Historical Crime Fiction

MISS BURNHAM AND THE LOOSE THREAD . . . Between the covers

It is the spring of 1925 and we are in suburban London. Rose Burnham is a talented designer-dressmaker, and has set herself up in business with her sisters. She isn’t making a fortune, but she hopes that the improving weather will bring in new orders. One of her regular customers is Phyllis Holmes, whose late father has left her relatively well off, even though she is basically a handmaiden to her demanding mother. In an attempt to broaden her social life, the shy and sheltered Phyllis has fallen into the clutches of a man – recommended by Cupid’s Arrows, a matrimonial agency – who is, to use the epithets of the time, both a bounder and a cad. Lynn Knight may have had these wonderful lines by Sir John Betjeman in mind:

“Let us not speak, for the love we bear one another—
Let us hold hands and look.”
She such a very ordinary little woman;
He such a thumping crook;
But both, for a moment, little lower than the angels
In the teashop’s ingle-nook.”

The so-called War To End All Wars has been over, at least in Europe, for seven years, but it casts a long shadow:

“Here was Mrs. Carlton, an optimistic bride when Rose first saw her at Webb and Maskry in the spring of 1914. But now a desperate wife seeking refuge in clothes. If she could fill her days with dress fittings and like distractions, she would be able to spend less time looking at her husband’s disfigured face.”

When Miss Holmes visits Rose’s workshop and tearfully confesses that she can neither pay her existing bills nor commission any new dresses because she has been swindled, Rose must act. Yes, she is sympathetic to her client’s dilemma, but if she cannot track down the man who has appropriated Phyllis’s fortune – around £40,000 in today’s money – she knows that she and her sisters will be unemployed, and probably be forced to return to their previous lives as shop assistants. Rose decides to present herself at Cupid’s Arrows as an anxious spinster, in the hope that she will be pointed in the direction of the man who stole the heart of Phyllis Holmes – not to mention her money. Lynn Knight has a wonderful eye – and ear – for the 1920s. Invited to a soirée, Rose observes her fellow guests: “

“Three men in their own larger circle, feet spread firmly apart, like a Gilbert and Sullivan chorus, were broadcasting their views to the room. Single emphatic words; coal – taxes – prices – punctuated their talk. Except for a side parting, a watch chain and a Ramsay McDonald mustache, there was little to distinguish one man from the next.”

This elegantly written novel, with its acute observations of character and social mannerisms is a reminder that a good crime novel need not be peppered with profanities or brutally murdered corpses. Finally, a word to readers whose interests tend to lie in the dark streets and lurid neon of Noir, or those who like their crime novels red in tooth and claw, with a high corpse count. Yes, this story may seem soufflé light and lacking in high drama, but it is a beautifully observed study of social mores and expectations in a society that was still trying to find its feet after an international cataclysm. The focus is almost entirely on the female characters, and the underlying theme is that of women – tens of thousands of whom took on men’s roles during the war – who are determined not to return to pre-1914 status quo.

Parallel to this world of emerging female emancipation, Lynn Knight also highlights a society where men over the age of 25 are shaped by – and judged on – what they did and where they were between 1914 and 1919. Some (literally) limped back into their pre-war world. Some struggled to survive in a land Lloyd George egregiously promised would be “fit for heroes to live in.” Others, like the tricksters of Cupid’s Arrow, turned to more reprehensible methods to make a living. This novel is published by Bantam, and is available now.

March 16, 2025 0

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD . . . Between the covers

The Thameside borough of Southwark, 1597. Kit Skevy aged 20, is a street criminal employed – or perhaps enslaved – by a man whose trade would, in our day, be described as gangster. Will Twentyman is feared for his violence and venality. He also controls Mariner Elgin. A few years older than Kit, she is a cut-purse, a thief who specialises in relieving wealthy people of their cash. She has a complex history, having once worked on a sailing ship disguised as a boy. When her first menstruation betrayed her, she was locked up for the remainder of the voyage, and now belongs to Twentyman.

One of Twentyman’s more profitable sidelines is grave robbery, delivering corpses to anatomists or those engaged in alchemy. When a group of armed men discover Kit and Mariner exhuming a body, Kit happens to be carrying a vial of a strange substance he recovered from the body of a friend who died in a fire caused by an alchemical experiment. The vial breaks and the the liquid, perhaps something like phosphorus, ignites and plays across his fingers.

Kit is taken prisoner and his captors, wrongly, believe that he has strange powers. Kit learns that his captor is Lord Isherwood, but the nobleman’s son, Lazarus – himself an alchemist in search of hidden truths, befriends him, and orchestrates his escape. Perhaps ‘befriends him’ is euphemistic, as there is an erotic attraction between the two of them.

At one point, Emma Hinds suggests that Kit may have the anatomical irregularity of possessing both male and female characteristics. The author describes herself as “a Queer writer and playwright living in Manchester whose work explores untold feminist narratives”, so this novel is not a run-of-the-mill historical tale. Mariner also escapes from Twentyman’s grip after being drawn to Lady Elody Blackwater, a wealthy widow who is also consumed by the search for the elixirs of alchemy. There is sexual electricity between the two women and, despite their social differences, they become lovers. There is a thread of eroticism running through this book, which is unusual in ostensibly similar historical fiction.

In the last few pages of the novel we are drawn into the burgeoning world of late Elizabethan theatre, and we are introduced to an ambitious actor/playwright from Warwickshire. Emma Hinds brings us a vivid (and sometimes lurid) vision of a dystopian late-Elizabethan – era London, peopled by whore-masters, alchemists, body snatchers, cut-purses and political opportunists. Kit and Mariner are unconventional heroes. If nothing else, they are street fighters who know all the tricks to enable them to survive in a Southwark so grotesque that it might have been painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

The contrast between the middens initially occupied by Kit and Mariner, and the rose-water life style of the gentry could not be starker. The relationship between the two is that of brother and sister as each is attracted to people of their own sex. The Quick and The Dead is a complex and, in some ways, a challenging, novel. Emma Hinds has clearly spent long hours on the topography of late 17thC London, and the bizarre attempts by alchemists to attempt things which science would eventally prove to be impossible.. It was only in the age of Newton, a century later, that the work of alchemists was finally sidelined.

The author also reminds us that despite the heroics of Drake, and the fortuitous weather, Spanish/Catholic claims to the crown of England did not end in 1588. As Kit and Mariner go from crisis to crisis, a second Spanish invasion fleet is waiting at anchor in the middle distance. The Queen would only have another four years to live, and the agents of Scotland’s King James are already busy.

This is a compelling portrait of late Elizabethan England, an absorbing mix of fierce politics, wonderful architecture and drama, but sullied by bestial social conditions. Emma Hinds seems to be telling us that same-sex relationships were, in those days, not the burning issue that they were later to become. She may be right. In the novel the name of Christopher Marlowe is occasionally evoked, and one school of thought suggests that homosexuality brought about his downfall but, whatever his preferences, he was not hunted down in the way that Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were to be in more recent times. The Quick and The Dead is publlshed by Bedord Square and available now.

January 19, 2025 0

THE WICKED OF THE EARTH . . . Between the covers

I live in what could be called Cromwell Country. Oliver’s former house in nearby Ely is a tourist attraction, and he is well commemorated in Huntingdon. Was he a Great Englishman? He was certainly an excellent military commander and a successful politician, but I find him hard to warm to. This novel takes us back to the England of 1650. The Civil Wars were over, the King was dead, but the peace was deeply uneasy.

The political situation in 1650 was complex. The country was ruled by the Council of State, a group of forty or so senior politicians who held supreme executive power. It would be another three years before Oliver Cromwell became Head of State, styling himself as Lord Protector. The most significant former Royalists were businessmen and merchants. Their riches and commercial acumen were essential for the country to regain some form of equilibrium after the turmoil of the war years irrespective of their having backed the losing side.

James Archer, a native of Newcastle, is something of a contradiction. He made himself locally notorious by breaking away from his Royalist roots and signing up to fight for Parliament. Although still in his twenties, he has seen – and participated in – great violence, including Cromwell’s barbaric campaign in Ireland. He is sent back to his home town by the Council of State, ostensibly to check that the former King’s men who ran the vital mining and shipping of coal were playing by the rules.

Archer’s subsidiary mission is to investigate the findings of the now infamous Newcastle Witch trials, which took place in 1649 and 1650. The deaths of these women are only of procedural interest to the Council, but Archer certainly has a dog in the fight, as his sister Meg was one of the accused.

What made me distinctly uncomfortable in Bergin’s narrative is his reminder that a society dominated and swayed by hellfire preaching and scriptural quotes is a deeply unstable one. Archer observes the Newcastle town-folk, crowded on the benches of St Nicholas Church, quaking as Dr. Jenison, “so skeletally angular that it appeared he was already half way to the grave,” spits out his sectarian venom, and his demeaning view of the place of women in society. Thank goodness we have no places of worship in Britain where this still goes on. Oh, wait….

After a series of violent encounters, Archer becomes the victim of a conspiracy involving the Great and The Good of Newcastle’s commercial and political world, and he resolves to abandon the town, and head north into the countryisde to search for his sister. As the bruised and battered Archer ventures into border country, he notices something.
“…no men were to be seen. The old had died in the hard winters, the young not yet returned from the wars.”

It is in the Teeside village of Norham that Archer finally earns the truth about his sister, and Bergin has created a masterly ironic twist that is worthy of Thomas Hardy. There is so much to admire in this novel, but one or two things stand out. The fight scenes – and there are several – are superbly described, and the reader can almost hear the clash of steel, and smell the sweat and blood of the participants. Bergin’s historical research is immaculate, as befits a Cambridge history graduate, and his portrayal of the dark and foetid alleys of 17th century Newcastle is vivid and memorable. Published by Northodox Press, this fine novel is available now.

November 22, 2024 0

THEM WITHOUT PAIN . . . Between the covers

Leeds. The early early summer of 1825. Simon Westow is a Thief-taker, a man who recovers stolen goods for a percentage of their value. He has no legal powers except his own knowledge of the city and a keen intelligence. When he encounters criminals, it is up to the city Constable and the magistrates to apply the law. Followers of this series will be familiar with the dramatis personnae, but for new readers, we have:

Simon Westow, Thief-taker
Rosie, his wife
Richard and Amos, their twin sons
Jane Truscott, former assistant to Westow. Very streetwise and deadly with a knife
Catherine Shields, an elderly widow who has provided Jane with a home
Sally – another child of the streets, and Jane’s replacement

Westow is summoned to the house of Sir Robert Foley, a wealthy man whose man-servant has absconded with two valuable silver cups. Foley wants them returned. When the manservant, Thomas Kendall, is found murdered in a secret room of an old city property just about to be demolished, Westow is told, by a Mr Armistead, that the room was once the workshop of Arthur Mangey, a silversmith, who was executed over a century earlier for the crime of Coin Clipping – snipping the edges off silver coins and then re-using the silver.

When Armistead himself is found murdered, Westow finds himself chasing shadows, and unable to make the connection between the ancient misdeeds of Arthur Mangey and persons unknown who are deeply involved in all-too-recent criminality. There is a seemingly unconnected story line in the book, but old Nickson hands know that it will, eventually, merge with the main plot. A disabled Waterloo veteran, Dobson, has gained a mysterious companion known only as John, but when brutalised corpses begin to appear, John becomes the prime suspect. The corpses have been flayed and brutalised almost beyond recognition. Westow, still doggedly determined to find the missing silver cups is increasingly reliant on the quicksilver street-smarts of Sally, and the old head on young shoulders of Jane, who had hoped for a life away from the streets, but has been drawn back into the dangerous game by her determination to avenge the death of Armistead.

A recurrent theme of Nickson’s Leeds novels, both in these Simon Westow tales, and the Tom Harper stories, set eight decades later, is that of the search. Both Westow and Harper frequently become involved in a search for a key suspect, often someone from ‘out of town’. It is a very simple literary device, but a very effective one, as it provides a platform for Nickson to use his unrivalled knowledge of the city as it once was, its highways, byways, grand houses and insanitary tenements. As we follow Weston’s search for a ruthless killer, the modern streets of Leeds that many readers know are stripped away to reveal the palimpsest of the buildings that once stood there and the people who inhabited them.

Another essential feature of the books is that his heroes don’t inhabit a timeless world, where they are perpetually in their early thirties, strong and vigorous. Tom Harper aged as the series went on, but he was allowed a comfortable old age and peaceful death. Here, Simon Westow is shaken by the recognition that, like Tennyson Ulysses, the years have taken their toll:

“ Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

He is aware that his reflexes are slower, the antennae that once sensed danger and threat are less sensitive, and he is ever more conscious of his own mortality, and his need of people like Sally and Jane to watch his back.

The novel boils down to three pursuits. Simon Westow hunts the man who stole Sir Robert’s cups, Sally wants her knife deep inside the man, known only as John, who murdered her fellow urchin Harold, while Jane vows to kill the man who killed the amiable and blameless Armistead.

Chris Nickson never sugar-coats history, and makes us well aware that modern Leeds, with its universities, its international sporting venues and museums, was built on the blood sweat and tears of millions of ordinary people who grew up, toiled, loved lived and died under the smoky pall of its foundry furnaces, and had the deafening percussion of industrial hammers forever ringing in their ears. Jane, Sally and Simon-at a cost-each get their man in this excellent historical thriller, which is published by Severn House and is available now. For reviews of previous Simon Westow stories, click the author image on the left.

September 16, 2024 0

THE LAZAR HOUSE . . . Between the covers

Diane Calton Smith’s medieval mysteries, set in Wisbech, don’t follow a continuous time line. The most recent, Back To The Flood, is set in 1249, while The Lazar House, published in 2022, is set in 1339. The geography of the town is much the same as in The Charter of Oswyth and Leoflede, where the author takes us back to 1190. In this book, most of the town still sits between two very different rivers. To the west, The Wysbeck is a sluggish trickle, easily forded, while to the east, the Well Stream is broader and more prone to violence.

South of the town is the hamlet of Elm (now a prosperous village) and on its soil stands The Lazar House. It is a hospice for those suffering from leprosy. Basically under the governance of the Bishop of Ely it must, however, be self financing. There was a deeply held belief, in those times, in the concepts of Heaven, Hell, and their buffer zone of purgatory. People believed that if they had any spare cash or – more likely – produce, and they gave it to a charity such as The Lazar House, then prayers would be said that would minimise the time donors’ souls had to spend waiting in the celestial ‘waiting room’ of Purgatory.

A rather grand supporter of The Lazar House is Lady Frideswide de Banlon. Widow of a rich knight, she has bestowed on The Lazar House tuns of fine ale from her demesne’s brewery, and it is a vital part of their constant attempts to stay solvent. Remember that ale, of various strengths, was a standard drink for all, as there was little water safe enough to drink.

Sadly, there is a downside. Frideswide is scornful, aggressive and deeply unpleasant in her dealings with those she deems lesser mortals. There is no shortage of people she has belittled, offended or denigrated. Much of the story unfolds through the eyes of Agathe, daughter of a local Reeve. She has chosen to work as what we now call a nurse at The Lazar House. Despite her robes, she has not taken Holy Orders and, should she choose, is perfectly able to accept the offer of marriage, proposed by another lay member of the community, Godwin the Pardoner. Put bluntly, his job is rather like that of a modern politician working with lobbyists. In return for financial favours or donations in kind, he has licence to forgive minor sins and guarantee that prayers of redemption will be whispered on a monthly, weekly – or daily basis – depending on the size of the donation.

When Lady Frideswide is found dead beside the footpath between The Lazar House and the brewery, the Bishop’s Seneschal, Sir John Bosse is sent for and he begins his investigation. His first conclusion is that Frideswide was poisoned, by deadly hemlock being added to flask of ale, found empty and discarded on the nearby river bank. He has the method. Now he must discover means and motive. Bosse is a shrewd investigator, and he realises that Frideswide was not, by nature, a charitable woman, therefore was the valuable gift of ale a penance for a previous sin? Pondering what her crime may have been, he rules out acts of violence, as they would have been dealt with by the authorities. Robbery? Hardly, as the de Banlon family are wealthy. He has what we would call a ‘light-bulb moment’, although that metaphor is hardly appropriate for the 14th century. Frideswide, despite her unpleasant manner, was still extremely beautiful, so Bosse settles for the Seventh Commandment. But with whom did she commit adultery?

When Bosse finds out the identity of her partner ‘between the sheets’, he is surprised, to say the least, but the revelation does not immediately bring him any nearer to finding her killer. The solution to the mystery, in terms of the plot, is very elegant, and worthy of one of the great writers of The Golden Age. It comes as a shock to the community, however, and brings heartbreak to more than one person. Diane Calton Smith draws us into the world of The Lazar House to the extent that when they suffer, so do we. The last few pages are not full of Hardy-esque bitterness and raging against life’s unfairness. Rather, they point more towards the sunlit uplands and, perhaps, better times ahead.

This is as clever a whodunnit as you could wish to read, and an evocative recreation of fourteenth century England. The author brings both the landscape and its people into vivid life. Published by New Generation Publishing The Lazar House is available now.

August 26, 2024 0

BACK TO THE FLOOD . . . Between the covers

It is March 1249, and England is ruled by Henry Plantagenet (Henry III) son of the unfortunate KIng John, who featured in an early tale of medieval Wisbech by this author, In The Wash (click to read the review). For Wisbech people, the King and his court are far away and unknown. Their immediate overlord is Hugh of Northwold, Bishop of Ely, for who much of Wisbech is his manorial property, meaning that residents must pay him annual rent. In November 1236, however, a disastrous tide (what we would now call a North Sea Surge), devastated the flimsier properties of the town, and when, thirteen years later, the Bishop’s Seneschal*. Roger of Abynton arrives to make an audit of rents and repairs, he finds that many of the Bishop’s buildings have not been rebuilt and remain unoccupied, thus providing no income stream.

*Seneschal – an agent or steward in charge of a lord’s estate in feudal times.

When Alured, a local baker, is found dead in the reeds at the edge of The Wysbeck (then a sluggish stream, but now the tidal River Nene) most people assume that he drunkenly fell into the water after one two many ales in one of the inns he frequented. Sir Roger, after examining the body, is not so sure. Scratches on the torso suggest that the man was dragged to the river bank. Finding people with a motive to kill Alured is the easy part. He was a cheat, drunk, foul of mouth and temper and seemed to live his life with one aim only – to antagonise and goad everyone he meets.

Sir Roger is, by modern standards, a decent detective. He comes to realise that Alured was not murdered because he baked contaminated bread, or because he was an argumentative drunk who enjoyed starting fights in pubs. The book’s title is completely apposite. Everything that happens is a result of what happened – or didn’t happen – on that fateful night when the North Sea surge crashed through the banks and defences of Wisbech and changed lives for ever.

So deeply does Diane Calton Smith immerse us in 13th century England that we are not in the least surprised to learn that the New Year began on 25th March, or that there was an extensive calendar of Saints’ Days, very few of which would be celebrated by feasts, at least in the modern sense of the word. There is also a sense of how big the world was in those days. A journey from Wisbech to Leverington, two minutes in the car these days, took hours on treacherous and often impassable tracks. We are also reminded of the sanctity of Lent. Meat was seldom a regular item on the tables of most poor townspeople, but during the Holy observance, the daily ‘pottage’ would contain only root vegetables, perhaps made more palatable with ‘ransom’ – not a criminal demand for payment, but something akin to what we call Wild Garlic. Ale was ubiquitous, because there was little or no safe drinking water. It would have tasted very different to modern beer, as the use of hops in the brew would not come for another three hundred years.

Hand in hand with the astonishing historical detail we have a very clever whodunnit. Wisbech these days is not much of a place, but at least we have our history. I am acutely aware, thanks to this superb novel (and its predecessors) that every time I walk into town, there is a palimpsest beneath my feet, a resonant reminder that these very streets were walked on by our ancestors, and that we tread in their footsteps. This is superb historical fiction, full of insight and empathy but, most importantly, forging links of a chain that connects us with our roots. Back To The Flood is published by New Generation Publishing and is available now.

August 11, 2024 0

THE BEDLAM CADAVER . . . Between the covers

The book starts in spectacular fashion. We are in London, in the summer of 1681. At Gresham College, the home of The Royal Society, senior scientist Robert Hooke (he of Hooke’s Law) has summoned the Great and the Good, including His Majesty King Charles II, and Harry Hunt, who we met in The Poison Machine and The Bloodless Boy (click the links to read reviews) to a public dissection. Wielding the blades and saws will be none other than the great polymath Sir Christopher Wren. The unfortunate corpse is an unknown woman who recently committed suicide at Bethlehem Hospital, the recently built refuge for the insane. Sir Christopher is hoping to show that the muscles of the cadaver can be made to twitch by manipulating various parts of the brain. The macabre experiment is well underway when the woman’s face is revealed. All hell breaks loose when Harry Hunt cries out:

“You must stop! She is no suicide from Bethlehem Hospital. Her name is Miss Diana Cantley. She was my neighbour in Bloomsbury Square.”

Sir John Reresby, Justice of The Peace for Westminster is called in, and he and Harry Hunt try to ascertain just when and how the body of Diana Cantley came to be substituted for the expected cadaver – that of a woman who took her own life in Bethlehem Hospital. Soon, a second aristocratic woman, Mrs Elizabeth Thynne, is reported missing but before her disappearance can be investigated, Harry is himself arrested. The body of the Bedlam Cadaver, Sebiliah Barton, is planted in his laboratory and Reresby, using Occam’s Razor*, assumed Harry is responsible for both deaths.

*A principle often attributed to. 14th–century friar William of Ockham that says that if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one.

Harry, more by luck than judgment, escapes captivity, and after a life threatening encounter with the unforgiving waters of the Thames, struggles ashore in Rotherhithe, where he is sheltered by two women tailors. He finds the younger, Rachel – a Lithuanian – strangely attractive and they have a brief but passionate encounter. Thanks to a bizarre signaling mechanism invented by Robert Hooke, he is smuggled back to central London, where he faces a race against time to establish his own innocence and find the killer of Diana Cantley.

King Charles II features here, as in the previous novels, and Robert Lloyd paints a picture of a calm and decent man, at ease with himself, with a benign and generous soul. Be that as it may, Charles was no slave to marital loyalty, and he fathered many children by different lovers, hence the political problem, a simmering issue in this book, but one which was to boil over not many years down the line. Charles had no legitimate heir, and it was accepted that his brother James, would succeed him. This would pose a problem, as James was a devout Roman Catholic. Charles had a much favoured illegitimate son, James Scott Duke of Monmouth. A Protestant, he also appears in this novel, and readers who know their history will be aware that when Charles died in 1685, he was succeeded by James, and not long after, Monmouth was leader of an unsuccessful invasion force, which was defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and its surviving followers brutally dealt with.

In addition to clearing his own name, finding out who murdered Diana Cantley and tracing Elizabeth Thynne, Harry is caught up in the search for a mysterious black box, said to contain evidence that King Charles was secretly married to the Duke of Monmouth’s mother, thus making Monmouth the rightful heir to the throne.

Harry Hunt is an unusual – but engaging – hero. His main quality is intelligence. Although no coward, he rarely comes off best in fisticuffs or swordplay. His ambition to marry Grace, Robert Hooke’s niece, is paramount, mainly for social reasons, but he is a man with needs, as shown by his brief dalliance with the enigmatic Rachel. The Bedlam Cadaver is impeccably researched, and its anchor points are the real life characters like Hooke, Wren, The King and Monmouth; above that, however, Robert Lloyd gives us a sparkling narrative, and the real sense that – nearly 350 years later – we are in the same room as his characters. The Bedlam Cadaver is published by Melville House, and is out now.

June 25, 2024 0

LITANY OF LIES . . . Between the covers

We are back in 12th Century Worcestershire, with Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote and Serjeant Catchpoll. Together with Underserjeant Walkelin, they are sent to Evesham to investigate a body found at the bottom of deep shaft being dug for a new well. Evesham sits partly within a deep curve of the River Avon. Its most notable building is the Benedictine Abbey, but on the other side of the river, built to protect the bridge, is Bengeworth Castle. It is not a grand place. Built by the Beauchamp family, High Sheriffs of the county, on an earthen mound and surrounded by a palisade of wooden stakes, it is damp and insanitary.

The man at the bottom of the well pit is discovered to be Walter, Steward of the Abbot of Evesham. The main part of his job was to collect rents on behalf of the religious order, as they own most of land in the town. We know, as readers, that Walter was involved in a scuffle with another townsman, who bested him by cracking his head open with a rock, before rolling his body into the pit. Bradecote soon reaches the correct answer to the question, “how?” But, although learning the “why?”, of Walter’s death, it some time before “who?” becomes apparent.

Relations between the Abbey authorities and the Bengeworth castellan and his soldiers are anything but cordial, and soldiers from the castle are suspected of stealing barrels of wine from the Abbey cellars, as well as illegally demanding a toll from everyone who enters the town via the bridge. When Bradecote examines documents at the Abbey, they show that Walter has been reporting several tradesman around the town as coming up short with the quarterly rent. This gives Sarah Hawkswood to tell us a little about the tradesmen in the town, and also serve a reminder of the occupational origins of some English surnames. We meet Aelred the Tailor, Baldwin the Dyer, Hubert the Mason and Martin the Fuller. The work of a Fuller was to take rolls of woven wool cloth and – by using some fairly unpleasant substances – remove all traces of grease, dirt (and worse) that remained in the cloth since it was wool on the sheep’s fleece.

Between them, Bradecote, Catchpoll and Walkelin interview the tradesmen, and find that each had paid their rents in full, and on time, to Steward Walter, leading to one conclusion only, and that was that Walter was ‘skimming off’ the rents, and taking a cut for himself. But it seems that none of the tenants knew that they were being cheated, so how could any of them have a motive for murder?

As the investigation seems to be going round in circles, another body is found. It is that of Old Cuthbert a bitter and lonely man. Years ago, he had been a Coppersmith, but found himself accused of murdering a local woman as a result of a love triangle. Taken before the justices, there was little evidence either for against him, and so he was subject to the barbaric Trial by Hot Iron. The accused had to hold a red hot iron bar in his hand and walk nine feet. If, after a few days, the wound healed, it was a sign that God pronounced him ‘not guilty’. If it festered, he was guilty, and would be hanged. Cuthbert was ‘not guilty’, but thereafter, his hand remained clenched as a fist, and so he was unable to carry on his skilled trade. Just about the only occupation left to him was that of a Walker in the fulling process, whereby he walked up and down all day in troughs of urine, treading – and therefore cleansing – the cloth in the liquid.

Of course, Bradecote and Catchpoll solve both murders, as we know they will. What lifts this book above the ordinary is Sarah Hawkswood’s magical recreation of a long lost world. Yes, it was a hard living by modern standards. Yes, medical interventions were scarce and mostly misguided. Yes, justice was rough and frequently random. But the description of the wonderful Worcestershire landscape, now mostly covered in concrete, car parks and convenience stores is sublime. The Avon is still unpolluted, and the Evesham Abbey bees still harvest pollen free of toxic chemicals. How the people in those days spoke to each other, or in what tongue or accent, neither the author nor I can have any real idea, but to me what Sarah Hawkswood has them saying sounds just about right.

A new Bradecote and Catchpoll mystery is a highlight in my reading calendar, and I always turn the first page with a sense of comfort. I am comfortable only in the sense that I know I am in for a few hundred pages of sublime writing. ‘ Comfort’ does not mean ‘ Cosy’, and Sarah Hawkswood continues to show us that greed, malice, vindictiveness and subterfuge were just as common in mid-12thC England as they would prove to be in 1930’s LA, or modern day London. Litany of Lies is published by Allison & Busby and is available now.

June 5, 2024 0

THE VENUS OF SALO . . . Between the covers

Not for the first time, I am a late arrival at the party. This is the eighth book in a series featuring Wehrmacht soldier, Colonel Martin Bora. We find him in the north of Italy, in October 1944. It is a strange time in Italian history. The Allies have, at huge cost, breached the various German defensive lines, even the formidable Gothic Line. But winter, with its rain and snow, is not far away, and the fighting in late 1943/early 1944 was a brutal and sapping experience the Allies are unwilling to repeat. In the far north, there is a last pocket of Fascism. This time line of that eventful period may provide a useful backdrop.

25th July 1943, Mussolini dismissed by KIng Victor Emmanuel III and arrested.
12th September 1943, Mussolini rescued from imprisonment by German special forces.
23rd September 1943, Italian Social Republic created, with its capital at Salò.
29th September 1943, the rest of Italy surrenders to the Allies.
28th October 1943, National Republican Army (Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano) created, loyal to Mussolini.
8th December 1943, Republican National Guard created, loyal to Mussolini.
4th June 1944, Allies enter Rome.
20th July 1944, Hitler survives the von Stauffenberg assassination attempt.
14th October 1944, Rommel commits suicide. Announced as death from complications from an earlier road accident.

Most of the action takes place in and around Salò, a town on the shores of Lake Garda. In the mountains and valleys around, German forces and Italian troops loyal to Mussolini are fighting a savage war against Italian partisan groups. Martin Bora, a veteran of campaigns including a spell on the Eastern Front, has been driven by Gestapo agent Jacob Mengs to Salò, where he is told to investigate the theft of a priceless Titian painting, known as The Venus of Salò. It had been ‘borrowed’ from its owner – Giovanni Pozzi – a rich Italian textile magnate, and was hanging in the HQ of the local German army commander when thieves created a diversion, and cut it from its canvas.

In the novel, everyone is at each other’s throats. The ENR can’t stand the RNG (see the timeline), the SS and the Gestapo loathe the regular German army, and the German high command have scant respect for their Italian allies. Even the Italian partisans – divided into communist and royalist bands – are at daggers drawn with each other; both however are contemptuous of local farmers and peasants, especially those they suspect of being collaborators.

As Bora investigates the theft of the painting, there are three deaths which puzzle him. First, a music teacher hangs herself. Then, the maid of a renowned soprano apparently shoots herself with a pistol given to her by an RNG captain, and a seamstress is butchered with a razor-sharp blade. While trying to work out how the three deaths are connected, Bora is entranced by his own flesh and blood ‘Venus’ in the shape of Annie Tedesco, widowed daughter of Giovanni Pozzi. What Bora doesn’t know (but we do, of course) is that all the while he is being set up by the Gestapo and SS. Orchestrated by Jacob Mengs, a dossier of Bora’s apparent disloyalty to the Third Reich is being prepared and, in the wake of the July plot.

Most of the book’s characters are fictional, with the exception of a few more exalted figures (left to right, below), such as SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff (Himmler’s adjutant), Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, head of Italian troops loyal to Mussolini, Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, and top SS man Herbert Kappler.

The notion, in WW2 fiction, of ‘the good German’ as a central character, is certainly not new. Perhaps the best known of these characters is the late Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther, but there is also a good series by Luke McCallin featuring Hauptmann Gregor Reinhardt. The ‘good German’ as a concept in real history is much more complex; at a senior level, Rommel was forced to commit suicide over his alleged involvement in the von Stauffenberg plot, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence), was hanged for treason by the SS just weeks before Hitler committed suicide. Shamefully, Albert Speer, after his release from prison in 1966, made a decent career – lasting almost twenty years – as a media personality and TV ‘talking head’ on the Nazi era.

Ben Pastor’s brilliant novel is an engaging mix of military history. murder mystery, love affair and a study in pyschopathy. Beyond the fiction, however, she reminds us that, for the Allies, the fighting continued almost to the proverbial eleventh hour – the surrender of German forces was formally accepted on 2nd May 1945. The carnage in Italy cost the German army between 30K – 40K dead. The allies suffered more grievously, with deaths estimated as 60K – 70K. The Venus of Salò is published by Bitter Lemon Press and is out now.