Severn House

G.M. Malliet: Death and the Old Master

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St. Just #6

I’m a huge fan of G.M. Malliet, who writes in a classic, golden age style, right down to the length of her novels.  Like the masters of the genre who came before her, she keeps her books on the shorter side.  With their sharp prose and quick but indelible characterizations, authors like Christie, Marsh, and Tey got their stories told in a much briefer manner than we are now accustomed to.  I have a dear bookseller friend who insists that you should be able to settle in after dinner, say, and finish up your read that evening.  That is indeed possible with a Malliet book.  She shares the dry humor of her foremothers, as well as their clever way with a puzzle. read more

Simon Brett: A Messy Murder

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Decluttering mysteries #4

I’m not sure why I haven’t read this series before, but this book is so good it makes me want to go back and check out the first three installments.  Main character Ellen Curtis is a “professional declutterer,” a job that sounds very silly but really isn’t.  As the story begins she’s working for a husband and wife looking to downsize, with the wife being all for it and the husband, a fading former TV host, not so enthusiastic.  Ellen is a widow, having lost her husband to suicide, and when the husband, “Humph” to his friends, dies, apparently a suicide as well, Ellen’s skills  and familiarity with grief come to the fore. read more

Kathryn Lasky: Mortal Radiance

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Georgia O’Keeffe #2

I truly enjoyed the first novel in this series, Light on Bone, despite initial reservations about Georgia O’Keeffe as a detective.  Lasky ably uses O’Keeffe’s artistic skillset to solve the crimes presented to her, and I am always in favor of a sleuth using an actual skill they already possess.  Set in and around Taos, New Mexico, Georgia in this instalment is staying at the home of Mabel Dodge Luhan, an art patroness who maintained quite a salon.  Georgia is in Taos for the funeral of D.H. Lawrence, whose body was disinterred by his wife five years after his death, cremated, and brought to Taos for interment on the grounds of a ranch Mabel had gifted to the couple (in return, Mabel received the original manuscript of Sons and Lovers). read more

E.J. Copperman: Same Difference

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Fran and Ken Stein #2

There are several things a reader can expect when they pick up an E.J. Copperman book, among them humor, a tight plot and great characters. Also to be expected in each of his series, written as either Jeff Cohen or Copperman, is a high concept premise, and this instalment is no exception.  The sibling protagonists, brother and sister Fran and Ken Stein (you get the word play), were not born, exactly, but created by their scientist parents who added a little extra something to the formula.  The two of them are remarkably tall and strong, the downside being that they have to plug the USB port under their arms into a charger every couple of days to keep going.  This part of the story was, to me, almost extraneous – the rest is so excellent that it needs no embellishment.  Fran and Ken could just simply have been tall and extra strong and the book wouldn’t have suffered any.  Being Copperman, however, there’s an extra emotional layer here as Fran and Ken haven’t seen their parents since they were children and are still hoping to find them.  All signs point to that search being the plot of the next book. Their sense of loss is only lightly touched on here but it’s present and beautifully handled. read more

Katherine Bolger Hyde: Hanging with Hugo

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Crime with the Classics #6

Set on the Oregon coast, this charming series features B & B owner Emily, a former professor, and her sheriff husband Luke.  In this outing they’ve just returned from their honeymoon and are getting set to host the wedding of Emily’s half-brother Oscar.  They feel prepared for the tsunami of family and general chaos brought on by a wedding, but when they return home they find the church where it is to take place has been hit by an actual storm, with massive damage to the roof as well as a beautiful rose window in the nave.  The squishy floor and holes in the roof aren’t exactly conducive to the perfect wedding, so Emily, an heiress, donates some money of her own and arranges further financing through the town to get repairs started. read more

Jeri Westerson: The Twilight Queen

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King’s Fool #2

I am a hardcore Tudor fan, mostly because of the long ago 70’s TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R.  I inhaled everything Tudor during high school and went on to major in history in college.  So when Jeri Westerson asked me if I’d care to read her book about Will Sommers, Henry VIII’s jester, the answer was easy.  Set a few months before Anne Boleyn’s ultimate demise, Will is called to the Queen’s presence one evening as she’s discovered a corpse under her bed.  She doesn’t know who the man is, but she does know that a dead body in her chamber will be bad and she asks Will to move it. Reluctantly, he agrees, and moves the man to the garden. read more

Catriona McPherson: Hop Scot

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Last Ditch #6

This hilarious breath of fresh air from Catriona McPherson has rocketed on to my all time favorite Christmas mystery list.  This series centers on Scot Lexy Campbell, who has settled in the strange land of California, and lives in a motel surrounded by an array of interesting characters who often help her solve crimes.  Her “real” job is working as a life coach, but honestly, sleuthing takes front and center stage for her.

In this outing McPherson has flipped the script, and sent Lexy and her buddies home (Lexy’s home, anyway) to Scotland for Christmas.  While it was a trip planned for just her and her fiancée, their buddy Roger the doc says he needs to get out of town and buys them all swanky airplane tickets – how can they refuse? read more

John Keyse-Walker: Palms, Paradise, Poison

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This is the third book in John Keyse-Walker’s enjoyable Teddy Creque series, set on the fictional island of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. Similar in tone and feel to the TV series Death in Paradise, Keyse-Walker’s main character is not an imported British superintendent, but an island born constable, risen to the top of the heap in tiny Anegada.  He’s also a fisherman, and his community plays a huge part in the story.

While the first book in the series was a traditional police procedural story with the added zing of the Caribbean setting, this one is a stripped down wonder that embraces the setting completely.  The book opens with a hurricane hitting the island (a sadly common occurrence in the Virgin Islands), and Teddy, while trying to evacuate the islanders to safety further inland, goes out to rescue a fellow fisherman who is out in one of the worst storms in island memory. read more

G.M. Malliet: Death in Cornwall

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I was (am) a giant fan of Malliet’s Max Tudor series.  I had always been aware of the St. Just series, but had never read one, and I am now a giant fan of this series as well.  There are really very few practitioners of the traditional British detective novel working at the moment, and Malliet is one of the best.  Her novels are very much golden age in pattern, with a series detective, a fast paced and tidy narrative, and in this case, a setting to die for – the Cornish coast.

Using a trope beloved of novelists from Agatha Christie to Deborah Crombie to Louise Penny, St. Just is on vacation with his fiancée (the wittily named Portia De’Ath – I hope she keeps her maiden name!) Like Crombie’s Duncan and Penny’s Gamache, St. Just seems to be the calm center of the storm.  It made it completely believable that the local constabulary would turn to him for advice. read more

Susanna Calkins: The Sign of the Gallows

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I love this series set in 1660’s London, featuring former maid turned bookseller Lucy Campion.  London has weathered both the plague and the great fire, and the upheaval finds some women able to take work usually reserved for men.  While Lucy is not technically a bookseller’s apprentice, she does everything an apprentice would do.  In the 1660’s, bookselling also meant publishing, so Lucy works as a typesetter, a sometime writer of murder broadsheets, which were often sold at public executions, as well as working as a seller.  Her intelligence and connections to the wealthy Hargreaves family, her former employer, get her into some places the police cannot go. She’s also torn between two suitors – Constable Duncan and Adam Hargreaves. read more