Lightning Reviews: Historical Mysteries

As the title suggest, these Lightning Reviews are historical mysteries! I know the Bitchery loves this subgenre and are always on the hunt for more to add to their TBR pile, whether they like it or not. Maybe you’ll find something new to add or, at the very least, something to strike off the list.

The Diabolical Bones

author: Bella Ellis

The Diabolical Bones is the second book in the Bronte Mystery series. I enjoyed the first book, The Vanished Bride, and the second book can be read as a sequel or a stand-alone. In The Diabolical Bones, the siblings (Branwell, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily) attempt to solve a mystery concerning a skeleton that is discovered walled up in a local mansion. To whom did the skeleton belong, who put it there, and why?

The mystery involves issues of mental illness, feminism, grief, class, and the exploitation of children for labor. It also involves the personal lives of the siblings. The mystery itself is interesting and engaging, but I would call it solid rather than mindblowing. It has a lot of suspects and twists and turns and a genuinely scary climax, but I successfully guessed the identity of the killer early on.

For me the real draw is the impeccable historical research. I have both personal feelings about the Brontes and a serious historical nerd obsession about them. Other than a few adjustments made for the sake of story which are acknowledged in the afterword (the mysteries, of course, are fictional) the characters and their personalities match my own research and reading experience. These books provide a real sense of place and a fond yet realistic look at the Bronte household and the sometimes close, sometimes contentious relationships between the siblings, their father, and their housekeeper, Tabby. I really enjoy spending this time with them and I recommend this for fans of historical and literary history and for fans of the Brontes in particular.

Carrie S

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Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder

author: T.A. Willberg

I DNFed this book at 74%. I even threw a bit of a temper tantrum as I consigned the ebook to that most miserable of collections on my Kindle: Not Interesting. The fuel for my frustration? I wanted to love this book. The setup promised a steampunk version of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. In a series of tunnels beneath London, the Inquirers ply their trade: private investigation. A series of pneumatic tubes link hidden postboxes to the Inquirers’ mailroom. People send pleas, secrets, and requests to the mailroom, where they are filed and, if seen as worthy, investigated. This all takes place in the early chapters and at this point in the book, I was squeeing with delight! But alas, the rest did not deliver on its potential.

Marion Lane, our eponymous heroine, is a first year apprentice in the agency. She’s training to be an Inquirer with her mentor, Frank. This all goes to hell in a handbasket when one night, the mailroom attendant is murdered and suspicion falls on Frank’s shoulders. Marion shoves aside her apprenticeship to prove Frank’s innocence.

My gripes with this novel can be broken into two parts:

Part the first: Marion. Everything is always just on the tip of her tongue, on the edge of her mind and she can’t quite reach it. This becomes INFURIATING as Marion is always a step behind. She feels lost and a bit clueless which makes her (rare) moments of insight rather unbelievable as she has not demonstrated that she is a capable investigator.

Part the second: The plotting is loose and inconsistent, and as a result, infuriating. I want a murder mustery to move with a sense of urgency and suspense, each clue taking me ever higher on the suspense ladder until the dramatic climax. In this novel, the scenes don’t create a tense linear climb so much as a tangled flat ball of yarn. There is no consistent build-up of suspense, and some of the plot elements themselves were baffling. For example, there is a giant Circus Ball thrown shortly after the mailroom attendant’s death. It seems like a weird time for a massive party, and is written to seem deeply suspicious, but none of the characters – all of whom are private investigators! – seem to be too worried about the timing. They just go along with this big party and ask no questions. Huh?!

My demands are simple in a murder mystery: I want the heroine to be smarter than me. I want to be surprised and even a little scared as the mystery unfolds. There are parts of this story that show tremendous creativity (The baddie’s weapon! The inquirers’ setup!) and while the premise is original and held great promise, it was difficult to stay excited about the positive parts when the whole story was ultimately let down by an unconvincing heroine and a draughty plot.

Lara

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Comments are Closed

  1. Msb says:

    Neither of these really appeals. But I still have all Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody mysteries to go back to.
    Plus, if you have Ben Aaronovitch, what do you want with anything else remotely like the Rivers of London, with an excursion to Germany?

  2. Kareni says:

    Carrie and Lara, thanks for sharing your thoughts, both positive and negative.

  3. Tam says:

    The Victorian Lit scholars I knew at college literally had a We Hate Branwell club. He better be as awful in the novels as he was in real life (just SO awful).

  4. Michelle says:

    I read quite a few Maisie Donna mysteries. The first one felt weak, but they do get better, and the series tackles the impact of war on a society in a way that I don’t often see in genre fiction.

    Just read the first Phryne Fisher and it was quite fab.

  5. Michelle says:

    Correction: maisie dobbs, not Donna! I’m on my phone, sorry

  6. DistantAudacity says:

    There’s a comfort-read Agatha Christie set in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom which I remember as being quite nice (and a bit unusual for Christie).

    There’s a nice little romance included as part of the mystery.

  7. filkferengi says:

    @DistantAudacity, that’s _Death Comes As the End_, an excellent read.

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