Review: The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley

The Dead Key 
By D.M. Pulley 
Published by Thomas and Mercer (an Amazon imprint), 2015
Free as part of Amazon Kindle First for Prime members 
Link: Amazon 
Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

I enjoyed the The Dead Key more than any Kindle First book I’ve read since joining Prime a year or so ago (I should note that they tend to sit unread on my Kindle for longer than other books, since they’re free).  It had a lot going for it, in my, erm, book: it’s a mystery, it centers on two female protagonists, and it moves back and forth between two connected stories set twenty years apart.  In spite of a slow start, I was drawn into the story and by halfway through, I had trouble putting the book down.

The more recent (1998) story focuses on Iris, a young engineer assigned to draw plans of the defunct First Bank of Cleveland (FBoC).  Iris discovers that the bank had suddenly shut down twenty years before and that the vault is full of unclaimed safety deposit boxes.  Why?  And what does the FBoC’s closure have to do with Iris’s engineering firm?  This is what Iris wants to find out.  We also follow the adventures of Beatrice Baker, who in 1978 goes to work at the FBoC and uncovers a web of intrigue, fraud, and corruption, some of which concerns her personally.  By the novel’s end, both women face serious danger.  Will they survive?

Overall, I found myself drawn more to Beatrice than to Iris.  Beatrice is very young—only sixteen—and has to lie about her age to get her job at the bank.  While we eventually find out why she did this, I’d like to have learned more about her background.  She’s vulnerable and sweet but not stupid, and I found her interesting.  Iris, on the other hand, is harder to root for.  She drinks a lot and, while she recognizes that it’s a problem, she doesn’t seek help and even drives drunk.  Because her drinking seemed like a plot device and an afterthought more than a trait that drives her character, this got in the way of her likability for me.  I still found her story interesting, but that was more because of the situation in which she found herself than because I cared about her personally.

I’m a big fan of books that combine a present-day story with a historical story (though it’s hard to call 1998 “present-day” and I’m sure my parents would object to the labeling of 1978 as “historical”).  It’s easy to do this badly, but Pulley handles the dual plots quite well, keeping up the tension in both and making it clear from the beginning how they relate.  The plotting and storytelling are excellent, and overall I enjoyed this book very much and would read more of the author’s work.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Episode 3.2

“Murder and the Maiden”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.2

Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015)

Rating: Three Stars (out of five) 

This episode could have been really fun.  It involves airplanes, crossdressing, White Russians, and a substantial helping of the witty banter this show is known for.  However, it fell a bit flat for me.  For one thing, the plot is very convoluted.  For another thing, the Phryne/Jack will they/won’t they plot has been dialed up even from episode 3.1, and as I said in my review of that episode, I’m not a fan.  Some romantic comedy fuels the banter that makes this show great, but too much takes away from the mystery plots, and that’s what happened in this case.

The setting: an Air Force base.  Before the episode’s opening credits, we see a young woman die in the arms of a man.  Who is he?  Did he kill her?  That’s what Jack, Hugh, and the rest of the police force are trying to figure out.  Phryne, Dot, and company come on the scene because Phryne’s old friend Group Captain Compton has asked her to investigate both the disappearance of Flight Lieutenant James Manning and the attempted sabotage of his plane.  Of course, we soon learn that the two cases are linked, so Phryne collaborates with the police force to solve both of them. 

Phryne’s relationship with Compton, who once saved her life, fuels the tension between her and Jack in this episode.  He’s jealous, and she has to convince him he has no reason to be.  If this continues, it’s going to get very annoying (more annoying than it already is).  Phryne and Jack are not in a relationship.  Occasionally they’ll have dinner together, but it’s certainly not official, and I’m not sure why Jack would expect her to be “faithful.”  Also, the jealousy is irrational; Phryne hasn’t had one of her trademark casual liaisons since sometime in Season Two.  If we have to put up with his jealousy, I’d rather Phryne have some fun.  And I’ll go further: Show writers, either get your leads together for real or get rid of the romance.  Will they or won’t they?  Make a decision. 

 Also standing between this episode and higher rating for me is the resolution of the mystery itself.  There are a lot of moving parts, including a romance between Bert and a woman who works for the Communist Party and some random homophobia.  At several points, I was confused, and instead of being surprised and delighted by the resolution, I had to work backwards to figure out how it made sense.  In other words, watching this episode took work, which watching this show didn’t use to (and shouldn’t) do.

TV Review: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Episode 3.1

“Death Defying Feats”

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Episode 3.1

Available on: Netflix (DVDs will be released on October 27, 2015)

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

I love Phryne Fisher.  She runs around 1920s Melbourne catching killers, sexing up [innocent] suspects, fighting for social justice, and generally being awesome, all while wearing fabulous clothes.  I found the TV series on Netflix in, I think, February of 2014.  By June, I’d read all twenty novels and seen every available episode of the TV show.  I even bought an Acorn TV subscription so I could watch Season Two before it came to Netflix.  So imagine my surprise and delight when I found Season Three on Netflix last week (the DVD doesn’t come out until October 27, and the show isn't on Acorn yet). 

Of course, this show is also perfect blog fodder, and the rest of this post reviews episode 3.1.  Expect reviews of the other seven episodes in Season 3 in the coming weeks.  I’ll avoid spoilers for Season 3, but I’m going to write as if readers know the show’s characters and basic premise.  To catch up, go to Netflix or Acorn TV (you won’t regret it!).  Anyway, here we go!

In the opening sequence of “Death Defying Feats,” a magic trick goes horribly wrong when a guillotine decapitates Pearl, a magician’s assistant.  Phryne, Jack, Dot, Hugh, and the rest of the gang soon arrive on the scene, and we follow them on their quest to discover who tampered with the guillotine and killed Pearl.  The magic show, Mackenzie’s Cavalcade of Mysteries, employs a bunch of sketchy characters including an ex-con handyman, a clairvoyant with an identical twin sister, the victim’s fiancé and show-owner Mr. Mackenzie (who may have murdered his first wife), and a contortionist who was also the victim’s lesbian lover.  Which of these people killed Pearl, and why?  Phryne and company find out, of course, but not without trouble and danger along the way.

For Phryne, “trouble” includes her Father, the Baron of Richland, who has arrived in Australia for a surprise visit.  The Baron, it turns out, is the new financial backer for Mackenzie’s Cavalcade, so he’s also involved in the mystery.  Phryne isn’t thrilled to see him, and frankly, neither was I.  I found him irritating, and I wasn’t sure why he was there, except to add unnecessary drama.

Some of that unnecessary drama involves Phryne and Jack.  When Jack learns that Phryne has a “gentleman visitor,” he gets upset and gives her little chance to explain who the visitor is.  She doesn’t try very hard, though, and in fact seems to be toying with him.  I’ll be honest: I don’t love the romantic element the TV show introduces into the Jack/Phryne relationship (it's not in the books), and I really hope the show never focuses too much on that.  I love that Phryne has a lot of lovers, and I love that while the TV show downplays them a little bit from the books, she still has her sexual romps.  I hope they don’t completely change that aspect of Phryne’s behavior because her sexual freedom is part of what makes her unique among female sleuths.

In other news, there’s also some tension between Dot and Hugh, because Hugh isn’t terribly comfortable with his wife-to-be’s involvement in murder cases.  Dot likes solving mysteries and she helps out a lot in this episode, and Hugh was being kind of obnoxious, so I hope this isn't an ongoing plot thread in Season 3.  Mac is back, and she’s now a medical examiner (did I miss this happening at the end of season 2?  I haven’t had time to go back and check).  Aunt Prudence was present, and she and I are on the same page with regards to Phryne’s father.  Jane, however, was MIA with nary a mention.  She’s not in all episodes of the previous seasons, so maybe she’ll be back soon, but surely Phryne would have noticed that her ward was missing and some explanation seems warranted.

Overall, this was a good episode, and not just because I was so glad to have my show back.  The solution to the murder was not obvious, but it made sense and as usual, there was a lot of witty banter between characters and Phryne's clothes were gorgeous.  Four stars.

Special Feature: Inspector Lewis, the Academic Body Count, Season 1

The Oxford University of ITV/PBS's Inspector Lewis is a dangerous world for academics, and in this series I bring you the lowdown on who in the academic community is most likely to kill be or be killed.  This post gives the details for Season (series, if you're British) One.  Here's the Intro post, if you missed it.

In the first season of Lewis, the university remains fairly safe.  Of eight murder victims, only one is a faculty member, and one is an undergrad.  No staff, administrators, or grad students are murdered.  However, the community of Oxford is not necessarily safe from the university; taking into account the past murder in “Whom the Gods Would Destroy,” we have a grand total of five undergraduate murderers (out of eight murderers total; the past murder in “Whom the Gods…” was a team effort).  Both “Whom the Gods Would Destroy” and “Expiation” feature professors who assist Lewis and Hathaway in their investigations, so the university isn’t a complete drain on the surrounding community, but (as you may know if you’ve ever lived in a university town), it’s wise to be wary of the undergrads. 

If you haven’t seen the season, here’s the Amazon link.  It’s included with Prime, if you have it.

Episode-by-episode details below the cut.  Contains spoilers.

Special Feature: Inspector Lewis: The Academic Body Count, Intro

If you’re a fan of mysteries, you might well watch PBS’s Mystery (does anyone who’s not a fan of mysteries watch that show?  If so, why?).  If you watch Mystery, there’s a good chance you’ve seen at least some of Inspector Lewis, which chronicles the crime-solving adventures of DI Robert Lewis.  Lewis might be my favorite British TV mystery franchise, and the title character is certainly my favorite British TV police inspector.  This blog series won’t review Lewis, exactly.  Rather, it will analyze a particular aspect of the show: its relationship to academia.

Of course, Lewis is set in Oxford, England, home of the one of the world’s most famous and prestigious universities, so the crimes Lewis and his “dishy sergeant” Hathaway solve often involve students, faculty, and staff.  In fact, according to Lewis, Oxford is a very dangerous place to study or teach. 

But how dangerous, exactly, and for whom?  Should you give up all hope of that most prestigious of degrees or jobs if you wish to remain alive?  Are students or faculty more likely to be killed?  And what about staff and administrators?  And who among your university acquaintances is most likely to kill you?  Clearly, there are a lot of questions to be answered, here, and in the coming weeks, The Mysterious Scholar will break down the numbers and let you know who, in Lewis’s world, is most likely to be murdered and, even more importantly, whom to watch out for.

Note: This series of posts will contain spoilers for Inspector Lewis.  I’ll tell you who died and reveal the identity of the killer.  If you haven’t seen the show or a particular season/episode and plan to, I recommend watching it before you read.  The whole show is available with Amazon Prime streaming.  If you’re not a Prime member, you can get it electronically or on DVD at Amazon or from your preferred video source.  Also, I’ll be using the American series breaks and numbering, which are for some reason different from the original British ones.

Review: The Angel of Losses by Stephanie Feldman

The Angel of Losses

By Stephanie Feldman
Published by Ecco, and distributed by HarperCollins  (2014)
Purchased and read on Amazon Kindle
Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's
Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

I very much enjoyed this book, even though it isn’t the kind of thing I normally read (it was another Amazon sale book—an August monthly deal, I believe).  It’s not the kind of thing I’ll normally review here, either, but I’m doing so because there’s an academic connection.  The Angel of Losses is a Jewish magical realist narrative about family, faith, and the enduring power of stories.  It is very well written and compelling, but the narrative style might not be for everyone; Feldman intersperses her first-person narration set in the present day with folk tales as written down in the main character’s grandfather’s notebooks, and some readers might find this cumbersome or confusing.

The main story in The Angel of Losses follows Marjorie, a grad student in English who is writing her dissertation on the Wandering Jew.  Marjorie’s sister, Holly/Chava, to whom she used to be very close, converted to Orthodox Judaism when she married a man from the obscure Berukhim sect, and there has been a rift between the sisters ever since.  Marjorie desperately wants to feel close to Holly/Chava again, but she doesn’t like her sister’s husband, Nathan.  When she discovers that their grandfather concealed important parts of his past, Marjorie embarks on a quest to discover the truth, hoping that the information she finds will help her reconcile with her sister.

This isn’t really an academic novel.  Marjorie’s status as a grad student is important because her personal quest connects to her academic work, but the story centers on family and folk tales.  I really appreciated how positive the novel was about literary study, though.  At one point, Marjorie thinks, “Theory was killing literature, people said, but it had allowed me to see a whole subterranean world: every text meant something profound, if you would only follow it into the dark” (63).  The texts she follows into the dark aren’t literary classics but her grandfather’s notebooks, which contain stories of a magical White Rebbe, but Marjorie nonetheless uses her analytical skills to discover the stories’ meaning.  She also meets and dates a librarian who is working on a digital map of the Jewish diaspora, and digital humanities wind up being crucial to the plot.

For the most part, this is a very good story about family, especially the relationship between sisters.  There are some elements of fantasy; Feldman writes squarely in the magical realist tradition.  In some books, this bugs me, but I was able to accept the fantastic elements of The Angel of Losses without much difficulty.  The novel also deals with some fairly obscure aspects of Judaism, but Feldman handles these pretty well.  Marjorie isn’t Jewish, and since we follow the story mostly from her perspective, we discover what she discovers and learn alongside her.  Overall, this is an accessible, enjoyable novel, and I recommend it.

Review: The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

The Surgeon (Rizzoli and Isles Book #1)

By Tess Gerritsen 

Published by Ballantine and distributed by Random House (2001)

Purchased and read on Amazon Kindle
Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's
Rating: Three Stars (out of five)

Gerritsen is a great storyteller, and this book kept me hooked in spite of the fact that it has a couple of traits I don’t usually enjoy.  I read it because I like the TNT series Rizzoli and Isles and the book happened to be on sale for $2.99 for Kindle (sadly, the sale is over now).  If both of those things hadn’t been true, I probably wouldn’t have read it because it’s a serial killer book with a healthy medical component (pardon the... humor) and I don’t particularly enjoy serial killer stories or do well with gross things.  I don’t at all regret picking this up, though.

The novel follows Detectives Jane Rizzoli and Thomas Moore as they track a serial killer dubbed “The Surgeon” who is preying on vulnerable women in Boston.  Because the killer appears to be a copycat of a killer who went on a spree in Georgia a few years earlier, they enlist the help of Dr. Catherine Cordell, the last victim and apparent slayer of the Georgia killer.  As the Surgeon terrorizes Boston women in general and Dr. Cordell in particular, the detectives realize that there may be some unanswered questions about the Georgia killings.  Dr. Cordell has the answers, but they have to keep her safe from the Surgeon if she is to help catch him.

The book is suspenseful and gripping, and if you're a fan of the serial killer subgenre I suspect it’s an excellent read.  There are a lot of blood and guts, both plot-related and not; Gerritsen is a former doctor, Cordell is a surgeon, and the killer is a pseudo-surgeon, so the author has the expertise to describe the inner workings of the human body in detail and her story gives her ample opportunity to do so.  If you’re easily grossed out (I’m not ashamed to admit I am) you’ll want to skim some sections.

It’s important not to go into this book expecting it to be much like Rizzoli and Isles the TV show.  Maura Isles is not in the book, and while Jane Rizzoli is a central character, she’s not the only one—Moore and Cordell also play significant roles.  The TV show’s warm depiction of female friendship is completely absent here (maybe it shows up in later books?) and Rizzoli’s family is hardly the quirky, lovable crew we see on TV.  On its own merits The Surgeon is a good book, though unnecessarily frequent and graphic descriptions of violence, including sexual violence, and surgery undermined my enjoyment somewhat.

Review: The Gates of Rutherford by Elizabeth Cooke

The Gates of Rutherford

By Elizabeth Cooke

Published by Berkeley, September 1, 2015

Purchased and Read on Amazon Kindle

Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's

Rating: Three Stars (out of five)

The Gates of Rutherford is the third in Elizabeth Cooke’s series of novels about the fictional English estate Rutherford Park.  Like Rutherford Park (2013) and The Wild Dark Flowers (2014), it takes us into the world of the aristocratic Cavendish family, their servants, and others with whom they come in contact during the tumultuous years surrounding World War I.

I was very excited for the release of this novel.  I’ve been waiting for it since last summer, when I read the sample in the back of The Wild Dark Flowers (Note to publishers: if you’re going to keep your readers waiting for a year, skip the sample—it’s just mean!).  For some reason, though, this book fell flat.  Maybe too much time has passed since I read the last book or maybe my expectations were just too high, but I was disappointed.

I think the problem lies in the (lack of) depth in both plot and characterization; there are many characters and plotlines in this book.  The most compelling story centers on the younger Cavendish daughter Charlotte, who rushes into marriage, regrets it, and discovers important truths about herself.  We also spend considerable time with various characters on the warfront in France and see how the war impacts sweethearts and prisoners on the homefront in England.  In one way or another, the stories all connect via Rutherford, but some of them, such as the German prisoner’s story, aren’t tied in very thoroughly.  Because there are so many characters, we don’t spend much time with any of them, so some of the stories are not well fleshed-out.

How much I enjoy a book usually comes down to how much I care about the characters.  In The Gates of Rutherford, I cared about Charlotte, but I suspect that’s because I got to know her in the earlier books, not because of Cooke’s characterization here.  This was even more true for Charlotte’s brother Harry and family retainer Jack Armitage, both of whom are fighting in the war.  Harry was frequently annoying here and we learned little about Jack except that he cares for horses and for Louisa Cavendish (Charlotte’s sister).  Had Gates been my only encounter with either character, I would have little reason beyond basic human decency to care whether they lived or died.

Ultimately, I liked learning more about what happened to the Cavendishes and their household, and I would certainly read another book in this series, if only to find out how Charlotte’s story progresses and how the family handles a major event at the end of Gates.  For Cooke’s existing fans, this was a good if not stellar entry in the series.  I doubt, however, that it will draw a lot of new readers to the series.

Review: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

The Invisible Bridge

By Julie Orringer

Published by Vintage and distributed by Random House (2010)

Purchased and read on Amazon Kindle

Links: Amazon, B&N, Powell's

Rating: Four Stars (out of five)

Lately, I seem to be reading a lot of books set during World War II.  This is one of the better ones, and I enjoyed it a lot.  Orringer doesn’t shy away from allowing her characters to experience horror—if she did, the story wouldn’t work, as her characters are European Jews—but the novel is generally uplifting without being preachy. 

The Invisible Bridge tells the story of Andras, a young, Jewish architectural student who moves from Budapest to Paris in the late 1930s.  There, he meets and falls in love with Klara, a fellow Hungarian Jew with a mysterious and tragic past.  Once Andras learns that Klara returns his affections, the novel chronicles the couple’s struggle to maintain their family as Nazi Germany seizes control of Europe.

Other readers have criticized this novel for its sentimentality, and I agree to an extent.  The closing chapters, in particular, are almost saccharine.  But at its heart The Invisible Bridge is a love story, so of course it centers on feelings, and there’s plenty of heartbreak and plenty of realistic obstacles for the characters to overcome.  The characters who survive to the end do so in spite of incredible odds, and I was swept up in and moved by this lovely novel.

Review: Miramont's Ghost by Elizabeth Hall

Miramont’s Ghost

By Elizabeth Hall

Published by Lake Union Publishing (an Amazon imprint), January 2015

Free as part of Amazon Kindle First for Prime members
Link: Amazon

Rating: Two Stars (out of five)

NOTE: This review contains mild plot spoilers.

I didn’t like this book.  I didn’t dislike it because it’s badly written (it’s not) or because all of the characters are horrible people (some of them aren’t).  I disliked it for two story-related reasons: it is relentlessly gloomy and it uses sexual violence and exploitation as cheap plot points.  The main character, Adrienne, has inherited her maternal grandmother’s clairvoyance, and her tyrannical Aunt Marie fears she may spread family secrets to the world.  Most of Miramont’s Ghost chronicles Marie’s attempts to silence Adrienne, and because Marie is virtually the only character with a backbone, reading this novel often feels like watching a dictator take over a small country.

The novel begins by describing Adrienne’s childhood in late-nineteenth-century France, including her close relationships with her grandfather and her governess.  In the middle, there’s a brief and rather sweet romance plot, in which Adrienne falls in love with the son of a diplomat.  Each of these relationships introduces some light into Adrienne’s life and into the novel, but each of them is taken from her in a more or less traumatic fashion.  Eventually, Marie takes Adrienne to Manitou Springs, Colorado, removing her even from her indifferent father, weak-willed mother, and powerless though affectionate siblings.

Marie’s son, the priest Father Julien, also lives in Manitou Springs.  While Marie is Adrienne’s primary antagonist, Julien commits the worst violence against her and robs her of her will to fight back against Marie.  Marie’s dominance of Adrienne (and everyone else) is unpleasant to read about, but it makes sense in the overall scheme of the novel.  Julien’s violence, however, feels like it was put there simply to justify Adrienne’s passiveness in the face of Marie’s machinations. 

I recognize that Hall is attempting to dramatize the history and legends surrounding Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs and is therefore somewhat constrained by fact.  However, while history may excuse the novel’s gloom, it doesn’t make the (graphic) sexual violence any less gratuitous. Ulitmately, Miramont’s Ghost is not a story about the effects of sexual violence.  It’s a story that uses sexual violence to make a bad situation worse, and as a reader I felt both depressed and manipulated.  Were it not for the manipulation, I would probably have given the book three stars, as it is reasonably well-written and engaging enough in spite of the gloom to keep me reading until the very, very bitter end. 

Blog Intro and Review Philosophy

I read a lot.  And I love mysteries.  And history.  And what I really love is a good mystery set in the past.  I started this blog to chronicle what I read and to share what I think about it.

Because I read mostly historical fiction and mysteries, that's what I'll be posting about here, for the most part.  I'm a lifelong bibliophile, though, so I can't promise to stay entirely within those boundaries.  In fact, you might say I took bibliophilia to the extreme by getting a Ph.D. in English literature, so when the blog veers away from historical fiction and mysteries, it might well veer into the portrayal of academics in books and other media.

I'll post reviews here of most things I read that fit the blog's general topic of mystery and history.  Sometimes I'll review new books, but I read a lot of old(er) books, too, so they'll probably comprise a healthy portion of reviews here.  You can also expect that I'll review the occasional mystery or historical TV show or film.  My reviews will be honest, and all the opinions will be my own.  I aim to be constructive, but expect occasional, well-earned snark.  I'll try not to spoil major plot twists and will post spoiler warnings when a major plot point not revealed in the publisher's blurb influences my opinion of the book so much that I have to mention it in the review.

All posts include a rating of 0-5 stars, immediately following the publication information in the review header.  For more about my star system, click here.

I think that covers it for now.  Enjoy reading along!