Review: A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox, #1)

A young servant is poisoned with a terribly expensive and unusual poison: bella indigo, the beautiful blue. Charles Lenox, a minor gentleman and amateur sleuth is on the case- a case that will bring him to some of the worst neighborhoods and the most opulent social events in London. Lenox's relationship with the police is not always the best, but with a brother in Parliament, Lenox has good connections.

I really enjoyed this book. The mystery is more complicated than many I have read in this genre. Finch's writing is quite good. There are a number of English gentleman detectives. Charles Lenox is a worthy inheritor of the traditions of Albert Campion and Lord Peter Wimsey.

Charles Finch, A Beautiful Blue Death (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2008).

Review: My Animal Life

I've never read any of Maggie Gee's novels, but I enjoyed reading her autobiography. Gee grew up in a working-class family and went on to Oxford and a literary career. While Gee has always been committed to a literary life, a life of the mind, Gee's point in her autobiography is that one cannot deny one's animal influences. The memoir is a record of how these animal influences: birth, sex, love, death, have shaped her life. This is also an autobiography about class. Gee came of age at a time when the British class system was being overhauled, and working-class children could first aspire to an upper-class education.

I enjoy autobiographies because I like to see how people make sense of their lives. This one offers an interesting look at the publishing industry, and at the demands of writing. It likewise provides a look at growing up with a difficult and demanding father. For all these things, there were times when I found my interest in the book flagging. Gee is rather liberal in offering advice, which I didn't necessarily need or want. There are also points at which reading about others' animal instincts ceases to be interesting. Most readers will gravitate towards this autobiography because of their interest in Gee's literary career, and those tend to be the best parts of the book. The appeal of this book comes from the fact that Gee is not merely an animal like everyone else, but a writer.

Maggie Gee, My Animal Life (Telegram, 2011) ISBN: 1846599873 

Review: The House at Tyneford

Elise Landau, a young Viennese woman, is the daughter of a wealthy Jewish novelist. When Nazi persecution in Vienna increases, Elise escapes to England, to work as a servant at rural Tyneford House. The transition from wealth to servitude is decidedly difficult. Elise is terribly homesick, and she doesn't understand the conventions of an English country house. Life becomes more complicated as she develops a relationship with the heir to Tyneford House, Kit Rivers.

War looms on the horizon. The Second World War will completely transform life at Tyneford House and all of its residents.

This is a book about transformation and loss. Elise Landau becomes an English woman, and part of the strict hierarchy of a country house. In the process she loses loved ones. World War II will take a great deal away from everyone in Tyneford. It takes people, and it also takes customs. The war marks the end of numerous customs that have defined the lives of Tyneford's servants. This book offers a haunting look at the effects of war on rural England.

Natasha Solomons, The House at Tyneford (Plume, 2011) ISBN: 0452297648 

Review: Small Island

Small Island tells the tale of two couples, one English, one Jamaican, whose lives interweave in surprising ways during and in the years following WWII. Queenie and Bernard Bligh are Londoners; Queenie is left behind when Bernard leaves to fight in India. Gilbert and Hortense Joseph are Jamaican. Gilbert comes to England to fight with the RAF, and in Gilbert prim and proper Hortense sees a ticket to the life in England of which she's dreamed. Fate first brings the two couples together, but this chance meeting cements their lives forever. Levy's novel switches among its four main characters in a series of chapters that span three continents. We hear from Queenie, Bernard, Gilbert, and Hortense. All of the characters find themselves dealing with the effects of war: Bernard and Gilbert as soldiers, Queenie in the midst of the London bombings and possible widowhood when Bernard disappears. For Hortense wartime cements her desire to create an English life and identity. But war also brings significant lessons on racism, empire, and what it means to live on a "small island," whether British or Jamaican. Levy does a good job portraying the horrors and deprivations of war. She moves easily among four very different characters, in different places. This is an accomplished saga of two families and their wartime experiences.

Andrea Levy, Small Island (Picador, 2004) ISBN: 0755325656

Orange Prize, 2004

Review: Wife in the North

I was lucky enough to get this book from Librarything's early reviewer program, and I'm thrilled I did. This book is journalist Judith O'Reilly's account of her family's move from London to the Northumberland countryside. A devoted city girl, O'Reilly is married to a Northumberland man who dreams of going back, so she decided to grant his wish; she agreed to move north for two years. But for O'Reilly life in the north is hardly a dream. She misses her London life, lacks close friends in her new home, and finds that everything, from her neighbors's dress to local pastimes is a world apart from what she knew in London. Culture-shocked, O'Reilly begins writing a blog about her experiences. Those blog entries comprise this book. I'd never read a book comprised of blog entries, but I found that the format worked surprisingly well. Blog entries give the reader a sense that he or she is jumping into the middle of someone else's life, much more so than just about any other format could. And the reader does get a sense of the ins and outs of O'Reilly's life. We read about her relationship with her husband, her son's troubles at school, and O'Reilly's deepest fears about being a good parent. Lest this sound like too much of a downer, I assure you it is not. O'Reilly is humorous, and she's willing to bare her soul on her blog in a pleasantly self-deprecating fashion. Her story is interesting, and I couldn't wait to get to the end to see what they would decide to do at the end of two years (she won't tell you until the epilogue!) Ultimately, this book combines some of the best features of the memoir and the travel narrative, as O'Reilly clearly approaches Northumberland as an outsider, and it's interesting to see how she interprets her experience through the lens of place. The book offers an intimate picture of a family and a marriage, and shows the ways in which people define home. When I got to the epilogue the final decision was what I had anticipated, and it's interesting that O'Reilly's words illustrate the direction the family is headed, even if she could not see so at the time she was writing the blog. Overall, a very enjoyable read.

Judith O'Reilly, Wife in the North, (Public Affairs, 2008) ISBN: 158648639X