Dear Laura by Jean Stubbs: Book review

Time for another book review, time for another classic mystery. Though actually I’m not sure that merely reissuing a detective novel, in this case from the 1970s, necessarily makes it a classic and to be honest some of the oldies have lasted better than others.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on Dear Laura by Jean Stubbs, because it does have a lot to commend it. It’s a historical mystery set in late Victorian times. Wealthy but emotionally cold businessman Theodore Crozier is dead and his death wasn’t the result of natural causes — but was the overdose of morphine in his system accident or murder? Theodore’s relationship with his wife, Laura, is cold, distant and unemotional, and her relationship with his wayward younger brother, Titus, is anything but. The servants are divided and Inspector Lintott of Scotland Yard is there to unravel the mystery.

As I say, there’s a lot going for this book. It’s well-written and the characters are cleverly-drawn. The author paints a terrific picture of a society whose conventions force those of all classes to accept what is expected of them and illustrates that the rich can be as miserable as the poor. The plot is clever, with plenty of twists and turns, although for me it had a less than satisfactory conclusion, and I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, which can make a book a hard read.

Where it fell down for me is in the solving of the mystery. The book is the first in a series featuring Inspector Lintott but apart from whisking across the narrative very fleetingly early on, the detective doesn’t make an appearance until almost half way through. The rest of the book is scene-setting which, while necessary up to a point, seemed rather out of balance. And the investigation itself consisted of Lintott talking to everyone involved and coming to a conclusion — no spoilers but…

Perhaps it’s down to the expectation we have detective fiction but, for me, if the investigating officer is the main protagonist (and he or she has his name on the cover) then he or she needs to be at the heart of the book from the beginning. I thought there was too much back story and not enough detecting and, as a result, I couldn’t really engage with Inspector Lintott in the way I feel I was meant to.

Thanks to Sapere Books and Netgalley for a copy of this book, in return for an honest review.

The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons: Book Review

It isn’t often I laugh out loud on the first page of a book, still less when it’s a detective story, but I did just that when I began reading The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons. It’s a slightly unusual read for me, a rerelease of a book first published in 1965, which isn’t exactly the Golden Age of detective fiction. It’s set in Kent, where the Wainwright family is much-depleted by the war, and the narrator is Christopher, a poor relation taken in by the family after the death of his parents.

As with all detective fiction I can’t say too much about the plot for fear of spoilers, but it’s based around the appearance of a man claiming to be David, one of two brothers thought to have been killed in the war. His two surviving younger brothers are disbelieving and downright hostile, but their dying mother welcomes him with open arms. And, this being detective fiction, there’s a murder.

I really loved this book. It wasn’t just the plot, which was clever but perhaps not as twisty as the modern reader looks for. It was the characters. Symons captures the idiosyncrasies of family life, and the part where I laughed was where there’s a family joke that caught my attention — and engaged me immediately. The book’s  huge strength is its characterisation, not just of Christopher himself but of its whole cast of fallible individuals, some of them more likeable than others but all of them human. And as the plot goes on Christopher, a somewhat pretentious would-be writer, grows up and becomes an altogether more mature human being.

Interestingly, there’s an introductory note which reveals the author’s concerns that he hung the plot too heavily on a coincidence for it to be a good book, but I didn’t find that. Yes, there was a coincidence, but it wasn’t too crushingly incredible, and it led off on a slightly mad section of the book where everything became very different to the first half. But that didn’t affect my enjoyment in any way — rather the opposite.

The cast of characters was diverse and all were handled well. I particularly liked Christopher’s Uncle Miles, the youngest of the brothers, with his fondness for jokes (especially bad and complicated puns), his genuine care for young Christopher and his tendency to slope off to watch cricket whenever things got difficult (which, of course, they often did).

It’s not a modern detective story, but it was a thoughtful and engaging read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Classics for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

The Fifty State Fossils by Yinan Wang (illustrations by Jane Levy): Book Review

Okay, so The Fifty State Fossils by Yinan Wang, with illustrations by Jane Levy isn’t the kind of book I’d normally pick up and read, let alone review. It’s a children’s book, and I’m way past that state just now. But it did catch my attention because I’m a geoscientist (though not a palaeontologist, of fossil specialist) and because it struck me as the kind of book from which I could learn something.

For a start, I didn’t know that states had state fossils. They don’t all — some have state dinosaurs and some don’t have anything at all, but for those not blessed in this particular way there’s a recommendation, so every state has a page. The author has even managed to come up with something for Hawaii, which is way younger, geologically, than most of the fossils described in the book. 

I was surprised, in  good way, by the amount of information the author and illustrator managed to pack into such a small space. Each page has a section on the appropriate fossil, with a description, some basic information (remember this is a children’s book, so nothing too complicated) and a note on it’s relevance to the state. Alone with this, illustrator Jane Levy has produced a drawing of each fossil as it might have been when alive, and there’s a map showing where in the state it has been found and, for good measure, a photograph of it in its fossil state. 

There’s also an impressive amount of ancillary information. The early part of the book has some simple definitions of the geological context, explaining taxonomy and the geological timescale, while the back includes some really useful listings of places to go fossil hunting and a glossary of terms.

All in all I found it a fascinating read and can imagine it would go down extremely well with the next generation of budding fossil-hunters. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Schiffer Publishing for a copy of this book in return for an honest review. 

Book Review: The Duke's Agent by Rebecca Jenkins

My regular book reviews have tailed off in the last couple of weeks, for which I offer my apologies. It always happens at the beginning of November, when I take on the challenge of National Novel Writing Month and flog myself to a standstill in an attempt to write 50,000 words and the first draft of a novel. 

The 50,000 are done, now, though the draft has still to be completed, but it does mean I can take the foot of the pedal a bit and get back to reading and reviewing. So here's a review of the first of two books I've read recently on long train journeys. 

The Duke’s Agent, by Rebecca Jenkins, is a good book. It isn’t perfect, but it kept me reading all the way to London and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s set somewhere in the north/north east of England during the Napoleonic Wars, among towns and villages that hint at reality — it’s a landscape of deep dales and woods and towns and villages with rushing rivers and the rough and unforgiving lead mining industry behind it.

Into this scene comes a veteran of Wellington’s Peninsular Army, Raif Jarret, land agent to the Duke of Penrith, come to oversee the running of the Duke’s estate. Raif stumbles on an abandoned house where a man has recently died and there are signs of theft. In his attempt to pursue justice, and the interests of his employer, Raif soon finds himself on the wrong side of the local crooked magistrate and when someone else dies — an apparent murder — his life is at stake. 

There’s a lot to like about this book. The characterisation is excellent throughout, with Raif a strong and fascinating protagonist; the dialogue is almost flawless; the setting is tremendous; and the historical detail sets a fascinating background. Writing-wise I thought it was a bit overwritten and there was a bit of head-hopping that kept taking me out of the characters, but these aren’t serious issues.  

The problem for me was that, though it started off so well, the second half of the book felt weaker than the first. I can’t really say too much without giving away spoilers, so you’ll have to bear with me, but the stakes build early until, at about half way, they can’t get any higher. It’s far too soon. And after that, the pace slows, the tension slips off a bit and the whole thing feels as if it’s dragging on. This is the point at which the writing held it back a bit, too, as if the balance between writing and action wasn’t quite right in the second half. 

I also felt that the conclusion of the mystery was a little bit tame, though again I can’t tell you why without giving away the plot. Let’s just say that I thought Jarrett should have had more of a hand in it than he did. 

There are one or two things left unresolved — we learn early that Raif is some kind of relative to the Duke, and we don’t find out the story behind the bracelet of plaited blonde hair that he wears around his wrist — but these don’t matter. They’re stories for another day, and I’ll be reading on to find out.

Thanks to Netgalley and Sapere Books for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.