Review: Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on March 11, 2015March 10, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: historical mystery
Series: Maisie Dobbs #10
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Harper
Date Released: March 26, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

The death of an Indian immigrant leads Maisie Dobbs into a dangerous yet fascinating world and takes her in an unexpected direction in this latest chapter of the New York Times bestselling series “that seems to get better with each entry” (Wall Street Journal).

London, 1933. Two months after the body of an Indian woman named Usha Pramal is found in the brackish water of a South London canal, her brother, newly arrived in England, turns to Maisie Dobbs to find out the truth about her death. Not only has Scotland Yard made no arrests, evidence indicates that they failed to conduct a full and thorough investigation.

Before her death, Usha was staying at an ayah’s hostel alongside Indian women whose British employers turned them out into the street–penniless and far from their homeland–when their services were no longer needed. As Maisie soon learns, Usha was different from the hostel’s other lodgers. But with this discovery comes new danger: another Indian woman who had information about Usha is found murdered before she can talk to Maisie.

As Maisie is pulled deeper into an unfamiliar yet captivating subculture, her investigation becomes clouded by the unfinished business of a previous case as well as a growing desire to see more of the world, following in the footsteps of her former mentor, Maurice Blanche. And there is her lover, James Compton, who gives her an ultimatum she cannot ignore.

Bringing a crucial chapter in the life and times of Maisie Dobbs to a close, Leaving Everything Most Loved marks a pivotal moment in this remarkable series.

My Review:

This review is part of the “Month of Maisie Readalong” at TLC Book Tours. For those interested in reviews of the rest of the series, the list is here. Since the readalong starts with the second book in the series, Birds of a Feather, if you want to start your reviewing with Maisie’s introduction in Maisie Dobbs, you can look at my review last week.

We’ll be back next week with the review of the most recent book in the series, A Dangerous Place.

While I have not yet had the pleasure (and it will definitely be a pleasure!) of reading all the books in this series, I am very glad that I read the first book, Maisie Dobbs, before Leaving Everything Most Loved. While I don’t yet know all the experiences that have led Maisie to this point, all of the characters in Maisie’s life, all those people who are most loved that she leaves, are introduced at the beginning of the series.

When Leaving starts, Maisie is contemplating two very different futures. Her lover, James Compton, is going to Canada with his employer to work on airplane designs for the war that Churchill sees is coming. In the 1933 setting of this book, Churchill was experiencing his years in the political wilderness, and very few people believed him. History as we know it shows that he was right, but in 1933 he and anyone who believed as he did, were definitely in the minority.

But to go with James to Canada, Maisie will finally need to make up her mind to marry him. And she isn’t ready to give up her independence. Also, James’ employer is a unconscionable blackguard. She and James both know that he is willing to commit murder in the name of his greater good, and that he is too influential to bring to justice. Maisie believes he is right about the upcoming war, but she strongly disapproves of his methods of getting there. Especially since one of her own, her assistant Billy Beale, was almost a victim of his machinations.

Maisie herself is drawn to a different journey. She wants to retrace some of the steps of her late mentor, Maurice Blanche, and travel the world. She particularly wants to see India with her own eyes.

But before she can make a final decision, India comes to her in the person of Usha Pramal, an Indian woman of Maisie’s own age who came to England many years before as a governess in the service of a British family. Usha has been murdered, and her brother is referred to Maisie to help find her killer.

Because Usha was Indian, the local police don’t seem to have tried terribly hard to find her murderer. Maisie will try very hard indeed.

Her quest to find the killer takes her to the many and varied faces of the Anglo-Indian community in London, and all the ways that unprotected young women can be taken advantage of, especially when their skin is brown. At the same time she sees women who have adapted and adopted into the community, in many different but equally successful ways – including an Indian woman who has become a successful part of the Anglo intellectual community in her own right, while maintaining a marvelous marriage of equals with her English husband.

Maisie turns to Chaudhary Jones for both personal and professional advice, as she works her way through the case and her own personal dilemma.

The solution to the case stretches all the way back to India, and into the darkest places of the human heart and mind.

Maisie’s own solution was in her heart all along.

Escape Rating A: At 3 am, I closed the book with a very satisfied sigh. Even without having read the middle books in the series, Leaving successfully closes up a lot of the loose ends in Maisie’s personal and professional life, not always successfully from the perspective of the end being tied up. The first chapter of her life as an independent practitioner in London has come to an end. Her unfinished business is finished, and she has taken care of those she feels responsible for. It is time for Maisie to move on to the next chapter in her life.

Her last two cases turn out to be one case. Neither Maisie nor her mentor believed in coincidence, and that proves true again here. She is looking both for a missing boy and a murderer. While these two things should not be tied into each other, they are. Although not quite the way that one expects.

What carries the story, and what makes this series so interesting, is the character of Maisie Dobbs herself. She begins the series as a costermonger’s daughter, goes into service, receives an excellent if unorthodox education, becomes a nurse in WW1, and finally becomes a private investigator. Not by accident either, but definitely by intention as well as skill.

If her experiences as a nurse resemble Bess Crawford (A Duty to the Dead) and her education is more than a bit like Mary Russell (The Beekeeper’s Apprentice), then her life as an independent woman and private investigator looks more than a bit like Phryne Fisher in Kerry Greenwood’s series beginning with Cocaine Blues. Although Maisie is deliberately nowhere near as flashy as Phryne.

Maisie has assistants who work for her, and one of her major concerns with traveling aboard is that she feels that she must provide for them. Not charity, she wants to make sure they have new jobs before she leaves. She also needs to make sure that her father is comfortable. By the time of this story, Maisie is 36, so her father must be in his late 50s or early 60s at the very least. He is still working, but is not as young as he used to be. Maisie fears leaving him alone, and worries that if she travels too long she may not see him again. Some of her worries are resolved, but some are simply a risk she feels she must take.

She delays a final decision with James. He is very patient, and also tries to understand Maisie’s reluctance. But Maisie makes her decision and her conundrum very real for readers. While women have more independence than they did before the war, there are some rights that she will lose if she marries. Also James worries about the danger of her work, which is quite real. If they marry, he will be in a position to force her to stop.

And of course, there is the problem that she trusts James’ boss about as far as she could throw the man. Maybe less. She would be tying her life and her livelihood to a man who she believes is a cold-blooded killer who is always able to make excuses for himself or have them made for him.

But before she can think about leaving, she still has two cases to solve. In solving the murder of Usha Pramal, she runs into prejudice on every side. And in the case of the missing boy, she finds yet again that the wounds of the late war were not confined to the battlefield, and that the consequences are felt by an ever-widening circle of those who did not serve themselves, but were inextricably linked to those who did.

This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-8-15

Posted on March 8, 2015March 8, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

Did you remember to “Spring Forward” last night or this morning? Are you still groaning about the time change? I love that it happens early, but I’m less and less able to figure out why we bother. How about you?

It is Spring here in Atlanta – the temperature is supposed to be in the 60s all week. Time to turn off the furnace and open some windows! I think we need some lawn furniture – sitting in the backyard in the sun and reading sounds like a lovely idea.

Current Giveaways:

Sourcebooks romantic suspense prize pack including M.L. Buchman’s Bring on the Dusk
First Time In Forever by Sarah Morgan (paperback)

Winner Announcements:

The winner of One Wish by Robyn Carr is Brandi D.
The winner of Miramont’s Ghost by Elizabeth Hall is Erin F.

Blog Recap:

B Review: First Time in Forever by Sarah Morgan + Giveaway
A Review: Madness in Solidar by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
A- Review: Hush Hush by Laura Lippman
B+ Review: Bring on the Dusk by M.L. Buchman
Guest Post by Author M.L. Buchman on First Meetings + Giveaway
A Review: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
Stacking the Shelves (125)

Coming Next Week:

The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley (blog tour review)
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (review)
Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear (blog tour review)
Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman (review)
A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott (review)

Review: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on March 6, 2015March 5, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: historical mystery
Series: Maisie Dobbs #1
Length: 309 pages
Publisher: Soho Crime
Date Released: July 1, 2003
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence—and the patronage of her benevolent employers—she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her very first assignment, seemingly an ordinary infidelity case, soon reveals a much deeper, darker web of secrets, which will force Maisie to revisit the horrors of the Great War and the love she left behind.

My Review:

Any number of people have recommended this series to me, so when the opportunity came along to review the latest books in the series for tours, it seemed like it was time to read at least the first book in the series.

And now I understand why so many people told me to read this series – it’s awesome.

Maisie reminds me more than a bit of Bess Crawford, from Charles Todd’s marvelous series, also named after its nurse/detective protagonist, that starts with A Duty to the Dead. I think that anyone who likes one will probably like the other.

Both Bess and Maisie were nurses during World War I, and the experience changed them forever. Both women have also become private detectives, although that is where the differences between them begin to appear.

Unlike Bess’ story, the bulk of Maisie’s book and her series take place after the war. We do see Maisie’s background, and the tragedy she experienced during the war, but she has moved into the post-war future, and this story takes place in 1929, with flashbacks to earlier years.

Bess is still in the midst of the war.

Also, Bess got into her detecting by accident, where Maisie has deliberately chosen to be a private enquiry agent as a career, and was trained for it, in a rather unusual apprenticeship, by her older friend and mentor Maurice Blanche. In Maisie’s deliberate choice of detection as a career, as well as the methods of Blanche, Maisie reminds me more than a bit of Mary Russell in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, although firmly without the budding romance.

Maisie’s romantic inclinations, when finally aroused, are fixed on a young man of her own generation, but not one of her own class. Maisie is a costermonger’s daughter who was blessed with a large amount of intelligence and a great deal of luck. She is not of the upper class, or even the middle class, and her apprenticeship begins while she is in service at one of the great houses in the years before the war.

So, in this story, we see Maisie setting up shop as a detective in her own right. Her mentor has finally retired, and it is time for Maisie to try her own wings. Her first major case starts out simply, a man is concerned that his wife’s unwillingness to divulge her whereabouts means that she is covering up for an affair.

Maisie is not happy that her first solo case starts out about a love triangle. But of course it doesn’t end there. In 1929 the late war was still fresh in people’s memories. In this case the war hangs over both the young woman she is investigating and Maisie herself.

Celia Davenham lost her first sweetheart to the war, as so many of that generation did. But he didn’t die, he was horribly disfigured and retreated to a rural farm for similarly injured soldiers called The Retreat. Where he died under mysterious circumstances and Celia has never quite gotten over her grief and her guilt at leaving him after his return.

Maisie discovers that this case is not simple, and that The Retreat may not be quite as benevolent as it first appears. In confronting the secrets kept at The Retreat, Maisie finds herself confronting her own secrets and leftover guilts from the War.

She also nearly gets her assistant killed.

Escape Rating A: There are three stories being told here – one is the story of Maisie setting up her own office and investigating her first solo case. The second is Maisie’s own story, how she rose from housemaid to private detective, with stops at both university and nursing.

Even when Maisie is forced or chooses to put off her own dreams for the greater good, she is always learning. She especially learns a lot about human psychology in her study of philosophy. Her tutorial from Maurice Blanche is certainly singular in its way of dealing with what people are saying in their silences.

Maurice Blanche and Sherlock Holmes would have gotten on like a house on fire. They get to the same place by different but often equally cerebral methods.

The third story in the book is the story of Maisie’s own romantic tragedy. The feelings that she is suppressing form a cloud around her, and the way that she forestalls her own memories until the very end keep the reader from guessing exactly what happened. We all know it ends badly, but we just don’t know how badly until Maisie finally lets her own emotions out, and begins to reach a resolution about her own past.

Maisie Dobbs tells a powerful story about a complicated woman, and about the way that war scars any who come near it.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Hush Hush by Laura Lippman

Posted on March 4, 2015March 15, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, paperback, large print, audiobook
Genre: mystery, suspense
Series: Tess Monaghan #12
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Released: February 24, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

The award-winning New York Times bestselling author of After I’m Gone, The Most Dangerous Thing, I’d Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know brings back private detective Tess Monaghan, introduced in the classic Baltimore Blues, in an absorbing mystery that plunges the new parent into a disturbing case involving murder and a manipulative mother.

On a searing August day, Melisandre Harris Dawes committed the unthinkable: she left her two-month-old daughter locked in a car while she sat nearby on the shores of the Patapsco River. Melisandre was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity, although there was much skepticism about her mental state. Freed, she left the country, her husband and her two surviving children, determined to start over.

But now Melisandre has returned Baltimore to meet with her estranged teenage daughters and wants to film the reunion for a documentary. The problem is, she relinquished custody and her ex, now remarried, isn’t sure he approves.

Now that’s she’s a mother herself–short on time, patience–Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed her own child. But her mentor and close friend Tyner Gray, Melisandre’s lawyer, has asked Tess and her new partner, retired Baltimore P.D. homicide detective Sandy Sanchez, to assess Melisandre’s security needs.

As a former reporter and private investigator, Tess tries to understand why other people break the rules and the law. Yet the imperious Melisandre is something far different from anyone she’s encountered. A decade ago, a judge ruled that Melisandre was beyond rational thought. But was she? Tess tries to ignore the discomfort she feels around the confident, manipulative Melisandre. But that gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a murder.

Yet as her suspicions deepen, Tess realizes that just as she’s been scrutinizing Melisandre, a judgmental stalker has been watching her every move as well. . . .

My Review:

This is a gripping psychological thriller of a story about the past catching up with the present. Also that those who do not learn from history are doomed, or perhaps condemned, to repeat it. Along with a dose of the one about all happy families being alike, but every unhappy family is miserable in its own unique way.

For the Dawes family, that unhappiness is uniquely awful. Or at least there are a minority of families that face their particular brand of unhappiness, and thank goodness for that.

Melisandre Dawes’ narcissism is not the unusual bit. Unfortunately, there are probably lots of families where someone is that totally self-absorbed. As far as Melisandre is concerned, the world, no, the universe revolves around her. And it’s actually true for her, because she makes it so, either by using her startling beauty, her mercurial temper, or her family wealth.

But her 2-month-old baby couldn’t be swayed by any of those things. Isadora’s colic never ended. And Melisandre, admittedly, had a history of postpartum depression. So when she drove her baby to the boathouse and left her in the car to bake, Melisandre was found not guilty using an insanity plea. And possibly a lot of money, but no one ever proved it.

It’s 12 years later and double-jeopardy applies, so Melisandre has come back to the U.S., back to Baltimore, and is making a “documentary” film about women who kill their own children as a way of getting back into the lives of the two daughters she left behind. But now Alanna is 17 and Ruby is 15 and they have spent most of their lives wondering if their mother intended to kill them too.

The girls don’t seem interested in a reunion.

Tess and her partner Sandy become involved when they are hired as security consultants for Melisandre. It’s not what they do, but it turns out that a reunion with her daughters is not the only idea up her well-tailored sleeve. Tess’ former rowing trainer, Tyner, is a lawyer who regularly hires Tess to do investigative work for him. Tyner is also married to Tess’ aunt Kitty.

Melisandre assumes that she can get Tyner back along with her daughters. They used to be together, once upon a time. She broke it off because, at the time, he didn’t want marriage or children. With Kitty, he’s only changes his mind about the marriage part, but Melisandre is sure she can get him back and on board with any new plans she might have.

She claims to want him back, but whether that’s really true or she’s just looking for more people to use is a bit hard to judge. Melisandre is an impossible person to like, so it is a good thing she isn’t the protagonist. Tess, definitely on that other hand, is a much more likeable person to follow.

The crime that Melisandre committed 12 years ago, her possible motivations and her possible pathology, are fascinating.

But things take a strange turn in the present, as someone is stalking Melisandre with creepy threatening notes, and someone poisons her trainer in an attempt to get to her.

Someone is also stalking Tess, but whatever it is about, it can’t be the same person. Or can it?

In her complete self-absorption, Melisandre doesn’t understand the consequences of her own actions. Her ex-husband is killed after meeting with her, and she is the first, best suspect. After all, she’s killed before. Then she is confronted with the possibility that either or both of her daughters may have followed in mommy’s footsteps.

Or have they?

Escape Rating A-: I’ve read the first book in this series, Baltimore Blues (reviewed here) and now the last one. I got so wrapped up in Hush, Hush that I carried it around with me for a day, squeezing in moments where I could read a few more pages.

Now that I’ve seen where Tess ends up, I have to read the books in between. While this book is definitely accessible for people who have not read the rest of Tess’ series, I enjoyed her journey so much that I want to find out how she got to where she is now.

Also, the cases she gets involved in are absolutely fascinating.

During the first half of Hush, Hush it felt like there was a shoe waiting to be dropped. And once it dropped, it thudded and reverberated everywhere.

Melisandre is a woman we love to hate. It’s not just that she uses people, it’s that she doesn’t really see the people she uses as people. She’s the only real person in her world. And she’s a bitch. She compares herself to the evil interpretation of Malificent and thinks that Malificent’s towering evil ambition is “magnificent”.

I think it is also impossible, both for the reader and for the involved characters, not to wonder about what happened when she killed her baby. Was she insane? If so, how is she sane now? Or did she just use her money and her husband’s influence to buy herself a not guilty verdict. Others who have gone that route at least stay in psychiatric hospitals, but Melisandre is completely free.

It’s not really a surprise that someone is stalking her and wants her dead, it’s only a surprise that it hasn’t happened before.

That Tess is also receiving stalking notes gives them something in common, but at the same time, what is happening to Tess feels real and frightening, where the same event in Melisandre’s life feels like a stunt.

Because it is. But the death of her ex-husband is not a stunt, although Melisandre certainly turns it into one – because that’s how she treats everything.

This is a story where there are no innocents. Everyone who even gets near Melisandre’s case ends up guilty of something. Only little Isadora was immune. Melisandre tarnished everything she touched, and either never realized it or never gave a damn because it wasn’t really about her.

Waiting to see Melisandre finally get her just desserts was suspenseful, and in the end, utterly marvelous.

This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Stacking the Shelves (124)

Posted on February 28, 2015February 27, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

I had a lot more to say when I was thinking about this post earlier in the week. I just heard the news this afternoon (Friday) that Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock, passed away earlier today. He did, as he always instructed us, manage to live long and prosper well. He will be missed.

This week’s distractions…

flask of the drunken master by susan spann

leaving everything most loved by jacqueline winspear

For Review:
The Alchemist’s Daughter (Bianca Goddard #1) by Mary Lawrence
The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milan
Duke City Desperado (Lawbreakers #3) by Max Austin
Flask of the Drunken Master (Shinobi Mystery #3) by Susan Spann
The Great Detective: the Amazing Rise and Immortal Life of Sherlock Holmes by Zach Dundas
Ivory Ghosts (Catherine Sohon #1) by Caitlin O’Connell
Of Noble Family (Glamourist Histories #5) by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Philosopher Kings (Thessaly #2) by Jo Walton
The Unleashing (Call of Crows #1) by Shelly Laurenston

Purchased from Amazon:
Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company #5) by Ruby Lionsdrake
Wildfire at Larch Creek (Firehawks #4) by M.L. Buchman

Borrowed from the Library:
Fairest (Lunar Chronicles #3.5) by Marissa Meyer
Leaving Everything Most Loved (Maisie Dobbs #10) by Jacqueline Winspear

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 2-22-15

Posted on February 22, 2015February 20, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

This was a week where I suffered long moments of extreme desperation – my iPad died (temporarily) one afternoon and I got a bit frantic realizing that my entire life was on the damn thing and that I hadn’t backed it up since Pluto was a planet. (Not quite, but too awfully close). I’m pretty sure I got this one when we lived in Atlanta the last time, so it’s at least three years old. In internet years, that’s a couple of lifetimes. I think this weekend includes a trip to the Apple store.

Also, in the note to self category, I need to remember not to schedule 3 (or more) creepy books in the same week. I like a little creepy of the ghostly/paranormal variety, but four close together is at least two too many. A book that is the wrong book for the time, even if it’s good, can serve as an albatross around the neck. In other words, avoiding reading the next creepy book on the schedule kept me from reading anything for a couple of days. And it’s not that the books were bad per se, it’s more that too much of even a good thing is not wonderful.

I’m all creeped out.

Coming Next Week:

Miramont’s Ghost by Elizabeth Hall (blog tour review)
One Wish by Robyn Carr (blog tour review)
The Interstellar Age by Jim Bell (review)
Garrett by Sawyer Bennett (review)
Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett (review)

Review: Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King

Posted on February 20, 2015March 6, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: mystery
Series: Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #13
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Bantam
Date Released: February 17, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

After a lengthy case that had the couple traipsing all over India, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are on their way to California to deal with some family business that Russell has been neglecting for far too long. Along the way, they plan to break up the long voyage with a sojourn in southern Japan. The cruising steamer Thomas Carlyle is leaving Bombay, bound for Kobe. Though they’re not the vacationing types, Russell is looking forward to a change of focus—not to mention a chance to travel to a location Holmes has not visited before. The idea of the pair being on equal footing is enticing to a woman who often must race to catch up with her older, highly skilled husband.

Aboard the ship, intrigue stirs almost immediately. Holmes recognizes the famous clubman the Earl of Darley, whom he suspects of being an occasional blackmailer: not an unlikely career choice for a man richer in social connections than in pounds sterling. And then there’s the lithe, surprisingly fluent young Japanese woman who befriends Russell and quotes haiku. She agrees to tutor the couple in Japanese language and customs, but Russell can’t shake the feeling that Haruki Sato is not who she claims to be.

Once in Japan, Russell’s suspicions are confirmed in a most surprising way. From the glorious city of Tokyo to the cavernous library at Oxford, Russell and Holmes race to solve a mystery involving international extortion, espionage, and the shocking secrets that, if revealed, could spark revolution—and topple an empire.

My Review:

The title of this book is a pun, based on poet Matthew Arnold’s description of Oxford as the “city of dreaming spires”. It is fitting that this title derive from poetry, as many of the chapter headings are snippets of haiku, and the repeated theft of a book by Matsuo Bashō, one of the early masters of the haiku form of poetry.

There are also plenty of points in the story where it seems that some, or all, of the spies are, in fact dreaming. Or at least daydreaming. One of the unusual aspects of this case is that Russell and Holmes do not seem to be the prime movers of events. They are acted upon more often than they are acting. They believe (perhaps dream) that they are the “Plan A” of much of the mystery that is solved. But at the end, they discover that they have always been “Plan B” or sometimes even “Plan C” for the person who has been in control all along.

Although this story takes place upon their return from California and the events in Locked Rooms, the actions in the “present day” mostly serve as a frame to a story that happened earlier in their journey. Dreaming Spies tells of the events in Japan that have been hinted at in previous books, and most of the action takes place between The Game and Locked Rooms. Also between The Game and the Holmes insert into The Art of Detection, which seemed to occur simultaneously with Locked Rooms.

As much as I love this series, I will confess that the time-line is getting very confusing. The series is on book 13, but it takes place between books 7 and 8.

This mystery begins with the arrival of a large rock as well as the gentlemen to place it properly in Holmes’ garden in Sussex. While Holmes and Russell have not yet returned when the rock is, let’s say installed, the report from Mrs. Hudson is enough to connect the new addition to events they participated in while on their way to and in Japan.

They began by being bored. Well, at least Holmes was bored. It was a long cruise from India to Japan, and while Russell was quite content to read her books, Holmes, as usual, was not.

To keep Holmes from jumping overboard (not quite but almost) he began a private investigation into some strange occurrences on the ship. His inveterate curiosity was aroused by the presence of an old foe – a blackmailer who he put out of business, but was unable to put away. Holmes has never believed that the man was not fully complicit in the old scheme, but Russell finds him not quite bright enough to has masterminded anything. So the question regards what he might be up to now, and who is the brains of whatever it is.

Someone is working with Lord Darley, and one woman has already left the ship in mysterious circumstances in order to get away from him. Another woman has boarded the ship in equally mysterious circumstances, but her purpose involves Holmes and Russell much more than Darley.

More than they ever figure out, until the very end of the caper. Holmes starts by chasing an old enemy, and ends by discovering that he and Russell have been used by the Crown Prince of Japan.

That they would have helped anyway is never a question. That someone was able to keep them in the dark and still get their help makes her a much better spy than even one of Mycroft’s operatives.

That nothing is as it seems, and that our heroes do not even have a glimpse of how they have been tricked (all in a good cause) makes Dreaming Spies an extremely interesting case. The game is indeed afoot, but for once, it is not Holmes” or even Russell’s, game.

Escape Rating B+: I love this series, and have ever since The Beekeeper’s Apprentice more than ten years ago. However, the timeline is getting extremely confusing. This story takes place before Mary’s falling out with Mycroft, which makes her initial suspicion that Haruki Sato is one of his agents somewhat perplexing.

The story of Holmes’ and Russell’s involvement with the blackmailer that turns into a scheme to protect the young Crown Prince of Japan from his own foolishness builds slowly and wraps itself around both the reader and the Holmeses like the folds of a sari, to mix metaphors and Holmes’ adventures.

Holmes and Russell think that they are helping an agent of the Japanese crown to recover some stolen property. It wasn’t stolen from him, he gave it away first. Holmes wants to finally see one of his old enemies get his just deserts, and Haruki Sato wants to get the stolen secret document back for her Emperor.

Haruki is an absolutely fascinating character. She is nothing like she appears to be, and Holmes never penetrate all her layers of deception. She manages to use him, and that is a rare feat.

Through Haruki and the tasks she sets for Holmes and Russell, we get both an introduction to Japan and its culture in the years between the wars, and a less sensational but more realistic description of what it meant to be a ninja in service to the Crown. Along with a heart-breaking view of what that service may cost.

Haruki’s mission is to save face for the Crown Prince, no matter what she has to do or suffer along the way. We understand at the end that Holmes and Russell would have gladly helped her without her deception, but that she couldn’t count on that. We know they would not have said “no”, but she can’t be 100% certain, so she brings them into her plans unwittingly.

Something that always gets my attention is the reminder of how close the author has brought Sherlock Holmes to our own time. We think of Holmes as a creature of the Victorian Age, but he is alive and active in the 1920s at this point in the story. The Crown Prince of Japan, who later becomes Emperor, is Hirohito, who was the Japanese Emperor during World War II. We see him here as a young man, just learning the intricacies of his future role. But Hirohito died in 1989, a period very much within living memory.

The story in Dreaming Spies is a slow-building one. We start with a cruise that should be a time of relaxation, and end at a breakneck pace as Haruki finally finds the item she has been searching for all along, and Holmes finally uncovers the man behind the old blackmailer. It is seldom that Holmes is in a case where he is outplayed, so watching him both lose and win at the same time was a treat.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: In Flames by Richard Hilary Weber + Giveaway

Posted on February 19, 2015February 18, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> book reviews> C Reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: political thriller
Length: 188 pages
Publisher: Random House Alibi
Date Released: February 3, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

San Iñigo is a jewel of the Caribbean, a playground paradise for the foreign elite, a hell for unfortunate locals. For recent Princeton grad Dan Shedrick, San Iñigo promises the fulfillment of too many desires.

Dan hires on at a powerful American firm as a junior architect, but still finds time for tennis, booze, a reckless affair with the sexy wife of a resort owner—even a bit of reconnaissance for the U.S. cultural attaché. But soon he discovers that nothing on San Iñigo is without consequence. When a much-loved local radio personality is found on a beach with his head blown off, Dan’s lover becomes a suspect. And not long after his foray into espionage, he’s dragged away on a brutal journey into the heart of darkness.

Buffeted by aggression, depraved ritual, and personal betrayal, Dan discovers fierce truths about San Iñigo . . . and himself. In the island’s forbidding mountain jungle, his life goes up in flames—a deadly inferno that will forever change him, if he survives at all.

My Review:

I finished this last night, and I’m still not quite sure what it is intended to be. It takes stabs (sometimes literally) at a lot of different genres and ideas, but never quite settles on one or the other (or the other).

At first we have a young man on a tropical island. While it sounds like paradise, it obviously is not. Dan Shedrick is a recently minted architect with a degree from Princeton, and no job prospects. It’s not him, it’s the Great Recession. Jobs for new graduates, along with everyone else, took a multi-year nosedive.

This may just be my own background.showing, but “Shedrick” reads way too much like “Shmendrik”, which is Yiddish for “stupid person”. The resonance was strong because Dan Shedrick comes off as a “shmendrik”. He is stupid, or at least clueless throughout much of the book. In The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten, a shmendrik is defined as an apprentice shlemiel, meaning loser or fool. Dan is certainly both of those, too.

I would say I just digressed, but I’m not sure I did. Dan embodies both of those dubious qualities through the entire story. It was a concept that I could not get out of my head.

Dan gets a job, but not in the U.S. He becomes a contractor for the U.S. based Xy Corp., designing oil rigs and other architectural/engineering constructs, on the tropical island San Iñigo. The place is described as lawless and dangerous outside of the protected zones, and Dan sees the gun emplacements surrounding the airport as solid proof. The U.S. is propping up a corrupt government in order to get access to the offshore oil and other natural resources, and Xy Corp. is their chief contractor. Or chief extractor.

Of course there are rebels who want their island and their country back. I say “of course” because that is the common narrative for these type of stories, and it is also the narrative in the news about many such places.

Dan gets sucked in to the strange otherness of the ex-pat community on San Iñigo. He is seduced by the lifestyle of clinging to the protected zones, his own former countrymen, and living a life of relative luxury at the golf and tennis club while he drinks his nights away. He is also seduced by the young wife of the club owner, totally oblivious to the fact that Elaine seduces every man in the club for ends that are only vaguely realized or understood.

Even when Dan is recruited by the local U.S. CIA Station Chief to operate a listening post for the U.S. Government and its interests in San Inigo, Dan remains oblivious to the sheer number of people who are using and manipulating both him and the San Inigo officials.

Until Elaine literally throws him to the wolves and he finds himself kidnapped by the local rebels by mistake. He sinks into his own “heart of darkness” as he battles the jungle with his captors, and then battles against them and that same jungle in order to escape.

Once he is out, he discovers that he is not really free, and that he never has been. Just as he was used by everyone on all sides prior to his kidnapping, he emerges only to realize that everyone has plans to use him and his story for their own ends once he has escaped.

And there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do to stop them.

Escape Rating C-: For this reader, the problem was that the story started out with multiple possible plot lines, and ended up absolutely nowhere. Dan Shedrick was a shmendrik.

Because the story is told entirely from Dan’s point-of-view, we only know what he knows and only see what he sees. And Dan never does seem to know very much. Even at the end, he only thinks he’s figured out what is going on in tropical San Iñigo (and with Elaine). It doesn’t ever feel as if he either finds or discovers anything like the whole truth. Which means that we don’t either.

There are lots of secrets hinted at but none are ever revealed. Elaine might have been sleeping her way through the San Iñigo government. The U.S. might (is probably) propping up a corrupt dictatorship through proxies and military contractors. Dan is almost certainly being used by the U.S. propaganda machine, but he (and we) never get to the bottom of why.

This might be more tolerable if Dan were a more interesting or even sympathetic character.I never cared about him, so I didn’t care what happened to him. In Flames is not quite a mystery, but did not have the breakneck pace of a thriller. It did leave me with a lot of questions about San Iñigo, and especially about who was using who.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 2-15-15

Posted on February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

The Share the Love Giveaway Hop ends today! So if you haven’t yet taken a look at some terrific blogs, and entered for a chance at a $10 Gift Card, now’s your last chance.

Valentines Day was yesterday, and my true love and I gave each other a cold. Or the flu. In any case, the downside of living with someone is that you share communicable diseases. Like colds. We’st still dropping Kleenex like snow falling over carpet.

On the other hand, we did get the cats something for Valentines Day. We finally got them a Katris. Cass has been waiting for us to get some, because her cats love it and the thing is awesome. Here’s a cute kitty picture™ of the first exploration.

Current Giveaways:

$10 Amazon or B&N Gift Card in the Share the Love Giveaway Hop
$120 Amazon, iTunes or B&N Gift Card from Allison Pataki and Simon & Schuster

Blog Recap:

B+ Review: The Promise by Robyn Carr
A- Review: Obsession in Death by J.D. Robb
B Review: Death of Yesterday by M.C. Beaton
A- Review: The Accidental Empress by Allison Pataki
Guest Post by Author Allison Pataki on Writing About Sisi + Giveaway
C+ Review: Death of a Liar by M.C. Beaton
Stacking the Shelves (122)

Coming Next Week:

Dreaming Spies (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #13) by Laurie R. King (review)
Escape Velocity by Jess Anastasi (review)
Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran by Marion Grace Woolley (blog tour review)
In Flames by Richard Hilary Weber (blog tour review)
The Homecoming (Thunder Point #6) by Robyn Carr (review)

Stacking the Shelves (122)

Posted on February 14, 2015February 13, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

Happy Valentine’s Day!

And speaking of lovely presents, a couple of boxes of books appeared miraculously this week. Sourcebooks sent me an interesting pack of literary fiction and nonfiction, and Harper sent The Bookseller, which looks utterly fascinating. I’m finally digging my disorganization out of two weeks of barely scraping by. Just as soon as we got back from Chicago, I came down with what Galen calls “con crud”. It’s the cold/flu combination that one gets after airplane trips and conferences.

I got a lot of reading done, but I’m still catching up to myself on writing it all up!