Historical Mysteries

A Royal Pain, Rhys Bowen, Berkley Prime Crime, $23.95.

Georgie, for the uninitiated, is a cousin of the British Royal family - 34th in line to the throne - circa 1932. Having established her bona fides in the last book when she found a body in the bathtub of her London home and the police were sure her brother, Binky, was the culprit (she found the real killer) the Queen now sees her as something of a secret weapon. Since it's 1932, high on the Queen's list of priorities is the marriage of her son, David, Prince of Wales. He is presently enamored of the eminently unsuitable Wallis Simpson. The Queen's plan is to bring over the Princess Hannelore of Bavaria for a visit, throwing her in David's path whenever possible. Hannelore, fresh out of the convent, is rumored to be a great beauty, and when she arrives, Georgie indeed thinks she looks like something out of a fairy tale. Not out of a fairy tale is her companion, the Baroness Rottenmeister, who always wears black and is called behind her back by the princess "a pain in the ass". Hannelore has learned her English from American gangster films.

The complications are many as the virtually penniless Georgie is forced to hire a butler and a maid - her cockney grandfather and his neighbor, Mrs. Huggins - and then she finds she must also hire a real ladies' maid for herself, and she blackmails Binky into fronting her the cash for the impossibly efficient Mildred. As Hannelore is eager to meet "young and sexy" guys she and Georgie figure out a way to ditch the Baroness by giving her hardly any food and cold bathwater; she's off to stay with other nobility living in London in short order. Chaperone dispensed with, Georgie and Hannelore proceed to be in the presence of two dead bodies in as many days, which Georgie dismisses as a coincidence, but her grandfather and the police do not.

Threading in a subplot involving Communists and Oswald Mosely's black shirted fascists, they form a backdrop to the King and Queen's growing worry over David (who completely ignores Hannelore) and Mrs. Simpson. It's a subtle, effective and incredibly intelligent way of framing this bit of fun into actual history, bringing the characters into reality in a believable manner. As I've said many times, Bowen is a masterful narrative storyteller, and she does not disappoint though I'll make a confession: I wouldn't even have cared if there were murders in the book, so much did I enjoy reading about the sparky, memorable Georgie. This book should absolutely guarantee an even louder clamoring for the third installment.

An Incomplete Revenge, Jacqueline Winspear, Henry Holt, $24.00.

Maisie, for the uninitiated (and if you haven't yet read the first book in the series, you really should start with that one) was a nurse on the front during WWI. The horrors of that war were many, but one of its most brutal aspects was the wiping out of practically an entire generation of young men. Maisie herself has not been unscathed; her fiancee, Simon, while still alive, has been so badly injured that he is merely a shell of himself who no longer speaks or walks. Her best friend, Priscilla, lost all her brothers and has made up for it by having a houseful of boys; but in many ways these are books that deal largely with grief, maybe even more so than a typical mystery does. It infuses everything, and Maisie's efforts to rise above her grief and move forward with grace make her an almost heroic figure.

In this book Maisie is asked by her old friend James Compton to investigate a disturbing series of small fires and petty thefts surrounding a brickworks his company wants to buy. He wants to make sure that both the brickworks and the surrounding community are a safe investment. The job seems minor on the surface, but of course it is not. As Maisie journeys into the heart of Kent to investigate she susses out the town of Heronsdene that at midsummer is filled both with gypsies and Londoners on a working vacation, picking hops, one of whom is her assistant, Billy Beale. Both the gypsies and the itinerant Londoners add a rich and unusual texture to the story, and of course as the plot develops in complexity, the threads that tie the mysteries in Heronsdene are drawn together with both the stories of the gypsies and the Londoners. I think the plot of this book is the most complicated and ultimately satisfying one so far, though the resolution is heartbreaking.

Also dealt with in this book is the impending death of Simon and her friend Priscilla's dilemma about what she should do about her boys' misery at their boarding school, where they are being bullied. At the center of the story are two characters, one strong - Beaulah, the gypsy matriarch; and one weak - Alfred Sandemere, master of Heronsdene, owner of the brickworks, and a man heartily disliked by all. As Maisie winds up the threads of the story in this book she must also deal with Simon's death, which seems to take her to another level. She has changed since the first book - become more independent and strong, and with the death of Simon she seems like a clean slate. It will be interesting to see where Winspear takes both this development with Maisie, and the looming of the next world war, which is already being foreshadowed. This is a bravura effort from a writer who manages to charm and intrigue with each new novel; in this one, she also captures your heart.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective, Kate Summerscale, Walker, $24.95.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is a fascinating work, not only for its vivid portrayal of an intriguing true crime in 1860's England, but also for its deft examination of the parallels between the emerging real life detectives of the time and their literary doppelgangers. When three year old Saville Kent, the son of a prominent local functionary, is taken from his nursery and later found brutally murdered, it seems like the perfect set up for a classic English country house mystery.

Though there are several inconclusive clues, the local police are baffled and, just like in the books, are forced to appeal to a famous detective from Scotland Yard. Soon Detective-Inspector Jonathan Whicher, a well respected sleuth with powers of detection and observation bordering on the miraculous, arrives, and, after a meticulous examination of the scene of the crime and the various suspects, renders his unshakable opinion as to the identity of the guilty party.

But here's where reality and fiction part ways - although the Victorians glorified the concept of the brilliant detective, in practice their rigid social codes and maniacal demand for the appearance of propriety wouldn't allow them to accept the sordid facts revealed when the streetwise Whicher peeled back the facade of the Kent household. The press and public simply couldn't handle the truth, especially when, given the primitive state of forensic science and the fact that the suspect was spared rigorous interrogation, there was no conclusive proof.

But just when the reader becomes apprehensive that Summerscale's narrative will limp to a rather deflating conclusion, further twists and turns emerge, including a denouement that any fiction writer would envy. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher is an absorbing, expertly written and constructed book, one which provides not only an exciting real life murder mystery, but also a heady immersion into the Victorian milieu and a unique portrayal of the emergence of the modern detective in both fact and fiction. (Jamie)

Deception's Daughter, Cordelia Frances Biddle, St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95.

Martha is both compassionate and practical (an excellent combination) and so is both helpful to the Crowthers as the story of their daughter's life and disappearance unspools and the final horrible revelations are made. While this is a mystery novel, I still found the eventual death a shocking surprise - to this long time reader of mystery fiction, a body that causes shock and sadness is an unusual experience. The parts that make this book stand out are the gifts of a natural born writer - the way the characters interact, the way they are fleshed out, and the bits of beautiful writing and atmosphere that bring the plot and characters even more fully to life. The fact that it's a suspenseful mystery is a bonus.

As Anne Perry has become more wordy and her plots less dynamic, I've found a need to fill my historical reading void, one once filled by Perry. I've enjoyed books by Jacqueline Winspear, Victoria Thompson, Rhys Bowen and P.B. Ryan, but for me at least none of these writers have the complete package that Biddle offers. Here's hoping for a very long lived series.

The War Against Miss Winter, Kathryn Miller Haines, Harper, $13.95.

The War Against Miss Winter, Kathryn Miller Haines' funny and sweet look at the world of Rosie Winter, a struggling actress in WWII New York, definitely has a post-modern feel. Her look back at the period feels like a loving look back, with humor and period detail included. She uses lots of phrases I've never heard but her inclusion of sentences like "She was my sidekick in this adventure, the scintillating siren who distracted the bad guys long enough for me to get to the root of what was going on.", and "You've been reading the pulps, haven't you? You do realize they're fiction, right? They're not how-to manuals" show that these are indeed a knowing look back, not a part of the past, a feat some historical fiction writers try to pull off (with varying degrees of success). Even the dead man whose death ties all the threads of the story together - the hard drinking, detective magazine reading James McCain - bears a suspiciously familiar nomenclature.

What's also fresh about this book is the theater detail, something Kathryn Miller Haines, who is also an actress, comes by naturally (here she joins other actresses turned mystery writers like Jessica Speart and Cordelia Biddle). I thought the look at theater during the war was especially interesting, especially the thread about the type of hyper-realistic plays with a heavy message that help to tie the story together. The basic story involves Rosie (who also works as a secretary) discovering the body of her boss - James McCain - and when she discovers through various methods that the reason for his death is tied to the script of a play that several people are desperate to find, the chase is on. The chasers include mobsters, playwrights, rich folks, other actresses and government officials, and the chasees are mainly Rosie and her roommate, the girlishly pretty Jayne Hamilton, dubbed by a critic "America's Squeakheart" because of her high, squeaky voice. There's a noir-ish feel to the story in that it seems no one can be trusted, but Rosie feels like a modern heroine to me. However, where better to put a strong, career minded female character than in the midst of WWII? Even her longing for Jack, her sweetheart overseas, can't change the fact that she needs to eat and keep a roof over her head.

The snappy and clever denouement is worthy of the set up - it's also very original. Miller Haines is able to find a very nice balance between the historical, and her own look back from the present, making this a very entertaining book. Rosie is a fresh, funny and brave character, and I was delighted to make her acquaintance.

Stalking Ivory, Suzanne Arruda, Obsidian, $14.00.

The complications of the rest of the novel involve a fellow safari guide, Harry Hascombe, who is guiding a group of Germans (especially sensitive as this is set in 1920, soon after WWI); a pilot and movie maker named Sam Featherstone, who, like Harry, is somewhat besotted by Jade; and Jelani, the young African boy who works for Jade, primarily keeping an eye on the pet cheetah who used to belong to Harry but who, like everyone else in the story, is besotted with the beautiful, brave, and sometimes foolhardy Jade. Jade is certainly the driving force of nature in the story, but a close second is the African landscape that Arruda writes about with real vividness. Complicating matters further is a cache of guns and money found by Jade and her headman, Chiumbu; they take it upon themselves to discover who has stored them as they are sure the same people are behind the elephant poaching.

While there are some deaths in the book along with those of the elephants, Arruda is primarily writing an adventure story; with her love of nature and animals, she's similar to Nevada Barr in her ability to make a landscape come alive. Jade's complicated love life and family and personal history make her a character worth following - literally to the ends of the earth.

Child 44, Tom Rob Smith, Grand Central, $24.99

Smith skillfully lays in the brush strokes of Leo's life - his success in the MGB has secured good apartments for both himself and his parents; he has a beautiful wife - Leo feels fortunate. Smith then proceeds to cut everything out from under him. Leo's beliefs in the state, in his marriage, and even in his own parents undergo radical yet gradual changes throughout the novel. The first chink occurs when Leo is invited to sit in on an "interrogation" in Lubyanka. As he sees the man he has captured "questioned" by a doctor, he starts to have a sliver of doubt. Then, when he is given a list of apparent traitors to investigate - people the man had named as he was being tortured - they assign Leo the most difficult subject: his own wife, Raisa. The way Leo handles the resolution of his wife's case leads to the discoveries of the rest of the novel, which include a string of child murders, murders exactly like the son of his colleague. Because no murder investigations are permitted, Leo must investigate the cases in secret. At every step of his life, there are choices that cause others to be executed or sent to a gulag; it's apparently unavoidable. Though Leo and Raisa escape a gulag, they do not escape a steady series of degrading humiliations that end with them homeless, desperate and on the run in Soviet Russia. This was not a good place to be.

This is a remarkable book not only because of the vivid setting, but also because of Smith's ability to make Leo and Raisa indelible - and to make the changes they undergo as humans believable - but also because he adds to that a real gift with suspense and plot. Some of the twists are a little too good to be true, but here he's following the trail of master storytellers like Jeffrey Deaver and Michael Connelly. This is a book you absolutely won't forget once you have read it, and having read it, you will no doubt breathe a hearty sigh of relief at your own good fortune not to have lived through the rise of Stalin.