All Shall Be Well

This is the second book in Deborah Crombie's "Kincaid and James" series and, since I thoroughly enjoyed the series debut, A Share in Death, I decided to continue following protagonists Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James. Not only are there good mysteries to solve, but both characters are divorced and each privately entertains an attraction to the other, so that, too, will develop over time. Duncan has a lovely top floor flat in Hampstead and has become friends with the woman who lives on the floor below, Jasmine Dent, who is dying of cancer. They often spend evenings talking or watching a movie on TV, although Jasmine is a very private person and Duncan feels he knows little enough about her. He is surprised to return home one morning, after a 48-stint on a case, and find that Jasmine is dead. No one expected her to die so soon, certainly her friend from work, Meg, who visits Jasmine every day and who, it turns out, is the major beneficiary of Jasmine's will. When Meg reveals that Jasmine had recently decided to kill herself and asked Meg to be present when she did, but had then changed her mind, Kincaid began to suspect that this was not a death due to the cancer. Did Jasmine kill herself? She left no note and there were no empty vials of morphine found. Or did someone help her along? Kincaid files a suspicious death report and the post mortem does indeed show a lethal amount of morphine in her blood. Kirkus offers a rundown of the potential suspects: "...Jasmine's ineffectual brother Theo, who's failed at one small business after another; her basement neighbor Major Keith, a devoted gardener who served in India at the same time Jasmine was born; home-help nurse Felicity Howarth, who wants to refuse her thousand-pound legacy; and Meg's grasping boyfriend Roger Leveson-Gower, who's counting on her coming into money..."

Gemma is unsure whether Duncan had feelings for Jasmine that are driving his insistence on investigating further, but helps in interviewing persons of interest while Duncan gathers background information from people and from the journals Jasmine left behind. Publishers Weekly praises, "Written with compassion, clarity, wit and precision, this graceful mystery amply fulfills the promise of Crombie's debut novel..." Whodunit was a surprise to me.

Mr. Churchill's Secretary

This is the first book in the "Maggie Hope" series by Susan Elia MacNeal. I real a later book (The Queen's Accomplice) and was taken with the protagonist, so decided to start at the beginning. This book won a Barry Award and was nominated for Edgar, Macavity, and Dilys Awards. Not only does the author dig into details about day to day life in London when the Blitz was soon to start, but she deals with the misogyny of the British hierarchy that allowed them to hire women as spies to go behind enemy lines while denying them official  recognition and their survivors any death benefits.  This, of course, wasn't the case for men hired into the same jobs. There was this bizarre and inexcusable belief that, if Hitler knew they hired women as spies, he would consider the British to be weak.

Born to American parents in London, Maggie is orphaned at an early age and taken to Boston by a maiden (in this case Lesbian) aunt. When a grandmother she's never met dies and leaves her a "Victorian pile" in London, Maggie heads "across the pond" to sell the house, even as war looms on the horizon. But it turns out it's impossible to sell the house with German invasion imminent, so Maggie takes in roommates to make ends meet and decides to stay and try to help with the war effort. Maggie is hired as a typist when a secretary in the Prime Minister's office is murdered. She takes umbrage at having been passed over for the more demanding role of secretary (which only Oxbridge men were allowed to take), because she knows her math and pattern recognition skills are superior to those who do get hired, but still accepts the position at the urging of her friend David, who works in the PM's office. Not only is Germany intent on destroying England with nightly bombing, but the IRA is collaborating with them to destroy the government from within, and Maggie gets caught up in a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister. Along the way, she uncovers evidence that the father she thought was dead may still be alive.

Although Publishers Weekly offers a less than glowing review, I really enjoyed this book and will read more in the series. Kirkus concludes, "Brave, clever Maggie’s debut is an enjoyable mix of mystery, thriller and romance that captures the harrowing experiences of life in war-torn London." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer cautions, "The emphasis on Mr. Churchill's Secretary is certainly more on the fiction part and less on the history, which makes it a fun ride" but goes on to praise by saying, "Ms. MacNeal managed to write a compelling and captivating debut, while creating a saucy character."

Arsenic and Adobo

Appealing title...food + poison = mystery to be solved in "culinary cozy" series debut by Mia P. Manansala. While I admire the intent to bring Filipino culture and love of cooking front and center in this book, I sometimes found the use use of Tagalog language a little overwhelming and distracting (although a glossary of terms is provided). Twenty-something Lila Macapagal has moved home after a messy romantic breakup and because her Tita Rosie needs help with her restaurant in Shady Palms, Illinois. Lila briefly takes up with Derek, ex-boyfriend and now food critic for the local small town paper, but is horrified when he begins to unfairly criticize the food at her aunt's restaurant. Still they can't exactly forbid him to eat in the restaurant, even though he continues to write scathing reviews. On top of that, the landlord, Mr. Long, is threatening to throw them out after years of tenancy because they are behind on the rent. One day Derek and Mr. Long, who is Derek's step-father, come in for lunch and, during dessert, Derek keels over and later dies at the hospital. The cause of death is initially believed to be arsenic and the police find arsenic in the kitchen. Moreover, they find a duffel bag full of drugs in Lila's locker in the kitchen. Of course they're being framed, but the investigating detective is convinced that Lila is the killer and arrests her. Her East Indian American friend, Adeena, is determined to help her find the real killer. Then Mr. Long dies and the plot gets way more complicated.

Again, this is book that is to be applauded for on its focus on a culturally diverse cast of characters. Publishers Weekly gave the book a positive review, concluding "Chock-full of food lore, this delicious mystery will leave readers hungry for more of the adventures of Lila, her friends and relatives, and her chunky dachshund (who is named after a kind of short, fat sausage). Cozy fans are in for a treat."

Final Argument

This is the 2nd book I have read recently about getting a convicted black man off death row in Florida; the other was The Guardians by John Grisham. Grisham's book was about a small organization that specialized in getting innocent people out of jail. This book by Clifford Irving is about a former public prosecutor, Ted Jaffe, who has gone corporate and inadvertently finds out that a witness in a case he prosecuted 12 years ago lied about the convicted man's confession of murder. As he digs in, Jaffe becomes convinced that the police detective in charge of the case perjured himself as well. And just to complicate matters, the murdered man was the husband of a woman Jaffe was having an affair with. But Jaffe becomes obsessed with getting a new hearing with this evidence, even though he is not supported by his current law partners, is facing a crisis with a drug addicted son at home, and the man sentenced to die hates him and doesn't want him as his lawyer. I found this a slow read for the first two thirds of the book and truly had to push myself to finish it. As it turns out, winning is going to cost him a lot. Kirkus offers a generally positive review. I would recommend Grisham's book over this one if you want to dip into the whole thorny area of black men being convicted of crimes they don't commit and the prejudices against them in the legal system.

A Kind of Grief

I read A Small Death in the Great Glen, the first book by A. D. Scott in the Joanne Ross/ Highland Gazette series, set in 1950's Scotland. This is the sixth book in the series and I felt like it was a real spoiler for earlier books, although I will still go back and read them. Kirkus introduces us to the protagonist in the book this way, "Joanne Ross still suffers from low self-esteem caused by a bullying father, an abusive former husband, and a near-death experience at the hands of a colleague. Now married to John McAllister, editor of the Highland Gazette, she’s given up her job, but not her curiosity...In 1959, life in the Scottish Highlands remains old-fashioned in many ways, so Joanne’s not entirely surprised to read about a woman tried and acquitted for witchcraft." Joanne is intrigued and makes her way to the woman's remote cottage in a beautiful glen with hopes of interviewing her. The woman, Alice Ramsey, refuses but invites Joanne in for a cup of tea and they make a connection. When Joanne inadvertently reveals information about Alice to an unscrupulous journalist, Alice cuts off all communication. When Alice is later found dead, apparently a suicide, Joanne is not only filled with grief but with guilt and begins to dig into the story in spite of her husband's concerns that it may be dangerous. When representatives of Britain's secret service also threaten her and her husband, she is not deterred. Kirkus concludes, "Scott ...skillfully uses the beauty of the Highlands as a backdrop for an entrancing mystery whose characters repeatedly and pleasurably upstage its action." Publishers Weekly agrees and notes, "Scott ably integrates the period’s Cold War intrigues into a story about the power of small communities both to sustain and to sabotage lives."

The House of Silk

This is author Anthony Horowitz writing a Sherlock Holmes novel, and it was well done in my opinion. This is the first addition to the official Sherlock Holmes canon approved by the Conan Doyle estate.  I have read and posted on 4 other mysteries by Horowitz: Magpie Murders, The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, and Moonflower Murders. Having watched the Sherlock series with Benedict Cumberbatch, it's hard to read this book without picturing him and Martin Freeman in the roles of Sherlock and Dr. Watson (respectively). As usual, Dr. Watson is the ostensible author and reporter of events and, for this story, he is writing after the death of Sherlock Holmes about two cases that intersected and were very distressing to both  men at the time. Sherlock is first contacted by an art dealer who is fearful about a man who has been watching his house; he is convinced that the man is a gangster from New York who has followed him home to England and is seeking revenge for the death of his brother. Sherlock sets the task of finding and following the watcher to the Baker Street irregulars, the loose group of street children he has often enlisted. They find him but when Sherlock and Watson arrive, the watcher himself has been murdered. This would seem to solve the problem for Sherlock's original client, but of course Holmes wants to know who murdered the gangster. When the young boy who was watching the hotel at the time of the murder is himself found brutally beaten to death, Sherlock feels responsible and will not rest until he finds the culprits. A strip of white silk is tied to the boy's mangled wrist and Sherlock begins to investigate a mysterious source called the House of Silk. Even his highly placed and influential brother, Mycroft is fearful  of assisting Sherlock, however, and when Sherlock is effectively framed for the murder of the boy's sister, he cannot rescue him. The people behind the murders and the manipulation of wealthy and influential men seem to be beyond Sherlock and Watson's reach, but of course, Sherlock will find a way.  

The Guardian's review enthuses that Horowitz has hit a home run with characters, essential elements of the series, and plotting: "This is a no-shit Sherlock." Publishers Weekly says, "Horowitz gets everything right—the familiar narrative voice, brilliant deductions, a very active role for Watson, and a perplexing and disturbing series of puzzles to unravel..."

Hotel du Lac

This is Anita Brookner's Booker Prize (1984) winning novel about women. London-based, 39-year old romance writer, Edith Hope, has been temporarily exiled by her publisher and closest friends to an elegant but "stolid" old hotel on a lake in Switzerland after she inexcusably--according to them--backed out of her wedding, leaving her safe and respectable but not very exciting groom thoroughly humiliated. According to the Kirkus reviewer, "this Jamesian, Woolfian heroine is unmarried, wary, cerebral--torn between involvement and detachment, self-dramatization and self-deprecation." They go on to conclude, ""In many ways, this sad little comedy is less subtle, more artificial than Brookner's three previous, similar character-portraits: the themes are laid on thick, starting right off with Edith's surname and occupation; the James/Woolf echoes are blatantly arranged; the players (including Edith herself) are more types than credible characters. Still, for readers who relish a blend of extra-dry humor, tartly wistful introspection, and literary self-consciousness, this small entertainment--winner of England's Booker Prize--will be a delicate, provocative pleasure."

There was, apparently, quite a controversy about her winning the Booker and many thought that other books nominated that year were more deserving. Here is an excerpt from The Guardian: "Malcolm Bradbury called her winning novel, Hotel du Lac, "parochial", and thundered that it was not the sort of book that should have won the Booker. The New Statesman said it was "pretentious" although did at least do Brookner the kindness of noting that "it wasn't her fault that she won the prize." The author herself half-apologised that her books are "quite nice but unimportant" and suggested it might have been better if Empire Of The Sun had won in its place. She was right. Both from the point of view that Empire Of The Sun is so very good, but also because of the anger her victory provoked. The sense of outraged justice created by the perception that Hotel du Lac usurped Ballard's crown is unfortunate. This is not a book that should enrage. It is actually one that should be admired and enjoyed. Quietly maybe, but still fervently....Brookner's prose is so splendid in its own right that Hotel du Lac never felt less than impressive to me. But the understated and all too realistic discomfort of the opening gives way to something more overwrought. After pages and pages of delightfully painful getting-to-know-you small talk the characters suddenly seem to know each other far too well....plunging the reader out of the suspension of disbelief and making a previously very natural narrative seem contrived. It's hard to take Edith and her world entirely seriously from this point on and the ending, although elegant and enjoyably provocative, doesn't quite ring true." They go on to conclude that, "it's worth saying again that this is a book to enjoy for what it is rather than what it isn't. It's a funny, flawed, but still beautifully written study in melancholy. A pleasure. Even if it isn't as good as Empire Of The Sun."

My problem was that I just didn't like any of these people very much. While the dilemma Edith faces is, of course, huge for her, it seems too small to have the story revolve around it.  Also it made the story seem dated in a way I don't usually associate with historical novels. 

The Queen's Accomplice

 This book by Susan Elia MacNeal is the 6th in a series featuring cryptographer and MI 5 spy Maggie Hope. There are 4 subsequent books in the series so I jumped in right at the middle. I will definitely go back and read from the first one, Mr. Churchill's Secretary. In this book, set in 1942 London, the Blitz has finally stopped and Maggie finds herself cooling her heels as a receptionist in the office of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) until she is summoned by a former co-worker at MI 5 to help solve a series of murders. The killer is re-creating the murders of Jack the Ripper and targeting young women who have come to London to be interviewed by the SOE for possible insertion into occupied France. Maggie is already furious that women spies are paid a fraction of what men doing the same work receive, and, because the use of women spies is very hush hush and not covered by the Geneva Convention, they are not acknowledged officially when they die and their families are not compensated as the men's families are. But she can make no headway with the pompous men who send these young women out to their dangerous assignments. Having, apparently, a cozy relationship with the Queen, however, may make it possible to redress the issue. How much worse, then, for some misogynistic man to start murdering these women on their home turf. She gets paired up with with DCI James Durgin of Scotland Yard and they each begin to gradually appreciate the other's unique strengths. Durgin has years of experience that inform his "gut feelings" and Maggie is a maths prodigy who can see patterns in seemingly random data. They make an interesting team that will be sure to continue into future installments.

The House on Vesper Sands

This is the first novel of Pairaic O'Donnell's to be published in the U.S., although he one previous novel published in the U.K.; he is also a critic and poet. This is a Victorian gothic ghost tale of sorts, set in 1890's London when high society women sponsored seances and spiritualism was wildly popular fare. The protagonist is one DI Cutter of Scotland Yard and he comes to be assisted in a very circuitous fashion by a drop out from Cambridge's divinity school, Gideon Bliss. Gideon has come to London at his uncle's request, made in a letter suggesting that he and some of the poor working women he ministered to were being threatened. Coincidentally, Gideon's uncle, the Rev. Herbert Neuilly, lives in the same boarding house as DI Cutter but has not been seen for days. Moreover, the particular woman Rev. Neuilly was worried about, Angela Tatton, was someone for whom Gideon had secret loving feelings, and she has also disappeared. Gideon desperately contrives to present himself to Cutter as a police sergeant in order to try and find Angela and his uncle, although Cutter is fairly quick to see through the charade. Nevertheless, they together begin the hunt to solve not only the mystery of several women who have disappeared, captured and killed by Spiriters according to the press, but also the suicide of a seamstress who jumped to her death from the top floor of well-to-do Lord Strythe's manse. A parallel storyline and investigation are being carried out by unconventional Octavia Hillingdon, an aspiring journalist who wants to do something more than write society gossip and who is persuaded by her publisher to pursue the story of the missing women. The book is atmospheric and dark, although relieved occasionally by the interchanges between Gideon and snarky DI Cutter. Publishers Weekly asserts, "O’Donnell excels at concocting eerie scenes.Yet he’s also very funny, particularly in exchanges between the profane Cutter and the verbose but perceptive Bliss." Even though the book starts with a dramatic event, it felt slow in the beginning; however, persistence paid off as the book reaches a satisfying conclusion.

The Guardian says of this book, "O’Donnell has pulled off with brio something that might, in a lesser writer’s hands, have fallen horribly flat: he has written a coherent and satisfying novel that is both disquietingly eerie and properly funny." At the conclusion of Kirkus' amusing review they note, "Author O’Donnell carefully unspools the gothic creepiness of his story, teasing the reader with tidbits of information that raise more questions than they answer...An intriguing, unexpected gothic mashup with elements of Dorothy Sayers, Wilkie Collins, and Josephine Tey."

The Guardians

The list of John Grisham's legal thrillers is long and this recent (2019) entry continues to demonstrate his ability to make legal thrillers totally engrossing. Guardian Ministries is a small (3) group of attorneys whose sole purpose is to get innocent people out of jail. When the book opens, they have managed to save 8 souls in 10 years and would do more if they had more money. Cullen Post--former public defender, and occasional Episcopal priest--does most of the traveling to investigate the cold cases in their efforts to vindicate the clients they take on. As the book opens, Post is sitting with a client, Duke Russell, on death row; his final meal has been delivered when the stay from the 11th Circuit Court arrives and halts the execution. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief; they have more time to exonerate their client. They have also recently taken on a new client, Quincy Miller, who was convicted 22 years ago of killing his former divorce attorney in the small town of Seabrook, Florida. The conviction is based on junk science--hair analysis and blood spatter--and a flashlight that conveniently disappears before the trial is the only piece of evidence that connected Miller to the crime. The goal of Guardian Ministries is not to find the real killers, but just to prove that their clients are innocent. However, their efforts have come to the attention of those who did actually kill the attorney and they're coming for Guardian in one way or another. The settings in the South are very atmospheric. Cullen Post is a very interesting character whose back story helps the reader understand why he would undertake such frustrating and demanding work. The book digs into the nasty issue of disproportionate rates of conviction, incarceration and death sentences for Black people. The case of Quincy Miller is based on the actual case of a Black man, Joe Bryan, who has been in prison for over 30 years.  And Guardian Ministries is base on an actual organization, Centurion Ministries, with the same goal of exonerating wrongly convicted people.

Maureen Corrigan offers a laudatory review in the Washington Post, and like Kirkus, hopes to see further stories about this set of characters. The New York Journal of Books says this book is "as gripping as it is shocking, with plenty of twists and turns you never see coming."

A Share in Death

Deborah Crombie is a new author to me and this is the first of her "Kincaid and James" series, which I thoroughly enjoyed. She has won several mystery awards for her books and there are now 19 in the series, so I can do a lot of reading. Crombie was born in Dallas, Texas but lived in both Scotland and England and writes detective stories set in Great Britain. Protagonist Duncan Kincaid is a Supervisor with  Scotland Yard and has been gifted by a cousin with a week's stay in a posh country time-share in Yorkshire. Work has been hectic and he is looking forward to time away from murder and mayhem. Except, of course, the assistant manager of the resort, Sebastian, is murdered shortly after Duncan arrives. The local man in charge of the investigation, DCI Nash, is absolutely hostile to Kincaid's presence and attempted help. It's clear to Duncan that the death was not a suicide as Nash insists. Kincaid had only known Sebastian a short time, but liked his sense of humor and kindness toward one of the teenage guests, so he quietly begins his own lines of inquiry. There are several families, couples and singles staying at Followdale House--some are regular time share owners and a few have come for the first time. It seems there are rather a lot of intrigues among the guests, and the situation is confounded by a second death, this time of an elderly single lady who had hinted to Kincaid that she saw something the night of Sebastian's murder. Kincaid struggles to find a connection between the two victims. He calls on his sergeant, Jemma James, back at the Yard to do some digging into the guests' backgrounds. Well written, well developed characters that one can empathize with or hate as the case may be. Love anything set in England.

Publishers Weekly calls it a "polished mystery." Here's the short version of the guest list from Kirkus: "political hopeful Patrick Rennie and his well-connected wife Marta; endearing spinster sisters Penelope and Emma MacKenzie; ex-army twit Edward Lyle and his long-suffering wife Janet; and attractive scientist Hannah Alcock, who has her own hidden agenda at Followdale."