Those old-timey covers

While I was sitting watching Dancing with the Stars tonight, an email came in from my dad, who alerted me to an eBay seller's historical fiction listings. His name looked familiar, so I checked around and remembered I used to get his catalogs when I was in high school and undergrad (Pandora's Books). They were large format, newspaper style, very tiny print.

Anyway, take a look at the listings if you want to see many more examples of 1950s-70s style historical novel covers, such as the one on the left. I own many of the books in other editions, so I'm not really tempted to bid, but it looks like everything starts at 99 cents if you're so inclined.

On how to pen compelling book reviews

Like many of you, I'm sure, I read about the Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing from Tuesday's Paper Cuts (the NYT's book blog). Since reading all that snark puts me in a rather snarky mood, I can't resist pointing out that the phrase "startling predictability" sounds like an oxymoron. And "pen" used in the sense of "write" is a perfectly acceptable verb, and has been for about five centuries. That doesn't mean people shouldn't sometimes eschew it for a simpler word (sorry).

On the other hand, I would be happy if I never saw the word "chthonic" in a book review again. (Of course, now that you know what it means, you may want to use it in a sentence yourself. Right?)

Karen Swee, historical mystery novelist

(cross-posted from the HNS e-list, with modifications...)

HNS just received word of the death of Karen Swee, a longtime HNS member. She was the author of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Murder (Bridge Works, 2004), a mystery set in New Jersey during the American Revolution. Some of you may remember her from the Salt Lake conference in 2005… Karen enthusiastically moderated a panel on researching the historical novel.

Here are a photo of Karen and two fellow historical novelists at the event and her obituary from the Newark Star-Ledger.

Karen's husband David emailed with the following remembrance, which I thought I'd share.

Karen H. Swee, author of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of MURDER, passed away suddenly in March. Karen's first novel was highly regarded by scholars of the American Revolution as well as the general reader, and many of them were eagerly awaiting the sequel she had been working on. Karen was a wonderful addition to the mystery and historical novel communities, enthusiastic and always eager to help her fellow writers. She had that rare gift of empathy--the ability to understand and reflect other people’s feelings. This gift made her not only a fine writer, but also a cherished companion and friend. She will be deeply missed.

Does this look familiar? and other news

The weekend is finally here, after a 6-day work week that included two late-night shifts and one Sunday... My annual evaluation portfolio is done, the book reviews that are in have been edited; I'm hoping I can get back to reading.

My gallery of reusable cover art saw a considerable increase in traffic on Tuesday, after the Smart Bitches linked me; check out the comments on their post, too, for some interesting discussions on the reuse of art (specifically classic paintings) on historical fiction covers. I've added half a dozen new entries to the gallery since then, thanks to some eagle-eyed readers who spotted yet more dupes and emailed me about them. (Thanks, folks!)

A reader from Australia notified me about the reuse of La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1814) on two different book covers, but neither one was from a historical novel, so it's not included in the gallery... yet. I swear I've seen this painting before on historical fiction, though. Does it ring a bell with anyone?


If so, let me know and I'll credit you in the gallery.

Other random bits and pieces:

If you've been thinking about joining the HNS but haven't gotten around to it, March may be a good time; readers from North America who join or renew during March will be entered into a drawing to receive either Nicole Galland's Crossed or Tasha Alexander's A Poisoned Season, courtesy of HarperCollins. We have five copies of each to give away.

The next Historical Novel Society conference in North America will take place on June 12-14, 2009, at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield in Schaumburg, IL. Mark your calendars if you plan to attend; speakers and registration info will be announced at a later time.

Kelly Hewitt of Loaded Questions told me she'll be publishing an interview with Judith Merkle Riley in the near future, and holding a giveaway for copies of The Serpent Garden, which I reviewed about a month ago... watch her blog for details.

This year I'm planning on attending BookExpo Canada rather than the usual American show, so I'll be in Toronto from June 12-16, networking with Canadian publishers, attending workshops, and visiting a couple friends. If anyone reading this is also attending or will be in town then, let me know! I'll be back at BEA next year, when it's in NYC.

Now on to some publishing deals.

DeAnna Cameron's THE BELLY DANCER, set during the 1893 Chicago Worlds' Fair, in which a sheltered young woman's marriage and attempts to enter high society are threatened by a scheming widow with designs on her husband and by her fascination with the Fair's scandalous Egyptian dancers and their handsome, mysterious manager, to Jackie Cantor at Berkley, by Ellen Pepus.

Shawna Yang Ryan's LOCKE 1928, which weaves history and mythology around a community of Chinese immigrants in a small California town in 1928, exploring the lives of a beautiful young prostitute in love with the preacher's daughter; a husband and wife mysteriously reunited after ten years; a lovesick brothel owner who can see into the past and the future, and the ghosts haunting them all, to Jane Fleming at Penguin Press, at auction, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House. [HNR covered this in late 2007, based on its original publication by a small press. Very nice review.]

Beth Kery's TEMPTATIONS OF TIME, a present day detective travels back in time to 1906 Chicago in order to save the woman featured in a set of discovered erotic photographs from being murdered, to Leis Pederson at Berkley Heat, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, by Laura Bradford at Bradford Literary Agency.

John Pipkin's WOODSBURNER, chronicling the lives of a lovesick Norwegian immigrant farm hand, a struggling bookseller, a fire and brimstone preacher, and a pencil maker named Henry David Thoreau as their stories intersect over a fire Thoreau accidentally set which burned 800 acres near Walden Pond, moved with Janet Silver to Nan A. Talese, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates.

Rory Clements' MARTYR, a first historical thriller pitched as in the vein of CJ Sansom, about John Shakespeare, chief intelligencer to Queen Elizabeth, ordered to protect England's "sea dragon" Francis Drake from an assassination plot, to Kate Miciak at Bantam Dell, by Patty Moosbrugger at Patricia Moosbrugger Literary Agency.

Bermuda book report

This blog has been silent for the past week and a half because Mark and I took a short vacation to Bermuda -- the first major non-conference-related trip we've taken in four years. Bermuda had pretty much everything we expected: warm temperatures, good food, beautiful beaches...


Colorful houses...


Gorgeous sunsets...


And, of course, a few bookstores here and there.


Directly above is the Bermuda Book Store, on the corner of Front and Queen Streets in downtown Hamilton, and fortunately a short walk from our hotel. Note the mopeds out front (one of the primary modes of transportation). Bermuda isn't exactly a book-hunter's paradise, as the bookstores are pretty small, and there are few bargains to be had. Everything's imported, and American titles that normally sell for $7.99 in the States were marked up to $10 or more.

On the other hand, since Bermuda's a British overseas territory, the shops stock a nice mix of British and American titles. I took advantage of this by doing some shopping, buying the latest historicals (paperbacks) by Kate Tremayne, E.V. Thompson, and Janet Woods. I also bought a giant trade pb of Mary Gentle's Ilario for my airplane reading home. To my disappointment, I couldn't find any British hardcovers at all, probably due to the price.

The Bermuda Book Store is about the size of an airport bookstore. Rather larger was The Bookmart, a couple of blocks away on Front Street, which was more the size of a mall Waldenbooks. We visited a couple of other shops out at the Dockyards and in St. George, but both were on the small side.

To the left is a newspaper clipping of author Terry Tucker doing a signing of Woman Into Wolf, a historical novel about Queen Isabella (you can guess which one) at the Bookmart on July 14, 1968. I only know this because I own a signed copy, and Tucker had written in the date. The purchaser had apparently cut out the related newspaper piece and included it in the book. Sometime in the intervening forty years, that copy made it to an online British bookseller, from whom I bought it several years ago. According to the "about the author" blurb, Terry Tucker, born on the Isle of Wight, married a Bermudian and made the island her permanent home, after which she spent her days writing local books on "every aspect of Bermuda life." As well as historical novels about English queens.


I probably should have made Woman Into Wolf my airplane reading on the trip down, to complete the book's journey back to its home, but I didn't think of it at the time.

And the winner is...

... Betty, who submitted her entry for the Pinkerton's Secret drawing over email. Betty, I'll be in touch with you shortly to get your mailing address. Hope you enjoy the book, and thanks to all who entered!

This is all I have time to post at the moment, but I'll be back next week with info on forthcoming books, deals, reviews, and more of the usual.

Guest blogger: Eric Lerner, author of Pinkerton's Secret

Today Eric Lerner is visiting Reading the Past to talk about his debut historical novel, Pinkerton's Secret (Henry Holt, $25.00, 317pp) , which will officially be released tomorrow. In it, he gives voice to Allan Pinkerton, a Scots-born detective and spy who relocates to downtown Chicago in the pre-Civil War years and opens America's first private detective agency. No doubt you've heard of it, and him. Pinkerton's good at what he does, and knows it - he'll tell you himself - but nothing prepares him for what happens after Mrs. Kate Warne stops by his agency in response to a help-wanted ad...

The topic of Eric's post - how he created a story out of historical facts, and how he developed his protagonist's narrative voice - is something of potential interest to both historical novelists and readers. We've also got another contest and giveaway opportunity; see the very end of this post for directions on how to enter.

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Ten years ago, while browsing the new arrivals shelf at my public library, I spotted a biography of Allan Pinkerton. The name conjured up images of wraiths in long black coats hunting down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and crushing striking steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. What I discovered instead was a man who contradicted the myths, but whose life created one of those tantalizing historical mysteries that can only be unraveled in the imaginative realm of fiction.

Pinkerton, I learned, was not just America’s original Private Eye, nabbing forgers, railroad thieves, and confidence men, he was a political radical who had fought for the rights of working men and women in his native Scotland, and then became passionately involved in Abolitionism when he arrived in America. In the 1850s his home in Chicago was a station on the Underground Railroad, and he counted John Brown and Frederick Douglass among his close friends. On Abraham Lincoln’s railway journey to his inauguration in 1861, Pinkerton saved the president-elect from an assassination plot in Baltimore. During the Civil War, he established the first Secret Service, hunting down rebel spies in Washington and sending his agents behind Confederate lines.

In all of these adventures, the biographer informed me, Allan Pinkerton was ably assisted by Mrs. Kate Warne, the first female detective, whom he’d hired when he first started his detective agency in 1856. The biographer assured me that despite the rumors at the time, Pinkerton’s relationship to the “attractive widow” was strictly professional.

Strictly professional? When I stopped laughing, I realized I might have a great story.

I read all the other biographies of Pinkerton, as well as Allan’s own autobiographical account of his exploits in the Civil War, “The Spy of the Rebellion.” I obtained a rare copy of Kate Warne’s actual logbooks, recounting how she accompanied Lincoln on the secret train from Philadelphia to thwart the Baltimore assassins. But I couldn’t find any clue to an involvement between Pinkerton and the female detective that wasn’t strictly professional...

Then I came upon a photo of Pinkerton’s grave. Buried on one side is his wife, and on the other, just over his shoulder, Kate Warne rests for all eternity. None of his biographers had mentioned that fact.

I began to wonder if the novelist does not have a better opportunity than the historian does to uncover certain truths that are buried in the available documents known as the historical record. As a writer of fiction I could easily imagine that Allan Pinkerton, a detective by profession who literally invented the modus operandi of investigative disguises, would go to great lengths to disguise himself in order to protect his professional reputation while he was alive as well as for posterity.

As I reread over and over Pinkerton’s accounts of his own exploits, and the biographies that drew strongly on his accounts, I put together a chronology of Allan Pinkerton and Kate Warne’s whereabouts during the period of two years when Pinkerton’s exploits became the stuff of legend. They were side by side for the whole time. Moreover, it was clear to me that Pinkerton faced enormous opposition from clients, many of his male employees, and members of his own family for employing Kate Warne as well as an entire bureau of female detectives under her direction.

The story that emerged in my mind was not just about the nature of the real relationship between Allan and Kate, but the nature of their deception. This was a story that could only be constructed in fiction, because the real life protagonists had constructed a fiction of their own to hide their actions from the world.

Once I had constructed the plot of this story, I was faced with the challenge of how to tell it. For me, every novel is a unique universe whose internal rules don’t have to conform to any other universe, but have to be entirely consistent within itself. For reasons I can’t quite explain, even though the events in Pinkerton’s life are not well known, I found myself bound to the real historical occurrences. If Pinkerton actually got on a train from Baltimore to New York City in February of 1861, accompanied by Kate Warne, to warn Lincoln of the impending attack on his life, then Allan and Kate had to take that train in my novel.

But what occurred between them on that train?

There is no historical account left by either one of them. It is a blank space. The blank spaces I identified were the places where I could construct my characters, where the words, thoughts and motivations of Pinkerton and Kate Warne could take shape.

But there are other characters in this story, and some of them are well known historical personages. The novel wouldn’t be complete in my mind without Abraham Lincoln. Yet Lincoln is such an American icon that the task of re-creating him in fiction was daunting at first.

Before I could deal with Abraham Lincoln, however, I had a bigger problem to solve. While I could see the story, I couldn’t hear it, and every attempt I made to tell it sounded false to me. Then one night I was awakened at three a.m. by the voice of Allan Pinkerton. Late in his life he had suffered a devastating stroke, and here is how he described it to me:

Most people don’t think being paralyzed hurts, because they can stick people pins in you and you don’t feel anything. But as I’ve made abundantly clear, most people are utter morons.

It was the voice I had encountered in his letters and the directives that poured out of the office of The General Superintendent of The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, a voice that brooked no opposition or tolerance for anyone who did not understand, as he did, the difference between right and wrong, and was willing to fight for it.

It was the only voice that could narrate his own story, defend the choices he had made in his battles and his love affair. He would defend his actions to himself as much as to his readers, and to others whose identities would become known only at the end of his story.

Pinkerton the narrator also gave me a free hand to characterize Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, Rose Greenhow—The Wild Rose of the Confederacy, and Frederick Douglass, among others. Allan Pinkerton knew these men women and if he wants to tell the world that Abraham Lincoln was a ninny, he was free to say so, and elaborate. After all, it is his memoir.

It took me a full decade to work through the several versions and many drafts of the novel until I completed the final one with a great editor, Jack Macrae at Henry Holt & Co. If you want to check out an intriguing representation of the novel in words and images, go to the website: http://www.pinkertonssecret.com/.

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After graduating from Harvard College with a degree in Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy, Eric Lerner spent several years traveling and living in Buddhist monasteries and communities in Asia and America. He wrote a memoir about his experiences, Journey of Insight Meditation. For several years he edited Zero, a journal that presented Buddhist thinkers alongside original work by Allen Ginsberg, John Cage, and the Pulitzer Prize winning poet John Ashbery, among others. This arcane background served him well during his subsequent twenty year career as a screenwriter and producer in Hollywood. His films include Bird on a Wire, starring Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn; Kiss The Sky, starring William Petersen and Terrence Stamp; and Augustus, starring Peter O’Toole and Charlotte Rampling. Pinkerton’s Secret is his first novel.

And from Sarah, again: Thanks, Eric, for stopping by!

Eric will be providing an autographed copy of Pinkerton's Secret to a randomly selected reader of the blog. (The drawing's limited to American readers this time.) To enter, either leave a comment on this post, or drop me an email at sljohnson2@eiu.edu with "Pinkerton's Secret" as the subject. Deadline is the end of the day this Thursday, March 6th; I'll notify the winner later that evening. Good luck!

Not that good of a movie.

Sorry for not blogging more often lately. The usual reasons apply - work, deadlines, other commitments, and I haven't had time to read much, either. And my poor neglected manuscript - good thing I'm ahead of schedule on that.

Mark and I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl last night up in Savoy, something I considered a professional obligation. While I can write a decent book review, I won't even make the attempt to do a full-fledged writeup of a film… besides, I think the NY Times review speaks for itself. So, instead, I'll point out a few thoughts that occurred to me while watching, and since.

Here Be Spoilers, below. You've been warned.

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While walking into the theater, I was surprised to note how crowded it was (this hardly ever happens with period pieces shown in area cinemas) and how most of the audience consisted of high-school and college-age girls. I was pleased to see so much interest in historical topics (and Gregory's novel in particular) from a younger crowd, although their reactions to certain scenes made it clear they didn't know much about the characters or period, and that most hadn't read the novel. For example, the audience gasped loudly when the suggestion of possible incest between Anne Boleyn and her brother, George, was raised - which anyone who'd read the book would have known.

Despite this supposedly shocking moment, the film does play it safe, more so than Gregory's novel did, and not just in that instance. Johansson's Mary Boleyn = meek, quiet, and biddable; Portman's Anne = outspoken, witty, daring, and ambitious. Making them polar opposites simplifies things, and rendered the movie superficial. Gregory's version of Mary was more well-rounded, and therefore more interesting; I found it hard to root for either sister, despite it being blatantly obvious that their father and uncle were using them to fulfill their own ambitions ("pimping them out" is the phrase the NYT review used, and rather aptly).

The pacing was very uneven; Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon flashes by within minutes. The film moves very quickly from Anne's pressuring him into breaking with the church, to Catherine's protests to the Pope, to Anne's being crowned, whereas Mary's life as (and adjustment to being) his mistress takes up the entire first half. Furthermore, what happens to William Carey, Mary's first husband? In one scene, King Henry, while in bed with Mary, asks her teasingly if she'd mind if he sent her husband away from court. Carey's never mentioned again, although one assumes (in the film) that he died, because William Stafford indicates his interest in her not long after. This is reminiscent of soap operas in which a child who's become superfluous to the storyline gets sent off to boarding school, whereupon *poof* he's erased from their universe entirely. Maybe in the director's cut on DVD, we'll find out about William's untold demise, as well as the mysterious third child running around in the English countryside in the final scene (which parallels the three Boleyn siblings, shown running around in the same field in the film's opening). One's Mary's son, presumably; the other's Princess Elizabeth (because Mary Boleyn flees the court with her!). Mary never gives birth to daughter Catherine in the movie, so who knows.

Kristin Scott Thomas (Elizabeth Boleyn) and Ana Torrent (Catherine of Aragon) play their roles with conviction, stealing every scene they're in. Natalie Portman, of the three leads, does the most believable job; Johansson portrays Mary rather limpidly. Bana is attractive enough, but the role doesn't suit him. Elements of foreshadowing (visceral scenes of cleavers chopping meat, just as King Henry first arrives at the Boleyn home for a royal visit) were cheap and silly. Pretty costumes; some stunning imagery of riders along the English coastline at twilight; lots of drama and intrigue, at the expense of character, but about what I expected.

Even considering its own slant on the events, the book was more enjoyable. Perhaps I should have seen The Other Boleyn Film instead, aka the TV miniseries; I understand it was better.

Book review: The Serpent Garden, by Judith Merkle Riley

Riley, Judith Merkle. The Serpent Garden. NY: Three Rivers, 2008 (c1996). 449pp. $14.95/C$16.95. Paper, 978-0-307-39536-8.

"… Then I thought, well, maybe this is what happens to people who think unkind thoughts about husbands and then take money for lewd Bible pictures from wicked monks. It all catches up with one." (p.294)

Susanna Dallet's droll, irreverent narration is just one of the reasons to pick up Judith Merkle Riley's The Serpent Garden, even if you read it in its original hardcover release in 1996. I haven’t read one of Riley's novels for the past decade, but in reading this reissue, I'm glad I remedied that omission. It begins in 1514, as Susanna, daughter of a Flemish portraitist living in England, is about to be widowed. After her husband Rowland, a philandering painter who wed her to learn her father's techniques, assists in uncovering a long-buried manuscript, Susanna becomes the unwitting target of dangerous conspirators.

When Dallet is sadly (not really) murdered by the jealous husband of his mistress, Susanna is forced to fend for herself in a land not welcoming to independent women. She finds a lucrative trade in creating, anonymously of course, the hilariously vulgar Bible paintings mentioned above, and, later, becoming a paintrix of miniatures at the court of Henry VIII – which piques the attention of Archbishop Wolsey. At Wolsey’s suggestion, she accompanies Mary Tudor, the king's beautiful, spoiled younger sister, to France, where Mary's arranged marriage to the decrepit Louis XII is vigorously protested by rival claimants to the throne.

While at the French court, Susanna paints miniatures for the French royals and sends others, small cryptograms in watercolor, across the Channel to Wolsey – who uses them to determine their subjects’ true character. Meanwhile, a demon named Belphagor, a creature from hell magically set free during the manuscript’s discovery, manipulates the humans around him into obeying his wishes. His ultimate aim: to eliminate all members of the Valois dynasty, and there are a lot of them around. Because a missing portion of the manuscript may have ended up in Susanna’s unknowing possession, she attracts the attention of said demon, as well as that of other unsavory men.

There's no denying it, the novel has a lot going on. It takes a while to adjust to the multiple plotlines, particularly when the viewpoint switches several times within a chapter. Susanna's first-person narration alternates with third-person accounts of the conspirators (two groups of them); the demon and his imps; and several other parties, including Robert Ashton, Wolsey's guileless young secretary, attracted to Susanna against his better judgment. Furthermore, although the novel boasts a large cast of characters, many of those appearing early on fall by the wayside as the story continues. This lengthy novel is not easily skimmed, especially in the beginning. Yet just as Susanna skillfully paints "portraits in small" without revealing individual brushstrokes, so does Riley develop, with no excess verbiage, her secondary characters. These range from Master Dallet's selfish mistress, to crafty Marguerite d'Alençon, to the angel Hadriel, a heavenly being with a soft spot for Susanna’s predicament.

Riley's wry humor is one of the novel's strong points; it takes skill to elicit grins (even laughs) in readers without it feeling forced. Susanna's chatty, unselfconscious observations about herself and her world are extremely funny, as are Riley's tongue-in-cheek portrayals of the French and English royals and their coterie. Yet there are also many touching moments, such as Susanna's interpretation-in-paints of loyal, sweet-tempered Princess Claude. In addition, there is one distinct advantage to reading the novel now, one which has to do with an ancient secret society hell-bent on destroying the Valois monarchy. If I name this group as the Priory of Sion, as Riley does early on, chances are you'll know exactly where one thread of this novel is heading, but it doesn't matter. Reading The Serpent Garden, on one level, as an alternative to a certain religious thriller (one published eight years later) actually heightened my enjoyment, because Susanna's final pronouncements on the reality of that novel's premise make perfect sense. The earlier novel is also better written, needless to say.

In sum: this is a delightful, intricately written historical novel, with more than a dash of fantasy, which stands out amidst the glut of Tudor-era novels on the market.

Books I'm watching for in 2008 - UK edition

Since I posted about upcoming historical novels from American publishers last month, I figured it was only fair to look at UK-published titles over the next six months as well. In contrast, I haven't read any of these novels myself, yet, so am relying purely on publisher descriptions and/or past experiences with these authors' books.

Given that I enjoyed Vanora Bennett's Portrait of an Unknown Woman so much, her forthcoming Figures in Silk (May) is high on my wishlist. Like its predecessor, it falls into the realm of fictional biography. This time the protagonists are the two daughters of silk merchant John Lambert: Jane, who became the mistress of Edward IV, and Isabel, who became a silkweaver at court. I'm not familiar enough with the family to have heard about Isabel, but you may recognize Jane's married name (Shore). Among other novels about royalty - one of my main interests - Philippa Gregory's The Other Queen will be out in September in the US, but in April in the UK. Its focus is Mary, Queen of Scots, during the years she spent as a "guest" of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. I have an ARC in my hands and will be reading it next. Margaret Irwin's The Gay Galliard, subtitled "The Love Story of Mary Queen of Scots," originally came out in 1941. I don't think the title of the reissued version, The Galliard (Mar.) has quite the same historical ring to it, but you'll remember the same thing happened with Jean Plaidy's Gay Lord Robert last year.

Looking back further into the past... Gillian Bradshaw's The Sun's Bride (May) takes place off the coast of Lycia (in modern Turkey) in 266 BC. The publisher describes it as a historical adventure that begins as the Rhodian warship Atalanta encounters a pirate ship upon which a beautiful woman, mistress to a king, has been held captive. The US publication date is August, and from past experience, if you want this novel, you should order it early, as it won't be in bookshops and may sell out fast. Severn House is one of those hardcover library publishers we talked about in the comment trail a while back. Paul Waters' Of Merchants and Heroes (Feb.) will be an editors' choice selection in the Feb issue of HNR, which is enough in itself to convince me to read it, but there are also four 5-star reviews on Amazon as of today. It's described as a story of love, loss, and redemption set in Greece and Rome at the end of the 3rd century BC, and is being compared to works by Robert Graves and Mary Renault. Also in the comment trail of a past post, Sarah C pointed out Helen Dunmore's Counting the Stars (Feb.), which she described as "about the Roman poet Catullus and his affair with Lesbia." It's not on the US version of Amazon, which may mean I won't see it locally. Lord Leighton's Flaming June is on the cover, which is not exactly unique, but it's actually appropriate in this case.

Some shorter takes:

I always enjoy out-of-the-way settings in my fiction, so I have my eye on three more: Lesley Downer's The Last Concubine (Feb., an epic love story set during Japan's civil war of 1865); Linda Holeman's In a Far Country (Mar., 3rd in the author's trilogy set in 19th century India and the Middle East); and Betsy Tobin's Ice Land (Feb., a "gripping mythic love story set in Iceland a thousand years ago"). I've read and enjoyed Tobin's Bone House but haven't read anything by her since. Carina Burman's The Streets of Babylon (also Feb.), which from its Amazon description sounds morbidly quirky - click on the link to see why - could be intriguing.

My former editorial colleague Sarah Bower will have a new novel out in early May, The Book of Love, about a young Jewish girl from Isabella and Ferdinand's Spain who joins the court of Ferrara as an attendant to Lucrezia Borgia. I know little about Nerys Jones' Godiva (Jan.) besides the subject matter, which you can guess from the title. No Amazon reviews yet, though a sarcastic reviewer from The Telegraph didn't like it. Oh well. There are so few novels about the American frontier published in the UK that I'm curious about Peggy Elliott's A Small Part of History, especially as it doesn't appear to have a US publisher. It's about Rebecca, the 27-year-old third wife of John Springer, and her experience along the Oregon Trail in 1845. Lastly, the plot of Barbara Erskine's The Warrior's Princess (Jul.) sounds familiar, perhaps because it's a classic time-slip plot - a young teacher from London investigates the story of the Celtic princess Eigon, daughter of Caractacus, and finds that the present and the past begin merging.

I seem to have had an attack of blogorrhea while typing this, so I'll stop now before Blogger quits on me, and before I'm tempted to spend more money at Book Depository.

Weekend update

An emailed overdue notice reminded me that I still had the 1/28 issue of Publishers Weekly in my tote bag (bad librarian), and that I'd better post some info on new deals while I remembered.

If you want to know more about my exciting Saturday, read more here. Otherwise, on with the book news.

David Robbins is moving to Simon & Schuster from Bantam with his new novel, The Comfort Woman, which is "the story of a 19-year-old Korean girl forced into sexual slavery ... during WWII and her love for a young American internee at Los Banos, the Japanese internment camp in the Philippines." The sale was arranged through agent Tracy Fisher at William Morris.

Lynn Cullen's first two historical novels (for adults, I presume, as she's written for the YA market) were sold to Peternelle van Arsdale at Putnam via agent Emma Sweeney. The first of these, The Black Legend, is a biographical novel of Sofonisba Anguissola (ca 1532-1625), an Italian mannerist painter who joined the Spanish court of Felipe II (the husband of England's Mary I). Cullen has also written the YA historical I Am Rembrandt's Daughter, which I have not read, but am wondering if anyone else has.

While working on my time-slip chapter (done as of this afternoon, yeah!) I browsed through author Julianne Lee's website and noticed that her novel A Question of Guilt: A Novel of Mary Stuart and the Murder of Lord Darnley is listed as being published this fall. I am guessing that Berkley will be the publisher.

From Publishers Marketplace:

International Herald Tribune reporter Doreen Carvajal's SHARP NOTES, chronicling her search for her Sephardic roots in a small Andalusian town whose charming facade hides a history of violence and oppression, probing both her own family's past as well as the larger history of Spanish Jews during the Inquisition, to Jake Morrissey at Riverhead, for six figures, by Todd Shuster and Rachel Sussman at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (world English).

[This is nonfiction, but I've been interested in the story of the Sephardic Jews ever since reading Kathryn Lasky's Blood Secret, which I highly recommend if you haven't read it.]

Louis Maistros's THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS, a dark, beautifully written tale, shot through with flashes of magic realism, about New Orleans at the birth of the jazz age, to Matthew Miller at Toby Press, for publication in Fall 2009, by Barbara Braun at Barbara Braun Associates (World).

Manuel de Lope's BLOOD OF ANOTHER, in which two women are united and saved by a terrible secret during the Spanish Civil War, to Judith Gurewich at Other Press, in a nice deal, by Gloria Gutierrez at Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells (World English).

[The Spanish Civil War seems to be a popular setting these days - anyone else noticed?]

Eugenia Kim's NAJIN, following a young woman through the turbulent years of Korea's subjugation by the Japanese and its emergence into the modern world in the first half of the 20th century, to Helen Atsma at Holt, in a very nice deal, for publication in April 2009, by Judith Weber at Sobel Weber Associates (NA).

Author of non-fiction books including A THOUSAND DAYS IN VENICE, A THOUSAND DAYS IN TUSCANY, and A TASTE OF SOUTHERN ITALY Marlena de Blasi's first work of fiction AMANDINE, set in World War II-era France and Poland, about a young orphan girl whose birth has been kept a secret by a grandmother who has arranged for her care who goes in search of the truth, and the unknown mother whom she loves and feels she must protect, to Ballantine, with Pamela Cannon editing, by Rosalie Siegel of Rosalie Siegel, International Literary Agent (world).

And thanks to everyone who participated in the drawing. We'll probably do it again, at a later time, and with a different book, of course.

And the winners are...

Since the sun's gone down here in Charleston, I thought I'd go ahead and draw the winning entries - with the help of a web-based random number generator.

The copies of Harriet and Isabella will go to: blog readers Donna, Lisa, and Troy!

I'll be in touch via email to get your full mailing addresses. Hope you enjoy the novel!

An interview with Patricia O'Brien

Patricia O'Brien's Harriet and Isabella (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, Jan. 2008, $25.00) dramatizes a sex scandal that preoccupied the nation in the late 19th century. It begins in Brooklyn Heights in 1887, as Henry Ward Beecher, a charismatic preacher known for his oratorical skill, lies on his deathbed. As reporters gathered around his brownstone begin their vigil, two of his sisters, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker, are forced to revisit the cause of their long estrangement. Twelve years earlier, Henry had been put on trial for adultery with Elizabeth Tilton, one of his parishioners. While Harriet stood by him, striving to present the Beechers as a strong family unit, Isabella publicly urged him to admit his guilt.

Flashbacks lead readers back to the days of the trial, in 1875, and to earlier moments in both sisters' lives. As Harriet slowly comes to terms with the fame and responsibility that writing Uncle Tom's Cabin has laid at her feet, Isabella forges her own path away from her stiflingly close-knit family, becoming an ardent supporter for women's suffrage. The novel is a dramatic account of how one famous American family's private conflicts played out in a very public sphere, posing questions on the importance of loyalty versus truth. It also provides insight into women's lives, the role of slavery, and the nature of celebrity in the post-Civil War years. (As a sidenote, as a native of the Hartford suburbs, I particularly enjoyed "visiting" with the former residents of Hartford's Nook Farm, a neighborhood I'd often seen on grade school field trips!)

For more information, see the book's website at http://www.harrietandisabella.com/.

I hope you enjoy the following interview with Patricia O'Brien. Also, in Reading the Past's first giveaway, Simon and Schuster will be sending copies of Harriet and Isabella to three randomly selected readers; details are at the end of the post.

How did your interest in the social and political history of 19th-century America originally develop?

Before starting to write historical fiction, much of the 19th century seemed like dusty history to me. When I began exploring the lives of Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton for my earlier novel, The Glory Cloak, I quickly became immersed in the history of the Civil War. And when I began reading the letters and diaries of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher for Harriet and Isabella, I was drawn even deeper into the color and tumult of the late 19th century. I guess you could say I was led there by the people I was writing about. I hated leaving, even after finishing my book.

Do you have a special interest in illuminating women’s lives from the period?

Yes. The Beecher women, for example, were complex and passionate human beings who lived extraordinary lives, given the strictures of their time. In that period, there were many smart women in long dresses – with rich lives for a novelist to explore.

Despite their feud and their very different personalities, I found myself sympathizing with both protagonists and their dilemmas as I read. When you first began your research, did you identify more strongly with either Harriet or Isabella? How did your feelings change as you learned more about both sisters, or did they?

I identified with Isabella first. She took such a hit from her family when she tried to stand up for her values. I sympathized with her yearnings for achievement and her feelings of being left in the shadow of her famous brother and sisters.

Harriet intimidated me somewhat at the beginning. She felt brisk and unapproachable. But the emotion that poured out in her anguished letters after the death of her child drew me to her. I came to see her as an oh-so-human mix of bravery and timidity, with a generous as well as judgmental nature.

Henry’s deathbed scene, in Brooklyn Heights in 1887, frames the novel. Other major sections look back to the trial itself, and there are shorter flashbacks to earlier periods in the sisters’ lives. Despite the number of time-shifts, I never had trouble figuring out where I was. You must have put an immense amount of effort into structuring the novel so that everything read clearly; how did you accomplish this?

It was tricky. I wanted my characters to be looking back on the past, to evaluate themselves, deal with their thoughts and regrets, but I also wanted the immediacy of the early years that shaped them and the immediacy of the trial. Once I framed it around the time of Henry's dying, the rest seemed to flow. A key decision was to use the present tense for the events in 1887, and past tense for all other time frames.

How did your previous career as a newspaper reporter affect your approach to the story, in terms of the research techniques you used and/or the subject matter itself?

I went after original material, just the way I went after original interviews when I was a reporter. This time, I had the luxury of spending much longer on my research than I ever could with a daily deadline. But I felt right at home doing some of the basic research in the archives of the Brooklyn Eagle, which covered at length every day of the trial. I tried to imagine being the reporters writing those stories, and how the voracious national appetite for detail affected the tone of their coverage.

To me, Victoria Woodhull was one of the most compelling secondary characters; she seems almost larger than life, yet before reading the novel, I hadn’t known about her role in the Beecher adultery trial. How did you approach creating her character?

I wanted to show her contradictions, from her reckless sexuality to her visionary skills that made her – for a short while – the heroine of the suffragist movement. I also wanted to be careful not to let her take the reins and gallop away in a direction I didn’t want to go. Victoria had a powerful and colorful personality, and was, in many ways, a woman before her time.

Along with the galley copy of Harriet and Isabella I received at BEA, you’d provided a sheet detailing a self-guided walking tour of Brooklyn Heights. From the descriptions there, I got the impression that you’d walked this route yourself, and imagined scenes as you stopped at important points along the way. How important do you feel it is for historical novelists to physically visit the places where their characters lived and interacted?

Very important, if at all possible. I particularly remember walking the streets of Brooklyn Heights one night right after a snowfall, when it was easy to imagine horse-drawn carriages maneuvering through the snow and gaslight flickering behind the windows of the brownstone mansions. I could imagine Henry striding these same streets, waving to people in these same houses… it cut the distance between past and present almost to nothing.

I felt the same way when I was allowed into the newly-discovered Civil War office of Clara Barton in Washington while writing The Glory Cloak. I could run my hands over the faded wallpaper and bring it into my story, knowing Clara had sat in that same room and gazed at that same wallpaper as she worked.

Were there any historical tidbits you turned up in your research that you would have liked to use in the novel, but were unable to?

I like this question. Yes, indeed there were. One of the challenges of writing historical fiction is not to let historical detail – no matter how fascinating – divert you from your story. For example, Harriet’s husband, Calvin Stowe, had an imaginary friend (into adulthood) whom he named Harvey. This brought to mind the play and 1950 film in which Jimmy Stewart had an imaginary best friend – a six-foot tall rabbit, also named Harvey. Was Calvin’s pal the inspiration? Hmmmm… couldn’t go anywhere with that.

Another small tidbit I tried to place but finally rejected was a newspaper account describing an older man who showed up almost every day at Henry’s trial with a fine wood cane topped with a polished brass knob. He would sit through the testimony, holding his cane in front of him – and chew on the knob. I couldn’t go anywhere with that either unless I gave him some fleshing out; some identity and reason for being there, which would have been a diversion. But I loved the image.

Thank you, Patricia, for taking the time to answer questions for this interview.

Also, thanks to Simon & Schuster, we have three new hardcover copies of Harriet and Isabella to give away to readers. To enter, either leave a comment on this post, or send an email to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu with "Harriet and Isabella" as the subject. Three entries will be selected randomly at the end of the day Friday, February 8th, after which I'll contact you for your mailing addresses. Good luck!

(Added, in response to a question - this drawing is open to everyone, not only those readers in the USA.)

Facebook, HNS, and me

Because I really don't have enough to keep myself busy these days, tonight I created a Facebook group for members and fans of the Historical Novel Society... it's open to everyone, so if you're on Facebook too, feel free to join in. It has the approval of Richard Lee, HNS founder, and we plan on posting updates on HNS publications and events.

I was wary of Facebook initially, but a half-dozen librarians at EIU decided to sign up last fall, as one of us had been reading about the possibilities for promoting library services and events there... "Go where your patrons are" is a guiding principle in libraries these days. I've poked around in the system, joining a few historical fiction-related groups (which don't seem to get much traffic), friending people I knew, and, of course, checking our library apps to make sure they continue to work. I regularly update what books I'm currently reading, change my status line to something pithy, and see what all everyone else is doing - nothing too complicated.

I'm still not sure how people spend hours and hours there, but I'm pretty impressed with it as a social networking tool. It lets you learn more about people you interact with mostly online, and I've used it to stay in touch with friends I haven't seen in person since high school and college.

My Facebook profile is here, and if you're a regular reader of this blog, feel free to friend me. There's a group just for Sarah Johnsons, which freaks me out, considering it has over 300 members. Some of them even have my middle name.

Of interest to historical mystery enthusiasts

Seen on CrimeThruTime and DOROTHY-L yesterday, for any historical mystery writers or readers who wish to contribute...

-----

The Mystery Readers Journal is devoting two of its themed issues (Volume 23:4 and Volume 24:1) to History Mysteries.

If you have a mystery set in an historical period, consider writing an Author! Author! essay for the second issue. Deadline is February 15. 500-2500 words, first person, upclose and personal about yourself, your mysteries and the historical connection. Think of it as chatting with friends, readers and other writers. Be sure and add a 2-3 sentence bio/tagline. Query letter always appreciated.

We're also looking for articles and reviews. Articles 750-2500 words; reviews up to 500 words.

Janet

Janet Rudolph, Editor, Mystery Readers Journal
http://www.mysteryreaders.org
janet@MYSTERYREADERS.ORG

Books I'm watching for in 2008

As is usual with this blog, this will be my rather eclectic take on upcoming historical novels... these are some of the 2008 books I'm personally interested in getting my hands on. I've been meaning to post on this topic for a while now, but things like, well, work and HNR proofreading, not to mention this stupid never-ending cold, got in the way.

There have been a few 2008 publications I've already read and can easily recommend. Check out Jeffrey Hantover's The Jewel Trader of Pegu (Jan.), a lyrically written story of love and self-discovery in a distant, exotic land (the Burmese kingdom of Pegu, circa 1598) if you'd like a change of pace from the usual historical novel fare. My review appeared in Booklist's 1/15 issue and is available in full at the website of Hantover's literary agency. I was also fortunate enough to receive an ARC, courtesy of a Random House giveaway, of Mary Doria Russell's Dreamers of the Day (March). If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to imagine that a spinster schoolteacher from Ohio would be temporarily allowed into the inner circle of Lawrence of Arabia, the Churchills, and Gertrude Bell, among others, you'll enjoy having a ringside seat at events surrounding the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, where plans for the modern Middle East were set in motion. The tone does get didactic in places, and I thought the last chapter was more "out there" than the final chapter of Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders, but overall it was a sheer pleasure to read. And speaking of Brooks, her brand new novel People of the Book (Jan.) is well deserving of the accolades it's been receiving. I read this on a friend's strong recommendation and was blown away by the power of her storytelling and her ability to make five distinct historical periods come alive equally well.

I read Patricia O'Brien's Harriet and Isabella (Jan.) from an ARC I got at last June's BEA - some advanced copies are arriving extremely early - and can thoroughly recommend it. I'll be conducting an interview with O'Brien shortly, so more information will be forthcoming, but it's a novelization of the rift that developed when half-sisters Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker took opposing sides during their brother's adultery trial. Forensic thriller Lawrence Goldstone's The Anatomy of Deception (Feb) takes you to the hospitals, graveyards, and grimy waterfront bars of 1889 Philadelphia, and Amanda Elyot's All for Love (Feb.) will introduce you to a royal mistress, Mary Robinson, who deserves to be known for far more than that. My review will be out shortly in February's HNR.

Now on to some books I haven't read yet, but plan to soon. Next on my TBR pile are a trio of novels: Jo Graham's Black Ships (March), an epic fantasy adventure set in ancient Greece; Sally Gunning's Bound (Apr.), a sequel of sorts to one of my best reads of 2006, The Widow's War, also set on colonial Cape Cod; and Pinkerton's Secret by Eric Lerner, who'll be stopping by to do a guest blog entry in early March. For a preview, visit the author's website.

Whoever said the French Revolution wasn't hot? I've heard positive things about Catherine Delors' Mistress of the Revolution (March), and have enjoyed reading about the author's publishing experience on her website (the query she wrote to find her agent is online). It's been wonderful to see two novels originally published in Spanish come to English-language markets in translation. This morning I received an ARC of Ildefonso Falcones' Cathedral of the Sea (Apr), and haven't decided if I want to review it myself or send it away. The back cover describes it as "an unforgettable fresco of a golden age in 14th century Barcelona" that was #1 on Spain's bestseller list for a full year. Decisions, decisions. Emilio Calderón's The Creator's Map, the deal for which appeared on PM in August 2006 (see old blog entry), will be out in July from Penguin Press (US) and in April from John Murray (UK). Also in April will be Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia, in which (per the publisher, Harcourt) "Aeneas’s wife Lavinia tells her side of the story in a novel that upends Vergil's Aeneid and breathes life into a woman’s version of the ancient world."

Robert Alexander's The Romanov Bride (May) will be the final installment of the author's loose trilogy about the Romanovs; this time his protagonist is the beautiful Grand Duchess Elizabeth (Ella), sister of Tsarina Alexandra, who met with a similarly tragic fate. The cover art for Pamela Billings Ewen's The Moon in the Mango Tree (May) caught my eye immediately, as did the unusual setting: 1920s Thailand (or, rather, Siam). It's based on the true story of the author's grandmother, a woman who abandoned a promising opera career to follow her missionary husband abroad. Karen Essex's long-awaited new novel Stealing Athena will appear this June; this time her dual subjects are Mary Nisbet, wife of the Earl of Elgin, and Aspasia, the mistress of Greek statesman Pericles. A last example of biographical fiction I'm looking forward to is Sandra Gulland's Mistress of the Sun (June in the US, Feb in Canada) about the life of Louise de la Vallière, an early mistress of Louis XIV, the Sun King.

That takes us halfway through the year, so I'll stop, but the HNS forthcoming books page lists plenty more titles, if none of these strikes your fancy. Historical fiction is clearly alive and well in 2008, and my job will be, among other things, to include as many such titles as possible in my manuscript-in-progress. I think I have my work cut out for me.

Can we retire this stock photo, please?

Yesterday, I made up for lost time and posted a number of new titles to the HNS forthcoming books page, in particular a couple dozen entries from the various Random House summer catalogs, which arrived last Friday. Lots of great books coming out - please take a look.

I'm also pleased to note that the cover for the reissue of Robert Goddard's Past Caring, if I'm to believe the Random House website, no longer features the same ghostly woman as currently appears on Joel Rose's The Blackest Bird, John Crowley's Little, Big, and two other historical novels not published in the USA - see towards the bottom of the reusable cover art page. The website presents a different photo than the one in the Bantam Dell catalog.

Right below that set in the gallery, however, we see another set of covers using the same stock art you'll find gracing the forthcoming historical novel on the left (a love story set in Europe during World War II; out from Crown in May). It previously appeared on historical novels by Marie Bostwick and Lorna Landvik during 2006, in addition to two other novels (one non-US historical, and a novel of mainstream women's fiction).

Nice enough cover art, but I'm hoping this will be the last we see of it (perhaps we should be grateful that we're not seeing Emma Hamilton again?). I'm looking forward to the novel, yet can't help but wish it had a more unique cover.

Salman Rushdie's new historical novel

This has been reported in various publishing news sources, but for the record:

The Enchantress of Florence (release date June 3rd, 2008, $27.00) is a historical novel based on seven years of research set in Renaissance Florence and the court of the Mughal Empire. Random House says the book mixes political intrigue and high drama, romance and magic and reflects on the dangers of intertwined fantasy and reality.

The full story from Publishers Weekly is here. Per the Sydney Morning Herald (it will appear from Random House Australia in April), the novel "begins on a farm outside Florence where the ageing Niccolo Machiavelli receives the personal emissary of the first Mughal Emperor of India."

A number of new deals

These publishing deals appeared in Publishers Marketplace over the past week and more.

I'm hoping to post my thoughts on titles to watch for 2008, once my schedule lets up and this obnoxious cold goes away. Happens nearly every time I get on a plane!

David Fuller's SWEETSMOKE, a historical novel about a slave on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, whose quest for retribution for the murder of a free black woman leads him to Antietam, on the eve of the greatest, bloodiest battle of the Civil War, based on eight years of research, to Leslie Wells at Hyperion, in a major deal, in a pre-empt, by Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider (NA).

Judith K. Healey's THE REBEL PRINCESS, the story of Princess Alais Capet, sister to King Philippe Auguste of France, who battles corrupt court officials, religious fanatics and her beloved Lord William as she engages a band of underground Cathar noblewomen to assist her in the rescue of her illegitimate son Francis, a young knight whose very existence could unsettle the thrones of England and France, to Carolyn Marino of William Morrow by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff Literary Agency in a very nice deal (World English).

[Sounds like a sequel to The Canterbury Papers (Lost Letters of Aquitaine in the UK)]

RITA winner Tamera Alexander's THE INHERITANCE, in which a woman arrives in Colorado to find her relatives have died of cholera leaving her to raise their five-year old daughter and her younger brother alone with help only from the local sheriff as she discovers "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade," to Natalie Hanemann at Thomas Nelson's Women of Faith, by Natasha Kern at Natasha Kern Literary Agency (World).

Former agent Carol McCleary's NO JOB FOR A LADY, in which the 19th century journalist Nellie Bly lands in Paris during the World's Fair in search of a serial killer, pairing her with the likes of Jules Verne, Louis Pasteur, and Oscar Wilde as they hunt down the mysterious killer who's bent on releasing a deadly microbe on the unsuspecting Parisians, to Bob Gleason at Tor, for publication in 2009, by Harvey Klinger at Harvey Klinger (NA).

Eva Stachniak's two untitled novels about Catherine the Great, to Maya Mavjee at Doubleday Canada, for publication in 2010, by Helen Heller at Helen Heller Agency.

BACK BAY and THE LOST CONSTITUTION author William Martin's next two books featuring his franchise character Peter Fallon, to Bob Gleason at Forge, by Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group (NA).

MASTER OF THE HIGHLANDS and SWORD OF THE HIGHLANDS author Veronica Wolff's WARRIOR OF THE HIGHLANDS, again based on real-life historical heroes, to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, by Stephanie Kip Rostan at Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (World).

Jill Eileen Smith's MICHAL: Daughter of the King, the first book in Smith's debut biblical fiction series featuring the wives of King David, ABIGAIL, and BATHSHEBA, to Lonnie Hull Dupont at Revell, in a nice deal, by Wendy Lawton at Books & Such Literary Agency.

Three novels by Catherine Jinks

The first two reviews were published previously, in very slightly different form, in the Historical Novels Review, in 2000 and 2001 respectively. The last one is brand new, and original.

Since the review for The Inquisitor was published, the novel appeared in an American edition (which was, unfortunately, released to little fanfare). It's out of print now, but you can find it on http://www.abebooks.com/. Should you wish to order any of them from Australia, I recommend the Australian Online Bookshop.

THE INQUISITOR
Catherine Jinks, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2000, AU$22.95 , 393pp, pb, 0-330-36194-5 / St. Martin's Minotaur, 2002, 393pp, hb, 0-312-30815-9, out of print

Brother Bernard Peyre of Prouille, of the city of Lazet in the French Pyrenees, is surprisingly tolerant for a member of his profession. An inquisitor of heretical depravity in the year 1318, he is one of the few who does not believe that the sins of the fathers -- heretical belief in the Cathar faith, in other words -- are necessarily visited upon the sons. When fifty-year-old registers go missing, and his superior, Father Augustin Duese (a voracious persecutor of potential Cathars and agnostics), is murdered in unusual fashion, under instant suspicion are descendants of heretics accused and convicted years before. Other potential murderers are a group of seemingly questionable women living in a nearby mountain village. Brother Bernard attempts to look past superstition in order to ferret out the truth. But in attempting to protect the innocence of others, his very actions become a source of contention amongst his fellow members of the Holy Office. He soon finds that he, once the accuser, is now the accused who must defend himself against heretical charges.

Half historical mystery and half thriller with unexpected elements of romance, The Inquisitor quickly immerses us in a world of mistrust, fear, and suspicion. Few explanatory details are provided, and readers unused to medieval locales may feel a bit unsettled. Yet those who wish to feel the cold stone monastery walls, smell the blood and corruption, or simply visit a unique setting not often seen in historical fiction, there will be much here worth discovering. The mystery, as well, is wonderfully articulated, and the perpetrator (or is it perpetrators?) of the gruesome deeds are well hidden until the very end.

THE NOTARY
Catherine Jinks, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2001, AU$19.95, 561pp, pb, 0-330-36253-4

Raymond Maillot's passable skills as a notary have always taken second place to the pleasures of the flesh. However, when the sober Dominican monk called Father Amiel asks for his assistance with a high-level investigation into sorcery and murder, Raymond can hardly refuse. As the pair's scrutiny into this case continues, it's hard to say what challenges Raymond the most: finding a motive for a ghastly murder in which the victim's private parts were severed; his unforeseen desire to improve his carefree life by joining the church; or the agreement he makes with Father Amiel to stay celibate until their work is finished.

Fourteenth-century Avignon comes alive in full color under Jinks's pen. No stone is left unturned in her very human portrayal of Raymond, trying so hard to be worthy of Father Amiel's regard but barely able to keep his lustful nature under control. His adventures, as written, are at once lewd, literate, and laugh-out-loud funny. As with The Inquisitor, the author's previous medieval thriller, this novel assures a thumping good read. The murder mystery within the book is absorbing in itself, but the real crime here is that Jinks's novels are not published outside Australia.

THE SECRET FAMILIAR: Confessions of an Inquisitor's Spy
Catherine Jinks, Allen & Unwin, 2006, AU$29.95, pb, 308pp, 1-74175-050-4

It is 1321 in southwestern France, and for the past few years Helié Bernier has worked as a parchment-maker in Narbonne, living quietly under an alias. He had hoped to forget his past life as a spy for his former master, famous inquisitor Bernard Gui, but a chance meeting and false accusation brings him to the Holy Office's attention once more. Displeased to have lost track of his "secret familiar," Father Bernard orders him to infiltrate the Beguin sect, a heretical group of spiritual Franciscans who observe strict poverty and disdain the worldly "Carnal Church." Helié's mission: to discover what happened to Jacques Bonet, a previous spy who disappeared after being assigned a similar task. Tracing Bonet's path to a Beguin household yet unable to learn his whereabouts, Helié attempts to ferret out the truth: did Jacques successfully manage to elude his master, as Helié once did? Did he, as a former heretic, return to his old ways? Or was he murdered by the Beguins after his cover was blown? Either way, Helié faces the same danger as his predecessor, especially as he tries to keep borrowed heretical texts -- necessary for research purposes -- secret from his loyal, curious young apprentice.

In terms of tone, The Secret Familiar feels like an amalgam of the two previous novels: The Inquisitor was suspenseful and sobering, while The Notary lent a light, bawdy touch to an atmosphere of medieval depravity. This volume reads deceptively quickly, despite the grim subject; that and the dashes of humor give the initial impression of an easy, undemanding read. Don't be fooled, for Jinks drops clues in very subtly, and those who choose to skim will overlook them completely. She never hand-holds readers through medieval history, which may make readers scurry to an encyclopedia, and I suspect a second, closer reading would uncover additional details.

In his investigation, Helié encounters or hears mention of many heretics, some of whom appear only briefly or not at all on the page, which makes following the chain of possible betrayers a challenge. Yet Jinks is clearly at home in this dark, uncertain world of religious persecution -- the atmosphere certainly feels authentic -- and the novel works well as a fast-paced historical thriller. It also poses difficult questions on morality: What does it mean to be a good person? In deciding between two different evils, which one should you betray? And does the end justify the means? To see how Helié ultimately answers these questions, you'll have to read the book.