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.  

Book Review: The Bloomsbury Affair by Anita Davison

So, once more I’ve stumbled late into a series of cosy historical mysteries, and once more I’m left vowing to go back and catch up with the treasures I’ve missed early on in the series. The Bloomsbury Affair is the fifth in the Flora Maguire series by Anita Davison (though, a little confusingly, Flora is now Mrs Harrington rather than Miss Maguire, but that’s a minor detail).

In Edwardian England, former governess Flora Harrington is settled with her solicitor husband Bunny and they’re doing very nicely, thank you. Affluent, well-looked after by the staff, socially well-connected and with the delightful addition of a new baby, everything is going fine — until the arrival of Edward, Viscount Trent, a young man to whom Flora was formerly governess. Ed was on a train with a young man who was found murdered, and he’s the main suspect. Convinced that he can’t be guilty, Flora and Bunny, hampered by Ed and to the exasperation of the detective on the case, set out to prove his innocence.

What follows is a romp through Edwardian London involving the aristocracy, a mysterious interloper and a plot to inherit, all against the background of exiled Russian revolutionaries, including Lenin himself. The plot was twisty yet credible and kept me guessing all the way through. The historical background was cleverly done but not overdone, and somehow Davison manages to subsume her readers without them noticing, so that I felt I was sitting in the lobby of the Dahlia Hotel, or in the doctor’s waiting room in Cheltenham or wherever else she happened to take us.

The book’s greatest strength, however, is its characterisation. All of the main characters are well-drawn and entirely believable. Flora is slightly uncomfortable with the gulf she sees in social class yet human enough to enjoy her advantages, and the relationships between the main characters are wonderfully done. Flora’s interactions with chirpy maid Sally and aristocratic Ed both respect their individuality and yet keep within the social requirements of the times. And Flora’s relationship with Bunny is humorous and touching.

I’m a harsh critic and no book is ever perfect, but the only criticism I have with this one is minor. It’s part of a series and the author seemed to want to make sure we knew it, though actually it worked fine as a standalone. Early on in the book there were plenty of references to Flora’s previous adventures, which added nothing to the plot and served only to spoil a little of the mystery for me for when I go back and catch up with the others. But that’s a minor gripe. I’m looking forward to books one to four in the series — and I’m certainly looking forward to book six.

I received this book from Aria Fiction and Netgalley in return for an honest review.



 

Book Review: Death in Paris by Emilia Bernhard

It’s always a bit of a risk trying a new author and a new series, even if the genre is tried and tested (cosy mystery, in this case). A delicious risk, admittedly, but a risk nevertheless. 

It paid off. I’d never heard of Emilia Bernhard and the book was so recently published when I downloaded it that a handful of Amazon reviews weren’t much guidance, so I opened up Death in Paris with a degree of trepidation. It’s so easy, under those circumstances, to pick a dud. But this time something went right. 

The story focuses on Rachel, middle-aged, married and living in Paris, and her friend Magda as they try to unravel a suspicious death. Rachel’s long-ago lover, the fabulously wealthy Edgar Bowen, is found dead, apparently drowned in his bowl of soup as he dined alone, a passing which generates a considerable amount of behind-the-hands laughter, but Rachel’s suspicions are alerted by the detail of a half-bottle of rose on the table. Edwin hated rose…

With a crime novel you can never discuss the plot in much detail for fear of spoilers, but I will say that I found the characters interesting and credible and the plot had enough twists and turns to keep me interested. I loved the setting, in affluent central Paris, and the real sense of place which the author imparted. And I was constantly smiling at the quirky observations of wealthy Parisians in their natural milieu. 

Did I think there were one or two unanswered questions? Did Rachel and Magda stumble into the trap of going in to confront the suspect when anyone else would have waited for the police to arrive? (In fairness, that’s the difficulty that cosy crime writers so often struggle to avoid.) Did I find the conversation and the disingenuousness of the sleuths a little on the irritating side, to the point that I might be struggling with it by book six in the series? 

The answer to all these is yes, but it really doesn’t matter. Reviewing is so subjective. There are good books I don’t like and bad books that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading. Death in Paris isn’t perfect, and I’ve given worse reviews than this to books that were probably better. But it’s good — very good. It was the right book for the right moment, and I absolutely loved it.

Bring on book 2!

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

Essence of Edinburgh by Jenni Calder: Book Review

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Essence of Edinburgh, part-history part-travel and part personal reminiscence, but on the whole I did enjoy it. In it Jenni Calder takes a trip around Edinburgh, her home (and mine) for many, many years.

Her theme, if there is a theme, is that Edinburgh has what she calls a duality, a split personality, andI think I’d concur with that, but I’m not sure she fully illustrates it. The book moves around in a sensible enough way — there are chapters on the geology and topography, the festivals, its river and other elements that make up this unique assembly of buildings and individuals. The historical strand in the book is by far the best of it, and I learned a lot about a city I thought I knew well. I particularly enjoyed the opening, at the Heart of Midlothian itself, and how she begins to explore the city from there.

I enjoyed the writing, although there were one or two places where a jump from one thing to another was more than confusing (for example, at one point a paragraph about George IV’s visit concludes with the observation that ‘Seven years later William Burke was hanged and William Hare was released from jail’, a non-sequitur that had me scratching my head as I tried to work out the connection).

If I had a problem with it it’s that we don’t hear the author’s voice nearly enough. The quotations from books about Edinburgh are extensive to the point of being overwhelming. There can barely be a well-kent writer who features the city who doesn’t get a mention. Jenni Calder doesn’t just quote the oldies like Scott and Stevenson, but more modern writers such as Rankin and Spark, and a whole load of others who are unfamiliar to me. It’s fine up to a point, but for a book that claims to be ‘a personal journey — and eccentric odyssey’ I found it a little bit unbalanced, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the chapters I enjoyed most are those where she writes about the outlying areas, where there are fewer quotations and more original input.

Jenni Calder writes well and fluently, and I would have liked to have heard more of her own words and less of those of others.

Thanks to Netgalley and Luath Press for an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

The Secret Life of Cats by Suzanne Shotz: Book Review

 

The Secret Language of Cats is something…well, a bit different. The title says it all — a scientific exploration of the sounds our feline friends make, how they make them and what they (might) mean by it. The author, Susanne Schötz, is a lecturer in phonetics and the book relies on real (if small-scale) research.

If I’m honest, a lot of the technical side went way over my head, even though I have a nodding acquaintance with the discipline of phonetics (by which I mean I know my labials from my bilabials and can demonstrate a glottal stop). But what might have been a dull and dry piece of writing is more than saved by the author’s cats. Five domestic felines and a selection of others passing through all contrived, as cats always do, to steal the show. 

The book looks at the very many sounds that cats make and is supported by web links which didn’t show up in the ARC I received, so it’s hard to judge how effective they might actually be. And I think it would require a lot of interest and effort to get the best out of this book. There are extensive appendices so that if you aren’t familiar with phonetics you can look them up and try and work out how the vocalisations she describes might actually sound, but there are very many subtle variations and it isn’t easy to pick them all up.

That said, I have a suspicion that the best of this book, if it’s used with the associated resources and with a suitably co-operative cat (mine doesn’t say much, except at night, and remained resolutely silent throughout my reading), would be very rewarding indeed. Schötz demonstrated how her cats use the same sounds in different ways, such as how we can listen for the subtle differences between the purrs a cat makes when it’s comfortable and those it makes when it’s in pain, and how cats vocalise in their territorial battles as a way to avoid confrontation. 

It’s probably the ideal book for cat owners with a grasp of phonetics and a more subtle ear than I have, but I learned a lot from the author’s cats and I already listen to my own cat — a notorious non-purrer and night-howler — in a different way. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would when I began reading it.

Thanks to Netgalley and HQ Stories for allowing me an advance copy of this book. 

Book Review: A Picture of Murder by TE Kinsey

I approached A Picture of Murder by TE Kinsey as a lover of cosy historical fiction and I found pretty much what I’d expect in this Edwardian whodunnit — something very frothy and folksy. It’s the fourth in the Lady Hardcastle mystery series and the first that I’ve read, but that didn’t matter, because it works well as a standalone. It’s a light-hearted and not-terribly credible romp through the Herefordshire countryside, where a visiting cast of a moving picture actors find themselves flung on Lady Hardcastle’s hospitality, and are bumped off one by one. It ends with a big twist. And that’s more or less what it has too offer. In that sense, it delivers.

The problem is that, for all that’s good about it, for me it falls just short of being a good book. The story is narrated by Lady Hardcastle’s/maid companion/fixer, and we learn early on that she and her employer have a complicated history in His Majesty’s service. There’s a diverse cast of characters, from the villagers to the visiting actors to the group of Bible-bashers protesting against the new development of moving pictures — but I didn’t feel that any off them were particularly well-developed. The villagers were simple-minded, the aristocracy overly jolly, the policemen bumbling, and the relationship between Armstrong and her employer felt far too flippant for the times, even allowing for the fact that the pair are deliberately set up as eccentric.

I did enjoy the plot, although the twist at the end stretched my credibility (and I was interested to see that the author’s note at the end conceded that the hook on which the plot was hung probably wouldn’t hold up). The conversation felt brittle in a sub-Wodehousian way, and I was reminded of Gilbert and Sullivan long before the first of several references to the Pirates of Penzance.

A Picture of Murder isn’t bad, by any means, and I feel a bit harsh giving it three stars (perhaps it was just shy of 3.5) . It’s just that it falls short in the key thing I look for in any murder mystery, which is believability and the ability to engage with well-rounded characters. Of course, that’s a personal thing and I'm sure many people will love it. I would certainly read more in the series, although there are authors whose approach to the genre whose books I would pick up first.

I received this book from Amazon Publishing via Netgalley in return for an honest review. 

Review: The Drowned Village by Kathleen McGurl

I’ve told you before that I’m a binge reader, and I’m finally getting round to addressing my new year's resolution, which was to read a book a week for a year. Whether I shall fulfil that resolution is open to some doubt, since I haven’t kept a note of every book I’ve read and have had to try and cobble something together.

This is inevitably problematic, because looking at my Amazon account will tell me that when I downloaded a book but it doesn’t tell me when I read it. As anyone with the dreaded to-be-read pile knows, a book can sit waiting its turn for a long time. My current (honest) list stands at only thirty, though I must have read more than that. I think I can reasonably add the full-length unpublished manuscripts I’ve read for friends, which gives it a healthy boost, but still leaves me 16 books short of my target.

I can do 16 books in two and a half months. Easy.

The long and the short of it is, it’s book review time again. This time I won’t be posting my review on Amazon or Goodreads because I’m reviewing a friend’s book, but I will say I loved Kath McGurl’s The Drowned Village. It’s one of those what’s-not-to-like books that could have been written to my own specifications for a contemporary romance.

Best of all, Kath has set the book in one of my favourite places, Haweswater in the Lake District (it appears thinly veiled as Bereswater, but I wasn’t fooled).

It’s a dual timeline story, about a mystery in the village of Brackendale Green (real life Mardale Green) which was flooded in the 1930s to create a reservoir. In the present day, Laura goes to the Lakes to recover from a broken relationship and visit the dale which her grandmother left as a child. An unusually hot summer has revealed the village and her grandmother, Stella, begs her to retrieve a mysterious package from one of the old cottages, to solve a decades-old mystery. The origins of the mystery form the second timeline.

i’ll give away no spoilers, but I will say that what Laura and new friend Tom discovered was the key to a terrific mystery. Kath kept me guessing to the very end as to how it would be solved, and there were a couple of gut-wrenching twists as the truth of an old injustice was revealed.

In the story the village re-emerges during a drought, just as it did this summer, and I walked every step of the way with Laura and Tom. The plot is great and the descriptions terrific. If I was very picky I would say that the bit where Laura’s ex turned up drunk wasn’t really necessary for the story and felt a bit cliched, as well as begging the question of what she’d ever seen in him in the first place. But that’s a minor thing, and the only criticism I have.

I loved it.

The Drowned Village by Kath McGurl. Published by HQ