Susie Helme

Award-winning novelist and editorial consultant

Tag: mystery

  • Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Mistress of History

    Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Mistress of History

    Jonathan Orr-Stav, Sherlock Holmes and the Mistress of History, ‎(Qualum Publishing, 2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8993056490

    A Canaanite gift to the goddess changes history – elementary

    Holmes is back from researching an ancient ‘proto-Canaanite’ inscription – in the Holy Land. A Semitic script, yet why was it written left to right? He invites Watson to return with him for archaeology and adventure on a trek down the Sinai. Watson’s Aghan experience comes in handy.

    The slow-paced caravan (18 camels, an interpreter, a cook, 2 Bedouin guides and 3 armed guards) takes them to the Wadi Mukattab (Valley of Inscriptions), thence to Serabit el-Khadem. There reigned the goddess Hathor, Mistress of Turquoise, her treasures mined in antiquity by Canaanite slaves.

    When they find the requisite inscription at the turquoise mine, Holmes does something mysterious, and I wondered why Watson didn’t wonder why. As reader, I realised he was saving it for a Big Reveal back in London, but he should have said so to Watson, who travelled all that way with him for just this mysterious information. Holmes saves the Reveal for Profs Flinders Petrie and Alan Gardiner themselves. Naturally, the brilliant Holmes solves a question that had stumped the famed Egyptologists, and in doing so, shatters prevailing shibboleths of Egyptian archaeology.

    Sherlock copycats benefit from a fully formed protagonist. Holmes and Watson are just as you would want them to be. Only, the banter is slightly more humorous than has been traditional. The writing style is just a bit antique, which I like, as it’s supposed to be penned by Watson in 1911.

    The Setting is deliciously Edwardian – Egyptomania, steam-powered passenger liners with smoking lounges, Art Deco hotels, ancient tombs deep in the desert, Ottoman soldiers, ‘Zionist Hebrews’, and frequent exclamations of ‘Good Lord!’ peppered with ‘old chap’s, not to mention a few ‘the game’s afoot’s.

    I loved the weaving together of the Sherlock Holmes tradition and the period-specificity of Egyptian archaeology. The author’s hunches regarding ancient Egyptian/Israelite history tally with my own. We’ve all been wrong about Exodus.

  • Review: The Star of Alignment

    Review: The Star of Alignment

    Jeffrey Michael Garcia,The Star of Alignment, (2026)

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit/247849859

    A metaphysical battle inside a pyramid realigns Daniel’s soul (and the world)

    Daniel is in front of his screens, monitoring his stock portfolio. Acting on impulse, he executes a sale. The  numbers are strange, too precise, as if some market mechanism were pushing him, something ‘parasitic’.

    He flies to London to visit his sister. A man on the plane named Elijah talks to him about the Pyramid, the ‘patterns encoded in the structure’. A dig in the Giza Plateau has uncovered a hidden chamber.

    Elijah meets them for dinner and propounds the four layers of Biblical exegesis—literal, hinted, symbolic and ‘inner meaning’, teachings designed ‘to survive the collapse of civilisations’. Genesis wasn’t a myth; it was a ‘compression algorithm’.

    He books a flight to Cairo. Elijah advises him to ‘pay attention’. There, painted on a wall, is that same number sequence, as if it had followed him.

    Of course, there’s a cryptic sage (an archaeologist) who explains ancient mysteries to Daniel. The chapters on his musings before his arrival in Cairo are too long. And of course, we have a Bedouin prophecy.

    The baddies only surface halfway through the book, and the action heats up about ¾ of the way through. I was looking for it to be a thriller, but Daniel’s journey is more metaphysical than physical. His challenge is not so much to thwart the baddies as it is to transform himself.

    The writing is beautiful, unclichéd. Deep inside the Great Pyramid, you find yourself imagining the dawn of creation, Before the Flood, when all God’s plans for the world were in alignment.

    I loved the parallels between market trading and metaphysics, the way Daniel used his market trader skills to negotiate the metaphysical challenges of the pyramid underworld.

    This rehearses the occult conspiracy theories to which I was so attracted as a teenager—Orion’s Belt, The Seven Sages, freaky gravity effects, pyramids as power generators, prisms and stones that sing occult harmonics, the capstone beacon of an ancient worldwide energy source, megaliths, secret codes in Genesis, supernatural frequencies, Nephilim, ley lines—and they work great in a novel. Daniel’s challenge is both physical and metaphysical. The metaphysical concepts are fascinating and beautifully written.

  • Review: Murder in Purple and Gold

    Review: Murder in Purple and Gold

    Lindsey Davis, Murder in Purple and Gold, (Hodder and Stoughton, 2026)

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8962855285

    Indomitable Roman lady detective triumphs again

    Floralia (April) 90 CE. Roman lady detective Flavia Albia stumbles upon a corpse near the Circus Maximus and enters the glamorous and competitive world of chariot-racing.

    The victim is Lepo, young star charioteer of the Purples, and suspicion falls upon his rival on the Golds, Agathon. The two have raced against each other 32 times, and their feud is legendary. The Golds hire Albia to clear their man’s name.

    The emperor funds both teams, and Domitian sees any trouble in the racing world as beiing directed at him. Rivalry between the six factions (including Red, Blue, Green, White) permeates every corner of the city. Big prize money is won in the races, and big gambling money is riding on them, too.

    Various members of Albia’s extended family and informants help her with clues, plus staff of the chariot teams and stables. Both Lepo and his elder brother Alceius had trained with their father Pedanius. At the Robigalia games, there was a false start, leading to a disqualification of the Blue team. Could be sabotage? Like all murder mysteries, she finds out things in bars. It climaxes, excitingly, with a chariot race.

    Albia is the narrator; her Voice is colloquial, and it is quite humorous. I especially loved the little comments, both funny and revealing, on people’s character. Eg ‘I was now certain that Licinius Ierenus beat his slaves… carefully, so no marks showed.’

    I love that besides her career as a detective, Albia is a Domina with two small children (adopted), a husband, and a household of servants to berate. There have been umpteen books in the series, and backstory is handled charmingly, as if allowing readers intimacies. The writing is full of great phrases (e.g. ‘Porcius flung his hair around in another negative’). It’s full of energy and delicious cultural detail.

    This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.

  • Review: Seven Rivers: The Darkness

    Review: Seven Rivers: The Darkness

    B. Luiciano Barsuglia, Seven Rivers: The Darkness (Koa Aloha Media 2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235105617-seven-rivers

    A supernatural journey of redemption

    Cora and Gabe are fighting. She has a baseball bat; he has a gun.

    It ends badly in a devastating car accident, and she ends up at the Seven Rivers Recovery Clinic in bandages. But this is no pristine hospital, no wholesome rehab facility. It starts with the tea–they’re giving her some kind of hallucinogen–then the pain and the terror, the savage bandage changes. The place operates according to an unfamiliar set of rules, which Cora now has to work out. The other residents aren’t welcoming, either. But at least they seem to know why they are there.

    ‘Some are here for recovery; others for redemption. Why are you here?’ Lady asks.

    ‘I’m hiding out, I guess,’ says Cora.

    I liked the parallels between pain and terror, but the horror begins too soon. We need to build up to it. And there’s too little action. We start hearing about ‘the ragged pulse of her fear’ before we even see anything to be afraid of. There’s no explanation as to why she’s ended up in this place and no explanation as to why Gabe is threatening her life.

    The chapter headings read like a ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’–Integrity, Acceptance, Humility. Cora is on a journey of self-discovery and redemption about which we get no clues until page 109. She witnesses horrors. Ex-robbers in a heist gone wrong. Each room, each interaction with the other guests confronts her with the consequences of her guilty past.

    A few too many clichés for me, coupled with some phrases we don’t really know the meaning of–‘an unease that lingered like a shadow’. I liked ‘tremors that shook her very atoms’.

    I liked the Concept–a surreal environment (Purgatory?) forcing someone to accept the consequences of their past behaviour, but Cora’s psychology doesn’t really come through. The unexplainedness contributes a surreal, spooky Kafka-esque atmosphere, yet I didn’t get the sense that Cora was trying to figure it out, which was frustrating. We can’t empathise with Cora’s suffering if we don’t understand why.

    In the end, she confronts the fear of death, something I don’t see treated in many novels, surprising considering that it’s probably the biggest fear humans face.

  • Review: Detectives Roy & Roscoe Mysteries Books 1–7

    Review: Detectives Roy & Roscoe Mysteries Books 1–7

    Tony Bassett, Detectives Roy & Roscoe Mysteries Books 1–7 (The Book Folks Crime thriller and mystery 2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243115585-detectives-roy-roscoe-mysteries-books-1-7

    Absolutely perfect crime novels

    I congratulate Bassett on the publication of this compendium. I am a fan of his crime fiction and have read and reviewed several of the books in this collection.

    His writing is excellent, his characters colourful, and his plots are always exciting.

    What I like most about Bassett’s novels is the (what seems to me to be) realistic police procedures, the great characters and the great plots. The working lives of the characters are portrayed realistically. Bassett’s policemen have believably cop-like dialogue and avoid clichés (donuts, etc). We never lose sight of the people while the plot is gathering facts. The large cast of coppers and suspects all have inter-connecting stories, and we see fascinating peeks inside the suspects’ private lives.

    Bassett is a master of suspense. We find out the clues at the same time the detectives find them, meaning that the pacing is comfortable, slowly developing, then a rush of drama. As in real life, some of the leads don’t pan out, which gives it a true-to-real-life feel. Not everything is done by our heroine; also as in real life, there are multiple officers involved.

    We’re never given too much all at once, and usually about three-fourths into the story, just when it’s getting almost too complicated to follow, we are given a summary of the suspects, clues and alibis through the mouths of the police in a team operational briefing. So, we never have to think, ‘hang on, what was that clue back on page 23?’ Bassett is skilled at weaving necessary backstory into the dialogue. You probably get enough clues to solve the crime yourself, although I usually don’t.

    I like that his main detective, Sunita Roy, is of non-Anglo heritage, making her a little bit out of ordinary from what we’re used to. She’s an interesting woman as well as police detective. Though she’s not full of herself, she has a keen mind, and when cracks the case, it’s usually because she has done a bit of lateral thinking that her bosses haven’t considered. The crime is always solved in some innovative way.

  • Review: The Better Angels

    Review: The Better Angels

    Robin Holloway, The Better Angels (Holand Press 2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8009771617

    The invasion of St. Helena Island in South Carolina by the Union forces drives away the white planters, leaving the ex-slaves considered ‘contrabands of war’, neither free nor slave.

    Northern white abolitionists like Laura Towne build a school to educate the children.

    While initially flabbergasted by the differentness of the culture and frustrated by their subservience, Laura spends her whole life loving and working in the good interests of ‘her people’.

    The ‘Port Royal Experiment’ is sincerely dedicated to bettering the lives of the ex-slaves, but there is debate on how to go about it. Some think the most important thing is to return the cotton fields to productivity and integrate the ex-slaves into the capitalist system. Laura loves and respects them, but fears for their vulnerability in the new world. Jupiter, the elegant black carriage driver, believes the blacks must fight for their freedoms.

    The first year’s cotton crop is not good, so they are ‘forced’ to list the plantations for sale. Mr Philbrick is trusted to make the initial investment, promising to offer plots to the freedmen ‘when it is possible’, but ‘possible’ keeps getting delayed. Will they get their ‘40 acres and a mule’ as promised? Will they get the vote?

    The structure is a mixture of diary entries, letters and exposition. Some of the exposition seems to be in the POV of Jupiter, but this is not clear. A very worthy subject, but as a novel, I found myself wanting a love story or some drama, or some slight fault in Laura’s angelic character.

    This is all about the psychology of oppression and the complexity of relationships when love is mixed with exploitation. It is also about angels. Fortunately, there are people on this earth and in history who dedicate their lives to making the world a better place.

    This review first appeared in Historical Novels Review.

  • Review: The Midnight Frequency

    Review: The Midnight Frequency

    Vicki Regan, The Midnight Frequency (2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231121146-the-midnight-frequency

    Time-travelling adventure to save the world, again and again

    Radio host Sarah Collins asks her late night audience to phone in with their ‘weirdest experiences’. Then, she has the weirdest experience of her life. She picks up a caller claiming to be a time traveller speaking from 2045 with a chilling prediction about Flight 2409. The prediction proves true, and Sarah receives more warning calls. The next one warns, ‘they’re coming for you.’

    As subsequent events prove the predictions her mysterious caller warns of, Sarah finds herself in danger from federal agents and from shadowy corporate bad guys who are trying to manipulate time for who knows what reason.

    She meets an ally, Dr Eleanor Hastings, an expert on ‘temporal anomalies’, and the two embark on a frantic mission to prevent the disasters their time traveller predicts. ‘Why me?’ Sarah wonders. Eleanor explains that her voice over the airwaves is ‘an anchor point across timelines’.

    Each time a disaster threatens, Eleanor says, ‘Let’s go save the world, again’. When they do, Sarah’s caller tells her she’s changed the timeline, ‘the future is now uncertain.’

    Timey-wimey conundrums ensue. In different timelines, different realities exist. Sarah’s mentor from the future tells her, time manipulation means ‘never being certain which version of reality you’re experiencing’.

    It’s tremendously exciting; by Chapter 2 Sarah is already running for her life and facing global destruction. The mechanics of the time traveling are more or less satisfactorily explained, though we never quite find out why the bad guys are doing this.

    The ending is quite cute, and does have a bit of finality, yet it’s open-ended enough to make you want to read Book 2.

    This novella is Book 1 in The Midnight Frequency Series.

  • Review: Among the Okapi

    Review: Among the Okapi

    John S Taylor, Among the Okapi (FriesenPress 2023)

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152204115-among-the-okapi

    Memories of Africa cause ramifications for everyone back home

    The last students have left Anatomy class at Waverly College in Toronto where Fred is lab demonstrator. He’s determined to ask his head of department Dr Smith for a pay rise. An affair with the landlady Inge has not saved him from paying rent, but his mind is on a student from his hometown of Darby whom he remembered from high school, Esther.

    John Lyon is studying the sales figures of his lager-brewing company. A phone call promises that his son Jason will come home to visit. Wife Daphne is out at a meeting with the arts committee. Esther, their niece, orphaned at age 10, is staying there for a while. The two cousins have never met.

    Dr Smith commissions Fred to edit the study he did in Africa on the okapi. Esther, a vegetarian, wants to be excused from dissecting white rats. Dr Smith thinks she look familiar. Fred and Esther bond during a spot of undercover activity.

    Chapter 5, we break to quoting every other chapter from Dr Smith’s African journal—his tale of the okapi and of Alice. Every other chapter, however, goes back to the present-time narrative, so we don’t break the continuity.

    Dr Smith seems obsessed with a Mark Van Dusen, someone from the Africa days.

    These two sets of characters revolve around each other. Jason finally tells Dr Smith, ‘every time there’s been a serious problem in my family, it’s somehow connected to you.’

    The characters are all very well developed, and their histories intersect in interesting, complex ways. I would have liked a bit more enlightenment earlier on concerning Van Dusen. When we finally learn, it’s suitably astonishing, with misunderstandings all around.

    A very well written story.

  • Review: Dread: An Appalachian Horror Tale

    Review: Dread: An Appalachian Horror Tale

    David Grayson, Dread: An Appalachian Horror Tale (2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44288015-dread?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=gKTPYT6mDr&rank=1

    Something is stirring in the woods

    Ed awakes to deranged screams outside his cell in the Sanatorium. Fortunately his lunatic cellmate Joseph is still asleep. Ed remembers a different kind of torture in Fallujah.

    The first few paragraphs describe Ed’s life in the Sanatorium, but the Opening features interchanges between Joseph and other patients, making it more personal and more compelling.

    On page 16, we get the first hint of some horror, the mention of ‘lights in the woods’. The suspense builds from there. First, the monthly supplies of food and medicine didn’t arrive. The truck is discovered empty, the driver missing. The guards are behaving strangely. A series of events begins, which might otherwise be just normal glitches in the daily routine. But they build. Meanwhile, Ed flashes back to Fallujah.

    I was rather annoyed that the bad guys were never explained. Were they zombies? Why were they attacking the Sanatorium?

    Otherwise, this is an easy-to-digest novella, a lovely bit of horror just before bedtime.

  • Review: The Watchers

    Review: The Watchers

    V. M. Andrews, The Watchers: A Story of First Contact (2025)

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7984314563

    A spooky, metaphysical portrayal of First Contact

    I chose this book because I found interesting the treatment of First Contact from the ET’s point of view.

    This poses a problem, though. Sci-fi necessitates a world-building before we can suspend disbelief. Here, the aliens are the status quo; they have no need to explain themselves. So, we are left with descriptions of how the Earth looks to them and aphorisms such as ‘We arrive as we have always arrived’ before we really understand what’s going on. This allows for some beautiful, dream-like writing, yet makes for a vague, rather confusing Opening. And it continues.

    I like the idea of the alien invasion as, not a single noteworthy event, but rather something gradual, a ‘continuity threaded through their myths’. The Watchers are ‘gardeners, archivists, architects of memory’.

    It’s not really a novel or novella, more like a poem. The language is absolutely beautiful, and metaphysically, it introduces some fascinating concepts, but I found the absence of storyline exhausting.

    There an outcry in the publishing industry over the use of AI. Intriguingly, this author admits to using it, not to ‘replace’ her creativity but as ‘a part of’ it. So far, I’m of that opinion myself.

    Each chapter features a beautiful spooky-looking colour illustration.