Secrets in the Water by Alice Fitzpatrick

The tale is set convincingly on a Welsh island where isolation and insularity have endured despite increasing interconnections with the mainland. The changeable sea weather is almost a character in its own right. Longtime inhabitants regard newcomers with suspicion and faithfully nurture long held resentments against each other. It’s a classic cosy mystery setup with a touch of the neo-gothic: middle-aged Kate goes back to her village for her grandmother’s funeral and learns her only aunt’s suicide fifty years ago might have been murder. And it might have involved the snobbish older ladies everyone calls The Weird Sisters.

Kate soon uncovers a plethora of suspects, and of motives. There are so many characters, indeed - and some of them long dead - that a cast list would be handy. Many of them get their own short scene or two of largely inner monologue, leading readers to believe they’ll be important to the slowly unfolding plot. Their memories of their exact whereabouts (and those of other suspects) on the fatal weekend fifty years earlier are surprisingly specific. When everyone has their moment in the sun, it’s hard to much care when the supposed main character, Kate, is left wandering for long stretches, asking the occasional, largely ineffectual, question. She gets into a couple of dangerous situations but her reactions water down any tension that has arisen.

I expected to like this novel more than I did. It’s a genre I generally enjoy, and it was getting good mentions online. Yet it’s not a happy synthesis of the island-crime-cosy and the neo-gothic family saga. An essential element in both story types is reader investment in the protagonist’s quest for the truth, but there was nothing particular to like or dislike about Kate. No reason to root for her, no motivation to care about the suicide/murder victim particularly.

 A sketch map of the island would add to the classic locked-room feel.

Secrets in the Water
Alice Fitzpatrick
STONEHOUSE PRESS

I Think We’ve Been Here Before by Suzy Krause

...a small and simple and delicately crafted tale, with aftershocks as long as the end of the world.

 From the Publisher, Radiant Press

"Marlen and Hilda Jorgensen’s family has received two significant pieces of news: one, Marlen has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Two, a cosmic blast is set to render humanity extinct within a matter of months. It seems the coming Christmas on their Saskatchewan farm will be their last."

 

The power and poignancy of this novel is not so much in the characters and their exact circumstances or actions in the face of impending destruction, but the emotion evoked by the text: just as they are facing what might - or might not - be their last day, you, the reader, are also suspended in that uncertainty. You trust you haven’t read this far for nothing, that the book will come to its foreordained ending. But what if it doesn’t? What if you turn the page and the yellow dissipates from the sky and the gamma ray passes with minimal damage and the coffee shop and grocery store reopen and somehow, some-when, Nora and Jacob get their happy life together and Ole gets to grow up and introduce his kids and grandkids to the arcade his own grandfather made for him at the end of the world?

Or not.

 

This is a mind-bending read where nothing is ever quite what it seems, and yet it starts so simply: with a girl abroad, missing her family back home.  In the way that only a 19-year-old's recognition of something new and possible is portentous, Nora thinks she knows this stranger in Berlin, knows him as familiarly as she knows her childhood home even though she doesn’t remember him, has no idea he is her new boss, or even what his name is, at first.

Meanwhile, back home in a rural prairie hamlet, Marlen, Nora's father, has accidentally predicted the upcoming end of the world. He wrote a book about it, in the year leading up to his cancer diagnosis, and is waiting for the box of printed books to arrive in the mail before he springs the surprise on his family. But he doesn’t think anyone will read his masterwork now, because it’s too much like what is really happening in the world. He hasn't even told his wife, who grows increasingly fretful as The End approaches with no contact from Nora, no way to know if she will get home before the planes stop flying because too many pilots and mechanics and airport staff have stopped bothering to show up at work.

The relationships exist in the silences more than in what is said between characters. The parallels go deep: the 15-year old boy who thinks he’ll understand Life when he is 20; the 20 year-olds will when they are 30; their parents’ generation still groping toward understanding even as they watch THEIR parents losing the way forward, retreating into a past that no longer exists… And Nora and her boss, a new couple retreating forward into a future that will never exist

It’s all metaphorical until somebody starts to fry , until birds fall crispy from the sky. Metaphors for climate change being the actual, abrupt end of the world as we know it, that we are all ignoring except, ironically, those who write denialist blogs and share seemingly learned letters around to the credulous. It happens here too, someone claiming it's all a giant conspiracy and all the reader need do is have faith and be ready for the day after, when they'll emerge triumphant over their confused neighbours. These letters, like some current supposedly grassroots political movements, sow dissent among families and fracture the tenuous social cohesion of community groups that might otherwise band together to support each other and mitigate the psychological, if not the material, damage to the fabric of Society.

Literary/fictional quantum entangled characters, living a present that is unfolding both behind and ahead of them simultaneously as well as between Nora and her mother an ocean apart, and Jacob and his sister Anna also an ocean apart. But not between Ole and Hank and Irene all living on the same small rural area but entirely separate from each other

 

The floating from one character’s head to another may be disorienting for some readers. The minutiae of characters’ moment by moment emotions may repel those looking for the larger picture or some sense that humanity is fighting back, making some plan to get a precious few out of harm’s way.

And yet....

All acts, all objects...even money, on which we set such store most days...mean everything and nothing simultaneously. Holly cutouts in Berlin and painted ivy in Saskatchewan are visual symbols for the entwined yet prickly family relationships  Small moments of shredded memory become present moments of great significance.

As the end of the world approaches, past entangles with present. If this were a movie, the teaspoon of salt spilling from Ole’s hand would fall in slow motion, each grain filmed falling and bouncing and falling again as the screen slowly faded to black. You'd sit up in the theatre or on your couch, gripping the arms or your dog and wondering uneasily, "Is this really real?". 

 

Coming September 24, 2024 from Radiant Press

#novel #apocalypse #endoftheworld #Saskatchewan #Berlin #RiverStreetWrites #SuzyKrause

Betrayal at Blackthorn Park by Julia Kelly

 

2nd in the series, it's a quick and convincing immersion in Evelyne’s world of SOE, Britain's WW2 Special Operations Executive. This time Evelyne's been through the special agent training program to learn to pick locks, infiltrate suspicious locations, and survive in enemy territory. Dashing David Poole from their first, almost accidental op is back, newly promoted to be her handler for her first post-training assignment. It’s supposed to be a simple test of security at one of the many rural estates turned over to various aspects of war work. In and out with no-one the wiser. 

But best laid plans rarely survive contact with the enemy, in this case a sneaky thief who is making off with essential supplies (and possibly plans) for the building of small bombs and other weapons essential to the work of SOE saboteurs in France. Soon Evelyne's facing a corpse and David's dashing to her rescue... even though he's not really needed. Evelyne draws on her previous experience and training to instruct the constable who must secure the scene while waiting for more experienced officers to arrive.

Modern women will delight in Evelyne's take-charge ways, and appreciate David's often stepping back and letting her get on with it rather than (as is more realistic still) taking over every scene to do the interrogating himself. The writing is crisp and clear, the settings economical and easily visualized. The plot moves along at a good clip without sacrificing the credibility of relationships between not only Evelyne and David but with other characters as well. Indeed, one of this book's great strengths is how well it portrays the world of wartime Britain, where any cottage in any village might be housing staff for some secret research facility nearby and nobody can tell even their best friend what their war work really consists of. Britain may never be tested like that again, and that's a good thing, because the green and pleasant land that banded together with enduring fortitude and wry humour to withstand the onslaught of one of the largest armies Europe has ever seen is barely imaginable today.

Any fan of Golden Age mysteries will thoroughly enjoy the contemporaneous crime novels that Evelyne reads on train trips and in other idle moments..

If you've chosen the audiobook, you too may find the narration very uneven. The first phrase of a sentence flies out with tween-girl speed and inflection, while the rest is slow and portentous as a wartime speech by Winston Churchill: stirring to hear for 15 minutes in an emergency but wearing on the ear, and the patience when it goes on for hours, regardless of which character is speaking and whether their content is deep and serious or debating a new haircut.

#NetGalley #WW2 #spies

Egyptology through women's eyes: a new book by Kathleen Sheppard

 Women in the Valley of the Kings

By Kathleen Sheppard

This history will delight not only women interested in Egyptology or Victorian women travelers, but those in favour of women's emancipation, anyone examining Victorian-era same-sex relationships, and fans of the Amelia Peabody novels by Elizabeth Peters. That last group already know the series’ heroine was named for, and inspired by, Amelia B. Edwards, whose early impact on the study and preservation of Egyptian antiquities cannot be overstated. Amelia P even sails the Nile in a dahabiyeh named for the one rented by Amelia B a few decades earlier (The Philae).

The book will also infuriate many with its detailed account of myriad ways in which the female fore-sisters of modern Egyptology were overlooked, silenced, ignored, and written out of the official records even when their record-keeping was used as primary sources by male Egyptologists and their wealthy patrons for fame, acclaim, published excavation reports, and academic treatises. The free-spirited and wealthy American, Emma Andrews, long remembered only as the mistress of the Egyptophilic archaeological patron Theodore Davis, not only jointly funded excavations with him but was rigorous in her daily recording of activities at their dig sites. Her journals, maps, and drawings were sometimes the only source of information about significant finds credited to Davies or his hired archaeologists, yet she never received credit in her lifetime and there is no known surviving photograph of her. And none of the women in this book are mentioned in the most recent Wikipedia page on the Valley of the Kings (as of July 2024).

The history of Egyptology is inescapably tied to European colonialism, from Napoleon’s first visit in 1798 through to Queen Victoria’s great-grandchildren and the ultimate discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. For all those years, wealthy white Europeans and Americans ran rampant over the cultural heritage of Egypt, and over its people. The author does not gloss over or excuse the participation of her early Egyptophile women in such depredations: they were, at least initially, as interested in bringing home curiosities for their personal collections as any other travelers of that era.

A central point, though, is that the early English women travelers profiled in these pages quickly came to approach Egyptology not from a competitive standpoint like male Egyptologists did—ever vying for golden statues, academic and public acclaim, and especially wealthy patrons— but collaboratively, to study monuments, to gather artefacts of everyday life, and to record for posterity those antiquities that, once freed from their sandy overburden, could not be saved from air, water, wind, and the depredations of every passerby with the means to pry off a souvenir or a chunk of frieze for resale.

Sketch Map of East Valley of the Kings. Original version taken from Egyptian Antiquities in The Nile Valley, published in 1932, by James Baikie (1866-1931). Taken from the English Wikipedia [1] Modified to show location of KV63. Topographgic lines added For the correct locations of all graves on the map please see de:Template:Tal der Könige (Ost)

 

 

 

 

When they returned to England, or America, these women founded institutions that could broaden their individual efforts to preserve artefacts and monuments, and to formalize the training of future archaeologists. In 1882, Amelia B. Edwards roped in Marianne Brocklehurst & Mary Booth (often referred to as the Bagstone Ladies or MBs), who she’d met on the steamer to Egypt 9 years earlier), and then Emily Paterson and Kate Bradbury, with a couple of male Egyptologists for credibility, to start the Delta Exploration Fund (later the Egypt Exploration Fund), and hired a young archeologist, Flinders Petrie, to excavate and focus on small, everyday items under their auspices. Their work, and especially Amelia’s copious writings on Egypt both in popular travel memoir and in more scholarly articles, attracted Theodore Davis and Emma Andrews to Egyptology; both went on to be board members of the Fund’s American branch, and Emma later became the first woman to independently fund an excavation.

The MBs returned to Egypt for many winters, eventually establishing a public museum in Macclesfield to house their collection of antiquities, and nurtured young women with interests in Egyptology, including Margaret Benson and Mary Broderick. Margaret (Maggie) went on to become the first woman granted an excavation permit in her own name.

After Amelia’s death in 1892, it was left to Emily and Kate, as the youngest and healthiest members of that early cohort, to launch her lifelong dream: the first official Department of Egyptology, founded at University College London and opening its doors to female as well as male students. Among its earliest students were Margaret Alice Murray, who came to Abydos with Petrie’s 1902-03 season, and Janet Gourlay (known as Nettie), who partnered with Maggie Benson both professionally and personally, and excavated the Temple of Mut with her for three winters. Women in Egyptology had early learned they were stronger together than apart; their collaboration and mentoring made possible advances that women in other spheres could only imagine.

This is not a dry academic book, but a readily readable series of interconnected profiles of the women who reshaped Egyptian excavation from a disorganized, disrespectful race for personal glory into a scholarly, rigorous discipline, along the way advancing not only academic understanding of ancient Egyptian society but also women’s educational opportunities and their professional standing in several formerly male-dominated arenas.

Back around to the fans of the Amelia Peabody series of historical mystery novels by Elizabeth Peters: this book is a feast for any of you who thrilled to each significant KV tomb found during Amelia P’s adventures, or the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, or the mummies of Yuya and Thuya, whose daughter Tiye became the chief wife of Amenhotep III. So many familiar references lend their life and substance to the fictional discoveries by Amelia Peabody and her husband Emerson, their son Ramses and his wife Nefret. It's an excellent accompaniment to that fictional family, and a really good read as a standalone book on early women archaeologists.

For those whose first introduction to Victorian lady Egyptologists is this fine volume, or those who yearn for more photographic evidence on which to feed their eyes and imaginations, an enjoyable companion volume would be Amelia Peabody's Egypt: A Compendium by Elizabeth Peters and Kristen Whitbread

 

You'll be caught in the undertow of 'The Cure for Drowning' by Loghan Payton

 Lyrical and haunting; 'Girl of the Limberlost' meets 'Aimee and Jaguar' in this beautiful and doom-shadowed historical: a romantic triangle between a Canadian doctor's half-French, half-German daughter and the neighbour's two oldest children. 

 

It starts in southern Ontario on the cusp of WW2, when war is looming in Europe and anyone with a German name in Canada is becoming increasingly suspect. After her father's medical practice in MontreaI was diminished by growing anti-German sentiment, Rebekah, only daughter of the expat German doctor and his French-Canadian wife, is slowly adapting to life in a small town near the shores of Lake Huron. The first friends she makes are the neighbouring farm's oldest son, Landon, and his conflicted, misgendered sister Kit, whose parents think she is a changeling.

I identified with all the major characters in some way or other, from the beset doctor to his melancholic, lonely wife, and the bisexual daughter struggling with her conflicting desires for love and for stability in a world where there isn't a language to express her yearnings, let alone support her in dealing with them. The neighbours' 'changeling child', Kit, coming out as transsexual in a society even less able to cope with 'women who don't keep their place'.. Maybe not so much with Landon, who represents the patriarchal status quo, the ideal to which Rebekah is expected to aspire by virtually everyone in her world... except Kit. 

Fascinated as I was by the well-drawn historical backdrop, the ways in which the characters interacted with their era of societal upheaval.  what the novel really stands out for is the growing sense of dread, the undercurrents beneath that sun-dappled stream's surface, the inescapable emotional destruction that I felt sure was coming, even though the author did not overtly foreshadow it.

Apart from the initial near-drowning scene, this novel starts off deceptively gentle, like a placid stream struck by dappled sunshine as it winds amid meadows rippling with wildflowers. The early, tentative steps towards love are delicately crafted, a real treat to read although the looming sense of the three young people on a romantic and sexual collision course soon overshadows even the most sunlit idyll.

This is well worth the read for historical fiction fans, for anyone who wants a step back in time to a period of upheaval in Canadian and World history, and for peeling back the delicate processes of coming out as your true self when surrounded by a society that will do anything to put you back in the box you were assigned at birth.

CW: LGBTQ+, bigotry,  post-combat trauma, immigrant struggles

 

 

The Cure for Drowing

Loghan Payton

Penguin Random House

The Mystery Guest is a cracking good mystery!

 Move over, Detective Monk. Molly the Maid is dusting your doors on her way past.

Set at the fabulous Art Deco Regency Grand Hotel, a five star boutique establishment, this is an early-body mystery, in which a award-winning and famously irascible mystery author drops dead during his  special appearance in the hotel's tea room. The maid-in-training who prepared his tea is the chief suspect.

But our new head maid, Molly, is not having it. She was once accused of murder in this very hotel and rose above to clear her name with the help of Charlotte, the brilliant daughter of the hotel’s doorman. She's determined to protect her underling by finding the real killer.

It’ll be an uphill struggle. All she has to go on is the unfinished/rudely interrupted statement by the famous deceased that he was about to reveal a long-held secret to his dedicated fans. And the odd behavior of one unpleasant maid with designs on Molly's job, yet who lacks the cleaning skills or dedication that Molly learned over many years of observing and assisting her now-deceased Gran,  whose advice still whispers in her head at opportune times.

Molly’s voice is crisp and engaging. She’s a collector of the lonely, a comforter of the lovelorn, and supremely competent, relied upon by Mr Snow, the manager. He’s not the only supporting character who comes to life with a few well-chosen phrases, but Molly is the deftly created and wholly supportable star of the whole shebang. She's coded convincingly autistic, which adds a few layers of both good and bad to her investigative process.

Good: she is highly observant and remembers a lot of what she sees.

Bad: she frequently alienate police officers and other people who should not be antagonized.
 
Does she overcome all that, and her own dubious family history, to solve the crime?

Well, this isn't her first swing on the roundabout of murder. But for that history you'll need to read the widely acclaimed 'The Maid' where we first make her acquaintance.

Go for it. It's a strong mystery, well crafted and written, with a bonus of solid representation for autistic and neurodivergent people in the workforce.

#netgalley #TheMaid #hotel #murder #CrimeFiction #authors #autism #neurodivergence

The Pantomime Murders

 by Fiona Veitch Smith

It’s December 1929. The fairy godmother from the pantomime vanishes into the night after her last performance in York, still wearing her sparkly dress and carrying her sparkly wand. When the show picks up a week later in Newcasttle, she’s been replaced and it turns out she resigned by telegram. Nobody has seen her and the request to send her effects from her theatrical boarding house also came by telegram. A concerned cast-mate hires Clara, a determined distance swimmer and private inquiry agent to find the missing actress.

Two books ago, Clara inherited the detective agency belonging to her late Uncle Bob, and is still learning the ropes. Her mother, Lady Vanessa, hates that she's running the detective agency instead of getting married to someone suitable (read noble), and that she also inherited a Georgian townhouse (complete with a forensic laboratory and a file collection of her uncle’s most bizarre cases). She's functionally independent and in no rush to give up her financial freedom. With plenty to prove to the various police inspectors and potential clients she encounters, Clara works long hours and tackles her new challenges with verve and ingenuity. A side plot about a shoplifting ring brings her a useful new assistant.

This complicated case is embedded in the now-vanished world of constantly touring theatrical companies, their rivalries and alliances, their succession of temporary boarding houses. The quotes from an extant 1929 play script of Cinderella are sure to please theatre historians. There are plenty of tourist touchstones around historical Newcastle as well as a few day trips to York by train. The mystery is a curious one, the science and detection tools are approximately appropriate to the state of knowledge at the time.

The Pantomime Murders has all the elements of an enjoyable 1920s Christmas crime albeit with fewer flappers and less gin, with a strong undercurrent early feminism. However, the first half is weighed down by Clara's repetitive thinking through her next steps, then discussing the same next steps, then doing one or two next steps, then thinking through them again in between every step. Once you get past that, the mystery clips along believably with some nice touches of menacing atmosphere and a nice twist at the end.

Overall this is a satisfying historical Christmas crime novel, well rooted in the social, cultural, and financial history of 1929.

 

#Netgalley #Newcastle #York #BlackTuesday #Pantomime #theatre #Suffragist #WomenHelpingWomen #EmblaPress #Christmas