#BookReview: Rebellious Grace by Jeri Westerson

#BookReview: Rebellious Grace by Jeri WestersonRebellious Grace (A King's Fool mystery, 3) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: King's Fool #3
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on January 7, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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Henry VIII's court jester Will Somers turns reluctant inquisitor once again when a grotesque murder within the palace walls is linked to the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion in this gripping Tudor mystery.

1536, London. The gruesome murder of a servant in the king's palace, his throat savagely cut, has brought fear to the court of Henry VIII. When the man's body is then dug up from the churchyard and disembowelled two weeks later, Will Somers, the king's jester, is horrified. What terrible mischief is now afoot under the king's roof?
With Henry VIII distracted by The Pilgrimage of Grace, the religious revolt led by Robert Aske in protest at the king turning his back on the Catholic faith, Will becomes reluctant inquisitor once again. As he attempts to unmask a murderous knave, Will uncovers a chilling link between one of Queen Jane Seymour's precious jewels, the rebellion and the dead man. Is a shocking act of treachery behind a grotesque killing?
Perfect for fans of stunning Tudor mysteries and historical dramas featuring witty and tenacious sleuths, and bursting with betrayal, politics and passion from the likes of Paul Doherty Michael Jecks,, C.J. Sansom and Philippa Gregory.

My Review:

Will Somers, the King’s Fool of this series, finds himself hoist on his own petard in this particular case. After his success at investigating murders on his own in the two previous books in this series, Courting Dragons and The Twilight Queen, this time around his king has ordered him to look into the death of one of Will’s fellow royal servants.

Not as a result of the original murder, but because some ghoulish or desperate person disinterred the corpse of the late Geoffrey Payne in order to disembowel the man two weeks after his burial. Someone seriously had it out for the victim, and King Henry VIII has tasked his fool, Will Somers, with discovering who would do such a terrible thing – and especially why.

Finding out who might have wanted the man dead is one thing, figuring out who hated him so much that they desecrated his corpse is something else altogether.

Evidence from the murder has long been washed away, but Will knows THAT is where he must begin, with a trail long grown as cold as the winter winds whipping through the palace. But Will, as the king’s own, personal, fool, has permission to poke his nose in anywhere and everywhere at court. With his king’s commission, he has the warrant to ask all the questions he wants, as well.

Even as every single noble he even attempts to talk with makes him all too aware that they will remember this slight and take it out on him whenever the first opportunity arises. Because even if they’re guilty they know they can’t be punished – but sooner or later, Will Somers most certainly can.

But Will can’t resist the puzzle – no matter how much he wishes that he could. The more he digs into the problem, the more it seems like that problem is much bigger than the ‘mere’ death of one of the queen’s own royal servants – not that Will Somers, a royal servant himself, would ever see it so.

That his best witness is unreliable by their very nature only adds to the conundrum, as each clue he teases out takes his investigation one more rung up the ladder of people that Will knows he cannot touch – even if they are guilty.

Especially if they have involved a member of the court so high that they cannot even be questioned, let alone touched, at all.

Escape Rating B+: Historical mysteries like this one, and the King’s Fool series of which it is the third entry, have to walk a tightrope over the historical era they portray. That’s especially true in this case, as Will Somers, the ‘King’s Fool’ of the title, was a real person in the court of Henry VIII, and his position and duties are known to history – if not the details of his days and nights.

At the same time, as an integral part of the court, Will was, by definition of his duties, in a position to literally see all and know all about the doings of the high and mighty among whom he served.

Which is very much where that tightrope comes in. His job, not as a ‘court jester’ but as the king’s own fool, required him to be in the rooms where Henry VIII’s reign happened – while at the same time being ignored as beneath the notice of the courtiers in that room with him.

The conceit of this series has put Somers in the sort of position that modern detectives would envy. He is intimately aware of all the ‘goings on’ in court, and he has been part of the court more than enough years to know how things work, where the nobility stash the skeletons in their personal closets and where the metaphorical and occasionally physical bodies are buried.

At the same time, he’s an outsider. He’s not himself a noble and he never will be. He’s a servant and all too frequently reminded of that fact. He’s beneath notice – and yet, he has the ear of the king. He can go everywhere and see everything and continue to slither out of trouble as long as he doesn’t go too far for the king to allow him to keep both his position and his head.

The story gets told, and the mystery gets solved, through Will Somers’ intimate perspective on the court and the people in it. It very much feels as if the mystery is second to the detailed and loving portrait of the court and its denizens. Not that Will doesn’t manage to solve the mystery while getting into as much danger as any contemporary detective, but that both the solution and the danger are tightly wrapped in the historical period.

I enjoy this series a LOT because this is a period that has always fascinated me. The history that it dives into so deeply is recognizable and familiar and the ‘you are there’ feeling is one that I’m eager to be a part of. I hope it works just as well for readers who are experiencing this era for the first time.

The series continues to move through the reign of Henry VIII based on that old doggerel about his wives, “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.” The next book in the series, tentatively titled Beloved Sister but recently changed to Devil’s Gambit, will be set during Henry VIII’s brief marriage to Anne of Cleves, which she survived in style.

In the meantime, I’m also looking very much forward to Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race coming in June, the start of an epic fantasy series that also takes its inspiration from the court of Henry VIII and his wives.

I am eagerly anticipating both of these upcoming books!

A- #BookReview: A Snake in the Barley by Candace Robb

A- #BookReview: A Snake in the Barley by Candace RobbA Snake in the Barley (An Owen Archer mystery Book 15) by Candace Robb
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: Owen Archer #15
Pages: 325
Published by Severn House on December 3, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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Where is taverner Tom Merchet? Owen Archer unearths a series of troubling secrets and a dangerous foe intent on retribution when his good friend goes missing.

"A standout . . . Robb reinforces her place among the top writers of medieval historicals" - Publishers Weekly Starred Review

York, 1377. Owen Archer is determined to find his friend, taverner Tom Merchet, who has been missing for five days. His wife, Bess, is frantic with worry.

AN ENIGMATIC STRANGER.

Who is the elusive Widow Cobb that Tom was seen visiting? And who is the man spotted following Tom before he vanished? As Owen hunts for clues, Bess decides to visit the widow’s lodgings and makes a terrifying discovery.

RETRIBUTION IS BREWING . . .

Owen digs up past sins and long-buried secrets that answer some of the questions surrounding Tom’s disappearance. But who is the sly and malevolent figure intent on destroying his friend, and why? A shocking confession will rock Owen to his core . . .

An action-packed, evocative and masterfully plotted medieval mystery in the critically acclaimed Owen Archer series, perfect for fans of C.J. Sansom, Ellis Peters and Paul Doherty.

My Review:

The previous entry in this marvelous long-running series, A Fox in the Fold, was all wrapped up in Owen Archer’s past. This current entry dives deeply into the past of Owen and Lucie Archer’s friend and neighbor, tavernkeeper Tom Merchet.

At the heart of this particular mystery is something that almost seems foreign to us in this era of instant communication and always available – if not always true – information. The past is another country, as the saying goes, and they do things differently there. One of the things that is very different is just how easy it could be to reinvent yourself – for good or ill – by moving a distance that doesn’t seem all that far to us, but represented a significant investment in time, money and danger in Owen Archer’s – and Tom Merchet’s – late 14th century.

Owen Archer, his wife Lucie, and his neighbors and good friends Tom and Bess Merchet, are all middle-aged by this point in the series (1377) which began in 1363 in The Apothecary Rose. Owen wears his past on his face in the form of an eyepatch that covers the wound that saw him mustered out of the King’s Archers and into a life as the King’s wandering investigator.

But Tom Merchet’s past has remained firmly down the road both literally and figuratively, in places and people he left behind and buried before Owen came to York to investigate whether – or not as the case turned out to be – Lucie murdered her late husband.

Everyone in York knows that Tom lost his first wife and child, and very nearly the York Tavern along with them. And that Bess saved him and the tavern both with her skills as a cook and manager, and that they grew together into a happy and loving marriage.

But their peace has been disturbed by a series of unfortunate and downright strange events. Someone is digging holes around their property. Tom has been skulking about town at odd hours, visiting strangers suspected of theft – and worse. Bess is sure it’s all tied to a past that Tom has always refused to talk about – and that whatever happened then has come back to haunt him now – and that it’s taken him away from her. Possibly for good. Meaning for something very, very ill indeed.

And she’s right about that. But wrong about pretty much every single thought and speculation that has led her – and her now missing husband – to this terrible pass. Because of a past that has refused to let him go.

Escape Rating A-: I adore this series, and have since I read the very first book, The Apothecary Rose, as I myself was walking the streets of York on a trip just over OMG 30 years ago. Time does fly and some of it has been fun. The reading parts, certainly.

Reflecting back on the series, how much time it has covered both in the ‘real world’ and in Owen and Lucie’s historical York – even if it hasn’t been nearly as much time for them as it has been for us – I can’t help but think over how much has happened in both sets of those years. While at the same time marveling at just how little prior knowledge of the series a reader needs to have or remember to get into this 15th entry in it. (Meaning that you could start here but it’s all just so good you really should start at the beginning!)

It’s all down to the fact that, throughout the series, Tom Merchet has revealed little of his past. That he has one, yes. What it consisted of, what sins he’s committed, he hasn’t discussed. At all. Even with his wife.

So when Tom goes missing Owen doesn’t have any clues about where to start because Tom didn’t leave any. Owen is just as lost as we are – or the other way around! – investigating events that happened nearly two decades ago if not more, committed to and perhaps committed by a man he knows NOW but who may not much resemble the person he was THEN.

As Owen investigates, he hears conflicting reports of Tom in both the past and the present. He knows that the behavior that resulted in Tom’s near death beating in the now doesn’t make much sense even in the abstract and certainly bears no resemblance to his friend. Which doesn’t mean that the long-ago events which left behind so much enmity in Tom’s former home couldn’t have been committed by a much younger – and likely more hot-headed – version of that same man.

The heart of Owen’s investigation, the mystery he has to solve, lies in the past. A past that Tom has kept from his wife, a past that he’s ashamed of. But someone wants him dead in the present very, very badly. Someone who has left a trail of corpses behind them and then attempted to frame Tom for their deeds. Someone who obviously left Tom for dead in the hopes that the frame would fit his corpse better than it does a living man who has tales to tell.

Unless Tom has been hiding a villainous nature all along. Or a nature that was once villainous enough that he can be blackmailed now to keep it quiet. Leaving Owen to navigate his way through the rather pointy horns of multiple dilemmas, all of which must be resolved in order to bring the true villain – or villains – to justice.

And, as always in this series, it’s a delight to watch him work – especially this time around as he doesn’t begin with a clue and we get a refresher on everyone and everything all over again. Even the parts that seem familiar have to be re-examined with fresh eyes and it’s a great reminder of the bones of all the stories that have come before in the series while giving new readers a place to jump in.

The major plot of this particular story and its biggest mystery, is primarily domestic in nature this time around. But that does not mean that the roiling boil of royal politics does not touch upon York, particularly upon Owen in his semi-official position as the Princess of Wales’ agent in the North. The old king is on his deathbed, his Prince of Wales is several years in his grave, and the heir apparent is a child that all his uncles are already squabbling over – as well as over the throne on which the young Richard II-to-be will sit. If he lives that long.

The English royal family feud better known as the Wars of the Roses is about to boil over, and even in far north York, Owen Archer is likely to be in the thick of it. Hopefully in the next book or two – or maybe several! – books in the series. As one of the things I love best in this series is the author’s deft mix of Owen’s domestic business in York with the doings of the great and the mighty in London, I’m looking forward to finding out what happens on both fronts whenever the next book appears.

May it be soon!

#BookReview: Buried Memories by Simon R. Green

#BookReview: Buried Memories by Simon R. GreenBuried Memories (Ishmael Jones, #10) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: horror, mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Ishmael Jones #10
Pages: 219
Published by Severn House on October 25, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads


Returning to the small town where he crash-landed in 1963, Ishmael Jones is in search of answers. But his investigation is de-railed by a brutal murder.

"I think something very bad and very dangerous has come to your little town, Inspector . . ."
As long-buried memories from his hidden past begin to resurface, Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny feel compelled to return to the small country town where Ishmael crash-landed in 1963; the place where his memories began.
Norton Hedley is no ordinary town. Apparitions, sudden disappearances, sightings of unusual beasts: for centuries, the place has been plagued by a series of inexplicable events. Ishmael's first task is to track down local author Vincent Smith, the one man he believes may have some answers.
Ishmael and Penny aren't the only ones seeking the mysterious Mr Smith. When their search unearths a newly-dead body in the local mortuary - a body that's definitely not supposed to be there - Ishmael becomes the prime suspect in the ensuing murder investigation. His only hope of discovering the truth about his origins lies in exposing a ruthless killer.

My Review:

Ishmael Jones is as he has always been. The problem is that he’s been the same, absolutely unaging, for 60 years now. And he doesn’t remember who – or more likely what – he was before that. Before 1963, when his alien space ship was blown out of the sky over Earth and crashed in a field near the tiny village of Norton Hedley.

Which doesn’t seem to have changed much either in the intervening 60 years.

A situation that is quite a bit more worrying than Ishmael’s own unchanging face, because he at least knows why THAT’s happening. Or not, as the case may be.

But Norton Hedley, a place where people come and go and live in hope for a good tourist season every year, seems to be a haven for the uncanny. After all, that’s what has brought Ishmael and his partner Penny to the village.

Because Ishmael and his unchanging appearance began – at least as far as his memory goes – with the crash landing of his alien spacecraft in the woods surrounding Norton Hedley in 1963. He’s returned because his previous two cases, Night Train to Murder and The House on Widows Hill, have provided him with some scattered but ominous clues about who and what he used to be.

And he needs to know. Because he needs to know if he’s a danger to Penny. Or anyone else on Earth who doesn’t deserve it.

In his research about Norton Hedley, or the research the coyly named black ops group, the Organisation, has done on his behalf, he – and they – have learned that Norton Hedley has been weird central for years. Not just the years since his ship crashed in 1963, but for centuries. Millenia even.

Something in, on, or more likely under – like the thing that was under The House on Widows Hill – has been creeping its creepy way along into the lifeblood of the town for eons uncounting. It might have the answers he’s been searching for for decades.

And it might not want to let him know.

Escape Rating B: This series has been one of my Halloween reads since I first discovered it, so it seemed appropriate to finish it up this Halloween. As I’ve already read the final book in the series (so far), I’ll have to pick something else horror-adjacent next year.

The author is an acquired taste – one that I acquired decades ago. It’s the snark. It’s always been the snark no matter what the ostensible genre or subject of ANY of his many series might be. If you like his voice, then when you’re in that mood nothing else will do. But if you’re not, you bounce off, and bounce hard. Your reading mileage may vary.

The concept of this particular series throws a whole bunch of speculative fiction tropes into one hell of a blender. The series began, back in The Dark Side of the Road, as English country house mysteries where the supernatural agencies turn out to be merely human – but with a touch of the paranormal or extraterrestrial for spice and added bodies.

Over the course of the series it has turned into Ishmael’s quest to learn enough about who or what he used to be to figure out just how he can continue to stay one step ahead of all the various secret agencies that would like to use him up in one way or another. Even more important, he’s thoroughly invested in keeping Penny safe – if necessary from himself.

At first, what made this series work as well as it does – at least for this reader – was the revelation in each case that no matter how weird things got – often very – that the enemies were always human after all.

What has kept me going this far have been the questions about Ishmael’s past and Penny’s future. While Ishmael has been unchanging for 60 years, the series has been set in a sort of ‘perpetual now’. Days and weeks pass but seemingly not years. This entry in the series is one of the first that confronts head on the problem of Ishmael and Penny’s relationship.

Not that they have problems, but that together they have a problem. Penny is an ordinary human, she will age, and Ishmael will not. Short of a deus ex machina – and not that there haven’t been plenty of powerful machina around over the course of the series – this can’t end happily. Howsomever, I already know that it does not end in the next book, Haunted by the Past. And in spite of the ominousness of that title, it doesn’t dive nearly as deeply into Ishmael’s past as Night Train to Murder, The House on Widows Hill and Buried Memories have done.

So, I have begun to wonder if the author is planning to end this series at all. I wonder even more whether or not he should. I’d rather just think of Ishmael and Penny in that perpetual now, continuing on their quest to find evil humans at the heart of supernatural hoaxes, raging together against the dying of their light.

#BookReview: Saving Susy Sweetchild by Barbara Hambly

#BookReview: Saving Susy Sweetchild by Barbara HamblySaving Susy Sweetchild (Silver Screen Historical Mystery #3) by Barbara Hambly
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Silver Screen Historical Mystery #3
Pages: 293
Published by Severn House on September 3, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Welcome to Hollywood of the 1920 a world filled with glamour, fake names . . . and the occasional felony!

July, 1924. After nine months of living in Hollywood and working as a companion to her beautiful silent-movie star sister-in-law, young British widow Emma Blackstone is settling into her new doctoring film scenarios whenever the regular scenarist is overwhelmed with work, which seems to be most of the time.

Shoots for the Western movie Our Tiny Miracle are in full swing, with little seven-year-old Susy Sweetchild playing the lead and acting most professionally. Maybe too professionally, Emma thinks, shocked to the core when the child star is nearly killed in a stunt scene and her mother - former screen siren Selina Sutton - seems only to care that Susy gets the job done.

But Emma's concerns only worsen when news reaches her that Susy and her mother have been kidnapped. The ransom note says to keep the cops out of it, so it's up to Emma and Kitty to find them before the unthinkable happens and Emma is forced to rewrite Our Tiny Miracle with a far more tragic ending . . .

New York Times bestselling author Barbara Hambly once again brings the glamour and intrigue of Hollywood to life! An unputdownable mystery for fans of female-fronted historical mysteries set in the roaring twenties.

My Review:

Emma Blackstone, after nearly a year in Hollywood as her sister-in-law’s friend, confidant, dog handler and general factotum, as well as serving as a script doctor for Foremost Studios for almost as long, has learned the way that things work in Hollywood – no matter how often she wishes she didn’t.

Because she sees entirely too much, and is all too aware that she can’t fix ANY of it. Although she certainly does what she can, as shown in the first two books in the Silver Screen Historical Mysteries, Scandal in Babylon and One Extra Corpse.

But Susy Sweetchild’s situation still pierces her straight to the heart. Because the child is clearly – and justifiably – frightened to death. And is just as clearly aware that no one can help her or save her no matter how much they want to.

It’s 1924, and Hollywood is still the ‘Wild West’ when it comes to rules and regulations. Prohibition is in full swing, but bootlegged booze is openly everywhere. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, won’t exist for another 45 years and child actors like Susy have no rights whatsoever – not even to the money they make.

Especially not to the money they make.

Susy is only seven years old, she’s one of Foremost Pictures biggest moneymakers, and she’s supporting her stage mother, her alcoholic father, her mother’s business manager and her mother’s succession of lovers and THEIR failed businesses as well as her father’s drinking habit. And quite possibly the partridge in the pear tree.

The only person on Susy’s side is her cat Mr. Gray, and poor Mr. Gray is even more of a hostage than she is. If Susy ‘misbehaves’ in any way, Mr. Gray is done for. And Susy is all too aware of the threat.

Possibly so is Mr. Gray. The cat seems both smart and sober, which is more than can be said for a lot of the humans in this story.

Emma would like to rescue Susy, but she has entirely too many hostages to fortune of her own to step that far out of line. She also knows it won’t do any good, as the powers that be in Los Angeles are all too aware of the side on which their bread is buttered, and that the studios are the ones doing the buttering.

But the status quo of Susy’s dreadful situation and anyone’s ability to help her out of it goes from bad to worse when the child star and her mother are kidnapped, along with Mr. Gray – a ginormous clue that should have occurred to more people an awful lot sooner.

Someone is extorting $100,000 from the studio for Susy’s safe return. (That’s something like $18,000,000 in today’s dollars!) There are multiple ransom notes being delivered, quite possibly from multiple sources. The police are not involved in the case, but the gossip columnists and the bootleggers are.

Considering how frequently the adults – including Emma and her Scooby Gang – are misdirected, as reluctant as the studio is to pay all that money to rescue a child star who is rapidly growing out of her cute and winsome phase, it looks like the princess is going to have to rescue herself in this one.

Escape Rating B: There are two stories going on in Saving Susy Sweetchild, and I have to admit that one interested me considerably more than the other.

The first is, of course, the mystery of who kidnapped Susy Sweetchild and whether the poor child can be found before it’s too late. The investigation of Susy’s abduction and ransom is the stuff of which Keystone Cops movies were made. No one covers themselves in glory in this part of the story – either because they are in on it, they intend to exploit its outcome, because they’ve been paid to look the other way or merely because they are simply incompetent but photogenic at the job they’re supposed to do.

Emma at least has a damn good excuse for not catching on right away – she’s not a professional detective, either police or private. It isn’t her job – she just cares about the kid and wants to help her.

But underneath – although often in plain sight – is the glimpse under the glitter and tinsel of Hollywood in the mid-1920s, before the Hays Code crackdown on ‘immorality’, before the talkies, and before the Great Depression.

We still read horrific stories about the treatment of child actors in Hollywood, and a lot of those stories are terrible to children and other living creatures. Susy will probably remind a lot of people of Shirley Temple, but by Temple’s time 15 years later, the situation had actually gotten a bit better. For select versions of ‘better’. Maybe less awful.

One of Susy Sweetchild’s contemporaries would have been another child actor named Jackie Coogan – who might be more familiar to readers as Uncle Fester in the 1960s Addams Family TV series. His relevance to Susy Sweetchild is that It was his lawsuit against his own mother in 1938, after he turned 21 and discovered that his mother had squandered his entire fortune, that finally put laws in place about the treatment of child actors AND the provision to put a portion of their income in trust for their adulthood.

All of the above tells readers that as much as I was following Susy’s fictional case, it was the factual underpinnings that truly had my attention for much of the story. The split in my attention wasn’t great for my absorption in Susy’s actual story, but the research dive was a lot of fun.

Howsomever, I did love the ending of Susy’s story. She was pretty much the only person who deserved a happy ending, and I was very relieved to see that she – and Mr. Gray – got exactly what they deserved – as did a whole lot of others who deserved something considerably less…happy.

#BookReview: Where is Anybody? by Simon R. Green

#BookReview: Where is Anybody? by Simon R. GreenWhere is Anybody? (Gideon Sable, #5) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Gideon Sable #5
Pages: 192
Published by Severn House on August 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Legendary master thief and conman Gideon Sable must pull off an impossible heist to save his partner's life in this fast-paced supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling British fantasy author Simon R. Green

Gideon Sable specializes in stealing the kind of things that can't usually be stolen. But these days the legendary master thief is officially retired from the caper game. Now, instead of pulling off elaborate heists with his crew of supernatural specialists, he runs a magical shop in the heart of London with his partner Annie Anybody. Still, he can't resist occasionally going out in the night to steal things when Annie's not looking. For old times' sake - and for the joy of the con.

But after one of his late-night illicit jaunts, Gideon returns to the shop to find that while he's been stealing, someone else has been hard at work . . . stealing from him. I have taken Annie Anybody, reads the note on the countertop. If you ever want to see her again, you must find and steal Time's Arrow. You have forty-eight hours.

Stealing the legendary Arrow isn't a challenge; it's certain death. But Gideon will stop at nothing to save Annie from their unknown enemy - with or without the help of his talented, terrifying former crew . . .

My Review:

Gideon Sable is a lot of things – thief, rogue, collector, jack of all slightly nefarious trades and a master of several of them – more than he admits but then he likes to be underestimated. It’s all part of the game, after all.

But he’s been trying to go straight – or as straight as anyone can who operates in Old Soho – after the events of Not of This World. But it’s not working for him. He misses the thrill of the hunt – and the curiosities and oddities store he inherited always needs more stock.

He may have sorta/kinda convinced himself that’s that’s enough to justify all of his occasional illegal forays into other people’s collections  – particularly as he only steals from people – and creatures – who really, really deserve it. But his partner, Annie Anybody, can always see right through him.

She always wears someone else’s face, so it’s easy for her to spot that her partner is wearing a mask of contentment that doesn’t quite fit. Gideon may always be ‘the man with a plan’ but this time Annie has a plan of her very own – and it’s much, much better than Gideon’s.

All he has to do is get the old gang back together – or at least as together as some of them can ever be – and ride to Annie’s rescue. Because Annie’s been kidnapped by one of Gideon’s many, many old enemies – and he’ll do anything to get her back. No matter how many impossibly well-guarded collections he has to burgle to save the love of his life.

But no plan – not even Gideon’s – survives first contact, especially when that enemy already knows all of Gideon’s tricks. As Annie’s kidnapper most definitely and absolutely does.

Escape Rating B: If the TV series Leverage had a book baby with the author’s own Nightside series the result would be Gideon Sable. Gideon is a liar, a thief, and a con artist, much like Nate Ford in Leverage – who is also ‘a man with a plan’. But Gideon, even though he usually operates outside the law and against the powers that be, only operates against villains who are much worse than he has any intention of ever being – even if those he considers fair game often represent that law OR are themselves among the powers-that-be. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Gideon Sable is right there waiting for some of them to step over a line that sometimes only he can see.

But he’s not really Gideon Sable. Or rather he IS Sable now but he hasn’t always been. In Old Soho, the mask and moniker of Gideon Sable belongs to whoever can steal it and keep it. In the first book in the series, The Best Thing You Can Steal, he had just assumed that identity – whoever he used to be.

This story, which looks like the final book in the series, reads like a bit of a victory lap for the character – in spite of his desperation to save Annie and enact some serious justice on whoever took her from him.

Along the way, first he has to get the old gang back together – and every single one of them needs help before they are available to help him. Even old friends and enemies manage to pop onstage for a brief moment and fans of the series will enjoy seeing most of them again – even the ones that Gideon himself would prefer to drop into a pit lined with spikes or vipers or both.

One of the things that has made this series work for me is that Gideon is a stream-of-consciousness snarkmaster of the first order and we see everything from inside his wry, cynical, sarcastic head. If you like his voice, you’ll enjoy the series – and probably most of the author’s other series – because the style is the same throughout and his worlds tend to bleed into one another – often literally.

Just don’t attempt to start here. It would be like reading the last chapter of a book before the first – before anything that’s going on in the ending has enough backstory to make sense. But all the books in the series are just barely above novella length, so if you like a lot of sass and snark in your protagonists then Gideon Sable might be your jam.

It certainly has been mine, and I’m sad that this series seems to be ending. At least I still have a few of his Ishmael Jones series left to read for when I next need some high quality snarcasm!

A- #BookReview: The Mummy of Mayfair by Jeri Westerson

A- #BookReview: The Mummy of Mayfair by Jeri WestersonThe Mummy of Mayfair (An Irregular Detective Mystery #2) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery, mystery
Series: Irregular Detective #2
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on July 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Private investigators Timothy Badger and Benjamin Watson take on another unusual and baffling case in Victorian London when a mummy unwrapping party takes a chilling turn.London, 1895. Although their last high profile case was a huge success, private detectives Tim Badger and Benjamin Watson know they can't afford to turn down any work, despite financial assistance from their mentor, Sherlock Holmes.So when the eminent Doctor Enock Sawyer of St Bart's Hospital asks Badger if the duo will provide security for a mummy unwrapping party he is hosting, Badger doesn't hesitate to take the job. After all, how hard can guarding the doctor's bizarre Egyptian artefacts be? But with Doctor Sawyer running late for his own party, the 'genuine' ancient sarcophagus of Runihura Saa is unravelled to reveal the remains of . . . Doctor Sawyer! Suddenly, the pair are drawn into a new case that's stranger and twister than they could ever have imagined.

My Review:

The “irregularity” of the Irregular Detective series is in the person of one of its protagonists, Timothy Badger of the Badger and Watson Detecting Agency. Once upon a time, Badger was one of the “invisible” children who operated as Sherlock Holmes’ eyes and ears on the streets of Victorian London. In other words, Tim Badger was one of Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars.

But when Badger aged out – or grew up – out of the Irregulars, he still needed to make his living. Which is where his partner, jack-of-all-trades Benjamin Watson comes into the picture. Both from the “wrong side of the tracks” in the East End, without a shilling between them, they set up as private detectives in the mode of Badger’s former ‘Guv’, the Great Detective himself.

As seen in the first entry in this series, The Isolated Séance, after five years of struggle to keep body and soul together, Sherlock Holmes himself gave these ‘apprentices’ a bit of a leg up. Their perseverance was rewarded with rooms in Soho – several steps up the economic ladder from their previous lodgings and office – and a seemingly magical refilling box of money for expenses.

They’re doing well for themselves. It’s a lot of hard work and shoe leather – but their successes seem to outnumber their failures. They have as much work as they can handle – and even their own chronicler in the person of newspaper reporter Ellsie Littleton.

Which leads to this second sensational case, The Mummy of Mayfair. A moniker that seems ripped, not from the headlines, but from the titles of the penny dreadful fiction that Badger loves to read. Watson prefers the newspapers and scientific journals.

After all, someone in this partnership needs to keep their feet on the ground, especially with a case that has so much potential to ascend – or perhaps that’s descend – into flights of fantasy and mythology.

It begins with a mummy unwrapping party. An all too common event among the upper crust in the 1890s. It was the heyday of ‘Egyptomania’, with all of the implications of madness the word mania implies.

Badger and Watson were hired by Dr. Enoch Sawyer to provide security for his mummy unwrapping party. A party that takes an even more macabre turn when the mummy is finally unwrapped to reveal that it’s not the mummy of Runihura Saa. It’s the much more recent mummy of Dr. Enoch Sawyer – their client – who is clearly not going to be able to pay them for the job they are about to do on his behalf.

And the game is afoot!

Escape Rating A-: First, I loved this every bit as much as the first book in this series, The Isolated Séance. Second, I need to kick myself for not figuring out that the series title is a pun until now. I sorta/kinda thought the cases were “irregular” and they are that – from a séance in the first book to a mummy in the second. But it’s the DETECTIVES – or at least one of them – that are irregular. As in, the Baker Street Irregulars. 🤦🏻

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, what makes this case so much fun is the way that it blends the real with the fictional.

Mummy unwrapping parties were a very real thing in the 1890s – as shown in the painting below by artist Paul Dominique Philippoteaux circa 1890. The scene may seem macabre to 21st century readers, but such parties were all the rage in 1895, when The Mummy of Mayfair takes place.

Rage also being an important factor – at least in this particular case – as the ‘mania’ led people to strange rivalries and illegal behaviors – as humans are wont to do in the throes of a craze, fad, or mania. It still happens now, and humans haven’t changed all that much in just a bit over a century.

As much as the insanity of this particular mania turns out to be the impetus for the actions of the characters, what is making the series work are the characters and the way they manage to fit into – and take off from – the canon of Sherlock Holmes and ITS well-known and loved protagonists.

The best detectives, whether amateur or professional, are outsiders. It’s nearly impossible for humans to set aside their preconceived notions and biases in regards to people they know. A fact which very nearly sends the entire case on a wild goose chase, as one of the possible suspects is one of Badger’s former colleagues in the Irregulars.

But the triumvirate necessary to fill all of the roles that in the original canon were filled by just two changes the structure of the investigation even as it challenges the reader to see Holmes’ Victorian age from a considerably less lofty perspective.

Timothy Badger grew up in the East End, living by his wits and the nimbleness of his fingers. His accent clearly marks him as being of a “lower class” to the toffs among whom he now finds himself – and he has to grow into his role without giving up who he essentially is.

Benjamin Watson is a black man in a white world. The first thing that anyone sees when they meet him is the color of his skin. He has the intelligence and the drive to have been anything within his reach, but his reach in the late Victorian era is circumscribed by his race.

Miss Ellsie Moira Littleton is a woman in a man’s world. Much like Charlotte Sloane in the Regency-set Wrexford and Sloane series, Ellsie has been forced by circumstances to be self-supporting, and is on the outside of the society to which she was born. As an intelligent, educated, woman who needs to make her own way, she is also an outsider but with an entirely different perspective on the society of which she was once a member.

From its sensational beginning, the case is a deeply puzzling mess. Badger and Watson’s preconceived notions about their clients and their former associates, as well as their lack of knowledge of the precise ways the rich spend their time and money and protect their positions frequently send them haring off in the wrong directions – and we follow them eagerly even as they frequently caution each other.

As I’ve said frequently within these pages, I’m a sucker for Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and that’s why I initially started this series. Now I’m hooked! I’m really looking forward to the next book in this series, The Misplaced Physician, where we’ll finally get to meet Sherlock Holmes’ Watson, as Badger and his Watson will be on the case of rescuing him! It’s a good thing that investigative reporter Ellsie Littleton will be on hand to record the adventure, as the original Watson may be too embarrassed – or too injured – to write it up himself.

We’ll certainly see, hopefully this time next year!

A- #BookReview: The House on Widows Hill by Simon R. Green

A- #BookReview: The House on Widows Hill by Simon R. GreenThe House on Widows Hill (Ishmael Jones #9) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: horror, mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Ishmael Jones #9
Pages: 192
Published by Severn House on July 2, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads


Ishmael Jones investigates a haunted house . . . but is haunted by his own past in the latest of this quirky paranormal mystery series.

"That house is a bad place. Bad things happen there . . ."
Set high on top of Widows Hill, Harrow House has remained empty for years. Now, on behalf of an anonymous prospective buyer, Ishmael and Penny are spending a night there in order to investigate the rumours of strange lights, mysterious voices, unexplained disappearances, and establish whether the house is really haunted.
What really happened at Harrow House all those years ago? Joined by a celebrity psychic, a professional ghost-hunter, a local historian and a newspaper reporter, it becomes clear that each member of 'Team Ghost' has their own pet theory as to the cause of the alleged haunting. But when one of the group suddenly drops dead with no obvious cause, Ishmael realizes that if he can find out how and why the victim died, he will have the key to solving the mystery.

My Review:

The House on Widows Hill is more of a twist on the typical English country house mystery than even Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny Belcourt usually have to contend with.

And that’s definitely saying something about the cases that the mysterious “Organization” usually assigns to this unconventional pair – even after the case in the previous book, Night Train to Murder, that has literally just dropped them off in Bath when this investigation begins.

Someone high up in that secretive, blacker-than-black-ops ‘Organization’ wants Ishmael and Penny to spend the night at that house on Widows Hill overlooking the city, a house with a reputation so dark that not only has no one lived there since the Victorian Era, but no one even goes near the place.

The place is so creepy that not even the local kids go there on dares, and haven’t for decades. Probably because of the overwhelming sense of impending doom and dread that comes over anyone and everyone who approaches the outer gates.

Someone in the ‘Organization’ is considering buying the place – or that’s what Ishmael and Penny are told, anyway. That night is a ‘one-night-only’ invitation to not just Ishmael and Penny as representatives of the potential buyer, but also to a whole team of “ghost botherers” (as Ishmael calls them) who have been begging – for years it seems – to get inside the old haunt. Along with one intrepid reporter who represents the family that owns the creepy pile – and really would like to get shed of the place once and for all.

The rumor is that the house is haunted – but there have never been any reports of actual ghost sightings. At least not until the first member of the little group of wannabe ghost hunters dies in the midst of what Ishmael is sure is a fraudulent séance. Then again, Ishmael believes that all séances are fraudulent so he’s not disappointed that this one is all a wheeze – although he is peeved that he let himself get caught up in the distraction.

He just wasn’t expecting this particular bit of shenanigans to be a way of covering up murder. But he should have been, even if he’s a bit off his usual game. Because while there may not be any ghosts in the house, there certainly is a real something. Something that’s speaking to Ishmael himself in ways that seem entirely too familiar – even if they are speaking of a past that he can no longer claim as his own.

Escape Rating A-: I normally save this series for around Halloween, but I’m in the midst of a reading quandary that I hoped this book would solve – or at least beat back for a couple of days. I’m in the middle of listening to Erik Larson’s No One Goes Alone, and it reminds me A LOT of the Ishmael Jones series – at least so far. The thing about the Larson ‘book’ is that it’s audio only – there’s no actual book. If there were I’d have finished the damn thing by now, because I’m desperate to find out not just whodunnit but also how and why it was done. ‘Thumbing’ to the end of an audio is just damnably awkward – but I’ve been sorely tempted all the same. (I’ll finish the damn thing this week one way or another! And in case you can’t tell, I’m really, REALLY frustrated by the lack of a text.)

Once the resemblance between the two became clear to me, I picked up The House on Widows Hill, which is the next book in my catchup on this series, in the hopes of getting a bit of resolution by proxy for the book I can’t quite carve out enough time to finish.

It even worked, sorta/kinda. Which is awesomely relieving in a peculiar, reading obsessive kind of way.

So this book was pretty much the right book at the right time, even if my reading did start out as a search for a catharsis by substitution.

The House on Widows Hill very much has the classic haunted house vibe going on – even though with Ishmael and Penny involved the reader begins the story aware that it just isn’t going to go to any of the places that haunted houses normally go. That Ishmael gets shaken out of some of his internal certainties and securities added a bit to the ongoing arc of the series while at the same time ramping up the tension of both this book and the books in the series yet to come.

As I’ve already read the final book in the series so far, Haunted by the Past, I have one more book left in my catchup of this series, and that’s Buried Memories. Which I’ll probably get around to THIS coming Halloween, unless the urge for some of this author’s trademark line in snark hits me sooner and isn’t satisfied by the next book in his Gideon Sable series, Where is Anybody?, scheduled for publication in August.

#BookReview: The Holy Terrors by Simon R. Green

#BookReview: The Holy Terrors by Simon R. GreenThe Holy Terrors (A Holy Terrors mystery) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: horror, mystery, paranormal
Series: Holy Terrors #1
Pages: 192
Published by Severn House on February 6, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Six people locked in a haunted hall . . . Cameras watching their every move . . . And then someone dies . . . This first in a spine-tingling new paranormal mystery series from New York Times bestselling British fantasy author Simon R. Green will make you doubt your judgement - and believe in ghosts!
Welcome to Spooky Time, the hit TV ghost-hunting show where the horror is scripted . . . and the ratings are declining rapidly. What better way to up the stakes - and boost the viewership - than by locking a select group of Z-list celebrities up for the night in The Most Haunted Hall in England (TM) and live-streaming the 'terrifying' results?
Soon Alistair, a newly appointed Bishop, actress Diana, medium Leslie, comedian Toby and celebrity chef Indira are trapped inside Stonehaven town hall, along with June, the host and producer of the show. The group tries to settle in and put on a good show, but then strange things start happening in their hall of horrors.
What is it about this place - and why is the TV crew outside not responding? Are they even on air?
Logical Alistair attempts to keep the group's fears at bay and rationalise the odd events, but there are things that just can't be explained within reason . . . Can he stop a cold-blooded would-be killer - even if it's come from beyond the grave?
This locked-room mystery with a paranormal twist is classic Simon R. Green, featuring his trademark humour and imagination, irresistible characters, and thoroughly entertaining plotting.

My Review:

Four strangers locked in a haunted building overnight with two TV “personalities”, their every action and emotion covered by hidden cameras, all in pursuit of a payday that’s not going to be nearly as generous as their agents led them to expect.

Sounds like the perfect setup for a “Reality TV” program. Or a joke. Or, in this particular case, a joke of a reality TV show that is desperate to recapture the market share it lost much longer ago than its presenter is willing to admit. Or allow.

Put another way, a has-been comedian, a wannabe almost-celebrity chef, an outspoken bishop and an actress whose career isn’t what it used to be, walk into a haunted town hall to film an episode of ‘Spooky Time!’ with its resident medium AND its indefatigable host.

There should be a punchline coming for that joke. And there certainly is for at least some of the participants. At least for the ones that survive the night.

Anyone who has any illusions left about the exact amount of ‘reality’ present in a so-called reality TV show needs to check those illusions before the first page – because they’ll all be spoiled although the plot of the book certainly is not.

From the moment the time-locks ominously click shut and the lights start to go out, it’s clear to the participants that something has gone even wronger than they expected after seeing the dilapidated state of the place they’re supposed to be spending the night. But in the gloomy, shadowed and downright spooky atmosphere, it’s all too easy to chalk up their fears to the idea that something supernatural might be stalking their number.

But as the Bishop says to the Actress, that doesn’t add up. It’s clear, at least to him, that they are being led astray by their own guilts and fears. And even though there is an entirely different sort of ‘leading astray’ that the Actress would prefer to do to the Bishop, she’s willing to trust him to see her through this long and particularly dark night.

Escape Rating B-: I ended up with a LOT of mixed feelings about this one, some of which may have to do with having no love or even liking for so-called reality TV. (Although, honestly, if the author has any love for that genre it’s a particularly twisted version of it.)

It’s clear from the outset that all of the so-called ‘supernatural’ events are planned and prepared, that the show is on its last legs and the guests were chosen for their gullibility, their expendability, or both. And because they were relatively cheap – just like the all-night rental of the supposed ‘Most Haunted Hall in England.’

Particularly as, in spite of all the horror implications of the blurb and the Goodreads genre assignment, the title of the series to follow has it right, The Holy Terrors is a mystery and not horror at all.

Which means that the reader’s enjoyment of and/or absorption in this story relies on either getting caught up in the mystery or being charmed by its characters – many of whom are not charming at all.

Although the Bishop and the Actress certainly are, and their increasing charm with each other does help carry readers along. Which is a good thing, because ‘whodunnit’ was obvious long before the big reveal – complete with a bit of good old-fashioned villain monologuing – at the end.

As the first book in a series that looks like it will follow the adventures of the Bishop and the Actress as they have more mysterious and possibly spooky adventures, there’s a fair amount of heavy lifting to be done that doesn’t feel like it’s completely done by the book’s end.

Because I’m not totally sure what the newly christened “Holy Terrors” will actually be doing in their future adventures – beyond that they’ll be doing them together. It’s not clear even at the end of this book and I’ve been guessing throughout.

Not that I won’t ‘tune back in’ to find out when the next book appears. I just hope it’s a bit more clear by then AND that it doesn’t sidle quite so close to the territory the author has already occupied by Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny Belcourt.

One final note to say thanks for the memories, the facepalm and the headslap – not necessarily in that order and definitely not as the Actress said to the Bishop – which is what all of the above are referencing.

This entire story – and quite possibly the series intended to follow – is part of a long-running British tradition of jokes and/or clichés (your mileage may vary on which they are) of double entendres that begin or end with “as the bishop said to the actress” or the other way around. Phrases that take on a sexual overtone, undertone, or alternate meaning by adding that phrase that either way is roughly equivalent to a joke ending, “that’s what she (or he) said”.

It niggled at me through the whole book as something familiar, but I was caught up just enough in the mystery at hand and the bell didn’t ring until AFTER I finished the book. Because that phrase, in popular parlance in British in the 1930s, was one that Simon Templar, The Saint, used frequently and often in the original books by Leslie Charteris – of which I read as many as I could find back in the dark ages after seeing bits of the TV series starring Roger Moore in syndication way back when.

I don’t remember that phrase from the TV series, but in the books, Templar used it frequently, often and as intended. Honestly, I’m not even sure I was quite old enough to get the double entendres at the time I read the books, but the whole thing stuck in my memory and thereby hangs that facepalm and headslap.

Because if this series continues, the whole entire thing has the potential to be a series of investigations where the Bishop and the Actress are going to have a LOT to say to each other. And quite possibly do with and to each other between solving mysteries.

Review: The Twilight Queen by Jeri Westerson

Review: The Twilight Queen by Jeri WestersonThe Twilight Queen (A King's Fool mystery, 2) by Jeri Westerson
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: historical fiction, historical mystery
Series: King's Fool #2
Pages: 224
Published by Severn House on January 2, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

Court jester Will Somers is drawn into another gripping and entertaining mystery when malevolent forces strike again at the court of Henry VIII - and Anne Boleyn is the target.
Greenwich, Palace of Placentia, April 1536. Queen Anne is in peril. In the mid of night, court jester Will Somers is summoned to an urgent assignation when she discovers a body in her chamber. The queen wants Will to find out who the man is and how he ended up there. Is someone trying to frame her for his murder?
Anne has many enemies at court, and to make matters worse, Henry VIII is lining up his next conquest and suspects her of treason. Has the formidable Oliver Cromwell been whispering vile lies in the king's ears, and could Anne be the target of a Catholic conspiracy? As further attacks plague the court, Will is determined to uncover the truth behind the plotting and devilry, but he will need to keep hold of all his wits to do so!

My Review:

There are characters, whether real or imagined, who seem to get reinvented or reinterpreted for each generation. Henry VIII, that towering, looming figure of British history, with his outsized body and equally outsized personality – along with his fascinating and scandalous pursuit of a son and heir for his crown – seems to be one of those characters.

That his story – or rather the reinterpretation of his story through the characters of his six wives – has been reimagined yet again in the Tony Award winning Broadway play, Six: The Musical, is just the latest in a long line of portrayals, beginning with the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, written under the rule of King James I of England and VI of Scotland – a reign that could be said to be the direct result of Henry’s failure to secure a healthy male heir.

Which makes this portrayal of Henry, his court and his wives and paramours, as seen through the eyes of his Court Fool, Will Somers, just that much more fascinating and relevant, as it appears that this series is also going to trip its way through Henry’s nearly 40-year reign through the machinations of his court and his courtiers through each of his successive – but not all that successful – marriages.

The first book in this series, Courting Dragons, took place as Catherine of Aragon’s star at court was rapidly waning, and Anne Boleyn’s was on the ascendant.

In the midst of the King’s ‘Great Matter’, the impending divorce that severed not only Henry’s first marriage but also his country’s religion, a murder took place among the foreign diplomatic corps that threatened to destabilize the already fraught negotiations over, well, pretty much everything at that point.

A murder that was ultimately solved by a not-so-foolish investigation by the King’s Fool, Will Somers.

Just as that first murder of a Spanish diplomat had political implications for Catherine of Aragon, the murder that opens The Twilight Queen has potentially deadly implications for Anne Boleyn, whose brief, tumultuous reign is now in its twilight.

A dead musician has been discovered in the Queen’s private chambers. It’s obvious to Anne that the intent is to stir up rumors that she is unfaithful to her royal husband. A treasonous pot that someone influential at court is already stirring.

Because no good deed goes unpunished, when the Queen has need of a discreet investigator, she calls upon the King’s Fool to poke his nose into all the places he can to figure out who left this dead and potentially deadly ‘package’ in her private chambers – in the hopes that the truth will stave off her inevitable downfall.

Escape Rating B: Genre blends such as historical mystery are always a balancing act – much like Will Somers position is a balancing act between making his sovereign laugh, forcing his master to stop and think – and keeping both his job and his head.

For a historical mystery to be successful, it has to balance upon the knife edge of being true to its historical setting AND following the somewhat strict conventions of the mystery genre. It must allow the reader to maintain that crucial willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to history while still delivering that ‘romance of justice’ that is crucial to a mystery’s satisfactory ending.

As much as I love this particular period of history, this series so far reads like it tilts more than a bit towards the description and details of the historical setting. Not that the mystery doesn’t get solved, but rather that the mystery feels more like an excuse to dive into the history instead of the historical period being a setting for a mystery.

Reflecting on this second book in the series, I believe that impression is a result of Will Somers’ life and work being so far removed from ordinary life either in his time or our own. Even Crispin Guest, the protagonist of the author’s Medieval Noir series, feels like more of a standard archetype, as he’s operating as a kind of private investigator in a big city. Even though the details of his circumstances are even a century or two before Somers, what Guest does and the way he does it – and how he feels about it – reads as something surprisingly familiar.

Will Somers’ dependence on and love of his ‘master’ the King, on the other hand, jars a bit in the 21st century mind whether it rings true or not. A kind interpretation of their relationship would liken it to the relationship between Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings – except that Frodo couldn’t order Sam’s head to be struck off. Will Somers’ relationship with his king reads a bit too close to the so-called ‘love’ of slaves for their masters in the antebellum South. It’s not comfortable, no matter how fascinating a character Somers has turned out to be.

Which he most definitely is.

In the end, I found the history behind this story more interesting than the mystery within its pages. Your reading mileage, of course, may vary. I am, however, still terribly curious about the next book in this series, which is planned to take place during Henry’s brief but fruitful marriage to Jane Seymour, tentatively titled, Rebellious Grace.

Review: Night Train to Murder by Simon R. Green

Review: Night Train to Murder by Simon R. GreenNight Train to Murder (Ishmael Jones #8) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Ishmael Jones #8
Pages: 192
Published by Severn House on March 3, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads


When a body is discovered in a locked toilet cubicle on the late-night train to Bath, Ishmael Jones is faced with his most puzzling case to date.

When Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny are asked to escort a VIP on the late-night train to Bath, it would appear to be a routine case. The Organisation has acquired intelligence that an attempt is to be made on Sir Dennis Gregson's life as he travels to Bath to take up his new position as Head of the British Psychic Weapons Division. Ishmael's mission is to ensure that Sir Dennis arrives safely.
How could anyone orchestrate a murder in a crowded railway carriage without being noticed and with no obvious means of escape? When a body is discovered in a locked toilet cubicle, Ishmael Jones has just 56 minutes to solve a seemingly impossible crime before the train reaches its destination.

My Review:

Reading Reality is having a bit of a theme going in the days leading up to Halloween, and this visit with Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny Belcourt is just horror-adjacent enough to be a part of it.

And I was having a hankering for some high-quality snarkitude and this author ALWAYS delivers!

Ishmael Jones is a fascinating character – to himself most of all at times. He’s an alien. Specifically, he’s a version of E.T. with no way to phone home because he doesn’t remember where it is. When he crash-landed his ship in 1963 the ship’s last act was to transform him into a human adult the best that it could – and erase all his memories of who and/or what he used to be.

It didn’t exactly do a BAD job at Ishmael’s transformation. He blends in just fine. But he doesn’t change or age, so he’s looked like a man in his mid-30s for almost 60 years at this point and has the same problem that vampires often do in paranormal stories. He has to move on every so often before too many people start to notice too much.

Ishmael’s solution has been to work for a series of agencies so black and so secret that they don’t even know what their own right and left hands are doing – let alone anyone else’s. They keep his secrets and in return he keeps theirs and does the kind of dirty work that actual humans aren’t capable of for very long – if at all.

His work and romantic partner, Penny Belcourt, knows as many of his secrets as Ishmael himself does. They met on a case, the first one in this series, The Dark Side of the Road, a story that began as a rather typical English country house mystery that went seriously far into the Dark Side of multiple Forces.

Ishmael and Penny are the coyly-named Organization’s best agents, so it’s not exactly a surprise for them to be ordered to report for a top secret, rush-rush and hush-hush job, not even to London’s St. Pancras Station. It’s just annoying and both of them are at least somewhat annoyed by being handed tickets to an express train to Bath with not nearly enough information about their instructions to guard a high-ranking politician who has just been promoted to an equally high-ranking top-secret job on said politician’s imminent journey to take up his new post via that London to Bath train.

The trip will take less than two hours. It shouldn’t be that difficult to keep the man alive for that length of time on a moving train that will not stop to take on anyone or anything until it reaches its destination.

But if it were an easy job the Organization wouldn’t be putting its best agents on the case. And they are, so it isn’t. It’s just that it’s even more clandestine and hush-hush than even Ishmael and Penny suspected. And they suspected a lot, and everyone, from the very beginning.

Escape Rating A-: There are two things I find pretty much endlessly fun about this particular series. One, of course and always, is the author’s trademark snarkitude. It’s a signature that follows him everywhere from urban fantasy like his Nightside series to science fiction such as his Deathstalker series to the genre-mashup that is the Ishmael Jones series.

The other thing is a particular feature of the Ishmael Jones series, and it’s that this series is a genre-mashup of pretty much everything. It’s a bit of SF in Ishmael’s alien origins, a bit of urban fantasy in that he often faces monsters that are believed at the outset to be things that go bump in the night, and there’s generally a bit of horror in that whatever he’s investigating leaves a thoroughly gruesome trail of dead bodies and parts thereof.

But ultimately – or at its heart or a bit of both – the Ishmael Jones series are mysteries. Someone gets dead early on in each book, if there isn’t already a corpse laying around at the start. It’s up to Ishmael and Penny to figure out whodunnit and put a stop to them one way or another before the story reaches its inevitably grisly end.

What makes the mystery so much creepy fun is that as the mystery deepens there’s always a sneaking suspicion that the perpetrator is paranormal in some way, and that in the end that suspicion is nearly always a very tasty red herring. This particular mystery takes that assumption one better, as there is, for once, something actually paranormal going on but it isn’t either the monster or even the victim.

Because one of the things that this series does so very well, and with so much high-quality snark and occasional sheer bloody-mindedness, is that the worst monsters in this or any other universe are inevitably human. And that’s what keeps me coming back to this series, over and over and over again.

If this series sounds like it might be your jam, or if you’ve ever wanted to see just how far a classic-type mystery like a country house mystery or a strangers on a train type mystery can be led very, very far astray, take a look at The Dark Side of the Road and see if you like the view from that side.

I’ll be continuing with my journey with Ishmael Jones and Penny Belcourt with the next book in the series, The House on Widows Hill, the next time I have a yen for either high-quality snark, horror-adjacent mystery, or a bit of both!