by TCW | Apr 1, 2019 | Book review
After the double-crosses and triple crosses and general chaos of the second of Jemahl Evans’ Blandford Candy books, Of Blood Exhausted is a relief. Even I could follow (most of) the plot. Evil foreigners are planning to assassinate Karl Ludwig, the Elector Palatine, who is visiting London in the hope (not totally absurd) that he might be offered the throne if Charles is deposed. His death, Evans tells us in an impressively succinct summary, “could drive a wedge between the Protestant states, and perhaps even tip the Dutch provinces into active war against the English Parliament.” Candy’s mission is to protect the Elector.
A French agent is also on a mission to protect Karl Ludwig, for reasons that are explained somewhat less succinctly. You can hardly blame Evans for that – it’s related to a whole series of alliances in Europe and he does well to explain it all. It is, though, an example of one of the many instances where Evans the writer loses out to Evans the historian, which is a shame, because Evans the writer can tell a very good tale. Anyway, the history lesson out of the way, we can concentrate on the fact that the Frenchman is d’Artagnan. Yes, that d’Artagnan. It turns out that the d’Artagnan of The Three Musketeers was a real person and that he did indeed spend time in England during the Civil War, though his adventures here are wholly fictional.
D’Artagnan is very French and witty. Sadly his wit suffers from the fact that Evans insists on translating every single word he says. Evans is a huge fan of footnotes (there are 76 in this book) but the one time footnotes would be more than justified he insists on putting everything in parentheses in the text. Even with this handicap, d’Artagnan is still much more witty than poor Blandford Candy who is regularly and amusingly shown up, but the two of them work together to track down the assassin who is duly killed. The Elector’s life is saved, d’Artagnan returns to France and Blandford Candy can go back to womanising without the Frenchman’s insufferable competition.
This relatively straightforward plot allows for an enormous amount of detail about the Civil War – the battles, and the politics that underlay them. Evans knows his period and makes as much sense of the history as anybody else I’ve read. The Civil War was messy and complicated and the Blandford Candy books are as good a way to get to know it as any. There’s an enormous amount of detail of daily life, lovingly researched (see those 76 footnotes) and brought vividly to life. It’s not as easy to read as, say, Deborah Swift, but then her adventures in Restoration England are painted on a much smaller canvas. She even presents Pepys as husband and man-about-town first and as an important civil servant at the Admiralty second. Evans is dealing with high policy, his book peopled with key political figures of the period who spend much of their time talking about the big policy issues of the day.
By the end of the story, the war is over. Charles is still alive, but his armies no longer threaten Parliament. That would mark a natural finish to the book, but Evans obviously has more plans for Blandford Candy who is about to build a new life for himself in America. Sadly his adventures between the natural end of the book and finally boarding the ship that will cross the Atlantic reminded me of the coda to Lord of the Rings as we wait what seems like forever for that ship to arrive and our hero to finally embark for the west. It’s a shame, because the last impressions the book leaves you with are in no way a fair reflection of the excellent quality of the rest of it.
by TCW | Mar 19, 2019 | Book review
My publishers, Endeavour Media, are running a promotion on Sally Spencer’s books. I started reading her because of her Inspector Blackstone mystery series set in Victorian London, but she also writes contemporary crime fiction. As part of the promotion, Endeavour are giving away one of her contemporary thrillers, The Vital Chain, so this seemed a good time to post a review of one of her other contemporary stories that I wrote a couple of years back.
Spencer is British and most of the stories I’ve read are set in England (as is The Vital Chain) but Violation is firmly established somewhere in the American rustbelt. Our hero (and first person narrator), Mike Kaleta, is an East Coast liberal who has moved to this tiny town where his wife’s father is the mayor. His marriage, though, has collapsed and he is now a liberal fish out of water in a police department staffed largely by thugs and headed up by an idiot. The only exception is Caroline Williams. Rule-bound and officious as she is, the only woman on the detective force is, inevitably, attractive.
Kaleta and Williams are set to work together to solve a series of paedophile sexual assaults. I must admit to finding the detail of some of these assaults quite unpleasant and I’m not sure how suitable this kind of crime is for what is, essentially, a lightweight novel. Still, the seriousness of the crime does provide some grist to what might otherwise be an overly predictable tale of corrupt officials, dirty cops and a heroic committed crime busting team. At first I thought the story, which pulls up every cliché of hard-boiled crime fiction, far too predictable. (Kaleta’s romance with Williams is inevitable from the moment that he tells us how much he hates her whilst trying to guess what her legs look like under her uniform.) I suspect Spencer would say that she was aiming for homage rather than rip-off and eventually I decided that she does pull this off. She’s not Raymond Chandler but her style has wit and a hard-boiled humour. Turning down a courtesy blow-job from the town whore, Kaleta says, “I hate to look a gift-mouth in the horse.” In a story-so-far aside he tells the reader, “Only a couple of days ago I forced two cops off a cliff, and now I’ve sunk to lying. By tomorrow I’ll probably be stealing from the cookie jar.” More importantly, the prose bowls along, carrying the reader with it. As the plot develops it becomes a little less predictable than you might have expected, although anyone paying attention will have spotted the evil villain more or less when they first appear with “Evil Villain” stamped across their forehead. Still, the twist at the end is worth waiting for and I found that, for all my reservations, I had genuinely enjoyed the read. I’ll probably read another (for a sequel is as predictable as Kaleta’s enthusiasm for bourbon).
by TCW | Mar 15, 2019 | Uncategorized
Trujillo is a tiny place so, much as we loved it, it made sense to leave the next morning for Badajoz. (If you missed last week’s post about Trujillo, do have a look at the pictures HERE.)
Badajoz features prominently in the Peninsular Wars, largely (as far as Brits are concerned) because of the siege of 1812. British forces eventually stormed the city, but the main attack through a breach in the city wall was unsuccessful. (The successful attack came through the castle.) Four thousand British and Portuguese troops died in the assault and the reprisals taken against civilians after British troops entered the city were terrible.
I did wonder how you lose 4,000 men in a breach assault and then I saw the wall that was breached.
Badajoz: Site of the breach (on the wall away from the camera)
The astonishing thing is that it was breached at all. The walls are very thick with many gun emplacements, although presumably one of the reasons for making the breach here is that, unlike much of wall, this section is not covered by redoubts on either side.
I’m no expert on siege warfare, so I just admired the engineering feat that is the walls of Badajoz, most of which still stand.
From Badajox in Spain, we drove to Elvas in Portugal. It’s a short drive with no geographical features to suggest a natural border and, given that both are in the Schengen area, no sort of border formalities at all, so we were soon checking in to our Portuguese hotel which had been designed by a top Portuguese architect in 1942. Later we were to see photographs of the hotel in the Guggenheim Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon but the pride that the staff take in the history of the place is quite obvious.
Hotel Santa Luzia, Elvas
The hotel is a very short walk from the town so as soon as we had checked in, we were off to enter through the town gate. (Well, one of the town gates – the wall is pretty well intact.)
Elvas is not only ridiculously pretty, but also an astonishing work of military defence. Elvas was (and still is) a frontier town, guarding the road from Spain. Built in the 17th century, the walls, with their seven bastions and four semi-bastions, represented the very best in the defence technology of the day. The town was further defended by two separate fortresses which occupied higher ground that could be used as artillery positions outside the town walls. The thickness of the walls is clear in this photo.
An interesting detail on the walls is the presence of toilets for use by the guards.
There is a castle, but it’s something of a disappointment as it really isn’t a particularly strong defensive position but seems rather a place that people might withdraw to make a desperate last stand in the unlikely event of the walls being breached.
You can see Badajoz from Elvas and Wellington was briefly based in Elvas.
That’s Badajoz on the horizon
Some officers who died at Badajoz were brought back to Elvas for burial. The British cemetery is just below the castle walls and well worth a visit.
Oh, yes, there’s an aqueduct too. Started in 1529, the aqueduct was plagued with construction problems and not finished for almost 100 years. It’s an impressive piece of work, though.
Campaigns and Culture
We did have an amazing trip (yes, there is more to come), visiting fantastic places and staying in beautiful hotels. We couldn’t ever have organised it ourselves. Our itinerary was planned by Robert Pocock, who was planning to join us to check out some of places on his next tour for Campaigns and Culture. Unfortunately he had to postpone his trip, but thanks to his instructions we saw most of the things he had planned. He is now busy planning future tours to the Peninsula with the possibility of bespoke tours before that if you want to hire his services privately. You can find details of his business at www.campaignsandculture.com.
Robert is a well-regarded expert on the Napoleonic Wars with a wider interest in military history that means he can provide significant insight into battlefields from Ramilies to Dunkirk. If you are interested in a trip like ours and don’t want to take your chances driving on some of the ‘interesting’ roads we found ourselves travelling on, I do recommend that you get in touch with Robert.
Next week
More serious history in next week’s post as we discuss Wellington’s defensive fortifications that made up the Lines of Torres Vedras. You still have to look at my holiday photographs though.
by TCW | Jan 29, 2019 | Book review
I seem to be getting more and more in to the 17th century. I really never meant to. It started with my visit to Edgehill and dinner with the Sealed Knot and then I found myself caught up in Jemahl Evans’ historical novel (as much history as novel in places), The Last Roundhead. After that I was plunged into the world of Mr Pepys, as summoned up in fantastic (and again historically grounded) detail by Deborah Swift in Pleasing Mr Pepys. I enjoyed that so much that I moved on to Deborah Swift’s story that took me to a dirtier, more dangerous and far less pleasant side of the same world in The Gilded Lily.
Perhaps Sapere Books have noticed, or perhaps I was just lucky, but they recently sent me a copy of M J Logue’s An Abiding Fire, set in Restoration London with a tiny walk-on part for Mr Pepys.
“Madam, if you consider that smellsock to be a decent anything you have yet to have any acquaintance with his wife. She has a number of stories to tell and none of them reflect very well on her husband.”
Poor Pepys, still routinely abused after more than three centuries, but that’s what you get for recording all your indiscretions in your diary.
Can you already tell that I liked this book? For I surely did. It’s a lovely, rollicking read with beautifully believable characters – many of them all more believable because they really existed and, as far as I can tell, Ms Logue has done her homework on the detail of their lives.
The story centres around the adventures of Major Russell, once one of Cromwell’s Roundheads, but now firmly on the side of the King. He has just married his childhood sweetheart, young, beautiful, and generally seen as somewhat out of his league. I’ve reviewed romances before and acquired a reputation as a nasty, cynical man who just can’t lose himself in a tale of true love. But here, I’m happy to turn into the fluffiest of romance-loving bunnies. We see the development of the relationship in the first months of a new marriage with chapters from the point of view of Major Russell alternating with scenes viewed through the eyes of Thomazine. There are rows, misunderstandings, reconciliations and all the passionate intensity of a relationship that is still setting out its own ground rules. It’s an absolute joy and would justify time spent reading all on its own.
This book, though, is not primarily a romance. (I suspect this is part of the reason that the romance element is so incredibly well done.) Britain is on the verge of war with the Dutch and Major Russell is one of King Charles’s spies. Soon he is caught up in a plot that seems designed to blame him for a sudden wave of murders and arson in London town. Who is behind these attacks, which seem designed to benefit the Dutch? Who is starting the rumours that claim Russell is a murderer and a traitor? (This is definitely the weakest point of the book. [POSSIBLE SPOILER if you really aren’t very good at whodunnits.] Who knows Russell well enough to be able to make such credible lies and who has a reputation throughout London, apparently, as a notorious gossip? Answer these two, not particularly difficult, questions and you will have identified the villain before poor Major Russell and wife have even got started.)
Never mind that Russell and his wife clearly aren’t the greatest detectives of their age. They’re brave and they’re fun and they love each other and they have beautiful friends with beautiful clothes who may be reprehensible but are wittily reprehensible, which seems to have been what mostly mattered in Charles II’s court.
There’s a climax with Thomazine suitably imperilled and Russell appropriately brave and the whole thing is set in the ropery at Chatham, which was a bonus as far as I’m concerned because I’ve been to the ropery at Chatham and it’s a remarkable building and I found the scene Logue describes came vividly to life for me.
The ropery at Chatham
Of the book I’ve read recently in this period, Ms Logue’s is probably the least worthy and the most fun. But it is a solid piece of historical writing (the Historical Note is practically a text book in itself) and I’m all in favour of fun. If you read it quickly you’ll have finished almost in time for the sequel, A Deceitful Subtlety, published just about now.
by TCW | Jan 15, 2019 | Book review
I recently came across an old blog post by Deborah Swift on “Subtlety and Melodrama in Historical Fiction”. She explains that melodrama can slip in when the action becomes too fast paced. With historical novels one solution that she suggests is to “remind myself of the reality of the world I’m writing about”. It is the research, and the context in which the drama happens, that roots the story in reality and prevents the melodrama from getting out of hand.
It’s an approach that is very clear in The Gilded Lily. Ella and her younger sister Sadie have fled Westmoreland where Ella has robbed her dead master. (How involved was she in the death? It’s not at all clear.) They make their way to London where they soon discover that the money they have stolen is hardly enough to keep them. Their dreams of living as fine ladies meet the reality of life for young women in the mid-17th century city.
Deborah Swift certainly follows her own advice to root herself in the reality of the world that she is writing about. The book accurately reflects the dreariness and misery of life for the working classes of the time. The sisters first find work in a wig factory, their fingers constantly cut as they pull the threads through the hessian of the wigs, their necks and arms stung as their overseer lashes at them if she sees them lift their heads from their work. It’s an excellent historical account, but the drab monotony of their lives can’t help but rub off on the reader. Despite interludes of excitement when they think that their crime in Westmorland might be catching up with them, it can (despite Swift’s easy writing style) be a long and sometimes difficult read.
Eventually Ella, the more daring of the two, finds work with the distinctly suspect Jay Whitgift, the son of a successful pawnbroker. Ella has hopes of winning Jay’s heart and hence finally escaping from the drudgery of daily life and becoming a respectable woman. It is a measure of Swift’s skill in summoning up the period that we never for a moment think that she will succeed. Other novelists may give us girls who marry rich men and live happily ever after, but Swift is too firmly rooted in the reality of the 17th century to let us believe for a moment that this will not end badly.
It ends extremely badly indeed. True to the approach that she outlined in the blog post, Swift uses the solid historical background of the story to allow her to leap off into something that, without such careful preparation, could easily be completely over- the-top melodrama. Instead, I was gripped as a story of two poor girls making their way in the city turned into a tale of white slavery, murder, arson and a dramatic finale at the Frost Fair held on the frozen Thames. Suddenly I was turning the pages enthusiastically wanting to know if Ella could escape Jay’s murderous plan or if Sadie was indeed condemned to starve, literally locked in a garret.
The Gilded Lily offers an outrageously exciting story in a beautifully detailed period setting. If the beginning seems a little worthy, it’s well worth sticking with.
Recommended.
