Tag Archives: genealogy fiction

#BookReview ‘The Ghost of Lily Painter’ by Caitlin Davies #genealogy #mystery

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Caitlin Davies blends fact and fiction in The Ghost of Lily Painter, an unusual story sparked from the author’s interest in her own house in Holloway, North London. In 2008, Annie Sweet moves into 43 Stanley Road with her husband and daughter. The house is chilly, the dog won’t stop barking, and her husband leaves her. Is there a bad spirit in the house which is bringing bad luck? Annie begins to explore the house’s history and discovers a music hall performer, Lily Painter, lived there briefly at the beginning of the twentieth century. What happened to her? Why does she disappear? Caitlin DaviesThis is a well-researched historical story about turn-of-the-century music hall, the dilemma facing unmarried pregnant women, baby farms and modern-day family history research. It’s a fascinating tangle of three viewpoints across a century: Annie Sweet and her actress daughter Molly, Inspector William George who lived at 43 Stanley Road in 1901; and one of his lodgers, Miss Lily Painter. The baby farms narrative is based on the real lives of Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison in 1902. They were baby farmers, women offering a lying-in service where women could deliver their babies then pay for their children to be adopted by ‘ladies’. Many of the babies never made it to their new homes. A terrible true story.
My only disappointment is that the ends are tied together rather too neatly, with a coincidence easily-spotted rather early in the story.

If you like this:-
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein
‘Shadow Baby’ by Margaret Forster
‘Pale as the Dead’ by Fiona Mountain

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#BookReview ‘Blood-Tied’ by Wendy Percival #genealogy #mystery

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A mysterious beginning with an invalid, threatened by a stranger. Just who is this woman and what is her connection to Esme Quentin? Blood–Tied by Wendy Percival is the first of the Esme Quentin series of genealogical mysteries. Wendy PercivalEsme’s older sister Elizabeth is attacked and in hospital in a coma. Why was she in a town forty miles from home? Did she fall, or was she pushed? And who are the two people in photographs hidden in Elizabeth’s treasured locket? At the start of this story, Esme knows who her family is but once she starts to dig into Elizabeth’s odd accident/attack she uncovers a complicated family history which had me confused at times. This genealogical mystery involves a long-ago family argument, a derelict canal and a feisty elderly lady in a residential home. Esme is a bit like a dog with a bone, she won’t give up despite getting the jitters in the dark of the night.
Two things would have made my reading experience easier. Esme’s history – scar, widow, background as investigative journalist – was thinly drawn so it felt as if I was reading part two of a two-book series. The family twists and turns were such that I was often lost, perhaps because so much was told as Esme discovered paperwork, rather than seeing the action on the page by the characters concerned. That said, the menace builds nicely though I read to the end to find out what happened to Polly, the feisty lady.

Here’s my review of the next book in the Esme Quentin series, THE INDELIBLE STAIN.

If you like this, try:-
‘Pale as the Dead’ by Fiona Mountain
‘Blood Atonement’ by Dan Waddell
‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

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#BookReview BLOOD-TIED by Wendy Percival via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2bP

#BookReview ‘Deadly Descent’ by Charlotte Hinger @lottiejosie #familyhistory #crime

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Deadly Descent by Charlotte Hinger begins when West Kansas historian Lottie Albright receives a submission for her oral history project. Written by Zelda St John, aunt of political hopeful Brian Hadley, the piece examines torrid racist attitudes in the family’s history. Charlotte HingerThis is the sort of book you settle into and read with relish. Hinger has written a mystery thriller which moves with steady detailed steps as the tension twists and twists like a screw being slowly turned.
A first murder is followed rapidly by a second, Lottie is sworn in as a deputy and balances her twin jobs of detecting and collating historical records. The two jobs fit neatly together until anonymous letters start to arrive. Lottie is ably supported by her quiet long-suffering husband Keith, and her clinical psychologist twin sister Josie. Remember the twin thing, it is important later. Sam Abbott, sheriff of the woefully-underfunded Carlton County police, welcomes the resources of the Kansas Bureau of Investigations and so distracts Lottie with research into an old dead case: the old Swenson murders. This feels like a massive diversion, but go with the flow of this book and you will be rewarded.
Hinger plots intricately and draws a totally believable picture of the historical society in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s secrets. Lottie’s project involves everyone writing the story of their family: for some people, the shame is too much.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell #1NIGELBARNES
‘Hiding the Past’ by Nathan Dylan Goodwin #1MORTONFARRIER
‘In the Blood’ by Steve Robinson

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#BookReview ‘The Blood Detective’ by Dan Waddell #genealogy #crime #mystery

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I raced through The Blood Detective, a hybrid mixture of crime and genealogy mystery. Author Dan Waddell is also a journalist and genealogist, having written The Genealogy Handbook to accompany the Who Do You Think You Are? television series. So, he knows his stuff and it shows. Dan Waddell Usually a crime novel features a lead detective and team, here we have two lead characters: Detective Chief Inspector Grant Foster, and genealogist Nigel Barnes.
Waddell’s plotting is ingenious. The past really does come back to haunt the present. There is a serial killer in West London who leaves a clue carved into the skin of his victims. This clue prompts DCI Foster to call on the specialist help of researcher Barnes. The murder hunt takes parallel paths: Foster chases living suspects, Barnes searches the archives for the true 1879 story of a serial killer, his victims and their descendants. What is the link? The final chapters are a thrilling race against time.
I really enjoyed this. The linking of historical and present-day crime was clever, and the characterization was convincing and not of the stereotypical detective form. An enjoyable mixture of fast-moving crime novel with genealogical research and historical gems about this particular part of London, its transformation from Victorian times to the 21st century, and its dark history of crime.

Here’s my review of the second book in this series by Dan Waddell:-
BLOOD ATONEMENT #2BLOODDETECTIVE

If you like this, try:-
‘In the Blood’ by Steve Robinson
‘Innocent Blood’ by PD James
‘The Irish Inheritance’ by MJ Lee #1JayneSinclair

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BLOOD DETECTIVE by Dan Waddell via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Tp