Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane has described his newest book, Live by Night as an homage to the gangster genre. Taking place mostly around Prohibition time, in Tampa with the rum trade as its vocation, the story makes heavy use of the political and ethnic backdrop that defined the place and era. The revolutionary spirit sweeping through the Hispanic world has made its way through Florida and into gangster organizations seeking to profit from Cuban rum.

Joe is a small time Boston outlaw who, after a violent prison stint, is tapped by the local mob boss to shape up the rum operation in Florida. Some of the best action takes place during Joe’s prison time, but the pace barely slackens once he heads south. He slaps arrogant grifters into shape and turns a sloppily managed illicit trade into a criminal empire. Yet, we are always on his side. Joe doesn’t shy from violence, but he has a conscience: he feels bad when he destroys the people who are worth feeling bad about, and he becomes something approaching a respectable figure for his straight-dealing. When the KKK comes after him, he puts them down for good just like any other rival gang.  Somehow, we always cheer for him and want him to succeed in his criminal enterprise.

Lehane explores the premise that the gangster code is no less ethical than the legal behavior of legitimate business — that a gangster who throws a man out of a window is no less ethical than a banker who throws his entire family out of his house. It’s an idealized principle that may not stand up to real-world scrutiny, but it is a large part of the appeal behind movies like The Godfather and Scarface. It also captures some of the current zeitgeist after the financial meltdown. As usual, Lehane spends as much time building character as he does with moving the plot forward with explosions. If you like your criminal epics delivered with a deft touch of artistry, Live by Night will satisfy.

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Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

When this book opens, Maisie Dobbs is setting up her own agency with a sign on the door that says “Psychologist and Investigator”. She is hoping to carry on the work of her former mentor, a man who coached her through her education and trained her in his own detective agency. Maisie is the daughter of a former vegetable vendor who went into service at the age of 14. When the Lady of the house caught her reading in the library on her off hours, she offered to sponsor the young girl’s education. That was 15 years before. Since then, Maisie has served in WWI and graduated from Cambridge University.

Winspear has broken the book into three parts. The first introduces Maisie as an investigator and shows how she solves her first crime. The second part tells the story of Maisie’s youth and how she came to be in service, and of her time as a nurse in WWI. The third section tells about the mystery she stumble across while investigating her first case. It seems initially to be a routine case of possible infidelity, but Maisie quickly discovers that the wife is not seeing another man. In discovering the wife’s secret, she also finds that unknown numbers of veterans are disappearing into a care center and never being seen again. Is this a legitimate therapy center, or is someone taking advantage of men who served their country and came back damaged?

Overall, the book is as much about the impact of WWI the soldiers and civilians of England as it is detective story. The details and descriptions of life in the 1920’s are fascinating. I find it difficult to imagine the amount of losses Great Britain suffered in the war, and how long these effects lingered. I am looking forward to reading the rest of this series (there are nine in the series now).

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The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

Many of you know of Janet L.’s persuasive powers when it comes to recommending a book.  Well she worked her magic on me with The House at Riverton and I never regretted it.

While I’ve not enjoyed Kate Morton’s sophomore and junior efforts as much, her debut novel struck a chord with me and generated the same feelings I had when watching (not reading) Remains of the Day and Gosford Park — that behind-the-scenes look into the country homes of early 19th century England, that angle you can only get from the staff’s point of view.  For me, the appeal of books set from this perspective is that, even in a novel, you get the unvarnished truth of the story, not the façade that the people who live in these grand homes present to the world.  In The House at Riverton, the story begins in the present, with the now 98-year-old Grace being asked by a film director to recall her experiences working as a maid in the 1920s, specifically about the suicide of a young poet that occurred in the very house that Grace worked in from the age of 14.

Grace decides this is her opportunity to tell the truth about that suicide and the fallout it created in the aristocratic family she worked for, for so many years.  Told in a series of flashbacks, this book will keep you turning the pages as the secrets are revealed against a beautifully descriptive backdrop that stretches from the Edwardian period to post-World War I England.

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Also see: our previous blog posts about Kate Morton’s books.

A Lonely Death by Charles Todd

It is post-WWI in England and Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard is about to be assigned to a case that may involve a serial killer. He is being sent to the town of Eastfield in Northern England. Three local men have been murdered exactly 3 days apart and by the same method — a garrote. And all three, Jeffers, Roper and Pierce, served in the British Army during the First World War and all were wounded but survived. They knew each other but were not close friends and yet their link to the War must serve Rutledge as the starting point to solve the murders.

Prior to heading north to Eastfield, Rutledge first attends the funeral of a good friend and comrade from the War, Maxwell Hume. Hume, haunted by war visions, has taken his own life. Rutledge, too, has his own demon from the War, Hamish MacLeod. Hamish was court-marshaled and executed for not following a direct order, an order he knew would result in horrible causalities to the troops under his command. Hamish was the one person that Rutledge was closest to during his term of service and now whatever he does and wherever he goes, Rutledge hears Hamish’s voice and guidance.

Eastfield is a small and peaceful English town and the three murders have put the townspeople on edge. Rudledge and the town’s Constable Walker must gather as much evidence as they can as quickly as they can, for they are approaching the third day since the last killing. What is the link among the three victims? Why now?  Who else may play a part in this sequence of events? Rutledge knows he can’t waste any time, even if it means stepping on people’s toes and feelings.

The English mystery is almost always more nuanced than the American mystery and it has many fans.  Charles Todd is a mother and son writing team, with the mother living in Delaware and the son in North Carolina.  The duo writes in a similar style to American mystery author Elizabeth George. Charles Todd has written twelve Ian Rutledge novels and this may qualify as his best.

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