*UPDATE*

I have updated my review and giveaway policies page (now just titled Policies above). If you are entering a giveaway, please read and abide by the applicable policy.

Attention Authors! If you arrived here looking for information on the Two Sides to Every Story guest post series, see the tab at the top of the page for more info!


Search This Blog

Showing posts with label Mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mystery. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Wish List 5: Historical Mystery

IMG_20161004_224228_696000

Once a month I am planning on sharing with you all 5 of my biggest wish list books broken up by theme. I know that you all need more on your TBR!!! If you have been a follower of this blog for any length of time, you know that historical mysteries are not always my favorite genre.  In general, I tend to avoid them, but there are the occasional novel that knocks it out of the park and makes me want to pick up another.  Here are a few that I want to check out, some based on recommendations and others based on past experience.

Murder on Black Swan Lane (Quill Mystery) by Andrea Penrose

murder on black swan lane

In Regency London, an unconventional scientist and a fearless female artist form an unlikely alliance to expose unspeakable evil . . .

The Earl of Wrexford possesses a brilliant scientific mind, but boredom and pride lead him to reckless behavior. He does not suffer fools gladly. So when pompous, pious Reverend Josiah Holworthy publicly condemns him for debauchery, Wrexford unsheathes his rapier-sharp wit and strikes back. As their war of words escalates, London’s most popular satirical cartoonist, A.J. Quill, skewers them both. But then the clergyman is found slain in a church—his face burned by chemicals, his throat slashed ear to ear—and Wrexford finds himself the chief suspect.

And Only to Deceive (Lady Emily) by Tasha Alexander

and only to deceive

Emily agreed to wed Philip, the Viscount Ashton, primarily to escape her overbearing mother. Philip's death while on safari soon after their wedding left Emily feeling little grief, for she barely knew the dashing stranger.

But her discovery of his journals nearly two years later reveals a far different man than she imagined-a gentleman scholar and antiquities collector who apparently loved his new wife deeply. Emily's desire to learn more about her late husband leads her through the quiet corners of the British Museum and into a dangerous mystery involving rare stolen artifacts. To complicate matters, she's juggling two very prominent and wealthy suitors, one of whose intentions may go beyond matrimony into darker realms.

A Death by Any Other Name (Lady Montfort Mystery) by Tessa Arlen

a death by any other name

Building on the success of her last two mysteries in the same series, Tessa Arlen returns us to the same universe full of secrets, intrigue, and, this time, roses in 'A Death By Any Other Name'.

The elegant Lady Montfort and her redoubtable housekeeper, Mrs. Jackson, investigate a murder among a group of amateur rose-breeders while the idyllic English summer days count down to the start of the First World War.

When Mrs. Jackson receives a visit from a cook who believes she was an indirect witness to murder from a poisoned dish of breakfast kedgeree Lady Montfort promises to do what she can to clear the cook’s name, and contrives an invitation to Hyde Castle, the home of a self-made millionaire, to investigate a murder of concealed passions and secret desires.

With the help of the invaluable Jackson Lady Montfort sets about solving the puzzle surrounding the death of the rose society’s most popular member and discovers a villain of audacious cunning among a group of mild-mannered, amateur rose-breeders.

While they investigate, the headlines bring news of the growing crisis in the Balkans following the assassination of.the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire. As each day brings more threatening news and the very real fear that Britain will be drawn into war, Lady Montfort and Mrs. Jackson must race against the clock to solve the mystery before Britain declares on Germany.

Brimming with intrigue, Tessa Arlen's latest does not disappoint.

Ruler of the Night (Thomas De Quincey) by David Morrell

ruler of the night

Thomas De Quincey is beginning to control his opium addiction when the excitement of his current case threatens to unravel his grip on reality once and for all. On their way home to the Lake District, the De Quinceys become unwitting witnesses to a truly historic murder: the first to take place on one of England's newly constructed railways.

The railways changed everything in the Victorian era, transforming the English countryside, revolutionizing modern industry, and as the De Quinceys discover, providing the perfect escape. Giving chase in a cat-and-mouse game unlike any that have come before, the De Quinceys uncover a dangerous secret that reaches all levels of English society.

A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock) by Sherry Thomas

a study in scarlet women

USA Today bestselling author Sherry Thomas turns the story of the renowned Sherlock Holmes upside down…

With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper class society.  But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London.

When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She’ll have help from friends new and old—a kind-hearted widow, a police inspector, and a man who has long loved her. But in the end, it will be up to Charlotte, under the assumed name Sherlock Holmes, to challenge society’s expectations and match wits against an unseen mastermind.


Looking for some recommendations of historical mysteries I have read?  Check these out!

IMG_20170206_152351_445000

Death of a Dishonorable     The Shoguns’s         The Study of Murder
          Gentleman                    Daughter                        ★★★☆☆
          ★★★½☆☆                ★★★★½☆                    

Here are some of the wishlists from a few of my friends this month:

 

keep calm and support book bloggers

 

 


Copyright © 2017 by The Maiden’s Court

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Interview with Elizabeth Bailey

Historical crime novels are a genre that is relatively new to me - I think I have only read one that would sort of fall into this category.  I had the opportunity to interview Elizabeth Bailey for the release of her first historical crime novel, set in England's Georgian period.  Please help me welcome Elizabeth to The Maiden's Court!  Also, stay tuned at the end of the post for a giveaway of her new novel.

You have written several historical romance novels in the past – what inspired you to now begin writing historical crime novels? Do you incorporate any of the skill you have acquired from romance writing into your crime writing, or is it a very different style of writing?

I'd had the basic idea of the first book for a long time - years in fact. It was originally intended as a sprawling big historical series, but the genre wasn't doing well at the time so I shelved it. I think my brother was the one who suggested it could be crime and I liked that idea and jotted notes about it, but never did anything about it. I wasn't sure I could do it, to be honest. I've always loved the mystery crime novel - Agatha Christie, Ellis Peters, Ngaio Marsh were favourites - and I didn't think I had the skill to emulate them.

I started thinking about crime again when I found I was getting stale with romance. The genre changed a lot and I just wasn't enjoying it as much any more. It was a conscious choice to use the same historical period. I love late Georgian, when most of my romances are set, and of course my research knowledge was already extensive. Because of that, there is a lot of my romance style in the crime novels in terms of behaviour, language and giving a flavour of the period.

What's different is the freedom to build the Georgian world more, with lots of peripheral characters and sub-plots concerning the lives of the victims. With romance you have to keep the story primarily to the hero and heroine. This is the main reason I am enjoying it so very much. Also the crime aspect is new to me and that is fascinating.

Being rather new to the genre myself – how does a historical crime novel differ from a contemporary crime novel?

I suspect the main difference is in the policing and the interference of authority. In contemporary crime you can't avoid police involvement, and I imagine it's a lot more difficult for your amateur sleuth to operate around the crime scene. There wasn't much of a police force in the Georgian era, and crime and punishment was much more rough and ready, so your sleuth has a freer hand. You also don't have much forensic help, and although medical knowledge went some way to understanding the condition of a body after death and what that meant, the detective has to rely heavily on witness evidence and supposition. It certainly stretches the writer's ingenuity to find ways of revealing physical clues to help!

Why did you set your new series in the Georgian period?

I seem to have covered this earlier. I would add that the Georgian world offers even more to me as an author of crime than of romance. I've got a society with enormous economic differences in its various layers, from the criminal underworld and the many aspects of the man in the street, through domestic servants, the middle classes, "gentry" and the aristocracy. This offers so much opportunity for diverse characters and allows Ottilia to delve into any social arena to find out what she needs to know.

Are there any characteristics of your heroine, Ottilia, in you? Are you one that likes to watch crime shows and try to figure them out?

Oh dear, I am sure there are! Writers of necessity use a lot of their own understanding of ethics or morality to inform the minds of characters. And your heroine, although flawed, has got to be at heart a person of integrity or the reader wouldn't be sympathetic. I can't think of any fictional detective who isn't, which I believe is why some writers can successfully make rather unpleasant heroes somewhat likeable. And of course, if Ottilia can work it out, I've got to be able to as well. Though I suspect she is cleverer than I am! Characters do tend to run their authors ragged, and boss them about.

Yes, I love crime shows, but chiefly mysteries. I find TV adaptations easier to figure out than the original books because the medium is so different and it's hard to include everything. We have a great tradition of TV mysteries here in the UK and you'll find me glued to Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Cadfael. I'm also very attached to Angela Lansbury's sleuth in Murder She Wrote.


What types of books do you like to read when you have some spare time?

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and a couple of years ago I discovered Terry Pratchett and read everything voraciously. I enjoy romance as well as crime, and I used to read lots of historicals. But I can also settle to a classic like Dickens or Jane Austen, perhaps Daphne du Maurier, and I dip into the occasional literary novel. If it's well written and grabs me, I can read pretty much anything. Does that say I'm a writer? Oh, and I love Shakespeare - no surprise since I have a strong theatre background.


An avid reader from an early age, Elizabeth Bailey grew up in colonial Africa under unconventional parentage and with theatre in the blood. Back in England, she trod the boards until discovering her true métier as a writer in her thirties, when she fulfilled an early addiction to Georgette Heyer by launching into historical romance. Eight years and eight books later, Elizabeth joined the Harlequin Mills & Boon stable, fuelling her writing with a secondary career teaching and directing drama, and writing plays into the bargain.

With 18 historicals published, she began to concentrate on the mainstream and in 2005, Elizabeth’s novel Fly the Wild Echoes was released in both the UK and the US simultaneously by Unlimited Publishing. The novel was a contender in the Booker list for that year. A mystery – a whodunit of the mind, as one reader has it – the book explores the interwoven lives of three women and investigates the possibility of past lives.

Now retired from teaching, Elizabeth directs for a local theatre group where she lives in West Sussex. Recently, however, even this foray into drama has had to take a back seat as she changed direction to enter the world of crime.

You can find more about Elizabeth and her books at her website.

Now for the giveaway - I have one copy open to those of you living in the US.  Giveaway ends September 17th.  Just fill out the form below.




Copyright © 2011 by The Maiden’s Court

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Movie Review: From Hell


From Hell
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
122 mins.
2001
Rated: R

Last week I presented a new installment of Two Sides to Every Story featuring Jack the Ripper v. Prince Albert Victor. I happened to come across this film of TV this weekend (which I had actually wanted to see for awhile) and it ties right into that previous discussion. From Hell is a crime/mystery/drama film exploring the famous Whitechapel murders and who may have been the notorious Jack the Ripper.

Johnny Depp plays Inspector Frederick Abberline who has a psychic connection with the murders and is one of the investigators on the case. He leads us through all of the murders and tries to connect the dots. Heather Graham plays Mary Kelly a prostitute in the Whitechapel district – she is one of several women of the night who seem to work together in this movie. I felt that both did decent jobs in their perspective roles.

I was curious prior to watching this film to see what route they would take. As we know there is no definitive answer as to who the Ripper was so there are many theories out there. This movie incorporated bits and pieces of a few of them. The most central is the Prince Albert Victor and Royal Family connection. They address the Cleveland Street Scandal (which Leslie Carroll goes deeper into in Royal Pains) and the build toward the theory of his secret low-born lover and bastard child – they also throw in for good measure the theory of the Prince having a bad case of syphilis. And if you are reading this and saying “she is giving away the whole plot!”, rest assured, I am not. You will really be surprised when they reveal who their Ripper is. It wasn’t really someone that I considered – I was pretty sure they were going to leave it unsolved because they didn’t give a lot of clues throughout. One thing is certain; this is a story of revisionist history for sure. Not only is it based off of a theory but they change some MAJOR plot points that are known to have happened in the Whitechapel murders.

If you are worried about the R rating – it is mostly for one short scene of female nudity and some minor drug use. The way that they depict the murders is mostly with smoke and mirrors, flashes of light and shadow (except for one quick scene that was a little gross).

There were only a couple small things that bothered me. There was a semblance of a romance that felt a little awkward and left unfinished and I thought the very ending was a little ridiculous, but overall I really enjoyed the movie. They did a decent job of presenting much of the story and several of the theories and tying them nicely together – this could have been a real massacre (no pun intended!).

Also, I can’t close out this review without stating that this movie is loosely based off of the graphic novel, From Hell, which I haven’t read, so I don’t know how much of it is based on it.

Check out this trailer:






Copyright © 2011 by The Maiden’s Court

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Audiobook Review: 4th of July by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro


4th of July by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Book 4 in the Women's Murder Club Series
Unabridged, 8 hr.
Hachette Audio
Carolyn McCormick (Narrator)
February 5, 2005
★★★★☆
goodreads button

Genre: Mystery/Thriiller

Source: Borrowed from Library

"In a deadly late-night showdown, San Francisco police lieutenant Lindsay Boxer fires her weapon and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leaves a police force disgraced, a family destroyed, and Lindsay herself at the mercy of twelve jurors. During a break in the trial, she retreats to a picturesque town that is reeling from a string of grisly murders-crimes that bear a link to a haunting, unsolved case from her rookie years.Now, with her friends in the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay must battle for her life on two fronts: in a trial rushing to a climax, and against an unknown adversary willing to do anything to hide the truth about the homicides-including kill again?"
Detective Lindsay Boxer is in for the fight of her life. A seemingly routine police chase ends up with her and her partner shot and two kids critically injured. She now must face the trial and hope that her actions don’t come back to haunt her. While waiting for her trial, Lindsay goes to visit her sister and gets caught up in a local case that sounds very similar to one she had worked on in the past.

I quickly got sucked into the court trial, looking at how different aspects could be perceived for the benefit of both the prosecution and defense. While I was sure I knew what the outcome of the trial would be, there was such suspense that I wasn’t totally sure. I also NEVER saw the resolution of the local case that she worked while awaiting her trial.

One thing that bothered me was that these two stories seemed to run parallel to each other but not integrate together well. Only one story was focused on at a time and by the time we got back to the local case I had forgotten what had happened when it was last discussed. I enjoyed both of the stories, but I think they would have been better off on their own.

I also am not sure how I feel about the newest addition to the Women’s Murder Club. I guess I will have to see how well she is integrated in the next book.
★★★★★

The only comment that I am going to make on the audio - thank God for Carolyn McCormick. I did not enjoy the narration of the first two quite as much. So glad she is on this one.

You can listen to a short segment of the audiobook (links to Audible)
Play symbol 85x85

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | RJ Julia

Also by James Patterson:
James Patterson has penned many mystery/thriller novels, the other books in the Women's Murder Club series include:

1st to die
1st to Die
[My Review]

2nd chance
2nd Chance
[My Review]

3rd Degree
3rd Degree
[My Review]

5th horseman
5th Horseman

6th target
6th Target

7th heaven
7th Heaven

8th confession
8th Confession
 
9th judgment
9th Judgment

10th anniversary
10th Anniversary

11th hour
11th Hour

12th of never
12th of Never
 
unlucky 13
Unlucky 13

14th deadly sin
14th Deadly Sin

15th affair
15th Affair
(Releasing Feb 2016)

Find James Patterson: Website | Facebook |Twitter|Pinterest | Instagram





Copyright © 2009 by The Maiden’s Court

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Audiobook Review: 3rd Degree by James Patterson

3rd Degree by James Patterson and Andrew Gross
Book 3 in the Women's Murder Club Series
Unabridged, 6 hr. 30 min
Hachette Audio
Carolyn McCormick (Narrator)
May 8, 2007
★★★★☆

goodreads button

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Audiobook

Source: Personal Collection

"The Women's Murder Club returns in a shockingly suspenseful thriller. Plunging into a burning town house, Detective Lindsay Boxer discovers three dead bodies...and a mysterious message at the scene. When more corpses turn up, Lindsay asks her friends Claire Washburn of the medical examiner's office, Assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to help her find a murderer who vows to kill every three days. Even more terrifying, he has targeted one of the four friends. Which one will it be?"
Lt. Lindsay Boxer has faced the Bride and Groom Killer as well as Chimera so far on the job but when terrorists strike San Francisco it is a whole different ball game! The terrorists are demanding action for crimes against humanity by the political and economic head honchos of the global community. People start dropping like flies, about every 3 days – and one of these deaths hits close to home for the Women’s Murder Club! Lindsay and the girls take the case and chase after the man in the wind known as August Spies. Will they stop whoever is doing this before the whole city come tumbling down?

I feel that this book takes a little bit more of an in-depth look at the lives of the ladies in the Women’s Murder Club. You find out more of the back story for Claire and Jill especially. I also am pleased that small events and story lines from the first two books haven’t been forgotten like sometimes happens in series. The characters still continue to grow and develop. Even though this series is told from the view of Lindsay Boxer it is nice to get to learn more about the other ladies and find out what makes them who they are and how they can do their jobs.

I would rank this book in 2nd place overall for the first three books in the series (my ranking: 1st to Die, 3rd Degree, and then 2nd Chance). I really enjoyed how the mystery was resolved. I think it also shows how easily people can be manipulated for a cause.

I am already halfway through 4th of July and enjoying it even more than I did this one. This series is definitely growing on me!

★★★★ ½☆

I also really like the narrator, Carolyn McCormick – so far this is the third narrator for this audio book series, but it looks like she is the narrator for all of the ones that are out so far after this one. She has a voice that won’t put you to sleep and keeps you interested – great for when you are driving because I have found some that could easily induce a coma.

You can preview a short selection from the audiobook (links to Audible)

Play symbol 85x85

Reviews of this book by other bloggers:


Buy the Book:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | RJ Julia


Also by James Patterson:

James Patterson has penned many mystery/thriller novels, the other books in the Women's Murder Club series include:

1st to die

1st to Die
[My Review]

2nd chance

2nd Chance
[My Review]

4th of july

4th of July
[My Review]

5th horseman

5th Horseman

6th target

6th Target

7th heaven

7th Heaven

8th confession

8th Confession

9th judgment

9th Judgment

10th anniversary

10th Anniversary

11th hour

11th Hour

12th of never

12th of Never

unlucky 13

Unlucky 13

14th deadly sin

14th Deadly Sin

15th affair

15th Affair
(Releasing Feb 2016)


Find James Patterson: Website | Facebook | Twitter|Pinterest | Instagram



 

Copyright © 2009 by The Maiden’s Court