Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews"

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[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
 
[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0571370977
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|title=The Lock-Up
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|author=John Banville
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, Phoebe.  The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficult.  They're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of a young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, is found in a lock-up.  At first, it looked as though she'd gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529337968
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|title=In Place of Fear
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|author=Catriona McPherson
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the day that the NHS is born.  She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and her job will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health.  The hardest part of the job will be to persuade people that the services she offers really are free and that they don't have to do anything to qualify for them.  Some of the problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a problem of her own which might give her some insight.  Her marriage has never been consummated.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=057136358X
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|title=April in Spain
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|author=John Banville
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms.  He saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''.  I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo.  He enjoyed his job, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time''.  He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morning''?  It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H
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|title=The Mystery of Healing
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|author=A P McGrath
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace.  The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to live.  It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive.  The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals.  Today, it's the crocodiles.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1529337925
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|title=The Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver)
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|author=Catriona McPherson
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=It was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the sofa.  The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Dundee.  She was the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and Judy show in the local park had used copies of two of her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local interest in his show.  Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the man about infringement of copyright - and Dandy and Alex would be cheaper than employing a solicitor to do the same job.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B08LKT7HSR
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|title=Murder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery)
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|author=Helena Dixon
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=In December 1933 the remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the cellar of the Glass Bottle Public House.  Ezekiel Hamett was sought in connection with the murder of Elowed and his half-brother, Denzil Hammett, whose body was also discovered.  Kitty Underhay's long search for her mother, who disappeared in June 1916 was over.  Now she's determined that the man responsible for her murder will be brought to justice.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Stephen Clarke
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|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
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|rating=4
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|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond.  Or Ian Fleming.  But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service.  Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!
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|isbn=2952163855
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0349423083
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|title=Death and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
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|author=Frances Brody
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Kate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden.  She's been approached by William Lofthouse of the Barleycorn Brewery in Masham.  Something is going wrong with his business and he'd like Kate to look into it discreetly: he's hoping that his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip to Germany before long.  James went to see what the continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need to make.  William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too'' much or is going to bring back a German bride but he'd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returns.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0241433568
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|title=Eight Detectives
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|author=Alex Pavesi
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|rating=5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in Spain.  It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious.  Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered.  How can that have happened?  There's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killer.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1473682401
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|title=The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)
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|author=Catriona McPherson
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Those who were with us at the end of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnoch.  They're now married and Mallory is having twins.  When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver.  There are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they're staying with Dandy and Hugh.  Dandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, had not taken up the chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice before, but suddenly the possibility of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistible.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)
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|title=The Honjin Murders
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime
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|summary=To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'.  For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s.  The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste.  She only has an uncle representing her family, for one thing.  Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriage.  What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it.
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|isbn=1782275002
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B07XLM3SM6
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|title=Murder at the Dolphin Hotel
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|author=Helena Dixon
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|rating=4
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother.  A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise.  Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill.  She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why.  She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel.  And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0349423067
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|title=The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
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|author=Frances Brody
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929, one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identification.  Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed.  Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder.  He was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held.
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}}
  
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1472127110
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|title=Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery
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|author=Sara Sheridan
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[[image:1473682355.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473682355/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1912374439
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|title=The Courier
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|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War…
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1786075431
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|title=Mrs Mohr Goes Missing
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|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Meet Zofia.  A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career.  In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better.  Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads.  One such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home.  I say ''was'', for she has vanished. Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself.  Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end?  And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1786893762
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|title=Things in Jars
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|author=Jess Kidd
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0349414327
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|title=A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
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|author=Frances Brody
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the event. What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the setting for ''Wuthering Heights''?  Nothing could go wrong. Or could it?
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}}
  
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Move on to [[Newest Dyslexia Friendly Reviews]]
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===[[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson]]===
 
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
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Dandy Gilver and family had made the arduous journey to Wester Ross, but Dandy had mixed feelings even when they arrived.  They were there to meet the family of Mallory, her son Donald's fiancee.  It wasn't that Dandy thought Donald to be rather ''young'' at twenty three to be contemplating matrimony, but that Mallory was rather ''old'' for him at thirty.  There was also a niggling worry because Donald wasn't the sharpest pin in the cushion.  All the doubts had faded into insignificance though when they arrived at Applecross: they might have come to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Lady Lavinia, Mallory's mother, but it soon became obvious that Donald was smitten by the mother rather than the daughter.  Dandy and Hugh were considering whether or not they should try to put an end to the engagement when the news arrived that Lady Lavinia had been found dead. [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|Full Review]]
 
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===[[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall]]===
 
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
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Vassilia Caroline Baird, known to all as V, is dead. Jack sits in his cell refusing to talk to the lawyer tasked with his defence. Starting at the murderous finale, Hall skillfully weaves together the stories of his key players, in a tale of love spanning decades and states, marriages and tragedies. By the time the truth is revealed, V will be dead but who else will lose their life?  [[So Many Doors by Oakley Hall|Full Review]]
 
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===[[A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia]]===
 
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[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
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It's 1863 and a little girl has been found murdered at the family home in Stoke Newington. A few days later and a few miles across London, a man is found dead in a similar way outside the opulent townhouse of Heloise Chancey, courtesan and part-time detective. Could they be connected? And what, if anything, does either of them have to do with Heloise's maid, Amah Li Leen, and the troubling events in her past which are threatening to resurface?[[A Necessary Murder by M J Tjia|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan]]===
 
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
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It makes a pleasant change to have a female detective who isn't a slightly eccentric grandma, a world-weary cop with as many hang-ups, bad habits and family traumas as her male colleagues, or a slick, skinny, sharp-shooting type who lives in a loft and works out in the gym after work, boxing with (and trouncing) every big burly bloke they can throw at her. Mirabelle may have somehow got herself involved in crime-fighting, with all the requisite tropes of climbing through unguarded windows, contacts who are not one hundred per cent on the right side of the law, and a refusal to faint at the sight of blood, but she is, as everyone around her will attest, first and foremost a lady. Indeed, the first encounter we have with her in this, the sixth book in this excellent series, sees her giving a police superintendent an icy stare for his lack of manners. No matter what the life-and-death crisis, there's no reason not to be polite, is there? [[Russian Roulette by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes]]===
 
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:True Crime|True Crime]]
 
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''But that's just it'', she said.  ''It's ''not'' Harriet, is it?  Not our Harriet.  It's some manufactured creature, that exists only for this blessed inquest: something to be summed up like a spirit, to be examined and pored over, to be sneered at and judged.  Harriet deserves to be remembered as she was to us, not picked at like carrion.''
 
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And that was the problem: it seemed that there were two Harriets.  There was the one her friends - a fellow teacher, her would-be lover, her seducer and the man who was her landlord who was also her lover - knew.  Some spoke of her as kindly, virtuous and pious, but that was before her body was found behind the chapel which she regularly attended in Bromley.  She'd been poisoned - or had taken her own life.  After the inquest was opened another Harriet would emerge, one who was about six months pregnant and who had obviously not been living the chaste life expected of a young, unmarried woman in 1843.  [[The Murder of Harriet Monkton by Elizabeth Haynes|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr]]===
 
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[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
 
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Set in Germany in 1957, ''Greeks Bearing Gifts'' is a historical crime thriller with everything from dodgy Nazi past histories to insurance fraud.  Bernie Gunther is a Berliner, who was a sarjeant during the second world war and now, in this novel, is working in the morgue of a hospital.  He finds himself embroiled in a mystery, taking on a new role as an insurance claims investigator.  The investigation takes him to Greece, and back into the dark times of the war.  With layered plots and double-crossing left, right and centre, there's lots to keep you guessing throughout this story. [[Greeks Bearing Gifts: Bernie Gunther Thriller 13 by Philip Kerr|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis]]===
 
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[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
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Relax, die-hard fans of Falco and his spirited British daughter Albia. Rome continues to be as splendid and as sordid as it ever was, the crimes committed are as complex and intriguing, and our heroine just as determined and cynical, with that light dusting of humour which made tales of her father's exploits so engaging. Newcomers to the series need not fear, by the way: each book contains just enough background detail to make you feel immediately at home. This time, despite some serious misgivings, Albia is investigating the sudden death of a fifteen-year-old girl, described as bright, affectionate and popular. Was she poisoned by an illegal love-potion, or did she die of a broken heart? [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]] [[Pandora's Boy by Lindsey Davis|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody]]===
 
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[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime (Historical)|Crime (Historical)]]
 
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Much as it did in 1999, eclipse fever gripped the country in 1927, but private investigator Kate Shackleton couldn't understand why theatre star Selina Fellini had approached her for help when it seemed that all she needed was for a flight to be arranged to take her from Leeds to Giggleswick School, where she was to view the eclipse. Surely she didn't need a sleuth for this? Kate went ahead and organised the flight, which collected Fellini, comic Billy Moffatt and Kate from Soldiers' Field in Leeds and landed them at the school in good time. It was obvious that the singer was worried about something, but she didn't seem able to explain what it was. [[Death in the Stars (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton]]===
 
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Campbell Lawless is back, this time tasked with solving a series of terrorist attacks across the nation. Is it the work of the French, as police and public are being led to believe, or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention. [[Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Seven Dead by J Jefferson Farjeon]]===
 
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Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the housebreaking type. He lacked the courage. However, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to try his chances at an isolated house with a shuttered window. ''...he might find a bit of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a woman. Fleeing the house in horror, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsman, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens to be a journalist. Fascinated by Ted's story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clues, including a portrait shot through the heart, an old cricket ball and a mysterious note written by one of the victims. [[Seven Dead by J Jefferson Farjeon|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew by Susanna Gregory]]===
 
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It was 1360 and Michaelhouse was in dire financial straits: they could last a little longer but not that long. Then it seemed that a lifeline might have been thrown to them when they heard that the wealthy Elizabeth de Burgh of the Suffolk town of Clare was dead and it was possible that The Lady, as she was known, had left them a legacy. It seemed that the best thing to do was to go to Clare to claim the money (or to try and prove that it had been intended and should therefore be paid) with all haste. The real mission could be concealed behind the bald statement that they were there to attend the funeral. Matthew Bartholomew was one of the contingent from Michaelhouse. [[The Habit of Murder: The Twenty Third Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew by Susanna Gregory|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess]]===
 
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Amelia Peabody is a no-nonsense lady who endures all manner of murder attempts, kidnappings and sundry other crimes while on archaeological digs in Egypt with equanimity and composure. She is either revered or feared (or both) by villains, museum curators, family and workmen alike for her caustic tongue and the steel-reinforced parasol she brandishes at the first sign of danger. And yet, once the evil-doers have been locked up, precious objects returned to their owners and all injuries bandaged, she still insists on all the decorum of the English abroad: formal dress for dinner and only the politest and least contentious topics for dinner-table conversation. [[The Painted Queen: an Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess|Full Review]]
 
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===[[Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan]]===
 
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In this, the fifth novel in the Mirabelle Bevan Mystery series, we have reached 1955. There is less emphasis on rationing now: time has moved on from the post-war privations we saw in our first encounter with Mirabelle and her warm, cheery companion Vesta in 1951, a time when tearing a stocking was a disaster of the first order. Various types of prejudice are still rife, however, and Sara Sheridan is a real expert at dropping in that small, lightly sketched detail which tells us we are still in a Britain overshadowed by the aftermath of conflict. A woman who walks alone into a bar will not be served; the British Empire is still front-page news, and the colour of a person's skin an almost insurmountable barrier to equality of opportunity. [[Operation Goodwood: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan|Full Review]]
 
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London, 1863: prostitutes in the Waterloo area are turning up dead, their sexual organs mutilated and removed. When another girl goes missing, fears grow that the killer may have claimed their latest victim. The police are at a loss and so it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With the assistance of her trusty Chinese maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise must reconsider whom she can trust, before the killer strikes again. [[She Be Damned by M J Tjia|Full Review]]
 
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===[[The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy by H B Lyle]]===
 
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London 1909: Revolution is spreading throughout Russia and Europe.  Meanwhile Britain, a land growing accustomed to peace, is becoming a magnet for spies and disruption.  Vernon Kell, Head of War Office Counter-Intelligence, knows that the country's equilibrium depends on the discovery and disposal of the growing number of foreign spy networks.  Unfortunately his masters in government can't see what he can and Kell's own agents are being killed off too fast for him to collect evidence.  That's when he meets Wiggins.  This is a man with a superlative background: trained by Sherlock Holmes and, years back, a star of Holmes' child Irregulars.  Now Kell is getting somewhere… Let battle commence! [[The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy by H B Lyle|Full Review]]
 
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===[[An Unlikely Agent by Jane Menczer]]===
 
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London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in a dreary boarding house in St John's Wood. The pair have fallen on hard times, with only Margaret's meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat. When a stranger on the tram hands her a newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to 'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!'. After a gruelling interview, she finds herself in a new position as a secretary in a dingy backstreet shop. But all is not as it seems; she is in fact working for a highly secret branch of the intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission is to track down and neutralise a ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions. Margaret's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for the reality of true criminality, and her journey of self-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable novel, as she discovers in herself resourcefulness, courage, independence and the first stirrings of love. [[An Unlikely Agent by Jane Menczer|Full Review]]
 
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Agatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back in her day, and here Andrew Wilson makes her a victim to a plot not unlike one of her own. It's all about the mystery, and it really drives the story forward. Agatha is ambushed by a strange man at the train station; she is given a proposition that confuses her and secretly intrigues her. Indeed, for this man wants her to commit a murder. [[A Talent for Murder by Andrew Wilson|Full Review]]
 
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It's not clear whether the short story has gone out of fashion, relegated to the pages of certain types of women's magazines, or whether the magazines in which the format still holds its own are themselves not as high-profile as once they might have been.  Perhaps they never were, perhaps we only know about them in retrospect.  Whatever the truth of that it would seem that the golden age of the short story, coincided delightfully with the golden age of crime. [[Continental Crimes by Martin Edwards (editor)|Full Review]]
 
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Latest revision as of 13:45, 25 March 2023

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Review of

The Lock-Up by John Banville

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in April in Spain and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficult. They're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of a young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, is found in a lock-up. At first, it looked as though she'd gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide. Full Review

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Review of

In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the day that the NHS is born. She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and her job will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. The hardest part of the job will be to persuade people that the services she offers really are free and that they don't have to do anything to qualify for them. Some of the problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a problem of her own which might give her some insight. Her marriage has never been consummated. Full Review

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Review of

April in Spain by John Banville

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as a matter of making things tidy. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army where he got the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the morning? It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain. Full Review

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Review of

The Mystery of Healing by A P McGrath

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace. The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon wants the warriors to live. It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive. The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Today, it's the crocodiles. Full Review

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Review of

The Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the sofa. The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Dundee. She was the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and Judy show in the local park had used copies of two of her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local interest in his show. Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the man about infringement of copyright - and Dandy and Alex would be cheaper than employing a solicitor to do the same job. Full Review

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Review of

Murder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery) by Helena Dixon

3.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

In December 1933 the remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the cellar of the Glass Bottle Public House. Ezekiel Hamett was sought in connection with the murder of Elowed and his half-brother, Denzil Hammett, whose body was also discovered. Kitty Underhay's long search for her mother, who disappeared in June 1916 was over. Now she's determined that the man responsible for her murder will be brought to justice. Full Review

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Review of

The Spy Who Inspired Me by Stephen Clarke

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her! Full Review

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Review of

Death and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Kate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. She's been approached by William Lofthouse of the Barleycorn Brewery in Masham. Something is going wrong with his business and he'd like Kate to look into it discreetly: he's hoping that his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip to Germany before long. James went to see what the continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need to make. William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit too much or is going to bring back a German bride but he'd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returns. Full Review

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Review of

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in Spain. It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered. How can that have happened? There's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killer. Full Review

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Review of

The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Those who were with us at the end of A Step So Grave will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnoch. They're now married and Mallory is having twins. When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. There are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they're staying with Dandy and Hugh. Dandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, had not taken up the chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice before, but suddenly the possibility of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistible. Full Review

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Review of

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)

4star.jpg Crime

To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'. For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing her family, for one thing. Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it. Full Review

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Review of

Murder at the Dolphin Hotel by Helena Dixon

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why. She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel. And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things and why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel. Full Review

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Review of

The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929, one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identification. Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed. Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held. Full Review

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Review of

Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman. Full Review

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Review of

The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)

3.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War… Full Review

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Review of

Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)

3.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Meet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better. Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads. One such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home. I say was, for she has vanished. Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end? And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions? Full Review

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Review of

Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly fast thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is. Full Review

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Review of

A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the event. What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the setting for Wuthering Heights? Nothing could go wrong. Or could it? Full Review

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