A M Stuart on Why I Love Historical Mysteries

I am very pleased  to welcome author A S Stuart to my blog today. A S Stuart also writes under the name Alison Stuart, and under that name has written one of my favourite books for the year, The Goldminer's Sister!

Welcome Alison!

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Thank you so much for inviting me to your blog today.

I began my writing career writing the books I love to read – an appealing hero and heroine, great location, history and action and a happy ever after. I described my early books as ‘historicals with romance’, rather than what most people think of as ‘historical romance’. They were fun to write and, I hope, are still fun to read, but it took a conversation with that wonderful writer, Mary Jo Putney, to make me see a different perspective on my writing.

She asked me a simple question… “What do you like to read?” I had to think about that question, mentally going through the books on my TBR pile and the books I listened to on audio to fill in the long commute to and from work. My answer surprised me… “I mostly read mystery books.”

While I love my historicals with romance, the truth was I preferred the puzzles of a good mystery novel – or TV series. On our regular holidays to a guest house in the hills above Melbourne, as a teenager, I devoured Agatha Christie and I think her writing more than anything sowed the seed of my love of a good mystery. Like romances, which promise the reader a HEA, genre mysteries are premised on the expectation that good will triumph over evil.

Of course, Christie was writing stories that were contemporary to her, although they dress up beautifully as ‘historical mysteries’ in this day and age. The concept of a historical mystery series seemed rather remote until I started on Ellis Peters and the Brother Cadfael series. I had found a happy place where my love of historical fiction blended with my love of a good crime story.

After pondering Mary Jo’s question and admitting I mostly read crime and mystery, I thought the time had come to turn my hand to writing my own… maybe combining all the things I loved about writing my ‘historicals with romance’ with a mystery to solve. If you have read GATHER THE BONES or LORD SOMERTON’S HEIR, you will know that is exactly what I did and I loved writing them, although I did have to concede my usual ‘pantsing’ approach to writing was not suited to a more structured mystery.

Which brings me to my breakout series – THE HARRIET GORDON MYSTERIES. In the early 2000s I lived in Singapore and being ‘just an expat wife’ I had the leisure to really get to know the bones of the colonial past and it was in the microfiche room of the National Library I came across the curious advertisement in the Straits Times for a stenographer and typist, guaranteeing ABSOLUTE SECRECY AND CONFIDENTIALITY. The advertisement stayed with me and it took me several years of planning (a new concept to me!) to create the character of Harriet Gordon, stenographer and typist and failed suffragette. Along with Harriet I had to also create her community and a world that no longer exists – that of Singapore in 1910. I chose 1910 precisely because NOTHING HAPPENED! Most western fiction based on Singapore focuses on the 1930s and World War 2. I wanted to create a small town mystery series in the classic sense.

So back to the question: Why do I love writing historical mysteries?

1. I love creating a puzzle for the readers to solve with a twist in the tail.

2. I love writing about the Edwardian era – those golden days before World War One when the sun never set on the British Empire, while also acknowledging the dark side to that past.

3. There is also a huge challenge in solving crimes without the benefit of modern science. In 1910 the height of forensic scientific advancement was the use of fingerprinting and photographs. Those days when the investigator’s main investigative tool was his or her own common sense and curiosity.

4. And finally I have loved creating a series with characters I know almost as well as my own family. I am more than a little in love with Curran and Harriet is my best friend and I look forward to meeting them in each new book as they slowly reveal their own character arcs.

I really do have the best of both worlds… historicals with the potential of romance, action, adventure and of course an intriguing (I hope) mystery to solve!

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The first book in the Harriet Gordon Mystery series, SINGAPORE SAPPHIRE, came out in 2019 and the second book REVENGE IN RUBIES is out on 15 September 2020 and is available in print (online order only in Australia), Ebook and audio.

RIP XIII

Whilst I am not reading anywhere near as many books as I used to, things are much better than they have been over the last few years when it comes to reading. I think last year I read 12 books in total for the year. 12!! A few years ago, reading 12 books in a month would have been a bad month! At the moment, I am on track to read about 50 books for this year, which I am pretty happy with.

When I was on Instagram the other day I saw about RIPXIII - the Readers Imbibing Peril challenge that is hosted at Readers Imbibing Peril. This is a challenge that I used to look forward to every year, and that I participated in regularly. It is something of a shock to realise that I haven't participated in it for 5 years. When I was thinking about my previous participation in this challenge it has lead me to think about so many people who blogged but have now disappeared, including Carl who originally hosted this challenge. It pleased me to see that the challenge is still recognisable as the RIP reading challenge of old, but still moving forward as well.

When I looked at what I want to read over the next few weeks though, I realised that quite a few of the books I want to read fit the challenge criteria which is to read and enjoy books that are

Mystery.

Suspense.

Thriller.

Dark Fantasy.

Gothic.

Horror.

Supernatural

The books that I have in mind to read before the end of October include The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan, The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton and Lethal White by Robert Galbraith.  I am thinking that I am going to try and stretch myself to read one more and therefore meet the Peril the IVth level of participation. I have no idea if I will actually review any other books, but there's still fun to be had on Litsy, Instagram, Twitter etc even if that doesn't actually happen.

I actually finished listening to The Ruin yesterday and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. The audiobook was narrated by Aoife McMahon and she did a great job in telling the story. I wasn't always 100% convinced by her Irish-Australian accent, but I think that every Irish-Australian out there probably have different inflections in their accent anyway. I also swear that at one point the wrong name (Ella) was used for a character  (Emma) but I didn't end up trying to find it again to see if it really happened of it was just my hearing!

The story itself was interesting. It starts with a young police man being sent to a house where there has been a report of domestic violence but when he gets there he finds two kids who have been obviously neglected and abused, and their dead mother who has apparently died of a heroin overdose.

Fast forward 20 years and Cormac Reilly has just returned to Galway having lived in Dublin for many years and worked his way up into specialist units in the Garda. He has returned to Galway for personal reasons and finds himself ostracised from his colleagues, not knowing if he can trust some people he called friends, suspicious of some of the events that are happening within the station and only being allocated cold cases.

One of the cold cases he is allocated to reinvestigate is the death of the mother, and he is taken back in time to the case that he has thought of many times over the years. But when the young boy, now grown, is found dead in a suspected suicide, things get complicated.

I enjoyed the narrative a lot, and I like that this is the first in a series. I particularly like that there are still threads of the story that I suspect will flow into the next book. I think we got to know just enough about Cormac in this book to keep me reading, without having his whole backstory overwhelm the storyline of the book.

Dervla McTiernan is an Irish born author who moved to Australia a few years ago. It's a long standing Aussie tradition to claim anyone with this kind of background as an Aussie, and I am therefore counting this towards the Australian Women Writers Challenge.

I never really wrote a post declaring that I was participating in the challenge this year, but I would say at least half of the books I am reading at the moment are by Australian women writers, so my participation in this challenge over the last five or six years has definitely left a lasting impact on my reading choices.

Rating 4.5/5

Banquet of Lies by Michelle Diener

Giselle "Gigi" Barrington is quite an unusual young lady for her time. She travels around Europe as her father's companion, taking her to many places and meeting many people that she normally wouldn't meet. Whilst he collects fairy tales and folk stories, and acts as a British spy, she collects the recipes from the places they visit with the hope of eventually being able collate them into a book. Not only does she like to collect the recipes, she also likes to cook them herself - very unusual behaviour for a young lady of her class.

Whilst in Stockholm, Giselle's father is handed a very important document to take back to England that will change the course of history dramatically. When he is murdered for that document, Giselle knows that the killer will soon be after her too. She doesn't know who the murderer is, but she could identify him from a distance, but she knows that she needs to get away as it is very likely that he knows who she is. Where does a young woman who is alone go to hide in a foreign country though? Then again, the same problem faces her in England as well. She can't go to her family home, as that would be the most obvious place for the killer to look for her.

There is only one person that she can go to, which is her family friend Georges Bisset, a chef in the Duke of Whittaker's house. He is able to recommend her for a position as cook in the house of Lord Aldridge. No one would think of looking for a young lady in the kitchens of a nobleman's kitchen and this position has the added bonus of being quite close to her own home so Giselle can see if anything is happening there. Whilst whipping up fantastic dinners, Gigi gets a glimpse into the lives the servants live as well, battles against the butler who clearly dislikes her, find herself on the wrong side of the law and so much more. She knows that she is still a target for the assassin so she needs to work out who the person is who should have received the dangerous missive, get it to them and stay alive!

Lord Aldridge is a former soldier who gained a taste for continental food during his years serving his country. A younger son who inherited a title, Aldridge fills his day managing his estates, attending parliament and involving himself every now and again in some intrigue for his country. He can't quite understand why his cook has him all twisted up. His reaction to her is incredibly strong which is difficult for him as he is a fundamentally good man who has never engaged in trysts with his staff and he doesn't intend to start now. If only he could stay away from her.

Over the last 12 months or so I have been fortunate to read three of Michelle Diener's books and each one of them has been a delight! This book, which was recently released was the third, and once again I was treated to a fun story with good characters that is an easy book to read and get lost in. The reader is treated to a mix of romance, history, mystery and adventure that the author balances really well.

It is worth mentioning that the characters from The Emperor's Conspiracy do make an appearance in this book. I am a stickler for reading in order and as such get really upset if I don't know this kind of thing in advance. Having said that, you could easily read this book first without missing out on too much. Hopefully you would be intrigued enough to go back and read their story if you hadn't previously read it. I am already hoping that Michelle's next book will feature these same sets of characters. The Duke of Whittaker in particular seems to be an ideal candidate to have his story told, particularly if it means that he gets to meet an unusual woman to shake up his life.

I should mention the food too. Oh my goodness, the food in this book sounds so good! I was left salivating as Gigi served up course after course of delicious sounding food. On her website, Diener has shared a number of recipes that were mentioned in this book, and I have to say...I would be happy for her to come and cook for me anytime!

Rating 4/5

About the tour

Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/banquetofliestour
Twitter Hashtag: #BanquetOfLiesTour

Michelle Diener's website

Michelle Diener on Twitter

Michelle Diener on Facebook

About the book

A Secret Treaty and a Secret Life

LONDON, 1812: Giselle Barrington is living a double life, juggling the duties of chef with those of spy catcher. She must identify her father’s savage killer before the shadowy man finds her and uncovers the explosive political document her father entrusted to her safekeeping.

Posing as a French cook in the home of Lord Aldridge, Giselle is surrounded by unlikely allies and vicious enemies. In the streets where she once walked freely among polite society, she now hides in plain sight, learning the hard lessons of class distinction and negotiating the delicate balance between servant and master.

Lord Aldridge’s insatiable curiosity about his mysterious new chef blurs the line between civic duty and outright desire. Carefully watching Giselle’s every move, he undertakes a mission to figure out who she really is—and, in the process, plunges her straight into the heart of danger when her only hope for survival is to remain invisible.

This book counts for the following challenges:

 

The Tudor Secret/The Tudor Conspiracy by C W Gortner (The Spymaster Chronicles)

I have long been a fan of C W Gortner, not only because of how much I enjoy his books, but also because of the gracious way in which he interacts with his readers. I really enjoy the way that he has previously focused on not necessarily unknown characters but rather lesser known characters from European history like Juana, queen of Spain (sister to Catherine of Aragon), or Catherine de Medici. Right from when I first read him I have enjoyed his voice and his portrayal of powerful, flawed women.

Both The Tudor Secret and the sequel The Tudor Conspiracy bring something new to Gortner's established readers. This time his canvas is the Tudor court of England, a picture that has been painted many times before. Rather than straight historical fiction this is mystery, and his main protagonist is a male character although there are plenty of female characters in the mix, including Queen Mary and Princess Mary.

Whilst this post is ostensibly a review of The Tudor Conspiracy, I do want to talk briefly about The Tudor Secret, which is the first book in the series. Because I have to read a series in order, I made sure to read The Tudor Secret first but I am unlikely to write a whole post so I just wanted to touch on a couple of things before moving onto the second book. I will also try to avoid spoilers for the first book as much as I can.

The Tudor Secret was originally self published nearly a decade ago.The author has polished it up ready to be republished by a major publisher but, as someone who has read most of his books, I can definitely see improvements in his writing in his later books and particularly in relation to the second book in this series.

Whilst I didn't not like The Tudor Secret, there wasn't a lot that stood out for me. I have mentioned before that I often feel Tudored out and so when I do read something with a Tudor setting I want it to stand out. The Tudor Secret wasn't really that book for me. It was a good read, it introduced an interesting enough character, played with a question of identity in a way I have kind of seen before and we saw all the familiar players like Princess Elizabeth, Robert Dudley and wily Lord Cecil as well as some secondary characters like Peregrine the stable boy who quickly attaches himself to Brendan.

By way of introduction, Brendan Prescott was a foundling who was abandoned as a baby. He was entered into the Dudley household where the boy was educated to quite a high level, mainly because of his own curiosity and determination. He is called to court to perform the duties of Robert Dudley's squire and quicker than he could say "will that be all my lord?" he is drawn into a world of spies and subterfuge, and into questions like who will rule the realm should sickly King Edward die. With the Dudley's scheming to get Lady Jane Grey to be the next ruler and Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth being kept waiting in the wings things are going to get very touchy in the Tudor court. And we haven't even talked yet about Brendan's search for his true identity!

Earlier in this post I said that if I am going to read a Tudor set book then I want something that stands out. Where the first book in the series fell a little flat to me, the second book, The Tudor Conspiracy most definitely did not.

After the events of the last book, Brendan has been living a quiet life in the country. When Lord Cecil calls for him to return to the court to help protect Princess Elizabeth, he doesn't hesitate for too long before agreeing to go undercover. His challenge is to infiltrate the court of Queen Mary and the employ of the powerful Spanish envoy who is exerting a great deal of power over her. The rumours are flying thick and fast that Mary plans to marry Philip of Spain, a prospect that scares the general populace as this will most likely mean that England will be expected to return to the Catholic Church and religious intolerance will spread even more. The possible marriage could also have dire implications for Princess Elizabeth who continues to defy Mary on multiple fronts, most especially to do with religion, and is thus incurring her wrath. Brendan must work to find out if Elizabeth is in imminent danger and protect her as best he can. In the meantime he must also be seen to work for the queen in proving that Elizabeth, Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon and perhaps others including Robert Dudley are involved in a conspiracy to bring Elizabeth to the throne. Gortner brings the conspiracy that leads to the eventual Wyatt rebellion to life with historically known details and imagination combining perfectly.

For Brendan, it proves very difficult to juggle two identities and to be serving different masters who all have different, competing agendas, and that is before we add the fact that he is still trying to determine exactly who he truly is as well!

There were two aspects of this book that felt more assured to me. Firstly, there was the writing and secondly the characterisation. While reading The Tudor Conspiracy I felt completely engaged in the action whether it be when Brendan finds himself trying to escape from deadly situations or feels that he is being watched as he crosses over the crowded London Bridge, I was there with him willing him to beat his opponents, gasping as he comes within a swords slash of being maimed or murdered, feeling his fear as he tangles with the scarred man who works for the Earl of Devon, Mr Scarsgill, grieving as he loses somebody close to him (I could not believe that the author killed off that character!) and screwing up my nose so that I can't smell yet another set of clothes that he has ruined! He is very hard on his clothes!

I think that the thing that impressed me most about the main character of Brendan Prescott in this book is the author has made him so human. Gortner is not afraid to have Prescott show his fears (which include water, confined spaces and more), his fallibility or his emotions, even as he continues to place the character in dangerous situations. There are things that Brendan did in this book that should not be glossed over easily, and they aren't, but the author has taken the time to make sure that the reader sees clearly Brendan's own thought processes and, in some cases, guilt as he works through the mystery that he is wrapped up in and tries determine who exactly is trustworthy in the pit of vipers that is the court of Queen Mary.

There are crosses and double crosses, murders, conspiracies, distrust and enmity between family members, secret identities and oh, so much more. Gortner manages to keep all of the various plot points deftly in hand, providing the reader with a heart in mouth reading experience as you try and race through to the end of the book just to see what happens next!

I liked that in the authors note, it is clearly spelled out what where history and imagination crossed paths, and I was glad to see that there will be more adventures featuring Brendan Prescott in future. There are surely many more adventures that await him in the complicated worlds of Queen Mary initially, and later with Queen Elizabeth. I am very much looking forward to reading them.

Ratings:

The Tudor Secret 3.5/5
The Tudor Conspiracy 4.5/5

Tour Details

Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/thetudorconspiracyvirtualtour/
Twitter Hashtag: #TudorConspiracyTour
CW Gortner's website.
CW Gortner on Facebook
CW Gortner on Twitter.

About the book

Hunted by a shadowy foe in Bloody Mary’s court, Brendan Prescott plunges into London’s treacherous underworld to unravel a dark conspiracy that could make Elizabeth queen—or send her to her death in C.W. Gortner's The Tudor Conspiracy

England, 1553: Harsh winter encroaches upon the realm. Mary Tudor has become queen to popular acclaim and her enemies are imprisoned in the Tower. But when she’s betrothed to Philip, Catholic prince of Spain, putting her Protestant subjects in peril, rumors of a plot to depose her swirl around the one person whom many consider to be England’s heir and only hope—the queen’s half-sister, Princess Elizabeth.

Haunted by his past, Brendan Prescott lives far from the intrigues of court. But his time of refuge comes to an end when his foe and mentor, the spymaster Cecil, brings him disquieting news that sends him on a dangerous mission. Elizabeth is held captive at court, the target of the Spanish ambassador, who seeks her demise. Obliged to return to the palace where he almost lost his life, Brendan finds himself working as a double-agent for Queen Mary herself, who orders Brendan to secure proof that will be his cherished Elizabeth’s undoing.

Plunged into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a mysterious opponent who hides a terrifying secret, Brendan races against time to retrieve a cache of the princess’s private letters, even as he begins to realize that in this dark world of betrayal and deceit, where power is supreme and sister can turn against sister, nothing—and no one—is what it seems.

A Trifle Dead by Livia Day

Just like a good trifle, a good mystery has several different layers so that when you dig into the concoction it is full of the flavour and the texture that makes the whole spoonful taste delicious. For my Weekend Cooking post this week, I thought I would do a comparison of the components that make up a good trifle and a good mystery while talking about Livia Day's A Trifle Dead.

Firstly, there is the cake which in this analogy is the mystery that forms the basis of the book. Let's face it, if you say you are writing a mystery it doesn't really matter how good your characters are, or how unusual your setting because if the mystery is too weak then the rest can't wholly make up for that.

In A Trifle Dead, the cake layer revolves around cafe owner Tabitha Darling who is at the centre of a very eclectic group of people. She has been running her cafe for a year, and during that time she has built up a solid clientele. Among them are lots of members of the Tasmanian police force. They used to get their food at the police cafe when it was run by Tabitha's mother, but since she left town, they now gravitate to Tabitha's cafe. It also gives them an opportunity to keep protective watch over Tabitha, who seems to have a knack for getting herself into interesting situations. First and foremost on the list of police who seem to keep an eye on Tabitha is Leo Bishop, gorgeous and long the object of Tabitha's daydreams.

When a dead body is found strung up in a net on the ceiling of one of the apartments above the cafe, Tabitha can't help but become involved. For the police, it is apparently a fairly clear cut case, but it doesn't quite make sense to Tabitha. There are too many questions left unanswered. How does someone end dead in a net attached to the ceiling, and what does this death have to do with the other strange crimes that are happening around town? And how on earth does someone fill a fridge with hundreds of ping pong balls?

Assisted by Scottish blogger Stewart who has recently arrived in Hobart, Tabitha and her friends set about (definitely not) investigating the murder (because that would just upset dreamboat Senior Constable Leo Bishop more than he normally is!). Soon though, it seems as though these odd events are not unrelated and that somehow Tabitha is caught up in the middle of them all.

I have been known to have cake with custard for dessert, but it isn't trifle unless there is that added layer of jelly, which in this example I am equating with the characters.

Tabitha and her friends are very artsy and eclectic, and it would have been easy for the sheer personality size of some of them to overwhelm the story. For example, one of the key plot points is about Darrow, the missing owner of the cafe. Directly connected to him is the cat suit wearing ex-girlfriend who also happens to be Tabitha's high school (but no longer) best friend and his genius school boy younger brother. His grandmother is a delightfully quirky woman who makes anatomically correct human shaped meringues amongst other things. I haven't even talked about Tabitha's engineering student housemate with a penchant for cross dressing or any of the other characters. Given that there is so much colour in the characterisation of the people, it wouldn't have been a surprise if they distracted the reader from the story, but Day manages to give both the characters and the story the space they need to expand on the page.While I don't think I would necessarily be friends with all of them, they do make for interesting characters to read about, and I look forward to visiting with them again in the next book in the series.

As well as being a crime novel, this is also a humourous novel. With so many colourful characters to contend with, getting the dialogue right becomes even more important. There were plenty of times when I found myself laughing and smiling as the characters interacted with each other. Hopefully the quote I have included below shows this a little.

When you are building on the the layers of cake (mystery) and the jelly (characters), there is the creamy, smooth layer of custard.

In this book, the custard layer was the use of Hobart as the setting. Livia Day is a resident of Hobart and it is clear that it is a place that she loves. Hobart has long had a reputation of being a quiet city, but Day shows how the artistic scene is thriving in the island city. I went to Tassie a few years ago and stayed a bit out of the city, but I definitely appreciated the way that the author used well known landmarks such as Mount Wellington, which provides a dramatic backdrop to the city, and Salamanca Place, which on weekends draws the tourist crowds to the market that is held there as well as less well known features of the city.

The introduction of the Scottish journalist/blogger Stewart was a clever move, as it gave the author the chance to show the reader around Hobart using Stewart as the eyes and ears in addition to adding additional tension to the relationship between Tabitha and Bishop - yes, a potential love triangle. Stewart's job was to find stories that showed Hobart in an interesting and unusual light. It makes perfect sense to have to explain things to him that would have only been able to given to the reader in extended info dump sections otherwise. Oh, and I would have loved to have been able to see the mural that he paints for Tabitha's cafe. It sounded awesome.

The use of social media is also interesting. Day doesn't ignore the fact that Facebook and Twitter play such a big part in modern life for a lot of people. For example, every year Tabitha throws an Oscars party, where everyone has to dress up, eat fabulous food and watched the delayed telecast that we get here. During the day when the results are filtering through she avoids all Facebook and Twitter updates so that she doesn't find out who wins. I know people who do something similar, although I suspect that Tabitha's parties would be something special to attend just going on the description of her clothes. The place of social media is a topic that this author has has explored before in at least one short story in her other guise of Tansy Rayner Roberts, and I think it has a place in stories with a modern setting because the influence of social media does continue to grow and shape our modern society both in good and bad ways.

There are more elements that can be added to a trifle, including maybe a sprinkling of alcohol but the other major additional element that I expect in a trifle is some sort of fruit, which I am equating with the the foodie elements that are very present in this book.  The fruit pieces in a trifle are the extra flavour that give that extra burst of taste in every bite and that is definitely true in the book too. I was left very, hungry while reading this book and having drooled a lot!

As an example of this, I thought I would share a short passage from the beginning of the novel which gives some idea of the foodie feel of the novel, but also because it shows the voice of the author and the dialogue between some of the characters.

When I was growing up, a salad roll was a confection-like sticky bun filled with cheese, tomato, lettuce, beetroot and sliced egg, all glued together with a mock-mayonnaise. Good old Australian corner shop tucker. Now, if it didn't have cranberry sauce, gouda or red pesto on it, our customers whinged the roof down. Oh, and ham wasn't good enough for most of the hipster lunch set, even if it was triple smoked and carved off an organic local pig. Fat-free turkey and smoked salmon were where it was at - with a growing interest in grilled mushrooms and haloumi.

I realised I had reached the point of no return when I put 'tofu and ricotta salad roll, deconstructed' on the menu, and it became my biggest seller. After that, I started really having fun. If food isn't creative, what's the point?

Unfortunately, I still had a very vocal (if minority) group of customers who were firmly attache to the Gold Old Days, and relied on me to provide the basic staples of Man Food. Steak, friend potato products and pies. I never had this much trouble with the uni students when I was working at the cafe on campus. At least students appreciated an ironic sprout when they saw one.

Well, no more. The old guard were going to have to find their pies somewhere else. I had hipsters to feed. The customer bell twanged loudly in the cafe.

'In a minute,' I protested as Nin's eyebrows became stern and judgmental. 'Egg emergency.'

As I picked up the phone, a tall, dark and handsome police officer in street uniform put his head through the swinging doors. 'Tish, the natives are getting restless.'

I rolled my eyes at the old nickname, and handed the phone to Nin. 'Call Monica. We're going to need another three dozen. Might require grovelling.'

She dialled, knowing a good deal when she saw one. 'So,' I said to Senior Constable Leo Bishop, 'by natives, you mean the usual gang of reprobate?'

Bishop grinned his gorgeous grin at me. 'The accepted term is still police officers, you know.'

Of course, the final element in any trifle is the beautiful glass bowl that enables you to see the various layers once they are all assembled together, without distracting the eye. In this case, I think that the cover is very effective and eye catching.

Okay, I think that I need to give the trifle/mystery comparison a rest now!

It is no surprise that the week that I was reading this book, I suddenly found myself craving trifle. How fortuitous for me that I managed to stuff up making a never-failed-before chocolate cake so I was able to make a basic trifle just for me! Of course, it wasn't as exotic as the two recipes that are included in the back of the book. The publisher ran a contest asking readers to share trifle recipes and the two that are included sound absolutely fantastic - Chocolate Lime Shot Trifles and Death by Trifle: Cherry and Marzipan Trifle.

I have been a fan of Australian small publisher Twelfth Planet Press for a few years now. They mainly publish spec fic novels including the fantastic Twelve Planet series, which are short story collections from twelve Australian authors. Given that I already was a fan, I knew that I would be reading this book which is the first book that has been published under their new crime imprint, Headlines Deadlines. It didn't hurt that I knew that Livia Day was a pseudonym for Tansy Rayner Roberts whose short stories I have previously enjoyed.

This fun, cosy style novel is the start of a new mystery series which features a quirky Australian voice, memorable characters and delicious sounding food. I am looking forward to the next one, and also to see which other Australian voices the Headline imprint manages to uncover.

Rating 4/5


Synopsis

Tabitha Darling has always had a dab hand for pastry and a knack for getting into trouble. Which was fine when she was a tearaway teen, but not so useful now she’s trying to run a hipster urban cafe, invent the perfect trendy dessert, and stop feeding the many (oh so unfashionable) policemen in her life.

When a dead muso is found in the flat upstairs, Tabitha does her best (honestly) not to interfere with the investigation, despite the cute Scottish blogger who keeps angling for her help. Her superpower is gossip, not solving murder mysteries, and those are totally not the same thing, right?

But as that strange death turns into a string of random crimes across the city of Hobart, Tabitha can’t shake the unsettling feeling that maybe, for once, it really is ALL ABOUT HER.

And maybe she’s figured out the deadly truth a trifle late…

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

The Chalice by Nancy Bilyeau

I don't think I have made any secret of the fact that I am a bit Tudored out and so I am being very selective about the books that I read that are set during the Tudor period of British history. When I saw that this book was coming out though, there was no question for me as to whether I would read this or not. Bilyeau's debut novel, The Chalice, which features a novice nun named Joanne Stafford who comes from a disgraced noble family was a good read for me last year but I did have some issues with the pacing.

Everything I enjoyed about The Crown was present, but The Chalice is by far the stronger book of the two. The pacing is strong and consistent, the mystery is interesting, the plot twists and turns, the historical facts are fascinating and the characters are captivating!

After the dissolution of the monasteries, former novice Joanna Stafford is trying to make a home for herself in the town of Dartford in Kent. It is difficult to be out in the community, especially given that the town isn't particularly welcoming to the former nuns and friars. In addition to the former sisters who share her life, Joanna also has custody of a young boy, Arthur, who is the son of her cousin who was executed for committing treason in the previous book.

Joanna knows that she needs to find a way to make a living and so has a plan to start producing tapestries. She just needs her loom to arrive from the low countries and she will be able to start working and live a nice, quiet life with the only dilemma for her being her love life. At the end of The Chalice things were kind of unresolved, which made sense given that Joanne had a religious vocation. She definitely felt a strong connection to Geoffrey Scovill, a constable that she met when he saved her from a mob at the beginning of the last book, and a strong emotional connection to Brother Edmund, the apothecary who is a constant in her life.

When her cousin and his wife suddenly show up in Dartford with an invitation for both Joanna and Arthur to visit with them, it is a surprise to Joanna. She has no intention of being drawn back into the world that comes with being a member of one of England's most infamous families and related to many of the other noble families like the Howards. Only agreeing to accompany her cousin as long as she does not have to attend Court, Joanna goes with them to London.

Despite her protests, Joanna is drawn into a complicated plot that relies strongly on a prophecy that concerns her.  Suddenly her quiet life is a long way behind her as she finds herself faced with the responsibility of trying to restore the Catholic faith to England. The last thing that Joanna wants is to fulfil the terms of the prophecy but  life conspires to bring Joanna to a place where she has very little choice.  The plot is constantly evolving and bringing Joanna into different situations, even having her travelling to Flanders. Joanna is not always blindly following fate, for want of a better word, especially once there are people starting to die around her. There were a couple of times when she did do a couple of things that had me shaking my head, but she is also able to find a resolution to the prophecy that enables her to be who she wants to be. I did find the resolution to be very interesting, especially with the way that Joanna was introduced to both Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. I would think that Joanne will be back at court with everything that we know is going to happen regarding those two women in the future.

One of the pieces of history that I learned about during reading this book was about a law that was passed by Henry VIII that prevented anyone who had taken religious vows from being able to marry. Once again this left those former nuns and brothers with few options. They could no longer fulfil their religious obligations but they also could not become fully immersed in secular life either and it had very interesting implications for the story.

Once again, the book ends with some ambiguity in relation to Joanna's future. Which just left me with one major question when I finished the book ...when is the next one out?

Rating 4.5/5

Tour Details


Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/thechalicevirtualtour/
Twitter Hashtag: #TheChaliceVirtualTour
Nancy Bilyeau's website.
Nancy Bilyeau on Facebook
Nancy Bilyeau on Twitter


Synopsis

In the next novel from Nancy Bilyeau after her acclaimed debut The Crown, novice Joanna Stafford plunges into an even more dangerous conspiracy as she comes up against some of the most powerful men of her era.

In 1538, England is in the midst of bloody power struggles between crown and cross that threaten to tear the country apart. Joanna Stafford has seen what lies inside the king’s torture rooms and risks imprisonment again, when she is caught up in a shadowy international plot targeting the King. As the power plays turn vicious, Joanna understands she may have to assume her role in a prophecy foretold by three different seers, each more omniscient than the last.

Joanna realizes the life of Henry VIII as well as the future of Christendom are in her hands—hands that must someday hold the chalice that lays at the center of these deadly prophecies…

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

This year the tenth book in the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear is being released. To celebrate, there is a month long blog tour called The Month of Maisie which will focus on the whole series, with the first seven books in the series being featured in this first week of the month, leading up to the newest book at the end of the month.

Because I was a bit slow in jumping on board this series, I have just read the fourth book, Messenger of Truth. Once again, investigator/psychologist Maisie Dobbs is asked to investigate a murder, or perhaps I should say possible murder. The young man who died was Nick Bassington-Hope, a young man who was forging a name for himself as an artist of some repute. When he died he was alone in an art gallery setting up for the installation of what he thought was going to be his greatest work yet. By all appearances he had been high up on the scaffolding when he fell and died. The police were called and it was declared to be an open and shut case of accidental death.

His twin sister, Georgina, is not convinced though. She believes that there was foul play and that her brother may have been murdered. The art piece that he was installing was one that he knew would upset people but no one was going to see it before the big unveiling at the art gallery. In fact, no one even knows where the major piece is. There is an American buyer who is keen to purchase, but Nick had made it clear that he wanted it to be donated to a public institution like the War Museum.

In the course of trying to work out how Nick Bassington-Hope died, Maisie is pulled in several different directions. There is his arty but dysfunctional family who draw Maisie into their colourful lives and to the darker London underworld, his friends who lived near the seaside in converted railway carriages (that sounded rather fab!) complete with strange goings on, as well as Nick's own history as a war artist and the legacy that left on his psyche, and the strange behaviour of the police.

Personally, Maisie is still recovering from an emotional breakdown the year before, a floundering romantic relationship and an icy distance to her mentor who has previously meant so much to her and been so helpful when he has acted as a sounding board for her in the past.

One of the things I really enjoy about this series is the way the legacy of World War I is explored. Just over 10 years after the war has ended, life continues to be heavily influenced by those dreadful years and now there is additional hardship as the effects of the Great Depression really begin to affect the lives of many, especially Maisie's assistant Billy. I also like the way that Maisie continues to develop as a character. It is clear that she has a lot more development to go too, which makes her an interesting character to read about. She clearly still is impacted heavily by her war time experiences, and sometimes she is not willing to concede that. She is a career driven woman in a time where the norm was still to get married and have children, but the times are changing and not only because there is a shortage of eligible men thanks to the war.

While I do enjoy these books, there are things that don't always work. For example, Maisie relies a lot on 'intuition' to help her move her cases forward - things like being able to sit in the space of a person and see their actions to help her find clues - and whilst this might be interesting, it doesn't always make sense when something comes completely out of the blue. Ultimately, the solution to the mystery made sense, but the pieces fell together in quite a rush in some ways. The other story lines also got a bit distracting at times too.

I did have reservations about this instalment, but they are not strong enough to prevent me from continuing on with the series. I just read the synopsis for the latest book and I have to say that I was intrigued. What a pity I still have five more books to read in the series in order to get to it!

Rating 4/5

Tour Details

Month of Maisie tour schedule
Jacqueline Winspear's website
Jacqueline Winspear on Facebook.

In addition to the normal blog tour stops, there are several chats with author Jacqueline Winspear, one taking place on Goodreads on March 12 (join the discussion group here) and a Book Club Girl On Show with Jacqueline scheduled for March 18 at 7 pm EST (set your reminder for the show here).

Synopsis

London, 1931. When controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope is found dead, the police believe it is an open and shut case and his death from a fall is recorded as'accidental'. But his sister is not convinced, so she turns to Maisie Dobbs for help, drawn by the investigator's growing reputation for her unique methods of solving crimes.

Moving from the desolate beaches of the English coast to the dark underbelly of post-war London, and full of intriguing characters, Maisie's new investigation entertains and enthrals at every turn.

Currently Reading: Queen's Bounty by Fiona Buckley

I have mentioned here one or two times that I am a sucker for a series, and I will stick around for the long term to continue a series. I do, however, much prefer to read a series in order.

The Ursula Blanchard mysteries is kind of an example of a long term commitment.  I read the first instalment of the series back in May 2005 (preblogging days) and then proceeded to read all 8 books in the series over the next ten months. Apparently I used to read a series a lot quicker back then! I did a spotlight post on the series a few years ago now which you can read here.

After that there was no word of a new book in the series, even though it clearly wasn't finished. I wanted to find out what happened next in the life of Ursula, her daughter Meg, her servants. Would she be drawn back into the intrigues that were so prevalent in the court of Elizabeth I. Would William Cecil find just one more job for Ursula to perform for Queen and country, or would she be allowed to live a quiet life in the country with her family and friends?

I was very surprised earlier this year when I found out that there was finally going to be a new instalment in the series after a gap of more than 7 years! And even better, my library had a copy on order. I requested it straight away and then had to wait.

Now that I have started reading it, there is no way that it feels as though there had been a gap of years between reading the last book and this one, until there started to be references to made to events that clearly happened in the last book, and I couldn't remember them. Undeterred I kept reading until something prompted me to have a look at Goodreads and there was reference to another book.

It turns out that I missed the news that there was a new book out late last year or early this year and so not only has there been a significant gap in reading the books but now I am reading the books out of order! The strange thing is, my library hasn't bought Queen Without a Crown (9th book in the series) but has bought this book which is the 10th book in the series.

Oh well, guess I can't do much about it now that I am more than a 100 pages into the book, but I would have much preferred to have realised this before I go to this point!

Sunday Salon: A Stranger in My Street by Deborah Burrows

Like most readers, I have my favourite types of books. For example, tell me a book is set in either World War I or World War II then I will certainly consider whether it might be something that I might want to read. Tell me that book is set in my home town of Perth then I will have to do more than that! Of course, that bring it's own dangers. What if the representation of the city feels off? Luckily, that wasn't an issue here.

Perth is a city that has been invaded, mostly by the American servicemen who have been based there as a flying base and also, to a certain degree, as a deterrent to a Japanese invasion. With them the US service men bring hard to find goods that can be sold on the black market, money and good times, especially for the young ladies in town. They look good in their uniforms, and they know how to show a lady a good time with music and dancing and more!

Whilst Meg Eaton should be out living it up, she has been living a more low key life since she heard the news that her boyfriend had been killed. Her attempt to contact his parents has been shunned and so she grieves alone. She lives with her mother and older sister, and works as a stenographer at the Crown court. Her very quiet life is changed when, on a hot summer day, she overhears a conversation outside her house. When she goes out to investigate, she finds herself talking to her dead boyfriend's older brother, Tom.

Tom is the quintessential war hero. He is handsome, decorated for bravery, former Rhodes Scholar and from a well known (and wealthy) family. He is, however, also fighting his demons as he was badly injured and is constantly in pain. He therefore can no longer take part in active fighting, but he has instead returned to Perth, with his glamourous fiancee in tow, to act as a liaison officer between the Australian and American forces that both call the city home.

Tom and Meg had never actually met before the day that he visited her next door neighbour. Neither could possibly have known the impact that meeting was going to have, both immediate and long term. When they find a body, the police know who they need to find immediately. The dead woman's husband is an Italian and therefore must have a big temper. Meg doesn't believe that at all, and so it is therefore up to Meg and Tom to work out precisely what did happen to the woman.

Once Tom realises who Meg is, and that she is still living a half life as a result of her grief, he is determined that it is time for her to start living and as a result he introduces her to some of the soldiers that he knows, and starts meeting her for drinks and lunch. The most difficult thing for Meg though is to see behind the charming exterior of the men that she is meeting to see the kind of men who are underneath, and that is especially true of Tom. He is keeping many secrets, not the least of which is what the true nature of his relationship with the dead woman was.

The author did a great job of dealing with some of the social issues of the day. The husband's family has been interred as enemy aliens and yet he is off fighting for Australia. The dead woman is working at the local hospital and has a reputation for being a bit fast and so there are plenty of judgements made about her fate, and then there is the taste of animosity that exists between the Australian and American soldiers.

Sometimes when an author tries to get good historical detail, a good romance and a good mystery into the one novel, one aspect or another is weaker, but Burrows has managed to get the balance pretty much right. Throw in the places that I am familiar with like the gardens near the court buildings and the foreshore of the Swan River among others, and some unfamiliar aspects of the history of Perth, and I was a pretty happy reader. Whilst I have that extra connection to the setting, I am sure that the setting will be enjoyable to most readers even if they aren't as familiar as I was with it.

A Stranger in my Street is Deborah Burrows first novel and it is a really strong debut. I saw her mention the other day on Twitter that she has recently been signed for a second novel which will once again feature World War II and Perth, so I am already anticipating getting my hands on that book.


Rating 4.5/5

It's January 1943. Australia is at war and Perth is buzzing.


US troops have permanently docked in the city in what local men refer to bitterly as the American occupation, and Perth women are having the time of their lives. The Americans have money, accents like movie stars, smart tailored uniforms and good manners. What's more, they love to dance and show a girl a good time, and young women are throwing caution to the wind and pushing social boundaries with their behaviour.


Not Meg Eaton, however. The war has brought her nothing but heartbreak, stealing her young love eighteen months ago. Until, in the middle of a Perth heat-wave, she meets her lost lover's brother, Tom – standing over a dead body in her neighbour's backyard.


Suddenly, Meg finds herself embroiled in the murder mystery, and increasingly involved with Tom Lagrange. But is he all that he seems? And what exactly was his relationship with the dead woman?


Debut author Deborah Burrows has brought her skills as a historian to the fore with this meticulously researched and thoroughly entertaining novel of love and intrigue.

This book counts for

Bookish Quotes: Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis

Today my bookish scrollish quote comes from Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis, the fifth book in the Marcus Didius Falco series of mysteries which is set in Ancient Rome. Marcus's voice often reminds me of a hard-bitten gumshoe detective but when you make that setting Rome it means that we get really fun reads! The fact that the voice and characterisations are so well drawn in the series, I can see myself reading all 20 books in the series in due course!

The quote comes from page 129-130

The judge lived in an impressive house of the type I could easily covet. Worse, his house might even convince me to aspire to his rank.

It was a detached town villa just off the Vicus Longus, not too large and not too small; it had some fine rooms for impressing public visitors, but was arranged for decent privacy. Marponius never went down to Petro's meagre guardhouse; he had felons brought here for interviews. He had a social conscience. He wanted lags like me to discover the urge to reform through seeing what could come from more legitimate types of crime. Compared to speculation and usury, mere theft and murder began to look unprofitable and quite hard work. Even being an informer seemed a dead-end job.

I presented my person at a ponderous marble portico. The elaborate studs and shiny bronze door furniture were overdone to my mind, but as an auctioneer's son I had seen that much of the world has unsubtle taste. Under the frippery, it was a solid hardwood door. The judge simply belonged to the group that likes to ruin good material.

Marponius and I would never agree on decor. I was a spare-time poet with a refined nature, whose occupation called for a sensitive, humane approach. He was a dull thug from the middle rank who had made himself rich, and therefore significant, by selling scientific encyclopaedias to New Men. By New Men I mean ex-slaves and foreign immigrants; people with overflowing coffers but no education who want to appear cultured. They could afford to buy literary works by weight - and more importantly, they could fit themselves up with ranks of literate slaves to read the works aloud. In the shifting social strata of Rome there was plenty of scope for applying gloss to upstarts. So if a treatise was Greek, incomprehensible and came in twenty scrolls, Marponius had his team of scribes copy it out. He used best-quality papyrus, black gall ink, and highly scented sandalwood for the end pieces. Then he supplied the slaves with refined voices too. That was where the money lay. It was a neat trick. I wish I had thought of it.

Weekend Cooking: Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood

As a longtime reader of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series set in 1920s Melbourne, I knew that I would eventually get to her other series. The Corinna Chapman books are set in contemporary Melbourne and features baker Corinna who finds herself investigating, in a purely amateur capacity, a series of mysteries that involve her and her friends.

Corinna is an interesting character. She is a proud larger lady who has been single for a couple of years after divorcing her slimy ex husband James. At the same time she gave up her corporate life as an accountant and started her own small bakery (called Earthly Delights) located in the centre of the city, and conveniently her apartment is just upstairs!

Along with Corinna and her bakery, the building is filled with interesting side characters - there is Madame Dread who owns a specialist leather shop (yes, the kind you are thinking), Meroe who is a witch and sells lots of herbs, spells, potions etc, the three Lone Gunmen - techie geeks who rarely ever see daylight, Kylie and Goss two practically anorexic women who work in Corinna's shop and live in an upstairs apartment and more.

Everyday Corinna starts the day at 4am, ready to start baking all the bread and muffins that she needs to fulfil her contracts and then open up the shop for all the city workers who grab breakfast on the way past each day. She wakes up one morning to find a girl who has overdosed lying on her ventilation grate. After performing CPR and calling the authorities, Corinna goes back to her normal day never guessing that she has been drawn into a spate of overdoses - someone is killing the drug addicts of Melbourne.

Things take a turn for the worse though when Corinna and the other ladies of the apartment block start receiving threatening letters and graffiti and vandalism targeting the women is also left in and around the building. Add in the search for a missing teenage girl and it is busy, busy, busy. The big question though is are these events connected? And what does the contemporary vampire culture that seems to be thriving in Melbourne have to do with everything?

One good thing for Corinna that does happen as a result of all of these events is that she meets Daniel  - man of mystery, intensely private but gorgeous and seemingly attracted to Corinna, much to her surprise (and gratitude, if that is the right word).  He is the heavy on the local soup run and therefore has more than passing acquaintances with many of the people who are now threatened by the risk of dying at the end of a needle. She also meets Jason. He is a young homeless boy who she initially helps out by doing a little work for her but he soon shows a remarkable talent for muffin making.

I would love to work near a bakery like Earthly Delights nearby. I was salivating as I read the book. I would be most likely to gravitate towards Jason's muffins rather than some of the breads but that is okay. Food has a strong role to play in the book, whether it be the baked goods or the various dinners that are picked up from the Greek family restaurant nearby or the local Japanese shop, or the herb omelets that Corinna sometimes whips up.

I don't think that you can really read this book without knowing where Corinna (and the author) stand on a lot of political and social issues. There is a strong sense of being aware of social justice issues and the fate of the homeless in the pages. I suspect that Kerry Greenwood would be very interesting to chat to because even her short author bio makes it clear that she leads an interesting life juggling between writing, being a legal advocate and also being the partner of a legally registered wizard. This book is littered with references to music and literature but it was all done in such a way as to not make the reader feel uneducated if they didn't get all the references. She is also clearly a cat lover, as the references to the three cats that Corinna owns are numerous - I might not be quite so keen to talk about that particular topic with her! I suspect though that I might be a bit too boring to keep her attention for very long.

Some of the repetition of daily routine got a bit monotonous but I get why it was there as it served to further draw Corinna as a character, but for a first book in the series I am sufficiently invested to want to read more. I am looking forward to reading more about all of the characters who live at Insula, the apartment block that features in the book. Oh, and if anyone knows where I can get a Daniel, just leave a comment!

Baking is an alchemical process for Corinna Chapman. At four am she starts work at Earthly Delights, her bakery in Calico Alley.

but one morning Corinna receives a threatening not say "The wages of sin is death" and finds a syringe in her cat's paw. A blue-faced junky has collapsed in the dark alley and a mysterious man with beautiful eyes appears with a plan for Corinna and her bread. Then it is Goths, dead drug addicts, witchcraft, a homeless boy and a missing girl and it seems she will never get those muffins cooked in time.

With flair, chutzpah and a talent for kneading, Corinna Chapman will find out who exactly is threatening her life and bake some beautiful bread.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

In addition, this book also counts for the Aussie Author challenge and Australian Women Authors Challenge.

P.S. Apologies to those of you who saw this in your feeds on Thursday. Apparently pre scheduling when you are barely awake isn't a good thing, especially if you apparently have no clue what the date is on either Thursday or Saturday!

P.P.S I just picked up the next book in this series from the library and had a quick look at the recipes in the back and there is an awesome sounding recipe that I might just have to try before I review the next book!

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

Having put off reading the first Maisie Dobbs books for years, I was determined to not do the same thing with the second book. It took me only five months which is a much better effort!

When Maisie is called in by one of the richest men in Britain, it seems a relatively simple task. Find his missing daughter without involving the police and the media, and do it quickly and Mr Waite would reward her sweetly.

This isn't the first time that Miss Charlotte Waite has disappeared which is in itself quite perplexing, because she is a young lady who seems to have a very comfortable life - she is wealthy and pampered and has the best of everything. The only down side seems to be that she has recently broken off her engagement although it soon becomes clear that she lives in a very controlled environment - everything being controlled by her father.

Appearances can be deceptive though, especially when a friend of hers is murdered and by tying the clues together it becomes clear that there is something far more sinister going on. Maisie needs to find Charlotte and her friends and work out what it is exactly that makes four respectable young women the targets for a killer.

Once again, the lasting effects of World War I play a huge part in the storyline, and for me that is one of the biggest pluses to reading this series. It is often easy to think that World War I went from 1914 to 1918, and then the Great Depression went from the late 1920s, and then World War II started in 1939 and that they were almost standalone events. The reality is though that many of the people who were affected by the first war were affected by the Depression and were again affected by the second war, and so they are indelibly linked in the lives of these people. I have a post half written in my drafts about something along these lines that I might get around to finishing one of these days.

One of my favourite quotes from Birds of a Feather addresses exactly this subject. It comes from page 263 and it is Lady Rowan, Maisie's original employer, who is speaking to Maisie:

"That's one more thing that I detest about war. It's not over when it ends. Of course, it seems as if everyone's pally again, what with agreements, the international accords, and contracts and so on. But it still lives inside the living, doesn't it?"

Maisie's assistant Billie was really the embodiment of this sentiment in this book. His war wounds are playing up and he seems to be making some dubious choices, which gave Maisie something additional to worry about whilst she completes her investigation.

The secondary characters are all present including her aging father, Lady Rowan, Maurice Blanche and more. I was pleased to see that Maisie felt more comfortable with Simon's place in her life, but I was also glad that she seems to have decided that it might be time to at least start thinking about moving forward.

I have already picked up the next book in the series from the library so who knows, I might even read Pardonable Lies even quicker than five months!

I was going to read this book anyway, but I got the added impetus I needed to actually review the book sooner rather than later by agreeing to participate in the TLC book tour that is happening as part of March is Maisie Month to celebrate the release of Elegy for Eddie, the ninth book in the series.

This week, the blog tour will be visiting people who are reviewing the first six books in the series, and then throughout the rest of March the reviews will be concentrating on the later books in the series, including the latest book. You can also find all the tour details here.

Throughout the month there will also be a month long chat with the following special guests leading discussions of Maisie, mysteries, and more on Twitter. Follow the #Maisie hashtag on Twitter to participate:

Thursday, March 8, 1 PM EST
NANCY PEARL
Author of the Book Lust series and NPR Commentator

Friday, March 16, 3 PM EST
JENNIFER BARTH
VP and Executive Editor, Harper Books

Friday, March 23, 3 PM EST
ELAINE PETROCELLI
Founder and President of Book Passage

Friday, March 30, 3 PM EST JACQUELINE WINSPEAR
New York Times bestselling author of the Maisie Dobbs series

Synopsis

Maisie Dobbs is a private investigator like no other. And her detective skills are about to be tested as never before...

London, 1930. Joseph Waite is a man who knows what he wants. As one of Britain's wealthiest men, he last thing he needs is a scandal. When his daughter runs away from home, he is determined to keep the case away from the police and the newspapers. So he turns to a woman known for her uniquely intuitive approach to criminal investigation, and for her discretion - the extraordinary Maisie Dobbs.

Waite's instructions are to find his daughter and bring her home. But the task is far from straightforward. Maisie soon uncovers a chilling link to a recent murder case, and finds herself revisiting the tragedy of the Great War.

This books counts for both the War Through the Generations Challenge (WWI) and Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.