In these book comments, I open a new mystery series, set in the Inner and Middle Temples in London, by former KC Sally Smith. It’s fun to be “in the beginning.” I read a series combined into one big book, The Complete Patrick Melrose Novels. No one book is too long, but altogether they make a large tome. The second of Peter Godwin’s memoirs about Africa is as gripping as the first. I read The Doorman by Chris Pavone which I can only hope will have sequels. Enjoy!
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin (Little, Brown, and Co., 2007)
Second in a series of three memoirs about Zimbabwe. The first is Mukiwa, A White Boy in Africa. I commented on this several months ago as a stunning memoir. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun follows with even more emotional entanglement as Godwin leaves Africa and settles in New York. A popular magazine writer, he is sent to Zimbabwe to document the war and its aftermath. He often runs into former colleagues both white and black.
A significant element of this book is the story of Peter’s father and his secret background, contributing to his parents’ desire never to leave Africa. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun will keep you in its thrall from page one through the end.
April 1865: The Month That Saved America by Jay Winik (Harper, 2002)
A splendid book – if you love U.S. history. About a year ago, Eric Larson came out with The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War – a great book about the months between Lincoln’s election and being sworn in as President four months later.
In The Month That Saved America, Winik deals with just the month of April 1865. This includes the victory by Grant at Appomattox, Lee’s surrender, Lincoln’s assassination, and the burning of Richmond. It’s history at its most dramatic with both the Confederates and the Unionists in high dudgeon.
I expected the narrative to be dry, but Winik brings history to life with intimate stories about the characters. The only bit I’d skip is the Epilogue where he rehashes the story and its impact on the U.S.
The Doorman by Chris Pavone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025)
What a fun read! Like Bonfire of the Vanities, Only Murders in the Building, and a Don DeLillo novel rolled into one. Watch this book quickly be purchased and turned into a movie or series.
The setting is an Art Nouveau upper west side apartment building, The Bohemia. The characters are identified by the locations in the building: front door, Apartment 2A, and Apartment 11 C-D. The plot reveals affairs, thievery, corporate greed, black protest, white protest, the ultra-rich and the urban poor. You won’t put it down.
The Peepshow: The Murders at Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale (Penguin 2024)
Interesting true crime genre, if a bit long for the subject matter. What I liked: maps, an explanation of the value of the £ at the time of the crimes vs today, introduction of different journalists covering the crime story.
The Peepshow is a story within a story. The main protagonist is a crime journalist for a London tabloid. Secondary protagonist is an astute crime writer who dissects murder trials to educate lawyers. The criminal is a down-market London serial killer who gets off on necrophilia, so kills to sustain his passion.
The time is 1953 forward. London is a bombed-out shell, rife with prostitutes in hard times after the boom during the war. Abortion is the birth control de jour. Immigration is opened to Commonwealth countries luring workers to help rebuild England.
Many Blacks come and settle in Notting Hill, the slummy neighborhood of the crimes. There are lots of gory murders, mostly by one man, but another man living in the same building is also suspected of two murders. He is sentenced and hanged. Of course it turns out our serial killer is the likely perpetrator. The police and courts are unwilling to reopen the case because it would likely mean admitting error.
Summerscale ties her narratives of the murders and the lingering investigations to changes throughout British society. Capital punishment is banned after the discovery of this possible error that cost a man his life. Punishment for abortion changed from focus on the pregnant women to focus on the purveyors of abortions. It’s so easy in the U.S. to forget the destruction wrought in Europe by WWII. The Peepshow gives a close-up look at post-war life on the seamer side of London. Recommended.
The Complete Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, At Last by Edward St. Aubyn (Picador, 2015)
If you made it through A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, 720 pages, an adult fiction best-seller in 2015 about childhood trauma and its indelible imprint on adult life, you may make it through the stories of Patrick Melrose, 857 pages, that shares a similar theme.
These are devastating books. I kept involved in five sequential novels because of St. Aubyn’s amazing writing. You can reread a single paragraph and draw complete satisfaction from the words, style, flow, and meaning. But the stories are semi-autobiographical, which makes them even tougher to read.
The division into five books provides relief that does not exist in A Little Life. I found the first three morbidly fascinating – pedophilia, drug addiction, and emotional abandonment. Some Hope followed Patrick into marriage and the growth of two amazing sons. But you can’t help wanting to shake both Patrick and his wife as they let their marriage dissolve. At Last delved far deeper into the existential decision of whether to move forward to his wife and sons or back into drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex, and depression. It was a tough read.
These books are a good investment of reading time if you want a deep dip into contemporary British lit. The BBC made a TV series starring Benedict Kumberbach. I obtained it through the local library, and it is available on YouTube. Kumberbach inhabits the role of Patrick Melrose. As the books are the British lit, this is great British TV. The segments are about one hour each, so you can binge it.
A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (Raven Books, 2024)
Oh, I wanted this mystery, set in 1901 in the Temple – where all the barristers of London have their offices and sometimes their living quarters – to be so much better. As a tourist I took a fascinating walking tour of the area and felt immediately the lure of murder and mayhem in the Temple’s pristine setting.
Sally Smith worked as a barrister and KC (abbreviation for King’s Counsel, a senior barrister) in the Inner Temple before retiring to become a mystery writer. She knows her stuff. But I figured out who the murderer was the moment the character was introduced. And I’m not gifted in that area.
Ms. Smith does well with her side stories. They all held my interest. I loved the setting and the “tales of the Temple”. This is the beginning of a series. Fingers crossed that the author creates more suspense in future stories featuring reclusive protagonist Sir Gabriel Ward KC. I’ll read the next book with high hopes. Let me know if you suspected the perpetrator as I did.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Do you read book sets? What do you like – or don’t like – about them? Which would you recommend and why?
