"Shadows of Tokyo" by Matthew Legare

It’s Tokyo, 1931. An economic depression is on, and times are desperate. Farmers sell their daughters into prostitution. Crime gangs are flourishing. Resentment is growing against the zaibatsu, the top corporate and banking czars. The Japanese army has staged an incident in Manchuria in China, prompted followed by a military invasion. Assassinations, and plots, are becoming common. Democratic government seems on life support. 

Inspector Kenji Aizawa of the Tokyo police has his hands full. He’s also something of an odd duck – he believes in democracy and enforcing the law, regardless of status and position. His boss, unfortunately, is not of the same persuasion.

 

Aizawa receives an anonymous phone call from a woman, saying that Baron Onishi, an aristocrat widely believed to be the next prime minister, will be assassinated. The inspector acts on the tip and foils the killing. But circumstances allow the would-be assassin to be released, and the baron is still under threat. More anonymous phone calls follow.

 

Matthew Legare

The voice on the other end of the phone belongs to Reiko Watanabe, a geisha who’s also the mistress of a fascist writer plotting to overthrow the government. The baron is only one target; the aim is to establish a fascist regime in Japan. 

 

Shadows of Tokyo by Matthew Legare is the story of Inspector Aizawa and Reiko the geisha, and the intense work they do to try to keep Japan from falling into fascism. The story has more action scenes than a Japanese (or American) video game, including narrow escapes from death for both the hero and heroine. And the tale is saturated with the history of Japan as the run-up to World War II begins.

 

Legare has written three novels in the Aizawa / Watanabe series: Shadows of Tokyo, Smoke Over Tokyo, and Treason in Tokyo. He’s also published An American Putsch, set in New York City in the 1930s, and Shanghai Twilight, set in the same time period. His web site includes a blog, where he reviews suspense novels and historical books about Japan, China, Korea, and the World War II period.

 

One of the appeals of Shadows of Tokyo is that Inspector Aizawa makes mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes should have been obvious. He tends to go off on his own, without proper backup, but then he’s in the predicament of never knowing when his backup might shoot him in the back. But he’s human, with human failings, and he’s pitted himself against the pull toward dictatorship. And he loves his city.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

In the City of the Dead – Wiseblood Booka.

 

Wendell Berry’s Epilogue – Nadya Wiliams at Law & Liberty.

 

Before We Make a Roux – Brian Miller at Hearth & Field. 

 

The King’s Chapel of the Savoy – A London Inheritance.

“The Palace at the End of the Sea” by Simon Tolkien

Theo Sterling is a boy who feels caught between his ambitious father, who manufactures women’s fashions, and his religiously devout mother, who escaped revolutionary Mexico after seeing her parents murdered by partisans. Theo’s father is desperately trying to leave his Jewish roots (and parents) behind, while his mother seems desperately trying to find hers in her Catholic faith. 

It's the late 1920s, and what Theo himself wants to do more than anything is run track, in which he excels at in school and is encouraged by his coach. His father is determined that Theo will quit school at 14 and join him in the business, which is what happens until the Great Depression intervenes.

 

His father’s business is failing with the times, until a strike essentially finishes it. It becomes something of a mortal blow for Theo’s father, and the boy and his mother are left destitute, until rescued by a former friend of his mother’s, a rescue that includes marriage and a move to England. Theo has known middle-class respectability, lower-class poverty, and now upper-class wealth and privilege. His stepfather has both ancestors and property in Spain, and Theo will soon be introduced to a new kind of conflict – the rumblings of the Spanish Civil War.

 

Simon Tolkien

The Palace at the End of the Sea by Simon Tolkien is part coming-oof-age novel, part historical novel, and completely an enthralling story set in the late 1920s and 1930s. Through the life of an American boy and teen, Tolkien tells several stories – the New York garment trade, the Great Depression, upper-class Britain with its famous schools and emphasis upon sports, and Spain spinning towards the brink of chaos and war. Theo Sterling must learn to navigate all of it.

 

It should be noted that this is Part 1 of Theo’s story. Part 2, The Room of Lost Steps, will be published in September.

 

Tolkien previously published five novels: No Man’s Land, Orders from Berlin, The King of Diamonds, The Inheritance, and Final Witness. A graduate in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, he worked as a barrister London, specializing in criminal defense. A grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, he’s a director of the Tolkien Estate and served as a series consultant for the Amazon TV series “The Rings of Power.” He lives with his family in southern California.

The Palace at the End of the Sea is a thoroughly engaging story. Tolkien captures the bewilderment, disappointment, anger, and maturing of a teenaged boy exactly right. And telling that boy’s story against the dramatic backdrop of the 1930s heightens and deepens both the boy’s experience and that of the times.  

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Britain: MPs should not have to declare their religious beliefs – James Bundy at The Critic Magazine.

 

Hick’s Hall: The Original Middlesex Sessions House – A London Inheritance.

 

Great Moments in Maine Real Estate: Harrington Edition – Sippican Cottage.

 

What You’re Really Hungry For – Spencer Klavan at The Free Press on Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

 

Zen and the Art of Bear Spotting – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

Poets and Poems: Louis MacNeice and "Autumn Journal"

Belfast-born Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) tried his hand at all manners of writing. His novels were unsuccessful; his plays not well received. His poetry, however, was something else. It caught the eye of T.S. Eliot, MacNeice’s editor at Faber & Faber. He seemed to have held his own with W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender (a personal friend), and other poets who remain better known from the period. Even today, critics consider his poetry not quite successful (see the biographical listing at the Poetry Foundation). One area of writing where he excelled was in radio plays, and he was a scriptwriter for BBC from 1941 until his death from pneumonia in 1963. 

Autumn Journal, published in the spring of 1939, may well be MacNeice’s poetic high-water mark. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Settlers – poem by Matin Rizley at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Winter Walk – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

Romanticism and the Soul of Learning – Campbell Frank Scribner at Front Porch Republic.

 

Literary culture can’t just dismiss AI – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Here We Still Stand – Joseph Bottum and Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“A Pretty Folly” by Charlie Garratt

It is one strange case that Inspector James Givens of the Warwickshire Constabulary finds himself in charge of. The body of what looks like a young girl is found in the crypt of the chapel of the local school. The chapel is hundreds of years older than the school itself, and the crypt may be older still. The girl’s body is posed, her hands tied around a crucifix. There’s a hammer lying nearby.  

Because of the conditions of the crypt, the body is essentially mummified. The medical examiner can say when she died or how she died. The only thing that suggests foul play is the posing of the body. And there’s nothing to identify who she is. Givens discovers he’s looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

His professional life is also complicated by another case he’s looking into – growing vandalism against Jewish businesses. It’s 1938 Britain; Hitler’s making moves on Czechoslovakia on the continent and Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists is demonstrating that Britain is no stranger to hostility to Jews. Givens himself is Jewish, having Anglicized his name for professional purposes. He’s run into hostility and prejudice, right there among his own police colleagues.

 

And the Sicilian Demme brothers are lurking in the background, possibly connected to the vandalism which soon turns to arson. Givens has old scores to settle with them, unless they get to him first. 

 

Charlie Garratt

A Pretty Folly by British author Charlie Garratt is the second in the Inspector James Givens series. It’s an mystery filled with disguised or mistaken identities, a multitude of suspects, and a problem of figuring out how the victim actually died. 

 

Garratt is the author of four Inspector Given mysteries, including A Shadowed Livery, A Pretty Folly, A Patient Man, and Where Every Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. He lives in Shropshire in England.

 

A Pretty Folly is rich with actual historical detail – the rise the Nazis, the plight of the Jews in Europe, Oswald Mosley and his thugs in Britain – coupled with one unusual murder story. It’s a highly entertaining read.

 

Related:

 

Where Every Man by Charlie Garratt.

 

A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt. 

"A Shadowed Livery" by Charlie Garratt

It appears and open-and-shut case. The son of Sir Arthur Barleigh, crippled after an automobile accident, is shot and killed while in wheelchair. His mother then apparently turned the gun on herself. A short time later, the young man’s fiancée shoots herself in the son’s bedroom. It appears to be murder-suicide-suicide. An inquest is hurried and a verdict rendered just as quickly. 

The problem, Inspector James Givens of the Warwickshire Constabulary realizes almost immediately, is motive. He’s reviewing the case because the newspapers are pressuring his boss to take a more thorough investigation. Lady Barleigh wasn’t happy about the impending marriage, but was that sufficient to kill her son? Aided by the local constable, Givens sifts through the case, but he doesn’t have much time. His boss wants a quick review.

 

It’s 1938: Neville Chamberlain has just returned from his meeting with Adolph Hitler in Munich and is proclaiming “peace in our time.” Pro-Nazi Sir Walter Mosley has his thugs beating up Jewish merchants in England; James just attended a hanging where one such thug was hanged by the neck for murder. And it’s all becoming more personal, because “James Givens” is his English name; he’s actually the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant who’s a tailor in Birmingham.

 

Charlie Garratt

A Shadowed Livery by Charlie Garratt is the first in the Inspector James Givens series. Garratt has created a police detective hero who is conflicted by his Jewish heritage, in love with a woman who is involved in the case, chased by two Italian goons seeking revenge, dogged by a crooked colleague – and who is relentless at getting at the truth.

 

Garratt is the author of three other Inspector Given mysteries, including A Pretty Folly, A Patient Man, and Where Every Man. He also published several community participation guides, until he retired and began writing short stories. One of those stories led to his first novel, A Shadowed Livery. He lives in Shropshire in England.

The story is an effective and realistic interplay between the murder case at hand, deteriorating conditions in Europe, and the situation at home marred by Nazi sympathizers. A Shadowed Livery is an engrossing and entertaining read.

 

Related:

 

Where Every Man by Charlie Garratt.

“Where Gods Dwell” by Leigh Copeland

Jonathan Prosper, mid-20s, has left Oxford and England behind him. With his father’s bank embezzlement overshadowing his own reputation, he hopes to make his way in India, gain some measure of wealth, and return to Oxford. But the tea and imported carpet business provides only so much income, and he’s found himself acting as a “confidential agent,” or private detective. It’s the 1930s, the last years of the British Raj.

He’s hired by a jute manufacturing manager to see if the rumors about his wife are true. But before he can complete his investigation, the client is murdered. His personal servant is missing and suspected of the crime. But the client’s wife is not convinced; she hires Jonathan to look into the crime. The suspects include her own brother, an officer in the local British garrison.

And it seems that more people are interested on what’s happened, including what would be the rough equivalent of the Raj’s FBI. The body of one of their agents has been found in the river, and there may be a connection to the death of the jute plant manager. Prosper soon finds himself immersed in union politics, religious conflicts, and odd things happening with the garrison.

Leigh Copeland

Where Gods Dwell by Leigh Copeland is the first of the Jonathan Prosper mysteries, and it’s a deep, fascinating dive into the Indian sub-continent of the period. Much of the story is set in East Bengal, or what is now Bangladesh, and Copeland artfully blends historical research into a compelling account. (I read the third in the series, Kiss Miss, first, but the stories are standalone and work individually as well as together.)

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Copeland graduated in Politics and Sociology at Monash University. He and his wife operate a business dealing in antique carpets and rare textiles from Afghanistan and India, and he’s made more than 50 trips to the two countries. He’s published five novels in the Jonathan Prosper series: Where Gods Dwell, The Body in the Bokhara, Kiss Miss, Full Moon, and Calcutta Cabob. 

Where Gods Dwell is a fine mystery. Prosper is just the right blend of slightly cynical and knowledgeable Englishman. He knows his own place in the Indian / British hierarchy, and he understands how both the British and the people they rule work. It’s a great read.

Related:

Kiss Miss by Leigh Copeland.

“The Garden on Sunset” by Martin Turnbull

I have a weakness for novels about Hollywood, especially old, pre-1950 Hollywood. One of the first ones I read was The Man Who Died Twice by Samuel Peeples, published in 1976. It was a fictional account of the true-crime murder of director William Desmond Taylor in 1922, and I was fascinated. The murder was never officially solved, and it had a host of possible suspects, including silent-era movie stars.

I know where my interest comes from. Some of my earliest memories are of going to the movie theater with my mother to watch movies. She loved movies; they were the great communications media of her childhood, teen, and early adult years. 

Imagine my reaction when I discover there’s an entire series of novels about old Hollywood.

Marcus Adler, disowned by his middle-class Pennsylvania family, arrives in Hollywood in 1927 to make his name as a writer. He knows one address on Sunset Boulevard, the home of the movie star Alla Nazimova, because she visited him when he was 11 and had diphtheria. He discovers that her home has been converted into a hotel, The Garden of Allah. He’s able to secure a tiny room, and this is where he will live for the next nine years.

Marcus makes two friends at the hotel – Gwendolyn Brick, a Southern girl determined tobecome an actress, and Kathryn Massey, who’s just as determined to break into the male-dominated journalism business. The experiences of Marcus, Gwendolyn, and Kathryn become the story of The Garden on Sunset by Martin Turnbull.

Martin Turnbull

Famous Hollywood names of the silent and early-talkie eras appear as minor and not-so-minor characters: Tallulah Bankhead, Greta Garbo, Ramon Navarro, George Cukor, Errol Flynn, Marion Davies, and many more. Turnbull pulls no punches; the stars (and the fictional major characters) are presented as real people, with all the generosity, kindness, nastiness, tawdriness, and even criminial behavior long associated with the movie industry. But it’s the three fictional characters who remain the focus, and the novel excels at telling the story of how three people doggedly persist to find success.

The Garden on Sunset is the first of nine novels in the Hollywood Garden of Allah series. A native Australian, Turnbull moved to Los Angeles in the 1990s. In addition to writing his Hollywood novels, he is a blogger, webmaster, and tour guide. (And I thought I had an addiction to stories about Hollywood.)

The Garden on Sunset doesn’t finally reach some grand climax; it doesn’t build toward a final and ultimately resolved crisis. Instead, it tells a story of Hollywood, an ongoing story of Hollywood that continues today.

Top photograph: The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in the 1920s.

Poets and Poems: Benjamin Myers and “Black Sunday”

It began as a drought. Farmers in 1930 looked up at the sky and wondered where the clouds had gone, and with them, the rain. For an area the size of three-fourths of the state of Texas, including the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, the western half of Kansas, the eastern half of Colorado, and parts of Nebraska and New Mexico, the rain wouldn’t return until 1939. At times, most of the United States was affected by the drought, but no region experienced what the southern Plains went through.

Benjamin Myers

The land dried up. The wind blew. Dust storms reached the East Coast. By the end of the 1930s, some 2.5 million people had migrated west to escape what came to be called the Dust Bowl. It was the agricultural counterpoint to the Great Depression, and it was part of an era when hunger became familiar to millions of Americans.

Poet Benjamin Myers uses the 54 poems of Black Sunday to explain, interpret, and illustrate what happened in those years. You read these poems in somber stillness. You look out your window and consider what your own landscape would be with grass dead, gardens parched into sticks, the limbs of trees reaching upward like unanswered prayers.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

Julianna Deering’s “Rules of Murder”

It’s 1931. Young Drew Fartherington and his friend Nick Dennison arrive at Drew’s home in Fartherington St. John to find his mother and stepfather throwing a house party that’s in full swing. He’s incensed to find his own room occupied, and occupied, no less, by David Lincoln, the man rumored to have had an affair with his mother. The only bright spot is the arrival of his stepfather’s American niece, Madeline Parker, whom Drew finds himself immediately drawn to.

Before the weekend is out, David Lincoln is found murdered in the greenhouse, and Drew’s mother has apparently committed suicide. But something seems wrong about both deaths, and Drew begins his own investigation, with the help of Nick and Madeline.

And what Drew finds in Rules of Murder by Julianna Deering are secrets buried in the distant past, a different view of his dead father and mother, his understanding of his own life turned upside down, the financial standing of the family firm threatened – and more than a touch of romance.

Published in 2013, Rules of Murder is the first of four Drew Fartherington detective novels written by Deering (two more are scheduled for publication). Her detective in an engaging and intelligent young man, the sole offspring of a wealthy family that owns a chemical research and manufacturing company. The family is relatively new landed gentry. Drew’s grandfather helped to found the firm, convinced the local town to change its name, and built a family home specifically constructed with old building materials and in different styles to architecture purposefully to appear old and established.

Julianna Deering

The author has done her research well. The story has the air of authenticity and the feel of the Golden Age of the murder mystery – the 1920s and 1930s. The police inspector is not so much bumbling as off investigating other leads, so that Drew and his friends occupy center stage in the story.

As the bodies pile up (and they do seem to pile up), Drew gets closer and closer to the truth, despite a plethora of red herrings tossed in his (and our) way. But the story finishes well, and Deering has provided an entertaining, highly readable whodunit.  

Photograph by Karen Arnold via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.