The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennett

By Katherine Cowley

Tule Publishing     2021

342 pages     Historical Fiction

Mary Bennett is the third girl of five in Jane Austen’s Bennet family. She is often passed over, ignored, or told to stop playing the pianoforte. Katherine Cowley has chosen to develop the character of Mary in her series of historical spy novels based on Jane Austen's characters. When The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet begins, Mr. Bennet has just died and the family is in chaos. They are trying to get ready for the funeral with funeral clothing and gloves and all the other protocol of an early 1800s funeral. A cousin, Mr. Collins, has arrived to take possession of the house; Mrs. Bennet is frantic; and Mary is quickly realizing that she has few options. She cannot stay unmarried in the home of her childhood.

An unknown relative, Lady Trafford, arrives and makes Mary an offer that she can’t refuse—move with her to Castle Durrington and obtain an education to be a governess. Mary feels she has no choice, and soon leaves with Lady Trafford and her nephew, Henry Withrow, to move into Castle Durrington, far away from her mother and sisters.

When she begins her education at the castle, Mary soon realizes that something is going on involving Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow in what appears to be illegal activity—or is it spying--because England is beginning to fear an invasion from Napoleon Bonaparte, and Castle Durrington is right on the coastline. Mary sets out to discover what she can about these goings-on, all the while maintaining the pretense of learning drawing, French, economics, and history from her hosts.

As the book summary says, “Never underestimate the observation skills of a woman who hides in the background.”

A huge disclaimer as I continue this review. For reasons that I can’t explain, I had never read any Jane Austen books nor seen a single movie adaptation before I began Katherine Cowley’s inventive “next chapter.” All of the Bennet girls were strangers to me, and I had no grasp of Austen’s style of writing. So I struggled. I struggled as the difficult roles of women were discussed in great detail. I struggled through the way the women were discouraged from appropriately grieving their father’s death. I struggled through a several page discussion of how to fold paper so a letter could get mailed, protected from prying eyes. All of these details are extensively explored within the narrative.

I celebrate the vast amount of research that Cowley had to have done to include the details that I kept underlining, including, for instance, the name of a famous pastor of the day and his sermons and the way that women had to ride sidesaddle.  The beginning of each chapter quotes some of the research the author has done to aid in the understanding of what is going to happen in the upcoming chapter. The quotes alone are quite impressive.

Once the mystery of what was going on at the castle began to develop, I got caught up in the story line and became more impressed with Mary, her inquisitiveness, her courage, and her ability to step out of the bonds of convention in order to solve the mystery.

After I finished the book, I watched the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice and immediately noticed that the character of Mary is scarcely approached in the narrative. No wonder Cowley chose her to develop more fully.

What I didn’t mention previously in this review is that Katherine Cowley teaches writing at Western Michigan University and lives in our community. She will be at our book club next week, and I will have lots of questions to ask her. She also has two additional books in this series: The True Confessions of a London Spy, and The Lady’s Guide to Death and Deception.  I have both of them and plan to continue my adventures with Mary Bennet.

Katherine Cowley’s website. One of the interesting parts of her website is a series of blog posts about creative writing principles. She has won awards for her lessons. Check it out. 

Rebecca

 By Daphne du Maurier

Little, Brown     2013 edition

449 pages     Literary

How could I have gotten to my age as a voracious reader and never have read Rebecca? Thank goodness for my book group for reading it this month! This week I read the book and watched the 1940 movie with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Can’t wait to discuss it with my book friends.

Well, enough of that. The plot is very basic. The narrator is an unnamed young woman who travels to Monte Carlo as the companion of a wealthy older woman. While there, she meets a wealthy widower, perhaps in his mid-40s. Maxim de Winter. Very handsome, very conflicted, very depressed. His wife, Rebecca, had drowned a year ago.  Maxim takes an immediate shine to the young woman, and they marry on the spur of the moment. Shortly after their marriage they return to his very famous country estate in England named Manderley. Our young narrator thinks she has arrived in heaven.

Instantly, the young Mrs. de Winter realizes that she is out of her element. There are signs of Rebecca everywhere. It is obvious that all the servants in the household are still mourning Rebecca’s death, particularly Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who had a very long relationship with Rebecca and doesn’t want a new Mrs. de Winter in the house. For a long time, Mrs. de Winter’s only friend on the estate is the estate manager, Frank, who not only works for Maxim but is his best friend. He becomes the young wife’s best friend as well. For a while, I thought a romantic relationship might build between Frank and Mrs. de Winter, but Frank stays true to his job and his friendships.

The plot didn’t develop in the way I thought it would. It just slowly builds to a magnificent,  if perilous, conclusion. But the plot is only a part of the story. Du Maurier is a marvelous writer. Her descriptions of Manderley and the development of her characters is superb. I kept underlining terrific passages, and writing down questions I needed answers for.  

I was especially taken with this unfortune young woman brought into a situation for which there was no resolution. Du Maurier’s portrayal of this young woman and how lost she is in this environment is stunning and all-consuming.  She knows nothing about how to run a household, especially since Rebecca had run the household without error, planning enormous parties, and mastering horseback riding, sailing, and all the other skills of the leisure class. She is horribly intimidated by Mrs. Danvers, and ultimately with her arch nemesis, Rebecca. She is never sure of Maxim’s love and blames his distance on his grief over the loss of Rebecca. But as the story develops,  she gains confidence and a desire to take control of Manderley and her own life.

One reviewer says that in Rebecca, du Maurier “fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.” But in Rebecca, the handsome prince is old enough to be the narrator’s father. Of course, like all fairy tales, there is also a witch—Mrs. Danvers, who haunts the young woman’s every move.

I believe that Rebecca is worthy of every award it gained through the years, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 1938 and the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century in 2000. The Alfred Hitchcock 1940 film won the Oscar for Best Picture. It stayed pretty true to the novel with only slight adjustments to the conclusion. There is also a 2020 version of the film on Netflix.

 

Moonflower Murders

 By Anthony Horowitz

Harper Collins    2020

608 pages     Mystery

I am ashamed to say that I had never read any Anthony Horowitz, even though I had Magpie Murders, the first of this particular 2-book series, on my shelf for a couple of years. Not sure how I missed reading it, because I absolutely loved Moonflower Murders. But, oh my goodness, is it ever complicated—and long! When you read a book on a Kindle, you have no idea how long the book is, so I was quite shocked when I saw that I had just read a 600+ page book. Actually—two books, for Moonflower Murders is two books in one.

Here is the basic plotline.

Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted. But is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss London.

And then the Trehearnes come to stay. The strange and mysterious story they tell, about an unfortunate murder that took place on the same day and in the same hotel in which their daughter was married—a picturesque inn on the Suffolk coast named Branlow Hall—fascinates Susan and piques her editor’s instincts. 

One of her former writers, the late Alan Conway, author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew the murder victim—an advertising executive named Frank Parris—and once visited Branlow Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, on that very crime. 

The Trehearne’s, daughter, Cecily, read Conway’s mystery and believed the book proves that the man convicted of Parris’s murder—a Romanian immigrant who was the hotel’s handyman—is innocent. When the Trehearnes reveal that Cecily is now missing, Susan knows that she must return to England and find out what really happened.

When Susan gets to the Branlaw Hall hotel, she reads Atticus Pund Takes the Cake once again to see what Cecily discovered during her reading of the book, but the clues aren’t so obvious to Susan. So, then, we are compelled to read this Agatha Christie-style mystery with a Hercule Poirot-type detective. Astoundingly, the entire novel can be found within the pages of Moonflower Murders, every last page, including the table of contents and the dedication page. I was so shocked when I got to the title page of Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, I had to go back to the table of contents of Moonflower Murders to see what was going on. After I read the Atticus Pund mystery, I still couldn’t figure out who had murdered who—in either case—when I returned to the Moonflower mystery.

And this is where I had trouble. There is a huge cast of characters in both books, and because the whole thing is 600+ pages long, I had trouble getting back into the Moonflower Murders section, not remembering all of the characters and their names. I spent the next 50 pages or more just trying to get everybody straight. This, however, did nothing to waylay the brilliance of the book or of the author. Apparently Horowitz has used this book-within-a-book technique in other books, most especially Magpie Murders, which, of course, I didn’t read. (I might suggest that you read it before you read Moonflower Murders.)

Although I knew who Anthony Horowitz is, I had never read any of his books. I knew about the Alex Rider series, and the Foyles War TV series, but when I looked up his output, I found that he has written several books every year since the 1980s, when he was just a young man. I also found while searching my Advanced Reader data base that I had missed reading The Sentence is Death and The Word is Murder in addition to The Magpie Murder, all of which are on my Kindle.

I am astounded at Horowitz’s productivity as well as his expertise. Moonflower Murders is mystery writing at its best.

Here is the review in the New York Times. The book has made many of the lists of 2020’s best books.

The Stone Circle

By Elly Griffiths

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt     2019

368 pages     Mystery

The Stone Circle is book 11 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway mystery series. Here is a recap of the story line from Kirkus Review.

“An anonymous letter brings DCI Harry Nelson memories of past sorrows and present dangers.

The letter mentions a stone circle that harks back to the 20-year-old case of a missing child. Ten years later, another missing child introduced Harry to archaeologist Ruth Galloway when he asked her to examine some bones. That case began a working relationship that turned out to be equally productive in personal terms: A short-lived affair between the two produced a child, Kate, though Harry is married and has two grown daughters. His wife, Michelle, who accepts Kate in their lives, is about to give birth to a baby who may or may not be Harry’s. A new archaeological team working near the site of the original henge finds a stone coffin containing bones. The head of the dig is Leif Anderssen, whose father, Erik, was Ruth’s mentor all those years ago. As Harry continues to receive cryptic messages, the bones of what Ruth thinks is a young girl are found near the new dig, opening up yet another old case. The police think the body is that of Margaret Lacey, who vanished from a street party in 1981. The focus at the time was on her parents; her older siblings, Annie and Luke; and John Mostyn, a neighbor and odd duck who collected stones. But nothing was ever proven, and Margaret’s body was never found. The birth of George, Michelle’s son, puts more pressure on Harry, who loves his wife and Ruth in different ways, to stay in his marriage. Nelson’s team and some friends of Ruth’s use their own areas of expertise to search for clues from the past, but when the child of Annie’s daughter, Star, is kidnapped, the present-day crisis takes center stage.”

Wow! The Stone Circle is a complicated story, made more complicated by the fact that this is book 11 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series, and it is a very difficult series to enter at this point in the narrative. There are a lot of characters, a lot of drama swirling around those characters, and a lot of plot devices that make dropping into such a well-developed story problematic. That being said, I enjoyed the book and its main characters. Ruth Galloway is a professor of archaeology, and she is often called upon to use her archaeological skills to solve murder mysteries. I liked this aspect of the character because it is an unusual career choice, and the reader can learn bits and pieces of archaeology along with the drama.

I particularly liked the setting. North Norfolk is a part of England that I have never visited, and it sounded so beautiful, and so filled with mysterious history, that it made me want to take another trip to England just to see this part of the country.

Another thing that appealed to me is the Norwegian archaeologist who is working at a new dig site on the North Norfolk coast of England. My nephew is a Norwegian archaeologist, and I kept envisioning Will at the site rather than Leif. (Will currently is working on an early Viking site off the coast of Bergen Norway.)

A big surprise were the convoluted romantic relationships swirling around the police community. Apparently, avid readers of the series know all about these relationships, but I found it all quite interesting and unique. Apparently, Griffiths had gone back to the original book in the series, The Crossing Place, for some of the plot devices. So, perhaps this is a series that ought to be read in order. I wouldn’t recommend starting at The Stone Circle. The Kirkus review concludes that the series

never disappoints. “It’s patented combination of mysterious circumstances, police procedure, and agonizing relationship problems will keep you reading, and feeling, all night.”

Elly Griffiths website. On her website, she indicates that Elly Griffiths is her pen name. Her real name is Domenica de Rosa. Besides the Dr. Ruth Galloway series, she also writes the Stephens & Mephisto novels.

Watching You

by Lisa Jewel
Atria     2019
324 pages     Thriller

One day while I was reading Watching You  by Lisa Jewel, I observed a man drive slowly by our house and then stop and take a picture of the house. I freaked out! I was way involved in Watching You  where everyone is watching or stalking everyone else, and my imagination took over! In fact, it was much more mundane than that--an appraiser, for a refi on our house.

Lisa Jewel does a masterful job of character development and suspense in her creation of a neighborhood full of secrets. Several of the characters take turns leading the plot forward as well as becoming suspects in a murder whose victim is hard to anticipate. The setting is Melville,  a colorful, closeknit, Victorian neighborhood in Briston. Newly married to Alfie, Joey has just arrived iin the community to live with  her brother and his wife, who welcome them into their home. They live a couple of doors down from the Fitzwilliams--Tom, the esteemed principal of the neighborhood high school, Nicola his much younger wife, and Freddy, a voyeur teenaged son, who documents all the neighbors with his photographic binoculars. Jenna and her psychotic mother live nearby. Jenna goes to the school where Fitzwilliams is the principal, but she is enduringly suspicious of the principal.

One of the unique aspects of Watching You is that everyone is a voyeur. Jenna's mother watches everyone because she is sure everyone is out to get her and her daughter. Her Internet conspiricy theorists feed her neuroses and paranoia. Freddy, on the other hand, is trying to chronicle all the events in the lives of the young girls in the neighborhood. The cover illustration of windows is totally appropriate and totally telling.      
                       
The reader is given clues about the victim and the murderer, but the clues are opaque, which causes the suspense to build. We delve into the histories of each of the main characters, but most of the suspicion focuses on Joey, who seems to know something about the murder. Each of the other characters also have their own moments of suspicion, but I was about three-quarters through the book before I put the whole picture together. Great plot development!

Lisa Jewel is the author of several mysteries, so the appearance of Watching You came with great anticipation. It was the first of her mysteries that I had read, but I am eager to read another. Here is her website.

Seven Days of Us

by Francesca Hornak

Berkley      2017

368 pages     Fiction

It's everyone's worst nightmare—to be stuck with your immediate family in the family vacation house for seven days. Worse: to be stuck over the Christmas holiday quarantined because of a deadly virus. Olivia, a doctor, was treating a ebola-like virus in Liberia. When her term of duty ended, she returned home for the holidays for the first time in several years. But, oh, by the way,  she has to be quarantined. Consequently, everyone will have to be quarantined,  including her mother Emma, father Andrew, and younger sister Phoebe.  Each has a story to tell, secrets to keep, and relationship issues with family members. All is going as well as could be expected until a surprise guest arrives. At that point, the dynamics of the week take an enormous turn.

The story is measured in days—day 1, day 2, etc., and then the chapter is divided by character, so we learn the activities and thoughts of each of them on each of the days. The character's likeability is only just so-so at the outset, and as we learn their shortcomings, their likeability doesn't improve much. One reviewer says: "Each character fell into some cliché, the fix it all mom, the opinionated activist, the favorite, and the pompous and self-righteous." Luckily, because of the introspective moments in the narration, we at least begin to understand where they are coming from. 

Is the book funny? Just margionally, and certainly not at the end. I smiled a couple of times, and was intrigued by the irony of some of the events. Is it poignant? Ultimately, it is very poignant as each of the characters struggle to live with the reality with which they are presented. Do we see growth? Yes, there is considerable growth in each of the characters, but it's speedy growth because it all has to happen in seven days.

Ultimately, Seven Days of Us reads like a soap opera. So, why did I keep reading? Not sure. The story is skillfully told, for one thing.  It moves quickly, and even as I was saying "Oh for God's Sake," I continued to turn the pages. Sometimes a soap opera is just what a reader needs. The Kirkus reviewer says that Hornak "skillfully juggles each character's distinct point of view."  That was the main reason that I finished the book and closed it, satisfied.

I was reminded of a family reunion I attended this summer at our family's vacation homes on Lake Michigan. One evening we sat around telling family story after family story. My sisters, brother, and I were regaling everyone with stories that we had kept close to us or just hadn't told before. One niece commented over one particularly poignant story, "Why haven't I heard this story before?" Sometimes, family relationships need to be kept superficial so that everyone's dignity can be maintained. Sometimes, the stories need to be told. This was one of those times. The reader of Seven Days of Us wishes that the Birch family would be so forthcoming.

Here is the Kirkus review. Also a review by the Caffeinated Reviewer that was particularly good.

The Child

By Fiona Barton
Berkley 2017
364 pages     Mystery

As you know, I am pretty much an uncritical reader when I am reading for pleasure, and I anticipated that The Child by Fiona Barton, which I began on the plane ride home from Iceland last week, would be that kind of book. It had been much touted in the book review world, and I got an advanced reader’s copy for a review. I pretty much accepted the premise and the plot—enjoying it every time I picked it up to read a bit—and it wasn’t until I closed the book for the final time that I paused and thought, “Well, so what!” Let me tell you a bit about the plot.

The bones of a newborn are discovered in a construction site. DNA testing confirms that it is an infant who has been dead for 40 years. So, why is it buried in a 30-year-old newspaper? Four women tell the story: Kate, a newspaper woman who seizes on the story; Emma who is following the story with great interest; Jude, her mother; and Angela, who it appears is the mother of the infant. Angela is sure that the infant is hers, but Emma insists that she is the mother.

Barton introduced Kate the investigative reporter in her first novel, The Widow. Kate is in her early 50s and is trying to maintain her career in the midst of enormous changes in the newspaper world. She works tenaciously to keep on top of the story and keep the editor happy. It is rather refreshing to have a woman news reporter serving as the case solver, and although intricate, the story is more personality driven than plot driven.  Kate has many pithy thoughts about the current state of journalism and she proves to be an appropriate witness to what most of us are thinking about newspapers and news reporters. Through persistence, Kate gains the trust of the three women individually, and because of that, she is able to solve the case. She believes that a reporter must get close to “tell the full story.” “Without empathy, without feeling someone’s pain, how could you tell a story.”

Journalist Maureen Corrigan, who reviewed the book for the Washington Post, believes that Kate did not maintain an appropriate balance as she tries to support the women and keep the news story going, even as the clues become more convoluted. Corrigan thinks that the character lost her professional balance. Frankly, Corrigan eviscerates the book. “The Child is a middling and much-too-long suspense story that would have benefited from a ruthless red-pencil.” And while I admire Corrigan and her work, I believe that she is too hard on Barton. The Child was better than that, particularly in the characterization of Emma, whose whole life has been disoriented. I have known women like Emma. I also liked Kate’s tenacity and drive. I have known women like Kate as well.

Anyway, I finished The Child yesterday at the beach. It was a perfect beach day and a perfect beach read.

Missing, Presumed

by Susie Steiner

Random House     2016

368 pages     Mystery

I have to say, right off the bat, that reading a novel with a character named Miriam is remarkable. I frankly can't remember ever reading my name in any book other than the Bible. Thank you Susie Steiner. Additionally, the Miriam character is a loving mother and a strong female caught up in a most difficult situation. Makes me proud.

Edith Hind, the daughter of Miriam and her husband Ian Hind, is missing and Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw is assigned to the case. Edith is a Cambridge graduate student when her boyfriend finds her door open, blood on the kitchen cabinet, and the apartment empty. Days pass, clues come and go, but neither Edith nor her body shows up. A variety of narrators tell the story, including Manon, Miriam, and Davy, a policeman also assigned to the team. During each day of the investigation, each major characters tell the story from his or her point of view, but we also get glimpses into their lives as the day passes.

 Unfortunately for the investigation, the press gets involved because the Hinds are prominent people in suburban London. Dr. Hind is the physician for the royal family. However, nothing is quite as it seems, and tragedy befalls some of the characters as the days and weeks go on with no sightings of Edith. The press searches for every little bit of information, and when it is leaked that Edith's best friend, Helena, may also be her lover, the press goes wild. 

The beauty of Missing, Presumed is in the character development. Manon, the lead inspector, is 39 years old, and absolutely desperate to be in a relationship. She belongs to dating websites and ends up having one lousy date after another, which provides fodder for gossip at the office. Although we don't meet Edith, we are drawn to her as well. She is a very complicated young woman, and we learn a great deal about her from her mother, her boyfriend, and her best friend. Even minor characters have enough of a presence that you remember who they are and what they do. They are each skillfully drawn with a touch of humor, so you enjoy reading their perspectives and the narration of their experience as the days pass. 

Often times in a police procedural mystery, the characters are robotic in nature, and the reader focuses more on the plot than on the characters. It is a joy to relate to police officers who are quirky, conflicted, and lovable. After one of her disastrous relationship ends, Davy says to Manon:

"I think you need a dog."

"What?"

"I heard a dog makes unhappy people happy. They're good, y'know, for people who can't form proper relationships."

"You're a real tonic, Davy." 

Steiner is a former journalist, and her depiction of the intrusion of the press in the lives of the family and others involved in the case is quite scathing. The review of Missing, Presumed in the Guardian says "Steiner paints well the claustrophobically dangerous effect a circling press can have." In the end it is Miriam who solves the mystery of the disappearance, and the way in which she handles the life-changing conclusion is what can well be expected from a woman named Miriam.

A wonderful read. I hope Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw finds several more cases to solve.

Susie Steiner's website.

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Keep You Close

by Lucie Whitehouse

Bloomsbury USA     2016

368 pages     Thriller

There is nothing like a psychological thriller to speed up the adrenaline and leave the dirty dishes in the sink! Or in my case, leave two little grandchildren watching Hotel Transylvania so I could get the book finished before their bedtime.

Rowan (love that name) responds to the death of her estranged childhood friend, Marianne, by moving into her house ostensibly to house sit in the weeks after the funeral. Apparently Marianne, a gifted and prominent artist, fell to her death from the rooftop of her childhood house, but Rowan is convinced that it wasn't accidental or suicide.  Rowan sets out to reconstruct Marianne's life in the years since they last saw each other ten years before. She received a mysterious note in the mail from Marianne, "I need to talk to you, " and she is propelled to try to solve what she considers to be the crime.

As a child, Rowan's own family life was a bit of a disaster, and when she became acquainted with Marianne at school, she was also accepted as a surrogate member of her family, the Glass family. Seb Glass was a serial philanderer, and as teenagers Rowan and Marianne obsess over the possibility of the family breaking up over his affairs. Rowan also becomes a bit obsessed over Marianne's older brother Adam, who she has kissed at a party one night. There are many loose pieces to Rowan's relationship with the Glass family, and as she sits in their family house, she sifts through Marianne's art and interviews the people involved in her life, trying to knit all the pieces together.

It isn't long before the reader begins to realize that Rowan is an unreliable narrator, in the style of Rachel from The Girl on the Train. There are too many pieces that don't fit together; too many people with questions; too much involvement with the police. Rowan becomes increasingly incoherent, and we begin to sense that there is a lot that we don't know or understand. 

At one point, a famous artist named Cory, who was in the midst of doing a portrait of Marianne when she died, does a sketch of Rowan as he is talking with her. "It had taken him ten minutes, less, even but he'd got her. There she was, not the version of herself that she liked, the best angle, soft-focus Rowan, but her knowing, thinking, hard-eyed avatar, Rowan the survivor, the one who had to do everything on her own. The version of herself that, in the privacy of her mind, she knew was the real one."

Cory, the artist, is one of a rich set of characters that interact with Rowan. It is to Whitehouse's credit that the reader is able to sort through the characters—there are so many of them. Often, readers have to keep lists of characters to keep them all straight. Not in this case; they are very distinct. The setting is well-described and the suspense builds in ways that keeps the reader slightly off balance. I heard myself catch my breath at one point—one surprising turn of events.

The title, Keep You Close, is very clever, because the it skews your thinking about Rowan, both before and after you finish the book. What was being kept close? Who is being kept close? I also kept the thought in mind, "You can't go home again." Rowan should have stayed away from Oxford and from Marianne's home. Nothing good could possibly come from her digging through Marianne's (and her) past.




Lucie Whitehouse is the author of several thrillers. Many readers liked her previous book, Before We Met.