Book Review: Princess Elizabeth’s Spy: A Maggie Hope Mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal

 

Princess Elizabeth’s Spy: A Maggie Hope Mystery

by Susan Elia MacNeal

I chose this book because our book club theme this month is espionage, because I wanted something from our digital collection to read on my ereader, and because the cover appealed to me. I know, I know, but an appealing cover is a factor when I’m deciding, I admit it.

The main character is Maggie Hope, a plucky secretary to Churchill who grew up in America and becomes a British spy. She is sent undercover as a math tutor to Windsor Castle during World War II, when a plot to kidnap or kill the princesses is suspected.

This was a pleasant mystery, as much as anything that involves murder and World War II can be. The descriptions of unpleasant things are kept rather matter of fact, giving it more of a cozy mystery feel than a gritty realistic one.

I would consider this a formula mystery with some good historical trappings. I enjoyed the characters, particularly the sweet characterizations of the two young princesses, though everything was somewhat one dimensional. There was a bit of a romance, but rather perfunctory of the No, no, we mustn’t variety.

It was a bit simplistic at times, some of the thoughts and actions of the main character didn’t quite make sense, they seemed there to serve the plot without being true to the character. Maggie leaps to conclusions regarding her father that are clearly not warranted. Her father sends her a book with a message and she’s not even curious about it, even though she recently found a secret message in another book. Then, when she’s angry at him, sure she knows he’s done something awful, she picks it up to read just to distract herself. Most people wouldn’t touch it at that point. 

The historical trappings are interesting, though the author goes pretty far afield from what actually happened. They mentioned Operation Edelweiss several times but never really went into what it was. At one point, I thought it was a plan to kidnap Princess Elizabeth, but on looking it up, I discovered it was much more complicated and had nothing to do with the book I was reading. It was just a point of historical reference.

Would probably appeal to fans of Jacqueline Winspear. A relaxing type of murder mystery with just enough intrigue to draw me on throughout the book, but not enough to convince me that I want to read the rest of the series.

In conclusion, meh, it was okay. A good series to buy for your grandmother to read, or if you are looking to just relax.

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

La’s Orchestra Saves the World

by Alexander McCall Smith

Though the plot in the first part of the book seemed a bit trite to me, Alexander McCall Smith’s writing and the plot in the rest of the book struck me as slice-of-life writing at it’s most beautifully realistic.

La is pursued by a young man in college, prior to World War II, and agrees to marry him. She isn’t sure she loves him at first but thinks they will make a compatible marriage. She does come to love him very much and is devastated when he runs off to be with a lover in France. His father is ashamed as well. He gives La the husband’s portion of the family business and a house in Suffolk.

La moves into the house just before World War II and the story is moved forward by some minor intrigue as La gets comfortable in her new home. But then the war arrives and La goes to apply for “war work.” They don’t have much for her. The major encourages her toward the Women’s Land Army and La ends up helping with a farmer’s chickens.

The story explores simple village life in Great Britain during World War II, what people thought and felt. How it could be affected by outsiders coming in, rationing, simple pleasures, and how distanced it was from the conflict at the same time. They grew their own vegetables. They listened to the radio for news. It’s the minutiae of daily life and the reflection that make a slice of life novel. World War II is the backdrop but life goes on in spite of those events.

La meets a friend’s brother, Tim, who works at the RAF base and together they start a village orchestra. Of course, the orchestra doesn’t really save the world but it can be argued that it saves a number of people from abject despair, La included. The orchestra creates connections between people — village people, country folk, and people from the Royal Air Force base that all need something to sustain them.

Tim gets a worker from the base, a Polish airman with a damaged eye, assigned to help at the same farm where La works. She is quite smitten but Feliks is distant.

It is a slow book but the ending may have been my favorite part as you see how things come full circle and how such simple things as a village orchestra and one person can change the world for some people. It’s about how a single life does matter and what we do, the kindness we offer, the connections we make, matter. They may be the only things that do give meaning to life on this scale.

Is it unrealistic to hope that Feliks and La meet again and share some part of their life together? There are elements of chance and there are things the characters do to make things happen. Isn’t that true to life? 

In the end, the writing skill of the author and the way he ties things together, make this an enjoyable story. The pace of life in the country, the drudgery and the simple pleasures, make it enjoyable. If you’ve experienced that, you’ll recognize it. If you haven’t, you may find it enjoyable to see it from a distance.

The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro

The Muralist

By B.A. Shapiro

The theme for book club this month was visual arts and I found myself completing an unheard of (for me) third book! It helps that I had them all sitting on my Goodreads list. The third one, The Muralist, by B.A. Shapiro kept me up last night until after midnight because I simply could NOT put it down. I had to finish it.

I feel like I've actually learned a little bit about abstract art appreciation from this novel. The main character is a young abstract painter named Alizee Benoit. Though she is a fictional character, she works with many people in the book who are historical figures including the abstract artists Mark Rothko and Lee Krasner, in the Works Project Administration, the WPA. They paint murals.

Eleanor Roosevelt actually plays a part in the story as Alizee gets to meet her and convinces her to get the administration to fund a couple of abstract murals. Then Alizee contacts her for more personal help.

The book is set in late 1930s and early 40s. Alizee is Jewish and her family is stuck in Europe, her parents having died when she was young in a laboratory explosion. She has not been political but starts working with a group trying to get more visas for immigrants.

It's a very good book but emotionally difficult. Her uncle is detained, leaving the rest of the family on their own, in France and her cousin almost killed. There is little she can do, but she tries. 

Breckinridge Long, the assistant secretary of state in control of all American visas, lies about how many visas were given out, being anti-Semitic and an isolationist. Alizee sets to work with a group determined to discredit him, even as she begins to create murals that speak to her fear for her family in France.

However, the story begins in modern times with a niece of Alizee, Danielle, as she tries to piece together what happened to her aunt, who disappeared in the early 1940s. Danielle’s story is quickly dwarfed by that of Alizee as we are pulled into the years before the involvement of the U.S. in World War II.

This was a deeply engaging and moving book. Characters are well developed and the story is fast paced while giving deep and interesting details. I will be looking for more of this author’s work in the future. I would give it 5 stars.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

When I was a teenager, I really enjoyed writing letters - long newsy letters with quotes from movies, television, books and songs, mostly to my grandmother and a few friends who lived some distance away.  The letters this story is told in are similar, though there are a number of short missives sent by cable or messenger because it is late 1940.  The problem is that the phones and phone lines are in disarray because of the war. 

Juliet becomes the toast of England after World War II when her humorous newspaper articles about life during the war, written under the nom de plume, Izzy Bickerstaff, are collected in a book and published.  Now she is looking for a new topic to write about. 

Dawsey Adams, from Guernsey Island, has come into possession of a Charles Lamb book that had once belonged to Juliet and still has her address in the front.  It isn’t easy to come by anything after the war and so Dawsey writes to Juliet asking for help in locating more Charles Lamb books, beginning a correspondence and friendship that will eventually lead Juliet to Guernsey Island. 

As Juliet and Dawsey correspond, the story of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and, by extension, the occupation of Guernsey by German soldiers during the war is revealed.  (Guernsey is an island in the English Channel, actually much closer to France than England.)  The titular literary society comes about one evening as an excuse for some islanders out after curfew, to keep the Germans from jailing or killing them. 

I actually listened to this book in the car, as I do many books, and the recording had the benefit of multiple voices - two men and three women.  I think it made the story go more quickly and brought the characters to life in a way that was a little bit lacking in the hard copy, though I don’t agree with the few detractors that say there was no variation among the voices of the characters.  There was, decidedly.  The literary crowd of Juliet, Sidney and Susan have a wider vocabulary and use more complex sentences.  Amelia Maughery is a little old fashioned while Dawsey is plain but straight forward and uses correct English.  Isola and Eben frequently do not use proper English. 

Take, for example, a paragraph from Amelia Maughery, very proper, “I realize that our name, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, is an unusual one and could easily be subjected to ridicule.  Would you assure me you will not be tempted to do so?  The Society members are very dear to me, and I do not wish them to be perceived as objects of fun by your readers.”

Then, Isola Pribby writes to Juliet about the Brontes, “Their Pa was a selfish thing, wasn’t he?  He paid his girls no mind at all – always sitting in his study, yelling for his shawl.  He never rose up to wait on hisself, did he?  Just sat alone in his room while his daughters died like flies.”

 

This is a quiet story of a channel island during World War II.  People try to get by, stay out of trouble, make do with what they have and get on with life as best they can.  They even fall in love, but the war intrudes. 

Juliet does come across as young, privileged and an idealist, rather a Pollyanna, even though she has gone through World War II and also lost her parents at an early age.  She’s a pleasant enough character but I’m not sure it sounds right for what she’s been through.  On the other hand, that is perhaps what it was like.  You saw horrors and had to get on with life.  At one point, Dawsey asks her about a “Doodlebug” cartoon he had seen after the war and Juliet explains that Doodlebugs are what the Ministry of Information called Hitler’s V-1 rockets.

“They came in the daytime, and they came so fast there was not time for an air-raid siren or to take cover.  You could see them; they looked like slim, black, slanted pencils and made a dull, spastic sound above you... when their noise stopped, it meant there was only thirty seconds before it plummeted.  So, you listened for them.  Listened hard for the sound of their motors cutting out.  I did see a Doodlebug fall once.  I was quite some distance away when it hit, so I threw myself down in the gutter and cuddled up against the curb.  Some women, in the top story of a tall office building down the street, had gone to an open window to watch.  They were sucked out by the force of the blast.”

Her explanation is rather matter of fact but the simple facts hit hard when you understand.  There are moments about the occupation of Guernsey and the war in England that are hard to take and made me tear up, but they are mixed in so that it is not too hard to bear. 

Overall, it is a cheerful book, though the topic is serious.  I would recommend it and even more highly recommend the audio version, the cast reading the letters are tremendously entertaining.