Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

After putting up a post reviewing the 18th and final Maisie Dobbs mystery I realized as I was preparing a summing up post on the series that I had not posted a review on one of the earliest books, Pardonable Lies. I went back and found the review I had written in 2009 before I started blogging. My reviews were shorter at that time.

****

 20. - 483.) Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear – In the fall of 1930 Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, is back for her 3rd mystery. Two cases occupy her. At Scotland Yard’s request she interviews a 13 year old girl suspected of killing her pimp “uncle”. Convinced Avril Jarvis did not murder, Maisie seeks to establish her innocence. At the same time Maisie is asked by Sir Cecil Lawton K.C. to confirm his son, Ralph, died in World War I. While there was an obvious strain in the father / son relationship Lawton is honouring the request of his late wife who believed to her dying day that her son had not perished during the War. Maisie works out an arrangement that in return for taking on Lawton’s quest he would defend Jarvis. As she starts upon her investigations Maisie is asked by her close friend, Priscilla Partridge, to determine what happened to her brother, Peter Evernden, whose place of death during the War is unknown to her. Pursuing her investigations of what happened to the young men during the War Maisie finds herself in the murky work done by Maurice Blanche during the War. Most challenging, she is drawn back to her horrific memories of the War. The voice of her deceased mother tells her to slay her dragons. While she faces physical danger in her queries the greater risk is to her mind as she returns to France 12 years after the end of the War. While the voices in her head are more muted I was reminded of Ian Rutledge and Hamish, the deceased corporal, who shares Ian’s mind in the mysteries of Charles Todd. The emotional traumas of the War, covered up by her dedication to work, can no longer be avoided when her investigations take her back into the War. The wounds of the mind linger longest in all the characters who went to the War. I enjoyed the book but enjoyed the first two in the series better. This book is a better mystery but the investigation is more conventional than the previous mysteries. Her talents at reading people are less important. Maisie is a worthy member of a trio of WW I veterans in contemporary mystery writing joining Rutledge and Rennie Airth’s hero John Madden. (May 31/09) 

****

Winspear, Jacqueline – (2008) - Maisie Dobbs; (Best fiction of 2008) (2008) - Birds of a Feather; (2009) - Pardonable Lies; (2011) - Messenger of Truth; (2012) - An Incomplete Revenge; (2012) - Among the Mad; (2013) - The Mapping of Love and Death; (2016) - A Lesson in Secrets; (2016) - Elegy for Eddie; (2018) Leaving Everything Most Loved; (2020) - A Dangerous Place - Part I on Maisie's life since the last book and Part II a review; (2020) - A Journey to Munich; (2021) - In This Grave Hour; (2021) - To Die But Once; (2022) - The American Agent; (2023) - The Consequences of Fear; (2023) - A Sunlit Weapon; (2024) - The Comfort of Ghosts

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

(52. - 1235.) The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear - In the 18th and final Maisie Dobbs book World War II has ended. During the fall of 1945 an exhausted England is sort of welcoming home the military who survived the war. Hundreds of thousands of families are homeless. Food remains rationed. Rubble is everywhere.

Maisie is determined to ease the return to peacetime for those she encounters in need. It is almost impossible to review the book without spoilers for readers who have not read the series. In a departure from my usual effort to avoid spoilers this post will include spoilers but not of the resolution of murder.

Sir Julian Comption, her original employer as a maid 35 years earlier, who became her first father-in-law and lastly was her friend has died. Maisie and her family do their best to adjust to the loss.

Maisie’s American husband, Mark, continues to shuttle between the United States and England as he deals with sensitive diplomatic issues.

Her adopted daughter, Anna, is doing well.

Maisie’s greatest challenge is the son of Billy Beale, her trusted employee who is now her partner in the investigation business. “Young Billy” who wants to be called “Will” spent 4 years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He returns emaciated in body and deeply wounded in mind. Were it not for Maisie I doubt he would have lived more than a few weeks back in England. His father has endured the periodic demons of shell shock since the end of World War I.

Can Maisie find a way to help father and son?

Maisie takes up the cause of a quartet of teenagers who had been trained to be guerillas had Germany invaded England. Their war came to a troubled end that has them on the run.

The teenagers have seen the murder of an Honourable and officials “on high” have had the coroner list the death as “death by misadventure” and records have been taken away by “government order”. 

Maisie is disturbed by the murder, the political nature of the Honourable’s life and the coverup. How far will those “on high” go to maintain secrecy?

She will protect the teenagers and calls upon her best friend, Priscilla Partridge, to assist her.

The teenagers, especially the girls, are very bright. The youngest, Grace, reminded me of Maisie as a teenage maid for the Comptons stealing downstairs to read in their library in the middle of the night. 

Inevitably, in a book readers know is the last in the series, the murder has a lesser role. Its resolution felt somewhat contrived but is appropriate for the plot.

For the living characters two wars have left them seeking routine. I tell younger members of the office I will know you are maturing when you are content with a routine day.

After resolving the murder Maisie comes across love letters written by her deceased husband, James Compton, when he was a teenager to his first love, Enid, a maid who shared a room with Maisie. Enid died in a munitions factory explosion in 1914. The letters, written almost two decades before Maisie and James met, set Maisie off on a remarkable final case.

The world is weary from the two world wars. Maisie is tired in body and spirit. It is time for her to be Anna’s full time mother and Mark’s full time wife.

****

Winspear, Jacqueline – (2008) - Maisie Dobbs; (Best fiction of 2008) (2008) - Birds of a Feather; (2009) - Pardonable Lies; (2011) - Messenger of Truth; (2012) - An Incomplete Revenge; (2012) - Among the Mad; (2013) - The Mapping of Love and Death; (2016) - A Lesson in Secrets; (2016) - Elegy for Eddie; (2018) Leaving Everything Most Loved; (2020) - A Dangerous Place - Part I on Maisie's life since the last book and Part II a review; (2020) - A Journey to Munich; (2021) - In This Grave Hour; (2021) - To Die But Once; (2022) - The American Agent; (2023) - The Consequences of Fear; (2023) - A Sunlit Weapon

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

(45. - 1228.) Shanghai Girls by Lisa See - Pearl, the narrator, is the older less favoured sister. May is the favourite of Baba and Mama. They are “beautiful girls” serving as models for “calendars, posters and advertisements”. At 21 and 18 they are as independent as possible for young women in Shanghai of 1937. They consider themselves modern women.

It was with dread I read the opening chapters. The Japanese attack on Shanghai was pending. The girls have no knowledge of politics and war. Pearl and May are concerned about fashion. 

Their dreams of love end abruptly. Their father, Baba, is a gambler. The choices they see before them are gone. Baba has lost his business and their investments. He arranges marriages of the girls to a pair of American Chinese men.

The Japanese are disdainfully referred to as the “monkey people”. The consequences of the Japanese onslaught are as brutal as I feared. The Chinese call the attacking Japanese soldiers “dwarf bandits”.

The girls and Mama flee Shanghai. 

Gravely injured during their flight, Mama whispers to Pearl that she is Pearl Dragon having been born in the year of the Dragon and “that only a Dragon can tame the fates”. She extracts a promise from Pearl that she will take care of May.

With little money and no prospects in China they leave for America. The girls have become survivors living for the present. They will deal with the future when it arrives.

They are held at the Angel Island Immigration Station, the immigration point for the Western United States. It is a prison. America does not want Chinese immigrants and the girls are rigorously questioned.

Pearl and May and a daughter, Joy, join their husbands, Sam and Vern, of the arranged marriages in Los Angeles. The combined Louie family live in a small apartment and work daily in small family businesses at China City.

Life is a hard grind. Prejudice is severe. Restaurants refuse to serve Chinese people and movie theatres force them into the balcony. The girls despair that there will never be a better future.

After persistent entreaties May is allowed to work in Hollywood where she can earn $5.00 per day.

When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor on December 7 and America joins WW II circumstances change.

Discrimination yields to war needs. Chinese men and women can go to work in armament factories such as Lockheed earning $34 a week when they are making $20 a month in the restaurant. Pearl remains a waitress at the family restaurant.

At the end of the war Sam buys a used car.

At 10 Joy is a natural salesperson. On weekends from 6 pm to midnight she sells gardenias, fifteen cents for one and twenty-five cents for a double. Tourists love the pretty little Chinese girl speaking and singing naturally in English.

Good news and bad news occur in tandem.

Fear never eases for the Chinese of California. When Mao Tse-Tung takes control of mainland China, the intense fear in America of Communists leads to the suspension of habeas corpus and arrests and some deportations of Chinese. Reading the wrong newspaper is cause for suspicion.

After a lifetime around the Methodist Church as a “rice Christian” Pearl becomes a “one-Goder” and a true believer. Her conversion is also useful in asserting she is not a Godless Communist.

The U.S. introduces a Confession Program that allows illegally entered Chinese to confess their deceit and, if they implicate another, get American citizenship.

FBI agents press Sam and Pearl trying to get them to confess to the truth which is they entered the U.S. illegally. They are resolute and deflect inquiries and admit no wrongdoing.

Unfortunately, Joy believes Red China is a worker’s paradise. May confesses that she informed on Sam to the FBI in a misguided effort to ensure they will be able to stay in America.

In an incredibly dramatic scene Pearl and May hurl accusations at the other going back to their days as girls in Shanghai.

The ending is unconventional. I have mixed emotions about the conclusion.

The harsh lives of the girls from the late 1930’s into the 1940’s reminded me that millions of people across the world endured suffering and loss that can barely be understood in the Western World of the 2st Century.

I found Shanghai Girls a hard book as I was a brother in life not a sister. The strength of the book is the relationship between Pearl and May. The plot has neither a happy beginning nor a happy middle nor a happy ending. I was moved by the spirit of the sisters who experience desperate circumstances and a discriminatory America. I doubt either could have survived without the other. Their bond is strained by circumstance and their emotions and decisions but they are sustained by their love for each other. Pearl reflects:

The last thing May says to me is “When our hair is white, we’ll still have our sister love.”

Email to A.J. Devlin on Bronco Buster and His Memorable Reply

In my past 2 posts I have put up a review of Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin and thoughts on poetry in the book and professional wrestling. Those posts and this post are part of a blog tour for the book. (I recommend reading the first two posts and then this post.) For this post I wrote to A.J. inviting his comments on my trio of posts. My email and his reply, in the vivid purple it appeared in my inbox, form this post. His response is remarkable and A.J. deeply moved me with his generous words. I look forward to reading more of his books. He is one of the best young writers in Canada.

****

Dear A.J.

At the end of this email are my review of Bronco Buster and a post on poetry connected to the book.

I had lamented to you, after reading Five Moves of Doom, that Hammerhead had become a darker man.

I appreciate Hammerhead has regret over the death he set up in Five Moves of Doom. I equally appreciate Declan has no regret over the killing of a man who was a merciless killer.

Declan declared to Hammerhead:

“Stop beatin’ yerself up, Deartháir Fola”, which was Irish for blood brother. “Ya know if it could be done over, we’d still do it the same.”

My life of almost 50 years as a lawyer has ingrained in me that the Rule of Law keeps our nation a civilized country.

Much as vigilante justice appeals to me I condemn its practice.

Yet we must all move ahead in life. 

I had feared after Five Moves of Doom that Hammerhead was headed to an abyss in his life where he lost hope in the future. I was glad to see him returning from the darkness in Bronco Buster. His wit is encouraging.

I loved the big personalities in Bronco Buster. They added such colour and sparkle to the story. I am glad you let some light into the hard world of Hammerhead. Now, if you could only get Sam and J.T. to add some colour to the noir of their Vancouver.

Hammerhead is rolling along with the amazing characters of the book, working his way back to enjoying life but I see him still deeply troubled over his past vigilante actions. Planning and carrying out a killing takes a continuing toll on a reflective soul. Only the truly twisted can kill without conscience.

When I deal with people who have experienced great trauma whether from family turmoil or spousal conflict or residential school attendance or criminal attack or false accusation or another of the myriad of ways one human can harm another I often recommend counselling. For numerous clients it has helped them move forward.

In books, T.V. shows and movies I often see police officers brushing aside mandatory counselling after undergoing trauma. I have always thought that approach misguided. There is as much drama in addressing a troubled mind as barging forward without help.

I hope Hammerhead seeks out some counselling beyond Declan. His cousin started his recovery in his rough and ready way. Fully facing the conflicts within his mind with a counsellor would be fascinating.

Kooty, the Doukhobor motivational speaker and secular guru, encouraged Hammerhead to embrace his pain and forgive himself. By listening, the massive wrestler showed himself open to counseling.

Self-help remedies are a start. Professional therapy can sustain the healing.

As discussed I will be glad to post your response to this email and my other posts on Bronco Buster. Rollicking action, humour and reflection are a potent combination driving Bronco Buster. I expect it to get Award attention.

As has become a personal tradition I drank a DQ banana milkshake while reflecting on Bronco Buster.

All the best.

Bill

****

"Back in the saddle."

That’s the tag line I’ve been running with for Bronco Buster as it features “Hammerhead” Jed’s return to both the wrestling and detective worlds. 

Promotion, event planning, hell I even sign most books “‘Hammerhead’ Jed is back in the saddle — hope you enjoy!”

And while for most folks that might be the take away line, I am not for a minute surprised that it’ s not the one Bill Selnes got out of my latest novel. No, Bill not only zeroed in on the “DO NOT GO GENTLE” Dylan Thomas poetry line — the son of a gun even outdid this author and found an incredible video about how this epic poetic phrase has already been utilized as a showcase for sports entertainment.

If you haven’t seen the 2014 WWE 2K ad I highly recommend it just like Bill as it does something even a bit unusual for wrestling — it focuses on the HONOUR of the wrestlers. 

And HONOUR was one of the themes I wanted to explore in Bronco Buster.

While originally conceived as a trilogy of Cobra Clutch, Rolling Thunder, and Five Moves of Doom with room for future novels, after the threequel it became clear the time was not right to say goodbye to the character of “Hammerhead” Jed Ounstead (for now at least) as this author prepares to challenge himself by writing a new standalone comedic crime caper.

All of this is really a long-winded way of saying that if it weren’t for Bill Selnes, I don’t think I would have prioritized Bronco Buster over my new standalone novel.

Why?

Because Bill is authentic. Bill is genuine. Bill invests in stories and in turn experiences emotions from them. 

Not only did this happen in Five Moves of Doom — I KNOW it was the book that caused Bill — a man of strong faith, character, and integrity — some concern over “Hammerhead” Jed because I had very strategically taken the character to a darker place and possibly sent him on a more concerning vigilante path. And while we may have agreed to disagree on Jed’s actions in book 3, that didn’t make Bill’s feelings any less valid to me. 

In fact, it sort of made me take a moment to reevaluate the series itself. 

Why? 

Because Bill likes Jed. 

Bill cares about Jed.

And when I realized not only where Jed was at by the end of Five Moves of Doom but also the lingering feelings Bill still felt over Jed’s fate at the end of that novel? 

Well that’s when it became crystal clear that my trilogy needed to become a quadrology and Jed had to make a choice — about the kind of detective / wrestler / man he is going to be.

Then and only then would the character be able to be put on hiatus (or perhaps even ride off into the sunset). This coming into his own — this coming home within himself — this is what all of the books have been building toward in this quadrology. It was never about Jed being a wrestler who lost his honour and had to find it again. It wasn’t never about Jed finding new honour in helping people by being a detective. 

“Hammerhead” Jed’s journey has always been about him realizing that whether he is a professional wrestler shining in the limelight or a PI causing trouble and catching bad guys with his cousin — HE IS AN IMPACT PLAYER.

For me, that is what Jed realizes in this novel. That labels don’t matter. But lives do. Jed doesn’t care if people think of him as a wrestler or detective or both — he CHOOSES to be man of honour in order to help folks and save lives the way that only him and his pisstank commando cousin can. And by doing so, after his tragic exit from pro-wrestling before book 1 all the way up to the end of book 3,  I like to think Jed may have saved himself.

And not just his life. Perhaps his soul as well.

Bronco Buster begins with a crass and vulgar move where a wrestler suffocates his opponent with his crotch. Which is why it seems only fitting that it ends with the author referring to Jed’s experience (of solving the real-time rodeo case and making peace with his past) as the sort of “spiritual enema” of the “Hammerhead” Jed mystery-comedy series. 

Two parting thoughts:

1) Yes I did in fact just attempt to link honour and an enema as seen above

2) Many thanks to Bill Selnes and Mysteries And More for another awesome book tour visit

Best,

AJ Devlin

****

Devlin, A.J. - (2019) - Cobra Clutch; (2020) - Rolling Thunder and Stampede Wrestling and and Exchange with Author A.J. Devlin; (2022) - Five Moves of Doom and Discussing Five Moves with A.J.; (2024) - Bronco Buster and Poetry and Professional Wrestling

Poetry and Professional Wrestling

In my previous post I reviewed Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin. His
sleuth, John Edward “Jed” “Hammerhead” Ounstead is such a character he has two nicknames.

Hammerhead is a professional wrestler and a private investigator. His investigating techniques focus on the physical.

It is patronizing but I admit I had not thought of Hammerhead appreciating poetry. Choosing “DO NOT GO GENTLE” for his new wrestling marketing catchphrase was striking. I found myself drifting once again into patronization with speculation on pro wrestling fans envisioning where Hammerhead would not go gentle. Within his family, while I am confident his Irish cousin Declan, from the land of 20,000 poets, would know the phrase is from the famed poem of Dylan Thomas I am equally sure Declan would, in public, provide a crude and lascivious intent to the phrase.

Looking around the net I found that the WWE had created a promotional video for its WWE 2K 14 video game featuring John Cena reading Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. It is a powerful video. 

I expect Thomas, an iconoclastic personality, would approve of his words appearing on a promotional wrestling tee shirt for Hammerhead “above my usual logo of a two-by-four piece of western red cedar with a bolt of lightning crackling through the wood”.

I do doubt Thomas, in the writing of the poem, was inspired by the cricket teams he loved.

Hammerhead confirms he is a poetry aficionado when he quotes Oscar Wilde on temptation.

During my internet wandering I found an article on The Conversation website, How Sport and Poetry Make the Perfect Match on T.V. I found the story fascinating.

The video of Serena Williams reciting Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise was moving.

Until reading the article I had forgotten that poetry was an event in the original Greek Olympic Games and early in the 20th Century at the modern Olympics.

On a cruise Sharon and I had a chance to visit the original Olympic Games site at Olympia. While the buildings are in ruins you can walk on the pathway the athletes took to enter into the stadium which held 40,000 spectators. I am sure Hammerhead and Devlin would find a shiver go through them as I did when I entered the stadium.

It is the second time this year I have read poetry in a crime fiction novel involving the life of a professional male athlete. In From Sweetgrass Bridge by Anthony Bidulka there is a haunting poem by the missing starting quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I quoted that poem in a follow up post to my review and added a poem from Dick Bass, a former football player, coach and executive, about football. I do not have any pro wrestling poetry but I expect some has been written.

The whole poem of Thomas could be an anthem for the sometimes quixotic quests of Hammerhead. He is one of the “good men” and the “wild men” who will:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Let his time to rage be many books into the future.

****

Links to Cena’s reading and the article on sport and poetry are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DBGHfWe-g

https://theconversation.com/how-sport-and-poetry-make-the-perfect-match-on-tv-233799

****

Devlin, A.J. - (2019) - Cobra Clutch; (2020) - Rolling Thunder and Stampede Wrestling and and Exchange with Author A.J. Devlin; (2022) - Five Moves of Doom and Discussing Five Moves with A.J.; (2024) -
Bronco Buster