Ok, this is the sort of book that I had in mind when I was reading Lords of the Bow by Iggulden a couple of months ago. Cornwell is a master at writing the sort of prose that puts you right at the scene:

Then all, suddenly, was quiet.

Not really quiet, of course. The river hissed where it ran through the bridge, small waves slapped on the boat hulls, the guttering torches on the house wall crackled and I could hear my men’s footsteps as they clambered ashore. Shields and spear butts thumped on ships’ timbers, dogs barked in the city and somewhere a gander was giving its harsh call, but it seemed quiet.

Sword Song is the fourth book in the saga of Uhtred, a Saxon with a dangerous affection for the Danes who have invaded England during the time of Alfred. Unfortunately for Uhtred, he’s sworn to support Alfred and is therefore forced to do things that he’d rather not. Such as helping Alfred, tolerating Christianity, seizing London for his evil cousin, and fighting against friends.

This is probably one of the best books that Cornwell has written, the character is engaging and the scenes/events are very well played out. There’s even a romance in it which is not something that you’d really expect. Definitely looking forward to the next bit to come along.

Bookmark to:

Well, I was very pleasantly surprised to get my hands on this book after really enjoying the first one, Medicus. This time around, we follow our hapless doctor/sleuth as he generously takes his slave/housekeeper/girlfriend up to the northern reaches of the Empire to revisit her familial homeland. Unfortunately, some of said homeland happens to be inhabited by tribes hostile to Rome and its minions of which our hero is one.

This time around, our story has branched way out from the earlier one where our doctor seems to be battling more the medical bureaucracy than crime. He’s now not only dealing with a gruesome murder but also backstabbing Romans, indifferent superiors, rebellious tribes, and conniving businessmen. He also has to work through his feelings for a slave girl who seems to care little for what he thinks and just does what she wants. (Sell her, you fool!)

It’s a bit of a meander through all of this but it’s still quite pleasant. Enough so that you tend to forget that a crime has been committed and you’re more engrossed in the day-to-day grittiness of survival on the frontier.

Bookmark to:

Years ago, I had read one of Goodwin’s earlier works - Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire - and was surprised to see that he’d come out with a mystery book of all things. Yes, there was that book about walking from England to Istanbul which I didn’t particularly like and, subsequently, never finished but I never really expected that he’d be able to pull off a good historical mystery.

And he does pull it off very well as Goodwin brings us to early 19th-century Istanbul and its stew of simmering tensions between the old, possibly disloyal Greek population, the newer but flagging Ottomans, the brash and fresh Europeans and, mixed in, a seasoning of religious and commercial rivalries. It’s an interesting look at how the Ottoman Empire might have looked like as it slowly begins its fade away from the world stage and is increasingly eclipsed by the Western Powers.

And we see it all through the eyes of one of its more unique symbols, a eunuch at the Ottoman court. More precisely, an epicurean, bibliophile of a eunuch who spends more of his time shopping, cooking and chatting up friends than he does at Topkapi let alone guarding the harem. Through one of his friends he is thrown into a mystery that involves all of the players mentioned above along with a hunt for archaeological treasure and dealing with the consequences of the Greeks’ fight for independence.

An excellent book for those of us who relish historical mysteries that move along quickly and are informative to boot.

Bookmark to:

It’s rare for me to come across a book solely dealing with the Mongol conquests, with the last two being Gabriel’s Genghis Khan’s Greatest General in 2007 and an old book (translated from a French author?) based on The Secret History of the Mongols back in the ’80s. So, a fictional account from the perspective of Genghis himself seemed a bit interesting.

A bit interesting might be the best way to describe this book. I don’t know if it is just me but Iggulden’s work seems leaden. Leaden as in his Genghis character doesn’t have as much heart or feeling as in, let’s say, Cornwell’s Sharpe; leaden as in his battle scenes lack excitement whereas a good author can make you think that you’re standing there in the line of battle. It’s the sort of book that you can skim and, admittedly, I did skim about ten to twenty pages and I felt as if I didn’t really miss anything.

It’s not a bad book but it’s not a great book. It should be a basic primer for anyone interested in the early Mongol conquests but don’t expect to be any more wowed by it than if you’d picked up a good history book.

Bookmark to:

We’re back with Kathy Reichs and Dr. Temperance Brennan! This time around, Reichs does an excellent job of weaving Canadian (or Acadian depending on your viewpoint) history into her storyline of the providence of a teenage girl’s bones found many years and the disappearance of more teenage girls today into what may be a porn video ring.

I think that one of the most appealing aspects of Reichs’ work is how realistic it all seems, from the research she does into the treatment of lepers in Canada to weaving in how different diatoms live in different parts of their aquatic environment. What still does not ring true (at least to me as a guy) is Brennan’s emotions and/or emotional state and motivations. I think that Reichs has a hard time trying to develop this aspect of Brennan’s character. She still has an annoying habit of cliffhanger chapter endings but it’s not as pronounced as it was earlier.

All in all, it’s a fast-moving (it seems a bit too fast in one instance where characters are flying from Montreal and appearing all of a sudden in New Brunswick), very well-researched, twist and turn from present-to-past storyline.

Bookmark to:

I stumbled upon this author’s works while at the local library and I am really glad that I did! Normally, I don’t go in for modern-day mysteries but I guess I felt the need for a bit of light reading and I am glad that I picked this one up! Reichs happens to be a forensic anthropologist who works for both the province of Quebec and for the State of North Carolina with an impressive educational pedigree. Deja Dead is her first medical/forensic mystery and it’s set in Montreal. Woohoo!

I don’t know what appeals to me most about the book…the first-person storyline of the heroine as she quickly discovers or concludes that there is a serial killer preying on women or the fact that the book is set in Montreal? Hrmm…in any case, for the former, it’s a taut, fast, well-written, well-researched story although Reichs is not very good with the “emotional” stuff (although it could just be me) and she has a quirk of ending her chapters with “cliffhangers”. For the latter, she’s very good with describing Montreal but there are a few odd quirks that would throw anyone off who has lived in Montreal during that time period. What are they?

• The book is set in 1994 but written in 1997. She has the owner of a small depanneur using a cellphone yet the heroine nor anyone else ever uses one or carries one. Back in 1994, cellphones were very rare with them being introduced into the Canadian market only about ten years before with widespread acceptance only in the early 2000s.
• One of the characters mentions “Ministry of Defence” and while there is a Ministry of National Defence in Canada, as far as I know, everyone just refers to them as the Armed Forces. When I read MoD, I automatically thought of the UK!
• Going back to the 1994/1997 timeline, as the heroine rides the Metro (subway for those of you unfamiliar with Montreal or Paris), the stops are announced. Hrmm…I don’t believe that automated Metro station announcements were instituted until AFTER 1994.
• And another language oddity, there is mention of one person never leaving “Quebec Province”. Huh? No one says Quebec Province…it’s always the Province of Quebec.

In any case, these quirks are not as jarring as the one with Louise Penny’s earlier works where they just seem to leap out at you and leave you wondering for a chapter or two. Deja Dead is a very good detour from my usual historical mysteries.

Bookmark to:

This latest installment by Penny makes me wonder if she is ending the series? It seems to tie up two major story points involving Inspector Gamache’s career with the Surete which would eliminate what, in the past, has taken up a good quarter of her two earlier books. It does allow for the introduction of one or two new characters and maybe explore new areas.

This time around the storyline/mystery is darker and more sinister than in the past with a step into the occult. The humour and witty repartee is still there along with the devious twists and turns that one expects with Penny. What was unexpected was she’s almost wiped out any of those foreigner-in-a-strange-land gaffes that she made in past books. There is still the Tim Horton’s error but, otherwise, the book is “clean” or maybe I just missed them? The book seems to be more of a mystery than trying to be a mystery in the “exotic” setting of Quebec.

There is one other thing that I haven’t brought up and that is the supposed Quebecois’ attitudes towards Anglos…not sure how true some of her characters’ thoughts ring…?

Anyways, certainly the best work by Penny so far.

Bookmark to:

Medicus is the first novel by new mystery writer Ruth Downie and it’s very very good! We follow Gaius Petreius Ruso as a doctor who’s freshly recruited to serve with the 20th Legion in Northern Britain and encounters a Jane Doe upon his arrival. Despite repeated attempts not to get involved in trying to solve this mystery he keeps getting dragged in again and again. Ruso is a lot more concerned about writing his Great Medical Guide, finding wealthy patrons, climbing the social order, battling bureaucracy, and flipping a recovering slave to make a quick profit.

It’s a fun read that’s less mystery and more the story of a hapless, penurient, grouchy guy just trying to find his way in the new order of a military machine. Thumbs up!

Bookmark to:

I’ve always loved space operas, well, two space operas specifically which are the original Star Wars saga and David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. You gotta love a storyline that includes true grit (I love that movie too.) and determination in the face of seemingly impossible odds put up by an evil foe, a plucky hero joined by a small band of quirky friends who are united by friendship, trust, a spirit of adventure and, in the case of Han Solo, avarice. All of this sandwiched in with pseudo-futuristic technology and big space battles.

Always on the hunt for something along those lines, I came across this series by Graham Sharp Paul at my local library and it tweaked my interest because it seemed to have the right ingredients as listed above. Well, not quite. Paul’s hero, as a young graduate is almost just there along for the ride, as a witness to great events rather than the catalyst for those great events. Much like that young American flyer who was shot down in the early hours of the Battle of Midway and, subsequently, survived to float amidst the Japanese fleet to watch the whole thing, Paul’s hero, Helfort is stuck in the bowels of his ship tweaking sensor drones while things happen all around him.

This is wholly unlike Honor Harrington or Luke Skywalker, granted it is much more realistic of modern navies but it means that we’re probably in for a very long war before Helfort does much. In other respects, this is an excellent start for a new space opera series, the book is well-crafted and detailed. It’s hard to put a word to it but it feels polished. Other authors need a book or two to hit their stride but Paul’s book feels like it’s spent years in a garage being worked over and smoothed into shape. I’ll be sure to try the next book and see what happens next.

Bookmark to:

Wow! That was the impression I got at the end of this book. Rule of Two is the second in a small off-shoot Star Wars series revolving around the story of Darth Bane, the first Sith Lord to propagate the rule of two Sith, a Master and an apprentice, at any one time. I had first become aware of this storyline a few years back when it was done up in a Dark Horse comic that I had skimmed whilst over at the local bookstore.

Karpyshyn did a really really good job weaving a storyline revolving around the new apprentice and the Jedi who are initially clueless about the continued existence of the Sith and who are then sworn to hunt them down. It’s a bit of a twisty-turn story (aren’t they all) but the best is saved for last. Most of the time we want the Jedi to win out but we all know that both Darth Bane and his apprentice have to have survived in order for the movies’ storyline to exist millennia later. The trick for Karspyshyn is how did the Sith do it?

Very good story and I am really looking forward to the next installment here.

Bookmark to: