Paula Messina Reviews: Our Jubilee is Death: A Carolus Deane Mystery by Leo Bruce

  

Please welcome back Paula Messina to the blog today…

 

 

Our Jubilee Is Death 

By Paula Messina

 

            When a woman revels in her nastiness, her death is a jubilee for everyone in her world.

There are myriad reasons for the characters in Leo Bruce’s Our Jubilee Is Death to contemplate shortening mystery writer Lillianne Bomberger’s time on earth. It’s the reader’s delight that Bruce decided to  kill off Bromberger in this hilarious book.

Leo Bruce is Rupert Croft-Cooke’s pseudonym. A prolific English writer who died in 1979, Croft-Cooke wrote numerous non-fiction books as well as plays, literary novels, and short stories. He is most remembered for his two mystery series, the amateur sleuth Carolus Deene and the decidedly unconventional Sergeant Beef. Bruce reveled in sending up his fellow mystery writers and making his readers laugh out loud. At least this reader could not suppress her laughter while reading Jubilee.

Carolus is not your typical private eye. He’s not a misanthropic Nero Wolfe nor a superior know-it-all Sherlock Holmes. A history master at Queen’s School, Carolus is standoffish and blunt. The closest thing Carolus has to an Archie Goodwin or Dr. Watson is one of his students, the annoying Rupert Priggley, who insinuates himself into the investigation.

It’s conveniently the end of term when Carolus receives a letter from his cousin Fay, who had a frightful experience with the detestable Bromberger. Fay stumbled over Bomberger’s head in the sand at Blessington-on-Sea. What else would a master facing a boring vacation do? His cousin needs him. Carolus heads straight for Blessington to investigate Bomberger’s demise.

When asked by a police officer if she touched the body, Fay says, “Touch her? I always said I wouldn’t touch Lillianne Bomberger with a barge-pole when she was alive. I certainly don’t want to touch her dead. Not even my dogs wanted that. A sniff was quite enough for them.”

Bomberger was a hack who bullied her way into publication and to the top of the best seller lists. She constantly berated her nieces who lived with her, made unreasonable demands on her nephew and his wife, belittled her secretary, and habitually battled with her publisher. In short, there wasn’t a single person in her life spared her venom.

Her publisher said about her. “She was a bitch, Mr. Deene. The bitch of all times, if you want it straight. An egotist on a scale you can scarcely believe. Folie de grandeur, and with a morbid selfishness and pettiness which were quite terrifying to see. The only surprising thing about her murder is that it did not happen years ago.”

Given Bomberger’s personality, it’s no wonder Carolus doesn’t lack for suspects. Everyone’s got a crackerjack reason for wanting her dead. Carolus’s investigation is stymied because there are more lies than motives. As all mystery readers know, the police and private eyes expect lies. Usually one person is telling the truth. Not in Jubilee. Everyone lies. Everyone tells the same lies.

Bruce enjoys poking fun at his fellow mystery writers. Bomberger “wrote the same book over and over again to the end,” her publisher says. “We’ve had her for twenty-three years, and it’s been like a prison sentence. She was the most insufferable human being of this century. Or any other,…”

By the end of the book, Carolus Deene knows who the murderer is, but he has no proof. He tells everyone he is leaving Blessington-on-Sea. The police will have to solve the case without him.

Of course, departing won’t do. Carolus is talked into telling what he knows. A meeting is arranged. After all, that’s how most mysteries end, even ones not written by hacks. The revelation is a surprise. Bruce plays fair with his readers. The clues were there all along.

It’s fun to dip into the works of authors who are largely forgotten. There’s no explaining why some writers have longevity and others fade into the background. Leo Bruce should be in the first category. 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/41XIqmJ

Paula Messina ©2025

Paula Messina is a native New Englander who writes contemporary, historical, and humorous fiction as well as essays. Her work has appeared in such publications as Black Cat Weekly, Devil’s Snare, Wolfsbane, Ovunque Siamo, and THEMA. She does not own a cat.

Joan Leotta Reviews: Killing Time: An Agatha Raisin Mystery (Agatha Raisin Mysteries)

Please welcome author Joan Leotta back to the blog today…

  

Killing Time: An Agatha Raisin Mystery (Agatha Raisin Mysteries) Hardcover – October 8, 2024

by M. C. Beaton (Author), R.W. Green (Author)

Review By Joan Leotta

 

Yes, M.C. Beaton, aka Marion Chesney, did leave this world for the next in 2019. However, she wanted her two series protagonists, Agatha Raisin, and Hamish MacBeth to continue to have adventures and  solve mysteries even after she would no longer be able to wield a pen. To that end, late in her life, she invited R.W. Green to become the author of these mystery series. She put Green through rigorous training in the ways and whiles of her characters and her various plot techniques..

 

This fourth Agatha Raisin installment by Green—Killing Time—shows he has indeed mastered

the elements readers expect while also developing the characters in directions true to their Beaton-given nature, but with a bit of his own experience to further enrich our entertainment and their arc.

Raisin is an especially difficult character to write because she requires a delicate balance of feisty, hard-nosed, irascible, yet with enough vulnerability to elicit enough empathy from readers to make them care about what happens to her and even cheer her on in her adventures. 

This entry into the canon takes Agatha temporarily out of the Cotswolds to Pollonsea in Mallorca, for her to meet with her newest love interest, a retired cop turned cruise line dance instructor, John Clarke. Never fear,  Killing Time is stepped in Cotswold lore and the hiatus at the sea is not a diversion, but also proves to be another important strand in the unraveling of the mystery. 

The novel begins with an ordinary investigation into robberies in the area. Then, ever susceptible to flattery, Agatha, in spite of a full schedule, is talked into managing an area-wide festival for charity in support of  an old friend’s winery venture. After deciding that a charity auction would attract large spenders, Agatha approaches a local  antique dealer who takes Agatha to an auction. At the auction Agatha falls in love—with a clock. After a viscous bidding war,  she purchases a gaudy antique clock,  paying far more than it’s evaluated worth. Learning that the clock does not work, the dealer offers to take it to his shop for her to have his brother, a clock savant of sorts to examine it for her. 

The situation takes an urgent turn and the pace of the novel ramps up when that same antique dealer is murdered, and her clock is the only thing missing from his shop. In the usual wonderful way of these novels, Agatha, with the help of the ever-lovely Toni and others from her Detective agency staff, finds connections between various people, the clock, and other events in the area. In the midst of the action,  wanting to take a break from all the stress, Agatha decamps for a brief jaunt to Mallorca to meet John, her new love interest when his ship docks and he will have a few days off from his dance instruction duties. However, upon landing there, her hopes for a continuing and true romance with ex-cop John are shattered and she decamps to the lovely Pollonsea in another part of the Island until it is time for her to return home.

The plot process and action along with some occasional petulance on Agatha’s part are  a delight as always. I reveled in the descriptions of this new place in Mallorca as well as the usual entanglements and hijinks and was totally captivated by the ending. And yes, the antique timepiece at the center of the mystery becomes  a character in itself—well done, Mr. Green!

All of these threads are skillfully embroidered into the fabric of the tale with a solution that covers all of the crimes, and the issues Agatha had with John. As always, Agatha’s sharp mind is the needle that works out the solution from these seemingly disparate threads.

Is there a happy conclusion? Well, I will leave that for you to discover but I will say this--future tension  with her old beau Charles this time leaves promising himself to try to win Agatha back instead of the more often seen reverse situation.

In short, this is fast -paced and fun read. I finished this installment on one dismal afternoon and put it down with a smile. If you crave a mystery with a side of smiles, seek out the Raisin Mysteries. Agatha plows ahead with all her usual intelligence, cupidity, and bluster even after her creator’s demise. Although I always enjoy a series in order, this book works as a single read so pick up Killing Time if you have some time on your hands. Note well: if you possess a gaudy antique clock, you might want to start researching its history.

Five stars 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/416SiKb

 

Joan Leotta ©2025

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her poetry, essays, cnf, short stories, and articles are widely published. Mysteries are favorite things to read.. short and long.. and to write. 

Joan Leotta Reviews: The Medici Return by Steve Berry

 

Please welcome back author Joan Leotta to the blog today….

 

Review of Steve Berry’s The Medici Return by Joan Leotta

The Medici Return (Cotton Malone)

Book 19 of 19: Cotton Malone  | by Steve Berry  | Release Date Feb 11, 2025

 

 

This one I received in advance of its pub date from the publisher through NetGalley.

 

This is the 19^th in Berry’s series featuring Cotton Malone, an intrepid detective now working for a secret US agency. Through them Malone becomes involved with helping the Catholic church with a sticky problem calling for confidentiality and break in skills. Malone, armed with those skills , his eidetic memory, and flair for languages (helped by same) ships off to Italy to find evidence of wrongdoing by a cardinal of the church. Who hired him? Vatican. Who is the villain? Another arm of the Vatican—so many secrets here! And oh yes, the Medici! (A 500 year old mystery enters in)

 

When it comes to popes, the Medici were no slouches. When it comes to dirty dealing, the same. Plot issues here span centuries and  connect to modern day crimes. One of the things I absolutely love about this book is the setting in Italy—Sienna, which I only got to know in 2023, Florence where I spent a lot of time while a student in Bologna, and oh yes, the Vatican museum and my beloved Rome.

 

Each of these carries a wonderful weight of historical interest and intrigue. Enough for ten books. In this case, Sienna  and its annual Palio, a free for all of an historic horse race becomes a central element to the plot. Berry is ingenious as to how he works this into his tale about finding = an ancient document. I applaud his creativity and oh yes, I must applaud the horsemanship of Cotton Malone as well. Heroes such as cotton Malone are often invested with far-beyond-normal abilities to deal with things like taking over the jockey role in a bareback race, the Palio. I was happy to suspend disbelief and bear down with Malone as he leaned over the neck of his steed and pushed forward to the goal while other jockeys tried to trip them up and a gunman had a rifle trained on Malone.

 

Wait, do you think all of this distracted me from the main mystery? Who killed the Swiss guard in the book’s early pages? The mysterious missing Medici era document that would cost the church billions of dollars if found? The two or three other subsequent murders and attempts on Malone’s life that follow? Nope.

 

Never fear—Berry is a master juggler of plot elements. These balls are never out of sight. To draw on another metaphor, he weaves all of the threads cleverly, carefully and at just the right moment, inserts one than then another element together to keep readers on track even as the plot twists and turns with more gyrations than that round, stone track in Sienna’s main piazza.

 

I’m only a so-so Malone fan in general, in spite of good dialogue and plotting,  but this book brought out Berry’s writing skills and took me back to a city (Sienna) I enjoy, and had me traipsing through Rome and Florence, two cities I love, while still captivating me with the plot, so I must give this book a five star recommendation.

 

Both for fans of Malone, occasional readers of the series such as myself and dare I say—even if if you have never read Berry’s Malone series before, I think you will enjoy this fast-paced well and deviously plotted book.

Five stars

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4aDY6hu

 

 

 

Joan Leotta ©2025

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her poetry, essays, cnf, short stories, and articles are widely published. Mysteries are favorite things to read.. short and long.. and to write.

Patricia Abbott: FFB:WHERE MEMORIES LIE, Deborah Crombie

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Paula Messina Reviews: Silent Nights Editor Martin Edwards

Please welcome Paula Messina back to the blog today...

 

 

Silent Nights by Paula Messina 

 

Christmas is a time of mysteries. Will Aunt Matilda finally stop making that fruit cake everyone detests? Will Uncle Virgil get through Christmas dinner sober? Will those pesky reindeer for once land on the roof without causing several thousand dollars of damage?

Will anyone suggest an anthology filled with great Christmas short stories?

Silent Nights satisfactorily answers the last question. Edited by Martin Edwards, this anthology has fifteen stories from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction set during the Yuletide. Some of the stories and their authors will be familiar. Others might ring a bell. Still others are highly unlikely to be familiar.

Nearly one hundred years after his death, Conan Doyle is still one of the most popular writers of English literature. “The Blue Carbuncle,” the story of the Christmas goose that got away, is most likely familiar to readers. In this case, familiarity does not breed contempt. Holmes and Watson are as comforting and welcomed as old slippers, tobacco included or not. The pair’s deep, abiding friendship is just one of the reasons readers flock back to Holmes and Watson again and again. Crackling good mysteries is the ultimate one.

Whether familiar or not, the stories of G.K. Chesterton (“The Flying Stars”), Dorothy L. Sayers (“The Necklace of Pearls”), and Margery Allingham (“The Case Is Altered”) are pleasant reminders of why this trio is still widely read.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the stories by the well-known writers, I found the most joy in being introduced to those writers who now haunt the denizens of the forgotten. In his introduction, Edwards says Nights “aims to introduce a new generation of readers to some of the finest detective story writers of the past.”

“Parlour Tricks” by Ralph Plummer, as Edwards notes, “deserves to be rescued from oblivion.” Edwards knows “nothing of Plummer’s life.” His short story involves hotel guests unable to leave, a theft, conjuring, and what could qualify as the most creative use of forensics in the genre.

“Cambric Tea” by Marjorie Bowen might lead you to reassess your relatives. Maybe they aren’t nearly as bad as you think. Regardless, think twice before drinking any proffered tea on Christmas day.

In Ethel Lina White’s “Waxworks,” Sonia, an ambitious, young journalist, spends the night locked in the Waxwork Collection of Oldhampton to determine if two recent nocturnal deaths were murder. Sonia quickly fears she won’t survive the night.

The last story, “Beef for Christmas,” by Leo Bruce stars Sgt. Beef, whom Edwards describes as “an engaging vulgarian with a passion for playing darts.” I recently discovered Sgt. Beef when I read Case for Three Detectives, an hilarious send-up of Golden Age mysteries. (See my review on Kevin’s Corner at https://kevintipplescorner.blogspot.com/2024/11/paula-messina-reviews-case-for-three.html.) Bruce is just one of the writers presented in Silent Nights that I intend to become more intimately acquainted with.

It’s also enjoyable to learn more about these writers in Edward’s two-paragraph bios. How did H.C. Bailey (“The Unknown Murderer”) go from being admired by no less than Agatha Christie to being forgotten?  J. Jefferson Farjeon’s Mystery in White was a best seller in its day. His offering here, “The Absconded Treasurer” is so obscure that “not even the British Library possesses a copy.”

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how well known these authors and their short stories are. A good story is always in fashion. A great way to enjoy the season is by reading Silent Nights while sitting by a roaring fire in the comfort of an overstuffed chair with a cup of nutmeg-dusted eggnog. 

Amazon Associate Publishing News: https://amzn.to/3VtxEAS

Paula Messina ©2024

Paula Messina in a Native New Englander. Her writing has appeared in various publications including Devil’s Snare, Wolfsbane, Black Cat Weekly, Ovunque Siamo, and THEMA. Her current project is a novel set in Boston during 1944.

Paula Messina Reviews: Case for Three Detectives: A Sergeant Beef Mystery by Leo Bruce

Please welcome Paula Messina back to the blog today..... 

 

Case for Three Detectives

 

By Paula Messina 

 

Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce is a delicious send up of the traditional British mystery. Mrs. Thurston, a lovely but dimwitted woman, retires to her bedroom after a night of entertaining guests. Mrs. Thurston screams. Her husband, the Thurston’s lawyer Williams, and Townsend, who narrates the novel, rush to her aid, only the door is locked. After breaking down the door, the men find Mrs. Thurston dead, her throat slashed.

Williams immediately takes over and searches every inch of the room. The windows are bolted. There is no conceivable way for the murderer to escape, but escape he did. The husband, guests, and staff are stumped. Williams insists the only explanation is something unworldly.

Rigor mortis hasn’t set in when three detectives, Lord Simon Pimsoll, Monsieur Amer Picon, and Monsignor Smith, arrive like bloodhounds following a scent. These amateur detectives dazzle the characters and readers with their brilliance. Mystery fans, especially those who revel in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, will immediately recognize the lineage of the three detectives, Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot, and Father Brown.

Pimsoll, Picon, and Smith are so brilliant they don’t need to bother with evidence. Mere details would get in the way of their superior intellects and preternatural ability to know who the killer is and why poor Mrs. Thurston had to die. The facts they uncover include a will that favors the staff and a stepson who stands to profit from Mrs. Thurston’s death. No one knows who or where the stepson is. What would a mystery be without blackmail? Voilà! The wealthy Mrs. Thurston’s account is overdrawn. Someone is blackmailing her because of an affair with the chauffeur who is more interested in marrying the maid. There’s a surfeit of reasons to kill Mrs. Thurston.

Case is the first in a series of Sgt. Beef mysteries. From the get go, Beef says he knows who done it. The three detectives dismiss Beef as a beer-swilling, dart-throwing dullard who couldn’t find his way home after a night at the pub, forget find a murderer. Bruce spins another send up with Beef, who barely appears in the novel. What kind of series stars a character who remains in the background for most of the book?

Parts of Case are laugh-out-loud funny. Bruce nails the most annoying traits of Wimsey, Poirot, and Brown. Pimsoll is an arrogant ass. Picon is in love with himself and his brilliant mind. Msgr. Smith rarely says anything that makes sense. Three detectives mean they provide three solutions with three different murderers. Which one is correct?

Can the star of the series, the dipsomaniac, honest-to-goodness, real-life detective—well real life in terms of the novel—better the three brilliant detectives and bag the murderer? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

In true Golden Age fashion, readers are unlikely to figure out who the murderer is.

Bruce pokes fun at Dorthy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and G. K. Chesterton, his contemporaries and giants of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, but he also has his tongue firmly pressed against his cheek as he makes himself part of the joke. After all, he’s a mystery writer as well. The joke can be extended to all mystery writers who manipulate the plot to satisfy their endings.

Leo Bruce, born Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903 – 1979), was a prolific English writer who published non-fiction, novels, short stories, screenplays and more under his real name as well as his pseudonym. Bruce wrote a second mystery series featuring schoolmaster Carolus Deene.

Some readers will be put off by the lack of action. Case for Three Detectives is quite talky, but the dialogue is hilarious. Case is great fun and worth a read.

  

Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4idZ8Ev

 

  

Paula Messina ©2024 

Paula Messina writes essays as well as humorous and historical fiction. “Fish Eyes” (Devil’s Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024) marks Donatello Laguardia’s print debut. 

 

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