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

 

Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia

by Jason Pargin

Pub Date: 31 Oct 2023

The creative gore here is perfect for Halloween reading. And it’s kind of a killer crime novel too.

You might not think from the opening pages that Zoey is going to become one of your favourite characters. But soon you will be rooting for her, and snickering at the snarky observations and quirky turns of phrase. You don’t have to read far before you realize that the author, being the former executive editor of cracked.com, has a wry and slightly demented sense of humor.

This futuristic supermall-slash-Vegas version of Utah has hypercharged crooked capitalism at its core, and thanks to her dead father, Zoey owns a large chunk of it. Anytime there’s wealth derived from shady/crooked origins, there are enemies. And Zoey's are a special breed of determined/crazy.

This book is a sequel to Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (2020), which followed Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Those two were written by the same author under the name David Wong.

Apart from a tendency of the various characters to digress into brief polemics about the inevitability of corruption and predictably existentialist views of modern society, the book is entertaining for anyone who loves wordplay and unexpected situational comedy. It will appeal to mystery lovers who like their humour zany, and to many people who loved Mad Magazine and Cracked in their youth. And possibly to anyone who enjoys The Murderbot Diaries.

 

You don’t need to have read the previous two books in order to enjoy this one, but you will probably want to go back after you’ve lived in Zoe‘s world for this extremely eccentric adventure. 

 

#NetGalley #Zoey #gangsters #politics #futuristic #zany #election #stunts #socialmedia

Shark Teeth: she's not really a biter

Shark Teeth

by Sherri Winston 

Pub Date: 16 Jan 2024 

Bloomsbury Children's Books

 

Kita is a really identifiable character, a girl going into grade 7 whose mission is to look after her younger siblings, keep their home life on track amid her mother's partying and absenteeism and cruelty, and most of all keep the family from being split up into different foster homes AGAIN.

She’s also got hyperdontia, two rows of teeth. The kids at school call her Sharkita or Shark Teeth. She's heard all the hurtful phrases that everyone who is physically different faces, and by now expects them. Which new person would ask her what’s wrong with her teeth? Which would say no offense before saying something that could only seen as offensive? Or, what hurt the most: which would pretend she wasn’t there at all?

Kita wants to join after school activities like her friends do. She wants to be a kid. And that seems to be what the new assistant principal is encouraging. Even when she’s trying out for the dance and twirl team at school, with her mother's blessing, Kita’s stressed about whether Mama is actually looking after the younger siblings or has gone off again. She has episodes of severe muscle spasms, but her mother just tells her they’re a sign of being crazy. If she tells anyone about them, she could get locked up. Mama's really an expert at cutting off Kita from anyone who might help her. 

 

This is a touching story of Kita's struggle to become a kid again: to learn to trust others to look after her siblings better than she can, to accept help and support and even love from people who truly have her best interests at heart. Foster kids will see their own struggles here, and other kids will relate to Kita's insecurities as well as learning empathy for classmates who too often are mocked for their poverty, their enforced maturity, their visible differences.  

Five Stars.

#NetGalley #FosterCare #FosterHome #Family #FoundFamily #Family Dysfunction #MiddleGrade #Twirl #DanceTeam #School #Friendship #Bloomsbury

Imprisoned Like a Lady

 Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord

 by Celeste Connally 

This novel has all that most readers expect from a Regency: carriages, horses, a ball scene, sparks and snarks between the heroine and her love interest. There are few clues in the opening chapter to this novel’s Regency-Gothic plot, but get past that and it’s a socially relevant, intriguing tale of women successfully challenging of one of England’s longstanding, deeply inhumane ways of exercising patriarchal power and greed.

Several feisty female secondary characters band together with Our Heroine to rescue their downtrodden compatriots from controlling spouses and fathers, at similar risk to their own limited freedoms. It’s inspiring and refreshing, part of the new wave of Regencies that tackle wider societal problems rather than strictly a het romance.

Those flaws in this opening: dialogue and inner monologues are slightly over-flowery (as is common with neo-Regency novels), setting is generically ‘carriages and balls’ rather than definably Regency-era, and far too many paragraphs are lost interspersing Our Heroine changing her clothes with clumsily introducing (through inane dialogue with her faithful ladies’ maid) characters we’ll meet later. There’s no way to guess from this opening that you’re entering a tale of human frailty, madhouses, and morals that would not be out of place in a Bronte novel. 

Available for pre-order to Nov 14, 2023

#Netgalley #Regency #Women