Tag Archives: M. J. Carter

Four (More?) Years!

22 Monday Oct 2018

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This week, Novelhistorian turns four, which means I’ve reviewed more than two hundred books. As many of you know, each year I write a post in which I mention, in thumbnail, those that have made the deepest impression on me–or, to put it another way, those I expect I’ll still remember after another fifty-odd books have passed through my hands. This year, I’ve chosen eleven, as follows:

Nicole Lundrigan conveys the hatreds, will to vengeance, and oppression that mark Tito’s postwar Yugoslavia in The Widow Tree, told through the eyes of three teenagers. Her tense, moving narrative shows that for war’s survivors, trust is the first casualty.

The Infidel Stain follows the two amateur detectives M. J. Carter introduced in Strangler Vine, this time in 1840s England, as they unravel the mysteries behind murders committed in a politically charged atmosphere. Carter’s prose and characterizations are first-rate, and she re-creates the upheaval of the Hungry Forties with breathtaking vividness.

Paris Spring, James Naughtie’s excellent thriller about the Paris student uprising of 1968, echoes John Le Carré in its elegant plot with few moving parts, focus on motive, and characters who believe in what they’re doing. It may resolve too neatly, but Naughtie knows his ground, especially the brethren of spydom.

Eleanor Catton tells a Victorian-style epic mystery in The Luminaries, about gold-rush greed, deception, and loyalty in 1860s New Zealand. Where many authors struggle to intersect two disparate lives without resorting to contrivance, Catton seamlessly weaves more than a dozen threads. Skip the astrological charts she includes and dive in.

In The Fifth Servant, Kenneth Wishnia renders a remarkably imaginative mystery, set in sixteenth-century Prague. The Christian community claims that a girl has been murdered so that the Jews can use her blood to make Passover matzo–the old blood-libel myth–and a rabbinical student attempts to solve the case by using his knowledge of the Talmud.

With Mrs. Osmond, John Banville pens the unthinkable, a sequel to Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady, down to the loop-the-loop sentences that invariably arrive at truth and the intense feelings rendered in a gesture, a glance. But it’s far more than imitation James, which you need not have read to appreciate this novel; Banville underlines the heroine’s masochism, which, he argues, amounts to vanity, an unusual, striking perception.

There are grittier mysteries out there than The Inheritance, but Charles Finch’s warm-blooded Victorian detective, Lenox, is an exceptionally clever sleuth, and the understanding of human nature and the kindness and generosity that suffuse the writing make this novel stand out. Not only will you be entertained, you’ll learn tidbits of information that Finch likes to throw in–for instance, why the British drive on the left.

It’s not kindness or generosity that mark The Moment Before Drowning, James Brydon’s tale that blends colonial war in 1950s Algeria with a grisly murder in Brittany, but it’s a terrific story, and I guarantee it will grip you and make you think. Brydon juxtaposes the two narratives to ask what purposes the law and its enforcement actually serve. Be warned about the torture scenes, but nothing is gratuitous or sensational.

The Wanderers, Tim Pears’s gorgeous, subtle novel, tells a heart-breaking story about two teenagers’ suffering and longing, set in Devon around 1912. She’s the daughter of the manor; he’s the servant’s son exiled from the estate. Pears leaves questions hanging, which will bother some readers, but his prose and characterizations are flawless, and the tension never lags in this simplest of plots.

Another novel I admire for elegant simplicity is The Anchoress, Robyn Cadwallader’s superb tale about Sarah, an English girl in 1255 who chooses to be a religious hermit at age seventeen. Why she does so, and how her choice changes many lives, not just her own, makes a remarkably complex story, so beautifully and truthfully rendered that you have to remind yourself it’s a first novel.

Last on my list, but only because I reviewed it most recently, is The Mercy Seat, Elizabeth H. Winthrop’s elegiac tale about Louisiana justice in 1943. Nine voices recount the hours before the scheduled execution of Willie Jones, an African-American teenager convicted of rape, and how the verdict has fractured the town. Winthrop manages to recount this heart-rending, provocative story in brief, staccato chapters that form an eloquently coherent whole, pure sorcery that will haunt you.

Those are my eleven favorites. I’ve enjoyed writing my reviews this year and hope you’ve liked reading them.

Radical Murder: The Infidel Stain

25 Monday Dec 2017

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Review: The Infidel Stain, by M. J. Carter
Putnam, 2016. 420 pp. $27

When a young girl finds the mutilated body of a printer spreadeagled across his press, you’d think the police would take a keen interest, especially since a similar murder follows shortly. But this is London in 1841, and many forces conspire to discourage official inquiry into these horrid crimes. So Viscount Allington, an evangelical social reformer and member of Parliament, hires two private “inquirers,” men who distinguished themselves in India, Jeremiah Blake and Captain William Avery.

These two, the protagonists of Carter’s previous novel, Strangler Vine, will be lucky to survive their quest with limb and liberty intact, let alone solve the case. At first, it’s not clear whether someone in high places has forbidden any investigation, or whether the so-called new police (Sir Robert Peel’s brainchild of 1829) think they have better things to do, in particular to penetrate and destroy the Chartists, a so-called radical political movement. Consequently, the poor people inhabiting the back alleys of Drury Lane assume that the constabulary takes no heed of the murders in their midst. Justice exists only for the rich, the titled, the powerful.

William Edward Kilburn’s daguerreotype, View of the Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, April 1848 (courtesy Royal Collection Trust via Wikimedia Commons)

But when Blake and Avery happen on links between the Chartists, the murders, and several people who desire the case to remain closed, complexities abound. That would seem to require a delicate approach, but our two inquirers charge ahead. Blake, the Holmes of this duo, is irascible, withholding, streetwise, gifted at disguise and deceit, and utterly disdainful of titles and social distinctions. Avery, a Tory by birth and inclination, lacks his partner’s knowledge and sympathies, but he knows how to talk to people jealous of their rank, and he’s a good man with his fists in a tight spot, if all too ready to use them. The unlikely friendship between these two, which Avery seems to want more than Blake — a nice touch — supplies an excellent counterpoint to their investigation and the political forces at work. Unlike Strangler Vine, in which I felt that Carter unfairly overplayed Blake’s stubborn reticence to keep the reader guessing, here, she lets him be a somewhat more responsive partner. And when he does withhold information from Avery, it’s to allow the straightforward, honest captain to play his part in deception with greater conviction, much as Holmes did with Watson on occasion.

Carter tells her story with great skill, letting nothing come easily to her protagonists; “no; and furthermore” makes its presence felt every few pages. She also re-creates London of the “Hungry Forties” with power and vividness, which allows her to derive tension from the politics. Avery is loyal to Blake and wishes to see justice done, but his instincts lead him to consider the Chartists dangerous to peace and security merely by demanding universal male suffrage and parliamentary reforms. Even so, as the good captain literally wades through the muck and the poverty of underclass London, his long-held views become harder to sustain.

Having studied and written about that time myself, I’m fascinated by the Chartists and note with surprise and pleasure how Carter brings in several real-life figures I admire. The issues she raises, most particularly income inequality and the undue influence of wealth and power, are very topical. She’s not afraid to make her protagonists’ flaws significant and visible. But it’s not just characters, plot, or politics that make The Infidel Stain worth reading. Another attraction is the prose, which depicts both a scene and a state of mind. Here’s Avery, recently returned from India, not yet used to England or its biggest city:

Five years before, I had left England a country traversed by horse and carriage; I had returned to find it in thrall to steam and iron.

I had stepped into the green-and-gold carriage, sat on the wooden pews of second class and watched the air filled with steam, as if we were traveling on a bed of cloud. I had felt the rush of speed and watched the curious effect of the countryside melting into a blur of green as it rushed past the window, or rather as we rushed past it. And, of course, there was the noise: the clank and wheeze of the wheels on the rail, the asthmatic puff of the engine, and those sudden unholy screeches — the wheels breaking, or the air forcing its way through the whistle. We had reached the extraordinary speed of thirty miles an hour. It was remarkable, exhilarating, unsettling — not unlike London itself.

When I tell you that this fine section appears on the first page of the first chapter, but that it doesn’t begin the book, you know what I’m going to say: Why did Carter need to write a prologue? But read The Infidel Stain anyway.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Killing the Bogeyman: The Strangler Vine

14 Monday Dec 2015

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Review: The Strangler Vine, by M. J. Carter
Putnam, 2014. 369 pp. $28

William Avery believes in the East India Company, which rules most of that immense land in 1837, but he knows the company doesn’t believe in him. A lowly ensign in Calcutta, Avery has little chance of promotion, but maybe that’s just as well, since he can’t stand India, which he considers savage. He would as soon resign his position and return to England, but he has no prospects there, either, and no money to pay the fare.

General Post Office, Calcutta, 1833 (Courtesy Wikiwand).

General Post Office, Calcutta, 1833 (Courtesy Wikiwand).

His last chance to make a name for himself comes in poisonous form, to second James Blake on a secret mission deep up-country. Avery rightly suspects that he’s unlikely to survive, which may be his superiors’ intention. Moreover, he can’t stand Blake, an extremely unpleasant, older man who threw away a promising career with the company and adopted indigenous ways. But all that takes second place when Avery’s only friend is murdered and his name slandered as a drunken, lecherous, debt-ridden schemer. With barely time to grieve, Avery must take his journey to what he thinks will be oblivion.

This is where The Strangler Vine excels, as a story of adventure and political intrigue. Blake refuses to take Avery into his confidence, or, often, even to talk to him; whenever possible, Blake scouts on his own, which leaves Avery feeling wounded in pride, frustrated, and, reasonably, wondering what purpose he serves. It also creates tension, because the reader, kept in the dark like Avery, has no idea whom or what to trust. Gradually, though, the younger man observes more of the land and people, and you sense his mind stretching to accommodate the new:

The road was not yet as busy as it would become once the rains stopped for good, but it was already a full day’s entertainment in itself. There were frenzied ash-smeared fakirs who gamboled grotesquely and stuck their palms out for money; women wrapped in layers of cottons–saffron, pink, blue–with babes on their hips and dull brass bracelets tinkling; small insolent boys chewing sugarcane. There were jugglers with families of monkeys in their turbans; wealthy Sikhs in yellow silk waistcoats with enormous beards and huge dastars [headgear], leading columns of camels and carts; wedding parties in red and silver, with painted elephants, encircled by the scent of jasmine; and carts of dull-eyed, ragged indentured servants.

More profoundly, Avery realizes that Blake, though stubbornly difficult, has put his keen observational and linguistic skills to serve a moral code, and that the older man has much to teach. Avery struggles mightily with the challenges to his certainty. Even so, he comes to similar conclusions: that the company has betrayed English ideals in pursuit of profit, and that whatever benefits it has brought have dearly cost the populace. Most particularly, the company has perpetuated myths about violent bandits to excuse military operations that expand the area under its control. Consequently, the company has created a monster that only it can slay, a corruption that will doom it in the long run (as would, in fact, happen twenty years later).

What an absorbing, provocative tale this is, remarkably well told for a first novel, and vivid in attitudes and scenery. I like Carter’s characterizations of Avery and Blake–the callow traditionalist versus the jaded radical–and many people they meet have their own complexities. I question, though, how quickly Avery loses any thought of his late friend, much maligned, only to have the death wrapped up just as quickly at the end. Further, Blake’s absolute silence about every conceivable detail seems too convenient. True, he doesn’t trust Avery’s judgment, but Blake carries this so far as to make me think it’s an authorial ploy to keep the reader guessing, a drawback of using a first-person narrative. Finally, since Avery is a crack shot, his sole visible talent, you can be sure that will come into play, which occasionally tips off where the narrative will go.

That said, The Strangler Vine has much going for it, not least its resonance with current issues. The East India Company, as Carter shows, provides an early example of corporate governance and the abuses that entails. Substitute terrorist for bandit, and the novel also offers a nineteenth-century take on an up-to-the-minute controversy. Did bandits exist in India? Yes. Were they as widespread and dangerous as the company claimed, and did their presence justify its policies? Those are the questions, then and now.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.