The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear

(14. - 1153.) The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear - In October of 1941 the Blitz of London has been over for a year. Now the Nazis send some bombers most nights to just keep Londoners on edge. Young Freddy Hackett runs messages at night for Government agencies. With a Bomber’s Moon in the sky he sees two men fighting. One is killed with a knife. When he returns to the scene later the body is gone.

Maisie Dobbs continues to work in British Intelligence. She is vetting agents for the SOE (the Special Operations Executive). She decides whether an agent is suitable to be sent to Occupied Europe. It is a daunting responsibility especially when she knows a prospective agent.

What a life Maisie is living when a murder investigation is a form of distraction, almost welcome, from the process of deciding who will be sent into the night to be a part of Churchill’s plan to set Europe ablaze. 

The murder investigation butts up against intelligence operations. For the skilful wicked a war can protect them.

Scotland Yard, overwhelmed by wartime crime, makes but a cursory investigation into Freddy’s report of seeing murder. Unless Maisie and her assistant, Billy, can solve the case there will be no resolution.

The investigation takes Maisie into yet a new element of the war. She delves into the Free French forces in England. Honour is at their core. They are in an awkward position seeking to remain independent but dependent on England for everything.

Fear in wartime is real. How it is managed is often the difference between life and death:

Fear had to be handled with care, managed so it 

became a tool, not a weight.

Each character has a dominant fear. For most it involves family. 

While Maisie worries about Anna she must deal with a fear of commitment in personal relationships. It is time for a decision on Mark.

It is a powerful emotional moment when Maisie replaces the chain holding her wedding ring from the deceased James with a necklace featuring a large diamond given to her by Mark.

In a brilliant quote her friend Priscella advises her “.... I believe love must be cradled gently, as if you have something very precious in your hands that you do not want to break”.

Maisie is worn out by secrets:

Secrets. Secrets. Secrets. She sometimes felt as if she would drown under the weight of other people’s secrets …. And she feared she might lose herself in all the secrecy - it had happened before.

It is harder and harder for Maisie to keep doing “her bit”. She wants to spend more time with her adopted daughter, Anna, in the country. Each absence for work leaves her longing to be with Anna. Maisie would be happy to live on her estate full time.

Maisie provides a vivid illustration of drawing out hurt with Anna:

She lifted her hands, and placed first her left-hand against her chest, and then her right hand on top of her left. “Follow me - see what I’ve done with my hands? You can close your eyes and cradle your heart, then before you know it the pain starts to go away.”

Both love and pain can benefit from cradling.

I think Maisie has done enough. It has been 24 years since she first went to war for England. Few men and women have done more for their country. But a sense of duty cannot be switched off.

Maisie is back to using the insights of an open mind nurtured by her mentor, Maurice Blanche. She is less constrained by prejudice and cynicism that most of us. 

The Consequences of Fear is not a great mystery but it is an excellent story.

****

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

Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder by Qiu Xiaolong

(17. - 1156.) Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder by Qiu Xiaolong - (This review is best read after reading the previous 2 books in the series - Hold Your Breath, China and Becoming Inspector Chen).

The opening sentence eliminates the uncertainty of the status of Chen:

Chen Cao, the ex-chief inspector

of the Shanghai Police Bureau, now the Director of

the Shanghai Judicial Reform Office - though

currently on "convalescent leave" - woke with a start.

I was disappointed. He was removed from the police force for being too successful. He is “promoted” to the Office for Judicial Reform and arbitrarily placed upon sick leave. Chen tries to enjoy his unexpected leave. He realizes the break was needed after dealing with so many “special cases”. He is well aware his new position is likely a prelude to dismissal after public anger over his dismissal has faded.

Chen is given a Judge Dee mystery by a visiting French writer. He is drawn into the Tang dynasty mystery involving poets, murders and a “legendary Chinese investigator”. The book echoes his life.

Unexpectedly he is approached by Old Hunter, the father of his former partner, Detective Yu. He is invited to be a consultant to the detective agency at which Old Hunter is working. While private investigating businesses are illegal there is a need for their services.

Simi, a client of the agency, wants Chen to prove Min, the owner of a private kitchen, did not murder her kitchen assistant, Qing. Simi's position is opaque.

Private house kitchens offer a dinner party for up to 8 people in a private home. A lavish exotic meal is provided. Most such kitchens have but one meal a week. The cost is very high. For one of Min’s dinner parties it is $2,000 Canadian for each guest. The Shanghai rich reserve dinner parties with her months in advance for face gained by participating is great.

Min is also a noted courtesan. Her nickname “Republican Lady” does not conform with socialist principles.

The case is bound to involve the Party elite. Chen is to be a special consultant in the background. He cannot be seen to be investigating a murder.

Subtly, Chen’s assistant, Jin, does independent research on Min using her computer connections between young Chinese.

Chen is moved when his first love, Ling, reaches out to him and encourages him to come to London. Her father is retired though senior Party cadres never fully retire.

At the same time there is a swirling public debate about a corrupt judge, Jiao, whose dalliance with young escorts has been exposed by Pang, a man adversely affected by a dishonest ruling. Pang bribed a hotel doorman to gain access to surveillance cameras. Chen points out in a public comment that the evidence was illegally obtained. The Party is happy to note when evidence is illegally obtained if it is gathered against a Party official in favour.

Jin proves to be a clever, dedicated and intuitive investigator. With Chen unable to conduct interviews she calls those present at Min’s supper, ostensibly on behalf of Chen’s office.

While Chen is accustomed to dealing with crimes in ways that minimize agitation of senior officials in Beijing, even he finds the Min case unusual. There appear to be competing factions among the Red Princes with conflicting positions on Min. The heads of Chen and this reader were spinning trying to work out what is happening in Beijing.

Chen is thoughtful and analytical as always. His future remains murky. It is hard to divine whether the senior Party authorities want to promote him or dismiss him.

I get the feeling Chen will never return to the police and will enter the private sector. He has done all he can as a police officer.

(This book also does not deal with the cliffhanger from Hold Your Breath, China. There is a disconnect between the enticement and the lack of follow up. I thought it was wrong not to deal with the twist in two subsequent books.)

****

Xiaolong, Qiu – (2009) - Death of a Red Heroine (Second best of 2009 fiction); (2011) - "X" is for Qui Xiaolong; (2011) - A Case for Two Cities; (2012) - "X" is for Qiu Xiaolong Again; (2012) - A Loyal Character Dancer; (2013) - Red Mandarin Dress and Reflections on red Mandarin dresses; (2015) - The Mao Case;  (2016) - Don't Cry, Tai Lake and The Poetry of Pollution in Qiu Xiaolong's Fiction; (2016) - Comparing Serial Killers in Three Totalitarian States; (2017) - Enigma of China; (2017) - Shanghai Redemption; (2023) - Hold Your Breath, China; (2023) - Becoming Inspector Chen - (Part One) and (Part Two)

2023 Winers of Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence

What a day for crime fiction in Saskatchewan! Two of the Awards of Excellence by the Crime Writers of Canada went to Saskatchewan books.

I am so glad Anthony Bidulka won the Best Crime Novel with Going to Beautiful. In my review I said it was his masterpiece. At the end of 2022 it was my choice for Best Fiction of the year. I am sure Anthony and Herb are sharing champagne tonight.

I regret I have not read A Snake in the Raspberry Patch by Joanne Jackson which won the Best Crime Novel Set in Canada. It will be my next purchase.

It is striking that both Anthony and Joanne are Saskatoon residents.

Just as striking, both books were published by Stonehouse Publishing of Edmonton.

Congratulations to all the winners:

Best Crime Novel sponsored by Rakuten Kobo, with a $1000 prize Anthony Bidulka, Going to Beautiful, Stonehouse Publishing Best Crime First Novel sponsored by Melodie Campbell, with a $1000 prize Sam Shelstad, Citizens of Light, TouchWood Editions The Howard Engel Award for Best Crime Novel Set in Canada sponsored by Charlotte Engel and CWC, with a $500 prize Joanne Jackson, A Snake in the Raspberry Patch, Stonehouse Publishing The Whodunit Award for Best Traditional Mystery sponsored by Jane Doe, with a $500 prize Thomas King, Deep House, HarperCollins Canada Best Crime Novella sponsored by Mystery Magazine, with a $200 prize Alexis Stefanovich-Thomson, The Man Who Went Down Under, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazines Best Crime Short Story sponsored by Mystery Magazine, with a $300 prize Craig H. Bowlsby, The Girl Who Was Only Three Quarters Dead, Mystery Magazine Best French Crime Book (Fiction and Nonfiction) Richard Ste-Marie, Monsieur Hämmerli, Éditions Alire Best Juvenile or YA Crime Book (Fiction and Nonfiction) sponsored by Shaftesbury, with a $500 prize Jo Treggiari, Heartbreak Homes, Nimbus Publishing Limited The Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book sponsored by David Reid Simpson Law Firm, Hamilton, with a $300 prize Rosemary Sullivan, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, HarperCollins Canada The Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript sponsored by ECW Press, with a $500 prize Mary Keenan, Snowed

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

(18. - 1157.) The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - Clubs are fun. I am a member of the Melfort Rotary Club. I was a member of the Melfort Judo Club. I played baseball with the Melfort Old Brewers ball club. I have never contemplated a murder club.

Studying unsolved murders with friends on Thursdays with biscuits and wine sounds very appealing.

Convivial friends are important for a club. The members of The Thursday Murder Club are interesting. Elizabeth’s background is not clear but she is familiar with “murders and investigations and what have you”. Ibrahim was a psychiatrist. Ron was a trade union leader and is an unwavering skeptic in that “he never believes a single word anyone ever tells him”. Joyce, a committed diarist, was “a nurse for many years” and is talented at being overlooked.

I am interested in joining the club. At 71 I would be a little young. Still I hope they would make an accommodation for me.

A roadlbock is that they are all residents of Coopers Chase, a “Luxury Retirement Village” meeting in the Jigsaw Room. I have yet to retire and enjoy living in my home with Sharon. Perhaps my experience as a lawyer whose practice includes criminal defence would sway the members to let me join them.

Even a decade ago an insurmountable obstacle would be my residence in rural Saskatchewan when the club meets in rural England. Zoom meetings solve that issue. While I prefer in person meetings I have become comfortable on Zoom. I could have Pepsi, which I prefer to wine, and biscuits while sitting in my comfortable armchair in Saskatchewan. They need not know I dislike tea.

Gory autopsy photos are not my favourite viewing but I would not press the Leave button.

I am well used to the language of police notes and records that occupy much of the Club’s time. I understand the necessity of analyzing them for what was left out or unnoticed.

When a minority shareholder in Coopers Chase who also built the Village and is a former thug is murdered I could have assisted with insights into the legal documents that established relationships, financial benefits and motive for murder. The Club would not have needed the help of Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, and Cornelius, an analyst working for Joanna.

Being old sharpens the cunning instinct. I admired how the Club members invite PC Donna De Freitas to be a source and cleverly entice the Murder Team to include her in their unit because the old folks trust her and will talk to her.

Elizabeth is skilled at talking to police officers. I think my decades of experience in talking with officers would be useful.

When the police challenge the Club members with regard to finding bones and having them privately analyzed before revealing them to the police I could have added weight to Elizabeth’s firm, even caustic comments, that no one will be jailed or even fined.

Every club needs a leader. Elizabeth is a great leader. Fearless, clever and manipulative she commands the group. She has a strong, yet not overbearing personality. I have been both leader and follower in clubs and can see myself readily following the indomitable Elizabeth in pursuit of murder. 

Only true afficiandoes of murder, such as the club members, could say witnessing a murder was wonderful. I could not say such an experience would be wonderful but I would find it fascinating. 

I appreciate logic and was pleased by their precision in deleting from a crowd of seniors who are murder suspects, those who are using walkers or mobility scooters or have cataracts because quick movement was made by the killer.

The club members are relentless. Each is resolute in solving murders. I enjoy the challenge of trying to solve murders in crime fiction. My determination is reflected by having over 1,000 murder experiences through reading mysteries.

I was a little disappointed by what happened at the ending of the Thursday Murder Club. The consequences were tidy but did not feel right.

I really enjoyed the club members. They are witty, kind and bright. Each is an engaged senior using the talents acquired during their lives. They are a dynamic quartet. I hope they call. I would relish being a member of the Thursday Murder Club.

Becoming Inspector Chen by Qiu Xiaolong (Part Two)

(16. - 1155.) Becoming Inspector Chen by Qiu Xiaolong (Part Two) - My first post on the book covered Chief Inspector’s life up to becoming a police officer and how extensively Qiu Xiaolong drew upon his own life experiences. With Chen becoming a police officer there is less of Qiu’s life in Chen’s life.

Upon joining the Shanghai police services Chen, lacking police training, is delegated to translate an American police procdure booklet. Day after day he quietly works upon the translation. The work is incredibly boring.

During his breaks from translating he is reading mystery novels. He finds several thought provoking especially when they probe the mind. I was reminded of the private detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, in The Honjin Murders in which Kindaichi was a crime fiction afficiando. In the murder investigation taking place in the 1940’s he draws upon the Golden Age authors of crime fiction he has been reading. 

Chen, now with an actual income, becomes known for his love of fine food, especially if it is of an exotic nature.

From innate curiosity and wanting to be more useful than a just translator of a booklet that is of little relevance to Chinese procedure, Chen offers to help with a murder investigation that has proved frustrating. His knowledge of food proves useful. The murder victim had caviar, shark fin and drunken shrimp in his stomach at death.

When Chen and his friend Overseas Lu identify the victim by figuring out the restaurant at which the deceased ate such an unusual meal the murder detectives are surprised and uncomfortable with his success. From his first case Chen makes superiors uneasy.

With the victim having connections with a rich American the case has political overtones and pressure increases upon the detectives.

Chen provides insights from his conversations with people. Neither intimidating nor brutal nor demanding Chen draws out information. He cares about helping people. His efforts are important in solving the case.

Chen is given more opportunities and proves to be a talented officer. 

He periodically returns to the residents of Red Dust Lane. Qiu has created a real neighbourhood. There are rivalries but most residents are supportive of each other.

When Chen is promoted to being in “charge of ‘rectification of wronged cases during the Cultural Revolution’ “ he uses his authority in moving ways on behalf of Red Dust Lane.

The book affirms fragmentary comments in earlier books that Chen has succeeded in his police career and personal life by “following his father’s Confucianist maxim”:

‘Even if you know it’s something impossible for you to do, you have to try your best as long as it’s the right thing to do.’

He lives by classic Confucian values rather than the socialist principles of Chairman Mao. No matter the rhetoric about the proletarian struggles for the masses, Confucian principles mean a better life for the masses.

Becoming Inspector Chen is a curious book in its structure and relationship to the series. There are a few pages per chapter on his precarious official position and the investigation into the “like emoji” on a controversial poem but most of the book is about his prior life. I had the feeling Qiu felt compelled to throw in a current mystery when he really just wanted to write about Chen’s life. Further, none of the book deals with the murder Chen planned to investigate that took place in the final pages of Hold Your Breath, China.

It would have made more sense to have simply written a biography of Chen. Many of the stories set out in Becoming Inspector Chen had appeared in earlier books in less detail.

Since Becoming Inspector Chen did not deal with the late killing in Hold Your Breach, China I bought the next book in the series, Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder, to see if it is the actual sequel. It is not like Qiu to set up and then abandon a plot line. My favourite question - why - nags me.

****

Xiaolong, Qiu – (2009) - Death of a Red Heroine (Second best of 2009 fiction); (2011) - "X" is for Qui Xiaolong; (2011) - A Case for Two Cities; (2012) - "X" is for Qiu Xiaolong Again; (2012) - A Loyal Character Dancer; (2013) - Red Mandarin Dress and Reflections on red Mandarin dresses; (2015) - The Mao Case;  (2016) - Don't Cry, Tai Lake and The Poetry of Pollution in Qiu Xiaolong's Fiction; (2016) - Comparing Serial Killers in Three Totalitarian States; (2017) - Enigma of China; (2017) - Shanghai Redemption; (2023) - Hold Your Breath, China; (2023) - Becoming Inspector Chen - (Part One) Hardcover or paperback. 

Becoming Inspector Chen by Qiu Xiaolong (Part One)

(16. - 1155.) Becoming Inspector Chen by Qiu Xiaolong - (Because of the connections to real life this review will form two posts.) Though Chief Inspector Chen has been solving murders and even averting a public scandal in Hold Your Breath, China, he has made senior Party authorities in Beijing uncomfortable. Despite his connections he expects to be dismissed. While he awaits a decision his mind goes back to his life journey becoming a Chief Inspector.

His father, once a respected Neo-Confucian scholar, is brutally treated by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. His father was seen as an “unreformed bourgeois intellect” and endures multiple “revolutionary mass criticisms” before being assigned work as a janitor. His father is described as a “black monster” and Chen as a “black puppy”.

In the frenzy of the modern witch hunt, his father is denounced by other patients while he is in hospital. Chen helps save him by writing a “confession” for his father. As a result:

It was the first time he gained confidence in himself, in writing of all things, which might enable him to sway those people otherwise above and beyond him.

In real life Wikipedia reports:

Qiu's father came home at times with bruises from being attacked at work. Then his father suffered an acute retinal detachment and was hospitalized. In order to be eligible for eye surgery, his father had to write a confession of guilt for his capitalist bourgeois sins; but it was not deemed sufficiently repentant. So the teenage Qiu re-wrote it, using melodramatic language and framing his father's capitalist sins as no accident. It seemed to work, as soon after his father received his surgery. Ironically, Qiu says, "The Red Guard’s approval of my father’s confession gave me some confidence in my writing".

In the present Webcops, having found a “like emoji” next to a poem online that is considered critical of the Party, are investigating the netizen who inserted the emoji. While poetry interpretation is an important part of Chen’s life he is not considered reliable enough to investigate. (His superiors are accurate in that assessment.) I had not realized “thoughtcrime” was a real criminal offence in China.

The offending netizen is a resident of Red Dust Lane. It is a street near where Chen grew up and the area where he solved some early cases as a cop. Those successes aided his rise within the police.

As a young teenager, Chen was known for reading translations of Sherlock Holmes at a Red Dust bookstore “without buying a single copy”.

Once done Middle School he is saved from being assigned to work in the countryside by bronchitis. As a “waiting-for-recovery” youth he has little to do in Shanghai. In the Bund Park, a chance meeting, inspires him to study English with a lovely young woman and a forcibly retired English teacher. He proves gifted in learning languages.

As a teenager Qiu was also saved from the countryside by bronchitis and started studying English after seeing people studying English in the park. He gained a B.A. in English from the East China Normal University and an M.A. in English Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In the book, daily summer study by Chen of T.S. Eliot at the Beijing Library leads to a relationship with Ling, a lovely young librarian, who is also a university graduate. 

Qiu, gets a grant to study T.S. Eliot in St. Louis, Missouri. Later he translates some of Eliot’s poems, such as The Wasteland, into Chinese.

Back in the book, Chan is startled to find out Ling’s father is a “rising” member of the Politburo. 

As always with his relationships Chen dithers. He could gain great advantages in life from a relationship with Ling. Yet he reflects those opportunities would come because of her efforts, not his own. He does not spend enough time realizing that connections are important the world over. Within China they are vital.

After graduating Chen is given a “state assigned” job. The English graduate is designated a cop. The assignment is slightly less arbitrary than it appears. With the end of the Cultural Revolution, China is to be reformed and intellectuals are considered important. To the authorities appointing him:

As a college graduate, Chen was supposed to infuse new blood into the police system, …”

The second post will have more on Chen’s life, less about Qiu’s life and more about Chen as a young investigator. 

****

Xiaolong, Qiu – (2009) - Death of a Red Heroine (Second best of 2009 fiction); (2011) - "X" is for Qui Xiaolong; (2011) - A Case for Two Cities; (2012) - "X" is for Qiu Xiaolong Again; (2012) - A Loyal Character Dancer; (2013) - Red Mandarin Dress and Reflections on red Mandarin dresses; (2015) - The Mao Case;  (2016) - Don't Cry, Tai Lake and The Poetry of Pollution in Qiu Xiaolong's Fiction; (2016) - Comparing Serial Killers in Three Totalitarian States; (2017) - Enigma of China; (2017) - Shanghai Redemption; (2023) - Hold Your Breath, China

Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill

Because of various commitments I do not have a current review ready. Below is a review from 2008 of the second book in a fine series featuring a remarkable sleuth, Dr. Siri, who investigates deaths in Laos. I enjoyed both books I read in the series but have not returned. Maybe this year. 

****

3. - 413.) Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill – Dr. Siri is called on to autopsy a pair of men found dead in front of a government building. He cleverly deduces a government official ran off a building and landed on the other man. As he investigates it is clear the spirit world has affected the official. Siri is sent to the ancient royal capital of Luang Prabang to autopsy a pair of helicopter pilots. While there he is further drawn into the spirit world and its shamans. He learns more about his origins. Back in Vietiane his assistant, Dtui, is attempting to figure out a series of deaths that appear to have been caused by the claws and teeth of a large wild animal. Siri has determined he is the embodiment of a famous shaman, Yeh Ming, from over 1,000 years ago. Spirits affect every part of life in Laos. The story flows beautifully. Laotian spirits continue to be an exception to my normal lack of interest in spirits directly affecting this world. Paperback by choice. (Jan. 13/08)