Sarah Hawkswood's 'A Taste for Killing' 2022

Allison & Busby first paperback edition - 2022

 This is now my tenth reading of the Bradcote and Catchpoll series by Sarah Hawkswood. I see that the eleventh is due out in hardback in mid May next year. I will be pre-ordering it with my next Scott Mariani and Susanna Gregory (The Thomas Chaloner series) - the three writers I am presently loyal to. Others - Sam Bourne, Raymond Khoury and Chris Kuzneski, I have given up on, whilst Michael Arnold seems to have stopped at No. 6 in his Stryker series and C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake takes several years to reappear.

Although the novel can quite easily be read as a 'standalone', one of its charms is that the main characters have developed as the stories have unfolded. This is particularly true with the flame-headed young Wakelin, Serjeant Catchpoll's under serjeant.  His ongoing romance with Eluned, the Welsh kitchen girl in Worcester Castle, and his loving relationship with his mother is well done by the author. The homely sparring between Catchpoll and his wife (coming into her own more and more as a character in her own right) and the successful birth of the daughter to Lord Bradecote (his second wife not succumbing to childbirth as his first wife did) weaves genuine back stories into the main tale of yet another murder in the city. Above them all is the irascible Sheriff of Worcester, William de Beauchamp, on this occasioned wracked with a head cold and even more than usually irascible. The laguid castle Castellan, Simon Furnaux, disliked by Bradecote, Catchpoll and Wakelin, is also more 'onstage' in this tale.

What of the murder and the suspects? Godfrey Bowyer, poisoned  in his own hall, was immensely unpopular with his fellow craftsmen for his argumentative ways. He may have been the best bow maker in Worcester but nobody was surprised by, or sorry about, his death. His wife was also struck down but survived a more limited poison intake.

Could it be Oderic the Bailiff, whose wife was subject to Godfrey's sleazy ways; or the widow, Blanche Bowyer; or the dead man's brother Herluin the Strengere, previous ejected from the house for fancying Blanche; were the maidservant Runild, or Alwin, Godfrey's journeyman bowyer, or Gode the cook bribed to poison their master? The list appears endless. The plot is skilfully constructed and, eventually unravelled. The author has a way with words and has immersed herself in the sights and sounds (and smells!) of the mid 12th century England, the period of The Anarchy.

Scott Mariani's 'Graveyard of Empires' 2022

 

Harper North first paperback edition - 2022

My 26th Ben Hope thriller by Scott Mariani; the first - The Alchemist's Secret - I bought as long ago as 2007. Fifteen years as a faithful reader! Scott is running out of places to send Hope, who must be feeling his age by now. Although not showing the tiredness that affected the last few Matthew Bartholomew books by Susanna Gregory, this tale did not quite match up to Mariani's best.

From an initial lack of interest in Afghanistan and its miserable history, Ben Hope is forced to contemplate going there to search for, and probably rescue, his friend, Madison Cahill, former American bounty-hunter and daughter of a late archaeologist, who had obsessively searched in the 1970s and 1980s, for the physical remains of Alexander the Great's far-flung empire in that god-forsaken area. Chapter 2 is a brief 'history' lesson about the Taliban in Afghanistan and the US speedy withdrawal.

Hope, returning from a shopping trip to Valognes, is 'picked up' by three UK agents and forced to travel to London, to meet Colonel Carstairs, senior SAS brass, with connections to military intelligence and rumoured to be involved with a shadowy cadre called Group 13 linked to blacker-than-black ops... Carstairs is well past retirement age, but still involved in this murky underworld. He explains why Ben has been 'sent for. 

As you're aware, the sudden withdrawal of US troops from the region and the ensuing Taliban takeover of the country have resulted in the most godawful chaos. Trust the Yanks to bugger it up so badly, of course. The present administration are bloody incompetent, run by a gang of wet blankets under a president who frankly ought to be in a - but I won't go on about that...

Ben agrees to go, even though he will be under Captain Jack Buchanan of the UKSF and Carstairs refuses to tell him much about Operation Hydra apart from the mission is to extract an asset of prime importance, codenamed "Spartan". Ben goes to rescue Madison, intending to break away from the group at the right moment - his commitment to his friend came first.

The novel has all the marks of a Scott Mariani thriller, with detailed information about military hardware, actual fighting and the nature of the countryside. It also has some pretty political and extreme remarks, which need not necessarily reflect the author's own beliefs. He is very strong (and, to my mind, accurate) about the sheer evil of the Taliban and their repulsive brand of extreme Islamic beliefs.

Hank Schulz, formerly of US Marine Corps Force Recon, regards the USA government (Biden's) as an administration of worthless yellow-bellied rat-ass sleazebags in the White House, its left up to deplorables like us to take care of business. This mirrors Carstairs earlier condemnation. "Spartan" is, in fact, the fourth in line to the UK throne, but for some strange reason is called Prince Richard (when, clearly, it is Prince Harry). He is a not particularly likeable individual, with a chip on his shoulder - he gripes - even my twat of an elder brother was allowed to piss about in jets in Afghanistan with 16 Air Assault Brigade, even if he didn't actually do much. So why not me? Wat was wrong with me? He was getting agitated now, thumping his chest with his fist. One of the retired top-level operatives, Mike Nielson, on a quite different mission to escort a group of children out of the country, has this to say about the Royal Family - I have no problem with the old dame...I mean, respect to her and all. She's been through a lot of shit and handled herself with style. But they have a serious problem keeping their younger generation in line, man. What a bunch of misfits. Again is this the author speaking, or just the character? John Buchan has always been viewed by some as an anti-Semite, yet it was one of his characters, the American Scudder in The Thirty-Nine Steps, who refers unpleasantly to a Jew, whilst the author was a strong supporter of a Jewish homeland.

I found the book more retrospective and introspective than the usual Ben Hope offering - the latter questioning his inner demons at the start of the tale. The reference to his 'lost sister'; his knowledge of Biblical extracts; the reappearance not only of Madison but of Wolf; the fleeting asides about previous escapades. He still has the problem of commitment to women - Abbie Logan, who we recall from The Silver Serpent, the last adventure, and who appeared to be a perfect 'fit' for Ben, returns to Australia and there is no feeling that Madison will prove to be the permanent answer. 90% of Amazon reviews gave the novel a 5* or 4* and it's fair to say that Mariani has kept up the high standard he has achieved  since 2007. 

A very minor irritation - I hope he cuts out the phrase back in the day; it popped up far too often.

Mrs Humphry Ward's 'Robert Elsmere' 1888 II

Smith, Elder & Co. first edition - 1888

Robert Elsmere is about a young clergyman, trained in Oxford, who begins to doubt the doctrines of the Anglican Church after reading the writings of 19th century German rationalists and imbibing the ideas of English thinkers such as Thomas Hill Green (Mr Grey in the novel) and Mark Pattison (the Squire Wendover in the story). Instead of turning to Roman Catholicism, as did clergy such as Newman earlier in the century, or to atheism, Elsmere takes up constructive liberalism, stressing social work amongst the poverty-stricken and uneducated. The three volumes are split into seven unequal length Books:

Volume I pp. 1-292 Westmorland - where Elsmere successfully woos Catherine Leyburn, a pious young lady, deeply attached to her late clergyman father's straightforward Anglicanism; pp. 295-371 Surrey - where the newly-weds settle down to a seemingly successful ministry in the deepest southern county. Volume II pp. 3-120 Surrey - where the first strains start to emerge pp. 123-274 The Squire; - here the squire's Library and convictions lead on to the next section; pp.277-374 Crisis - where Elsmere finds he cannot square his conscience with the teachings (particularly with regards to miracles) of the Established Church. Volume III pp. 3-137 Rose, where the focus is more on Catherine's younger, more flighty sister, but also highlights the deepening division between Robert and Catherine; pp. 141-306 New Openings - where Elsmere, supported by his sister-in-law Rose's hopeful partner Hugh Flaxman, is able to open a New Brotherhood Club for the working class; and, finally, pp. 309-411 Gain and Loss - the gains are the success of the Institute and Flaxman gaining Rose's hand, but the loss is the major one of Elsmere's premature death, through overwork and a frail constitution (perhaps J.R. Green's early death supplied the idea for Elsmere's end from tuberculosis. Green was another East End pioneer in real life.)

Mary Augusta Ward

Mary Ward took infinite pains over her novel, the composition dragging out from March 1885 to February 1888. Stages included 'thinking about the novel' (March-November 1885); 'writing the novel' (November 1885-March 1887); and 'revising the novel' (March 1887 to January 1888). This first draft was simply too long. The publisher informed Mary that the work came to 1,358 pages, around three-quarters of a million words. 250,000 comprised a long three-decker. There had to be a savage reduction. Up to half the novel had to be excised. Two criticisms later levelled at the novel appear to be a direct result of this wholesale pruning. Robert Elsmere's character is insufficiently built up - his childhood is blank; his years at Oxford hurried over; his crucial relationship with his dominating mother sketchy. Secondly, the supporting arguments on behalf of the Established doctrines are woefully thin when matched against Squire Wendover - his Library and his rational scepticism. Catherine, who represents the Thirty-Nine Articles, is pushed into the background, whilst Wendover reigns supreme. The excisions in the middle of the novel were mainly from Elsmere's defence of his Anglicanism. As Gladstone was later to object, this rendered the hero intellectually spineless.

Although the initial sales were mediocre, thanks in part to Gladstone's long (and difficult to read for this 'modern' mind) critique, a buying tsunami took hold, particularly in America. Between July 1888 and September 1889, the publisher issued 17 editions of the one-volume 6s. form of the novel, amounting to 38,000 copies in all. The sale of 3,500 three-volume copies yielded the author £950. Some 20,000 of the half crown edition were sold between January and December 1890, yielding £500. The author had done very well financially.

Some interesting extracts:

The early Elsmere at Oxford:

The sacramental, ceremonial view of the Church never took hold upon him. But to the English Church as a great national institution for the promotion of God's work on earth no one could have been more deeply loyal, and none coming close to him could mistake the fervour and passion of his Christian feeling.

Catherine Leyburn knew of no supreme right but the right of God to the obedience of man.

From the High Churchman, the Vicar of Mottringham, Mr Newcombe:

'Tolerance! he said with irritable vehemence - 'tolerance! Simply another name for betrayal, cowardice, desertion - nothing else. God, Heaven, Salvation on the one side, the Devil and Hell on the other - and one miserable life, one wretched sin-stained will, to win the battle with'...

The only constant defence which the poor have against such physical conditions as those which prevailed at Mile End (the downtrodden hamlet in Elsmere's Surrey parish) is apathy. 

Elsmere's 'Confession' to his wife:

'For six or seven months, Catherine - really for much longer, though I never knew it - I have been fighting with doubt - doubt of orthodox Christianity - doubt of what the Church teaches - of what I have to say and preach every Sunday...I could not hold my faith by a mere tenure of tyranny and fear. Faith that is not free - that is not the faith of the whole creature, body, soul, and intellect - seemed to me a faith worthless both to God and man!' and later, Christianity seems to me something small and local...it is not that Christianity is false, but that it is only an imperfect human reflexion of a part of truth. Truth has never been, can never be, contained in any one creed or system!'

Truth holds a special place in the hearts of men who can neither accept fairy tales, nor reconcile themselves to a world without faith.

On Elsmere: It was the penalty of a highly strung nature set with exclusive intensity towards certain spiritual ends.

********************************************************************************

I learned a new word from the novel:  Comtist.    

Based on the ideas of Isidore Marie Auguste Francois Xavier Comte (1798-1857), who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He developed the idea of a religion of humanity and his injunction to "vivre pour autrui" ("live for others"), is the origin of the word 'altruism'.

Political phenomena are as capable of being grouped under laws as other phenomena; the true destination of philosophy must be social, and the true object of the thinker must be the reorganisation of the moral, religious and political systems.

Mrs Humphry Ward's 'Robert Elsmere' I888 I

 

Smith, Elder & Co. first edition - 1888

In The Spectator for 12th November 2022, Roger Lewis had this to say about the recently deceased Hilary Mantel: I'm sorry she died and everything, but I did think Hilary Mantel frightfully overpraised. Her novels will be placed next to Mrs Humphry Ward's - stock impossible to shift in antiquarian bookshops. Whilst I might agree about Mantel and have read only three of Ward's novels, I wonder how many of the latter Lewis has read. Who is Roger Lewis anyway? *

Mary Ward (née Arnold) - who published under her married name of Mrs Humphry Ward - I have written about previously: on 1st July 2022 on her The Case of Richard Meynell, 1911 and on 15th January 2022 on her Helbeck of Bannisdale, 1898. Both single volumes, I thoroughly enjoyed. Robert Elsmere runs to three volumes and is her most well-known book.

Mary Ward dedicated her three-decker novel to two people who had not long since died: Thomas Hill Green, Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Oxford (d. 26 March 1882); Laura Octavia Mary Lyttelton (d. Easter Eve, 1886). Both are worth concentrating on, so this Blog will be in two parts, the second dealing with the novel itself.

T. H. Green (7 April 1836 - 26 March 1882)

T.H. Green was one of several powerful Oxford ideologues - others were J.R. Green, Benjamin Jowettt and Walter Pater - who cast a spell over the young Mary Ward from the early 1870s. Mary's husband, Humphry, had been coached by Green and the teacher had become his idol; not surprisingly, as he was seen as the most brilliant philosopher in Oxford. Mary and Humphry became good friends with Green and his wife Charlotte. Green's intellectual positions - especially his rational theism - became hers (as can be clearly seen in her subsequent novel). Green distrusted all ecclesiastical and religious structures. He developed a personal Christian humanist stance, conceiving God as the possible self which is gradually attaining reality in the experience of mankind. This was heresy! Green and Mary affirmed God while denying the truth of his revelation - the miraculous Christian story was untenable. Green was one of the thinkers behind the philosophy of social liberalism. Mary was to copy Green in throwing herself into a spiritually therapeutic 'useful life'. The story of Robert Elsmere's journey was to be the same. However, it was in the character of Mr. Grey (a colour link?!) that T.H. Green appeared in the novel. 

Laura Lyttelton (1862-1886)

Mary had first met Laura Lyttelton ( née Tennant) in 1884 at a London party. She became aware of a figure opposite to me, the figure of a young girl who seemed to me one of the most ravishing creatures I had ever seen. She was very small and exquisitely made. Her beautiful head, with its mass of light-brown hair; the small features and delicate neck; the clear, pale skin, the lovely eyes with rather heavy lids, which gave a slight look of melancholy to the face; the grace and fire of every movement when she talked; the dreamy silence into which she sometimes fell, without a trace of awkwardness or shyness. Laura was 22 years-old, one of eight children born to Sir Charles Tennant, the illegitimate son of a Glasgow merchant; her sister was Margot Tennant, later the wife of H.H. Asquith. The Wards were at Laura's wedding when she married Alfred Lyttelton on 21st May 1885 at St. George's Church, Hanover Square. Gladstone gave a speech at the breakfast. Eleven months later, on 24th April 1886, Laura died from complications following the birth of her first child a week earlier. Mary was devastated: I think I was simply in love with her from the first time I ever saw her. Mary was profoundly influenced, not only by Laura, but by the social milieu she moved in. The Cecils, Lytteltons, Tennants and, later, the Asquiths, entranced her. Their power and lifestyle (country parties, balls) linked to the high politics of England was captivating. Laura was to be long mourned by her friends, their closed circle becoming known as the Souls. 

I have the biography of Alfred Lyttelton (Longmans, Green and Co., 1917) by Edith Lyttelton. My copy had  inserted in the pages a few original letters written by Alfred. One is dated May. 2. 1886 (just a week after Laura's death): My dear Mrs Dawnay, I must tell you of my gratitude for the sympathy you shew me in such tender words. I can hardly face the future but far better men than I have never known any joy in the past. And my memory of the past can never be blotted out...

Mary wrote to Laura's widowed husband, Alfred, asking him for permission to dedicate her novel to her deceased friend. He readily agreed and, after the book was published, he wrote to the author: I must write to offer you my deepest thanks for the perfect dedication, beautiful in its pathos, its tenderness, and just and delicate expression of that which is so hard to convey in words. I read it this morning with blinding tears and yet with truest gratitude... Gladstone stated that Laura remained to the end unshaken in faith. The author told Benjamin Jowett that Catherine Leyburn was meant for Laura - the first section in the novel centres on the psychic strain of a highly-strung girl giving herself in marriage. Mary had seen this dilemma in Laura Lyttelton.

The two dedicatees symbolised the tension throughout Robert Elsmere. More of which in the next Blog.

   **************************************************************************

* I have looked up Roger Lewis (b. 1960), who is described as a Welsh academic (are there any?!), biographer and journalist. He has written biographies of Peter Sellers and Charles Hawtrey and is a lover of good art (whatever that means) and bullfighting - the latter casts him out straightaway. He has called the Welsh language an appalling and moribund monkey language and been rude about lesbians (you can always spot a lesbian by her big thrusting chin. Celebrity Eskimo Sandi Toksvig, Ellen DeGeneres, Jodie Foster, Clare Balding, Vita Sackville-West. God love them: there's a touch of Desperate Dan in the jaw-bone area, no doubt the better to go bobbing for apple.) Not worth spending any time on then.

John le Carré's 'Agent Running in the Field' 2019

 

Penguin Books first paperback edition - 2020

A very classy entertainment about political ideals and deception...laced with fury at the senseless vandalism of Brexit and of Trump - The Guardian.

The master espionage novelist takes on Brexit and Trump in this tense and chilling portrait of today - Evening Standard.

A book about loyalty and betrayal...serves to emphasize the consequence of the greatest wilful mistake in British history = New Statesman.

There are 21 other extracts from reviews at the front of this paperback edition, all praising the superb/impeccable, classy writing and the astute state-of the-nation commentary. One reviewer suggests it is the author's best effort this century. 83% of Amazon reviews give it a  5* or 4* billing. It was the 26th novel from le Carré; this is only the second I have read and I still have to be convinced that he is something special.

 I thought the coincidence of the ageing spy, in effect put out to grass, meeting up with a young, so-called idealist through a badminton challenge very unlikely. It was not a set-up, just by chance. Very early on, I had worked out the youngster Ed was working in another Secret Service Department and that Florence, Nat's wilful assistant, would link up with him. The vehement anti-Brexit/Trump sections appeared to be bolted on, for the sake of the author's own prejudices or an attempt to be 'with' the elite, metropolitan thinking. The badminton matches, very sketchily commentated on, quickly gave way to these aggressive diatribes.

All the characters teetered dangerously on being caricatures and I didn't feel sympathy for any of them. The paranoia and treachery, the overall seediness may be true to life, but it is not a life that I find particularly attractive or interesting. One reviewer called the writing tired. After 25 novels, it is not surprising. The revelations about the author's own life suggests a personal attachment to treachery and seediness as well. The book was a decent enough companion for two train journeys and a wait at St Pancras International.

T.D. Asch's 'The Century of Calamity' 2021

 

Amberley Publishing first edition - 2021

A slightly odd book to Blog about. The author studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford and has taught History in secondary schools for 15 years, so he has a pedigree. But I can best describe the effort as a series of musings, interlaced with a chronological narrative. All history books dealing with the Middle Ages and before - particularly the so-called Dark Ages - must inevitable lead to, hopefully inspired, guesswork, but Asch posits so many questions that one is left often more confused than not. After his frequent 'Why?' he regularly as not comes out with no answer. One gets used to 'probably', 'possibly', 'appears to have' in medieval history books, but Asch excels at this. There were eight 'maybes' in one paragraph. Perhaps his favourite word is 'perhaps': there are three in four lines on page 57. The final page boasted twelve! But, as Asch says, It's all speculation; nobody knows for sure.

Asch is clear in his mind that Ǣthelrǽd was indeed a bad man and a bad king; that Edward the Confessor was not perfectly suited to kingship, and perhaps he was lucky that his reign coincided with the least turbulent period of the eleventh century but he should be given credit for he did not harry his own kingdom...he did not raise vast sums in taxation...he did not have his own subjects executed or mutilated...when he made mistakes, he put them right. Tostig is also more positively assessed than by some historians: he respected the demands of Christianity. He was faithful to his wife. And he was generous to religious houses...in a way, he was a model earl...History has not been kind to Tostig, and history ought to be ashamed of itself. Cnut, for all his serious errors, is given some praise for leadership. On the other hand, the two half-brothers and sons of Cnut, Harold Harefoot (d.1040) and Harthacnut (d.1042) are given short shrift.

I found Asch's style too ruminative and found my attention wandering after yet another 'on the one hand, but on the other' approach. Too often he descends into the colloquial, but, to be fair, does manage to sustain a sense of genuine time passing. He gives ample space to an assessment of the character and machinations of Harold II and is judicial about Duke William the Bastard, crowned on Christmas Day 1066 as William I. After all the bloodshed and slippery dealings of the decades before, William's death somehow puts a seal on everything, if not on the too-small coffin. After dying in a priory just outside Rouen, his body was retrieved, and taken to St. Stephen's Abbey in Caen...for the funeral...it turned out that the stone sarcophagus which had been prepared for William's corpulent frame was too small. The body had to be forced into the coffin, but that burst the diseased intestines, which unleashed a foul odour throughout the building.

One feels a certain sympathy (and admiration) for Edgar Ǣtheling (c.1052-c.1125) who survived under William I, William II and Henry I - no mean feat. If he had been born a decade earlier, perhaps (!) he could have succeeded Edward the Confessor and we might never have had a Norman line foist upon us. 

"Went the Day Well?" 1942 DVD

 

Film Poster - 1942

This is the third time I have watched this British war film - adapted from a Graham Greene story in a 1940 magazine. It's told in flashback (very briefly at the start and at the end) by one of the villagers, who recounts the day a group of apparently bona fide British Royal Engineer soldiers arrive in Bramley End. They are welcomed at first, but suspicions are soon aroused (the use of the continental 7 and German chocolate) - rightly, as they are vanguard paratroopers preparing for a German invasion of Britain. The villagers are mainly rounded up and kept in the village church under guard.

Trapped in the Village Church

Attempts to alert the outside world prove at first to be failures: a message in a carton of eggs is destroyed by an incoming car; another note, put in the lady driver's pocket is used by her to stop the car window from rattling - it blows into the back seat where her dog chews it to bits! The postmistress, Mrs Collins (Muriel George) kills her German guard with an axe, tries to telephone for help, but gets shot by another German. Gruesome! The Home Guard, out on patrol is also gunned down, having failed to be warned? Why? The local squire is a long-time collaborator with the Germans and has managed to thwart much of the villagers' attempts to get help. However, a young boy does manage to escape, although shot in the leg, to raise the alarm.   British soldiers arrive and defeat the Germans. The treacherous squire is shot dead by the vicar's daughter (her father had been killed trying to ring the church bell for help). The gallant Mrs Fraser saves the children in her care by grabbing a grenade, thrown into the house, at the cost of her own life.

In some ways, a rather mundane event in a single day. By the time the film was premiered, the threat of a German invasion had passed, so it may have lost its main impact (Greene's story in 1940 would have been much more true to those grim days). The acting was pretty standard British fare of the time, with some well-known 'character' actors popping up. I did not think much of Leslie Banks' portrayal of the village squire; it was almost as if he didn't want to be in the film, or wasn't keen on playing a traitor. Then I read that, whilst serving the Great War with the Essex Regiment, he had sustained injuries that left his face partially scarred and paralysed. In his acting career, he would use his injury to good effect - showing the unblemished side when playing comedy or romance and the scarred, paralysed side of his face when playing drama or tragedy. That explains much of his 'passive', unemotional behaviour. He died in 1952, a decade later, from a stroke he suffered whilst out walking.

The film is good, straightforward and rather 'homely' propaganda. Moreover, one is taught not to mess with a gun-toting Thora Hurd!

Went the day well? We died and never knew. But, well or ill, freedom, we died for you.