Graham Brack

In number 5 of the series, Mercurius continues to dictate his memoirs, reminiscing about the case he ended up dealing with when sent by the Stadhouser, William of Orange, as an emissary to Amsterdam where hostile officials are dragging their heels about paying taxes. This time, William supplies a military escort and a carriage so for once Mercurius can travel in style. His mission is difficult and he discovers that young children have been abducted from the Jewish quarter so sets out to try to find out what happened to them.

There was a small involvement of beginjs in this story, the Dutch term for the beguines (a secular order for women who wanted to live apart from men) who I had previously read about in histories of the middle ages. It would have been interesting if that had been more substantial. The story has the usual wry humour of Mercurius and it seems he has been put into an unsolvable situation with the counsellors, so there is an interest in how he is going to handle the various situations though he doesn't have to deal with matchmaking parents in this story. Altogether, I rate this as a 4 star read.
4 likes… (lisätietoja)

I don't often rate books at a full five stars but I had been looking for a good historical series now that there won't be any more Shardlake novels and this seems to be it.

Master Mercurius is a Protestant cleric in the Netherlands in the 17th century, writing his secret memoirs and looking back to his early thirties when he was tasked to travel to Delft and solve the disappearance of three eight year old girls, one of whom has been found buried. There he interacts with various people, including the mothers of two of the girls from working class families - one a single parent looked down on for having had her child outside marriage - and the father of the last child abducted, a wealthy and unpopular merchant. He meets and works with a local artist - I was delighted to recognise Vermeer, painter of 'Girl with a Pearl Earring ' - and a draper who is a part time scientist. I looked him up while reading the novel and discovered that he was an early pioneer of microbiology. Both of these real historical characters are vividly portrayed and come across as living people on the page.

Mercurius is aware of the ambiguities of human life and morality, especially because he is also a secret Catholic and, even more dangerous for him, an ordained priest. The Low Countries, as they are known, seem more tolerant than many other lands in that period, because Catholics can worship in their own churches providing they keep everything low key but they are still discriminated against as is made clear through Vermeer, who converted to Catholism in order to marry into a Catholic family. Mercurius has been tasked by his bishop to be a secret pillar of the church in the event of the country one day returning to Catholism, but would be in a lot of trouble if this was found out and I sense that losing his position as a university lecturer would be the least of it. In the meantime, he faces the awkwardness of people trying to pair him off with potential wives when he is obliged to remain celibate.

The landscape of Delft is well pictured, as are the living conditions for the various classes. The narrative is nicely tinged with a humorous self deprecation and wry wit. Altogether I enjoyed the book and have no hesitation in rating it as a five star read.… (lisätietoja)

Unfortunately I didn't find this second volume in the series as enjoyable as the first, mainly because the crime against a young girl was so sadistic and disturbing. There was also a lot of exposition at the end - didn't think a full written confession by one of the culprits was really necessary especially as Slonsky proceeds to reject it as self-serving and exonerating the man at the expense of his accomplice. The amusement of constant beer and sausage swilling wore off, and I can only rate this as an OK 2 stars as I found it a bit of a slog.… (lisätietoja)

This is number 4 in the series about Master Mercurius, a 17th century Dutch minister (and secret Roman Catholic priest), who was a lecturer at the University of Leiden and is now dictating his memoirs to a clerk to whom he makes wry asides. Mercurius recalls another of his crime solving cases, this one dating from 1680 when he was forty-one. He became involved when the distraught wife of a man arrested for murder arrived at the University. The victim was a thoroughly unpleasant man, suspected of causing his wife's death through beatings, and who quarrelled with everyone in the farming neighbourhood outside Leiden where he lived, so there is no lack of motive but only the arrested man seemed to have had the opportunity.

I did (correctly) suspect a certain person which isn't always the case with these stories. A remark was made partway through which steered me in that direction. But I still enjoyed the story and Mercurius' plight when the mayor and his wife, who offer Mercurius the hospitality of their home for a couple of nights during the week or so he spends solving the crime, try to steer him towards their daughter who is eighteen and of suitable marriageable age. This isn't the first time such a thing has happened when Mercurius is working on a case: as a Protestant minister and university lecturer in Theology, he is seen as more of a 'catch' than the farm labourers and others in the vicinity. They are keen also that he might take on the role of local minister since the present incumbent is planning to leave to become a missionary - again, not the first time that a community has been hoping to snare Mercurius to act in that capacity. Part of the wry comedy is that, however attracted Mercurius might be to the woman in question - and this time also to the wife of the arrested man - apart from any other impediments, his secret identity as a Catholic priest means he must remain celibate. As he is socially awkward at times, he usually ends up digging himself deeper into a hole when he tries to get out of such situations.

I found this an enjoyable read and am awarding it 4 stars.… (lisätietoja)