Review: ANTIDOTE TO MURDER, Felicity Young

• first published by Harper Collins 2013
  
• ISBN 978-0-7322-9369-7
• 325 pages
• #2 in the Dody McLeland series
• source: my local library

Synopsis (publisher)

Set in Edwardian London, this fantastic mystery series features Britain's first female autopsy surgeon.

When an act of compassion misfires, autopsy surgeon Dr Dody McCleland must fight not only for her career, but also for her life. The body of a scullery maid is discovered in her room. When it emerges that she had recently begged Dody to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, the coroner recommends Dody be tried for criminal abortion causing death. Meanwhile, the one man who might be able to help her, Chief Inspector Matthew Pike, is nowhere to be found.

After another woman's body is discovered bearing all the hallmarks of the same crime, Dody suspects that a rogue doctor is on the loose. Amid the turbulence of Edwardian London with its mix of strikes, suffragettes, German spies, exotic dancers and an illicit drug trade, Dody must unmask the killer before more girls are butchered and her own life ends on the gallows. 

My take

Australian crime fiction author Felicity Young does a good job with a historical setting, giving her novel a feeling of authenticity, at the same time presenting the problems which women faced in the medical profession in the early 20th century.

Set in London in 1911, when conducting an abortion is a criminal offence, and encouraging women to practice birth control is also illegal, Dody assists the famous Sir Bernard Spilsbury in autopsies. But even with the great man's patronage, she treads a very thin line as she advises women towards better contol of their child bearing.

Dody faces not only public opposition to women like her breaking into the professions, but also opposition among males already working there. And treachery comes from an unexpected place, almost resulting in her death.

My rating: 4.5

I've also reviewed
A CERTAIN MALICE
HARUM SCARUM
TAKE OUT
4.7, A DISSECTION OF MURDER -#1 in the Dody McLeland series

Review: CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, Peter Robinson - audio book

• Narrated by: Simon Slater
• Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins 
• firts published 2013
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Inspector Banks #21 

Synopsis (author website)

A college lecturer is found dead – murdered and dumped on a railway line near his home with £5,000 in his pocket. DCI Banks and his team are drafted in to investigate, and soon discover that the case is far from clear-cut.

Having spent his last years leading a secluded existence after dismissal for sexual misconduct, Gavin Miller wasn’t short of enemies, including an individual from the college where he used to teach, who has a venomous score to settle, and a mysterious lady he knew in the political-hotbed of Essex University in the early ‘70s.

It doesn’t take Banks long to start digging up old connections that many many people in power think would be far better left buried. Banks is told to back off before he pushes his enquiries too far, but if he did as he was told, he wouldn’t be Banks….”

My Take

To be honest, I don't think this is the best in this series. Mid book, I found myself urging Robinson to "get on with it". I thought he carried the dictum " show not tell" a bit too far. There seemed to be interminable dialogue as the investigation progressed from one set of interviews to the next, without making a lot of progress. Banks, ever the loose cannon, was unwilling to let his colleagues in on all that he had found out, and he certainly didn't apprise them of his surmises.

On the other hand, every base seemed to be covered in terms of all the information we needed to solve the mystery, and the pace of action did pick up in the second half of the book.

My rating: 4.4


I've also reviewed
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL (2007)
4.6, ALL THE COLOURS OF DARKNESS (2008)
4.6, BAD BOY (2010)
4.9. BEFORE THE POISON
4.7, WATCHING THE DARK (2013)  

Review: THE SHADOW WOMAN, Ake Edwardson

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 787 KB
• Print Length: 355 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0143117947
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (September 28, 2010) - it was originally published in Sweden in 1998
• Translated by Per Carlsson
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003XQEVRG

Synopsis (Amazon)

It's August and the annual Gothenburg Party is in full swing. But this year the bacchanalian blowout is simmering with ethnic discord spurred by nativist gangs. When a woman is found murdered in the park-her identity as inscrutable as the blood-red symbol on the tree above her body-Winter's search for her missing child leads him from sleek McMansions to the Gothenburg fringes, where "northern suburbs" is code for "outsider" and the past is inescapable-even for Sweden's youngest chief inspector.

Chief Inspector Erik Winter investigates the murder of Helene Anderson, whose body was found in a local park. Armed with few clues, Winter soon learns that the young woman left behind a child who may still be alive. Further probing leads him more than two decades back in time to a bank robbery in Denmark that a very young Helene likely witnessed. (The perpetrators remain at large, a source of great frustration for local law enforcement.) Winter travels to Denmark, and soon a cold case turns hot. Back on the home front, the inspector must contend with the annual Gothenburg Party, a hedonistic free-for-all that prompts riots among nativist gangs. 

My Take

The novel begins

For three years a massive drug war between the Hells Angels and the Bandidos has ripped through Scandinavia. Antitank rockets swiped from the Swedish military have been launched at club-houses, gun fights have erupted in airports, car bombs have been planted and bystanders killed. A well-publicized truce will soo bring the Great Nordic Biker War to a close, but not before dozens of lives are claimed by the violence, many of them innocent.

While this foreword helps put the action of the novel in 1997 it also confused me until I realised the novel was a reprint.

It actually takes some time, and a lot of careful police work, and a vital contribution by a concerned elderly citizen, to identify the young woman's body. Erik Winter becomes concerned with what has happened to the red-haired little girl who was seen with the young woman. Winter is a policeman who can't focus on anything else once an investigation gets underway.

One of the interesting features of this story is the feeling of history repeating itself. Twenty five years earlier the young woman was involved in a similar incident when her own mother disappeared. Both mother and daughter leave behind paintings that give clues to the life they've been leading. My guess is that some readers won't realise there are two young voices in the narrative.

My rating: 4.3

I've also read  FROZEN TRACKS

EuroCrime lists the titles available in English in this order
Chief Inspector Erik Winter, Gothenburg, Sweden

• Death Angels	2009	1
• The Shadow Woman	2010	2
• Sun and Shadow	2005	3
• Never End	2006	4
• Frozen Tracks	2007	5
• Sail of Stone	2012	6
• Room No. 10	2013	7

Agatha Christie and the Search for a Superior Sleuth

When I began my personal journey on the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge I did so in hope that I would learn something about how Agatha Christie thought.
I gained the impression that, right from the beginning, even though she had "discovered" a very good detective in Hercule Poirot, she was always experimenting and searching for another.

Here are the first ten titles, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Although 5 of the novels featured Hercule Poirot, the experienced, fastidious, though aging Belgian, we can also see that she introduced a couple of "bright young things" in search of a job, a military man, a policeman, and then finally a spinster who was a a bit of a sticky beak.

Ideas of international conspiracies and espionage come high on the list as she plays around with forms of the genre, as does the various legacies of the Great War.

Miss Marple does not seem to have hit the spot, because she doesn't appear again in a novel for another decade.

Here are links to my reviews:

1. 1920, THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES
2. 1922, THE SECRET ADVERSARY
3. 1923, THE MURDER ON THE LINKS
4. 1924, THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT
   1924, Poirot Investigates (short stories: eleven in the UK, fourteen in the US)
5. 1925, THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS  - Superintendent Battle
6. 1926, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
7. 1927, THE BIG FOUR
8. 1928, THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE TRAIN
9. 1929, THE SEVEN DIALS MYSTERY - Superintendent Battle
   1929, Partners in Crime (fifteen short stories; featuring Tommy and Tuppence)
10. 1930, THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE
    1930, The Mysterious Mr. Quin (twelve short stories; introducing Mr. Harley Quin)

But to focus on the novels only tells you part of the story. Miss Marple for example made her first appearance in 1927 in a short story called the The Tuesday Night Club which was published in a collection in 1932. See my list of short stories.
Watch out for my next post about her search for a sleuth.

Plans for December Reading

December is always a busy time and it is often hard to get some time to do some serious reading.

I did aim to read 145 books this year, but I am only on 126 currently, so that target looks a bit far away.

Specifically I am aiming to complete the Mystery Author Challenge being run at Red Headed Book Child.
I have E, X and Y to go.
E: I am reading now: THE SHADOW WOMAN by Ake Edwardson
Y will be ANTIDOTE TO MURDER by Felicity Young
X depends a bit on my local library but I have reserved DEATH OF A RED HEROINE by Qiu, Xiaolong
My full list is here.


The other meme that I am trying to complete is VINTAGE MYSTERY BINGO 2014 hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block.
My record page is here. I have actually read 25 books.

Here is what I have done so far.
Golden Vintage - books written before 1960

 To complete a double bingo I am borrowing a Maigret from the library: THE MAN WHO WATCHED TRAINS GO BY

Silver Vintage: books written 1960 - 1989

 I am not sure whether I am going to be able complete a bingo line on this one. I have plenty of books on my Kindle to use - it is just getting them to line up!

What I read in November 2014

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2014

A much slower reading month this time, but all the books were well worth the time.

1. 5.0, THE SON, Jo Nesbo - translated
2. 4.4, STAR FALL, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles - British police procedural 
3. 4.4, COUNSEL OF CHOICE, Stuart Littlemore - Australian author
4. 4.6, THE SOUL OF DISCRETION, Susan Hill - British police procedural 
5. 4.5, THE ENGLISH LADY MURDERERS' SOCIETY, Jim Williams
6. 4.9, THE LONG WAY HOME, Louise Penny  

My Pick of the Month was THE SON by Jo Nesbo

See what others have listed as their pick of the month.

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month November 2014

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2014

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for November 2014, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

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