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I feel I reached my personal saturation point with World War II novels some time ago and yet they are still being published by the hundreds. Thus, I let this title languish on my TBR (to-be-read) pile for ages. While it is based in those war years (1939-1945) it is not about spies, code-breakers, the Blitz or battles, but rather about a modest ordinary family living on an English farm.

In June, 1939, Jack is on the run from his home on Tyneside and is wandering the back roads of Berkshire looking for somewhere to lie low and where he might be safe. He rescues a young woman, Gwen, when she is thrown from her horse and helps her home to the farm where she lives with her widowed father, Jim.

Grateful for his help, Jim offers Jack a temporary job. Jack is unsure, having only ever worked in a shipyard as a riveter, but unexpectedly finds satisfaction and peace in farm labour and the fresh country air. He also starts to fall in love with Gwen, but she has eyes for someone else and, almost against her wishes, Jack will come to play a vital role in her life although he knows she will never love him. As war looms, he decides it is best that he leaves to enlist and to put himself in the firing line in battle as the only way out for him and Gwen. However, Jack does return and has to face his greatest challenge of all.

The characters are likeable, with their own individual flaws. Jack, solid and dependable, yet also capable of rage. Gwen, whose youth and inexperience create traps for her. Jim, the strict, yet loving father. Muriel, the irritable but wise housekeeper. Nora, the flashy and flirty Land Army girl. Ted, the lonely neighbour who also carries a torch for Gwen. And members of the haughty entitled Allingham family who look down their noses at those who till the soil and grow their food.

The descriptions of rural life in meadows, fields and woods carry echoes of Thomas Hardy and everything from the simple routines of milking the cows to threshing the grain are crafted in such a way that they are an intrinsic part of the tale and never feel like padded research.

I read a great deal, but it’s been a long time since I’ve loved a book so much that I almost didn’t want it to end and wish I’d read it much earlier. With her tender and astute observations of human foibles, I very much look forward to other books by Anita Frank.

Five Stars

Dymocks

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​Shortly after the end of World War II, Miss Elinor (Linni) White – known to the locals as simply the “White Lady” - keeps to herself and lives a quiet life in a Kent village. Of Belgian/English heritage (and born with the surname of de Witt), she served in the underground in both World Wars and carries the scars. When she witnesses a local family being threatened by heavies from London, she becomes embroiled in trying to protect them. This brings her back in contact with individuals from her past in the SOE, the government and Scotland Yard.
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Readers familiar with the author’s earlier books featuring Maisie Dobbs, will immediately detect echoes of that character in Elinor: an independent woman of courage and determination with an astute understanding of human nature.

Rather slow to get started, once Elinor is faced with the London gangster family and the strange doings of her former policeman lover and his possible links to a dubious member of the government, the story does pick up.

Winspear is always thorough with her research and descriptions of life in Britain during the mid-20th century. The criminal connections help to reflect a different angle on post-war London, but primarily the book is yet another tale of female wartime heroics which have saturated the publishing market for rather too long now and the impact is lessened.

(Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC)

Three-and-a-half stars.

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Dymocks Australia

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We’ve all seen movies or read books in which someone in the family is a secret spy, usually for the CIA, MI5/6 or the KGB. Often, this individual keeps their job secret from their loved ones and go it alone.

Not so in this real-life story about the Australian Doherty family which, in the mid-20th Century were all in the spying game for ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation), the three young kids, Sue-Ellen, Mark and Amanda, included. Only to them, it was a kind of game they played whenever they were out with their parents, sworn to everlasting secrecy while checking number-plates, houses and closely observing people, making friends with Chinese or other unusual emigrant groups and fringe communities, or visiting the headquarters of ASIO in a building that had a secret floor.

The family even went on holiday during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics with the notorious Petrovs, two Russians who had defected. (Read about them here.) 

I have no idea why the publicity blurb on the cover of this book describes it as “hilarious”. There is nothing funny about it. Dudley Doherty was a typical 1950s father, authoritarian and not above giving the kids a beating. He visited prostitutes and was an associate of that notorious gangster figure, Abe Saffron, which draws all sorts of questions that are not really resolved here.  After Dudley’s death, the family never spoke again about their involvement until the lifting of some of ASIO history in recent times.

There is intriguing material in this, but somehow the book just doesn’t cut it with a great deal of repetition about how the children didn’t really know what their parents were up to when they took part in the games. Instead of reading the book, just look up the two YouTube links below on the subject. You will get enough of the story from them.

Two and-a-half stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWQ9MqoWuHY
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0VLYNx8ZPc
 

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Dymocks Australia (e-book)

Bookdepository

The basis of this book is the story behind the urgent search by Britain prior to World War I for its own direct source of oil, free from the tight controls of other businesses such as America’s Standard Oil or the Dutch company Shell. The three principal characters involved in bringing this about were all fringe-dwellers, or misfits, in the social order of the day.

Jacky Fisher was born in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and often snidely thought to have Indian blood due to a dark complexion that was actually caused by illness. By sheer determination and skill, he rose up through the ranks of the Royal Navy to become First Sea Lord. He wanted to modernise and use new technology to improve the Navy, to have ships powered by oil rather than continuing to rely on the dirtier and unwieldly coal. It was inevitable that this passion for innovation would get up the noses of the conservative factions in the armed forces and politics.  

Gertrude Bell was likewise unique, a single and adventurous woman who had cultivated profound knowledge of the languages and culture of the Middle East, and became a mediator between the local inhabitants and the posturing European powers. Depending on the viewpoints of those whom she encountered, she was either despised or admired for her audacity, intelligence and perceptiveness.

The lesser-known of the trio, the rotund self-serving, William Knox D’Arcy, made and lost fortunes in gold mining in Queensland before venturing into oil exploration in Persia. He struggled to shake off the erroneous tag of being an Australian as he strove for acceptance in the English upper classes. It galled him that, in spite of his Anglo-Irish heritage and friendship with those in high places, he still couldn’t crack the glass ceiling.

The book is marketed as adventure and/or historical fiction, but it lacks cohesiveness in its construction that results in a disjointed combination of factual historical and/or biographical snippets interspersed with imagined conversations and scenarios. In the middle of discussions, we are abruptly diverted by asides into miscellany. All such facts might be interesting in their own right, but they take away the immediacy and focus that drives all good fictional narrative.

Jacky Fisher has been extensively written about, as has Gertrude Bell. She was even fictionalised in a recent movie (Queen of the Desert starring Nicole Kidman) that concentrated more on her unrequited love life than her political manoeuvres. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that the reader might become curious about the true stories of these two extraordinary individuals and seek out better-articulated non-fiction.

D’Arcy, on the other hand, has few redeeming features, is shallower and less-attractive and as the Australian Dictionary of Biography notes: “He had few, if any, ideals, his main aim being to win and then maintain wealth and social esteem.” (Not unlike many business entrepreneurs in our modern time.)

Three stars.

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Bookdepository

Dymocks Australia

As a fan of The Great British Bake Off and some cosy crime, I was drawn to the synopsis of this being a murder mystery tied into a television baking show.

Six keen contestants gather at the remote Vermont home of Betsy Martin for the recording of Bake Week. Betsy is known affectionately as “America’s Grandmother” for her many best-selling cookbooks. What few people know is that she needs the regular proceeds of the program to survive and fund repairs for Grafton, her crumbling ancestral mansion.

The format of the popular show is going through change, however, with the introduction of a new male co-host, Archie Morris, and Betsy feels her position is threatened. The story is told through the points of view of the six contestants as well as Betsy and it is clear not all is going as it should before someone loses their life.

This was an easy enough read, but the use of so many points of view and not having the principal murder occur until the last quarter of the book makes it a slow burn. With perhaps the exception of the older contestant Lottie, who has a justified ulterior motive in being at Grafton, these are all unpleasant, self-centred characters with few redeeming features or warmth and when a certain individual gets their comeuppance there is no surprise. Again, there is the usual problem with many books of this genre having a rushed and somewhat confusing ending.

The publicity comparison with the skilled work of author Anthony Horowitz borders on impertinence. The descriptions of the recipes, baking processes and dialogue are all a blatant rip-off from scripts of the GBBO. Betsy’s character is a reflection of ageing cooks such as Martha Stewart or Mary Berry, while Archie Morris seems to be a combination of those other real food celebrities, Paul Hollywood and Gordon Ramsay.

A pity the story didn’t have more originality and a stronger focus on the narrative, with maybe just one or two points of view to carry us along rather than the overly fruity mixture that it is.

The best I can say about this cake is that it: “Fails to rise and has a soggy bottom.”

(Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)

Two stars


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On 12 October 2002, an Islamic terrorist group attacked the Indonesian island of Bali: 202 people would die in the explosions which ripped through the Sari Club and Paddy’s Irish Bar in the beach resort of Kuta, with 88 victims being Australian. One of the survivors was a nurse, Therese Fox, who came to be known as the “Miracle Woman of Bali”.

“She had sustained a fractured skull and had suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body. Around 65 per cent of them were serious third degree full-thickness burns.
The heat from the explosion had been so intense it had calcified her elbow joints, and melted the skin from her face, hands and feet.”

Specialists said that she was the most severely burnt patient they had ever treated. No-one expected her to survive and yet against all the odds she did.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombings as Therese wandered dazed and disoriented looking for her missing friend Bronwyn, several individuals came to her rescue including two Australian schoolteachers, Cath Byrne and Rada van der Werff – who is a cousin of mine.

I had been aware of some of Rada’s story previously, but not until I read this extraordinary book did I come to appreciate the extent of her selfless and devoted involvement in the aftermath of the bombings with all their horror and devastation, how she and Cath cared for the survivors and the subsequent tight bond she formed with Therese and her family. (In spite of her own personal tragedy, Rada has found strength in devoting her life to humanitarian work with survivors of disasters and I am so proud that she is part of my family. I hope she writes her own book some day.)

Therese is an heroic and admirable woman whose fight to live in order to be reunited with her children demonstrates her indomitable strength and how the human body is capable of repairing itself. It has been truly humbling to learn about this amazing woman.

At the time of reading this book and writing the review, a warts-and-all expose by a privileged and self-absorbed prince is making millions. If you want to learn about how real ordinary families deal with issues in the face of immense tragedy, mental health breakdowns brought on by loss and emotional heartbreak, then spend your money on this book instead.
 
Five stars
 
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Big W Australia
 
 
PS     On a practical note, the book does need tighter editing to fix spelling and grammatical errors and reduce areas of repetition. They don’t detract from the overall power of the story and perhaps these minor issues will be corrected in any future edition.

 
Unsolved true crimes often make compulsive reading. This book explores the life and death of a young soldier, Warwick Meale, who was found severely bashed under a bridge over a creek in Townsville, Queensland, on 15 August 1944. He later died in hospital.

Written by his nephew who grew up with considerable curiosity about his uncle, this book delves into the possible motive for the murder, i.e. that Warwick was gay in an era when homosexuality was unacceptable and that he may have been the victim of a hate crime.

In spite of an intensive investigation by Queensland police and detectives from other States, no-one was ever charged with the crime although there were similar assaults on, and murders, of servicemen around the same time. Likely suspects include members of both the Australian armed forces and the US Navy.

The book is well-researched and frank about hidden homosexuality in the ranks during the War. It also brings to notice the frustrations and obstructions that civilian police forces came up against when dealing with military and naval authorities in tracking down likely suspects.

The author’s own experiences growing up and coming out as gay are intertwined in the book but apart from family suspicions (unspoken about until fairly recent times), one photograph of a small boy playing dress-ups and a single query in an investigative document, there was never any absolute proof that Warwick was gay and that he might have been killed for making an unwelcome approach – which was the motive in the brutal murder of another soldier, Jack Lloyd, whose attacker confessed.

There are areas of “creative non-fiction” with imagined conversations which are always problematic in the historical context but the research is thorough, the writing is impassioned and the narrative flows well. It is an interesting exposition on the hidden layers of society in a very different era, but being based on an assumption that can never be proved it fails to be totally convincing.
 
Three-and-a-half stars.


Dymocks Australia

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The island in question is Crete, with narratives set both in the present day and earlier during World War II and into the 1960s.

Angie (Angelika) lives in England and is planning her wedding to Nick. Her big dream is to have all her family there but her mother Poppy has been estranged from her Cretan family for decades and refuses to explain why. Angie decides to visit Crete and see if she can bring about a reunion but no-one in her ancestral village of Amiras wants to tell Angie what happened and it’s an ongoing battle to get her relatives to open out.

As she works hard at breaking down the defences, her grandmother, Maria, relents and begins by telling her the story of what happened in Crete during World War II and the atrocities committed by the Nazis, although the reasons for Poppy’s departure many years later take much longer to establish.

This is a slow burn of a book as it switches between the past and the present revealing secrets one by one and ultimately the reasons for a devastating family feud. The earlier chapters detailing the confronting tragedies of World War II are strongly written and feel authentic as they are largely based on fact (as shown in the author’s notes at the end). However, the last third of the story set in contemporary times descends into a soap-opera plotline that is both implausible and labyrinthine. (Perhaps it comes with the territory as Crete is the site of the famous original Labyrinth of King Minos at Knossos.)

The inter-related Greek characters all have similarities with their stereotypical fiery temperaments and keeping track of who’s who can be tricky. Angie gets tiresome as she bustles about trying to force revelations from her mother and others, all of whom would rather let sleeping dogs lie. She admits to herself early on that she leads an easy, shallow and self-absorbed life compared to the stoicism and endurance of her family, but this gets repeated far too often. The ending turns into such a farce that it diminishes the exceptional telling of the earlier World War II story which is powerful enough to have been the basis of a thrilling novel in its own right.

(This book starts out so well before deteriorating into light-weight fluff that giving an overall star rating is difficult. Four stars for the excellent serious chapters based on truth, one star for the rest.)


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Dymocks Australia

(Note: This is not a recent title. The book was first published in 2013.)

I am often drawn to stories that would have been contemporary with my own childhood in a far-flung part of the fading British Empire as I have an appreciation of what those societies were like. This novel about India has two narratives, one at the time of partition in the late 1940s and the second ten years later in 1957.

In 1947, Sophie is the only daughter of Dr George Schofield and his wife, Veronica. Aged just seventeen she finds herself largely left to her own devices in the palace of a Maharajah where her father is one of the medical officers. Her mother is a bitter and twisted woman who often makes Sophie’s life hell, whereas her father is a gentle, kind man and is Sophie’s rock. By chance, while wandering the marble halls she meets Jag, the son of one of the palace servants and a friendship ensues, eventually turning into a love affair. There are the inevitable results when the scandalous cross-racial romance is discovered and Sophie must pay a high price for her actions.

By 1957, Sophie is married to Lucien Grainger whom she met while working in the Foreign Office in London. With much trepidation on Sophie’s part, he is posted to Delhi. The marriage is unhappy but Sophie has a position to uphold and she is forced into the supporting role of a “diplomatic wife” with all the superficiality, gossip and mind-numbing entertaining that entails. Unbeknownst to her, Jag has discovered her whereabouts.

The first two-thirds of this novel are excellent, certainly as regards the smooth flow of narrative and the accurate capturing of historical events and social mores of the 1940s/50s. But towards the conclusion, some editorial chaos creeps in with flashbacks that should have been part of the earlier narrative. The shocking, pivotal climax is written in such an abrupt manner that I had to read it twice to grasp what had occurred.

Although it is easy to be irritated by her naivety, one must also have sympathy for Sophie. Her father George has positive qualities but knowing what his wife was like and how she treated their daughter makes you wonder why he didn’t have the courage to kick her out years before. Jag’s character is likeable but remains shadowy in many ways. Lucien has no redeeming features.

Otherwise, the lush descriptions of landscape, the perceptive observations of pre- and post-independent India and life among the British ex-pat society still make this worth reading.


Three stars

PS   The sharp-eyed reader with knowledge of India during this era may well pick up on anachronisms but, if there are any, they are beyond my scope of knowledge. However, I did note the erroneous use of “British Embassy” instead of “High Commission”. All Commonwealth of Nations countries represent one another via High Commissions, not Embassies. To be pedantic and/or technical, Lucien most likely would have been seconded from the 1950s successor to the India Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office. The Foreign Office deals with all non-Commonwealth countries.

 
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Dymocks Australia

The 17th Century hasn’t been fashionable in historical fiction for some time, so the synopsis of this novel drew me in: a hunt for the regicides who executed King Charles I. After the death of Oliver Cromwell and when King Charles II was restored to the crown, there was a campaign to find all the men who had signed the order of execution and to make them pay.

Although there may have been some suggestion of clemency if they truly repented, the fact was many of them were executed in the most gruesome way by being hung, drawn and quartered with their heads placed on spikes.

Two of the regicides managed to escape to the American colonies, being Colonels Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, William Goffe. But hot on their heels is Privy Council clerk Richard Nayler, who is not only committed to tracking down all the regicides in an official capacity but also has personal reasons to find these two men in particular. Part of the novel involves a journal that Edward (Ned) writes about his connections to Cromwell.

In the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut the two men are semi-protected by Puritan friends but the pressures brought to bear from England prejudice any hope of them being able to escape justice.

Much of the story involves running from one safe house, or barn, or cellar, or cave, to the next, often just a few steps ahead of Nayler and/or his mercenaries. Any initial tension or excitement is soon lost and, frankly, the narrative slows so much it is like wading through the heavy snows of New England.

Also, it is impossible to write about the Cromwellian/Restoration period without including the question of religion. While the author does tackle this head-on it is often difficult for the contemporary or secular mind to appreciate the complexities and beliefs of the era. The rules of behaviour in Puritan Cromwellian England would have made it a restrictive, dreary place and it is perfectly understandable when most of the population welcomed a return to a more joyful existence. As a result, it is hard to get a handle on the two Colonels. Edward has less faith than his son-in-law, but even so, they are dull characters. Depending on one’s point of view, Nayler isn’t such a bad guy, searching for men he considers to be murderers, yet he also remains elusive. In a lesser role, is Frances, the wife of Goffe who was left behind in England and she only comes into her own too late in the book.

I have enjoyed several of Robert Harris’ other novels, especially An Officer and a Spy about the infamous Dreyfus Affair which delves deeply into moral questions yet this one didn’t manage to have the same impact.

(With thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)
 
Three stars
 
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Dymocks Australia

This story primarily revolves around three Australian women in the year 2018. There is Jess, a journalist who has lived in London for many years and only returns to Sydney when her grandmother, Nora, has a fall and is hospitalised. Jess’s mother is Polly, who lives a more reclusive and modest lifestyle in Brisbane and has been estranged from both Nora and Jess for some years. Nora is wealthy enough to have given Jess a privileged upbringing and education in Sydney. It is only when Nora dies that mother and daughter will be forced back together.

Jess meanwhile has uncovered details of a family tragedy involving Nora’s sister-in-law Isabel that took place in South Australia on Christmas Eve, 1959, and her investigations leave her with questions about Nora and why she never told her about what happened.

The dominating and assertive Nora is not particularly likeable and it is hardly surprising that the diffident, anxious Polly needed to escape her control. Jess’s character has her grandmother’s self-confidence and while she has fond childhood memories of being with her mother, she struggles to restore their relationship.

There is a lavish cast of secondary characters, some of whom are vital to the plot but many others who are fleeting and superfluous. The astute reader will no doubt pick up on some clues early on that may explain Nora’s behaviour and what might really have happened to Isabel and her children.

As with Kate Morton's other books, this is an effusive novel and if you prefer a tighter or fast-paced narrative you may get impatient with the excessive flowery descriptions and exposition. The plot takes many twists and turns and there is a major contrivance that borders on the implausible. There are also some minor anachronisms, especially as regards terminology in use in 1959. (My review copy being an uncorrected proof, these should be picked up in final editing.)

It also comes with a warning: if you’re easily distraught over stories of children dying in suspected family murder-suicides, then best give it a miss.

With many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.

Two-and-a-half stars.
 
(Publishing in April, 2023. Note there are various covers.)


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Dymocks Australia

Edwina (“Ted”) Bristol is a gutsy, pint-sized Melbourne private investigator who, with her miniature schnauzer Miss Marple, usually exposes unfaithful spouses. When she overhears a conversation between a suspect husband and his girlfriend, she realises she’s uncovered a major fraud and finds herself involved in more sinister doings that lead to murder.

Ted isn’t afraid of challenges but can be cynical and some of her unresolved personal relationships underlie the plot. The other main characters are all well-drawn. There’s Ted’s gentle and trusting sister, Roberta (“Bob”), who seems to have been exposed to an online catfishing scam, and her neighbour Chantal, a New Age spiritual medium who Ted thinks is just another phoney until events prove otherwise. Vying for romantic attention are Joel, who’d like to be more than just a casual “friend with benefits”, and Ted’s “Swordcraft” combatant mate, the shambolic copper, Spike.

This is an easy, fast-paced and hugely entertaining read that has moments of wry humour but also some serious elements. The ending suggests this may be the beginning of a new series and I look forward to more exciting madcap adventures featuring the sassy Ted and her trusty sidekick Miss Marple. 

Four and a half stars.

(Many thanks to Better Reading previews for the ARC.)

Not published until 31 January 2023. Further links to come.

Dymocks Australia

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Four mothers, Nathalie, Alexandra, Emmie and Pen take a holiday together with their children at a faded Art Deco style hotel in a remote valley west of the Blue Mountains run by Macie, an old school friend of Alexandra. From the outset, it is clear that there is something eerie about the place and the isolated mining ghost town where it is located.

The current day narrative is told from the points of view of the four women. A past narrative tells the story of another woman, Jean, who has an encounter at the hotel in 1948 that has a bearing on what will happen to the others.

Each mother has personal issues to deal with. Pen is a single parent who has difficulty relating to her sensitive son; Nathalie is trying to save a faltering marriage; Alexandra lives in the shadow of a famous husband; Emmie longs for another child and also risks the group friendship with her social media postings.

The novel takes a while to get into its stride as you become familiar with the individuals and learn about the mysterious disappearances linked to the hotel’s history. When one of the mothers also vanishes, the pace picks up.

As with many other novels of this genre, all the effort seems to be concentrated in slowly building the suspense with not enough attention paid to detail in the final resolution. The rushed conclusion almost feels like a postscript with unanswered questions. Otherwise, an enjoyable well-paced read.
 
Three-and-a-half stars.
 
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Booktopia

​Sometimes it may be simply a haunting cover image or lyrical title of a book that captures my interest and this one has both. Also, there is something about tales of remote and isolated communities that have always fascinated me, as they clearly did the author, and the book is based around the true story of the last people to live on the island of Hirta in the St Kilda archipelago, off the west coast of Scotland. They had been self-sufficient for centuries until a dwindling population and the modern world caught up with them.
 
The story weaves back and forth between the 1940s war in France and St Kilda in 1927-1930. Escaped prisoner, Fred Lawson, is on the run from the Germans and memories of his great love, Chrissie Gillies, help to sustain him through the worst experiences. Likewise, Chrissie has never stopped dreaming of being reunited with Fred, even although they parted over a complicated misunderstanding that was never resolved.
 
Although I’m not normally a fan of the multi-time narrative, in this case the quality of the writing and characters are so absorbing that it doesn’t intrude on one’s enjoyment. The thoughtfulness, observations and evocation of place are sheer beauty. This is both a tender love story and a spine-tingling hymn to a place and people changed by time and history.
 
Just a couple of examples of the prose here: the first is Fred trying to come to terms with the island when he experiences it as young archaeology student investigating what the locals called the Fairies’ House, but really a structure that could date back to the bronze age.
 
 ‘… then gales set in. Giants of dark waves up to sixty feet high, streaming with white spindrift, crashed against the cliffs or folded themselves into great molten barrels of water as they thundered towards the Village Bay. One truly felt what it was to be up against the wrath of the elements. And it was sobering to experience the island’s isolation in bad weather. Imagine a hill farm of some four square miles dropped in the middle of an Atlantic swell that even the sturdiest boats would think twice to sail and you have the situation of St Kilda.’
 
And when Fred and Chrissie argue about beliefs:
 
‘ “How can you talk of the love of God when you are barely clinging on to life here on your rock? When the winter storms your God sends are so damaging and vengeful. Is this the same pally sort of God you catch sight of as you roam across the hills in summer? Which one is he? Now come on, Chrissie. Where’s the logic?”
 
Then my heart broke for him, since I understood well that he was talking about himself and the storms that left him alone in the world. All I could do then was quietly take his hand in mine, if we were alone together, to let him know all I wanted to say. That he might know the comfort of His nearness as it breaks through the day, borne on the sun and the wind. You are loved and you are not alone, I wanted to say, through storms and through hard times, you are very greatly loved.’
 
 
 
Five stars
 
 
amazon.com
 
amazon.co.uk
 
Booktopia

This story takes us to events in New South Wales in 1868 in the rural town of Morpeth and later in the city of Sydney in 1922.

In 1868, Theodora Breckenridge, one of four recently-orphaned sisters, is passionate about nature and art and is excited when she realises she may have discovered a species of butterfly in her late mother’s garden that was previously unknown in Australia. At the same time Clarrie, a maid and new mother, desperately needs a job to help pay for care of her baby, Charlie, and Theodora comes to the rescue and again later when Charlie’s life is in danger.

In 1922, budding journalist, Verity Binks, receives a mysterious package containing a butterfly costume and an invitation to a masquerade ball. Intrigued, she takes up the offer and is rewarded with a commission to write up the history of a benevolent foundation that supports unwed mothers. However, she doesn’t get very far as impediments are put in her way at every turn as she comes to discover her own family links to dubious practices and deceits.

Readers need to be aware that this title is a little misleading. Yes, butterflies do feature to a certain extent but the real heart and emotional punch of the novel lies elsewhere.

While the fiction blends well with aspects of real history and characters, it suffers from the usual disruptive issues of a dual narrative and two separate and distinctive themes that could form the basis of novels in their own right but that become twisted with too many secrets and knots.

A dedicated novel that primarily focussed on Theodora’s discovery of the American species of butterfly, her struggle for recognition and her relationships with other artists or collectors or dismissive family members would provide ample material for an interesting read, and another book that explored the despicable business of baby-farming and illegal adoptions that took place in Australia throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries would also have been an excellent plotline. Combined together they are a less successful jumble.

(With many thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.)
 

(Book site links to come later.)

​This is the fourth outing in the criminal investigation adventures of the author and his friend, the somewhat enigmatic Hawthorne, ex-cop and private investigator of sorts. (It is recommended one reads these in order to get the best value out of the series.)

As usual, Anthony Horowitz plays himself and includes real places, events and people connected to his life as a popular author and, as with the previous titles, there’s a vague crossover between fact and fiction, but his style is always tight and easy to read with rarely the need to go back and figure out who-is-who or scramble the timeline of events.

This time, Horowitz himself is arrested. It seems the police have strong evidence linking him to the stabbing murder of Harriet Throsby, the vicious Sunday Times theatre critic who has trashed his latest play, Mindgame. The most damning evidence is a souvenir dagger with his prints on it.

Although the friends had been estranged, finally Hawthorne comes to the rescue but even he is unsure of Horowitz’s innocence as they start to untangle the lives and secrets of other likely suspects, including the actors and others connected with the play – all of whom hated Harriet for their own reasons. It is only when someone is linked to a book written by her years before that it appears the motive might be very different from one of theatrical revenge.

I’m a big fan of Anthony Horowitz; not only of his novels but also his television or movie scripts so I always look forward to his next story and he rarely disappoints. In this case, I did guess the real killer early on who, of course, is finally revealed in an Agatha Christie type group gathering. So, while I’m chuffed to have done so, it also means Horowitz hasn’t been quite as artful as he usually is in throwing the reader completely off-course! Still, another exciting and entertaining read from the master.

(With many thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)
 
Four stars
 

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There are numerous novels that have attempted to make sense of the experience of World War I, but only a rare few have succeeded. This one delves into both the War but also its aftermath in France as reconstruction and recovery clashes with bitter memory and grief.

Harry is an ex-soldier and photographer hired to take photos in the war cemeteries for English families who want some tangible image of their dead loved one - a grave-marker or scene associated with their war service. His sister-in-law, Edie, has received in the mail a photograph of her missing husband, Francis, without any explanation. She becomes convinced he must still be alive. Individually, Harry and Edie travel through the destroyed landscape and cemeteries in the hope they will find evidence of Francis. In the process, they meet others on similar quests as they struggle to resolve questions about the War and their own relationship issues. 

There are aspects of this novel that are beautifully written, intensely moving and resonate accurately the enormous loss and heartache suffered, that show the devastated landscape and the shocking effects of what would now be described as untreated PTSD. Some of the best passages contain the succinct black humour of men marching towards certain death. 

Yet at the same time the novel is irksome with repetitive thought processes and over-indulgent contemplation on the self that reflects 21st Century attitudes rather than those of the stoic early 20th Century. Also, the increasingly annoying fad in current literature for a disruptive time-line and switches in tenses just ends up an unnecessary distraction.

Initially captured by the premise of this novel – how people handle the aftermath of war - I had hoped to love it but I’m afraid it disappointed me, due in no small part to its wavering construction.  

(*  The book was published as “The Poppy Wife” in America. I have no idea why, as this is primarily Harry’s story and the original British title and cover have a poetic quality that conveys the symbolism so much better.)


Three stars


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Claude Fontaine, a Monaco lawyer, has only just taken over the family firm when the menacing and ruthless Farrelly twins of Belfast, Nessa and Niall, turn up. Apparently, they were in cahoots with Claude’s late father in secret criminal activities that Claude knows nothing about and these involve a hidden art collection that is worth millions.

JJ is an art conservator with the New South Wales Art Gallery and a keen amateur photographer. While house-sitting for her boss in Sydney, she happens to see into another apartment which has intriguing paintings on the walls that could be forgeries or reproductions of old masters. JJ takes photographs of them but then is surprised when the next time she looks they have been replaced by nondescript cheap paintings. She deliberately makes friends with the mysterious woman who lives there, Lesley Monroe, in the hope of finding out more. This is the beginning of a roller-coaster of events that will ultimately put JJ’s life on the line.

JJ is an appealing character; a little gauche and introverted but with a wry sense of humour. She’s found it difficult to recover from a traumatic childhood at the hands of her controlling policeman father Hugh who is convinced he is descended from Vincent van Gogh.

The artworks play a leading role and include real pictures stolen (and still missing) from a Boston Gallery in 1990 and one of Van Gogh’s paintings of sunflowers, reputedly lost in Japan in World War II.

The narrative moves rapidly towards a thrilling climax, but unless you are seriously into the science and methods of verifying the provenance of art, the latter third of the book gets a bit too bogged down in those technicalities. The ending is a cliff-hanger, suggesting there could be a sequel.

Four Stars.
 
(You may want to check out the background to the real artworks after reading the book.)

Gardner Museum Theft

Lost Sunflowers

 
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​Point Piper sits on Sydney Harbour and is considered to be Australia’s most exclusive suburb. It is named after Captain John Piper, a Scots-born military officer who became a prominent public servant and landowner in New South Wales.

In 1805 while serving as Commandant of Norfolk Island and aged thirty-one he began an affair with bare-footed fourteen-year-old Mary Ann Sheers, the daughter of convicts. This is their story.

Creative non-fiction can be a difficult genre to read (and review). In this case, it will depend on the extent of the reader’s prior knowledge about the early days of Australia’s colonial history as to how one will come to appreciate this work that is literally jam-packed with everybody who was anybody in early 19th Century Sydney - the Macarthurs, Macquarie, William Bligh, the Wentworths, Redfern, Foveaux, Marsden, etc. - the list is endless. 

While the research is meticulous, in some ways it is so lavish and detailed that it overwhelms and is dangerously close to an “info dump”. It is occasionally broken up with fictional spoken narrative - some of it mundane or bafflingly inconsequential - as well as extracts from real letters and documents. There are also contemporary images, including portraits, paintings and sketches.

Basically, if one likes their books to share inner emotions or demonstrate actions in the narrative, i.e. the writerly rule of “show, don’t tell”, then this one fails as there is just way too much telling. On the other hand, if you want a chronological history lesson about these early Australian colonialists and are not bothered about digging deep into their characters or what made them tick, then it succeeds and it will make an excellent reference source.

Piper’s charm, affability and failings do find some expression, although as a younger man he also exhibited a typical Regency cad attitude, having several relationships with girls that today would be considered criminal due to their young age and with whom he fathered a number of illegitimate children. It was not unusual for the time and many of Australia's founding families have a similar background so this is an honest portrayal of  history. 

Yet somehow Piper formed a life-long bond with one of his teenaged conquests, Mary Ann, who had fourteen pregnancies with him through to her forties, most before they finally married. She buried a number of those children and lost many other individuals who were close to her. She may have come from humble convict beginnings and learned how to present herself and negotiate the challenges of society, eventually managing to keep Piper on the straight and narrow, but she remains placid and elusive and we never get a really solid grasp of how - or why - their marriage succeeded in spite of the odds.

  
Three stars
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​Pru(dence) is a woman on the cusp of her seventh decade and about to have her life fall apart. She has lived in comfortable upper-middle-class Muswell Hill in London with her husband Greg for more than forty years and raised her two children there. Her best friend is the outspoken Azra (not her real name) who hails from Sunderland but has reinvented herself as a radical and unconventional hippy type. Greg appears to dislike Azra and she seems likewise intolerant of his conservative dullness. The truth is quite different when Pru discovers they’ve been having an affair for five years and they move to Dorset together.

Pru is left alone in her large home feeling betrayed, furious and sorry for herself. Wearing a black dress she found in a charity shop in Deal, she goes to a funeral of a friend in Golders Green only to discover she’s made a mistake in the time and is at the wrong service. Pru bemoans her aloneness and desperately wants a man in her life and this sets up a pattern where she goes to funerals of people she doesn't know but looking for suitable widowers. Her first target is Evan, a vet, but her plans are stymied.

If only the book had stayed on this black comedic course, had more subtlety and kept up its wry observations, but it went off on ridiculous tangents including excessive swearing and overly-detailed passionate encounters that no average arthritic seventy-something would have the energy for.  My initial chuckles from the first few chapters waned as Pru became increasingly annoying with her self-absorbed whining. A further adventure involving an Australian helicopter pilot mourning his deceased model wife misfired abysmally. Apart from Pam, a nosey-parker neighbour with a kind heart, none of these characters have any attractive human qualities.  No wonder Pru’s children moved away to foreign countries.

It was all I could do to get to through to the end, if only to see what eventuated. There are the usual twists, a far-fetched renewed relationship and even the Covid lockdown, but it’s all a waste of time. The only creature I felt any emotion for by the end was the incontinent cat.

This is the first novel I’ve read by the author who created the famous Exotic Marigold Hotel and it was a huge disappointment. It is hoped some of her other books are better than this but not sure I'll be tempted.
 
One star.
 
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