Sometimes it’s good to spend time with old friends, and that is why I keep so many books around that I’ve already read.  Nearly all the old friends are real books, that have survived repeated book culls to stay on my crowded bookshelves, but I’ve had the Kindle long enough that some old friends are in place there too.

When I read The White Queen this summer, I was impressed by the solid Wars of the Roses history underpinning the steamy romance and magical furbelows author Philippa Gregory gave to Elizabeth Woodville’s story.  So I had to check in with my old friend The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey’s imaginative version of Richard III’s life and death as a mystery story.  Elizabeth Woodville was Richard III’s sister-in-law, wife of his older brother, the magnificent York king Edward IV.  Edward and Elizabeth were also the parents of the two little Princes in the Tower, reputedly done to dastardly death by their wicked uncle Richard III.  Josephine Tey sets her convalescent Detective Inspector Grant to investigate whether Richard was actually guilty of having his nephews murdered, and in the course of the investigation Grant and the reader learn a great deal about the houses of York and Lancaster and the Wars of the Roses, which ended when Henry VII killed Richard and established the Tudor dynasty.  I have always loved this classic mystery, which was published in 1951, and have read it many times.  I was confident that Tey’s erudition and wit would wipe the floor with Philippa Gregory and her White Queen, but The Daughter of Time, read so soon after Gregory’s lush romantic history, seemed dated and subdued.  However, my beloved and battered Penguin Crime edition of The Daughter of Time is still securely on the bookshelf, and The White Queen went into the senior lunch book swap.

My introduction to Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone historical thrillers reminded me of one of the most unique historical novels I have ever read:  The Eight by Katherine Neville, published in 1988.  I read this book nearly twenty years ago, and liked it enough to hang on to it through several moves between several continents.  I had never reread it because it was packed in storage for years, but it survived the big, big book cull last year after I unpacked all the books in one place for the first time.  After rereading it all I can say is:  Eat your hearts out, Dan Brown and Steve Berry, Katherine Neville beat you to it and did it better.  Novice nuns Mireille and Valentine bravely volunteer to save the mystic Montglane Chess Service from evil uses during the French Revolution, meeting many historical 18th century characters in the process.  Two centuries later, the chess service is the focus of intrigues involving a web of protectors and villains operating on three continents.  Modern heroine Catherine Velis is an expert in computer systems for an international accounting company – this storyline is set in 1973, and the details and scope of Catherine’s computer expertise are by now interesting history in their own right.  Catherine’s wacky family and duplicitous business contacts are very entertaining, and there is a touch of romance that serves the plot and the story.  Katherine Neville’s own business experience in international finance and computer systems contributes to the book’s credibility, and the clever use of symbols, puzzles, historical characters, deft storytelling and good writing all add up to a fascinating read.  I haven’t read anything else by Neville, although I see on Amazon that she did write three other books that have received very uneven reviews.  I don’t know if I want to risk disappointment by reading another book of hers that is notably inferior to The Eight.  Maybe my favorite historical thriller topped anything Berry and Brown have done, but they do tend to be consistent.

I reread Murder at Government House, by Elspeth Huxley, for no particular reason other than classic mystery nostalgia.  The book was written in 1937 and is set in a British colony in East Africa.   The details about the habits, attitudes and morals of the colonial government officials and the other members of the British community in the fictitious government town of Marula are clever and accurate to the period.   The characters are interesting, the mystery is intriguing and the writing is excellent.   Elspeth Huxley grew up in Kenya, and writes about East Africa with knowledge and affection.  She is best known for The Flame Trees of Thika, a memoir of her childhood, which is still in print and on Kindle as well.  I haven’t read it, but the description of it reminds me of my own childhood in Africa, when the British colonial period was coming to an end.  Another book to add to the long list.

I read some of the stories in Dick Francis’ short story collection Field of Thirteen; only some, because the quality is uneven and several aren’t worth rereading.  My paperback copy of this book has the back cover and a couple of the last pages torn off, damage done by my puppy Juliana, who is now more than 14 years old.  Talk about old friends.

I wanted some short stories for bedtime reading, and I’d gone through all my short story collections for the umpteenth time, so I decided to retrieve A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans, by Michael Farquhar, from the “Read” folder on my Kindle.  Each chapter has a different story about an adventurous, shady, colorful or criminal figure from American history, written in a sprightly and entertaining style.  This book isn’t nearly as good as Farquhar’s other history Treasuries: of Royal Scandals, of Great American Scandals, and of Deceptions.  But it’s still pretty good, and I haven’t reread it as often as I have the others.