Review: THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick

This is a marvelous sort of book, a Pandora's Box of illustration and text combined in perfect union. I must thank my friend Jean in Colorado for having sent it to me. I've been meaning to write about it for a while now.

I have the movie, HUGO (it arrived in the little red envelope a couple of days ago), which is based on Seltzer's book but I haven't watched it yet - didn't want to be influenced away from the feel of the book. Wanted to write about the story without having the movie version interfere.

Hugo Cabret.

In fact, the book itself is like a movie and the story is very much about the movies - the days of the early movies (the story takes place in 1931) when the industry was still feeling its oats and dreams were part of the film-making and film-going experience. Awe was still a fresh notion..

Brian Selznick's book is part graphic novel, part written text and like nothing you've ever experienced.

Looking.

The story centers on Hugo Cabret, a destitute boy who is, indeed a dreamer - an orphan, part thief, part opportunist, part mechanical genius and at heart, a young boy very much missing his lost father..

He lives within the walls of a Paris train station having been taken there by a reprobate uncle after Hugo's father's death in a terrible museum fire. A death for which Hugo occasionally blames himself. For it was at his eager request that his father had been working late in the attic/storage room at the museum and become trapped in the fire.

Hugo and his father.

Mr Cabret had made an amazing discovery - a broken down automaton - a mechanical man whom no one at the museum remembered - the thing had never been put on display. The man was created in the action of writing and once fully functional, it should have been able to write something on a piece of paper. Hugo and his father are intrigued and determined to bring the automaton back to life again.

Hugo's drunken uncle works at the train station winding the many large clocks around the building. He has a musty old room there and that's where he brings Hugo after the boy's father's death.

Winding one of the many station clocks.

But the uncle's drinking gets the better of him and one night he goes out and fails to return. With no where else to go, Hugo takes over the job of winding the clocks (he'd carefully watched his uncle do his work) and pretends his uncle is still around.

Hugo in the vast train station.

It is a precarious existence for if the station inspector should discover the truth, Hugo would be thrown out on his ear - forced to live in the street.

Hugo and the automaton.

From the ashes of the museum fire, Hugo had secretly rescued the damaged mechanical man and brought him to the room at the train station, determined to continue his father's work. Hugo is convinced that when the automaton becomes functional, it will write Hugo a message from his father.

The train station toy shop.

To that end, Hugo has been stealing bits and pieces of mechanical toys from an old toy shop in the train station. The shop belongs to a grumpy old man named Georges.

One morning Hugo is caught stealing and the old man pockets Hugo's small sketch book filled with drawings and schematics - Hugo's most precious possession. Trying to get the workbook back is no easy task.

Papa Georges

Eventually Hugo becomes caught up in the life of the rather mysterious old man, his goddaughter, a young girl named Isabelle, and the stuff that dreams are made of.

Isabelle

Papa Georges - as Isabelle calls him - has a long lost and forgotten past which the message written by the mechanical man (Hugo does get him fixed) will, unexpectedly, bring back to life.

Hugo and Isabelle looking out at the city of Paris from behind a clock face.

This book is all about the magic, the mystery of movies and of the dreams that made them.

As much as I love the story, it is the brilliance of the many halftone illustrations that captured my imagination. The story is revealed in movie-like images - some parts revealed in just drawings alone, minus any text; as in a mad chase sequence near the end.

Hugo fixing a mechanical mouse.

If you look closely,  you can see the multitude of cross-hatching pencil lines which go into making up each individual drawing. I can't over-emphasize the brilliance in execution of these splendid drawings which pace the story, adding atmosphere and a kind of frenetic energy.

Near the end, there are also actual scenes from a very early silent movie created by the real life movie magician and early pioneer, Georges Melie. I'm sure all of you know at least one scene from one of his early movies, A TRIP TO THE MOON. The face of the man in the moon with a rocket poking him in his right eye. That was a Melie creation.

Papa Georges, Isabelle and Hugo. 

Yes, that is who old man turns out to be. But you have to read and absorb the book to get the full story.

To see more of Selznick's glorious illustrations from the story and learn a bit about automatons, please use this link.

By Georges Melie

Thanks again, Jean, my dear friend, for sending me this wonderful book.

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10 More Fabulous Character Actors

Eric Blore (1887 - 1959)

The squinchy faced, oh-so terribly English Eric Blore appeared in over 80 Hollywood films, usually playing a butler or some variation thereof. He had the kind of face one would always remember and he made good use of it. I remember him most from the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films. He came across as a sweety with a devilish glint in his eye.

Blore, born in London, had an active career mostly in comedy, though he did play in several dramas as well.

To learn more about Eric Blore, please use this link.

Nigel Bruce (1895 - 1953)

Of course, Nigel Bruce will be remembered as Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes, until the end of time. But he did play other roles. He was in two of Alfred Hitchcock's most memorable films, SUSPICION and REBECCA. He also played the portly Prince of Wales in THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL with Leslie Howard.

Bruce was the son of an English Baron and oddly enough was born in Mexico. He served in WWI, receiving 11 bullet wounds in one leg for his trouble. A brave man and a terrific actor. He is immortalized on screen as Dr. John Watson.

To learn more about Nigel Bruce, please use this link.

James Robertson Justice (1907 - 1975)

The multi-lingual (he spoke as many as 20 languages) James Robertson Justice was born in South London and studied science in school. Early on he became a journalist for Reuters and from there went on to various and sundry jobs, including a stint as a hockey coach. He served in WWII and was wounded. 

It wasn't until 1944, that he began acting in films.

He was an imposing physical presence, helped along by his aggressive, booming voice - a voice with resonance. I remember him as the 'invalid' Crackenthorpe in MURDER SHE SAID with Margaret Rutherford to whom, in the film, he makes a hilarious proposal of marriage.

He also played the part of Little John in the 1952 film, THE STORY OF ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRIE MEN, in which Richard Todd played Robin Hood.

To learn more about James Robertson Justice, please use this link.

Robert Armstrong (1890 - 1973)

Speaking of immortality, when Robert Armstrong starred along with Fay Wray in the original KING KONG, I wonder if he realized that he'd forever be associated with not only KONG, but two other films featuring a gigantic ape: THE SON OF KONG and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. But life is funny that way, especially in the movie biz.

He did, though, work in over 150 films over his long career, usually playing a brash professional man. I loved him best in MIGHTY JOE YOUNG as the brash nightclub impresario who realizes the error of his ways. He helps Terry Moore and Ben Johnson break Mighty Joe out of jail and escape (in a truck) on a wild ride into the night where a burning orphanage is waiting.

To learn more about Robert Armstrong, please use this link.

Alice Pearce (1917 - 1966)

Alice Pearce was a rubbery faced character actress who is probably best known as the next door neighbor, Gladys, in BEWITCHED. A role cut short (she played it for about a year and a half) by Pearce's death from ovarian cancer at the age of 48. Though Sandra Gould took over the role and played if for years, it's Alice Pearce I always remember as Gladys.

I also loved her in ON THE TOWN where she played a girl on a blind date with Gene Kelly - he is pining after Vera-Ellen. Kelly brought Pearce (who'd played the same part in the Broadway production) over to the film. His scenes with Pearce are really rather sweet.

Needless to say, Alice Pearce died too young.

To learn more about Alice Pearce, please use this link.

C. Aubrey Smith (1863 - 1948)

Far as I'm concerned, C. Aubrey Smith was the standard by which all older British officers (on film) should be judged. He was perfection as that self-same officer of the old school - hale, hearty, principled, upright, uptight, stiff-upper-lipped, things strictly by the book. But he could also play a bemused and elderly father or grandfather type. Smith was always one of my favorite actors as I began to watch and appreciate him in the older films showing up on early television.

He was not only an actor, he was also a famed cricketer. Of course he was part of the British clique busy colonizing Hollywood in the 1930's and early 40's. He was intensely patriotic and critical of those English actors who did not immediately head for Britain to enlist during the war.

He appeared in many classic films, including THE PRISONER OF ZENDA, THE FOUR FEATHERS, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, ANOTHER THIN MAN, TARZAN THE APE MAN (in which he played Jane's father) and many others. I remember him fondly in one of my favorite films, FIVE CAME BACK, where he played a professor forced to make a tragic decision in the end of the film.

To learn more about C. Aubrey Smith, please use this link.

Hillary Brooke (1914 - 1999)

Hillary Brooke was one of the more beautiful actresses of her day and yet that beauty never really made her star. I think it was because the camera picked up some essential coldness (which may not have even been apparent in reality).

Though she was born in Astoria, Queens, NY, she usually played British. She brought a sophisticated, aristocratic bearing to almost every role she played over her long career which included television. She had the duty of playing Lou Costellos' love interest (?!) on the old Abbott and Costello Show. She'd also played the comic foil to the duo in a couple of their films.

She was in several of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes movies and I also remember her in MINISTRY OF FEAR with Ray Milland, as the sinister fortune teller. Hillary Brooke was always effective at radiating mystery.

To learn more about Hillary Brooke, please use this link.

Horace MacMahon(1906 - 1971)

If you needed to cast a cop, then Horace MacMahon was probably at the top of your list. He had the look and the gravelly voice to suit. He was always my idea of the perfect, work weary, seen-it-all NYC cop.

In his early career he played thugs and mostly bad guys, but later he came into his own as the Lieutenant in the play, DETECTIVE STORY. He went on to play the part in the film as well, alongside Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker.

He also starred in the television show, NAKED CITY, as Lieutenant Mike Parker. But he also showed up in many films as the cop, usually in fedora and tweed overcoat. He had the best New Yorkese kind of accent, though he was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. He did go to school at Fordham and he was a newspaper reporter (among many other jobs), so maybe that accounts for the Runyon-esque talk and walk.

To learn more about Horace MacMahon, please use this link.

Erik Rhodes (1906 - 1990)

Erik Rhodes enhanced any film he was ever in and he usually made more of the part he was playing simply by being unafraid to be ridiculous. He is one of my all time favorite actors and I always remember smiling when he showed up on the screen - he just had that effect on me.

In his first film, THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934), he repeated the role he'd played on Broadway, that of Rudolfo Tonetti, an absurdly transparent and very Italian divorce 'correspondent'. His job is to be found in Ginger Rogers' hotel room by her husband - the only action for divorce in those prehistoric times.

There is a famous sequence on the steps of the seaside hotel where Tonetti is given the secret pass word he is to use so that Ginger Rogers will recognize him. The actual words are (I think) "Fate is the fool's name for chance." You can only imagine what Tonetti makes of it. (My favorite: "Fate is foolish, give me a chance.") It is hilarious. Tonetti is part fool, part serious working man (with a union!) and part romantic being duped by his own wife. By the end of the film you adore him as much as you do Fred Astaire.

Rhodes also went on to play in TOP HAT, another Astaire and Rogers film. He played a fashion designer with designs on his model, Ginger Rogers. Hilarity ensues when they all show up in Venice and everyone mistakes everyone else for someone else.

After his work in Army Intelligence during WWII, Erik Rhodes went back to Broadway and later, television work beckoned. Despite his European appearance and manner, Rhodes was born in Oklahoma (when it was known as 'Indian Territory') and died there in 1990, of pneumonia.

To learn more about Erik Rhodes, please use this link.

I've just realized that this is the second time I've written about Rhodes in my continuing series on great character actors. Sorry about that if you noticed. If you didn't notice then pretend you're not reading this.

P.S. If you check google for info on Erik Rhodes, be careful. It seems that there's a porn star with the same name and some of the pix that show up are rather offensive.

And before you begin lamenting that I've left out your favorite, all I ask is that you please check my previous character actor posts. Scroll down a bit and you'll find the link on my right hand side-board. Thanks.

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Tuesday's Overlooked (or Forgotten) Films: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward

As we know by now, Tuesday is Overlooked (or Forgotten) Movies day, a weekly meme hosted by Todd Mason at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM. Please use the link to check in and see what other overlooked films other bloggers are talking about today.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS is a sweetheart of a movie that's achieved a bit of a cult status over the years since it was released and ignored by Universal in 1971. The studio obviously didn't know it had a special film on its hands (sound familiar?) - a film needing special handling, if only for it's unusual ending.

The movie has the feel of an independent production done on the fly in the somewhat dark and grimly unpleasant Manhattan of the 70's. (Times Square was still in the clutches of porno flick houses and sleaze accoutrement shops.) It's rather a simple story thoroughly well acted by its wonderful cast, including a familiar bunch of character actors: Jack Gilford, Al Lewis, E. Emmet Walsh, Eugene Roche, Rue McClanahan and F. Murray Abraham, among others. With a supporting cast like that it would be hard to miss. Gilford, especially, always brought something tender-hearted to any film he was in.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS is directed by Anthony Harvey, the screenplay was adapted from his own play by James Goldman. When I watched it on Netflix the other night I didn't remember the supermarket scene near the end at all. So I did a little research. Turns out the scene was chopped up in the theater release, but included in its original state in this current dvd release. We could have done without it since it's a nonsensical moment which almost brings the film to a halt. The scene is meant as some sort of gobbledy-gook about consumerism (I think) and maybe even the state of the American city, but it fails to do much for the story or the characters. It just doesn't belong in the movie.

With that proviso, I'll go ahead and give you my thoughts.

I am a huge fan of George C. Scott and in this movie he is at his lovable best. Yes, the growly guy could do lovable when he set his mind to it. The only other film in which I remember him being so easy to like was THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER which, coincidentally I watched last night for the umpteenth time.

Here he plays retired judge Justin Playfair. (Can you imagine a judge named Playfair? Love it.) The judge has not been himself since his wife Lucy passed away. For a year or so, Playfair has believed himself to be Sherlock Holmes on the hunt for Professor Moriarity, his arch enemy.

The judge lives in a Manhattan townhouse with his brother Blevin (Lester Rawlins) and Blevin's wife, Daisy (Rue McClanahan). We are made to understand that Blevin owes some not very nice guys some very big money. To that end, he wants to have the judge classified non compos mentis and signed, sealed and delivered into the hands of a shady psychiatric hospital.

Playfair's new doctor is a dedicated but sad-sacky psychoanalyst, played by Joanne Woodward at her plain-jane-but-beautiful best. At first the judge is adamantly opposed to her interference in his quest to take down Moriarity (whom we never meet). The judge is convinced Moriarity is behind all the evil that transpires in the city. (Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.)

From the little she knows and can observe, the doctor declares the judge a classic case of paranoia perfection. Classics are cured 'once in a generation.'

When Playfair finds out the doctor's name is Watson, then of course he wants her on the case. It's 'Mildred Watson' but since when have first name details mattered? So off they go in search of Moriarity. Holmes and Watson, together again.

Watson is bemused by Holmes (as well as professionally intrigued) as he leads her into more and more hair-brained encounters, skulking about the city looking for 'clues'. She comes to admire the judge's -aka Holmes - philosophy of good and evil. She calls the judge a Don Quixote aiming at windmills, but he, in a key scene explains to her the difference between himself and Cervantes' creation. He makes eminent sense.

This unlikely pair grow closer as their adventures around the city lead them into several encounters with the odd and eccentric, including a sweet elderly couple who haven't set foot outside their old apartment in over 40 years. They devote themselves entirely to their topiary garden on the roof. This is one of my favorite parts in the film.

Eventually Holmes and Watson are joined in their quest by all the misfits they've encountered along the way in a kind of march of the 'irregulars'.

But all good things must come to an end and this is where the film falters slightly. With the cops on their trail as well as the bad guys taking potshots at the judge (if he dies, the brother gets all his money) Holmes and Watson find themselves in the end, alone and facing a quarry who supposedly is waiting for them in the bowels of Central Park.

Does the world really exist for us to make of it what we will?


I won't say anymore. This is one of those near perfect films that just missed the mark but still is good enough to enchant.

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Heavy-Lifting Made Easier

I just love this idea so much I had to share it with you.

Is this the coolest way to carry one of those hippo-sized books ever conceived? I found this on my travels through the google-sphere and thought - WOW!  Not only does this tote protect the dust jacket, but it is a much easier way to lug a hard-cover heavy-weight down to the park, or the beach, or the doctor's office or wherever. So darned clever.

Here's the link to the smarty-pants who thought these up. Link.

I believe the original post is from a year ago. But what the heck, a year later, it's still a great idea. I notice too, that there's a zippered compartment. I said it before and I'll say it again, 'clever'.

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A Favorite Painting or Two.....or Three!

Cherries

Detail from 'Cherries'

Unconscious Rivals

Ask Me No More

Hero

The Frigidarium

Sculptors in Ancient Rome

Confidences

A Coign of Vantage

Spring

Detail from 'Spring'

Detail from 'Spring'

Detail from 'Spring'

Detail from 'Spring'

Detail from 'Spring'

Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836 - 1912) was a prolific painter born in the Netherlands and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, in Belgium. In 1870 he settled in England and lived there the rest of his life.

A popular painter of classical-subjects, he was famed for his luxurious use of ancient Roman settings often with women of antiquity draped against marble in various attitudes of romantic repose. He also specialized in depicting historical and biblical scenes as well as narrative paintings of ancient Rome.

After his death, Alma-Tadema fell out of popular and critical favor, but in the 1960's, his work was re-evaluated and interest renewed. That's the way of things with artists - in and out of favor and no accounting for the whims of fate and taste.

My favorites have always been 'Spring' and 'Cherries'. But I have a grudging admiration for anyone who can create with such theatricality and an obvious love of the mythical past. Occasionally some of his paintings remind me of silent movies, perhaps because of the dramatic exaggeration of mood and pose.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

To learn about Lawrence Alma-Tadema and see much more of his work as well as detailed explanations of his historical paintings, please use this link.

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Friday's Forgotten Books: CAT AND MOUSE (1950) by Christianna Brand

Today is Forgotten Books Day - the weekly meme hosted by Patti Abbott at her blog, PATTINASE. Don't forget to take a look and see what other forgotten books other bloggers are talking about today.

Again I'm writing about a book which works as an entry in Bev's Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge so I'm very pleased about that. Kind of handy how it all works out. (Check the link in the box on my left sideboard to check in with Bev's Challenge.) Even if the book was not up to my expectations.

Reading the enthusiastic blurbs associated with this book, I really thought I was in for an exceptional read. After all, I'd read a couple of Brand's books before and liked them very much. This one is even touted by Julian Symons as one the Hundred Best Crime Stories.

Obviously, somewhere, somehow, one of us went wrong. It's hard for me to believe that the same Christianna Brand who wrote GREEN FOR DANGER and TOUR DE FORCE also wrote this maudlin, mawkish gothic-infused 'young woman in danger' mystery. A tour de force, it is not. Though I suspect it was meant to be.

Let's put it this way, there are enough strange histrionics, red herrings and dopey misdirections in this story to swell the pages of several of those nice 1950's books with covers featuring a woman running away from a castle, hair flying in the wind. In the gloom of night, of course.

Well, obviously, the book is not a total disaster or I wouldn't be writing about it. I did finish reading it, skipping around a bit, but eventually muddling through. After all, this is Christianna Brand we're talking about.

The first chapter is delicious. Really. You think you're in for something pretty special. Plus, the story is based on a true incident relayed to Christianna Brand by a friend. Sounds good.

We begin in the offices of a magazine called, Girls Together which is exactly what it sounds like. It's one of those necessaries filled with fashion inspiration, make-up tips, advice to the lovelorn - the usual.

Two editors, referred to as Miss Friendly-wise and Miss Let's-Be-Lovely (the titles of their columns) are discussing the latest letter from a regular reader of the magazine, a woman named Amista. The lovelorn Miss Amista has been unburdening herself (for months) on Miss Friendly-wise, seeking advice on anything from how to keep her hands from tanning and feeling rough to the trials and tribulations of making the man she loves, love her back.

The letters' return address is a house in Wales, and Amista claims to be the ward of a moody, mysterious, darkly handsome man named Carlyon. He is older than her, but what does age matter?. She worships the very ground he walks on.

It's all too, too Jane Eyer-ish.

Miss Friendly-wise and Miss Let's-Be-Lovely enjoy kibitzing at Amista's expense.

But when a final letter arrives stating that Amista has won her man - a proposal to which she, practically throws herself at her adored's feet in acceptance - it seems as if a happy ending is in the works and all's well that ends well.
But, not so fast.

Miss Friendly-wise, aka, Katinka Jones goes on holiday in Wales and decides to drop in on Amista and see how she's getting on with her beloved Carlyon. After all the letter writing, Katinka is keen on seeing the happy couple in the flesh. Just to see - you know. She's not really being nosy. Not really. Well, she is a bit curious.

Unfortunately, the house is set on an isolated spot with access only by water. A small boat runs back and forth to deliver mail and/or milk. Usually once or twice a day. Other than that, you're stuck.

The not-so-shocker is this: once Katinka arrives at the village and begins asking for the whereabouts of Amista and her mysterious hubby, she gets some baffling responses.

Everyone knows of Carlyon, the reclusive renter of the only house on the small but mountainous island, but no one seems to know about the wife. No one appears to have heard of the woman known to Katinka, as Amista. Far as anyone knows (or admits) there is no wife up at the house.

But Katinka thinks they must be putting her on or else they've just never met Mrs. Carlyon aka Amista. She decides to go across to the house anyway, on the next milk run. One of the men who's been hanging around the dock decides to go along. His last name is Chucky and later he will tell Katinka that he is a police inspector though she will not believe him. Can you imagine a policeman called Inspector Chucky? She thinks he's a reporter nosing about for some sort of story.

The funny thing is, he thinks Katinka is a reporter nosing about for some sort of story as well. He's an annoyingly friendly type though and when they arrive at the house, he lingers in the background as Katinka ask to see and speak to Mrs. Carlyon.

Where is Amista? later becomes, who is Amista? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When Katinka meets the darkly brooding but-oh-so appealing Carlyon, it is love at first sight. For him as well, it seems. And when later she learns of the tragedies which have followed Carlyon about, she is disposed to feel sorry for the man. No wonder he broods. He's got a lot on his plate. Not the least of which is a madwoman in the attic.

Well, no, not really. But there is a woman in an upstairs room and she's not Amista. Turns out Carlyon is married but not to who we think. The mysterious woman is suffering from the after-effects of a tragic car accident which has left her totally disfigured and unable to speak. Carlyon was at the wheel - in France - and he blames himself for the wreckage of his wife's physical beauty. That explains the seclusion and the reason why they've come to this out of the way place.

AND it turns out that Chucky is actually there at Carlyon's behest to protect him from Katinka's asupposed nosing about, or so Chucky claims. Odd job for a policeman I'd have thought. Sounds more like a spur of the moment claim to me.

Anyway, from there, things go from bad to worse.

See, here's the thing, the more we get into the story, the less any of it makes any sense. A mystery, to be effective, has to make some sort of sense. Don't you think?

Even in the end when we get an extra dose of histrionics meant as shock and awe, it STILL doesn't make any sense. First, this one is Amista. Then that one. Then, no, it's the other one. And what about that ring? The ring did what? And who is Mrs. Carlyon - really?

How many Mrs. Carlyons are there? And how many revisions of the truth can there be? And why is Chucky so damned annoying? No wonder Katinka longs to kick him out of the house.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that poor Katinka fell down (the countryside is slippery) and twisted her ankle. Yes, yes, she really did.

So of course she has to stay on at the house, resting quietly and comfortably. Even though she's locked in her room and nobody in the house wants her there.

Oh it's all too, too Jane Eyre-ish, just as Miss Let's-Be-Lovely suspected all along. Except that by the time you get to the final denouement, it's not much of one.But you do get to roll your eyes a bit and that's always good excercise. The truth is, I was so exhausted by all the contrived skulking about that I really could not have cared less who did what to whom and who was about to do it again.

I can only recommend the book as a curiosity. On that alone, I'd say, read it and see what you think. Maybe I am totally wrong.

After all, the critics at the time, appear to have loved CAT AND MOUSE.

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Review: ANATOMY OF MURDER by Imogen Robertson

This is the second book in a new historical series (new to me, anyway) which I began reading just near the end of last year. The first book, INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS is an extraordinary achievement considering, especially, that it was the author's debut book. But besides that, it is as if I've witnessed the tossing of the mantle from the late (and very much lamented) Ariana Franklin to Imogen Robertson.

Though Franklin was writing of a much different age - her books were set in medieval England - the depth and breadth of careful research combined with genuine writing talent and vivid imagination is alive and well in Roberson's tales set in the late 1700's. You will find yourself easily cast back into this time and place without hardly a stir. These are the sorts of books for which an actual time travel machine would be redundant.

18th century England is at war with America and France and things are humming in London. Spies are everywhere. Skullduggery lurks in the shadows. It is 1781 and ANATOMY OF MURDER begins with a few scenes aboard Harriet Westerman's husband's ship - he is captain of a naval vessel engaged in wartime activities on the high seas. He was not a character in the first book at all, so it's interesting to meet up with him and get an idea of the sort of man Harriet is devoted to.

Harriet, you might remember, is the heroine of the first book - a woman out of her own time, a woman not averse to taking risks if the scientific or moral truth requires it. She has an intelligent, inquisitive mind which, given the age she lives in, is a burden for a woman of her class and station in life. What's even worse, she has a scientific bent.

Harriet and her friend (or maybe cohort is a better word), Gabriel Crowther, an enigmatic and very reclusive anatomist, He is a man (with a scandal plagued past - his brother murdered their father) who specializes in the new science of post mortem investigation. It isn't too out of the way to say that Crowther prefers the dead to the living.

But engaging with Mrs. Westerman in their first and now their second murder investigation is slowly changing the way Crowther views things. He really is a dried up old stick, but interacting with Harriet and her family and his new found fame as a 'detective' is thawing him out. Not that he welcomes fame at all. And of course, the word 'detective' hadn't been coined yet.

The plot:

A few months after the prologue in which Captain Westerman engages in a sea battle and comes out the richer for it, we are set right in the middle of London where a dead body has been fished from the Thames. Not an extraordinary occurrence, except this one does turn out to be an interesting body. For it belongs to a certain Fitzraven, an obsequious member of the staff of an opera company, assistant to Harwood the manager.

The company is now featuring the world  renowned castrato Manzerotti as well as the renowned soprano, Isabella Marin, both having been lured from France to liven up the London opera season. The opera is having its greatest triumph, so a murder investigation at the height of the season cannot be good for business. Neither can the murder of the soprano.

When it turns out that not only was the dead Fitzraven an unlikeable busybody and blackmailer, but also an occasional spy for the Brits who may or may not have worked for the French, the plot, necessarily. thickens. Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther are in the middle (or maybe 'muddle')of things as Crowther has been asked to do the post mortem, almost in situ. He will not work without Harriet at his side.

At the same time the investigation is on-going, Harriet is burdened with the gravest of personal circumstances- the deteriorating condition of her beloved husband. The captain has been placed in an asylum - for his safety and the safety of his wife and small children. Westerman has come home from the sea with a debilitating head injury - an accident on board ship. He many never recover his wits and Harriet and the family must reconcile themselves to the fact that he will never again be the man he once was.

In a way, Harriet welcomes the investigation which keeps her mind busy at this terrible time. My only quibble with this plot twist is that we're not made aware of how the accident occurred until the very last pages of the book. I suppose it's meant as a red herring of sorts, but surely Captain Westerman deserves more than to be a red herring.

Several characters from the first novel are present and accounted for in this second book, but it's not rocket science if you don't read either book in order. I would, though, to get the full flavor of just how Harriet and Crowther came to be working together.

While all this is going on, there is also a secondary plot line involving a certain Mrs. Jocasta Bligh, a London back alley reader of Tarot cards who, with her small terrier and the aid of a ten year old street urchin named Sam, are looking into the murder of a local woman whom the law assumes, was killed in an accidental fall. Both Jocasta and Sam unknowingly becoming involved in the larger investigation, coming at it from another angle.

Fresh murders will sprout along the way, as it is obvious a fiendish killer is on the loose at the opera house and elsewhere.

How these two plots dove-tail together near the end, will keep you reading until the very last word.

There is also a side sort of track: Jocasta might know something revealing about Gabriel Crowther's unhappy childhood. They both hail from the same part of the country.

But we'll have to wait until the third, ISLAND OF BONES, due out soon. April 14th is the publishing date in this country.

Can't wait.

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