River of Fallen Angels is the latest in Rowland’s Victorian mystery series. It starts with a bang when Sarah, Hugh and Mick find human remains on the bank of the Thames. Not the whole body, mind, but a few pieces. The so-called Torso Killer is back.
Sarah and her posse jump into the investigation. But Sarah and her husband are almost immediately at odds in whom they suspect.And Inspector Reid, who believes the Torso killer and the Ripper are one and the same, takes another tack entirely.
While Barrett investigates suspects from the Ripper murders, Sarah’s sister Sally has the brilliant idea to search the personals. Doing so leads them to a woman who was once missing but now is in an insane asylum. Sarah begins to focus on a strange religion, the Haven of Love, and the charismatic leader who follows it.
Meanwhile, the bitter rivalry between Reid and Sarah intensifies, but results in a totally unimagined twist at the end. Highly Recommended.
Chilled to the dog bone is S.A. Kazlo’s fifth book.As in the previous offerings, the action takes place in Wings Falls, New York. All the familiar characters are in place.
Decorated outhouses (yes, really) with a prize going to the best one are a popular town winter event. The Loopy Ladies have an entry. Gladys, one of the best and funniest characters, will ride the outhouse across the ice. But the morning of the competition, a disliked man is found frozen to death in the outhouse. And both Gladys’s and Sam’s( that’s Samantha) fingerprints are all over the water bottles outside.
But the victim was so unpopular there are many suspects.
Worse, from Sam’s point of view, a new woman is working at town hall, an attractive blonde named Sunny Foxx. And Sam catches Hank, her significant other, with his arms around Sunny in his office!
Light, frothy, laugh-out loud funny in places. My only criticism is that Kazlo uses the same descriptions repeatedly. Hank is always described with crystal-blue eyes, for example, and Candie, Sam’s cousin, has violet eyes.
For those not in the business, the current legal flap is over copyright. Several companies have been using published works to train AI, a violation of copyright.
What is copyright? It covers, among other things, intellectual property such as literary works. Books, short stories and more and protects them against copy without permission. According to the law, written work in a tangible form, including in a document on your computer, is ‘copyrighted’ and cannot be copied. (Plagiarism is the unlawful copying of another’s work and reproducing it as your own.) That means published works should be considered copyrighted and protected from unlawful use. It is recommended, however, that published works, whether published through an agency such as a publisher or self-published should be formally copyrighted through the office of copyright.
A lawsuit was brought against the AI companies that used published works. In one such case, Bartz vs Anthropic, it is estimated that 7 million books were used.Only about 500,000 were officially copyrighted through the copyright office. Although the case was settled, and Anthropic agreed to pay a settlement, because nothing is ever simple, the case is still tied up in court.
I am following the case with close attention since several of my books were used and at least 5 are eligible for a claim.
Who knew being and author would end up being so complicated!
Lies, lost and found was the third Boulden I’ve read and it is just as enjoyable as the others. This is the second in the Lake Amelia series.
While Rose is cleaning out the family home after her father’s death, she finds $10,000 and a note in an unfamiliar handwriting. Who left the money? Rose embarks on a search for the money’s owner and soon finds herself searching for the note’s writer as well. Her search involves her in a mystery surrounding immigrants and soon spirals into trafficking, murder and the involvement of people Rose knows and trusts.
This is a thriller rather than a mystery, but it is certainly engrossing. Recommended.
When we first meet Will Rees in A Simple Murder, he is pursuing his son to a nearby Shaker community.
David has run away from his aunt’s rough treatment. When the boy was eight, his mother died. Rees drops his son on his sister and leaves, ostensibly to pick up weaving jobs. The truth is, though, that Rees, besides grieving the devastating loss of his wife, is also dealing with a huge amount of guilt. He is running away. And David views that as abandonment and it takes many years, and a lot of work, before the estrangement is resolved.
Through the series, we see Rees evolve from an indifferent father, at best, to an engaged and caring father. In Cradle to Grave, he and Lydia adopt several orphaned children, increasing the number of children to six.
By the Long Shadow of Murder, Rees and Lydia have a little girl of their own and she is pregnant with another child.
And Jerusha, the eldest of the adopted kids, is now in her late teens and hoping to attend The Litchfield Female Academy to become a teacher. Although Rees would never crush her dream, he hopes Jerusha will stay home. He wants to keep his children close.
In my head, I imagined Rees’s evolving – growing up if you will – from a fairly self-centered man to a husband and father whose core is his family.
Operation Blackbird is the second in the Bronze Compass set. The compass is a very small part of the book, following The Bronze Compass. In this outing, the compass plays a very small part and, in my opinion, is unnecessary.
Miriam, code named Claudia Fischer among others, is sent to Germany on a mission to spirit out a Russian scientist who wants to defect. Berlin is divided into east and west and it will be tricky moving out not only the scientist but his family as well.
From the first, the mission goes south and Miriam is left with the scientist and his family. The only other operative she trusts is lost somewhere in Berlin. Using contacts she made during her time in intelligence during WWII, Miriam manages to move the family to safety in London. But Jake, her trusted companion, is still missing. Miriam persuades her boss to allow her to go back into Germany to look for Jake, and this time she has to avoid the KGB and the Stasi (the East German secret police.)
perationOperation Blackbird is an action filled espionage novel where very few can be trusted. Plotting is definitely Butler’s strength and I was struck over and over again at how comfortable she is writing about this era. The clothing, the mannerisms, the descriptions – all seem totally believable. Highly recommended.
Simon Rouge, Will Rees’s frenemy in the Will Rees mysteries, is the Constable in the village. Why a constable? We don’t use that system in the United States.
Oh, but we did, once upon a time.
In the beginning, when Boston, New York and Philadelphia were just colonial villages, night watchmen and constables were appointed to keep the peace and provide law enforcement. Constables were, at first, generally unpaid or paid very poorly. Few people were interested in taking on a hazardous job with little pay and low status so the quality of those that did apply was poor.I imagine that little crime was prevented and few crimes were solved.
As the northern cities grew thanks to an influx of immigrants, and dealt with increasing crime, the southern states established patrols to control the large enslaved population.
The spread of people to the frontier created new problems for crime control. In 1789, the US Marshals were created as the first federal law enforcement agency. In1823, the Texas Rangers was formed to protect American settlers from Indian attack in the Mexican territory of Texas.
In 1790, only two US cities had populations over 25,000. By 1820, both New York and Philadelphia had populations of over 100,000. The ability of night watchmen and constables could not keep up.
So, where did our current system of policing come from? Well, just like the system of night watchmen and constables (and sheriffs too), the US copies the ‘modern’ police force of London’s Metropolitan Police force, set up by law in 1829. New York City is the first American city to set up a unified, prevention-oriented police force in 1845. In 1853 they adopted uniforms.
So, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Rouge would still be a constable, poorly paid and with very little authority. This is also why he earns his living, not as a law enforcement officer, but as a tavern owner.
