Book Review: CIRCLE OF SHADOWS by Imogen Robertson + My Historical-Mystery Reading Rules

England, 1784. Harriet Westerman is an adventurous well-to-do widow, mother and detecting enthusiast. She and her companion Gabriel Crowther, anatomist, forensic specialist and reclusive but wealthy older gentleman (he has spurned his family title), are off to the Duchy of Maulsberg.
CIRCLE OF SHADOWS is the unlikely duo's first foray into crime solving on the Continent, having heretofore concentrated on crimes closer to home.

Westerman and Crowther are the stars of a historical mystery series which in my view, rises head and shoulders above most others for these fairly simple reasons: the author's writing talent, sleight of hand research ability and gift for vivid characterization and plotting. The series is four books along - at least in this country, though I understand that the schedule here lags behind the British pub. dates. My local library doesn't even have the entire series on their shelves.

Additionally, these are the only mysteries I've read which are set during England's Georgian era. That adds to their uniqueness. But this wouldn't have been enough to get me interested in reading these books if the writing weren't so damned good. There are many popular historical mysteries which just, for one reason or another, don't hold my interest no matter how many times I've attempted to read them (mostly due to friends' recommendations), but Imogen Robertson fixed my attention from the first paragraph in her first book and I've been hooked ever since.

Now for a brief interruption:

Yvette's Rules for Historical Mysteries:

1) Location. Location. Location. As a reader (which makes me a kind of time traveler) I must WANT to travel back to where the mystery is. It's up to the writer to make this happen. And usually, it must happen quickly. If it's England, we're already a couple of steps ahead of the game.

2) Very important: The dialogue should not be anachronistic in tone, it must sound as if people of a particular time are speaking though not to the point where it becomes pedantic. The writer is speaking to a modern ear after all.

3) If a specific actual event, place, person or thing is used in the story, the dates must be accurate unless we've been informed beforehand that the author switched things around for some purpose. However, that purpose must make some sort of sense. This applies too if the writer is including characters created by another author and transplanted.

4) The writing style of a historical mystery should appear - in sentence cadence, for instance - not only as if it were knowledgeably written, keeping the era in mind, but also as if it were effortless. The behind the scenes nuts and bolts of research should not be apparent and obviously, the work should be approachable enough so that the modern reader/mystery-lover/history maven, can jump right in. Above all, it must NEVER be written in the present tense. In fact, nothing should ever be written in the present tense except maybe blog posts. (I'm guilty of that.)

I admit that I might have read one or two books written in present tense - but only rarely, in my opinion, does it ever work. The talent must be prodigious. There should be a reason for telling a story in this way, not merely the fashion of the moment. I have never read a historical novel written in the present tense and probably never will.

5) When it comes to history I'd always assumed that everyone shared my enthusiasm. (History was my favorite topic in school.) But to my consternation I've found that this is not always so. I know, the mind boggles.

Obviously you don't have to be a historian to read a book set in the past. But the truth is that there are always things it helps to know (even just generally) or at least have an interest in - points of reference and whatnot - the more you know, the quicker you can acclimate. I don't want a history lesson while I'm reading a mystery. (I read non-fiction for that.) I want the author to assume that I know a little something about the era, the setting or the events or else I wouldn't be there. The thing must be, first and foremost, a murder mystery.

Those are my rules and by gum they've always worked for me. Yeah, I know, I know, rules are meant to be broken. But when it comes to historical mysteries I can be pretty strict. I want a comfortable but intriguing setting. I want wonderful characters. I want suspense. I want mystery. I want knowledgeable writing. That's about it.

Author Imogen Robertson meets all of my criteria.

Okay, back to CIRCLE OF SHADOWS:

The Duchy of Maulsberg is a small German state roiling with poisonous intrigue, spies and more than its fair share of shadowy behind the scenes political chicanery. What's more, Maulsberg is currently preparing to celebrate the up-coming betrothal of their duke to a princess of a neighboring state. The marriage is to be a typical if formidable combo of lands and power - though the Duke brings rather less to the mix than is commonly known. But amid the pomp and circumstance, there are first some very nasty murders to be dealt with. The authorities, naturally enough, are eager to quell speculation, sweep the matter under the rug and quickly hang the most likely suspect.

Unfortunately, the most likely suspect this time is Daniel Clode, the brother-in-law of intrepid sleuth Harriet Westerman. An attorney and agent of the Earl of Sussex who happens to hold Duchy of Maulsberg bonds, newlywed Daniel had been traveling abroad with his wife, Harriet's younger sister Rachel.

During a masquerade ball at the castle, Daniel, raving incoherently, was found in a locked room with his wrists cut. Also in the room, the dead body of the Duke's current mistress. Daniel doesn't remember anything about the crime or even how he came to be in the room. It's obvious he has been drugged. But how gratifying for the Duke's investigators to have a foreigner conveniently on hand to blame for the murder.

When Harriet, back in England, receives a hysterical letter from her sister, she and Gabriel Crowther must travel to the continent to save the condemned Daniel and, as it turns out, solve several horrific murders in the process. While in Maulsberg hobnobbing with the German aristocracy, Harriet once more crosses paths with the diabolically clever spymaster Manzerotti, this time a special 'guest' of the Duke of Maulsberg. Manzerotti is a famed castrato opera singer renowned for his physical beauty as well as his magnificent voice. He is also the man Harriet blames for her husband's death.

Unexpectedly forced to work with her nemesis, Harriet and Crowther are swept up in court intrigue at an especially 'iffy' time when even the hint of scandal could put the kabosh on a very beneficial state marriage. Murder can hardly be allowed to interfere with matters of this monumental importance. Therefore the investigation must be carried out in a hush-hush sort of way - nothing new for Westerman and Crowther.

Question: How was it possible for the duke's mistress to drown inside the castle, in a dry locked room?

Ah, my friends, this is one of many questions which will be answered as Westerman and Crowther's investigation turns up more grisly deaths - deaths which have passed for 'accidents' - gone unnoticed as murder.

Author Imogen Robertson has peopled this particular book with an especially interesting group of characters. Besides the Duke (who is apparently more than just another aristocratic flounce) and the mysterious castrato, we are also introduced to a set of ruthless spies, some 'pie in the sky' revolutionaries, a mad alchemist or two, and an Arab duo who excel at creating incredible automatons of great beauty. There is more than enough court intrigue, deadly secrets and chicanery to sweep everyone up, especially those not quick-witted enough to step nimbly out of the way.

By the time the truth is known (much of it unpalatable) Harriet Westerman and her friend Gabriel Crowther are more than ready to congratulate the Duke and head back to England, relatives and friends in tow, ready for whatever new mystery awaits them.

Review: ISLAND OF BONES by Imogen Robertson

For reasons I can't figure out, probably something or other having to do with publishing business absurdities,  ISLAND OF BONES, the third book in the British series was published here AFTER the fourth book, CIRCLE OF SHADOWS. I refuse to read this series out of order (though you, of course, are free to do so) and so I've waited almost six months (probably longer) for ISLAND OF BONES to become available to me.

(And I'm glad I waited. Now I can go into CIRCLE OF SHADOWS, a happier and more content reader.)

If you've read my previous reviews of Imogen Robertson's books you know how much I love them and how enthusiastically I recommend this series even if you're not, normally, a fan of historical mysteries. The books' setting is unusual to begin with, England in the 1700's - the era of powdered wigs and robes a l'Anglaise. Imagine CSI, 18th century and you get a glimmer of what our two protagonists are up to.

These two main characters are enormously interesting and grow in noticeable ways from book to book as does our interest in them. Mrs. Harriet Westerman is an atypical Englishwoman, she is interested in science, in mystery-solving, in intelligent discussion of non-household-related minutia. She is, in certain ways, an anomaly, a stranger to her family who are often bemused if not downright angry with her 'eccentricities'.

Luckily for her, Mrs. Westerman is wealthy enough not to care what society thinks or even, really, what her family does. Though occasionally she is torn with indecision since she is the mother of two young children and you know how that goes. But she has a deep intelligence and basic need to know and she means to use these God-given talents no matter what.

Mrs. Westerman works alongside forensic scientist Gabriel Crowther, a reclusive mystery man more at ease with a microscope (of the time) and a dead body, than around live human beings. It is due to Mrs. Westerman's first having sought Crowther's help when she stumbled across a dead body on the edge of her country property (book one, INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS), that the two have become a rather unconventional working partnership. The aloof Crowther would have been just as happy staying in the shadows, puttering about his home laboratory.

At any rate, ISLAND OF BONES finally reveals a great deal of the background of mystery man, Gabriel Crowther aka the Baron of Keswick, a peerage awarded to his murdered father years ago - a peerage whose title Crowther has vehemently rejected.

We've had hints all along about why Crowther is the way he is, but here finally the truth is revealed at last and a man hanged for murder years before, is vindicated.

Crowther and Mrs. Westerman are invited to visit Cumbria, when one body too many is found in an old grave meant only for one. The grave is on an island near an old ruin, part of the estate which once belonged to Crowther's father and is now owned by a Mr. Briggs who is away on business, leaving his charming wife to run things. Turns out that Crowther's estranged sister and her grown son are guests of Mrs. Briggs (coincidentally) and it is the sister who suggests bringing in Crowther to investigate their mysterious pile of bones.

"An extra body? What do you mean, an extra body?"

"Perhaps we should summon my brother Charles," the vizegrafin said quietly, then, as she found the others looking at her: "You know he has become quite renowned at ferreting all sorts of information from a body. It might interest him. Will you be so kind as to invite him, Mrs. Briggs?"

Little do they know that the one mystery will (of course) beget others - more corpses will turn up (these in 'fresher' conditon than the moldy old bones in the tomb), leading in the end to an exciting and dangerous denouement in which Mrs. Westerman is forced to fire a gun just in the nick of time. (Flintlocks then, I think.)

Altogether another wonderful entry in this on-going series which has become one of my all time favorites. Now to get my hands on CIRCLE OF SHADOWS and find out what happens next. Why this series isn't making splashier news in this country can be blamed on the odd publishing sequence and the scarcity of books which often have to be purchased directly from England.

Author Imogen Robertson does her research but not so you'd notice great blocks of info being tucked into the manuscript. Instead it's all slight of hand and very well done. These are stories which have the definite flavor of their time but written with a modern day sensibility. It helps if you're interested at all in English history, but it's not a requirement.

Review: ANATOMY OF MURDER by Imogen Robertson

This is the second book in a new historical series (new to me, anyway) which I began reading just near the end of last year. The first book, INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS is an extraordinary achievement considering, especially, that it was the author's debut book. But besides that, it is as if I've witnessed the tossing of the mantle from the late (and very much lamented) Ariana Franklin to Imogen Robertson.

Though Franklin was writing of a much different age - her books were set in medieval England - the depth and breadth of careful research combined with genuine writing talent and vivid imagination is alive and well in Roberson's tales set in the late 1700's. You will find yourself easily cast back into this time and place without hardly a stir. These are the sorts of books for which an actual time travel machine would be redundant.

18th century England is at war with America and France and things are humming in London. Spies are everywhere. Skullduggery lurks in the shadows. It is 1781 and ANATOMY OF MURDER begins with a few scenes aboard Harriet Westerman's husband's ship - he is captain of a naval vessel engaged in wartime activities on the high seas. He was not a character in the first book at all, so it's interesting to meet up with him and get an idea of the sort of man Harriet is devoted to.

Harriet, you might remember, is the heroine of the first book - a woman out of her own time, a woman not averse to taking risks if the scientific or moral truth requires it. She has an intelligent, inquisitive mind which, given the age she lives in, is a burden for a woman of her class and station in life. What's even worse, she has a scientific bent.

Harriet and her friend (or maybe cohort is a better word), Gabriel Crowther, an enigmatic and very reclusive anatomist, He is a man (with a scandal plagued past - his brother murdered their father) who specializes in the new science of post mortem investigation. It isn't too out of the way to say that Crowther prefers the dead to the living.

But engaging with Mrs. Westerman in their first and now their second murder investigation is slowly changing the way Crowther views things. He really is a dried up old stick, but interacting with Harriet and her family and his new found fame as a 'detective' is thawing him out. Not that he welcomes fame at all. And of course, the word 'detective' hadn't been coined yet.

The plot:

A few months after the prologue in which Captain Westerman engages in a sea battle and comes out the richer for it, we are set right in the middle of London where a dead body has been fished from the Thames. Not an extraordinary occurrence, except this one does turn out to be an interesting body. For it belongs to a certain Fitzraven, an obsequious member of the staff of an opera company, assistant to Harwood the manager.

The company is now featuring the world  renowned castrato Manzerotti as well as the renowned soprano, Isabella Marin, both having been lured from France to liven up the London opera season. The opera is having its greatest triumph, so a murder investigation at the height of the season cannot be good for business. Neither can the murder of the soprano.

When it turns out that not only was the dead Fitzraven an unlikeable busybody and blackmailer, but also an occasional spy for the Brits who may or may not have worked for the French, the plot, necessarily. thickens. Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther are in the middle (or maybe 'muddle')of things as Crowther has been asked to do the post mortem, almost in situ. He will not work without Harriet at his side.

At the same time the investigation is on-going, Harriet is burdened with the gravest of personal circumstances- the deteriorating condition of her beloved husband. The captain has been placed in an asylum - for his safety and the safety of his wife and small children. Westerman has come home from the sea with a debilitating head injury - an accident on board ship. He many never recover his wits and Harriet and the family must reconcile themselves to the fact that he will never again be the man he once was.

In a way, Harriet welcomes the investigation which keeps her mind busy at this terrible time. My only quibble with this plot twist is that we're not made aware of how the accident occurred until the very last pages of the book. I suppose it's meant as a red herring of sorts, but surely Captain Westerman deserves more than to be a red herring.

Several characters from the first novel are present and accounted for in this second book, but it's not rocket science if you don't read either book in order. I would, though, to get the full flavor of just how Harriet and Crowther came to be working together.

While all this is going on, there is also a secondary plot line involving a certain Mrs. Jocasta Bligh, a London back alley reader of Tarot cards who, with her small terrier and the aid of a ten year old street urchin named Sam, are looking into the murder of a local woman whom the law assumes, was killed in an accidental fall. Both Jocasta and Sam unknowingly becoming involved in the larger investigation, coming at it from another angle.

Fresh murders will sprout along the way, as it is obvious a fiendish killer is on the loose at the opera house and elsewhere.

How these two plots dove-tail together near the end, will keep you reading until the very last word.

There is also a side sort of track: Jocasta might know something revealing about Gabriel Crowther's unhappy childhood. They both hail from the same part of the country.

But we'll have to wait until the third, ISLAND OF BONES, due out soon. April 14th is the publishing date in this country.

Can't wait.

Monday Review: INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS by Imogen Robertson

The first FABULOUS book of my reading year is here: INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS (2009) the debut novel of British writer, Imogen Robertson.

I've read two amazingly good books so far this year (both happen to be historical mysteries) and I'll be talking about the second in a few days, but today belongs to this incredible novel which had me enthralled almost from the very first page.

I couldn't believe, as I was reading,  that this was a debut. The writing is so self-assured, vivid, historically true (at least to my modern day eyes and ears), and in sections quite lyrically beautiful. The author's sense of scene - 18th century Sussex and London - is superb.

But there are dreadful crimes committed here and Robertson doesn't flinch when the need arises to describe the foul work.  Under the spell of Robertson's writing, I was caught up in the 18th century world of Harriet Westerman, a married gentle-woman left at home in charge of children and Sussex country manor while her husband is off at sea for months at a time.

Harriet is strong, disciplined, intelligent and living within the strictures of an age which wasn't very kind to women.  She is, unfortunately, burdened with a fine mind and the need to use that mind other than on household pursuits and gossip.

When a man is found dead on her husband's land - his throat slashed - Harriet decides to find out the who and the what of it. Especially when a gold ring bearing the crest of the local earl's estate, Thornleigh Hall, is found on the body.

Harriet engages the help of a neighbor, the reclusive and often sullen Gabriel Crowther, an anatomist whom the local townsfolk look upon with unease.

What great pair these two make. There is no romantic entanglement, just a friendship that develops as the first horrible crime leads to a second and Harriet and Gabriel must work together to resolve a deadly series of events.

Harriet has felt the evil emanating from Thornleigh Hall, the country home of a once great but now perishing family headed by a dissipated earl whose beautiful low-life wife and tormented second son - a veteran of the American war for independence - wait for his imminent death.

It is an inescapable truth that the this family's vile secrets are at the heart of the mystery. Author Robertson makes no secret of this. Since the story is really not a 'whodunit' but a 'how and why-dunit', the reader pretty much knows who the villains are about half way through the book. Though there still manages to be a surprise or two in the final denouement.

But knowing doesn't lessen the allure or the intrigue. Terrific writing will win the day every time.

The story switches  viewpoints as we move from the countryside of Sussex to the jam packed and tumultuous streets of London during the Gordon anti-Catholic riots. We learn about the earl's  first born son, his heir, a widower who was cut off from the family name and fortune when he chose to marry for love. What happens to him and his little family when evil from Thornleigh Hall reaches out as far as London, makes for a story which almost instantly captures the imagination.

There  is also a step back into history as we learn about the war time experience of the earl's second son and how this experience impacts the current murderous situation.

The three strands of the story are carefully and expertly woven together by the author until in the end they all come together at breakneck speed. I could not read the last few pages of this atmospheric thriller fast enough.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, I am NOT a fan of varying viewpoints, but when the writing is this good, the talent this great, I forgive all - author Robertson's gift for story-telling carries the day.

I can't wait to read the next two books in the series, THE ANATOMY OF MURDER and ISLAND OF BONES.

P.S. I wish Imogen Robertson had written DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY instead of P.D. James. I'm sure she could have made something intriguing and true out of it.