Ragtag Giggagon

Author Michelle Cox has written a matter-of-fact, very useful piece at Writers' Digest, on historical fiction . One of her points speaks not to historical accuracy, but to the appearance of accuracy. The late John Yeoman sent me a fine collection of short fiction set in Tudor England a couple of years ago, and far more the expert in the era of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Webster than I could ever hope to be, his stories were replete with historical detail.  But, as I said to Dr Yeoman at the time - the idea, for instance, of a man eating Spanish oranges in London when Queen Liz the First was on the throne - had me looking to Wikipedia to peruse the history of the fruit. By the way, this (highly recommended) collection and other work featuring his detective hero can be found at his Amazon author page. But about the semblance of accuracy: In one of my own stories (set in 1906), a schoolboy called Jeremy is nicknamed Jez. Somebody said it seemed a little modern.  We do have Dick...

We prologue into the latest Blake and Avery novel by MJ Carter with a clear villain who shows a Cartesian indifference to the pain caused to non-human creatures through animal testing. Seguing into the first part of the book, through the eyes of the narrator, Avery, we are taken on a prison visit: Blake is in a Catch-22 situation, more eager to stand up to his bullying patron and stay in prison than to not risk his life among his murderous fellow inmates. Next we go to the Reform Club, a gentlemen's venue and fine-dining establishment for the progressives of the day. As dishes are sampled, one of those in attendance appears to fall prey to a similar bout of poisoning as that suffered by the dogs and rats in the opening pages. High-end cuisine at the time is the equivalent of today's molecular gastronomy; melt-in-the-mouth sensations, trompe l'oeil courses that appear to be the mains but are actually sweets, and a radical menu in keeping with the Club setting. Carter deftl...