Category: Reviews

The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak (non-fiction)

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Their ghosts are everywhere; we just need to know where to look.

This is a fascinating dual biography of two little-known medieval queens, Brunhild and Fredegund, who belonged to the Merovingian dynasty and ruled over large swathes of the lands we now know as France and Germany. I don’t often find myself drawn to non-fiction, but this book was a great choice for me as it’s both educational and entertaining – and every bit as readable as fiction.

Most people today have probably never heard of Brunhild and Fredegund and it seems there’s a good reason for that: as Shelley Puhak explains, following the deaths of the two queens, their stories were rewritten – and some of their achievements erased altogether – by the rulers who came after them, including their own son and nephew Clothar II, and later by Charlemagne’s Carolingian dynasty. And yet the influence of these two Merovingian women lived on, in legends and fairy tales, in the naming of roads, and in the character of Brunhild the Valkyrie from Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. Most intriguingly, a battle strategy of Fredegund’s appears to have inspired, whether directly or indirectly, the ‘Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane’ episode of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

The two queens came from very different backgrounds. Brunhild was a princess from Visigothic Spain who was married off to King Sigibert of Austrasia in 567 as part of a political alliance. Austrasia was the north-eastern territory of the Kingdom of the Franks; Neustria to the west and Burgundy to the south were ruled by Sigibert’s brothers, Chilperic I and Guntram, respectively. Fredegund, a former slave, rose to power when she married Chilperic of Neustria following the death of his wife under suspicious circumstances. This was only the first of many murders with which Fredegund would be connected; she went on to be associated with a whole series of poisonings, tortures and political assassinations. Brunhild is portrayed as a much more sympathetic character, but the prejudices of the sources do need to be considered!

After the deaths of their husbands, both Brunhild and Fredegund reigned as regents on behalf of their young sons and grandsons. Their kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria were engaged in war for many years, fuelled by a rivalry between the two queens, which originated in Fredegund allegedly being responsible for the murders of both Galswintha, Brunhild’s sister, and King Sigibert, Brunhild’s husband. However, they were willing to work together where necessary and both queens proved themselves to be strong, intelligent, politically astute women in a world dominated by men.

The Dark Queens is not a particularly academic book. It’s written in the style of narrative non-fiction, drawing on the available primary sources such as the writings of Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus but sometimes finding it necessary to speculate in order to fill in the gaps. Despite this, it’s clear that Shelley Puhak has carried out a huge amount of research in writing this book and she does include a list of all of her sources, both primary and secondary, at the end, along with a comprehensive section of notes and references. Although The Dark Queens may not satisfy readers who are looking for something more scholarly, I thoroughly enjoyed it and am so pleased I’ve had the chance to get to know Brunhild and Fredegund. I’m surprised they haven’t been written about more widely; they would be wonderful subjects for historical fiction and would make a nice change from the Tudors!

Thanks to Head of Zeus for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Traitor in the Ice by KJ Maitland

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Traitor in the Ice is the second book in KJ Maitland’s new historical crime series set in the early 1600s during the reign of James I of England and VI of Scotland. The first, The Drowned City, introduces us to Daniel Pursglove as he searches for a mysterious Catholic conspirator known as Spero Pettingar in the aftermath of the failed Gunpowder Plot. That book is set in Bristol just after the devastating Bristol Channel Floods of 1607; Traitor in the Ice takes place the following winter – a particularly cold winter referred to as the Great Frost.

In these freezing, icy conditions a man has been found dead in the grounds of Battle Abbey in Sussex. The man was one of the King’s agents, sent to infiltrate the Montague household at Battle to try to root out those with Catholic sympathies. Lady Magdalen, Viscountess Montague is believed to be sheltering Catholic priests within the abbey walls, but the agent has been killed before having the chance to send his report to London. A replacement is needed, so Daniel Pursglove finds himself summoned by the King’s man, Charles FitzAlan, once more and sent to Battle to find evidence of treachery. He quickly discovers that almost everyone in the abbey has something to hide, but when more murders take place Daniel begins to wonder whether he is on the trail of the elusive Spero Pettingar at last.

One of the things I liked about the previous book in this series was the setting; I knew nothing about the Bristol floods and found the descriptions of the city in the aftermath quite eerie and otherworldly. The frozen landscapes of Sussex described in this second novel are equally atmospheric: the ‘withered brown bracken, each frond encased in its own ice-coffin’; the pink light of dawn ‘sending sparks of light shivering across the frost’. It’s the perfect setting for a murder mystery and Maitland weaves her usual mix of superstition and legend into the plot, adding to the sense of time and place. I was particularly intrigued by the practice of ‘night-creeping’, which Maitland explains in more detail in her very comprehensive author’s note at the end of the book.

I had hoped to learn more about Daniel Pursglove in this novel, but that doesn’t really happen and he is still very much a man of mystery by the final page. Although it’s not essential to have read the previous book first, I was pleased that I had as it meant I was familiar with at least some of Daniel’s background and wasn’t quite as confused as I might otherwise have been. I do like Daniel, though, and enjoyed following him through his investigations.

However, I had the same problem with this book that I had with the first one: there was just too much happening! The chapters set at Battle Abbey alternate with others set at court where through the eyes of two cousins, Richard and Oliver, we watch the rise to power of the King’s new favourite, Robert Carr. We also see Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, working to maintain his own influence over King James, while in the streets and taverns of London violence is brewing between gangs of local youths and the Scottish courtiers who are newly arrived in the city. All of this is very interesting, but too much for one book on top of the murders and the Catholic conspiracies! With a tighter focus on just one or two threads of the plot, I think this would be a much stronger series. Anyway, I did enjoy this second novel overall and will be looking out for a third one.

Thanks to Headline for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 15/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

After the Funeral by Agatha Christie

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This month’s theme for the Read Christie 2022 challenge is ‘a story Agatha wrote abroad’. After the Funeral, a Hercule Poirot mystery first published in 1953, doesn’t include any travel and is set entirely in England, but it was written while Christie was away on an archaeological dig with her husband Max.

After the Funeral begins, as the title suggests, just after the funeral of the wealthy Richard Abernethie with the family assembling to hear the reading of the will by his lawyer, Mr Entwhistle. As he has no surviving children of his own, it seems that Richard’s fortune is to be divided between his brother and sister, two of his sisters-in-law, and several of his nieces and nephews and their spouses. After hearing the terms of the will, Cora Lansquenet, Richard’s sister, remarks that her brother was murdered. This is not something that has occurred to anyone else, as they have all accepted that Richard died of natural causes, so Cora’s comments are not taken seriously. The next day, however, Cora herself is found dead, having been brutally murdered in her bed.

Mr Entwhistle, the lawyer, is convinced there must be a connection between the two deaths and begins to interview the family members, hoping that they will all be able to prove themselves innocent and avoid bringing shame on the family. As the mystery deepens, he decides that he needs to call in an expert – and so he contacts his friend, Hercule Poirot, who listens to the facts and agrees that an investigation is required…

This is maybe not one of the better known Poirot novels, but it’s one that I particularly enjoyed. After a confusing start – Christie throws a huge number of characters into the opening chapters and it takes a while to straighten out their relationships and remember who they all are – I became completely absorbed in this fascinating mystery, having a few guesses at the identity of the culprit and getting it wrong every time! It’s one of those mysteries where literally any of the characters (apart from Poirot, of course) could have been the murderer and the solution relies on a wonderful twist, which I don’t think many readers will have seen coming. Well done if you did, but I certainly didn’t.

Poirot himself doesn’t have a large part to play in the novel until the second half; before that, it’s actually Mr Entwhistle who is trying to investigate the deaths, by questioning suspects, speaking to doctors and establishing alibis. During that first half of the novel, I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t really essential for Poirot to appear in the story at all as Mr Entwhistle seemed to be doing such a good job! However, it’s Poirot’s ‘little grey cells’ that are necessary to spot that final crucial clue and solve the mystery.

Next month’s theme for the Read Christie challenge is ‘a story featuring adventure’. There are plenty of those to choose from!

Mrs England by Stacey Halls

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Mrs England is one of the books longlisted for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Although I hadn’t even heard of a lot of the titles on this year’s longlist, this particular book is one that I had been planning to read anyway. I enjoyed both of Stacey Halls’ previous novels, The Foundling and The Familiars, and was just waiting for the right moment to start reading this one.

The novel opens in 1904 with Ruby May, a trained children’s nurse from the prestigious Norland College, discovering that the family she works for are preparing to emigrate. Ruby is invited to accompany them, but turns down the opportunity, saying that she can’t be too far away from her younger sister and brothers. Instead, she finds a new position looking after the four children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple who own a cotton mill in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

On arriving at the Englands’ home, Hardcastle House, Ruby quickly senses that something is not right. Although Mr England is charming and friendly, Mrs England seems distant and withdrawn, showing very little interest in her children’s lives and leaving the running of the household to her husband. The other servants also make Ruby feel unwelcome, but she finds the four England children delightful and immerses herself in her work. As the days and weeks go by, Ruby becomes increasingly aware of the dark undercurrents within the household and wishes there was something she could do to help. However, there are mysteries lurking in Ruby’s own past and she has problems of her own to deal with. Why does she refuse to open letters from her father? Why is she so afraid of having her photograph taken? And what is the real reason for her reluctance to leave the country?

I think this is my favourite of the three books I’ve read by Stacey Halls. Although it’s quite a slow-paced novel, with most of the drama and revelations coming near the end, I was drawn completely into Ruby’s story from the beginning. As the novel’s narrator, Ruby is a genuinely nice person and I liked her immediately. It takes a long time for her back story to unfold and in the meantime I’d formed a few theories about what must have happened with her father – however, I wasn’t quite right! In her author’s note, Stacey Halls states that she based Ruby May’s story on a real person and incident that occurred in the late 19th century, but don’t be tempted to look at this until you’ve finished the book. The story that unfolds within the walls of Hardcastle House is even more intriguing and, again, I thought I knew what was going on only to find that, although I did guess some of it correctly, I was still missing some parts of the overall picture.

The descriptions of the Yorkshire scenery are very well done, particularly the parts of the book set in the Hardcastle Crags, as are the descriptions of the Englands’ cotton mill, the blacksmith’s forge and all the other locations Ruby and the children visit throughout the story. I also found it interesting to read about the Norland Nurses – the kind of training they received and the standards they were expected to conform to.

I enjoyed this book very much, but to be honest, I’m surprised it’s on the Walter Scott Prize longlist as it doesn’t seem quite as ‘literary’ as the books the judges usually go for. I hope it progresses to the shortlist next month, but we’ll have to wait and see.

This is book 14/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

Scarweather by Anthony Rolls

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I didn’t think I had anything suitable to read for Paula’s Reading Wales Month, then I discovered that Anthony Rolls (a pseudonym of Colwyn Edward Vulliamy) was a Welsh author born in Glasbury, Radnorshire in 1886. He wrote several crime novels under the Anthony Rolls name, two of which are available as British Library Crime Classics – and luckily I had one of them, Scarweather, on my TBR.

Originally published in 1934, Scarweather is narrated by John Farringdale, who is a young man of twenty-one when the story begins in 1913. Farringdale has always been close to his cousin Eric, so when Eric meets the famous archaeologist Professor Tolgen Reisby, he can’t wait to introduce Farringdale to him. Although Farringdale is proud to see his cousin on good terms with such a renowned and impressive man as the Professor, he feels uneasy about Eric’s obvious interest in Reisby’s young wife, Hilda. When an opportunity arises to visit the Reisbys himself at their home, Scarweather, in the north of England, he accepts the invitation and heads north, taking his friend, Frederick Ellingham, with him.

All appears to be well at Scarweather and Farringdale wonders whether he has been worrying unnecessarily, but Ellingham, being older and more perceptive than his friend, hints that the Professor may not be all he seems. And so when Eric disappears, believed to have been involved in a sailing accident, Ellingham decides to investigate. However, war soon breaks out in Europe, meaning that the investigation will take a lot longer than expected. We rejoin the characters fifteen years later, when it seems that the secrets of Scarweather are about to be revealed at last!

Scarweather is an unusual mystery novel, because there’s really no mystery at all. The solution is obvious to the reader from early on – in fact, Farringdale himself remarks once or twice that he supposes we’ve already guessed the truth. There are no clever twists, no real surprises and very little ‘detecting’. Ellingham and Farringdale are clearly a Holmes and Watson pairing, with Ellingham in the role of Holmes, but because we only see him through the eyes of Farringdale – who seems to be completely oblivious to everything that is going on – we don’t get a chance to watch any of his detective work or hear much about his theories until the very end of the book. And the ending, when it comes, seems very morally questionable.

Yet, despite all of this, I still think this book is worth reading, particularly if you’re more interested in archaeology than I am. Rolls’ writing really comes alive whenever he moves onto the subject of archaeologists and their work; this was obviously a passion of his and something he was very knowledgeable about. There’s also a strong sense of place: Scarweather is located in a remote coastal area and the harshness of the landscape and the sea makes the setting an atmospheric one. Even though knowing the solution to the mystery takes away all the suspense, there’s still a feeling of darkness and foreboding.

Although I didn’t love this book, I would be happy to read more by Anthony Rolls. The other book of his published as a British Library Crime Classic, Family Matters, sounds better than this one.

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

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This fascinating new novel by Karen Joy Fowler tells the story, in fictional form, of the Booths, the 19th century theatrical family who produced two of America’s most acclaimed actors, as well as one infamous killer – John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

Although John Wilkes is, unfortunately, the best known Booth and probably the reason many readers will be drawn to this novel – to find out more about his background and what drove him to commit such a terrible crime – this is not just his story. In fact, he plays no bigger a part in it than several of the other Booths. For much of the first half of the book, the focus is on his father, the Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth, who will have an important influence on the lives of each of his children – despite the fact that they rarely see him, as he spends so much time away on tour while the family stay at home on their farm near Baltimore.

Junius Brutus is a talented and successful stage actor, but as the years go by his alcoholism and eccentric behaviour make him increasingly unreliable, damaging his reputation and his financial situation. Still, he remains the centre of his children’s lives, and when three of his sons – Junius Jr (or June), Edwin and John Wilkes – follow in his footsteps and become actors themselves, they face a lifelong battle to avoid comparisons with him and with each other. It is Edwin who emerges from his father’s shadow to become one of the leading actors of his time and it is from Edwin’s perspective that we see part of the story unfold.

There are also two Booth daughters who survive to adulthood, Rosalie and Asia – and these are the other characters whose perspectives we see throughout the novel. Rosalie is the eldest and her viewpoint is particularly important early in the novel as she has experiences and memories that her younger siblings do not. As Rosalie grows into a sensitive woman who remains unmarried and close to her mother, she becomes known to the family as ‘poor Rosalie’, a sad and slightly tragic figure. Her younger sister Asia, a stronger personality who will become an author later in life, also offers some interesting insights into the dynamics of the Booth family; she has good relationships with both Edwin and John and feels caught in the middle as tensions begin to grow between the two brothers.

The murder of Abraham Lincoln doesn’t take place until near the end of the novel and there’s not much time left after that to explore the impact this terrible event has on the rest of the Booth family. Neither are we given any real answers as to what went wrong with John Wilkes Booth and what led him to carry out the assassination. It’s hard to say why, coming from a family who were loyal to the Union and largely anti-slavery, it is only John who ends up supporting the Confederacy and opposing abolition. All we can do is make our own assessment based on the information we are given, through the eyes of his siblings, about his childhood, his relationships, his education and his political views.

The novel has clearly been thoroughly researched (although in her author’s note, Karen Joy Fowler explains that as there’s very little information available on Rosalie Booth, it was necessary to use her imagination to fill in the gaps where Rosalie’s character is concerned). However, the book is incredibly detailed and this does slow the plot down a lot, particularly in the middle. We are also given some biographical information on Abraham Lincoln himself and on the events that lead to the Civil War and his presidency. These sections are interspersed with the Rosalie, Edwin and Asia chapters and are presented as non-fiction, which I didn’t really like as I felt it disrupted the flow of the story.

Despite the negative points I’ve just mentioned, I loved this novel. Even the use of present tense and heavy foreshadowing didn’t put me off. I enjoyed learning about a group of historical figures I’d previously known almost nothing about – I particularly liked the parts about the colourful theatrical careers of Edwin and Junius Brutus – and every time I picked the book up I looked forward to finding out what would happen to the family next. I haven’t read anything else by Karen Joy Fowler, not even We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, but having enjoyed this book so much I’ll consider reading some of her others now.

Thanks to Serpent’s Tail for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 13/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

Who’s Calling? by Helen McCloy

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This is the fourth novel in American mystery writer Helen McCloy’s Dr Basil Willing series. I have read and enjoyed all of the previous three – Dance of Death, The Man in the Moonlight and The Deadly Truth – but it’s not necessary to read them in order as each mystery stands alone.

Who’s Calling? was first published in 1942 and begins with a young doctor, Archie Cranford, becoming engaged to Frieda Frey, a glamorous nightclub singer. Although he knows his mother won’t be happy to hear the news, Archie arranges to bring Frieda home to Willow Spring, near Washington, to meet his family and friends. Just before Frieda sets off from New York, she receives an anonymous phone call warning her not to go to Willow Spring. Deciding to ignore this threat, she goes ahead with the visit only to find herself the victim of more sinister calls, as well as other strange phenomena. Could this be the work of a poltergeist or is there a more rational reason for what is going on?

At a dinner party held by the Cranfords’ friends, Senator Mark Lindsay and his wife Julia, a murder takes place which may or may not be connected with Frieda’s ghostly experiences. It’s time to call in psychiatric consultant Dr Basil Willing in the hope that he can solve the crime and identify the murderer.

This is another entertaining Basil Willing mystery – although Willing himself doesn’t make an appearance until halfway through the book. The first half is devoted to setting the scene and introducing the characters, the most memorable being the Cranfords’ cousin, Chalkeley Winchester, an annoying, self-absorbed man described by the others as a ‘spoiled child grown up’ and a ‘male old maid’. I also found the relationship between the Lindsays interesting, as we soon discover that Senator Lindsay is bored and disillusioned with his work and that it’s actually his wife Julia who is the driving force behind his political career.

McCloy begins each of her books with a list of ‘Persons of Interest’, briefly describing the characters who will appear in the novel, and then a second list of ‘Objects of Interest’ – in other words, some of the clues or significant happenings you need to look out for. In this book the objects of interest are particularly intriguing and include ‘a loud KNOCK on the front door – and nothing more’, ‘a BEAD CURTAIN which rustles for a while after a murderer passes’ and ‘a KNITTING BAG that moves without being touched.’ Being given this information in advance doesn’t help at all with solving the mystery, though, and doesn’t really have much purpose other than to add a bit of fun to the book!

I quickly narrowed the suspects down to two, and then correctly guessed which one was the culprit, but I couldn’t work out exactly why they had done it. The solution relies on Basil Willing’s psychiatric knowledge and I don’t think it’s something that would occur to most readers, so I was left feeling that McCloy hadn’t been very fair to us this time. Still, I did enjoy this book and will look forward to reading more from the series.

Thanks to Agora Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.