Several short reviews

So, three books to catch up on quickly, read between Brat Farrar at the beginning of the month and the anthology, Heavy Weather which I reviewed recently.

First up, Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian.

This is book two in the author's Aubrey/Maturin series. The start of the book finds Captain Jack Aubrey kicking his heals in England and hiring a house in the country while the Royal Navy decides what to do with him. A Mrs. Williams and her daughters enter the fray along with a cousin (?) they have staying with them, Diana Villiers. Cue lots of romantic shenanigans and rivalries between Aubrey and Maturin and this reads just like a Regency Romance. I gather there has been a connection made between the author and Jane Austen, I shall have to investigate. This takes up about a third of the novel and then Jack is given command of an oddly built ship that no one else wants and off they all go to test it out in the English Channel. Great stuff and a really superb second installment of the series. I'm champing at the bit to read more but am trying to show restraint (Ha!) so as not to gobble them all up at once. I'm also interested to know more about O'Brian himself so will check to see if there is a biography at some stage. 

Next, Diamonds and Dust by Carol Hedges.

Industrialist, Herbert King, who has just rescued his niece Josephine from the clutches of an orphanage has been brutally murdered. It's down to Josephine and Herbert's mistress, Lileth, to discover the culprit in Victorian London. There's a large cast of very well written characters including a husband hunting mama, Mrs. Thorpe, and her disinterested daughter, Isabella, the two rather ineffective policemen in charge of the case, and 'Oi' a delightful young streetsweeper. I enjoyed this Victorian romp very much, definite shades of Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle in its weirdness but that suits me very well, the weirder the better in my opinion, you can never have enough 'weird'. This is the first book in the author's 'Victorian Detective' series and I notice the second book, Honor and Obey, is about an entirely different set of people apart from the police detectives. I'd sort of assumed that Joesphine King and Lily would reappear but apparently not. An enjoyable romp anyway.

Lastly, Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert.

The trial of Victoria Lamartime, a hotel worker and ex-French Resistance fighter, is about to start. It's thought that she murdered Colonel Thoseby who worked with The Resistance during WW2, as she was the one who discovered his body in the hotel where she works. Everyone thinks she's guilty including her own defense counsel so Victoria dismisses them and hires a firm of solicitors, Markby, Wragg and Rumbold. Only Rumbold's son, known as 'Nap' is available so he duly takes on the case. They get an adjournment and Nap is off to France to discover what he can about the connection between the accused and the dead colonel and he only has a few days to get some answers. A lot of this book consists of a courtroom drama and I'm not really a great fan of those. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this one immensely. Gilbert's writing is always perfection itself and the French sections of the book were excellent and kept my attention well. This is book five in the author's Instector Hazlerigg series but don't go expecting that, he's hardly in it... it's all about Nap Rumbold and two assistants, going about their business separately to solve a murder, and was a delightful read.