Archive for Mystery and Suspense
July 7, 2008 at 4:17 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
91. Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth (Mystery) 332 p.
Although they’re hardly earth-shattering, I quite enjoy reading Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries. They’re comfort reading: when I don’t feel like tackling anything too challenging, they’re perfect, charming and engaging without requiring any thought. Grey Mask is no exception.
What does separate this novel from the others in the series is that it’s the first, and it’s clear that Wentworth had yet to find her stride. Miss Silver isn’t quite as Miss Silver-ish as usual, lacking many of her most distinctive traits. The mystery is a bit different than usual, and Inspector Frank Abbott and Chief Inspector Lamb, Miss Silver’s usual police contacts, don’t appear, even though their presence would make the story more plausible, suggesting that their characters hadn’t been thought up yet. The bare bones of the Miss Silver series are there, but the usual fine touches are absent. That’s okay, though; Miss Silver is as gentle and intelligent as ever, and the narrative flows easily.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pages read: 26,848
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Miss Silver, Patricia Wentworth
July 7, 2008 at 1:52 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
84. Callander Square by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 256 p.
It’s been so long since I read this that my impressions have mostly faded, but I do remember enjoying it a fair bit. Callander Square is the second in Perry’s Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, which by now runs to over two dozen books. In the first book, The Cater Street Hangman, Charlotte was a middle-class, young living with her parents in Victorian London. By the end of that book, Charlotte has had many of her illusions about her feelings and her world shattered, and has managed to fall in love with the decidedly unsuitable Inspector Pitt. In this next book, Charlotte and Pitt have already been married for some time, which is a shame, since I would have liked to witness Charlotte’s family’s reactions to her marriage, as well as Thomas and Charlotte’s marriage and early days living together. Oh, well–maybe Anne Perry will go back and write that book someday.
In Callander Square, the bodies of two newborns are found buried in the park in the middle of an upscale London square, and it’s Pitt’s job to investigate. It’s quite possible that there has been no foul play, and that they babies were merely stillborn or died soon after birth, and that their mother, likely an unmarried woman, buried them there to avoid disgrace or dismissal. The babies’ mother may be a servant, but there is a possibility that she belongs to one of the wealthy, upper-class families living in the square. Charlotte and her sister Emily become involved, ferreting out gossip to help Pitt in his investigation.
Except for Perry’s usual abrupt ending, I enjoyed this book and found it a satisfying blend of mystery and historical fiction. Anne Perry really does her research into the period, and it shows; none of the characters’ behaviour seems anachronistic, and their thoughts, morals, and preoccupations are decidedly Victorian. It’s an author of rare skill who can write period characters who come to life and are true to their time, and yet are distinct individuals, each with his or her own beliefs and opinions.
There’s no need to read Anne Perry’s novels in order, since although there’s character development throughout the series, the books stand alone perfectly well. This book is a slight exception, since it’s the first of three which all feature prominently a family of recurring characters, the Balantynes, and the later books contain spoilers for the earlier. Callander Square, Death in the Devil’s Acre, and Bedford Square should not be read out of that order.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pages read: 24,613
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Anne Perry, General Balantyne, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
June 1, 2008 at 6:16 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense
83. A Dog Among Diplomats by J.F. Englert (Mystery) 305 p.
This is the sequel to A Dog About Town. It may be that my mood has improved, or that this book appeals more to my personal tastes, but I think I enjoyed this book far more than the first because the author has found his feet in the genre. Not that I didn’t like A Dog About Town, but A Dog Among Diplomats is something special.
For one thing, while its prequel had many amusing moments, this book was funny all the way through. Randolph has really come into his own as a narrator, with a lot of astute observations on human beings and Manhattan society.
Perhaps this is the best place to mention that, as the cover suggests, Randolph the narrator is a dog. To be precise, he is a portly Labrador Retriever with a brain as sharp as his body is round, and a particular fondness for literature. He and his owner, a young man named Harry, are both still grieving for Harry’s almost-fiancée, Imogen, who went out for bread one evening and never came back. Randolph knows that his mistress is still alive somewhere, but Harry doesn’t, until one evening he gets a phone call from the officer who was in charge of the missing person case.
Harry is called to the scene of a crime, where a young man has been drugged and strangled, his murdered body left under a parachute in his rented room in the boardinghouse where he apparently lived with Imogen. She herself has disappeared, and is the chief suspect in the investigation. Randolph no doubt that she is innocent, and sets out to clear her name with the unwitting help of Harry, a United Nations diplomat named Leopold, and an Australian lawyer who goes by the nickname “Blinko”.
Although this book has a number of priceless moments, I think my favourite is the one where Randolph proves his bibliophile credentials once and for all:
Leopold’s laptop had a pointing device, which was difficult to manipulate with my snout. Just as I was about the navigate to my e-mail account, my nose slipped and suddenly I found myself in an entirely different place, a magical place, an extraordinarily wonderful place. Somehow I had stumbled upon an online bookstore. With a few more snout strokes and keypad jabs, I made my way to a specific screen where, floating on the screen in near three-dimensionality, I found The Inferno of Dante (the Pinsky translation)…. Not only was the Dante for sale, but it had been paired with a second title that I longed to read, Joyce’s Ulysses (I had devoured his Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, courtesy of Imogen’s college collection). For a substantial discount a purchaser could get both books and a tote bag with Virginia Woolf’s profile emblazoned on both sides….
Lost in the moment, I added the two books (and the complimentary tote bag) to my shopping cart and , putting aside any ethical concerns, I hurriedly entered Harry’s credit-card number—which I easily recalled from the many times he had spoken it aloud when ordering food delivery. Then I typed in our address and selected Priority Delivery.
(pp. 169-170)
This book is fundamentally similar in style to A Dog About Town, but the humour is sharper, the plot tighter, and the characters more fully developed. The ongoing storyline of Imogen’s disappearance was more interesting, and the hint in the epilogue about where Randolph and Harry will be going next makes me eager for more books in this series!
ETA: I forgot to mention this, but my free copies of A Dog About Town and A Dog Among Diplomats were both signed for me by the author, which I thought was a really nice touch. Thanks, J.F. Englert!
Pages read: 24,357
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Bull Moose Dog Run, J.F. Englert
June 1, 2008 at 12:35 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
82. A Dog About Town by J.F. Englert (Mystery) 271 p.
When I was contacted about reviewing this book, I was interested but a little hesitant. The concept sounded fun, but could so easily have been gimmicky or cutesy in the wrong hands. Luckily for me, J.F. Englert’s hands are clearly the right ones for this mystery novel starring a Labrador Retriever as the detective and narrator.
I’m not particularly fond of dogs, but I still enjoyed this book very much. Randolph is an engaging narrator, with a thoughtful, philosophical nature that lends itself to deep reflection and logical thought. This comes in handy when his owner, good-natured twenty-something Harry, becomes involved in a case of sudden death that turns out to be murder.
Randolph is an unusual dog, one who balances a human-like intellect with his irresistible canine instincts and urges. He may read Dante, but he also can’t resist the lure of a roll in particularly fragrant sidewalk paté.
This book would probably appeal most to someone who loves dogs, but even I was charmed by Randolph and interested by the details of a Manhattan dog’s life. I would recommend A Dog About Town to any mystery fan, and it’s a must-read for dog lovers!
Pages read: 24,052
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Bull Moose Dog Run, J.F. Englert
May 27, 2008 at 2:40 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
80. Dark Assassin by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 308 p.
I’m not really a fan of this series. I like Perry’s Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novels, but William Monk has never appealed to me, and although his wife Hester’s part of the story is always interesting, it’s never prominent enough to carry the book. I found that to be true in Dark Assassin, even though I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
Now an Inspector in the Thames River Police, Monk and some of his men are on the river when they witness a tragedy: a young couple standing on a bridge seem to struggle, then both fall into the water far below and are almost instantly drowned. From their vantage point on the water, in the twilight gloom, neither Monk nor any of his men are sure whether the couple’s fall was suicide or murder.
It soon becomes clear to Monk that whatever the cause of the incident, it is tied up with the apparent suicide of the young woman’s father weeks earlier, and with the sewer construction taking place all over London. Six years earlier, the Great Stink—when the Thames and its tributaries overflowed with raw sewage—turned much of London into a giant cesspit.
Although I appreciate Anne Perry’s mastery in creating a character like Monk, a flawed human being who develops and comes to know himself better with every book, I don’t really like Monk himself, and I don’t take much pleasure in reading about him. I liked Dark Assassin mostly for Hester’s part in it, and for some of the other interesting characters, like Runcorn, Orme, and Scuff. The mystery plot was about average for Perry, good but not spectacular. If you like the Monk series, though, there are a lot of interesting developments; some of them actually made me want to pick up later books in the series, just to see how those ongoing plot lines turned out.
Pages read: 23,557
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Anne Perry, William Monk
May 27, 2008 at 2:27 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
79. Seven Dials by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 345 p.
When a prominent politician’s mistress is arrested for murder, and it seems the politician himself is in some way involved, Victor Narraway, head of Special Branch, sends Thomas Pitt o investigate. Ayesha Zakhari, an Egyptian citizen, is accused of having murdered a low-level diplomat who was shot dead in her back garden at 3 a.m. Although she denies the charge, the fact that she was caught red-handed trying to move the body—shot with her gun—seems to confirm her guilt beyond any doubt. Her lover, Saville Ryerson, denies any possibility of her guilt, but he’s hardly an unbiased witness.
I found it strange that all the characters (including Pitt) seemed utterly convinced of Zakhari’s guilt, since to me it seemed quite obvious that the murder might be a political plot, which didn’t occur to Pitt until the second half of the book. Although the solution turned out not to be so straightforward, it was very odd that no one even considered the possibility, even as Pitt was assigned to the case to limit its political repercussions. And especially since everyone agreed, on multiple occasions, that the only motive Zakhari had for the murder was inadequate to the point of absurdity.
I was also annoyed that no one, including Pitt, interviewed Ayesha Zakhari after she was arrested. Pitt was supposedly investigating the case, but although he asked Ryerson some half-hearted questions, he didn’t make any attempt to question the prime suspect! One could assume that, knowing that Zakhari had refused to speak to the police, Pitt concluded that there was no reason to even try to get her to talk to him, but we never actually see him make that decision. He investigates her, a tries to find out who she is from other people, but it never seems to occur to him that he could easily find out what she’s like by meeting her and judging her for himself.
I point out these two things (the automatic assumption of Zakhari’s guilt and the failure to interview her), not because they’re particularly important or affected my enjoyment of the book in any significant way, but because they’re just so odd, especially given Perry’s usually tight and polished plots.
This book was amazing, though; definitely one of Perry’s best. I was ecstatic to find that it contained no Inner Circle politics at all, so I could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the mystery and Perry’s excellent-as-usual historical writing. The revelations about Narraway felt very right, and allowed Pitt to build some personal trust in him, something I wasn’t sure would ever happen.
Gracie and Tellman were incredibly cute, as usual, and I was glad to see their relationship progress. Tellman in particular has developed a lot as a character over the series; in that respect, he actually reminds me of William Monk, the protagonist of Perry’s other long-running series of Victorian mysteries.
The mystery in Seven Dials was a particularly good one, and seeing Pitt visit Egypt in the course of the investigation was icing on the cake!
Pages read: 23,249
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Anne Perry, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
May 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
78. Southampton Row by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 336 p.
Just like Traitor’s Gate, Southampton Row features Thomas Pitt against the might of the Inner Circle, a secret society with vast influence on Victorian politics. Having been transferred against his will from his post as Superintendent of Bow Street Station to a position with Special Branch, Pitt finds himself working against his nemesis, Sir Charles Voisey, who is standing for parliament. His opposition is the untried Aubrey Serracold, a friend of Pitt’s brother-in-law, Liberal MP Jack Radley.
Serracold’s idealist, left-leaning politics might be enough to damn him, even in his traditionally Liberal riding, but a worse obstacle emerges when his wife Rose becomes involved in a murder investigation.
I spent most of the first part of this book bored by Inner Circle conspiracies, and wishing that the story would focus on a real mystery. Even though I ended up enjoying the mystery, I really wish the Inner Circle had been left out of this book (and that it would be left out of subsequent books!) I was happy to see that the solving of two crimes once again allowed resolution of at least some of the plot threads!
Pages read: 22,904
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Anne Perry, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
May 27, 2008 at 12:36 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
77. Traitors Gate by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 411 p.
I can hardly believe I’m still posting reviews from books I read a couple of weeks ago. I was away, without internet access, when I read them, and when I got back, my home internet was down! But now it’s fixed, yay.
This is yet another of Anne Perry’s fabulous historical mysteries featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. It’s also one of the first of the series in which Pitt faces off against a secret society called the Inner Circle. I have no idea whether there’s any historical model for the society, but Perry makes its existence and activities fairly plausible, which isn’t easy to do.
If you’ve read some of the series, you probably know that Pitt grew up the son of a gamekeeper, and that when his father was wrongly convicted of poaching, his employer, Sir Arthur Desmond, allowed Pitt and his mother to stay on at the estate, and educated Pitt with his own son, Matthew. Despite his gratitude and love for Sir Arthur, Pitt has not seen any of the family since he was eighteen, so it’s a double blow when Matthew comes with the news that his father is dead. Most people assume that Sir Arthur’s death was an accident or even suicide, but Matthew is convinced that he was murdered by the Inner Circle, and wants Pitt’s help in clearing his father’s name.
Matthew also has another case to lay before his old friend: information from the Colonial Office is being leaked to the Germans, and Britain’s position in Africa is at risk.
As usual, Perry’s historical writing is excellent. Much of the case turns on the politics of British colonialism in Africa. The characters fight for their beliefs as if the outcome were still undecided—Perry doesn’t make the mistake of having all the good people espouse modern-day opinions, or having all the villains be rabid imperialists. Their positions on the issue seem to spring naturally from the personalities and from what was known about Africa at the time. Anne Perry’s characters aren’t just real people, they’re real Victorians. The tragedy, of course, is that we all known what happened in Africa, with Cecil Rhodes and the Afrikaners and King Leopold. We know what’s coming, even though the characters don’t.
I was a little reluctant to read this book, because I was afraid of the secret society element. It seemed such a departure from her earlier works, but this novel was as good as any of her books, and better than most.
I think I’ve mentioned before that for me, one of the drawbacks of Anne Perry’s novels is that she doesn’t believe in dénouement, cutting off most of her stories right after a dramatic arrest. It always feels abrupt to me, and most of the time I’m left wondering what the characters think, or what happens to them afterwards. The ending of Traitors Gate is better than usual because it actually has two climaxes, so we get to seem some of the aftermath of the first climax, at least.
Traitors Gate is an unexpectedly fabulous addition to the Pitt series!
Pages read: 22,568
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Anne Perry, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
May 22, 2008 at 9:52 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
75. Half Moon Street by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 311 p.
This is, hands down, one of the very best mystery novels I’ve ever read. I’ve complained before about having put together important pieces of the puzzle before the characters in other Anne Perry novels, but that wasn’t a problem in this book. I was hooked from the beginning, and I didn’t put it down until the end.
Superintendent Thomas Pitt of Bow Street Station investigates some of the most sensitive crimes in Victorian London. When a man’s body, dressed in a green gown and laid out in a boat in a suggestive pose, is found floating down the Thames, Pitt is the natural person to handle the investigation.
Meanwhile, Pitt’s mother-in-law, Caroline, is finding that marriage to a Jewish actor seventeen years her junior has even more difficulties than she anticipated, while her first husband’s mother, Mariah Ellison, finds her peace threatened by a relative from America.
I didn’t see the ending coming at all, even though it arose naturally from everything that came before it. I adored the interaction between Caroline and Mariah, and the revelations about Mariah’s past.
Anne Perry investigates real moral issues in her fiction, without applying today’s values. She never writes as though the outcome were already decided, even when it is, from our point of view. She never patronizes her characters, and that’s part of what makes her historical writing so effective and believable.
Pages read: 21,771
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Anne Perry, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
May 22, 2008 at 8:26 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
74. Bedford Square by Anne Perry (Historical mystery) 327 p.
The dead body of an unknown man is found in the doorway of a house in Bedford Square, and Superintendent Thomas Pitt is called in. The house belongs to General Balantyne, an old friend of Pitt’s wife Charlotte. The only connection between the General and the body is an expensive snuffbox found in the dead man’s pocket. Pitt soon discovers that a terrifying blackmail operation is somehow involved.
I loved this book, even though it had a few drawbacks. Once again, something I found obvious stumped the characters for far too long. The connection between the blackmail victims was mentioned an incredible number of times before anyone caught on, which was quite frustrating. Some authors keep their characters from putting the pieces together because they don’t share their knowledge; Perry thankfully avoided that, but instead they were all blind to the obvious.
Once again, I found that the ongoing characters were my favourite thing about the book. True world-building is rare in mystery novels, since they’re usually firmly based in reality, but Anne Perry brings the Victorian era to life in a way I’ve rarely seen in any historical novel.
As always, the case was engaging and complex, and Perry made me really care about the solution. She also did her usual excellent job of revealing the seamier side of Victorian London, without seeming preachy, or self-congratulatory about how far (we think) our society has come since then.
The Anne Perry novels I’ve read lately (and there are others still to be reviewed) have confirmed for me that she’s a truly great mystery author as well as an inspired historical writer.
Pages read: 21,460
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Anne Perry, General Balantyne, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
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