Candace Camp is an author that I used to read when I was a teenager, nicking books from my mom’s special cupboard. I have vague but positive memories of her work, so when I saw that some of the books she published in the 80s were out for Kindle, I thought I’d give one a try. This book was originally published in 1984, and what struck me in particular was how much of a statement it made on the subject of privilege, something that I […]
A bit too much of the wrong brother
This is the fourth book in the Johannes Cabal series, and the only one that uses its main character sparingly. I loved the first three Cabal novels, particularly Johannes Cabal the Detective, which is the second one. I also love the handful of Cabal short stories, particularly Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day, the first Cabal story and a brilliant introduction to a brilliant character. Johannes Cabal is a German-born man who was raised from middle childhood in England. He is a necromancer ‘of some little infamy’, […]
“The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”
Julian Fellowes is best known as the creator of the TV series Downton Abbey, a show that focused on the complex relationships between classes in the England of the past, that combined social commentary with soapy romance and melodrama, its increasingly ridiculous plot lines peppered with anachronisms in both characterisation and language. All of those things feature prominently in Belgravia, a novel whose central plot point is a 25-year-old secret and the consequences that result from that secret coming finally to light. I won’t spoil the […]
There’s certainly a lot of damned things that happen
If there’s one thing that can be said about this book, it’s that it lives up to its title. The premise is fascinating: An institute of historical research called St Mary’s, associated with the (also fictional) University of Thirsk in northern England, is not the stuffy old institution it appears to be but actually conducts its historical research in the most contemporary way possible–they go back in time and observe the events firsthand. The main character, Dr Madeleine Maxwell, called Max, is recruited by St […]