Joe Sixsmith Needs More Sympathy

Hill, Reginald. Blood Sympathy. Harper, 2010 (1996)

Would-be private detective Joe Sixsmith, the protagonist of Reginald Hill's novel Blood Sympathy (which I gather is from a much larger series) is described in some professional-grade reviews as "an unlikely hero," a portrayal only enhanced by the description on the back cover of the edition I read (a pink British reprint) in which the marketing director enquires, "PI can mean many things, but can it really mean a balding, middle-aged redundant lathe operator from a high rise in Luton?"

It may be dangerous to allow one's audience the freedom to answer (although the blurb continues with one possible answer: "Joe Sixsmith thinks it can. His Aunt Mirabelle thinks you’d have to be crazy to hire him, and Joe’s current clients certainly fit the bill"). Hill's Sixsmith has indeed set up office and established himself as a PI, but his effectiveness on the case (or cases) is mostly due to good fortune and a heavily premeditated plot. Blood Sympathy opens with the confession of a presumably crazy man, who swears that he has dreamed his family's death and takes Joe home just in time for his dream to become a reality. Joe also finds himself trying to defend a family of immigrants from charges of smuggling, steal a voodoo charm, and keep an eye on the prankster teens harassing a local shopkeeper. Of course (as in most good detective novels) these multiple cases all have thematic or actual links, and of course (again, as per tradition) Joe is frequently at odds with the local police force who resent his intervention. Hill supplements Sixsmith's cases with some good old-fashioned romantic meddling and a token feline, both of which provide some of the lightest and most enjoyable moments in the novel as a whole.

Without giving too much away, the plot of this novel is standard and predictable, not due to a comfortable familiarity with the author's work but due to Hill's repeated inclusion of nearly every twist and trope common to the detective genre. His protagonist is perhaps unique, but Sixsmith's age and background add little to the novel: it becomes quickly a comedy of errors, both in Sixsmith's detecting and in Hill's laboured plot devices. Although I believe very much in giving authors a second chance, it will be a little while before I pick up another novel by Reginald Hill, and I plan to steer towards some of his more traditional detective fare on that occasion. Blood Sympathy is written competently and shows Hill's extensive awareness of the detective genre, but it lacks the creativity, surprise, and intermittent humour found in works by many of his colleagues.

In Elegant Paint and Memorable Print: Sellers' Vanessa and Virginia

Sellers, Susan. Vanessa and Virginia. Two Ravens, 2008.

My dalliance in the novels of Virginia Woolf is somewhat limited: I enjoyed To the Lighthouse and Orlando and appreciated the careful homage paid her works in Cunningham's The Hours and the film adaptation thereof, but there my knowledge of the writer and her works abruptly ends. My knowledge of Woolf's sister Vanessa, however, has always been vague and horrifically incomplete. By some miracle, Vanessa and Virginia has managed to bridge a gap between my inadequate education and the lives of these two famous sisters, and allowed me a little more insight into their skills, struggles, and complicated biographies.

Narrated from the perspective of sister Vanessa, a painter in search of appreciation, Sellers' novel deals less with the life of Virginia Woolf and more with showcasing the tangled and complicated personalities that surrounded and influenced her. Vanessa and Virginia is broken down into numerous short scenes, which initially makes the book seem fragmented yet eventually makes it both more believable and easier to read. Sellers' Vanessa is occasionally frustrating, often impatient, and fairly sympathetic: her Virginia is less the now-idealised writer portrayed in The Hours and more a human (a gifted and talented human, to be sure, but a very fragile and impetuous one with many flaws and much to love).

Sellers' extensive academic background and organisational approach to her book have given it a firm foundation of solid research and authenticity; although her dialogues are likely fictitious, the scenes and attitudes they represent are probably, for the most part, carefully based on events described elsewhere. By writing from Vanessa's perspective, she is not bound by Woolf's unique style, and her descriptions of Vanessa's paintings are elegant and vibrant (though they made me wish to see the images themselves; perhaps these will be added in a future edition). Certainly Vanessa's voice is a little plaintive and grating in spots, but in many ways this made her narration all the more believable.

Vanessa and Virginia is an enjoyable novel based on some very detailed academic research, and I would recommend the book to anyone interested in learning about its title characters or the world in which they lived. I should also enjoy another book by Susan Sellers should one, at some point, be forthcoming.

Not Too Distasteful: Brett Simon's Poisoned Pub

Brett, Simon. The Poisoning in the Pub. Five Star, 2009.

The Poisoning in the Pub is a charming little detective story--and, I gather, one from the middle of a series by Simon Brett--that blends the elegance and wisdom of Christie's Marple with the frivolous lightness of Braun's cat-based sleuthing stories. In many ways, this works well. Jude and Carole are determined old busybodies, and their small-town network of informant provides an excellent supplement to the "old biddy" detective work initiated by Christie. Like Miss Marple, they are concerned with the events occurring in the lives of their friends and neighbours, and their unassuming statures enable them to coerce supplemental facts and back stories out of many minor characters. Brett also does an excellent job pitting them against the law and its many servants; on occasion, steps taken by Jude and Carole prove harmful to the more formal investigation, adding a shred of realism to the novel as a whole.

The Poisoning in the Pub begins with Jude and Carole enjoying a seafood lunch in a small local pub, and the title references an outbreak of food poisoning that occurs in a timely fashion within the first chapter. Determined to prove that this incident was no fault of the pub's owner (a friend) or chef, Carole and Jude launch an investigation. Yet where Marple's stories are primarily character-based, Brett meanders almost too far into the realms of personality: Jude and Carole are entrenched within a sea of mostly irrelevant personal details, surrounded by ex-partners, and often distracted from the plot by matters of everyday life. While this is likely realistic to some degree, too much is perhaps made, in the novel, of their troubles with technology and elderly approaches to tattoos and the internet. In moderation, such trivialities would provide amusing transitions, but Brett's repeated emphasis on the generational divide turns Carole and Jude into mere stereotypes. Many of their acquaintances and friends are similarly stereotypical, such as the several mentally challenged individuals whose testimonies prove remarkably helpful to the plot's solution, but these characters are even more stilted, walking a fine line between stereotype and deus ex machina.

This was an enjoyable novel, and I would not hesitate to read another mystery by Simon Brett, but it falls far short of the elegance attained by earlier writers in the genre.

Hooper's House of the Magician: A Satisfactory Experiment.

Hooper, Mary. At the House of the Magician. Bloomsbury, 2010 reprint.

I've always believed that a good novel for children is perhaps the most difficult challenge any author might face, and I tend to judge these novels perhaps even more harshly than their adult counterparts. At the House of the Magician, therefore, is a good book. Unfortunately, it is not a great book.

Hooper's protagonist Lucy is a young girl in Elizabethan England who leaves home after a fight with her father and ends up working as a servant for John Dee, whose career will be familiar to most scholars of the early modern period but has been mostly forgotten by the general populace. Lucy befriends the queen's favourite jester and is called upon to assist her master with some alchemical and pseudo-supernatural tasks. Hooper portrays a fairly realistic Elizabethan England, and her story moves apace; where the diligence of her research and the depth of her characters is lost is in her introduction of prophetic dreams and the supernatural. Although the afterlife and the supernatural were subjects of great debate during the lifetimes of Dee and Elizabeth I, Hooper's handling of these subjects lacks the literary grace of her domestic and historical scenes. This is a good book, and little girls who are interested in the early modern period should enjoy it immensely. Hooper's writing is clear and often elegant, but the novel itself is not exceptional. I look forward to seeing more of Mary Hooper's work as she matures as a writer.

Too Little, Too Soon

In the midst of a greater writing project and preparations for a transatlantic move, I managed to read only two books in April. As with my top two books in March, Twilight and Prophet are vastly different books. Both are well-written, and both have proved, in the months and years since their initial publications, groundbreaking volumes within the world of contemporary literature: each has initiated its own sub-genre and has been imitated multiple times.

Instead of selecting one of these two volumes to serve as my monthly favourite, I'd like to introduce you to a fascinating and occasionally frustrating little volume that has received a tremendous amount of my attention this month and is, in many ways, my actual favourite book read this month (although I'm reading it for school).

To those of you in search of a slightly unique read, may I highly recommend St John's, Cambridge, Manuscript S.23. Compiled in the early 1600s, this lovely little volume contains poems by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, and many of their contemporaries, and it is freely available online in digital facsimile through the Scriptorium project. In it you will find some lovely familiar poems and a number of early modern favourites that have been mostly forgotten in the intervening centuries.

The Peretti Project: Prophet, A Controversial Thriller

Peretti, Frank. Prophet. Crossway, 1992.

Though probably best known for his novels depicting spiritual warfare as mere mortals have never seen it, Peretti has managed to blend the ethereal with everyday life in this contentious and intriguing book about abortion, politics, and conspiracies. The book looks most closely at news anchor John Barrett, a popular and fresh face on his local news station and the son of an active conservative whose radical views are a subject of ridicule and, subsequently, murder. Following the death of his father, liberal newscaster Barrett begins looking more closely at his father's beliefs and enemies, and soon discovers that many stories, including those broadcast by his increasingly popular station, don't make as much sense as they ought. Although Peretti's strongly conservative viewpoint may leave some readers skeptical, the conspiracy theory Barrett uncovers is one that has indubitably been imitated by countless politicians both conservative and liberal in the decades since this novel first reached print. Because of the controversial and religious themes prominent in this book, it is primarily a novel that Christians would enjoy, but the plot is well crafted, the suspense equal to that of any novel published in the secular world, and the writing elegant and clear.

Twilight, Twilight, Burning Bright: On the Bookshelves for the Teens . . .

Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight. London: Atom, 2009 (2005).

I'm a bit hesitant to post that I've read this novel, and, perhaps, even more hesitant to post a review of a book that has been contested so hotly for the past five years.Twilight certainly isn't the next Great American Novel, and Meyer certainly isn't Shakespeare--but, then, who is, these days?

Twilight is simply written and well edited. And where two books I recently began and set aside due to frustration with their recurring grammatical errors have been critically acclaimed (and nominated for awards) on the basis of their high literary merit, Meyer's mere teen fiction has been proofread and is composed of grammatically precise English. The story is laboured in spots, and Meyer's teenage narrator is occasionally frustrating and unrealistic, but the story moves quickly. Certainly, although Twilight is neither as classy nor as deeply researched and plotted as The Historian, Meyer does draw upon many of the elements that made Kostova's novel almost immediately popular. Meyer's vampires are compared to and based upon not the literary elements of Dracula but upon the results of an internet search, but they are inventive and (I found) more compelling than her humans.

Truly, my greatest frustration with Twilight is a flaw that I find irksome in Romeo and Juliet as well. The love that protagonist Bella has for the dramatic vampire Edward--and, to some degree, his love in return--is based completely on external appearances and to no degree on personality or spirit. Where Bella adores the perfection of his body--and Meyer lets us know that he's quite good in school--and he appreciates her scent, their love is based on few of the elements that matter to us mere mortals. Maybe in Twilight, where Edward will remain Seventeen Forever (and I'm surprised that isn't a hit pop song by now), a love based on physical attraction will last because the physical attraction itself can never diminish. But I digress.

Where the first two-thirds of the novel are a slightly sappy love story based on looks and smell, the final third of the novel turns into a spy thriller with perks. Although Meyer avoids the slippery slope of time travel, she does offer visions of the future and a cross-continental chase scene that manages to be predictable enough that readers will be frustrated with Bella's decisions and complicated enough by the ever-shifting visions of the future that Meyer very nearly touches on an interesting discussion of fate and destiny. If you can endure the flimsy romance that begins the book, the excitement and hints of intrigue in the final pages will get you neatly to the conclusion. However, that said, I'm very content to leave the series at the end of this book, and doubt I'll be looking out for its sequels.

Two Swell Imitations and an Agony of Choice: My March Pick of the Month

I had two favourite books in March this year, and the difference between them is great in many ways. What they have in common is their imitative style: Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (review here) borrows from Agatha Christie and Colm Toibin's The Master (review), about Henry James, aptly captures the soft and introspective feel of many older novels.

For sheer and base enjoyment, Adair certainly wins hands down. The Act of Roger Murgatroyd is the book to take on holiday, to read on the airplane, or to pick up after a hard day's work. Adair's novel is a masterpiece of detective fiction. On the other hand, The Master strives for elegance and in many places achieves a things of beauty: his novel left me a little haunted by the story of a man I've mostly overlooked in literature and about whom I'd--now--like to know more. So while the part of my brain that reads Shakespeare (and his critics) all day is screaming at me to send The Act of Roger Murgatroyd to every detective-story-loving friend I have, for sheer and simple beauty, Colm Toibin's The Master wins out.

Imitating Agatha: Gilbert Adair and the Entertaining Act of Roger Murgatroyd

Adair, Gilbert. The Act of Roger Murgatroyd: An Entertainment. London: Faber, 2007 (2006).

It was, I confess, a sad day in my childhood when I reached the end of the shelf in my local library upon which Agatha Christie's novels were housed. From Curtain: Poirot's Last Case: Hercule Poirot Investigates and the adventures of Tommy and Tuppence (for which I love Christie best) I moved on to Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, and P. D. James, all worthy contributors to the mystery genre. Yet aside from James, who still brings out new literary wonders with slow but steady regularity, most of these great authors have passed, leaving behind canons to be enjoyed and finished, and few living detective novelists (again, I exclude James) have managed to replicate such heights of excellence and mystery.

It was with great pleasure, then, that I stumbled across Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd in my local library. It was with greater pleasure, a few chapters into Adair's novel, that I discovered how excellently Adair has recreated the mood and elegance of a Christie novel. Shaped slightly in homage to Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Roger Murgatroyd offers nearly every feature a Christie fan might have some to expect: vibrant characters, each with a secret to hide, an older (retired) inspector, and some clever and unexpected sleuthing guaranteed to surprise even the most discerning reader with its cleverness. A fine imitation and a fine piece of work on its own merits, The Act of Roger Murgatroyd is a novel I'd be pleased to recommend to any lover of character-driven mysteries, and I'll certainly keep an eye out for further works by Gilbert Adair.

Writing by Rules, Living by Rules: Carrie Tiffany and Everyman's Rules

Tiffany, Carrie. Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living. Oxford: Picador, 2006 (2005).

Carrie Tiffany's Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living begins with a burst of motion as the Better Farming Train carrying protagonist Jean Finnegan across Australia rumbles in and out of small rural towns, where Jean and her train-based colleagues hope to instruct townsfolk in the art of living scientifically. Some of the train's inhabitants are skilled cattle breeders, others know just how to nurture soil into producing more grain, and Mr. Ohno is even a chicken sexer. Jean works in a car with two other women who help women in the rural towns they visit to cook, sew, and care for children more efficiently (and scientifically).

After a few months on the train, Jean's adventures as a traveller are cut short by a burst of romance, and she departs the train with her beloved to establish a farm of their own. Yet despite her young and enthusiastic love, marriage and farm life in rural Australia soon prove to be a bit more difficult than Jean expected. As she attempts to be a proper Scientific wife, and her husband sows grain in a proper Scientific experiment, their lives are complicated by weather, neighbours, and even the simple complications of living together.

In many ways, this is a fairly slow read, as the book progresses at a languorous pace, describing personalities and science more than events and incidents, but for individuals interested in rural Australian life, or the development of agricultural science, or even (more generally) the daily frustrations of farmers and their families, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living would be an excellent choice.

Colm Toibin is a Master as well.

Tóibín, Colm. The Master. London: Macmillan, 2005 (2004).

I'll begin this review by confessing that my knowledge of Henry James is severely lacking; my academic studies, for the most part, bring my knowledge of the world up to a mere 1790, and James and his contemporaries are clearly much more recent. So while I enjoyed this book immensely, I'm utterly unqualified to remark upon the authenticity of Tóibín's portrayal of 'The Master,' or upon the prodigious amount of research that indubitably lies beneath the witty banter and strong characterisations that made this book such a pleasure to read.

The Master contains good writing at its finest: a pleasure to read, the words and descriptions flow gently off the page and into the reader's mind, creating an atmosphere of antiquated literary elegance even as the characters are fresh, understandable, and almost modern. Tóibín offers his readers a window into a life: the reader is not a part of the book, but an invisible presence lurking in the background. The narrative is straightforward, the descriptions at times heartbreaking (but always believable), and the novel even offers, subtly, readings of some of James' greatest literary pieces. I finished the book and wanted to read Daisy Miller again, feeling, somehow, that I suddenly had become an acquaintance of its author.

Well done, Mr. Tóibín, and thanks for a delightful read.

The Curious Incident of Reading this Mark Haddon Novel

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London: Random House, 2004 (2003).

. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon in the first-person narrative voice of fifteen-year-old Christopher, who understands a great deal about tangible things, such as maths and candy shoelaces, and much less about the nuances of human behaviour and betrayal.

The book opens--intentionally, as Christopher tells us--with the excitement of a murdered neighbourhood dog. Although Christopher is at first suspected of having taken part in the slaughter, he is, in fact innocent, and soon resolves to solve the crime, in the style of the great Sherlock Holmes, whom Christopher very much admires. Haddon's skillful craftmanship allows the reader to understand the things that perplex Christopher the most, while the narrative voice flows on, uninterrupted and consistent. The story, of course, moves well beyond the initial plot points of the dog, lingering upon issues of education, trust, family, and love. All told, this is a remarkably crafted and thought-provoking book, and one I would highly recommend to others.

The Last Percy Jackson: Satisfactory yet not Quite Epic

Riordan, Rick. The Last Olympian. New York: Hyperion, 2009.

After the slight disappointment of The Battle of the Labyrinth, I was a little hesitant about Riordan's fifth and final Percy Jackson book. My fears, I confess, were unfounded. While not quite an epic of ancient Greek proportions, The Last Olympian builds clearly and cleverly upon characters, prophecies, dreams, and expectations established in The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, and the Titan's Curse. While a few of Riordan's quirky tricks seemed a little tired out by the middle books of the series, The Last Olympian moves so quickly that any frustrations one might have with the language and repetition are completely swept away by this book's relentless pursuit of a very exciting and captivating conclusion. The Last Olympian delivers on numerous promises made in previous foreshadowings, and kept me completely engaged from its first sentence through to the ending. I'm appreciative of this skill, and would recommend this series, almost, on the merits of The Last Olympian itself. However, although Riordan does use an occasionally irritating number of interjections to bring hypothetical new readers up to speed, I wouldn't recommend beginning the series at Book Five, although it certainly is the best, since doing so would defeat the point of Riordan's carefully planned foreshadowing.

Perhaps my greatest appreciation for this book arises from its elements of surprise: what is not foreshadowed (and there is a good bit) is unexpected and introduced elegantly and simply. Few readers, even the best students of ancient myths, are likely to identify the Last Olympian until the identity of that deity is revealed in a particularly well-crafted scene. On the other hand, this revelation, once made, seems the most natural thing in the world. The plot of this volume is deftly unfolded in Riordan's deftly crafted narrative, and The Last Olympian provides the perfect conclusion to this series as a whole.

I Battled My Way Through Riordan's Labyrinth

Riordan, Rick. The Battle of The Labyrinth. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Of the five books in the Percy Jackson Series, I confess that Book Four, The Battle of the Labyrinth, was by far my least favourite. At precisely the moment when the series should have been rushing headlong toward the climactic ending of Book Five, Riordan's narrative flow gets lost in a sea of reminiscence and some ambitious but sluggish foreshadowing.

Without giving away too much, Riordan's fourth book builds carefully upon the premises already established in the first, second, and third books in the Percy Jackson series. Many of the characters remain the same, although a handful of new ones (both present-day and from past myths) are introduced. Riordan brings in several of these myths most elegantly, and complicates protagonist Percy's life by drawing further parallels between him and some more famous heroes of old. Yet although his allusions are excellent and his references well-placed, Riordan's book struggles to maintain the fast-paced energy of its predecessors: The Battle of the Labyrinth is adequate but not exceptional, and left me somewhat dreading the culminating volume in the series.

You'll Need a Fifth to Finish Mr. Kennedy's Novel

Kennedy, Douglas. The Woman in the Fifth. London: Arrow, 2008 (2007).

Much could be said about Douglas Kennedy's novel The Woman in the Fifth, but this book is not one that lends itself to extensive literary criticism. The Woman in the Fifth is written pretty well. I've never been to Paris, so I can't attest to the accuracy of his city descriptions, and I've never personally known illegal immigrants participating in unsavoury activities in the French underworld, so it's difficult to assess the technical skill with which Kennedy might have captured these scenes and characters. However, I struggled with this book. Kennedy's dialogue and characters seemed, at many times, forced and flat: a problem that makes better sense given the novel's bizarre conclusion, but which cannot be forgiven by his super(fluous)natural deus ex machina. The first three quarters of the novel seem to be a profound psychological experiment (will any reader plod through this book in search of a conclusion?) while the climax lacks all plausibility: while Kennedy's supernatural finish could be tolerated, perhaps, had he also proffered a rational explanation for events, the absence of the latter makes the former ludicrous.

In short, this is a novel about a man named Harry Ricks, who leaves his American family after causing a scandal at the small school at which he once taught. In Paris, a city he has always longed to visit, he meets the book's title character as well as a slew of questionable individuals. He has a great deal of sex and attempts to write a novel, only to find that his life is cruelly guarded by a rather jealous goddess of love and revenge.

An Exercise in Family: The Calligrapher's Daughter

Kim, Eugenia. The Calligrapher's Daughter. London: Bloomsbury, 2009.

Eugenia Kim's novel The Calligrapher's Daughter was not what I expected. Following the titular footsteps of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Heretic's Daughter, andThe Hangman's Daughter (of which three the first is my favourite), Kim's novel offers a fresh perspective on the stereotypical unnamed female protagonist. In the first place, The Calligrapher's Daughter is set in Korea, but a Korea not very far removed from modern life. In the second place, Kim manages, in her novel, to show without judging, and to inspire contemplation without becoming heavy-handed in her portrayal of a male-dominated society and one woman, in particular, living and growing within those constraints.

In some ways, The Calligrapher's Daughter is a coming-of-age novel: the book begins when its protagonist is a very young girl and lingers at great length over the years in which she develops into a mature young woman. Yet in Kim's novel, the transition from childhood into adulthood never truly ends: in the thirty years that pass between the first and last chapters, there is no single turning point, or definitive moment of maturity. Instead, the book describes the ebb and flow of the human experience in a way that allows readers to experience and identify with the constant, endless development that is a life. While slow in spots, this is very much a book that can be lingered upon and enjoyed, and I would heartily recommend it to students of life and lovers of humanity.

Also, this was my favourite February read.

A Great Yorkshire Mystery

George, Elizabeth. A Great Deliverance. Chatter: Hodham, 2007 (1989).

George's novel, set partly in London and partly in a tiny Yorkshire village whose families and secrets are both complicated and intriguing, is at first glance an experiment in character diversity. Inspector Lynley, whom this book 'introduces,' according to the tag line on the title page, is an upper-class charmer who works as hard as he plays. Sergeant Barbara Havers, with whom he is partnered for the Yorkshire case central to the plot of George's novel, is a working-class girl who resents Lynley, his skill with women, and the elite culture in which the inspector was bred. The families in Yorkshire are a simple, sometimes superstitious, occasionally religious, and often secretive bunch, behind whose closed doors are practiced vices and abuses, sexual perversions, and devout faith--sometimes all at once. George's characters are rich and complicated, if occasionally slightly caricatured, and the society she portrays, which extends beyond the bounds of her northern village, into neighbouring cities, and as far afield as London, is an engaging one.

I enjoyed this book, and the careful manner in which past history and motives were incorporated into George's more modern narrative and introduction of Inspector Lynley, but the solution to the crime is far darker than the crime itself, and readers of delicate taste may wish to give this fine novel a pass.

'A Better Quality of Murder' is a pretty fair sort of book

Granger, Ann. A Better Quality of Murder. Bidford-on-Avon: Headline, 2010.

I gather that with this book selection I jumped headlong into the middle of a series of detective novels, but, as with earlier novels about the unforgettable Hercule Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence, or Lord Peter Wimsey, Granger's Ben Ross can be met mid-series without any noticeable lost context.

I confess that I'm not much of a Victorianist, but Granger's portrayal of Victorian London agreed with my mental picture thereof, and if the book is as well-researched as her settings suggest, I learned a great deal about behavioral expectations, prostitution, and the early temperance movement. The title of the book plays lightly on the distinctions between women of the middle and upper classes and those who plied their trade in dark street corners, but the descriptions in the book are tasteful and subtly made.

Amid the frequent introductions of Victorian culture (but Granger shows, rather than tells) of course comes the murder (and then another and another) upon which the plot is based. Granger manages to make all her cultural references relevant to the plot, which I appreciate, and packages the finished product neatly into a solution with some elegant Victorian flavour. While she's perhaps not at the very top of my list of favourite mystery authors, Ann Granger is certainly someone whose books I'll seek out again in the future.

Sleuthing Required: Is Jessica Mann 'The Mystery Writer'?

Mann, Jessica. The Mystery Writer. London: Allison & Busby, 2007 (2006).

I'm a little embarrassed to say that I struggled with this book. Jessica Mann is a good writer with a clear command of the English language, and--although a little overly detailed at times--her stories and dialogues are told in a modernised and everyday style far easier to read than the texts I slog through every day in the course of my work. Yet where Mann is readable, I found the format of her book difficult to navigate.

The Mystery Writer begins in 1940 (a setting clearly and helpfully delineated by a date affixed to the top of the page) where it follows the adventures of two small boys, one wealthy and one from the lower classes, who are able to leave Britain for new and safer lives in North America. When the boat is attacked and the occupants forced into lifeboats, only one of these lads survives (and, of course, any avid reader of mysteries will immediately know which finds that extra breath of life). Eleven years later, in the second chapter, that same young man (now, of course, older) returns to his childhood home an artist and an adventurer (who immediately captures the interest of two young sisters).

From this point, the story skips ahead to modern times, drops the helpful dates from chapter headers, and becomes a bit blurry. Mann seems to alternate between narrators, telling the story, at times, as herself (the omniscient narrator of The Mystery Writer) and at times as her mystery-writer character within the novel. The timeline of flashbacks is not always clearly delineated, and although the final chapter neatly draws together the many complex strands of her plot, the conclusion is too easy to anticipate and the path to that end very badly obscured by the vague temporal definitions and multiple narrators. However, a blurb on the back of the book informs me that this is her eighteenth novel, so I shall be quite interested to read another book by Ms. Mann in the future. The historical research and depiction of life in war-torn Britain have been very neatly done, however, so perhaps my next selection will be one of Ms. Mann's nonfiction books, which might prove a tremendous treat.

I quite liked 'The Pilot's Wife'

Shreve, Anita. the Pilot's Wife. London: Little, Brown, 1999 (1998).

The Pilot's Wife begins simply, with a simple announcement that changes the life of Kathryn Lyons, whose pilot husband Jack has just died in a plane crash. Intermingling the story of Kathryn's present-day grief with reflective chapters telling the story of their meeting, courtship, and early marriage, Shreve manages to write a remarkable novel that is both an intimate examination of what it means to be married and a fast-paced tale whose mystery rises to the surface as the circumstances of Jack's plane crash grow ever less definite.

Kathryn's story is one of memories and pain: even as she struggles to come to terms with her husband's death, she becomes increasingly perplexed by the complicated question of what it means to know another person intimately. How deeply did she know her husband, and how well can she know her daughter? The decade of memories surrounding her relationship with both of these, and the sudden closeness she feels to the man who first broke the news of her husband's passage help to make this a wonderful, complicated novel that is difficult to define with any of the typical genres. It is a story of adventure, mystery, and even danger and betrayal, but it is also an excellent and close examination of what it means to be a human being, living in community with others, and what it means to be a family, a parent, or a spouse. The thematic complexities blended with the excellent and engaging storytelling in this novel make it one of the most rewarding reads I've enjoyed this year.