Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Archive for June, 2018

As readers discovered in The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes, a one-night stand between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler led to the birth of their daughter Joanna.  Irene died immediately after the child was born, and Holmes placed the baby with a family who adopted her.  All this was unknown to Joanna until she became an adult; even now that she knows her history, she keeps it a secret from all except her family and Scotland Yard.

When the first novel opened in 1914, Joanna was a widow with a young son.  In the few months that have passed since then, she has married John Watson, Jr., the son of Holmes’ colleague, and has been making her name as a private investigator.

Into their London flat comes Sir Harold Whitlock, First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, to ask for help with a most serious problem.  A document has been stolen from the home of the well-connected Halifax family, despite the extraordinary security precautions taken to protect it.  Given the strained relations between Britain and Germany, the former country has entered into an alliance with France, and the missing paper states in great detail the steps that Britain will take to counter Germany’s navy in the event of war.  In the  the current state of affairs between Britain and Germany, this outcome seems only too likely.

Although Sir Harold came to the flat to seek only the senior Dr. Watson’s assistance, he is soon persuaded, albeit reluctantly, to bring Joanna and John Jr. into his confidence, first making certain that Joanna and both father and son sign the Official Secrecy Act.  Although Sir Harold has heard from Inspector Lestrade (the son of Holmes’ rival) that Joanna can solve anything, he is still wary of involving her and wonders aloud if she is as adept at finding clues as he has been told.  Joanna’s response is, “I see what everyone else sees.  But I think what no one else has thought.”

After receiving a more complete description of the papers, Joanna, her husband, and her father-in-law set out to Hampshire and the ancestral home of the Halifaxes.  The estate is the home of the seventh Duke of Winchester, a man considered above reproach.

Only four people were allowed to enter the room where the document was housed:  the duke, his son, his daughter-in-law, and the family’s butler.  A guard was stationed outside the room, other guards patrolled the grounds, and the treaty was kept in a locked safe unless the duke’s son, himself a member of the government, was copying it so that it could be sent to the various agencies involved.  Nevertheless, during a five minute interval when he left the room, it disappeared.

As he did in his previous novel, Leonard Goldberg brings the England of the previous century to life.  Joanna is exactly the daughter we would expect Holmes and Adler to have had.  She is extremely bright, confident of her abilities, and certain that her approach is the best for getting the document back from whomever stole it.  There is no false modesty in her, only a sense that she will be able to do what is required for success.

Sir Arthur would be proud of this continuation of the Sherlock Holmes legacy.

You can read more about Leonard Goldberg at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

In the 1940s, Iceland was undergoing dramatic changes.  It was a sovereign nation connected to Denmark, with that country’s King Christian X as its ruler, but with its own set of laws.  Although Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and there was a Nazi presence in Iceland, the latter remained neutral throughout World War II.  Due to the island’s strategic location, however, Great Britain illegally invaded it in 1940; a year later the United States, while still neutral, took over Iceland’s defense and quartered thousands of troops there, making it the largest Allied base in the North Atlantic.

This small country, formerly politically unimportant, now was playing a major role in the Allies’ defense, and of course that brought issues to Iceland that it had never faced before.  The Reykjavík police department had only one detective, as there were very few homicides in the city.  That was about to change, however, and Flóvent is called out to investigate a murder that will involve not only his own department but the military forces of the United States and Britain.

The victim is at first identified as Felix Lunden, an Icelander of German decent, primarily because the corpse is found in the apartment he is renting.  However, it is shortly discovered that this is not the correct identification, and Flóvent and Thorson, the latter a member of the British/Canadian military, must try to find out the dead man’s identity as well as locate the missing Lunden.

Lunden’s father, Rudolph Lunden, is a German-born physician and one of the few Germans who has been allowed to remain in Iceland after the outbreak of the war.  But getting information from him about his son is nearly impossible, as the two have been estranged for years.  And when the two investigators begin looking into the murder and disappearance, they uncover Nazi ties involving not only the father and son but the father’s brother and the former German consul in Iceland.  Tying the four men, at least superficially, to the Axis cause is a cyanide pill found hidden inside a suitcase in Felix’s apartment.

When the corpse is finally identified as Evvindur, a traveling salesman, Flóvent and Thorson begin looking for the woman who had shared Evvindur’s flat.  Vera had last been seen leaving the flat in the middle of the night by a neighbor who voices her suspicions that the woman is a prostitute, consorting with the British and American soldiers while Eyvindur was away.  So now there are two people involved in the murder who are missing.

The Shadow Killer is the second in Arnaldur Indridasôn’s Shadow series that takes place in pre-war Iceland.  It’s a wonderful look back into a nation and its population that are undergoing major changes.  As always, the author’s characters and plot are first-rate and will keep you reading until the last page.

You can read more about Arnaldur Indridasôn at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

In 1920 India, everything is political.  The British, still rulers of “the jewel in the crown,” were desperate to keep this country, incredibly rich in spices, cotton, and cheap labor, to say nothing of its geographical location, valuable for trading.  In order to do so, they were willing to pretend that the over five hundred princes in the country were still in charge of their mini-kingdoms; the Indian princes joined in this deceit so that they could maintain nominal control of the vast areas that had been in their families for uncounted years.

Twenty of these princes are meeting with the Viceroy, and Captain Sam Wyndham and his assistant, Sergeant “Surrender-not” Banerjee, are there as well.  Crown Prince Adhir Singh Sai had gone to school in England with Surrender-not, and when the prince sees his former schoolmate in the crowd, he invites the detectives back to his hotel to discuss a troubling matter.

His Highness is opposed to what the British are calling the Chamber of Princes.  Adhir tells Sam and Banerjee that most of his fellow rulers are in favor of the British idea, being content with “a few fine words, fancy titles, and scraps from your table.”  Despite the fact that his father, the Maharaja of Sambalpore, wants to join the group, the prince has made his opposition to the plan well known.

Adhir is probably only months away from ascending the throne, given that the Maharaja is very ill, so his stubbornness and recalcitrance in resisting the Chamber have earned him enemies in the government and in his own family as well.  Is there a connection between his opposition and the two anonymous notes that he found in his private chambers?

The prince wants to discuss this issue, so he, Sam, and Surrender-not get into His Highness’s silver-topped Rolls Royce to drive to Adhir’s hotel suite to talk about it.  But as they approach the hotel, a man in the robes of a Hindu priest steps out in front of the Rolls, so suddenly that the chauffeur is barely able to stop.  The car lurches to a halt, the driver opening the door to see if the priest has been injured.  Suddenly the priest pulls a gun from inside his robes, shoots through the car’s windscreen, and the prince dies instantly, two bullets lodged in his chest.

Sam Wyndham had left London a year earlier, after a series of traumatic events, and is working hard to adjust to his new home in Calcutta.  But his life here is proving just as difficult as the one he left behind.  He is only really comfortable in his relationship with his sergeant which, given the inherent inequality of the races in India, may have reached an unbreakable barrier.  Added to the mix is his interest in Annie Grant, an Anglo-Indian woman who, for the second time, has become involved in one of Sam’s cases.

Like its predecessor, A Necessary Evil is a rich description of India nearly a century ago, showcasing the enormous disparity between the royalty and the underclass, the racial and the political issues, and the politics that are never far from its surface.  This novel is an outstanding follow-up to Abir Mukherjee’s equally brilliant A Rising Man, which I reviewed earlier this year.

You can read more about Abir Mukherjee at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

If, hopefully not when, I am arrested for murder, I will hire Eddie Flynn as my attorney.  This former con man turned defense lawyer has more tricks up his sleeve than Houdini ever did, and I would definitely want him sitting next to me at the defense table.

The Plea, the third in the series by Steve Cavanagh, opens as Eddie sees a flashlight moving around what should be his empty law office.  Inside he finds three members of the FBI, including Special Agent Bill Kennedy, searching through his file cabinet.  Then another man enters the office.  He introduces himself as Lester Dell, admitting, after Eddie has guessed it, that he works for the CIA.

Dell tells Eddie that he’s been tracking a group of individuals who are involved in the largest money-laundering scheme in the country.  These men are almost untouchable because of who they are–top attorneys in one of the oldest and most respected law firms in New York City.  And the threat that the agencies are using to convince Eddie to work with them is that Christine Flynn, Eddie’s estranged wife, is an attorney with that firm, and she has unwittingly signed a document that implicates her in the fraud.

The only way out for Christine, Flynn is informed, is for him to take a murder case, get the defendant to fire his current counsel, get himself hired as the new counsel, and have the defendant plead guilty.  Then the FBI and the CIA will make certain the document she signed disappears.  So who is the client and who are his current attorneys?  The client is David Child, a twenty-two-year-old social media wunderkind and one of the richest men in the world, and his lawyers are from Harland and Sinton, the firm where Christine is employed.

To say this puts Flynn in a tough place is to understate his situation.  But things get even worse when David refuses to plead guilty and insists, despite seemingly overwhelming evidence, that he’s innocent of the crime he’s accused of, the murder of his girlfriend.  Therein lies Eddie’s dilemma, having to choose between saving his wife from a jail term and disbarment and forcing his client, whom he comes to believe is innocent, to plead guilty.

The Plea is filled with more twists and turns than a roller coaster and is just as exciting.  Because Eddie was a con man, as was his late father, he always has a plan that can be changed at a moment’s notice when the situation changes.  As Eddie explains it, there are three types of cons:  the short con (which usually takes between five minutes and five seconds to complete), the long con (which requires weeks or months to come to fruition), and the bullet con.  This last one has two explanations.  “I heard old-timers call it a bullet con because it’s launched so quickly–like pulling the trigger,” Eddie thinks.  But it’s also because “if the con fails, the hustler can expect to eat a bullet.”

Steve Cavanagh’s characters are perfect, as is the novel’s plot.  I thought I had caught on after a few false guesses, but I was wrong.  I didn’t see the entire picture/con until the last page.  The Plea is a terrific, suspenseful, and completely satisfying read.

You can read more about Steve Cavanagh at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

The Navajo Way.  It’s a culture whose people recognize the importance of nature, are respectful of their elders, think carefully before talking, and hold the belief that the Holy People are the ones who created the earth and its population.  This set of beliefs permeates every part of the lives of the three protagonists in Anne Hillerman’s series about the Navajo Tribal Police–Bernadette Manuelito, Jim Chee, and Joe Leaphorn–and the people they serve on the reservation.

Bernie’s latest case begins with an invitation to speak at a Wings and Roots program.  Wings and Roots is an agency devoted to helping young people who are in trouble, perhaps with the legal system or in a domestic abuse situation or as truants.  However, when she arrives at the campsite where a group of girls and the staff are camped for a night in the lava fields, there’s a search going on for one of the girls, Annie Rainsong, and for Dom Cruz, a staff member of the program.

Annie returns to base camp almost immediately after Bernie’s arrival, but Cruz remains missing.  As he is an experienced hiker who is very familiar with the area, the two other staff members can’t understand how he could have gotten lost.  Bernie gets Annie to tell her of the night she spent lost, and the girl reveals that she disobeyed the program’s instructions to remain in the spot she was assigned and instead went wandering.  Cold and frightened, she entered a small cave where she spent the night, and when she awoke in the morning she saw a small bundle of old bones on the cave’s floor.

Naturally, Annie is horrified by her discovery, especially given the Navajo beliefs regarding death.  These hold that evil spirits, the chindi, will return to the earth if a corpse is not properly buried and the appropriate traditions are not carried out.  Thus, these unburied bones constitute a sacrilege and could possibly prove a threat to the person finding them.

Caves of Bones is a wonderfully crafted mystery that follows Bernie and Jim as their investigations verge from the search for Cruz to the search for another Navajo man, to possible drug trafficking, the illegal sale of the tribe’s pottery, and alleged mismanagement at Wings and Roots.  It’s all connected, but unraveling the threads is not easy.  This fourth novel will make its readers eagerly awaiting its sequel.

Bernie Manuelito and Jim Chee are beautifully brought to life in Cave of Bones, as is retired detective Joe Leaphorn who plays a smaller part in this mystery.  The reader understands, especially in Bernie’s case, where she came from and how and why she became the dedicated police officer she is.  Her personal life is a very important part of these books:  her marriage to Chee, her sometimes strained relationship with her younger sister, and the beginning of her fear that all is not well with her mother.

You can read more about Anne Hillerman at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.