Half Moon Street: Thomas Pitt and the Dead Photographer.

 

Anne Perry. Half Moon Street (2000). Superintendent Thomas Pitt is called to the scene of a bizarre murder: A dead man dressed in a green velvet gown, and shackled to a punt in an obscene pose, may be a member of the French Embassy. He isn’t (and that loose end is tied up nicely in the end). The dead man is a photographer of great skill and reputation, some of whose clients have “sophisticated” tastes, and some of whose photos are reprinted as naughty postcards. There is also a link with the theatre, and Pitt’s sister-in-law Caroline. Hidden secrets, dysfunctional families, strong differences of opinion about the changing values of late Victorian England make this a novel of ideas as much as of crime. A good read, despite the somewhat stereotypical characters. **

Daisy Does It Again: A Mourning Wedding (re-read)

     Carola Dunn. A Mourning Wedding (2004) Daisy, wife of Chief inspector Alec Fletcher, pregnant, arrives at Haverhill, a monstrous Victorian pile inhabited by three generations of Fotheringhams. She will be assisting her friend Lucinda Fotheringham at her wedding to Gerald “Binky” Bincombe. During her first night there, Lucy’s great-aunt Eva dies of strangulation. Alec is of course summoned to take over from the locals. Another murder, Lucy’s wavering about the wedding, assorted family feuding, and an attempt  on Gerald’s life, complicate the story. Lady Eva was in the habit of keeping notes on verified gossip, which widens the field of suspects, and makes for a trawler-load of red herrings. Daisy supplies the solution that ties up all the loose ends. Lucy decides to marry Gerald after all. The requisite happy ending of a detective story thus being supplied, all ends well.
     This is Dunn’s 13th novel in the Daisy Dalrymple series, and the experience shows. It’s smoothly told, well constructed light fiction. If you like historical romance disguised as crime fiction, you will like this series. I like it well enough to snap up any that I find on the used-book shelves. Above average for the genre. **½

Two Thomases: Sympathetic Cromwell, Sleazy More

     Wolf Hall (2015; based on Hilary Mantel’s novels, who also worked on the screenplays) [D:Peter Kosminsky  Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, Claire Foy] Six episodes that give us a Thomas Cromwell quite different from the cynical villain of Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, and a sleazier Thomas More, too. The dangers of living in a polity in which personal loyalty to an erratic monarch was paramount, and an careless word or phrase could condemn you to death, are nicely explored. The dircetor wanted a few too many closeups of a silent Cromwell, etc, and the pace is slower than we’ve become used to lately, but it’s an impressive piece of work. Apparently it was filmed with ambient light only, a stunt made possible by recent advances in digital light sensors. Much of the action is set in dark interiors, I suppose to underline the darkness of the human heart.

     I now want to read the novels. Mantel clearly sides with Cromwell rather than More. Henry VIII is shown as self-deluding but respecting Cromwell because Cromwell won’t play the sycophancy game. Anne Boleyn is as much a victim of her own ambitions as of her family’s scheming for power. Wolsey is a wily old man who failed to achieve what his master wanted; Cromwell’s loyalty to him guides his plans, but at the end it’s unclear how much Cromwell wanted Anne’s death as a just punishment for bringing about Wolsey’s downfall. ***

Maureen Jennings. Season of Darkness (2011)

     Maureen Jennings. Season of Darkness (2011) I borrowed this book because of The Murdoch Mysteries TV series, which we’ve been enjoying. This is the first story in a trilogy. Set in late summer/early fall of 1940, it deals with the murders of two Land Girls, both of which were accidents in that they weren’t pre-meditated. The girls just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The connection is a German spy embedded in an internee camp, and several more people die before he’s caught. Ironically, the information he killed for is forwarded to Germany by MI5 moles.
     Inspector Tom Tyler investigates, but he doesn’t so much solve the mysteries as stumble upon their solutions. The cast includes his family, his first lover, MI5, the camp commander, a motley crew of internees, several soldiers who survived Dunkirk, and some villagers whose back stories will no doubt be expanded in later stories, and so on. This makes for a rather laid back narrative, and some plot difficulties, which Jennings solves by giving us “meanwhile, the spy is thinking...” and other such ploys to fill in details that she can’t provide through Tyler. He’s the focus of the novel, and we get to know him quite well. He’s a flawed nice guy, with a strong sense of duty, and enough imagination to appreciate the ironies of his life, his task, his profession.
     The 1940s setting is well done considering that Jennings is too young to know it even at secondhand, as I did when we visited England several times after the war. Post-war England took a long time to recover from the effects of the war. The real difficulty with writing a historical novel is language: it’ s remarkably difficult to write in the right tone, to avoid anachronistic idioms and pop-culture references. Recognising these errors diminished the effect of this novel, but overall it was a good read. **½

Rosemary Sutcliffe. Blood Feud (1976)

     Rosemary Sutcliffe. Blood Feud (1976) Sutcliffe has made a name for herself as writer of juvenile historical fiction, but the only concession to the target age group is the absence of “adult content.” Otherwise, the history is accurate, which means bloody and brutal. She does soften the brutality a bit, and uses the usual tropes of male bonding etc, but her stories ring true.
     Jensyn Englishman is recalling how he came to be a physician in Constantinople. He was bought as thrall by Thormod, a Viking. He helps his master fight off would-be assassins, is freed, and they become blood-brothers. They set out on a journey to Constantinople (as it would become) in pursuit of two brothers who have killed Thormod’s father after he has mistakenly killed theirs. They join the army led by Emperor Basil against the Bulgars, and then become members of the newly-formed Varangian Guard. More fighting leads to Thormod’s death at the hands of Anders, the younger brother, which makes the blood feud personal for Jensyn. But he has been wounded, and is turned out to fend for himself. Earlier, he had saved a girl, Alexia, from one of Basil’s cheetahs that had escaped from its handlers during a hunt. He also rescued a nearly-born fawn by performing a Caesarian section on the dying mother, Alexia’s pet. He goes to the farm to ask for a job (he was a good cattleman as youngster), and eventually meets Alexia’s father, a physician. That leads to his becoming a healer. When Anders arrives seeking help, Jensyn tries to heal him, but fails: a wound given Anders by Thormod much earlier has festered within him for years, and finally kills him. (The symbolism is plain to an adult reader, but may slip by a younger one.) The blood feud is finished. Jensyn can rest easy; the shadow of the blood feud no longer darkens his life, and he can marry Alexia and inherit her father’s practice.
     Character and plot are simple, as you can see, so what makes Sutcliffe’s book compelling? It’s in part the language: she uses archaic Anglo-Saxon words, and makes up a few of her own in the Anglo-Saxon manner. The sentences are simple, and often have a subtle rhythm that recalls Anglo-Saxon verse. But it’s also the virtues valued by the characters. They have simple notions of honour, loyalty, courage, and fate, which makes their actions easily understood. There’s enough detail in the physical action to satisfy the young male reader without encouraging the thirst for gore. Drinking, rough jokes, work, and pride in good workmanship round out the image of the ideal man that informs the story. Wrapped in this well-told tale of friendship, courage, and loyalty is the notion that physical courage and fighting skill aren’t enough to make a man a man: honour, understood as the virtues that inform his choices, completes him. *** (2011)