Black Widower by Patricia Moyes

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

The title aside, I don’t think readers have to make allowances to enjoy this old-school police procedural from 1975. Edward Ironmonger is the ambassador of the newly independent Caribbean country of Tampica. At a diplomatic celebration of Tampica’s opening an embassy in D.C., his wife Mavis makes a fool of herself and is ushered to her room. She is later found shot dead.

Ironmonger exercises dip privileges since an embassy is that country’s territory. He calls in a British police officer to investigate. Like Moyes’ other traditional police procedurals, this novel stars her series dynamic duo Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Henry Tibbet and his wife Emmy. Extremely relatable is this pleasant middle-aged couple who are down to earth but solve murders with no-nonsense English composure.

Tibbet’s inquires reveal that the persons of interest have personal, financial, and political motives galore. As usual Emmy makes a contribution to the investigation, with the insight of other golden-age wives of sleuths such as Harriet Vane, Amanda Campion and Agatha Troy Alleyn.

So the reason to read this mid-Seventies mystery is that Moyes was a master at blending intense settings with brilliant characterization and plausible unfolding of incidents. Moyes moved to the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean archipelago in the 1970s, so her descriptions of tropical lushness and sandy beaches ring true. She must have moved in diplomatic circles because her set-piece of a dip party in D.C. hit home for me, who lived for three years on the fringes of dip doings in a European capital.

Readers of Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, Agatha Christie, and Ngaio Marsh would do well to read Patricia Moyes.

Mob Cop: My Life of Crime in the Chicago Police Department

by Fred Pascente with Sam Reaves

Review by jjares

Fred Pascente grew up in the Italian section of Chicago (called the Near West Side) with a wide range of men who emerged as heavy hitters in the Mafia. One of Fred’s closest friends was Tony Spilotro, the youngest made man in the Chicago Outfit History.

A word of explanation: The Chicago Outfit was an Italian-American organized crime family based in Chicago. It originated on the city’s South Side in the early 1910s. The Chicago group was part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Big Jim Colosimo (aka Diamond Jim or Big Jim) created his Chicago criminal empire through gambling, prostitution, and racketeering. Their rivals were other Chicago gangs, notably the North Side Gang (Al Capone) and the Irish Mob (famously led by Charles Dean O’Banion).

Many of the youngsters Fred grew up with settled into careers in organized crime. However, Fred took a different route. He was drafted into the army and later became a Chicago cop.

The description of the Chicago police on the take and how widespread it was, was sobering. At this time, the city police were poorly paid and took bribes to augment their salaries. Finally, during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley gave the city police a $2000/year raise (because Vietnam protestors used the Convention to create violent riots and attack police). According to Fred (a new recruit at the time of the Convention and violence), Mayor Daley told the troops to go after the rioters. After three days of violence against the police (and not allowed to push back), the police were ready to retaliate, and they did. Fred says that history states that the police did the rioting; he disagrees.

During the week, Fred was a policeman; on the weekends, he traveled to Las Vegas with friends. He learned how to rob the casinos while playing cards. Before it was all over, Fred was one of thirty men banned from Las Vegas for life (via Nevada’s casino Black Book). Entering the city again would be a felony for any of the thirty involved.

Fred was soon chosen by William Hanhardt, the chief of detectives in the Chicago Police Dept., because of his connections. Hanhardt turned Fred into his bagman and fixer for several years.

Fred was a policeman for 26 years. He retired just before the FBI indicted him. The FBI wanted William Hanhardt and leaned on Fred. He refused to tell on his friend. Therefore, the police indicted and convicted Fred of insurance fraud (which he’d done with a Gypsy friend). The end of the case resulted in Fred losing his pension. When Fred emerged from prison, he had to start over again. He was still working at 72 when he died.
At first, I was stunned by the blase way Fred talked about crime; before long, the reading was addictive. Fred comes across as an easy-come-easy-go person with a relaxed moral compass. Amazingly, I was disappointed when the book ended.

Providence by Max Barry

Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)

The first encounter with aliens did not go well for humans. Without any attempt at communication, the aliens killed the crew of a spaceship. Subsequent encounters were much the same, and now humans are doing their best to wipe out the entire species of the aliens they call “salamanders”.   There are losses of course, and after a particularly awful loss the Earth’s population is getting weary of the expense and questioning the war.

A new class of spaceship has been developed called Providence. Controlled completely by AI, it’s a weapon of war designed for zero human casualties. it still has a small human crew for… well, for what? Apparently it’s to watch the ship in action and to send social media clips back to Earth.  Not all the crew – Captain Jackson, Life officer Beanfield, Weapons officer Anders, and Intel officer Gilly – realize they have no role in the conflict.  Beanfield knows it, but her job is to keep everyone on an even mental keel and she’s not telling.  But Anders, who has managed to qualify for the operation while having severe mental issues, is going to throw a wrench into the mission.

It all starts to come apart in a big way when the ship goes out of communication range with Earth. Gilly notices a problem with the ship’s computer core that the AI doesn’t recognize. But fixing it causes the ship to decide the humans are interfering with its mission. In the meantime, Gilly is also seeing that the salamanders are learning from each encounter, and each time getting a little better at tactics. When Anders goes completely off the rails, they are in desperate straits indeed.  I couldn’t believe that Barry was going to be able to write them out of the predicament he put them in, but it was an exciting ending. Except maybe for what Gilly found about the salamanders, I’m still not sure what difference that made.

PROVIDENCE is not just an SF action novel. There’s a lot of character development for the crew, all of whom have flaws. Even Anders becomes sympathetic towards the end. There’s definitely jabs at the military-industrial complex and the whole social media universe.  There are some thought-provoking questions here. Is Barry trying to tell us that nothing we do really matters in the long run? Or maybe it’s just a book…

You can read this as a pretty cool space opera, or you can read it carefully looking for themes and ideas. It likely isn’t a book for everyone, but it was definitely interesting.

Orphan Trains: Taking the Rails to a New Life by Rebecca Langston-George

Review by jjares

Because I read a lot of historical fiction, I’m familiar with the ‘orphan trains’ of the 1800s to the early 1900s. I’m used to reading about them taking homes in the West. However, I wanted to learn about them from the beginning point, usually New York City. Why were there so many available to go on the trains to the West? What were their stories? Although this book is written for children, it answered my questions well.

In 1853, Charles Loring Brace, a young minister, was dismayed by the 30,000 orphaned children wandering about in New York City alone. Partly, this was caused by the significant influx of immigrants to America and the lack of vaccines to protect people from illnesses. In addition, with poor sanitation and hygiene, there was a high death rate among adults, leaving abandoned children.

Brace and other ministers allied to address the problem. The orphanages were overwhelmed, and many more children lived in the streets however they could manage. So Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society. After gathering donations, the group opened schools and lodgings. The group started with the newsboy, giving them accommodation and a way to save their pennies (earned selling newspapers), so they could continue their independence. Still, there were so many children.

Brace realized the children would be better served by letting them live on farms with families. Twenty-eight of the thirty-seven children were adopted on the first orphan train in 1854. Each child was bathed, groomed, given new clothes and shoes, and placed on the train. This book tells the individual stories of children looking for a home.

Along the train line, flyers were posted to let people know when the orphans would arrive. Prospective adults were screened and told that the children were not indentured servants but were free to leave if ill-treated or dissatisfied. Likewise, the farmers could dismiss the children if they were lazy or unsuitable.

After telling several individual stories, this book gives closing remarks on those personal lives — and they are fascinating. About 250,000 children moved westward in the largest migration of children in history. Amongst those survivors, there were two governors, a congressman, a sheriff, at least one mayor, some district attorneys, doctors, lawyers, bankers, teachers, business owners, and one nun.

This book tells stories of a little-known segment of our history. With the photos and individual narratives, this book will affect the reader. This author indicates that PBS did a documentary about orphan trains. There are also orphan train museums, reunions, and websites.

The Toff and the Deadly Parson by John Creasy

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This 1944 thriller stars the series hero, The Toff, cockney slang for an aristocrat. The Toff, the Honorable Richard Rollison, employs a valet, the imperturbable Jolly, who has the PI skills of Paul Drake. Rolly has a tolerant view of bending the rules and tweaks the nose of Scotland Yard, but detests scoundrels who do harm by stealing from people who can least afford it, i.e. Rolly’s plain folk who live in the East End of London. And for that, the plain folk idolize him.

In the 12th of the 60 Toff novels, Rollison gets involved when one of his plain folks, Joe Craik, is framed for a murder. In his humiliation, Craik attempts to take his own life. Rollison figures that the way to clear Craik is to find the culprit.

Rollison also gets involved with a young Parson, new to the East End. The Parson is fired up about saving the folks from drink, gaming, and other vices. Rollison tries to tone down the parson’s activism. But Rollison and the parson run into a gang of malefactors that are bent on running the parson out of the district, even it means framing him for a murder.

Creasy jams a lot of action and machinations into a slim volume. Some plot turns are implausible as are the Toff’s open-handedness with funds and his Bruce Lee-like ability to defend himself. The plot unfolds rather confusingly near the end. Creasy is a good writer, if uneven, as he uses “said, sarcastically” and “said, quietly” and “said, patiently” often enough to begin jarring the reader, a tad. He’s a little old-fashioned with that quirk they had back then: avoiding using, “said” in favor of “demand” or “remonstrate” or “murmur.”

The Scandalous Lady W: An Eighteenth-Century Tale of Sex, Scandal, and Divorce

by Hallie Rubenhold

Review by jjares

The famous Joshua Reynolds created the portrait of Lady Worsley on the cover of this book. The riding habit is adapted from her husband’s regiment. Seymour Fleming married Sir Richard Worsley when she was 17, and the marriage fell apart quickly. Once Richard got an heir, he lost interest in his wife. Because his wife brought a great deal of money to the marriage (~ 52,000 pounds), Richard could concentrate on things that interested him, including his seat in the House of Commons, his military pursuits for protecting his lands from French invasion, and belonging to two famous groups — the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Society. Unfortunately, they did not include Lady Seymour. To retaliate, Lady Seymour had many lovers.

The couple had one son, Robert Edwin (1776 – 1795), and Richard claimed paternity of Seymour’s daughter, Jane Seymour Worsley, to avoid scandal. However, George M Bissett was the child’s father. Wanting to be together, Bissett and Lady Seymour ran away together late in 1781. Richard begged his wife to return home, but she refused. The following year, Richard brought a ‘Criminal Conversation’ case against Bissett for 20,000 pounds, an incredible amount of money at the time.

This court case raised eyebrows and fed the rumor mills for a long time. ‘Criminal Conversation’ was the court’s title for the husband suing the man at fault for stealing his wife’s affections. Richard refused to get a divorce; he wanted to make the couple suffer. So he sued Bissett for a ruinous amount of money and washed his hands of his wife by refusing to give Lady Seymour her clothing or pay her bills (which eventually led her to become a kept woman by rich and powerful men). Lady Seymour turned the tables on Richard by asking some of her previous lovers to come to court and explain that Richard never contested her behavior — and, in some instances, aided and abetted it. She also encouraged her physician to go to court and explain Lady Seymour got the venereal disease from one of her paramours.

I will leave you to read the book to find out how the court case ended. However, in 1788, the couple entered into ‘Articles of Separation,’ which did not allow Lady Seymour to marry Bissett (until after her husband’s death). By the end of the court case, all the parties were socially ruined. Their story continued in the newspapers for months in rhyme, illustration, and prose. Finally, Seymour realized that humiliating her husband was her only recourse (to retrieve her clothing, etc.), and the public ate it up. Richard went into hiding, and Seymour paraded herself to humiliate him further. Incredibly, before it was all over, the couple wrote about their problems for all to read in the newspapers. Eventually, Lady Worsley and Captain Bissett separated. Bissett’s brother was entering religious orders, and he pressured his brother to cease the scandalous liaison. Captain Bissett married another, inherited property, and became a highly-regarded gentleman by the time of his death.

Lady Worsley was forced to become a professional mistress to survive. The book points out that a substantial group of upper-class women were in the same position. Women could not divorce their husbands because English law saw them as mere possessions of their husbands. Richard was so humiliated that he escaped on a world tour, and to redeem his reputation as an antiquarian scholar.
Lady Seymour had two more children. There was a second child with Bissett. Nothing more is known of the child. Seymour escaped to France, where infidelity was well-tolerated. She returned to England to have her fourth child, a girl, who was given to a farm family to raise (a common way to shed unwanted children amongst the aristocracy).

Part of her final separation decree stated that she must reside outside England for four years. If she returned before that time, she would forfeit the money her husband had settled on her. Unfortunately, the French Revolution occurred, and Lady Seymour was probably imprisoned during some of that time. She begged her husband’s solicitors to allow her to return to England because of the danger. However, they warned her of the consequences if she did so. Thus, she was in France when her son Robert died unexpectedly in England.

After Seymour returned to England, she was gravely ill for two months. Her mother, sister, and husband came to visit her. Seymour was relieved when her family forgave her and people saw them in her company. Meanwhile, Richard returned to Europe and invested in many antiquities. Unfortunately, Bonaparte commandeered them, causing a total loss to Richard. Richard was in financial straits with this loss and the tremendous expenses of court cases, and Seymour’s expensive lifestyle.

Richard retired to the Isle of Wight and had a relationship with a person listed as Richard’s housekeeper — Mrs. Sarah Smith. She stayed with him until his death. With Richard’s death, Seymour’s wealth reverted to her. One month after Richard’s death, forty-seven-year-old Seymour marched down the aisle with twenty-six-year-old John Lewis Cuchet. By royal license, Seymour took back her maiden name ‘Fleming’ and John took it as his surname too.

Eventually, Seymour and John moved back to Passy (France), where she died in 1818 (~ 61 years of age). Despite their age differences, the author claims that John Lewis was the only man to understand Seymour. He married again (1 and a half years later) but asked to be buried next to his first wife.

After starting this book, I learned that the BBC made a film based on this book in 2015. The author may have included too much detail, but there is no doubt that this is a fascinating story of infidelity in the 1700s.

The Pyramid: The First Wallander Cases by Henning Makell

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

When it comes to reading mysteries, there comes a time when the jaded reader must just read something new. So I got this through PBS, not knowing the series hero at all.

It appears that this 1999 book is the origin story of series hero Kurt Wallander, set at the beginning of his law-enforcement career in 1969 when he was only a twenty-something police officer in Ystad, an old town on Sweden’s southern coast, famous for its medieval town center with cobblestone streets and half-timbered houses. Young Kurt has a keen sense of what’s proper and tends to brood – neither of which are strange, considering he’s Swedish. His father, an artist and bully, gives him guff for his career choice and passive-aggressively sells his house – Kurt’s childhood home – without even telling Kurt where he’s moving. And look up “high maintenance girlfriend” in the dictionary and see a picture of Kurt’s girlfriend Mona.

This book collects five pieces, thee short stories and two novellas. As is typical in noir police procedurals since the 1980s, the author sets the homicide investigators in the socio-economic conditions in which crimes are committed. “How could anybody be so alone,” Kurt wonders as he finds out more about the bleak daily life of an elderly neighbor whose death he is investigating.

These stories reminded me of Andrea Camilleri’s Salvo Montalbano novels. The protagonists live in traditionally close-knit societies, with a strong sense of belonging and value on acting in such a way that one can present a respectable face in society. Ystad, Sweden and Vigata, Sicily are situated far from national cauldrons of change in politics, fashion, education, publishing, entertainment, or economy but their cultures are fraying. Mankell and Camilleri seamlessly weave into the plots anxiety shared by many ordinary people, who feel the old ways are showing signs of strain, that if they want things to stay the same, things are going to have to change.