Tag: historical fiction

#BookReview A Sunlit Weapon by Jacqueline Winspear @AllisonandBusby

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A Sunlit WeaponAbout the Book

October 1942. Jo Hardy, an Air Transport Auxilliary ferry pilot, is delivering a Spitfire to Biggin Hill Aerodrome, when she has the terrifying experience of coming under fire from the ground. In a bid to find out who was trying to take down her aircraft, she returns on foot to the area, and discovers an African American soldier bound and gagged in an old barn. A few days later another ferry pilot crashes and is killed in the same area of Kent.

Although the death has been attributed to ‘pilot error’ Jo believes there is a connection between all three events – and she wants desperately to help the soldier, who is now in the custody of American military police. Jo is advised to take her suspicions to Maisie Dobbs.

As the psychologist-investigator delves into the case, she discovers the attempt to take down ferry pilots and the plight of the black American soldier are inextricably linked with the visit to Britain by the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. Maisie must work with speed to uncover the depth of connection, to save the life of the President’s wife and a soldier caught in the crosshairs of those who would see them both dead.

Format: Hardback (320 pages)         Publisher: Allison & Busby
Publication date: 22nd March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Mystery

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My Review

A Sunlit Weapon is the seventeenth book in Jacqueline Winspear’s historical crime series featuring psychologist/private investigator Maisie Dobbs. I only discovered the series with the publication of The American Agent (book fifteen) but reading that, and the book that followed it, The Consequences of Fear, was enough to make me a firm fan.

For those new to the series, I believe A Sunlit Weapon can easily be enjoyed as a standalone. And,  although there are references to events in previous books, I don’t think that would preclude going back to read earlier books in the series (as I hope to do one day) in order to learn more about Maisie’s past. However, at this point we find her married to former US Department of Justice agent, Mark Scott, and dividing her time between her London office and the family home in Kent where she lives with her adopted daughter, Anna, her father and stepmother.

Fans of the series will be familiar with Maisie’s methodical approach to investigating the cases that come her way, often recalling the advice of her former mentor, Maurice Blanche, and carefully constructing her elaborate case maps. She possesses a keen eye for detail, has perfected the art of getting information through seemingly casual conversations, is not averse to telling a few white lies to elicit facts and is no stranger to intrepid exploration. Her background as a psychologist gives her an instinct for whether someone is telling the truth and often points her in the direction of a motive that might not be obvious to others.

Her current case sees Maisie searching for a connection between a series of rather disparate events. As she delves further, the picture becomes increasingly complex with new avenues of enquiry opening up all the time. Whenever faced with an obstacle, what motivates Maisie is a sense of responsibility towards her client and her innate sense of justice.

The war is a constant backdrop to events in which few families have been left unaffected whether that’s because of loved ones injured or killed, forced relocation or just the sheer mental strain of not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Will today be the day that dreaded telephone call or telegram arrives? As Maisie observes, ‘We’re all told we can take it, but I’m not sure we can’, wondering if in fact people have become used to death, used to absorbing the shock of loss.

One particularly interesting element of the book for me was the focus on women’s contribution to the war effort, whether as Air Transport Auxilliary ferry pilots or members of the Land Army.  As Maisie discovers not everyone approves of women taking up these roles, believing that it is not ‘women’s work’. Prejudice of another kind also runs through the book, some very close to home for Maisie, and other more institutional in nature.

As you’d expect, Maisie – with the help of her trusty assistant Billy and some string-pulling by her husband – is eventually able to put together the pieces of what turns out to be a very complicated picture. What she discovers is a chain of events which is the product of ‘manipulated minds’. Throw in some dramatic scenes, a portion of woolton pie and lashings of tea and you have another very entertaining addition to the series.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Allison & Busby via NetGalley.

In three words: Entertaining, clever, fast-moving

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Jacqueline WinspearAbout the Author

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Consequences of Fear, The American Agent and To Die But Once, as well as thirteen other bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels and The Care and Management of Lies, a Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalist. Jacqueline has also published two nonfiction books, What Would Maisie Do?, and a memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing. Originally from the United States, she divides her time between California and the Pacific Northwest.

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#BookReview China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

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China RoomAbout the Book

Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. She and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days hard at work in the family’s ‘china room’, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.

Spiralling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the now-deserted farm, its ‘china room’ locked and barred. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence – his experiences of addiction, racism, and estrangement from the culture of his birth – he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.

Format: Hardcover (245 pages)   Publisher: Vintage
Publication date: 6th May 2021  Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

China Room is one of the books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022 which was announced on 7th February. China Room is the fourth book on the list I’ve read and it was one that took some time to grow on me.

The book moves between the story of Mehar in 1929 and that of an unnamed narrator looking back from the present day (2019) to the time he spent in the Punjab as a young man. Although we never learn his name we know he is Mehar’s great-grandson. A photograph at the end of the book suggests that many of the childhood experiences he relates may reflect the author’s own.

Initially, I thought the later storyline superfluous and not as interesting as Mehar’s story which has something of the quality of a folktale about it, at least to begin with. However, the later timeline gradually gained more of my interest once I began to see the subtle parallels the author creates between the two stories. Although focussing on the members of one family separated by both time and geography, common themes emerge such as racial and gender discrimination.

Mehar’s experience is one of not being seen. For much of the time she is confined to the ‘china room’ of the title, endures conjugal visits from her husband in total darkness and is expected to be veiled at all times when outside. This contrasts with the experience of her great-grandson who recalls that as a child growing up in Britain, ‘I was always being stared at, my presence noted and remarked upon for its rarity in this town’. On the other hand, like Mehar, who is forced to keep her eyes averted when outside the ‘china room’, he confesses ‘I can’t remember ever looking up as a child without immediately feeling as if I had no right and should look away’.  Mehar and her sisters-in-law catch only glimpses of the world outside through the narrow gaps in the window of the ‘china room’, their early attention being on trying to work out which of the three brothers is their husband. In a neat touch, at one point Suraj, one of the brothers, wonders, ‘Are the women the ones who can see everything, while the men stare at black windows?’

There is some glorious writing especially the descriptions of the landscape around the farm. ‘The wheat is cloaked in sleeves of red and apricot and a nightjar perches watchfully on the well, jerking its head this way and that.’

The end of the book arrives rather suddenly and, although it ties up some loose ends, it felt a little rushed. I would have liked to learn more about Mehar’s later life and the generations between her and her great-grandson.

China Room is a quiet, unassuming novel that explores its themes with elegance and precision. It’s not my favourite of the longlisted books I’ve read so far (that would be The Fortune Men) but I can understand why it has gained a place on the list.

In three words: Subtle, eloquent, thoughtful

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Sunjeev SahotaAbout the Author

Sunjeev Sahota is the author of Ours Are the Streets and The Year of the Runaways, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, and won the Encore Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, and the South Bank Sky Arts Award. He was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists in 2013. He lives in Sheffield. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

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