Reviews

The Changing Face of Historical Mysteries: Jane Austen, Victorian England & WWII New York

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When we opened the store in 1992, Ellis Peters was finishing a long run with Brother Cadfael (the series was written between 1977 and 1994), and Anne Perry was deep into her “Pitt” series, which she began in 1979, though her Monk series didn’t begin until 1990. But as far as historical mystery went, those two ladies were pretty much it. And then, almost growing up with us as a business, came writers like Sharan Newman (her first Catherine LeVendeur novel came out in 1993), Candace Robb (the first Owen Archer novel in 1993), Margaret Frazer (Dame Frevisse made her debut in 1992), Kate Ross (Cut to the Quick was published in 1993) and Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series hit the streets in 1994. I have grown fond over the years of both the books and the people behind Dame Frevisse, Owen Archer and Catherine LeVendeur; happily, there’s a gigantic medieval congress in Kalamazoo every May and the authors began to trickle over to Ann Arbor and Aunt Agatha’s back in the mid 90’s. read more

Tasha Alexander: And Only to Deceive

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This is a pleasant, luscious historical novel set in 1880’s London with a slightly unbelievable, though enjoyable, heroine. Emily Ashton, the recently bereaved widow of the fabulously wealthy Viscount Ashton, has at last achieved independence from her parents as well as financial independence; the bad news is, she’s trapped in the confines of Victorian mourning for two years. Emily is mourning a husband she barely knew, and the constraints of wearing black and keeping away from society might really drive her crazy if she hadn’t stumbled into her husband’s love of Greek culture – both its sculpture and its poetry. As Emily applies herself to learn Greek after discovering the poetic joys of The Iliad in translation, she becomes more and more drawn into the world of her dead husband. She had known him mainly as a hunter, but when she finds his journals and discovers his matching passion for Homer (and the eternal question, which man is more to be admired, Hector or Achilles?) she begins to not only understand her dead husband, but to fall in love with him as well. Philip, Viscount Ashton, had died of a fever while hunting in Africa; crawling out the woodwork are two of his closest friends, the dashing Colin Hargreaves, and the more socially acceptable, though impoverished, Andrew Palmer. Emily is drawn to both men, but independent enough – and by the middle of the novel, genuinely grieving her husband enough – to hold them both at arm’s length. read more

Sharon Fiffer: Backstage Stuff

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Sharon Fiffer has become one of the more reliable, and enjoyable, cozy writers around.  For one thing, her actual prose is lovely, which is always a pleasure.  For another, she has a sturdy cast of characters that flesh out her stories and give them lots of depth.  Like my other favorite in this series, Scary Stuff, Backstage Stuff finds antiques picker/private eye (PPI) Jane Wheel back in her childhood home, Kankakee, Illinois.  Part of the reason I enjoy Jane back in Kankakee so much instead of her native Chicago is the presence of her always fascinating mother, Nellie, co-proprietor (with Jane’s dad, natch) of the E-Z Way Inn. read more

Sharon Fiffer: Buried Stuff

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Sharon Fiffer’s “stuff” books are dangerous – read one, and you might be eyeing your mother’s or grandmother’s aprons or dishtowels as “vintage”, or remembering those salt and pepper shakers belonging to same that were given away without a second thought. In the opening scene of Buried Stuff, series heroine Jane Wheel is practically having a heart attack because she’s finally agreed to a garage sale to clear out some of her own stuff (which apparently packs her entire house, stem to stern). Jane’s friend, and flashier antiques picker/dealer, Claire Oh has helped to set it up and keep Jane on the straight and narrow – Jane doesn’t want to give up a thing. Almost before the garage sale is over, though, Jane gets a call from her parents back home in Kankakee, Illinois – their old friend Fuzzy has found some bones in his backyard, and could Jane’s husband Charley (a geologist) come have a look at them? Since Jane had neglected to plan a family vacation, Charley and son Nick quickly convince Jane that it would be fun to “camp” out in the cabin behind Fuzzy’s house while they look at the bones. Jane agrees – against her better judgement. When she gets to Fuzzy’s she remembers that she hates camping, the dark, and using an outhouse (I’m in full agreement with her there). read more

Sharon Fiffer: Scary Stuff

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This was a very pleasant surprise. I’ve read several of the Jane Wheel mysteries and found them enjoyable—I have an uncomfortable feeling that our collection of books rivals Jane’s collection of “stuff”—but this book is, to me, by far the strongest entry yet. How delightful that a writer, six books into an established series, hits a real home run. Often mysteries are well written, but not so often are they actually “mysterious.” On this front Fiffer delivers in spades. read more

Elaine Viets: Dying to Call You

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“Mr. Cavarelli slithered in at ten o’clock. He was one of the elegant reptiles from the New York office… Even his suit was a lizardlike greenish brown. He wore alligator shoes, which Helen thought was no way to treat a relative.”

Mysteries involve a certain amount of fantasy. In mysteries written by men, the fantasy element often involves the male character and any female: the women all want to jump his bones. In mysteries written by women, the fantasy is even more basic: food. In Sue Grafton’s books not only does Kinsey Milhone live unencumbered by relatives in an adorable apartment that looks like a ship’s cabin, she can eat fried baloney sandwiches grilled with “a knuckle of butter.” In Elaine Viets’ dandy Dead End Job series, her irrepressible heroine, Helen Hawthorne, lives on “pillowy white bread,” plates of brownies, and endless salt and vinegar potato chips. She also has an ultra cool apartment in a very 50’s Florida building, complete with groovy landlady (Margery, who wears only purple), and furnished with 50’s furniture. The barcalounger in Helen’s apartment is my favorite. read more

Joan Coggin: Penelope Passes

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This is the third installment of Rue Morgue’s reprints of Joan Coggin’s four mysteries featuring the ditsy yet strangely knowing Lady Lupin. Lupin is no-one’s idea of a curate’s wife – young, glamorous, and titled – but she mostly takes people unawares with her down to earth kindness and capability in most situations, unpleasant or otherwise. This is the most serious of the three novels so far – the other two are delightfully comic, but in this one, Coggin explores a main character with great delicacy and knowledge of the human heart. It reminded me of Josephine Tey at her best. Lupin and her husband, Andrew, meet Penelope when they go to stay at another parish so Andrew can lead the services there for a Sunday. They also meet Penelope’s appealing brother and sister in law, Dick and Betty. read more

Jane Casey: The Reckoning

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Our book club recently read and enjoyed Jane Casey’s first novel, The Burning, prompting me to turn to her second, The Reckoning. Casey’s series is a British police procedural centered on Maeve Kerrigan, an ambitious, hard working, clueless-about-her-lovelife young woman who may remind readers of Helen Mirren’s indelible Jane Tennison.  Though Kerrigan is younger than Tennison, even all these years later, she’s experiencing the some of the same kind of sexism and suspicion ladled on Tennison. read more

Tana French: Broken Harbor

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The two signature books of the summer, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Tana French’s Broken Harbor, share a theme: the recession, joblessness, and the losses that come with those circumstances.  In Gone Girl, Flynn’s characters lose their jobs and investments and are forced to leave Manhattan for the wilds of Missouri, where they are fish out of water.

The former Dubliners in French’s novel, Pat and Jenny, find their dream home in a development that never “developed,” far out from the city and away from any of their friends or former lifestyle.  And their move was made for the most prosaic of reasons:  so their kids could grow up in a real house with a backyard.  Like Flynn’s characters, Pat has lost his job, and the development is a ghost town. read more

Tasha Alexander: Death in the Floating City

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While I am weary of Anne Perry and can’t read another sentence by her, I am infatuated with Tasha Alexander’s delicious books set in Victorian England.  Featuring Lady Emily, wife of the dashing Colin Hargreaves, she and her husband get around the continent solving crime puzzles on behalf (secretly) of her majesty’s government.  They make a good team, as Emily can go where Colin cannot, and vice versa.

In this outing Emily and Colin are in Venice to help a childhood frenemy of Emily’s, Emma Callum, find out who has murdered her father in law and framed her missing husband for it.  Emma has married well – her husband is an Italian count and they live in a magnificent Venetian home – but she seems strangely unhappy.  Putting her old feelings aside, Emily promises to investigate. read more