Recent reads

Pirate King, Laurie King
A Crimson Warning, Tasha Alexander
2011

Two new novels in these popular and well-written historical series. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. They share appealing heroines in Mary Russell (Mrs. Sherlock Holmes) and Lady Emily Hargreaves. Both have interesting historical settings and characters.

Pirate is set in the post-WWI British film industry, a story about a film within a film (of Pirates of Penzance) set in Portugal with a real and scary pirate and various other folks. I've enjoyed every one of the revisionist Mary Russell mysteries. They are a cut above - amusing and thought provoking with interesting slice of history with interesting settings and still a hint of the curmudgeonly charm that makes Conan Doyle's Holmes so enduring. Anyway, this one is a bit tedious with its silly film plot and it takes a long time to get to the point. Mary is still appealing, the dialogue is fun, and Portugal/North Africa setting dreamy and scary.

Crimson, the latest in the Lady Emily series, is set in Victorian England. Lady Emily is a bit of classics scholar turned detective and secret agent. I complained about her two previous novels set, respectively, in Turkey and France (http://hitormystery.blogspot.com/2010/01/tears-ofboredom.html and http://hitormystery.blogspot.com/2011/04/mad-bad-and.html).

This latest one has her back in London in her high society life in which she is not entirely comfortable. It's hard to feel too much sympathy with the perfect Lady Emily and her romance novel marriage. Her friends think she's brilliant - only her mother doesn't like her (thank God for this). Red paint is splashed on the houses of those with secrets and all society is afraid - a horrific murder, mysterious downtrodden deaf people, and Ivy (sweet Ivy!) has a secret. And those who dislike Emily must be odious. But I still found things to enjoy - such as glimpses of Victorian society, the British Museum and Library.

So I recommend both with qualifications. Read the early books in these series!

I'm Back...

Been reading, just not blogging. Three recent books:

The Black Cat by Martha Grimes
A Murderous Procession by Ariana Franklin
and
The God of the Hive by Laurie King

All three were good and well worth reading. Martha Grimes is always amusing and a pleasant, relaxing read that doesn't require intense thought. Richard Jury is there as is Melrose Plant and his well-healed friends in a brief appearance. The setting is London and Buckinghamshire and slightly sad story of young women gone wrong. Shoes are at the heart of it all - aren't they always? Parts of the story verge into a cat and dog mystery, which I despise but this is so light-hearted and Mungo such a cool dog, that it's OK. It's sort of a Police procedural; Richard Jury is a Scotland Yard detective and each book is named for a pub that figures in the action.

Another Mistress of the Art of Death story takes Adelia and Co. back to Sicily but you can't go home again, now can you? The plot of this one is pretty closely tied to the previous one (I think City of Shadow?) where she runs afoul of some bad guys in the forest and has to kill one of them. The setting is 12th century England, France and Sicily as Adelia accompanies King Henry II's 10 year old daughter to her wedding while her own daughter stays with Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Some cool stuff about Richard the Lionhearted, crusades, Cathars. Nicely written and interesting.

God of the Hive.. Best for last really. Also closely tied to the previous one, Language of Bees, where Sherlock Holmes discovers his artist son by Irene Adler and convoluted murder and mayhem ensue.It is now in the 1920's. King's characters are always interesting and she doesn't disappoint with a haunting new character, Robert Goodfellow, as well as the American pilot Javitz, Holmes' granddaughter Estelle, not to mention more from Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock.
King interweaves the original Holmes stories and characters into the story with a lot of amusing winks to real Holmes fans but freshens and updates the whole thing through the eyes of Mary Russell, Holmes' rich, young, scholar and co-detective wife.