Review of Badger's Moon by Peter Tremayne

Peter Tremayne knows how to make sure his readers keep coming back for more of his work. One way is to write spell-binding mysteries rich with ancient Irish lore, customs and laws. Another way is to end a story with a cliff-hanger so shocking you’re forced to reach for the next novel.


He ends Badger’s Moon with such a cliffhanger. He ended Act of Mercy with Fidelma receiving a message that Brother Eadulf had been charged with murder, making the reader snatch up Our Lady of Darkness. I won’t put any spoilers in my review of Badger’s Moon but I made sure I had the next novel.

Badger’s Moon opens with Fidelma and Eadulf caring for their young son as they have agreed to a trial marriage. Fidelma drops the bombshell about the baby in the last sentence of The Haunted Abbot.

She and Eadulf are summoned to a village where three girls have been slaughtered, one each during the last three full moons. The villagers suspect strangers from across the sea are to blame. Their dark skin and strange language have stirred feelings of prejudice and hate. An angry mob appears at the abbey demanding their release.

Fidelma, in her usually snippy manner, relentlessly delves head-first into the investigation, demanding answers from everyone. Brother Eadulf becomes concerned as she is so focused on the mystery, Fidelma seems to have pushed their son completely from her mind. Both of them know she has changed but she refuses to discuss it.

Eadulf also worries that Fidelma is pursuing the matter of abandoned gold mines in the area rather than focusing on the seemingly ritualistic murders of the three young girls. Especially when a band of Ui Fidgente, enemies of Fidelma’s brother Colgu, king of Cashel, is seen in the area.

As usual, Fidelma plays her cards close to her chest and doesn’t reveal her thoughts until in true Tremayne fashion, she calls everyone together and delivers a sermon-like soliloquy for her conclusions.

Sometimes, Tremayne’s works are like reading a lesson book on ancient Irish culture with a mystery backdrop to make the education more interesting. However, both mystery and lesson in Badger’s Moon are interesting and exciting with an Agatha Christie-esque ending.

Review of Shinju by Laura Joh Rowland

I’ve read two of Laura Joh Rowland’s novels featuring samurai/investigator Sano Ichiro in late seventeenth century Japan, enjoying them both, so I figured it’s time to start the series from the beginning.


Her first novel, Shinju, opens with the bodies of a young, wealthy girl and a lowly artist, twice her age, bound together and floating in the river. It’s assumed they committed a ritual suicide, shinju, what lovers do when they are forbidden by family and culture to marry. The couple feels they will be together forever in the Buddhist afterlife.

Sano is a newly appointed yoriki, a sort of policeman for the village outside of Edo Castle, but he has received the post through an intervention by his patron, and not through the usual channels like family tradition. Therefore, he is ostracized and oppressed by his fellow yoriki. Being the low man on the totem pole, he is given the job of ‘solving’ the double suicide quietly and quickly by his superior, Magistrate Ogyu.

Sano isn’t satisfied the couple killed themselves so against his master’s direct orders, he begins to investigate the deaths. Almost immediately, he finds proof the crime was murder. His own sense of honor and finding the truth spurs him on disobeying repeated orders and threats from the magistrate.

Anyone else probably would’ve given up after the number of setbacks Sano encounters. For much of the book, he runs up against brick walls in his inquiry and receives more threats and risks dishonor. The story bogs down while Sano repeatedly finds himself at a dead end. Even after he’s dismissed in disgrace Sano continues his investigation, only then does he make progress. He discovers a plot to assassinate the shogun.

Rowland’s descriptions of seventeenth century Japan are incredibly detailed. The architecture and lay-out of Edo castle, the jail, the houses of the wealthy and pour, and the township are described down to the color of the walls and the smalls. She depicts aspects of the Japanese culture, clothing, hairstyles, society and holiday traditions with meticulous details. One could probably become an expert on Japan in the sixteen-eighties just by reading a few of her books.

Her eye for detail becomes a plus when she pens sword fights. Then the action rises to a fever-pitch and the reader turns the pages as fast as Sano blocks, parries and thrusts, defending himself from his sword –wielding opponents. The action is perfect.

At 437 pages, Shinju is much longer than most medieval mysteries, but the length doesn’t diminish the enjoyability. The story flies by.

Review of Nobody Loves a Centurion by John Maddox Roberts

I think John Maddox Roberts’ ancient Rome series featuring Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger gets better and better with each novel.  I devoured Nobody Loves a Centurion (SPQR VI) in very few sittings.  Not only was it an excellent mystery, it had a sense of humor as well.

Decius reluctantly reports for his duty in the armed services with Caesar in Gaul.  His political rival has come into power, it’s best he leave the city.  He shows up at camp in full military regalia, much to the amusement of his colleagues.  Then he manages to anger one of the most powerful men in the army, Centurion Titus Vinius, who is cruel to the men in his century.  One of the unfortunate young men is a client of Decius’ and the senator protests his ill-treatment.  Soon every soldier in the camp has bet odds on who will come out on top, Titus or Decius.  The battle is decided when Titus is found murdered outside of camp and wearing slave’s clothing.
 
Caesar puts Decius in charge of finding the centurion’s murderer or he will put the entire century to death, including Decius’ client.  To his horror, Decius finds many of the soldiers don’t want him to discover the truth behind Vinius’ death, just let the men die. It’s all part of war.  But Decius won’t let that happen.  He feels bound to save his client from a slow, excruciating death.

Confounding the mystery are the murdered centurion’s two German slaves, a small, dwarfish man named Molon and Freda, a stunningly, beautiful woman who has the tongues of every man in camp hanging to the ground when she passes.  When Caesar awards the two slaves to Decius, it only adds to the bad feelings against him. 

Decius manages to focus on the mystery despite the beautiful slave and nightly skirmishes with the Gauls.  But he is again called out in the middle of the night to another bizarre discovery.  Three Druid priests have been hung in the forest.  Decius knows the two incidents are related but he has no idea how.
 
Despite his goofy entrance and actions after his arrival, Decius exhibits bravery and a tenacious curiosity to find out the truth and save his friend.  As usual, the final solution has serious consequences for him but he perseveres and confronts someone who could become a dangerous enemy.
 
As with all his ancient Rome stories, Roberts includes a glossary of the numerous terms that are obsolete or unknown.  Sometimes it gets frustrating to have to flip to the back of the book to look up a word, but it also helps bring ancient Roman culture and lifestyles to vivid life.  It helps the reader identify more with Decius and his countrymen.

In this story, Roberts shows off his knowledge of ancient Gaul and German history as well as Italian.  He makes numerous references to their lifestyle, where the two cultures were settled, the advancement of their territories and their gods. 
 
Decius maintains his sense of humor even outside of Rome, which is as dangerous as being in the middle of Gaul territory, now France.  Roberts keeps a healthy pace mixing humor and action, and showing a brave side of Decius while at the same time, Roberts likes beating up on him.  I think that’s why I like Decius so much.  He has the right amount of sarcasm and wit, that endears him to people and at the same time, annoys the hell out of them, too.
 
It’s novels like Nobody Loves a Centurion that bring me back for more.

Review of The Cross-legged Knight by Candace Robb

I enjoyed reading Candace Robb’s The Cross-legged Knight, the seventh in the Owen Archer series, more than the previous two novels, A Gift of Sanctuary and A Spy for the Redeemer. Both of those stories dealt with Owen traveling through his native Wales on a pilgrimage with his father-in-law Sir Robert. They were a bit confusing and I had to go back and re-read sections to be sure that I had read them correctly. This book seems to return to the intriguing and fast-paced mysteries that I have come to expect from Robb.


In The Cross-legged Knight, Owen has long returned to York but he and his wife Lucie are mourning the miscarriage of their baby, when Lucie fell from a stool while working in her apothecary. Their family is put under more stress when the Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham arrives in York, thinking that he is in mortal peril. A powerful family of a knight blames him for the knight’s death in a French prison, accusing him of dragging his feet in the negotiations with France and offering half the sum the family gathered to ransom him. While he is observing the building of the lady chapel, a piece of tile nearly smashes into his skull. Then his townhouse is burned to the ground by a suspicious fire. A servant is badly burned but a mysterious woman dies in the blaze. Thus, Wykeham assigns Owen to assure his safety.

Owen detests the man but Archbishop Thoresby manages to keep his feathers from getting too ruffled and Owen carries out his duties begrudgingly. The archbishop feels pulled in two different directions since his friend Wykeham is now enemies with the powerful Duke of Lancaster, with whom Thoresby is allies.

Owen continues his investigations, learning more about the woman who died in the fire and helped by Lucie, trying to move past her grieving and get back to health to take care of her family and business.

An underlying theme to The Cross-legged Knight could be aging. I don’t know whether Robb included it on purpose but several characters deal with the problems of growing old. Archbishop Thoresby reflects frequently that he is an old man and wonders what he has done with his life as a cleric. Lucie’s elderly aunt Phillipa, although is lucid much of the time, still has bouts of sleep-walking and dementia. A maid to the Dale family is losing her eyesight as she gets older. Lucie herself wonders at one point if her child-bearing days are over. The river woman Magda is elderly and people wonder how she manages at her advanced age. It is inevitable that characters age but in this book they seem to age before the readers’ eyes.

I suppose my preference to this novel over the past two is having Owen in York, working together with Lucie to investigate a mystery. While in Wales, he was tempted to rejoin the Welsh in their battle against the English, something Owen nearly gave into and Thoresby is well aware of. Maybe it’s because I don’t like seeing one my literary heroes being sorely tempted as he was.

Whatever the reason, The Cross-legged Knight is a return to the familiarity of fourteenth century York and the magic of the Robb novels.

Review of The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters

Saying something negative about Ellis Peters is tantamount to criticizing Agatha Christie. Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, set in twelfth century England, has been made into a television series featuring Derek Jacobi as the monk/sleuth, is evidence of just how popular her work is.


Still, the twelfth novel The Raven in the Foregate doesn’t quite measure up to the standards set by the previous eleven books.

Set at Christmas in 1141, Abbot Radulfus returns from a meeting with the bishop with a young priest Ailnoth, assigned to the parish of the Holy Cross. Ailnoth quickly makes himself unpopular by his strict, overzealous and selfish ways. It isn’t long before half the village has reason to hate him. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to the reader when his body is discovered in the mill pond with a wound to the back of his head.

Could it have been the baker whom Ailnoth accused of cheating his customers? Or could it have been the father of the baby who died shortly after birth unshriven because the priest refused to interrupt his own prayers? Or maybe it was the sympathizers to Empress Maud who has been beaten back by her cousin King Stephen in her efforts to overtake the throne?

It is only Brother Cadfael who can sort through the murky clues to discover what really happened to the priest, but he seems to spend as much time investigating the death of Ailnoth as he does sheltering the young man whose aunt accompanied the priest to Shrewsbury. Since Cadfael has no allegiance to either King Stephen or Empress Maud, he knows that the current public opinion is in favor of the king and the young man is ready to take up arms for Maud.

The conclusion of the mystery is almost a disappointment, as it seems that Cafael, usually extremely observant, should miss an important clue that reveals the truth until the last moment. As in previous novels, he’s pieced together fragments of clues and used his keen intelligence to figure it out.

Another aspect is a ruse by Hugh Beringar to ferret out the murderer. It’s out of character for the shrewd sheriff and it falls flat. One wonders why Peters included this in the story.

The Raven in the Foregate just didn’t have the magic of most Peters’ novels.

Review of The Romanov Prophecy by Steve Berry

I’ve always found the brief but violent history of Czar Nicholas II and his family so I’m aware of Rasputin’s macabre prophecy that if anyone from the royal family or their relatives assassinated him, the czar would die within two years. His prognostication came true.


In July 1918, Nicholas, Alexandria, their five children and four servants were shot to death in a basement in a house in Ekaterinburg. Their bodies were buried in the woods several miles away.

When the burial site was exhumed, two skeletons were missing, those of Aleksei and Anastasia. Berry’s book, The Romanov Prophecy, builds on the premise that the tow children survived the massacre by would-be assassins and secreted away.

The novel opens with Miles Lord, an Attorney from Atlanta, almost being assassinated on the streets of Moscow by mysterious men. A colleague is killed and Miles is on the run. In Russia to help restore the monarchy, Lord unknowingly stumbles on information that could jeopardize the current claimant to the throne, a man backed by millions of American dollars.

Lord finds himself criss-crossing the globe with beautiful dancer Akilina Petrovna, following clues to a cryptic message and trying to stay a step ahead of Russian hit men. Could Aleksei and Anastasia have eventually made their way to America? And if so, could there be direct descendants of Nicholas II with stronger ties to the throne than the man currently seeking the crown?

It’s a great basis and it makes for an exciting page-turner but anyone who has read Robert Massie’s incredible work on the Romanovs will know none of them made it out of the basement room alive. He has an interesting theory, well-grounded in facts, on where the two missing bodies are.

Nonetheless, The Romanov Prophecy is an intriguing novel, reminiscent of Dan Brown’s work. From the synopsis, I thought it would be more of a spy novel, the likes of Daniel Silva and Brad Thor, but I wasn’t disappointed. Berry’s story is a great thrill ride through the streets of Moscow and San Francisco.

Queen of Disco Donna Summer has passed away

The beautiful and gifted Donna Summer died today at the young age of 63.  She is one of my all-time favorites since way back in high school, during the height of the disco craze.  I waited anxiously to get her album "Crayons" when it was released back in 2008.  It was like being back in high school waiting for her next album.  The winner of 5 Grammys, she, her beautiful voice and music will be missed terribly.