Tag: London

Review 2311: Big Ben Strikes Eleven

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Financial tycoon and former politician Sir Robert Boniface is found shot to death in his limousine in the Vale of Health on Hampstead Heath. At first, the police aren’t sure if the death is murder or suicide—only the lack of the gun tells them it is murder.

The body is discovered by a window washer, but Matt Caldwell, an artist, is present in a nearby pub. He is not only able to identify the victim and his car, having painted Sir Robert’s portrait, but he is happy Sir Robert is dead.

Enquiries by Inspector Beckett and Superintendent Mooney lead in the direction of Sir Robert’s nephew, Frank Littlewood, who was recently fired by Sir Robert. However, two office mates, Sir Robert’s confidential secretary Miss Pritt and the obsequious Mr. Fuller, seem too eager to drop him in it.

Then the police find the gun and establish that it belongs to Matt Caldwell. Unfortunately, he is nowhere to be found.

I haven’t paid much attention to this issue until other bloggers pointed it out about other novels, but I would say this novel is about 100 pages longer than it needs to be. First, the action is brought to a screeching halt while the author lays out the case against the original three suspects—as if readers haven’t been paying attention—then we follow Matt Caldwell’s progress in a completely unnecessary romance that coincidentally brings more clues to light. The information is important, but it seems as if it could have been introduced in a different way that didn’t take two or three chapters.

But my biggest problem was with the actual investigation. Early on, Miss Pritt tells the police that the murder had nothing to do with business and uses that reason to withhold information about Sir Robert’s appointments. And the police just go along! Later, the Superintendent just hands her her handkerchief, which he found at the scene of the crime! In other ways, the approach to evidence is just as casual.

Finally, an interview with the Earl of Rollesborough, on the board of the trust that Sir Robert works for, seems called for from the beginning but doesn’t take place until the end. And no wonder, because it pretty much makes everything obvious.

I was able to identify the murderer fairly early on, but that didn’t bother me as much as the sloppy police work, or possibly lack of knowledge about police work.

I received this novel from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2306: The Midnight News

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Is The Midnight News a love story? a murder mystery? an espionage tale? a story about a dysfunctional family? an exploration of how the stress of war affects people psychologically? I’m not telling.

Charlotte is the daughter of privilege. Her father is a peer and a member of Parliament with an important war job. But Charlotte has chosen to work as a typist in a government office and live in a respectable but middle class boarding house.

It is the Blitz, and Charlotte’s home is in a dangerous area south of the Thames. She and the other residents of the house have been spending their nights on the lowest level of the house.

The novel starts slowly. Charlotte spends a day with her best friend, El, who has been elusive lately. Then El is killed in the Blitz. Charlotte goes to visit her godmother, Saskia, after she hears that a well-known actress, a schoolmate, has also been killed. Then Saskia dies, too. Charlotte has noticed a square gray man in several different places and comes to believe he is following her and killing people she is close to. This may seem like a wild idea, and since Charlotte has begun hearing the voices of her dead friends and has a history of mental illness, we begin to worry about her.

Then there is Tom, the son of an undertaker whom Charlotte has noticed feeding the birds. He is waiting to hear about a scholarship and a place at King’s College, but notifications are delayed because King’s has been hit in the Blitz. He is in love with Charlotte but thinks she is above him.

Is Charlotte being followed or is she paranoid? Is there something else going on? This novel eventually because a fast-moving, tightly plotted, and satisfying tale.

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Review 2301: Someone from the Past

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I found Someone from the Past to be the best of the British Library Crime Classics I’ve read so far. It has a smart, feisty, occasionally indiscreet heroine, is fast moving, sometimes exciting, and presents an interesting, character-based mystery.

Nancy is at a restaurant about to receive a proposal from her boyfriend Donald when her estranged friend Sarah approaches the table. This approach creates some awkward moments, because Donald was the last in a string of Sarah’s lovers and didn’t take her departure well. Finally, he leaves the table so the women can talk.

Sarah tells Nancy she is about to marry a wealthy man, Charles. Then she says that someone has been writing her letters threatening her life. As Nancy is a reporter and knows all the suspects—Sarah’s discarded boyfriends—Sarah asks her to try to find out who is writing the letters. She says she’ll send her one of them in the morning.

Nancy’s evening ends poorly, with Donald stomping off. But the next morning, he arrives at her flat, confused and frightened. He tells her he went to see Sarah in the early hours of the morning and ended up falling asleep in the sitting room. When he awakened shortly after eight, he found Sarah murdered in her bed. He is sure the police will think he did it.

To protect Donald, Nancy lets herself into Sarah’s apartment and tries to remove all traces of his visit. In doing so, she notices some odd things about the scene. Unfortunately, when the cleaning lady arrives, Nancy puts the chain on the latch instead of hiding or going out another way so it was obvious someone was in the flat.

Shortly after she arrives home, the police are at her door. They think she killed Sarah, partly because she left her own fingerprint in the apartment and because the cleaning lady recognized her when Nancy met one of Sarah’s other lovers in a pub before going home. Nancy thinks the only way to clear herself and Donald is to figure out who did it herself. The list of suspects consists of Sarah’s last four lovers, including Donald.

Nancy finds she isn’t very good at lying to the police, keeping secrets, or fleeing the country, but she is good at figuring out clues. I’m not so sure she’s that good at picking future husbands, though.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2295: Frederica

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I didn’t set out to reread Frederica, but the Folio Society just brought out a couple of beautiful editions of some of Heyer’s books, so I had to buy them. My original review is here, but I thought I’d talk about some things that struck me this time around.

Heyer has a great sense of humor, and I was tickled by the situation that brings about the climax of the book. Frederica has spent a good deal of ill-afforded money and enlisted Lord Alverstoke’s help with the aim of making a good match for her beautiful but dim-witted sister, Charis. Unfortunately, Charis has fallen in love with Endymion Dauntry, Alverstoke’s handsome but stupid heir. Frederica is skeptical of Charis’s affections because she has fallen in love many times before. Endymion has convinced himself that Alverstoke would prevent the match by having him sent on a mission. Not only does Alverstoke have no power to do so, but he doesn’t really care who Endymion marries. He thinks Endymion isn’t serious because he hasn’t consulted him about getting married.

The incident with the dog in the park

Endymion is friends with Harry, Charis’s and Frederica’s brother, and the two have been confiding their star-crossed misfortunes to him. Frederica makes him angry for some trivial reason, and he suddenly realizes he is Charis’s guardian. So, the three of them stage a totally unnecessary runaway marriage.

Felix and Jessamy, Frederica’s young brothers, are especially delightful characters. Heyer is an amusing writer and a master of silly situations such as the one that Charis and Endymion create for themselves.

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Review 2288: Arabella

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Merry Christmas, everyone! Here’s a romp for Christmas Day.

The vicarage children are excited to learn whether their mother’s best friend will invite their sister Arabella for a season in London, in the hopes she can make an eligible match. The invitation arrives from Lady Bridlington, and then the worry is that the upright Reverend Tallant will not allow her to go.

Soon Arabella is on her way to London from Yorkshire. But the perch of her uncle’s old carriage breaks, and she sees nothing wrong with going to the nearest house for shelter. Unfortunately, it is the hunting box of Robert Beaumarais, a leading figure in society and a very wealthy man, who assumes she is one of many girls trying to make his acquaintance. When she hears him saying this to his friend Lord Fleetwood, she says she is the rich Arabella Tallant, who hoped to be unrecognized in London.

Beaumarais sees through this lie but maliciously lets the indiscreet Lord Fleetwood think he knows about her. He also decides to make her debut a sensation. Soon, Arabella is a success but doesn’t dare accept anyone’s proposal because she realizes that they all think she is rich, whereas she has no money at all.

Although she is in an awkward position, she is enjoying herself. But then her brother Bertram, who is supposed to be at Oxford, arrives and begins to get himself into financial difficulties. To make things worse, Arabella has begun to realize she cares for Beaumarais and is afraid to admit her deceit.

Arabella is an adorable heroine, and Beaumarais a likable hero, as he fondly watches her dig herself deeper into trouble, hoping she will confide in him. Heyer is at her best and funniest with these absurd plots.

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Review 2282: #DeanStreetDecember! Company in the Evening

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I finally could fit a book for Dean Street December into my schedule! This event is being hosted by Liz of Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home.

In 1940 London, Vicky is fairly satisfied with her life. Five years ago, in the midst of divorcing her husband Raymond for infidelity, she discovered she was pregnant. But she is getting along fine raising her daughter Antonia with the help of an old family retainer, Blakey. She works three days a week as a literary agent and devotes the other days to Antonia. She is an independent woman who doesn’t feel the need for company except for an occasional visit or outing and dislikes sentiment and receiving sympathy.

However, she finds herself inviting company when her mother tells her she’d like to sell her house and move in with her sister. The problem is what to do about Rene, Vicky’s widowed and very pregnant sister-in-law, who has little money and no family and lives with Vicky’s mother. Vicky has a spare room and feels she owes it to her mother to offer Rene a place to stay, even though she and Rene have almost nothing in common. She has no desire to invite her, but she does.

Soon enough, she becomes convinced that they are incompatible. Her efforts to get along with Rene usually end up being misunderstood. Worse, Blakey dislikes her. She is always brusque, but to Rene she is sometimes disrespectful.

Then Vicky runs into Raymond. The other woman returned to her husband, and Raymond is just recovering from a bout of tuberculosis and hopes to take a desk job in the army. They begin occasionally spending time together.

This novel takes a thoughtful look at marriage and at Vicky’s preconceptions of how marriage should be as she takes another look at what broke up her own. It is an intelligent, witty, and involving story. I liked it very much.

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Review 2269: Fanfare for Tin Trumpets

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Young Alastair French is offered a place in his family’s stationers business, but he decides to take a room in northwest London with his friend Henry, who is going to be a student. Alastair has £100, and he figures he can support himself for a year while he becomes a writer.

Alastair and Henry move into an apartment building with an assortment of friendly neighbors, particularly Winnie Parker, who is always surrounded by young men. Although he starts a novel, Alastair decides to become a playwright mostly because plays are shorter. He doesn’t do much work but he does write up a scenario.

Then he meets Cressida Drury, an actress, and is immediately smitten. She returns some of his interest when she learns he is a playwright, but it’s hard to tell how much, and he didn’t think of dating when he made his budget.

This is a frothy, funny novel about youthful optimism and first love. It’s a lot of fun.

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Review 2263: The Shadows of London

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Cat Lovell and her partner Brennan have a commission to build a new almshouse and some houses where the old almshouse burnt down in 1666. However, workmen find a body in a rubbish pile on the site. Not only does the body need to be identified because it has no face, but a magistrate named Rush closes down the entire site until the inquest. This is unnecessary, but Cat’s employer Mr. Hadgraft, says that Rush originally was a partner in the undertaking and pulled out, so he is trying to get back at Hadgraft. For Cat and Brennan, the situation is urgent, because they only have a few months before winter closes the work down.

Cat’s friend James Marwood now works entirely for Lord Arlington, who assigns him the task of discovering the corpse’s identity. He finds there are two missing men who might be the victims. One is John Ireton, a civil servant who has disappeared. The other is a Frenchman, Monsieur Pharamond (a pseudonym). Both were involved in fleecing a young French lady-in-waiting in Dieppe.

This novel also tells the true story of that lady-in-waiting, Louise de Keroualle, who has attracted the attention of Charles II. Both Lord Arlington and the King of France see a benefit in having a young French, Catholic girl in the King’s bed. But Louise herself is hoping for a way out.

Marwood’s investigations indicate that his and Cat’s old nemesis, Roger Durrell, a tough for Buckingham, might have killed the dead man. Another issue is that James has become infatuated with Hadgraft’s daughter, and Hadgraft seems unexpectedly eager for the marriage. Cat finds herself surprisingly jealous.

This is an excellent series, and another exciting entry in it. I especially liked the ending.

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Review 2246: One Year’s Time

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Liza, a “bachelor girl” in 1930s London, has a job as a secretary in an office where she likes all the people and a basic flat that she’s fixing up. It’s January 2 and she’s painting the floor and feeling lonely when she gets a call from Walter, a young man she met at a party. She invites him over and they quickly become lovers.

Everything is smooth at first, and she quickly falls in love, but she is always trying to match his mood and to appease him. When he disappoints her, she thinks it is her fault for being disappointed. She madly wants to marry him, but he doesn’t ask.

In April, he decides to spend the summer in the country. He asks her to go, and with very little planning, she quits her job and gives up her flat.

Liza is the type of person who’s either very happy or in the depths of despair. She has high expectations for this trip, but we already know it won’t go as planned.

I hope girls have gained more self-confidence, but I’ve known girls like this who spent a lot of time waiting by the phone (which you presumably don’t have to do anymore, because you carry it with you), and even when I was young, quite a few decades after this book is set, I knew girls who were focused only on marriage. It was interesting but sometimes excruciating to observe what’s going on in Liza’s mind. When will she realize she always puts Walter first and so does he, charming as he may be?

This is an unusual novel for the 30s, showing how things have opened up a little for women sexually but not too much, as her fretting over her fake wedding ring shows. I felt both impatient with and sympathetic to Liza for most of the book.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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Review 2228: The Island of Missing Trees

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I’ve now read three books by Elif Shafak, but I always have the same problem. Some choice she makes in the narrative style separates me from getting fully involved. In this case, it’s the blasted fig tree.

In the 2010s, Ada is the sixteen-year-old daughter of Cypriot parents living in London. Her mother died the year before, and she is grieving. Her father, an introverted plant scientist who is also grieving, is not much help. Her parents went through traumatic events when they were in their teens during the invasion of Cyprus. Further, their marriage meant a break from their families, as Kostos is Greek and Defne was Turkish. Ada would like to understand more, but Kostos promised Dephne not to talk to Ada about their past.

Just before the holidays, Ada has a sort of breakdown in school, and her behavior is recorded and put on social media. She is depressed and hostile until her Aunt Meryem, whom she has never met, arrives for a visit. She is angry with her aunt because she didn’t come to Dephne’s funeral, but from her she begins to learn about Cyprus and her parents.

The chapters involving humans are separated by chapters narrated by a fig tree that Kostos brought from Cyprus. This fig tree knows all about the history of Cyprus as well as about various creatures. Plus, it is visited by numerous birds and insects, all of which have stories to tell or the tree has facts about them to impart. Every time I came close to getting involved in the flow of the story, there was a chapter by the fig tree to interrupt it. I finished the book, but I almost put it down numerous times, and I started skipping through the tree’s sections.

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