A Duty to the Dead

by Charles Todd
September, 2009
Harper Collins



This novel is the first in a new historical mystery series set in Britain in World War I. It introduces the main character, Bess Crawford, a British Army nurse. She is outspoken, intelligent, resourceful and independent. The novel opens with the sinking of the Britannic (sister ship to the Titanic) in Greek waters. It is an effective opening grabbing the reader’s attention right away. Bess is injured in the sinking and invalided home to recover with her parents. Her father is a retired Colonel who served in India, where she was raised. This background should provide fertile material for the series.


The plot involves Bess visiting the Graham family to deliver a message from a dying son of the family. I won’t give away any spoilers but the story is engaging and not terribly complex. It is set primarily in the Kent countryside and the usual eccentric cast of villagers – the vicar, the matriarch, the tutor, the country doctor - is on display. The time period and the fact that Bess Crawford is an army nurse invite comparisons to the Maisie Dobbs series. This new series compares favorably to the Maisie Dobbs series, they both depict the sorrow and sacrifice of WWI Britain but this series seems darker to me, with characters not quite as well rounded as the Dobbs series. I would recommend this book; it is a straightforward historical mystery that does a good job of putting the reader in the time and place with a mystery that is just intriguing enough to satisfy.

This Body of Death: An Inspector Lynley Novel

By Elizabeth George

Harper, 2010

I am going to have a difficult time reviewing this book. I have always loved the Inspector Linley series by Elizabeth George.  I was dismayed when George killed off Linley’s wife Helen in With No One as Witness, disappointed in her previous novel Careless in Red and really, really disappointed in This Body of Death. I’ve kept reading this series because I have much enjoyed the characters -Inspector Linley, Barbara Havers, Simon St. James and his wife Deborah. They are well drawn and rich in detail.  The nuances of class in British society are well described.  But I think this might be it for me. This book is 600 plus pages long. It moves at a glacial pace. There is a murder in a London cemetery. The girl who is murdered is from the countryside. There is a historical story that is told in alternating chapters with the real time murder mystery. The historical story speaks to some of the problems of children raised in poverty. It all comes together at the end but it is tortorous. There are numerous characters many of whom are extraneous to the plot. Almost all of the characters seem to lack passion, only Barb Havers delivers in expanding her character in her relationship with her neighbors and her new boss. A new character, Isabelle Ardery, the acting superintendent is introduced. She appears to be a complex person, but the author really doesn’t develop her well. Inspector Linley is oddly passive throughout most of the story and not the protoganist. By the time the murder is solved I bet very few of the readers even care. The motivation for the murder is murky and the murderer is one dimensional.  I hate to be this negative about a book and maybe if the earlier books in this series were not excellent and my hopes so high for this one I would be less disappointed.    I miss the Elizabeth George of old - characters we care about, tight plot lines, and less social commentary!

A Question of Honor

by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud
Knopf, 2003
In this book the authors debunk a number of strongly held myths concerning Poland and her role in WWII. The story is told through the actions of several Polish airmen who served with the RAF in the Battle of Briton but the actions of other Poles both military and non-military aren’t neglected. If you read this I am convinced your opinion of Poland and the Polish role in WWII will be profoundly altered. They say history is written by the victors and in this case Russia triumphed once again over Poland. Poland has been portrayed as at best a pitiful backward victim and at worst a mere footnote in this war. Some of the key facts the authors bring to light:
• Polish airmen in the Battle of Briton were the true “air aces” at times accounting for 30-40% of the downed German planes. Queen Elizabeth II “If Poland had not stood with us in those days…the candle of freedom would have been snuffed out”.

• The Polish military men who left Poland (and there were 100,000 of them) after the Nazi defeat in 1939 traveled thousands of miles to get to the Allied lines. Typical travel stories had these men going through Rumania, down to the Mediterranean and then into North Africa before arriving in England or Free France.

• The Poles never stopped fighting the Nazis. The Polish resistance forces were deemed the most effective by Allied HQ. No other country in Europe suffered, proportionally more damage and casualties in the war. Poland lost 20% of its population v. 11% for Russia, 7% for Germany and less than 1% for US and Britain.

• When people refer to the cities of Europe devastated in the war – London, Dresden, Coventry, and Hamburg, no one ever mentions Warsaw which was leveled when the Poles revolted against the Nazis in 1944-45. An uprising totally unsupported by any Allied help.

• Polish spies obtained the Germans’ Enigma coding machine and Polish cryptographers helped break the ciphers. This wasn’t revealed until the 1970s.

• The Free Polish Army under Allied command was the 4th largest armed force (US, Britain, Russia) on the Allied side. Larger than the Free French Army! They played prominent roles in several Allied campaigns

I could go on with this list but don’t want this review to be too long. This book despite the facts crammed into it reads very well. Individual acts of bravery and valor are juxtaposed with events at the national level. The time period where the Polish airmen were “the Glamour Boys” of England is a great period piece. The first two thirds of the book are inspiring and a fun read as new revelations about Polish military feats are presented. The last third of the book where Poland is excluded and betrayed by the Allies in the post war decisions made at Teheran and Yalta was a harder read for me. The Allies (Britian, US and Russia) insisted that France have an equal share in the post war decisions but excluded the Poles despite their many contributions to the Allied victory. The irony!! Poland who fought to the end sold out and France who barely fielded an army rewarded, ugh. The last comment I’d make is the strong character, loyalty and love of country of the Poles is an integral and moving part of this story.

Caught
by Harlan Coben

Dutton Adult, March 2010

                                                                                

I was conflicted about this novel. It is a page turner and the plot twists are nonstop. I read it quickly over two days. The characters are weak one dimensional stereotypes. Some of Coben’s earlier novels are much more engaging. I won’t give away any spoilers in this review. The setting is suburbia and the upper middle class milieu, a place where Coben is very comfortable. There is a murder early on and the book is peppered with up to the minute references – pedophilia, cyber crimes, reality TV stings, facebook postings. The central character is Wendy Tynes, a TV news reporter who investigates the crimes. When Coben writes dialogue, it is first rate and credible. Conversations between Wendy and her teenage son are very believable. Because the plot develops so quickly character development is sacrificed and I think by the end of next week, I will be unable to remember anything about this book. If you are looking for a page turner to read on an airplane this book will serve that purpose. Coben has written much better.

The Black Echo

by Michael Connelly
(Paperback) Grand Central Publishing December 2002
This is the first in the series of Connelly's Harry Bosch crime novels.  I had read a couple of the later books and thought I'd go back to the beginning and read the first.  It is an engrossing read.  The main character, Bosch is a disillusioned LAPD detective, moving down the ladder of success.  His single minded approach to investigations has caused his career to get permanently off track and he has been transferred to a back water district as this novel opens.  A Vietnam vet, Bosch discovers the murder victim is an army comrade from his tunnel rat days in Vietnam.   A joint LAPD/FBI investigation ensues.  One of Connelly's strengths is slowly peeling the layers of the onion as the investigation unfolds.  The time frame, the 80's, is pre cell phones, fax machines, and other digital tools and that  allows for a more leisurely approach to the case.  Bosch's character is really developed with the background material from his Vietnam years and a believable romance develops between Bosch and the FBI agent assigned to the case.   I won't give away any plot spoilers but this story holds together very well until the last 30-40 pages when the coincidental events pile on.  I think this is an excellent first novel in the series, it leaves you wanting to know more about the main character after rewarding you with a good read.  I continue to think Connelly is the best author writing police procedurals today.

The Mapping of Love and Death
 
by Jacqueline Winspear
Harper Collins, 2010
This is the seventh in the Maisie Dobbs series and not the strongest one so far. Dobbs is a detective/psychologist who is based in post WWI London. All of these novels contain flashback scenes to the trench warfare of the first world war. I like the historical detail that Winspear brings to her novels. The small touches that paint the portrait of the era are very well done. She is able to powerfully evoke the time and place. This novel carries on that tradition very well. What I have found weak in this novel and the previous one ( Among the Mad) are the plot aspects of the crimes. She investigates the war time death (soon to be noted as murder) of an American cartographer serving with the British army in France. Details of the army cartographers work in the war are reliably well presented. Plot aspects of the murder are fairly weak and tenuous. In this crime you are asked to buy into some fantastic coincidences that are at best hard to follow and at worst silly. Despite these plot issues Winspear is able to create characters I care about and advance their stories through the series. Familiar character recur and their life stories are enriched. Plot spoilers ahead!!! In this novel Maisie develops a serious believable love interest, Billy Beale's family troubles are continued, Maisie's mentor Maurice succumbs to a long standing illness, and Maisie's Scotland yard connections are continued.
Since these novels are set in the 1930s, the spectre of the rising of Nazism in Europe is never far from the story line and promises rich material for the future of this series. There is palatable fear that Maisie's friend Priscilla who lost three brother in the first war is primed to sacrifice sons in the approaching second war. So I guess I read this series not so much for the crime novel but for the period piece that Winspear is so good at creating.