A high-society engagement, a masquerade ball, a poisoning, and the death of an innocent young woman are the building blocks upon which Nancy Herriman has constructed her new historical mystery, No Justice for the Deceived (book 6 in the Mysteries of Old San Francisco). And what a mystery it is!
Two wealthy families are about to be joined in matrimony, and it’s the type of engagement that engenders the juiciest gossip in town. One reason for all the gossip? The groom. He’s a philanderer. And worse than that, he’s been accused of being behind a vicious assault on one of his many former amours.
The bride-to-be is a beautiful young woman with a substantial fortune—a fortune that will belong entirely to her husband as soon as they are man and wife. Her dream is to open a women’s clinic similar to Celia’s, but her betrothed has indicated his strong disdain for the project and has no intention of using the money to pay for it.
So it comes as no surprise when someone tries to poison the groom. Unfortunately, the poisoning goes awry and an innocent woman dies instead. Suspects abound.
No Justice for the Deceived brings Celia and Nick, everyone’s favorite San Francisco detective, together again, this time to figure out who wanted the groom dead. As always in this series, it’s a delight to watch Celia and Nick interact. Their banter is witty and sharp and despite Nick’s frequent annoyance with Celia’s attempts to investigate the crime, their deep feelings for each other are clear.
Besides the relationship between Celia and Nick, this book has plenty of twists to keep the reader engaged. And I’m always amazed at the amount of research that the author must put into each book in this series, and I learn something new and fascinating about San Francisco’s history with each successive mystery.
One puzzle remains unsolved at the end of the book—Nick has been receiving strange and disturbing packages in the mail, and he doesn’t know who they’re from or why he’s receiving them. I guess we’ll have to wait until book 7 to get an answer!
I would highly recommend No Justice for the Deceived to anyone who loves historical mysteries, old San Francisco, and great tension between characters.
***
And speaking of historical mysteries, Cape Menace, book 1 in the Cape May Historical Mystery Collection, is on sale for $1.99 through April 15, 2024! Don’t forget—you can always gift someone an ebook. Here are the links to each retailer, so pick your favorite … you know what to do.
Happy 2023! I wish everyone a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.
Out with the old….
Last year I had a hard time keeping up with the schedule of reviewing and recommending a mystery every Tuesday. There were two reasons for this. First, I didn’t feel I could recommend some of the mysteries I read. And when that happened, I felt pressure to read another one so I could recommend that one, and I didn’t have time for it. Second, I read lots of other things, too, and since this is a mystery blog, there were weeks I didn’t read a mystery and I would have nothing to recommend come Tuesday morning. I hope I’m making sense.
In with the new…
Thus, my goal this year is to review and recommend a mystery every other Tuesday. My blog posts will alternate with my newsletter, which also goes out every other Tuesday.
So without further ado, my first recommendation of 2023 is Nev March’s beautiful and engrossing mystery, Murder in Old Bombay. This is the first book in March’s Captain Jim and Lady Diana Mysteries (no, not that Lady Diana).
Full disclosure: I have spent time with Nev on several occasions. She is an absolute delight. We belong to a couple of the same writing groups, we have had dinner together, and we have attended at least one reading together. But she doesn’t know I’m writing this review, and everything I say here is the truth. If I didn’t love the book, I wouldn’t recommend it.
When the book opens, we meet main character Captain Jim Agnihotri, a young man recovering from serious wounds sustained in battle. The British maintain control over much of India, and many Indian people harbor deep resentment toward the British. Captain Jim is caught between two worlds: his mother, who died when Jim was very young, was Indian; his father, whom Jim never knew, was British. This was a time in history when one’s pedigree and the color of one’s skin mattered very much, so Jim doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere.
While still in the hospital, Jim has little to read except newspapers and Sherlock Holmes mysteries. When he reads a newspaper story about the deaths of two women from a high-society Bombay family, he is struck by the horrific manner in which they died and by the sorrowful dignity of the man who lost his wife and his sister in the tragedy.
When he is finally released from the hospital, he takes a job as a journalist and one of his assignments is to interview the man whose wife and sister died. When Jim meets the man, Adi Framji, he is immediately drawn to Adi’s calm demeanor, intelligence, and determination to prove to himself and society that his wife and sister did not commit suicide, as the public has been told. The Framjis are an upstanding Parsee family and Jim has an instinctive notion that someone who means the family harm is behind the deaths. It is important to note that Parsees are a subset of the Indian people, having fled persecution in Persia centuries before. They are a relatively small part of the population, so they keenly observe the custom of marrying within the group—this will come into play later in the book.
Adi hires Jim to help him find out what really happened the day Adi’s wife and sister fell from the top of the university clock tower in broad daylight. As Jim soon discovers, his investigations have threatened someone (or more than one!) and that person intends to stop Jim at all costs.
This story is filled with British Raj history, excitement, and well-paced twists and turns. The author describes Bombay and the Indian countryside in vivid color. There’s enough romance to satisfy even the most jaded reader. More importantly, the main character’s pedigree forms the basis of a fascinating and unsettling look at racism and the social structure at that time in Indian history.
And, of course, there’s the mystery. The whodunit weaves complex (in a good way!) and dastardly motives to bring forth a page-turner that will have readers rooting for the Jim as he makes his way forward at a time when personal and professional stagnation might have been the destiny for people with his parentage. Readers are treated to a graceful and powerful arc of Jim’s character as he moves from self-loathing to self-confidence. And the ending…well, it’s highly satisfying. No spoilers.
I loved this mystery and I would highly recommend it to other lovers of historical mystery. I am looking forward to the second book in the series, Peril at the Exposition.
***
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Jason Redmond, a physician and Captain in the Union Army during the American Civil War, has seen his fair share of horrors and atrocities—and experienced some of his own as a prisoner of war. When the war ends and Captain Redmond is freed, he discovers that during his absence, his love, Cecilia, has married his best friend. Crushed in spirit and not knowing what to do next, Jason receives word that his English grandfather has passed away, leaving Jason as the heir to his estate and the title that goes along with it.
Accompanied by a young boy (Micah) he met while in prison, Jason goes to England to settle the affairs of his grandfather. His arrival at the manor is the subject of great interest in the village of Birch Hill and its environs, and Jason and Micah haven’t been in residence for twenty-four hours before becoming the subjects of an investigation into a murder that occurred in the church crypt concurrent with their arrival.
The victim, a young man from a disreputable part of London, was discovered by the church pastor inside the tomb of a great ancestor of Birch Hill. A trail of blood led to the tomb, suggesting someone dragged the victim to that spot.
Who was the young man and why was he murdered?
The village constable, Daniel Haze, needs answers to these questions, and he needs them before the inquest, which is scheduled to take place not long after the discovery of the body. After a rather inauspicious beginning to their friendship, Daniel and Jason join forces to figure out who committed the murder and why.
The cover of this book is what attracted me first. It’s spooky and delightfully atmospheric. And the story is every bit as good as the cover. Both Jason and Daniel (and Micah, too) have experienced tragedy; as the story unfurls, the author reveals bits of backstory that continue to haunt the three characters.
The red herrings in this book are intriguing and subtle, and there were enough surprises to keep me turning pages well into the night to reach The End, where everything was explained and where there are tantalizing hints of the next mystery to embroil the team of Captain Redmond and Daniel Haze. I look forward to reading Book Two.
I would recommend this novel to anyone who loves historical mysteries (particularly those set in England during the Victorian Era), anyone who loves mysteries with complex yet relatable characters, and anyone who loves a good, old-fashioned mystery set in an English village.
BSP means Blatant Self-Promotion and I am not above doing it.
It’s not often I highlight my own books on my blog, but because A Traitor Among Us was released two weeks ago, I thought I’d share one of the reviews with you. I’d also like to remind everyone how important reviews are to authors—they figure prominently in the algorithms used by book retailers in advertising and in choosing the books which those retailers promote to their legions of readers. If you’ve read A Traitor Among Us and haven’t left a review, I encourage and ask you to do that. It’s easy! Just a few lines about why you liked the book is enough. Thank you in advance!
I hope you enjoy this review as much as I did:
“A beautifully written Revolutionary War era mystery, told from the point of view of a young woman, which really sets this novel apart from others. The story unfolds through thoughts and narration as if the characters were speaking to us from the 1770s. Etta Rutledge, the main character, is a strong and capable young woman with quite a lot of responsibilities helping her family run an inn. Her words and thoughts completely immerse us in the Colonial era, and give us a fresh voice and a new perspective on life in Cape May County, NJ. I truly loved this main character, Etta, and how she interacts with her sweet and vulnerable sister Prissy, who has a disability (I am happy to read more disabled characters in books), and it’s clear there’s a strong protective bond between the sisters. The brothers are also well portrayed, and we immediately care about Etta and her family and friends. The Rutledge family owns the tavern and inn, the central place in the story, and what a fascinating place it is. Ms. Reade [sic] describes it well from the ambiance to the drink, food, and talk. The dialogue is plain style, as befits the times, and the author clearly researched everything and makes us feel as if we are right there in the 1770’s. The Rutledge inn is where Loyalists and Revolutionaries gather, and as the war looms, the suspense builds when a body is found, and then another. Etta’s courage during a turbulent time is amazing as she tries to find the murderer as the war threatens to break apart her family. We care about Etta and are drawn into her life and the lives of those close to her. A wonderful story, and I look forward to continuing to read many more books in this wonderful new series!”
Thanks to “Mondi” for the review! I appreciate it so much!
As usual, I’ll close this post with a recommendation. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes historical mysteries, mysteries set in the American colonies, or tales set during the Revolutionary War.
I’m back! It’s been a while since my last post, and I’ve spent a lot of time these past months thinking: it’s time to take this blog in a new direction.
Beginning in the next few weeks, I’m going to focus more on reviewing and recommending crime fiction and mysteries, as the new subtitle of the blog suggests. It’s my niche, it’s where I’m most comfortable, and crime fiction is one of my favorite topics. I’d like to shine a spotlight on the mysteries I enjoy and share them with others, and my hope is to attract like-minded people who love to read.
You’ll probably see mysteries from a range of subgenres here: historic, cozy, Gothic (the three subgenres I write in), domestic suspense, traditional, and true crime. From time to time I may include author interviews, as I did on my former blog.
I hope you’ll accompany me on this new adventure, and I hope you’ll invite your mystery-loving friends.
Cheers
Amy M. Reade is the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of historical, cozy, and Gothic mysteries. A former practicing attorney, Amy discovered a passion for fiction writing and has never looked back. She has so far penned fourteen novels, including three standalone Gothic mysteries, the Malice series of Gothic novels, the Juniper Junction Holiday Cozy Mystery series, and the Cape May Historical Mystery Collection. In addition to writing, she loves to read, cook and travel. Amy lives in New Jersey and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. You can find out more on her website at www.amymreade.com.
Today I’m thrilled to welcome author Nancy Herriman to Reade and Write. Besides being a great singer, Nancy is a fabulous mystery author who pens the “A Mystery of Old San Francisco” series and the Bess Ellyott Mystery series. She’s joining me here today to talk about her upcoming release, No Darkness as like Death, book 4 in the ‘A Mystery of Old San Francisco’ series.
If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you might remember that Nancy has been here before. She talked about the third book in the San Francisco mysteries, No Quiet Among the Shadows, here. And I highly recommended the first two books in the series, No Comfort for the Lost (here) and No Pity for the Dead (here).
I think it’s obvious that I love Nancy’s books. I’ve preordered No Darkness As Like Death and I’m looking forward to its arrival on my ereader on April 6, 2021.
Welcome, Nancy!
The books in your ‘A Mystery of Old San Francisco’ series takes place during a specific time period in San Francisco’s history (late 1860s). Why did you choose this particular period? Were there other time periods you considered? Why did you decide not to go with one of those?
The specific year my books are set in—1867—happened by chance. I’d been researching various events during the Victorian era and came upon an article about the beginnings of the anti-Chinese movement. The article gave me the idea for the murder that occurs in Book 1, No Comfort for the Lost, and dictated the year.
Can you give us a quick recap of the first three books in the series?
I’ll try! My main sleuth is Celia Davies, an English nurse who has taken over the care of her orphaned niece. Celia’s husband has left her to find riches elsewhere, and she turns to running a free women’s clinic in the city. She becomes involved in solving murders when one of her Chinese patients is found dead in the bay. She expects the police won’t be interested in discovering who killed the young woman, given her ethnicity. Surprisingly, Detective Nicholas Greaves is keen to see justice done. After that murderer is uncovered, Celia has no plans to continue sleuthing. But when a dead body is found in the basement of a close friend’s business, and the friend is suspected, she insists on getting involved in the case. In the next book, the private investigator she’d hired to locate her husband is killed, an investigation that entangles both her and Nick in the world of spiritualism and seances.
What kinds of resources did you use to research this book?
Fortunately for me, there is a great deal of reference material available online for San Francisco in specific and California in general. I’ve used archived newspapers, digitized books—especially when researching some of the details about the ‘water cure’ and how photography was practiced at this time—online maps and miscellaneous other items. Research has become much simpler in the internet age, that’s for sure.
What’s the most interesting thing you learned while doing the research for the book?
I chose a water cure facility as the location for the crime in No Darkness as like Death and enjoyed learning about them. These institutions touted their ability to cure all manner of ills through cold (or steam) bathing, drinking fresh cold water, massages, and strict diets. Which is not the craziest of treatments for that time period, and to me sounds rather modern and even sensible. These facilities promised greater curative results than they could actually deliver, though.
What are some of the things you learned that didn’t make it into the book?
I’d intended to include some research I’d done on medical batteries. This treatment involves having a ‘practitioner’ give you a series of shocks over different parts of your body, depending on what’s being ‘healed.’ It was quite the rage in the 19th century, but the practice ended up not working for this particular book.
Do you have a special connection with San Francisco that made you decide to write about the city?
Nothing more than a love for a city I’ve often visited and find endlessly fascinating. Besides its great history, San Francisco has always been filled with a host of interesting characters and makes for a great setting.
Do you read a lot of historical mysteries? If so, can you recommend some of your favorites?
My favorites are the Falco series by Lindsey Davis and the late Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody books. I’ve recently taken up reading novels by authors who wrote in the 1920s and ‘30s, and currently have a Dorothy L. Sayers mystery on my bedside table.
Do you think your background in engineering helps your writing at all?
At the beginning of my career, I think my background was a bit of a hindrance. I kept imagining I could plan my way into a completed novel. I’ve had to learn to limit my pre-planning and plotting and basically just let the process happen.
Many authors have a character “bible,” or a history/biography of a character’s life that helps the author maintain consistency for that character throughout a series. Most of the things in a character bible never make it into a book because they’re for the author’s use only. Do you use a character bible? Can you tell us something about Celia or Nick that no one else knows?
My character ‘bible’ might be more aptly described as a character notecard. I admit that I’m not the best at keeping track of everyone’s characteristics or back-stories. That said, I did develop a rather thorough background for both Nick and Celia that I’ve only touched upon. I would like to more deeply explore the death of Nick’s sister Meg in a future book. There is a mystery to it I’ve not previously mentioned.
What’s next for Celia and Nick?
I’m presently working on the next book in the series, title not yet decided upon. It is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2022.
To visit Nancy’s website, click here. You can learn more about her, her books, and order them for yourself!
Nancy Herriman’s bio
Nancy Herriman retired from an engineering career to take up the pen. She hasn’t looked back. Her work has won the Daphne du Maurier award, and Publishers Weekly has said her ‘A Mystery of Old San Francisco’ series “…brings 1867 San Francisco to vivid life.” Her most recent release is NO DARKNESS AS LIKE DEATH. She is also the author of the Bess Ellyott Mystery series set in Tudor England. When not writing, she enjoys singing, gabbing about writing, and eating dark chocolate. She currently lives in central Ohio.
Some of you may know that I’ve recently joined a book club. I love being part of this group and I’ve enthusiastically embraced the duties of membership (i.e., I have to be ready to discuss each book we read and I’ve agreed to host the club at my house at least once a year–where we discuss the book of my choosing).
So here’s where I need your help. It’ll be my turn to host the book club in March, and I need to be thinking about which book I’m going to choose. I’ve narrowed it down to five books, and I’d like you to vote on which one you think our book club should read (many thanks to blogger and author James J. Cudney for sharing this idea–click on his name to be redirected to his site, which I think you’ll love).
Whichever book you choose, we’ll read. I won’t tell you which one I hope you pick! Scroll down through the choices to the poll at the bottom of the page.
Here are the choices:
Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini. Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“In a life that spanned nearly a century and witnessed some of the most momentous events in American history, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley was born a slave. A gifted seamstress, she earned her freedom by the skill of her needle, and won the friendship of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln by her devotion.
A sweeping historical novel, Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker illuminates the extraordinary relationship the two women shared, beginning in the hallowed halls of the White House during the trials of the Civil War and enduring almost, but not quite, to the end of Mrs. Lincoln’s days.”
***
Woman Enters Leftby Jessica Brockmole. Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“In the 1950s, movie star Louise Wilde is caught between an unfulfilling acting career and a shaky marriage when she receives an out-of-the-blue phone call: She has inherited the estate of Florence “Florrie” Daniels, a Hollywood screenwriter she barely recalls meeting. Among Florrie’s possessions are several unproduced screenplays, personal journals, and—inexplicably—old photographs of Louise’s mother, Ethel. On an impulse, Louise leaves a film shoot in Las Vegas and sets off for her father’s house on the East Coast, hoping for answers about the curious inheritance and, perhaps, about her own troubled marriage.
Nearly thirty years earlier, Florrie takes off on an adventure of her own, driving her Model T westward from New Jersey in pursuit of broader horizons. She has the promise of a Hollywood job and, in the passenger seat, Ethel, her best friend since childhood. Florrie will do anything for Ethel, who is desperate to reach Nevada in time to reconcile with her husband and reunite with her daughter. Ethel fears the loss of her marriage; Florrie, with long-held secrets confided only in her journal, fears its survival.
In parallel tales, the three women—Louise, Florrie, Ethel—discover that not all journeys follow a map. As they rediscover their carefree selves on the road, they learn that sometimes the paths we follow are shaped more by our traveling companions than by our destinations.”
***
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened — something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.
Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay — demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy’s daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy’s daughter died covered in someone else’s blood.
A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.”
***
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.”
***
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creekby Kim Michele Richardson. Here’s the Amazon blurb:
“The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything―everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome’s got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter.
Cussy’s not only a book woman, however, she’s also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy’s family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she’s going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler.
Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one woman’s belief that books can carry us anywhere―even back home.”
The poll will close on Monday, January 20, 2020, at 11:59 p.m. EST.
Here it is! My street team, newsletter subscribers, and social media followers saw this last week, so now it’s time for the cover to go on the blog!
Introducing, Trudy’s Diary, Book One in the Libraries of the World Mystery Series!
Here’s the blurb:
Daisy Carruthers moved to Washington, DC, from New York City following an emotionally draining murder investigation, little knowing she would soon be involved in two more. But when her boss and her best friend come under suspicion for killing two adulterous lovers, Daisy has no choice but to help when they ask.
And when she comes across a diary and an old dime novel with suspiciously similar stories and unknown origins, she knows all the mysteries are somehow connected.
Can she figure out the identity of the killer–or killers–before it’s too late?
* * *
Trudy’s Diary is the first book in my new series featuring special collections from libraries all over the world. In this book, I’ve focused on the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, which seemed a fitting place to start. Book Two, which is in the works and currently does not have a working title, features the map collection at the main branch of the New York City Public Library. Book Three takes my readers over to England, but I’m not going to say any more about that just yet.
![No Darkness as like Death (A Mystery of Old San Francisco Book 4) by [Nancy Herriman]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511r55ho+tL.jpg)
Reade and Write 