Inside the Victorian Home : a Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England by Judith Flanders

This book is delightful! It is one of those books you want to tell people about constantly but worry that they will roll their eyes after the sixth or seventh Victorian life fun fact. But it is packed with interesting tidbits at every turn of the page and you cannot help but be aghast at some of the details. I would give you some examples, but I really cannot spoil your fun and probably you would not believe me anyway.

Flanders wonderfully constructs the book around each room in the Victorian home. She describes the home in detail, the expectations set forth by Mrs. Panton and Mrs. Beeton (the Martha Stewarts of their time) and the reality. She illustrates with excerpts from literature of the time as well as letters and diary entries. The book describes mostly upper middle class Londoners but does occasionally discuss the serving class and the truly wealthy.

Flanders discusses the Victorian life by going past the physical aspects of the room but what actually went on in the room and how that was informed by Victorian society (or vice versa).  For example, the chapter on the Nursery discusses the Victorian view of children and parenthood. The chapter on the Dining Room includes information on Victorian cooking, or overcooking, as it were. The chapter on the Sick Room discusses the Victorian views on health, illness and death (including the various stages of mourning).

Okay, okay I cannot contain myself any longer! I will not give you any Victorian fun facts but I will let you know that these questions are answered in the pages of this awesome book:

-What common childhood ailment was actually a measurable cause of death for infants?

-What common home decoration was extremely toxic?

-How long was the recommended boiling time for macaroni? a>30 minutes b> up to 1 hour c>up to 1 hour and 45 minutes

So check it out! You will be amazed we are all still alive and you will wonder what our ancestors will think of our everyday life.
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Good Bait by John Harvey

John Harvey’s new novel is a fast paced story about two parallel cases, both related to a vast criminal underworld in London.  The main story is Chief Inspector Karen Shields’ investigation into the death of a young immigrant found in a frozen pond on Hampstead Heath.    The more Shields looks into the case, the more complicated it becomes.   Another murder in the same area seems to involve some of the same people, and Shields is suddenly called to the office of superior officer to discuss the crimes with a major task force.  Shields and her team can’t determine if the young man’s murder is related to the suddenly escalating violent incidents between rival gangs in the neighborhood, or if there is a more personal element.

The other case is an unofficial one.  Detective Trevor Cordon has come to London from Cornwall out of a sense of guilt.  Maxine, a woman he had arrested many times, asked for his help locating her daughter, Letitia.  Cordon had tried to help Letitia out in the past by giving her a job, but tells Maxine there is nothing he can do this time.  So Maxine goes to London herself.  Now Cordon hears Maxine was killed by a train and no one knows whether she fell, was pushed, or committed suicide.  Cordon decides to track down Letitia and make sure she is okay.  The trouble is he is not the only person looking for her.  Cordon’s case will eventually cross with Shields’ investigation in an unexpected way.

I enjoyed this book, although at times it was difficult to keep the characters straight.  But this actually makes it seem more realistic since the real world is rarely as neat as detective novels.  Also, Harvey is good at the details of police organizations and investigations and his characters are as interesting as the plot lines. What makes a woman born in Jamaica become an officer in the British police force?  Why would Cordon feel ties to this particular child, and not the children of other folks he has run across in the course of his job?  Fans of Harvey’s other series’ will enjoy this new book, as will fans of British mysteries.

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The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

This debut novel opens with a woman standing in a park in the rain at night surrounded by dead bodies wearing latex gloves — and she has no memory of who she is. She finds a letter in her pocket which begins “The body you are wearing used to be mine.” How can you resist an opening scene like that one? I certainly couldn’t when I discovered this book just after it came out earlier this year. I’ve since recommended it to several co-workers and friends and now I’m passing this great book on to you.

The woman with amnesia in the park is Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced like Tiffany), and it turns out that she is an agent for Her Majesty’s Supernatural Secret Service. The operative words there are ‘supernatural’ and ‘secret’ because the stuff this agency deals with is way out there beyond just vampires and werewolves — and it is very, very secret. Her position is called a Rook, and it turns out the agency, called the Checquy, is based on the pieces in the game of chess (yeah, it’s as complicated as it sounds).

The letter Myfanwy found directs her to an apartment where there is a warm shower, clean clothes and a comfy bed. Further letters explain who she is, more about her super secret job, and the fact that someone within the Checquy is a traitor and trying to kill her. One of the letters also lets her know that she has a choice, she can try to resume her dangerous life in a secret government organization, or she can simply walk away and flee the country with a vast sum of money in a secret bank account.

Myfanwy decides to stay and try to determine who the traitor is. But, she must do this while re-learning everything about herself and the Checquy. She doesn’t even remember how she takes her tea, let alone all of the inner workings of this very strange agency. She also soon discovers that many of the agents working for the Checquy, including herself, have special abilities (think of the mutants from the X-Men). Her work-mates include one person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter anyone’s dreams, a man whose skin oozes toxins depending on his mood, and the most attractive vampire one can imagine.  So, yeah, dealing with a house full of sentient purple slime is all in a day’s work for Rook Thomas.

Daniel O’Malley has written one heck of a debut novel that is full of wit as well as suspense and fantastic supernatural action. There’s so much more to this novel than I was able to describe in this blog post! Even if you’re not normally a “Fantasy reader” but you enjoy a good suspense and espionage story, give this one a try. And, if you are a Fantasy reader, what are you waiting for? Click that link below and get reading! It’s also available as an audio book, read by Susan Duerden.

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Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham

Psychologist Joe O’Loughlin thinks his life is hard, but manageable. He’s separated from the wife he still loves, Julianne, but has hopes of reconciliation. He has two daughters he adores, Emma and Charlie, and he’s made sure he’s part of their everyday life. He’s still coming to terms with his Parkinson’s disease, but with medication, it seems controllable.

Then Charlie’s best friend, Sienna Hegarty, turns up at his family’s front door covered in blood and Joe O’Loughlin realizes just how much harder life can be. Sienna’s father, former police officer Ray Hegarty, has been murdered, and Sienna is the prime suspect. O’Loughlin’s professional instincts tell him she’s innocent, but when he comes to her aid he finds the situation more complicated than he realized. The people he’s dealing with are dangerous and soon Joe is fighting to protect not just Sienna, but himself and his family from enemies who seem to be coming at him from all sides.

Robotham’s writing is outstanding, particularly the scenes where O’Loughlin interviews clients and/or suspects. It is so good it pulled me through some very tough scenes. The people Joe is fighting are ruthless and they hurt anyone in their way, including (maybe even especially) the most defenseless among us, children. But Robotham made me care about the characters and I needed to know what happened to them. I needed to find out if Joe could persevere and save Sienna.

This is the fourth book in the award winning Joe O’Loughlin series (after Suspect, Lost, and Shatter). I usually read series in order, but I broke my own rule and read this book first because the reviews, both print and word of mouth, have been so good. I’m glad I did. Now I have the first three books to look forward to reading this summer.

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Muppet Sherlock Holmes by Patrick Storck

Since today is the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I thought it would be a good time to review a comic book adaptation of his work with this graphic novel by The Muppets. Our Book-a-Day blog has reviewed some of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books before and we have also reviewed some Muppets books before — so, much like Reese’s peanut butter cups, here are two great things that go great together. In true Muppet fashion, they have put their own humorous spin on one of Doyle’s most famous lines: “Once you eliminate the rational, whatever remains, no matter how absurd, must be the Muppets.”

This graphic novel collects four of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories with Gonzo the Great as the world’s greatest detective and Fozzie Bear as his loyal companion, Dr. Watson, who narrates the stories. Inspector Lestrade is played by Kermit the Frog, and many of the large cast of Muppet characters also make appearances throughout the stories. The first story is The Speckled Band, a classic locked room mystery, which even contains a 19th century version of the Veterinarian’s Hospital sketch from The Muppet Show. The second story to be re-told by Gonzo and crew is A Scandal in Bohemia featuring Miss Piggy as the intriguing Irene Adler — who was always referred to as the woman by Holmes. And, just as he did in the first season of The Muppet Show, Gonzo (Holmes) falls madly for Miss Piggy (Adler). The third story is The Red-Headed League in which shady goings on lead Holmes, Watson and Lestrade to don red wigs and take up menial clerical jobs with the league to try and deduce why their client, Mr. Wilson, is paid so handsomely for work that keeps him away from his shop during the day. The final tale is The Musgrave Ritual about an old aristocratic family legend which just may turn out to be some sort of treasure map. This version, however, concludes the final story with an abbreviated version of the events which occurred at Reichenbach falls (in the original Doyle story The Final Problem) with Holmes/Gonzo facing down his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (played by Uncle Deadly).  The writers did an excellent job of re-telling these tales as faithfully as possible, while also putting the unique “Muppety” spin on them at the same time.

For you more serious Sherlock Holmes fans (who should still totally give this graphic novel a try), you can find many different collections of Doyle’s stories and novels in our catalog.

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P.S. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shares his birthday with my wife, so Happy Birthday my love!

Not All Tarts Are Apple by Pip Granger

Rosie is a young girl being raised by her Aunt and Uncle in Soho, London in the 1950’s. Uncle Bert and Aunt Maggie run the local cafe, where the entire neighborhood comes to gossip and exchange news. Suddenly, Rosie discovers that the lady who shows up to say hello every few months is actually her real mother. Rosie only knows her as “The Perfumed Lady”, and is surprised to learn that she is a “tart.” Rosie isn’t sure what that means, only that it sounds bad when her classmates yells it at her. It makes her so mad that she hits the girl and her Aunt and Uncle are called in to speak to the headmistress.

After this incident, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bert decide that they need to change Rosie’s living arrangement into a permanent adoption. When word gets around the neighborhood about Rosie parentage, though, some shady characters become very interested in her. What is it about her mother’s background that draws them near? Rosie safe little world seems to be bigger and scarier than she ever imagined.

The mystery in this book is not traditional, but neither is anything else about it. The neighbors who are Rosie’s friends include a shady lawyer, a couple of prostitutes, a card shark, and some petty thieves, along with the neighborhood bobby. All of this is natural to Rosie because it is the only world she has ever known. Granger is very good at writing from the point of view of a little girl. Rosie never seems to know more than a child would understand at her age. And Granger describes Soho of the 1950’s with such loving detail that it really makes you wish you could visit not just the place, but the time period. I highly recommend this book for fellow Anglophiles.

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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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Sister by Rasamund Lupton

Beatrice was always kind of the lesser sister; less beautiful, less impulsive, less engaged in her life. Tess, at only 21, lived hers to the fullest. Bee’s dull, corporate job paled in comparison to Tess’s artistic passions, flinging bright paints onto large canvasses to make people feel something. And then Tess is found, dead, in an abandoned rest room, alone, cold, and presumed to have committed suicide after giving birth to a stillborn child.

The story of each sister’s lives unfolds through Bee’s narrative. Whereas Bee had always scoffed at Tess’s tiny apartment and job waitressing, she now lives in the apartment and picks up her sister’s shifts. She befriends her sister’s friends; the elderly landlord who Tess ate dinner with once a week, the Polish immigrant who Tess bonded during their pregnancies, even the mangy cat that Tess adopted. Bee, who never understood these relationships before, now leans on them heavily, and allows them to lean on her.

Bee becomes closer to her sister than ever before, but also begins to question whether or not she had really known her. As she learns more and more about Tess’s life, she also begins to unravel the mystery surrounding her death. Bee clings adamantly to the fact that her sister valued life too highly to have taken her own. This belief gives her the strength to search for her sister’s killer, despite losing her job, fiancé, and life in New York City in the process.

Lupton’s debut novel is filled with twists and turns, and kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last page.

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Above Suspicion by Lynda LaPlante

This first book in a new series by the author of Cold Heart introduces a young female detective who is starting off her career in the homicide division.  Anna Travis is determined to live up to her father’s reputation and advance in the London police force.   She is excited to be put on a team that has been trying to catch a serial killer who has preying on local prostitutes for over 5 years.   Suddenly, the killer switches to a young female student and the police fear he is escalating.

Finally, a new lead surfaces which points to a very successful actor, Alan Daniels, but all of the evidence is circumstantial. Daniels seems somewhat enamored of Anna, though.  Detective Chief Inspector Langton, the head of the murder team decides the only way is to have Anna try and get closer to the actor.  Anna feels uneasy with this and is unsure about her feelings for the actor or her feelings for Langton.  Is he an innocent man being targeted unfairly, or is she his next target?

La Plante’s strength is in her knowledge of how difficult police work really is.  The description of the ups and downs of an investigation and the tedious checking and rechecking of every detail that is required to solve a large murder case is realistic, yet La Plante is able to make this all suspenseful.  Anna is an interesting character who has great determination but is not perfect or some kind of super hero.  I think La Plante still writes some of the best mysteries to be found.  There are now six books in the series and they seem to be getting better and better.

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White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Are we ruled by fate or chance?  White Teeth is a funny and unusual look at race relations in London which raises this question repeatedly.  It begins with one character’s failed attempt at suicide, which leads to his meeting his second wife, who is almost 30 years younger and half a foot taller than him.  The rest of the story rambles through decades describing decisions which are made purposely or by merely tossing a coin.  All of these choices change the course of someone’s entire life in unexpected ways.

The main characters at the heart of this novel are two men who served together in WWII, one Muslim from Bangladesh and one British.  Their friendship survives the war and the book follows the two men through the years of marriage, children, and the ups and downs of their careers.  The two end up living close to one another in the melting pot area of North London in the 1970’s and 80’s; and their wives and children become a sort of extended family.  Samad Iqbal has an arranged marriage with a younger woman which has its ups and downs.  His twin boys, Magid and Millat, grow up watching their parents argue until Samad sends Magid back to Bangladesh with the hopes that he will follow the traditional ways.  Instead, he becomes enamored with the West, while his brother Millat, who stayed in London, joins a militant Muslim gang.  Meanwhile, Archie Jones’ second marriage to a Jamaican woman produces Irie, a bi-racial daughter about the same age as Samad’s twins.  Irie struggles growing up with little direction or help from her parents. She longs to go to Jamaica to discover her mother’s roots, but also considers herself English.

The story is rather long and meandering, yet I enjoyed the whole thing.  The author writes dialog so well you can almost hear the various accents of different Londoners. The interaction and reactions of all the different races, cultures, religions, and ethnicities are described, but there is no effort to pronounce one right or wrong. The story is wry and yet somehow hopeful, and gives us a fresh look at how the races interact in today’s society.

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