Category: Read

#6Degrees of Separation From The Book of Form and Emptiness to The Quiet People

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

The Book of Form and EmptinessThis month’s starting book is The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.  As is often the case, it’s a book I haven’t read but according to the blurb it concerns a fourteen-year-old boy who begins to hear voices and takes refuge in the silence of a public library.

Another book set around a library is The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams which starts with the discovery of a crumpled reading list tucked inside a tattered library book.

Another kind of list features in The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle. If you could name five people – living or dead – to have dinner with, who would you choose? In the book Sabrina arrives at her 30th birthday dinner to find her best friend, three significant people from her past… and Audrey Hepburn.

Audrey Hepburn starred in the 1961 film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote who also wrote In Cold Blood. It tells the story of the real life murders of the Clutter family in Kansas in 1959 and is considered by many to be the first true crime ‘non-fiction novel’.

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed is another book which is a fictionalized account of an actual crime, in this case the murder of a shopkeeper in 1950s Cardiff. It’s also a story of a miscarriage of justice.

This Mortal Boy by Fiona Kidman also has as its subject a possible miscarriage of justice. Set in Auckland in 1955, it describes the trial and conviction for murder of Albert ‘Paddy’ Black, a young Belfast man and recent immigrant to New Zealand.

New Zealand is also the setting for crime novel The Quiet People by Paul Cleave in which the young son of two successful crime writers disappears. Suspicion falls on them not least because they have frequently joked that, since they write about it for a living, no one knows how to get away with crime like they do.

My chain has taken us from the peace and quiet of a library to the clamour of press attention. Where did your chain take you?

#BookReview The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys by Jack Jewers

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Samuel Pepys Paperback Cover copyAbout the Book

It is the summer of 1669 and England is in dire straits.

The treasury’s coffers are bare and tensions with the powerful Dutch Republic are boiling over. And now, an investigator sent by the King to look into corruption at the Royal Navy has been brutally murdered. Loathe to leave the pleasures of London, Samuel Pepys is sent dragging his feet to Portsmouth to find the truth about what happened.

Aided by his faithful assistant, Will Hewer, he soon exposes the killer. But has he got the right person? The truth may be much more sinister. And if the mystery isn’t solved in time, then England could be thrown into a war that would have devastating consequences . . .

Format: Hardback (360 pages)       Publisher: Moonflower Publishing
Publication date: 4th August 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

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My Review

As the author explains in the Historical Notes, Samuel Pepys kept a diary for almost ten years but then suddenly stopped for reasons that can only be speculated upon. The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys imagines what events in Pepys’ life he might have recorded in his diaries had he continued. As a result we have the author to thank for giving us an insight into an unsettled period in English history following the Restoration of Charles II, a time when war with the Dutch was a real fear and whose side you had been on in the Civil War still mattered. The author cleverly incorporates elements of this into a plot that involves murder, conspiracy, treachery and political intrigue whilst at the same time being a rip-roaring adventure.

As imagined by the author, Samuel Pepys is not only a diligent diarist but an intrepid investigator, a faithful friend and someone who, in the course of the book, discovers a perhaps surprising taste for adventure. He also has a high pain threshold. If you don’t believe me, look up the word ‘lithotomy’ and then think ‘without anaesthetic’. He’s a less than faithful husband unfortunately with the result that his relationship with his wife Elisabeth is fraught, at least when the book opens.

The book immerses the reader in the London and Portsmouth of the period in all their grimy and fetid detail. The streets and alleyways are a place of danger and poverty is rife. For many it’s a miserable existence, enlivened only by attending cock-fights or watching a hanging.  Or in Pepys’ case frequenting whorehouses, which gives rise to a terrific scene at the start of the book.  There are plenty of action scenes as well depicted in a way which perhaps reflect the author’s experience as a filmmaker. Pepys ascending the stern of a ship via a rope ladder or the tactical use of a trail of gunpowder are scenes that spring to mind.

The book includes some great characters, some of whom are based on real individuals, such as Pepys’ longtime assistant Will Hewer. There are some fantastically feisty female characters, notably a sisterhood who in their resistance to a male hegemony in which ‘the law is an instrument of men’ prove themselves able to give just as good as they get, if not better. The plot has plenty of twists and turns leaving Pepys to observe ruefully at one point that ‘for every answer, another question’.

By the end of the book, it’s clear that not everything was as it seemed, things that seemed connected were perhaps not and that, for reasons of state, there are things that must be kept under wraps. With still some time to go between the end of the book and our hero’s demise in 1703, perhaps Jack Jewers may treat us to further adventures for Samuel and Will?

With its combination of intriguing plot, interesting characters and great period atmosphere, The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys will definitely appeal to fans of historical crime mysteries.

My thanks to Funmi at Midas PR and Moonflower Publishing for my digital proof copy.

In three words: Entertaining, inventive, intriguing

Try something similar: Rags of Time by Michael Ward

Jack JewersAbout the Author

Jack Jewers is a filmmaker and writer, passionate about history. His career has been spent telling stories in all media, and his body of work includes film, TV, and digital media. His films have been shown at dozens of international film festivals, including Cannes, New York, Marseille, Dublin, and London’s FrightFest, garnering multiple accolades, including an award from the Royal Television Society and a nomination for Best Short Film by BAFTA Wales. The Lost Diary of Samuel Pepys is his first novel.

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