Book Review: A Baby’s Bones by Rebecca Alexander @RebAlexander1 @TitanBooks

A Baby’s Bones
Sage Westfield Book 1
Rebecca Alexander
Titan Books, May 2018
ISBN 978-1-7856-5621-7
Trade Paperback

Archaeologist Sage Westfield is excavating a sixteenth century well near a listed building, Bramble Cottage, on the Isle of Wight. Expecting to find only some pieces of pottery and maybe some animal bones, she and her two students, Elliott Robinson and Stephanie Beatson, uncover human bones. Two skeletons, that of a woman and an infant, are covered under a pile of rubbish. The bones are at least four hundred years old, and Sage is curious to discover how they ended up in the well. There are tales of witchcraft and a haunted house on the property, and a grave with the inscription “Damozel” hidden in the woods.

While Sage works on the dig, she is also facing problems in her personal life. Six months pregnant, she has recently broken up with her married lover, and is planning to raise the child on her own. Marcus, her lover, has other ideas, and keeps inserting himself into her life. While on the dig, she meets the local vicar, Nick Haydon. and can’t help thinking about him.

Told in alternating chapters—the contemporary story of the dig and the story from the 1500s about Lord Banstock’s daughter Viola’s wedding preparations—this book will appeal to readers of Barbara Mertz, Dana Cameron, and Lyn Hamilton. Alexander has a particularly deft way with description; the vicar is described as “handsome in a 1950s, knitting pattern way.”

Reviewed by Susan Belsky, August 2019.

Book Review: Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Dust by James Lovegrove

Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Dust
James Lovegrove
Titan Books, July 2018
ISBN 978-1-7856-5361-2
Trade Paperback

From the publisher—

It is 1884, and when a fellow landlady finds her lodger poisoned, Mrs Hudson turns to Sherlock Holmes.

The police suspect the landlady of murder, but Mrs Hudson insists that her friend is innocent. Upon investigating, the companions discover that the lodger, a civil servant recently returned from India, was living in almost complete seclusion, and that his last act was to scrawl a mysterious message on a scrap of paper. The riddles pile up as aged big game hunter Allan Quatermain is spotted at the scene of the crime when Holmes and Watson investigate. The famous man of mind and the legendary man of action will make an unlikely team in a case of corruption, revenge, and what can only be described as magic…

Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes’ landlady, asks for his help when a friend is suspected of killing her lodger and he and Dr. Watson are happy to jump in, having no idea what they’re about to get into. When the legendary Allan Quatermain, the Victorian version of our Indiana Jones, comes on the scene, everything becomes a great adventure.

The murdered man had, by his own telling, recently been in a civil servant position in Calcutta but Sherlock quickly determines that to be a lie and that he was, in fact, in Africa. Moreover, Sherlock questions the man’s very identity and, even more intriguing and disturbing, a stranger follows Holmes, Dr. Watson and Mrs. Hudson when they leave her friend’s house. That individual is soon revealed to be the aged Allan Quatermain, famous big game hunter in Africa, and he delivers a warning that delving into the mystery of the murdered man is very dangerous and should be dropped.

Naturally, that warning falls on deaf ears and Holmes and Watson are soon deeply involved in the case beginning with a fruitless trailing of Quatermain. Deducing that a journalist is somehow involved, the pair are off in pursuit of the truth behind the lodger’s murder.

The setting of this story really evoked the Sherlock Holmes era and environs plus it offered a strong sense of the reach and effect of the British Empire. James Lovegrove is an author with a special interest in Sherlock Holmes and he has developed a very credible pastiche with a variety of novels. He has a fine touch, an understanding of Holmes and of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s style and creative bent; I’m going to check out his other Sherlock Holmes offerings.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, October 2018.

Book Review: The Will to Kill by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins

The Will to Kill
A Mike Hammer Novel
Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
Titan Books, March 2017
ISBN: 978-1-7832-9142-7
Hardcover

Another uncompleted Mickey Spillane manuscript finished by Max Collins finds Mike Hammer walking along the Hudson River in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and discovering half a body, the upper torso, on an ice floe.  It turns out the half a corpse was the trusted butler of a wealthy inventor who was the captain of Pat Chambers, Mike’s homicide detective buddy, when he first joined the police force.  Pat suspects his friend’s death may have been a murder and “retains” Mike to investigate.

Mike travels to dead man’s Sullivan County estate where he meets the various members of the man’s dysfunctional family and employees.  The daughter also retains Mike, who suspects not only that the father was murdered, but that the butler was as well.  Each of the grown children, two older brothers, and their younger half siblings (the daughter and a brother) has a motive to murder the others.  Under the terms of their father’s will, the inheritances don’t kick in until age 40 and in the event of a death, that portion reverts to the corpus, fattening the eventual amount for the survivors.

The novel is slightly different from the accustomed Spillane genre: it is more akin to a traditional detective mystery, albeit with Mike Hammer wisecracks, a smattering of sex and firearms.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that approach.  But somehow it left this reader with a desire for something more.  In any event, it is a good read and can be recommended.

Reviewed by Ted Feit, April 2017.