Review: 'Beating About the Bush'

Beating About the Bush
By M.C. Beaton
Mystery
December 2019
Minotaur Books
ISBN: 978-1250157720

In December 1992, a prickly, fierce woman sold her successful public relations firm and went to the Cotswolds to live a quiet life that never seemed to materialize. That was Quiche of Death, the first Agatha Raisin mystery.

In Beating About the Bush, Agatha's 30th outing, the late M.C. Beaton portrays a character who realizes time has carried on but who usually changes course rather than face hard truths about herself. It's her way of not giving in or giving up. Over the years, there are times it has made her selfish, shallow and irritating. But she has never been boring.

Both traits of not giving in or giving up come in handy during the course of the mystery in this book. Agatha and her private detective agency have been hired to look into a possible case of industrial espionage. But the company, which manufactures batteries, is an odd place. There doesn't seem to be much staff. There doesn't seem to be much actual manufacturing going on. There are unqualified people all over the place.

While leaving the facility, Agatha and her assistant Toni think they see a dead body when a leg is spotted, wearing a brogue like the one the company's receptionist wears. It's a false leg, and the police are not amused. It's pretty obvious this is part of a set-up to attack Agatha's credibility. And that such a set-up is just the kind of attack she will take head on.

Of course, a murder does occur. The purported killer is a cantankerous mule that Agatha previously encountered, and which takes a liking to her. On top of investigating the murder, Agatha inspires a national campaign to save the mule. Things go exactly as those who have read Agatha's books before imagine.

Apparently there will be one more Agatha Raisin book, with Hot to Trot due to be released next fall. But if this was the last book in the series, it would end at an interesting place for Agatha. There are some things she has come to terms with, something that rarely occurs. That the book ends with her in a good spot was a treat to see.


©2020 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'To Dwell in Darkness'

To Dwell in Darkness
By Deborah Crombie
Crime fiction
September 2014
William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0062271600

When a mystery series has survived until its 16th book, it might be expected that it could be showing its age. Not in the case of the Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James mysteries by Deborah Crombie. To Dwell in Darkness is as engaging as any book in this series has been and, just as importantly, moves the characters to a place where a reader wonders what will happen next and how they will respond to whatever they are up against.

Kincaid and Gemma have gone from colleagues to friends to lovers to a married couple. Their family has grown to include Kincaid's son from an earlier marriage, who is now 14, her little son Toby and a foster daughter who they are looking to adopt. Both coppers loved their jobs. Kincaid at Scotland Yard has always been the model of a calm policeman who looks at the people he comes across in the murder investigations assigned to him. People have always mattered. Gemma James has grown from a single mother trying to make ends meet, doing well at a job she loves while insisting on putting her son first, into an even stronger police investigator and juggler of duties.

But now Kincaid has been reassigned from his beloved Scotland Yard and away from his trusted sergeant to another station. He's not sure of his new team any more than they are sure of him, including at least one highly wound woman who should have had a promotion to his job. Kincaid knows there's something going on behind the scenes, but exactly what and who is behind it remain as murky as ever. His wife also has a new assignment, but it's a plummy job, and her trusted number two, Melody Talbot. Kincaid wonders if this was done in part to keep him quiet.

In the midst of these musings and maneuverings, Melody is on the scene when a man bursts into flames and falls at St. Pancras station. The site is part of Kincaid's new posting in Camden, and he is confronted by an anti-terrorist officer who wants to make sure he isn't losing any turf in case this is more than the usual crime. People close to the continuing characters are affected by the incident, complicating their feelings about the investigation as well as their schedules.

Drawn into the investigation are a motley group of protestors who want London's historical buildings, including St. Pancras, preserved from exploitation by developers. They are camping out in the flat of their leader, which is located in a pricey building. Figuring out who these people are will go a long way toward solving who the person was that died in that fiery crash and why that person died.

What none of them realize is that part of solving what happened could led to what Kincaid and Gemma hold most dear -- their family. There also is the possibility that someone involved in this case may be involved in what has taken Kincaid away from Scotland Yard.

Nefarious doings by higher-ups and shadowy conspiracies can become tedious and drag down a series. But so far, Crombie has displayed a light touch with this part of the ongoing story. The unraveling of a crime and the ongoing stories of her continuing characters remain more important. That made To Dwell in Darkness a gripping novel that will leave readers more than willing to read the next one.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Hunting Shadows'

HUNTING SHADOWS
By Charles Todd
Crime fiction
January 2014
William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0062237187

Returning for his 16th novel, WWI survivor and Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is on the road again, solving murders in the appropriately named Hunting Shadows.

This time, the story begins with an old soldier who largely keeps to himself but feels he needs to pay his respects to another soldier by attending his funeral in the Fens country. He stops short of entering the church upon seeing an old enemy, a former officer. He waits until the man returns to the area for a wedding and, drawing on his sniper experience during the war, kills the man in front of the bridegroom.

The public slaying horrifies the area. People are even more scared when another man, a quiet country solicitor running for Parliament, also is killed by an unknown assailant in public.

En route to the small villages where the murders took place, Rutledge is lost in the fog one night on the Fens, guided by a ghostly presence who leads him to eventual safety. As with many people Rutledge meets in his investigations, people are suspicious of the police yet expect them to solve crimes, preferably before they happen.

Mixed in with the prickly characters are those who intrigue Rutledge as people, whether they may know much about the murders or even be suspects. There are at least two who would be worth seeing in subsequent novels in this series.

One of the highlights of this novel is the focus on the role of snipers in WWI. Although they saved many lives, their ability to blend into their surroundings to kill was seen by many as cowardly, as not forthright or sporting. The snipers often keep their past a secret, to avoid being shunned. It's an interesting commentary on warcraft and the needs of the battlefield.

The novel also does a wonderful job of bringing the bleak, blandly treacherous Fens to life. This is the landscape in which Lord Peter Wimsey got lost in The Nine Tailors, and this Todd novel recalls that classic tale as well as tells its own strong story.

Rutledge remains haunted by Hamish MacLeod, although the corporal whose execution Rutledge ordered does not disrupt the narrative. He serves as Rutledge's inner guide, asking the right question at the right time and being a bit of a worrywart. Rutledge still suffers from being in the trenches. As his investigation brings back the horrors of those times, he relives them as well.

But he also is soldiering on in that he shows signs of trying to move on by doing his job with diligence, wishing happiness for those he cares about and showing a wee bit more of his human side in his consideration of people he comes across in this outing.

Hunting Shadows is a superb entry in one of the most consistently entertaining historical mystery series around.

©2014 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Book Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton'

THE STRANGE FATE OF KITTY EASTON (A Laurence Bartram Mystery)

By Elizabeth Speller
Crime fiction (British traditional historical)
June 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0547547527
                                                                                                                                         
Laurence Bartram is getting accustomed to life after WWI, teaching and adjusting to life without his wife and newborn, who both died, and the woman he loves, who is separated from him while her husband, with no hope of recovery, clings to life.

Laurence accepts the invitation of his friend William, a talented architect who lost the use of his legs in the war, to look over the restoration of a church on a country estate. William, his ardent political wife Eleanor, and their young son Nicholas are stayiing with the Eastons, a prototypical country gentry family riddled with tragedy and secrets.

The tragedy that weighs heaviest on the family members is the disappearance of five-year-old Kitty more than 10 years ago. The lord of the manor, Digby, fell deeper into drink and tyrannical ways after the child vanished from her room one night. He was killed in France, while younger brother Julian survived to carry on at home. He pines for Digby's widow, Lydia, who is becoming more frail by the day and who cannot acknowledge her daughter may be dead. Youngest brother Patrick plays the role of ne'er-do-well, but his story, like that of all the Eastons, is deeper than first appearances.

It takes pages and pages for anything to really happen, but the church restoration -- and underground discoveries -- and an ill-fated trip to a London exhibition are trigger events that eventually bring to light most of the Easton secrets.

Speller's second Laurence Bartram novel is leisurely paced, better reflecting an era when people counted time in days and weeks, rather than minutes, and no one multi-tasked. The pacing highlights how events large and small could have lasting effects on the characters. The characters demonstrate qualities that may seem quaint today -- loyalty, thoughtfulness, reluctance to gossip but truthfulness when asked forthright.

The novel does require knowledge of characters from the first Laurence Bartram novel. Like this one, The Return of Captain John Emmett uses the crime fiction genre to explore how a people try to return to a way of life after war nearly destroys it. Laurence's decisions at the end of Kitty Easton portend interesting possibilities for continuing the series, as do the actions of other returning characters.

©2012 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Beastly Things'

BEASTLY THINGS
By Donna Leon
Crime fiction (Commissario Guido Brunetti)
April 2012
Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2023-6
                                                                                                                                           

The body of a man without identification but with a distinct medical condition is found in a canal. As Commissario Guido Brunetti discovers who the man was, and why he was killed, the well-loved Venetian policeman will have to address personal and professional issues.

Because the man has a condition that makes him stand out, Brunetti is able to identify him. The man was a veterinarian, separated from his wife and beloved son, and moonlighting at a slaughterhouse for financial reasons. So in addition to exploring other investigative avenues, Brunetti must talk to the people at the slaughterhouse. This comes as talk around home centers on unsafe food.

In a remarkable setpiece, Leon describes the tour Brunetti and Vianello take through the slaughterhouse after hours. It is gruesome but not graphic, and a master class in how to write about something utterly horrible without using extremely specific sights and actions.

The mystery of who killed the victim and why does not make a difficult case. But that is not the point of Leon's book. Nor is the point the theme so similar to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

Rather, it is widespread and so often accepted corruption in personal and private lives that forms the foundation to Beastly Things. Whether it's Brunetti relying on the highly capable Signorina Elettra to discover information he needs or the business of any business -- to make money -- there is little innocence in his world.

Beastly Things is yet another deceptively thoughtful mystery from Leon, who once again also brings to vivid life Brunetti's Venice and the commissario's wonderful family.

©2012 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'Dead Scared'

DEAD SCARED
By S.J. Bolton
Crime fiction (thriller/British police)
June 2012
Minotaur Books
ISBN: 978-0312600532                                                                            

DC Lacey Flint returns to star, with DI Mark Joesbury of Scotland Yard, in her second thriller by Bolton. This time, she's sent undercover by Joesbury to bring back intelligence about Cambridge students. Their suicide rate is far higher than normal and, unusually, more of them are young women than men.

But before the reader discovers this, the story opens with Lacey on top of a tower, perhaps ready to jump. Before finding out what happens, Bolton goes back in time to the beginning of her assignment. The author then goes back and forth, in very short chapters, among the narratives of Lacey, disabled Dr. Evi Oliver -- the Cambridge psychiatrist who knows Lacey's assignment and who is herself plagued by occurrences that terrify her -- and some of the earlier suicide victims. Plus Joesbury.

The terrors that the various victims suffer are indeed harrowingly portrayed. When Lacey finds herself not knowing if bad things are happening to her, or if she is dreaming, the suspense factor is increased. Bolton is a master at racheting up the suspense.

Add into the mix Lacey not being certain who she can trust, and the suspense tightens even more. For instance, there is the physician of one of the victims. She survived but is a burn victim who still cannot speak. What should Lacey think of his interest in his patient, or in Lacey herself?

As with many thrillers, disbelief must remain suspended for the reader to continue turning the pages. As long as one does not question too closely how believable any of the set-up is, Bolton is masterful at the ever-increasing pace of both danger and revealment in unspooling the story.

The revelation of what's actually going on may or may not appeal to readers, depending on their tolerance for sadism or conspiracy. The story concludes with an abundance of feminine jeopardy and, for professional and educated women, a preponderance of dependance upon their strong menfolk to see them through. Perhaps because of the setting, it's hard to not compare the ending here with that of Gaudy Night and reflect on how Harriet Vane, back in 1935, was her own person and didn't want even Lord Peter to rescue her. It's quite the contrast, and the fact Dead Scared comes nearly a century after that most celebrated Oxbridge novel is not, in the end, cause for celebration.

©2012 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

FTC discloser: A digital galley of the book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

Review: 'An Unmarked Grave'

AN UNMARKED GRAVE: A Bess Crawford Mystery
By Charles Todd
Historical mystery
June 2012
William Morrow

ISBN: 978-0-06-201572-3                                                                                    

Intrepid Bess Crawford is just behind the trenches in wartorn France, tending to the wounded, when the Spanish Influenza strikes in the spring of 1918. In the mdist of the chaos, an orderly notices something wrong with one of the many bodies. He didn't die of war wounds or the flu. His neck was broken.

The orderly informs Bess as someone he trusts. She promises to alert the proper people. She promises not only because she trusts the kindly older man who is the orderly and sees for herself that the dead man was murdered, but also because the victim was a family friend who served in her father's regiment.

But before she can get anywhere, the flu strikes her as well. In the near-fairytale atmosphere in which Bess Crawford exists, she is spirited out of France and convalesces back home as strings are pulled. For Bess Crawford has connections, most importantly her father, the Colonel Sahib.

This imposing figure and dearest family friend Simon are full-fledged confidants as she pieces together bits of information and visits various figures connected to the victim. These figures are representative of various strata in Britain's WWI class system, and as such provide a fascinating picture of people carrying on while the Great War goes on and on and on. Although Bess initially isn't quite believed, it's soon evident that the orderly, who died soon after she was taken ill, showed her something important.

Before long, more people connected with the investigation die. Bess knows the killer will target her, but her sense of duty demands that she continue. And if that means she has to take along with her a brash American officer recovering from his war wounds, that's what she will do. Even if he and Simon don't exactly take to each other. The killer gets closer and closer to Bess and her inner circle before the end, which is a classic case of the sleuth figuring it all out in the nick of time.

The world for Bess that the Todds have created is a genuine homage to the World War I era. The violence is off-screen, the characters do not directly express their feelings for each other (really, how thick are Bess and Simon to not have figured that out?) and duty reigns supreme, the plot unfolds in true tricky Agatha Christie style. The series also has other aspects of the historical era it depicts. There is no irony or nod to modern sensibility in Bess calling her father the Colonel Sahib. Women and lower class folk are expected to know their place. In one of the poignant stories told during the unveiling of the plot, a widower father who has lost several sons to the war doesn't understand why the widow of one of them won't come work the farm. Her son would grow up in fresh air but the workload would obviously kill her.

Downton Abbey fans would be well served by reading the Bess Crawford novels while waiting for a new season. Fans of Inspector Rutledge, the first series character brought to life by the Todds, will find a lighter version of the tone in that post-war series.

©2012 All Rights Reserved CompuServe Books Reviews and reprinted with permission

Review: 'No Mark Upon Her'

NO MARK UPON HER
By Deborah Crombie                                                                                  
Crime fiction (British police procedural)
February 2012
William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0-06-199061-8

A seasoned world-class athlete decides to return to her sport. She will need time away from her demanding career, but she may just have the leverage she needs for that. However, Becca Meredith's Olympic potential as a rower will not be measured, nor will she need a sabbatical from her Metropolitan Police job. Instead, she is found dead on the Thames, separated from her scull.

Her murder rips open deceit upon deceit and more than one kind of betrayal when Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid is assigned to investigate. It's a case Kincaid takes on reluctantly in the 14th book in Deborah Crombie's traditional British police procedural series. He not only has just married his partner, Gemma James, who also is a Scotland Yard detective, but their blended family has grown and at least one of them needs to be at home to help a scarred, scared three-year-old they adore. Gemma is just coming off her leave and Duncan is ready to be a househusband -- if this case and office politics at The Yard allow him to keep his word.