A Cineaste’s Bookshelf
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REVIEW: THE WHITE FOREST by Adam McOmber
McOmber’s debut novel explores an unseen fantasy just under the surface of Victorian England. Heroine Jane Silverlake has always been a but different, but she has never quite understood how, or why. In an ever-changing, growing London Jane attempts to find her place. Though she was well-born, her mother died mysteriously when she was… Read More »
REVIEW: MURDER IN THE RUE DUMAS by ML Longworth
This whodunit revisits Judge Antoine Verlaque and law professor turned amateur sleuth Marine Bonnet, and their lives in Aix-en-Provence. The two were introduced in Death At Chateau Bremont, a mystery about identity and inheritance. This time they join forces to find the murderer of fellow professor Dr Georges Moutte. Scholarly, perhaps, but hated by most… Read More »
REVIEW: MRS. QUEEN TAKES THE TRAIN by William Kuhn
This book is almost like a work of fan fiction. What if this cast of characters were suddenly let loose in an unlikely scenario. Queen Elizabeth II, despondent and full of wanderlust, embarks on an unusual trip. Constantly surrounded by assistants, servants, schedules, and protocol, she is looking to reconnect with simpler days.… Read More »
Letter to a Young Critic: William Giraldi Defends True Criticism - The Daily Beast
Always good to hear… More important, a blistering review—if it is written as a candid assertion of your principles—will strengthen existing friendships and earn you new friends whose worth surpasses those who have revealed themselves as your foes. When you are truthful, and especially when the need has arisen for you to be viciously truthful,… Read More »
REVIEW: MONSTER by Dave Zeltserman
I think the original Frankenstein is a brilliant work of literature. Nearly 200 years later and it still causes nightmares and engenders philosophical discussions, not to mention dozens of films. And it inspires “revisionist” works such as this. Monster is from the first-person perspective of the “creature”, Dr. Victor Frankstein’s monster. The inner thoughts (the… Read More »
REVIEW: THE OTHER WOMAN'S HOUSE by Sophie Hannah
In the last couple of years I’ve become a fan of Sophie Hannah’s writing. She writes fast-paced, gritty police procedurals with dark psychological undertones. In some ways, she reminds me of a British Kathy Reichs. This installment of Zailer and Waterhouse’s casebook takes them to Cambridge. The book’s main heroine, Connie, is suffering from a… Read More »
REVIEW: CITY OF RAVENS BY Boria Sax
Last summer I went to the Tower of London. There I made a number of unexpected discoveries, although if I had ever stopped to think about it would have seemed rather obvious. For instance, there are several buildings that make up the “tower”, the oldest and most famous being the White Tower. It isn’t really… Read More »
REVIEW: CHARLOTTE MARKHAM AND THE HOUSE OF DARKLING by Michael Boccacino
Charlotte Markham has been a victim of Fate. She lost her husband to a fire and was forced to take a job as governess in the Darrow house. When Nanny Prum is brutally murdered in the middle of the night, Charlote is required to take on those duties as well. She shares one thing with… Read More »
PENGUIN ACTS OUT - Part the Third
One of the the wildest stories related to a Yellow Diamond — a famous gem in the native annals of India. … Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adored, and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and… Read More »
REVIEW: THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Zafon experts, please forgive me — this is my first time reading one of his books. After I was nearly finished with it, someone asked me how I liked the first two in the series. Oops. But, I was impressed enough to want to go back and read them. And as far as I am… Read More »
SPOTLIGHT: BORIS AKUNIN in The New Yorker
I have ADORED Boris Akunin for years. I mean, at least 10 years; maybe more. I was heart-broken when American publishers stopped “importing” him. Last summer, I went to London and stopped in at Daunt Books in Chelsea. I bought every Akunin / Fandorin book they had. When I explained to the wonderful staff that… Read More »
REVIEW: THE BELLWETHER REVIVALS by Benjamin Wood
The Bellwether Revivals is part Evelyn Waugh, part Patricia Highsmith, and part… something else. Twilight Zone, perhaps. The protagonist, Oscar Lowe, is a townie with few prospects in the storied university town of Cambridge. While wandering past the King’s College chapel, he is entranced by the organ music he hears. He sits in on the… Read More »
REVIEW: THE SOMNAMBULIST by Essie Fox
Firstly let me say that the genre of the Victorian novel is safe. As anyone who reads my blog has probably noticed, I have a particular penchant for books about ghosts, Victorian England, a country house and a secret. I can’t get enough, it seems. And this one often reminded me of Gaslight. It’s told from… Read More »
REVIEW: MRS. ROBINSON'S DISGRACE by Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale has once again uncovered a fascinating story from the ever contradictory Victorian era. Not so very long ago, divorce was nearly impossible (unless you were King Henry VIII, of course). Until 1858, “marriage could only be dissolved by an individual Act of Parliament, at a cost prohibitive to almost all of the population.… Read More »
REVIEW: THE FAIRY RING by Mary Losure
I have always loved this story – a story within a story, really. It speaks so much of the times and the psychology of an era. I was a teenager, though, before I learned about the Cottingley Fairies. I do wish I’d had a book like this to read when I was young. The book… Read More »