Where Joliffe Goes to Rouen

A Play of Treachery by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A good book. It has some quirks, maybe flaws, but I still enjoyed reading it.

This series has been very entertaining, but this book took a turn, and it almost didn't work for me. Joliffe has been with his traveling troupe of actors in the first four, solving mysteries while they're putting on plays in rich houses or village greens. Here, he gets hired to go to France (to Rouen, in the part England still governed back then) to serve in a rich household and learn how to be a spy, basically. It's a good idea, opening up cool possibilities for the series, but it takes a lot of time.

It makes this a sort of hybrid book--training for a job first and solving a mystery second. In fact, probably 2/3 or 3/4 of the book is about Joliffe learning how to be a spy while pretending to be a kind of losery drunk guy who's about to get fired. He trains in spycraft and weapons in the night while working as a scribe and watching everybody during the day. All this is fine--but it's meant to be a mystery series and the first part isn't all that fun. It isn't until quite near the end that we get a mystery, which is where it gets good. (I was gonna give it a 3 until that point.) There's a murder and an attempted murder, and at last Joliffe is doing his thing, bringing his skills to bear.

I guess the author wanted to give Joliffe more scope for those skills, and I agree with the idea. I expect the next novel jumps into the action quicker.

It's still a brisk read, even the early parts, and by the end it's quite fun. Recommended--in order.

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Where Everybody Might Have Done It

Jane and the Canterbury Tale by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Number 11 in my favorite all-time series. And another 5-star book.

I read this first maybe 15 years ago. Hard to believe it's that long ago. But like the last reread (book 10, I mean), I think I liked it even more this time through. (It was long enough ago that I didn't recall the solution to the mystery, not until I got to the crucial scene, so it was still great fun all the way. Perks of a faulty memory...)

Jane is staying with her wealthy brother near Canterbury when there is a murder, and the victim turns out to be the supposedly-deceased husband of a widow who has just remarried. Jane's brother is the magistrate and has to investigate, leading him to jail a friend of the family and consider others as possible suspects. So many people turn out to have genuine reason to want the man dead, it was hard to find someone who wasn't a suspect.

Lots of twists and turns, lots of social awkwardness (sorry I jailed your sister!), lots of clues and misdirection. All fun. As always, the writing feels both Jane Austeny and modern, a nice trick, and the characters are well-drawn and entertaining. A couple of rogues show up that I think deserve a spin-off series, if only the author could be persuaded. :)

I generally don't reread books. Very rarely. But I enjoy these so much I might become one of those people who goes back through a favorite series every year or two. Not a bad notion.

Highly recommended.

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A Dark Mystery in a Dark Time

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very entertaining book and series. I've been reading it all out of order--you find what you find at used book stores--but that doesn't affect it much. The stories all work on their own.

This is the first, and yet it feels like there was another book before this where the characters were born. (Seems like there was more than just back-story behind this, as if there's a missing first book in the series didn't catch on. I don't know. Doesn't really matter.) In any case, the main character and her friends--she's a doctor from Salerno, working with a Jewish doctor and a Muslim man--set out for England to solve a long series of murders that are being blamed on the Jewish population of Cambridge.

This is the 1100's. None of them are well-received in England, but especially not a woman trying to practice medicine. Not done. So they have to pretend that Adelia is an assistant to the men, although she is the one with all the crucial skills to solve such cases.

The mystery here is compelling and horrifying, not to mention scary and disturbing and horrible, and the plotting is strong. Also, the world it's placed in, the world of 12th Century England under the much-maligned King Henry II (who is a great character here), is vividly recreated. (I just realized there's a map in the front that I really could have been using all along. Sheesh.) Good mystery, good history, good characters--there's a lot to like. And while I like the main character and appreciate what she brings to the story, I find her hard to really like. I'm not sure why. She just always seems a contrarian who makes it hard for anyone to talk to her. If there's any sweetness in Adelia, it isn't clear on the page. I can't figure out quite what the author is going for with her, but it may be a cultural difference between us that makes it hard for me to connect.

But I like the book and I'm cheering for the main character, even if I'd never want to chat with her in real life. If you want someone to catch your murderer, though, she's a good choice.

Recommended.

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Where Joliffe Gets a New Side Hustle

A Play of Lords by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very satisfying novel.

This is book 4 in the series, and I'm glad that they are just getting better--more fun, more interesting, more complex. Joliffe is an actor in a small troupe in 15th century England. He's intelligent, a bit of a smart ass, generally ethical but no saint, friendly but not a pushover. As the series progresses, he's getting more and more focused on solving mysteries he's presented with or involved in; it's not just curiosity and gossiping leading him to solutions, but thoughtful action and deep reflection. The more intentional his investigations become, the more I like it.

[Some light spoilers.]
The players are in London for the first time in the series, playing for their sponsor, when Joliffe is asked to write a play that would help promote propaganda useful to a friend of the lord they work for. The play is a success, helping in a small way to spread a message that will smooth over a trade disagreement with Burgundy, but someone else sends goons to attack them and discourage them from continuing in this way. From that point on, Joliffe is trying to figure out what forces are on what side, and he is enlisted by Bishop Beaufort to do more of that thinking and watching and investigating in his service, pretty much as a spy.

Some of the thinking here, in the form "Maybe it's this faction trying to look like this, or maybe it's this other faction hoping to get a different outcome, or maybe it's a third group thing to make it look like the first group..." was pretty deep and I lost the thread. I'm afraid international trade, beyond the simplest level, does not make sense to me, so I just plowed through some of that, but the story is still entirely clear. The resolution makes sense and is satisfying, though (as I think I've noticed in previous books) I wouldn't mind another chapter fleshing out the consequences and final state for some of the minor characters. Much is implied, but I was enjoying the conclusion and would have liked a bit more of it.

In any case, it's a fun book, and as always the setting is well-researched and beautifully realized. Recommended for mystery readers.

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Where Joliffe Goads the Bad Guy

A Play of Knaves by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been enjoying this series and the related Frevisse series. This is the 5th I've read, and they've been consistently (to me) right around 4 stars, maybe 4.5. I liked this one even more, and don't feel like I'm being charitable to say it's a 5 star read.

In this historical mystery set in the 1400s, we find Joliffe and the other players being sent to visit a village that has secrets or some difficult undercurrent troubling the people. Their patron has some interest in the matter, so they go away from their normal route to perform in the area and snoop out what's going on. Turns out, there's a lot, and it's all tangled in family histories.

What I like is that Joliffe is getting more and more unapologetically direct in investigating leads and working out secrets to solve the mysteries that they wander into. He's not a detective, but he's intelligent, inventive, bold, and a bit defiant on the inside. He doesn't do it all alone, and the story is about the whole troupe as well as the villagers, but Joliffe's development and activity is the most interesting part of the story.

There are some pretty evil bad guys here, and it's good to see the mystery solved and their evil plots stamped out. That's always fun. And our hero gets to be the crucial factor in that solution, which for me is absolutely necessary in mysteries like this. I lost a little focus and spaced some of the details, like the corners on the overlapping love triangles, but the author gives us a a satisfying conclusion that solves everything satisfactorily, both emotionally and plot-wise. (It might be nice to see the actors get thanked by some folks they've helped, but I can let that go.)

A good series--getting better as we go. Recommended.

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Where It Might be King Arthur

Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading this and found lots to like, and though I have some issues, I have to give it a 4 star rating. 4 with an asterisk.

This is the second book I've read in this series--out of order--and since I only kinda liked the other one I put off starting this one for a long time. I liked the mystery and pacing of this one better, though I still don't really like the main character. I keep trying to figure out why; she's just the kind of investigator I usually love.

[I wrote a very positive review of that book at the time. It's strange, because it's not how the story sits in my memory. I can't explain beyond recognizing that literature is complex, and we can both like and dislike a book at the same time.]

There are several mysteries layered here, and they're all interesting to me. One is to identify a pair of bodies found after an earthquake in Glastonbury that locals think are actually Arthur and Guinevere. Another mystery is to determine who started the fire that destroyed the abbey, as some poor men (who claim had nothing to do with it) are being blamed. Additionally, Adelia's friend has gone missing on the road and may be dead. And lastly, some other remains and artifacts are discovered which may actually touch on the Arthur legends.

Lots to do.

Adelia works with an Arab man who pretends to be the doctor that she actually is, and she travels with her daughter and a servant. She's independent and educated and driven to solve questions surrounding murders and deaths by accident. That's awesome. I find her hard to take, though, and (this is the asterisk part I mentioned above) it seems like she's grouchy and rude and difficult when there's no reason for it. I like that attitude fine when she's dealing with rotten people, but even when the people are reasonable, friendly, and decent, and she wants help or information from them, she is abrasive and short and demanding. (I can't figure out if the author means for us to read her this way, perhaps to make her more complex and real, or if this is just how the author is?) It gives me second-hand embarrassment the whole way through. She seldom shows gratitude when she gets help or says thank you; she's just as likely to expect further assistance, and demand it, but still not in a nice way.

I dunno. I like her role and biographical details some of the things she represents, but I don't like her, and it makes it harder to like the stories she's in. Even though the book was pretty entertaining, with a good plot, a good mystery, and making great use of historical details, Adelia is off-putting to me--like the Eastern European woman my wife and I pass on the sidewalk almost every morning while we're walking the dog, who only frowns at us when we say good morning to her, even after years of bumping into her over and over and over. (It's a campaign now. I won't be deterred.) : ) A little kindness, a little friendliness goes a long way....

Anyway, I liked the book. Others would probably like it, too. I have a third title from the series already on hand, and I'm debating whether I'll read it or trade it in. I have other series where I can cheer on the MC with greater pleasure. I just keep hoping I'll figure her out.

We'll see.

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Where Frevisse Solves a Sad Mystery

The Servant's Tale by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another good book in this series. (I count the Joliffe books as the same series. I guess it's a spinoff...)

Sister Frevisse is a good MC for this kind of mystery. She's still about 90% nun, but she's got enough spirit and drive to see innocent people protected to still be a useful and interesting investigator. I like the pace and the construction of the mystery and clues, and though I'm hopeful that there'll be more to love in future books, I'm enjoying these quite a bit.

I suppose what I miss is awesome people being awesome, being the smartest person in the room, one step ahead of the bad guy, like Sherlock or Benoit Blanc or Poirot. And I like to see other characters give them their due. So while Frevisse figuring out what really happened is cool, I'd like someone to acknowledge her accomplishments, give her a slow clap or something. Her triumphs are very low-key. In some mysteries, you get a fist-pumping "Yes!" moment when the investigator outsmarts the bad guy. Frevisse's wins here are more or less satisfying, sure, but less awesome because nobody really recognizes her achievement.

Anyway, still fun to read, with excellent use of setting and rewarding historical accuracy. (Apparently.) I feel like I'm learning some stuff while I'm being entertained.

I'm gonna get me a stack of the sequels. Here we go...

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Where Dame Frevisse Hunts a Killer

The Novice's Tale by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an entertaining and satisfying mystery. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and wish GR let me say 4.5, though for now 4 is my most honest rating. Quite good; maybe the next in the series will be even better.

I came here from starting her second series, the one focusing on Joliffe the actor. Realizing there was this earlier group of novels, I looked it up. I found this about equally entertaining and well done.

This series is set in a monastery, with Dame Frevisse as the central character. I'm not actually sure how old she is, but she's smart and tough and intelligent, kinda no-nonsense, though she is decently patient and compassionate. A woman dies at the monastery, and then a second person. That's bad. But it looks like a sweet young novice, a woman as pious as they come, had the most reason and best opportunity to commit the crime. The characters are sufficiently round for the first book in a series, and the world they inhabit is well-drawn and believable. I need to look up the clothes they wear--not too sure about houppelandes and such--but there's time.

Dame Frevisse is sure that the poor little novice can't be the real murderer, and she works to uncover the truth. It is due to her work that the crime is solved, though she gets timely help from a few people, and I like it that the answers don't just emerge accidentally the way some mystery novels do it. I also like it that she isn't sleuthing from beginning to end. When that happens, books can feel too narrow, too forced, and not very real. The investigation here is really just the last quarter or third of the book. This is not a bloodless mystery, not just a brain puzzle, like some mysteries I've enjoyed less. It's a story about people who are living through a strange time, doing the best they can, getting on with the business of living, and the reader is a witness to all of it. I guess, for me, that creates a nice balance of plot, blending the warmth of human lives and everyday interactions with the coldness of criminal problem-solving.

The conclusion is somewhat complex, but not confusing, and that's a plus. It feels more real that way, IMO.

Overall? Fun to read. Good characters to root for. A nice premise. A very good start to a series. So it is recommended. I'm hunting up the next couple, pretty confident they'll be to my taste.

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Where Joliffe Plays Detective

A Play of Isaac by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My first book by this author, and I really liked it. Went back and forth on a score--4 or 5--because I bet I'll like others in the series even more, but why be cheap? It was a fun book, a pleasure to read, so let's give it all the points.

I've read more than a few mysteries set in medieval or renaissance times, and I find most of them are so dreary I can hardly get through them. I think that's intentional--the dreary part, not the "hardly get through them" part--but I don't like it. Maybe life was mostly dreary then, and this is, after all, a murder mystery, but it's not supposed to be a bad experience for the reader, IMO. It's supposed to be fun to read. And this one is.

Fun why, you ask. First, I generally liked the main characters, which include Joliffe and the others in the troupe. (I found the minor characters interesting and well drawn, too, FWIW.) They're not totally best buds, and so they bicker and annoy each other part of the time, but it's friendly enough, and they all look out for each other. They're pretty good people, too, or so it seems to me, with engaging backstories, though I didn't read the previous series where they showed up. In other words, I like to side with them and cheer for them. Second, the setting is well done, with the land, the town, the society, the economy, and pretty much all the details seemingly accurate. Anything out of place is beyond my knowledge. The story inhabits that setting in a way that I enjoy, kinda like when you have a really good diagram of a ship or something and you can say "Oh, that's how that fits together..." Scratches a brain itch. And third, it's a good mystery.

Joliffe and the troupe he's part of have a gig in Oxford for the Corpus Christi festival, and when they're kind toward a mentally challenged theater-loving young man, they get invited to his rich family's home (well, barn) to stay a few days and perform a little for the family and their get-togethers. A body is found outside the barn where they are camping, and though they aren't explicitly named as suspects, they know how precarious their position is, and Joliffe takes it upon himself to solve the mystery.

It's good stuff: good pacing, plenty of intrigue, no dry patches. Now that I know the characters, I'm eager to see more of their stories, as well as others by this author. Fingers crossed.

Recommended for those historical mystery readers like me who haven't already discovered these books.

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Where Jane Saves Her Own Neck

Jane and the Barque of Frailty by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm still on my second time through the Jane Austen mysteries, and I'm only loving them more.

I wasn't a mystery reader until I got hooked on this series, and I'm only now getting kinda good at it. There's a bit of genre savvy required to read them right, and I didn't have it at first. It's not just knowing that the first person pointed at probably isn't the murderer, like in a police procedural, or getting good at guessing who the culprit really is before it's revealed. (I'm not necessarily all that good at the latter, anyway.) There's also the ability to pay attention well enough that you know who people are, how they're related to each other, what their motivations are, which things they both know and which things only one of them knows, and where individuals were at different times during the course of the story. That stuff's hard once you have more than a tiny handful of characters. But you can get better at it, even if you have a notoriously faulty memory. (Also me.)

Agatha Christie takes this to extremes in some of her mysteries, especially the ones where the murder, the murderer, and all the suspects are isolated--and all the isolated people are suspects--on the Orient Express or at a summer home or on a ship down the Nile and it's Poirot's job to establish the movements of everyone involved down to the minute. (I guess people refer to these as closed circle mysteries or locked room mysteries.) That's more puzzle than story to me, and not as much my thing (though I have loved a few Agatha Christie novels), but it really does concentrate those analytical elements that a lot of mystery readers love. (I wonder if a modern detective in that sort of novel would benefit from using a spreadsheet...)

It's not quite that intense in this mystery or the series, and that's good IMO, because this is a lot closer to the feel I like, that of a Jane Austen novel of manners, with visits and balls and conversations over tea. There are family subplots and a larger, biographical arc stretched across all the books in the series, that give it more interest to me. In this novel, we have a little scandal among great lords and ladies in London, with a Russian princess making a spectacle of herself because of her apparent love for Lord Castlereagh just hours before she's found dead near his front door. The story involves other kept women and prostitutes of various degrees--here charmingly referred to, at times, as a "Barque of Frailty," (hence the title)--in a way unlike actual Austen novels. But it's refreshing more than anything else. The real Jane gave us a narrow worldview, the type allowed in novels at the time, but Stephanie Barron lets us see a broader cross-section of Regency England, a bit more of real people, and it's like having a brain itch scratched. I like it.

Jane herself (the character) becomes a suspect when she and her SIL are given some jewels to sell for a friend that turn out to come from the murdered princess. It becomes even more important that she solve this crime than others, because it's her neck this time, and for plot reasons they don't tell anyone about it.

Beautifully written. Well researched. Lots of interesting characters. It's still 5 stars to me, and if I kept better track of the characters and their movements this time, well, I guess I'm still learning. Recommended.

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Knights Against Monks

The Templar Detective and the Unholy Exorcist by J. Robert Kennedy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My first book by this prolific author.

I liked it okay. I'd say this was a pretty good 3, even a 3 1/2, but it's too much a pulp-fiction novel for me to bump it to a 4 or 5. The language makes it a quick read, but it doesn't evoke Medieval France in any way. (It kinda reads as if modern Americans were dropped into the story.) There's a pretty good attempt at being accurate about history, about knights and the Church and so on, but I don't think much of the history would stand up to rigorous criticism. And all that's okay, as it's just supposed to be fun and quick and full of action, which it is. Good pacing. Straightforward language. Decent stakes. It's entertaining, which is what I hoped for.

The characters are mostly sketched rather than fully developed, but it works for the genre, and the writer (who's sold a bunch of books) is genuinely good at keeping the prose punchy and the plot moving along. The chapters are short at about three pages usually, with lots of POV characters, and even if one POV or part of the story doesn't interest you, the scene jumps every few pages, keeping it rolling. The premise of the series is fun, too, with a group of Templars who solve mysteries. In this one, young women are being abducted by a priest and some monks, supposedly to exorcise demons, and it's the Templars' job to track down a young woman they know, along with others, and determine who is behind the abductions and why.

A good novel? Not really, not in my opinion. A fun read, though? Yeah, I'd say so.

Recommended for readers of action and pulp fiction.

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Where There Are Almost no Good Guys

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Set in Tudor England, this is the story of Matthew Shardlake, a servant of Thomas Cromwell, who is sent to a monastery on the coast to investigate the murder of the commissioner. The bigger job is getting the monastery to "surrender," to force it to close and have the monks leave with a small pension. This occurred just after Anne Boleyn was put to death on the false, tortured testimony of her supposed lovers, when all the rich monasteries were being closed. (In real life, the story of false confessions is likely true; in the novel, it is absolutely true.) At this time, the Church of England was newly pre-eminent; "papists" were oppressed; and the monasteries were the enemies of the state, mainly because they had a lot of money that Cromwell and his cronies wanted for themselves.

Shardlake is an interesting but not entirely likable protagonist. I like him better by the end, but he's arrogant and moralistic, a bit of a hypocrite, and not as effective as I'd like him to be. But he's pretty sharp, and he's reasonably active despite being physically limited. Most of the minor characters, including those in London, all the monks and their servants in the monastery, and the locals, are varying degrees of obnoxious and unlikable, too, especially Cromwell. The doctor (spoiler? sorta; hardly) is a good guy, and he's the only one I can think of that isn't disappointing. But I guess that's all part of the theme. The dissolution of the monasteries, their destruction and selling off for parts, mirrors what Shardlake sees in the world at large. Everything falls apart. No one, no institution, is as good as it pretends to be. The world is darkness and deception; the church is self-serving; the court is evil.

He learns a lot in this story.

It's a good mystery, though it falters in the long middle section, which I wouldn't have minded being about 75 pages shorter, tbh. It is quite entertaining overall, though, and the threads are tied up enough to satisfy by the end. I want to see how Shardlake progresses after this, if he's less naive and less hypocritical, if he keeps his distance from Cromwell, so I'm gonna ago find the sequel. I expect to like it.

Recommended for historical mystery readers.

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Where Will Shakespeare Is a Spy

The Assassin of Verona by Benet Brandreth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For me, this is a "liked it a little" book. That's a 3 to me.

I could give it a 4 for the last chapter, which was pretty good; but I could give it a 2 for a very disappointing plot. Let me explain.

The premise is fun: Shakespeare, as a younger man, before he wrote all his plays, ends up with a couple friends impersonating delegates from England, becoming actual spies in the process. They reach Venice in book 1. This is book 2, where he and Hemmings and Oldcastle are trying to return to England with important intelligence. And for about 80% of the book, nothing of note happens.

They're separated, and end up in the forests around Verona. Will, depressed by a severe loss, hangs out with bandits in the woods. Does nothing. Says little. His friends are stuck at the local Duke's court, playing new roles to avoid the pope's men. But they don't come up with any plans or attempt to do anything intelligent.

None of them do.

If the duke's daughter didn't drive the action, nothing would happen.

I'll grant that a lot of Shakespeare plays also have very loose plots--think The Tempest or A Midsummer Night's Dream--where stuff happens but nobody achieves anything much. So maybe he's going for that here. But imagine having Shakespeare as a character while not having him do anything or say anything interesting for most of the book.

Disappointing. The last chapter or so sees a bit of action, but then ends on a horribly sour note that definitely does not make me want to read any more like this. Just a bummer.

Anyway, it's written well, as far as prose I mean, with some fun allusions to language from the plays, and has a few good scenes. Overall: thumbs-up, but without much conviction.

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Where Rosalind Solves Another One

A Purely Private Matter by Darcie Wilde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Second in the series. I really liked it.

This series has a great main character in Rosalind Thorne--round, complex, interesting, capable but not unbelievable--and the author has a very clear, confident voice. The Regency setting is nicely realized and the mystery plot is well managed.

Jane Austen's name is evoked here and there when people talk about this series, and I can absolutely see that and appreciate it, but this is a more worldly world than you find on most of the pages of her novels. That's not a criticism of either--there's a lot to admire and enjoy in both. But Rosalind is herself a lot more worldly than any Austen heroines, which she'd need to be to investigate murder and blackmail and adultery. It might be fun to see Emma or Elinor or Lizzie investigate in that way (though Fanny would be hopeless, I fear), and I'd read that book, but Rosalind has had a lot more practice facing the seamier side of life without freaking out or losing her composure. The series still has a dignified and proper tone, but it's much more aware and accepting of the broader society.

The point is that I'd label this series more Austen-adjacent than Austen-like.

Anyway, it's a fun mystery with excellent characters that I'm eager to see again in book 3. Recommended for readers of historical mystery. And Austen folks, for sure.

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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 Grace Solves a Locked Room Mystery

Keys by Grace Cavendish
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book 11--just as good as books 1-10.

Set in Queen Elizabeth's reign, among her ladies in waiting, this story, like the others, has a young woman named Grace solving a mystery without letting on that she's doing so. That's a bit of a trick, though she has a couple friends who can help her sneak around at night or gather rumors. This one was a locked room murder mystery with a clever solution, and I feel like it worked well. The authors behind the "Lady Grace" pen name do a good job with characterization and dialogue and pacing, but I think they are especially good with setting; they make excellent good use of London and the various residences of the queen's in the 16th Century, and the historical elements that go into the stories, including this one, I find not only accurate but instructive.

These are intended for a MG audience, and I think both in terms of interest and quality they should continued to do well with that group--if they find them. The last book was published more than a decade ago, and the later ones in the series, like this one, are kinda rare. Maybe a new edition?

Recommended for young readers as well as older readers who enjoy mysteries with a cozier tone.

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Where Sebastian Moves On--Kinda

Where Serpents Sleep by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This continues to be an entertaining series. Seldom do I find the third or fourth book as engaging and fun as I found this and each one before it. I'm glad there are several more waiting for me to start them.

A few changes here. Having discovered an uncomfortable truth, Sebastian and Cat no longer see one another, and that disrupts the setup for these novels; but Hero Jarvis, the daughter of his kinda enemy, Lord Jarvis, fills that void very well. She reminds me (in a good way) of people I know. I feel like she could be played on screen by Anna Maxwell Martin, or someone like her, and that's who I saw in my mind whenever she was in a scene. There are some fun interactions between Sebastian and Hero, and I look forward to the rest of their arc. (I accidentally started the fifth book before this one, so I encountered some spoilers. I'm okay with that.)

I like the way the main character is a good guy who is capable but not infallible, who surrounds himself with people who are also capable and generally good but edging toward gray, and who takes a principled stand in matters that concern the life and safety of others, especially when the rest of society just doesn't care. He can be stubborn and put himself in the wrong, but he comes around in time. I like him, and I like the people around him. He has me rooting for Tom, his young servant, and his cockney valet, and his undefined friend Hero, and his not-completely-legal doctor friend. It's a great cast. That's why the books keep getting 5 stars from me.

Lots of fun. Recommended.

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Still Good, 10 Books In

Jinx by Grace Cavendish
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the 10th book in the Lady Grace Mystery series, and it's still fun.

A woman is killed and one of the ladies in waiting burned at the St Bartholomew's Fair. As it happens, the best hope for Lady Sarah's burns was the woman who died in the fire, a woman with some healing skill, and the story behind that is the heart of the mystery. Lady Grace has to figure out what really happened to the woman, who started the fire, and how to prove what she has learned. IMO, the story works, and Lady Grace continues to be quite realistically plotted, or at least as realistic as the genre requires. It is also plenty of fun and more than a little informative about the time and setting in general.

Ranking the book for me, an old man reading a book aimed at kids, I found it (and the series as a whole) entertaining and unironically enjoyable--4 stars. Ranking it according to my opinion regarding young people and their preferences, I'd give it all the stars. Nothing not to like. Speaking as a teacher with an ax to grind, the best thing for turning young on-again, off-again readers into genuine excited readers is finding something they like and getting them lots more of that, which is why a successful series like this is perfect (depending on the particular interests of the reader). There is a lot to like with no drop-off in quality across the books. If they like one, they're bound to like the whole bunch.

So--recommended for all ages, but especially for MG and YA.

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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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Where Book Two Doesn't Disappoint

When Gods Die by C.S. Harris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the past year, I've given up several series--three, actually--that I thought I was gonna like. I struggled a bit in book one, found I totally disliked book two, and reluctantly did not finish. In each case I had bought a couple books ahead, even. Dumb.

But I'm glad this series turned it around. I liked the first and I liked this second one more, if anything. I'm looking forward to the third as well, which I already bought ahead, having learned nothing at all from my previous experience....

Sebastian St. Cyr is an interesting character, both in terms of his personality and his in-between place in society. He's a good guy, honorable and fair, though he's seen some things and is capable of some things, too. As he's a member of the noble class, welcomed to the parties and dances and salons of the upper class, he's able to follow his investigations anywhere necessary, and while this and some other oddities about him put him a bit on the outs with good society, he doesn't care. Working class men couldn't possibly make headway on cases involving the upper class, and he's one of few noblemen who would be willing to try.

Of course, fitting in at one end of society means he sticks out at the other end, in the dodgy parts of town, which is why he has taken on Tom--an independent, resourceful street kid--as his "tiger." Tom goes where Sebastian can't, chatting up servants and skulking around low-class dives. And Sebastian's great love, Kat, an actress, has her own contacts and resources that are useful to him (though she helped him a bit more in book one than two).

This novel's about a woman who appears to have been murdered by the Prince Regent at a party. Of course, there's a lot of intrigue behind the affair, but what draws Sebastian into the investigation is the necklace she was found wearing--one that belonged to his mother, who was supposed to have died in a shipwreck years before. Good setup, that.

In brief: excellent action, good pacing, lots of anxious conflict, terrific mystery. I'm happy to have settled in to a series to my liking. :)

Recommended, of course, for readers of historical mysteries.

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