In January I decided that the coldest part of winter was a good time to do some slow reading in addition to my regular reading. And so February saw me finish two books that I started in January: the first was a very long biography of Ulysses S. Grant; the second was Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad. I assumed that the other books I would chose to read would be shorter but it turned out that in January and February quite a few of the other books I read ended up being longer than I expected. By the end of February I needed a break and finished the month with a few shorter murder mysteries.
These are the books I finished in February.
Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler
Octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have worked in the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit since they were both in their 20's. On a night that Bryant is working late at the office, a bomb explodes destroying the office. John May is determined to discover who killed his partner. At the time of the explosion Bryant seemed to have reopened the very first case the two ever worked on together, a case that began when a dancer was found dead without her feet. It was the beginning of a string of murders at London's Palace Theatre all taking place during the Blitz and its related blackout. John May is forced to remember that original case for clues in this case. This is apparently the first in a series about the two detectives. I'm not sure I will go on with it, at least not yet. Fowler does a great job of giving a sense of place - his descriptions of the Blitz, the blackout and the theater made me feel like I was there, I could picture it. (The Palace is where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is currently playing and I've walked past it many times on my trips to London.) I appreciated the references to 84 Charing Cross Road (the place, not the book) and the blue police boxes (the real ones, not the TARDIS). But the story was very convoluted and I felt it could have used some cutting because he did tend to go on and on. (On a side note, this is the second mystery set during the London blackouts that I've read in two months. This was not intentional.)
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson.
England in the 1700's. A story of orphans, murder, an inheritance, family litigation and fortune telling. The character at the center of the plot is Red, a girl with a mysterious background raised as a lady by a kindly old gentleman and given the name Rachel. But who is she really? Who was her mother? And why was she told by her father that there were people out there who would want to kill her? Some of the chapters are told from the point of view of a man called Lazarus Darke (a Dickensian name!). Will he find Red and harm her? Is he a good man or a bad man? Is everyone an unreliable narrator (of course, all narrators are unreliable to a certain extent). When I put this on my TBR list I noted that some people said it was Dickensian. I suppose so in the sense that it is long, has a Jarndyce v. Jarndyce type legal suit that has been ongoing for years, and does deal with the differences between the "haves" and the "have nots". But although Dickens could create long, complicated plots with many twists, I always felt he played fair with the reader. When I put this novel down I had a vague feeling that the author hadn't played fair with me. But I can't put my finger on why except that the ending was unexpected. I even went back and re-read a couple of the scenes - and I saw what she did. It was clever. But I still felt she hadn't played fair in the end. This novel is very plot driven and since I devoured it over a weekend I suppose it could be called a page turner (but only for people who like complicated plots). The author does create a real sense of time and place. The characters are mostly well drawn but hard to warm to. As Red said at one point " If you'd wanted a saint, then you should have read a different book." It is well written, cleverly written. But I am somewhat ambivalent about it due to how she wound up the story. (And again on a side note, this is the second book in two months that I've read that had an experiment with static electricity shocking a person trying to kiss another person as a minor plot point. Again, this was unintentional on my part.)
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Full disclosure - I tried to read this (very short) novel more than 5 years ago and never finished it. I think it just wasn't the right time for me. The dialect defeated me. When I read, I don't see specific pictures in my head but I usually hear specific voices. In this case, however, there was so much dialect that I couldn't hear the characters properly in my head. But I always intended to eventually finish it. That day finally came when I heard that the audiobook was the way to go because it was read by the great Ruby Dee. And, oh my. It really made all the difference. I don't usually go the audiobook route but in this case I wholeheartedly tell you to listen to this audiobook if you are at all interested in this novel. That being said, I am somewhat ambivalent about the novel itself. Hurston paints a vivid picture of the life of her character in the various locations she lived. But a great deal of this novel would not pass the Bechdel test (two women with names who talk about something other than a man). The relationship of Janie (the main character) to the men in her life is the entirety of the book and truthfully I got tired of it (especially when the last one, who was the best of the bunch, beat her and she "understood"). On the other hand, the last twenty percent of this novel was not at all what I expected and is very, very powerful. Janie does have a character arc and does come into her own, in a very sad way. I am glad I read it but it took me a long time to get to the point of being glad I was reading it.
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
Francis Spufford creates an alternate reality in which Native Americans did not lose all power and the ancient city of Cahokia did not disappear. But a brutal murder in the 1920's could be used as an excuse by the white community to destroy that power. On the whole I liked this novel even though alternate history novels and hard boiled detective novels aren't usually what I like. His world building is exceptional although it sometimes interferes with the pacing of the murder mystery. But, on the whole, recommended. I set out my more extensive complete thoughts on this novel in a separate blog post here.
Grant by Ron Chernow
This 1074 page behemoth had been sitting on my shelf since I purchased it shortly after it was published. Finally, this January I picked it up to read it. I paced myself, allowing myself one chapter a day. It was the perfect way to read it and it was a perfect slow read through the winter months of January and February. I actually knew a fair amount about Grant before reading this book. I live in St. Louis where Grant spent his early adult years and my childhood summers always involved a trip to "Grant's Farm" (the Busch estate that encompassed the log cabin Grant lived in). My uncle also lived on land that formerly belonged to Whitehaven, the Dent property where Grant met his wife Julia Dent. Still, it was interesting to read about Grant's early years in and out of St. Louis. I also know a bit about the Civil War so most of the chapters dealing with the war did not surprise me - except how staunchly Grant insisted on allowing "contraband" former slaves to fight for the North. It was the sections after the war that were the most enlightening to me. I realize I know next to nothing about Reconstruction; I should remedy that. I was surprised to learn that Grant was a champion of public education. He was prescient: "in the near future the dividing line will not be the Mason & Dixons but between patriotism, & intelligence on one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." Chernow clearly liked his subject and I suspect always attempted to put him in the best light possible. But it is also very detailed. This is a very readable biography despite its length.
A Royal Affair by Alison Montclair
After so many long and/or heavy books I felt the need to kick back with a reliable mystery. This is the second in the Sparks and Bainbridge mystery series. Set in London after WWII, Iris Sparks (former intelligence operative) and Gwendolyn Bainbridge (widow and former debutante) run The Right Sort of Marriage Bureau to assist persons looking for spouses. Along the way they get caught up in murder mysteries. This mystery involved the Princess Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Philip's mother Princess Alice in the lead up to the royal engagement. It was delightful and completely unbelievable. But just what I needed. And it probably helped that I had watched the episode of The Crown that involved Princess Alice.
The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon
A British Library Crime Classic I chose from the ones unread on my shelves, this is a serial killer thriller published in 1932. The main character, Richard Temperley, arrives in London Euston Station on a very early morning train and on the advice of a porter heads to a nearby hotel where he can bathe and wait until businesses and shops open. Also at the hotel is an elderly man who was also on the train with Temperley. The elderly man is shot dead while sleeping in an armchair and at the scene of the crime is a token with the letter "Z" on it. Also at the hotel Temperley encounters a beautiful but mysterious young woman who he is sure had nothing to do with the murder although she rushes from the scene of the crime. He pursues her while the police pursue him. The police know these two are not the murderers because other murders begin to happen in other parts of the country, all involving the letter "Z". The introduction tells us that Dorothy L. Sayers was a fan of Farjeon's writing ( he apparently wrote loads of books). I didn't really see the appeal of this one. Temperley is a very annoying main character, the police are surprisingly lenient with him and the mysterious woman didn't seem worth the trouble to me. It was, I'll grant you, a page turner but the characters had all the depth of 1930's film noir characters.
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
One of my goals this year was to re-read some old favorites. I used to re-read books all the time but then I got out of the habit. This year I have been reading through the pile of British Library Crime Classics I was left by my mom, many of which were written in the 1930's. I also discovered the As My Wimsey Takes Me podcast, in which the hosts are slowly reading and analyzing the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. It seemed the right time to re-read Dorothy L. Sayers and I decided to start with Whose Body? which is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, published in 1923. I truly did not remember much about it. I did remember that I originally thought it was the weakest of the series, but then the first book of a series often is. I found that it held up very well, especially compared to the BLCC books I've been reading. It is easy to understand why the series has never gone out of print. Lord Peter is one of my favorite characters in literature, although he starts out the series as a somewhat silly (at least on the outside) young man. I had forgotten that he had an episode of PTSD in this novel (he was a Major in WWI and his man Bunter was his Sergeant) which gave him more depth than I remembered. I also forgot that she introduced detective Parker in the first novel. I first began to read this series in 1991 and I remember that was the year I took my first trip to London. I was so excited to be able to see Piccadilly and Green Park for the first time and thinking this is where Sayers set her mysteries. The whole series is a delight and I can't recommend it enough. I don't know if I will re-read anymore this year but I may.
The Iliad by Homer tr. by Emily Wilson
This is the third Iliad I have read and it is, in my opinion, the most readable. I read it very slowly because I knew the story going in and I knew there was only so much blood and guts per day that I could take. (What I didn't reckon with was combining the Iliad with the biography of Grant which is filled with the blood and guts of the Civil War. I also at one point was reading Menewood which is filled with medieval blood and guts. Some days it was a little overwhelming.) Homer seems intent on giving every single man killed in the war his due by describing his death in detail. In graphic detail. Then you realize that this story takes place only over a few days and these are only a small portion of the actual deaths that must have occurred over the ten year period of the Trojan War. So I read 10 pages a day more or less until (finally) Patroclus got himself killed (spoiler, but this IS a very old story). From that point I could read a chapter (book) at a time. Wilson translated the poem into iambic pentameter which is very readable in English. Although I knew there was a lot of death in the Iliad, this translation really brought it home and yet ... the poem was still beautiful. In her introduction Wilson says: "You know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you will do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the first time." As I said, this was the most readable version of the Iliad I've yet encountered. I don't think I will need to ever read The Iliad again.
