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
 
 
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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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Booktopia
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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

 
Booktopia

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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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Booktopia
 
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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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Booktopia

This is another popular book that I had on library reserve for some time and seems to have had a huge following so it has received multiple reviews and I doubt I can add any new insights.
 
Molly is 25, a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. She’s obviously different or “on the spectrum”, with all that entails. She loves her cleaning job, to the point of obsession, is polite and quaintly-spoken, using language that belongs to an earlier generation which may be explained by having been brought up by her recently-deceased Gran who may have been English, going by the amount of tea-drinking that is mentioned and some of the terms she uses, e.g. referring to folk as “good” or “bad eggs”.
 
As Molly has problems with subtlety or hidden meanings behind what people say, she is too trusting. Some of her co-workers laugh at her, but others appreciate her difference and look out of her, especially Mr Preston who is the doorman. Molly has already had one disastrous relationship with a man, and it seems she could be headed for more trouble when she turns her sights on Rodney, the slick barman.
 
After Molly finds business tycoon, Mr Black, dead in his bed, a police investigation begins as to whether he died of natural causes or was murdered. Molly has already developed an unusual friendship with his second trophy wife, Giselle, who was badly treated by Black. As the mystery builds, we can see – even if Molly can’t - that there are nefarious dealings involving Rodney, her snarly supervisor Cheryl and the hotel’s Mexican immigrant dishwasher, Juan.
 
For the most part, I enjoyed this tale but I felt that the improvement in Molly’s intellectual capabilities towards the end didn’t quite ring true as to what someone in her situation might achieve. The earlier grittiness of the plot also deteriorated into a saccharine cosiness with a couple of twists that stumbled rather than surprised.
 
Three-and-a-half stars.
 
 
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Booktopia

Several years ago, I wrote a short story about Charles Dickens and the invention of his famous novel, A Christmas Carol, loosely based on a legendary tombstone in an Edinburgh graveyard.

Since then, other authors have climbed on that same bandwagon and given their own versions. There was a book, then the film The Man Who Invented Christmas, which I have neither read nor seen, and then there is this one, Mr Dickens and his Carol by Samantha Silva.

Dickens is going through a difficult period in his career. His latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, has failed (mainly due to disfavour in America) and his publishers are threatening to have him pay them unless he comes out with another sure-fire winner in time for the Christmas trade.

He has numerous other mounting debts and his home life is also somewhat in disarray and, soon after giving birth to their sixth child, his wife Catherine decamps with their other children to her family in Scotland.

Wandering the night-time streets of his beloved London, Dickens struggles with ideas and the looming deadline. In the process, he encounters a young woman in a purple cape, Eleanor Lovejoy, who appears to be an actress. As their paths mysteriously cross time and again, he becomes entranced by her. Their meeting and her influence on him are pivotal to the plot which is only revealed towards the end of the book.

Packed to the brim with the sights, sounds and smells of mid-19th Century London that reflect much of the florid descriptions in Dickens' own work, this is an entertaining and often humorous read, with colourful characters, both real and imagined, from Dickens' life. The cornucopia of description can be just too much in places with perhaps the creation of the novel itself taking second place, but there is joy in this tale and it is a love letter from the author to the man himself. As she says: "I know you were a flawed man who had a heart as big as the world. That you saw Christmas as a time to reconnect with our humanity and revel in even our smallest blessings."

In spite of its few flaws, this is a tale to be read it in the spirit of Christmas and how to seek goodness in the world.


Four stars

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​booktopia

​This is a grand saga based on a real dynasty who became the powerhouse of Sicily over a period of seventy years from the late 18th century through to the 1860s.

Losing everything in an earthquake, the poor Florio family leave Bagnara in Calabria for Palermo where they struggle against huge odds to rebuild their lives with new enterprises that begin with the sale of spices and medicines and over time will extend to shipping and manufacturing. We can also thank the Florios for things like Italian canned tuna in oil and Marsala wine.

Initially, there are two brothers as partners and when Paolo dies, Ignazio Florio takes the helm. Paolo’s only son, Vincenzo, will inherit the business and for the majority of the book is the main character in a series of public successes and set-backs, political machinations and private passions. Vincenzo’s mother, Giuseppina, is the grand matriarch. She is possessive and angry with her position in life and struggles with conflicted feelings for her late husband’s brother, Ignazio.

Vincenzo, in turn, becomes a determinedly rigid character who is obsessed with rising above the derision and scorn of his business rivals and often treats the love of his life, Giulia, with callous disregard. He carries these same emotions towards his daughters, while his son, also called Ignazio, can do no wrong.

Novels in translation can be tricky and this one has an uneven present-tense construction that may have flowed much better in past tense. Although there are some explanatory passages throughout, there are swathes of politics and history that may be puzzling and unfamiliar to non-Italians, including the many failed rebellions against the rule of the Bourbons. There are also brief or random inclusions of lesser characters who are never fleshed out. The business dealings are described in ways that turn the narrative flat and uninspiring for pages at a time. Yet the personal relationships, especially the emotional conflicts between Giulia and Vincenzo, can quickly bring it back into sharp focus.

Although this took me quite some time to finish, I was glad to have done so, and I was left with great sympathy for the females of the Florio family who are traded like commodities. With judicious tweaking and editing, this might make a good mini-series.

Although this story ends in the 1860s, the Florios continued to make their mark. (It is not known if the author plans a sequel.) Follow this link to more information on the later years of the real Florio family – The Uncrowned Rulers of Sicily.
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Three-and-a-half stars

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Kitty Talbot is the eldest of five sisters whose country home is in danger of being sold and her family broken up following the death of her parents who left behind massive debts. She’s pragmatic and decides the only course of action is to find herself a rich husband, and soon. To this end, she travels to London where she begins her quest.
 
Here are all the stock characters and basic plot of a Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer novel, i.e. wife and/or husband hunting in the parlours and ball-rooms of the London “ton” – or high society.
 
Kitty is a lively individual and her wit and banter with the men she sets her cap at are quite fun. Her younger, better-educated sister Cecily is a more serious foil. Aunt Dorothy has secret reasons to hide behind her fan at functions where certain gentlemen might recognise her and the somewhat reclusive Waterloo veteran Lord Radcliffe displays all his jaded and cynical dark-handsome-hero style with aplomb. Supporting the principal players is the usual cast or snobbish upper-crust mothers, cads and bumbling or sleazy suitors, plus assorted shrinking violets and jealous debs.
 
For the most part, the narrative kicks along at a good pace, but sags somewhat in the middle. Knowing from the outset how the story must end, it may require a bit of stamina to keep going and at least things do pick up in the last third of the book.
 
This is a lightweight, entertaining yarn that has a certain amount of charm. It is likely to appeal to fans of fluffy Regency-era fiction but it's not for those who prefer their history with more truth or grit.
 
Three stars
 
 
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Booktopia

This book caught my eye in a remainder bookstore catalogue, mainly because it was set in Harbin, Manchuria, where my mother spent her childhood and college years. The action, however, takes place in 1910, a decade before her time and prior to the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War.

Based on a real epidemic event, this is an eerily prescient novel, having been published in 2018 just a year before the explosion of Covid-19.

The Baron is a doctor and chief medical examiner for the city of Harbin (spelt Kharbin in the novel) who is alerted to random dead bodies seen in the winter snows, only for them to abruptly vanish before he can discover how they died.

The Baron then embarks on often-delicate dealings with the city’s Russian administrator appointed by the Tsar, General Khorvat, and others in the medical field. As the only doctor who is fluent in Chinese, he plays a valuable role in straddling the deep divisions between the occupying Russians and the Chinese government. He is also married to a young Chinese woman, Li Ju, whom he rescued from a Scots-run orphanage. This puts him at odds with the Russian community who look down on such intimate relationships with the Chinese. His most reliable friend is another doctor, Messonier, who has fallen in love with the only female doctor on the team, Maria Lebedev.

As the snows deepen during a bitter winter in this city at the crossroads of Asia, the dark atmosphere intensifies with every page. There is increasing panic and terror at the seemingly hundred percent death rate with mounting piles of corpses and coffins, and inhumane or failed attempts in quarantine. There is anger in diplomatic wrangling as authorities squabble, complicated by cultural clashes between Chinese superstition and Orthodox religion.

There are graphic scenes of the symptoms of this particular type of plague that may have originated in wild animal furs, involving copious quantities of blood that may be too much for many readers. The friction between the medical experts as to vaccines and treatment also reflects what has been all too common in our recent times. The wearing of masks, gloves, and dowsing oneself in copious quantities of disinfectant permeate every page.

Yet interspersed with all the horror, there is faith and humanity and gentle lyrical passages of prose about Chinese calligraphy – the Baron’s hobby that he is studying with scholar Xiansheng – and finely detailed tea ceremonies overseen by Chang, the dwarf doorman from Churin’s department store.

This is a complex book that is not for the faint-hearted, yet it is also soulful and utterly compelling, especially as it reflects the current world pandemic which ironically also started in China and has produced so much fear and misinformation, yet given witness to incredible dedication and sacrifice by those in the front line of combating disease.

​Five stars

(Here is a link to an article on this little-known plague.)

 


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​A novel featuring a fictional movie star normally would not be high on my reading list, so I must congratulate the marketing gang from Simon & Schuster on a good job as they got me with their spin - the glamorous cover and memorable title - so I thought maybe a bit of Hollywood glitz might make a change. 

There are two female narrators – Monique and Evelyn.

Monique is in her mid-thirties and about to be divorced. She’s a rising ambitious Afro-American journalist for a magazine. When she is specifically asked for by the world’s biggest movie star, Evelyn Hugo, to write her spill-all biography, both Monique and her editor are astonished.

We soon discover that in spite of having seven husbands, none of them were Evelyn’s true love. It doesn’t take long to discover who that true love is and eventually we get to the reason why Evelyn only wanted Monique to write the biography, although a sharp-eyed reader might glean clues from her background.

It will depend on how well you know past Hollywood royalty as to who might be the inspiration for Evelyn Hugo and others. Although all of them are fictional, one can immediately spot snatches of much-married super stars like Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe, or others with fluid sexuality such as Jodi Foster, Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. Other stars disguised their cultural backgrounds, bringing to mind women like Merle Oberon and Rita Hayworth. There are even echoes of Anita Ekberg and Ingrid Bergman who revitalised sinking Hollywood careers in Europe. Monogamy is not a thing with any of the husbands who include at least one wife-beater and self-serving opportunists of varying degree. Other male characters have hints of Rock Hudson or Tab Hunter.

The narrative is tiresome and endlessly trite, all the characters are unlikeable, shallow and have few redeeming features. I disliked Evelyn intensely: she was amoral, self-aggrandising and Oscar-ambitious at the expense of everything else. She doesn’t have any contemplative or spiritual qualities that might have softened her.

Being another movie star, her true love wasn’t much better, so their tempestuous relationship left me bored and cold. When the true love gets annoyed over an explicit scene Evelyn does in a movie, the affair may be over. This stretches credulity. We are talking about actors here! All of them test boundaries or do raunchy love scenes on screen, it comes with the job.

What disappoints me most about the book is the lack of anything much other than ambition over Oscars, marriages on a whim, domestic violence, unrepentant abortion and incessant relationships chatter. We have next to nothing of the dynamism of the movie business itself. There is little about the craft of acting, or the savage wheeling and dealing or the complex preparation that goes into making and distributing a film or making sure it is a success – all aspects that could have added so much more.

I don’t know how I managed to get to the end, but sometimes you have that horror-fascination with something (usually a bad movie or tacky reality TV show) and you press on just to see how much worse things can get and whether there is anything that redeems your faith by the end. Even when I reached the last page, I remained unmoved although I’m sure other readers collapsed into tears.

Currently, there are over a million ratings for this on Goodreads, and the average score is 4.48 out of 5 stars. I am therefore seriously out of touch with what readers love. For me personally, this has been an interesting exercise in how easily one can get sucked in by good publisher marketing. Perhaps the inevitable Netflix series will be better. At least there might be some nice frocks to look at.
 
Two stars (mostly for the cover and numerous mentions of fabulous designer dresses in emerald green).


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