Okay, I’ll confess I read this trilogy out of order, and–worse–I reviewed them out of order, but I still highly recommend them if, like me, you’re an afficionado of good historical mysteries. Even more so since I just learned that this “trilogy” is about to have a sequel. Anyway… In this third novel, it is now 1584 and our hero Giordano Bruno is being stalked by someone through the streets of London. He has made a lot of enemies in Parris’ previous two books, and […]
We Need to Talk About … Jacob
This book proved somewhat painful reading, but is well-plotted, well-written and packs quite an emotional wallop. Defending Jacob is half murder mystery and half courtroom drama, told from the standpoint of Jacob’s father, who is a first Assistant District Attorney at the start of the novel, and thus gets first dibs on one of the more sensational murders to hit his town, that of a 14-year-old boy found stabbed to death off a path in a popular park used by town kids to get to […]
Cold in Iceland
Burial Rites is Hannah Kent’s first novel and an auspicious start to her career. Set in 1828-1830, the plot is based on real people and factual events surrounding the last execution of a criminal in Iceland. For those who prefer their fiction historical and who have enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s Alias, Grace or the novels of Geraldine Brooks (who is thanked in the author’s note), this is a book you will want to read. In 1828, a well known herbalist and healer (some said sorcerer) named […]
Likeness? More like Highly Unlikely
Tana French made a lot of noise when her debut novel, In The Woods, hit shelves seven years ago. I finally read it last year and really enjoyed it. So much so that I bought the follow up novel almost right away but have only just read it. One of the joys of owning a Kindle and living with a bibliophile who has covered every available wall space of the flat with books is I’m always spoilt for choice. So that’s part of the reason for the delay in […]
The Curious Incident of the Brilliant Book
So it turns out that I have a soft spot for the unconventional amateur sleuth. Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, Flavia de Luce, Agatha Raisin, the list goes on. It’s a miracle I haven’t read the Shardlake series, really. One amateur sleuth to which Bauer and her excellent novel owe something of a debt is Christopher Boone. The narrator of Mark Haddon’s groundbreaking Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time was never noted as specifically having Asperger’s and was investigating who killed his neighbour’s dog, which […]
Release the Hounds
The year is 1018. King Cnut of Denmark is ruling England. He’s in Oxford to collect payment and to try to unite the various groups living in England. This means there’s hundreds of people living in tents. People who were recently at war with each other. People not necessarily happy with their new king. And then there’s a murder. The king is accused by the victim’s wife. Winston, an illuminator/painter and his companion former nobleman Halfdan, accidentally find themselves investigating the murder. They need to […]