Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey is the Countess of Carnarvon's second book chronicling the lives and times of the inhabitants of Highclere, aka Downton Abbey. The family at the center of this book is that of American-born Catherine, who was descended of two of New York's first families, the Wendalls and the Lowells as well as the first family of the south, the Lees, and the sixth earl, known to all as Porchey.

Unlike Prochey's parents, Lady Almina and the fifth earl, Catherine and Porchey seem to have been rather unhappy. This might have had more than a little something to do with his inveterate womanizing. Of course, the years following the Great War were not easy ones for the heirs of the great houses, and what the Roaring Twenties wrought came due in the form of the Great Depression and World War II, the latter of which features especially prominently in this book. (As a side note, the Countess's first book, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, covers the reign, if you will, of the fifth earl, which coincided with World War I.)

One of the aspects of Lady Catherine that I really enjoyed was the warts-and-all treatment of the principle characters. The Countess has endeavored to give her readers a true portrait of the family and the events that affected them, rather than creating a glowing and distorted one. Porchey, for example, does not come off particularly well - he is a poor money manager, a questionable judge of character, and a cheating husband (though a generous ex). And one assumes that his image has softened with the passage of time. Catherine struggles with alcohol and loneliness - more than once she escapes the world by entering a monastery - though she can also be quite spunky in a Debs at War kind of way.

Although I preferred Lady Almina to Lady Catherine, this is still an interesting and worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in English great houses and history. Also, the photos are really great.

Death of a Dyer

Will Rees and Nate Bowdith were childhood friends in pre-Revolution Maine until they had a falling out during the war that was never patched. Twenty years late, Nate is dead, his son is suspected of murder, and Will has been asked to investigate. The subplot is Will's relationship with his son and his housekeeper, a former Shaker whom he may or may not wish to marry.

Eleanor Kuhns has constructed a great mystery in Death of a Dyer, which kept me turning the pages far more quickly than I'd intended or expected. (Nate was a dyer, which was an actual craft/profession before you could simply walk into the Gap and come out with every shade of the rainbow in every fabric imaginable. But I digress.) I prefer my mysteries truly mysterious, that is to be unable to guess the killer (because it's almost always a killer) before all is revealed in the last pages, and in that sense Death of a Dyer did not disappoint. I was utterly off the mark, although looking back, I shouldn't have been - another hallmark of great mystery writing.

I will say that I was disappointed with the historical aspect of the novel. I chose this in no small part because of the time period and, while ha'pennies and buggies abound, I didn't feel particularly connected to the time period. More disconcerting, I couldn't ever really figure out the duration of the events in the novel - did all of these things happen in a week? A month? Six weeks? Hmph. And finally, I was confused by the choice of Will Rees to investigate the murder - he has been absent from the little town of Dugard, Maine, for so long that he is unable to recognize many of the people he grew up with (he is a traveling weaver), and yet he's been handpicked for this task. It's all a bit baffling really. (Until I learned that Death of  Dyer is part of the Will Rees series - so he's a bit like Hercule Poirot, I gather, without the obsession with "little gray matter.")

If you can move beyond the issues above, as well as the While this is not the greatest mystery I have ever read, (an honor that still belongs to Dame Christie, with Bury Your Dead not too far behind), I do feel it deserves more than the three-and-a-half stars it currently has (out of five) on Amazon.The mystery, as I said in the beginning, is solid, the characters are generally interesting, and the story beyond the mystery is engaging. Four stars (out of five).

The Lincoln Deception

David O. Stewart's historical mystery is built around the premise, some might say conspiracy theory, that John Wilkes Booth was not simply a madman bent on revenge in the name of Dixie, but was a paid operative in a plan hatched by men at the highest levels of the Confederacy - and the Union. Jamie Fraser, a small town doctor from Ohio, and Speed Cook, a former black professional baseball player turned newspaperman, embark on a journey to prove Booth's motives following a deathbed confession by former congressman John Bingham.

Fraser and Cook are an unlikely pair, and their adventures as The Lincoln Deception unfolds become increasingly unlikely (without giving anything away, I will say that the "realism" score feel off for me entirely around the time of their Baltimore steamer escapades). That said, the book does have at least one strong commonality with another Lincoln fiction, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, in that both are highly readable, if far-fetched. In fact, I read this is a single go, while sitting in an airport late last week waiting for a flight that was delayed some 8 or 10 hours. It has that going for it: you can pick it up, keep turning the pages, and a few hours later discover the story has flown by and you're about to the end of the mystery.

Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times

Although focusing on those at the polar opposite end of the spectrum, Servants, in the style of Debs at War, is an anthropological text (for lack of a better term) that delves into the history of service, and more importantly servants, in Britain. Lucy Lethbridge makes extensive use of the many, many memoirs that have been written and interviews given by those who were in service as well as those who employed parlourmaids, charwomen, and the like. Although butlers and chauffeurs make the requisite appearance, those jobs typically done by women are the real focus of the book; Lethbridge explains more than once that although men formed the backbone of service prior to the nineteenth century, after that time, the majority of those in service were women.

The most interesting chapters are those that focus on the experiences of a specific servant (or two or three). The first-hand accounts are certainly the richest. Lethbridge also includes a couple of very readable chapters on service in the Empire, particularly India, and on the experiences of German-Jewish or Austrian-Jewish women who came to Britain on service visas to escape Nazi Germany. Lethbridge's wide use of literature as supporting material was, for me, less meaningful.

Reading this on the heels of The Assassination of the Archduke, I found myself constantly comparing Viennese and British society, the role of servants, and the like. This is an enlightening read, certainly, but a heavy one that often feels more academic in nature than leisurely. The reader with a less academic and more personal interest in service in England should consider Eric Horne's What the Butler Winked At: Being the Life and Adventures of Eric Horne, Butler to be the definitive work in this area. Horne, by the way, was a butler to gentry for 57 years. He knows of what he writes.

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague

A friend recommended Year of Wonders to me recently and so, particularly having read Geraldine Brooks's most recent novel, March, I thought I would give it a go. Year of Wonders has going for it the fact that it's historical fiction (which regular readers will know is my prefered fiction genre), as well as Brooks's wonderful prose and dialogue. These are the real strengths of the book. Brooks notes in the author's note the extent of research she did for this book, not only on the plague (more on that in a minute), but on the minutiae of rural, English, seventeenth century life.

Year of Wonders is the story of a small English village infected by the plague in 1666. The protagonist, Anna Frith, is an 18-year-old widow with two small boys and a position as a parlourmaid at the rectory. As the cases of black death mount, the town's citizens make the bold and unselfish decision to seal themselves off from the rest of world, lest the plague reach other villages. This part of the story is based on the true story of the English village of Eyam, as Brooks explains. The characters, however, from Anna to the Rector Michael Mompellion and his wife Elinor are fictional.

As I've said both the writing and the research are impeccable. My complaint, however, lies with the character of Anna Frith. A few years ago, I read Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution, which I enjoyed immensely, except for the way in which Annette consistently got herself into (and out of) situations that absolutely beggared believe and also made her seem a bit too self-righteous and/or martyresque for me to be deeply invested in her as a character. I have the same issue with Anna Frith. From taming wild horses to delivering premature, breech babies, Anna does it all, when if she'd done just a bit less, I might have liked her more. (The midwifery scenes brought to mind The Midwife of Venice, set slightly earlier than Year of Wonders, but with many similarities.) Also, although this may be splitting hairs, Anna's obsession with Elinor was definitely weird.

Finally, and I've heard this from the friend who recommended Year of Wonders to me as well, but the ending simply does not make sense. The last 10-15 pages seem to belong to another book, which is a shame because there are any number of more believable endings Brooks could have conjured and still kept with the overall story.

Chronicles of Avonlea & Further Chronicles of Avonlea

Anne of Green Gables (and all that came after) was one of my favorite books as a girl. How was it I had never read L.M. Montgomery's Chronicles of Avonlea or Further Chronicles of Avonlea? Determined to rectify this omission, I read both recently. Montgomery's stories are, it must be said, a bit formulaic, with an innocence and a naivete that seems contrived, if not impossible. Widows, orphans, and old maids feature prominently; generally, love comes to all, often late in life, and virtually all stories end happily ever after. There is a sweetness to some, a sappiness to others, but it must be said that, generally, the people and places run to sameness. Montgomery's star is the setting, her beloved Prince Edward Island, whose twilights glimmer, waters dance, and beauty imbues each tale Montgomery spins. As I haven't much to add regarding the Chronicles and Further Chronicles of Avonlea, I can at least share a few pictures (starting with the Green Gables house) of the island that shaped all of Montgomery's writings. It really is a lovely place.

The Assassination of the Archduke: Sarajevo 1914 and the Romance That Changed the World

One must wonder what might have been had Gavrilo Princip's bullet not found Franz Ferdinand in June 1914. Only months earlier the archduke, afterall, had observed presciently that war between Russia and Austria would "encourage revolution in both countries and thereby cause both Emperor and Tsar to push each other from their thrones. For these reasons, I consider war to be lunacy..." He did not live to see the prophecy fulfilled.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though, for Greg King and Sue Woolmans's Assassination of the Archduke is not another geopolitical what-might-have-been as much as it is an intimate look at the private side of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. Make that his morganatic wife. I first learned of morganatic marriage when I read the Duke of Windsor's memoirs. As presented by that duke, it didn't seem so terrible - Wallis Simpson would have become his wife and consort, but not held the title of queen and the crown could never pass to any children they might have. Morganatic marriage in the House of Habsburg was an entirely different matter, with open insults heaped upon Sophie for the entirety of the 14 years of her marriage to her Franzi, and then continued upon their death. Suffice it to say, in 19th century Vienna, Prince William wouldn't have even been permitted a morganatic marriage to Miss Middleton!

If the Vienna aristocracy comes in for the worst of it from King and Woolmans (with Emperor Franz Josef and his lackey Montenuevo bearing the brunt of the criticism), the Serbs fare only slightly better. The reader cannot help but feel they are a violent and wretched people, deserving of every misery the twentieth century heaped on them. This is undoubtedly an over-broad portrayal, and one that feels rather unfair, at least based on the evidence presented here. Yes, they killed their king and queen in a midnight raid on a palace, but then again, so did the French (although it took them a bit longer to actually do the killing), and yet the French are seldom, if ever, portrayed as barbaric and backward.

In the same way that I wondered whether the authors were too unkind to the Serbians, I also wondered whether they might have been overly generous with Franzi and Soph. Much of the material for this book comes from statements and memories shared by their children who, one imagines, may not have been entirely unbiased. The eldest was but 13 when Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were assassinated; moreover the insults borne by the mother were also suffered by the children. It seems possible in the circumstances then that they might have then felt their parents rather more perfect and heroic than they were in life. (The grandchildren have engaged in a prolonged effort to get tour guides to be "kinder" in describing the Archduke to tourists. When such are your sources, your story can only go in one direction.) I'm not suggesting they were bad people, but the portrait painted by King and Woolmans suggests the Archduke and his wife were near saints. More surprisingly, is the Kasier's appearance as a warmheared friend to the archduke, warmhearted not being an adjective I've ever considered in connection with the Kaiser before.

On the whole, I found The Assassination of the Archduke to be highly readable and an entirely fresh take on the events leading up to World War I. Certainly King and Woolmans provide wonderful insight on the last days of the Habsburg empire and the intrigue of what was once Europe's most glittering court. I highly recommend it for history lovers or those who are looking for World War I era nonfiction that isn't simply another recounting of all the battles won and last and both sides of the war. Four stars.