Trent’s Own Case by Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Review by Thomas F. (hardtack)

Don’t you just hate those detectives who walk into a room and, after a few seconds, tell you that the murder was committed by a 5-foot-tall, left-handed, out-of-work, ironworker from Liverpool who had fish and chips for supper two hours before committing the crime? Well, you are not alone. E.C. Bentley, a popular English novelist and humorist of the early twentieth century, felt the same way.

As a protest against Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes” and the imitators who copied Doyle’s formula, Bentley invented ‘Philip Trent,’ an artist and journalist who solves cases on demand for the paper he works for, sometimes without even visiting the scene of the crime.

Unlike Holmes, Trent actually respects his Scotland Yard opposite, although there is some friendly rivalry there. Also unlike Holmes, Trent often jokes during his investigations. And sometimes the joke is on him.

Yes, Trent can tell you who last wore the victim’s shoes, whose fingerprints on the fingerbowl revealed how the killer escaped, and why the victim’s dental plate was left in the water-filled glass. But solve the crime….. Well, you need to decide, for that is the crux of the novel.

Bentley only wrote two novels about Trent. But this, the first, is considered by many to be the first ‘truly modern mystery.” My copy has an introduction by Dorothy Sayers, who praises the book. Agatha Christie called it “One of the three best detective stories ever written.” Published in 1913, Trent’s Last Case was followed by a sequel in 1936 and a series of short stories in 1938.

As I write this, there are at least three copies of Trent’s Last Case posted on PBS, so have at it.

Blood, Sweat and Arrogance: And the Myths of Churchill’s War
by Gordon Corrigan

Review by Thomas F. (hardtack)

After every war there is a period during which we lionize our ‘heroes’ for ‘leading us to victory,’ while castigating those who were ‘authors of defeat.’ This period may last for decades, but eventually some historians begin to question the general trend and look at the defects of the first and the redeeming qualities of the latter. A good example in American history is the adulation given Douglas MacArthur during and after World War II, when many historians now agree MacArthur should have been relieved for a Philippine disaster that was greater than Pearl Harbor.

On the other side of the world, there was the British Lion: Winston Churchill. I remember once reading that the British military chiefs agreed that they could not have won the war without Churchill, but that if he had let them do it as they were trained to do, they would have won it a lot sooner.

Gordon Corrigan was educated in British military schools and was a regular officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and Member of the British Empire, until retiring in 1998. A successful military historian, he also lectures at the British Joint Services and Staff College. His book, Blood, Sweat and Arrogance, takes a revisionist look at how Winston Churchill ran World War II.

Corrigan begins long before the first shots were fired when he shows that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill made decisions that crippled the evolution of the British military and doomed Singapore in World War II.

During World War II, Churchill often either countermanded the orders of his military chiefs or interfered enough to destroy the effectiveness of operations. His decision to recall some surface vessels without first verifying German naval moves in the North Atlantic led to the most horrific destruction of a convoy during the war. His desire to place politics over sound military strategy led to military disaster and losses of life on a grand scale in Greece, Cyprus and Africa. His impatience with his generals when he wanted action often led him to relieve good commanders and replace them with less skilled ones. He may even have been responsible for the Allied defeat in Norway. The list goes on.

Corrigan is by no means the first historian to attack our perception of Churchill as a “great war leader.” However, his 479 pages of text may very well be the most complete compilation of evidence forcing us to view Winston Churchill through other than rose-colored glasses.

Winston Churchill certainly deserves his high standing in history, but interested readers of World War II owe it to themselves to consider the other side of the man who lead Britain to victory.

Crashed by Timothy Hallinan

Review by Cheryl R. (Spuddie)

Main Character: Junior Bender, a thief who works in the LA area.

Series order: #1

It took me awhile to warm up to Junior Bender. Like, maybe fifteen minutes. Tops.  We’re introduced to him in the act of burgling a house, and while it may seem odd, I dislike thieves in general more than I dislike killers. Killers often have a good reason—or at least a plausible reason—for killing their victim. Thieves…well, they’re just too lazy to get what they want the hard way—by working for a living, and they “work” by taking something that doesn’t belong to them, that someone else HAS worked for…and that gets my goat. I started the book with a bit of trepidation, as Timothy Hallinan is the author of one of my favorite mystery series (Poke Rafferty) and I was afraid Junior would be a sorry comparison. I mean…he’s a thief! But it wasn’t long before I was laughing and finding that Junior is not your garden variety thief. He’s really one of the good guys, even if he’s got an odd way of making a living.

Divorced, with a teenage daughter who is the apple of his eye, Junior moves around from one long-term hotel to another in an attempt to stay ahead of the police. He tempers everything he does by asking himself what his daughter would think if she found out. The art heist he’s in the middle of at the beginning of the book ends up being a trap, and he finds himself in a cage with a nasty blackmailer holding the key. This notorious crime boss wants him to essentially babysit a former child star who is now about to star in her first porn movie, produced by none other than the blackmailer. Junior is obviously reluctant, but if he doesn’t cooperate, the tape of him burgling the house goes to the cops. The problem is, Thistle Downing is so strung out on drugs she doesn’t know if she’s on foot or horseback, and isn’t really even aware of just what she’s gotten herself into. Junior ends up being more of a protective father figure for her and tries to scheme a way to keep her from doing the movie.

Meanwhile, an old friend of Junior’s whom he’s hired to watch Thistle when he’s busy (or sleeping) ends up dead—murdered–in his surveillance car near her apartment—and then it becomes personal. Junior plots some devious steps to not only save Thistle from herself, but to discover his friend’s killer and get back at his blackmailer as well. And, he hopes, to come out looking good in his daughter’s eyes too….if she ever finds out.

The book is written in Hallinan’s usual likable and easy-to-read style. There’s plenty of humor but always a certain seriousness and poignancy behind the story that shines through at just the right time. By the time the book is finished, Junior feels like an old friend, and the cast of characters that come with him are very well fleshed and realistic too. Hallinan definitely has a second winner series here, I think—and I’ve already purchased Little Elvises, the second in the series. Hats off, Tim!

Laced with Poison by Meg London

Review by reacherfan1909

Series: Sweet Nothings, Bk 2 – books do not have to be read in order to follow storyline

Published: July 2013

Cozy mysteries have a long and honored history.  Agatha Christie is usually the first name that leaps to people’s mind, but Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy Sayers all made it possible.  Yes, there are far more female cozy writers that male, but some, like Jeffry Allen are showing real potential.  The cozy market is now attracting writers like the Regency Romance market did 20 years ago.  And like Regency Romance, there are a LOT of so-so books out there that people just rave about.

In her second outing with Emma Taylor and her well-traveled Aunt Arabella, the bottom line of the chic lingerie shop, Sweet Nothings, was still bleeding.  The broken plate glass window would just add to the red ink despite the increase in sales.  Emma returned to Paris, Tennessee to help manage the shop when her aunt asked for help in saving it.  Who knew saving it would be so difficult?  Then an opportunity is offered to them on a plate – a trunk show of their vintage designer lingerie at the luxurious home of Deirdre Porter.  The Porter’s are one of the leading families of Paris and Deirdre has just the kind of friends who would love the exquisite pieces in their collection.

The trunk show is a big success – right up until and loud and abrasive Jessica Scott of the Sunny Days Retirement Community keels over after eating a flower topped cupcake.  When she dies in the hospital, Emma starts getting involved because she knows the cupcake baker and her edible flower supplier is Emma’s best friend from high school, Liz.  And sure enough, the new detective shows up at Liz’s house while she’s there.  Despite the fact Liz had no foxglove in her own garden, not with her young children around, there is some in the neighbor’s yard.

But Emma has an inside source at Sunny Days.  Sylvia, an elderly lady who helps at the shop with fittings and repairs just got moved there by her concerned son.  Seems Jessica was a bully to everyone, not just her hapless and helpless secretary.  But just before she had that fatal cupcake, Jessica told a story she got from one of their elderly patients, a former maternity nurse, about babies being switched in a hospital when a poor wife of a farmer who already had too many children and the wife of the wealthy town leader having her first child after years of trying, swapped her stillborn son for the healthy farmer’s son.  Thanks to a massive accident and an overwhelmed hospital, only the 3 women knew.  All towns have stories like those.  Kind of like ghost stories.

So Emma turns her sights on trying to track that story down and learn more about what’s happening at Sunny Days, and Sylvia will help.  Maybe.  Because she’s being accused of stealing by another resident and Sylvia might just get thrown out.  Then an attempt is made on the life of an elderly patient in the full nursing care part of the facility and Emma is sure her answers are there.

Though the characters are pleasing and the pacing is good, there is one major flaw.  A fatal one for any mystery.  If you can’t figure out who did it and why by page 50, you’ll lose your Nancy Drew card for sure.  I kid you not, the ‘clues’ all but have neon signs on them.  While a pleasant enough read, with the usual assortment if quirky characters, the mystery plot was so uninspired it was dead in the water.  As a gentle and pleasant read, fine.  Some good characters and the writing, while bland and lacking the sharp wit I favor, is still very readable.  Dull for me, but readable.  For any real mystery fan, it’s a bust.

I know I’m bucking the trend on Amazon, but Laced with Poison gets a C- (2.8*) from me.  It has all the right elements for a cozy, except tension in the plot.  And one unfortunate hint of yet another potential  love triangle with Emma, Brian, and the new police detective.  Let us all hope this series does not commit that over-worn trope in this series too.

I have a 3 and out rule on new series.  If the first book shows potential, I’ll try book two.  If that show improvement, then I’ll try book 3.  But if by three I still think the series is treading water, it’s done.  Unfortunately, cozy mysteries are overrun with generic plots and characters and the writing, while not bad, tends to uninspired. A lot of series get kicked off my lists by book 2.  A few stand out and I’ll offer them below as better reads than this bland bit of nothing.

Recommended Instead:  The Mall Cop series by Laura DiSilverio; Library Lover’s series and Cupcake Bakery series by Jenn McKinlay (though I didn’t like that last Cupcake Series book); Stay at Home Dad series by Jeffery Allen; and the White House Chef mysteries by Julie Hyzy.

A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King

Review by Thomas F. (hardtack)

I am continually surprised by my discovery of new, at least to me, authors who abducted Sherlock Holmes into new adventures. Some of these stories are light and short, others are humorous and some are deeply intellectual. I believe Arthur Conan Doyle would respect, if not actually like, the latter.

Laurie King has 13 such novels in a series that begins with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. This series might outrage some devoted Holmes and Watson fans, as Watson is replaced by a young girl. The now-retired Holmes meets 16-year-old Mary Russell on the moor and is intrigued by her. Russell reminds Holmes of himself at a younger age and he is delighted to find that she has many of his deductive skills. However, Russell, like Holmes, has some baggage. She is the sole survivor of a car accident that killed her family, and has the physical and mental scars to prove it. Plus, she has a detested aunt who, appointed her guardian, covets the wealth Russell inherited. This first book spans a number of years during which Russell matures as a detective and also enters Oxford to read for her degree. The plot thickens as it becomes apparent that someone is out to kill both of them.

I just finished A Letter of Mary, which is the third book in the series. Doyle’s fans might be further annoyed that Russell and Homes are now married. They did so after the second book, A Monstrous Regiment of Women. Holmes is now in his 60s, while Russell is in her early 20s and still studying at Oxford, as she makes time between murder mysteries. And both are masters of disguises.

Laurie King has threads running though her novels that tie the series together. For example, in A Letter of Mary Holmes and Russell investigate the death of a woman they met in Palestine during the first book, when they were forced to flee England for their lives. While in Palestine they also did some work for Mycroft, Holmes’s brother, who still conducts mysterious business in support of  the British Empire. Mycroft pops up in the first three books, and I suspect others. The Baker Street Irregulars, now grown up and with their own families, make their appearance in the books, still doing errands for Holmes, and now Russell too.

There is a very decided feminist thread in the books, as England has emerged from its Victorian Era and women are striving for a greater role in a society much changed after World War I. This especially becomes apparent in the second book and is a strong plot device in the third. In fact, resistance to this new role of women may form the motive for a murder in the third.

Those who like to consecutively read all the novels in a series, might want to reconsider that practice for this series. I found the Holmes and Russell novels to be much more intellectual than most cozies, and reading even two back-to-back might tire the brain cells. I found I enjoyed them more when I read several lighter mysteries or other genres in between.

If finding Holmes married to a much younger woman, whom he acknowledges as his equal, is unpalatable to you, then just read the first one—The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Russell is still very much Holmes’ protégé in the first book, and both of them have to deal with an unfinished chapter from Doyle’s adventures that threatens them. And that is all I can tell without spoiling it for you.

Fifth Grave Past the Light by Darynda Jones

Review by reacherfan1909

Darynda Jones hit the book market in 2011 with First Grave on the Right and gave paranormal and UF authors a bad case of author envy.  Charley Davidson and Reyes Farrow are easily two of the most original characters in a long time.  Ms Jones also hit the high notes for strong, well-developed prose, fast pacing that never feels rushed, and dual plots line – one is the plot that is the mystery in the book that is resolved within each book.  The other is the over-arching plot about Charley herself and Reyes Farrow and just what they are to each other – and to the universe.  And she does this with an odd mixture of humor, and horror, and mystery that shouldn’t work, but does so splendidly and with such verve, wit, and style it’s a delight to read.

In Fifth Grave Past the Light, Charley and the now released Reyes Farrow, are neighbors.  And she wants to be a lot more, but how can the son of Satan and a Grim Reaper (actually a portal for souls – a kind of beacon and doorway for the dead to pass through to reach heaven) who is the daughter of light ever manage to get together?

It isn’t unusual for Charley to wake up and find ghosts in her apartment.  After all, Mr Wong has been there the whole time.  And not all ghosts are ready to pass.  Not only can they see her, some are quite chatty.  But having a ghost that stutters try and buy you a drink in your Dad’s bar?  That’s awkward.  Especially since it’s a cop bar and they tend to notice people talking to themselves.  Even worse when your former high school BFF turned nemesis sits with her friends mocking you and making you feel 15 again.  Hell had just come to Earth.  Even worse, Charley was in her ‘available slut’ outfit trying to attract Marvin Tidwell, suspected cheating husband.  Turns out, Marvin has a ‘type’, and Charley is NOT it.  But Cookie, her zaftig secretary, BFF, and neighbor is.  So Charley calls for reinforcements.  A nervous Cookie seems to be doing so well, until Marvin spots the microphone and Cookie, scared, grabs for her gun.  But Marvin manages to point the gun at Charley and time slows – as it always does for her – as she sees the bullet leave the barrel, tries to move, but can’t move fast enough and knows she’s about to die.  Then Reyes is there, as he has been so many times in the past, and literally takes a bullet for her.

Oh, her apartment has a frightened young girl hiding under the bed who places 3 scratches down Charley’s face.  And then there’s all these women, victims of a serial killer, so traumatized they can’t even help Charley find out what’s keeping them from passing thru to the light.  And her sister has her going to see a psychologist for PTSD after what happened with Earl Walker  – AND she told the psychologist Charley’s secret.  And she needs Gerald Swopes’ help with doing background checks on Marvin – only the last time he helped her, he died and Reyes sent him to spend some quality time with Dad – AKA Lucifer.  And a key and note from Reyes – “Use the key.”  But does it open his apartment?  Or something else?

Throw in a nurse who sees the future and visits Charley I spectral form yet has no memory of it, a police captain who wants to see just how Charley works to help her Uncle Bob have the highest clearance rate in the whole department, Cookie taking gun safety classes, the mother of her ghostly teenage assistant wanting to know why she keeps depositing $500 a month in her bank account.  It’s a tough few days.

As always, despite the many threads in the story, the Darynda Jones not only manages to weave them all together into an engaging tale that moves at a breakneck pace, she brilliantly walks the line between laughs and a dark, grim reality – with one notable flaw, one that has cropped up in earlier books.  The author has to introduce a lot of information, kind of a data dump, to move the over-riding story arc along.  This isn’t easy, so she often has a character handle this in a single fell swoop toward the end of the book.  This time she selected Swopes, and used his time with Satan as they way to get the information in.  But suddenly Swopes has all these additional sources and the scene, a key one to the continuing story arc – get a very ‘deus ex machina’ feel to it.  Of all the things that happened in the book, it was the one that seemed to not quite work.  Maybe because I found the choice of character for the ‘big reveal’ didn’t quite fit.  I think it might have worked had she introduced a different, new, enigmatic character to handle it with Swopes.

Fifth Grave Past the Light remains an excellent read and gets a A- (4.5*) from me, a very rare high rating.  As a series, the Charley Davidson books are highly recommended reading for paranormal fans.

Series: Charley Davidson, Bk 5 – books need to be read in order to follow storyline

First Grave on the Right (Book 1)

Second Grave on the Left (Book 2)

Third Grave Dead Ahead (Book 3)

Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (Book 4)

Fifth Grave Past the Light (Book 5)

In addition to the Charley Davidson series, I recommend, Kelly Gay’s Charlie Madigan series, Suzanne Johnson’s Sentinel’s of New Orleans series, Cecy Robson’s Weird Sisters series, and Kalayna Price’s Grave Witch series.

The Case of the Deadly Toy by Erle Stanley Gardner

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Horace Livermore Selkirk didn’t get to be a rich banker in San Francisco by being an agreeable fellow. Though granting he didn’t like the scrapes his son got into, he tells Perry Mason that he intends to avenge his son’s murder. The cops have Perry’s client, the son’s ex-fiancé , in custody but Horace wants the killing pinned on the son’s ex-wife, because he wants custody of his son’s son, the only one carrying on the Selkirk name. Thus, this was first serialized in 1958 as The Case of the Greedy Grandpa in The Saturday Evening Post.

Gardner was a writer that touched on serious issues in his novels in order to give them heft and realism. First, he brings in the scary practice of stalking in this one. There’s also poison pen letters.

Second, Gardner brings up the influence of TV watching on kids. While interviewing persons of interest, Mason pries out of a babysitter that on a whim she allowed her seven-year-old charge to play with a .22 with the shells removed. Under the influence of “pistol performances” on TV, the boy, she admits, might have gotten hold of the gun and loaded it with a shell.

Third, Mason gets a witness on the stand to admit that she was coached by the police to make her identification, having been allowed to observe the defendant surrounded by police before the witness identified her in a line up.

This is not one of the best Mason novels I’ve read. But the subtext about when and how children should be allowed to handle weapons was interesting to me, since this is an issue that has hardly gone away in the fifty years since this mystery was published.