Historical Mystery Lovers discussion

The Prompts
19/52

✔1. Published in 2021. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. Read 10/29.

✔2. A book set in multiple countries. The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield. Read 11/24/21.

3. A book with a lamp on the cover

✔4. A book that has won an award. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Read 8/29/21.

5. A bestselling historical mystery

✔6. A locked room mystery. The Last Mrs. Summers by Rhys Bowen. Read 9/16/21.

7. A book that has been made into a movie or television show

✔8. A book set in a city that has hosted the Olympic Games. Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in Mexico City. Read 11/9/21.

9. A book with an animal on the cover or in the title

10. A book randomly selected from your historical mystery TBR

11. A book with an intriguing or inspiring first line

✔12. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Pride, Envy). Greed. Old Bones by Douglas Preston. Rated 6/16.

13. A book with a female detective. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear.

✔14. A book by an author who also writes in a different genre. The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell. Read 8/6/21. Author also writes SF.

✔15. A book with a country setting on the cover. The Lost Village by Neil Spring. Read 11/28/21.


✔16. A book with a real historical figure. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict. Read 2/14/21.

17. A book by an author of color

18. A book set in the '20s of any century (except the 21st)

19. A book with a disabled character. Dissolution by C.J. Sansom.

20. A book with a plant in the title or on the cover

21. A cozy historical mystery

✔22. A book with gothic elements. Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield. Read 9/17/21.

✔23. A debut novel. The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal. Read 1/17/21.

24. A book set in a religious setting (convent, abbey, vicarage, temple, shrine, etc.). Heresy by S.J. Parris

25. A book with a solitary female figure on the cover. The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister.

26. A book with alliteration in the title. the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
"the alliteration of “sweet birds sang”"

✔27. A book with the name of a real place in the title. Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March. Read 4/30/21.

✔28. A book by an author who uses a pseudonym. The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North. Read 4/18/21.

29. A book with a title that includes a character's name.

30. A book set during wartime

31. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or in the title (rope, revolver, candlestick, lead pipe, dagger or knife, wrench)

✔32. The first book in a series you have not read before. Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove. Read 7/28/21.

33. A book recommended in the challenge suggestions thread

✔34. A book set in a time period you are unfamiliar with. His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet. Scotland in the 1860s. Read 2/26.

✔35. A book with a mode of transportation on the cover (carriage, horse, ship, train, automobile, etc.) Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew by Brian Hicks. Ship on cover. Read 1/15/21.

36. A book written by an author with your initials. Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett.

37. A book related to one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (death, disease, famine, war)

38. A book related to William Shakespeare

39. A book with an "-ing" word in the title. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

40. A book with a Muslim character. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

41. A book connected to a specific season.

42. A book with a question word in the title (who, what, where, why, when, how)

43. A book that includes a major world event (not a war)

44. A book with food or drink on the cover

45. A book by one of your favorite authors

✔46. A book with a royal character. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Read 12/3/21. Royal Character = King Richard III.

47. A book from another group member's bookshelf.

48. A book set in the Southern Hemisphere

✔49. A book linked to one of the four elements (earth, air, water, fire). The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Read 1/31.

✔50. A book with a body part in the title. The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. Read 6/6/21.

51. A book set in Medieval times

52. A book with water on the cover

35. A book with a mode of transportation on the cover (carriage, horse, ship, train, automobile, etc.). Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew by Brian Hicks. Nonfiction. Read 1/15/21. Ship on cover.

In the 1870’s, a merchant ship was discovered abandoned floating between the Azores Islands and Portugal. The ship still had its cargo and was in sailable condition yet all the crew was missing. The ship that salvaged the Mary Celeste was unsuccessfully charged with piracy in admiralty court. Arthur Conan Doyle made the story famous by writing a sensationalized account of the disappearances. After the Gibraltar hearings, the Mary Celeste continued in service under new owners. In 1885, her captain deliberately wrecked her off the coast of Haiti as part of an attempted insurance fraud. In 2001, a team of divers funded by novelist Clive Cussler located the wreck in a coral reef off Haiti. The fate of the original crew has never been discovered.

23. A Debut Novel. The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal. Read 1/17/21.

A story of obsession, collection and art in Victorian England.

London. 1850. The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and among the crowd watching the spectacle two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later. For Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks the beginning of an obsession.

49. A book linked to one of the four elements (earth, air, water, fire). The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Read 1/31/21.

Daniel is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and told to choose a book which he must take stewardship over. He choses a novel that stirs his desire for literature. The author died and someone is seeking out all remaining copies of his unsuccessful novels to burn. Daniel embarks on a mission to solve the mystery of the author's story while being menaced by a vengeful cop and the book burner himself.

16. A book with a real historical figure. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict. Read 2/14/21.

In December 1926, Agatha Christie went missing, causing a real life mystery. Investigators found an empty car on the edge of a pond with tire marks close by and her fur coat left in the car. Her disappearance a mystery and her husband and daughter were clueless to her whereabouts. A manhunt was launched only for Agatha Christie to reappear eleven days later claiming amnesia and offering no explanation for her disappearance. This is Marie Benedict interpretation of what might have happened.

34. A book set in a time period you are unfamiliar with. His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Macrae Burnet. Read 2/26.

A historical crime novel set in the crofting community of the Scottish highlands in the 1860s. When a brutal triple murder is committed, the community wants to find out what drove young Roddy Macrae to such violent acts. More of a why-done it than a who-done it.

28. A book by an author who uses a pseudonym. The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North. Read 4/18/21.

An English doctor witness the lynching of a young boy in South Africa in the 1880s. He is cursed by the child's mother. Doomed to search for a cure to the curse, he becomes a spy for imperial Britain during the period of the Boer War to WW I. Interesting analysis of colonialism but about 100 pages too long.

27. A book with the name of a real place in the title. Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March. Read 4/30/21.

Based on an actual unsolved case of two young women from India falling to their deaths off a clock tower in the late 1800s. The author speculates on the possible reason for these deaths.

50. A book with a body part in the title. The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. Read 6/6/21.

Primarily a Steampunk Victorian Detective Novel. Queen Victoria is assassinated two years after her coronation. Then things get weird. Lots of name dropping but little resemblance to actual historical figures.

12. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (Greed, Gluttony, Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Pride, Envy). Greed. Old Bones by Douglas Preston. Read 6/16. 4 stars.

Archeological mystery concerning the Donner Party. After the finding of Tamzene Donner's journal, an expedition is sent to the Sierra mountains in search of the Lost Camp. Interesting details of an archeological dig, search for lost gold and lost bones. What is not to like.

32. The first book in a series you have not read before. Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove. Read 7/27. 4 stars.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the world of Lovecraft's supernatural Mythos. Fun but very lightweight and doesn't add anything to either body of source material. It is the first of a Holmes/Lovecraft mash-up trilogy.

14. A book by an author who also writes in a different genre. The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell. Read 8/6. 5 stars.

1935, Prague. A psychologist named Viktor comes to an ancient castle turned into an asylum, Hrad Orlu, to test his new theories in psychology. Housed at this asylum, isolated atop a mountain, are the 6 most dangerous killers in Europe, known as the Devil 6. In Prague, a police detective is trying to solve a series of grisley murders which the press attributes to the "leather apron killer." At the same time as these events, the Nazis are on the rise in Germany.

4. A book that has won an award. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Read 8/29/21. 4 stars.

Beautifully written, atmospheric Victorian novel. A mystery concerning the mythical Essex Serpent and how different people react to this legend. My only complaint is that what started as a platonic friendship between a scientific widow and the married town vicar didn't stay platonic.

6. A locked room mystery. The Last Mrs. Summers by Rhys Bowen. Read 9/16/21. 3 stars.

A homage to Daphne du Maurier's REBECCA. Unfortunately, the line "Hooray for servants!" brought the rating down a bit.

22. A book with gothic elements. Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield. Read 9/17/21. 4 stars.

This novel is the epitome of the Victorian Gothic story. It is an exploration of the ways to deal with grief.

1. Published in 2021. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. Read 10/29/21. 3.5 stars.

It's a homage to crime novels of the 1950s and 60s, My problem with Whitehead is that he uses too much introspection and not enough action/plot.

8. A book set in a city that has hosted the Olympic Games.
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Set in Mexico City. Read 11/9/21. 5 stars.

1970s, Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives a mundane life of romantic stories and music blithely unaware of the political unrest that consumes the city. Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, an art student, disappears under suspicious circumstances. Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman—and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents. Excellent character development.

2. A book set in multiple countries. The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield. Set in USA and Russia. Read 11/24/21. 3.5 stars.

Written by an astronaut. Set in 1973 during the Cold War space race between the Americans and the Russians. Intelligence has discovered a secret Soviet space station spying on America. Apollo 18 is instructed to stop it.

15. A book with a country setting on the cover. The Lost Village by Neil Spring. Read 11/28/21. 4.25 stars.

Inspired by real historical events, this is the second novel by Neil Spring featuring the notorious real-life ghost hunter and skeptic, Harry Price. In this book, Harry Price investigates a haunting in Imber, England, an isolated village on the Salisbury Plain. In 1943 the whole population of about 150 was evicted to provide an exercise area for American troops preparing for the invasion of Europe during WWII. After the war, the villagers were not allowed to return to their homes.

46. A book with a royal character. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Read 12/3/21. 3 stars.
Royal Character = King Richard III.

A convalescing detective investigates the cold case, Princes in the Tower murders. I wasn't convinced by the outcome. Lots of speculation since the actual murders took place 400 years ago.

I believe that two bodies were recovered buried beneath a stairwell in the Tower of London. I thought that DNA analysis was going to be done but I haven't heard of any results. Anyone know if this was done?

Found in wikipedia:

In 1674, workmen remodelling the Tower of London dug up a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were found buried 10 feet (3.0 m) under the staircase leading to the chapel of the White Tower. The bones were removed and examined in 1933 by the archivist of Westminster Abbey, Lawrence Tanner; a leading anatomist, Professor William Wright; and the president of the Dental Association, George Northcroft. By measuring certain bones and teeth, they concluded the bones belonged to two children around the correct ages for the princes. The bones were found to have been interred carelessly along with chicken and other animal bones. There were also three very rusty nails. One skeleton was larger than the other, but many of the bones were missing, including part of the smaller jawbone and all of the teeth from the larger one. Many of the bones had been broken by the original workmen. The examination has been criticised, on the grounds that it was conducted on the presumption that the bones were those of the princes and concentrated only on whether the bones showed evidence of suffocation; no attempt was even made to determine whether the bones were male or female.

No further scientific examination has since been conducted on the bones, which remain in Westminster Abbey, and DNA analysis (if DNA could be obtained) has not been attempted. A petition was started on the British government's "e-petition" website requesting that the bones be DNA tested, but was closed months before its expected close date. If it had received 100,000 signatories a parliamentary debate would have been triggered. Pollard points out that even if modern DNA and carbon dating proved the bones belonged to the princes, it would not prove who or what killed them.

That is very interesting, Kathy.
It is a pity that no further testing will be done.