New Lynley Investigation from Elizabeth George, SOMETHING TO HIDE

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Elizabeth George can really spin a great investigation when she’s not trying so hard to teach the shocking discoveries she has made in her own explorations.”

Elizabeth George’s mysteries featuring Scotland Yard investigators Barbara Havers and Thomas Lynley began with A Great Deliverance in 1988. Now her 21st book in the series, Something to Hide, probes life and death in the Nigerian community of North London, along with the custom of female genital mutilation (FGM).

For those new to George’s work, the 687-page book isn’t likely to carry them into loving the series, because the noted Scotland Yard investigators don’t come into the action until page 119. And for readers who treasure Lynsley and Havers, that’s also a problem—chapters cascading about people who are in emotional and physical pain, in the midst of a socioeconomic disaster.

George clearly has done massive amounts of research for this book. Unfortunately, that message keeps coming back, when instead it might have been far more effective to simplify the plot a bit, and let the research take a backstage role.

The meeting in which Lynsley comes onto the case sums up the positioning of his investigation, in a politically challenging time:

“In [Lynley’s] morning meeting with Assistant Commissioner Sir David Hiller and the head of the Press Office, Stephen Deacon, the political concerns of both men had been writ large enough and dark enough for a mole in sunlight to read them. … Teo Bontempi was not only a police detective, she was a Black police detective. The last thing the Metropolitan Police needed to have hurled at them was an accusation that not enough was being thrown into the investigation because the office in question was Black or female or both. Racism, sexism, misogyny … There could not be a whisper of any of this during the investigation and did the Acting Detective Chief Superintendent understand what was being said?”

Even after this, the book is plagued by too many points of view and not enough agency. Series readers, who’ll want to tackle this anyway, may do best to skip “Part I” in order to leap into the investigation. Newcomers to the Lynsley books should probably try an earlier title.

That said, if this weren’t a “genre” book – that is, a Scotland Yard investigation – it might stand as an imposing literary probe of Nigerian/North London culture. Perhaps that’s how it should instead be shelved. But then the author would need to take out the endless attempts at Black language, wouldn’t she?

There are better books to stack on the bedside table or take to a desert island. Which is a shame, because Elizabeth George can really spin a great investigation when she’s not trying so hard to teach the shocking discoveries she has made in her own explorations.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Quick Mention, Charles Todd, NO SHRED OF EVIDENCE

This morning's New York Times Book Review section includes mention by Marilyn Stasio of the newest Bess Crawford mystery by mother-and-son writing team Charles Todd, In the Shattered Tree (click here for Stasio review). I think I'm going to have to read it soon -- I'm usually pretty casual about getting to the Charles Todd books because they are so well publicized that the Kingdom Books review is just a bit of kindling in the usual warm blaze of appreciation.

And that reminded me that I hadn't yet mentioned this year's Charles Todd book in the other series, the one built around British World War I survivor Inspector Ian Rutledge. I caught up with NO SHRED OF EVIDENCE recently and enjoyed the read very much. Taking a somewhat different tack from others in this series, Inspector Rutledge knows from the start that murder has been committed and that a murderer is on the loose in the hauntingly lovely terrain of the north coast of Cornwall (far from the usual Scotland Yard support services, and creating a crisis of conflict among police forces). Rutledge's task is to force the double community -- the local folks and the wealthy residents who form their own closed network within this -- to open up enough for him to find actual evidence. ("Was she strong enough emotionally to lie for the others, if they had decided to drown Saunders? To keep their secret even in the face of trial and conviction? He couldn't be sure. Sometimes fragile people were made of steel, where their own interests were concerned.")

I liked very much the steady progress of police procedure, personal commitment, and dogged pursuit of "means, motive, opportunity" in this book, and the integrity that Rutledge continues to display. As an ardent fan of the situation Todd has created, where Rutledge's war-induced "shell shock" has created the voice of his deceased friend Hamish in his mind, I would have liked a bit more of Hamish's presence and voice here. Such hunger may yet drive me back to re-read the entire series in sequence. What a satisfying thought for facing the colder seasons ahead!

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

THE CONNICLE CURSE, Gregory Harris (Colin Pendragon Mystery #3)

When a "noted detective" in a Victorian setting arrives with a sidekick who is male and admiring, it's easy to assume a Sherlock Holmes and Watson pastiche is underway. Whether that's what Gregory Harris intended with The Arnafour Affair and The Bellingham Bloodbath, I'll have to leave up to him -- but the third in the series, THE CONNICLE CURSE, is much too enjoyable and unusual to be pigeonholed so simply.

Athletic and determined Colin Pendragon and his more fragile partner, Ethan Pruitt, have made the English news with their crime-solving, so that Annabelle Connicle swiftly hires their services to solve the presumed murder of her missing husband. Colin's connections through his politically powerful father -- who doesn't appear in this book but whose effect is impressive -- enable him to challenge a handful of sneering Scotland Yard officers to investigate the case. And soon a body is indeed identified as Mr. Connicle's, and there are more to follow.

But Scotland Yard may have been a bit hasty, and although Colin points out the mistakes that the "professionals" and their coroner keep accumulating, Sergeant Evans and Inspector Varcoe aren't happy to accept corrections. What a pity ... because the case keeps getting more tangled, as the Yard men continue to misinterpret and to accept "common knowledge," quickly blaming the crimes on the strangers in the scene: an African couple hired by the Connicles and fully scorned by the wealthy and rather immoral neighbors on scene.

The plot thickens, and incorporating a street youngster willing to follow villains for a living adds a dash of diversity and delight to the investigations -- in fact, since Colin and Ethan are suddenly involved in two cases at once, it's handy to have a helper who doesn't mind dirty work or evading the law, as long as he gets paid for information achieved. "Our Paul is turning out to be quite an entrepreneur," Colin Pendragon gloats cheerfully. But Ethan, our narrator, is not sure that's a good thing. He's identified far more closely with the orphan, and the shadows of his own past keep getting called up, in spite of Pendragon's efforts to protect him.

And here is where this enjoyable traditional mystery (follow the money and cherchez la femme) crosses into fresh terrain: Colin once rescued Ethan from dire straits, involving mental illness, drugs, and more. And the two are, in the most tender and domestic way, lovers as well as crime-solving partners, unsuccessfully trying to avoid having their relationship noticed by the Yard's tough men. Harris spins the story deftly around this unusual focal point, and when it's time to resolve the tragedies that Mrs. Connicle is enduring, Colin's persistence on the case is strongly influenced by the pain he's seen Ethan face.

I enjoyed THE CONNICLE CURSE very much -- take two bundles of Agatha Christie and update with a shake of very British humor and a sauce of affection, and you've got the feel of it quite well. Moreover, I was delighted to find in the final chapter that there's another Colin Pendragon investigation in the wings via Kensington Books: The Dalwich Desecration. Shelve these with mysteries that are friendly, warm, and cleverly twisted in plot, while avoiding gore or dramatic abuse -- in other words, put them on the "read it now and read it again later to relax" shelf. That's what I'll do with mine.

Charles Todd, HUNTING SHADOWS: Newest Insp. Ian Rutledge Mystery

This week's news from England included lowland flooding that's wiping out a small town -- with the promise of more of the same, thanks to global climate change. It's a sobering prediction. And it takes me back into HUNTING SHADOWS, which I read with pleasure a couple of weeks ago. This time the Todds -- son and mother writing team, under a single nom de plume -- take Inspector Ian Rutledge to England's Fen country, a lowland that's similar in some ways to Holland, and to the New Jersey Meadows: Human-made channels crisscross the landscape to drain the land and make it crop-worthy. Adding another "Dutch" touch is the presence of windmills, though they may no longer be needed or functioning; they pumped water, it seems. And they are the speechless giants of the terrain, the remnants of another time that pull Rutledge into the uneasy time warp of World War I that continues to affect his thinking and his everyday functioning.

For Rutledge is a "shell-shocked" survivor of the Battle of the Somme in World War I, and as series fans know, his particular mental disorder takes the form of an active and often cruel voice in the back of his mind, that of his close friend Hamish, whom Rutledge had ordered shot during the critical moment before the bombs fell. Hamish is protective of Rutledge -- he's likely to snap "Ware!" (Beware!) at him when danger approaches. In the Fen country, Hamish seems as overwhelmed at Rutledge himself by the fraught silences of the landscape and its people.

Rutledge is here because two murders have taken place, clearly by the same assassin, perhaps a sharpshooter torn loose of inner moorings by the war and its aftermath. And the victims are part of the upper middle class, even the upper class, so the pressure on Rutledge's Acting Chief Superintendent at Scotland Yard goes directly onto the inspector: Solve the crimes, and for heaven's sake, find the shooter before another killing takes place.

Yet in a rural community where nobody seems quite willing to tell him all he needs to know, Rutledge is doubly handicapped. Moreover, what a witness seems to have seen -- a monstrous face just before the rifle fired -- ties into whispers of a legendary assassin that the inspector recalls from his own wartime service. And the fear and anxiety linked with that tie are enough to rouse his inner guardian, Hamish, to an edgy anger that punishes Rutledge once again, even as he struggles to solve the crimes, mostly solo.

Although this mystery has less tangles with that angry Scottish voice in Rutledge's mind, and less to do with the expiation that it demands of him, HUNTING SHADOWS takes Rutledge to the edge of new possibilities in his life: Could it be that his own losses and mourning have lost their sharp edge, so that he can perhaps admit some affection for others in his life? Series readers will enjoy the slow metamorphosis of this compelling figure of Scotland Yard detection; those new to the Todd series will find enough guideposts to make the book read well, but are also likely to come away from this title with a determination to read all of the series from the beginning, in A Test of Wills. It's a great fit with the Jacqueline Winspear books, or with Pat Barker's Regeneration series, as well as an intriguing way to dig into World War I history and the English aftermath -- especially appropriate in 2014, as we mark 100 years since the start of the "War to End All Wars."

The Charles Todd books alternate between Rutledge and another series, the Bess Crawford mysteries. I like both -- but it's the Rutledge ones that take root in my mind, much as Hamish continues to accompany this Scotland Yard inspector. For more of our Charles Todd reviews, click here; and to search our holdings, click here instead.

Quirky Debut Mystery Series, British: Anne Cleeland, MURDER IN THRALL

Anne Cleeland has three new books in publication in 2013, and I'm an ardent fan of MURDER IN THRALL, the first of a modern-day Scotland Yard series featuring two gifted detectives: Chief Inspector Michael Sinclair, whose reputation makes him a star on the force, and first-year detective Kathleen Doyle, dreading that her abrupt Irish ways and habits are likely to have her sent "back to CID headquarters to submit to yet another session of retraining in basic protocol."

Yet Doyle's strong intuitive skills make her a very good partner for the Chief Inspector, whose emotional life is far more straight-laced -- at least on the surface. As the book opens, the unlikely pair are tracking a possible informant in hopes of breaking open a murder case. Money laundering, a syndicate, Home Office involvement ... this case could make careers leap forward. "If she didn't get the sack, that was," Doyle reflects while trying to ignore her freezing toes.

The young detective's care and determination, her willingness to view taped footage, beg for forensics results, pursue interviews -- all these are in her favor. But there are quirks in the case right away: Someone's killing off witnesses before Doyle and Sinclair can reach them, and seems to have an eye on the investigation from way to close an angle. And it's clear from segments that Cleeland tucks into her chapter openings that there's a man who's obsessed with a woman involved in the case.

This book is so darned good, and the twists among investigators and case are so unexpected and delicious, that I've actually got to stop right there, for fear of giving away one of Cleeland's unexpected but wonderful maneuvers. So I'll just add: Scotland Yard, Irish heritage, class issues, male/female dynamics, and ... how can you tell the difference between the criminals and those who've wrapped their life around understanding their thinking?

Cleeland's series should be a winner in many ways; here's a chance to catch the first book and ride the wave with this strikingly good author (an attorney and court researcher from California) as she opens a partnership in crime-solving that will surely be both memorable and highly entertaining. AUthor website and sample here: http://annecleeland.com/murder-in-thrall