A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir

Review by Kelsey O.

Weir has taken the two lives of eerily similar usurpers and entwined them in this engrossing novel of passion, rivalry, betrayal, love and loss. Weir takes the reader from past to present by telling the story of Katherine Gray, sister to Lady Jane Grey (the nine-day queen), and Kate Planteganet, the illegitimate daughter of Richard III. Throwing in the secret of the Princes in the Tower, Weir flawlessly weaves the complicated lives of England’s royalty.

After Queen Mary Tudor overthrows Jane Grey, Katherine’s life is thrown upside down and now she must walk the tightrope between Mary and Elizabeth’s rivalry. Katherine has been told that she will be next in line to inherit the throne but as court politics go, she is passed up and Elizabeth ascends to the throne. Having already known what Mary was up to, Elizabeth sees Katherine as a rival for the throne and will do everything to stop her council from naming Katherine as the next in line. After stumbling upon the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, Katherine finds that her life is similar to Kate Plantagenet, whose father was believed to have done away with the Princes. This mystery whiles away the hours that Katherine must spend in the Tower because of Elizabeth’s wanting to keep her enemy close.

Kate has always thought that her father could walk on water but soon she finds that there are many rumors and her own life is in danger being who she is. After being forced into a marriage she didn’t want, Kate finds her quest to discover what happened to the Princes and clear her deceased father’s name, the only thing that keeps her mind off her unhappiness

Though switching from one time period to another was confusing at times, I thought Weir did an amazing job. I highly recommend this for all Tudor obsessed fans just for the fact that it is a unique and refreshing take on the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

The Goodbye Look by Ross Macdonald

Review by Matt B (BuffaloSavage)

The title refers to the thousand-yard stare that soldiers, too long in combat, have when they know it is kill or be killed. Lew Archer, private investigator, recalls the goodbye look among he and other Marines when they fought on Okinawa in April of 1945, 23 years before the events in this novel take place.

The plot is the most complex Macdonald ever wrote, an even tighter knot than The Chill. Just a few of the skeins in the tangle: a troubled college boy, a mixed-up teenaged girl, hundreds of letters written from the forward areas of the Pacific War, and the killing of supposed child molester in a railroad yard in the early Fifties. I think reading attentively shows respect to a writer with high standards of craft, but I never detected goofs of time or slips of logic.

Besides returning to the theme of the traumatizing effects of war even years after hostilities end, Macdonald was never hesitant about making family relations the pivot of his plot. Family connections are intricate and surprises about who is related to whom are gradually revealed as the novel moves at a steady pace. Archer investigates the theft of a gold box. Showing his classical education at the University of Michigan, Macdonald twice compares Pandora’s Box  to the stolen box, from which spring three murders, an attempted suicide and a successful suicide, to mention only a couple of unfortunate acts in this novel.

Macdonald’s prose, as usual, is a mixed bag. We get the strained: “Pacific Street rose like a slope in purgatory from the poor lower town to a hilltop section of fine old home.” We get the showy: “His eyes were black and glistening like asphalt squeezed from a crevice.” But we also get just the right note: “The girl was wan with jealousy.”

Soon after this novel was released in 1969, high powered critic of the New York Times John Leonard and popular novelists like William Goldman praised it. It became a best-seller. Macdonald regarded this one, his fifteenth Archer novel, as his jump from genre fiction to mainstream fiction. His implied claim that this novel is more high art than mystery is fair, considering that Archer does little interviewing and less detecting in this one. Reading it in 2012, we also get the feeling the novel is an artifact, a piece of evidence in the social history of the twenty years after World War II in the United States. For hard-boiled writing, Macdonald always gets compared to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, but I think he was more interesting than both in terms of psychological, moral and social insight.

Sharps by K.J. Parker

Review by Bowden P. (Trey)

First, I am a fencer. Have been since I graduated college – I fence all three weapons, and honestly need to get back in practice. Sharps helped me decide that. Why? Well, it’s a really good book about fencers. A soldier. Killers. And two countries on the edge of a war…

The novel starts by introducing the reader to the characters and their circumstances, thought not always their names. The most memorable is by Giraut, a student of no account and womanizer of some ability, and his recollection of events that lead to him bleeding out in a tower. Phrantzes, former fencing champion and staff officer to General Carnufex during the War,  telling his friend about meeting a woman – scandalous because she’s a former prostitute and he’s been a solitary bachelor for most of his life. Suidas Deutzel, another former champion and soldier, fallen to reduced circumstances and driven to look for work. Adulescentulus, Addo, General Carnufex’s son (ordered to join the team by his father) and Iseutz (who joined the team to avoid an arranged marriage and can’t back due to her pride)we don’t meet until a bit later. As a group, they are the national fencing team for Scheria, sent on a tour of Permia, a country they’ve been at peace with for seven years and war for seventy. A war that only concluded when General Carnufex drowned one of their great cities and the Permians ran out of money to pay their mercenary troops. This tour by the fencing team is the largest and most important diplomatic engagements between the two countries that are again on the edge of war. And fencing is a national obsession in Permia, though they do things a bit differently there…

The tour starts inauspiciously with bad roads, a missing courier station garrison and a bandit attack. One might almost think that someone didn’t want them to start. It also introduces a recurring phrase throughout the book, “Here they fence with messers. God help them.” A messer is less of a sword and more of an over large knife like a machete or billhook, often used for agricultural work and other uses, like killing pigs, banditry and self defense.

I genuinely enjoyed the book. The characters were interesting and had a some good depth, motivations and unique personalities to them, even though Iseutz initially comes across as shrill. Fencing has been described as a conversation in steel, or chess at lightning speed, and in Sharps it has elements of both. Conversation and chess also play roles in the book as well, plus politics, intrigue and assassinations.

One thing that periodically ‘snapped the suspenders of disbelief’ was the world. Then again, I’ll forgive Shakespeare his world building, so I’ll forgive Parker his. What was it? Well, the organizational levels of both nations (and even beyond) seemed, industrial. Intelligence divisions. Accounting. Finance. All of these play roles here. Yet, gunpowder and explosives are curiously absent – which if I remember by history of weapons correctly were key in the development of the rapier and small sword as the role of armor diminished. But the king of ranged weapons seems to be the bow and arrow (not the crossbow). And I have a hard time believing that General Carnufex pulled off his stunt without explosives to blow the dams. No matter. I’ll forgive it for now, because I’ve accepted worse things in other fantasy novels.

The verdict? 4½ stars.  ½

Likes: The fencing; Giraut’s view point – very human, likable some times but always understandable; Not spelling everything out till the end; Letting the reader discover things for themselves; The characters, even Tzimisces the political officer and spy had sympathetic moments (and there were others when I’d have wanted to roast him over a fire to start talking); Deutzel Suidas, the fencing champion, former soldier and aspiring drunk who has hidden depths.

Dislikes: Having my suspenders of disbelief snapped in the world building.

Suggested for: Fans of historical novels, particularly the enlightenment era. Those that enjoyed the early Merovingean nights series. Anyone who enjoys fencing or enjoyed fencing at one point in their lives. Sabatini fans, particularly Scaramouche.

Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel

Review by Kelsey O.

It’s 2196, and the city of New London is now markedly changed. Political and social tensions are building around the advent of the “civilized” undead, and there’s violence in the streets. When that violence hits close to home, Nora Dearly and Bram Griswold are once again forced to take control of their own destinies. As old friends become foes and chaos reigns all around them, Nora and Bram must find strength in each other-no matter the cost.

Lia Habel is a genius. In her first book she made zombies loveable and she did not let us down with her second installment, Dearly, Beloved. I loved returning to New London and seeing how life is now that the general population knows about the dead. Of course there are different types of zombies. There are the civilized ones that just want to go about their lives now that there are ways of retaining their memories and then there are those that have succumbed to the virus and are just mindless biting machines.

Nora is still our headstrong heroine and now that they are back in New London, it is required of her to learn how to be a lady. After everything that Nora has been through, this is a little tough. She wants to be on the front lines fighting for the zombies rights. She and Bram are still going strong but they have to be careful and keep their relationship on the down low for now. Bram is still the valiant knight to Nora and will always do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

The plot this time is that the Lazarus strain has mutated and the vaccine they designed isn’t made to deal with this strain. They do not want another Siege so they try to covertly move the zombie (Patient One) infected with this strain away from anyone that could use him for a weapon. There are several groups that know about Patient One and they all want him.

The main reason that I find this series fascinating is that the story is told from multiple points of views. The reader is not restricted in knowing only what the main characters know. We are lucky enough to know everything that is going on and it keeps the pace of the book moving. The non-stop action will keep the reader invested in the lives of these characters. If you are looking for a unique series to read, this is the one for you. Due to the high complexity of Lia’s world, I recommend reading the series in order.

Book 1

Dearly, Departed

Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon

Review by Jerelyn H. (I-F-Letty)

Note to self; ALWAYS listen to Jeanne’s book recommendations.  Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon was another stellar recommendation from a good friend of mine.

I am not into “witch trial books” as a rule, so I really resisted picking this up, sometime you just have to go out of your comfort zone.  This is an excellent page turner of a book and I immediately went out and got the next two in the series.  It has to be one of a reader’s greatest joys to find a new to them author, and one with a back list is always a bonus.

I had never heard of Robert McCammon and so I this really was a leap of faith, what I found is an immensely rich, thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.  You are taken back into the early colonial American south; the writing is atmospheric, and sometimes profane the narrative is comfortable, even if the subject matter isn’t.  I love Matthew Corbett and his mentor Magistrate Isaac Woodward, and a thoroughly unforgettable cast of characters from the witch Rachael Howarth to the rat catcher and blacksmith you will be enthralled by this disturbing yet surprisingly funny look at what had to be a very difficult time in our country’s history.  I have only a couple of minor quibbles with the book; these are a history buffs quibble, however the minor inaccuracies take nothing away from this wonderful reading experience.

4.5 stars highly recommended, and I would venture to say that this book will be on my best reads list for 2012.

Also for the audio book listener, Edoardo Ballerini the narrator is wonderful!

Black Hearts and Slow Dancing by Earl Emerson

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Regional setting, sense of humor, and deft writing are combined in this first-of-a-series mystery novel that features Mac Fontana. A firefighter and arson investigator with a hard-luck history, Mac has been through the mill, with a wife killed in a car crash during his own trial in the death of a woman he slapped to death. He’s moved to the Seattle area with his young son and been pressured into becoming the sheriff in addition to his duties as fire chief in the village of Staircase.

In Mac’s jurisdiction, a fireman from Seattle is found tortured to death. Mac’s investigation uncovers civic corruption and a sad lack of a moral compass in aid of urban sprawl. During his search to distinguish the good guys from the other kind, Mac is forced into an oil tank to die, tempted into You-Know by the victim’s weight-lifting GF, and supervises his crew at the arson fire of a church. Emerson has skilled hand for the rousing scene.

This is more a crime novel than a mystery since the perps are easy to spot. Readers that are leery of series books will have to tolerate the gimmicks of local setting, emotionally damaged hero, demonic moguls and their depraved helpers. The barnyard language and humor, plus the loud stupid-on-purpose  atmosphere of a men’s locker room may be too much of a familiar thing for readers who spend quite enough time in a men’s locker room in real life, thank you very much. The three female characters can be summed up easily: one is a pain, the next a flake, and the last a brute.

What may or may not balance this for prospective reader: the wide-ranging action rocks, the pace is brisk, the plot twists and turns in remarkable ways. Plus, there is a Rin Tin Tin, a German Shepherd named Satan.   The presence of a wonder dog wins extra points, of course. While this novel did not win any awards, Emerson has won honors for other novels, so he is writer that readers can trust will deliver an entertaining mystery.

Murder In A Mummy Case by K.K. Beck

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

After the non-stop mayhem and guy’s dorm-room ambience of Emerson’s Black Hearts and Slow Dancing, I harkened back to the kinder gentler traditions of the Golden Age whodunit. I found K.K. Beck’s Murder in a Mummy Case (1986) charming and delightful, though she would go on about clothes: “dressed in a smart two-piece golf ensemble, aquamarine wool knit with a band of orange at the neck and in the gores of the skirt.”

Gores?

Set in the late 1920s, Stanford co-ed Iris Cooper has received permission from her parents to spend Easter Break with gentleman friend Clarence Brockhurst and his wealthy family. The high society setting will bring to mind Charlie Chan novels by Earl Derr Biggers. That is, the characters are wealthy enough to afford eccentric hobbies and maintain wacky hangers-on. Mrs. Brockhurst employs a spiritualist medium and her entourage of handler Mr. Jones and a lady’s maid who turns out to be The Victim. She has also taken in a poor relation Aunt Laura and a dispossessed White Russian Count Boris. Son Clarence has the resources to indulge his hobby of Egyptology and even keeps a mummy in the house, which the psychic blames for evil emanations.

Mystery fans and fans of B-movies by Poverty Row studios will recognize the stock characters.  Iris is smart and sweet, and plucky in the pinch. Brassy and bold she is not but those are covered by Clarence‘s sister Bunny, a free-spirited flapper. Iris’ other possible BF is a walking checklist of traits of a young newshound: brash, quick witted, wisecracking, and apt to jump to conclusions. Clarence is the huffy pompous mooncalf who woos his lady love with the promise to teach her how to read hieroglyphs.

Beck has a deft hand with comic allusions. The butler, who is assumed to have Done It, is a Chinese named Charles Chan. Even the characters look askance at that. At the beginning, she has Iris say, “Had I but known that my request would lead me into another adventure, my anticipation would have been even greater, “ which is a send-up of the standard melodramatic “Had I but known” foreshadowing of mysteries and gothics in the first half of the 20^th century. At the end, a character marvels at his luck, “Imagine, I almost invested a fortune in some worthless little town in Southern California, Palm Springs it was called.”

Beck must have read her share of cozy puzzlers not only to spoof them but also to feel affectionate about the whole genre. Nostalgia buffs will like the dumbwaiter, speakeasy, and chaperones and other such artifacts, institutions and customs that went as dead as the dodo a long time ago. Readers on the look-out for a light and entertaining mystery will not go wrong with this one.