A Loss of Angels and The Intrusion, John Linwood Grant

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I really, REALLY enjoy Grant's work. He captures the sights and smells of a seedy, late-Victorian/Edwardian world in which disturbing, mysterious things can happen and frequently do that reminds me of the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

These two novella-length mysteries follow the assassin Mr. Dry and introduce memorable additional characters: Dr. Alice Urquhart, Abigail Jessop, and Henry Dodgson. A Loss of Angels is a brilliant piece of writing, with a twist so satisfying I can't reveal it. The Intrusion includes supernatural elements which shade the mystery into horror. Everything's on the table: You can't be sure what will happen next.

If you like period mysteries, please go to Smashwords and download these books - THEY'RE FREE!

Free on Smashwords

Grant on the series:
"Tales of the Last Edwardian is a series of connected and stand-alone stories which will eventually include at least two novels. Most of the stories include aspects of spiritualism, the occult or other psychic phenomena, especially at their late Victorian and Edwardian height. They reflect the work of the early psychic detectives and psychiatrists, and do cross into crime fiction in the process. A world of gas-light and lobotomies, electric pentacles and the garotte. They are, discounting any whimsical touches I might use in writing them, fairly dark tales of murder, possession, fanaticism, abuse and suchlike. More flowing blood than flimsy ectoplasm, let's put it that way. The timeline runs from around the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902), through the Edwardian age and into the horrors of the Great War and its aftermath. It continues in and after World War Two, until it reaches the present day. The phrase The Last Edwardian will explain itself in the later stories. For those of a geographical disposition, the stories are set in London, parts of Yorkshire and various other nooks and crannies around Great Britain."

Date Night at Union Station, E.M. Foner

I picked this up hoping for that rare blend of sci-fi and romantic comedy. It's not bizarre enough to be Douglas Addams, and it's not Connie Willis by a long shot, although this is clearly a popular series - there are rave reviews on Amazon and the author has published 11 books (as of this date).

The world Foner creates is charming, with likeable characters in comic situations: the plot essentially follows two main characters going through a string of bad blind dates until they find each other in the last chapter at which point, they seem like the last two normal people in the galaxy, and perhaps that explains why they connect--? 'Fall in love' would be too generous.

Romance, Ford Madox Ford & Joseph Conrad

This is the second book Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad collaborated on, and I was excited to see, particularly in the first 1/4, the beginnings of what I would recognize as Ford's style: delayed decoding, impressionistic flashes. It works especially well in events where the narrator himself is overwhelmed, unfamiliar - there's a capture in which he has a bag over his head, or a scene later in which he witnesses a hanging. The second half of the book proceeds in a straight-forward manner.

My main issue with Romance and the reason I wouldn't recommend it unless one is especially curious and fond of either writer, is that it is a very long and rambling book. I had no sense of shape: where we were going, was this the middle, or near the end? In some ways this is an unfair judgment, because the expectations of books were different.

But then there are the brilliant bits:

...as if the oar had been a stalk of straw, as if the water of the bay had been the film of a glass bubble an unguarded movement could have shivered to atoms. I hardly breathed, for the feeling that a deeper breath would have blown away the mist that was our sole protection now. It was not blown away. On the contrary, it clung closer to us, with the enveloping chill of a cloud wreathing a mountain crag. The vague shadows and dim outlines that had hung around us began, at last, to vanish utterly in an impenetrable and luminous whiteness. We seemed to breathe at the bottom of a shallow sea, white as snow, shining like silver, and impenetrably opaque everywhere, except overhead, where the yellow disc of the moon glittered through a thin cloud of steam.

I never connected deeply with either the narrator/protagonist or his love interest, Seraphina, but there is a minor--very minor--character of a sailor's wife whom I found fascinating and really shows Ford and/or Conrad's genius: 

She is upset by the fact that Kemp (the protagonist) is traveling alone with the young woman, and takes it on herself to lecture both of them (especially him). Fine and good. So far, she's a pretty stock character. But, Kemp realizes "she had been, in reality, tremendously excited by this adventure. This was the secret of her audacity." She's wringing her hands, full of righteous indignation, but the truth is she's excited - the whole situation produces a sort of vicarious thrill in her. It is, in a way, her brush with 'romance.'

The Man Who Knew Infinity, Robert Kanigel

I usually don't review the non-fiction I read, but this is too extraordinary to pass up. S. Ramanujan was an Indian autodidact and mathematical genius who came to England in 1913 to work with the Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy. Ramanujan's story is astounding, and the partnership between the two is a friendship complicated by the differences in their age, religion, and culture.

Kanigel's book is beautifully written. He manages to work in some of the math in a way that sparks the curiosity of a non-mathematical reader, and the book is crammed with enchanting 'you-are-there' detail as it moves from Madras to Cambridge.

If you don't have time for the book, I hope you'll see the 2015 movie staring Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons because Ramanujan was a phenomenal genius. You can view the trailer on YouTube.

A Study in Grey, John Linwood Grant

Number 4 from "The Science of Deduction" series my "Curious Case of the Clockwork Doll" appeared in.

I absolutely loved reading John Linwood Grant's Edwardian era mystery centering on Grant's own characters - Military Intelligence agent Captain Redvers Blake, Henry Dodgson, and Abigail Jessop - with Sherlock Holmes weaving in and out. There were clever, witty exchanges that made me laugh out loud, plot twists that surprised me, and a horrifying ending, with lots of great historical detail throughout - perfect!

I didn't want it to end because I liked these characters and this world so much with its Pendulum Club, London War Office, and creepy seance scenes.

I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.