Patrika Salmon
LAST WALTZ IN VIENNA
George Clare, Pan, 2007, £7.99/C$17.99, pb, 322pp, 9780330490771
Stories of Central European Jewry’s descent into the Nazi nightmare, though always shocking, are not unfamiliar. What makes George Clare’s account stand out is the affectionate, evocative, sadly humorous style in which he brings back to life his own family, the Klaars of Vienna: comfortable, upper middle-class and doomed. It also serves to illuminate the city in which they lived and loved almost to the point where it most terribly betrayed them.
In particular, Clare seeks to honour the lives of his parents, boisterous Ernst and gentle but strong-minded Stella: to each other—in spite of the occasional explosion—always loving and loyal, right up to the squalid deaths that were to be their fate. To him, the most decent of parents, although there were ructions as the boy George began his struggle towards independent manhood. Very poignant is Clare’s almost throwaway remark that he and his parents ‘were never given the time to know each other as adults.’
This is a marvellous personal memoir and, as a recreation of the fabulous lost city of old Vienna, although more limited in scope, it can
stand comparison with such exemplars of the genre as Schorske’s Fin de Siecle Vienna and Janik and Toulmin’s Wittgenstein’s Vienna.
Peter Prince
THE ORDEAL OF ELIZABETH MARSH: A Woman in World History
Linda Colley, HarperCollins, 2007, £25.00, hb, 363pp, 9780007192182 / Pantheon, 2007, $27.50, hb, 368pp, 9780375421532
The subtitle of this fascinating book is ‘A Woman in World History.’ Because it is not just a biography of a remarkable but obscure woman but because it paints a portrait of the world during the 18th century as global trade is expanding and countries are becoming rich on the traffic of people as well as commodities.
Linda Colley is a historian of renown, both here and in America, specialising in the people and politics of the 18th century. She has meticulously tracked Elizabeth Marsh’s movements to discover that women could and did travel great distances, could circumvent convention and experience a wealth of situations.
Told in clear and crisp prose, to me, this book was a revelation.
Sally Zigmond
THE
LAST
MUGHAL:
The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi
1857
William Dalrymple, Knopf, 2007, $30, hb, 534pp, 9781400043101 / Bloomsbury, 2007, £8.99, pb, 608pp, 0747587264
This engrossing book is one of Dalrymple’s best. The Indian Mutiny/War for Independence is still a controversial subject. Dalrymple avoids both overly simple explanations and tooconvoluted theories as he discusses the causes and results of the events of 1857. His research into the story of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last of the Mughal emperors, led him to the discovery of a treasure trove of previously unexamined material. Using original eyewitness accounts and Delhi court records, Dalrymple presents the reader with a full and fair account of the tragic Siege of Delhi. He brings the many people involved to vivid life, and makes understandable events that changed both England and India forever. Clear a weekend for this book, because once you start reading it’s very hard to put it down.
India Edghill
EYEWITNESS TO IRISH HISTORY
Peter Berresford Ellis, Wiley, 2007, $15.95/ C$18.99/£12.99, pb, 310pp, 9780470053126
The preeminent Celtic scholar, Peter Berresford Ellis—who also writes the Sister Fidelma series as Peter Tremayne—has gathered 1500 years of original source material for this compact book about Irish history.
Starting with excerpts from The Book of the Invasions of Ireland, Ellis cherry-picks the best
accounts from a variety of sources to illustrate the impact of major events on the people of Ireland. These eyewitness accounts offer unexpected insights: of particular interest to this reader was the successful English assassin network of the early 17th century, whose task it was to hunt down and poison the leaders of the Wild Geese. A reader who knows only a little about Irish history might find the author’s brief annotations insufficient connective tissue for a complete historical understanding, but a more serious scholar will rejoice, since many of the excerpts come from sources difficult to access and translate.
Reading this book is like pawing through the research notes of a scholar who has spent a lifetime among vellum, parchment, and microfiche. Thank you, Mr. Ellis, for sharing your treasure.
Lisa Ann Verge
THE
DRAGON AND THE FOREIGN DEVILS, China and the World, 1100 BC to the Present
Harry G. Gelber, Bloomsbury, 2007, £25.00, hb, 492pp, 9780747577959
No one would doubt the timeliness of this history at a moment when China is once again a dominant international player whose explosive economy can trigger shock waves across the world. There is no shortage of histories of this extraordinary country, but its vastness defeats neat categorisations. The West tended to see China as a dazzlingly rich warehouse, plundered by European traders eager to feed the European appetite for imported silks, spices, tea, Chinoiserie of all kinds and, infamously, opium. It is a truism borne out by Gelber’s analysis that ‘the Chinese and the Europeans had vastly different impressions of each other.’
Westerners were far more interested in China than the Chinese were in the West, a pattern that has only recently altered. Other scholars have focused on the complex story of China’s dynasties, the struggle to defend its borders and its internal politics, but, Gelber examines China’s relationship with the rest of the world and attempts to make sense of the recurring cycles of Chinese history. Although the scope is enormous, covering 3,000 or more years from Confucius to the Cultural Revolution and modern-day China, over half the book focuses on the last 150 years. When speculating on what the future may hold, Gelber argues that history is about the ebb and flow of societies and states, leavened by the inevitability of the unexpected.
Lucinda Byatt
LITERARY LONDON
Ed Glinert, Penguin 2007, £9.99/C$20.00, pb, 433pp, 9780141026244
From central London this guide directs the reader, street by street, on a literary voyage of
discovery. Characters both real and fictional are revived as their haunts and dwellings are pointed out: Dylan Thomas’s favourite drinking dens, Keats address in Cheapside where he wrote, Ode to a Grecian Urn. Shadows of Shakespeare and Dickens are to be found almost everywhere. Anyone who thinks they know London will be pleasantly surprised by the wealth of information including six walks themed around figures such as Sherlock Holmes, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf and others.
This is a book to dip into for the armchair explorer as much as the visitor to the capital and anyone who thinks they know their London.
Ann Oughton
AMERICAN SHOGUN
Robert Harvey, John Murray, 2007, £10.99, pb, 480pp, 9780719564994
This is a very competent and well-researched biographical history of General Douglas MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito, who between them largely defined the U.S. post-war occupation of Japan. The book not only tells their story but also that of the events that shaped them. A lot of research has been put into this, and the detail is totally compelling.
One niggle is that the exploits of the largerthan-life MacArthur are already well known, whereas Hirohito was a rather colourless and ineffectual individual. In short, there’s not much more to say about the one, and not much worth saying about the other. To my mind the comparison between the two men does come over as a forced attempt to generate interest.
Where the book really comes alive is in its treatment of social and political history. The American side is very interesting and informative. The Japanese part, a subject most English-speaking readers will be unfamiliar with, is even better.
Martin Bourne
THE
SEA
CAPTAIN’S WIFE:
A True Story of Love, Race, and War in the Nineteenth Century
Martha Hodes, Norton, 2007, $24.95/ C$31.00/£15.99, hb, 384pp, 9780393052664
The genesis of The Sea Captain’s Wife is the author’s study of a collection of Civil War correspondence. These letters were not from gentry or intellectuals, but a lower middle class New England family. The time before the war was difficult for the Stones, small farmers dealing with the twin forces of immigration and industrialization. Eunice went to work in the mills, married a carpenter, and hoped for a better life. She and her husband moved to Alabama, but the Civil War broke out. Eunice then took the first unconventional step in her life. Seven months pregnant, she took her son and returned to New England, where she lived in great hardship, taking in laundry to survive. When the war ended, Eunice learned she was a widow.
Despair and unrelenting labor loomed before her when a friend from the South reappeared in the startling shape of Captain Connolly of Grand Cayman, who not only loved Eunice, but was a man “of color.” Her strong religious convictions helped her find the courage to marry Captain Connolly, although her beloved brother never spoke to her again.
A highly readable piece of research which provides an unusual angle on issues of race and the role of women, this is feminist scholarship at its best.
Juliet Waldron
THE LAST MRS. ASTOR: A New York Story
Frances Kiernan, Norton, 2007, $24.95/C$31.00, hb, 256pp, 9780393057201
A who’s who of 20th-century politics and society, Kiernan’s biography provides a glimpse into a world most readers can only imagine. Born in 1902, Brooke Russell Astor had a privileged, if lonely, upbringing, living in places as far-flung as China and Panama before settling in Washington, DC, while her military father continued to travel. A disastrous first marriage at the age of seventeen to Dryden Kuser added to her already extensive skills in diplomacy, and a second marriage, this time for love, ended with the sudden death of Charles “Buddie” Marshall in 1952. Less than a year later, Brooke married Vincent Astor, a man known for his money as well as his cantankerous personality. After his death in 1959, Brooke came into her own, fighting to run the Astor Foundation, and changing the rules about philanthropy in New York. Many people will remember the 2006 controversy about Brooke’s son, Anthony Marshall, not fulfilling his obligations as caretaker, and that, too, is covered. Kiernan’s prose is rambling at times, and it can be difficult keeping people, places, and timelines straight; for the voyeur wanting a look at a glamorous world, however, this is worth a quick read.
Helene Williams
TWILIGHT OF SPLENDOR: The Court of Queen Victoria During Her Diamond Jubilee Year
Greg King, Wiley, 2007, $30.00/C$35.99, hb, 352pp, 97800470044391
Subtitled The Court of Queen Victoria during Her Diamond Jubilee Year, this narrative history suggests that “Twilight of Splendor” is limited to detailing the pomp and circumstance of the Jubilee Year. This is not the case. There are many descriptions of the life and times of Victoria Regina occurring before her Jubilee, events that took place while her “beloved” Albert was still alive. Amid catalogue-like descriptions of rooms and suites in various residences occupied by Queen Victoria are vignettes of court life, the royal family, and royal servants. Far from hiding from the public, Victoria traveled from royal
residence to royal residence like a desert nomad going from oasis to oasis. She visited the French Riviera regularly. One hotel built a separate wing that was kept for the exclusive use of the queen and the royal entourage. Relationships with her family, her staff, including the interesting Indian munshi, Abdul Karim, who replaced the deceased highlander, John Brown, as companion-servant are related.
King has written an account that could be an invaluable reference source for details of Victoria’s life, activities, duties, and relationships. He gives us glimpses of a very human and likeable person that the history books do not often convey.
Audrey Braver
AUSTERITY BRITAIN, 1945-51
David Kynaston, Bloomsbury, 2007, £25.00, hb, 692pp, 9780747579854
Try to imagine a world without supermarkets, television, automatic washing machines, personal computers, package holidays with almost every necessity rationed, and you might just begin to understand what it was like to live in Britain in 1945. Through personal testimony and excellent illustrations from Picture Post, the people’s story unfolds. The Labour Party’s landslide victory promised a new Britain for the working classes, the Welfare State was born, but there was an acute housing shortage in the battle scarred cities, and one-third of the inadequate dwellings did not have a bath or indoor lavatory. Housewives were forced to queue for hours for the meagre food rations. The often criticised school system did allow for a social mobility at this dawn of the new and more egalitarian Britain that would follow.
For those who remember the post-war era, this mammoth account will revive a mixed bag of memories: for others it will provide an unprecedented view of British society in a quickly changing world. This is the first volume in the series, Tales of a New Jerusalem, from V.E Day until the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. I look forward to the next instalment.
Ann Oughton
EDITH WHARTON
Hermione Lee, Knopf, 2007, $35.00, hb, 870pp, 9780375400049 / Chatto & Windus, 2007, £25.00, hb, 860pp, 9780701166656
The most well-known of Wharton’s novels, The Age of Innocence, allows a window into the life of this remarkable woman, as Lee’s biography reminds us. Wharton was a woman whose own marriage was a “hollow mockery.” She was raised an American but her life took on a wholly European flavor. Her life was largely about appearances and being watched. She was not above exploiting these themes to illuminate her image as well as her art.
And yet the picture that emerges from this exhaustive and entertaining book is one of a
woman achieving a great deal for her time. Through her novels—themselves tales of lonely people struggling against convention and private ambition—she left behind the strands of a story that sticks with us today: how America deals with its European cultural origins, and how we both flee them and embrace them at the same time. There is fulfillment, she seems to be telling us, in unfulfillment.
William Thornton
WHAT THIS CRUEL WAR WAS OVER:
Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War
Chandra Manning, Knopf, 2007, $26.95/ C$34.95, hb, 350pp, 9780307264824
No one can go back in time, conduct an opinion poll, and ask Civil War soldiers why they fought. Chandra Manning has done the next best thing, reading and analyzing scores of letters, diaries, and regimental newsletters from the period. This absorbing history is the result of her effort to glean the Civil War’s meaning to its participants. Her abundant quotes from primary sources give the reader a window into the thinking of black and white, Union and Confederate troops. She maintains that, in the view of most soldiers, the war was clearly about slavery. Northern soldiers often became more strongly abolitionist in outlook as they encountered the ”peculiar institution” during the war, and their fervor helped make the end of slavery inevitable. For white Southerners, abolition meant dangerous social chaos. Occasionally, Manning’s conclusions go beyond her data, for example when she states that, for Southerners, “Recognition of a man’s honor chiefly depended upon his demonstration of authority over subordinates, including women, children, and African Americans, whether or not he owned slaves.” Nonetheless— and especially when she gives us the soldiers’ words unvarnished—this is an enlightening, fascinating book.
Phyllis T. Smith
ALAMO
IN THE ARDENNES
John McManus, Wiley, 2007, $24.95, hb, 296pp, 9780471739050
Focusing on the opening of the Battle of the Bulge, this book tells the story of the men who bore the brunt of the initial German onslaught. Heavily outnumbered and out-gunned, it was up to them to delay the enemy sufficiently to allow the American Army time to react to the German’s surprise offensive. Without them, there would have been no epic battle of Bastogne, and the Allies might have gone on to suffer a great defeat. In exchanging their lives for precious time, they helped ensure the ultimate defeat of Hitler’s last gamble.
Although “Alamo” is used in the title, there is nothing of an American icon here – no Spanish mission, no immortal names such as Crockett,
and Travis. There are just ordinary men, who, when caught up in a damnable situation, responded by doing their duty. If they are unknown to us now, it is because many of them ended their lives in a score of now forgotten “Alamos.”
The author has the head of an historian but the heart of a writer. He brings order into the chaos of a confusing and fluid battlefield, while not losing sight of the desperate, frightened, and heroic men immersed in it.
Ken Kreckel
FOUR GIRLS FROM BERLIN
Marianne Meyerhoff, Wiley, 2007, $24.95/ C$29.99, hb, 241pp, 97800471224051
When the author was small, a rabbi who had survived the Holocaust told her, “In you has your whole family been redeemed.” Meyerhoff’s parents were German Jews, the sole survivors of their extended families. In this memoir, the author bears witness, aided by numerous photographs and family keepsakes preserved at great risk throughout World War II by her mother’s three closest girlhood friends, all German Christians. Their human decency contrasts with the story of Meyerhoff’s mother’s voyage on the St. Louis, a refugee ship fleeing Nazi Germany and denied harbor by many countries, including the United States. Despite the circumstances that separated them, the “four girls from Berlin” struggled to keep faith with each other throughout their lives.
The pictures from family albums, reproduced in the book, are profoundly moving, as is Meyerhoff’s story. Born in America after fortuitous circumstances brought her parents here, she has made many trips to Germany in search of people and places from her parents’ past. This is a well-written memoir devoid of the genre’s frequent self-absorption, reflecting her grappling with one central question. Is it true, as her mother believed despite her suffering, that most people are essentially good?
Phyllis T. Smith
THE RENAISSANCE POPES: Statesmen, Warriors and the Great Borgia Myth
Gerard Noel, Carroll & Graf, 2006, $27.95, hb, 403pp, 9780786718412 / Constable and Robinson, £25.00, hb, 288pp, 9781845293437
To say the Renaissance popes were not known for their morality would be an understatement, but neither were some of them, Noel asserts, quite so bad as the accepted historical understanding would have us believe. Noel covers the colorful reigns of seventeen different popes, from Nicholas V to Pius V, allowing the reader to witness the Renaissance cultural flowering of the arts, wars, murder, reform, and more.
Noel’s writing style is accessible and his research seems to be thorough, although some popes are given much more chapter space than
others. It is obvious that this book is apologetic in tone, especially where Alexander VI (patriarch of the infamous Borgia clan) is concerned, but Noel does not gloss over the horrendous deeds of some of the popes he covers. At the same time, he examines these men in light of the age in which they lived, emphasizing the importance in 15th century European society of promoting family interests to illustrate that those of the Renaissance period would not have had the same reaction to the nepotism of some popes as do current biographers and historians. Overall, this book is an interesting look at Renaissance popes and the times in which they lived.
Bethany Latham
READING JUDAS, The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of History
Elaine Pagels & Karen L. King, Allen Lane, 2007, £16.99, hb, 198pp, 9780713999846 / Viking, 2007, $24.95, hb, 224pp, 9780670038459
One of the big questions about the death of Jesus, of abiding fascination to theologians, historians and the just plain curious, is the nature of the role of Judas Iscariot. Tale spinners from Dante to Rice and Lloyd Webber have been seduced by Judas and for many years rumours circulated of the existence of a Gospel of Judas. This was discovered in the 1970s, and Reading Judas is a scholarly, though accessible, summation of the work which has taken place over the past 30 years to translate the gospel and decode Judas’ story. The gospel claims that Jesus asked Judas to betray him, to set in motion the Passion which was necessary for the redemption of mankind, also that Judas did not commit suicide but was murdered by his fellow disciples.
One is tempted to quote Christine Keeler: ‘well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’ But whether the gospel is truth or propaganda, its themes are thought provoking and Pagels and King provide a concise guide as well as a translation of the gospel itself. An intriguing read.
Sarah Bower
SWORD AND BLOSSOM
Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams, Penguin, 2007, $15.00, pb, 368pp, 9780143112143
Sword and Blossom is subtitled “A British Officer’s Enduring Love for a Japanese Woman,” but in light of what Arthur HartSynnot actually does to his Japanese love, one can’t help wishing the authors had been a little less dispassionate, and had actually examined that crucial decision in Cannes in 1919. Why did Arthur do what he did? The authors skate round the reasons, and their lack of analysis spoils an otherwise excellent book.
The story is based on the 800 letters Arthur sent Masa, his Japanese love, whom he met in
Tokyo in 1905. Stationed there to learn Japanese and how the Japanese army worked, now that Japan was Britain’s ally, the Captain soon enjoyed a Japanese social life, met Masa, and set up home with her. Much research went into the book, and it is worth reading for the detailed information about Anglo-Japanese history, life in Japan, the life of a British officer in the early 20th century, and the Irish problem as seen from an Anglo-Irish family like the Hart-Synnots.
As for the “love” story. Was it doomed from the start by class, race and prejudice, or was it a grand romance that shone like a bright star despite wars and racial prejudice? The authors haven’t decided, so you need to make up your own mind after you’ve read the book, and weigh the evidence yourself.
Patrika Salmon
THE CRESCENT CITY LYNCHINGS: The Murder of Chief Hennessy, the New Orleans “Mafia” Trials, and the Parish Prison Mob Tom Smith, Lyons, 2007, $24.95, hb, 344pp, 15992289010
The record surrounding lynchings, race killings and mass crowd hysteria in American history has grown exponentially in the past ten years. Smith’s book, however, deals with an ethnically charged episode in New Orleans, which allows him to examine the attitudes and characters of the post-bellum Crescent City.
One hallmark of the lynching narrative is the story a community tells itself after such an episode, which largely casts its citizens in a favorable light as having established ad-hoc justice to a momentary eruption of chaos. The truth beneath the surface is usually much more complicated.
There is plenty of local flavor to spare in this well-researched volume, which covers the events following the 1890 murder of Police Chief David Hennessy. When the bleeding Hennessy whispered vaguely that Italians were responsible for his death, it was largely blamed on the infiltration of the Mafia. Suitable suspects were rounded up for trial, but the defendants were acquitted. The “mob” that responded to this was not a foreign-born criminal conspiracy but a homegrown one. The end result comes through in this book, with the right mix of scholarship and storytelling.
William Thornton
BILLY THE KID: The Endless Ride
Michael Wallis, Norton, 2007, $24.95/ C$34.00/£16.99, hb, 288pp, 0393060683
Henry McCarty aka William Bonney aka Billy the Kid lived a short but violent life from 1859 until he was killed by Pat Garrett in 1881. Michael Wallis attempts to debunk the myth about this famous outlaw. The book should have been titled The Life and Times of Billy the Kid because it also presents a broad picture of how
people lived in the West during young Billy’s short life.
With over fifty pages of endnotes, Wallis has gathered a thorough background of Billy’s life. Believed to have been born in an Irish neighborhood of New York City, young Henry McCarty and his family moved to Wichita, Kansas, to Denver, Colorado, and finally to New Mexico. He learned to survive in the streets by becoming an expert at handling a gun. Because he was small of stature and very thin, he was unable to hold his own in a fistfight. The Lincoln County wars, fought during the 1870s, created an arena whereby powerful men, to fight their opposition, would use young men like Billy the Kid to fight their battles.
I enjoyed reading this biography. I have a better understanding of Billy the Kid and now realize he wasn’t the terrible killer that has been presented in books and movies in recent years. His life was an example of how a young man who lived by the gun died by the gun.
Jeff
Westerhoff
DECENCY AND DISORDER: The Age
of Cant 1789-1837
Ben Wilson, Faber & Faber, 2007, £25.00, hb, 510pp, 9780571224685
The generation that grew up during the Napoleonic Wars was notorious for its boisterous character, plain-speaking, hard drinking, cherishing of freedom, the right to behave almost as they pleased. With the dawn of Queen Victoria’s reign attitudes had begun to change. A new generation espousing ‘Victorian values’ came to the fore: it might be counterproductive to provide financial assistance for the poor as it could encouraging idleness: wayward youth was the result of lack of respect for the parent, schoolmaster and employer: providing a programme of rehabilitation for prostitutes might actually encourage prostitution as poor girls would be tempted to seek this government aid instead of honest work. The British could not give up their loutish behaviour without protest and accused the new thinkers as indulging in cant and they were seen not as becoming more moral, as rather more censorious and hypocritical. The parallels with today are obvious: anti-social behaviour and the rise of religious bigotry.
This is an outstanding work of social history, and perhaps it is pertinent that the last, not very hopeful word, is given to the German philosopher, Kant: ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight was ever fashioned.’
Ann Oughton
SPEAKING IN THE PAST TENSE: Canadian Novelists on Writing Historical Fiction
Herb Wyile, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2006, $26.95/C$26.95, 327pp, pb, 9780889205116 Wyile conducted interviews with eleven
writers of Canadian historical fiction to create a wide-ranging conversation about the challenges and significance of historical writing. The critical backdrop of postcolonialism, the increased recognition of Native peoples (and the decrease in the Anglocentric viewpoint), and the complicated relationship of fiction and history all provide fascinating points of discussion. Authors interviewed are Guy Vanderhaeghe, Rudy Wiebe, Jane Urquhart, Wayne Johnston, George Elliott Clarke, Margaret Sweatman, Fred Stenson, Joseph Boyden, Heather Roberston, Thomas Wharton, and Michael Crummey, who provide not only geographic representation, but also a range of writing experience and viewpoints. Readers can discover the very real connections between the writers and history, such as Heather Robertson’s revelation, at age ten, that the information on gravestones told stories about the people buried underneath; Joseph Boyden’s interest in military history and Aboriginal soldiers stemmed from a desire to know more about his father, whom he never knew. Brief author biographies and pictures (both contemporary and historical) add further layers of meaning to this insightful volume.
Helene Williams
RITES OF PEACE: The Fall of Napoleon & the Congress of Vienna
Adam Zamoyski, HarperCollins, 2007, £25, hb, 569 pp, 9780007197576 / HarperCollins, 2007, $29.95, hb, 656pp, 9780060775186
This is an astonishingly rich work, packed with detail and analysis. Not simply about the Congress of Vienna, it establishes the historical context and explores the events surrounding the congress, and the author offers detailed vignettes of the main players, from Talleyrand to the Tsar of Russia, whilst managing to establish a sense of intimacy in the narrative.
We read of Castlereagh and his family, including his young nephew and niece, all setting out in the fog on Boxing Day, 1813, to cross to Holland where Castlereagh was to meet with the Prince of Orange. We are even told about Lady Castlereagh’s bulldog (the wonderfully named Venom) and the horrendous crossing in a bitterly cold gale. It is refreshing to read a more nuanced exploration of the capabilities and character of Talleyrand (Napoleon’s merde en bas de soie) and the machinations of Metternich.
Zamoyski claims that the consequences of the Congress of Vienna “include all that has taken place in Europe since”. Certainly, one sees an incredible similarity between the negotiations and machinations of the politicians and diplomats then and comparable events now. Finally, there are lots of lovely maps, sumptuous endpapers and extensive footnotes. It is impossible in such a short space to do the work justice. Highly recommended.
Geraldine Perriam
