Where Tobie Sees Bad People

The Babylonian Codex by C.S. Graham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm bummed there are only three of these. I guess they didn't totally catch on, but I found these mysteries very entertaining, and I like the characters. Some other reviewers didn't love them; that's fine. They worked for me. And the pacing is great, especially compared to the other books I'm slowly working my way through. The author (by whichever name she's using at the moment) is very good at making a thriller with exciting action that keeps you reading.

The hook in the series is the "remote viewing" that October can do, seeing things at a distance, maybe even out of time. It's not quite reliable, giving hints of nefarious activities going on without giving every detail needed to put a stop to it. It takes Jax and a few of his buddies to do the sleuthing and world traveling to track down the people doing the bad thing (here, it's political assassinations) before they get away with it. I'm enjoying how Jax is coming around on the ability Tobie has, starting to trust her more. A fourth book would have been awesome.

Sometimes when I read airport thrillers/beach reads/ bestsellers, I don't care too much about the characters, and the "exciting" part just falls flat. That happens even with big names, even when I'm actively trying to enjoy them. But I always connect with Candace Proctor's characters and want to know what's going on, what's in the next chapter. She's written a bunch of books, but I wish she could write twice as many. Alas.

Anyway, I came here from the regency mystery series she wrote. I still like those more, but these were almost as good, IMO. Recommended.

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Where Tobie Sees Bad Guys

The Solomon Effect by C.S. Graham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second of three books in a series written by Candice Proctor and Steven Harris under the name C. S. Graham. The premise is that Tobie Guinness, a young navy vet, is able to do "remote viewing" under certain circumstances. The CIA agent assigned to work with her from time to time finds it hard to believe she can do what she can do, even though his experience shows that she really can. And when there is something dangerous going on in the world with too few leads, her ability becomes really important.

In this novel, someone has floated a sunken German U-boat from the end of WWII, looking to take possession of something important on board. The details are sketchy, but Jax and Tobie learn they have only a few days to solve the riddle and track down whatever was on the submarine before something catastrophic occurs, and they are nearly on their own, being hunted the whole time by men with guns everywhere they go.

If you can accept this one rather fantastic premise, that Tobie can see and describe a scene somewhere distant, somewhere she's never been, the rest of the series is believably realistic in a "best-seller action thriller" kind of way. It's not meant to be fantasy (though even if it was, I'd be cool with it), but instead focuses on the way intelligence agencies really work, telling a dramatic and exciting story. Just with that one twist. I think it works great.

The pacing is very good, almost as good as C. S. Harris's (another Candice Proctor alias) Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries, and this also has likable, interesting, sympathetic characters. I'm gonna grab the third book, all the while lamenting the lack of books #4-infinity.

If you like fast-moving globe-trotting spy mysteries, you've gotta give these a look.

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Where I Just Point at the Series and Shake My Head in Awe

Who Cries for the Lost by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yeah, this is awesome.

Book 18 in a fantastic series. I've got little left to say after loving the first 17.

Connecting this mystery into the anxious weeks waiting to see what happens with Napoleon, tying it up with the news coming from Waterloo, just makes it that much cooler.

The bad guy here is pretty scary. The last 40 pages should come with popcorn.

Highly recommended.

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Where Sebastian Finds Danger in Paris

When Blood Lies by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this whole series. I've given a few 4s (trying for scrupulous honesty) and all the rest 5s. Hardly any point breaking it down anymore--I like the books, they're all very well done, and I'm gonna keep reading them as long as the author can write them. And every time, I'm gonna repeat all the things I like:

•Plotting--always excellent
•Historical setting--well-researched and well-utilized
•Pace--it just doesn't get any better, IMO, speaking of the whole series
•Characters--the aspect that makes it *mwah* so good

The special draw of this particular novel is the setting, which is Paris for the first time. It makes perfect sense, and it makes the investigation new and intriguing. Sebastian is close to finding his mother, and that has been many books in the making. Plus, it takes place just as Napoleon is leaving Elba and marching to Paris and the Bourbons are scattering. Excellent moment for a mystery story!

I've almost caught up to the author. I'll be sorry when there aren't any more books on the horizon!

Highly recommended.

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Where the Guy Deserved It

Who Slays the Wicked by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

14th book in the series. A couple got a 4 from me; this, and all the rest, were 5.

Such a good series.

In this one, a horrible serial killer is murdered. Not only does Sebastian know the guy, and know some of the crimes he has committed, but his niece is married to him. He couldn't prove his guilt before and was half looking for a way to kill him, but so was everybody else who ever knew the guy--including his niece.

As always, this works perfectly well as a detective novel, but it's also so good at the history and the action and the development of beloved characters that it exceeds well beyond that mark. The thing that I love about this author is that her books have almost no dull parts. I don't mean there's continuous action--that would be a different kind of dull--but everything, from interviews to sneaking around to reflecting with his wife to visiting with his doctor friend, is interesting in its own way. In other words, I guess, the writing is great and the pacing is excellent.

Great series. Excellent mystery. Recommended.

[P.S. Did you know people in London at this time could scrape a living picking up dog poop to sell for tanning hides? Not to mention collecting trash or cleaning out cisterns. Dude. Dang.]

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Where I Go On About the Theme

Why Kill the Innocent by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These mysteries are always awesome--I've said it 12 times before--and they're always entertaining. This 13th book is no exception. The same great characters, always revealed just a bit more; the same great setting, always addressed with the same care for historical accuracy; the same balance of action and intrigue and character development, all with impeccable pacing. Great stuff. But more than that, these books do a terrific job of analyzing the socioeconomic issues of the time, which always reveal something of our time, too. Obviously it's done intentionally, but it's always attacked in a way that's perfectly in keeping with the tone of the story and is organic to the plot.

Much of the social critique in the last several books in the series comes from Sebastian's wife, Hero, who is researching various issues that concern her--the life of chimney sweeps, homeless kids, flower sellers, and the like. In this book, it's the families left behind when men are forcibly taken by the navy that Hero's concerned with. Men are practically kidnapped by press gangs and taken on board ship as crew, while the women left behind have to try to survive on their own and care for their families. Since there are few ways that women can earn money, this leaves them very vulnerable, and not all of them survived. This injustice and the tragedies stemming from it are eventually connected to other restrictions on women that we see in the plot--the murdered woman, who worked as a piano teacher but was secretly [sorry, this is a small spoiler] writing the music her composer husband got credit for; the princess who was kept from her mother by a despotic father, the Regent; the French woman who was a doctor but wasn't allowed to practice in England; the talented woman painter who could just survive by painting miniatures; and more.

You can't read a book like this and not be enraged at the harm done by the misogyny and paternalism that gripped so much of western society at the time (not just England), the same cluster of attitudes beliefs that we're only gradually emerging from (in fits and starts) in the US in the 21st century. (My own mother, teaching in the 1940s in a one-room schoolhouse, was not supposed to date or marry if she wanted to keep her job. My brothers and sisters and I all owe our lives to my parents breaking this rule, which eventually was swept away.) You can't watch the news a single day without seeing echoes and vestiges of this coercive mentality still fighting to control women--to everyone's detriment.

Anyway, it's not a political tract. It's a mystery, and a very good one. Five stars. But it'll get you thinking if you're not careful.

Recommended.

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Where Sebastian Faces Some Real Darkness

Where the Dead Lie by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this whole series, and this might be my favorite out of the 12 I've read. Top 2 or 3 for sure--though that's a tough call.

But it's also very hard to read.

I would never say that this very well-written series is exactly "cozy." Even though I usually enjoy reading these books before going to sleep (which is, to me, one indication) there are many other series that fit that label better. But it's also usually not too brutal (bearing in mind that there are deaths in every one). So it's not Murder She Wrote--far from it--but it's not Criminal Minds, either. However, this particular book could have been a Criminal Minds episode, complete with serial killer and genuine suspense. It's tough in spots. The murderer abducts children, tortures them, and then kills them. It's fiction, but it's real, you know? Such things happen. And it's horrible to face it and think about it.

Anyway, even though I had to quit watching Criminal Minds at some point because I couldn't take the misery portrayed in the stories, this is still very readable, and I'm trying to work out why I felt that way. Good people are working to save the kids, and despite the darkness there's a ribbon of hope spooling out through the whole story. I feel like the author balanced the difficulty of the subject matter with the grit, direct action, commitment, anger, and bravery we need as a reader to follow along. It's well done, and though it has a complex conclusion, I found the ending satisfying, and I'm eager to look at the next one.

Just as an aside: there's some discussion of the writings of the Marquis de Sade here, and at first I thought it was going to be simple and moralistic (which woulda been totally okay in this context, though not terribly edifying), but it ended up being surprisingly nuanced. I learned some stuff. So that was cool.

I think there are at least 3 stories waiting on the edges of this one: 1) Dr. Gibson needs to get off drugs; 2) One unexpected death was surely not due to natural causes, and I think I know who did it; and 3) Sebastian's niece is gonna need help with her horrible husband.

This is also my wish list for stuff to be solved in the next book. However, the author has her own way of timing things, and since everything so far has been very well done, I'll just wait to see how she manages it.

Recommended.

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Where I Repeat My Praises of a Great Series

When Falcons Fall by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The eleventh book in the series. I've liked them all, 4 stars at least. Gave most of them 5.

But they continue to be so well done and so fun to read. Whaddaya gonna do?

(I arrived here from Jane Austen fandom, though I'm mostly a science fiction and fantasy reader. At least I used to be. Becoming a mystery guy. Hmm.)

There are so many great characters, and so many with their own interesting arcs; such great use of setting (and research); such well-conceived and captivating mysteries; such great action, and with such excellent pacing... I've said all this nearly a dozen times.

The whole series is recommended. Might as well start with the first, but you do whatever. It's all good.

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Where Sebastian Meets Jane Austen

Who Buries the Dead by C.S. Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've enjoyed every book in this series so far. This is book 10. Still good.

As always--I love the setting and the research, I love the mix of action and mystery and history, and I'm very invested in many of the characters: Sebastian, Hero, Gibson (the doctor), Tom (his "tiger"), and some others. Even the recurring bad guys are pretty cool, including one who might be Sebastian's half-brother. This novel includes Jane Austen as a character, and I loved seeing that.

It was just a tad less compelling for me this time; the ending still had a lot of action and heightened anxiety, but the novel as a whole had less character movement than usual, and their arcs didn't develop much. We barely see Gibson or his new girlfriend, for example; Tom has no good scenes; and Jane Austen is underutilized, IMO. (On the other hand, Lord Jarvis is suddenly terrifying again.) I think the added complexity of the mystery plot (which was still good, btw, but had a lot of moving parts) sucked up all the oxygen through the middle sections of the book, with maybe too many suspects. As a result, I liked it rather than loved it.

I will take that any day, though. I'm gonna keep rolling on through the series.

Recommended.

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Where We Wonder if the Lost Dauphin Was Really Lost

Why Kings Confess by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved it. Again.

This is such a great series. It has excellent research, sympathetic characters, interesting mysteries, and well-paced action. Also, the stakes are set at the right level for me. (Little or no stakes--a bit boring and too "cozy;" very high stakes--I fret my way through the story and don't want to read another one. This falls nicely between those extremes.)

No point summarizing the plot. I'll just say, for new readers of the Sebastian St. Cyr series, that if you like the first book, you're bound to enjoy them all. High quality beginning to end. Or at least book 9, but probably beyond. :)

Recommended.

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Where It's Six Bullseyes in a Row

Where Shadows Dance by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has become one of my all-time favorite series. Not a single miss so far, and it's long past time I stopped buying them one at a time.

In this novel, Sebastian becomes aware of a man who was almost certainly murdered, though his death was officially declared due to natural causes. His good friend, the doctor Paul Gibson, has discovered the fact while honing his surgical craft on a cadaver illegally obtained. To solve the case while protecting his friend, Sebastian has to put together leads without alerting the Bow Street Runners or other authorities that they've missed a crime. This becomes very difficult when he finds that the death is tied to high-stakes diplomacy between the UK and France, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, and the US.

As always, it's brilliantly plotted and researched, but it's the characters and their arcs that make it feel deeper, somehow, and more human. Sebastian is interesting and very sympathetic; his relationship with his father (not to mention other relatives) is complex and evolving; the love of his life, lost to him in marriage, still makes an appearance and a contribution; and his fiancé, the independent and confident Hero, becomes more and more important to him--and vice versa. The long arc of their love affair is so carefully done, so patiently done, I'm amazed and hooked. The long scene where Hero is endangered (I'll leave it at that to be only mildly spoilery) is one of my favorites. The author surprised me with how that worked out, and I liked it.

No clunkers here; nothing dumb; no eye rolls. I enjoyed it all the way through. So... recommended, of course.

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Where Such Secrets Emerge... :0

Why Mermaids Sing by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this series. I often have a momentum problem--getting stuck between books 1 and 2 on many, many series--but third book in on this series, I'm more eager than ever for the next one. And the next.

I love the characters: Sebastian, the young nobleman who's an excellent investigator; Kat, the beautiful, independent actress who he loves; Tom, the resourceful street kid who works as Sebastian's tiger and his eyes and ears in low places; and several nicely drawn secondary characters, like his father, his doctor friend, and many others. Everybody has a past. Everybody has problems. But Sebastian and Kat, in particular, are good people trying to make a decent life while the world keeps throwing obstacles in their way.

The mystery in "Why Mermaids Sing" is a nice mix of complex and comprehensible, while the action is well paced, offering new clues and leads at a good rate while the tension increases. And, as always, the setting is beautifully evoked. In any case, it feels right to me.

Fun to read. Good folks to root for. Additionally, there's a larger arc across the series that's very engaging. When we learn something important about Kat's past, her origins, everything changes... :0

Recommended.

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