Book Review: Madam by Phoebe Wynne ***

Madam by Phoebe Wynne
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Madam by Phoebe Rynne is billed as a modern gothic, and the “gothic” part is certainly taken care of by Caldonbrae Hall, the forbidding Scottish mansion, now serving as a girls’ boarding school, at which teacher Rose Christie arrives in 1992 as its new head of Classics. Chosen as a result of a recommendation from a colleague, Rose’s youth and relatively limited experience seem hardly to fit her for such a senior position at a prestigious school, but the salary and benefits will assist her in caring for her mother, who has MS and is steadily getting worse. Rose is even less prepared for the secrets she will find within the walls of Caldonbrae.

Madam, which takes its title from the peculiar custom at the school of addressing all the female staff indistinguishably as “Madam” (and all males as “Sir”) had a rather slow start, although it did pick up after the first third or so as Rose gets to know and slowly win over her initially hostile students and also attempts to navigate the labyrinthine structure (both figurative and literal) of the school. After that, it builds towards a shattering climax.

While my opinion of the book improved as it went on, my biggest problem was suspending my disbelief about whether – even in the 1990s - its system of “education” could have been maintained and kept secret from the world at large, especially given the fact that part of it was that its students would be moving in the highest circles of society, and it seemed unlikely that they would have been able to be kept isolated and insulated from “new” ideas for what would essentially have been the rest of their lives. This is where the “modern” part of the description failed for me. I could see this taking place far more easily in the 1950s or 1920s, but then, of course, most of the “traditions” would have seemed much less outlandish. I also found the character of Rose to be so impulsive and unable to keep from voicing her disapproval and opposition that it became unbelievable that they would have kept her on for as long as they did, continuing to give her “another chance” however outrageously (in their view) she behaved. (view spoiler)[ Also, given the realities of human trafficking in today's world, while the school's method of operation was pretty appalling, I also found it impossible to summon what seemed to be the expected feelings of horror when it was revealed what was actually going on. (hide spoiler)]

Rose's mother, too, was not very believable as a feminist; this was a situation where the author would have benefited by “showing, not telling,” as the saying goes, since we're told that she was one but never see any evidence of it in the “present” of the book or even in the dealings with her daughter in the past to which we are made privy.

On the other hand, I did like the stories about strong women in the classical tradition (although they rarely came to positive ends) and how Rose used them to encourage her students to question the future that was laid out in front of them. On the whole, I would give this book 2.5 stars, mainly due to my issues with it, but will round up to 3 for the purposes of Goodreads, which unfortunately doesn't allow half-star ratings.

I received a copy of Madam for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: Death with a Double Edge by Anne Perry ****

Death with a Double Edge by Anne Perry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Young attorney Daniel Pitt, when called to identify a man in the police morgue who had his card, is at first afraid that it is Kitteridge, one of the younger partners who had been late to a meeting. However, it turns out to be Jonah Drake, one of the firm’s senior partners, who has been viciously murdered in one of the seamier parts of London. Concerned for the reputation of the firm, Daniel’s employer, Marcus fford Croft, assigns him and Kitteridge to comb through Drake’s recent cases for a connection.

They soon hone in on two cases, one in which the son of a shipping magnate was acquitted of the murder of a young woman, and another in which the defendant was left with a stain on his reputation, despite not being convicted. Keeping on the right side of the shipping magnate, Erasmus Faber, is vital to the British government’s national interests as they attempt to build up their navy in the years leading up to WWI, so Daniel is warned by his father, Sir Thomas, head of Special Branch, to avoid involving him if possible, but this is where the trail seems to lead. Soon others are murdered, and Daniel, Sir Thomas, and his mother, Charlotte, find themselves deep in a web of corruption and scandal.

Since Miriam fford Croft, the daughter of Daniel’s employer and his usual partner in detection, is attending medical school on the Continent, and due to the unusual nature of the case, both of his parents have a far more central role than they have in the earlier books in this series. I, for one, was glad to see them back in the thick of the action once again, and the love of the parents for their son and for each other, even after thirty years of marriage, as well as his for them, is believable and well drawn, especially when Charlotte is put in danger in a bid to stop the investigation and they fear that they may never see her again.

The mystery, as always, is enjoyable, although I felt that the solution maybe wasn’t quite up to snuff, but where Ms. Perry has always excelled is in the creation of often quirky but always believable characters who seem to jump off the page. The first victim, Jonah Drake, in particular, comes to life (ironically, after his death), as Daniel searches his papers and possessions for clues to his murderer, and he comes to see what he thought was rather standoffish, even boring, older man as a brilliant, passionate legal mind with a wry humor and even artistic talent. Marcus fford Croft, who may be contending with the early stages of dementia, is also perceptively and sympathetically drawn.

Death with a Double Edge is a worthy entry into a series that, with the 32 Thomas and Charlotte Pitt books, now stands at 36 books, all well written and enjoyable. I look forward to Daniel’s further adventures and growth as both a human being and an attorney.

I received a copy of Death with a Double Edge for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

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Book Review: Down Along with That Devil's Bones by Connor Towne O'Neill *****

Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy by Connor Towne O'Neill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Framed around O'Neill's travels through the South from the time leading up to and following the 2016 election through 2018, this examination of the controversy over Confederate monuments and the legacy of white supremacy focuses on one personage: general, slave trader, and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford Forrest, who also commanded the Confederate troops who perpetrated the Fort Pillow massacre in 1864. Although only 250 pages long, it also includes a lot of much-needed context and history for the 150-year span between the Civil War and today.

While it's clear where O'Neill's sympathies lie, he engages people on both sides of the issue with respect, as well as acknowledging the benefits that white Northerners such as himself have received from the inequalities embedded in the system since before the Revolution. His refrain of "it's us" (sorry, English purists - it definitely has more "punch" than "it's we") is a sadly-needed corrective to the upbeat message we hear so much these days that "this is not who we are." He also attempts to understand the personality and motivations of Forrest himself (and his admirers) rather than painting them as caricatures of racism and evil.

His journey takes him to places such as Selma, AL; a monumental (and ugly, in many people's view) statue of Forrest on private land facing Interstate 65 that was created by segregationist Jack Kershaw; and Memphis, among other places, and ends at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL, where he ponders whether the arc of the universe, as Dr. King said, truly bends towards justice.

I see some criticism of this book in other reviews for being centered on the author's perspective as a white Northerner, but while no doubt there are many valuable and meaningful books that could be written on the subject by others, this is the one that this author chose to write, or that chose him to write it, and I found it powerful and enlightening.

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Book Review: Queens of the Crusades by Alison Weir ***1/2

Queens of the Crusades: England's Medieval Queens by Alison Weir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alison Weir has embarked on a project to write a series of collective biographies of England’s medieval queens, a wise idea since many of them do not have enough known about them for a full-length biography aimed at the interested layperson. Queens of the Crusades is the second volume, although she has noted that her biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France should also be included in the sequence.

Although, as Weir acknowledges, these five queens did not all go on crusade themselves, this was the time when the idea of reconquering the Holy Land from Islam permeated the air, and it influenced the lives of all of them. The five women are Eleanor of Aquitaine (married to Henry II), Berengaria of Navarre (Richard I), Isabella of Angoulême (John), Eleanor of Provence (Henry III, and spelled Alienor to reduce the potential confusion at the plethora of Eleanors), and Eleanor of Castile (Edward I). Edward I also married Marguerite of France after his first wife’s death, so I hope that she hasn’t been left out and will be included in the next volume.

Queens of the Crusades paints what is probably as full a picture as possible of the lives of these five women for the non-historian (apart from Eleanor of Aquitaine, about whom there is an abundant amount known): their upbringing, personalities, triumphs and tragedies, relationships with their husbands and children, political influence, and often details of their daily lives drawn from accounts and other records. The account of Berengaria of Navarre is disappointingly slim, mainly due to her her husband’s inexplicable neglect of her while she was queen, but there was more than I have seen before about her life after Richard’s death. (I was glad to see the idea that he was gay firmly squashed, and anyway, as Edward II and James I show, even if his chief attraction had been to men, this would have been no bar to the fathering of children.) The lives of these women often overlapped, so it was also interesting to see their interactions with one another, which mainly seem to have been positive - surprising, since all of them - even Berengaria in her widowhood - seem to have been strong-willed women with differing priorities and personalities.

My main criticism of the book is something that probably won’t bother a lot of other people. Weir said in the introduction to the first book (Queens of the Conquest ) that she would be skipping Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella of France since she had written full-length biographies of both, but obviously, although she makes no reference to the factors behind it, she changed her mind, at least about Eleanor. I certainly don’t object to her inclusion in this book, since as noted, their lives do overlap, but I felt that her portion (probably a condensed version of the same information that is in the biography), took up too much of this book (I estimate almost 40% when the bibliography and other ending and beginning material weren’t included). She is such a towering figure that she overwhelms the others, and I feel that it would have been better to at least cut down her section somewhat - maybe to the time of her widowhood when her life overlaps with Berengaria’s.

Although Weir has never been one of my favorites, I feel that she did a creditable job with this book. On the whole, however, while there is a lot of information I didn’t know and they are put into the context of their times, her view of them is fairly conventional and I didn’t gain any new insights. 3.5 stars.

I received a copy of Queens of the Crusades for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird ****

The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first of the titular “three locks” in this book appears in the form of a mysterious box sent to Dr. John Watson by an aunt of whom he had previously been unaware. It had been his mother's and she had requested that it be given to him on his 21st birthday, now years in the past. The trick lock on the box, however, renders its secret inaccessible for the present. Secondly, his colleague and friend Sherlock Holmes is approached by the wife of an Italian escape artist, The Great Borelli, who begs him to discover the truth behind a feud between her husband and another magician. Borelli comes close to death that same night when Holmes and Watson attend his show and one of his acts goes horribly wrong.

Finally, Peregrine Buttons, a young Catholic deacon, asks Holmes to discover the whereabouts of a missing young woman, the strong-willed Odilie (Dillie) Wyndham, who has disappeared from her father’s home in Cambridge. The “lock” in this case is the Jesus Lock on the River Cam, which will play a crucial part in the story later on.

How are these mysteries connected, if indeed they are? Holmes skillfully juggles the two cases, in both of which lives are at stake and in both of which, if loss of life can be considered failure, he fails despite his best efforts, but, as in many of the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he succeeds to the extent that some justice is achieved. The final mystery, that of the locked box, is also solved at the end, giving us some knowledge of events in Watson’s past and how they have affected his subsequent life.

The Three Locks is the fourth in a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches by Ms. MacBird, but the first I have read. However, I did not feel lost or confused in any way, which may be a benefit of reading a book, even out of order, that is set in a much larger fictional world. At first, I didn’t care for the somewhat testy - even rude - way in which the relationship between Holmes and Watson is presented, although there is some comedy in it, but eventually I felt that the author hit her stride. I will certainly seek out the other books in the series in the hope that they are as enjoyable as this one was.

I received a copy of The Three Locks for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: Take It Back by Kia Abdullah ****

Take It Back by Kia Abdullah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Zara Kaleel, the protagonist of Take It Back, does not take the easy route. Not only did she leave the marriage arranged for her by her traditional Muslim family; a talented lawyer, she also abandoned a job at a top-flight London law firm to become a counselor at a rape crisis center.

Little does she imagine, however, the path that will open up before her when she meets with teenage Jodie Wolfe. Jodie, who has a medical condition that causes severe facial deformities, tells Zara that she was lured to an abandoned warehouse and sexually assaulted by four of her classmates, all Muslim boys from hardworking immigrant families. Taking the case will result in attacks on her, both in the form of protests and eventually physical assault, as a traitor to her “people,” and on the other hand, the risk of inflaming anti-Muslim feeling. Still, she feels strongly that she must continue to support Jodie through the charging and trial of her attackers.

Tackling the delicate subjects of sexual assault, disability, and religion, Take It Back walks a fine line, and largely does it successfully. I worried that this book would end up validating one of two stereotypes, either that of girls who lie about rape or Muslim teenagers fulfilling racist nightmares, but with a clever twist at the end, Ms. Abdullah managed to avoid doing either. The characters are complex, although the accused assailants themselves have less time devoted to them than Zara, Jodie, and her family and associates. Zara can be headstrong and stubborn, with a penchant for reckless behavior which causes near disaster to the case on at least two separate occasions, but hopefully, these issues will be dealt with in later books (this appears to be the first in a series) and will give her a chance to grow as a character.

Despite the painful subject matter, I enjoyed this book very much and will keep my eye out for the next book in the series.

I received a copy of Take It Back for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: The Haunting of Beatrix Greene by Rachel Hawkins, Ash Parsons, Vicky Alvear Schecter ****

In Victorian London, Beatrix Greene operates as a medium, and she is an unrepentant fraud. While she does not believe in ghosts or the supernatural, however, she sees herself as performing a service in providing the bereaved with comforting messages purporting to come from their deceased loved ones. When out of curiosity she attends a gathering where a scientist, James Walker, promises to reveal the methods used by spiritualists and mediums, she is challenged by Walker, for a handsome fee, to spend the night in an allegedly haunted house and prove to him the existence of the supernatural.

When Beatrix and her friend and “chaperone,” Harry, arrive at Ashbury Manor, they discover that it is the 20th anniversary of a tragic murder/suicide that had occurred there, and that “James Walker” is actually the owner of the house, hoping to discover what had caused his beloved mother to kill his brother and then herself, a crime which has haunted him for most of his life. When they sit down to a seance, Beatrix is shocked to discover that she actually does seem to be channeling the spirit of James Walker's mother. The house truly is haunted, and the family cursed, and Beatrix will have to reach deep into her own unacknowledged reserves of psychic talent to bring herself and James out of  Ashbury Manor alive.

I found The Haunting of Beatrix Greene to be an initially pleasant read that became gripping as it progressed to the heart of the mystery and the struggle to free James from his family's curse. The characters, including the secondary ones, particularly the eccentric Amanda Reynolds, are well-drawn. The telling of the story from the alternating perspectives of James and Beatrix was effective and gave it more depth than if it were experienced only from one point of view. My only issue was the part of the chapter headings that sounded as if it were supposed to be the recounting of a TV show (Season 1, Episode 1, etc.), although there may be a point behind it that I'm not aware of, which seemed pointless and in my opinion, added nothing to the story. On the whole, however, I enjoyed it very much.

I received a copy of The Haunting of Beatrix Greene for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.