Review: Siciliana by Carlo Treviso

Synopsis: A family torn apart by conflict. An uprising of deadly magnitude. A nation altered forever. Inspired by actual events, "Siciliana" is the harrowing tale of a young woman’s courage in the face of unthinkable turmoil.

In 1282 AD, the Kingdom of Sicily is under the rule of a tyrannical French king and subject to his brutal Angevin army. Daily acts of violence and persecution are commonplace in a once-prosperous realm.

For twenty-year-old Aetna Vespiri, daughter of a revered Sicilian knight, survival has become second nature. As a child, she witnessed the destruction of her family’s vineyard by Angevin soldiers and spent the next decade learning the tenets of stiletto blade combat.

Years later in Palermo, as the evening bells toll for Vespers, Aetna fends off a nefarious sergeant and sparks an uprising against the Angevin occupation. Now, standing at the forefront of an accelerating people’s rebellion, Aetna finds herself fighting not only for a nation she believes in but also for the meaning of family. In her darkest hour, this dauntless Sicilian woman steps out of obscurity and into the pages of history. The legend of "Siciliana" is born.

Set amid bustling Arab markets and brooding Norman fortresses, "Siciliana" will envelop readers in the sights, sounds, and dangers lurking around every corner of medieval Sicily.

The Sicilian Vespers (vespiri siciliani) was a successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out at Easter 1282 against the rule of the French-born king Charles I, who had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily since 1266.

The island of Sicily had been part of the Kingdom of Sicily, which had encompassed the southern Italian peninsula since the early 12th century, when Roger II of Sicily defeated the Italian mainland barons and was elected king by the pope. His reign had been inherited by Frederick II of Sicily, whose son Manfred would be ousted by the French invasion of Charles I of Anjou. The French rule soon assumed a repressive and ferocious nature.

On Easter Monday (30 March) 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside Palermo, at evening prayer (vespers), a Frenchman harassed a Sicilian woman. Accounts differ as to what the harassment entailed, who the woman was, and who the Frenchman was. Fed up with years of oppression, insolence and brutality, the cry went up - "moranu li Francis" - death to the French!.  This single event led to the massacre of four  thousand French men and women within twenty four hours, and possibly as many as thirteen thousand over the course of the next six weeks. The government of Charles lost control of the island - and the War of the Sicilian Vespers was underway.

The Chronica of the Catalan mercenary Ramon Muntaner (d.1336) recounts the rebellion of the peoples of Sicily wherein he notes that "... all Sicily rebelled against King Charles and they killed all the Frenchmen they could find ..". Although a contemporary of the times, he too ascribes no one single person as the catalyst for the events whose "... efficiency and ruthlessness frightened monarchs far beyond Naples and Rome ..." according to renowned author Louis Mendola.

Instead Treviso, in this fictional account, has given the rebellion a voice and a focal point - a woman - as most accounts lay the reasons for the massacre of the French firmly in the camp of outrages committed against a woman or women leaving Church during the holy week of Easter. The continuance of the initial rebellion, however, has since been credited to one Alaimo da Lentini, a former supporter of the Angevan presence in Sicily and now ally of the Aragonese.

Treviso begins by recounting Siciliana's beginnings and thus the events that led her to champion the people and led the rebellion. This was no easy task - and there was much opposition to the rebels, including from the Sicilian nobility and the Church, whose current favoured position was under threat. Once we return to 1282, the countdown to the Vespers begins in earnest as we go behind the scenes to various places and locales within the city of Palermo, watching and waiting as the tinderbox is about to be lit.

Treviso provides an engaging and at times, fraught narrative, as the players on the chessboard are being slowly and carefully positioned for the impending finale.

As an avid student of Sicilian history, I welcomed this fictional account of one of many a major turning point the history of this island nation.

Review: The Hiding Place by Simon Lelic

Synopsis: Four Friends. One Murder. A Game They Can't Escape.

'It was only a game.' ~ Until a boy went missing.
'No one was meant to get hurt.' ~ But a body has been found.
'Just some innocent fun.' ~ Except one of them is a killer.
Ready or not, here I come.  It's time to play hide and seek again.

I actually read this in one sitting in December 2021 - so obviously I was held fast in its grip. The Hiding Place follows on strongly from The Search Party, though this can be read as a stand-alone.

A dying boy prays to God that no-one will find him - but they did - 22 years later. Can Fleet and Collins solve this cold case, thrust upon them with no anticipation of it ever being solved. But solve it they do, bringing the secrets of a posh school out in the open as they seek redemption for the child.

Brilliant narrative, alternating between the current investigation and the boy's last days.  Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which at first seem to fit but then don't as they will be found to fit somewhere else.

Lelic's tenth book and my second from him - both being fabulous reads.

How To Keep Your Readers Coming Back for More

From Joanna Schaffhausen on CrimeReads:

Cracking open a new book in a detective series is like reuniting with old friends. If you want a protagonist who endures, give them plenty of problems both inside and out, a distinct life perspective and a specific geographic locale, a thirst for answers, and some entertaining (possibly furry!) sidekicks.

Joanna Schaffhausen takes the reader / writer through five essential character traits for your detective to keep readers turning pages long past book one.

read more here @ CrimeReads

30 Essential Crime Reads Written by Women in the Last 100 Years

A post by Emily Temple for CrimeReads:

Undisputed Queen of Crime Agatha Christie died on this day [12th Jan] in 1976. Crime fiction is a genre that has traditionally been dominated by men — but on the other hand, Christie is the best-selling author of all time, so that should tell you something. In honor of her life (and her prolific publishing career) I’ve picked out a few great crime novels written by women from each of the last ten decades. Now, of course, there are more than three crime novels from each decade that you should read (and probably more than three novels in every genre that you should read), but one has to stop somewhere, so add your own recommendations with abandon. 

NB: This is not a definitive list by any means; genre is necessarily a bit fluid here, privilege has gone to important, groundbreaking or otherwise historically notable works where I’ve noted them, but taste has, as ever, played a factor.

read the list of books here @ CrimeReads

Review: The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Synopsis: The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their fellow castmates rally to raise the money to give her a chance at survival.

But not everybody is convinced of the experimental treatment’s efficacy—nor of the good intentions of those involved. As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head at the explosive dress rehearsal. The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to the trial, two young lawyers sift through the material—emails, messages, letters—with a growing suspicion that a killer may be hiding in plain sight. The evidence is all there, between the lines, waiting to be uncovered.

Interesting take on an investigation into murder using an email / text based narrative to drive the storyline. Once you get into the rhythm, you find yourself drawn into the private conversations between the various cliques within and surround the acting troupe before various scenarios are worked through to discover the final truth.

Very solid debut novel.

Review: Anatomy of a Heretic by David Mark

Synopsis: Two assassins go head-to-head on the open seas in this gripping new historical adventure from Sunday Times bestselling author David Mark.

London, 1628: Nicolaes de Pelgrom, assassin and devoted servant of George Villiers, will do whatever his master asks of him – even if that means enduring the perilous voyage to the Indies to exact a grieving widow's revenge.

Making that same journey is Jeronimus Cornelisz, a conniving apothecary determined to escape the backstreets of Amsterdam and become rich beyond imagination. Hired by a criminal mastermind to escort precious cargo to the Indies, he will kill anyone who stands in his way.

When these assassins clash, so too do their missions. One cannot succeed without killing the other. In this deadly game, who will triumph and who will die? And are they even the only players?

"London," observes George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is "... a great midden filled with the shit and piss of liars, cowards and self-serving malcontents..."

And it is into this squalor and filth that we find Nicolaes de Pelgrom, sitting in a cell in the notorious Marshalsea Prison, lamenting the loss of one Dr Lambe, whom he had been unable to protect from being torn to pieces by an angry and violent mob. Although most Marshalsea prisoners were debtors, the prison was second in importance only to the Tower of London; and from the 14th century onwards, it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition .

However Nicolaes is no ordinary prisoner - he is not only a ward and servant of the Duke of Buckingham, but also his spy and assassin; an orphan raised up from humble beginnings in Holland and educated by the Duke, who took him into his household. Service to the Duke comes at a price - Nicolaes must don the disguise of a Dutch sailor - Wiebbe Hayes - and find a place aboard the Batavia, a ship bound for the East Indies. There he will perform the role of assassin for a grieving widow - Mariam Towerson - by hunting down those responsible for the execution of her husband, Gabriel, a merchant of the English East India Company, at Amboyna (1623).

But it is not all smooth sailing, for there is one among the crew and passengers that will create an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. This is the apothecary, Jeronimus Cornelisz, who is described as pinched face, with fishscale skin; he is willowy, pale and malignant. A religious fanatic with a god-complex and member of a secret brotherhood, Cornelisz too must flee, and he seeks a place on the Batavia, ostensibly to guard a treasure, but with the idea of providing for himself a new life with new found riches. With an almost pathological need to be revered, Cornelisz uses his subtle influence on members of the crew to aid in the fulfillment of his plans. Cornelisz is not a random character plucked from their air - he is a real person, who life is explored and brought to life again throughout the pages of this book.

Other, real-life historical characters that have found their way into the narrative include Commander Francisco Pelsaert, a veteran of the Dutch East India Company and who left us with a journal of his days aboard "The Batavia".  Then there was the Skipper and Second-in-Command, Ariaen Jaconbz, whom it was speculated knew Pelsaert previously and that there was some animosity between the two men. Then there is our additional narrator, Lucretia Jansdochter, who was a passenger aboard the ship, and whose letters to her husband, provide additional context and supplement the alternating narrative of the main protagonists.

Author David Mark makes ample use of the "good versus evil" scenario between the main characters of Nicolaes and Jeronimus, which only serves to amplify the ever increasing tension that exists on the already claustrophobic environment that is "The Batavia". 

Sea travel during the 1600s was long and often unpleasant, conditions aboard were cramped and seasickness was rife. The journey itself, from the Netherlands to Java, was expected to take some one hundred and seventy days - nearly half a year!. Whatever fresh food stock on board was eaten first as this would turn rancid if left for long. A sailor of the early 17th century could expect cramped conditions, disease, poor food and pay, and bad weather. The ship's officers kept strict discipline on board, flogging was the most common form of punishment.  Sailors slept wherever they could find a vacant place on decks or cargo.  Cabins and bunks were provided for officers, but sailors often slept on the deck in the bow, or below in bad weather.  Passengers too had to ensure the same conditions as the crew, with the lucky few possibly have a cabin, oft times shared with others - the expectation of privacy was non-existent.

The cramped and miserable conditions, and rigorous and brutal punishments metered out to the crew were a breeding ground for discontent, which often led to outright mutiny. Many noted captains - from Bligh to Magellan to Hudson to Pigot - faced a mutinous crew on their voyages of either discovery or warfare.

And thus it was that on 4th of June, 1629, a flagship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the Batavia, was wrecked upon Morning Reef on its maiden voyage, near Beacon Island, a rocky outcrop in the northern part of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, around 37 miles (60 kilometers) off the coast of Western Australian.

State Library of NSW
Ongeluckige voyagie, 1645, by Francisco Pelsaert

What followed was a gruesome story of mass murder, torture, and rape. In all, some 115 people died following the shipwreck, many of whom were murdered violently. Beacon Island now bears the nickname “Batavia’s Graveyard” or “Murder Island.”

For those interested in reading more about the history of "The Batavia", see below:

State Library of New South Wales - Murder & Mutiny

Western Australian Museum - Batavia's History

The History Collection - The Shipwreck of The Batavia

National Museum Australia - The Wreck of The Batavia

Australian Maritime Museum - Barbarism & Brutality

ABC News (Australia) - Batavia Shipwreck

National Geographic - Batavia Graveyard

The Monthly - Bring Up The Bodies

SBS (Australia) - Batavia Revealed: Shipwreck Psycho

Australian Government (Heritage) - Batavia Shipwreck Site

Further reading:

Batavia - Peter FitzSimons

The Wreck of The Batavia - Simon Leyes

Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash

The VERY raunchy history of sex in the Middle Ages is revealed in a new book

From The Daily Mail:

From monks thought to have died from a lack of sex, to priests conjuring demons to lure women into bed, a new book offers fascinating glimpses into the history of sex in the Middle Ages.

Katherine Harvey's illuminating novel The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages offers a peak into the bedrooms of ordinary mediaeval men and women living in western Europe.

Harvey is a London-based historian and author specialising in the medieval period and Honorary Research Fellow specialising in history, classics and archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London.

The book explains how the majority of ideas and attitudes towards sex and relationships were rooted in two dominant belief systems: Roman Catholic Christianity and Galenic medicine.

From women trying to reduce their breasts to look more virginal to drinking wine mixed with powdered hare testicles in a bid to conceive a son, the book reveals many astonishing practices.

As well as some surprises, like an emphasis on female pleasure when it came to reproduction, there are shocking anecdotes of brutal punishments for behaviour deemed immoral during the period.

read more here @ Daily Mail.

The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele & David Perry

A lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, showing the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality—a brilliant reflection of humanity itself.

The word “medieval” conjures images of the “Dark Ages”—centuries of ignorance, superstition, stasis, savagery, and poor hygiene. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors.

The Bright Ages takes us through ten centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them. We look with fresh eyes on the Fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the multi-religious experience of Iberia, the rise of Byzantium, and the genius of Hildegard and the power of queens. We begin under a blanket of golden stars constructed by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine, and Christian bloodlines and end nearly 1,000 years later with the poet Dante—inspired by that same twinkling celestial canopy—writing an epic saga of heaven and hell that endures as a masterpiece of literature today. 

The Bright Ages reminds us just how permeable our manmade borders have always been and of what possible worlds the past has always made available to us. The Middle Ages may have been a world “lit only by fire” but it was one whose torches illuminated the magnificent rose windows of cathedrals, even as they stoked the pyres of accused heretics.

see also: Slate - Why our fantasy of a dark and bloody Middle Ages is so hard to shake.

Big Trouble in the “93”: Olivier Norek’s Banlieue Trilogy

From CrimeReads:

Welcome to the Paris of Olivier Norek, former French cop for eighteen years who reached the rank of Capitaine in one of Paris’s toughest banlieues (technically ‘suburbs’, but invariably indicating tough housing projects on the outskirts of major French cities). Norek has now turned crime writer but he’s still inhabiting those dark streets and criminal worlds.

In Norek’s novels Seine-Saint-Denis police are an insignificant satellite operation looked down upon, if indeed ever noticed, by the mighty Brigade Criminelle bedded down in central Paris at the Quai des Orfèvres, HQ of the Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire de la Préfecture de Police de Paris (DRPJ Paris). Its legion of “grands fromages” make decisions from on-high that create tensions and anger in the tower blocks. Political and social engineering decisions that mean life, death, budget cuts, or hassle for those who actually have to police Seine-Saint-Denis. And so, say bonjour to SDPJ.93 Groupe Crime 1.

read more here @ CrimeReads

see also my review of Norek's The Lost & The Damned