Elaine Thomson reveals title of next book [3]

It's something you don't see very often: Elaine Thomson's first ghost story, 'Hawthorn: A Scottish Ghost Story', hasn't even been published yet (at the time of this writing) and the title of the second installment of this series has already been revealed.

The hardback of 'Hawthorn: A Scottish Ghost Story' is scheduled to be published on 25 September 2025. For more information on this book, see here and here.

Amazon stated on 4 July 2025 that Elaine Thomson's second Scottish ghost story would be published on 18 June 2026.

Which was even a surprise for Elaine Thomson herself.

Early August 2025, Amazon revealed that the second of Elaine Thomson's series of ghostly novels will be called 'Saltwater: A Midsummer Ghost Story'. The hardcover is slated to be published on 18 June 2026.

The description:

'The Isle of Stroma, 1896. Tom Torrance has been sent to oversee the completion of a new lighthouse, which will guide ships through one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the United Kingdom. The construction so far has been plagued by difficulties, giving rise to superstitious whisperings amongst the men, but Tom is a man of sense and science. He will not be cowed by stories of hauntings and bad omens.

Yet Tom is unprepared for the conditions on the island: the isolation and delirium of the endless summer nights. He soon learns that the real dangers on the island have nothing to do with the wild waves. There are some problems that science cannot answer, and some threats so ancient and strange, that nothing can keep them at bay'.

This post will be updated as more information becomes available.

An article
If you're bored and want to read an interesting scientific article. Elaine Thomson was a contributor to 'Tobacco children: An ethical evaluation of tobacco marketing in Indonesia'. See here.

[Review] Giles Milton: 'Nathaniel's Nutmeg'

Giles Milton’s 'Nathaniel's Nutmeg' with its somewhat expansive subtitle, 'How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History,' is a captivating dive into the world of 17th-century spice trade, centered on the obscure figure of Nathaniel Courthope (1585-1620). Milton masterfully blends meticulous historical research with narrative flair, transforming what could have been a dry account of colonial commerce into a thrilling tale of adventure, betrayal, and global power struggles.

The book chronicles the fierce rivalry between European powers - primarily the English and Dutch - for control of the Spice Islands, particularly the tiny island of Run, a key source of nutmeg, then worth more than gold.

Milton strangely focuses on Nathaniel Courthope, an obscure English merchant, hired by the East India Company. He arrived on 25 December 1616, with his ships, Swan and Defence, on the island of Run, the smallest of the Banda Islands.

In his efforts to break the Dutch hold on the nutmeg supply, he persuaded the natives to start trading with the British. Don't be fooled, because the islanders were always trying to evade the Dutch and were selling their nutmeg to the highest bidder, often to Chinese traders but sometimes to the British.

Our Nathaniel Courthope quickly ran into trouble. He lost his two ships to mutiny. He then proceeded to fortify the island by building forts to overlook approaches from the east. With just 39 men and the natives (who could not be trusted) with hardly any food and water, he managed to hold off a siege of the Dutch for over 1,540 days.

Very brave of him, you might think, but the East India Company sent numerous letters allowing Nathaniel Courthope to leave his post, but he doggedly persisted. Eventually, he was shot by the Dutch. In the end, it was all in vain, because the British traded Run and New Amsterdam for Surinam. Now, nothing is left of that once great empire.

Through vivid storytelling, Milton paints Courthope’s exploits against the broader canvas of the competition of the East India Company and the Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) for the Spice Islands.

Milton weaves together primary sources, such as letters and logs, with colourful anecdotes, bringing to life not just Courthope but also an entire cast of explorers, traders, and rogues. The narrative is rich with sensory details: the stench of ship holds, the allure of spice-laden breezes, and the constant threat of violence. He also deftly contextualizes the era’s geopolitical stakes, showing how a small island’s fate rippled across continents.

However, Milton’s focus on Courthope sometimes feels as if it was a construct. Even the subtitle - 'How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History' – is rather stretching reality, because Nathaniel Courthope didn't change history. He was a small part of the history of the Spice Islands.

Still, 'Nathaniel's Nutmeg' is a compelling blend of history and adventure. If you devoured Milton's 'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922' (as I did), you won't be disappointed with this book.

[Review] Mark Stay: 'The Crow Folk'

While World War II rages in Europe, another sort of war is erupting in and around Woodville, a quiet village in rural Kent.

Faye Bright always felt a little bit different. And now she’s found out why. She’s just stumbled across her late mother’s diary, which includes not only an interesting recipe for jam roly-poly, but also spells, incantations, runes, and recitations. Which means it's witch’s notebook.

And Faye seems to have inherited her mother’s abilities.

Just in time, too, because the Crow Folk are coming. Led by the charismatic Pumpkinhead, their strange magic threatens Faye and the villagers. Armed with little more than her mum’s words, her trusty bicycle, the grudging help of two bickering old ladies, and some aggressive church bellringing, Faye will find herself on the front lines of a war nobody expected.

Right, by now the reader will have understood that this is a book that is clearly in the realm of fantasy. What did I make of it?

Yes, the story is inventive and creative, but the way the story is written is not. I got the distinct impression that Mark Stay somehow has lost the love of writing, and that he sees it as doing a 9 to 5 job. A job that didn't even involve doing proper research.

Already in the first chapter, the main character, Faye, observes that a regular in the pub of her father, leaving the toilet without flushing or washing his hands (page 25). The problem is that during World War II, running water in England was a vital, but mostly limited resource. While some areas, like larger cities, had access to mains water, rural areas often relied on wells, handpumps, or water from communal sources. And that's one of the problems: you never get the sense of time and place. Faye is a modern girl in an historic setting.

The conclusion is that 'The Crow Folk' is a bit of a disappointment.

[Review] Stuart Douglas: 'Death at the Dress Rehearsal'

Many of us fondly remember the British sitcom 'Dad's Army' about some bungling members of the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. The series ran from 1968 to 1977. The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either because of age (hence the title 'Dad's Army'), medical reasons or by being in professions exempt from conscription, such as greengrocers and butchers.

'Dad's Army' was set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, located on the south coast of England, presumably not far from Eastbourne. The platoon was commanded by the rather pompous Captain George Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe), assisted by the somewhat too relaxed Sergeant Arthur Wilson (John Le Mesurier).

Fast-forward to the 1970s, and we encounter somewhat familiar faces in the BBC sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', where the main roles are played by Edward Lowe and John Le Breton.

During the filming of their sitcom in Shropshire, Edward Lowe discovers the body of a young woman, apparently the victim of a tragic drowning accident. But something doesn't sit right by Edward Lowe, and he thinks that the woman might be the victim of foul play. The police are, as you would expect from a comedy like 'Dad's Army' wonderfully inept. Edward Lowe is irresistibly drawn to an investigation, assisted by John Le Breton who has retained trademark air of helplessness of Sergeant Wilson.

Unknowingly, the intrepid duo of aging actors become part of a rather sinister story that has its murky origins in wartime Britain.

No, this is not a simple pastiche of 'Dad's Army'. It's much more than that. It's more a reimagining of the characters. Yes, you can certainly hear the voices of Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson in their alter egos Edward Lowe and John Le Breton, but that makes them an unforgettable pair of sleuths. A beautifully rendered group of supporting characters builds a very strong tale with a rewarding and thrilling conclusion.

Sitcoms like 'Dad's Army' or ''Allo 'Allo!' cannot be made anymore these days. People have grown longer toes over the last decade or so. If you're not one of these irritating humans, you will certainly enjoy 'Death at the Dress Rehearsal'.

The second Lowe and Le Breton mystery titled 'Death at the Playhouses' has just been published. I've immediately ordered it.

[Review] Alexandra Benedict: 'The Christmas Jigsaw Murders'

On 19^th of December, renowned puzzle setter, lonelyness expert, and Christmas hater Edie O’Sullivan finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep. Unwrapping it, she finds a jigsaw box and, inside, six jigsaw pieces. When fitted together, the pieces show part of a crime scene – blood-spattered black and white tiles and part of an outlined body. Included in the parcel is a message: ‘Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me.’ It’s signed, Rest In Pieces, shortened, obviously, to RIP.

Edie contacts her nephew, DI Sean Brand-O’Sullivan, and together they work to solve the clues. But when a man is found near death with a jigsaw piece in his hand, Sean fears that Edie might be in danger and shuts her out of the investigation. As the body count rises, however, Edie knows that only she has the knowledge to put together the killer’s murderous puzzle.

At first glance, it seems a bit of a stretch to imagine an octogenarian embarking on a dangerous mission to solve strange clues that a murderer leaves on victims and even on her doorstep. Why, you might rightfully ask, does a murderer want to leave pieces of a puzzle that could eventually become his (or her) own downfall.

The idea of using pieces of a jigsaw to drop clues to the killer’s plan is very creative in itself, but it would have worked so much better if these pieces were depicted in the book. Now, we do not have a clue what they actually look like.

But this is a wicked mystery that Alexandra Benedict treats us with. Let's not dwell on some of the inconsistencies in the story and worry about the question: Can Edie solve the puzzle and find the killer first before more, and more personal murders are committed?

As always, Alexandra Benedicts' writing itself is a joy to read. The style often borders on poetic but is sensitive when she enters the darker territories of the story.

What bothered me just a tiny bit was that the real spirit of the days of Christmas was lacking. You would expect that it would have featured more in a book that was adorned with the title 'The Christmas Jigsaw Murders'.

In the end, I'm sorry to conclude that 'The Christmas Jigsaw Murders' is a just bit mediocre.

Elaine Thomson reveals title of next book [2]

Here, on May 11, 2024, we rather exitedly published the news that Elaine Thomson's next book would be titled 'The Caithness Poltergeist'.

Alas, on January 3rd, 2025, the title of her next mystery seemed to have been mysteriously changed to 'Hawthorn: A Scottish Ghost Story'. See here.

It's a bit of a non-title and 'Laesk House' would have been a much better one. Besides, that one would have been a perfect fit with most of the other titles.

More information
On the 4th of February 2025, more news about the upcoming series of books has been revealed: Hawthorn will be the first in a planned quartet of novels, each set in a different part of Scotland at the four 'turning points' of the year: Samhain (or Halloween), the spring equinox, midsummer and midwinter.

Still, the summary of the plot sounds interesting:

Caithness, October 1871.

The Ordnance Survey are charting Scotland's most remote north-easterly county, a bleak landscape of endless moorland and lonely crofts. When a strange vision leads cartographer Robert Sutherland out onto the moor one night, an accident leaves him inches from death. He is taken to Leask House, to recuperate under the care of Mrs Sinclair and her beautiful daughter Isabel.

At first, Robert thinks the dreadful visions that plague him at Leask House are the result of the laudanum he has been prescribed. But as events take ever stranger and more terrifying turns, Robert begins to wonder whether his presence at Leask House is really a coincidence at all.

Someone - or something - has summoned him here.

And they don't intend for him to leave.

[Update 14th March, 2025] Elaine Thomson is already writing the second in what will become a quartet of novels featuring the solstices and the equinoxes: the spring equinox, midsummer, the Samhain (or Halloween), and midwinter. She post an image of a map of the island of Stroma accompanied with the words '… and this is where my next ghost story is set #amwriting #stroma #caithness #midsummer #ghoststory'.

Stroma is an uninhabited island in the Pentland Firth, between Orkney and the mainland of Scotland. It forms part of the civil parish of Canisbay in Caithness, in the council area of Highland. The name Stroma can be traced back to the Old Norse Straumey, from straumr ('stream' or 'current') and the suffix -ey ('island'). Together they mean 'island in the current'.

[Update 02 april 2025] Probable cover design of 'Hawthorn: A Scottish Ghost Story' revealed.

The blurb gives us an ominous insight into the story: 'And so herewith follows the true account of the haunting of Leask, set down in his own hand by Robert Sutherland, lately of Caithness, but formerly of Edinburgh – and I will claim that fair city as my true home and let the Devil take these wild northern lands, for I swear he is here already'.

[Update 23 May 2025] The definitive cover of Elaine Thomson's 'Hawthorn' has been revealed. See image at the top of this post.

Elaine Thomson and her thesis on women in medicine

Elaine Thomson came to Edinburgh University in 1987 to study English Literature but switched to History after a year. By the time she left the University in 1998, she had passed through the departments of English, History, Sociology, Law, and back to Sociology for her PhD in the history of medicine.

In 1998 Elaine Thomson submitted her thesis titled 'Women in medicine in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Edinburgh: a case study'.

This thesis explores the foundation and operation of the first hospital to be established and run by women doctors in Scotland, the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children (1885), and its sister Hospital, the Hospice (1899). The main concern of this thesis is to consider the social and cultural. factors which shaped women doctors' professional interests at these Institutions.

Chapter I outlines notions of feminine propriety which prevailed in the Victorian period, and considers how middle-class women sought to subvert these restrictions and gain for themselves some sort of active role in public life. The foundation of the Edinburgh Hospital, and the Hospice, is considered within this context. The women who made up the Executive Committee of the Hospital are shown to have been part of a wider local and national feminist network, and this support undoubtedly contributed to the Hospitals' success.

Chapter 2 looks at the significance for the medical women of the changing nature of medical knowledge in the late nineteenth century. In this period the discipline of physiology gradually shifted from a holistic conception of the body to a more organ centred, reductionist model. Women doctors argued that the older conception of physiology, which could also be understood as hygiene, was of great interest to female practitioners. Women doctors, they suggested, would be the most suitable ambassadors for the dissemination of knowledge of personal and domestic hygiene to women at large. As the dispensers of such knowledge, it was also suggested that women doctors would act as agents of morality with regard to health, cleanliness and moderation amongst this important constituency.

Chapter 3 suggests that the actual practice of medicine at the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children reflected the same preoccupation with hygiene and the holistic conception of physiology that had been used in women's arguments to enter the medical profession in the 1870s. The theme of morality, specifically the morality implicit in the practice of medicine at the Edinburgh Hospital continues to be explored.

Chapter 4 shifts the focus of attention to the recipients, rather than the providers, of medical care at the Edinburgh Hospital by considering the lower middle and working-class women who received medical treatment there. It explores the illnesses (and their causes) which these patients complained of, and explores the social role which the Hospital served in the community, from its foundation in 1885 to the end of the century.

Chapter 5 is concerned with the medical women's work at the Hospice. It discusses the emergence of a distinct specialism, infant and maternal welfare, which occurred at this institution from 1905. The development of this specialism is linked to the limited opportunities which existed for medical women in the city, as well as to the moral role in medical practice which they had outlined for themselves in the previous century.

Chapter 6 continues to explore these themes in relation to the development of the Edinburgh Hospital as a centre for the treatment of VD in the inter-war period. A growing pragmatism amongst the. medical women is observed, and a shift in the moral tone of their work is pin-pointed as they become increasingly bound up with the propaganda campaigns of the NCCVD and the Public Health Department of Edinburgh Town Council.

Interested? Download Elaine Thomson's entire thesis here.

Extra: In 2001, Elaine Thomson also publiced a paper on the same subject with the title 'Physiology, Hygiene and the Entry of Women to the Medical Profession in Edinburgh c. 1869–c. 1900' in the somewhat grandly titled academic journal 'Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences'. See here.

[Recensie] Anne-Goaitske Breteler: 'De traanjagers'

Noem tegenwoordig de walvisvaart en menigeen zal negatief of walgend reageren. Niet dat walvissen aaibaar zijn, maar 'het kan niet meer'.

Wat iedereen vergeet, is dat een deel van de welvaart van ons land afkomstig is van de jacht op walvissen. Vanaf de zeventiende eeuw werd de walvisvaart in de Noordelijke IJszee door Nederlanders grootschalig aangepakt. Het loonde zelfs om op Spitsbergen een nederzetting te stichten met de naam Smeerenburg. Al rond 1670 waren bij Spitsbergen zo weinig walvissen over dat schepen moesten uitwijken naar andere polaire gebieden. De winsten liepen daardoor scherp terug en Nederland stopte uiteindelijk maar met de jacht op walvissen.

De gevolgen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog zorgden echter voor een herstart van de walvisvaart. De bezetters hadden de veestapel weggevoerd om de Duitse militaire magen te kunnen vullen. Daardoor was er in ons land een groot gebrek aan dierlijke vetten. Die waren nodig voor de productie van margarine. De oplossing lag voor de hand: herstart de walvisvaart.

De Nederlandse regering kocht een Zweedse tanker en liet deze ombouwen tot de Willem Barendsz (10,635 BRT), een moeder- en fabrieksschip voor de verwerking van walvissen die door de jagers (wendbare scheepjes) werden gevangen. De walvisvaart in de wateren rondom de Zuidpool bleek een succes en dat leidde in 1951 tot de bouw van de Willem Barendsz II (26,830 BRT). De oorspronkelijke Willem Barendsz werd hernoemd tot Bloemendael en werd wederom omgebouwd tot een tanker, bestemd voor de bevoorrading van het nieuwe moederschip.

'De traanjagers' is een eerste poging tot geschiedschrijving van de walvisvangst in de 20e-eeuwse Antarctische regio, gezien door de lens van de auteur. Breteler woont in Moddergat, een plaatsje in de gemeente Noardeast-Fryslân en werkte af en toe in het café 'De Bûnte Bok (voorheen 'De Albatros') in het nabijgelegen Lioessens. Daar bevond zich een muurschildering met een afbeelding van de walvisvaart. Dat was het begin van haar zoektocht naar de verhalen van die naoorlogse activiteit.

Wat 'De traanjagers' van meer academische boeken onderscheidt, is de manier waarop het historische feiten verweeft met persoonlijke verhalen. Anne-Goaitske Breteler beschrijft het verhaal met gevoel en mededogen.

Door middel van gesprekken met nog levende walvisjagers, nu allemaal ver in de 80, biedt Breteler een verslag van een vervlogen tijdperk. Tegelijkertijd schijnt ze eindelijk een licht op een industrie die het sociaal-economische landschap van kustgemeenschappen heeft gevormd. Het boek is een eerbetoon aan de menselijke veerkracht en de complexe, voortdurend veranderderende relatie tussen mens en natuur.

Af en toe heb je echter de indruk dat het boek nog wat meisjesachtig geschreven is, alsof Anne-Goaitske Breteler nog wat te weinig kennis over het onderwerp had vergaard of nog te weinig levenservaring had.

'De traanjagers' is een waardevolle aanvulling op de literatuur over de walvisvangst en een ontroerend eerbetoon aan de onbezongen helden van de Antarctische zeeën. Tegelijkertijd is het boek noodzakelijk omdat het een vergeten (of zelfs verdrongen) deel van onze vaderlandse geschiedenis belicht.

Extra: Deze recensie is op 22 november 2024 ook verschenen in de regionaal verschijnende Harlinger Courant.

Extra: De recensie van Anne-Goaitske Breteler's 'De laatste dagen van de dorpsgek' is hier te lezen.

'De traanjagers' van Anne-Goaitske Breteler is uitgegeven door AUP en is verkrijgbaar bij je plaatselijke boekhandel of via hier bij bol.com.

Unknown Bram Stoker story rediscovered

While browsing the archives of the National Library of Ireland in October 2023, Brian Cleary, an amateur historian discovered a long-lost short story by Bram Stoker, published just seven years before his legendary gothic novel Dracula.

'Gibbet Hill' was originally published in the 1890 Christmas supplement of the Daily Express Dublin Edition. The short story but has been undocumented ever since.

The story is set in Gibbet Hill in Surrey, a location also referenced in Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel Nicholas Nickleby. It tells the tale of a sailor murdered by three criminals whose bodies were strung up on a hanging gallows as a warning to passing travellers.

The blurb reads 'As if by the irony of fate, there, beside me, was a grim memorial of man’s wickedness and lust for blood─a tombstone by the roadside… A man escaping the confines of London walks on Gibbet Hill in Surrey, drinking in the lush scenery, taking a breath from his busy life, when from this idyllic landscape emerges something out of place: a tombstone, and beside it three children, striking in their youth, yet with a presence that feels almost as old as the hills themselves.

Paul Murray, Bram Stoker's biographer, said 1890 was when he was a young writer and made his first notes for Dracula. He confirmed there had been no trace of the story for over a century. "It's a classic Stoker story, the struggle between good and evil, evil which crops up in exotic and unexplained ways," Murray added.

'Gibbet Hill' is being published by the Rotunda Foundation - the fundraising arm of Dublin's Rotunda Hospital for which Mr Cleary worked.

All proceeds will go to the newly formed Charlotte Stoker Fund - named after Bram Stoker’s mother who was a hearing loss campaigner - to fund research on infant hearing loss.

Order your copy here.

Elaine Thomson reveals title of next book [1]

On May 11, 2024, Elaine Thomson revealed the title of her next book on social media with an image of the first draft of 'The Caithness Poltergeist'.

"And now for something completely different… Finished the draft, friends! The real work begins this weekend…," Elaine Thomson wrote.

She admitted that it will not be a new adventure of her protagonist Jem Flockhart, but "something completely different. I’m a bit worried no one will like it."

The publication date of 'The Caithness Poltergeist' is planned for October 23th, 2025. We wait with bated breath.

This post will be updated if more news becomes available. Therefore, visit this post regularly.

[Update December 16th, 2024] Elaine Thomson posted a message that she had signed a four-book deal for four ghost stories.

Based on the scarse information available, I suspect that Elaine Thomson will introduce a new female protagonist who will try to solve cases that instill a sense of fear. Also, think of the intrusion of the past upon the present.

[Update December 23rd, 2024] The description of 'The Caithness Poltergeist' 'Hawthorn: A Scottish Ghost Story' (see below) has appeared (and was frequently adapted).

Caithness, October 1871.

The Ordnance Survey are charting Scotland's most remote north-easterly county, a bleak landscape of endless moorland and lonely crofts. When a strange vision leads cartographer Robert Sutherland out onto the moor one night, an accident leaves him inches from death. He is taken to Leask House, to recuperate under the care of Mrs Sinclair and her beautiful daughter Isabel.

At first, Robert thinks the dreadful visions that plague him at Leask House are the result of the laudanum he has been prescribed. But as events take ever stranger and more terrifying turns, Robert begins to wonder whether his presence at Leask House is really a coincidence at all.

Someone - or something - has summoned him here.

And they don't intend for him to leave.

'Elaine Thomson reveals title of next book [2]' can be read here.

Elaine Thomson: The Creation of Jem Flockhart

I’d always wanted to be a writer. I read a lot as a child, and wrote loads of stories at primary school – long rambling things, usually based on thefts and hauntings (“The Mystery Of The False Teeth” is an unpublished classic!) Then I went to secondary school and was shepherded towards maths and physics and other things I’m really bad at. I kept reading, but I read mostly 19th century novels – Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, RL Stevenson; later on some HG Wells, Graham Green, DH Lawrence… I spent a year reading nothing but Dylan Thomas. Anyway, as I was mostly reading stuff written by dead men, I never really got a sense that writing was something someone like me could do. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in a small town in the middle of the Lancashire sprout fields and coming from a non-graduating family, writing a novel and getting published seemed as likely as visiting Mars.

Then I went to Edinburgh University (my family are from Scotland), where I studied English then switched to history. I kept reading novels. I got a job at Waterstones after my undergraduate degree and eventually tried some contemporary fiction. At that point, I thought “I could do this!” for the first time. I got a PhD in the history of medicine, and found it all so fascinating that I decided to see whether I could put it into a novel. I got an agent on the back of 'A Proper Education for Girls' (2009), that first manuscript. I wrote another novel called 'Bleakly Hall' (2011) and got a publisher this time too! I started off writing more literary fiction, but when my publisher suggested I try crime, Jem Flockhart was created in 'Beloved Poison' (2016).

Crime fiction is often regarded as inferior to other sorts of fiction but recent authors like Robbie Morrison, Graeme Macrae Burnet and Alis Hawkins have shown that it can be beautifully written and deeply evocative of time and place, as well as having a compelling narrative and being intricately plotted. I love crime fiction – as a genre it offers a puzzle, and we all like to work out puzzles. It’s a safe space to read about awful things, which I think humans also find appealing – exciting and horrifying, but with a satisfying resolution and no actual threat to ourselves. And there are so many excellent writers too; readers have so many opportunities to find characters and locations and historical time periods that appeal to them – and if there’s a crime, then you can add excitement into the mix. What’s not to love about that?

I wrote my first two novels on the Number 23 bus going from Stockbridge to Morningside. Forty minutes every morning and then again in the evening as I went back home. I never write on the bus these days as I walk to work now. I started off writing longhand with a fountain pen in a hardbacked wire-spined A4 notebook, and I still write this way. I love the connection between the mind and the hand, and the pen and paper. It’s centuries old as an approach and that appeals to me. I have to use a fountain pen – I have four favourites. If I forget my pen, I can’t write. I’ve written nine novels like this. Every few days (if I can) I type up what I’ve written.

Now, writing is much, much harder. I no longer have an hour and a half on the bus – time to myself to be creative. My job is ten times busier than it used to be. I now have two sons, and although they are old enough to look after themselves, they are still at home. When writing the first four Jem Flockhart books I was a single mother with a full-time job. It was super-hard producing fiction, but I could do it when my sons were in bed (they went to bed at 7pm on the dot!). Now, my day job as university lecturer takes up so much more of my time and energy – plus I am older and more tired, my sons watch things on TV that tempt me to loll exhausted on the sofa and watch with them. These days I only get to write when I go an a writing retreat – I’ll blitz out 20,000 or 30,000 words in a frantic week long hand then type them up in between the blizzard of emails and classes when I get back. It’s quite stressful. But what else can I do? Carry on or give up are the only options. I choose to (try to) carry on.

Source.

[Review] Lucy Worsley: 'Agatha Christie'

Writer and historian Lucy Worsley (1973) has written 'Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman', a passionate and very readable biography of Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Surely, there have been other biographies that covered the same subject and the question is if Lucy Worsley would be able to add something new to these.

Until Worsley's book appeared, Laura Thomson's 'Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life' was considered to give the best insight into the life and times of Agatha Christie. Worsley certainly gives me the impression that she tried to get into the mind of the great writer. What drove Agatha Christie and what held her back?

"The psychological approach - that's the only thing nowadays," Colonel Easterbrook says in 'A Murder is Announced' and he was right, although he was portrayed by Agatha Christie as somewhat dim. Worsley uses Christie's books to get an insight into the mind of the author, because every writer puts something of herself into the text. You write, they say, what you know about.

Worsley had to cover Christie’s 1926 mysterious disappearance. No biography of Agatha Christie would be complete without it. What Worsley does do when discussing it is to build a convincing argument that Agatha Christie had temporarily lost her memory due to the huge emotional stress of the breakdown of her marriage and the discovery of her husband’s affair. She actually couldn’t remember what had happened to her. The psychological term for this sort of temporary memory loss is fugue (Latin: flight). Your brain tries to protect and heal itself by temporarily shutting down.

What emerged from this biography was that there existed several versions of Agatha Christie. The Christie the public knew was shy, introvert, and guarded. In private she liked (extended) family gatherings and to spend her money on houses and she amassed quite a few of those.

Worsley sprinkles interesting factoids thoughout the book and that makes the 'Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman' so very readable. It amazed me is that Lucy Worsley could find the time to gather all the information about Agatha Christie. Remember that Worsley is a historian, author, television presenter, and at the same time curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

Lucy Worsley wrote a well-researched biography and it is a fascinating read, looking at Christie in an almost tender, loving way. Buy the book!

[Review] E.S. Thomson: 'Under Ground'

Finally, I had the book in my hands: the seventh adventure of Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain. In this installment, Flockhart and Quartermain are called to a house of ill-repute owned by the well-known Mrs Roseplucker. There, a client has been murdered. The face of the corpse has a look of mortal terror, and its throat has been slashed like a frenzied animal has been at work. Jobber, an employee of the house, is arrested by the police because 'if he isn't guilty of this crime, he will sure be guilty of another'. Keen to keep the establishment’s 'reputation' for discretion, Mrs Roseplucker asks the pair for help. It turns out that the victim is Edward Mortmain, the heir to the family fortune, which has largely been accumulated via rents from the dilapidated Prior's Rents.

Jobber is surely going to be found guilty of a crime he did not commit and our intrepid duo are therefore hurled into a race against time. Flockhart and Quartermain are also tasked with finding the murderer by Henry Mortmain*, the ailing, but perfectly sane patriarch of the family. Throughout the family history, a giant rat features heavily. It is reputed to always kill the heir. Remember, Edward Mortmain was the heir.

Meanwhile, Will has taken on a commission to investigate the crumbling sewer system below London. Unwittingly, he's on the trail of another notorious killer: cholera. London was a city overwhelmed by the human excrement of its ever-growing population in the squalor of overcrowded slums, such as Prior's Rents. Human waste piled up in courtyards and overflowed from cesspits into the gutters and waterways. The River Thames had become London's largest open sewer.

I have always known that Elaine Thomson could evoke the sensations of decay, stink, and other malodorous substances that covered Victorian London in the mid 1850s better than anyone else, but in this novel she has reached a new level, worthy of a Grand Mistress, in describing the fetid atmosphere that you had to endure if you lived in London.

Rats – I hate them now even more than I ever did before – feature both above and underground, and their effect was like Arthur Conan Doyle’s 'The Hound of the Baskerville'. Always lurking in the shade. Always menacing.

'Under Ground' is a masterpiece of gothic suspense, crime, slime, and grime. Publishers so often put the word 'unputdownable' on the cover of their books that it lost virtually all meaning. This one, however, is guaranteed to be unputdownable. I promise.

* Mortmain ('dead hand') is also the perpetual, inalienable ownership of real estate by a corporation or legal institution.

[Review] Alexandra Benedict: 'Murder on the Christmas Express'

DI Rosalind (Roz) Parker, who’s just retired from the police force in London, is on her way to Fort William, Scotland, trying to be in time for the birth of her granddaughter.

But in the early hours of Christmas Eve, the sleeper train to the Highlands derails on its icy tracks. It also results in the end of any festive plans of its travellers. With the train stuck in snow in the middle of nowhere, a killer stalks its carriages. The first victim is, rather unsurprisingly, Meg Forth, a media influencer, who was travelling on the train with her boyfriend, Grant McVey. As there are just a few passengers (eighteen to be exact) on the train, the number of suspects is rather low. Still, who of them has a reason to kill?

The reviews are, well, somewhat mixed. But what do I make of 'Murder on the Christmas Express'?

Alexandra Benedict is certainly trying to see if the mantle of the 'Queen of Crime' fits her too by (again) releasing a murder mystery in time for Christmas. 'Murder on the Christmas Express' does make one want try to compare it with its predecessor, 'Murder on the Orient Express', but don't bother. This one is quite different in structure.

Some reviewers lament the time it takes before the first murder occurs. They're right that it takes a while, but wrong that it is the problem. What is the problem is that almost every character is uninteresting and unpleasant. The reader is never emotionally attached to any of the suspects. I simply didn't care who would be the killer.

Perhaps the story tries to teach you that a very negative experience early in life will forever keep festering. It makes a person unable to enjoy life. You may have regular flashbacks and are endlessly trying to avoid similar situations. In some, it may ultimately lead to suicide, and some eventually might murder to kill their inner demons or to spare others from the same fate.

While reading the book, I had the distinct impression that Alexandra Benedict started writing with the idea that Roz Parker herself would be the murderer (think: Agatha Christie's 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'), but changed her mind halfway. I think that such an idea would work so much better than the one Alexandra Benedict ended up with.

'Murder on the Christmas Express' is a bit of a disappointment, and I hope Alexandra Benedict's next murder mystery will be better. Spoiler: It's better less mediocre but only marginally so. See here.

[Review] Giles Milton: 'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922'

Smyrna (now called Izmir) was once one of the Ottoman Empire's great mercantile centers on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. Even during the first world war, it was a place where Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Levantines, and Europeans could live in peace.

Where did it all start, you might ask? The antagonism between Turks and Greeks started probably in Antiquity, but a more modern viewpoint will argue that it all started when Turkey foolishly allied itself to Germany in the First World War. They lost the war and nearly lost their independence. As a result, Constantinople (now called Istanbul) was occupied in 1918 by British, French, Italian, and Greek forces. The humiliation and the implosion of the Turkish army eventually resulted in widespread guerilla warfare, led by Mustafa Kemal, later glorified as Atatürk.

The rebellion gradually morphed into a proper army, and it won a decisive victory over the Greeks in September 1921. The Greek military fled to Smyrna until it overflowed with exhausted soldiers. Then all hell broke loose.

Turkish irregulars recaptured Smyrna in September 1922. Four days later, Smyrna was set on fire by the Turks, as many independent eyewitnesses claim. Turkish 'historians' tell their population that the fire was started by Greek 'saboteurs'. The result was that half a million of its inhabitants had fled to the quayside, where they were between a rock and a hard place: hemmed in between the flames and the guns of the Turks.

While Turkish irregulars moved among them, raping, maiming, and killing, Atatürk sat, like Nero once did, watching from a friend's villa in the hills. Children younger than 12 years of age were raped, breasts were cut off, Greeks were set on fire, houses were looted.

In the end, an estimated 150,000 mainly Greeks lost their lives, while the survivors were forced to flee into permanent exile. It was a proper genocide. One of many by the Turks. Maybe the Turks view all non-Turks as being illegal in their country. So, basically, Turkey is a collectively racist country, although their 'historians' will vehemently deny that claim.

'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922' tells us about a nearly forgotten tale of the deprivation, carnage, and literal holocaust that have been seared into Greek historical memory as the 'Great Catastrophe' (He Megali Katastrophe) - a term that denotes the genocide, expulsion, and erasure of the Greek people from their ancient homelands in Asia Minor.

'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922' is not for the faint-hearted, but should be read anyway. It's a powerful lesson for us all.

Buy Giles Milton: Paradise Lost here.

[Review] Alexandra Benedict: 'The Christmas Murder Game'

Many, many Christmasses ago, people would politely queue to obtain the latest mystery from Agatha Christie. A 'Christie for Christmas', early influencers realised, would instill a tradition into her readers: you would ideally buy yourself or your loved one a Christie for Christmas.

Sadly, Agatha Christie (1890-1976) isn't among us anymore, and the tradition has all but disappeared. But since 2021, Alexandra Benedict has single-handedly revived that tradition with 'The Christmas Murder Game'. She plans to enlighten our Christmasses every year with a new mystery.

'The Christmas Murder Game' tells us the story of Lily Armitage who - twenty-one Christmasses ago - found her mother dead in the maze in the grounds of Endgame House, the grand house that has been in her family for years. Traumatised, she never returned, but now she has to. Her aunt Liliana died, and she has planned a series of riddles with Endgame House as the ultimate prize. For Lily, the stakes are even higher, because Liliana promised her that answers could be won. Answers about questions she doesn't even dare to ask herself.

Twelve days of Christmas, twelve clues concealed in sonnets, and twelve hidden keys. As tensions run high between Lily and her estranged cousins, it becomes clear that someone is willing to kill for Endgame House. As the snow begins to fall and the house is cut off, it becomes clear that Lily is trapped with a killer.

What do I make of the book? Can it replace Agatha Christie's 'A Christie for Christmas'?

Well, Agatha Christie was shaped by the Victorian Age and thus wrote Victorianesque: sparse with words. Alexandra Benedict is different. She writes as if words wanted to bubble out of her and all her sentences are shaped like little poems. 'The Christmas Murder Game' is an absolute masterpiece.

I wouldn't be surprised if Lily Armitage is the alter ego of Alexandra Benedict as both have an inate love of puzzles and both are absolutely lovely.

Buy and read 'The Christmas Murder Game' and your Christmas (or any other day of the year) is saved.

Alexandra Benedict: 'Discovering I had ADHD and autism as an adult saved me'

For Alexandra Benedict (1977), her diagnosis of autism and ADHD as an adult helped her make sense of her life - and understand her place in the world. Now her love of puzzles, which she uses as a way to relax and focus her 'flyaway' brain have made it into her latest book 'Murder on the Christmas Express' (2022).

Alexandra Benedict lifted the lid on being diagnosed as an adult. In 2022, a new report showed that there was a huge rise of 787 per cent in autism diagnoses in England between 1998 and 2018, largely owing to an increase in recognition - with many women finally getting a diagnosis[1].

Like many people diagnosed later in life, Alexandra had been searching for answers for a while. Often people struggle, thanks to dismissive healthcare professionals, an overburdened NHS, and simplistic stereotypes, which means they didn't fit what officials thought people with autism and ADHD acted like.

'I was diagnosed earlier this year after a lifetime of feeling ‘wrong’, and now I’m learning to accept myself, and work with, rather than against, my strengths,' says Alexandra.

'I have a photographic memory and I can play memories from when I was three or four-years-old. It's brilliant when reliving great memories but extremely traumatic when reliving difficult ones. My therapist said that from the way I was processing the traumatic memories, it was very clear and vivid. Amongst other things, she thought I may be on the autistic spectrum.

'I had looked into it before, because people before have commented on my memory and my mannerisms could point to it. I did some online tests, but my empathy levels are very high, and I thought that may rule me out. 'My therapist told me it was a myth that autistic people cannot have empathy - sometimes it is the complete opposite and they over-empathise - and that clicked for me.

'I was considered a very shy, but hyper-intelligent student. I used to hide in the school toilets to avoid things. I fell into books and other worlds, that was my comfort when I was very small and it still is. I had films I'd watch again and again... anything other than life.

'So, it were very classic symptoms of autism in women because we are socialised so differently and not allowed to melt down. I've burnt out many times and I've been diagnosed with ME, which a-lot of women with autism and ADHD are diagnosed with. The body shuts down as it can't cope to live in a world not meant for you.'

Alexandra added: 'I'm obsessed with Agatha Christie and the golden age of crime. I go to them for my general life advice. 'I always want to address what is going on underneath things, in the guises of cosy crime. It's important to me that other people see them recognised.'

[1] Russell et al: Time trends in autism diagnosis over 20 years: a UK population-based cohort study in Journal of The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines - 2022

[Source]

[Review] Sarah F. Derbew: 'Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity'

Let us sketch the scenery first before we start a proper review of this book.

Modern archaeology evolved in the late-19th century when amateurs like Heinrich Schliemann, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Carl Blegen, and Arthur Evans, started excavating in Egypt and Greece. It was the age of colonialism and, although Greece is a mere 200 kilometers from Africa, these archaeologists could not believe that the first European civilization was influenced by Egypt. So, Greece must have developed in a sort of vacuum, because any African influence was deemed unthinkable. Yes, colonialism was racist.

Furthermore, during large swathes of time Egypt was a unified country, combining Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. As Upper Egypt (or Nubia) was what is now Sudan (and parts of Somalia), is it logical that black skinned Egyptians were not an exception. And because Egypt and Greece were geographically close, Greeks would surely have met black Egyptians.

Martin Bernal has written extensively about this in his magnum opus 'Black Athena' (1987, 1991, 2006). Derbew disqualifies him and his efforts in a single sentence because of 'his brief mentions of Ethiopia'. She also questions Cleopatra's skin colour, a curious American obsession because of 'the uncertainty about the precise identity of Cleopatra's paternal grandmother'.

In the first chapter of 'Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity', Derbew creates her own muddled explanation of terms. Think of 'black', 'Black', 'blackskinned', etc. She even positively mentions the already suspect critical race theory, also a way of muddled thinking that heralds from the US.

Then we are treated to another four chapters that are in reality just unrelated essays that do not untangle blackness in Greek antiquity. In these chapters, Derbew instills her own terminology, ideas, and preconceptions to some limited subjects. She finds racism in every corner of archaeology, history, literature, and ancient Greek plays. Derbew argues, for instance, that official descriptions of cups that show black and white faces are racist because the black faces are 'humourous' or 'laughing'. She does not see that the white faces on those cups aren't white but reddish or clay-cloured. Even the Nubian 25th dynasty, a line of pharaohs who reigned Ancient Egypt for nearly a century, from 744 to 656 BC, is treated with disdain, because they 'took advantage' of some internal strife. Well, internal problems are mostly the cause of invasions. Everywhere. You simply need to read Paul Kennedy's 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers' (1987) or Peter Frankopan's 'The Silk Roads: A New History of the World' (2015) to understand the concept.

Her problem (and her cultural blindness) is that in the Mediterranean, there is no distinct black and white division. The farther south you get, the darker ones skin tend to be. So, in Greece you are not white, but brown or 'olive skinned'. And everybody knows that olives can differ in colour from light brown to almost black.

So, Sarah Derbew has a bias about racism. In the US there might be a true distinction between black and white, but in the Mediterranean there is just a spectrum of skin colours. Nobody cares about your skin colour.

And the sad conclusion is that where Sarah Derbew sees racism everywhere in archaeology, history, musea, literature or even Greek plays, there just isn't. But when you see racism everywhere, maybe it's you who is the true racist.

Elaine Thomson's books subject of scientific papers

Since 2016, Elaine Thomson writes a series of mysteries featuring a apothecary in mid-Victorian London called Jem Flockhart. Jeremiah Jemima Flockhart is disfigured by a port-wine stain that covers her eyes and nose like a mask. Born biologically female, Jem is raised as male to fill the role of the twin brother, who died at birth along with the siblings’ mother.

The character of Jem Flockhart is obviously based on James Barry (1789-1865), who was born as Margaret Bulkley, a woman who disguised herself as a man to study medicine at Edinburgh University in the 1810s and later spent her life as a doctor in the army. She was only discovered to be a woman when she had died.

Both Barry and Flockhart were not cross-dressing (in a sexual sense) nor were they hermaphrodites (in a biological sense), but simply resourceful women who wanted to achieve their dream in a male dominated world, where women were not deemed psychologically fit to become doctors or apothecaries.

Elaine Thomson even honoured James Barry by using his father's name, Jeremiah, as the 'original' name of Jem Flockhart.

The novels of Elaine Thomson have recently been the subject of research in the field of heterotropic spaces[1][2]. Heterotropic spaces are a concept to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are somehow 'other': disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside. Examples are ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons, gardens of antiquity, fairs, and many more.

As Jem Flockhart and his friend and partner William ('Will') Quartermain encounter and fight crime in the Victorian world, where filth, grime, and depravity were rife, it is quite understandable that they often find themselves in heterotropic spaces like hospitals, prisons, asylums, brothels, prostitutes’ rooms, physic gardens, ships, anatomy schools, museums, exhibitions, graveyards, slums, and even colonies.

Marie-Luise Kohlke desperately tries to formulate a conclusion for the heterotopic spaces in Elaine Thomson's world, but rather fails to find one. Indeed, heterotopic spaces are used by almost every writer of crime novels: from Agatha Christie to Alistair MacLean. All use the idea of heterotopic spaces to keep insiders in and outsiders out of their stories.

And that's the crux of many social studies: there are hardly any hard facts that can be molded into a comprehensive theory.

Whatever my misgivings about these two papers, you really should read all the books of Elaine Thomson, including those of Elaine di Rollo, her alter ego. All are reviewed on this weblog.

[1] Marie-Luise Kohlke: Heterotopic Proliferation in E. S. Thomson's Jem Flockhart Series in Humanities – 2022. See here.
[2] Marie-Luise Kohlke, Elizabeth Ho, Akira Suwa: Heterotopic and Neo-Victorian Affinities: Introducing the Special Issue on Neo-Victorian Heterotopias in Humanities - 2022. See here.

[Review] Paula Lennon: 'Murder in Montego Bay'

On the north coast of Jamaica lies Montego Bay. For tourists, it's paradise, for some inhabitants it resembles hell. Detective Preddy and his team are forced to accept the assistance of Detective Sean Harris, a red-haired and fair-skinned Scottish detective - yes, he is a caricature - who is seconded to Jamaica. Then, the scion – yes, Paula Lennon uses a lot of archaic words where simpler ones would have sufficed – of iced desserts empire Chinchillerz gets himself murdered.

A cloud hangs over Preddy, the result of a botched raid where several young men were killed by a hail of police bullets. Not only do they haunt his dreams, but his superiors lost faith in him. Early retirement looms for Preddy if he does not manage to find the killer quickly.

Working out of Pelican Walk police station, Preddy and his now expanded team must find the answers to the elusive Five Seven W's of policing: Who, What, When, Where, Why, With What, and (by) What Means.

So, what to make of it?

Some reviewers grumble about the use of Jamaican Patois, the local dialect, that is used throughout the Caribbean. It's not a problem, because it adds to the couleur locale of the story and I've seen it used to great effect before by Jacob Ross in 'The Bone Readers' and 'Black Rain Falling'.

Other things did bother me, though. That an overworked Preddy seems to be able to free himself for an entire morning every week to feed the poor via the charity kitchen is ludicrous. Lennon probably wanted to give Preddy a 'human face'.

And I cannot imagine why the Jamaican police would want to add a lowly Scottish detective to one of its squads. A feels like a gimmick that was copied from 'Death in Paradise'. If Jamaica would need assistance, I think that the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would be their agency of choice. Jamaica is swamped with drugs and serves as a stepping stone for import into the US. Harris even gets to command the team and I wonder if that is even possible under Jamaican law.

The writing seems just that. Writing. I thought about it for quite some time and reached the conclusion that it misses 'soul'. The sentences do not 'dance'.

The moment Paula Lennon became aware of this review, she blocked me on social media. A bit immature, if you ask me.

Buy the book here.

[Review] Anne Glenconner: 'Murder on Mustique'

Mustique. Just let the word enter your brain, savour it, and you simply know: this little island in the Caribbean must have magical views, turquoise seas, lush trees, and purple-flowered bougainvilleas. A slight negative is that its very name via the French word moustique means 'mosquito'.

In 1958 the entire island was bought for £45,000 by Colin Tennant, the later 3rd Baron Glenconner. Mustique was eventually developed into an exclusive and very private retreat where the wealthy and nobility can escape to the privacy they sometimes crave for.

Anne Glenconner is the widow of Colin Tennant and she has written a spectacularly good mystery.

Someone is killing young heirs of great fortunes and no one knows why. Crime is almost unheard of on this little island and just a single policeman, Detective Sergeant Solomon Nile, is stationed on it. Lady Veronica Blake, a clear doublet of Anne Veronica Glenconner herself, takes the helm of the investigation as tropical storm Cristobal threatens to cut off the island completely from the outside world. A true Christie-esque mystery follows.

The storyline is perfectly crafted and Anne Glenconner writes in clear, crisp sentences. You quite understand that she knows the island very well and she's quite perceptive. Those little details other writers so often forget or don't know about are slipped into the story. Anne Glenconner is clearly proud of Mustique and what it stands for. You do feel that most of the suspects are drawn from the real rich and famous that live (or once lived) on Mustique.

As the number of murders increase, Lady Veronica, aka Lady Vee to her friends, is forced to suspect everyone of her inner circle. In the end, scenes worthy of a thriller by Alistair MacLean lead to the exposure of the killer.

Other reviewers grumble a bit about the privileged view Anne Glenconner has about the island, about the name-dropping, but they tend to forget that this was and still is the world she lives in. Every writer knows that you should write about the things you know best.

So, the verdict. Is it any good? Well, in my humble view, it's brilliant. It is a lightweight thriller with an airtight plot. Remembering that Anne Glenconner is born in 1932, one wonders why she didn't start writing mysteries much earlier.

Buy the book here.

[Review] Jacob Ross: 'Black Rain Falling'

I've read Jacob Ross' 'The Bone Readers' (review here) and was truly impressed. Could its sequel 'Black Rain Falling' equal or even surpass that feat?

[Buy the book here]

Our two protagonists are in trouble. Michael 'Digger' Digson has arrested a fellow-officer for driving (and killing someone) while under the influence of alcohol and that doesn't sit well with some of his colleagues. Miss Stanislaus shot and killed her own personal Nemesis and faces prosecution. Then murders start to accumulate quickly. Are all these events connected? Can Digger and Miss Stanislaus save their careers (and lives)?

Almost immediately I felt myself drawn into the story and the Caribbean. It was like standing in the central nave of the Notre-Dame de Paris looking at the circular rose window on a cloudy day. And then, quite suddenly, the sun breaks through the clouds and sparkles through the stained multi-coloured glass of the rose window. That sort of feeling.

Jacob Ross clearly has a deep love for his native Granada, a Caribbean island that features as Camaho in the story. Poverty is endemic. Poverty begets crime, crime begets greed, and greed begets murder. This sequence of events attracts evil, and evil begets fear. Both strands circle around each other forming an invisible double helix. This is life and living on an island with an inept police force, where only a few officers have the will and backbone to try to make a difference.

Suffice to say that 'Black Rain Falling' is a superbly written mystery. Every sentence is a small work of art. Together they create an image that Jacob Ross is a true poet and not 'just' a writer of thrillers.

Buy the book here.

[Recensie] Bram Enning: 'De oorlog van professor Bastiaans'

Professor Bastiaans (1917-1997) was jarenlang bekend door zijn behandeling van overlevenden van concentratiekampen. Hij gaf een naam aan hun problemen: het KZ-syndroom. Zo’n ernstig probleem had natuurlijk ook een unieke behandelmethode nodig en dat was zijn LSD-behandeling. Zowel het syndroom als de behandeling waren echter omstreden, zo blijkt uit het boek van historicus Bram Enning.

Bastiaans was opgeleid als psycho-analist en was dus een navolger van de bekende Sigmund Freud. Maar zelfs tijdens zijn opleiding was de psycho-analyse al vrijwel in onbruik geraakt omdat de resultaten van de behandeling maar heel matig bleken te zijn. Bastiaans ging zelfs nog een stapje verder: hij geloofde dat er jaren na de afloop van de oorlog nog lichamelijke problemen konden ontstaan die hun bron in die oorlog konden hebben. Dat konden hartaanvallen, hoge bloeddruk of diabetes zijn. Die theorie stond bekend als de psychosomatiek en het syndroom dat daarbij hoorde was het KZ-syndroom – KZ was de afkorting van Konzentrationslager ofwel concentratiekamp. Een speciaal syndroom dat volgens Bastiaans vaak slechts met het hallucinerende middel LSD behandeld kon worden.

Natuurlijk ontstond er direct al een probleem want hoe kon je bewijzen dat een hartaanval, die twintig jaar na de oorlog optrad, als oorzaak die oorlog had? Dat kon dus niet en daar lag dan ook de zwakte van de methode Bastiaans. Maar Bastiaans had belangrijke handlangers en dat waren zijn patiënten, die een deel van de oorlog in kampen hadden doorgebracht. Het punt was namelijk dat er na de oorlog een speciaal pensioen mogelijk was voor mensen die afgekeurd werden als gevolg van de doorstane ellende. En Bastiaans zorgde dat je probleem werd erkend als oorlogstrauma. Het gaf die verzetsstrijders ook de erkenning waar ze zo naar zochten. Je was voor je omgeving niet ‘fout’ geweest in de oorlog.

De ook al snel verouderde LSD-methode, waarmee Bastiaans de verdrongen herinneringen poogde op te halen had echter behoorlijke nadelen: door de hallucinaties konden er ook onware herinneringen worden opgewekt, maar voor Bastiaans was dat geen probleem. Jarenlang kon Bastiaans ongestoord zijn gang gaan. Kritiek op de methode was kritiek op Bastiaans en dan kwamen direct zijn patiënten in het geweer.

Want Bastiaans was een ijdele en opportunistische man, die er niet voor terugdeinsde om zijn patiënten in te zetten voor zijn eigen gewin. Hij was iemand die als eerste gebruik maakte van de media om zijn zin door te drijven bij de politiek. Achteraf gezien was het een schande dat hij zo lang ongestoord zijn gang kon gaan.

Pas toen vanuit Amerika de term 'Post Traumatische Stress Stoornis' (PTSS) kwam overwaaien, verloren de oud-verzetsstrijders hun unieke positie. Toen Bastiaans met pensioen ging was dat ook direct het einde van zijn speciale methode. Het boek is geen dolksteek in de rug, maar meer het zwaard waar Bastiaans zelf in is gesprongen. Een ontluisterend en zeer leesbaar boek.

Koop het boek hier.

[Review] Jacob Ross: 'The Bone Readers'

Forget 'Death in Paradise', the light-hearted television series (and books), created by Robert Thorogood, that paint an idyllic life on a friendly island in the Caribbean. Yes, in every episode a murder is committed, but the island of Guadeloupe (which doubles as Saint-Marie) remains the main attraction.

The reality is that the Caribbean is a bleak region. Poverty is endemic and the male population of the islands is mostly driven by despair (those who use drugs) or by greed (those who sell drugs).

[Buy the book here.]

Jacob Ross is a poet and writer who was born on the Caribbean island of Granada. Just a speck on the globe, but in 1979 a communist movement overthrew the government in a coup d'état. The country was in such disarray that the US decided that they needed to invade the island in 1983 to restore a semblance of law and order.

Jacob Ross has been a British citizen since the 1980s, but has never forgotten 'his' island. Ross' first publications were two collections of evocative short stories. 'The Bone Readers' is his first mystery. It features Michael “Digger” Digson who is barely out of school and, unable to afford the fees for university, he just passes the time loitering on the streets.

Digger is reluctantly recruited into a nascent section of the police force by DC Chilman, who is unscrupulously plucking a new, young but promising squad off the streets. Digger has two extraordinary skills that make him stand out: an ability to recognise voices, and the skill of reading human bones.

As a plain-clothes officer in this somewhat rogue police force, Digger has to investigate missing persons both present and past. DC Chilman is haunted by the disappearance of Nathan who left his mother’s house one day never to return. Digger himself is obsessed by his own mother’s unexplained disappearance, who was last seen during a demonstration against the rape of a woman, when he was a child.

Ross is able to vividly paint persons and surroundings. The dialogue is crisp and is mostly written in patois, the Caribbean island dialect. While it might seem daunting at first, it is actually quite easy to understand once you put some effort into it.

'The Bone Readers' is many things at once. It is a thriller (and a good one at that) but it is also a coming-of-age story, and a story of hope that good will (eventually) overcome bad. Running through the story is the stark observation that grief and loss can create a lasting hole in your heart.

In short: it is a brilliant story and I cannot recommend it enough.

Buy the book here.

[Review] Susanna Clarke: 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell'

In the end, it was just a hype.

After Joanne Rowling enamoured the world with her adventures about Harry Potter, the wizard and his wizarding world, everyone was waiting for someone who could write about the subject in 'a more literary way'.

[Buy the book here]

So, when Susanna Clarke was able to publish her version of the British world of wizards, she was hailed as a heroine herself because (as the Guardian claimed) she 'perfectly conveys all that can be brilliant about British literature and manages to be refreshingly different from either. Her novel feels unduly classical and nostalgic and yet timeless at the very same time and it has, at the heart of it, that thing which every truly great novel needs: a brilliant story'.

'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' imagines an 18th-Century England in which magic still exists, but as something people did once, long ago. All 'magicians' do is merely being 'theoretical magicians' because 'real magic' is considered vulgar. Mr Norrell wants to bring 'real magic' back to be respectable in English society.

While reading the rather expensive three-book luxury boxed set, I quickly started to get bored. There seemed to be no big encompassing story that culminated into a brilliant climax but the books seemed to just be a collection of short stories. There was never any feeling that the personality of Mr Norris grew or adapted itself to the changing circumstances.

I had the distinct feeling that the book was a collection of short stories where you could easily add one extra or snip one to save paper. Which is exactly what has happened, because 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu' should originally have been part of 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell' but was cut and became the title story of a collection of eight fairy tales. Though the events of the story do therefore not actually appear in 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell', they are referenced in a footnote in Chapter 43 of that book. Which is very careless of the editor.

Yes, for some reviewers the writing must have seemed literary, but only in the sense that it showed 'book learning' or 'bookcraft'. In reality, Susanna Clarke felt like a bit of a show-off.

In the end, I desperately longed for J.K. Rowling who is always able to put so much fun into each sentence she writes and manages to have a clear understanding of what people want to read.

Buy the book here.