Tag Archives: historical mystery

What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley

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What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley was published by Orion in 2024 which means that there was a five year gap between this one and the previous book in the Flavia de Luce series – The Golden Tresses of the Dead. I had thought that the author might have run out of steam – or indeed life, so I was glad to hear that this one had been published.

Flavia has been left the family home Buckhouse after her father’s unexpected death. Her two older sisters weren’t at all happy about that, but it means that things go on much as before for Flavia and for the staff who help to run the house – Dogger and Mrs Mullett the cook  – in truth Flavia is closer to those two than she is to her sisters who are almost completely absent from this book.  A younger cousin called Undine has joined the household, she’s a bit of a handful, even for Flavia, she’s a law unto herself so she supplies some entertainment, but I feel that she doesn’t make up for the lack of snarky banter between Flavia and her older sisters.

When Major Greyleigh, one of the villagers is found dead in his kitchen it’s Mrs Mullett who is suspected of poisoning him. She gave him mushrooms that she had foraged from the woods and she wonders if some of them had been poisoned. It turns out that the Major and Mrs Mullett had had a romantic relationship years before in their youth, but Flavia can’t believe that she could be a murderer.

This tale takes a very unexpected turn towards the end, for me anyway. I enjoyed it although there were some aspects that annoyed me. The setting is 1950s England and everything feels authentic, the suddenly the reader is confronted with American spellings such as tire, color, I didn’t take note of the others. I was particularly annoyed by the word ‘purse’ being used to mean a handbag more than once.

“She rumaged in a sideboard and pulled out her purse. It was a flat Monda-go-to market  straw receptacle, good for carrying everything from a check to a chicken. She reached into the depths and dredged up a small sketchbook.”

So definitely not a small purse with just enough space for some coins and paper money then.

It just throws the reader (well me anyway) out of the setting. I was also annoyed by the use of the word foyer when it should have been hall or hallway as it was in a private home. In the UK the word foyer is reserved for theatres, cinemas, large hotels, conference centres and the like. Nit-picking maybe, but I think things like that should be picked up by an editor.

 

 

Heartstone by C.J. Sansom

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Heartstone Book CoverHeartstone by C.J. Sansom was first published in 2010 and it’s the fifth book in the Matthew Shardlake series.

It’s June 1545 and the setting is London, then Portsmouth. Henry VIII is now married to Catherine Parr and he’s not long for this world. He has put on even more weight and his leg ulcers are getting worse, but that hasn’t stopped him from starting a war with France. The road to Portsmouth is packed with soldiers, a massive English army to take on the French. Shardlake and Barak are heading that way too.

Shardlake is determined to get to the bottom of why a woman called Ellen is a patient in Bedlam, she’s terrified of the outside world and has been in Bedlam for over 20 years, but who is paying her fees and why was she put there in the first place?

This is a great read which really gets into the nitty gritty of what life must have been like for the soldiers and sailors who had often unwillingly been pressed into service of the King. In no time anyone travelling within the multitude is infested with fleas and lice. This is the time when the ship the Mary Rose sank so disastrously and it features in the story.

I have quite a lot of faith in C.J. Sansom’s historical details, but he did slip up with his knowledge of hunting when he wrote about servants gutting deer after a hunt. It wasn’t done quickly enough so the meat would have been inedible as deer have to be ‘gralloched’ (disembowelled) as soon as they are killed. But that’s me nit-picking

Heartstone is 715 pages long, which can be a bit off-putting especially when you have  a lot of books waiting to be read, but in no time you can read 100 pages and not realise it. I think that’s proof of how well written this series is.

 

Sovereign by C.J. Sansom

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Sovereign Book CoverSovereign by C.J. Sansom was first published in 2006 and it’s the third book in the Shardlake series.

It’s 1541 and Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak have been riding for five days, making their way to the north of England. It’s a particularly gruelling journey as the summer has been so wet, the roads are bad. Shardlake is on a mission for Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he wants to get to York before  King Henry VIII does. After the revolts in the north Henry is making his way there, the revolt has been quelled and this Royal Progress is to consolidate his power. He’s also expecting to meet with his nephew the Scottish King James V, but James isn’t daft enough to travel into England.

Not everyone has been forgiven though, Sir Edward Broderick is languishing in a filthy prison cell, waiting to be transferred to the Tower in London, and it’s Shardlake’s job to make sure that Broderick doesn’t die before he’s taken to London for interrogation and torture in the Tower. It’s a job that horrifies Shardlake, but he has troubles of his own, it seems that someone is trying to kill him.

This is a fairly hefty book at 658 pages, but it really doesn’t seem that long, it’s so well written the whole thing flows smoothly.  Sansom imagines the arrival of the King and his court, the army and masses of followers, and the effect that his presence has on the people who witness his arrival so well. People couldn’t even look at him, and shook in terror. At this time Henry was married to his fifth wife Katherine Howard, and her silly shenanigans come into the tale too. Sansom also didn’t ignore the problems that so many people descending on a place caused, specifically the amount of sewage involved. There’s more involved in the plot, but that’s as much as I’m going to say.

I’m so glad that I didn’t read this series as they were published because now I don’t have to wait for the next book to be published, I’ve already borrowed it from the library.