A Sleeping Lie

There's a four year gap between the publication of Shake Hands Forever and A Sleeping Lie but the England of 1979 in which Inspector Wexford lives feels further in the past. Wexford's older daughter Sylvia has left her husband over her desire to start a career, and that (along with the fact that she'd married at 18) feels like it belongs to the early rather than late 70s. As does her return home after the purchase of a dishwasher.

Wexford's domestic life ends up providing him with the lightbulb moment that solves the murder of Rhoda Comfrey. Miss Comfrey was stabbed to death after visiting her hospitalized father, but there's no proof of her existence other than her corpse. Or of the novelist whose wallet she's inexplicably carrying. Moving between London and Kingsmarkham, Wexford and DI Mike Burden try to flesh out the life of a woman who all but disappeared after winning a football pool and to trace a man who was apparently born in his 20s. After an embarrassing (but amusing) mistake, Wexford's actress daughter Sheila unwittingly provides the final piece of information Wexford needs.

Anna of Kleve: The Princess in the Portrait

Ask the average person about Anne of Cleves, and you'll  probably hear "Oh, yeah, she was the ugly one." Allegedly Hans Holbein's portrait of Anne was much more attractive than the real woman and Henry fell in love with the fantasy. Alison Weir turns that around in the fourth of her Six Tudor Queens novels. Anna might be described as plain and the portrait was painted from her most flattering angle, but it's Henry who doesn't live up expectations. Anna fell in love with a vision of a vibrant king and instead finds an obese and ailing man who appears much older than his 48 years. Henry was disappointed as well, but in other ways. Kleve was a serious and sedate court with plenty of scholarship and no dancing or games. Unlike the Tudor court, the daughters of Kleve were only taught to read and manage households, so Anna spoke little English and had little to say about music or literature.

Henry was unable to consummate their marriage (probably due to ill health), but they have an affectionate relationship, dining together and playing card games. When Henry's eye roves towards Anna's lady in waiting Catherine Howard, Anna's only potential reason to regret relinquishing her position is the possibility that Kleve would lose Henry's protection. Once that's negotiated, she gracefully steps aside and becomes the King's Sister, taking precedence over all women at court barring the Queen and growing close to Henry's daughter Mary. The historical record covering Anna's post-consort years is sparse, so Weir fills in what we know (she tended to overspend her income) with what we can assume (battles with scheming courtiers). She also gives Anna a romance, but one which depends on a trope (an early seduction by a man with greater power) which feels even more uncomfortable now than it would have a few years ago. That aside, Anna of Kleve was an enjoyable emersion into the heroine's life.

A Covert Affair

 The cover of A Covert Affair isn't quite accurate. It highlights Julia and Paul Child who are supporting characters to this mid-20th Century espionage case. The main character is Jane Foster, a colleague of theirs in the OSS who was later accused, along with her husband, of spying for the Soviets. Jane, like Julia, was from an affluent California family; unlike the future French Chef she was artistic, confident, and outgoing. Jane comes across as engaging but not particularly reliable while serving in the OSS, and after the war, when her friends learn of her secret marriage to George Zlatovski, she drops all contact with her former colleagues. The Childs eventually reconnect with her while stationed in Paris, and when the Zlatovskis were accused of spying, Paul Child was questioned about his potential involvement.

I found the first half of the book, covering the war years, surprisingly uninvolving and unfocused. The second half, which shows the Childs' romance and marriage and the start of Julia's culinary career in parallel with the investigation of Jane Foster Zlatovski engrossing. Better editing and pacing would have resulted in a better book. 

Blood on the Strand

 Years ago I was in an online discussion of book series. I like reading in order, and if at all possible start with book #1. Someone else said she usually starts with the third book because by then the author has a good idea of where they want to go. Maybe Susanna Gregory's third Thomas Chaloner book will grab me in a way the first two didn't. Blood on the Strand starts out with a man being murdered as he walks home from a dinner meeting, but the complex plot ties in stolen cadavers, double-crossing fellow agents, public autopsies, and shifting personal alliances. Maybe it's because I read it in small snatches, but I never felt attached to the characters or overly concerned about their fates. With Susanna Gregory ending her Matthew Bartholomew series, I'd hoped that the Chaloner books would replace them. I have one more so I haven't given up yet.

Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford Circle Remade the World for Women

The Mutual Admiration Society was a group of friends with literary aspirations who entered Sommerville College before World War I and were later among the first women to earn full degrees from Oxford. Shaped by the Great War and their upper-middle to upper class backgrounds, they went on to push the expectations laid out for their lives without quite breaking them. Sayers is the best known now, both as the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey and as a scholar and translator, and I suspect Mo Moulton focused on her because of this. For the most influential, however, I'd choose Charis Frankenburg, who became a midwife and wrote books on birth control and childrearing, before becoming one of the first female magistrates in the UK. Other MAS members became academics, playwrights, and secondary school teachers while maintaining ties of varying strengths to their old friends. Moulton's book gives us a glimpse into their lives, but stayed a bit too much on the surface. I'd prefer a deeper look into the individual women but this serves as a good primer on their cohort.

Appointment With Death

 You do see, don't you, that she has to be killed?

Those words drift though Hercule Poirot's window as he's traveling in the Middle East. We (and he) don't know this, but the words were part of a conversation between Raymond and Carol Boynton and aimed at their stepmother. Mrs. Boynton the second wife of a rich man, and has completely cowed her three stepchildren and made her daughter Genevra appear to be mentally unstable. The only person who appears able to stand up to her is daughter-in-law, Lennox's wife Nadine. We first see Mrs. Boynton through the eyes of two doctors, newly qualified Sarah King and prominent psychologist Dr. Gerard, and as they analyze the family we know Mrs. Boynton will not live past page 75 and that everyone around her will have a different motive for killing her. This is Agatha Christie, though, and she's got some surprises up her sleeve. The murderer is *not* one of the obvious subjects, but there are just enough clues scattered across the narrative so that the solution doesn't come across as a cheat. Christie even supplies us with a happy ending.

Dead Souls

 Dead Souls is dark, even for Ian Rankin, with several plots which connect in unexpected ways. It begins with a policeman's suicide and quickly moves on to Rebus's botched attempt to catch someone who's been poisoning animals at the zoo. Botched because Rebus sees a released sex offender and chases after him. His unauthorized investigation into the parolee leads him to an old case involving sexual abuse at a reformatory, which may or may not involve a murderer returned from Montana where he's been released on a technicality. And in his spare time, Rebus is investigating the disappearance of his high school girlfriend's 20-something son and worrying about his daughter, still unable to walk after the accident in The Hanging Garden. It's a lot, and as usual Rankin doesn't give anyone an unqualified happy ending, but it's also interesting, believable, and well written. Just not something to read in January when we need a bit of a lift.

The Christmas Wassail

 It's Christmas 1483 and people are beginning to wonder where Richard's nephews are. Roger the Chapman, occasional investigator for the King tries to ignore the rumors (and the implications that he's in the King's service). Sedley's last novel returns Roger to non political matters when he comes across the corpse of a thoroughly unpleasant man who happens to be both the head of a squabbling family and one of Bristol's leaders. When another prominent man dies violently, Roger takes up the task of solving they mystery, all while celebrating the holiday and taking his children to see the visiting troupe of mummers who have a secret past. The novel ends with Roger leaving on another trip to sell his wares, and with me ready to re-read his first adventure because I'm going to miss him.