Sunday Seconds -- there are books that I would really love to re-read -- if I could make the time. Sometimes books have profound impacts on one's reading experience. Sometimes you just know these books could be even greater if you could go back and read them with again better understanding and life experiences under your belt. Sometimes books don't hold up the memory the second time around -- that's the risk. Sunday Seconds will be a cataloging of that kind of wish list.
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CUT TO THE QUICK by Kate Ross
This is the first of a four-book series featuring Julian Kestrel, a dandy-about-town in 1820s London. Sadly, this series was cut short in 1998 due to the death of the author from cancer. Here is a description of CUT TO THE QUICK:
Hugh Fontclair is the proud scion of a proud family who has agreed to marry a wealthy Cit's daughter to save the family's good name since the Cit has information about the Fontclairs that would prove devastating if revealed. His daughter has no idea that she is a pawn in the game, however, and wonders why Hugh has offered for her. Hugh goes out the night of his proposal and gets gloriously drunk (an unusual circumstance for him), where he meets Julian Kestrel. After Kestrel saves him from a bad run at Hazard, Hugh gratefully asks him to serve as best man at the wedding, and to join his family at their country house as they host the bride-to-be and her father. Kestrel, for his part, is intrigued at Hugh's invitation, and goes to Bellegarde only to find a house teeming with mistrust, hidden secrets and an overriding sense of family. There are Hugh's parents, Sir Robert and Lady Fontclair; his cousins Guy and Isabelle; his aunt, the viper-tongued Lady Tarleton; his uncle, Colonel Fontclair. Also present are his sisters and Mark Craddock and his daughter Maud. It is immediately clear that Mark Craddock and the Fontclair family hate each other, and Julian discovers at least one reason why soon after he has arrived. Then an attractive lady is found in Kestrel's bed and, unfortunately, she's been murdered. Suspicion falls on Kestrel's manservant, Dipper, and it is up to Kestrel to clear him, in the course of which he discovers his true calling as a detective. He pokes his nose into all sorts of things, asks unpleasant questions, picks up a Watson to his Holmes (Dr. MacGregor, a straight-forward man who is initially put off by Kestrel's foppish appearance, but soon comes to respect his brain), and eventually solves the crime.
It was published in 1994 and has 352 pages.
More about this series I've taken from wikipedia:
The books in the series include CUT TO THE QUICK (1994) which won the 1994 Gargoyle award for Best Historical Mystery, A BROKEN VESSEL (1995), WHOM THE GODS LOVE (1996), and THE DEVIL IN MUSIC (1997) which won the 1997 Agatha Award for Best Novel. The Lullaby Cheat (1997), a short story featuring Kestrel, is included in the mystery anthology Crime Through Time, edited by Miriam Grace Monfredo and Sharan Newman.
The novels and short story in the series are set in the English Regency era in Great Britain. Kestrel is a trend-setting dandy, similar in influence to Beau Brummel, who takes up detection as a response to boredom with the emptiness of society. Over the course of the series, we learn that Kestrel is the son of a talented actress, who died giving birth to him, and the younger son of a Yorkshire squire who was disowned by his well-to-do family after his marriage. He was later mentored by a French nobleman who helped him learn the ways of society and the appropriate way to dress.
Kestrel's partner in detection is his valet Thomas Stokes, known as Dipper. Dipper got his nickname from his first career as a pickpocket. Kestrel hired Dipper as his valet after he caught Dipper stealing his watch. Other memorable characters in the series include Dr. Duncan MacGregor, a gruff Scottish-born physician who assisted Kestrel in some of his cases; Dipper's sister Sally Stokes, a saucy street prostitute who helps Kestrel and Dipper solve the mysterious death of a "fallen woman" in A BROKEN VESSEL and becomes Kestrel's lover; and Philippa Fontclair, a charming young girl whom Kestrel meets in CUT TO THE QUICK and corresponds with in later novels. The novels are heavily influenced by other fictional British detectives, such as Lord Peter Wimsey and Sherlock Holmes.
I started this series before the author passed away so that puts it in mid 1990s and I remember the huge outpouring when she died on DorothyL (Ross was fairly young). I wasn't a complete historical crime fiction addict then but I truly loved this character and the setting. It is so unfortunate that we are only left with four of her books. A fifth was in the works at the time of her passing. If you are interested in the Regency time period or like historical mysteries in general, this is one of the tops.
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I worked on my newsletter yesterday and scrapped a bunch of what I did earlier in the week because I needed to tweek the design of the main pages. I'm playing with an idea that I need to work on today that would also change things up a bit. I'm thinking it is better to take the time now to get it right.
I'll be walking Tug soon before it gets hot. It will be in the 80s today and the next three days will be in the 90s. TOO HOT FOR ME! Yuck.
We watched the DVD of The Book of Eli last night. This stars Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman (who I've admired for two decades and can do no wrong). This is a post-apocalyptic story of a man who is on a mission to deliver the last known copy of The Bible somewhere west. Thirty years after "the flash", and other than the usual hazards of desparate people scavaging for food and water, Denzel wanders into Oldman's town and it turns into elements of classic western movies. The movie was beautifully filmed; kudos to the cinematographer. I've not seen anything that gorgeous in a long time. There are some things in the end that don't ring true but overall a pretty good movie.
Enjoy the day!
Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster
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