Does Norman Ralph Delchard want a cozier role in Marston’s 11th-century series? Aging and complaining about a seventh investigation (The Stallions of Woodstock, 1999, etc.) that seems to involve only bickering between two unequal estates on the Welsh border, Ralph sets forth. But Chester’s churchmen are overwhelmed by escalating military necessities even before William the Conqueror’s investigative team arrives. Balanced by Canon Hubert and lawyer Gervase Bret, ex-soldier Ralph allies himself with the crude despot “Hugh the Gross.” Meantime, Hugh’s adversary, the Earl of Chester, sitting astride his horse in Delamere Forest, watches as mysterious arrows drop his personal hawk and rarest huntsman. Ralph quickly determines that Hugh’s merciless, capricious revenge on Saxon poachers is misdirected. But can the crafty Welsh really be massing an army against the brute strength of Hugh, who holds their Gruffydd ap Cygnan as a princely guarantor of peace? Might a woman actually have shot those arrows? And why is the ebullient but smelly Welsh Archdeacon Idwal on the scene? Doves of peace have no effect against the hawks of war here'but craft does, until Ralph, left behind when Hugh marches off, pulls off a last reversal. Marston redeems early workmanlike prose and missed chances for drama by vivid grotesques (the lumbering Hugh, a dwarfish food-taster, the sheepskin-clad Idwal) and an exciting, fast-paced windup. Too fast. Readers tempted by a complex moral situation and rooting for the underdogs will be shot down like Hugh’s hawk.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-20948-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The welcome return of an existential detective.
Jackson Brodie is back.
This is Atkinson’s fifth Jackson Brodie novel (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011, etc.), but fans know that the phrase “Jackson Brodie novel” is somewhat deceptive. Yes, he is the hero in that he is a private investigator—former cop, military veteran—who solves (usually) mysteries. But he is not so much the central character as the grumpy, anxious, largehearted gravitational field that attracts a motley assortment of lost souls and love interests. In this latest outing, Jackson is a half-duty parent to his teenage son while the boy’s mother, an actor, finishes her run on a detective series. Vince Ives is a more-or-less successful middle-class husband and father until his wife leaves him, his boss makes him redundant, and he becomes a murder suspect. Crystal Holroyd—not her real name—has built a brilliant new life for herself, but someone from her past is threatening her daughter. Both Vince and Crystal seek help from Jackson, with varying results. Meanwhile, Jackson’s protégée, Reggie Chase, has risen through the ranks in the police force and is taking a fresh look at an old case. That these stories intertwine is a given. “A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen” is one of Jackson’s maxims; it could also serve as an ironic epigram for Atkinson’s approach to the mystery genre. A small cast of characters collides and careens in a manner that straddles Greek tragedy and screwball comedy. The humor is sly rather than slapstick, and Atkinson is keenly interested in inner lives and motivations. There are villains, certainly—human trafficking and the sexual abuse of children figure prominently here—but even the sympathetic characters are complicated and compromised. Jackson has a strong moral code, but his behavior is often less than ethical. The same is true of Vince, Crystal, and Reggie. The deaths and disappearances that Jackson investigates change with every book, but the human heart remains the central mystery.
The welcome return of an existential detective.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-52309-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A delightful debut whodunit written with abundant wit and flair. Pray for a series to follow.
An affluent 19th-century wife and aspiring sleuth perseveres in the face of police skepticism to probe a series of suspicious deaths in Cracow.
A provocative prologue introduces an anonymous killer sneaking away after examining a frail corpse. The year is 1893, and restless Zofia Turbotyńska struggles, because of her provincial roots, to be accepted in Cracow high society. Keeping an efficient household for her husband, esteemed medical professor Ignacy Turbotyński doesn’t satisfy her. So she undertakes various projects to occupy her time and prove her worth. When her cook, Franciszka, asks for time off to visit her grandmother at Helcel House, Zofia decides to solicit the residents for donations to a charity raffle she’s organizing for the benefit of scrofulous children. The benevolent nuns who run the house are receptive. On her initial visit, Zofia notices a bit of a stir over Mrs. Mohr, a resident who’s gone missing. Her reading of Poe surely has an effect on her, for when she visits Helcel House again, Zofia takes the initiative to question the staff about the still-missing resident. Strangely invigorated, she undertakes a search of the premises and discovers Mrs. Mohr’s body hidden under a blanket in the attic. The consensus is a fatal fall while wandering. Zofia is not so sure. When another Helcel resident is found murdered, Zofia alone links the two deaths and doggedly proceeds to investigate. In a nod to Victorian convention, Szymiczkowa (the pseudonym of partners Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczyński) begins each chapter with a wry summary of what’s to come.
A delightful debut whodunit written with abundant wit and flair. Pray for a series to follow.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-27424-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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