Review of the Jenny Starling series…
“The Jenny Starling Series.” Faith Martin, author (Joffe Books). I don’t usually review an entire series, but I’ve been binge-reading during the pandemic, so it’s more efficient to review all the books. Because these novels are all republications (pen name to real name?), they’re definitely “evergreen”—no ground-shaking themes here, and pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic, but still as fresh and entertaining as the day they were written.
This seven-book series is all British-mystery storytelling. It takes place in the Thames Valley region, which includes Oxford and other delightful places northwest of London. (My own mystery/thriller, Rembrandt’s Angel, starts in that area as Esther Brookstone visits a school chum in Wantage and a professor at Oxford.)
The protagonist is a cook, a “Junoesque woman” of ample but sculptured feminine proportions, and not a Miss Marple-like old lady at all. I suppose she might take on jobs where a murder isn’t committed, but her posts in the novels are ones where at least one corpse appears. There’s often a Christie-style tell-all denouement at the end where the cook divulges what led her to solve the crime, showing the coppers how proper sleuthing is done. In each book, the authorities have a love-hate relationship with the cook because of this.
There are a few laughs here and there, but these aren’t cozies (heaven forbid!)—they’re deadly serious cerebral mystery/thriller novels. Digging into the first with trepidation—the hype “a mystery with lots of twists and turns” seems superfluous and frankly discouraged me—but I was pleasantly surprised, so I kept going through all seven books! The cook’s menus are interesting in themselves for those readers who also have gastronomic interests, but reading these novels was a lot more fun than seeing more COVID-19 stats on every TV network (I wonder what the BBC is doing). (Don’t get me wrong. The public must be informed, but we also need a break from time to time.)
I have two nits to pick, both of them a bit technical and maybe not important to most readers. First, the author has a bad habit of telegraphing a future event, incorporating teasers in the stories, if you will. These almost need a “spoiler alert” warning. Second, there’s also a lot of head-hopping, i.e. abrupt changes of point of view (POV), that made this reader say, “Huh? How did s/he know that?” Of course, the two nits are related, because the first is just an abrupt transition into the omniscient POV. (It’s interesting that the author attempts to correct this in heer Hillary Greene series, also republished. Someone must have told her to fix this, but the telegraphing still remains and her solution of breaking up prose into tiny sections to solve the second problem is almost comical at times.) Maybe British readers don’t mind these quirks, but I believe it’s sloppy writing and amateurish.
Other than those two nits, I found these novels quite entertaining…and I’m now onto Hillary Greene #3, another series about a clever DI in the Thames Valley PD with a lot of baggage. Stay tuned…but that series is even longer!
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Comments are always welcome!
The “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series. Do you want to read some mystery/thriller novels that motivate you to keep turning the pages? Wags at Scotland Yard call Esther Brookstone Miss Marple and Bastiann van Coevorden, her beau, Hercule Poirot, but their adventures are very twenty-first century. In Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther obsesses with recovering a painting stolen by the Nazis in WWII. In Son of Thunder, she obsesses with finding the tomb of St. John the Divine. Both obsessions lead her and Bastiann into dangerous situations. Available in print format from your favorite local bookstore, Amazon, and the publisher, Penmore Press; and in ebook format from Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker&Thomas, Gardners, etc.). A third novel featuring this crime-fighting duo is in the works.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
