Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

(56. - 1239.) Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal - Maggie Hope reluctantly agrees to become one of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s typing secretaries in May of 1940. She resents being denied a “private secretary” position because she is a woman. They are “traditionally held by young Oxbridge men from upper class families”. Being a “Wellesley graduate, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, fluent in German and English, about to start working toward a doctoral degree in mathematics from M.I.T.” are not enough credentials for a woman in 1940.

In the shadows of London, Mike Murphy from the I.R.A. is causing chaos setting off bombs. The latest was in a rubbish bin at a London Underground Station.

When one of the typing secretaries, Mrs. Tingsley, is sick, Miss Hope is called into the breach to take dictation from the Prime Minister after dinner. Churchill entered the room, never looked at her and began to dictate letters that she typed as he spoke:

She became almost hypnotized, engrossed in her task as he went on and on - she imagined herself not as a typist but as an extension of him, a link between himself and the page. They went on in this manner, with various letters, for almost an hour before he finally looked at her.

Realizing she was not Mrs. Tinsley, he assessed her carefully and said “[W]e need some hope in this office” and that she could stay.

On subsequent nights he roars disapproval at mistakes such as single instead of double spacing and misspelled or misunderstood words. Occasionally he kicks the wastebasket across the room. Unexpectedly for Churchill, she stands up to him and earns a modest acknowledgement from him that he has been overbearing.  

The fear of spies and saboteurs is intense. There is reason to fear disruptions.

Maggie participates in the typing of multiple drafts of some of Churchill’s most famous speeches.

The waiting for the Blitz to start is excruciating. The work at the Prime Minister’s Office goes on day and night.

The Blitz causes horrific damage. As in Germania life goes on in London. Maggie helps organize a birthday party. Rations are saved for a month to make a birthday cake.

Londoners “went on as though they were people in one of those classic English plays - always polite, terribly formal, occasionally stiff”.

There is a credible ingenious Nazi plot that actually could have changed the war had it succeeded.

A message is sent to Germany via Norway through dots and dashes embedded in a women’s clothing ad.

The drama comes from reading how it was thwarted. As the plot unfolds Maggie is dismayed by who is treacherous.

Through the book there are references to Maggie having some mysterious unknown family connections. Maggie ends up shaken by family revelations.

The resolution shifts into high Hollywood mode. Until the conclusion Mr. Churchill’s Secretary had been a very interesting book. The theatrics were unnecessary. 

Maggie is not an action hero. She is an excellent character of great intellect. She is not cut out to save the world. I was reminded of Maisie Dobbs until the ending. Maisie solved mysteries without mayhem in almost all her books. Maisie’s most powerful weapon was her mind. I wondered if the conclusion was MacNeal’s choice.

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary is a good book. I am going to read more in the series.

The Hunter by Tana French

(1. - 1245.) The Hunter by Tana French - Trey Reddy is growing up. The skittish 13 year old of The Searcher is now 15. She can carry on a conversation with Cal Hooper, the former Chicago police officer, who moved into a cottage near her home in Ireland. Still Cal finds he gets more from her shrugs than her words. 

Trey and her dog, Banjo, spend a lot of time at Cal’s place. There is an old desk at which she does schoolwork. Mainly, Cal and Trey work on carpentry projects. They built a shelving unit and put up peg boards for all their tools. They are starting work on the restoration of a chair.

Trey is upset with her father, Johnny, casually returning home after 4 years. She asks Cal if she can stay the night. Uneasy about her father’s reaction, he arranges for her to stay with Miss Lena Dunne.

Miss Lena has no time for the easy talking Johnny wanting to charm her. She knows there is no substance, only a facade to Johnny.

Trey is glad Miss Lena and Cal share nights together but keep their own residences. Trey says she is “never gonna get married”. 

Johnny calls her Theresa.

Within a few pages I was caught up in the book

French continues to capture the lyrical expressiveness of the Irish and their blunt descriptiveness. Mart Lavin greets Johnny - “Look what the fairies left on the doorstep” after Johnny had been “over the water” in London. Mart asks - “Then what brought a cosmopolitan fella like yourself back from the finest city in the world to the arse end of nowhere?” Johnny replies - “Doesn’t matter how great the big city is; in the end, a man gets a fierce longing on him for home”.

Cal has embraced the boring life of Ardnakelty. He is restless as he feels Johnny will upset the “boringness”. Equally he is uneasy for Trey who has become special to him. To calm his soul he takes a night time walk with Lena:

…. They head for the road that twists away between the fields, faint and pale in the starlight. The night flowers have the rich, honeyed scent of some old cordial.

Trey refuses to let Johnny into her life despite his earnest contrition over leaving them and his promises of a grand life when the idea he has brought back with him is a great success. A well dressed and mannered Englishman, Cillian Rushborough, is with him.

There is a wariness about involving Cal in this idea. As inevitable with a character such as Johnny there are aspects of the idea that would not go well if there were police scrutiny.

Cal is working on letting things be in his life. He is concentrating on fixing furniture rather than problems in Ardnakelty after the painful lesson he endured in The Searcher.

Though carefully warned, Cal cannot let Johnny’s idea be absent from his participation.

There is powerful self-deception over the idea. Those participating, even Mart and Cal, want it to be true. Most are convinced it is true because of that want.

The summer is in an unseasonable heat wave. Farmers are concerned about drought. Everyone is edgy.

Trey is not always honest but she has a fierce integrity. Still at 15 she lacks the life experiences to fully deal with complex situations. Her involvement with her father and Rushborough sent a tingle through me.

She remains bitter about the disappearance of her brother Brendan. She realizes knowing who was involved would not make her hate the non-involved less but:

“I’d know what ones to hate more”.

There is vast history in Ardnakelty. You cannot displace it. Their allegiances are to each other.

In The Searcher Cal learned the genial farmers of Ardnakelty are hard men who will tolerate no interference with their business. Cal has been there but two years. He is still a blow-in. The residents of the townland can be ruthless and they settle issues on their own. 

How can Cal follow his fixing desires in dealing with the idea when the complexities of neighbours and friends involved in the idea also involve Trey? Problems are bound to arise when a fixer intervenes where he was not invited to fix.

Greed and deceit and revenge are a potent combination. The Irish are grand at all three and strong on a grudge.

And then there is murder and Trey finds the body. Cal doubts she understands how much events change when the Guards are investigating murder.

Trey surprises Cal with her mastery at 15 of the Irish talent for telling detailed stories which require close attention. He had not realized how carefully she had analyzed events in her hatred.

Guard detective Nealon is a good investigator and an observant man. He knows information will be sparingly supplied to the Guards.

It is the wily Mart who speaks for the townland. Little he says is direct but the questions and the suggestions and the possibilities and the discursions are clear on where the investigation will be led.

It was amazing how French created a credible 15 year old girl thinking well ahead of the adults around her as she works to her goal. But the locals can catch up once they realize her plan. They have decades of experience in dealing with troublesome situations.

I raced through the last 100 pages. The subtlety of the plotting of the parties is breathtaking. All the information is there but I did not reason my way through to the actual resolution. The ending was spectacular.

French shows how the complications of life and a murder do not need the powerful and wealthy to be fascinating. The Hunter is better than The Searcher as Trey has come of age. The best book I will read in 2025 is likely to be the first book of the year. 

****

French, Tana - (2022) - The Searcher

Bill's Best of 2023 - Non-Fiction and Most Interesting

I conclude Bill’s Best of 2024 with the categories of Non-Fiction and Most Interesting. The latter is a list of books that were not favourites of the year in Fiction or Non-Fiction but had qualities that I found intriguing.

NON-FICTION

1.) Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (2019) / Insider Edition with Handwritten Footnotes and Afterthoughts (2012) - I start with a book I read in 2024 but have not yet published the review. Bourdain was a remarkable writer, probably more skilled at the written word than cooking or being a television travel personality.

An excerpt from my draft review illustrates my thoughts on his skill as an author:

Kitchen Confidential sets out his prodigious writing talent.

Bourdain, in the original preface, said the tone of the book was “blustery” with the “occasional sweeping generalization” as he sought to speak in “Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks”. He was writing “for professional cooks”. I was struck that he did not write for the masses who just eat at restaurants. I expect part of its success is that he was not writing for everyone but his skill as a storyteller made it accessible to all.

I cannot recall reading another book with handwritten notes from the author interspersed throughout the book. Not being typed they have a freshness and expressiveness that is unique. They were written by Bourdain 12 years after the original publication and are in his printing.

2.) A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb - Arthur Barry was handsome, debonair, even suave in Manhattan society. He was also a great jewel thief.

He stole from the richest in America. Among his favourite targets were lavish estates on Long Island.

Barry had nerves of steel for he often entered homes while the residents were having meals and was out before they were done eating.

Jobb tells a story that would be improbable as fiction.

As interesting as the thefts is the story of what happened when Barry was caught.

As a lawyer I was fascinated by his involvement in the American judicial system.

MOST INTERESTING

1.) The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk - I love libraries. When I travel I will drop into almost every library I encounter. It is not often I get to read of skulduggery at a library.

The Plantin Polygot Bible, purchased for $500,000, has gone missing from the Rare Books and Special Collections of the university (a barely disguised University of Toronto).

Liesl Weiss is tasked with finding the missing Bible. The university president, desperate for discretion advises her:

“Don’t get too creative, and don’t be more honest than you have to be.”

I summed up my review:

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections book is a thoughtful mystery with an admirable clever sleuth. No guns, knives, bombs or other means of mayhem were wielded in the library. 

2.) Bronco Buster by A.J. Devlin - Jed “Hammerhead” Ounstead is back in the wrestling ring performing at the Colossal Cloverdale Rodeo and Country Fair in a suburb of Vancouver.

When Jasper Adams, a loggersports contestant, is murdered Hammerhead and his Irish cousin, Declan, feel compelled to investigate as they had bonded over beers with Adams the previous night.

In less than a day Hammerhead works the investigation with drama and humour a plenty:

The action scenes are amazing including wrestling in a terrarium filled with snakes, a rodeo girl who can rope and hogtie in an instant and a breathtaking ride on an ostrich. 

What made it a Most Interesting Book is that Hammerhead is a poetry aficionado and has chosen “DO NOT GO GENTLE” for his new wrestling marketing catchphrase. 

Finding a professional wrestler who enjoys and values the famed Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, was a wonderful surprise.

I also had an excellent exchange of emails with A.J. on the writing of the Hammerhead quartet.

3.) The Wealth of Shadows by Graham Moore - Ansel Luxford is an unlikely warrior. He is a quiet tax attorney in Minneapolis with a loving wife, Angela, and a 2 year old daughter. He is a clever man. He understands statistics, especially economic data.

He joins the Research Department of the U.S. Government as the U.S. gets involved in WW II. The Department is created to fight the Nazis on the economic front.

The Wealth of Shadows is Most Interesting for featuring paper warriors fighting important economic battles during the war.

An example from before the U.S. is a combatant:

White then tasks the Department with developing a strategy which will allow FDR to transfer American weapons to Britain and France without breaching The Neutrality Act. To give or sell the weapons would breach the Act unless the same offers were made to Germany.

They manage by saying the weapons must be paid for in gold and the buyer must pick them up in the U.S. With the British navy controlling the seas Germany has no means of transporting weapons from America.

The book delves into the creation of the new world economic order at the end of WW II. The decisions from those meetings still guide the world of the 21st Century.

3.) Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan - The newest book by the author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy is another story involving fabulously rich Chinese.

In Lies and Weddings a prominent member of the Hong Kong elite has married an English aristocrat and is now Countess Arabella Leung Gresham. While micromanaging her daughter Augusta’s fabulous Hawaiian wedding she plots to find a suitable spouse for her surfing son, Rufus. Unfortunately for her schemes, he is more interested in Dr. Eden Tong, who grew up with him in England.

What put the book on this list was actually the dress Eden wore to Augusta’s wedding. It turned out to be a real dress by the Hawaiian designer Manaolo. I ended up writing to my blogging friend, Moira Redmond, at the Clothes in Books blog about the dress. A pair of posts on the dress followed the review post.

I hope your 2025 reading is off to a good start.

Bill's Best of 2024 Fiction

I continue a personal tradition of posting Bill’s Best of Fiction on December 31. I like to make it a genuine assessment of my reading for the full calendar year. My next post will have Bill’s Best of 2024 Non-Fiction and a personal category of Bill’s Most Interesting of 2024. The lists do include books published earlier than 2024.

For the first time my favourite works of fiction were all written by Canadian authors.

For the best of 2024 fiction:

1.) August Into Winter by Guy Vanderhaeghe - The author has justly gained fame for being one of Saskatchewan’s best writers for almost two generations.

His novel set late in the Depression superbly captures the difficulties of that era in rural Saskatchewan.

His characters, small and large, are vividly drawn.

He explores deeply the psyches of his characters. In particular, he delved into the mind of the killer, I said in one of my posts on the book.

I appreciated, you cannot say liked, his portrayal of the twisted killer, Ernie Sickert. Guy’s descriptions of the distorted reality and rationalizations of Ernie were chilling.

I later said:

None of the main characters are enjoying life at Connaught. Despair is a constant refrain. I found myself wishing there was more light to go with the dark.

I found fascinating how Vanderhaeghe took the story of a real life murder in his hometown of Esterhazy and turned it into a master work of crime fiction.

2.) From Sweetgrass Bridge by Anthony Bidulka - Anthony returns to Bill’s Best list with the second book of his Merry Bell series.

I was drawn to the book for a pair of reasons.

First, Anthony set me thinking about the minds and motivations of his characters, especially his sleuthing team of the transgender Merry and the cross-dressing Roger Brown. I wrote:

The resolution stretched my credibility but the complexity of relationships explored was breathtaking. Identities past and present, festering resentments, faces and bodies unrecognized after profound change, hurts given and received, confessions, regrets, the chance for new friendships and hope moved me. All of us are fragile in our own ways. I consider From Sweetgrass Bridge Anthony’s best examination of human vulnerability.

Second, I was a character in the book in my real life pasttime of being a sports reporter. I acknowledge my bias. I do not often read of bloggers recognizing a personal bias. I believe the joy I took in being a character was secondary. It was Anthony’s skill that put the book on this list.

3.) The Long-Shot Trial by William Deverell - Deverell has been recounting trials from the life of Arthur Beauchamp for decades. In The Long-Shot Trial he tells the story of Arthur’s first major murder trial which took place in far northern B.C. rather than Vancouver.

What I enjoyed most in the book were two women.

Arthur’s client, Angelina Santos, is a pregnant 20 year old Filipina immigrant.

He finds her a challenge:

Arthur is dismayed by his client’s honesty:

But I would find it awkward relating to a client who, apparently, was incapable of telling lies. Most of my defendants hadn’t suffered that handicap.

She is a Catholic woman of great faith. She refers to her unborn child as a “beautiful miracle”.

Unlike most works of legal fiction opposing legal counsel are not vilified, especially the young Crown Prosecutor, Clara Moncrief, assisting the lead Crown, Ed Santorini. Arthur admires more than her legal skills:

He is beguiled by the comely Miss Moncrief. Will he venture into a relationship with a Crown?

There are some twists I sensed but did not discern the actual surprises.

I look forward to every Deverell book. The Long-Shot Trial is one of his best:

The trial is riveting. The stretching of trial propieties was present but not over done. Deverell is a master craftsman of legal mysteries. Arthur Beauchamp is a barrister nonpariel.  

Best wishes in your reading for 2025.

Too Close for Comfort by Mike Martin

(54. - 1237.) Too Close for Comfort by Mike Martin - Sgt. Winston Windflower of the RCMP is acting inspector for a region of southeast Newfoundland. He is working out of the Grand Bank detachment. He is confronted with the latest in a series of fires of unoccupied homes. There is no sign of accelerant but they must be arson.

His assistant officer is on maternity leave. Const. Samira “Sam” Gupta, a tall slender woman, is assigned to replace her.

Most surprising to the RCMP is that no one has seen anything. Having lived my life in rural Canada, except for four years of university, I was equally surprised.

At noon he heads to the Mug-Up cafe (Mug-up is Newfoundland English for “a snack and a cup of tea”). Restraining himself from cod gratin he has a grilled cheese sandwich. Restraint is abandoned at dessert in favour of a salted caramel cupcake.

The residents of Grand Bank “are some upset” by the fires. Some suspect residents of the nearby island of St. Pierre which, with the island of Miquelon, is part of France. 

In the afternoon Sgt. Windflower goes home to be there when his young daughters, Stella and Amelia Louise, arrive from school. They are delighted he has homemade partridgeberry muffins. The detachment secretary, Betsy, brought them to the office.

His wife, Sheila, joins them for supper. She runs a small B & B.

They are a happy family. All are worried when their cat, Molly, goes missing.

Sam helps them search for the cat and then joins them for supper. While Windflower helps the girls with schoolwork Sam helps Sheila in the kitchen. A green salad with home-made honey mustard dressing and a ham-cheese-broccoli casserole are soon served. 

Not many works of crime fiction have scenes of simple family contentment.

Windflower is indigenous. His family in northern Alberta is of Cree ancestry.

The story grows darker when an unknown male body is found in the burned house.

I found myself drawn into the Windflower family as I have with Joanne Kilbourn’s family in the series by Gail Bowen.

Evil finds its way to small communities as well as big cities. Windflower finds there are connections in the case to biker gangs, especially the Outlaws, from Chapters in and out of Canada. A potential connection to stolen gold adds drama.

At the same time the Windflowers enjoy time with neighbours sharing a fine home cooked meal at the home of Herb and Moira Stoodley - “a nice kale salad with an apple cider and balsamic vinegar dressing …. steaming green beans with a strong aroma of garlic …. roasted baby potatoes with a hint of rosemary … the full plate of sea trout with a golden-brown crust … delicious pineapple upside–down cake”.

An unstable local resident with unregistered guns goes on the run. Windflower and Gupta get out their rifles and body armour to try to find him. Police officers face risk every day.

Windflower is calm and in control and thoughtful while dealing with the uncertainties of the search.

I was disappointed when there was an arrest and then an attempted questioning of the accused but no warning of the right to remain silent and no right to counsel. Then an inducement is made to the accused if there is a statement. Only when the accused asked for counsel was the accused given a chance to talk to a lawyer. No real life RCMP Sergeant would proceed in that manner. A subsequent interview with a lawyer present is unlike any I have experienced.

There is a Canadian style thriller ending that effectively uses the setting of Grand Bank being on the coast of Newfoundland.

Including the families of the RCMP officers in the worries and stresses of the danger at the end was unexpected and very credible.

Windflower is a dedicated officer. He has a clever mind filled with quotations from Shakespeare. Assertive but not aggressive he is a man you want in charge during a crisis. Unlike most fictional police officers he has vulnerability. I plan to read more in the series.

Kim Stone and Harry Bosch

As I read crime fiction with a sleuth that is new to me I think about which other fictional sleuths this sleuth reminds me. 

Angela Marsons fine book, Silent Scream, features Kim Stone, a 34 year old police detective with an obsessive drive to solve murder.

As I reflected I thought of Michael Connelly’s sleuth, Harry Bosch.

Both had childhoods with mothers who should not have been parents.

Stone’s mother is a schizophrenic and has been institutionalized for decades. She so neglected her children that Stone was barely alive when she was removed from her mother. Her brother died from the horrific maternal neglect.

Bosch’s mother was a prostitute. She was murdered when Bosch was 11.

Stone was initially placed in foster care and subsequently put in a care home at 6 years of age. She continued to spend time in foster homes and care homes into her teenage years.

With his mother gone Bosch was taken into the California children’s care and was also in an institution.

The odds are against children from such homes but Stone and Bosch succeeded.

As adults each became police detectives who cared deeply about the victims of murder.

Bosch’s motto is:

Everybody matters or nobody matters.

In Silent Scream, Stone cannot abide that 3 teenage girls, one of whom is pregnant, are found buried near the care home they had supposedly ran away from a decade ago and are only identified as numbers. She says to a team member:

“I can’t keep referring to these victims by number; victim one, victim two. They had enough of that when they were alive. We have three bodies and three names and I need to match them up.”

In Stone’s first care home she was Bed 19.

Neither Stone nor Busch respect authority, especially within police departments.

They constantly clash with superiors.

Orders are guidelines for Stone and Bosch. They will follow an order as long as it does not interfere with their investigations.

Their insubordination is always related to moving their investigations ahead. 

They work the longest hours of any detectives in their respective units.

Each abandons sleep in the midst of an investigation. 

Because of their demanding abrupt personalities, not many other officers want to work with them.

Other officers also know that working with Stone and Bosch they will be as consumed by the investigations.

For those who can meet the standards of Stone and Bosch there is a mutual respect, even affection.

Bosch is famed for studying murder books for what is missing from the paperwork and then investigating what should have been done.

Stone equally searches out the details of evidence. An urgent call from a crime scene occurring at the same time as an urgent call by her supervisor to return to the station sees her heading to the crime scene.

Neither shies from confronting the wealthy and powerful.

Stone aggravates Nina, the wife of Richard Croft. He is the local MP and she defends terrorists in court. Upset with Stone, she has prominent authorities badger Stone’s supervisor to have her removed from the cases. The superior refuses.

I have lost track of the number of clashes Bosch has had with administrators and city councilors in the city of Los Angeles.

Their focus on work, ill-developed personal communications and minimal interests outside solving murders mean neither has a spouse. Who could maintain a relationship with Stone and Bosch? Their intensity is exhausting. Their bluntness of speech drives away thoughts of a personal relationship.

To my frustration each is quite willing to break the law to move ahead with investigations and act as lone wolf investigators.

Yet, were they to exist in real life Stone and Bosch are exactly the detectives you want investigating the murder of a loved one. They will not rest until they have found the killer.

Stone and Bosch would be an amazing detecting duo if they did not kill each other.

****

Marsons, Angela - (2024) - Silent Scream