Robin Hood

Anna Lee Huber: A Fatal Illusion

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Lady Darby  #11

Anna Lee Huber’s most outstanding quality as a writer is her educated heart.  The way she parses human relationships is nothing short of brilliant.  In the latest Lady Darby outing, she and her husband, Sebastian Gage, are summoned to the bedside of his disagreeable father – Lord Gage has been shot as he was making his way home via coach.  It’s 1832 Yorkshire and travelling the highways could be dangerous – not only was Lord Gage shot (luckily in the leg) but one of his servants has been killed.  Sebastian is suffering from a plethora of emotions, all expertly dissected by Huber. read more

Ben Machell: The Unusual Suspect: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Day Outlaw

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Character is key in almost any book.  This was brought home to me recently when I read and really enjoyed The Unusual Suspect by Ben Machell after having encountered several other true crime books that simply didn’t satisfy.  The trend today is to serve up an unsolved mystery and slather it with internet speculation and/or trial transcripts.  there may be a few satisfying crime books, fact or fiction, where you never find out who dun it, but it’s certainly very few.  I won’t name names, but if you write a book about say, a person who evidently either killed themselves or was murdered in a flamboyant fashion, it’s important to know their character to decide which of the two were more likely, something a journalistic “just the facts” approach doesn’t provide. read more