‘An Aura of Mystery’ by Joy Ellis

Published by Joffe Books,
10 January 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-83526329-7 (PB)

 
Ellie McEwan, owner of a florist shop, is driving northbound on the A3 when at Wisley a young man dashes out in front of her. Travelling at seventy miles as hour she has no chance to avoid the lad, hits him and smashes into the crash barrier. Ellie is badly hurt and taken to hospital where she undergoes a successful operation – she had a depressed piece of bone in her brain.

An old friend of hers, Carole Meyer organises a visitor rota. She is actually a clairvoyant and on reading her Tarot cards learns that Ellie will have the ability to develop a certain power, it leaves her feeling uneasy. Her readings are proved true for when Ellie regains consciousness, she sees bright lights surrounding everyone she encounters. She is assured there is nothing wrong with her eyesight or brain.

Together with Professor Michael Seale, a specialist on auric sight, Carole slowly teaches Ellie how to control the bright auras she sees and even be able to use the “gift”.

Ellie realises how her new found ability can be of use when she sees “bad colours” coming off of a new born baby. She tells a nurse she knows well, and a doctor operates, saving the baby’s life.

Meanwhile Detective Chief Inspector Bob Foreman and his team are investigating the murders of two women. Their hands have been crushed and mutilated and the only connection between them is that they were both skilled professionals. The police have no real leads and now a key witness has gone missing. 

Ellie’s skills come to the attention of Bob Foreman and when there is a third murder, exactly the same as the others, he reluctantly turns to her for help.

Ellie comes out of hospital and lives with Carole while recovering fully. Michael also stays there to help Ellie develop her new found skills. Carole is not happy about Foreman’s intended involvement of Ellie in the murder investigations and has an extremely upsetting vision but keeps quiet about it. However, Ellie seems set on helping in any way especially when a woman who is thought to have seen the murderer, goes missing.

Worryingly, just as Carole feared, Ellie now puts herself in extreme danger. Will she survive unscathed?

I do enjoy Joy Ellis’s books and found An Aura of Mystery dealt with a fascinating subject. All police forces could benefit from someone like Ellie!

Highly recommended for readers interested in a thriller dealing with something different.
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Reviewer: Tricia Chappell

Joy Ellis was born in Kent but spent most of her working life in London and Surrey. She was an apprentice florist to Constance Spry Ltd, a prestigious Mayfair shop that throughout the Sixties and Seventies teemed with both royalty and ‘real’ celebrities. She swore that one day she would have a shop of her own. It took until the early Eighties, but she did it. Sadly the recession wiped it out, and she embarked on a series of weird and wonderful jobs; the last one being a bookshop manager Joy now lives in a village in the Lincolnshire Fens with her partner, Jacqueline. She had been writing mysteries for years but never had the time to take it seriously. Now as her partner is a highly decorated retired police officer; her choice of genre was suddenly clear. She has set her crime thrillers in the misty fens.   

www.joyellis.info

Tricia Chappell. I have a great love of books and reading, especially crime and thrillers. I play the occasional game of golf (when I am not reading). My great love is cruising especially to far flung places, when there are long days at sea for plenty more reading! I am really enjoying reviewing books and have found lots of great new authors.

‘Murder in the Bastille’ by Cara Black

Published by Soho Press,
1 July 2003.
ISBN: 978-1-56947-324-5 (HB)

On  pleasant October evening in Paris, Aimée Leduc is endeavouring to calm her angry client Vincent Csarda, who is not a happy man having discovered that his advertising agency Populax is running a campagne for a client who is a front for a money laundering operation for gun runners. Vincent is taking it out on Luduc Detective who are is security consultants. Aimée’s eveinh is going from bad to worse. Not only can she not convince Vimcent to hand over his hard disc to the authorities before they subpoena him, but the woman at the next table is wearing the same black silk Chinese jacket as Aimée. The one that the boutique assured Aimée was a one-off.  After Vincent has flounced off, Aimée sees that the woman has left her mobile phone, before she can hand it to the restaurant, it rings. She answers it automatically. ‘Meet me in Passage de :a Boule Blanche’ says a voice and disconnects. The simplest thing is to take the phone to the woman’s friend , as it is close by.

The attack is both sudden and devastating, when she next awakes, she is in hospital. In this book Aimée is faced not only with a mystery to solve but with a personal challenge, as the attack has left her with a disability which may or may not be permanent. The police put the attack down to a serial killer, Vadus, who was released from custody on a legal technicality just the day before Aimée’s attack, but she is not convinced. With the help of her business partner René Friant she sets out to find the woman for whom she thinks she was mistaken, but then a further attack is made on her and she is not sure if she was the intended victim or the unknown woman.

Told from multiple points of view in this book, René, the computer expert takes an active role in the direction which poses problems for a normally desk-bound detective, and particularly as René is short being just 4 ft. We learn some of the problems being height challenged.  We also meet again Sergeant Loic Bellan, who was Aimée’s father’s protégé who is facing his own demons when his wife gives birth to his son who is diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome.

As in previous books Cara Black captures the essence that is so Paris. I was back there again, where I had lived for a short six months, but which ensnared me for ever.

An excellent mystery, exploring personal challenges that make one think of the things that many of us take for granted. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Cara Black was born in Chicago but has lived in California’s Bay Area since she was five years old. Before turning to writing full-time, she tried her hand at a number of jobs: she was a barista in the Basel train station café in Switzerland, taught English in Japan, studied Buddhism in Dharamsala in Northern India. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. There are now twenty one books in the series. Her latest book is Night Flight to Paris, second in her new series featuring Kate Rees, and set in 1942.

https://carablack.com

‘Blood Roses’ by Douglas Jackson

Published by Canelo,
7 March 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-80436748-3 (HB)

This novel is Part 1 of a Warsaw Quartet. 

The story commences with the Nazis march into Warsaw in the Autumn of 1939.  Jan Kalisz is an investigator who is drawn into the dangerous role of a double life.  He is forced to work with the occupiers and at the same time he is gathering information for the fledgling Polish resistance. 

While brutalisation of the local population goes hand in hand with increasing difficulties for the Jewish population there is evidence of a psychopathic killer known as the Artist.  When the niece of a Wehrmacht general is found murdered and mutilated  Jan links the murder to other killings in the town but as these killings of young women are of less interest to the occupying force, he is bound by duty to explore the possibilities of a psychopathic killer. 

The local population do not trust Jan who is posing as a Nazi collaborator and even his family are increasingly suspicious of his motives.  The story involves both imagined characters and historical fact and a prominent well known Nazi doctor. 

This is a chilling story clearly well researched in its depiction of Warsaw at the beginning of World War 2 and is not for the faint hearted!  Can't wait for Part 2 of this extremely well written and believable detective series.
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Reviewer: Toni Russell

Douglas Jackson is the author of seventeen historical novels and mystery thrillers published by Transworld/PRH, including the critically acclaimed nine-book Hero of Rome series. He was born in Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders and now lives in Stirling. Originally a journalist by profession he rose to become Assistant Editor of The Scotsman before leaving to be a full-time writer in 2009

 

Toni Russell is a retired teacher who has lived in London all her life and loves the city.  She says, ‘I enjoy museums, galleries and the theatre but probably my favourite pastime is reading.  I found myself reading detective fiction almost for the first time during lockdown and have particularly enjoyed old fashioned detective fiction rather than the nordic noir variety.  I am a member of a book club at the local library and have previously attended literature classes at our local Adult Education Centre.  I am married with three children and five grandchildren.

‘The Legacy of Foulstone Manor’ by J. C. Briggs

Published by The Sapere Books,
13 February 2024.
ISBN: 978-0-85495235-9 (PB)

After having enjoyed the most recent novels in Briggs’s series involving Charles Dickens and Victorian London, I was very interested to receive The Legacy of Foulstone Manor, what I assume is a stand-alone story set on the edge of the Lake District where the author lives.

Foulstone Manor is a now abandoned house inherited by Joan Goss’s father, Gerard Revell, in the 1920s from the father of a close friend who died alongside him during the First World War in particularly distressing circumstances. Joan was left Foulstone by her father. She was brought up by her adoptive parents after her mother died in childbirth and her father thereafter showed no interest in her. He committed suicide a few years later. The novel is set in 1970 and Joan, by now middle-aged and relatively reclusive (occasionally she laments her ‘wasted life’), lives in a cottage on the edge of the house’s land. She has only vague memories of her childhood, but what she remembers haunts her as do the rumours of her family history.

When Joan’s goddaughter Amanda comes to stay in the adjacent cottage before beginning her studies at Lancaster University, Joan is encouraged to delve into her past. Amanda succeeds in persuading her to enter decaying Foulstone and look for answers. What was the truth of her parent’s marriage? What really happened to her mother? Joan’s father was a poet who was deeply affected by his experiences in the First World War, but was that the reason he committed suicide? Why was Joan never told the truth about her childhood?

Joan’s mother’s diary is found and brought to life by flashbacks to 1919 and the early 1920s. The diary answers some questions but raises many others. Why did Gerard Revell disappear to London from time to time? Was the person half-remembered in the garden years ago real, and if so, who was he? Who is telling the truth, and are people who they claim to be? A missing soldier lurks in the background. The wider implications of adoption are also an issue as Joan and Amanda look into Joan’s adoptive parents. The smell of damp in Foulstone pervades everything and haunts Joan. Is there any significance in that? Amanda and Joan track down people who knew Joan’s parents and others connected to them, and this leads the pair to leave Foulstone now and then to visit places such as London to pursue their investigation.

This is a very atmospheric novel with a well-paced and intriguing plot. It is also a very intelligent book, with mentions of poetry (Wilfred Owen, for instance) and Shakespeare, although this learning is worn lightly. It is always fascinating and at times touching, with hints of menace now and then, and it reaches an entirely plausible conclusion. As always with Briggs’s work, there are informative appendices of Historical Notes and A Note to the Reader.

The Legacy of Foulstone Manor is highly recommended.
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Reviewer: David Whittle 

J. C. Briggs taught English for many years in schools in Cheshire, Hong Kong, and Lancashire. She now lives in a cottage by a river in Cumbria with a view of the Howgill Fells and a lot of sheep, though it is the streets of Victorian London that are mostly in her mind when she is writing about Charles Dickens as a detective. There are eleven novels in the series so far, published by Sapere Books. The latest, The Jaggard Case, came out in October 2022. Number eleven, The Waxwork Man, comes out on September 15^th. Another novel will come out at the end of 2023. This is a new departure, a novel about an empty house called Foulstone in the old county of Westmorland, a house with secrets kept since the First World War. She was Vice Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association (2018-2022), is still a board member of the CWA, a member of Historical Writers’ Association, the Dickens Fellowship, The Society of Authors, and a trustee of Sedbergh Book Town.

jcbriggsbooks.com

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the East Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.

‘The Mill House Murder’ by J.S. Fletcher

Published by Oreon,
The Oleander Press,
2023.
ISBN: 978-1-91-5475-27-5 (PB)

This novel, originally published in 1937, was the last from the prolific JS Fletcher (1863-1935), but that does not tell the whole story as he left it ‘not quite finished’ (according to the original publisher’s blurb). It was completed by the famous ‘Torquemada’, the pseudonym of Edward Powys Mathers (1892-1939), a poet and translator who is best remembered as the setter of fiendishly difficult crosswords. He is credited with being the first person to use cryptic clues for a whole puzzle and set them for the Observer from 1926 until his death.

The Mill House Murder features Fletcher’s best-known detective Roger Camberwell who is called to Yorkshire by a letter from James Martenroyde, a mill owner, shortly to be married to a much younger woman. Shortly after Camberwell’s arrival, Martenroyde is found murdered near his house and mill. Initially one of his nephews, Sugden, and Sugden’s mother (Hannah, the widow of Martenroyde’s brother) come under suspicion as there are suggestions that during his period as Martenroyde’s agent in London Sugden has been less than scrupulous in his financial dealings and there is a threat that these are about to be exposed. Neither of these suspects is particularly likeable, with Hannah in particular prone to outbursts of temper. One is provoked by the discovery that Martenroyde’s will is not to her satisfaction, the main grievance being that her sons will not gain possession of the business until they have demonstrated to the appointed trustees (one a local solicitor and the other a family friend) that they are capable of running it well. Hannah’s mood is not improved when she finds that Martenroyde’s intended bride is well provided for, as she had never approved of her brother-in-law’s marriage plans. Hannah is not high in the esteem of the locals, and her reputation is not enhanced when a second body is discovered.

A good deal of the detection concerns the movements of people and where they were at a particular time, as one might expect. The recognition of people in the dark of the night is also a feature, and there are some very atmospheric sections. There are also one or two peculiarities, such as why nobody is allowed into Hannah’s house. In the main it’s true to say that the characters are not as memorable as those in some Golden Age stories, with the exception of one or two walk-on parts, and there are stereotypes such as Martenroyde being a bluff Yorkshire man who is proud of being ‘self-made’.

A talking point, particularly for historians of the genre, is where does Fletcher end and Torquemada take over? The action certainly livens up towards the end, but that is no surprise and no clue. There is no apparent join. I’ve seen elsewhere the belief that Fletcher plotted the whole story, and that Torquemada completed the last quarter of the novel from Fletcher’s plans, as well as writing much of the second inquest.

Whoever wrote what, this is a very enjoyable and well-plotted story. The twist at the end raises it above the ordinary level, and there is also the Fletcher/Torquemada connection/conundrum to give it added interest.
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Reviewer: David Whittle

Joseph Smith Fletcher (1863-1935) was a British journalist and writer. He wrote about 200 books on a wide variety of subjects, both fiction and non-fiction. He was one of the leading writers of detective fiction in the "Golden Age".

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.

 

‘Cressida: No Mystery’ by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Published by Oreon,
The Oleander Press,
2023.
ISBN: 978-1-91-5475-32-9 (PB)

Originally published in 1928, this short novel (there are just 118 very readable pages) has a highly accurate title given that there is no mystery in the conventional sense that one has come to expect in a Golden Age story. Instead, the reader spends the book wondering what is going to happen.

Let me explain. Lizzie Bowden lives with her guardian and aunt, Lady Bignor, who has invited Lizzie’s other guardian, Colonel Slade, for Christmas. Lizzie, left a wealthy young woman by her late father, has just become engaged to Captain Larry Wortle who has lost what money he had by ill-advised investments and loose living. All appears well until Cressida Daryl, a young friend of Lady Bignor’s, is invited after the collapse of her original plans for Christmas. Wortle falls for the siren Cressida, and so begins a variation on the ménage à trois theme. There are contrasts everywhere. Whilst Cressida and Larry are enthusiastic socialites and attractive physically (particularly so in Cressida’s case), Lizzie is plain and sullen-natured. Cressida and Larry are self-obsessed and unattractive morally, and neither is reluctant to do some sponging to improve their own desperate financial situation. Lizzie is, as mentioned, wealthy.

The prolific Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947), sister of Hilaire Belloc, has a reputation for including psychological interest in her novels, and this is where the fascination lies in Cressida: No Mystery. As Cressida and Larry become closer (it helps that Lizzie is laid low by a bad cold for most of the time), we begin to wonder what this will lead to. And we are not the only ones: Colonel Slade has his worries, and even Lady Bignor (who seems more devoted to Cressida than she is to her niece) eventually realises that Cressida is not a good influence on Larry.

Many of the usual traits of the Golden Age are here. Apart from the country house setting (and there is a neighbouring house that is essential to the plot), we have Captain Wortle, Colonel Slade, Lady Bignor, Lord Danesborough, Major Mandeville and the rector and his wife. We just don’t have a body early on and spend the rest of the book wondering if there is going to be one.

So, this short novel is an oddity, but one that keeps the reader guessing.
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Reviewer: David Whittle

Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947)  who wrote as Marie Belloc Lowndes, was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc.

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then. He is currently convenor of the Midlands Chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association.

‘Murder Most Cold’ by Victoria Dowd

Published by Joffe Books,
7 November 2023.
ISBN  978-1-83526231-1

Victoria Dowd has a unique zany, dark humour that is ever present in her Smart Women series. The Smarts are an extremely dysfunctional family of eccentric quirky characters. Ursula, the main protagonist, is the only sane one in the group, but even she sees the ghost of her father. He always appears at moments of crisis when Ursula feels overwhelmed by events. Ursula’s demanding and autocratic mother Pandora Smart is more interested in her blog – Death Smarts – than her own daughter. Pandora is the self-appointed decision maker for the group, which also includes Aunt Charlotte – always vague who never appears to be able to work out what is going on – and Bridget, a hanger-on with a passion for unusual animals who, as Pandora frequently points out, is not actually a member of the Smart family.

Ursula is surprised when Spear asks her to marry him. They plan a quiet winter wedding in a remote frozen wilderness in Finland accompanied only by close family – the Smart women and Smart’s mother Angela. But it’s not just pre-wedding nerves that upset what should be a happy occasion. Their hosts are none too welcoming, the atmosphere is bleak, and tensions start to rise.

Ursula is already worried that her distracted husband-to-be is having second thoughts about his sudden, unexpected proposal when things go from bad to worse. Spear disappears, one of the resort staff is found murdered, and horror strikes when Ursula comes across a man frozen beneath the thick ice covering a nearby lake.   

The grim, brutal environment of this remote Lapland location that is so chillingly described contrasts sharply with scenes of pure hilarious, laugh-aloud humour, but what I enjoyed most about Victoria Dowd novels are her characters. Wildly idiosyncratic though each of the Smart women are, with their close, if constantly fractious relationship, the reader finds themselves inevitably drawn to each of them.

The multi-layered plot is so full of unexpected twists and turns, the reader is compelled to keep reading to solve the mounting number of questions.

I found Victoria Dowd’s series highly addictive. If you like complex locked-room mysteries with plenty of action and unique humour, I recommend, Murder Most Cold.
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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick

Victoria Dowd was born and raised in Yorkshire and after studying at Cambridge, went on to be a successful criminal law barrister for many years.  Victoria’s debut crime novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder (published by Joffe Books) is the first part of a dark, humorous crime series that is a modern take on the Golden Age of crime fiction and authors such Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Josephine Tey. She is an award-winning short story writer, winning the Gothic Fiction prize for short fiction 2019 by Go Gothic. Victoria has had short stories published in BTS Literary and Arts Annual, Gold Dust magazine and also by Stairwell books in their literary and arts journal Dream Catcher. Her work has also been selected for publication in an anthology entitled A Ghostly Challenge. She speaks at various literary festivals, most recently in Bath, and at various schools and book groups.

https://victoriadowd.com/

Judith Cranswick was born and brought up in Norwich. Apart from writing, Judith’s great passions are travel and history. Both have influenced her two series of mystery novels. Tour Manager, Fiona Mason takes coach parties throughout Europe, and historian Aunt Jessica is the guest lecturer accompanying tour groups visiting more exotic destinations aided by her nephew Harry. Her published novels also include several award-winning standalone psychological thrillers. She wrote her first novel (now languishing in the back of a drawer somewhere) when her two children were toddlers, but there was little time for writing when she returned to her teaching career. Now retired, she is able to indulge her love of writing and has begun a life of crime! ‘Writers are told to write what they know about, but I can assure you, I've never committed a murder. I'm an ex-convent school headmistress for goodness’ sake!’ Her most recent book is Peril in Persia.

http://judithcranswick.co.uk/

‘Hello Bunny Alice’ by Laura Wilson

Published by Orion,
2003.
ISBN: 978-0-75284-620-5 (HB)

When Alice Jones anonymously receives a newspaper cutting relating the dreadful discovery of a decomposed body in a bunny girl costume at the bottom of a lake on the Ivar Park estate in Wiltshire, she suspects that the body is that of a missing bunny girl who was last seen at a party with Alice’s husband, seven years earlier.

Since Lenny’s suicide Alice has tried to put the past behind her, living quietly on a farm, caring for her animals and shunning her former life. But the discovery of the body brings to her retreat Jack Flowers, Lenny’s former comedy partner, and with Jack comes memories of events that she had tried so hard to forget.

Forced by Jack’s intrusive presence to face her past life with Lenny, Alice begins to piece together her life from when she was a bunny girl and first met Lenny in 1967, and the many isolated incidents that she had hitherto blocked out. As her memories resurface so to do the questions. Why did Lenny hang himself? Did he sell his car, or is it the one at the bottom of the lake? Who sent her the newspaper cutting? Why is Jack here? Jack’s behaviour is erratic, his moods unpredictable, and gradually she becomes afraid, and aware that she is a prisoner, and maybe in great danger.

As with Laura's first book A Little Death, we have a small cast of characters, and the story is told by gracefully taking the reader backwards and forwards between present and past. The building of the suspense is very skilful, and as the story unfolds, so the chilling menace creeps up on you and increases with every new revelation. This is a brilliant piece of writing and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Laura Wilson was brought up in London, where she was born and raised. She has degrees in English literature from Somerville College, Oxford, and UCL, London. She has worked as a teacher and editor of non-fiction. Many of her novels have either a historical setting or a distinct historical connection, and often have split or dual narratives. Her first novel, A Little Death was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger award, and her fifth, The Lover was short listed for both the CWA Gold Dagger and the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger. She lives in Islington, London.

http://www.laura-wilson.co.uk