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All this and a mystery, too
Novel readers are well acquainted with the darker side of Victorian England, the often-wretched lives of the poor and society’s gaping inequalities. We also may have had literary glimpses into the lives and adventures of those in government and law-enforcement circles. Julia Stuart’s hilarious novel offers a look at a slice of Victorian life that…
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Out of retirement, into a mystery
Old detectives, it seems, are a lot like old soldiers – except that in addition to never dying, they rarely fade away. Tom Dillon reviews a new Ian Rankin book (published in Great Britain last year) in which John Rebus is back at work, at least for a while. By Tom Dillon STANDING IN ANOTHER…
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Fearless (almost) Flavia tackles murder in the churchyard
How much do I like Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce novels? Here’s an indication: This is the second time I have read the latest novel straight through – and then listened to the audio book version. Having read the book, I know the solution to the mystery, but listening to the audio version lets me…
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Ho, ho, ho, Merry Mystery!
This isn’t really a Christmas book, if by Christmas books you mean those novels – usually fairly slim and quickly read – with a holiday theme that appear in the fall, just in time to be read or given as gifts. But what else do you call a novel with a main character named Father…
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Peculiar times in London
What is literature for if not to take us into places and experiences that we might otherwise miss? I’m missing London right now; I see it nightly on TV coverage of the Olympics, and I wish I were there. There’s no way I could make it to London for the games, but I’ve done the…
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Wexford is still Wexford
I’ll be tidying up from 2011 for a while. Somehow, life intervened, and I got behind with reviews toward the end of the year. Here’s a review of a book that Bob Moyer read during his trip to Germany, a review that somehow did not get posted in a timely fashion. But hey, the book’s…
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Not really a Christmas book – but who cares?
This book arrived at the same time as several Christmas-themed volumes, so naturally I thought it was another holiday story. After all, its title is Twelve Drummers Drumming. So I put it on the stack right under Anne Perry’s annual Christmas mystery. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the action takes place in the…
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Need Christmas spirit? Read (or listen to) this book
Talk about getting into the Christmas spirit: In the past couple of weeks, I’ve read two enjoyable novels in which a murder is committed at Christmastime in a large English country house where lots of people (i.e., suspects) are snowbound. Save from those details I’ve just listed, the two books could hardly be more different.…