Monthly Archives: September 2024

#BookReview ‘Dying in the Wool’ by Frances Brody @FrancesBrody #cosycrime

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I’ve gone back to the beginning to read Dying in the Wool, first in the 1920s Kate Shackleton crime series by Frances Brody. What a joy it is to meet Kate for the first time, as the author intended. I read this novel quickly over a weekend, jealous of distractions that drew me away from my library book. frances brodyUnlike most first books in what become long-running series, Dying in the Wool starts quickly and gets to the point. A man disappeared seven years ago and his soon-to-be-wed daughter, convinced he ran away to start a new life, asks former VAD colleague Kate to discover his whereabouts so he can walk her down the aisle at her wedding. Widow Kate, her husband Gerald died in the Great War, has become accomplished at solving the mysteries of missing soldiers. But Joshua Braithwaite is the wealthy owner and master of a Yorkshire mill, not a man lost in the horror of battle. Staying with the Braithwaite family, and meeting Joshua’s colleagues and workforce at the mill, present Kate with new challenges and new investigative territory. This is not simply a matter of telling a wife or daughter that a man was killed in action, this is possibly about family secrets, fraud and murder. Kate soon finds herself the subject of gossip in Bridgestead village, and begins to start at moving shadows.
Brody cleverly tells us Kate’s background with Gerald in parallel to her investigations in the Braithwaite case, avoiding the ‘exposition dumps’ that can happen in the first of a series. Already familiar with some of the later books, I was pleased to meet for the first time Kate’s housekeeper Mrs Sugden and private detective Mr Sykes. Seeing Mrs Sugden fussing over Kate’s meals, and Kate encouraging Mr Sykes to get behind the wheel of her motor car for the first time, made me smile. The final quarter of the book moves quickly and, with only a few pages, left there are further twists and turns to challenge Kate’s working theory.
A well-researched and written novel that made me want to start the second book in the series straight away. The textile industry is a fertile setting for a murder mystery and Brody cleverly uses the mill and its workforce, management and working class, the weaving techniques and business finances to good effect. Kate, a wealthy young woman with her own motor car, is noticed by everyone in the mill village where workers and their bosses know everyone and there are few secrets. Or are there?
Enjoyable.

Try the #FirstPara of DYING IN THE WOOL.

Read my reviews of these other Kate Shackleton novels:-
A DEATH IN THE DALES #7KATESHACKLETON
A SNAPSHOT OF MURDER #10KATESHACKLETON
DEATH AND THE BREWERY QUEEN #12KATESHACKLETON
A MANSION FOR MURDER #13KATESHACKLETON

If you like this, try:-
‘An Unsuitable Job for a Woman’ by PD James #1CORDELIAGRAY
‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood #1PENTECOST&PARKER
‘The Blind Man of Seville’ by Robert Wilson  #1FALCÓN

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DYING IN THE WOOL by Frances Brody @FrancesBrody https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7y6 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘The Figurine’ by Victoria Hislop @VicHislop #Greece #historical

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It’s a rare occurrence for me to abandon a book, but I almost gave up on The Figurine by Victoria Hislop. I persevered through the glacial pacing of the first half and at 55% on my Kindle the story kickstarts. A story about archaeological mysteries is melded with dark truths about a family’s wartime history. Victoria HislopHelena McCloud is half-Greek and from the age of eight is sent every summer to Athens to spend time with her maternal grandparents in their wealthy apartment. Her mother Mary never accompanies her and doesn’t explain why. Helena sees much she doesn’t understand. When as an adult she returns to Athens, she becomes involved in uncovering a criminal gang exploiting precious Greek statues and treasures. Now her childhood recollections of those long-ago visits begin to make sense.
I struggled to connect with this story for a long time and by the end I wished it had been told in a different order and was a third shorter. Lacking a close personal perspective – admittedly, telling a story through the eyes of a child has to be one of the biggest challenges for an author – it was at times like reading at distance through binoculars.
The figurine of the title is the turning point in the story, bringing with her admiration, awe and suspicion. Helena, head over heels in love with fellow student Nick, is at first too enamoured to acknowledge what is going on around her. Gradually the story focusses on the theft of archaeological antiquities in Greece, predominantly at digs on isolated, little-populated islands, and run by criminal gangs in Athens. Helena assumes that her grandfather, a figure of imposing military force, benefitted in trade from stolen antiquities. Along with an intrepid brother and sister who are antique specialists, and a new group of Athenian friends, she digs deeper into her painful family past. This is when the story begins to buzz.
Not Hislop’s best, which for me remains The Island. The small figurine is the large heart of the story. ‘With her head tilted towards the heavens, the figurine seems proud. With her arms folded, she seems relaxed. With her diminutive ears, she seems to listen. With her pale eyes, she seems to be aware of the crowd.’

Read my reviews of other these books by Victoria Hislop:-
THE STORY
THE SUNRISE
THOSE WHO ARE LOVED

If you like this, try:-
‘My Brother Michael’ by Mary Stewart
‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton
‘The Animals at Lockwood Manor’ by Jane Healey

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE FIGURINE by Victoria Hislop @VicHislop https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7xL via @SandraDanby 

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- frances brody

#BookReview ‘The Glassmaker’ by @Tracy_Chevalier #historical #Venice

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Enthralling from the first page to the last, The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier is by far the best novel I’ve read so far this year. It’s a heady mixture of beautiful glass, Venice in rich times and poor, passion, jealousy and intense competition, focusing on Orsola Rosso and her glass-making family on Murano island within the Venice lagoon through the centuries to the present day. Tracy ChevalierChevalier introduces us to the idea of time-skipping in her brief introduction. ‘The City of Water runs by its own clock. Venice and its neighbouring islands have always felt frozen in time – and perhaps they are.’ And so we follow the same family across six hundred years. In the first chapter in 1494 we meet nine-year old Orsola; this is her story, told in leaps and skips across the centuries. The second instalment of Orsola’s life is in 1574 when she is eighteen years old. Those close to her have aged similarly, only Venice is at once the same and different. Its an ingenious way to tell the story of the Rosso family, the ups and downs of the glassmaking business, their loves and losses, the wars and disease, all set within the framework of Venice and of Murano glass.
When Maestro Lorenzo Rosso dies, Orsola’s eldest brother Marco must take charge of the family business but he is impulsive and designs flamboyant impractical pieces. When contracts are lost and Marco is in his cups, Orsola learns the art of glass bead making. The business of glassmaking is always kept within the immediate family, different families have different specialities, and so matches are made for the sons and daughters of maestros according to the skill or wealth of the incomer. Orsola knows she must marry one day. Her mother and brother’s selection of the man to be her husband is pragmatic, it turns the direction of the story and influences everything that follows.
Life is lived in a bubble on Murano island; loyalties are intense but so is hatred and rivalry. While most women are mutually supportive, others are jealous and ambitious. Murano families rarely go to Venice, Venetians don’t go to Murano. None of them go to the mainland, terraferma. Above all for these families who live close to the bread line, security of employment and supply of food for the family is the primary concern. We follow the Rossos through feast and famine, war, plague, flood and Covid.
So many of Chevalier’s novels are based upon a specific craft or skill – art in The Girl with a Pearl Earring, embroidery in A Single Thread, tapestry weaving in The Lady and the Unicorn, fossil-hunting in Remarkable Creatures. The Glassmaker is another homage to skilled craftsmen who create beautiful objects that last across time.
A magical story, beautifully written. And what a gorgeous cover!

Read my reviews of other novels by Tracy Chevalier:-
A SINGLE THREAD
AT THE EDGE OF THE ORCHARD
NEW BOY
THE LAST RUNAWAY

If you like this, try:-
‘Disobedient’ by Elizabeth Fremantle
‘How to be Both’ by Ali Smith
‘Nat Tate: an American Artist 1928-1960’ by William Boyd

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GLASSMAKER by @Tracy_Chevalier https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7xg via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Victoria Hislop

#BookReview ‘Murder in the Snow’ by Verity Bright @BrightVerity #cosymystery #crime

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Christmas is coming to Henley Hall and Lady Eleanor Swift is hosting a party for the entire village. Gifts, food and drink, games and a cross-country fun run around the grounds of the Hall. When one runner fails to finish the course, Eleanor’s Christmas turns into another detective adventure. Murder in the Snow by Verity Bright is fourth in this fun atmospheric series. Verity BrightWhen Conrad Canning, coalman to the Hall, dies at the snowy finish line, Eleanor suspects foul play but Detective Chief Inspector Seldon believes it was a heart attack. Until traces of digitalis are discovered. This has uncomfortable connotations for Eleanor and her loyal butler Clifford as it mirrors the unexplained death of Eleanor’s Uncle Byron. Each book features the core characters with the addition of new faces for each murder mystery, but which will be suspects, witnesses, victim and villain. Some resentments are not forgotten with the passage of time, but burn brighter.
The food is sumptuous, as are the homemade alcohol beverages. But this time, both are examined for evidence of cause of death. As Christmas approaches New Year, the beautiful house is covered in snow and the village is cut off from the outside. Clifford deems it dangerous to drive the Rolls along the country lanes having previously ended up in a ditch, and Seldon is stranded in a pub. In pursuit of more evidence, Eleanor and Clifford set off across country wearing snow shoes.
The continuation of Eleanor’s romantic entanglements continues slowly in this story, one step at a time, glances are exchanged and there is some gentle teasing. Like the truth about Uncle Byron, Eleanor’s pursuit of love is a subject developed a little further in each book. I also love the asides about Eleanor’s previous life, exploring routes for travel companies in exotic countries, travelling alone and having all sorts of adventures. Such as her wonderful reply to a retired seaman who caustically refers to what he assumes is Eleanor’s sheltered and privileged life, ‘Ever been halfway over a mountain range with the snow and night closing in, with no prospect of food or shelter and not another human being within a hundred square miles?’
I whizz through these books. They’re such a relaxing read, a great escape from the world outside and a glimpse into the glamorous country house life in the 1920s. With murder thrown in.

Read my reviews of other books in the Lady Eleanor Swift series:-
A VERY ENGLISH MURDER #1LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH AT THE DANCE #2LADYELEANORSWIFT
A WITNESS TO MURDER #3LADYELEANORSWIFT
MYSTERY BY THE SEA #5LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER AT THE FAIR #6LADYELEANORSWIFT
A LESSON IN MURDER #7LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH ON A WINTER’S DAY #8LADYELEANORSWIFT
A ROYAL MURDER #9LADYELEANORSWIFT
THE FRENCH FOR MURDER #10LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH DOWN THE AISLE #11LADYELEANORSWIFT
MURDER IN AN IRISH CASTLE #12LADYELEANORSWIFT
DEATH ON DECK #13LADYELEANORSWIFT

If you like this, try:-
‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood #1Pentecost&Parker
‘Or The Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster #1MaxCamara
‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ by Stuart Turton

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview MURDER IN THE SNOW by Verity Bright @BrightVerity https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-701 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Tracy Chevalier

Great Opening Paragraph 135… ‘I Capture the Castle’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.” Dodie SmithFrom ‘I Capture the Castle’ by Dodie Smith

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘A Month in the Country’ by JL Carr 
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide 
‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ by Carol Birch 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-79F via @SandraDanby