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The Deadly Hours

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

The Deadly Hours (2020) Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent, C.S. Harris

The Deadly HoursTheses are four novellas, each connected by a cursed time piece.

“Weapon of Choice” by Susanna Kearsley
“In a Fevered Hour” by Anna Lee Huber
“A Pocketful of Death” by Christine Trent
“Siren’s Call” by C.S. Harris

“Weapon of Choice” by Susanna Kearsley
Set in Portofino, Italy in 1733

The anthology opens with Susanna Kearsley’s story with her characters Hugh and Mary, from her book A Desperate Fortune.

A storm and a purported curse forces their ship into port where they meet with a pirate and an assassin. The pirate has a gold watch, La Sirène, created from gold looted from the sacking of Cartagena, that is said (even by the pirate) to be cursed.

This was an interesting mystery (even if I saw the murder & mystery coming from a mile away) but I had some difficulty with the characters, since I had not read their book, an I felt like I was missing something at times.
Rating: 6.5/10

“In a Fevered Hour” by Anna Lee Huber
Set in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1831

This story features Lady Darby and her husband Sebastian Gage, soon after their wedding. Bonnie Brock Kincaid comes to Lady Darby asking for her help in finding a cursed watch he inherited. While visiting them he falls ill–possibly from the curse and possibly from an illness going around the city. Lady Darby calls Kincaid’s sister (whom she was instrumental in rescuing in an earlier book) to help care for him and she and Gage try to find the watch.

I enjoyed this story, because I like Lady Darby and Gage, and because Kincaid and his sister are interesting characters.

I also liked how the Typhus outbreak was worked into the story.
Rating: 7.5/10

“A Pocketful of Death” by Christine Trent
Set in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1870

I eventually realized I’d read the first book in this series.

And I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like this novella any more than I liked the the first book I read, and will not be seeking out any further books in her series.

Violet simply does not feel like a woman of her time. She insists upon using the front door despite being told not to (and the family continues to let her in), keeps coming back to the house for the flimsiest of reasons (and the family KEEPS letting her in).

She makes ridiculous statements and everyone just lets her, which I just don’t believe that would have happened at that time. IN short, I don’t like her, and I don’t believe her as a character of the 1870s.

Also, I thought the mystery was ridiculous and unbelievable.

In short, I found the whole thing aggravating and irritating, but I had to keep reading, since the events were tied to the next story.
Rating: 3.5/10

“Siren’s Call” by C.S. Harris
Set in Kent, England in 1944

The final story, however, was written by one of my favorite authors, and was a stand-alone novella, not tied to any existing series.

It’s WWII and Major Crosby has been killed. The two MI5 agents sent to the area to find a spy who has been sending encrypted messages to Germany are sure the murder is tied to the spy they are searching for, but they can’t make any sense of how or why.

Rachel moved back to the area to help care for her grandmother who is wheelchair bound after the explosion that killer her daughter–Rachel’s mother. Still mourning the death of her brother in the war, Rachel is somewhat at loose ends, and has been trying to convince the major to place his collection in storage.

This is not a cozy story. One of the MI5 agents, Jude, is forced to deal with the fact his partner is willing to use any means necessary in his attempts to find the spy–whether the person he wants the information from is likely guilty or not.

Both Rachel and Jude wonder precisely how they have arrived where they are.

How had it happened? she wondered, her throat closing painfully with grief and despair. How had a country as cultured, civilized, and prosaically sane as Germany allowed itself to fall under the spell of a fast-talking charlatan who seduced them with empty promises and twisted their fears and anger into a lethal hatred directed toward society’s most vulnerable members?

There is a darkness that exists within each of us, Mr. Lowe. All it takes is a seductive leader or the right circumstances to turn that darkness into evil.

Much of this story his extremely close to home right now.

But it was a good story, and I enjoyed it despite the dark parallels to current times.
Rating: 8.5/10

It was a very interesting idea, and for the most part I enjoyed seeing the way the stories wove bits and pieces into each other. I just wish the third story had been stronger, since it drug down the rest of the anthology.

Publisher : Poisoned Pen Press
Rating: 8/10

Who Speaks for the Damned

Monday, April 20, 2020

Who Speaks for the Damned (2020) C.S. Harris (Sebastian St. Cyr)

Who Speaks for the DamnedSet in London in 1814

I have loved this series since the start, and generally adore her writing.

However.

Third Person Omniscient POV does NOT WORK if you are hiding a person’s gender. It just DOESN’T. It is stilted and kludgy and what you’re doing is obvious. So I spent a good deal of the story being annoyed every time.

A lone and trying desperately not to be afraid, the child wandered the narrow, winding paths of the tea gardens. Ji could hear laughter and the voices of other garden visitors in the distance. The day had been hot— unusually so for June, the child heard people say. But the sun was beginning to sink in the clear lavender blue sky, lengthening the shadows beneath the arbors and hinting at the chill of coming evening. The scent of roses and peonies drifted sweetly on the moist air, stirring unbidden memories of the shady walkways and placid canals of the Hong merchant’s private gardens. A wave of homesickness washed over the child, bringing a painful lump to Ji’s throat, and the sting of threatening tears.

I’m sorry, but that’s not subtle, and it’s almost impossible to keep for an entire story. In fact, she slips up several times.

As his breathing slowed, Ji washed at a public pump, then bought bread and gave half of it to the birds while chanting sutras…

It’s just awkward and makes me immediately figure out the “secret” because no one EVER does that for a male character. It’s always a female character hiding her gender.

ALWAYS.

So that actually dinged this story an entire grade for me, because I find it that irritating and frustrating.

So. How was the rest of the book.

The rest of the book was good.

An exiled nobleman has somehow ended up dead in Pennington’s Tea Gardens. Stabbed in the back with a sickle. Sebastian ends up investigating because the dead man had known his valet, Calhoun, and come to him for help. But once Sebastian starts looking into the murder, things that were seemingly clear start not to make sense, and he begins to wonder if Hayes had actually been deserving of transportation.

So there are several bits in this story that, perhaps a decade or two ago, we might thing were overblown, but now, are rather terrifying.

Theodore Brownbeck, a banker who’d made a vast fortune through adroit investments. He was still a powerful figure in the financial affairs of the City, but lately he’d taken to devoting more and more of his time to producing an endless outpouring of works on religion, morality, crime, and the poor. The theme that ran through them all was the conviction that any attempt to educate or improve the living standards of the lower classes was a crime against God and nature. According to Brownbeck, what he sneeringly called “the good intentions of the feebleminded” would only result in inculcating a “sense of entitlement and lethargy” amongst a class ordained by their Creator to be worthy of nothing more than a life of hard work and an early death.

Forbes was more than ruthless. Under his stewardship, the company had forced the area’s farmers to shift from growing grain to the production of opium. When a famine hit, close to a million people starved to death. But whenever the topic came up, Forbes would simply shrug and say India was overpopulated anyway.

Sentiments I hear terrifying echoes of today.

Sebastian, though all this, retains his ethics–and remains in opposition to Jarvis, his father-in-law. But it’s mostly his ethics that I like to much–and with the reminder that Sebastian has dealt with adversity.

You may consider yourself a moral, ethical, and honest man— loyal and true and all that rot, as you English like to say. But you have no idea how you would behave in adversity. No idea at all.”

“I spent six years at war. You think I haven’t faced adversity?”

LaRivière’s eyebrows arched. “Perhaps you have.

In sum, it’s a good mystery, and I enjoyed the story, but the third person omniscient point of view for the sections of the story involving Ji are maddening.

Publisher: Berkley
Rating: 7.5/10

Written by Michelle
Categories: 7.5/10, British, Good Cover, Historical, Mystery
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Who Slays the Wicked

Sunday, April 7, 2019

Who Slays the Wicked (2019) C.S. Harris

Set in London in 1814

Lord Ashworth has been discovered naked and repeatedly stabbed in what looks like a crime of passion. But finding the murderer is a daunting prospect.

“Do you have any idea who might have killed him?” he asked Stephanie. “Someone who disliked him?” she suggested, her nostrils quivering with a pinched look. “That should narrow the list of suspects down to virtually everyone who ever dealt with him.”

Sebastian’s problem is that the murdered man is the husband of his niece–a marriage that Sebastian tried to talk her out of, knowing Ashworth’s brutal reputation. And the fact that it looks like he was murdered by a woman makes Stephanie an even more likely suspect, even if there are plenty of others who hated him.

“His lordship had a long-standing belief that tradesmen, shopkeepers, and merchants should consider themselves honored to be given the privilege of serving him. Saw their demands for actual payment as something of an insult, he did.”

There are several other threads running through the book–Sebastian’s continued problems with his sister, Hero’s relationship with her father (who would just as soon seen Sebastian dead) but I do like that Sebastian and his father have resolved their differences and have a decent relationship now, as well as the strength of Sebastian’s marriage to Hero.

Sebastian was in his dressing room, dabbing at the blood on his face, when Hero came to stand in the doorway. “One of the housemaids tells me my husband came home covered in blood. I assumed she was exaggerating. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

Hero might love her father, but she knows what kind of man Jarvis is, and cannot trust him.

The other thing I appreciate about this series (like isn’t the correct word at all) is how she constantly points out just how terrible life was for so many people during the regency. Hero is something of a bluestocking, who uses her position in society to being light to the situation of the poor in London. And to be clear, like was horrible.

The basket and glove marked the woman as a “banter” or “pure finder,” one of that army of desperate souls who eked out a miserable living picking up dog feces to sell to the tanneries of Bermondsey, where they were used to dress the skins of calves and lambs. It was called “pure” because, thanks to the feces’ astringent and alkaline properties, it could be used to scour and “purify” the leather.

Every slab, every shelf, was piled with two or three bodies, and far too many of them were children.

“A boy come into the workhouse a few weeks ago with the measles,” said the attendant, shuffling ahead of them toward the back of the foul room. “It’s taken off pret’ near ’alf the young ’uns, it has, and more’n a few of the older ones too. We can’t keep up with burying ’em.”

I like this because I’ve read several historicals where the hero supposedly grew up on the streets, yet is tall and muscular and fit and has all his teeth etc. That just annoys me to no end.

A dozen pairs of eyes watched Sebastian cross the foul-smelling, low-ceilinged, smoke-blackened room. His was a strange face in a neighborhood wary of strangers. His clothes might have come from a secondhand stall, and he’d rubbed grease and ashes into his hair to obscure its stylish cut. But he could do little to hide his cleanly shaven face or the tall, leanly muscled build that gave silent witness to a lifetime of good, nourishing food.

Although it was convenient, I was very glad to see Stephanie’s husband gone from the story, and hope that means she’ll have a decent like for the rest of the series. Because Stephanie might not have been poor, but she was a woman, and in many ways her life was just as terrible as that of the poor.

Please note I’m rating this book compared to the others in the series. It is very good, and you should definitely be reading this series, but I can’t say it’s one of the strongest mysteries she’s written.

Publisher: Berkley
Rating: 8.5/10

Written by Michelle
Categories: 8.5/10, British, Good Cover, Historical, Mystery
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Why Kill the Innocent

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Why Kill the Innocent (2018) C.S. Harris

Set in London in 1814

Hero is researching the wives of men who were pressed into the royal navy, specifically, how those women are often left destitute when their husbands are kidnapped off the street.

After visiting one such woman, Hero literally stumbles over the body of a woman she knows–Princess Charlotte’s piano instructor. Because of her relationship to the princess, the death would have been reported as merely a mugging gone wrong, but Hero knows it was more than that, and so Sebastian helps her look into the death.

There are several difficult aspects to this book. The first is just how awful the prince regent is.

When one of the doctors ventured to suggest that a simple solution might be for the Prince to moderate his food and alcohol intake to avoid aggravating his gout, the Prince roared, “It wasn’t because of the port and buttered crab, you fool! I lay awake all night fretting about that Brunswick bitch. She is plotting against me again. I know it.”

The man all but locked his daughter away, both as punishment of her mother, and because the people appeared to like her more than him.

The second hard thing was the reminder of how limited the lives of women were–even when they weren’t poor.

She said it’s one thing to write an opera or symphony but something else entirely to find an orchestra willing to perform a piece composed by a woman.”

“Ah, yes, I can see that.”

“When her brother James was alive, he actually published some of her pieces as his own. She said he hated that she didn’t get credit for them, but he thought they deserved to be performed and he knew that was the only way it would happen.”

“Did (he) ever hit her?”

Maxwell nodded again, his nostrils pinched. “He gave her a black eye at least once that I know of. And several times he left a mark on her face, just here—” He touched his fingertips to his left cheekbone at exactly the same place where someone had struck Jane moments before she died.

“She told you he hit her?”

“No. She always came up with some tale to explain the marks— she’d even laugh at herself for being so clumsy. But she wasn’t clumsy. She wasn’t clumsy at all. I could never understand why she protected him the way she did.”

But the hardest part was the research Hero was doing into the wives of men pressed into the navy.

“It’s not right, what we do. Kidnapping men and carrying them off as essentially slaves to serve on our warships, all without a thought to the wives and children they leave behind to starve.”

That’s bad enough, but knowing that a young mother had been sentenced to hang for stealing food–and knowing there was nothing Hero could do about it–was utterly heart-rending.

There are also of course the normal threads going through the book–Sebastian’s relationship with his father, Hero’s relationship with her father (who keeps threatening to kill Sebastian), Gibson and Aleix; I think it’s getting harder to fit all those relationships into the story I think, but I’m glad she made the effort, because the glimpses are important reminders of the lives the characters have beyond the mystery.
Rating: 8.5/10

Publisher: Berkley

Written by Michelle
Categories: 8.5/10, British, Historical, Mystery
Tags: , ,
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Where the Dead Lie

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Where the Dead Lie (2017) C.S. Harris

Set in London in September 1813.

In case you’ve lost track, this is book 12 in the Sebastian St Cry series.

Sebastian is becoming used to fatherhood, and although his sister still hates him, Sebastian’s father has been reaching out to Sebastian, to try perhaps to repair their relationship. And the fact that Hero is letting him spend time with his grandson doesn’t hurt.

The mystery here is far more along the lines of Hero’s interests: an ex-solder stumbles upon two men attempting to bury the body of a murdered boy. Both men get away, and because it was only a street child, the magistrate closes the case as soon as it’s brought in. However, the local constable doesn’t like it, and the story ends up piquing Sebastian’s curiosity.

He insists that Benji Thatcher’s injuries were most likely sustained in whatever accidental fall killed him.”

Sebastian rested his shoulders against his bench’s high, old-fashioned back. “And the ligature marks around his neck?”

“Sir Arthur doesn’t seem to recall those.”

Or perhaps making Sebastian angry is closer to the truth.

“She was sent to Botany Bay?”

Gowan took another big bite of his pie. “Aye. Scheduled to hang at first, she was. But the sentence was commuted to seven years’ transportation at the end of the sessions. She begged ’em to let her take the children with her— didn’t have no family hereabouts t’ leave ’em with. But the magistrates wouldn’t do it. Said Benji and Sybil was old enough to fend fer themselves.” The constable shook his head. “Sybil was five at the time. How was she supposed to fend fer herself?”

This is a very difficult story, in that it deals with the torture, rape, murder, and above all poverty of children–and the willful blindness of the society to the poor.

There are also some really terrible human beings who are allowed to roam free because they happen to be rich or noble or both.

It’s a good mystery, and a reflection of the times in which the story is set, but it is hard to read about so many evildoers going unpunished.
Rating: 8/10

Published by Berkley

Written by Michelle
Categories: 8/10, British, Historical, Mystery
Tags: , ,
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When Falcons Fall

Saturday, March 19, 2016

When Falcons Fall (2016) C.S. Harris

Ayleswick-on-Teme, Shropshire in August 1813

I really do love this series.

Sebastian and Hero have traveled to Shropshire to see if Sebastian and learn anything of the man who sired him–the man who gave him his yellow eyes and strange skills–because the man he believed to be his half-brother hailed from there.

Unfortunately, while they are there, a woman is found dead, and the young squire believes her death was not suicide, as it appears, but murder.

It’s interesting, how small English towns have so much in common with small rural towns.

“Happens he’s steward out at Northcott Abbey. Some sort of cousin to her ladyship. From Yorkshire,” he added in the faintly disparaging tone typically used by villagers when referring to “outsiders.”

“How long has he been in Ayleswick?”

The landlord picked up his quill and inspected the tip. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five years, I suppose.”

One thing I particularly like is how the romance between Sebastian and Hero has settled out. Despite everything, they are quite good for each other.

He worried sometimes that marriage to him was distracting Hero from the life she’d once intended to have.

But Hero does still have her own life and interests.

“My predecessor had been here forty years. The old Squire’d brought him in. Gave him— and me— this cottage rent free.”

Hero had been thinking of Archie Rawlins’s father as a drunken boor who foolishly set his horse at a wall he couldn’t clear. Now she found she had to readjust that image. It wasn’t unknown for landlords to take an interest in educating the children of their tenants and cottagers, but it was uncommon. Most saw the education of the masses either as unnecessary or as a misguided, dangerous folly.

In the story she is currently looking into enclosures, which is an interesting historical topic about which I knew little, but would have been incredibly important at the time.

“Perhaps I’m simply getting old. I liked England the way it was when I was a lad. But we’ll never see those days again, will we? And it isn’t only the look of the land that’s changed, I’m afraid; the people have changed too. Time was, Englishmen were part of a community; they had a stake in the land they worked. But not anymore. The enclosures have changed our entire sense of who and what we are.”

The good ol’ days….

This was a really complicated mystery, but it was very good.

There were, as always, many passages that caught my attention, but I especially liked this one in particular, as it is something I do.

“‘I’m not looking for anyone in particular. I simply enjoy reading old tombstones. I like to imagine the lives of the people whose names are engraved there, and think about the love they must have had for each other— husbands for wives, mothers and fathers for children.’”

This is another good addition to the series, and I begin to wonder if Sebastian will ever learn who his father was.
Rating: 8.5/10

Published by NAL

Written by Michelle
Categories: 8.5/10, British, Historical, Mystery
Tags: , ,
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Who Buries the Dead

Monday, March 30, 2015

Who Buries the Dead (2015) C.S. Harris

Who-Buries-the-DeadSet in London in 1813.

“In my experience, people who view others as social or financial assets rarely do accumulate close friends.”

A body is discovered at Bloody Bridge–its head sitting on the brick wall, the body lying nearby in the grass. At first, there seems to be no reason for the man to have been brutally murdered. But the more Sebastian looks into the case, the more complex things become.

I am so delighted that Sebastian and Hero seem to have made their marriage work. Their son is a few months old, and they seem to care about each other (something quite unusual at a time when most marriages of the rich and landed were for political or social success (men wanting fortunes to restore their family lands, and young women wanting to marry into the peerage).

There are several important threads running through the story. First is the murder, and why the man might have been killed. The second is Hero and Sebastian’s marriage, and how they feel about each other. Third is the return to London of Oliphant, then Colonel who tried to have Sebastian killed, and whose actions were behind many of Sebastian’s nightmares. But also running through the story are the inequalities of the time, through Hero’s interviews with the working poor, but also looking at slavery.

A succession of court cases had reinforced the popular belief that the air of England was “too pure for a slave to breathe.”

But what was true of the air of England was not true of the air in England’s colonies. Even those who supported the freeing of England’s ten to fifteen thousand slaves often grew fainthearted at the thought of the financial havoc that would result from the emancipation of those who toiled to produce the sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and rice that made England wealthy and powerful.

Oh, and we also have an appearance by Jane Austen.

I remain disappointed with the recent covers in this series.

It’s not that this is a bad cover, because it isn’t. It’s just that the model is REALLY not Sebastian. All the other elements are lovely, but that model is just completely wrong for Sebastian, and it irks me every time I see him.

I much preferred the earlier covers, especially the first cover, with the red rose petals scattered like drops of blood.

But aside from that, this was another good entry in the series–I’m still not tired of reading about Sebastian, and after ten years, that’s not a bad thing at all.
Rating: 8.5/10
Published by NAL

Written by Michelle
Categories: 8.5/10, British, Historical, Mystery, Paper
Tags: , ,
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A Poisoned Season

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A Poisoned Season (2007) Tasha Alexander

poisoned_seasonThe second Lady Emily mystery finds Lady Emily Ashton still trying to find her place in society as a widow, and battling her mother’s domineering attempts to get Emily remarried.

Emily is still refusing Colin Hargreaves offer of marriage, but not because she doesn’t love him, but because she values the independence she has come to know as a widow (despite her mother’s vociferous disapproval).

A claimant to the French throne (the lost (great) grandson of Marie Antoinette) is attempting to gain the support of the French government, even though there is long longer a French monarchy. (Pesky details.) The presumptive heir is a cad and a boor, but his possible position gives him political power and people put up with him, just in case he does gain the throne.

But someone is stealing items that once belonged to Marie Antoinette–and that person doesn’t seem to be the current claimant. And when one of the owners from whom an item was stolen is found murdered, Lady Emily becomes even more curious–and involved.

This is the second historical mystery involving a lost heir to the French monarchy I’ve read this year. I have to admit I prefer C.S. Harris’ writing and story telling, but this wasn’t bad. And it wasn’t a particularly uncommon occurrence.

I do like Lady Emily, and especially enjoy her wit.

“And, Emily”—he grew serious—“if you ever…if Hargreaves doesn’t…if you do need someone…I think you and I could come to a mutually satisfactory understanding.”

“Really, Jeremy, that has to be one of the most romantic proposals in all of English history. May I record it in my diary?”

“I mean it, Em.”

Poor Jeremy.

Never mind the fact that Jeremy and Margaret concoct a plan to keep things easier during the Season, when both are expected to be searching out eligible suitors–whether they want to or not.

Besides—and I know you will take no offense at this, Margaret, darling—she would die before seeing me marry an American. She’s never forgiven the colonists for leaving the empire.”

“Ah!” Margaret cried. “Perfect! That is what will end our affair. I’m devastated already.”

I think what I particularly like about this series is the constant struggle between personal desire and societal expectations.
Rating: 7/10

Published by HarperCollins

Written by Michelle
Categories: British, Female, Historical, Mystery, Paper, Romance
Tags: , ,
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The Archangel Project

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

The Archangel Project (2008) C.S. Graham

The-Archangel-ProjectOctober ‘Toby’ Guinness is an Army vet who was washed out with a psychiatric discharge after an incident in Iraq.

“You didn’t want to go to Iraq?” said the Colonel. “Are you kidding? The only people who actually want to go to Iraq are either seriously delusional or very, very scary individuals.”

Jax Alexander is a CIA operative who has been sent to Section 13 because the head of the CIA hates him and is looking for a reason to get rid of him.

Jax flashed the man a friendly smile and held up an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms badge. The badge looked real because it was—just like the ones from the FBI and the Office of Homeland Security, and the press corps card Jax also carried. He even had an IRS ID he used when he really wanted to scare people.

Together, THEY FIGHT CRIME!

Yeah, that never gets old for me. Sorry. (No, I’m not.)

To help pay for her school bills, Toby started working with Henry Youngblood, who has been struggling to fund his Remote Viewing project.

If you think Remote Viewing sounds familiar, it’s because you remember the book/move “Men Who Stare at Goats.” This was a real project, funded by our government–and other governments–before it became completely discredited (for a variety of reasons [some of which were very good reasons]).

Toby is actually a very good Remote Viewer, which is a problem, because she’s seen something she should not have, and upset people who have the ability to Do Something about her.

This is a very interesting book, first and foremost because it’s based on real projects. It was co-written by Steven Harris (a former Army Intelligence officer) and Candice Proctor (aka C.S. Harris), and they have strong opinions both about private companies involved with the military…

“The FBI gets some ex–Special Forces people, but not many these days. They can make too much money working for outfits like Blackwater. Our government trains them, then they go work for private security companies who rent them back to the taxpayers for ten times what they’d cost if they’d stayed in the military.”

…and the state of their home, New Orleans.

“Now? You want to go to the Lower Ninth Ward now? At nine-thirty at night? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what it’s like down there?”

The politics is pretty heavy, which is possibly why this series seems to have ended after three books. Which is too bad, because I quite like Toby and Jax.
Rating: 8/10

Published by HarperCollins

Written by Michelle
Categories: Female, Mystery, Paper, Urban
Tags: ,
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Why Kings Confess

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Why Kings Confess (2014) C.S. Harris

why-kings-confessI gave up re-reading the past books and the series and jumped straight to the newest book. No more hardback books for me, I think.

The last several books have been set in a relatively compressed time frame–within a nine month period, to be precise, and in this book Hero finally goes into labor with Sebastian’s baby.

Having re-read the books, it’s somewhat amazing how Sebastian and St. Cyr went from, well, not precisely enemies, but certainly a very strong dislike of one another, to a married couple with Hero being the best thing that could have happened to Sebastian.

But, it’s not all romancey stuff, there is also a murder.

Paul Gibson, walking off a desire for Laudanum, discovers a woman lying in an alley, bleeding from a head wound, and a murdered man whose chest has been hacked open.

The body belongs to a young doctor who had been acting as the private physician to a French exile–and exile who was seen in the company of Lord Jarvis. When the reason for the young man’s death is given as a robbery gone wrong, both Gibson and Sebastian are suspicious. But the woman claims not to remember the attack, or to know why the doctor she was with might have been murdered.

It’s good to see Sebastian finally over Kat, who, while a good person, was not good for Sebastian. And it was also good to see Hero retain her independence and spirit, despite Sebastian’s fear the child would kill her.

It was also interesting to see Gibson’s issue with opium finally brought to Sebastian’s attention. But Sebastian was correct–Gibson’s pain from his phantom limb was true pain, and there were no treatments for such a problem at the time.

There is also a fascinating look at the Bourbon royalty in exile, especially Marie-Thérèse, who–with good reason–was one very messed up individual.

“I have it on excellent authority that Marie -Thérèse will never condescend to speak to me again, ever since I committed the unforgivable sin of daring to contradict her royal personage. It’s one of the many hazards of believing in the divine right of kings; you start equating yourself with God, which means you see your enemies as not merely annoying or unpleasant, but the literal servants of Satan.”

But don’t think that she was a weak woman, despite everything that had happened to her.

“I have heard Napoléon himself say that Marie-Thérèse is the only real man in her family.”

It’s also fascinating that–like Anastasia Romanov and even Elvis–reports of the Dauphin’s survival despite his death in prison were widespread. Rumor has always been willing to deny death.

Also fascinating was the look at pregnancy during the Regency.

“My lady, I beg of you; you must trust me in this.” He brought up his hands, palms together, as if he were praying. “Your color is too robust, and you have far too much energy. At this point, patients who follow my strictures are pale and languid, as befits a woman about to give birth. I shall have to bleed you again.”

It’s astounding what doctors (officially accoucheurs) believed was good and healthy for a pregnant woman: No protein, minimal food, no exercise, and frequent blood-letting. It’s a wonder any of the rich survived pregnancy.

Once again, I am reminded how much I love living in the future.

How was it as a mystery? It was interesting, if a bit convoluted, but my love of this series has always been the characters, so keep that in mind.
Rating: 8/10

Published by NAL

 
 

Written by Michelle
Categories: 8/10, British, Historical, Mystery, Paper
Tags: , ,
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