Two Books: Mrs. Benedict Arnold and The Storm

 Peggy Shippen Arnold has received all sorts of calumny for her role as the wife of the notorious traitor of the American Patriot cause during the Revolutionary War. Very little hard evidence survives of her views and actions, which is a thorny problem for historical novelists. Allison Pataki published The Traitor's Wife in 2014. I tried to read it earlier this year, but gave up after 50 pages because of the way Peggy Shippen was portrayed. She was simply not a believable character. Headstrong, high-spirited, wanton, with all of these characteristics portrayed to such excess. So I gave it up.

 Emma Parry's newly released Mrs. Benedict Arnold was an entirely different experience. It was evident from the beginning that Parry had done a tremendous amount of research into the period, especially the intensely bruising conflict between Americans who were Loyalists and those who were Patriots. Some of the dialogue was tedious, as each character voiced at length their complicated political views, but overall I'm glad I read it. It's clear that Benedict Arnold, although a brilliant general in the early years of the war, was intensely flawed and narcissistic. He was 40 when he married Peggy Shippen in 1777, who was barely 18 at the time. 

For my long drives to Glens Falls (shopping, medical appts., vet, library) I was able to borrow from the library the audiobook edition of The Storm by Rachel Hawkins, published in January of this year. It's set in the fictional Alabama Gulf seaside town of St. Medard's Bay, which suffered from several direct hits from hurricanes since 1954. Right off the bat the main pivot of the book is revealed: Did teenaged beauty Lo (Gloria) Bailey murder her 34-year-old lover Landon Fitzroy, the son of the Alabama governor, during the height of a hurricane? 

 

The story moves well from long past to present, and I found I was absorbed, and moved, by all the voices of the characters past and present. A deeply satisfying tale, on many levels, but I'm so glad I had the audio version, which had a large cast of top-notch narrators. I don't think I would have enjoyed the print version anywhere near as much. Have you ever listened to an audiobook of a novel where you have felt the same? Please share if one pops to mind!

 

   

The Ending Writes Itself and Other Recent Reads

 

This past weekend I devoured the acclaimed new mystery The Ending Writes Itself  by Evelyn Clarke. (The author’s name is a pseudonym for the noted writers V.E. Schwab and Cat Clark.) I can, without reservation, proclaim that this was a fun read. I loved the premise—6 authors invited to the Scottish island home of the famed mystery author Arthur Fletch. (The only thing missing from the setting was a blockbuster snowstorm.) Some dull spots three-quarters of the way through, however, but a brilliant epilogue woke me up. As mentioned, I enjoyed it, but I don’t believe it was as superlative a mystery as some of the reviewers have exclaimed. I think that one of the reasons this whodunit caused such a buzz was its full-blown satirical treatment of the current state of the publishing industry and the way it treats authors. I admired this aspect of the mystery, and thought it was well done and properly skewered the powers that be in publishing. The novel received a glowing review in the New York Times, and a starred review from Library Journal, and I believe Publisher’s Weekly.

I also gulped down another mystery last week. Over the last 8-9 years, I've been a fan of the Lake District Mysteries by Martin Edwards. I recently realized that my last dip into this series was in 2022, and I've not read another one since. So! My Nook held within its clutches the sixth in the series, The Frozen Shroud, which I hadn't read. So off I went. 

Frankly, I thought the mystery itself was perfectly fine. But, (and this is a very big but), Daniel Kind, the lead series character who is a historian, and DCI Hannah Scarlett, although they're on the scene, do NOT figure prominently in this case. Not at all! In fact, Daniel Kind, who has been a wonderful character all through the series, has no more than a shadow role. A disappointment. Two more books are in the series, and I hope Daniel and Hannah appear more robustly because they are wonderful characters.   

Have you read anything by Martin Edwards? 

Much more has been on my reading plate, but I will need another post to describe all of that. 

  

  

The Lake House by Kate Morton and the Hawthorne/Horowitz Mystery Series

 I’ve had a wonderful week in reading. I’ve also been struggling to downsize my overflowing abundance of books, sending box after box to the library for their upcoming book sale. In the course of searching for books “to dispose of” (how my blood curdles to utter that deathly phrase!), I have discovered some books I’m so eager to read. Who knew that they were there? This is the tale of a librarian totally out of touch with her collection.

I excavated a beautiful hardcover copy of The Lake House by Kate Morton, a book published and purchased in 2015. How well I remember how busy I was that year. No wonder I bought it, hoping for calmer times and a coming respite, which did not come, not that year or the next, which explains how it became forgotten until now. 

 Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors. Although she lives in Brisbane, Australia, many of her books are set in England. She also sets a number of her books in Australia. Her first book was The House at Riverton, published in 2007. I finally read it in 2022, and agree that Morton’s later books are better, more multi-faceted, more layered, with sweeping, enchanting plots. The Secret Keeper held me in thrall from start to finish, and my current reading of The Lake House has been just the same. Set in Cornwall and London, mostly between the years 1911 to 2003, the story revolves around the life, circumstances, and tragedies of a family, mostly focusing on three sisters and their mother. What makes this plot different is that a detective constable, Sadie Sparrow, revives a cold case involving the family. She is on leave from the police, due to her faulty judgement on a recent case. But this is only one part of this spell-binding novel. 

I’m also reading The Word is Murder (2018), the first in the Hawthorne/Horowitz series by Anthony Horowitz. When I learned last Tuesday that the 6^th book in the series has just been published, I investigated and discovered that Horowitz the author makes himself the “Watson” character to the Holmesian member of the duo,  Daniel Hawthorne. I'm sure that some mystery writer has done this sort of thing before, but this is the first time I've seen it done, and I'm intrigued by that aspect. I’ve noticed on Goodreads that the ratings for each book in the series increase(s) with each book. The only reason I’m giving this series a try is that I loved Horowitz’s The Marble Hall Murders. I really didn’t know much about Anthony Horowitz’s books before that, and didn’t know that he was the creative force behind Foyle’s War (public television series). Have you read anything by Horowitz?