Book reveiw: "Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders" by Gyles Brandreth

 

I was intrigued by the title of Brandreth’s book Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders, since it promised to depict a giant of literature as a detective.  In fact, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the main character, with him as the narrator in first person, with Wilde as secondary.  However, as the story unfolds, it is Wilde who employs Sherlock Holmes’s techniques to solve a mystery and murders unfolding in the Vatican.  Although Doyle is the creator of Holmes, one of the world’s greatest detectives, he is relegated to playing Watson to Wilde’s Holmes. 

Doyle is depicted as clueless and Wilde is the observant one, who eventually solves the mystery.

During the heyday of Doyle, the author received volumes of fan mail, including many messages for Sherlock Holmes.  In Brandreth’s novel, Doyle receives several packages addressed to Holmes, which he opened weeks and months after receipt.  Doyle had been delinquent in responding to his mail, which moved slowly in the late nineteenth century.  Among the correspondence, Doyle found a mummified hand, a severed finger with a rose-gold ring, and a lock of hair.

Since the packages were sent from Rome, Oscar Wilde convinces Doyle that they must travel there to discover the source of the objects, the purpose in sending them, and solve the mystery of their origin.

To Wilde, money is no object and is more than willing to throw it around to conduct the investigation in luxury, with good food and drink. 

Brandreth employs Wilde’s flair and witticism throughout the novel.  But his treatment of Doyle is bland in comparison.  Doyle seems dull and without personality.  Of course, compared to Wilde, most everybody would be ordinary.  In this story, Doyle meets a charming young lady, “Irene Sadler” (an obvious reference to Irene Adler, who appears in A Scandal in Bohemia, and is the only person to outsmart Sherlock Holmes). It seems Doyle is smitten by Irene Sadler based on Wilde's observations, but there are no inner thoughts or acknowledgement of his feelings toward her. 

Weird.

If you’re an Oscar Wilde fan, you might enjoy this novel, but it really did not hold my interest and took me a while to finish it.

Book review - "Hornswoggled" by Donis Casey

I bought Hornswoggled, excited to find a new mystery author, from Oklahoma. The first in the series wasn't available at this store so I settled for #2.

A woman has been found stabbed and hidden in a pond under some tree roots.  Her husband, the town barber, is suspected but he has an air tight alibi.  He was in Kansas City when his wife was murdered, and arrived back in Boynton, Oklahoma after her body was found.  

A few months later, the grieving barber has his sights set on Alafair's daughter Alice.  And the feeling is mutual.  Alafair does not trust the charming, handsome, wealthy barber and is determined to find out who killed his wife, before her daughter could possibly become his next victim.

I enjoyed the book mainly for its historical setting in Oklahoma, the first decade after statehood. Casey included many details of what life was like in 1913, living on a farm with a small town nearby.

Sometimes those details bogged the story down. I didn't mind the section where Alafair is churning butter but when a long paragraph is devoted solely on how each member of the Tucker clan (13 in all) like their eggs, the story grinds to a screeching halt. I had to put the book down for a short while, before convincing myself to pick it back up again and finish it.

I grew up reading the Hardy Boys in grade school before I graduated to Agatha Christie and others. I realized Frank and Joe rarely solved a mystery. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other sleuths figure out the mystery by looking at all the clues and figuring out who the bad guy is. Hornswoggled is the same vein as the Hardy Boys. Alafair realizes whodunit isn't anyone she suspected until it was too late.

Still, I would recommend this to people who enjoy cozy mysteries, early Oklahoma, or pre-WWI history buffs

The final episode of "M*A*S*H" airs 1983

The final episode of M*A*S*H aired February 28, 1983.  The series based on the Korean War ran for 11 seasons, 14 Primetime Emmys and 8 Golden Globes.  Alan Alda and Loretta Swit were the only two actors to appear in the first and last episodes.

"Murdoch Mysteries" debuts 2008

Murdoch Mysteries aired its first television episode January 24, 2008.  It stars gorgeous actor Yannick Bisson as Detective William Murdoch and Helene Joy as Dr. Julia Ogden, the medical examiner and Murdoch's main love interest.

The series is set in the late 1890s in Toronto and Murdoch uses the latest forensic techniques such as fingerprinting to solve crimes.

It is now in its 13th season.

Book review - "Demon of the Air" by Simon Levack

I really enjoyed this book.  This is another one that I picked up in hopes of finding another series to follow and I found one.  Levack’s novel Demon of the Air is set in 1517 in Mexico in the Aztecan capital Tenochtitlan, where Emperor Montezuma resides.

In the first chapter, Levack exhibits a dark humor as the main character Yaotl, the Chief Minister’s slave, goes about the ho-hum practice of human sacrifice, with a nonchalance as we would an every day task.  The mystery begins as the sacrifice victim Yaotl and his friend Handy brought for the Chief Minister escapes from their grasp.  They chase him but he utters a strange prophecy before leaping to his death.

First, the Chief Minister wants to know why his sacrifice got away.  Second, he wants to know what the prophecy means.  Third, he wants to know why all the sorcerers in the city have disappeared.

Yaotl has few friends in the city and is estranged from his family, as a result of being dishonorably discharged from being a priest.  He has to forge new alliances and mend bridges to solve the mystery.

Levack introduces each character by their Aztec name but then uses the English translation, such as Curling Mist and Black Feathers. 

The novel is fast paced and keeps the reader’s interest.  I found it easy to follow the story although I am not at all familiar with the Aztec culture.  Levack brings out their culture beautifully and it is very entertaining. I look forward to reading more of his work.

Book review - "The Canterbury Papers" by Judith Koll Healey

It is not easy to keep reading a book when you don’t like the main character.  That’s the conundrum I had with The Canterbury Papers by Judith Koll Healey.  The novel follows Alais, daughter of a king, sister to a second king, former betrothed to a third king and mistress to a fourth.  Girl gets around.  But soon the reader finds out that not only is she stupid (she realizes her room at an inn has been broken into but decides to ignore it), she is also a mean girl.  After finding this out, I had to make a decision to finish the book or stop because I no longer cared what happened to the Princesse Alais.

I chose to press on.  The story is centered around Eleanor of Aquitaine, demanding that Alais travel from Paris (again?) to Canterbury in England to retrieve some hidden letters that would be extremely awkward to the Queen mum if they were ever made public.  In return, Eleanor promises information about the son Alais believed had died shortly after she gave birth to him.  She feels she has no choice but to do the queen mum’s bidding.

When Alais arrives at Canterbury, she comes face to face with the man whom she and her royal siblings tormented as a boy, because he was smarter than they were.  William has grown into a formidable man and Alais discovers there is much more to him that meets the eye. 

The issue with the letters is a little anticlimactic since Alais learns their existence and content are the worst-kept secrets in England and France.  

Despite that the book was well-written with few head-hops, but had great details of thirteenth century England and France without all the data dumps.  The kidnapping scene, which opens the book, isn't suspenseful after the first chapter.  

Three ♕ out of five.

Book review - "Manhunt" by Christian Jacq

This is one of those books I picked up thinking that it might lead to another interesting series of mysteries with an ancient Egypt setting.  Other authors have done so and successfully, too.  I had hoped Manhunt by Christian Jacq would be as good as they are.

I was wrong.

It has been quite some time since I have read a book so poorly written.  It has been translated from French into English so perhaps a lot got lost in the translation, but it was so messed up I finally stopped reading after I had read just over half it.

Jacq commits the cardinal sins of writing by constant head-hopping so much you don't know who's point of view the scene is in.  It makes reading very confusing.  He also uses huge data dumps and the ever intrusive narrator. In one scene, a woman speaks to the main character Kel and after only two greetings, she tells him her entire backstory.  

Huh?

Okay, Jacq.  You’re an expert on ancient Egypt.  We get it.

Characters are cardboard, not developed at all and dialogue is so choppy, it doesn’t flow like a conversation should.  One paragraph made absolutely no sense and I read it several times to figure it out. 

Maybe his non-fiction work is better written, but if you want a good ancient Egyptian mystery read Agatha Christie’s Death Comes as the End, or P. C. Doherty’s Amerokte series or Lauren Haney’s Lieutenant Bak series

Book review - Death of a Musketeer by Sarah D'Almeida

The dust jacket of Death of a Musketeer boasts a quote from Margaret Frazer: “A fun read.”  I’m not sure I agree with s. Frazer, because although a good book, I did not find it to be a fun read.  I would describe more as ‘put-downable’. It has a great setting using Alexander Dumas’ characters from his Three Musketeers to solve a murder.

The story opens just as D’Artagnan has challenged Athos to a duel.  Porthos and Aramis are nearby when the four of them are attacked by the Cardinal’s men.  The musketeers fend off the attackers and then go off to celebrate.  Their drinking lasts until way into the night.  As they leave the last pub, they encounter another musketeer, who has been murdered, and they discover it is a woman in disguise.  Naturally, the musketeers take it upon themselves to solve the murder of this woman who has a remarkable resemblance to the Queen.

Most of the antics of the story take place during night times, and it seems that no one in France sleeps at night.  It doesn’t matter what hour it is, everyone seems to be awake, and the musketeers seem surprised to realize they have awakened someone. 

D’Almeida keeps true to the spirit of the Three Musketeers but it seems odd to have them try to solve a mystery, using their heads instead of their swords.  The story involves a plot to discredit the Queen using the Duke of Buckingham, which we’ve seen before in Dumas’ work. There are times when D’Almeida has a character reminisce or goes off on a tangent to describe the surroundings.    Okay, you’re an expert on 17^th century Paris. We get it. 

Other readers might find this one more satisfying than I did. This is the first one of a series, but I'm not interested in reading anymore.

I give it one musketeer out of three.

Book review - The Gettysburg Cypher by K. R. Eckert

I enjoy reading speculative fiction (since I write it myself) so I was intrigued when I saw the synopsis for The Gettysburg Cypher by K. R. Eckert.  I had to read it and happy I did.

The book opens right before the battle of Gettysburg with men planning to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.  Naturally, the plan fails but one of the cohorts manages to hand off a Bible, containing codes, cyphers and information pertaining to the scheme to a preacher just before he dies.

Present time: An historian from the Smithsonian receives a diary from another member of the conspiracy which talks of the plot against Lincoln.  Since this is big news, it is broadcast across the nation. 

Descendants of the original plotters (the Brigade) are still in the Asheville, North Carolina area and hanging onto the ideals of their ancestors.  They’re fanatical in their defense of the beliefs of the South, to the point that even the murder of innocent children is not too much for them.  When news of the diary breaks, they are spurred into action.

The main action of the novel is the pursuit of the old Bible, which if found, would be devastating to the Brigade and their goal to win the Civil War.  Since they have no idea where it is, they kidnap the family of the great-great-grandson (now a Monsignor) of the preacher who received the Bible from the dying spy in 1863.

The Monsignor has only heard of the Bible from his childhood and doubts it exists but has no choice but to find it to save his niece and her young son.  He teams up with History Hunters Paul Davenport and Sara Walsh to help him in this seemingly impossible task.

I first thought the novel involved time travel since the character known as the ‘Colonel’ appears in both the Civil War segment and the present but eventually all became clear.

The Gettysburg Cypher is a fun read.  Although there wasn’t much of the ‘cypher’ aspect, in many ways it was better than Dan Brown’s work.  The best part of the novel to me is Eckert’s depiction of the Civil War seen through the eyes of the participants.  He has a way of bringing the past alive.