Category: Historical Fiction

Munich Wolf by Rory Clements

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

This is yet another one of my short posts about books I’ve read this year. This one is a review copy by one of my favourite authors, due to be published in January:

Bonnier Books| 18 January 2024|400 pages| E-book review copy| 3.5*

Description

Munich, 1935 – The Bavarian capital is a magnet for young, aristocratic Britons who come to learn German, swim in the lakes and drink beer in the cellars.

What they don’t see – or choose to ignore – is the brutal underbelly of the Nazi movement which considers Munich its spiritual home. When a high-born English girl is murdered, Detective Sebastian Wolff is ordered to solve the crime. Wolff is already walking a tight line between doing his job and falling foul of the political party he abhors. Now Hitler is taking a personal interest in the case. Followed by the secret police and threatened by his own son, a fervent member of the Hitler Youth, the stakes have never been higher. And when Wolff begins to suspect that the killer might be linked to the highest reaches of the Nazi hierarchy, he fears his task is simply impossible – and that he might become the next victim.

I’ve enjoyed several books by Rory Clements. Munich Wolf is a standalone murder mystery, a police procedural investigation set in Hitler’s Munich in 1935. I enjoyed it although I found the first half slow moving and disjointed, but the pace picks up in the second half. It is a darker novel than his Tom Wilde books, with some unsavoury and definitely unlikable characters, some of whom I found difficult to identify. The murder mystery takes second place to the historical setting. The novel is full of tension and suspense, some of which made it an uncomfortable read but conveyed what a dangerous time and place Germany was in the 1930s.

However, I really liked Detective Sebastian Wolff (Seb), and the way he investigates the murder of a young English woman, under orders from Hitler to close the case as soon as possible. And I really want to know more about Unity Mitford’s involvement. The time period seems well researched – I’m not familiar with the situation in Germany between the two World Wars as Hitler rose to power – and I found that fascinating.

I do hope Rory Clements will write more books featuring Seb Wolff.

Many thanks to Bonnier Books for a review copy via NetGalley.

Historical Fiction Challenge 2024

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Marg at The Intrepid Reader hosts the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Each month, a new post dedicated to the HF Challenge will be created where you can add the links for the books you have read.

Everyone can participate! If you don’t have a blog you can post a link to your review if it’s posted on Goodreads, Facebook, or Amazon, or you can add your book title and thoughts in the comment section if you wish.

Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted (Historical Romance, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, History/Non-Fiction, etc.)

During the following 12 months you can choose one of the different reading levels:

20th Century Reader – 2 books
Victorian Reader – 5 books
Renaissance Reader – 10 books
Medieval – 15 books
Ancient History – 25 books
Prehistoric – 50+ books

I love historical fiction so in 2024 I’m hoping to reach the Ancient History level, that is to read 25 books.

Every Man For Himself by Beryl Bainbridge

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Every Man For Himself was the winner of the 1996 Whitbread Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in that year.

For the four fraught, mysterious days of her doomed maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic sails towards New York, glittering with luxury, freighted with millionaires and hopefuls. In her labyrinthine passageways the last, secret hours of a small group of passengers are played out, their fate sealed in prose of startling, sublime beauty, as Beryl Bainbridge’s haunting masterpiece moves inexorably to its known and terrible end.

This is one of her historical novels, so it’s no surprise that this is a disaster novel. It’s the story of Morgan’s voyage divided into four days as he tells it. It’s mainly the story of the young rich people as they drink and party their way across the Atlantic. Morgan is part of the crowd but he is not rich, and although he has connections, he’s a young American who has to earn his living. We only see a glimpse into his background and I found it confusing for quite a way into the book. But eventually we learn more about him and things became clearer,

By the time he writes about day 4, the sinking itself, the pace speeds up, and the story came to life for me. I think Bainbridge conveys what it must have been like –

There was such a dearth of information, of confirmation or denial of rumours – the racquet court was under water but not the Turkish baths; a spur of the iceberg had ripped the ship from one end to the other but the crew was fully equipped to make good the damage and were even now putting it to rights – and such an absence of persons in authority to whom one might turn that it was possible to imagine the man in the golfing jacket had spoken no more than the truth when presupposing we were victims of a hoax. (page 179)

I could easily imagine what it was like to be a passenger, people rushing about the boat, trying to get on the lifeboats and being separated from friends and family. And the final scenes bring home the reality that it really was a case of every man for himself with the callous attitude towards the steerage passengers, the lack of lifeboats and the disregard of the ice warnings. And so the boat described as unsinkable, sank.

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Canongate Books| 2 November 2023|257 pages| Review copy| 4*

Synopsis

Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

Restless Dolly Maunder is a subversive, triumphant tale of a pioneering woman working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who is able – despite the cost – to make a life she could call her own.

My thoughts:

Kate Grenville is one of my favourite authors, so I was looking forward to reading Restless Dolly Maunder. I was not disappointed.

This is the fictionalised life story of Kate Grenville’s maternal grandmother, Sarah Catherine Maunder, known as Dolly. She was the sixth child of Thomas and Sarah Maunder, born in Currabubula, New South Wales, Australia in 1881. She was not only restless but also clever and determined – she knew what she wanted and she did her best to achieve it.

As a child she longed to be a pupil-teacher but in a world where women were subservient to men she had to obey her father who wouldn’t allow it. She could marry or be a spinster. Eventually she married Bert Russell and began a life away from the farm and her family, moving from place to place and from one business to the next to better herself and her family – a shop, a boarding house, a pub, and a grand hotel.. But she was a difficult person, not easy to like and unable to show love. Hers was a success story but also a tragedy as her wanderlust impelled her to keep striving for more and better things in life.

Restless Dolly Maunder casts light not just on Dolly’s life but also on life in Australia for most of the 20th century. The book has a relentless pace as it tells her life story as she propels herself from place to place and from business to business, enjoying success whilst it lasted and enduring all else, not stopping to pause breath in her restless pursuit of what came next.

Many thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

I can recommend all of Kate Grenville’s books. One of my favourites is One Life:My Mother’s Story, her biography of Nance Russell, Dolly’s daughter. Hers was a happier and more fulfilled life.

The Midnight Hour by Elly Griffiths

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Brighton, 1965

When theatrical impresario Bert Billington is found dead in his retirement home, no one suspects foul play. But when the postmortem reveals that he was poisoned, suspicion falls on his wife, eccentric ex-Music Hall star Verity Malone.

Frustrated by the police response to Bert’s death and determined to prove her innocence, Verity calls in private detective duo Emma Holmes and Sam Collins. This is their first real case, but as luck would have it they have a friend on the inside: Max Mephisto is filming a remake of Dracula, starring Seth Billington, Bert’s son. But when they question Max, they feel he isn’t telling them the whole story.

Emma and Sam must vie with the police to untangle the case and bring the killer to justice. They’re sure the answers must lie in Bert’s dark past and in the glamorous, occasionally deadly, days of Music Hall. But the closer they get to the truth, the more danger they find themselves in…

The Midnight Hour is the sixth book in the DI Edgar Stephens and Max Mephisto series. Known as the ‘Magic Men’ they had been part of a top-secret espionage unit during the War. These books are historical crime fiction, beginning with The Zig Zag Girl set in 1950. Now, with The Midnight Hour, fifteen years have gone by and DI Stephens’ wife, Emma formerly a policewoman is now a private detective working with Sam (Samantha) Collins, formerly an investigative reporter.

There’s a lot going on as both Edgar’s team and Emma and Sam investigate Bert’s death, at first in competition and then they combine forces. Bert’s son Aaron thinks his mother, Verity, killed Bert, who has a very shady past, with plenty of affairs with other women. And there are other suspects with a motive to want him dead.

It provides an insight into what life was like in the mid 1960s, particularly for women. There was plenty of sexism, with, for example, married women being forced to retire from the police force. Married women were not allowed to drive panda cars, and were largely employed to make tea and do the paperwork. Women were expected to stay at home looking after the home and their children.

I enjoy the Dr. Ruth Galloway series, with the forensic archaeological details, despite wishing they weren’t written in the present tense. I also find the theatrical elements of this series fascinating and much prefer the fact that they are written in the past tense. I really liked the glimpses of Max and Seth Bellington, Bert’s son, filming a remake of Dracula in Whitby.

You can read this as a standalone as there is a guide to the main characters and their back stories at the end of the book, but it helps if you read at least some of the earlier books to have a sense of who everyone is and the character progression.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Recent Additions from Barter Books

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

We went to Barter Books in Alnwick yesterday, for the first time since last October. It was absolutely packed as it was a Bank Holiday and the school holidays. There was a long queue for the Station Buffet and then a 30 minute wait after we’d ordered our food.

Despite the crowds of people I found these books and left a lot behind. :)

From the bottom to the top they are:

Execution by S J Parris, Book 6 in the Giordano Bruno series of historical thrillers.  I’ve read the second book, Prophecy which I really enjoyed. This one is set in 1586 about the Babington plot to assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I and replace her with her Catholic cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. I vaguely remember the Babington plot from history lessons at school. I just hope I’m not going to find it’s too long

The Fallen Angel by Tracy Borman, the final book in the Frances Gorges Historical Trilogy. I have the first one, The King’s Witch, but I haven’t read it yet. On the back cover it says this can be read entirely on its own. It covers the final years of James I’s reign when his new favourite was George Villiers, later the Duke of Buckingham

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood. Charmaine sees an advertisement for a project called Positron that promises you a job, a place to live, a bed to sleep in – imagine how appealing that would be if you were working in a dive bar and living in your car. She and her husband, Stan, apply at once. The only catch is that once you’re in there, you can’t get out.

The Golden One by Elizabeth Peters, the 17th Amelia Peabody Egypt murder mystery featuring Amelia Peabody. I haven’t read any of the other books and there are 20 in total. Amelia and her family arrive at their home in Luxor to learn of a new royal tomb ransacked by thieves. Soon an even more disturbing outrage concerns the intrepid clan of archaeologists: the freshly and savagely slain corpse of a thief defiling the ancient burial site.

Trace Elements by Donna Leon, the 29th in her Commissario Brunetti Mysteries series. ‘They killed him. It was bad money.‘ A dying hospice patient gasps these cryptic words about her recently-deceased husband, who lost his life in a motorcycle accident. But what appears to be a private family tragedy turns into a bigger enigma when Brunetti discovers the victim’s ties to Venice’s water supply. With the help of Questura secretary, Elettra Sorzi, Brunetti will unveil the secret that lies behind the dying woman’s accusation – one that threatens the health of the entire region.

If you’ve read any of these books I’d love to know what you think of them.