A Time of
Fog and Fire by Rhys
Bowen
Reviewed by S. Ashley Couts
A
published writer once told me the best way to engage an audience is to create a
great character, put her in a situation and keep throwing rocks at her. That is
exactly what occurs in Rhys Bowen’s In Time of Fog and Fire. Molly Murphy Sullivan, a turn of the century former detective,
wife and young mother living in New York city is barraged with obstacles.
Following intuition and a cryptic message sent in her husband’s letter she
bundles her toddler, tucks a few necessities into a carpet bag, folds her
frocks into a steamer trunk then heads into the unknown. Will she even find her
husband who is on a secret mission for President Roosevelt?
To tell
the truth before reading this book, I was not a fan of historical fiction I
prefer contemporary works by the likes of Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich. But
Bowen hooked me right off the bat with two liberated female characters. These
two women living together, wearing manly clothing, bravely defying the norm-- Suffragists
marching for cause are portrayed as gentle, kind, literate and great, good. She
weaves in a visit with Mark Twain, takes us to the Opera where Caruso is
appearing and winds us through China town eventually dropping us into the
horror of out of control fires.
Molly is brave and yet, a bit naïve I suppose having littler knowledge
of the world beyond New York or her home across the sea. Plunked into the
middle of a disaster, she must scramble to survive. As a writer, I admired the
way Bowen wound plot and characters through real life historic events name
dropping along the way thus revealing not only attention to detail but careful
research. I was spurred to head for my computer and text books to look up the San
Francisco earth quake—a disaster that left her characters bereft of resources. And
while the subject was lush-- the opera, New York City at the turn of the
century--the Golden Gates by the sea, the harbors with ships coming and going
from the orient, the soldiers with their brass she did not go overboard with
description simply etching it deftly into the story so, I could almost feel the
snow, the pain, the salt and the moist curl of the fog as well as the loss.
In the
end, I am not sure if I’d fallen in love with historical fiction. But, I
definitely want to know more. I need to find out if Molly can solve the next crime
now that she’s just found she’s pregnant again. She how she hooked me.
*New York Times bestselling author Rhys Bowen will join the Speed City Sisters in Crime on February 25. She will speak and meet fans at a Tea from 2 p.m - 4 p.m. at the College Park Neighborhood Clubhouse, then hold a book signing at Barnes and Noble next to Keystone at the Crossing from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The public is welcome.
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