Tagged: murder
Blood Oath by Felicity Pulman
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Love, revenge, secrets – and murder – in a medieval kingdom at war.
A young woman, left alone and destitute after the mysterious death of her mother, plants a sprig of rosemary on her grave and vows, somehow, to bring the murderer to justice. But who can Janna trust with the truth? Even the villein Godric, who wants to marry her, and Hugh, the dashing nobleman, have secrets that threaten her heart and her safety.
In a country torn apart by the vicious civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, Janna needs all her wits and courage to stay alive as she comes closer to those who are determined to silence her forever.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I’d previously read I, Morgana by Felicity Pulman so although I normally wouldn’t pick up what amounts to a medieval murder mystery, I decided to request Blood Oath on NetGalley anyway. She did such a good job with the Arthurian legends I stepped out of my comfort zone to give this one a try. In the end, I’m glad I did.
Janna is a young woman living with her healer mother, a bit of an outcast in the community because of her rather progressive views on religion but someone who was generally respected enough to come to when people were in trouble. But when a lady calls Janna’s mother to help her with her birth and then again when the infant won’t suckle, Janna’s life turns upside down when she is called to the manor to discover her mother dead. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that her mother was of course poisoned, but who did it? How can one teenager girl, completely alone in the world and an outcast in her own community, solve a mysterious murder that no one thinks was a murder?
Clearly, we have an interesting plot in the beginning but it does get even more interesting. As Janna roots out suspects and tries to establish a timeline of events leading up to her mother’s death, religious tensions within the community flare and Janna’s position becomes even more precarious than before, particularly since she’s a woman living on her own. I can’t really go into much more detail about the plot because it would give away some of the pretty cool plot twists, but needless to say Janna does find her mother’s killer and it’s not who you would expect or for the reasons you would think.
The murder mystery itself is pretty fascinating, but it was the characters that really caught my attention. Janna herself is pretty progressive for a woman at the time because of her mother’s independence but she still is a woman of her time. She knows that speaking out too much on certain topics can endanger her very life so she has to tread a fine line between standing up for what she believes in and not rocking the boat too much. But when she discovers who really murdered her mother, she decides to act rather than carry on without carrying out a little bit of justice/revenge. Janna is obsessed with finding her mother’s murderer, particularly because they argued so much in the few days leading up to her death. So there’s an element of guilt driving her but also a sense of duty and justice. She wants things to be right and balanced but knows that it’s not always possible in medieval England, particularly with the vicious civil war being waged close to her community.
In Blood Oath, Felicity Pulman has clearly done her research about the time. I’m no expert on medieval England but she lends a very authentic feeling to the novel by using the old spellings and old names for where the action takes place in the novel. Instead of using Oxford, she uses Oxeneford, just little stuff like that. I was also fascinated by the detail she went into for describing medieval remedies for various ailments. Clearly, she has done her research and she says in her Author’s Note that all of the background events in the novel are very true: there really was a civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda (sometimes known as Maude) being waged in England at the time and it really did split loyalties as is described in the novel. It will be interesting to see just how much of an impact the civil war has on Janna since she decides to leave her village at the end of the novel.
To sum things up: Blood Oath isn’t the most fascinating book I’ve ever read because the plot is a little slow in the beginning but it is a good book. The characters are good but I didn’t think they were anything special and Felicity Pulman’s research was excellent. So if the blurb has interested you, I would recommend giving Blood Oath a try.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson by Lois Simmie
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
John Wilson came to Canada from Scotland in 1912, leaving his wife and family with the promise to return in a year. In 1914 he joined the Mounties, and while stationed in Saskatchewan village, he caught TB and fell hopelessly in love with the young woman who took care of him. He would do anything for her, anything at all.
Winner of the 1995 Arthur Ellis Award for Non-Fiction, The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson is played out against a backdrop of catastrophic events; World War I, economic depression, the TB and Spanish Flu epidemics. It is the riveting account of a mounted policeman and the women who loved him.
I initially picked up this book because it was semi-local. (When you’re in Saskatchewan, any fiction vaguely mentioning your province is ‘local’, no matter how far away the story plays out from where you actually are.) I like true crime books, even if I don’t necessarily always review them. But this one I had to review.
Now, the main problem with The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson is that it tries so hard to be both a novel and a nonfiction account of a cold-blooded murder. In the end, it works as neither. In some respects, this has to be a fictional novel because (despite the award for nonfiction!) Lois Simmie really does insert her own flair into it and speculates highly on what John Wilson was feeling at the time. This is without backing it up with evidence like testimony from his trial or something similar, mind you.
And that’s why, despite the award, I also don’t consider this to be nonfiction. This is more of that hybrid genre, creative nonfiction. Normally the genre of something wouldn’t matter to me at all except for the fact that this book works as neither fiction or nonfiction for me. As fiction, it’s boring and as nonfiction it’s not exactly strictly true to the facts the way you see with other true crime.
Enough of my griping about categorization, though. It’s not all that relevant when a short read like this (something like 200 pages) was threatening to put me to sleep. As I said, part of it was the fact that Lois Simmie included almost verbatim the letters of Polly Wilson’s relatives, who had sent them to so many different policeman it made my head spin. Frankly, the first part of the book leading up to the murder was boring as well. There was too much focus on mundane events whereas the murder itself barely had any page time at all.
It shouldn’t have been because it really had the potential to let us watch John Wilson’s slow descent into madness and murder, but it was because Lois Simmie has a very dry writing style. It’s like she’s writing a textbook for schoolchildren, not an actual book (be it nonfiction or fiction). Even nonfiction writers can insert their own flair as long as they’re not playing with the facts, just like Toby Wilkinson in his book The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. He was very factual and backed up his speculations with evidence, but he also added in his own commentary of events on occasion in very cynical one-liners. He also wrote in such a way that his audience was engaged whereas Simmie doesn’t seem to care whether anyone is interested in her book by the second half.
I had been interested in this murder case, having never heard of it before, which is why I picked up this book. However, had I known it was going to be such a dull affair as this, I never would have wasted my time with it. I can’t honestly recommend it.
I give this book 1/5 stars.
Before They Find Us by Michelle A. Hansen
(Cover picture courtesy of Nicole Sobon.)
I’m going to make you wish you were dead.
Just a text. Seventeen-year-old Rebecca Hales tries not to worry. Probably a wrong number. Not really meant for her, and definitely not related to the crime she witnessed six years ago. Right?
Then two states away, a bomb goes off in her best friend’s locker. Soon Ryan is labeled a terrorist and runs to the safest place he knows—Rebecca’s house in small-town Wyoming. It doesn’t take long for the FBI to show up asking questions. Rebecca lies, of course, and says she hasn’t seen him.
Now she’s neck-deep in it with him, whatever “it” is. The only way out is to return to Vegas, where Ryan is a wanted man. The city of lies and illusion tests Rebecca’s wits as she struggles to find the person who framed Ryan and why.
Is Rebecca’s text linked to the bombing? And what does it have to do with a six year old murder? Rebecca needs to find out before she loses Ryan—and her own life.
[Full disclosure: This was a free gift to me from Michelle A. Hansen as a token of her appreciation and a review was not expected so of course, as always, this review is honest.]
There were more than a fair amount of clichés in Before They Find Us that any action movie fan will recognize, but overall I actually enjoyed this book.
The main strength of Michelle A. Hansen’s writing is her characters. Rebecca is definitely well-rounded and you really feel that she has some psychological problems as a result of her witnessing a murder at the age of 11. I like how her backstory is slowly revealed because it adds more depth to her character and it’s revealed at a more natural rate than if there was a huge info-dump at the beginning. At first I was a little confused about her relationship to Ryan but then things sorted themselves out and I felt like I knew each character intimately.
I definitely liked the plot twists in this one. There’s just twist after twist and the plot is so fast-paced that I couldn’t stop reading even for a moment. Just when you think it’s all over and the plot is going to wind down for the conclusion Michelle Hansen springs another surprise on you. Yes, there were some twists I could predict because I watch a lot of action movies, but for the main part I was pleasantly surprised at the plot twists. They felt more organic than forced.
The only thing I’m sort of ambivalent about is the premise/clichés. There wasn’t really anything completely unique in the novel and there was a heavy reliance on action/thriller clichés. I would have liked to see some new twists on old tropes but there wasn’t really any of that within the story. It was a good book, but with a few modifications it could have been a great book.
Still, if it sounds interesting to you I’d recommend giving it a try. It’s a heart-stopping read!
I give this book 4/5 stars.