November Reads

Elizabeth's Women by Tracy Borman
2011
http://www.elizabethfiles.com/elizabeths-women/2994/
Not a mystery, but a well researched history of the women in the life of Queen Elizabeth I, this reads like a novel and I couldn't put it down even thoough I am well familiar with the life and times of the queen. If you like Elizabethan mysteries like those of Fiona Buckley or Karen Harper, both of which feature QEI as a character,it's fascinating to read some of the real history.

Queen's Cure
Karen Harper
2003

Speaking of. Very good mystery and the facts are pretty solid. They have a fairly light tone, which does seem a bit at odds with the material but still good. them Plan to read the rest of the series. Fiona Buckley's Ursula Blanchard mysteries are also very good with a gritty edge to them. She has a new one coming in January.


Sup with the Devil
Barbara Hamilton
2011

Latest Abigail Adams mystery. The plot was intricate and a bit confusing. But the background is really well done, although I keep seeing Laura Linney and Paul Giametti as John and Abigail. Set at Harvard where Abigail's nephew is studying, the story takes you on a claustrophobic romp through the dark woods in search of pirate gold or early pornography just
as the king is declaring martial law in Boston due to the recent tea party.

Three-Day Town
Margaret Maron
Forthcoming

For those who like Deborah Knott, you'll like it. I like her better in Colleton County with her terrific family. She seems a little out of her depth in NYC. This also features Maron's other detective, annoyingly stoic police detective Sigrid Harald.

Air time
Hank Phillipi Ryan
2009

This time Charlie McNally is investigating counterfeit designer purses while trying not to wreck her first real love in ages. I felt like I learned a lot. About designer purses that is. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Cipher Garden
Martin Edwards
2006

Another favorite. So well written and enjoyable.

And I'm in paradise...

Waterloo Sunset
Martin Edwards
Poison Pen
2008

This is the second Martin Edwards novel I've read. Loved the Lake district setting of The Coffin Trail. Waterloo Sunset is part of his series set in Liverpool featuring lawyer Harry Devlin. I read it with my iPad map next to me scoping out all the sights and sounds of Liverpool, a city that frankly is not on my list of cities to visit in the UK. Edwards presents it so wonderfully I am having second thoughts. Not about the Beatles tour but about the Liver Building, the Strand, and the Iron Men in the Mersey. And the history, Liverpool is the stepping off point for so many ships to the Americas including the one my great-grandmother Rebecca took in 1905. And Waterloo Sunset is one of my fav. Kinks songs. Like most people I assumed they meant Waterloo in London but possibly not. After all there must be Waterloos all over the UK, right?

Anyway Harry and co. Are wonderful characters and the setting is superb. In this one Harry is getting a death threat, has re-met his old squeeze Juliet May, who (was/is) married to a brutal thug, and his management consultant is all over him to modernize. Harry and his partner Jim have moved into a new shiny office in a re-habbed building full of secrets. And there's a nice young cleaner who helps out. Charming characters and dialogue, first rate setting, and I like Harry probably more than Daniel Kind, the Lake District nob.

I've got the Cipher Garden, another in the Lake District series, on hold at the library and life is good! I intend to read through the rest of the Liverpool series too. Well worth it. http://www.martinedwardsbooks.com/

"I wandered lonely as a cloud...

...then I realized I fancied the odd pint."

The Coffin Trail
Martin Edwards

With apologies to Wordsworth, the above is a sign on a pub quoted in Martin Edwards' The Coffin Trail, a deftly written crime novel set in England's Lake District. For those of you who don't know, the Lake District is a gorgeous part of Northwestern England full of fells, moors, crags, mountains, Hadrian's Wall, and a bunch of lakes, Tarns, and waters, with stunning views. Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter are two of the famous writers associated with the Lake District. See:

www.wordsworthcountry.com/information/grasmere.htm

Daniel, a rising Oxford Don and historian, decides to give up his academic career (Oxford and a offer from Harvard - gasp) and go live in a remote cottage with his mercurial new girlfriend Miranda in an invented portion of the Lakes. Not coincidentally, the cottage is one his childhood friend Barrie lived in when he was accused of the ghastly blood sacrifice murder of a beautiful visitor. Barrie died before he could've brought to trial by Daniel's father the late police detective. Among the mysteries attracting Daniel's attention are why his father abandoned his family when Daniel was a child, if he can really live the fantasy of a country life in the Lakes, was he in some way responsible for his former lover Aimee's suicide, what happened to Barrie, and who killed the beautiful Gabrielle? In these inquiries, he is aided (or is it really the other way around) by Hannah Scarlett, his father's old detective sergeant, who is newly appointed head of the Cumbria Cold Case squad.

The eponymous coffin trail is a trail historically by the local people to move their dead and several such trails are in use all over the Lake District such as those in Grasmere and Rydal. (see the link above).

The novel is rich with wonderful atmosphere and clever dead-on dialogue. The character of Daniel is not too appealing. He seems a bit cold and a bit too good to be true. The supporting characters are all highly enjoyable including Hannah, her awful boss (big surprise there) and squad of cops. Miranda is bit hard to take and it's easy to see their dramatic affair soon running its course. Since this one, Edwards has written two more in the series. It will be interesting to check them out