Review of "The Queen Who Came In From The Cold: Her Majesty The Queen Investigates #5" by S.J. Bennett

This 5th book in the series 'Her Majesty the Queen Investigates' harks back to 1961, when the capitalist Western Bloc was in a cold war with the communist Eastern Bloc. The rivalry leads to a murder and an MI5 problem, both of which Queen Elizabeth helps resolve.

The book works fine as a standalone.



*****

Early in the story, Queen Elizabeth and her entourage board the Royal Train for a trip up the west coast of Great Britain.

Before the locomotive departs, Princess Margaret's substitute lady-in-waiting, a striking blonde called Sandra Pole, boards the train with her chihuahua Conchita.

The first evening on the Royal Train goes well, with martinis, dinner, and lively conversation.



The next morning, lady-in-waiting Sandra Pole tells Joan McGraw - the Queen's assistant private secretary (APS) - something shocking.





Sandra claims she went to get a wrap yesterday evening, looked out the window, and saw three men disposing of a dead body. The police determine the general location, search, and find nothing.



Then Sandra admits she shaded the truth. It turns out Sandra snuck into the Queen's railroad car yesterday AFTERNOON, to take a photo of her dog Conchita in the Queen's bathtub. That's when she saw the horrible event.



This time the police locate a dead body in a cistern. The victim is photographer Pavel Michalowski, who's a friend of Princess Margaret's husband, the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones.



The Queen, who's surreptitiously helped the authorities before, becomes interested in the case. By chance, the Queen's perusal of a horse magazine gives her a clue to Michalowski's killers, and - in a roundabout way - the Queen informs the police.



That's just the BEGINNING of her majesty's involvement in the case though. The Queen learns Michalowski, who played chess, had connections with the immigrant community, and was known to help high-profile defectors escape from the Eastern bloc.



Happily, the Queen has useful connections. Her APS Joan McGraw was a code-breaker during WWII, and is familiar with the world of espionage;



and Joan's boyfriend is Major Hector Ross, Head of D Branch, MI5.



As a result, Joan gets a peek at evidence collected from Michalowski's apartment, and is able to inform the Queen that there ARE arrangements to help a defector escape from Russia. Astoundingly, the plans are tied to the Queen and Prince Philip's upcoming trip to Italy on the yacht Brittania.





No spoilers, but the Queen feels obligated to pull all sorts of strings to avoid a HUGE diplomatic incident AND to assist the defector. Her majesty's clever machinations come to involve an admiral;



naval personnel;



intelligence agents;



Italian fishermen;



the Queen Mother;



the indispensable APS Joan McGraw; and more.



All this is fun and compelling, and one admires the Queen's intelligence, spunk, and ability to dissimulate.

Her majesty's wily operations necessarily take only a fraction of her time, and the Queen spends time with Prince Phillip - who affectionately calls her cabbage and sausage;



takes her children to a point to point horse race;



performs her royal duties;



reads the briefings in her red box;



plays with her corgis; and more.



The story has unexpected twists, as expected in a good mystery. I like this series, and this book is my favorite so far. Recommended to fans of suspense stories.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Samantha Bond, who does a fine job.

Thanks to Netgalley, S.J. Bennett, and Dreamscape Media for a copy of the book.

 Rating: 4 stars 

Review of "Clown Town: Slough House #9" by Mick Herron

This is the 9th book in Mick Herron's 'Slough House' (Slow Horses) series, about British MI5 agents who are 'on the outs' with Regents Park and consigned to working in a decrepit building called Slough House. There the slow horses are tasked with boring paperwork in hopes they'll quit. The novels in this series are best read in order because of the continuing story arc.



*****

The man in charge of Slough House is former spy master Jackson Lamb, who might be the most obnoxious person on the planet. Lamb hurls insults at people, smokes too much, eats too much, is purposely flatulent, wears dirty clothes, has holes in his socks, and always needs a shower. Regardless, Lamb is a clever fellow, and it's hard to get one over on him.



The disgraced agents at Slough House are:

✿ Shirley Dander: Shirley has a drug problem, a hair trigger temper, and is currently in trouble for causing mass casualties at an MI5-run detox center.



✿ Catherine Standish: Catherine, a recovering alcoholic, is Jackson Lamb's assistant. Among other things, Catherine distributes the monotonous paperwork assignments to the slow horses.



✿ Lech Wicinki: Lech purposely scarred his face to obliterate a tattoo. He's currently assigned to cross-check census results against utility usage, to determine if supposedly occupied properties are empty, and potential hideaways for criminals.



✿ Louisa Guy: Louisa still mourns the death of her boyfriend, slow horse Min Harper. Louisa has been offered a job with a private security firm, and is thinking of leaving Slough House.



✿ Roddy Ho: Roddy is delusional, and (wrongly) considers himself irresistible to women. Roddy just got a hummingbird tattoo, and thinks it makes him even hotter. On the upside, Roddy is a master hacker.



✿ Ashley Khan: Ashley is the newest slow horse, and thinks she can back to Regents Park. If she did, it would be unprecedented.



✿ River Cartwright: River recently recovered from deadly nerve poison and is on leave. He's currently living with former slow horse Sidonie Baker, who was shot in the head during an operation.



Since the slow horses are never given anything useful to do, they sometimes embark on their own 'missions.' In this book, the slow horses join an off-the-books operation mounted by a group of former MI5 agents called the Brains Trust. The Brains Trust is comprised of agents Daisy Wessex, Charles Cormoran (CC) Stamoran, Avril Potts, and Al Hawke.



During the 'Troubles', the Brains Trust ran an operation called Pitchfork, during which they protected an Irish informer named Dougie Malone. Unfortunately, Dougie was a serial rapist and murderer who, while being protected, killed 13 women. Following the Good Friday agreement, the Brains Trust agents were forced to leave MI5, to prevent a scandal from erupting.

The Brains Trust agents were just following orders, and are angry about the fallout from Pitchfork. Daisy, CC, Avril, and Al are getting older, have small pensions, and live very close to the bone. But a chance for a corrective may be in sight.

David Cartwright (River's grandfather), who was once VERY high in MI5, died and left his library to Oxford College.





CC found information about Pitchfork in one of David's books, and decided to blackmail Regents Park First Desk Diana Taverna - a woman you DO NOT mess with.



Diana takes steps to take care of the Brains Trust while simultaneously getting rid of a threatening politician named Peter Judd.



River Cartwright intuits Diana's plan, and he and the other slow horses - who are always looking for excitement - decide to interfere.



There are tragic consequences, and since Jackson Lamb feels responsible for his 'joes' (even if they're idiots), he plans his own revenge.



The story gets complicated, and close attention is necessary to follow all the threads. It's worth the effort though, since the book is full of Mick Herron's fine storytelling and trademark humor.

Recommended to fans of the Slough House series.

 Rating: 4 stars 

Review of "James: A Novel" by Percival Everett"

 

Percival Everett's 'James', winner of several prestigious awards including a Pulitzer Prize, is a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the slave Jim.



'James' begins in Hannibal, Missouri shortly before the start of the Civil War. Huck is the adolescent, good-natured, mischievous son of Pap Finn, a mean drunk who beats Huck whenever he comes to town.



James is a slave belonging to Miss Watson. Unlike the original book, James has learned to read, write, and speak grammatical English, though he code-switches to 'slave speech' in the presence of White people.



Here's an example of James' slave speech, when he knows Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are about to play a trick on him:

Who dat dere in da dark lak dat? I guess I just gwyne set dese old bones down on dis heah porch and watch out for dat noise 'gin. Maybe dere be sum ol' demon or witch out dere. I gwyne stay right heah where it be safe.

Here's an example of James correct grammatical speech:

I sat on the top step and leaned back against the post. I was tired, so I closed my eyes. The boys whispered excitedly to each other, and I could hear them, clear as a church bell.

Moreover, James has read Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and John Locke, and in dreams/hallucinations, James has conversations with them about slavery - often confronting them about their hypocrisy.

When James hears that Miss Watson plans to sell him to a man in New Orleans, he fears he'll never see his family again. So James runs away, hoping to earn money to buy his wife Sadie and daughter Lizzie and get to a free state like Illinois.



While James is hiding on Jackson Island in the Mississippi River, Huck comes along. After another beating from Pap, Huck faked his death with pig's blood and ran away.



James realizes he's now a runaway slave and most likely also a murder suspect. Knowing they need to flee, Huck and Finn embark on a raft and canoe journey down the Mississippi River.



Huck and James have 'adventures' along the way, both separately and together, but this retelling focuses on James.



Some of James experiences have an element of humor, but at bottom, all the White people James encounters are exploitative and cruel. James accepts, and even expects the brutality, because in James' experience, Whites think of slaves as hardly human. On the rare occasions Whites happen to hear James speak correct English, they're bamboozled, as if it's impossible.



I won't rehash the story, but I'll provide a few examples of James' experiences, to give a feel for the narrative.

◙ Early in the novel James, who has taken several books from a wrecked steamboat, comes across four slaves. James explains he's a runaway, and to avoid endangering them, he'll go on his way. But James asks if they can get him a pencil first.



A slave called Young George steals a small pencil stub from his master, and James is thrilled to be able to write 'his story' in the books. Later on, James learns Young George was lashed, and then hanged for stealing the pencil stub, and James is haunted by the guilt.



◙ Some time later, Huck and James meet two conmen, who call themselves the Duke of Bridgewater and the King of France. The 'royals' routinely swindle the public, and hit on a scheme of selling James, who'll escape to be sold again and again. When James angers the duo, they whip his legs, then scold him for limping, because he won't garner a good price.



At one point the Duke and King decide to go drinking, and because they fear James will run off, they leave him at a livery. The shysters insist that Easter, a slave who works at the livery, shackle James so he can't escape.



When the Duke and King return and find James unshackled, they whip Easter. Easter's owner arrives, is furious, and insists he'll keep James to work for him until Easter recovers. The entire episode is jarring. It's abhorrent to whip any slave, much less a slave you don't know. I think people would be more wary of whipping someone else's dog.

◙ After the livery incident, a man named Daniel Decatur Emmett, who manages a minstrel troupe, buys James to replace a missing tenor. The troupe performs in blackface, and ironically, James must perform in blackface as well. An audience member is very taken with James' hair, and can't believe how authentic 'the wig' feels. James is terrified, but the scene is sardonically humorous. To add insult to injury, the troupe sings racist songs written by Emmett.



◙ James runs away from the minstrel troupe with Norman, a Black man passing as White. The duo decide to repeat the 'sell a slave ruse', and Norman sells James to a sawmill owner called Henderson. Henderson doesn't maintain his equipment, and some slaves using his saws have lost fingers.

James spends the day in a pit, sawing a log, after which Henderson orders James to come out for his lashes. James is told Henderson whips all his slaves, for no particular reason.



When James learns Henderson has been raping a teenage slave called Sammy, he 'steals' Sammy when he runs away.



Henderson and his posse then chase them with guns and dogs.



◙ Additional horrific scenes play out as the book continues, one of the most awful being a breeding farm for birthing slaves to sell. What kind of person would think that up?



James is finally compelled to stand up for himself, to the absolute shock and horror of the White people involved.



Any book that features slavery is disturbing, and it's hard to fathom the mindset of slaveholders. To justify chattel slavery, racists must have believed Black people are hardly human, and have no feelings and no rights. Moreover, to insure Blacks 'stayed in their place', reading and writing were absolutely forbidden, thus the hullaballoo about a missing pencil stub.

'James' presents a darker picture of Jim's life than 'Huckleberry Finn', and I applaud Percival Everett for moving the timeline from the 1840s to the era of the Civil War, to provide a speck of light at the end of the tunnel.



This novel is hard to read, but it's probably a necessary corrective to revisionist history about the slavery era. Highly recommended.

I had access to the digital novel as well as the audiobook, narrated by Dominc Hoffman, who does a fine job. 

 Rating: 4 stars