Behind on reviews, so grouping by genre. Historical fiction, all featuring Real People (can’t remember who posted about hating that, but consider yourself warned):
The Wolf Den - Elodie Harper
AD 74 (5 years before the eruption of Vesuvius), a year in the lives of female slaves in a Pompeii lupanar (brothel). Not Literature(TM), but a cracking story. Characters were almost all more complex than they initially appeared, and the relationship between the 'she-wolves' felt convincingly sisterly - encompassing devotion and riotous camaraderie, but also envy, betrayal and petty annoyances. I found the Pliny the Elder cameo amusing and plausible, but YMMV. As may be expected, much rape, violence, trauma and general unvarnishedness, though not IMO gratuitous. Very evocative, esp. alongside the current BBC series on the latest excavations.
Shadows of London - Andrew Taylor
Book 6 of a Restoration London mystery/thriller series, which I mostly read for setting and slightly esoteric historical details about post-Great Fire reconstruction and middle class life. Unfortunately, recent instalments tend to sideline these elements in favour of more conventional court politics; this one focusing on Charles II’s latest choice of mistress (young, French, Catholic) and a vague theme of women’s power/lessness - not Taylor’s usual wheelhouse, and it showed. Finally some resolution to the long-running ‘will they won’t they’ of architect Cat Lovett and Whitehall clerk James Marwood, but their characterisations are so inconsistent (and often implausible) I find it hard to care. Makes for a good point to drop this series, though.
Scarlet Town - Leonora Nattrass
Book 3 in ‘Age of Revolutions’ (1790s) political mystery series, which is improving book by book. The narrator/protagonist is Laurence Jago (former Foreign Office clerk, self-described with some justice as ‘irredeemably stupid if not absolutely venal’) but the real star is his eccentric mentor Philpott, a radical journalist based on William Cobett (LN's academic specialism). This time, a highly contested election in the rotten borough of Helston in Cornwall proved the perfect fit for her arch, droll and fairly chaotic style - my first bold of the series.
In an afterword, we’re told that Cobett is credited with coining ‘red herring’ in the literary sense, and ‘titting about’ (credit AliasGrape) would be a fair summary of Jago’s investigative methods. (No belfries IIRC, but church choir drama, feuding octogenarians, nutmeg overdoses, gravediggers on overtime, an aspiring lady gothic novelist, Toby the Sapient Hog - yes.) Don’t bother if you’re after a satisfying, tightly-plotted mystery, do consider if you fancy a bit of picaresque Georgian cartoonery with your dose of obscure historical facts.
Also bolding the even more maximalist:
Mercury Pictures Presents - Anthony Marra
Panoramic story of a movie company in 1940s Hollywood, as America prepares to enter the war, with significant flashbacks to prewar Italy and Germany and many brief flashfowards too. Loving attention is lavished on an enormous and diverse cast of history's bit players and there's a plethora of period detail and brilliant jokes, but also moments of genuine poignancy and peril, pointed political commentary and some Actually Quite Profound reflections on art, ethics, identity, family, the past, the truth… basically, everything and the kitchen sink, and a scale model of the kitchen sink, and a quirky potted history of kitchen sinks, and hey did you hear the plumber who fitted it got divorced and his ex-wife's now a taxidermist in Biloxi? and and and...
Read for a bookgroup, at which it proved extremely divisive. I adored it and was willing to forgive its numerous faults in light of its many more pleasures. If you enjoyed Still Life, The Cold Millions, Their Finest Hour and a Half, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier&Clay I recommend at least sampling this.