{"id":1575,"date":"2015-01-25T19:03:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T03:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2015-01-25T19:03:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T03:03:05","slug":"judith-flanders-a-murder-of-magpies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/judith-flanders-a-murder-of-magpies\/","title":{"rendered":"Judith Flanders: A Murder of Magpies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"murder-of-magpies\"<\/a>Judith Flanders is a well known expert on Victorian manners and history, whose most recent book The Invention of Murder<\/em> sits on our history mystery table. This is her first foray into fiction, and it\u2019s delightful, causing me to both laugh aloud and copiously dog ear pages as Ms. Flanders is exquisitely quotable.<\/p>\n

I loved her premise and setting. Her main character, Sam Clair, is a senior book editor at a major British publisher, and she\u2019s in her forties. Flanders makes full use of Sam\u2019s age, experience and gender, sliding in blindingly astute vignettes illustrating how women of a certain age tend to be ignored. As this book proves, ignoring a middle aged woman comes with its own perils.<\/p>\n

I loved the set-up to the crime \u2013 Sam\u2019s client and friend, fashion writer Kit, has vanished, having penned a new book about the murder of a well known designer (similarities to Versace\u2019s death come to mind). Kit has also uncovered some money laundering and his manuscript begins to be a hot item, causing a break-in at Sam\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n

Sam has already been interviewed by the police in the form of the delightful Jake, and the two spend a bit of time circling warily around each other. Helping the cause is Sam\u2019s brilliant lawyer mother, Helena, and Sam\u2019s mysterious upstairs neighbor, Mr. Rudiger. The four make a good informal team.<\/p>\n

Flanders\u2019 brisk, humorous intelligence carries the book through some of the soggier bits. The story about the money laundering is far too convoluted and confusing but when she returns to basic storytelling she\u2019s on steadier ground, especially when she\u2019s delivering a zinger of one form or another. One of my favorites came toward the end of the book, where Sam faces down the hotshot wunderkind editor, Ben: \u201cBen had always treated me like I was a brain-dead senior citizen, gently knitting and dozing in the corner while he got on with the cutting edge of publishing. It was time he realized everyone over twenty-five wasn\u2019t senile yet. I smiled viciously at him, showing all my teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

I definitely hope Sam Clair continues as she\u2019s fascinating, smart and funny. In fiction, as in life, those are three qualities not to be missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judith Flanders is a well known expert on Victorian manners and history, whose most recent book The Invention of Murder sits on our history mystery table. This is her first foray into fiction, and it\u2019s delightful, causing me to both laugh aloud and copiously dog ear pages as Ms. Flanders is exquisitely quotable. I loved … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-british"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1577,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions\/1577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}