Here are three titles I read recently: mysteries by Elizabeth George and Victoria Thompson and a biographical novel by Colum McCann. Two are great fun; the third requires perseverance.
Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George
This is an immensely satisfying mystery, although it’s less of a mystery and more of a study of human relationships. Somehow, I missed this Inspector Lynley novel when it was published in 2012 so when I spied it at the library book sale here, I snatched it up.
Thomas Lynley is tasked by Bernard Fairclough to investigate the death of his nephew, Ian Cresswell, in the Lake District, even though it has been ruled an accidental drowning by the authorities. Lynley enlists the assistance of his friends and colleagues, Simon St. James and his wife Deborah, a freelance photographer. Fairclough’s son Nicholas is a former drug addict working in his father’s business and trying to redeem his reputation. Nicholas’s twin sisters have their own issues; Mignon is single and skillfully and without compunction manipulates those around her, while Manette still shares living quarters with the husband she’s not sure she should have divorced. Ian, the deceased, was divorced from his wife and his children, Tim, 14, and ten-year old Grace, have been tossed about some.
Secrets and lies and excess baggage abound, but what made this book so absorbing and successful for me (all 600+ pages—Ms. George’s novels are never short!) were the realistic conversations and disagreements between Simon and Deborah St. James over their desire for a child, Lynley’s reflections on his relationship with superintendent Isabelle, the delicate dance between Manette and her ex-husband Fred, and the depiction of Tim’s angst and sullenness.
Ms. George “gets” people and having read nearly all of her previous Lynley novels, I find her main characters are like old friends and encountering them again is a pleasure.
Murder in Chelsea by Victoria Thompson
Thompson’s Gaslight Mystery series is set in New York City in the early 19th century and features midwife and widow Sarah Brandt who works in the poorer neighborhoods and regularly assists detective sergeant Frank Molloy in solving murders. There are some stock characters like superstitious and nosy, but well meaning, Mrs. Ellsworth who lives next door, and Sarah’s wealthy parents, the Deckers, who don’t totally approve of her way of life and her relationship with Molloy, but who occasionally get called upon to open doors to the social elite.
Murder in Chelsea focuses on Sarah’s adopted daughter and the appearance of her real mother and is multi-layered and full of twists and turns. It also advances the relationship between Sarah and Frank in a surprising way. Not as complex or as psychological as Elizabeth George or Julia Spencer-Fleming’s work, but enjoyable.
Dancer by Colum McCann
This is an earlier novel by McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin and Transatlantic, and is his imagining of Rudolf Nureyev’s life and career. As is the case with McCann’s other novels, the writing is exquisite and he excels at capturing the tactile—the physical details of surroundings as well as the embraces and expressions of bodies in motion or at rest. Told mostly through the perspective of Nureyev’s teachers, colleagues, and lovers, it has a floating, almost amorphous quality to it (reflective of dance itself?). I admit to simultaneously enjoying the language while finding it very slow going at points. It was not always clear whose point of view I was being given and this was frustrating.
Nureyev had a rough childhood in Russia, defected to the West as a young dancer, and lived his life with arrogance, hubris, and an often dismissive attitude toward friends. He soared to stardom with Margot Fonteyn, hobnobbed with the likes of Andy Warhol, sought out the gay bar scene and had a personal life most would deem hollow.
