“A Matter of Loyalty” by Elizabeth Edmondson

British mystery writer Elizabeth Edmondson wrote two acclaimed Hugo Hawksworth novels, A Man of Some Repute and A Question of Inheritance. She was almost finished the third when she died rather unexpectedly. The fate of the third novel was left somewhat in doubt.

Her son, Anselm Audley, a British fantasy writer and the author of a series of dramatic narrative histories for the Amazon Kindle Single program, ultimately stepped in. He finished the final few chapters, using his mother’s notes. The result is A Matter of Loyalty, and it is a welcome result indeed.

Hawksworth, an agent with the UK’s Special Branch in the mid-1950s, has been assigned to the small town of Selchester. He’s officially a statistician, but everyone in the town knows the institution he works for has something to so with espionage. It is a small town, after all, and everyone knows everyone else’s business.

A scientist involved with a nearby nuclear research program is found dead, shot in the back of the head. The death is rather inconvenient for the authorities (not to mention the scientist), as he was the No. 1 suspect in a leak to the Russians. But if they can find the killer, the case may be wrapped up nicely and forgotten. And they do identify one, but Hawksworth is convinced it’s the wrong man.

Anselm Audley

Elizabeth Edmondson

Hawksworth’s personal problems play out against the case he’s investigating. He walks with a permanent limp, the result of a shooting in Berlin that ended his military career and led to another. He’s become the guardian of his 13-year-old sister Georgia, and she is quite a handful (and plays a significant role in the story). He’s engaged to a socialite in London, but he’s coming to regret the relationship – she’s determined to maneuver him into a boring government or corporate desk job. And there’s another possible love interest – the lovely Freya Wryton, who lives at Selchester Castle and was the niece of the murdered earl in the first Hawksworth novel.

A Matter of Loyalty is a fast-paced story that bears a close reading – it’s filled with characters and sub-plots and eventually align with the main story but the read had to pay attention.  

In a postscript, Audley says this will indeed be the last of the Hawksworth novels, and describes how he came to finish the story. He’s done well by his mother’s legacy, but we’ll miss Hugo, Georgia, Freya, the American earl, and the other characters in Edmondson’s memorable stories.

Related:

My review of A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson.

My review of A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson.

Photograph by Karen Arnold via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. (The photo is actually of Arundel Castle, similar to but not the actual setting for Selchester Castle.)

“Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship” by Colin Duriez

It is perhaps the most famous friendship of the 20^th century. The impact it had on both literature and popular Christianity was enormous, and its influence continues today, reflected in the movies, books, biographies, and derivative writings published decades after their deaths.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1982-1973) and C.S. Lewis (1898-1963).

Without their friendship, there likely would have been no Hobbit, no Lord of the Rings, no Narnia, no Screwtape Letters. While it waxed and waned, the friendship between the two Oxford teachers, the two writers, the two members of the Inklings, and the two avid students of the Norse legends and myths left an immeasurable blessing and legacy.

The story of that friendship is examined and detailed in Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship by Colin Duriez, first published in 2003.

Tolkien and Lewis met at Oxford. They had much in common: both had fought in World War I, both were intrigued by medieval language and Norse mythology, both had lost their mothers at a young age. But there were significant differences as well. Tolkien was married and raising a family, while Lewis was a bachelor (although living in a rather unconventional arrangement with his brother Warren, and Mrs. Moore and her daughter, the mother and sister of a friend killed in the war). And Tolkien was a devout Catholic, while Lewis was in his late atheist phase, moving toward a kind of agnosticism.

Good friends they became. And the friendship was solidified during a stroll on Addison’s Walk in Oxford, in the early morning hours of a Sunday morning in 1931, when Tolkien, with the help of a mutual friend, Hugo Dyson, convinced Lewis that Jesus Christ was a “true myth.”

Addison's Walk in Oxford

Duriez pays special attention to the impact each had on the other’s writing. At the time, there was no literary genre of “fantasy for adults.” Fantasy, like fairy tales, was considered to be in the province of childhood. Tolkien was self-conscious about what would become The Hobbit, and it was Lewis who almost singlehandedly kept encouraging him to continue that story (published in 1937) and then the “second Hobbit,” which became The Lord of the Rings and was published in the 1950s.

Similarly, Tolkien encouraged Lewis. Their friendship expanded to include others in what became known as the Inklings, which met in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College and the Eagle and Child pub. Out of those meetings, readings, discussions, and occasional debates would come The Chronicles of Narnia.

The friendship between the two men, Duriez notes, would warm and cool, especially after Lewis accepted a position at Cambridge (with Tolkien’s help and support) and Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman. Tolkien was also not comfortable with how Lewis “popularized” Christianity. But it endured.

Colin Duriez

Duriez is a writer and lecturer who has written extensively about Tolkien, Lewis, and the Inklings. His works include The C.S. Lewis Handbook (1990), The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia (2000), The Inklings Handbook (2001; co-authored), Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle Earth (2001), The J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook (2002), A Field Guide to Narnia (2004), The C.S. Lewis Chronicles (2005), J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend (2012), and The Oxford Inklings (2015). He is also the author of A.D. 33: The Year That Changed the World (2007), Field Guide to Harry Potter (2007), The Poetic Bible (2001), and Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (2008).

Tolkien and C.S. Lewis tells the story of a friendship that became a remarkable friendship, and helped change the world.

Related:

The Desiring God web site has a number of lectures by and interviews with Colin Duriez, covering the Origins of The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings movies, C.S. Lewis, the friendship between Lewis and Tolkien, and related subjects.

J.R.R. Tolkien Convinces C.S. Lewis That Christ is the True Myth – Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition.

“My Life with George” by Judith Summers

When our youngest son started third grade, somehow he convinced his mother that the family needed a dog. He didn’t need to convince his father, who was already there. But it was the mother who needed to be convinced, and the 8-year-old somehow managed it.

We researched dogs, looking at all kinds of breeds. We talked to dog owners. The requirements were small, not prone to being “yippy,” low-shedding, and good with children. Finally, after reading about a particular breed in one of the big dog magazines, we found the dog we were looking for. We would learn later that the magazine lied about “low-shedding.”

We found a breeder. There was at that time only one in our metropolitan area, and she was known as crazy. So we headed west, about 300 miles west, in fact, across Missouri and into Kansas. Some 40 miles northwest of Lawrence, down a dirt road and over a log bridge, we found the breeder and the puppy. And we took our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel home.

Judith Summers and her son Joshua went looking for a dog, too. They were looking to help fill a London flat and a family life emptied of Summers’ larger-than-life husband, television producer Udi Eichler, who had died from cancer. Eichler was known to the rich-and-famous (actor John Thaw, he of Inspector Morse fame, read a poem at the memorial service) and the no-to-rich-and-famous. Summers thought she knew what she was getting with George, her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Summers was wrong. (She got hers two years after we got ours. I could have warned her.) George transformed the family’s life.

She tells the story of what happened in My Life with George: The Inspirational Story of How a Willful Dog Brought Joy to a Bereaved Family. It is as much the story of life with a dog as it is a memoir of love, loss, grief, and the attempts for a family to recover and go forward.

Cavaliers are everything they’re claimed to be – friendly, gorgeous, gregarious, happy, the kind of dog that people stop you on the street to pet. Like most dogs, they have healthy appetites. They also eat things they shouldn’t. They’re also prone to physical ailments, and will make you best friends with the often-weekly visits to the veterinarian. Our vet bills alone put the vet’s daughter through college. But you pay, because the loyalty these dogs express evoke a similar loyalty from you. Just ask Summers. She figures she spent more than $20,000 on vet bills – on top of what the pet insurance paid.

Judith Summers and George

George was the type of dog who created stories – stories about what happened to prospective boyfriends, about interactions with other dogs, the battles for control the cat waged, the constant, ongoing need for grooming (and vet visits), and what happens to your heart when that face looks up into yours and smiles.

Summers is a writer and author who lives in London. She’s published Soho: A History of London’s Most Colorful Neighborhood (1991); The Empress of Pleasure: The Life and Adventures of Teresa Cornelys (2003); and Casanova’s Women: The Great Seducer and the Women He Loved (2006). She’s even published a sequel to her story of life with George – The Badness of King George (2010), the title a clever takeoff on the “The Madness of King George.” She lives in London.

My Life with George is the real thing – Summers knows this subject of Cavaliers because she’s lived it. And she provides the good, the bad, and the crazy of what life is like when you own this particular breed of dog.

Top photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.