Spell the Month in Books is a linkup hosted by Jana on Reviews From the Stacks on the first Saturday of each month. The goal is to spell the current month with the first letter of book titles, excluding articles such as ‘the’ and ‘a’ as needed. That’s all there is to it! Some months there are optional theme challenges, such as “books with an orange cover” or books of a particular genre, but for the most part, any book you want to use is fair game!

The optional theme this month is Your Favourite Genre. I’ve chosen books combining two of my favourite genres historical fiction and crime fiction into Historical Crime Fiction.

The links in the titles of each book are to my own posts.

O is for Once Upon a River by Dianne Setterfield

An intriguing and mystifying book that entranced me from the beginning to the end. The story has a timeless feel to it but it is set somewhere towards the end of the nineteenth century. It’s a mystery beginning in the Swan Inn at Radcot, an ancient inn, well-known for its storytelling, on the banks of the Thames. A badly injured stranger enters carrying the drowned corpse of a little girl. It’s mystifying as hours later the dead child, miraculously it seems, takes a breath, and returns to life. The mystery is enhanced by folklore, by science that appears to be magic, and by romance and superstition.

C is for Catching the Eagle by Karen Charlton

Set in Northumberland in 1809, this book is based on a true story –  that of Karen Charlton’s husband’s ancestors. Kirkley Hall manor house is mysteriously burgled. When suspicion falls on Jamie Charlton, he and his family face a desperate battle to save him from the gallows. Stephen Lavender, the detective employed by  Nathaniel Ogle, the owner of Kirkley Hall was also a real historical figure, a detective, who later became the Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester after the formation of the police force by Sir Robert Peel. This is the type of historical fiction that I like. The characters come across as real people, with real problems in a real time and place (Northumberland 1809 – 1811). 

T is for Tamburlaine Must Die by Louise Welsh. This is a novella, written in the first person and set in May 1593. It’s a tense, dramatic story of the last days of Christopher Marlowe, playwright, poet and spy. Accused of heresy and atheism, his death is a mystery, although conjecture and rumours abound. It conveys the claustrophobic atmosphere of danger surrounding Marlowe; who can he trust, and who is behind the pseudonym of ‘Tamburlaine’, who posted a libellous handbill referencing Marlowe’s plays? In such a brief book Louise Welsh has managed to convey the political and the seedy underworld of the Elizabethan period, the dishonesty and love of intrigue, the dangers of the plague and the threat of war. 

O is for Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders by Gyles Brandreth. It’s set in 1889 – 1890, fin-de-siècle London and Paris and the mystery begins with Oscar Wilde finding the naked body of Billy Wood, a 16 year old boy in the candle-lit room in a small terraced house in Westminster, close to the Houses of Parliament. Billy’s throat has been cut and he is laid out as though on a funeral bier, surrounded by candles, with the smell of incense still in the air. It’s a combination of fiction and fact, with both real and imaginary characters. Wilde with the help of his friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard sets out to solve the crime.

B is for The Body in the Ice by A J MacKenzie. It’s the 2nd Hardcastle and Chaytor Mystery set in Romney Marsh and the surrounding countryside in 1796-7. This is the period after the end of the American War of Independence, so Britain and America are at peace, but Britain and revolutionary France are at war with the constant threat of a French invasion. That winter was exceptionally harsh and cold and on Christmas Day in the village of St Mary in the Marsh, on the Kent coast Amelia Chaytor is spending the day with her friends, spinsters Miss Godfrey and Miss Roper when their maidservant bursts in and announces that she has seen someone at New Hall stables, frozen into the ice face down. Previously two men had been seen arriving at the Hall and at first it looks as though one of them has killed the other as they have both disappeared.

E is for An Expert in Murder, a very detailed and intricate murder mystery by Nicola Upson. She has a passion for the theatre and it shines through to great advantage in this book, set in the theatrical world of  the 1930s – March, 1934 to be precise, as the final week of Josephine Tey’s play Richard of Bordeaux begins. Josephine is travelling from her home in Inverness to London by steam train when she meets an enthusiastic fan, Elspeth Simmons, who boarded the train at Berwick-upon-Tweed. They arrive in London, but then Elspeth is murdered and soon afterwards Bernard Aubrey, the theatre owner is also found dead, poisoned. Detective Inspector Archie Primrose, a friend of Josephine’s investigates. It’s a blend of fact and fiction.

R is for A Rustle of Silk by Alys Clare, first in a series featuring Dr Gabriel Taverner, set in the early years of 17th century England. It begins in April 1603 when former ship’s surgeon Gabriel Taverner has settled in Devon near his family and he is trying to set up a new practice as a physician. The local coroner, Theophilus Davey asks him to examine a partially decomposed body found beside the river. At first it looks as though it was suicide, but on realising that it’s his brother-in-law, Jeromy, Gabriel and Theophilus are convinced that he was murdered.

The next link up will be on November 2, 2024 when the theme will be: Food or Autumn Decorations on the Cover