Day 363: The Captive Crown

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Cover for The Stewart TrilogyAt the beginning of this novel, the third in Tranter’s Stewart Trilogy, Jamie Douglas has fled to the highlands after being declared an outlaw following the disastrous battle of Homildon. That no Scot who fought in the battle would so call him is no concern to Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany and the Governor of Scotland.

Jamie is living with his family on the estate of Alexander Stewart of Badenoch, acting Justicaire of the Highlands. Although King Robert III is still alive, he has handed over the government to his brother Robert of Albany. His young son James, heir to the throne, has been captured by the English on his way to France, where his father sent him for safety after the death of his older son, David, at the time in Robert of Albany’s custody.

Jamie, who has always believed that the Duke of Albany plotted the murder of his chief, the Earl of Douglas, also believes that David Stewart was starved to death at Albany’s order. Jamie is content to stay away from the Lowlands and serve with Alexander.

The plot of this novel is a lot more difficult to describe than that of the other two, as it covers the significant events of several years in Alexander Stewart’s life, including battling the invasions of Donald of the Isles, forming an embassy to the British to treat for the release of King James after Robert III’s death, privateering against the British, and so on. This is a fault with the novel, constrained as it is by actual historical events to seem disjointed. It is definitely the weakest of the trilogy and does not make a satisfying ending for the series.

Day 362: Finders Keepers

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Cover for Finders KeepersBelinda Bauer returns us to Shipton, the setting on Exmoor of her first two chilling novels. Someone abducts a girl from her father’s car, leaving a note that says “You don’t love her.” At first the police assume the kidnapping is for money or revenge against the girl’s apparently wealthy father, but more abductions follow. The small town, which has been ravaged by serial killers twice, is horrified.

Constable Jonas Holly is still on leave following the murder of his wife Lucy the year before. He will soon be returned to duty, although Inspector Reynolds is skeptical of the help he can provide.

Steven Lamb, almost a victim in the first novel, thinks he knows who murdered Lucy Holly. As more children disappear, he becomes worried about his younger brother Davey, as well he might. Unknown to their mothers, Davey and his pal Shane have been running around the countryside while their families think they are at each other’s houses.

Reynolds and his team are at a loss. They hope the children are alive but can’t figure out where they’re being held, despite having covered the moor with heat-seeking technology from a helicopter.

Bauer’s thrillers keep me on the edge of my seat. Her novels are well written and suspenseful, her characters complex. If you like dark thrillers, you can’t do much better.

Day 361: The Circle of Reason

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Cover for The Circle of ReasonBest Book of the Week!

Although magical realism is often mentioned in reference to The Circle of Reason, as Amitav Ghosh said himself in an interview for the New York Times review, there is nothing fantastical that happens in the book. Still, it continues to be compared to the works of magical realists such as Gabriel García Márquez or Salman Rushdie.

These comparisons may be because of the book’s rambling narrative style or its peculiar characters. The main character is Alu Bose, but we get to him only slowly through his uncle Balaram, a scholar turned teacher in a small village in India who develops a mania for the pseudo-science phrenology and worships Louis Pasteur. As Alu’s head is covered with odd-looking bumps, like a potato, he provides a subject of endless study for his eccentric relative.

Later, Balaram becomes obsessed with cleansing the village and begins a campaign to convince the villagers to coat every object with carbolic acid. His feud with the local politician combined with his obsession results in disaster, and Alu ends up fleeing India because of being mistaken for a terrorist. He is pursued by a policeman named Jyoti Das, who would rather be an ornithologist.

Thus begin Alu’s adventures, first in the Middle Eastern port of al-Ghazira, where he develops his own obsession for cleanliness, and then moving farther west, ending up in Algeria. On the way, readers encounter a myriad of other characters and stop to hear the stories of their lives or learn a little bit about weaving, say, or the history of al-Ghazira.

I was less reminded of magical realism than of One Thousand and One Nights, the tales of Scheherazade in which, in the middle of one tale, another begins. I attempted to read them at one time but despaired that I would ever get to the end of a tale or keep the various stories straight. Luckily, Ghosh’s narrative is a little more coherent, although not much. It is purposefully rambling, running off in delight to tell one fabulous story after another.

The novel is wonderfully well written, beautifully written, but sometimes I wondered where it was going or what the plot actually was. The feeling was only momentary, however, because I was always compelled onward. The ending is actually satisfying and less chaotic than I expected.

When I read that Ghosh wanted to write something like Moby Dick, that explained a lot about the novel’s narrative style. Fortunately for us, Ghosh’s style is a lot more accessible than Melville’s. Still, I prefer some of his more recent novels, particularly Sea of Poppies and River of Smoke. The Circle of Reason is Ghosh’s first novel, and he keeps getting better and better.

Day 360: 4:50 from Paddington

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Cover for 4:50 from PaddingtonWhile traveling by train, Miss Marple’s friend Elspeth McGillicuddy witnesses a murder on another train along a parallel track. The police find no trace of a victim, so they are inclined to think Mrs. McGillicuddy imagined the incident. Miss Marple knows her friend, however, and imagination is not her strong suit.

Jane believes the body must have been thrown off the train near an estate called Rutherford Hall. She sends her friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow in as a housekeeper to investigate, and Lucy eventually finds the body, not lying somewhere in the bushes along the track, but hidden away.

The money from the estate will eventually be divided among the grown children of Luther Crackenthorpe, a semi-invalid widower, while the house will go to his eldest surviving son. But does that have anything to do with the murder? All of the children seem to have their secrets. Cedric is a bohemian painter who lives in Ibiza, Harold is an aloof banker, Alfred is engaged in shady business deals, and Emma is a spinster who is in love with Dr. Quimper, Luther’s doctor.

The biggest puzzle is to identify the body. Who is the woman murdered on the train, and why does Lucy find her in a sarcophagus among a bunch of antiques in the stables? Soon Miss Marple is on the scene visiting Lucy at tea time. The solution will soon be divulged, we feel.

Christie is great at drawing convincing characters, and Lucy is one of her most attractive. We wish we could see more of her. 4:50 from Paddington is yet another entertaining mystery from Christie.

Day 359: The Yard

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Cover for The YardThe Yard contains elements that should have made it interesting to me, particularly the period, but it didn’t really grab me.

The novel takes place shortly after the failure of Scotland Yard to capture Jack the Ripper, and the police are dispirited, while the public has grown scornful of them. The body of Detective Little turns up in a trunk at Euston Square Station. Detective Inspector Walter Day is put in charge of the investigation to the surprise of everyone, as he is new to the force.

We are not left in ignorance of the identity of Little’s murderer, as he is watching the case from the sidelines. He didn’t intend to murder anyone, but Little discovered his secret. Soon another officer stumbles onto his secret and also must be killed.

Constable Hammersmith is assigned to the case, but he becomes embroiled in another incident. A thief breaking into a house finds the body of a boy stuck in the chimney and stops Hammersmith on the street to tell him about it. Directed by his superiors to concentrate on the more important case of Detective Little’s murder–the death of a chimney sweep’s boy not being considered a crime–Hammersmith continues to search for the sweep on his own time.

Another case is preoccupying Inspector Blacker. Some men have been found murdered with their beards newly shaven. Blacker thinks it is unlikely that two serial killers are loose in London at the same time, but Day and Dr. Kingsley, the coroner who is interested in new forensics research, do not agree.

This first series book sets the stage for all the recurring characters as well as attempts to recreate the chaos of the Yard. I feel it is spread a bit thin. The writing is capable rather than brilliant, although I encountered enough clichés in the first few pages to irritate me. A technique used several times of flashing back to explain something right in the middle of the action seems very disruptive and only serves to stall the flow.

Some unlikely events disturbed me as well. That two police officers would stumble onto the killer’s secret in the space of two days seems completely far-fetched. A minor incident where a family claims to have made a day trip to Birmingham seems equally absurd. I can’t imagine even in these days that a trip from London to Birmingham and back would be something anyone would want to do in one day, but back then the trains were surely slower. Such a trip may have been possible, but that the police officers receiving this information don’t challenge it seems absurd.

Almost despite myself I found myself beginning to like the major characters, but I still don’t think I’ll be picking up the second book anytime soon.

Day 358: People of the Book

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Cover for People of the BookBest Book of the Week!

I read People of the Book several years ago and remembered that it was good, but when re-reading it for my book club, I enjoyed it even more. The novel is based on the history of a Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. Part of the novel is envisioned based on what is known of the book’s history, while the rest is invented.

In the immediate aftermath of the Bosnian war, Hanna Heath, an expert in the restoration of old books, is asked to restore the priceless Sarajevo Haggadah, a famous book believed twice to have been destroyed by war that was both times rescued by Moslem museum curators. The book is especially important because of its beautiful illustrations, as before it was discovered, scholars believed that old Hebrew books did not contain such illuminations.

While Hanna is working on the book, she makes observations and collects artifacts that will help trace its history. She notes that the book once had clasps that are now missing, collects an insect wing, and scrapes residue from staining.

Hanna also becomes involved with the man who rescued the book, Ozren Karaman, whose wife was killed during the war and whose baby son is in the hospital with a brain injury. As Hanna was raised by an aloof and competitive mother, though, she is poor at forming attachments.

When Hanna finishes restoring the book, she follows up with research into the clasp and the artifacts she collected. As she finds out about each item, the novel goes farther back in time, explaining what happened to the book and telling the stories of the people involved with it, until the creation of the book in 15th century Spain.

A poor Jewish girl named Lola works for the partisans in the forest outside Sarajevo during World War II after the Jews are expelled from the city by the Nazis and her family is shipped off to camps. Later she is helped to safety by the Moslem curator of the museum, who also has a book to hide. A 19th century Viennese bookbinder who is dying from syphilis steals the beautiful silver clasps from the book to exchange with his doctor for treatment. In 1609 Venice, a priest working for the Inquisition saves the book from burning but confiscates it from its owner. A young girl saves the book as the Jews are expelled from Spain in 1492.

These are just the bones of some of the absorbing stories that draw you along as Brooks imagines the history of the book. Each tale is vividly imagined and skillfully told, and they are all held together by Hanna’s experiences. People of the Book is a gracefully written and imaginative novel that emphasizes the contributions of multiple cultures and religions to the book’s creation and safety.

Day 357: The Dying of the Light

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Cover for The Dying of the LightThis is going to be a fairly short review, because The Dying of the Light was a book I could not finish. I usually enjoy reading Michael Dibdin’s mysteries and I also like dark tales with a macabre sense of humor, but if that is what this is, it is too much.

Rosemary Travis and Dorothy Davenport are two little old ladies who live in a horrible nursing home run by William Anderson and his sister Letitia Davis. The owners are blatantly torturing the residents.

Rosemary and Dorothy react to this environment by turning it into a game, pretending it is some kind of convoluted mystery plot. When Hilary Bryant dies or George Channing is mauled by Anderson’s Doberman when he tries to escape, they fold this into their plot. But when Dorothy dies the night before her departure from the home, Rosemary finds she has a real mystery to solve.

This plot sounds as if it could be darkly humorous, but it is too sickening for me. One reviewer on Amazon says that Dibdin relies on the shock value, and not much else, to carry the novel. That about says it for me, and it doesn’t work.

Day 356: Great Expectations

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Cover for Great ExpectationsGreat Expectations has long been my least favorite of Dickens’ more substantial novels, because I dislike the character of Pip. However, upon my re-reading it after many years, I’ve changed my opinion, because only in this novel does the main character undergo a complete change of his assumptions and values.

The novel begins with Pip as a young boy growing up in a vast and desolate wasteland of marshes. He is cared for by his ambitious and abusive older sister and kindly brother-in-law Joe Gargery. In the opening scene he is in the cemetery looking at his parents’ graves when he meets the escaped convict Magwich.

Under Magwich’s instructions, the terrified boy steals some food from his sister’s pantry and a file from his brother-in-law’s smithy. Magwich might have got away, but Pip tells him he met another convict on the way, so Magwich throws away his chances of escape to fight the other man, his sworn enemy.

After this odd and atmospherically fraught incident, Pip is soon engaged to entertain the wealthy but deranged Miss Havisham, an old woman who was long ago deserted at the altar and has lived the rest of her life in her bride clothes with her wedding cake rotting away on the table. Miss Havisham introduces Pip to her beautiful ward Estella, and from that time he is captured. He fails to understand, however, that Miss Havisham has brought Estella up to enthrall and torture men.

Pip grows old enough to apprentice as blacksmith to Joe, but his association with Miss Havisham and Estella has made him discontented with his lot. Soon, though, he is informed that he has “great expectations,” that an unknown benefactor has chosen him for his or her heir, and he is to become a gentleman. Pip and his associates assume his benefactor is Miss Havisham, and Pip thinks that she intends Estella to be his.

With only a few qualms of guilt, Pip throws off his childhood, including his gentle, loving friend Joe, to become a gentleman and chase after the dream of Estella. It is only through a series of misfortunes that he realizes he must learn to look at his life differently than he understood it and comes to appreciate his true friends.

I am not at all sympathetic to Pip’s desires and think the pursuit of Estella is a worthless one, but Dickens’ strengths are in his characterizations and complex plots. In addition to a cast of unusual, lovable, or repellent characters, he does a masterful job of developing Pip into a wiser and more honest man.