Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle

The Queen’s Gambit is a chess opening in which a pawn is temporarily sacrificed to give the player a strong center presence. In The Queen's Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle, the life of Elizabeth Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII, becomes a chess game after her marriage. In order to keep her position and her head, she must plan carefully, stay at least one move ahead of her enemies, and arrange her allies carefully around her. To succeed at this game, she needs the loyalty of her maid-servant, Dot, illiterate and lowly-born, who understands the importance of keeping the Queen’s secrets, even at great danger to herself.

Katherine Parr was thirty, twice-widowed and childless, when her modesty and common sense caught the eye of King Henry VIII. His proposal of marriage could not be refused.  Katherine was forced to put aside self-interest to marry a husband who was by this time elderly, sick, bad-tempered and dangerous. Henry was a man who could suddenly turn on those close to him and order anyone, even his queen, banished, arrested or executed. Katherine endured some close calls, but with the help of servants and friends and her own intuition about the King’s moods, she was able to outwit her enemies and outlive the king. In this book her story is told from two points of view, Katherine’s and Dot’s.  Each was a woman who rose above her station. Katherine, of aristocratic but not royal blood, became Queen of England. Dot, the uneducated daughter of a thatcher, became the Queen’s most trusted retainer. Together they navigated the chess board of the English Court, the gossip, the intrigues, the back-biting, the maneuvering for favor.

After Henry’s death, both Katherine and Dot married for love. Dot created a happy home and family, but Katherine’s fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, proved to be a social-climbing philanderer. Neither of Katherine’s positions, Queen and Dowager Queen, could provide happiness or safety. After careful strategizing in Henry’s Court kept her alive, she died at age thirty-six, as so many sixteenth century women did, in childbirth.

Check out The Queen's Gambit at the library!

Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga

George Orwell has observed that colonialism is destructive to the imperialists as well as the native population of the colonized country. This maxim would appear to be proved in SEVEN HOUSES IN FRANCE except that the reader cannot imagine the Belgian officers in this book any less cruel and avaricious had they never left Belgium. As members of King Leopold’s Force Publique in the Congo Free State, they are charged with fighting the rebels and forcing the local people to harvest rubber from the jungle. However, they spend most of their time amusing themselves in cruel and debauched activities. The commander of the outpost, Captain Biran, is also, through poaching mahogany and ivory, amassing a fortune so his beautiful wife can own seven fashionable houses in France. The camaraderie of the officer corps is disturbed in August, 1904, when a new soldier, Chrysostome Liege, arrives. He is a mystery to his fellow officers, telling them little about his himself. He provokes jealousy and resentment by proving to be the best marksman at the outpost. And he is an enigma and threat to them because he is a devout Christian who refuses to join in their sport of raping native women. When these officers become aware that Chrysostome has become sincerely fond of a native woman, they seize the opportunity to torment him. The resulting tragedy has a domino effect of successive acts of violence as the Belgians turn on one another.

The pervasive cruelty in this book is not graphically described, but the Belgians’ casual attitude toward it is revealing. The Congo Free State was the site of an unprecedented man-made human disaster in which King Leopold enriched himself by exploiting the local people and natural resources of the area. KING LEOPOLD’S GHOST by Adam Hochschild is a well-researched book on this subject.         

Check out Seven Houses in France @ the library!    

A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve

Margaret and Patrick set off on a Kenyan adventure.  He’s a doctor who will be doing research and running clinics.  Margaret is a photographer who ends up getting a job with the local paper.  Their friends suggest a trip up Mount Kenya and the couple agree even though Margaret has doubts about her abilities.  She ends up being the slowest member of the group and when a tragedy occurs she is blamed by all, even her husband.  Their marriage will never be the same.    They avoid talking about it and Margaret develops an attraction for her coworker.  Anita Shreve delves into human emotion and uses her personal experiences in Kenya to bring the country to life.  Check out A Change in Altitude @ the library!

A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee

Ben and Helen’s marriage is falling apart. A weekly visit to a marriage counselor only makes things worse.  When Ben, filled with despair, makes a series of reckless decisions, he disgraces himself and destroys his family’s comfortable upper middle class life. Ben disappears into rehab and jail, leaving Helen to deal with the resulting shame and financial problems. She puts their house on the market and moves with her pre-teen daughter to New York City. Despite little work experience, she lands a job with a small public relations firm and proves to be gifted at crisis management.  Her advice, no matter who the client is or what offense has been committed or even if the accusation is true or false, is to make a sincere apology. This strategy always works and the reputation of the restaurant, politician, or grocery store is salvaged. Helen parlays this success into a job with a larger, more prestigious firm. Her job becomes a career but, as the job becomes more demanding, her relationship with her daughter deteriorates. Ben meanwhile returns to the home he had rejected. He secretly reconnects with his daughter through text messaging and hopes to build a semblance of the life he had once so thoroughly rejected. However, the sincere apology does not work as well on Helen as an insincere one does on the general public. She is too angry, the hurt is too personal. Unless she can overcome her resentment, the family will remain torn. A Thousand Pardons demonstrates that it can be harder to accept an apology than make one. 

Those following the Ryan Braun case/ situation may find this to be an interesting spin on apologies and public relations. Check out A Thousand Pardons at the library!

Alex by Pierre Lemaitre

Alex by French author Pierre Lemaitre will be published in September by MacLehose, and imprint of Quercus Books.  What's so special about Quercus?  They were the lucky publishing group who snagged Stieg Larsson's wildly popular Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium) trilogy.  Quercus is again hoping to strike crime fiction gold with Lemaitre's newest novel.  

There are a few similarities between Larsson's Lisbeth Salander and Lemaitre's Alex Prevost. Both are strong, vibrant characters who are stuck in rather unfortunate situations.  And like Dragon Tattoo, Alex has another main character who is trying to solve a crime/mystery; in this case, police Commandant Camille Verhoeven.  But the similarities pretty much end there.

Camille has worked for the brigade criminelle for years and there is only one kind of case he won't work: kidnappings.  It isn't any wonder, considering his wife (who was eight months pregnant) was abducted on her way to the hospital and later found murdered.  But Camille's boss has forced him to be the lead investigator on a new case which involves, of course, a kidnapped young woman.  The Commandant tries his best to ignore his emotions and does what he can to try to find missing Alex Prevost.

Alex was out for a night of shopping and dinner when she was pummeled by a very large man, tossed into a van and taken to a secret location.  When she wakes, the man forces her into a rough wooden crate and suspends her from the ceiling of what appears to be a warehouse.  After who knows how many days, Alex realizes that the water and dog kibble the man has been feeding her daily, was not to keep her alive but to attract a horde of rats that live in the building.  More terrifying than being eaten alive by rats, however, is the fact that the crate is too small for Alex to even stretch out and, being a nurse, she knows her muscles are beginning to deteriorate.  

Camille is working with a very small pile of evidence.  There was witness who saw the woman get thrown into a van, there is a little bit of vomit on the street and not much else.  Camille knows that the more hours that pass, the less likely they are to find their victim alive.  After a stroke of luck identifying the van that the criminal used, the police now know who they are looking for.  When they find the man, he throws himself off a bridge into oncoming traffic rather than tell the police who Alex is or where he has hidden her. Back to square one and the clock continues ticking.  More investigation into the kidnapper leads to the discovery that the man's son went missing year or so ago.  When they go to ask questions at the former home of the son's girlfriend, they discover the son's body.  Is Alex really just the victim of a kidnapping or is she a murderer?  By the time Camille and his men have discovered the warehouse where Alex was taken, she has managed to escape.

This book is full of twists and turns and is a fascinating detective story.  A word of warning, however for the folks who were put off by the sexual violence in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- this also appears in Alex.  But it is a thriller that will keep you guessing.  A thriller that might just answer the question: is there a worse way to die than being eaten alive by rats?  

Alex by Pierre Lemaitre is available everywhere September 3rd.

Death of a Dyer by Eleanor Kuhns

The sequel to A Simple Murder finds the main character, Will Rees, back on his farm in Maine. From the previous novel, Will is still working on reconciling with his son, David, and sorting out his feelings for Lydia, a woman from a Shaker community.  Will also has to deal with his need to travel and was born under “a traveling quilt.” His farm and hometown hold good and bad memories for him. When he is back, his boyhood friend is murdered. The son of the murdered man is under suspicion and the widow asks Will to investigate the matter. The author evokes the setting of post-Revolutionary War America and the hardships and joys of that time. Will Rees is a strong, morally upright man trying to navigate his time and character that I hope will continue. Though it is a sequel, this novel can also be enjoyed without reading the prior book.

Check out Death of a Dyer @ the library!

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

In this first of many Maisie Dobbs mysteries a seemingly open and shut infidelity case leads the private investigator to more questions than answers.  Maisie looks into a place called The Retreat where severely injured soldiers form the Great War live out their lives with others who understand what they have been through.  Their savings are pooled and used to pay for the community.  This case brings up memories for Maisie from her own time serving as a nurse in the Great War and her backstory is gone over in detail.  You’ll love the smart, independent, and very intuitive Maisie Dobbs and be happy to know she has many more adventures.  Checkout Maisie Dobbs@ thelibrary!