Author: Margaret

I love reading and write about the books I’ve been reading and those I’m considering reading on my blog, BooksPlease at https://booksplease.org/

The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Harper Collins| 2 March 2023 | 454 pages|e-book |Review copy|5*

London 1671
The damage caused by the Great Fire still overshadows the capital. When a man’s brutally disfigured body is discovered in the ruins of an ancient almshouse, architect Cat Hakesby is ordered to stop restoration work. It is obvious he has been murdered, and Whitehall secretary James Marwood is ordered to investigate.

It’s possible the victim could be one of two local men who have vanished – the first, a feckless French tutor connected to the almshouse’s owner;
the second, a possibly treacherous employee of the Council of Foreign Plantations.

The pressure on Marwood mounts as Charles II’s most influential courtiers, Lord Arlington and the Duke of Buckingham, show an interest in his activities – and Marwood soon begins to suspect the murder trail may lead right to the heart of government.

Meanwhile, a young, impoverished Frenchwoman has caught the eye of the king, a quiet affair that will have monumental consequences…

My thoughts

The Shadows of London by Andrew Taylor is historical crime fiction, the 6th book in his James Marwood and Cat Lovett Restoration series. I’ve read all of the previous books, set in 17th century England, during the reign of Charles II, and thoroughly enjoyed each one So I was delighted to find that this one is just as good, maybe even better. Although it does work as a stand-alone book I do think it’s best to read them in sequence to get the full background of the Restoration period and the relationship between James Marwood and Cat Hakesbury (formerly Lovett).

At the beginning of the book there is a list of the main characters, which I find very useful. It includes where they live and their professions and relationships with each other, including the real historical characters. There is also a Historical Note at the end of the book in which Taylor explains that the origins of the novel had germinated over a number of years following the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein cases, whilst the catalyst came when he read Dr Linda Porter’s Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II. In one chapter Dr Porter focuses on the career of Louise de Keroualle, who became Charles II’s chief mistress during the second half of his reign. In The Shadows of London the story of Louise’s seduction with its political implications, based on fact, is interwoven with the mystery of the murder of the man found dead, brutally killed, in the grounds of a ruined almshouse that Cat’s workman were restoring.

The murder mystery is complicated first of all because the victim had no face, and nothing by which he could be identified. Both the characters and the settings are well described and the mixture of fact and fiction works well. It is fast paced, full of action and intrigue. The narrative is told from both Cat’s and James’s viewpoints switching from one to the other throughout the book. Their relationship continues to develop as they work together to find the culprit and it reaches a turning point in this book. I hope that there will be a 7th book as I really want to know what happens next …

One of the things that I really enjoyed in this book is the picture it paints of John Evelyn, the writer and diarist, bibliophile and horticulturalist. He was a contemporary of Samuel Pepys. His diary covers the years from 1640 to 1706 when he died. And now I want to find out more about him.

Andrew Taylor is a bestselling crime and historical novelist, and the winner of the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers Association, the Gold Crown of the Historical Writers Association and many other awards. He’s written nearly fifty books,  listed here, three of which have been televised. I’d leave to see the Marwood and Lovett series adapted for television!

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for my review copy.

Classics Club Spin

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin.

Before next Sunday, 19 March, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. On that day the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by 30 April, 2023.

Here’s my list:

  1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  2. Fair Stood the Wind for France by H E Bates
  3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  4. The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
  5. The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin
  6. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  7. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  8. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
  9. The Birds and other short stories by Daphne du Maurier
  10. The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
  11. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
  12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  13. Daisy Miller by Henry James
  14. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  15. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
  16. Friends and Heroes by Olivia Manning
  17. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
  18. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
  19. The Invisible Man by H G Wells
  20. Between the Acts by Virginia Woolf

I can’t decide which one I’d like to come up in the Spin! But which one/s would you recommend?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Spring 2023 To-Read List

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

The topic this week is The topic this week is Books on My Spring 2023 To-Read List. These are all from my TBR lists. But this does not mean that I will actually read all these books or even some of them this Spring, as I’ve said before, I am a mood read and when the time comes to choose the next book to read it could be a newly published book that takes my fancy or another book from my TBRs.

I would like to read at least one of them though!

  1. The Hunt for Mount Everest by Craig Storti – the story of how Everest was identified, and named, leading up to June 1921, when two English climbers, George Mallory and Guy Bullock, became the first westerners to set foot on Mount Everest.
  2. Loch Down Abbey by Beth Cowan-Erskine – who killed Lord Inverkillen? Lockdown meets Downton Abbey in this playful, humorous mystery set in 1930s Scotland. 
  3. This Nowhere Place by Natasha Bell – a murder mystery set in Dover in 2016, when best friends Cali and Jude meet Mo, a young girl who has recently come to Britain from Syria. 
  4. The Agincourt Bride by Joanna Hickson – historical fiction about the queen, Catherine de Valois who married Henry V in 1420, as told through the eyes of her loyal nursemaid. 
  5. The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths, the 14th Dr Ruth Galloway mystery – forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson are on the hunt for a murderer when Covid rears its ugly head. But can they find the killer despite lockdown?
  6. Grimm Up North: A Yorkshire Murder Mystery by David J. Gatward – the first book in the DCI Harry Grimm crime thriller series, set in the Yorkshire Dales. A young woman vanishes without a trace. Can an ex-soldier-turned-copper keep a mystery from becoming a tragedy?
  7. Asking for the Moon by Reginald Hill, a collection of Dalziel and Pascoe short stories. Four stories about their partnership from curtain-up to last act; from the mean streets of Mid-Yorkshire to the mountains of the moon.
  8. The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves, the 10th book in the Vera Stanhope series. Fifty years ago, a group of teenagers spent a weekend on Holy Island, forging a bond that has lasted a lifetime. Now, they still return every five years to celebrate their friendship, and remember the friend they lost to the rising waters of the causeway at the first reunion.
  9. Give Unto Others a Commissario Brunetti Mystery Book 31) by Donna Leon – Brunetti is forced to confront the price of loyalty, to his past and in his work, as a seemingly innocent request leads him into troubling waters.
  10. The Crooked Shore by Martin Edwards – Lake District Cold-Case Mysteries Book 8. Hannah Scarlett is investigating the disappearance of a young woman from Bowness more than twenty years ago.

I haven’t listed them in any order of preference. Would you recommend any of them and which one would you read first?

The Silent Wife by Karin Slaughter

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Description

The gripping No. 1 Sunday Times crime thriller She runs

A woman runs alone in the woods. She convinces herself she’s safe. He watches

But a predator is watching from the shadows. Waiting for the perfect moment to attack.He waits

They thought they caught him. But another victim has just been found.

The hunt has only just begun. And the killer is ready to strike again…

I hadn’t read any of Karin Slaughter’s books, but I thought I’d try this one when I saw it on NetGalley, as I know they are very popular. But for a number of reasons I did not enjoy The Silent Wife at all! First of all I hadn’t realised this was part of a series until I started reading it, but once I did I hoped it would read well as a standalone – but it doesn’t. Then it’s a serial killer story and I’m never keen on that.

But the main reason is that it is very graphic, very dark, extremely disturbing with rapes and murders described in great detail, and just far too gruesome for me. I was really struggling to make myself read it – so I gave up and didn’t finish it!

Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy, anyway.

How to Save a Life by S D Robertson

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Description

You can’t have a rainbow, without a little rain…

When a stranger saves Luke’s life, he knows he’s been given a second chance. He’s going to make it count – and, determined to live each day to its fullest, he starts by saying yes to everything life has to offer.

Slowly but surely, Luke learns that a little bit of blue-sky thinking can go a long way, and things start to look up.

But when Luke’s new resolve is tested, will he return to his old ways? Or can one fateful moment truly save a life.

A life-affirming story about a man who is given a second chance, perfect for fans of Mike Gayle and Imogen Clark.

How to Save a Life is one of the oldest books on my NetGalley shelf. It has sat there far too long, since 2020. It’s the second book I’ve read by S D Robertson (the first was If Ever I Fall), which is why I requested it. It’s an emotional story, character driven, narrated solely by Luke, a barber, with a pessimistic outlook on life. His parents died in a tragic accident, then just a fortnight before Christmas his wife told him she’d been having an affair and left him. He is wallowing in misery, living alone with his cat, Alfred. Until he meets Iris. They were both sheltering from a sudden storm under scaffolding when a violent gust brought the building and scaffolding down on them – Luke survived, but Iris didn’t. She had saved his life, pushing him out of the way as the scaffolding collapsed.

Iris’s death has a powerful effect on Luke, especially when he learns what a wonderful person she was – a doctor who was passionate about volunteering her services for a charity scheme in Africa. He felt guilty that he had survived and vowed to change his outlook and his life, trying to be more like Iris.

This book is not my usual choice of genre, but I think it is an interesting book that did give me food for thought. I liked the setting in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and I could easily visualise Luke’s barber’s shop and its surroundings. However, it is repetitive as Luke analyses his feelings and actions over and over again, and it’s slow paced because of that. He has several setbacks as things don’t all turn out how he had hoped, but it is a heart-warming story, if a little predictable.

My thanks to Avon, the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

  • ASIN: ‎ B07Z4BBBF9
  • Publisher ‏: ‎ Avon (11 Jun. 2020)
  • Print length: 397 pages
  • Review copy
  • My rating : 3*

Six Degrees of Separation from Passages to The Private Patient

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

It’s time again for Six Degrees of Separation, a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

The starting book this month is Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy, a self help book that shows how to use each life crisis as an opportunity for creative change — to grow to your full potential. It’s described as ‘a brilliant road map of adult life shows the inevitable personality and sexual changes we go through in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond’. I haven’t read this book.

My First link is to another self-help book, The Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck, a book I read many years ago. Sub-titled The New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth this book is a guide through the difficult, painful times in life by showing us how to confront our problems through the key principles of discipline, love and grace.

My Second Link is to The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid. Investigating the identity of the skeleton found, with a bullet hole in its skull, on the rooftop of a crumbling, gothic building in Edinburgh takes Detective Chief Inspector Karen Pirie and her Historic Cases Unit into a dark world of intrigue and betrayal during the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. Dr River Wilde a forensic anthropologist, discovers that the skeleton is a male, he’d been dead between five and ten years and his dental work shows he was originally from one of the Eastern bloc countries.

And so my Third Link is to another character with the name of Wilde in Nemesis, the third book in Rory Clements’s Tom Wilde series. It’s historical fiction set at the beginning of World War Two when Wilde, on his honeymoon in France, rescues his student Marcus Marfield. This is an intricately plotted spy thriller in which Wilde finds himself in great personal danger. For just who is Marcus Marfield? And where does his loyalty lie?

My Fourth Link is via the title of another book called Nemesis – by Agatha Christie. Mr Rafiel, who Miss Marple met in the West Indies, has left her £20,000 in his will on condition she investigates a certain crime, but doesn’t give her any details. He wrote that she had a natural flair for justice leading to a natural flair for crime and reminded her that the code word is Nemesis. 

Agatha Christie was in her eighties when she wrote Nemesis and it was the last book she wrote about Miss Marple.

My Fifth Link is P D James’s The Private Patient another book written by an author in her eighties. It’s set in a private nursing home for rich patients being treated by the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. One of the patients is investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn. She was looking forward to a week’s peaceful convalescence and the beginning of a new life. But she was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate her murder.

Another character called Rhoda is my Sixth Link, Past Encounters by Davina Blake. This is a thought provoking book about love, loyalty, betrayal and forgiveness. Rhoda Middleton is convinced her husband, Peter, is having an affair. In essence this is a story of a marriage that has drifted, so that Rhoda and Peter no longer talk to each other about the things that matter in their lives. And they both have secrets from each other – big secrets!

My chain is made up of self help books and crime fiction novels, linked by genre, their titles, characters’ names, and two authors writing in their eighties.

Next month (1 April 2023), we’ll start with Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, Born to Run.