Category: Historical Fiction

Crime Fiction Alphabet: W is for Dan Waddell

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

I’m not sure whether  The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell is historical crime fiction or genealogical crime fiction. One thing is certain it is crime fiction and one that I was thoroughly immersed in. If I gave books stars on this blog I would have given it 5 stars, if only the ending wasn’t so graphic. It’s the sort of scene that if I was watching it on TV it would have had me peeping through my fingers or even covering my eyes completely until it was over. There are bits of graphic violence earlier in the book, which I could just about cope with, but the grisly stuff at the end was a step too far for me.

That said it’s a fascinating fast-paced book linking the crimes of the past – the events of 1879 – to a series of murders in the present. DCI Grant Foster enlists the help of genealogist Nigel Barnes to track down the killer who has left cryptic clues carved into his victims’ bodies.

I used to work with archives, much of it helping people track down their family histories and so was very familiar with the sources Nigel uses to discover the original killer. I loved the way Waddell wove this into his story. Nigel Barnes is a convincing character and manages to solve both the modern day murders and the historical ones too, not only through family history but also through working out the topography of London through the years.  I loved that part of the book.

Dan Waddell as well as writing crime novels is the author of Who Do You think You Are?, the accompanying book of the TV series – one of my favourites, so it’s no surprise that The Blood Detective is so good on genealogy. He has his own website and also writes regularly on the Murder is Everywhere blog. His next book featuring Nigel Barnes is Blood Atonement and despite my phobia about graphic violence I’m planning to read that one too.

The Blood Detective

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (7 Aug 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 9780141025650
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141025650
  • ASIN: 0141025654
  • Source: library book

The Crime Fiction Alphabet is hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. All you have to do is write a post relating to the letter of the week – either the first letter of the book title or of the author’s first or second name.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy: Book Review

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I thoroughly enjoyed The Long Song by Andrea Levy. I think it may even be the best book I’ve read so far this year.

It’s brutal, savage, and unrelenting in depicting the lives of the slaves in Jamaica just as slavery was coming to an end and both the slaves and their former owners were adjusting to their freedom. The narrator is July, at the beginning a spirited young woman, born in a sugar-cane field, telling her story at her son’s suggestion. She begins by telling of her conception, but then says:

Reader, my son tells me that this is too indelicate a commencement of any tale. Please pardon me, but your storyteller is a woman possessed of a forthright tongue and little ink. Waxing upon the nature of trees when all know they are green and lush upon this island, or birds which are plainly plentiful and raucous, or taking good words to whine upon the cruelly hot sun, is neither prudent nor my fancy. Let me confess this without delay so you might consider whether my tale is one in which you can find an interest. If not, then be on your way, for there are plenty books to satisfy if words flowing free as the droppings from the backside of a mule is your desire. (page8)

It is a tale I found full of interest and one that is beautifully written too. I didn’t want to stop reading it, my only criticism being that I thought towards the end it was too condensed. There was a gap of thirty years, largely unexplained, but too much detail would have taken attention away from the main events of the story.

July lives with Kitty her mother until Caroline Mortimer, the sister of the plantation owner arrives and takes her to live in the big house as her servant and rename her ‘Marguerite’. Caroline is a frivolous, self-obsessed, ignorant woman and soon becomes dependent on July whilst still treating her as less than nothing – a slave. The end of slavery is violent and bloody but July lives on through it with Caroline, eventually helping her to run the plantation even though she is now ‘free’.

The story takes a tragic turn with the introduction of Robert Goodwin, a young Englishman, leading inevitably to heartbreak for July. There are several sub-plots that waylaid me, but I read it quickly eager to find out what happened. It’s shocking, breath-taking and completely absorbing.

One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four… and Five…

Published on by Margaret10 Comments
Today I’m copying Simon and doing his little this-book-that-book-this-book-that-book sort of post.

  1. The book I’m currently reading:


    Cop Hater by Ed McBain – there are 13  87th Precint books – this is the first in his series. There’s a heat-wave and someone is killing cops. McBain was a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and was one of three American writers to be awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement.

  2. The last book I finished:


    Gently Does It by Alan Hunter – The first of the Inspector Gently books. I read it on my Kindle and enjoyed it very much – post to follow later.

  3. The next book I want to read:


    The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann – this is the next book for my face-to-face book group and I was talking to some of the other members yesterday who’ve already started it and they told me how good it is. It’s the story of Olivia and her love affair with a married man. I don’t often read romantic novels, so this will a change for me. I’m looking forward to reading it.

  4. The last book I bought:

    The last one I bought was The Weather in the Streets. The one before that was:

    Adam and Eve and Pinch Me by Ruth Rendell
    I bought this from the secondhand book box at Eyemouth Hospital. It’s hardback and looks practically brand new. I like buying books from the local hospitals as the money goes to a good cause. And I especially like buying them when they’re by authors I enjoy, such as Ruth Rendell.

  5. The last book I was given:


    Agatha Christie At Home by Hilary Macaskill. My husband gave me this for Christmas and I’m amazed at myself because I haven’t read it yet, although I’ve had a look at the photos. This is not just about Greenway, Agatha Christie’s Devon home but about her other houses and identifies the settings she used in her books.

Weekend Books & A New Challenge

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This weekend I’ve been reading:

  • The Private Patient by P D James. I finished this yesterday and I’ll be writing about it for the next Crime Fiction Alphabet post this week.
  • The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell. I started this a few days ago.

I see that José Ignacio from The Game’s Afoot has found an interesting challenge and it is indeed a challenge:

2011 Challenge ‘Do not Accumulate, Read!!’

The rules are simple, before you buy another book, make a list of six from your TBR pile and read them. Once done you can go ahead, buy the book and, of course, read it. At the same time make another list of six books before buying the next one, and so on and so forth.

This will be difficult as this last week I’ve acquired nine books (bought and borrowed) and so I should make nine lists (and read 54 books) before I buy/acquire any more. That is some challenge, so I’m going to start the challenge from today and read 6 of my to-be-read books before I buy any more!

The new to me books this week are:

  • Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffennegger. I’ve previously borrowed a copy from the library but took it back unread. It hadn’t appealed at the time, but when I saw it on a secondhand bookstall selling in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust I wondered if the time was right to give it another go.
  • The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann. This is my local book group choice for May. We chose a romance due to the Royal Wedding this month.
  • Small Island by Andrea Levy – borrowed from a friend because I enjoyed The Long Song so much and she said this one is better.

Then two watercolour painting books to help me paint flowers:

I hope these will help me to paint like this. (Click on image to enlarge it.)

I’ve also recently downloaded these onto my Kindle:

  • Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi – because I no longer have a printed version
  • THE COMPLETE FATHER BROWN MYSTERIES COLLECTION by G K Chesterton
  • The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
  • Gently Does It (Inspector George Gently 1) by Alan Hunter

I’m not sure what I’m going to read next, apart from The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann, because that’s the May book group book, but they will all be from my to-be-read books.

Weekend Cooking – from The Long Song

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

One of the books I’m currently reading is The Long Song, a novel about slavery set in 19th century Jamaica, by Andrea Levy. The narrator is July, now an old woman born as a slave, writing her memoirs.

This morning I read about the preparations for the Yuletide dinner of 1831. There were to be twelve people at the plantation owner’s table.  Caroline, the owner’s sister is giving Hannah, the cook, her orders for the food to be provided.

There was to be both turtle and vegetable soups, mutton, pigeon pies and guinea fowl, a boiled ham and a turkey or two, turtle served in the shell (but she would prefer beef), four stewed ducks, cheese, as many hogsheads as they could get and roasted pig.

There was also to be:

… malt liquor, wine, porter, cider, brandy and rum, watermelon, mango, pawpaw, naseberry, soursop, grandilla fruit. ‘And make sure the preserve has come from England. Strawberry or damson. Do not serve guava, ginger or that ghastly sorrel jelly. I’m so tired of Jamaican jams.’

Hannah had stopped listening, for the need to shout ‘And me to fix-up all this? You  a gut-fatty, cha!’ at her misssus was becoming overpowering in her. (pages 74 – 75)

And in case they were still hungry after this obscene amount of food, Hannah was told to make plum pudding. Hannah remembered how to make it –

A little fruit, a little molasses, some cornmeal, eggs, plenty rum. Mash it up a bit. Put this mess in that silly round mould the missus did give her the first Christmas she arrived, and boil it until the water does run dry. And when the thing is hard then it is done. (pages 75 – 76)

So far I think this book is beautifully written, vivid, lively and enthralling.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

Sunday Salon – Historical Fiction

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Historical fiction has long been a favourite genre and although these days I seem to be reading more crime fiction, it still has an irresistible draw for me. So, I was really pleased when my son gave me The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman as a Mother’s Day present today. It’s about the life and times of Richard III. I find Richard a fascinating person, accused of killing his nephews and I’ve read about him from Shakespeare’s play, Richard III to Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time and Alison Weir’s non-fictional The Princes in the Tower. Now I can become immersed in the period of the Wars of the Roses to Richard’s death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

More historical fiction came to my attention this morning when I read that the Walter Scott Prize Shortlist has been announced. This is the 2nd Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Last year’s prize was won by Hilary Mantel for her novel, Wolf Hall. the winner will be announced on June 18th at the Borders Book Festival at Melrose.

The shortlist for the 2011 award is:

  • The Long Song by Andrea Levy
  • C by Tom McCarthy
  • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
  • Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor
  • Heartstone by C J Sansom
  • To Kill A Tsar by Andrew Williams

The only one of these I’ve read is – Heartstone by C J Sansom. This is Sansom’s fifth book in his 16th century England, Matthew Shardlake series. Heartstone is set in 1545 as England goes to war with France. I thought it was good but not as good as his earlier books, but it is very good on the details of life in Tudor times. Sansom’s research is excellent, his characters are well drawn and the atmosphere and sense of place are convincing.

Andrea Levy’s The Long Song is the next book for discussion at my Book Club at the end of this month, so I’ll be reading it soon. I haven’t read any of Andrea Levy’s four earlier books so I don’t know what to expect. It’s set in Jamaica as slavery came to an end. At the back of my copy there is Bonus Material – Andrea Levy writes about how she came to write The Long Song. I think I’ll start by reading that.

I know very little about the other books, but as I wasn’t too keen on Tom McCarthy’s Remainder and I gave up twice with David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, both of which I know other people rated highly, I may pass on those.  That leaves Joseph O’Connor’s Ghost Light which does sound appealing and I’ve downloaded a sample on Kindle to find out more. This article in The Scotsman has more details.