Judith’s Reviews

If you are a fan of Jacqueline Winspear’s mysteries set in London between the World Wars, when you read her last book (A Lesson in Secrets) you might have thought Maisie Dobb’s life was getting comfortably settled. Without any soap opera antics, just Winspear’s impeccable, nuanced character development, Maisie is at sea again in a variety of ways, and she’s solving a mystery of a completely new sort. Eddie is a “slow” man who has a magic way with horses. When he dies in an “accident,” the cockney costermongers of Maisie’s childhood feel justice hasn’t been done and they come to see her. You wouldn’t think this would involve issues of national safety, now would you?

Instead of contemporary England, P.D. James has set her latest book at Pemberley estate in 1803, six years after Miss Elizabeth Bennet has married Darcy. That is, P.D. James takes the prose of Jane Austen as her setting. James plus Austen is a fascinating combination, although there are some difficulties in the marriage.

The Scottish Prisoner is Gabaldon’s latest book in her extended family of books set in 18th century England/Scotland/Ireland. This offshoot from her main Outlander series focuses on Lord John Grey as his life once again tangles with Jamie Fraser, the ex-Jacobite rebel who is now a prisoner at Helwater farm. Great character development and a twisting plot cleverly incorporating snippets of Celtic language and folklore make this a pleasure to read.

J.J. Murphy’s second mystery, You Might As Well Die, starring Dorothy Parker, is a zany, screwball comedy delight set in New York in the 1920’s. People die (well, that’s debatable but I’ll say no more), but you will never feel sad. The witty jokes and cynical appraisals of life’s foibles fly as fast as you can read.

Award-winning Kelli Stanley has come out with the second in her Miranda Corbie mystery series set in San Francisco in the 30’s and 40’s—this time someone’s killing Jewish women, women whose place on the edges of society makes them particularly vulnerable. No one’s going to step up and bring them justice—or so the powers that be hope. They didn’t count on Miranda.

Next to Love is big in scope while everyday in focus and beautiful in its entirety. It spans the American years from December 1941 to August 1965 (from WWII to the Gulf of Tonkin). And yet, rather than the epic and larger-than-life action that war novels often involve, Next to Love portrays the world of the women left behind, then returned to (or not), and the lives they and their children build under the influence of the ever-present, but rarely-discussed war.

In this novel Juliet Grey is interested in redeeming a much maligned historical figure, who, while usually portrayed as “heedless to headless” was, in fact, a much more sympathetic character. She creates a richly developed inner world for Marie Antoinette from ten-year-old Archduchess of Austria to Dauphine of France on the verge of becoming queen.

The Moonstone is a venerable Victorian classic mystery described by T.S. Eliot as “the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels.” We follow the exotic Moonstone diamond from its home on a Hindu statue through war and intrigue onto the bosom of a proper Victorian lady in a grand country home—only to lose sight of it again for a long but entertaining time. Who took it and where is it? You’ll meet several amusing narrators and wind through intricate clues in this classic, which is available these days as a free e-book.

Van Booy has created a masterful piece of fiction, although it is not an easy read. I found it disorienting at times, and sometimes the masterful demanded I take notice of the author’s skill rather than lose myself in his characters and their world. At the core of Everything Beautiful Began After are three very flawed characters whose emotional crippling as children leads them to unusual relationships as adults. Love and grief take extreme forms that enlighten and intrigue the reader. Click on title to read review.

Ransom focuses on the moment in the Iliad when King Priam retrieves his son Hector’s body from Achilles. In twenty years of teaching that part of the epic, I never survived a class without having to wipe away tears. For me, it is the single most revealing moment in literature about what it means to be human. Nothing tops it. To choose that moment for a book’s primary subject! —audacious and, it turns out, wise.