Tag: mystery

Review – The Tainted Cup

Posted April 21, 2024 by Nicky in Uncategorized / 3 Comments

Review – The Tainted Cup

The Tainted Cup

by Robert Jackson Bennett

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery
Pages: 410
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

In an opulent mansion at the borders of the Empire, an Imperial officer lies dead – killed when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even here, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.

Called in to solve the crime is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricity. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory.

Soon, the mystery leads to a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself. For Ana, all this makes for a deliciously thorny puzzle – at last, something to truly hold her attention. And Din? He’ll just have to hold on for the ride.

An eccentric detective and her long-suffering assistant untangle a web of magic, deceit, and murder in this sparkling fantasy reimagining of the classic crime novel – from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Robert Jackson Bennett’s books are always a lot of fun, and The Tainted Cup was no exception. It’s a fantasy world, though the relationship between Ana and Din smacks very much of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (albeit with an additional superior/subordinate component, especially given that Din is only in training). The setting is a fascinating world that as yet has a lot sketched in around the edges — we see life on what is basically the frontier, the walls which repel gigantic attacking Titans from the sea, but there’s more to the Empire than that… and one suspects we’ll see more of that, in future books.

Though the exact shape, size and composition of the Empire might be sketchy, there is a lot of detail about the world to wonder over: the different ways people have been altered to suit others’ needs, the reagent keys, the poisons and medicines. There’s some serious body horror in all that — not just the trees sprouting from people’s bodies, but also the more subtle horror of the cracklers that doesn’t always get noted by the narration as being horrifying, and even Din’s own skills.

Once I settled into it, it was a surprisingly fast read for how chunky it looked, sweeping me along to the conclusion. I’d love to see more of the world, and get deeper into Ana’s investigation: in true Sherlock Holmes style, I didn’t always understand where her conclusions came from, and I don’t think it was an entirely fair play mystery (in part because it’s not our world), but I hope the next book is also a mystery: it’s always fun when my favourite genres cross.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Corpse in the Waxworks

Posted April 18, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Corpse in the Waxworks

The Corpse in the Waxworks

by John Dickson Carr

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 288
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

"The purpose, the illusion, the spirit of a waxworks. It is an atmosphere of death. It is soundless and motionless... Do you see?"

Last night Mademoiselle Duchêne was seen heading into the Gallery of Horrors at the Musée Augustin waxworks, alive. Today she was found in the Seine, murdered. The museum's proprietor, long perturbed by the unnatural vitality of his figures, claims that he saw one of them following the victim into the dark—a lead that Henri Bencolin, head of the Paris police and expert of 'impossible' crimes, cannot possibly resist.

Surrounded by the eerie noises of the night, Bencolin prepares to enter the ill-fated waxworks, his associate Jeff Marle and the victim's fiancé in tow. Waiting within, beneath the glass-eyed gaze of a leering waxen satyr, is a gruesome discovery and the first clues of a twisted and ingenious mystery.

John Dickson Carr’s The Corpse in the Waxworks was surprisingly in the middle for me — usually I quite dislike John Dickson Carr’s earlier work and books involving Henri Bencolin, though I’ve later come to enjoy some of his Gideon Fell stories.

This one’s not one of his more famous, and isn’t a locked room mystery, meaning it actually felt less contrived than some of them. And Bencolin wasn’t quite as annoying as I usually find him, though I wasn’t a huge fan either; his sidekick (Marle) is just kind of vanilla, really, though he gets his own little action sequence (predictable as it is).

In the end, it felt relatively straightforward as Carr’s mysteries go, and without any femmes being too fatale, and it did have an intriguing sense of atmosphere around the masked club and the waxworks — a little bit creepy, a little bit high-strung.

Not a new favourite by any means, but more enjoyable than I expected.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – A Telegram from Le Touquet

Posted April 8, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – A Telegram from Le Touquet

A Telegram from Le Touquet

by John Bude

Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

With some trepidation Nigel Derry approaches the country house of his enigmatic and unpredictable aunt Gwenny for an Easter holiday visit. After a tense few days in which her guests’ interactions range from awkward dinners to a knife fight, a disgruntled aunt Gwenny departs for Europe. Receiving a telegram from Le Touquet inviting him to join Gwenny in the south of France, Nigel finds himself on a vacation cut short by murder as a cold shadow of suspicion eclipses the sunny beauty of the Côte d’Azur.

Enter Inspector Blampignon of the Sûreté Nationale, whose problems abound as the case suggests that the crime may have occurred hundreds of miles away from where the victim was discovered. Undeterred, the formidable French detective embarks on a thrilling race to discover the truth in this rare and spirited mystery novel, first published in 1956.

A Telegram from Le Touquet is pretty much what one expects of John Bude: a mostly competent mystery without flair, with a few thumbnail sketches of characters but not great psychological depth. It starts with a section from the point of view of someone who eventually becomes a suspect, Nigel, allowing Bude to set the scene for Gwenny and her web of jealousies and secrets. After that, we turn to the mystery proper, with the scene set with a few unpleasant people and a few nondescript generic character types.

Certain aspects of it I had worked out pretty quickly, but the pieces didn’t all fit together right away, which kept me occupied for a while, but mostly I didn’t get super interested in the cast and who might be the killer, and I kind of suspected the alibi thing pretty early on. Inspector Meredith makes a tiny cameo, but it’s mostly Blampignon (who also appeared in Death on the Riviera). Meh either way, really.

This all sounds like damning with very faint praise, but it was reasonably well paced, it sowed clues and didn’t spend too much time belaboring them, and sometimes in the very predictableness of mysteries of this era there’s a sort of comfort.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Ghosts in the Hedgerow

Posted April 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Ghosts in the Hedgerow

Ghosts in the Hedgerow

by Tom Moorhouse

Genres: Mystery, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 271
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A body lies motionless on the ground. Small, with a snouty head and covered with spines, it is unquestionably dead before its time. And all of those gathered around the corpse are suspect. So which one of them is responsible for this crime - and for the disappearance of many many thousands of hedgehogs in recent decades?

Is it the car driver, the badger, the farmer, the gardener ..? Who could possibly have it in for a hedgehog? In poll after poll they come out top as our favourite mammal. And yet their numbers are estimated to have halved in less than twenty years. Magnifying glass in hand, Tom Moorhouse investigates the evidence. On a vital mission to bring those responsible to justice, prevent further murder and save a species, he uncovers a story full of twists, turns and uncomfortable truths about the trade-offs that exist between humans and wildlife. But he can also see a solution.

Tom Moorehouse’s Ghosts in the Hedgerow tries to use the whodunnit format to interrogate what might be causing the decline in hedgehog numbers seen in the UK in recent years. It does undermine the whole premise right from the get-go by explaining that the decline is only really known anecdotally: hedgehog numbers aren’t really properly counted, and we rely on a bunch of estimates which aren’t really comparable between decades (e.g. between hunters trying to kill hedgehogs before they became a protected species, who would specifically seek them out, and now birdwatchers who may incidentally spot hedgehogs).

Nonetheless, he makes a convincing case that their numbers are declining (which I didn’t really doubt in the first place), and then trots through the suspects: road traffic, badgers, farmland bereft of hedgerows (in contrast to traditional farming), and home/garden design. None of the suspects are surprising if you’ve been at all awake to hedgehog ecology (which I have, as my parents have a hedgehog-friendly garden, and my garden is as well), and of course the final answer isn’t surprising either: it’s all of those things.

It’s a fun idea for a format, but if you’re already interested in hedgehogs, there isn’t much new here. The exact details of how hedgehogs and badgers interact were new to me, but that was about it. However, if you don’t know much about hedgehogs, other than finding them cute, then this could very well be a fun and easy way to learn more, and learn about how to make a difference to them.

To sum it up very quickly: cut holes in your fences so hedgehogs can pass through, use strimmers with caution, don’t use autonomous lawnmowers, rewild your garden, put out some supplementary food for them and a bowl of water, and try to convince other people to do the same (while writing to your MP etc etc about making changes in law). And don’t drive a car, especially not as it starts to get dark and through the night, when hedgehogs roam.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Eye of Osiris

Posted March 31, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Eye of Osiris

The Eye of Osiris

by R. Austin Freeman

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 286
Series: Dr Thorndyke #3
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

John Bellingham is a world-renowned archaeologist who goes missing mysteriously after returning from a voyage to Egypt where fabulous treasures have been uncovered. Bellingham seems to have disappeared leaving clues, which lead all those hunting down blind alleys. But when the piercing perception of the brilliant Dr Thorndyke is brought to bear on the mystery, the search begins for a man tattooed with the Eye of Osiris in this strange, tantalisingly enigmatic tale.

I haven’t read anything by R. Austin Freeman before (unless there’s a short story or two amongst the British Library Crime Classic collections), but The Eye of Osiris turned out to be an unexpected pleasure. Sometimes with classic crime fiction, it’s just kind of cosy and predictable, and that’s very enjoyable but not surprising. In many ways this was a typical mystery of the period, but The Eye of Osiris did make me think: I felt like this was a fair-play mystery, and that I had the clues I needed to figure out the end result. I got there before the main character (who is very much in the John Watson vein, including by being a doctor), but there were some aspects I wasn’t sure of.

And of course, there’s the fact that it’s related to Egyptian archaeology. It’s set in London, but the missing man whose absence is the object of investigation is an archaeologist, and his brother (Godfrey Bellingham) and niece (Ruth) are also fascinated by the subject. Ruth quickly becomes close to our protagonist, as he manufactures an excuse to help her with her work (a commission to write notes on Egyptian history to help someone who doesn’t have the time to research), and becomes fascinated with the case of her missing uncle, drawing in an old teacher of his (Thorndyke) to help.

The romance isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but I did enjoy the interplay of the characters, and that Ruth is a fully realised woman who is fascinated with her own work, and that our otherwise rather nondescript main character is in turn fascinated with her work and eager to help her. In part that’s to get close to her, of course, but he’s clearly attracted not just by her prettiness, but by her eagerness for knowledge.

In the end it’s not groundbreaking, but it was enjoyable, and I’m planning to read more of R. Austin Freeman’s mysteries, especially as some are available on Project Gutenberg.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Big Ben Strikes Eleven

Posted March 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Big Ben Strikes Eleven

Big Ben Strikes Eleven

by David Magarshack

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 333
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface’s body on the floor of his blue limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June.

The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, had been shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health alongside London’s Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the now- missing romantic artist Matt Caldwell. As it hurtles towards its feverish denouement under the bells of the capital’s most famous clock, this closely observed and stylish study of both character and motive transports the reader from the Stock Exchange to Scotland Yard. It asks the question of what it means to be crooked and how immense power corrupts.

I found David Magarshack’s Big Ben Strikes Eleven a bit disappointing vs the way it was described (as being for grownups, and apparently earning Dorothy L. Sayers’ praise). It sounded like it was maybe going to be a bit more literary, but it felt fairly by-the-numbers police procedural ish, with each clue and hint dragged out of the supporting cast.

It felt like the basic facts got recapitulated — along with needless baroque levels of speculation — every chapter or so, without getting much further forward, while there was a strangely laissez-faire attitude to getting the various witnesses to explain themselves. He won’t explain where he was? Oh well. She won’t give information because she says it’s a privacy thing? Fine, that’s fine. What?!

There are some interesting bits, like unpicking a certain alibi, though there’s a certain reliance on coincidence and a whole bizarre interlude with a love story that feels self-destructive and not at all appealing. Sure, one of the suspects is involved, but it added relatively little (just a slight potential explanation of a clue we already had), and just felt weird.

So… not what I hoped for, alas.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Posted March 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

by Heather Fawcett

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
Pages: 315
Series: Emily Wilde #1
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party—or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones — the most elusive of all faeries — lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all — her own heart.

In getting me to give Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Heather Fawcett) a shot, the key was the comparison to Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons. And it’s true: Emily Wilde definitely has a kinship with Isabella Trent, and I think they’d respect each other, and there is a similar sort of shape to the stories in some ways.

I was also promised something “whimsical” and “cosy” by the cover copy, and I have to say that I really wouldn’t call it those things. It takes faeries seriously, and that means taking seriously the cruelty of the Fae in many, many stories. It means missing children, sacrifice, compulsion, and blood. Emily’s research gets her swept up in a bigger story, and her main tool is her encyclopaedic knowledge of fairytales, her ability to know how the narratives work, and what to expect.

There is also a romance element, and that one is playful and full of banter. I didn’t really enjoy that aspect at first, wondering how it’d work out, but by the end I’d bought into it, because it doesn’t require Emily to be anything but herself — that is, prickly and awkward, and never quite sure how to handle other people.

Emily herself is a fun character. Though I said she’s like Marie Brennan’s Isabella (and certainly you could talk about the “deranged practicality” of both of them), and I can see both of them falling into exactly the same traps, she’s not a carbon copy, nor as reckless, and her relationship with Bambleby is quite different to Isabella’s relationships with those around her. There’s also less emphasis on geopolitical circumstances — they’re both scholars, but they don’t move through the world in quite the same way. At least not so far!

I’m keen to pick up the next book and see where it goes. I wonder if there’ll be any recurring characters? It would seem unlikely for most of them to turn up anywhere but their own home, but Emily certainly got swept up in a big story, and you never know what those will do.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Even Though I Knew The End

Posted March 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Even Though I Knew The End

Even Though I Knew The End

by C.L. Polk

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery
Pages: 136
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.

An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother's life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can't resist—the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.

To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago's most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This is a rather late review of a book I adored, because it seems I never ported over the review!

I pick up Tor.com’s novellas pretty much automatically these days, because 9.9 times out of 10, I’m in for a good (or at least an interesting) time. Even Though I Knew The End is no exception, featuring a sapphic love story, demons, deals at the crossroads, and a little detective fiction. I say a little, because although the character is a detective, that’s mostly just the framework that the rest hangs on. We don’t see a lot of serious detecting.

For those who loved Supernatural when it was on air (with all its flaws), and resonated with the sacrifices Dean made for Sam, this one’s definitely up your street. Our protagonist sold her soul for her brother’s life long ago, and her time’s almost up. In her last days, she investigates a bloody killing, tracking down the people who were possessed in order to do the murder, and discovering some secrets about her own partner into the bargain.

Because it’s a novella, everything has to get sketched in quickly, from the worldbuilding to the characters’ backstories to the love between Helen and Edith, and it works really well. I can be picky about how well novellas handle their scope, but Polk gets it right here.

My only problem is that the ending definitely left me sad. I’d been thinking at first that I might get a copy for my sister, but I try my best not to give her any tragic lesbians — the world has done enough of that already. So do be aware that this ends with a certain degree of queer tragedy; I won’t say more than that, for spoilers’ sake.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Impact of Evidence

Posted February 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Impact of Evidence

Impact of Evidence

by E.C.R. Lorac, Carol Carnac

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 221
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Near St Brynneys in the Welsh border country, isolated by heavy snow and flooding from the thaw, a calamity has occurred. Old Dr Robinson, a known 'menace o the roads', has met his end in a collision with a jeep at a hazardous junction. But when police arrive at the scene, a burning question hints at something murkier than mere accident: why was there a second body - a man not recognised any locals - in the back of Robinson's car?

As the local inspectors dive into the muddy waters of this strange crime, Chief Inspector Julian Rivers and Inspector Lancing are summoned from Scotland Yard to the windswept wilds, where danger and deceit lie in wait.

Puzzling and atmospheric, this exceedingly rare mystery from one of the masters of crime fiction's Golden Age returns to print for the first time since its publication in 1954.

It’s always exciting when the British Library Crime Classics series bring out another of E.C.R. Lorac’s books, especially the rare and out of print ones. I’m slightly less fond of Lorac’s work under the Carol Carnac pseudonym, perhaps because I’m not as fond of the detective — though Lorac’s McDonald doesn’t show us a lot of his personal life, he does show a constant decency and patience, and that impression has been cumulative through the books in which he’s featured. Lancing and Rivers don’t really compare (and don’t really stand out to me, either, though nor did McDonald at first).

In any case, Impact of Evidence is the latest, a book which is out of print and almost unattainable until now. The setup is intriguing: details are drawn from Lorac’s own experience of Lunesdale, but transplanted to the Welsh borders, and she depicts farm life with her usual care for what’s needed and how those communities worked. As usual, she’s idealised the working farmer a little here, with her usual “salt of the earth” rock-solid decent characters — but having read more of her work, one’s always aware of the tension there, and when those people might do wrong.

I admit I was onto what happened fairly early on just because of certain details that were drawn to the reader’s attention multiple times, but it was still interesting to see how it worked out, and how some things were subverted (like the Derings matter-of-fact behaviour about the accusations of them).

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Someone from the Past

Posted February 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Someone from the Past

Someone from the Past

by Margot Bennett

Genres: Crime, Mystery
Pages: 256
Series: British Library Crime Classics
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

Sarah has been receiving threatening anonymous letters, seemingly from a former lover. Just one day after revealing this information to her co-worker Nancy, Sarah is found shot in her bedroom by one of her past flames, Donald. Hearing the news and desperate to clear any evidence of Donald’s presence at the scene due to her own infatuations, Nancy finds herself as the key suspect when she is discovered in the apartment.

As the real killer uses the situation to their advantage, Bennett crafts a tense and nuanced story through flashbacks to Sarah’s life and loves in this Gold-Dagger-award-winning, Hitchcockian story of deceit and murder.

It’s rare that I give a British Library Crime Classic a really low rating, but Margot Bennett is one of those writers I don’t really get on with… and Someone from the Past got on my last nerve. The introduction is all about what a fine book it was thought and how amazing it is, but I found it really tiresome.

The main reason was that the main character does some completely daft stuff, lies badly, tries to be witty and fails, and then tries to run away to Ireland like the police don’t know all the tricks and all the ways you might try to skip the country. She has these long dialogues with people that Martin Edwards (the editor of the British Library Crime Classics series) thinks are great, and which to me just end up being set pieces for the sake of showing off how oh-so-wittily Bennett thinks she writes dialogue.

One or two scenes like that might be okay, but I just don’t believe this character has a braincell in her head, and I’m not interested in her sparring with people. And then the book goes and ends with a get together where the man in question literally spends the whole book manipulating her “for her own good”, and sometimes being physically threatening to the point of terror for her. And I’m supposed to believe that’s a happy end?

Maybe not: maybe the point is to look at Nancy getting back on the merry-go-round of stupid and think “oh boy”. But it felt more like an attempt to tidy up loose ends, to let the reader feel like things are going to be okay now — and either way, I just didn’t enjoy it.

Rating: 1/5

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