Tag: England

Day 209: A Darker Domain

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Cover for A Darker DomainAt the beginning of A Darker Domain, Michelle Gibson comes into the police station to report that her father, Mick Prentice, is missing, actually has been missing for 25 years. He was believed to have left his small mining village during a miner’s strike to scab for another mine in Nottingham years ago, which was considered an act of betrayal. Now that his daughter is trying to find him, she learns he isn’t in Nottingham and never has been.

In the meantime, a case from the same period is being reopened, the kidnapping of Catriona Grant and her baby son Adam, during which Catriona was killed. Someone has found a copy of the ransom poster and a large pool of blood in a deserted Tuscan villa.

Detective Inspector Karen Pirie, head of the cold case group in Fife, is working both cases. The memories of the various witnesses appear as flashbacks and parallel narrations, and the story moves swiftly forward as Karen’s cases begin to converge. Val McDermid usually writes complex and exciting thrillers, and this novel is no exception.

Day 205: The Journal of Mrs. Pepys

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Cover for The Journal of Mrs. PepysI began reading Samuel Pepys’ famous diaries years ago, but found it difficult to understand many of the oblique references to events of the time and found many of the entries very trivial. There was also a whole lot of drinking going on. However, I thought I’d give the fictional journal of his wife a try by reading The Journal of Mrs. Pepys: Portrait of a Marriage by Sara George.

The journal follows the course of the Pepys’ marriage and their rise in prosperity. George was careful to follow closely the events related in Samuel Pepys’ diary, which somewhat hampers the plot. The novel looks at these events from the point of view of Elizabeth Pepys, particularly how she reacts to her husband’s frequent absences and philandering.

The novel provides an interesting insight into the events leading up to and during the Restoration–particularly the eagerness with which the populous welcomes Charles II to the throne and the rapidity with which they tire of the court’s profligacy and debauchery.

Also of interest are some of the customs observed. I was intrigued by how freely the Pepyses behaved with their servants, treating them as if they were friends and then getting into spats with them for taking liberties. Also of interest were some of the social behaviors, like the celebration of Valentines Day, where women picked their valentines, who then had to buy them expensive gifts. And then there were the freedoms of male friends to walk up into ladies’ bedrooms or of both sexes to share bedrooms on a trip away from home without any indication of scandal.

Written mostly in modern English, the novel manages a fine balancing act between understandability and the correct use of outdated terms or terms that have changed their meanings with time.

Although I found the novel interesting enough, by nature of the concept, it could not follow the traditional plot structure of a series of building climaxes. There is a climax at the end, but generally the novel stays fairly level.

Day 202: The Lantern Bearers

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Cover for The Lantern BearersIf you are historical fiction lover and are not familiar with Rosemary Sutcliff, I recommend that you try one of her books. She is best known for her novels about the Roman occupation of Britain and the interaction between the Romans and the various British peoples. Although many of her books are classified as children’s literature, the ones I have read are just as suitable for adults. My review today is of a Sutcliff book I read most recently, which unfortunately is the third book of her acclaimed Eagle of the Ninth trilogy, The Lantern Bearers. Although she wrote a series of eight books about the Aquila family, three are usually grouped together and sometimes can be purchased as one book. The other two are The Eagle of the Ninth and The Silver Branch.

The Lantern Bearers is about the desertion of Britain by the Romans and its subsequent inundation by marauding Saxons. Aquila is a soldier with the last battalion on Britain. He is recalled to his regiment to withdraw from Britain and leave his father and sister behind in the home they have occupied for generations.

Aquila finds that his heart is with Britain, so he deserts his regiment and returns home. However, the day after he arrives, his home is attacked by the Saxons, his father is killed, and he and his sister are enslaved.

Without giving too much away, I will say that the story eventually focuses on the rise of the British ruler Ambrosius and his adopted son Artos, from whom we get the stories of King Arthur.

I think these books are fascinating, although of the three in the trilogy, my favorite is The Eagle of the Ninth (which, by the way, was recently made into a very good movie that no one apparently went to see; I recommend it). If I had any criticism of this book, which is carefully researched, well written, and full of action, I would say that sometimes it seems as if Sutcliff thinks the Roman occupation of Britain was completely positive. I doubt if the Britains felt that way when they were conquered. However, even though her heroes are often Romans, her ideas are more nuanced than that.

If you decide to read this trilogy, I suggest you start with The Eagle of the Ninth, although the books are far enough separated in time to be read as stand-alones.

Day 201: The School of Night

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The School of NightCoincidentally, this summer I read and reviewed Shadow of Night, and The School of Night by Louis Bayard is another novel that deals with the School of Night, a group of Elizabethan scholars who pursued forbidden knowledge. Its members were Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Harriot, and Kit Marlowe, among others. The School of Night follows events in two time periods, the present and 1603.

Ten years ago Henry Cavendish was an Elizabethan scholar with a promising future, but he was disgraced when he accepted as legitimate a forged letter supposedly by Sir Walter Raleigh and presented it at a conference. Since then, he has barely eked out a living, teaching part-time, doing editing work, and taking whatever jobs he can get. His only true friend is the eccentric Alonzo Wax, a collector and purveyor of rare books.

But Alonzo is dead, having drowned himself after trying to contact Henry, and Henry finds himself the estate executor. Shortly after the funeral, Henry is contacted by another collector, Bernard Styles, who shows him the second page of a letter by Raleigh that he alleges Alonzo stole from him. This letter makes a rare reference to the School of Night. Styles offers Henry a lot of money to find the letter in Alonzo’s papers and give it to him.

Henry also meets Clarissa Dale, who claims to have made Alonzo’s acquaintance after a lecture about the School of Night. Although she is not an academic, she has been having visions of Thomas Harriot and an assistant named Margaret and wants to find out why.

Henry has barely begun to work with Alonzo’s papers when Alonzo’s secretary, Lily Pentzler, is murdered and all of Alonzo’s books are stolen. This incident makes Henry and Clarissa wonder if Alonzo was murdered, too. Soon, Henry and Clarissa find themselves investigating the secrets of the letter.

Alternating with the present-time story is that of Thomas Harriot, the leader of the School of Night, as he explores Virginia and later works on his forbidden experiments while hidden away on the estate of the Earl of Percy. Finding that his maid servant Margaret can read, he begins to train her to assist him in his experiments.

Although I guessed one important secret early on, I found this novel deeply satisfying. It is full of twists and betrayals and has interesting characters. It treats the historical plot intelligently, and although this comment is not meant as a criticism of Shadow of Night, it deals more seriously with the School of Night than does Shadow of Night (which of course has a completely different focus).

I had not read Bayard before, but he is known for writing historical mysteries that feature such characters as a grown-up Tiny Tim (Mr. Timothy) and Edgar Allan Poe (The Pale Blue Eye). I am interested in reading more.

Day 199: South Riding

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Cover for South RidingI had never heard of Winifred Holtby until I watched the excellent Masterpiece series South Riding. I enjoyed it so much that I picked up several of Holtby’s books. Holtby published 12 novels in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as well as pursuing a successful career as a journalist and nonfiction writer. She is known for regional fiction about Yorkshire and has a prize for regional fiction named after her.

Set post-World War I, South Riding is the story of the conflict between the landed gentry and social progressives in a Yorkshire town. Sarah Burton comes to town as the headmistress of a girl’s school. She has many progressive ideas and wants to improve the school and the quality of education provided to the girls. To accomplish her goals, she asks the town to invest more money in the school.

She immediately runs afoul of Robert Carne, a local landowner. He has very conservative ideas about the town and school, but he also has some heavy concerns. Previously prosperous, he has spent all his money on care for his mentally ill wife. He also has the care of a young daughter who is having her own problems.

Unlike the television series, the novel has a huge sweep and does not concentrate on Sarah, but presents the stories of about fifteen other major characters. It deals with issues like education, poverty, and governmental corruption as well as family relationships. The characters are all carefully delineated so that you feel that you know each one.

The novel is beautifully written, although it gets just a little preachy at the end. Some reviewers have compared Holtby to George Eliot because of her interest in local social issues and her breadth of scope.

Day 196: The Secret Keeper

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Cover for The Secret KeeperI loved The Forgotten Garden so much that Kate Morton’s other books, although very good, have not been able to hold their own against it. At first I thought The Secret Keeper would also be good but not great, but a terrific surprise at the end of the book made me change my mind.

The novel begins in 1961, when sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson is up in the treehouse on the family farm dreaming about her boyfriend. She sees her mother Dorothy go into the house with her baby brother Gerry. It is Gerry’s birthday, and Laurel knows her mother has left the birthday picnic to fetch the family’s special birthday knife so she can cut the cake. A few minutes later, a stranger goes to the door, and Laurel sees her mother stab the man with a knife. He is assumed to be the man who has been attacking women in the area.

Fifty years later, Laurel is a famous character actor who has come home to visit her ill mother. Her mother’s memory is failing, but she has asked Laurel’s sister Rose to get some things out of a box that has always been private. Among them is a photograph of Dorothy and her friend Vivien, who died during the Blitz.

Laurel’s memory of the long-ago incident with the stranger has become muddied and even inaccurate, but she begins to remember it more clearly when she decides to look into it further. She finds that the attacker was Henry Jenkins, Vivien’s husband. Since Dorothy must have known Henry, there is obviously more to the story.

From here the story alternates between Laurel’s investigation in the present and the war years of young Dorothy (Dolly) Smitham. Dolly is madly in love with Jimmy Metcalfe, a newspaper photographer who also has sole care of his senile father. Dolly wants to marry immediately, but Jimmy thinks they can’t afford it yet, so Dolly takes a job as a companion to a wealthy old lady in London. At a war effort volunteer job, she meets Vivien, who lives across the street with her husband, a successful novelist. Dolly, who comes from a lower middle class background, gets carried away with the idea of leading a more exciting, fashionable life. After a series of misunderstandings, she hatches a plan to get money for her marriage and talks the reluctant Jimmy into helping.

At this point, my major problem with the novel was a growing dislike for Dolly, who seems narcissistic and lacking in conscience. I kept wondering how she was going to develop into the beloved mother of five children. But the novel goes on to unearth secrets. With Morton’s gift for storytelling and excellent writing, I think this novel is as good or better than The Forgotten Garden.

Day 195: The Water’s Lovely

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Cover for The Water's LovelyRuth Rendell is not for the faint of heart. She is certainly capable of building her readers’ sense of dread, and I felt one from the beginning of The Water’s Lovely, to the point where I almost couldn’t enjoy it.

Ismay suspects that her sister Heather drowned their stepfather Guy in the bathtub years ago to save Ismay from his advances. She and their mother assumed Heather’s guilt at the time but never spoke of it, and their mother is now mentally ill. When Heather gets seriously involved with a coworker, Edmund, Ismay begins to worry that she should tell him what Heather did. She stupidly records her theory on a cassette tape.

Rendell does a great job of portraying a slew of repellent characters, including self-obsessed Ismay; Edmund’s clinging, whiny mother; and Ismay’s selfish, manipulative boyfriend Andrew. The worst is Marion, the woman Edmond’s mother would like him to date. She likes to befriend elderly people she thinks will put her in their wills, and then she perhaps poisons them.

I worried what was going to happen with that tape, because Heather and Edmund were practically the only likeable characters in the book, except for the girl’s aunt Pamela and her friend Michael. Happily, the ending wasn’t as dreadful as I feared.

Day 194: Burning Bright

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Cover for Burning BrightI’m afraid I cannot read any book by Tracy Chevalier without thinking of the purity of the character she created in Girl with a Pearl Earring. Unfortunately, I haven’t read a book by her that was as good, but I keep hoping for one.

In Burning Bright, set in 18th century London, Jem Kellaway, a young lad from the country, moves with his family into Lambeth. They settle into a row house owned by Kellaway’s new employer, next door to the poet and artist William Blake and his wife.

Jem befriends a London street urchin named Maggie Butterfield, and they spend some time with the Blakes. These two children are meant to represent Blake’s ideas of innocence and experience.

Jem’s father has taken a carpentry job with Astley’s Circus. Unfortunately, Jem’s sister Maisie soon attracts the eye of John Astley, the rapscallion son of the circus owner.

Most of the action of the novel centers around the unease generated in England by the French Revolution. Blake’s unusual publications have made him appear to be seditious, and he and his family are threatened as the hysteria rises.

Unfortunately, the characters and story are not very interesting, and William Blake is almost incidental to the novel. The novel does nothing to make the mysterious Blake more understandable to us.

Day 191: The Wrong Mother

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Cover for The Wrong MotherAgain, Sophie Hannah uses the technique of multiple narrations in the enthralling mystery/thriller The Wrong Mother, featuring Simon Waterhouse.

Sally Thorning is married with two children, and although she is happy, she feels worn out with working and child rearing. When a business trip is cancelled, she lies to her husband so that she can take some time at a spa. There she meets a man named Mark Bretherick and has a brief affair.

A year later she is out shopping when someone pushes her into traffic. When she arrives home, she sees a news report about a woman who apparently killed herself and her child. The woman’s husband is supposed to be Mark Bretherick, but the man on the television is not the man Sally met at the hotel. She does not want to go to the police because she doesn’t want her husband to find out about her fling.

In the meantime, police constable Simon Waterhouse thinks there is something wrong with the diary found for Geraldine Bretherick, in which she writes about how much she hates being a mother.

Although Hannah seems to have a very dark idea of human behavior if you look at the totality of her work, I always enjoy her twisty plots and her grasp of psychological manipulation. Her two recurring characters, Simon and Charlie, are also almost completely disfunctional in their abortive romance and occasionally behave very oddly as police officers. Still, if you like dark mysteries, her books are fun to read.

Day 188: The Nature of Monsters

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Cover for The Nature of MonstersClare Clark seems to be fascinated with shit. Her first book, The Great Stink, featured a mystery during the digging of the London sewer system, and it seemed to revel in descriptions of filth. The Nature of Monsters also spends a great deal of time describing the sanitary conditions of 18th century London.

The novel begins with a description of the 1666 Great Fire of London and the subsequent birth of a disfigured child. This opening is perplexing, and it takes you awhile to figure out the connection to the rest of the novel.

It is 1718, and Eliza Tally has essentially been sold by her mother to a wealthy man’s son, although they first perform a semi-legal marriage ceremony. When Eliza gets pregnant, her mother goes to the man’s father to negotiate a settlement. The results are not what she expects, as Eliza is sold into servitude in London as a maid for an apothecary, whom she thinks is supposed to rid her of her child. But he has other plans.

Eliza is trapped in a bizarre household. She is never allowed to see the apothecary. His wife, Mrs. Black, is intimidating and maintains an iron control over the household. The apothecary has a slimy assistant, and the only other servant is Mary, a mentally handicapped girl. The atmosphere of the house is dark and creepy.

Convinced that he is a scientist and that he is making scientific experiments, the apothecary believes that what a pregnant woman experiences determines the formation of her child. Since he has a handy pregnant woman in his house, he decides to use her for his experiments. Clark has written another disturbing but well-written and suspenseful novel.