Mystery – Page 30 – It's All About the Book

The Haunting of Maddy Clare is a compelling blend of ghost story, romance, history, and psychology, which could have made it a jumbled mess but which works very, very well.

We first meet ordinary Sarah Piper living her dreary London life as a temporary girl, on her way to meet a new employer. Alastair Gellis, author and ghost hunter, hires Sarah as his assistant and proceeds to turn her world inside out. He needs her, you see, to engage a ghost who hates men. Gellis and his male assistant and fellow WWI soldier, Matthew Ryder, are determined to publish evidence of a ghost no one has ever recorded. However, when they send Sarah into the barn where the ghost lives, they trigger the final chapter in a sordid, painful story involving a young girl, Maddy Clare, made mute by a horrifying experience at age 12 who ends her life at age 19. When Maddy’s ghost is released from the barn, no one is safe, including Sarah, Alistair, and Matthew.

Simone St. James has produced a suspenseful ghost story full of creepy, frightening imagery. Maddy is a vengeful ghost, for sure, and St. James writes her part with just the right amount of description to make you shiver and look over your shoulder. St. James also has produced a decent romance between Sarah and Matthew, into which bleeds the psychological effects of war. Alastair and Matthew both fought in WWI and each experienced different levels of horror, both physical and psychological. The whole reason behind their ghost hunting is intriguing. At one point, Matthew talks about how Alistair had always been interested in ghosts, but that he, Matthew, wondered what happened to the ghosts of all the men he watched die in the Somme and at Ypres. Matthew says “I think the war annihilates ghosts. If we have mechanized death — and we have; I’ve seen it — then where do the ghosts go? I find that most frightening of all. That the ghosts disappear with our humanity.”

There is especially good character development here for Matthew and Sarah. We see Sarah transform from a timid girl with a “soft shell” to a confident, assertive woman ready to finally live her life. Matthew, it seems, begins to come to terms with the physical scars left on his body from the war, but is only slowly beginning to unfold emotionally. I hope St. James writes another book with all these characters because I’d really like to see how they develop.

Readers who like a little romance with their scary stories will find this book very enjoyable. Recommended.

Mystery, Uncategorized

The Death of Kings by Rennie Airth

February 9, 2017February 10, 2017 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

airth Rennie Airth’s first novel featuring Scotland Yard detective John Madden,River of Darkness, grabbed me by the throat in the first chapter and never let go. I’ve been a fan of the series ever since. The Death of Kings is the 5^th Madden book, and confirms what I began to suspect by the 4^th book: Airth’s intricate, suspenseful, brain-crushing storytelling has followed an arc from edgy-detective-damaged-in-the-Great-War to retired-detective-turned-farmer-and-doting-father.

The story here is, in turns, interesting and deadly dull. Madden is roped into quietly investigating an 11-year-old murder of a lovely young “actress” who suffered an untimely death on the estate of Black Jack Jessup. At the time, the murder was quickly solved when an itinerant hop-picker confessed to the crime and was executed for it. Now, new evidence has shown up but not enough to warrant an official re-opening of the investigation. Madden begins the tedious process of tracking down the people who were present that fateful weekend, and quickly realizes that there was much more going on than the police realized.

Airth does his usual skillful job bringing some colorful and appealing characters to life. In this case, Adele Castleton and Richard Jessup are the best drawn of the bunch. By the end of the story, I wanted to know these people, and Airth succeeded in surprising me yet again with the final resolution. Madden’s daughter gets more page time here as well, and she is also becoming a more interesting character.

While the plot kept my attention and the characters appealed, over all the story was sleepy and sometimes boring. Quite frankly, I’m bored with John Madden. If I had Rennie Airth’s ear, I would ask him to please drop John and Helen Madden down to peripheral characters and start writing about Lily Poole, the female Scotland Yard detective who Madden has mentored, and Lucy Madden. I envision a kickass series featuring Lily and Lucy. What a way to invigorate a tired series!

Overall, this will appeal to fans of the author, but my go-to recommendation for the series is still River of Darkness.

Mystery

The Bookseller’s Tale by Ann Swinfen

January 31, 2017 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

30639175 First in the Oxford Medieval Mysteries series, The Bookseller’s Tale follows the adventures of Nicholas Elyot, the titular Bookseller, as he investigates a mysterious death in Oxford, 1353. Elyot discovers a young university man dead in the River Cherwell, and quickly comes to understand the young man did not die a natural death. As Nicholas and friend Jordain look into the death, they discover a plot involving a priceless Irish psalter, blackmail, an artistic nun, and greedy aristocrats.

Swinfen includes A LOT of geographical description here, which I found off-putting. I read the e-book version, so am wondering if a map of old Oxford is included in the print edition, which would make the description less tedious and confusing. Beyond that minor annoyance, I found an entertaining story full of colorful, well-drawn characters. Nicholas Elyot and his household – sister Margaret, children Alysoun and Rafe, and puppy Rowan – are nicely detailed and their backstory told succinctly and with sensitivity. (Nicholas and the rest of Oxford are recovering from the plague years where so many died, including Nicholas’ wife and Margaret’s family.) Nicholas’ bookshop provides a wonderful backdrop to the story, and Swinfen is not stingy in including fascinating tidbits of information about the early (pre-printing press) days of book-making. I especially liked the scene with the parchment maker.

The plot itself meanders a bit, but is eventually all tied up nicely. I finished the book wanting more, and will definitely move on to The Novice’s Tale, where the enigmatic Sr. Benedicta plays a larger role.

Recommended for fans of historical mysteries, especially those by Ellis Peters.

Mystery, Uncategorized

The Z Murders

February 22, 2016 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

I read a number of early 20th century mystery/crime novels while working on my 2011 reading project – 100 years, 100 Books – including such classics such as The 39 Steps by John Buchan and The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne, along with, of course, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

J. Jefferson Farjeon was a lesser known but still accomplished member of the cadre of writers who produced these early mysteries. The Z Murders follows the typical plot of many mysteries from that era – a dashing, clever man meets a mysterious damsel in distress and attempts to outwit the police and the criminals while embarking on a madcap chase across England. In this instance, Richard Temperley spends most of the book chasing the mysterious Sylvia Wynne, who spends most of the book refusing to explain her predicament to Temperley. A disfigured villain with no arms, plenty of disguises, quaint and trustworthy villagers all combine with the likable Temperley and the reticent Wynne to make a pleasant if somewhat confusing mystery.

The lack of foreshadowing throughout most of book left me fairly unsatisfied and irritated. The reason for the “Z Murders” and the relationship between the two villains is only explained in the last couple of chapters, and not very well. If you really love British mysteries from this era, you’ll like this book well enough, but it’s not one that I’ll remember for very long.

Mystery

Switcheroo

February 22, 2016 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Gideon Oliver has been one of my favorite characters for years and I always eagerly anticipate a new story. Switcheroo began with a really interesting look into what happened to the Channel Islands during World War II, focusing on a wealthy family who engineered the first “switcheroo” in order to save their sickly child from certain death under German rule. We soon learn that the two boys who were switched were also part of an unsolved murder from the 1960s. When Gideon meets the grandson of one of the switched boys, he agrees to visit the Channel Islands and examine bones that were recovered from a tar pit, supposedly belonging to one of the boys. Of course, Gideon discovers all sorts of family secrets and subterfuge, leading to what, unfortunately, was a conclusion I spotted chapters before the end. And that’s my quibble. In a story where clever plotting abounds, the end was just…unremarkable. But, still, it’s Gideon Oliver and Aaron Elkins, which always means an entertaining couple of hours. Just not the best in the series….

Magical, Mystery

Jackaby

June 18, 2014 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Jackaby Discovering Sherlock Holmes was a watershed moment in my reading life, and I have remained enamored of the great detective for years. Many authors have attempted to improve upon Sir Arthur’s stories, some with success, some without. I always find myself drawn to these treatments of Holmes and Watson, even when it’s not those specific characters in play, but characters drawn in the Holmesian style. So it was with relish that I cracked Jackaby by William Ritter, which features a detective-scientist in the manner of Holmes who operates in New Fiddleham, a growing town located somewhere on the east coast of the United States (could be a young Boston, or New York).

Two things interested me here: the replacement of the dour John Watson character with Miss Abigail Rook, dinosaur hunter, recently of England, and the inclusion of a supernatural element. We enter the story with Miss Rook’s arrival in New Fiddleham from a sea voyage that took her anywhere but home. We come to understand that Abigail, daughter of a famed archaeologist, had grown tired of always being left at home when her father went on digs and so took the money designated to pay her tuition at a young ladies school and scarpered off to dig for dinosaurs in Eastern Europe. When that adventure ended, she got on a boat and ended up in New Fiddleham, still looking for adventure and not a little afraid to go home. She encounters Jackaby in a tavern, where he does the typical Sherlockian assessment and recitation of where she has been, only in this version, he bases his assessment on the fairies and pixies hiding among Abigail clothes, clinging to her in passage to the new world.

Abigail encounters Jackaby again when she answers an advertisement for an assistant, and finds herself among the oddities in his home, including a frog that dispenses a noxious gas out of its eyes, a neat ghost, and a duck who turns out to be a former assistant to the detective. Abigail and Jackaby are immediately plunged into a grisly murder scene in an apartment house also inhabited by a banshee. There is the usual tension and disrespect between the “amateur” detective and the “real” detective who scoffs at Jackaby’s methods (he can “feel” supernatural auras and trails left in the air when these beings pass by). Jackaby immediately discerns that an ancient evil is at work, and predicts more deaths, which, naturally occur until the evil is finally defeated.

I quite liked the characters here. Abigail is a spunky, smart young woman who is not intimidated by the oftentimes overbearing Jackaby. The great man himself is somewhat endearing and very entertaining. The supporting characters, especially the young policeman Charlie Cain and Jackaby’s live-in ghost Jenny, are interesting and deserve more attention in any future entries in this series. The supernatural elements were not the usual withes, vampires, or werewolves, but unusual creatures drawn from British and world folklore. The identity and origin of the “ancient evil” is a clever and unusual bit of British/Scottish lore that I cannot recall being used anywhere else. The writing is crisp, and the plot moves along very nicely. I sincerely hope we will see more of Jackaby and Abigail Rook in the future. Highly recommended.

Mystery

Clara Benson Mysteries

May 21, 2014July 22, 2022 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

I have always had a soft spot for English country house mysteries, and when these classics by Clara Benson became available in ebook form, I happily immersed myself. Benson, born in 1890, never published during her lifetime, but considered writing a hobby. Her family discovered her stories years after her death in 1965 and decided it was time to introduce the work to readers. Benson’s mysteries, set in the 1920s, feature amateur detective Angela Marchmont, an American visiting friends in England. Mrs. Marchmont is much more than she appears, having served as a spy in The Great War, and possessing a quick wit and well-developed intellect.

Several books in the Marchmont series have been released, with these being the first two. In both, Mrs. Marchmont is called on by an old friend to investigate dastardly murders. In the first, Murder at Sissingham Hall, Mrs. Marchmont is on hand during a country house weekend when her host, Sir Neville Strickland, is found murdered. The obvious suspect is Charles Knox, recently returned, former fiancé to the current Mrs. Strickland. Mrs. Marchmont untangles multiple threads of deception to finally reveal a most unexpected culprit.

In The Mystery at Underwood House, Mrs. Marchmont is called upon by an old friend, Louisa Haynes, who brother-in-law and two sisters-in-law have died in consecutive years during an annual family reunion required under the terms of the patriarch, Phillip Haynes, will. The “accidents” which claimed the lives of the Haynes siblings have begun to arouse suspicion, and Louisa asks her old friend to investigate. Multiple wills, a devious family attorney, and an illegitimate grandchild all contribute to Mrs. Marchmont’s task to uncover the truth before another Haynes is murdered.

The writing here isn’t bad but it isn’t great either. Given the fact that Benson considered herself an amateur and did not have the advantage of an editor at a publishing house, I expected these to be pleasant country house murder mysteries and I was not disappointed. Mrs. Marchmont strikes me as Nancy Drew all grown up and full of ladylike cleverness, which works here. These are comfortable, well-constructed, if predictable, mysteries that will appeal to fans of Maisie Dobbs and, at a stretch, Phryne Fisher. Recommended for people looking for an easy, pleasant mystery.

Mystery

Mayor of Hollywood

July 13, 2013 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Mayor of Hollywood by MB Brophy – Those of you who follow my blog know that I am a diehard mystery reader. What you might not know is that I adore mysteries set in Hollywood, and if they include real celebrities, more the better. I devoured the old Hollywood novels by George Baxt years ago and frequently look for novels in this vein. Mayor of Hollywood certainly fills the bill and definitely does not disappoint.

Right away, we meet Lucy Cassidy, former child star turned university history professor specializing in the history of Hollywood. Brophy starts the action early on when Lucy makes a shocking discovery in her basement following a “coming out” party signaling her return to acting. Even while dealing with an apparent stalker, Lucy is called upon by her boyfriend, a hunky police detective, to consult on a murder case where the victims were staged to echo an old Hollywood murder case. As they dig deeper and deeper into the contemporary murder, Lucy is horrified to discover evidence pointing to old friends from her teenage acting days, and is forced to confront some of her own demons as more is revealed about one of the murder victims, a successful talent agent.

Brophy takes us on a wild ride through the underbelly of teenage Hollywood, the reality of celebrity stalkers, faded child stars, and creepy, predatory agents. The plot is decent and the action well-paced. I can’t say I didn’t finger the murderer about halfway through, but the story was fun enough to keep me reading. The climax was a bit unexpected but satisfying, and certainly tied up all the loose ends. I look forward to more form this author.

Recommended for light, fun summer reading.

Mystery, Steampunk

Nefertiti’s Heart

June 30, 2013June 30, 2013 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Nefertiti’s Heart by A.W. Exley

We first meet Cara Devon as she fends off a couple of tough guys sent to her father’s home in London searching for a valuable artifact. We quickly see that Cara is not to be trifled with, as she shoots one and wounds the other. Their boss also quickly comes to understand that Cara is not typical of the society debutantes who populate his world. She is not only beautiful but also very dangerous and certainly unconventional.

Cara’s story is ugly, the true extent of the ugliness only hinted at in the early chapters of this captivating novel. Her father, we learn, cared more for the unusual and valuable artifacts he collected than for his only daughter, resulting in a terrifying, traumatic event that scarred her at thirteen. Now, however, he is dead and she is his only heir, now owning all of those artifacts he so treasured. She has an inkling that the artifacts, which her father separated and hid in multiple locations, are much more than they appear, and she quickly discovers that there is one that someone will kill for. Cara finds an unlikely ally in Viscount Nathaniel Lyons, the man who sent the villains Cara so easily handled in the first chapter. The two embark on an adventure that takes them beneath the Thames, to fancy dress balls, to backroom sex clubs, all throughout a London painted with a broad steampunk brush as they search for the one artifact that can grant everlasting life to the right pair of lovers. Dogging their every move is the mysterious, deadly maniac responsible for a series of gruesome murders of young society ladies, all found with a key twisted into their hearts, whose path comes closer and closer to crossing Cara’s, leading them all to a grisly climax.

Exley has done a masterful job creating memorable characters in Cara and Nathaniel. They complement each other beautifully, with just the right blend of romance and sex. The story here is fast-paced with a well-constructed plot, leading to an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. Exley develops Cara’s character with sensitivity but also a bit of irreverence. Her story is revealed bit by bit, and the effect it has on the relationship between Cara and Lyons is nicely handled. I was reminded very much of the Theodosia series of children’s books by R.L. LaFevers – Cara could be Theodosia all grown up, except Theo’s father was not a scoundrel. Being fairly new to the steampunk genre, I have found that the stories are either really, really good, or really, really bad; Nefertiti’s Heart falls into the former category. Highly recommended.

Mystery

Speaking from Among the Bones

January 27, 2013 Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Speaking from Among the Bones is Alan Bradley’s latest entry in the superb Flavia deLuce series and is just as entertaining as his previous books. This time, Flavia discovers the corpse of St. Tancred’s church organist, Mr. Collicut, in the most unlikely of places – the tomb of St. Tancred himself. Flavia goes on to experience all sorts of the amusing and clever adventures we have come to expect from the author, all rendered with Bradley’s wonderful combination of wit and gravity.

By the end of the story, the murderer is unmasked, a de Luce sister is engaged to be married, and Buckshaw may indeed be lost to the family. The current state of the family finances pales, however, in comparison to the bombshell dropped by Mr. de Luce on the very last page.

Speaking from Among the Bones features a Flavia who is starting to grow up. Her relationships with her sisters, her father, Dogger, and the police inspector assigned to Bishop’s Lacey all have evolved from the first entry in the series, where her behavior was often that of a spoiled, willful child. Bradley reveals a little bit more of each family member in each book, which is what keeps me coming back for more. Flavia grows on you as the series grows; in fact, I found myself thinking of her as a young Harriet Vane by the end of this one.

As for the bombshell at the end, I won’t spoil it, but I will say….I KNEW IT! Highly recommended for those who enjoy witty, English mysteries, but I do recommend reading the series in order.