Difference between revisions of "Newest Crime (Historical) Reviews"

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[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
 
[[Category:Crime (Historical)|*]]
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew Hughes
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|isbn=0571370977
|title=The Convictions of John Delahunt
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|title=The Lock-Up
|rating=4.5
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|author=John Banville
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=As John Delahunt sits in a cell for the condemned writing an account of his life, we go through it with him.  It all begins as he witnesses a fracas between his fellow students and the police after a visit to one of the fine hostelries Victorian Dublin has to offer.  In this way John's brought to the attention of 'The Department', a pro-British intelligence unit based in the notorious Dublin Castle.  John agrees to help them not realising this is never going to be an agreement he can back away from, no matter how hard he tries and no matter how much it costs him.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781620148</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Sebag Montefiore
 
|title=One Night in Winter
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=In June 1945 two school students are shot dead in Moscow.  These aren't just any school students; they attended Josef Stalin School 801, the academy that taught Stalin's own children and the current educational establishment of choice for the offspring of many government and army grandees.  Why did they die?  Did the seemingly innocent Fatal Romantics Club have anything to do with it?  For the children the club is a way of living their love of Pushkin's literature but to others it seems a little different.  Stalin himself is determined to have it investigated and what Stalin wants, Stalin gets no matter how wide the ultimate spider's web of suspicion is cast and no matter whom it catches.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099580330</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Laura Wilson
 
|title=The Riot
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=DI Stratton has moved to a new posting and Notting Hill is fresh territory to him, but he’s going to have to get to know it fast when a rent collector is stabbed.  There’s a sense of loss from the people who knew the man - he was inclined to help if he could and with landlords wanting to oust rent-controlled tenants so that they could put ‘coloured’ people or prostitutes in their place (higher rents, you see) any help was welcome.  Added to this there are increasing numbers of street fights involving teddy boys.  It’s 1958 - and there’s a heatwave.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782063080</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=James Scott
 
|title=The Kept
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Elspeth and her 12 year old son Caleb have been beset by one of the worst types of tragedy.  As a result, fuelled by Caleb's need for revenge and Elspeth's motherly love, they set out on a journey that brings them to the small Lake Erie town of Watersbridge.  With their new setting comes a greater understanding of their past which is a mixed blessing that must be met head on before they have to face their future.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091944503</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sian Busby
 
|title=A Commonplace Killing
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=In July 1946 two schoolboys found the body of a woman on a bombsite in north London.  It's a while before she's identified as Lillian Frobisher, but that produces more problemsLillian was - apparently - a respectably married woman but the encounter on the bomb site had been sexual and almost certainly consensualAnd why was her husband not aware that his wife was missing?  His position looks even worse when it emerges that the body was lying on an expensive mackintosh sold in the store where he's a doormanBut was Lillian quite as respectable as she would have had everyone think?
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|summary=It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, PhoebeThe worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficultThey're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of a young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, is found in a lock-upAt first, it looked as though she'd gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722060</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|title=The Tournament
 
|author=Matthew Reilly
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=Michael Reilly is somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine; his novels are hi-octane adventures that are often as ludicrous as they are sublime.  ‘The Tournament’ is a departure from his action packed Scarecrow and Jack West thrillers; instead creating an alternative history for our own Queen Elizabeth I.  Why was she such a formidable leader whose reluctance to marry and dislike of the Catholics were only part of her make-up?  Reilly poses a hypothetical tale about a 13 year old Bess going to Constantinople to watch a tournament of the world’s greatest chess players.  Here she will be embroiled in a murder mystery alongside her tutor Roger Ascham.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409134229</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529337968
|title=The Return of Sherlock Holmes
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|title=In Place of Fear
|author=Arthur Conan Doyle
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|author=Catriona McPherson
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=I'm still not sure which is cheekier of the BBC – either riffing on the Conan Doyle originals for their own modern takes on  Sherlock Holmes, or producing new editions of the original stories and novels with their young stars on the front, purely to tie a few sales down of what is now out of copyrightCertainly I think the latter is the greater crime, given the results on screen, for the number of young people picking up these classics for the first time on the basis of the TV and finding something quite against the grain of what they've ever read outside of school must be quite largeStill, anything to forcefeed classics to a new audience…
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|summary=It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the day that the NHS is born.  She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and her job will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their healthThe hardest part of the job will be to persuade people that the services she offers really are free and that they don't have to do anything to qualify for them.  Some of the problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a problem of her own which might give her some insightHer marriage has never been consummated.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907609</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=057136358X
|title=The City of Strangers
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|title=April in Spain
|author=Michael Russell
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|author=John Banville
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=In the spring of 1939 The Irish Times reported that Mrs Letitia Harris, aged 53 had gone missing from her home in DublinHer car was found the following morning on a cliff top near ShankillThere were bloodstains in the car, and a blood-stained hatchet in the shed back in Dublin, blood too in the flowerbed.
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|summary=Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms.  He saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''.  I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie KondoHe enjoyed his job, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time''He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morning''?  It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847563473</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H
|title=Sherlock: His Last Bow
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|title=The Mystery of Healing
|author=Arthur Conan Doyle
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|author=A P McGrath
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=''The End''.  I got told off for writing those two simple words at the end of a short story I wrote at school, aged about eleven.  If it is the end, I think the teacher was saying, it should be obviousIf it isn't, there's still no way the words are necessaryBut at least I'm not alone.  Conan Doyle, the south coast Doctor turned entertainer extraordinaire with all his output, was told off for the way he finished things.  Holmes dead?  Sorry, not allowed, Mr Doyle.  Holmes retired to keep bees near Eastbourne?  Beyond the pale, Sir – bring him back.  You don't like the labour of proving your genius invention to be such a genius?  ToughAnd so we come to 'His Last Bow', which Watson tells us is the final, final, ending story with which to conclude, and a few othersHe wasn't exactly correct about it being the last ones, though.
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|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populaceThe remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to liveIt's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressiveThe sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animalsToday, it's the crocodiles.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907617</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529337925
|title=The Bones of Paris
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|title=The Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver)
|author=Laurie R King
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|author=Catriona McPherson
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It is 1929 and Harris Stuyvesant has now left the Bureau of Investigation and England behind him and is working as a Private Investigator in EuropeAn American, whom Stuyvesant had met, has gone missing and Stuyvesant is approached by her Uncle and her Mother to find her. The missing girl, Pip Crosby, was involved with a group of artists in the Montparnasse and Montmartre areas of the city.  Many of them seem to have known her, but few have seen her in some time.
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|summary=It was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the sofa.  The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in DundeeShe was the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and Judy show in the local park had used copies of two of her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local interest in his show.   Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the man about infringement of copyright - and Dandy and Alex would be cheaper than employing a solicitor to do the same job.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749015357</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08LKT7HSR
|author=Essie Fox
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|title=Murder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery)
|title=The Goddess and the Thief
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|author=Helena Dixon
|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=Alice Willoughby may only be a child but she feels at one with India, the country in which she was born and where her father works for the East India Company.  The sights, the smells and the tales of the Indian gods told by Mini, her Indian ayah all contribute to it being home, despite the sub-continent having made her motherless.  Therefore imagine her disgust when she's left in the hands of her Aunt Mercy (a counterfeit medium) in drab, dirty Victorian London.  Life isn't easy anymore but it takes on a new turn when she meets the mysterious Mr Tilsbury.  He has a plan for her that includes the theft of the Koh-I-Noor diamond, Her Majesty's pride and joy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409146197</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Touchstone
 
|author=Laurie R King
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Laurie R King may be best known for her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, but she has also written a number of other novels, a couple of which feature detective Harris StuyvesantWith the publication of the second in this series, the first ''Touchstone'', originally published in 2008, has been republished, allowing those readers new to Stuyvesant, or even to King herself, to become properly acquainted.
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|summary=In December 1933 the remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the cellar of the Glass Bottle Public HouseEzekiel Hamett was sought in connection with the murder of Elowed and his half-brother, Denzil Hammett, whose body was also discovered.  Kitty Underhay's long search for her mother, who disappeared in June 1916 was over.  Now she's determined that the man responsible for her murder will be brought to justice.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749015454</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Stephen Clarke
|title=The Lovegrove Hermit
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|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
|author=Rosemary Craddock
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|rating=4
|rating=3
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|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond.  Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!
|summary=Charlotte Tyler is delighted to receive an invitation to Lovegrove Priory, home of eccentric Gothic novelist Amelia Denby. The priory is surrounded by acres of picturesque parkland and Denby even has a hermit living in the grounds in his own private retreat. However, when the hermit, Brother Caspar, is found dead in an apparent suicide, it is up to Charlotte and her new friend Colonel Hartley to piece together the clues and unmask the murderer.
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|isbn=2952163855
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719811066</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0349423083
|title=The Luck of the Vails
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|title=Death and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
|author=E F Benson
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|author=Frances Brody
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary='The sequestered village of Vail lies in a wrinkle of the great Wiltshire downs, and is traversed by the Bath Road.'  Of course the big inn is called 'The Vail Arms' and about a mile from the village is 'the big house'.  Benson doesn't name the house – indeed it wouldn't have needed a name.  Locally it would just be known as the big house, and any local delivery person would know where to deposit any attached to Lord Vail.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572435</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Ashton
 
|title=Nor Will He Sleep
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Two opposing Edinburgh university student gangs are full of high jinks the night that Agnes Carnegie is found deadDaniel Drummond, one of the merry-makers, is a prime suspect as he had an altercation with her and uses a silver cane that matches the murder weaponNothing is a foregone conclusion though and so dour, wily Inspector James McLevy of the Leith police is determined to uncover the truthMeanwhile Robert Louis Stevenson is in town for his father's funeral and renews his acquaintance with McLevy which is rather fortuitous when we consider what lies ahead.
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|summary=Kate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden.  She's been approached by William Lofthouse of the Barleycorn Brewery in MashamSomething is going wrong with his business and he'd like Kate to look into it discreetly: he's hoping that his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip to Germany before long.  James went to see what the continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need to makeWilliam is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too'' much or is going to bring back a German bride but he'd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returns.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972515</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0241433568
|author=MRC Kasasian
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|title=Eight Detectives
|title=The Mangle Street Murders
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|author=Alex Pavesi
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=March Middleton's father dies, and she becomes a 20-something alone; not a good status for a Victorian woman.  She therefore moves in with her guardian, Sidney Grice, personal (not private!) detectiveAlthough, as Sidney has a case to solve, March may as well be invisibleGrice has been employed by shopkeeper William Ashby who has savagely murdered his own wife by stabbing her 40 times and leaving the Italian word for 'revenge' on the wall.  Everyone says he did it apart from Ashby, of course.  Therefore Grice teams up with Inspector Pound of the Yard to solve the conundrum and March is there to help, whether Sidney wants her to or not.
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|summary=It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in SpainIt's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something seriousOnly it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered.  How can that have happened?  There's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851840</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1473682401
|author=Frances Brody
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|title=The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver)
|title=Murder on a Summer's Day: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
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|author=Catriona McPherson
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It was Kate Shackleton's cousin in the India Office who sought her help to find Maharajah Narayan who had gone out hunting on the Bolton Abbey Estate and not returned, although his horse - a flighty Arab - returned riderless.  The following morning a body was found - but this proved to be one of the grooms who had accompanied Narayan earlier in the dayHad he slipped jumping across the Strid and drowned? The jump across the river Wharfe looked tempting and people were warned of the dangers, but it was known that young men regularly crossed that way rather than walking to the wooden bridge or the stepping stonesLater in the day Narayan's body was foundHe'd been shot through the heart and a clumsy attempt had been made to hide the body - but only Kate Shackleton believed that there was foul play. The authorities seemed determined that what had happened would be written off as 'a tragic accident'.
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|summary=Those who were with us at the end of [[A Step So Grave (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson|A Step So Grave]] will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory DunnochThey're now married and Mallory is having twins. When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan GilverThere are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they're staying with Dandy and HughDandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, had not taken up the chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice before, but suddenly the possibility of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistible.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034940058X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)
|author=Hannah Kent
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|title=The Honjin Murders
|title=Burial Rites
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Crime
|genre=Crime (Historical)
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|summary=To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s.  The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste.  She only has an uncle representing her family, for one thingEither way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriageWhat with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it.
|summary=Fridrik, Agnes and Sigridur are accused of murdering two men one Icelandic night in 1829 before setting fire to their homeNow Agnes awaits execution, imprisoned in the farm of a lowly local family who, rumour has it, wouldn't be too great a loss if the prisoner becomes dangerousMargrit Jonsdottir (the farmer's wife) doesn't feel threatened and sets the shocked, malnourished Agnes to workGradually Agnes reveals the events of that night to Margrit and Toti, a young priest.  Her version seems to be a little different from what everyone else concluded, predictably… Or perhaps not so predictably.
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|isbn=1782275002
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447233166</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B07XLM3SM6
|author= Daniel Woodrell
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|title=Murder at the Dolphin Hotel
|title=The Maid's Version
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|author=Helena Dixon
|rating=5
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|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary= Life may be tough in the Missouri town where Alma grew up but at least she has a job.  She learns and experiences a lot as maid to the wealthy Glencross family, but many of the experiences aren't the sort she'd like to relive.  To top it all off, in 1929 the Arbor, a local dance club, explodes into flames killing 42 people including Alma's younger sister Ruby.  The cause remains a mystery as factions are blamed or viewed suspiciously.  However Alma knows the truth, a truth that remains secret until decades later during a visit from her grandson.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444732838</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Heroes (Most Wanted)
 
|author=Anne Perry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
 
|summary=Trench warfare has widely been acknowledged as one of the most soul destroying forms of combat. It broke men physically and mentally. Death seemed inevitable for many, and life was so horrible that at times it must have come as release. So what is one more death among the multitudes? To Chaplain Joseph Reavely every death counts, but he can not let this one go. Morton was not killed by enemy fire - he was murdered and Joseph will not rest until justice is done. It sounds pretty straight forward, but there is far more to it than this and justice is truly poetic in this case.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842995103</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bruce Macbain
 
|title=The Bull Slayer
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Years after we left him in [[Roman Games (Plinius Secundus) by Bruce Macbain|Roman Games]], Pliny the Younger has become Roman Governor of Bithynia.  Not the most hospitable of regions, its Greek residents regard the Romans with hatred; an emotion that, in many cases, is reciprocated by the Romans.  No matter how bad this is though, it gets worse when a high ranking official dies mysteriously.  Could it have anything to do with the religious sect of Mithras?  Possibly but it's not Pliny's only dilemma; at home his beloved young wife Calpurnia is acting somewhat oddly.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781850798</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Frances Brody
 
|title=Murder In The Afternoon: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=Kate Shackleton's business as a private investigator is beginning to attract interest but when there's a loud banging on the door very early one morning she soon learns the truth of the old adage that when family comes in, money doesn't.  The visitor ''looks'' familiar but Kate can't quite place where she's seen the woman before. Eventually it emerges that Mary Jane Armstrong is Kate's sister.  Kate was adopted as a baby and knew nothing of her natural family but  Mary Jane needs help.  Her children had taken food for their father at the quarry where he worked and ten-year-old Harriet reported finding her father dead on the floor of the hut, but when searchers returned to the quarry there was no sign of a body or of Ethan Armstrong either.  Local opinion said that her husband had abandoned them, but Mary Jane believed her daughter.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954876</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Elizabeth Loupas
 
|title=The Second Duchess
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=
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|summary=Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother.  A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why.  She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel.  And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things ''and'' why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel.
Elizabeth Loupas, it seems, was not the first author to be inspired by the intrigue and scandal of the renaissance court of Ferrera. The poem 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning, first published in 1842 is an elegiac account reflecting the popular view that Duke Alfonso d’Este murdered his first wife Lucrezia de Medici because of her unfaithfulness. Loupas explores some of the themes raised in the poem and cleverly combines elements of Browning’s work with true historical accounts to create an appealing murder-mystery set against the sumptuous backdrop of renaissance Italy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848093837</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0349423067
 +
|title=The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
 
|author=Frances Brody
 
|author=Frances Brody
|title=A Medal for Murder: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=When a pawnbroker was unceremoniously robbed of valuable items which he was holding on behalf of clients he first called the police and then Kate Shackleton when the police seemed to be getting nowhere.  It wasn't just the crime which had been committed, but the pledges had sentimental value to many of Moony's clients and he was worried about how they would feel when the jewellry couldn't be returned and what the impact would be on ''his'' reputationHe wanted the pieces back - but most of all he wanted Kate Shackleton and her assistant Jim Sykes to visit the clients and discuss the situation with themSimple?  No.
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|summary=From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929, one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identificationScotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed.  Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murderHe was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941928</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Frances Brody
+
|isbn=1472127110
|title=Dying In The Wool: (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
+
|title=Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery
 +
|author=Sara Sheridan
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Kate Shackleton had gained something of a reputation for solving mysteries and there were plenty of those at the end of the Great War.  She tracked down men who were then reunited with their families and even those who had no wish to be found and were not reunited.  She had her own reasons for doing this - it made her feel more positive about her own situation. Her husband Gerald was posted ''missing, presumed dead'' in the last year of the war and it was the one mystery she couldn't solve, no matter how she tried.  But her successes in other areas led to her first professional investigation.
+
|summary=Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941871</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1912374439
|author=Stephen Gallagher
+
|title=The Courier
|title=The Bedlam Detective
+
|author=Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Authors like to claim that writing is hard work. In a way, that’s true – there are a really astonishing number of words in a book, and it’s often very difficult to wrangle them from your head into coherent sentences on a page. At the same time, though, ''hard'' should not be the same as ''boring''. It’s sad to come across authors who don’t enjoy the process of writing, and it’s so easy to tell when you’re reading a piece of work by a writer who was actually having fun when they wrote it.
+
|summary=Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091950120</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786075431
|author=Edney Silvestre
+
|title=Mrs Mohr Goes Missing
|title=If I Close My Eyes Now
+
|author=Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)
|rating=4
+
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=
+
|summary=Meet Zofia.  A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career.  In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better.  Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads.  One such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home.  I say ''was'', for she has vanished.  Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself.  Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end?  And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions?
12th April 1961, the radio news is full of Yuri Gagarin's first earth orbit and two boys who'd had ambitions to be Tarzan, to be engineers, or medical scientists curing all diseases, suddenly had a new possibility: maybe they could be astronauts. 'Brasilia had been inaugurated less than a year earlier, but whichever of us got to be president was going to transfer the capital back to Rio.  We were twelve. It was a different country. A different world.'
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857521322</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1786893762
|author=Sax Rohmer
+
|title=Things in Jars
|title=Fu-Manchu - Daughter of Fu-Manchu
+
|author=Jess Kidd
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Fu Manchu is dead (or is he?) but his evil genius lives on, in the form of his daughter! New narrator Greville is sent to fetch Dr Petrie (narrator of the first three books) to come to an archaeological dig where Greville's chief Barton, an old friend of Petrie's, lies dead. (Or does he?) From there, the pair, along with Nayland Smith and Superintendent Weymouth, are plunged into a death-defying adventure.
+
|summary=A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly ''fast'' thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686062</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=0349414327
|author=GK Chesterton
+
|title=A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)
|title=The Complete Father Brown Stories
+
|author=Frances Brody
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Having read many of the Father Brown short stories before, and after really enjoying the recent screen version, I jumped at the chance to get hold of this TV tie-in omnibus. The little cleric who has such a mild manner, but a keen knowledge of human evil, is one of my favourite detectives, and it was a pleasure to be able to read this complete collection of his stories.
+
|summary=Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the event.  What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the setting for ''Wuthering Heights''?  Nothing could go wrong. Or could it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849906467</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Dyslexia Friendly Reviews]]
|author=Sara Sheridan
 
|title=London Calling: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=Mirabelle Bevan is an intriguing character. Warm, resourceful and extremely clever, she spent her war years in intelligence (though not active duty) and then, as the war ended and her long-time lover died, she withdrew to the coast and the dubious joys of running a debt-collection agency. Accidentally getting involved in solving a major crime with her vibrant young companion Vesta gets her noticed, however, and it isn't long before she finds herself knee-deep in another mystery. A childhood friend flees London and an accusation of murder to beg Vesta and her employer to help him prove his innocence. This leads the intrepid pair into the world of smoky, music-filled basements and the black market, where they encounter criminals from all across the social spectrum.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972434</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 13:45, 25 March 2023

0571370977.jpg

Review of

The Lock-Up by John Banville

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in April in Spain and Dr Quirke is now back in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughter, Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this has made the already strained relationship between them more difficult. They're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body of a young, Jewish scholar, Rosa Jacobs, is found in a lock-up. At first, it looked as though she'd gassed herself but Quirke is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide. Full Review

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Review of

In Place of Fear by Catriona McPherson

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It's July 1948 and Helen Crowther is due to start work as a qualified medical almoner the following morning - on the day that the NHS is born. She'll be working for Dr Deuchar and Dr Strasser in their GP surgery and her job will be to help patients with those non-medical problems which affect their health. The hardest part of the job will be to persuade people that the services she offers really are free and that they don't have to do anything to qualify for them. Some of the problems will require delicate handling but Helen has a problem of her own which might give her some insight. Her marriage has never been consummated. Full Review

057136358X.jpg

Review of

April in Spain by John Banville

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as a matter of making things tidy. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, something which occurred to him when he was in Burma with the army where he got the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the morning? It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain. Full Review

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Review of

The Mystery of Healing by A P McGrath

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace. The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon wants the warriors to live. It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive. The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Today, it's the crocodiles. Full Review

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Review of

The Mirror Dance (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, as so often happened, it was cold enough to have the fire lit and Bunty the Dalmation wasn't inclined to leave it to keep Dandy Gilver warm on the sofa. The thought of work was almost cheering when Dandy took the call from Sandy Bissett in Dundee. She was the publisher of a magazine and had been told that the man running the Punch and Judy show in the local park had used copies of two of her cartoon characters - Rosie Cheek and her sister Freckle - to drum up some local interest in his show. Sandy Bissett's request was simple: she wanted Gilver and Osborne to warn the man about infringement of copyright - and Dandy and Alex would be cheaper than employing a solicitor to do the same job. Full Review

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Review of

Murder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery) by Helena Dixon

3.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

In December 1933 the remains of Elowed Underhay were discovered in the cellar of the Glass Bottle Public House. Ezekiel Hamett was sought in connection with the murder of Elowed and his half-brother, Denzil Hammett, whose body was also discovered. Kitty Underhay's long search for her mother, who disappeared in June 1916 was over. Now she's determined that the man responsible for her murder will be brought to justice. Full Review

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Review of

The Spy Who Inspired Me by Stephen Clarke

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her! Full Review

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Review of

Death and the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Kate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. She's been approached by William Lofthouse of the Barleycorn Brewery in Masham. Something is going wrong with his business and he'd like Kate to look into it discreetly: he's hoping that his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip to Germany before long. James went to see what the continental brewers were doing and what changes Barleycorn might need to make. William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit too much or is going to bring back a German bride but he'd like the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returns. Full Review

0241433568.jpg

Review of

Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

It's 1930 and Megan and Henry are staying with Bunny at his house in Spain. It's unbearably hot and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going to have a rest and then he wants to talk to Megan and Henry about something serious. Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesn't emerge after his siesta his guests find that he's been murdered. How can that have happened? There's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killer. Full Review

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Review of

The Turning Tide (Dandy Gilver) by Catriona McPherson

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Those who were with us at the end of A Step So Grave will remember that Donald was engaged to Mallory Dunnoch. They're now married and Mallory is having twins. When they arrive no one can doubt the charms of Lavinia Dahlia Cherry and her brother, Edward Hugh Lachlan Gilver. There are two drawbacks: they're noisy and they're staying with Dandy and Hugh. Dandy and her detective partner, Alec Osborne, had not taken up the chance to look into a problem at the Cramond ferry when it was offered to them twice before, but suddenly the possibility of being out of the house at Gilverton seems irresistible. Full Review

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Review of

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo and Louise Heal Kawai (translator)

4star.jpg Crime

To many readers, the phrase 'locked room murder mystery' is enough to make the book one to read; preferably quantified by the words 'clever' or 'good'. For those who need more, here is the extra background – we're in rural Japan in the 1930s. The oldest son of an esteemed family is belatedly getting married, although the whole affair is really not as ostentatious as it might be – hardly anybody has turned up, what with it being arranged at great haste. She only has an uncle representing her family, for one thing. Either way, the celebrations have gone ahead as planned, only for the wedded couple to be slashed to death in their private annexe before the sun rises on their marriage. What with a man missing parts of his fingers being in the neighbourhood, and some mysterious use of a traditional musical instrument at the time of the crime, this case has a lot of the peculiar about it. Full Review

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Review of

Murder at the Dolphin Hotel by Helena Dixon

4star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Elowed Underhay was just twenty-seven when she disappeared from Dartmouth in June 1916, leaving her daughter, Kitty, in the care of her grandmother. A great deal of money had been spent to find out what happened to her and the conclusion was that she was dead, mainly because there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. Kitty has come to terms with this and in 1933 she was running the Dolphin Hotel in Dartmouth with her grandmother when her grandmother had to leave to look after her sister who was ill. She was reluctant to leave Kitty in charge - and Kitty could not understand why. She's always coped with the mix of holidaymakers, boating people and the naval college on the edge of town before - and she's done every job in the hotel. And she particularly cannot understand why her grandmother's friends have been roped in to keep an eye on things and why Captain Matthew Bryant has been hired to take charge of security at the hotel. Full Review

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Review of

The Body on the Train (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

From Christmas to Easter a train ran from Leeds City Station to King's Cross, arriving before dawn so that the forced rhubarb it carried could be taken to Covent Garden. In early March 1929, one of the porters who was unloading the boxes discovered the body of a man, stripped naked and with no means of identification. Scotland Yard hit a dead end and called on the services of Kate Shackleton in the hope that her knowledge and connections in Yorkshire would give them the lead they needed. Kate immediately found herself hamstrung: Commander Woodhead remembered her as a child and could not come to terms with the fact that she was now a woman experienced in dealing with murder. He was reluctant to give her all the information which the police held. Full Review

1472127110.jpg

Review of

Indian Summer: a Mirabelle Bevan Mystery by Sara Sheridan

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Life has changed dramatically for Mirabelle, our favourite fifties sleuth, since the war, and not always for the better. When she first settled in Brighton she was alone, rudderless and secretly grieving for Jack, the lover who died before he could leave his wife. As time went by she found in herself an ability to solve crimes, made friends including an ebullient and determined young woman called Vesta who refused to let a little thing like racial prejudice stop her doing what she wanted, and even found consolation in the arms of a rather charming policeman. Full Review

1912374439.jpg

Review of

The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl and Don Bartlett (translator)

3.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Nazi-occupied Oslo, 1942. There, I've given the game away. For in a book that centres around a murder, I've told you who did it – the Nazis, surely? Well, that certainly has to remain to be seen in this volume, which splits its time between one of war, when a young woman sees her father arrested, and their store condemned as Jewish and rushes to her best friend to help – not knowing she will never see her alive again, and the late 1960s, when great consternation is being felt. In this timeline, a maverick agent is back in town, one who might have been fingered for murdering that female victim, even though she and he lived together with their baby as a young family, except he was thought by all to have died in the War… Full Review

1786075431.jpg

Review of

Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkova and Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator)

3.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Meet Zofia. A socially climbing wife of a medical professor, she's intent on making herself known as a charitable lady, and keen on her husband progressing yet through his esteemed career. In 1890s Cracow, life is pretty good, but she knows it could always be better. Meanwhile, other people's life could certainly be better – cholera is nearing the city due to lack of hygiene, and many people have to fall on charity and almshouses to keep a roof over their heads. One such was Mrs Mohr, although she was rich enough to keep private lodgings and staff in her charitable home. I say was, for she has vanished. Only due to Zofia's help does she get found, dead and in a place the near-lame woman could never reach by herself. Just who could be killing people in a charity home, and to what end? And why does Zofia feel the need to make a name for herself by answering those questions? Full Review

1786893762.jpg

Review of

Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

A child has gone missing. The detective asked to take on the case is still struggling with the shame and frustration left by a previous case, where the child was not found in time. Hardly original themes for a private eye thriller. And yet . . . take another look. This detective is a woman, and the setting is Victorian London, with all the rich and colourful paradoxes of that era: technical and scientific progress jostling for space beside superstition and a fascination with the bizarre and the downright hideous. And before you're more than a couple of pages in, you realise just how much more unusual our heroine is than you expected. Bridie Devine may dress in half-mourning, with a widow's cap and stout, shiny boots, but the tobacco she smokes in her pipe (my dear, what an utterly fast thing for a lady to do!) is mixed with a nugget of something, well, let's say recreational, created by her chemist friend Prudhoe. The fact that it's actually meant to cure bronchial problems is by the by. Her housemaid, being seven-foot-tall, is also somewhat remarkable. And then, of course, there's the ghost. Ruby Doyle, world-famous tattooed boxer (deceased) accompanies Bridie all through her investigation, and it's clear he has a soft spot for the determined young woman. If he really exists, that is. Full Review

0349414327.jpg

Review of

A Snapshot of Murder (Kate Shackleton Mysteries) by Frances Brody

4.5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Even detectives need a break and for Kate Shackleton, photography gives her the mental relaxation which she needs. When the local Photographic Society proposed an outing, Kate was keen to take the opportunity to visit Haworth and Stanbury, not least because the deeds of the Brontë Parsonage are being handed over so that it can become a museum and her parents will be there for the event. What could be better than seeing her family, witnessing a momentous event and having the opportunity to take photographs of the setting for Wuthering Heights? Nothing could go wrong. Or could it? Full Review

Move on to Newest Dyslexia Friendly Reviews