My ardor for Peter Grainger’s King’s Lake police procedural series, set in northern England, has waned slightly in the time since he made the (probably inevitable) decision to let his previous main character, the enigmatic Detective Inspector D.C. Smith, retire (though he remains a presence in the stories). The team has a more modern look now, headed up by DI Cara Freeman (the obligatory Strong Female Lead), and including a black woman and a “gay” guy. (There may be other ethnic or societal subtleties that I missed because author Grainger is shy with character descriptions.) Nevertheless, I found Some Sort of Justice, book 17 in the series, engrossing and effective.
DI Freeman’s superiors offer her a case, implying strongly that she might be wise to turn it down. It’s a reinvestigation of a death more than a year old, and it’s also a potential minefield. The victim was an earl, whose sister is unsatisfied with the police’s conclusions. He was found dead in a pool after a party at the home of a high-level entertainment agent. Accepting the case, Freeman soon learns that the facts are very hard to determine. The cremated body is no longer available for examination. The host’s story doesn’t make sense. And it appears that a prominent politician was present and desires very much to cover that up. As the investigation goes on, the team is confronted again and again with the choice between doing the easy, political thing or seeking the truth. They choose to seek the truth, but they’ll lead a lot of intelligence, some shrewd strategizing, and a little plain luck if they’re to keep their careers when it’s all over.
I was highly pleased with more than one conservative sentiment expressed in passing. I enjoyed Some Sort of Justice. Cautions for adult themes.
A venerable custom on this blog is my post-Viking event saga review. During reenactment events I like to (at least most of the time) read from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, to keep myself from (further) violating authenticity standards through reading off my Kindle device. During the Scandinavian Festival in Moorhead I read three sagas, two of them connected, all of them weird to various degrees. We’re getting into late sagas here, and weirdness goes with the territory.
The Saga of the People of Kjalarnes
The first one is The Saga of the People of Kjalarnes, which deals with early settlers in the area around Reykjavik. It’s also interesting because it depicts early Christian-heathen conflicts, and features one of the few saga descriptions of a heathen temple (historians consider this description pretty much worthless as evidence).
Helgi Bolan is an early Iceland settler, and we’re told he welcomed a group of Irish immigrants who were Christian. (I believe these people should probably be considered mixed Norse-Irish, ones who fled Ireland following military reverses in the Emerald Isle. These people would have thought of themselves as Norse, but had converted to Christianity.)
Every saga begins with a can of genealogical worms, and this can finally brings forth the saga’s main hero, Bui Andridsson. Bui is an open “Christian,” and is actually prosecuted at the Thing assembly for false religion. He is outlawed but (interestingly) simply ignores it. Nobody seems to be able to do much about it, because he’s such a skillful fighter. He has a foster-mother who keeps egging him on to desperate acts, justifying it by saying that his fate is already determined, so there’s no point playing safe. He finally burns Helgi Bolan’s temple down, killing a man in the process. (I think we’re supposed to sympathize with Bui, but objectively he sounds like a jerk.)
Outlawed, he flees to Norway, where the king sends him on a quest to the giant Dofri (identified with Dovre mountain in Norway; this element connects this saga to lesser-known legends about King Harald Fairhair). While staying with Dofri, Bui cohabits with the giant’s daughter, who is (we are told) very tall but very beautiful. (The mind boggles.)
Later he returns to Iceland where he’s finally killed fighting with Jokul, his own son, born to the giant’s daughter, whom he’s never met. The saga ends by telling us that they don’t know what happened to Jokul, but read on…
Jokul Buason’s Tale
Somebody must have wanted a sequel about the patricide Jokul, because that’s the next story in the collection. This is a saga that seems to have no historical basis at all, and so it runs wild along fairy tale lines. In his adventures, Jokul encounters a couple of giant sisters. He and his companion kill one, but spare the other, and she becomes their useful and devoted slave (giant psychology would seem to be somewhat different from human psychology).
The saga goes on to take Jokul, in the end, to the land of the Saracens, where he rescues a prince and princess. He marries the princess and succeeds her father as king of the Saracens.
To live, one assumes, happily ever after.
Gold-Thorir’s Saga
Gold-Thorir’s Saga returns us, tenuously, to some connection with the real world. Gold-Thorir is Thorir Oddsson, who as a young man vows sworn-brotherhood with a group of other young men. They go out to have adventures. They rob a grave mound, where the ghost prophecies great wealth but a bad end for Thorir. After that, we’re told, Thorir’s personality changes.
They go on to assault a clutch of dragons in a cave, managing to kill the dragons and seize their treasure. As their leader, Thorir is awarded the larger share of the loot.
[One peculiarity of this saga is that a few pages are missing. They weren’t lost, but were erased, probably with the intention of re-using them (not uncommon with old book manuscripts). Someone wrote in a summary of the missing material, but we don’t know if it’s authentic.)
In his old age, we are told, Gold-Thorir becomes increasingly sour and antisocial. Finally, according to the saga, he actually turns into a dragon. And his treasure disappears.
Thank you, Valued Reader. You’ve been very patient during my two-day absence from this blog, and your reward will be TWO posts from me today. I am in a benevolent mood.
This post in particular is to announce the release of the biographical novel, Hans Nielsen Hauge: The Torchbearer, a fictional biography of the Norwegian lay evangelist. I did not translate this work, whose original author is Inger Anna Maridal Drangsholt, but I edited the manuscript, so the marks of my genius are all over the final product.
I’ve written about Hauge many times before on this blog, having a long family history in the Haugean movement; some of my ancestors knew the man personally. The Torchbearer is aimed at young adults, but I found it a very engaging and lively dramatization and I’m pretty excited about it. I recommend it for anyone unfamiliar with Hauge’s story.
I’ve been relishing Alan Lee’s bracing thriller series starring US Marshal/secret agent Manny Martinez, a native of Puerto Rico but the most patriotic man in America. Manny generally saunters through his stories like a James Bond with better hair (and more scars). The stakes are high, but the tone is light, mostly because Manny refuses (as Stonewall Jackson put it) to take counsel of his fears.
But Martinez, the fourth book in the series, has a different tone. Manny is still Manny, but this time he’ll take a trip into his own past, brought into confrontation with his dark origins.
One day in the Marshals’ office, Manny recognizes a prisoner being interviewed. In a moment, that prisoner murders a marshal, wounds Manny, and makes a clean escape. The prisoner was not the man they thought they’d arrested. He was Manny’s own (probable) half-brother, Julian. When they were boys, they’d been inseparable partners in crime. Manny had been (we learn) the heir apparent to the main crime family in Puerto Rico. But he decided he didn’t want that life, and escaped to the US. Julian felt deeply betrayed. He rose to become one of the top assassins in the world, and now he’s decided the time has come to get his revenge on Manny. But not right away. First he’ll kill everyone Manny loves. In the end, he lures Manny home to P.R. for a final showdown.
Martinez was not as much fun as the previous Manny Martinez (code name Sinatra) novels, but it was exciting and gripping, and the great theme is mercy. I recommend it. Cautions for violence and language.
It’s a psychological thriller, and like so many books of that subgenre, it borders on horror. Such books can be very good; think of The Silence of the Lambs.
But this book by Rowan Merrick falls far below that level.
The hero (sort of) is Ray Matthews, a former police detective who resigned under pressure. (There’s also talk about articles he wrote, as if he moonlighted as a journalist, which seems unlikely. It wasn’t really explained as far as I can recall.)
Now his old superior calls him back in to view a murder scene. The victim was tortured to death, words carved into his body. The words are from an old article of Ray’s, in which he wrote about the official malfeasance that led to the release of his (Ray’s) wife’s murderer. The present victim is one of the men culpable in the injustice.
Ray’s problem is that he can’t recall where he was at the time of death. He experiences blackouts occasionally, and it’s been happening more often recently. He’s terrified that he committed the murder and doesn’t recall it. As the first half of the book continues, his fears grow.
The second half of the book turns (mostly) to his sister Charlene. We learn their family history, how she’s been covering for Ray for most of their lives, and how she has curtailed her own life, partly out of love and partly out of fear.
The book ends with a Big Surprise.
And a cliffhanger.
I don’t like cliffhangers. I consider cliffhangers an offense to the reader.
Also, I found the psychology of this book dubious. I thought the decisions of several characters implausible. And I considered the “solution” unnecessarily complex.
In short, I was disappointed with Where the Bad Men Sleep. Not recommended.
“Beck, look around. We’re in Jamaica. Our enemy is crafty and clever. She’s a beautiful former MI6 agent and chasing her has led us around the globe. This isn’t boring. This isn’t dull. We could be chasing some drug addict who skipped bail. We could be transferring prisoners, but we’re not. Ay, what else do you want out of your career?”
I can’t believe I delayed reading Alan Lee’s “Sinatra” books. Manny Martinez, code name Sinatra, US Marshal and part-time secret agent, is an over-the-top character who perfectly fits into the over-the-top world of movie-inspired thrillers. He’s unbelievable, but he’s got the ego to carry off implausibility. James Bond is never far from the reader’s mind here, and the author leans into the similarities, with tongue in cheek.
In Paradise Royale, Manny and his female partner, Beck, are assigned to intercept a defense department computer genius who’s absconding with secrets to sell to our enemies. The interception isn’t all that difficult, but a complication arises – a stunningly beautiful, rogue British Intelligence agent and her pleasant but deadly male associate. They neatly intercept the defector and carry him off. Manny, never dismayed, immediately commandeers a private jet to chase the fugitives to Jamaica, where the prisoner gets snatched back and forth like a basketball as the two rival teams grow increasingly impressed with one another. Especially Manny and Bronwen, the Englishwoman. She is Manny’s equal, just as good-looking and just as resourceful as he is. Even as they deceive and entrap one another, they fall into increasing mutual infatuation. (This is a very sexy novel, though nothing explicit happens.)
Generally, as you know, I don’t care for kick-butt female action heroines, but I liked Bronwen a lot. I hope she comes back, even though Manny (in a later book) proposes to Beck.
I can’t think of anything bad to say about Paradise Royale, except to caution you about occasional bad language. Hollywood hasn’t told an action story this much fun in many, many years.
Since I’ve become a fan of author Alan Lee, I’ve decided to read his “Sinatra” books as well as his delightful Mac August novels. “Sinatra” is the code name of Mac’s best friend, Manny Martinez, a US Marshal who is also on call as a super-secret government agent (because why not?). Manny is an off-the-wall character, a genuine original – though, oddly, he’s kind of based on James Bond. Only in this case Bond is a Puerto Rican American (and super-patriot). He’s implausibly handsome and has impeccable fashion style. Basically, he does all the things Bond does, but in a very American and semi-parodical manner.
In Wild Card, Manny and his partner Noelle Beck (a sweet, wholesome Mormon girl) are given the case of Benjamin Curtis, governor of Maryland and brother to the vice president. Curtis has a gambling habit, and is deeply in debt to sinister people. So their job is to go to the casino, take him in hand, and get him out. Only, when they get hold of him, he explains that the situation is worse than anyone knows. The people he owes money to are more dangerous than organized crime, and killing the governor will be the least of their retaliations if they don’t get paid the millions they’re owed. Implausibly (but plausibility matters little in these stories), Manny finds himself taking the governor’s place at the poker table, first at the casino, and later on an offshore yacht. The fact that Manny has never played poker before is only a minor road bump compared to other challenges Manny and Beck will face, from international assassins to frenzied sharks.
It’s over the top, but great fun – more like a Bond movie than a Bond novel. It’s impossible (I think) to resist Manny as he strolls into the jaws of death with perfect confidence, knowing he’s the smartest, the best looking, the deadliest, and the Most American person around, and Americans always win.
I loved Wild Card. Recommended. Cautions for language and violence.
P.G. Wodehouse wrote five novels (as well as a timeless short story) about the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred. Cocktail Time is the third in the series, placing the sequence somewhat later in time than I expected. One always envisions Wodehouse stories taking place in the 1920s or ’30s, but references here to television and World War II being in the past alert us to the fact that this one was actually published in 1958.
Instead of a précis of the plot, I think it will be more efficient to describe the story geographically. Imagine Dovetail Hammer, Berkshire, the stately home of Johnny Pearce, one of Uncle Fred’s godsons. Johnny wants very much to get married, but he doesn’t feel he can afford it. He’s not very wealthy, and upkeep on the manor is high. On top of that, he feels obligaed to pension off his imperious childhood nurse, who’s gotten accustomed to thinking of herself as major domo of the estate. He can’t expect his new bride to deal with that.
One measure he’s taken to increase his income is to turn Hammer Lodge, a smaller dwelling on the estate, into a rental house. It is now being occupied by Sir Raymond “Beefy” Bastable, the eminent London barrister. Beefy’s great secret, known to few, is that he is the author of Cocktail Time, a scandalous bestselling novel about today’s dissipated young men. (He wrote the novel after having his hat knocked off by a Brazil nut shot from a catapult (slingshot) out of a window of the Drones Club, unaware that the actual shooter was not a dissipated young man, but Uncle Fred himself). Beefy has persuaded his worthless nephew, Cosmo Wisdom, to take public credit for authorship, in order to preserve his own reputation. However, he has taken the precaution of writing a letter establishing his own authorship, in case it should be necessary. And now that his agent has started talking about film rights, Beefy is reconsidering his claim – only the letter has been stolen.
This covers only the high points. There are several cases of sundered hearts in this tale, and Uncle Fred is always keen on uniting sundered hearts, as part of his general life project of “spreading sweetness and light.” His usual method of spreading s. and l. is by telling bald-faced, shameless lies, gently shepherding the unhappy couples into proximity, and arranging for them to acquire sufficient resources to set up housekeeping. A novelty in this story is that several of the sundered couples consist of middle-aged people.
Lots of fun. Cocktail Time is about mid-level on the Wodehouse scale, which exists on an infinitely higher plane than any other humorist’s work. Recommended.
It occurred to me just today that I owe you a saga reading report. I read one from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, as is my custom, during the Elk Horn Iowa event, and I forgot to tell you about it. This one was ‘The Saga of the People of Floi’ (Flóamanna saga). It’s not an example of high saga art, but it does not lack for interesting moments.
Although (like so many sagas) it starts with an overview of several generations of genealogy, its unquestioned hero is a man with the complex name of Thorgil Scar-leg’s-stepson (Ørrabeinsstjúps). (Among his ancestors is Aslaug, wife of Ragnar Lodbrok, whom fans of the Vikings TV series will recall). Thorgils satisfies the requirements for young saga heroes by going abroad to have adventures which are suspiciously similar to the adventures of other saga heroes (though at one point a man named Olmod the Old Karrason shows up, whom you may recall as a character in my novel The Year of the Warrior. This is the only non-Heimskringla reference to Olmod I’ve ever seen).
Then, having won the daughter of a king of Ireland as a wife, Thorgils returns in triumph to his home in Iceland. (The author has him generously bestow this Irish wife on a friend, to clear the deck for another wife, probably more historical.) There’s also an intriguing incident involving a “tub-duel,” where two men get into a large tub and fight with clubs – though Thorgils himself brings a sword, which is decisive if not very sporting.
We are informed that Thorgils was an early convert to Christianity, and later followed Erik the Red to the new Greenland colony. The stories involving Thorgils’ faith smell a little off to me, especially one where, during his Greenland voyage, Thor appears to him and demands a sacrifice. Thorgils refuses. Then he realizes that he has an ox that belongs to Thor on board, and so he throws it overboard. (That strikes me as an account of an actual maritime sacrifice, revised in spin doctor mode to satisfy a Christian audience.)
His ship is wrecked in Greenland, and he and his party suffer greatly before they can get help from other settlers. When Thorgils’ wife dies leaving him with a baby boy, he performs an action that has endeared him to feminist saga scholars ever since (Jane Smiley references it in The Greenlanders): he cuts his nipple, squeezing out first blood, then serum, then milk. And so he nurses his own son, to whom (we are told) he was particularly devoted thereafter.
In the end he can’t get along with Erik the Red (understandably), and returns to Iceland, dying a bitter and poor old man.
The Saga of the People of Floi is comparable to the Saga of Egil Skalagrimsson in telling a lively story about an unpleasant man. But it lacks the artistry of that work (which was very likely written by Snorri Sturlusson himself). Nevertheless, it’s both intriguing and highly memorable.
I wrote last night that I’ve given up reading author Jon Talton, so this will be my final review of any of his David Mapstone books. I’m tempted to call it ironic that, the more Talton’s books “improve” (at least in the sense of marketability), the less I like them. But it’s not ironic at all. It’s entirely proportionate, since marketability doesn’t matter much to me. (As sales of my own novels demonstrate.)
David Mapstone, you’ll recall, is a former academic historian, later recruited as “sheriff’s department historian” (cold case detective) in Maricopa County, Arizona. In the last book his boss and mentor, Mike Peralta, lost his job as sheriff and became a private detective, and David came to work for him.
In High Country Nocturne, Mike is suddenly a fugitive. Working as a diamond courier, he has been recorded on surveillance video shooting another guard and absconding with the jewels. David doesn’t believe it’s true, and starts to investigate, but he’s coopted by the slimy new sheriff, who pressures him into researching an old unsolved death.
But soon he finds himself and his wife under attack by an assassin, and his wife ends up in the hospital, close to death.
If I were Jon Talton’s agent or editor, I’m pretty sure I’d be delighted with the trajectory this series is taking. David Mapstone started out as a competent but slightly nebbishy deputy, more scholar than fighter. As the books have gone on, he’s become more formidable, a genuine avenger. All the stakes have been raised. The suspense is greater, the violence fiercer, the explosions louder. As is the case with so many detective series, the thriller element is now emphasized.
Also, the mild political conservatism of the early books has morphed into repeated expressions of contempt for the right.
A continuing, melancholy theme of the David Mapstone books has been his expressions of (certainly sincere) sadness about the changes in his community. As one of those few Phoenix residents who remembers how the place was before the real estate boom, he mourns all the things that have been lost – farms and ranches and floral gardens and open desert, now all subdivided and paved over.
On a much smaller scale, I mourn the decline (subjectively, for me) of this detective series, which started well, but seems to have sold out to sensationalism.
Websites store cookies to enhance functionality and personalise your experience. You can manage your preferences, but blocking some cookies may impact site performance and services.
Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.
Name
Description
Duration
Cookie Preferences
This cookie is used to store the user's cookie consent preferences.
30 days
These cookies are needed for adding comments on this website.
Name
Description
Duration
comment_author
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
comment_author_email
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
comment_author_url
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
Session
These cookies are used for managing login functionality on this website.
Name
Description
Duration
wordpress_logged_in
Used to store logged-in users.
Persistent
wordpress_sec
Used to track the user across multiple sessions.
15 days
wordpress_test_cookie
Used to determine if cookies are enabled.
Session
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us understand how visitors use our website.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that tracks and analyzes website traffic for informed marketing decisions.
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
1 minute
_gac_
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
Marketing cookies are used to follow visitors to websites. The intention is to show ads that are relevant and engaging to the individual user.
A video-sharing platform for users to upload, view, and share videos across various genres and topics.
Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.
1 day
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. Also used for marketing
179 days
PREF
This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
10 years from set/ update
YSC
Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Session
DEVICE_INFO
Used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website.
179 days
LOGIN_INFO
This cookie is used to play YouTube videos embedded on the website.
