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Searching... Silver Falls Library | MYS ELLIS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
In an intriguing blend of history and detection, the author of The Merchant's House now pens the story of two strangers in a strange land who have died 400 years apart. Could the same motives of hatred, jealousy, and revenge be at work?
Author Notes
Kate Ellis was born and brought up in Liverpool and studied drama in Manchester. She has worked in teaching, marketing, and accountancy and first enjoyed literary success as a winner of the North West Playwrights competition. Keenly interested in medieval history and "armchair" archaeology, Kate lives in North Cheshire with her husband and two young sons. The Armada Boy is her second novel.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
When American WWII veteran Norman Openheim gets stabbed to death while visiting a ruined chapel late one night outside Bereton, England, Det. Sergeant Wesley Peterson has no lack of leads in this absorbing police procedural. First on the suspect list is Norman's wife, Dorinda. It's no secret that she's been having an affair with another man among the group of U.S. army veterans and their wives who've traveled to the south coast of England for a reunion. Norman himself, it turns out, left behind a pregnant girlfriend and possibly some resentment in 1944. As Peterson and his colleagues delve ever deeper into the past, they learn that another reunion group member, Litton Boratski, was accused of raping a local girl, but U.S. authorities squelched the investigation shortly before D-Day. And what is the truth behind the tale of an American soldier shooting dead an Englishman caught rabbit-hunting in an off-limits area? Guidebook extracts that head each chapter give the sad history of shipwreck survivors from the Spanish Armada, who formed another kind of invading army in 1588. The murder of a young Spanish sailor, buried in the Bereton chapel, tragically parallels criminal events centuries later. Though this is only her second novel (after Wesley Peterson's debut in The Merchant's House), Ellis unfolds an intricate yarn of misdirected revenge with all the assurance of a seasoned veteran of the genre. (July) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
When American WWII veteran Norman Openheim gets stabbed to death while visiting a ruined chapel late one night outside Bereton, England, Det. Sergeant Wesley Peterson has no lack of leads in this absorbing police procedural. First on the suspect list is Norman's wife, Dorinda. It's no secret that she's been having an affair with another man among the group of U.S. army veterans and their wives who've traveled to the south coast of England for a reunion. Norman himself, it turns out, left behind a pregnant girlfriend and possibly some resentment in 1944. As Peterson and his colleagues delve ever deeper into the past, they learn that another reunion group member, Litton Boratski, was accused of raping a local girl, but U.S. authorities squelched the investigation shortly before D-Day. And what is the truth behind the tale of an American soldier shooting dead an Englishman caught rabbit-hunting in an off-limits area? Guidebook extracts that head each chapter give the sad history of shipwreck survivors from the Spanish Armada, who formed another kind of invading army in 1588. The murder of a young Spanish sailor, buried in the Bereton chapel, tragically parallels criminal events centuries later. Though this is only her second novel (after Wesley Peterson's debut in The Merchant's House), Ellis unfolds an intricate yarn of misdirected revenge with all the assurance of a seasoned veteran of the genre. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson, amateur archaeologist, finds that his interest in the past isn't simply academic. A recently murdered American named Norman Oppenheim turns up at a dig in the seaside town of Bereton. Oppenheim belongs to a group of WWII veterans visiting for a reunion. In 1944, Bereton was evacuated so American troops could rehearse D-Day landings. Local feeling ran high against the forced evacuation and subsequent destruction, aggravated by the fact that the local girls dated handsome GIs. Though a letter from his local former sweetheart is found in Oppenheim's hotel room, his wife doesn't seem to mind. But then Peterson's colleague discovers a rape charge filed on the eve of D-Day. Has someone been nursing vengeance for 50 years? Or maybe 500 years? In an even deeper plumbing of the past, archeologists discover graves of murdered sailors from the wrecked Spanish Armada, one young Spaniard buried, most unusually, inside the church. Meantime, a trio of juvenile delinquents skulk around present-day Bereton led by a skinhead named Rat brandishing a knife, perhaps the one used to stab Oppenheim. Rat grew up in Bereton and says he wants to see his eccentric grandmother, but his aunt won't let him. What to do? The cops, with little help from the passive Peterson (The Merchant's House, not reviewed), untangle all the Bereton crimes, recent and historic; Peterson's wife has a baby; and the Americans go home. Ellis's writing isn't up to her ambitious triple plot, but she writes with a nice sympathy for ordinary people caught up in the forces of history. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
During a reunion of American D-Day veterans on the southern English coast, a man is murdered in a church dating from the time of the Spanish Armada. As Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson investigates, the mystery shifts from the veterans to the villagers and to events of 50 years earlier; a tip from a psychic and an archaeologist's discovery push the mystery back to the armada itself. This second Wesley Peterson mystery is pleasantly paced, has appealing and realistic characters, makes good use of its vivid setting on the English coast, and offers a puzzle that's nearly impossible to solve. Ellis capably weaves together English history (from Henry VIII to World War II), archaeological and police procedures, a sometimes misty and eerie atmosphere, and the social dynamics of small villages. Recommend this one to those who enjoy mysteries with an archaeological angle--Beverly Connors' Lindsay Chamberlain series, for example. --John Rowen
Library Journal Review
Searching for relics from an Armada wreck rumored to be in a ruined English chapel, archaeologist Neil Watson instead discovers the body of an American veteran. He then calls upon detective friend Wes Peterson. A riveting follow-up to The Merchant!s House. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.