{"id":5381,"date":"2023-11-28T07:42:23","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T15:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5381"},"modified":"2023-11-28T07:42:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T15:42:23","slug":"best-of-history-mystery-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/best-of-history-mystery-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Best of: History Mystery 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were some great and varied historical mysteries published this year.\u00a0 Some old favorites (Alexander, Benn, Massey, Montclair, Willig and Winspear), some great early series installments (Flower, Nagendra), and some sparkling debuts (Connally, Kelly, Rao).\u00a0 The fun was going all through time and all over the world – from Cecil B. DeMille filming\u00a0The Ten Commandments<\/strong> on location in Egypt, to India, Scotland, England, France, Cuba and the east coast of the United States.\u00a0 That’s one reason I love historicals – the travel.\u00a0 The other reason is that they are the purest example of deductive reasoning around since they occur before computers and cell phones.\u00a0 The detectives have to use good old shoe leather and old fashioned thinking to solve the crimes – the best of them are truly transporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Cold Highland Wind, <\/em>Tasha Alexander.\u00a0 One of my favorites in this long series finds Lady Emily and family taking a vacation at their friend Jeremy’s Scottish castle.\u00a0 Emily’s boys are preoccupied with kelpies and faeries and out hunting for kelpies one morning stumble across the gamekeeper’s body.\u00a0 Of course Emily and Colin spring into action, interviewing everyone in the tiny Scottish town.\u00a0 There’s also a story thread set in the past following the story of Moorish maid Tansy and her mistress, Rossalyn, who have been expelled from their home by Rossalyn’s brother in law upon the death of her husband.\u00a0 In 1676, the women are suspected of being witches; that’s not the case in Emily’s 1905 universe but they are surrounded by folk tales and superstition, not to mention a stray copy of a Shakespeare folio tying the threads together.\u00a0 Alexander is such a smooth storyteller and she’s created beloved characters.\u00a0 I always look forward to a Lady Emily story and I am never disappointed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Proud Sorrows, <\/em>James R. Benn.\u00a0 James R. Benn is never bad but I really loved this installment, which is his take on the village mystery, as Billy, Kaz, Angelika (Kaz’s sister, freed from Ravensbruck)\u00a0 and Diana get some much needed rest at Diana’s family estate.\u00a0 It’s located in King’s Lynn, when Billy and Diana, out for a ride, discover the wreckage of a Nazi plane with the body of a dead Englishman inside it.\u00a0 Before they know it they are back on the job, with a trail that takes them through the tiny village where Diana has grown up.\u00a0 Oh, and there’s also a POW camp for Nazi officers in town.\u00a0 There’s always a great set piece in these books, and in this one it’s a scene in the mansion where the Nazis are housed – very Sherlock Holmes (who is referenced).\u00a0 As always Benn’s intelligence as a writer shines through, and I don’t just mean his historical expertise.\u00a0 He’s also excellent and intelligent with plot, pacing, suspense and character.\u00a0 This was a great read. Read my interview with the fascinating James Benn here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Picture in the Sand,\u00a0<\/em>Peter Blauner.\u00a0 This is mainly the story of young Egyptian Ali, who in 1952 has gotten a job as a driver for Cecil B. DeMille’s\u00a0The Ten Commandments.\u00a0<\/em>This book is a true epic, with a nuanced look at Egyptian politics (Wikipedia may be your friend as you’re reading) as well as a beautiful portrait of Ali, an idealist who loves film and gets swept up in events beyond his control.\u00a0 There’s also an incredibly fun look at the filming of\u00a0The Ten Commandments\u00a0<\/em>in the desert, which occasioned the director’s heart attack.\u00a0 The framing device involves Ali’s radical nephew, Alex, the pride of his family, who has stopped communicating with anyone but his grandfather.\u00a0 Both men come to have a more skeptical look at the radical movements they are a part of.\u00a0 This is a juicy, intelligent read.<\/p>\n

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord,\u00a0<\/em>Celeste Connally. This sparkling series debut from Celeste Connally (who had a successful cozy series as SC Perkins) is set in regency England, and is kind of a Deanna Raybourn\/Anne Perry mash up, combining the adventure of Raybourn with some of the social consciousness of Perry.\u00a0 Lady Petra Forsyth, after suffering the loss of her fianc\u00e9e, and in possession of her own fortune, declares to society that she plans to remain unmarried.\u00a0 Her declared spinsterhood catches her plenty of flack from some of the gentlemen in her social circle.\u00a0 She’s also concerned about the sudden death of a friend, whom a servant claims to have seen alive after<\/em> her reported death date.\u00a0 Let the investigation begin!\u00a0 Handling character, setting and story with an easy and practiced hand, Connally hits this out of the park.\u00a0 Very much looking forward to a long companionship with Lady Petra. Read my interview with Celeste Connally here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died,\u00a0<\/em>Amanda Flower. This is the rare case where I liked this second in the series better than the first.\u00a0 Featuring Emily Dickinson and her maid, Willa, as the sleuths, this story focuses on a visit by Ralph Waldo Emerson to the home of Emily’s brother.\u00a0 When Emerson’s assistant is found poisoned in the Dickinson’s garden, Emily and Willa are on the case.\u00a0 Flower truly transports the reader to another time and place, treating the reader to a possible encounter between Emily and her contemporary, Louisa May Alcott.\u00a0 She makes the town of Amherst and the college vivid and real, and, as much as possible, takes you with Emily as she’s transfixed by images and words that only she can see until she writes them down. There are scraps of the poetry as well as the lovely, haunting poem that supplies the title.\u00a0 Of course, Flower is a pro, and there’s a good mystery here too.<\/p>\n

A Traitor in Whitehall,\u00a0<\/em>Julia Kelly. This was a blast of a read. Evelyne Redferne is in 1940 London at the start of the blitz, and she’s been working a dull job in a bomb factory, doing her bit, when she\u2019s recruited by an old family friend to be a typist in Churchill\u2019s wartime bunker. The old family friend (a high up in intelligence though it\u2019s not specified quite what position he\u2019s in) also wants her to \u201ckeep her eyes open.\u201d\u00a0 As she stumbles across a body very shortly into her stay in the bunker, the need to keep her eyes open is key.\u00a0 This read is distinguished by a look at the strict working conditions inside the bunker, as well as Kelly’s deft hand with character and story.\u00a0 Pacing, suspense, and a wonderful mystery make this book a real stand out in a ctrowded field of WWII books.\u00a0 Read my interview with Julia Kelly here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Mistress of Bhatia House,\u00a0<\/em>Sujata Massey. Sujata Massey can do no wrong in my opinion, but this is one of the strongest and most thoughtful installments in her wonderful Perveen Mistry series.\u00a0 Perveen is the only female lawyer working in 1920’s Bombay.\u00a0 After a disastrous marriage, she lives pretty happily at home with her parents, working in the family firm.\u00a0 This novel has a theme of sisters, female connection and female agency.\u00a0 Perveen is struggling as her sister in law and former best friend, Gulnaz, returns home with her baby – it’s obvious she’s suffering from post partum depression and she’s pretty difficult and hostile.\u00a0 \u00a0It also follows the two sisters in law at Bhatia House, where Perveen has attended a fundraiser in Gulnaz’s stead.\u00a0 Perveen gets caught up in the struggles of Suananda, the ayah of one of the boys at Bhatia House, who is fired after her charge is burned in an accident.\u00a0 What follows is a complex look at rape, lack of female agency in general, and a deft, shaded and intelligent look at the connections between women.\u00a0 Massey is truly top of the class and this thoughtful book could not be more timely.<\/p>\n

The Lady from Burma,\u00a0<\/em>Allison Montclair.\u00a0 This is a writer who goes from strength to strength.\u00a0 I truly love this series, and thought this book was a stand out. Iris and Gwen run the Right Sort marriage bureau in post war London.\u00a0 When they are approached by a woman who has waited through the war for her husband to return from Burma only to find she has cancer, but wants him to be “looked after” when she’s gone, the two spring into action, further spurred when the woman’s body is discovered in a forest.\u00a0 Gwen is also distracted as she waits for word from the “lunacy court” as to whether she will again be declared sane and can take full charge of her son.\u00a0 This is a thread running through all the books to date and brought to an excellent and suspenseful conclusion here.\u00a0 The tricky and intelligent mystery has a plot involving beetles, finances, and thwarted and uncertain romances for both Iris and Gwen.\u00a0 These books are pure, absolute delight.<\/p>\n

Murder Under a Red Moon,\u00a0<\/em>Harini Negendra. Set in 1920’s Bangalore, this newish series is a standout.\u00a0 The extremely traditional, extremely intelligent stories follow new bride Kaveri Murthy as she adjusts to her new life and solves some crimes.\u00a0 In this outing her difficult mother in law begs her to look into an embezzlement situation at a family related business, but when Kaveri arrives, she discovers a body.\u00a0 Kaveri is ably helped in detection by her sweet, smitten husband, as well as by a police inspector who (unusually) welcomes her input and finds it invaluable.\u00a0 Negendra provides a layered and vivid look at Bangalore, really transporting the reader to a different time and place.\u00a0 She’s great with character and absolutely spectacular with plot.\u00a0 If you’re looking for a well done traditional mystery, look no farther than this wonderful series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Disappearance in Fiji,\u00a0<\/em>Nilima Rao.\u00a0 What an amazing debut novel, set in a time and place I knew very little about.\u00a0 I love when I can learn something and don’t really notice I’m learning because the story is so wonderful. Set in 1914 Fiji, the struggling for workers sugar cane plantations imported indentured Indian workers.\u00a0 They could work for a period and then obtain freedom (they were basically slaves).\u00a0 When a disgraced police sergeant, Akal Singh, finds himself demoted from Hong Kong to Fiji he’s finding it tough going.\u00a0 Then a local priest insists the disappearance of a woman on one of the plantations be investigated, and Singh reluctantly heads to the plantation and finds himself transported with nostalgia, missing the smells and culture of his home in the Punjab.\u00a0 He also finds a heartbreaking story at the center of the disappearance, and with the help of a local doctor, completes his investigation.\u00a0 While the surroundings are grim, somehow, this book is not.\u00a0 It’s filled with lightness and joy for some magical writerly reason.\u00a0 Rao is obviously a natural born storyteller.\u00a0 Long may her career continue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two Wars and a Wedding,\u00a0<\/em>Lauren Willig.\u00a0 This isn’t really a mystery, but who cares.\u00a0 Lauren Willig is such a wonderful writer, any reader of historical fiction will find her books worthy reads.\u00a0 Set in 1896, she follows her fictional, frustrated archeology student Betsy Hayes as she’s refused a spot on digs because she’s a woman.\u00a0 Turning her frustration outward, Betsy decides to try her hand at war nursing, though she’s utterly inexperienced, and finds herself in the midst of the grim, short lived Greco-Turkish war of 1897.\u00a0 She then heads to Cuba and finds herself in the midst of the Spanish-American war, at times tending to some of the Yale boys she’d known in college.\u00a0 This was the time of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, but Willig is no fan of war and doesn’t hesitate to paint a clear picture of the pain and death involved.\u00a0 Through all of this, Betsy remains intrepid and brave and learns on the job, becoming quite an accomplished nurse.\u00a0 She’s based on a real nurse who was able to get a shipload of boys back to the states after the war almost single handed.\u00a0 Willig plays with timelines, expectations, and adds a dash of romance to make her fictional creation sing.\u00a0 If you aren’t cheering for Betsy at the end of the novel, something is wrong with your heart.<\/p>\n

The White Lady,\u00a0<\/em>Jacqueline Winspear.\u00a0 I haven’t read a Maisie Dobbs book in quite awhile and was quite interested to see what Winspear could do with a standalone.\u00a0 Quite a lot, it turns out. Setting herself apart from a giant slew of WWII novels, this book follows the story of Elinor White, whose father disappears at the start of WWI.\u00a0 She, her mother and sister finds themselves on their own in their little Belgian town, and it’s not long before the girls are recruited by the resistance.\u00a0 The way the girls were recruited was not something I’d read about.\u00a0 It hardens Elinor into a capable resistance actor, and she finds herself back in action when WWII comes along.\u00a0 Epic is scale, the book is made intimate by Winspear’s careful character delineation of Elinor.\u00a0 Beautifully written and thoughtfully plotted, this is a read not to be missed.\u00a0 Read my interview with Jacqueline Winspear here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Also notable: \u00a0Killingly,<\/em> Katharine Beutner’s melancholy look at a tragedy at a 19th century women’s college; Night Flight to Paris,<\/em> Cara Black’s thrilling follow up to Three Hours in Paris<\/em>; The Paris Assignment<\/em>, Rhys Bowen’s emotional and compelling look at a reluctant WWII espionage agent; Evergreen,\u00a0<\/em>Naomi Hirahara’s follow up to Clark and Divison, <\/em>as the Ito family adjusts to the life they’d left behind before interment camp; The Last<\/em> Russian Doll<\/em>, Kristen Loesch’s epic tale set during the Russian Revolution; The Big Sugar, <\/em>Mary Logue’s brisk story of a woman on the American frontier; The Spanish Diplomat’s Secret, <\/em>Nev March’s complicated and intelligent story set aboard ship; Playing it Safe,\u00a0<\/em>Ashley Weaver’s tale following WWII safecracker for the nation, Electra McDonnell.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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There were some great and varied historical mysteries published this year.\u00a0 Some old favorites (Alexander, Benn, Massey, Montclair, Willig and Winspear), some great early series installments (Flower, Nagendra), and some sparkling debuts (Connally, Kelly, Rao).\u00a0 The fun was going all through time and all over the world – from Cecil B. DeMille filming\u00a0The Ten Commandments … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5381","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5381"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5449,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5381\/revisions\/5449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}