Tag: historical crime

Blog Tour/Book Review: The Angel’s Mark by S. W. Perry

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The Angels Mark Blog Tour poster

I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for historical crime novel, The Angel’s Mark by S. W. Perry.  Many thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to participate in the tour.

The Angel's MarkAbout the Book

LONDON, 1590. Queen Elizabeth I’s control over her kingdom is wavering. Amidst a tumultuous backdrop of Spanish plotters, Catholic heretics and foreign wars threatening the country’s fragile stability, the body of a small boy is found in the City of London, with strange marks that no one can explain.

When idealistic physician Nicholas Shelby finds another body displaying the same marks only days later, he becomes convinced that a killer is at work, preying on the weak and destitute of London.

Determined to find out who is behind these terrible murders, Nicholas is joined in his investigations by Bianca, a spirited tavern keeper. But when their inquiries lead them to the fearsome attentions of the powerful Robert Cecil, Nicholas is forced into playing to Cecil’s agenda, and becoming a spy…

As more bodies are discovered, the pair find themselves caught in the middle of a sinister plot. With the killer still at large, and Bianca in terrible danger, Nicholas’s choice seems impossible – to save Bianca, or save himself…

Praise for The Angel’s Mark

‘A gorgeous book – rich, intelligent and dark in equal measure. It immerses you in the late 16th century and leaves you wrung out with terror. This is historical fiction at its most sumptuous.’ Rory Clements, author of Corpus, Nucleus and the John Shakespeare series

‘Wonderful! Beautiful writing, and Perry’s Elizabethan London is so skilfully evoked, so real that one can almost smell it.’ Giles Kristian, historical fiction author

‘The Angel’s Mark has the pace of a thriller… S.W. Perry is a welcome addition to the ranks of historical crime novelists.’ Simon Brett, crime novelist

Format: Hardcover, ebook (424 pp.)    Publisher: Corvus
Published: 6th September 2018            Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Crime

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Angel’s Mark on Goodreads

My Review

When a book comes with a glowing recommendation from a respected author of historical fiction like Rory Clements (whose ‘John Shakespeare’ series I absolutely love by the way), you have a real sense of expectation as you turn the first few pages.  I’m happy to say that in the case of The Angel’s Mark those first few pages – and all the pages after that, as it happens – didn’t disappoint.

As other writers of historical fiction have discovered, the latter part of the 16th century is a promising period in which to set a historical crime novel.  Fear of the plague, of plots to overthrow the Queen as well as concerns about the succession and the threat of possible invasion have created an atmosphere of suspicion in Elizabethan England.   It’s a time when information, in the form of intelligence gathered by a network of spies and informers, has become a valuable commodity.    It’s also a time when discoveries in science and medicine are coming into conflict with religious belief.

Personal tragedy, fueled by a sense of guilt at his inability to prevent it, has brought Nicholas Shelby to the point of despair when he chances upon a mystery that reawakens his physician’s curiosity; that, and a fortunate encounter with the independent-minded and resourceful Bianca Merton, owner of The Jackdaw tavern.  However, as the reader will discover, it’s not just her skills as an apothecary that Bianca must hide.  Together they embark on a search for a killer with a distinctive but gruesome calling card.  Soon that search brings them into contact with powerful men (it would be a surprise in a novel set in this period not to run into a member of the Cecil family at some point!) who may pose as much of a risk as does the ruthless killer they are seeking.

The Angel’s Mark has all the ingredients I look for in a great historical crime mystery: a wealth of period of detail that conjures up the sight, sounds and smells of the time; a host of colourful characters to provide possible suspects; and a plot full of twists and turns with a generous helping of red herrings and “I wasn’t expecting that” moments.  It kept me guessing right to the end.  I’m definitely hoping for more of the same from this author in the future.

I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Corvus, NetGalley and Readers First in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Gripping, atmospheric, mystery

Try something similar…Martyr (John Shakespeare#1) by Rory Clements or The Secret of Vesalius by Jordi Llobregat (read my spoiler free review of the latter here)

S W Perry Author PictureAbout the Author

S.W. Perry was a journalist and broadcaster before retraining as an airline pilot.

He lives in Worcestershire with his wife and two spaniels.

Connect with S. W. Perry

Twitter  ǀ  Goodreads

 

Blog Tour/Book Review: Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire by M. R. C. Kasasian

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Betty Church blog tour

I’m a great fan of M.R.C. Kasasian’s Gower Street Detective series having been introduced to it through an invitation from Clare at Head of Zeus to join the tour for the fifth in the series, Dark Dawn Over Steep House.  Since then I’ve been acquiring the earlier books in the series so I can read the complete set at some point.  You can imagine my excitement, therefore, when Clare contacted me to let me know about the author’s new series, The Betty Church Mysteries, and to invite me to host today’s stop on the blog tour for the first book in the series, Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire.

You can read my review below.  Do also check out the review of my tour buddy, Linda at Books of All Kinds.

Betty Church and the Suffolk VampireAbout the Book

September 1939. A new day dawns in Sackwater, not that this sleepy backwater is taking much notice…

Inspector Betty Church – one of the few female officers on the force – has arrived from London to fill a vacancy at Sackwater police station. But Betty isn’t new here. This is the place she grew up. The place she thought she’d left behind for good.

Time ticks slowly in Sackwater, and crime is of a decidedly lighter shade. Having solved the case of the missing buttons, Betty’s called to the train station to investigate a missing bench. But though there’s no bench, there is a body. A smartly dressed man, murdered in broad daylight, with two distinctive puncture wounds in his throat.

While the locals gossip about the Suffolk Vampire, Betty Church readies herself to hunt a dangerous killer.

Format: Hardcover, ebook (432 pp.)    Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 12th July 2018                        Genre: Historical Mystery

Purchase Links*
Publisher | Amazon.co.uk ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire on Goodreads

My Review

Well, I don’t know about any of her police colleagues, but it didn’t take me long to have complete confidence that Inspector Betty Church could solve the mystery – or anything else she put her mind to, come to that.   After all her godmother is the redoubtable March Middleton (from the author’s The Gower Street Detective series) who learned a thing or two about detection from guardian and mentor, Sidney Grice.    And Betty’s had to overcome the loss of her arm in an accident, making her a sort of female equivalent of J K Rowling’s Cormoran Strike.

It’s no coincidence that Sackwater rhymes with ‘backwater’.  As Betty observes, ‘Nothing much had changed but nothing ever did in the slow death that passed for life in Sackwater’. With its main street of small shops and tea rooms it put me in mind of Walmington-on-Sea, the fictional seaside town in the BBC TV series Dad’s Army. Betty needs all her wits about her because the rest of the police officers at Sackwater Central are not so much Dad’s Army as Keystones Cops.    By turn, hopeless, cowardly, incompetent and intellectually challenged, the best of them is probably WPC Dodo Chivers.  And that’s not saying much because she is a bit dotty and, I’m afraid to this reader, slightly irritating. However, that didn’t stop some of Dodo’s ditsy comments making me laugh out loud.  “I had an aunt who was deaf… It made it very difficult for her to hear.”   

Betty is independent-minded, courageous and resourceful and has a nice line in putdowns and one-liners.    She’s a woman determined to succeed in what is, for the time being, a man’s world.  In fact, she’s confident she can succeed where her male counterparts will fail.  “When policemen tremble, we stand firm”, she confidently states.   Betty’s certainly going to need to stand firm because pretty soon the bodies start to pile up, in increasingly gruesome fashion, and rumours start to fly around Sackwater.  As that illustrious organ, the East Anglian Chronicle, reports ‘Suffolk Gripped in Vampire Terror’.  ‘And I had thought we only had the Nazis to worry about’, observes Betty ruefully.

I’ll confess I did find myself wishing that Betty could find herself at least one capable sidekick to help in her investigations.  The nearest she gets to anyone genuinely helpful  is the editor of the local newspaper, Tobias Gregson, with his ‘cobalt blue eyes’ and ‘winning smile’.  Hmm, romance in the air possibly?

The book has all of the trademark humour that fans of the author’s previous series have grown to love.  At one point, Betty recalls, ‘I used to go out with a musician – a pianist – until it became obvious I wasn’t the only piece in his repertoire’.  I did rather miss the random allusions to Sherlock Holmes stories from The Gower Street Detective series but, for the observant reader, there is consolation in the form of a reference to Ian Fleming’s most famous creation and the precursor of a scene from a well-known film starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.  And probably a few more that I missed…

Although nearly five hundred pages, the book‘s short chapters help to create an impression of pace.  The author has some fun with the chapter titles.  I particularly liked ‘The Mangled Sheep Murder‘, which I fancied was a play on the title of the first book in The Gower Street Detective series, The Mangle Street Murders.

Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire is a lively, fun and spirited read with a great protagonist and enlivened by the author’s zesty humour.  I received a review copy courtesy of publishers, Head of Zeus, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Light-hearted, engaging, mystery

Try something similar…The Mangle Street Murders by M.R. C. Kasasian

M R C KasasianAbout the Author

M. R. C Kasasian was raised in Lancashire. He has had careers as varied as a factory hand, wine waiter, veterinary assistant, fairground worker and dentist.

He lives with his wife, in Suffolk in the summer and in Malta in the winter.

Connect with M. R. C. Kasasian

Twitter ǀ  Goodreads