‘The Camelot Code’ by Sam Christer

Published by Sphere, 

26 September 2013.   

ISBN: 978-0-7515-5091-7

When a book unexpectedly becomes a huge bestseller, it almost invariably opens the door to a whole lot more on a broadly similar theme; google da Vinci Code bandwagon and you’ll find literally hundreds of crime novels based on a what-if premise around legends, codes and puzzles.

On the face of it, The Camelot Code is one – but not entirely. The author has taken the what-if premise, applied it to the legendary superheroes who lie at the heart of British mythology, King Arthur and his band of knights, and added in the very real 21^st century issue of terrorism.

The action moves between various well-drawn locations in the USA, London and mid-Wales on this side of the Atlantic, and even takes a short hop to the Isle of Lundy. At the centre of the plot is feisty FBI agent Mitzi Fallon, who is determined to get past near-impenetrable barriers of bureaucracy and diplomatic immunity in pursuit of a murderer.

She gains possession of a memory stick which belongs to a secret cadre of highly trained operatives who base their high standards on the moral code of King Arthur’s knights (and some of who are descended from those knights, but let’s not over-complicate things). As a result she finds herself pitting her wits against charismatic Owain Gwyn, leader of the Arthurian cadre. He is concerned with a much bigger picture, of which Mitzi’s murder investigation is only a small part: a terrorist plot which will undermine the cadre’s very existence as it rocks the entire world.

Consequently Mitzi ends up where many law enforcement officers, especially fictional ones, find themselves uncomfortably teetering: on the fine line between rule of law and genuine justice. And then it gets personal...

The result is a tremendous pacy narrative peopled with a large cast of colourful, sharply-drawn characters and underpinned by an up-to-date take on an old story which, give or take a few clunky parallels and occasional elements which require disbelief to be completely suspended, mostly makes sense in its modern context. The stakes are breathtakingly high, but all too credible in the light of almost daily real-life news reports of terrorist activity and lower-level mayhem which the ‘official’ law enforcement and diplomatic agencies seem unable to stem.

By the end, I found myself thinking not so much what if as if only.

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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Sam Christer is the author of The Turin Shroud and The Stonehenge Legacy

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Murder on a Summer’s Day by Frances Brody

Published by Piatkus,

24 October 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-349-40058-7

Kate Shackleton is summoned at an early hour by an urgent telephone call, requesting her assistance in finding a missing person. There is nothing strange in that. Since her husband went Missing in Action towards the end of the First World War, Kate has made it her business to hunt for missing people. In fact it has literally become her business and she now works as a Private Investigator, assisted by Jim Sykes, a former police officer, and by her housekeeper, the redoubtable Mrs Sugden. However, this summons is different to Kate's usual cases. She is being employed by the British Government to find an Indian Prince, who has disappeared whilst hunting on the immense, Yorkshire estates of the Duke of Devonshire, the Colonial Secretary. Even if Prince Narayan Halkwaer has met with an unfortunate accident, the political repercussions could be immense. It is swiftly obvious that the India Office, in the person of her cousin, James, are not employing Kate simply because of her efficiency and discretion but also because they hope she will be able to deal with the prince's mistress, the beautiful, working class, Lydia Metcalfe, daughter of a local, Yorkshire farmer, whom Narayan had met when she was a dancer at the Folies Bergere. Lydia has accompanied Narayan to Yorkshire, and, as she is not accepted by the aristocratic families who would usually entertain the prince, they are staying at a local hotel. Narayan already has a high-born Indian wife and three children, but, in his religion, he can have more than one wife and has announced his intention of marrying Lydia.

On the Duke's estate an efficient search is already in progress, but the first body discovered is not that of Narayan. It is that of a young groom who had accompanied Narayan on an earlier hunt. On this previous occasion Narayan had shot a white doe and some superstitious villagers feel that this is divine retribution.

When Kate finds Narayan, lying in woodland, shot through the heart, she sees many signs that his body has been placed there, after the search-party had moved on and that this is not where he died. Kate was a nurse in the VAD in the Great War and she overcomes her instinctive repulsion and photographs the body to aid the Coroner. However, to her anger and frustration, it soon becomes clear that the Government is determined to whitewash the whole affair and the verdict is brought in that Narayan (a superb rider and an experienced huntsman) had been careless enough to ride with his loaded rifle ready for use, and that his death was an accident. Kate's photographs are ignored and the negatives removed, without her permission, from the hotel safe. To make matters worse, Narayan's valet has destroyed much of the evidence as part of the death rituals.

Furious at this cover-up and with herself for having allowed it to happen, Kate, with the help of Jim Sykes and Mrs Sugden, decides to discover the truth. She finds herself experiencing understanding and sympathy for the two very different women in Narayan's life: Lydia Metcalfe and Indira, Narayan's beautiful, cultured wife, the mother of his three children, who commissions Kate to discover the truth and to retrieve the famous dubte suraj ki charmak, the wonderful sunset diamond, that disappeared around the time of Narayan's death. However, as Kate unravels the tangled web of lies to discover the truth, she realises that far more than the recovery of a diamond is at stake. Unless she can avert the tragedy, another innocent life will be lost.

Kate Shackleton is a wonderful heroine. Her quiet courage and determination to discover the truth makes her very likeable, especially as this is tempered by her self-deprecating sense of humour. There is a brilliant description of Kate, dressed in borrowed, shabby clothes, having survived an ordeal by fire and water, entering the ducal dining room:

'In my ill-fitting clothes, still wet from my wade in the Wharfe, I smelled of river water, burning timber and thatch, and sodden tweed. My feet squelched.

Smiling inanely at several guests, including the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and Mr Chana, I plopped across to Sir Richard, muttering a general “excuse me” to the assembled eaters.'

Kate is very much aware of her 'chameleon' status. She is the adopted daughter of Lady Virginia, the daughter of a duke, and her policeman husband,' but Kate's natural mother lives in a Wakefield slum, and it was there that Kate was born. Devoted to her adoptive family, Kate is also in contact with her natural family, and this makes her sympathetic to the conflicting viewpoints of Indira, who is certain of her rights and entitlement as an Indian princess, and Lydia, who resents the way a few people, by an accident of birth, can possess so much of the countryside and the people who live there, including her family home.

The book is full of these contrasts, with beautiful descriptions of the Yorkshire countryside and exquisite pictures of the exotic interiors when the Indian nobles bring carpets, cushions and hangings to embellish wherever they stay. The book has excellent historical detail and dialogue, which sets the period without slowing the action. I loved this book and would recommend it wholeheartedly.

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Reviewer: Carol Westron

 

 Frances Brody is a pseudonym of Frances McNeil who lives in Leeds where she was born and grew up. She worked in the USA as a secretary in Washington DC and New York. Frances studied at Ruskin College, Oxford and read English Literature and History at York University.Starting her writing life in radio, she has written scripts for television and theatre. Frances turned to crime for her first novel, Dying in the Wool, set on the outskirts of Bradford, Yorkshire in the 1920s.  Four further books have followed featuring Kate Shackleton,

 http://www.francesbrody.com/

Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a Creative Writing teacher.  She is the moderator for the cosy/historical crime panel, The Deadly Dames.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times. The Terminal Velocity of Cats is the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, published July 2013.

‘The Start of Everything’ by Emily Winslow

Published by Allison & Busby,
24^th June 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-1405-6

Death, especially when it’s suspicious, sends ripples out in all directions. A murder affects not only the perpetrator and the victim, but their circle of family and acquaintance, the police who investigate, and often a whole raft of random strangers as well. And sometimes a murder brings a lot of long-buried baggage bubbling to the surface. Which is partly why it’s such an intriguing subject for fiction.

Emily Winslow is a new name to British readers of mystery and mayhem, though less so to our American equivalents. She settled in Cambridge with her family a few years ago, and until now her chilling university-based suspense novels seemed to be more popular across the Atlantic. All that is about to change.

Her second novel, The Start of Everything, follows five people, all involved in one way or another when a young woman’s body is discovered on the outskirts of Cambridge. Their five versions of events not only weave a pattern which ultimately produces a solution to the suspicious death; they also illustrate the way murder can have consequences only peripherally related to the crime itself.

Mathilde is a young woman with autism, whose obsessive nature puts her in harm’s way when she tries to track down the sender of an inadequately addressed letter. Chloe is a newly promoted detective inspector entangled in workplace politics as she investigates the suspicious death.

Morris is Chloe’s erstwhile work partner, newly returned from a severe injury sustained on an earlier case and still fragile as a result. Grace is a former Cambridge student who couldn’t quite hack it, and took a job as a nanny in a rather odd household.

George is a young Cambridge don with a dark secret in his past. Each voice is distinct, and the stories they tell are skilfully interwoven to create an complex, multi-stranded plot. It’s all set against a background which shows the author’s familiarity with Cambridge, both the city and the university.

Fans of Sophie Hannah’s intricate suspense novels and Kate Atkinson’s quirky Jackson Brodie series will find plenty to hold their attention here. It certainly held mine. Emily Winslow is a name to watch.

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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Emily Winslow is an American novelist living in Cambridge, England.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Traitor’s Field’ by Robert Wilton

Published by Atlantic Books,
6 August 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-84887-840-2

We begin in 1648, a few hours after the battle of Preston has ended, as Sir Mortimer Shay walks over the battlefield in search of a particular individual - dead or alive.  The evocation of the aftermath of a 17th century battle is powerful and introduces an exhilarating and frightening journey around the  British Isles.   Sir Mortimer becomes the leader of the rebuilding of the royalist opposition to Parliament and Cromwell’s army with the title Comptroller-General for Scrutiny and Survey.  He travels endlessly around to meet his agents - in fact the complexity of the novel’s structure means that we follow many individuals and groups in their journeys making it hard to know who is described and which side they support until you become familiar with the relevant names.   It does help if you know something of the era and the major figures in Britain and Europe who appear or are mentioned.  A cast of characters, real and fictional, would have been helpful perhaps though you could argue that the reader is pursuing his own detective story in working out who is who and where he or she fits into the tale.  A note on the complexities of 17th century politics and wars would also be helpful though it would probably be rather long!   An unusual feature of this book is the interspersing of real documents from the period among the adventures of the characters.  The language of these is rich and lively as is the prose of the writer, Robert Wilton.

           

As events progress over three years we meet John Thurloe, a clerk on the Parliamentary side who is so capable and intelligent that he becomes Cromwell’s chief informant on what is happening.  The period is one of fascination as Britain experiences its Revolution and people have to decide who to support.  Our 2 protagonists weave their plots and strive to understand each others intentions and methods.  It is very exciting as they reach a climax in the efforts to discover a traitor.

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Reviewer: Jennifer Palmer

This is the second book of a series - the first is Treason’s Tide.

Robert Wilton has held a variety of posts in the British Ministry of Defence, Foreign Office and Cabinet Office. He was advisor to the Prime Minister of Kosovo in the lead-up to the country's independence, and has now returned there as a senior international official. He divides his time between Kosovo and Cornwall.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.

‘Dark Passage’ by Marcia Talley

Published by Severn House, 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8278-3

This is the latest in the ever popular Hannah Ives series. Here Hannah and her sisters decide to take some time away from their families and book to go on a girl’s cruise from Baltimore to the sunny Caribbean climate. Julie, Hannah’s fourteen year old niece is also invited to go.

Talley wastes no time in starting the drama, on the first night of the cruise the bubbly barmaid, who also assists the famous cabaret magician, Pia Fannuci, has a dangerous escape from injury. All is made light of, but then it is Julie’s turn, and then she disappears. Panic spreads among the sisters as they start a desperate search to find her, given that if she is nowhere on the ship she could only have gone overboard. Hannah then meets another passenger, David Warren, who is on the voyage to discover what really happened when his twenty-two year old daughter disappeared without a trace on another of these cruises. It seems too, that no official cruise directors, or ship staff, are taking any of these disappearances seriously, so why? Hannah and David they set out on a desperate search to find Julie before the short cruise comes to final port. The tension builds as disembarkment gets closer and more suspects emerge. Will Hannah get to the bottom of the truth of these girls?

This is a well-written story, satisfying in both the plot and outcome. It is exceptionally well researched. I get the feeling Talley has cruised quite a lot as one can almost feel the movement of the large liner and the smell of the sea as we turn the pages and Talley draws us further into the plot. A good read with characters you are happy to journey with and well-plotted.

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Reviewer: Linda Regan

Marcia Talley was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but spent the first eighteen years of her life bouncing about the planet -- from Ohio to California, China, New York, Virginia, Kansas and Taiwan (sometimes more than once) -- as the eldest of five daughters of a career Marine officer.

 http://www.marciatalley.com

 

Linda Regan is the author of six police procedural crime novels. She is also an actress. She holds a Masters degree in critical writing and journalism, and writes a regular column, including book reviews, for three magazines. She also presents the book-club spot on BBC Radio Kent. She is an avid reader, and welcomes the chance to read new writers

www.lindareganonline.co.uk

Linda Stratmann

Leigh Russell in conversation with
Linda Stratmann

Linda Stratmann was born in the city of Leicester on 4 April 1948. Linda attended Medway Street Infants and Junior School, in the days of the eleven plus, and from there went to Wyggeston Girls Grammar School. Her earliest ambition was to be an astronomer, and she read and wrote a great deal of science fiction. She also read biology, zoology and medicine, and seriously considered a medical career. But by her teens, she had developed an absorbing and life-long interest in true crime.  After a period of rebellion Linda took her A levels and went to Newcastle University in 1971, graduating with first class honours in psychology three years later. She then joined the civil service, and trained to be an Inspector of Taxes.  In 1987, unable to resist the pull of London she moved there. In 2001 she left the civil service, and started a new career as a freelance writer and sub-editor, and in 2002 was commissioned to write her first published book on the history of Chloroform

Leigh: What interests you most about writing historical crime?

Linda: I love re-creating the past. Sometimes I feel as if I have just stepped out of a time machine and I am really there. In the context of crime writing, of course, it is an enjoyable challenge to solve the puzzles using only the resources that would have been available then.

Leigh: Why did you choose to set your series in the nineteenth century?

Linda: I have been fascinated by the Victorians for many years. They are so conflicted, with a basic human nature like ours yet overlaid by the expectations and demands of a different society. I chose the 1880s because it is a decade rich in incident and also very accessible through the advances made in photography.

Leigh: I'm always amazed at the amount of research that must go into writing historical novels. Tell us how you set about researching your books.

Linda: I had written a biography of William Whiteley founder of the famous store and had a huge amount of background material on Victorian Bayswater. It felt like the ideal location for my fiction. Each book then requires further research. I read the newspapers of the day, I study Victorian ordnance survey maps, I study the census returns, look at buildings, and read masses of contemporary publications. I also have to study the medical knowledge, forensic science and the law of the period. It sounds like a lot, but I love every minute!

Leigh: How do you guard against anachronism and inaccuracy in the details of your characters' lifestyles?

Linda: Substantial research!  I have shelves-full of books on all aspects of the Victorian era, and look up anything I am not sure of. Word-searchable newspapers are a boon, as I can look for words to ensure that they were in use at the time in the sense I am using them. I am learning all the time; I never really stop. I sometimes think I spend more time in the nineteenth century than the twenty-first.

Leigh: How do you get inside the minds of your characters, and understand their values and opinions?

Linda: It was always important to me when writing true crime and biography to understand how people thought; what were their beliefs and motivations, how did they understand the world, and when they said something what did they actually mean by it? There is no substitute for lots of reading of original material, such as letters and diaries, also transcripts of trials and public meetings, which are a wonderful record taken in shorthand of how people of every walk of life actually expressed themselves. I have immersed myself in this for many years. 

Leigh: Before you started writing the Frances Doughty series, you wrote true crime and historical biography. Tell us how the process of writing fiction compares to your earlier writing. Many authors struggle to cross from non-fiction to fiction. How did you make the transition?

Linda: Historical fiction and non-fiction writing have a lot of similarities. Both need research, though of course the research for non-fiction is of a different order of complexity and detail. In both, the writer has to tell a story, describe the characters and explain convincingly the reasons behind a chain of events. In non-fiction of course, one starts with facts, and these cannot be changed or invented. The writer’s task is to examine, analyse, test and make sense of the existing facts, which can be quite a challenge where crime is involved and witnesses tell conflicting stories. Fiction gives flexibility, and I have the pleasure of sending my characters off on adventures, but I would never knowingly put anything in my fiction that I knew to be impossible. Anything I invent has to be something that could have existed at the time. 

As to the transition, the main problem with the fiction was getting it published. Even though I was already a published author my first novel was rejected by agents more times than I can count. Fortunately the History Press snapped it up for their new imprint the Mystery Press, and has published two more with another to come next year.

Leigh Out of all the real people you have researched, whom would you most like to meet, and why?

Linda: I wrote a biography of the infamous Marquess of Queensberry for Yale University Press, and would have liked very much to meet both him and Oscar Wilde. Queensberry was a greatly misunderstood character, both simple and complex. Wilde was a genius, and it would have been wonderful to dine with him and enjoy his conversation.

Leigh: Out of all the real people you have researched, whom would you least like to meet, and why?

Linda: Colonel Francis Charteris the subject of Notorious Blasted Rascal was an evil, dangerous and unprincipled character. I visit his grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard every so often just to make sure the horrible man is still there.

Leigh: Tell us about your latest book, and where we can find it.

Linda: My most recent publication A Case of Doubtful Death, is the third Frances Doughty mystery and is in bookshops and also on Amazon and available from the History Press.  I have just completed the fourth in the series An Appetite For Murder, which should be out next spring. I am currently planning book five.

Leigh: What is next in your writing life?

Linda: I have recently embarked on a two-year project, a non-fiction book for Yale University Press about the history of nineteenth century homicidal poisoning. While my Frances Doughty books keep gruesome details to a minimum, this one pulls no punches. Every page is dripping with unpleasant body fluids.

Crime Fiction Books
The Poisonous Seed
The Daughters of Gentlemen.

A Case of Doubtful Death

http://www.lindastratmann.com/

Leigh Russell  studied at the University of Kent gaining a Masters degree in English and American literature. Her first novel, Cut Short, was published in 2009, followed by Road Closed in 2010, Dead End in 2011, Death Bed in 2012 Her latest book Stop Dead, was published May 2013. Cold Sacrifice the first in a new series featuring Ian Peterson was published in September 2013. In addition to her writing Leigh is a secondary school teacher, specializing in supporting pupils with Specific Learning Difficulties as well as teaching English