The Midsummer Crown

When I read Kate Sedley's first Roger the Chapman series, I hadn't yet become interested in Plantagent and Tudor England so the fact that Roger set out to improve Richard III's image faded into the background with the second book and the move away from political intrigue. Around book 14, Richard of Gloucester again needed Roger's help and the series has alternated between political and personal crimes since then. The Midsummer Crown is one of the political installments, but court machinations stayed with me less than the apparently unconnected male/female conflict among the families of the courtiers. The "twist" ending was well done, both sufficiently surprising and well-supported, and the whispers about the missing princes felt like ordinary rumors that would go around the court rather than the lurid stories we've grown accustom to. At the end of the novel, Roger attends Richard III's coronation feast and then goes home to Bristol. There are two more books in the series and while the final one will probably end at Bosworth, I hope the next one focuses on Bristol or Roger's commercial travels.

The Sanctuary Murders

 I think Susannah Gregory is winding down her Matthew Bartholomew series. I'm going to miss it, particularly since my re-reading has showed me how the characters have evolved. The Sanctuary Murders isn't one of my favorite installments, though. I don't know if it was the book or if my 2020-induced stress made it harder to concentrate, but I just couldn't get into it (and have stalled on writing this review). Missing his fiancee Matilda (who's on a wedding-clothes buying trip with his sister Edith), Matthew Bartholomew finds himself tasked with solving mysterious deaths at a nearby hospital. The hospital isn't what it appears to be, and neither are the victims or the rest of the inmates. Complicated by more intense than usual town-versus-gown tensions and Brother Michael's new job as the University Chancellor, the crime felt like there were too many suspects and motives and none of them particularly likely. Add in feuding nuns visiting Cambridge for a conclave and I felt that there was too much distraction and not enough entertainment. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed by 2020 and when I get around to re-reading this one (in 10-25 years), I'll appreciate it more.

Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, The Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party

 I don't remember Newt Gingrich being particularly involved in the downfall of Jim Wright, his predecessor as Speaker of the House. In the first half of 1989, I was more concerned with passing P-Chem II (which I managed to do) than with politics. I came home for the summer, and the news was full of reports of a book deal and maybe something to do with the Speaker's wife's job??? I generally don't enjoy current political books, but more than 30 years have passed since this scandal and 20 since Gingrich has been in power, having lost in no-principles partisan game he brought to Washington.

Gingrich originally ran as a reformer, and once elected skillfully used the post-Watergate reforms to attack Democratic politicians. With an already established reputation for personal nastiness and multiple sexual affairs, he somehow managed to claim the "right" side and joined with Republican political operatives like Lee Atwater and Ed Rollins to weaponize the slightest misstep from opponents, even when he was doing the same thing. In an echo of 1998, Gingrich's attack on Wright was based on a contract for a book written in part by his staff which the latter had signed, despite the fact that Gingrich had himself put his name on a book partially written by his staff (and was later reprimanded for it). While claiming to act on principle but amping up the intensity of the political theater, Gingrich changed Congress from a place where progress occurred through compromise to a body more cynical and less productive than he claimed it was. Wright comes across as a flawed man who probably wasn't well suited to the Speaker's job, but Gingrich is the one who did real harm to the body.

The Last Hours

 Trust Minette Walters to make a novel set against the first wave of the Black Death even darker. The Last Hours opened as Sir Richard of Develish prepares to negotiate his daughter Eleanor's marriage to the son of a nearby lord. Sir Richard is a brutal, drunken lout and his vain daughter is no better, frequently venting her cruelty on Thaddeus Thurkell, the bastard sone of one of her father's serfs

Then the plague begins. Sir Richard's retinue falls to it at Bradmayne, and would have brought it to Develish if not for Lady Anne. She ruled the manor through kindness and intelligence, enforcing quarantines and cleanliness so the serfs are healthier (and through her tuition literate) as well as free from the rats we know carried yersinia pests. Lady Anne also had a warning from a messenger, which she altered to prevent panic. With Thaddeus as her new Steward and a council of leading serfs, they lead a peaceful, if anxious life for about two months. then, a mruder and fears of eventual starvation lead Thaddeus and five teenage boys on a mission to find food and news of the outside world. 

From here, Walters uses a dual track narrative. WE see Anne and her council deal with both Eleanor's machinations and dark secrets and with an attack by a marauding lord. Meanwhile, thaddeus and the boys scour the land for supplies and signs of life. For them, it's also a personal journey, with the boys becoming responsible and Thaddeus unknowingly letting his guard down. Walters ends the book on a cliffhanger. Luckily, I already have the sequel so I don't have to wait a year or tow to find out if Anne, Thaddeus, and the council begin to creat a new society in with the scarcity of labor destroys the old feudal system.

Murder Being Once Done

 Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford novel feel older than they are - or maybe I just don't realize that 1972, a year in which I have a few memories, is so far in the past. Rendell's and Wexford's, attitudes, though come from a prior era. The poor are always dirty - not just in a squalid neighborhood but lacking in personal hygiene as well. And their criminality is assured

Murder Being Once Done Begins with Wexford on a doctor prescribed break with his nephew in London. Hovered over by his wife and niece, he's bore to tears until he comes across a crime shene while on a walk - a crime where his nephew, Howard, a Detective Superintendent with the Metropolitan Police, is the lead investigator. Lovejoy Morgan appears to be a "good girl," too sheltered to hold all but the most menial job, yet her postmortem shows that she'd given birth within the year. Wexford takes on the task fo finding her identity and her killer. Succeeding through a combination of grunt work and luck - but not after getting a very wrong answer that was somehow connected to the truth. I enjoyed how Rendell placed the surprise twist in an unusual place but found the killer's identity somewhat unbelievable. There's also the psychology. Rendell was known as one of the first mystery writers to bring psychology into the genre, but it feels, dated, simplistic at times, and seen through Rendell's upper-middle class British lens. The Wexford series, and most of Rendell's books, feel like a time capsule - enjoyable but somehow her London is more remote than Miss Marple's St. Mary Mead.

Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen

 Anne Boleyn dramatic life and death feature in many novels, plays, and movies, but Jane Seymour doesn't get much notice. She was quiet, demure, wrote few letters, and died young. While that means she didn't leave a lot of drama, her silence leaves room for speculation, particularly whether Jane was as much of a social climber as her brothers or whether she was their pawn.

Alison Weir leans towards the latter, although she gives Jane a strong enough character to allow her to rationalize her role in Anne Boleyn's downfall. we first meet her as a devout 10-year-old who wants to become a nun. Obedient, domestically inclined, and devoted to her family, she helps her mother run the household until at age 18, she enters a local convent. She finds that contemplative life is not her calling (and that the convent is not quite the place of purity and devotion she thought). After returning home, her parents find a place for her as a maid-of-honor to Queen Katherine through the help of Sir Francis Bryan

Jane arrives as Katherine's court begins its fall from favor. Henry (still handsome and able to charm but with flashes of the mercurial despot he became with age and illness) has begun his flirtation with Anne Boleyn. Secret Protestants, including Jane's ambitious older brother Edmund and her sponsor (and potential suitor) Sir Francis, see the King's "great matter" as a route to Reformation. Jane, however, loves her mistress and cleves to the True Church. She dislikes what little she sees of Anne and disapproves of how Henry banishes Katherine to smaller and more dilapidated royal houses and of his treatment of his daughter, Mary.

Eventually, Jane finds herself unemployed as Henry all but eliminates Katherine's court. Sir Francis, still believing in reform but no longer enamored of the increasingly ill-tempered Anne, finds Jane a position in the new Queen's retinue. Jane doesn't want to serve the Lady but follows the wishes of her ambitious parents. At court, her calmness and submission catch Henry's eye. although aging and beginning to suffer from the leg wound that plagued the last decade of his life, he retained enough charm for Jane to fall in love with him.

Jane remains placid as the increasingly panicked Anne vents her fury on her rival and leaves her service. Ensconced in Edward's apartment, she continues her courtship with Henry and her gossip helps lead to Anne's downfall. The hasty marriage history sees as a political ploy is a love match to Jane, and the year or so she spends with Henry is generally happy, despite his rages and her insecurity as a knight's daughter raised to royalty. She argues (with limited success) against the dissolution of the religious houses and more successfully brokers a reconciliation between Henry and Mary before giving birth to the male heir Henry so desperately wanted (and needed) and dying a week after. Jane fills her final days with fantasies of growing old surrounded by princes and princesses, and ye we know the teven if she lived, Henry's encroaching chronic illnesses would have made a large family unlikely. While I wonder how differently history would have been if Jane had survived to produce a second son, Weir presents her death as a personal tragedy, and lets Henry grieve for the woman he truly loved...at least at the time.

The Poison Squad

 I should have enjoyed The Poison Squad more than I did. It had fantastic reviews, Deborah Blum is an excellent writer, and as a chemist-turned-lawyer working on a degree in regulatory affairs, a book on the origins of the FDA is the most "me" book I can think of. And while it was interesting, it never fully captured my attention. Perhaps a bit less about his personal life (he married suffragist Anna Kelton who sounds like she deserves her own biography) and some more details about toxin tests. I suspect, though, that while I'd enjoy that book more, most people would like it less.

The Nine Taylors

Warning - spoiler

I don't know if the mode of death in The Nine Taylors is even possible, but other than that it's a perfect mystery. On a snowy New Year's Eve, Lord Peter drives his car into a ditch and ends up substituting for a flu-ridden bell ringer. A few days later, the gravedigger finds an unexpected and unknown body in the Thorpe family grave. Is the man connected to the 20-year-old jewel theft which led to the Thorpe family downfall? Unfortunately, the mystery is padded out a bit with arcane facts about bell ringing. Still, it's satisfying and an evening with Lord Peter is always enjoyable.

The Hanging Garden

 There's a new crime lord in Edinburgh, and due to a sex trafficked Bosnian girl who develops a rapport with John Rebus, the Inspector ends up in the middle of it. Tommy Telford believes that Rebus is Big Ger Cafferty's man and while the DI has contacts in the imprisoned gangster's organization, he's a cop first and foremost.

He's also prone to over-involvement in his cases. So when Candace seems to bond with him during her arrest, he takes on her case although he's been tasked with determining whether a retired professor is actually a Nazi war criminal. Rankin ties the turf war and the war crime together in a surprising way and still manages to work in a family crisis without making it feel grafted on. Like all the Rebus novels, it's dark and probably not the best choice for dreary days but it's thoroughly engrossing.

Maid in the King's court

I'm a bit late jumping on the YA bandwagon, mostly becasue recent YA novels tend towards fantasy or supernatural stories. Those don't interest me, but historical novels written by Lucy Worsley? You can't find a sub-sub-genre more targeted to my taste. Eliza Rose Camperdown, the only child of the Baron of Stone is a strong-willed, active child with little promise of becoming the cultured lady who able to find a proper (and properly wealthy) husband who can save the family estate. At age 12, she's sent to Trumpton Hall for finishing where she meets her distant cousin, Catherine Howard. Both girls find places at court as maids to Anne of Cleves, and as Catherine takes Anne's place, Eliza Rose finds herself serving her former friend. After Catherine's execution, she faces a dilemma - should she keep her place at court despite the danger, or should she make a new life with Ned, a page whose prospects are limited by his illegitimacy? Worsley's prose is light and enjoyable and she portrays Eliza Rose, Ned - and Catherine - as sympathetic characters trapped by a stifling and occasionally brutal system.

Arrowsmith

I hadn't read Arrowsmith in nearly 30 years, and I'd forgotten a lot of it. I remembered his two marriages, his near-worship of the bacteriologist Gottlieb, his use of phage in a plague epidemic, and his eventual retreat to a cabin (lab) in the woods. I'd forgotten (among other things), his accidental engagement, his off-and-on rivalry with a classmate, and the charismatic epidemiologist who pushed Gottlieb off his pedestal. Like Elmer Gantry, it wanders the protagonist's life, although the reactive isn't quite as memorable as the magnetic con artist. The book I read is more complex than the book I remembered. Martin Arrowsmith is less competent than I remembered, and his forays in to small-town practice, public health, and hospital staff are mostly unsuccessful. They also provide Sinclair Lewis with an opportunity to skewer the snobbery hypocritical moralism of the early 20th Century with more humor than his other works. I was particularly drawn, though, to the scientific content. Lewis worked with microbiologist Paul de Kruif, and the discussions of lab work and practical applications of phage provided a nice epilogue to the immunology-heavy vaccines class I'd just completed.

Uneasy Lies the Crown

I love Lady Emily Hargraves, and I enjoy the secondary plots Tasha Alexander weaves into the noble sleuth's mysteries. Here, the flashback tale of a recently married noblewoman mistreated by the family caring for her while her husband is on Crusade doesn't influence the main mystery, but the two plot lines meet in the final chapter.

The main plot starts with Queen Victoria's death. During the funeral, Lady Emily's husband, an aide to the late Queen and new King, slips away to investigate the murder of a man dressed as Henry IV. Emily, of course, joins him, and they learn that this is the beginning of a killing spree. Will it include the current King? Alexander is too clever for something so obvious, and she supports the solution well.

Lady Byron and her Daughters

I wanted to enjoy Lady Byron and her Daughters, and the first third of the book was compelling. Annabella Milbank was a mathematician and a poet in her own right when she met Lord Byron through Caroline Lamb, her cousin by marriage. Their bizarre courtship, and his obviously close relationship with his half sister, set against the backdrop of the Regency aristocracy played like an uncensored Jane Austen novel. Once the couple married, though, the act of watching a psychologically abusive marriage dissolve became more horrible than interesting. Julia Markus's biography wandered a bit through its last half, touching here on Ada Lovelace's life and mathematical work, there on Annabella's involvement in progressive social movements (including the abolition of slavery), and lightly on Melora Leigh's tragic life.

A Deadly Brew

I've compared Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew mysteries to a workplace comedy, and the humor stars coming through in the fourth installment, A Deadly Brew, in part through the introduction of Ralph de Langelee. The future college head makes his first appearance as a suspiciously unlearned lecturer and Matt and Brother Michael are not surprised when he turns out to be a spy. Neither are they surprised to find out that the wine which is poisoning members of both town and gown was smuggled in. Starting with two deaths connected to the surprise election of the new University Chancellor and including an escape (accompanied by an elderly nun and a merchant's niece) through the fens from a convent, A Deadly Brew is a satisfying mystery.