A couple of months ago I started on a project to survey murder mysteries written in historic settings. A well written mystery is a wonderful way to explore a time and place otherwise unknown and unknowable. Even if we could visit Rome in 72AD, would we really want to? Or even London in 1896. The smells alone, to say nothing of the bad air, food and sanitary facilities, would give most armchair travelers pause. But a good novelist can describe the inconveniences and the glories well enough that we can almost feel the era until we turn off our kindles or nooks and go up to bed, or get off the train, or go into the doctor’s office, or whatever our modern schedule demands.
I am glad I started this a while back, as lately I have been having trouble getting started on any of a number of books. Distraction, exhaustion, and grief all play a role, so I hate to condemn any of the books I have tried and failed to complete, but here is a brief list of them:
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. This novel opens with a child plotting to kill and eat a house cat that another character has kept alive but finally had to release and hope it could run away and fend for itself. Sorry. Don’t think that this is a book I could enjoy under any conditions. However, Tom Rob Smith is a very talented writer (I know this by how upset the first few pages made me) who has written a series of mysteries and if anyone is familiar with his work, I would love to read a diary about him. (Hint.)
Murder Your Darlings by JJ Murphy. Set in New York during the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table, this mystery finds Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley attempting to clear William Faulkner of a murder charge. I got half way through it. And don’t know if I will finish it.
Those that I barely started:
The Witch Doctor’s Wife, by Tamar Meyers
The Kill, A Hunt Country Suspense Novel by Jan Newbarth
The Faces of the Gone, by Brad Parks
The Darkening Field by William Ryan
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Frank
Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear.
Even more frigthening, to me, are the ones that I have read:
Murder Takes the Cake, by Gayle Trent
A Small Fortune, by Audrey Baun
Cloaked in Red, by Vivian Vande Velde, which is a very good collection of short stories based on the Red Riding Hood fairy tale (Discussing the heroine’s name, Velde writes, ”How would you feel if your parents called you ‘Little Blue-Plaid Catholic School Uniform’ or ‘Little Green Sweatshirt with the Hole at the Elbow?’”)
And then I turned to Marion Chesney and read Lady Fortescue Steps Out and Miss Tonks Turns to Crime, both volumes of the Poor Relation Series and as lighthearted as her MC Beaton mysteries.
And though I have started Rachel Maddow’s Drift and Maxtone-Graham’s Titanic Tragedy, nothing seemed appealing enough to hold my interest for very long.
So I began to watch the PBS series Downton Abbey. After two marathon viewing sessions, I am now at episode 6 of season 2. (Not the least of its attractions is that none of the cast members are drop dead gorgeous people. Unlike any television programing produced for American consumption, Downton Abbey does not batter us with visions of women with impossible bodies and men with jutting jaws. These actors look pretty much like people we all might know in real life, as opposed to the cast of Dallas or Desperate Housewives). In addition to being great escapism, it has re-awakened an interest I have long had in the first quarter of the 20th century.
I will now be looking for books set in this era. I believe the Maisie Dobbs series is set in the late 20s, and the Ian Rutledge series is post WWI. Any suggestions for mysteries set pre-WWI? It is an interesting era as so many things in the world were changing at the time as the Victorian age gave way to the Edwardian and finally the modern era.
The era covered in tonight's diary is a much older one. These are just a few of the authors who have written of ancient Rome. A highly inclusive listing of mystery novels set in ancient times can be found at the website, Historical Mystery Fiction.
Read More
