Too much historical fiction relies on the tragedy of history’s grand sweep overwhelming little lives. Instead, Robert Goddard flips the switch and subordinates historical events to the fates of his protagonists in Long Time Coming. Governments and armies may determine history; but Goddard keeps firmly in our minds that it is individuals who suffer and occasionally even survive it. Humphrey Bogart’s famously ironic “hill of beans” line in Casablanca comes to mind. Goddard’s heroes and villains in Long Time Coming may not be quite as colorful in their parting shots, but they are every bit as compelling.

In this case, the war is World War II, the place London (and later, Antwerp), the time shifting between 1940 and 1976. Two disturbing historical facts set the scene: First, Ireland remained stubbornly neutral during the war; and second, in the years leading up to the war, a handful of Belgian merchants—mainly Jewish—made a killing (the wording is, alas, all too accurate) from the brutal diamond mines in the Congo. The historical data in question would be easy fodder for (respectively) anti-Irish sentiment and anti-Semitism, as they are at certain points in this novel. But the author refuses to make his complex case pliable to any straightforward ethical assessment. Goddard cares only for how this particular person experiences this crisis and is transformed or destroyed by it, according to character and luck.

The Englishman Eldritch Swan—long thought dead—spent 36 years in an Irish prison. Now he and his nephew Stephen must find proof that a set of Picassos was forged. Why is this eccentric undertaking so crucial? How do private passions give meaning to the enormities of history? Shakespeare knew the answer. So did Dickens and Conrad. Now the knowledge has passed to fearless weavers of intimate histories like Robert Goddard. 

“But Flavia can’t be dead!” this reviewer thought as she read the first page of Alan Bradley’s latest novel starring the 11-year-old sleuth-cum-toxicologist, Flavia de Luce. Further reading reveals that of course she’s not dead, but only pretending to be. Like any other lonely and somewhat neglected child, Flavia wonders what her hateful sisters and distracted, widowed father would make of her death. Her conclusion: not much.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag picks up where 2009’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pieleft off, and like the first book, this one mines the vein of human sadness that exists alongside the fun and skullduggery. Along with Flavia’s isolation—she may not be the only living child in Bishop’s Lacey, but it feels like she is—Bradley’s far-reaching examination of the consequences of terrible grief and guilt add depth and poignancy to the book.

As Flavia lies in the cemetery contemplating her own demise, she hears weeping and goes to find a woman, Nialla, stretched out on a nearby grave. She turns out to be the assistant of Rupert Porson, a famous puppet master. He’s also a brute, especially to his many lovers, of whom Nialla is the latest. Soon there’s a murder at one of the puppet shows Porson puts on for the town, and Flavia goes to work, armed only with her chemistry set, her beat-up old bicycle and her preternatural intelligence.

It’s almost as if the Flavia books are the reminiscences of an eccentric pensioner, for it’s hard to see even a brilliant 11-year-old fully understanding all the grown-up tribulations (adultery, among other things) she encounters in the crimes she solves. But there’s also humor, as when Flavia injects a box of chocolates with swamp gas to show up her sister, or in the amazement of the town police when they find—again!—that she’s one step ahead of them. It’s both the humor and the pathos that keep Flavia from being annoying and unbelievable, like Charles Wallace Murry, the smugly infallible boy genius from Madeleine L’Engle’s classic, A Wrinkle in Time.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, for all its tragedy, is still a delight from the inimitable Alan Bradley.

Arlene McKanic writes from Jamaica, New York.

Call me Rusty.

BookPage (or rather, a certain BookPage writer) asked me to review the second in Spencer Quinn’s Chet and Bernie mystery series. I’d rather be a pirate (B’arrrrrrrgh!), but the book was written by Chet, a dog, and deserves the attention of the author’s peers. So, being “one of my guys,” as Chet puts it, I’m happy to lend a paw.

To begin with, this book looks good and smells good. (Chews well, too, though a little pulpy in the middle.) Chet, a dog of an unrecognizable breed, works alongside his godlike human, Bernie Little, Private Investigator. They check out a mysterious case of dognapping, involving a “tiny fluffball” named Princess. Princess came to town for the Great Western Dog Show and disappeared somewhere into the dry gulches and canyons—along with her ill-fated owner, an Italian contessa, and Suzie, Bernie’s girlfriend.

Details are sometimes hazy, but Chet is more observant than your average dog. (Present company excluded.) His soliloquies often involve taking human metaphors literally, as in pondering the connection of poles to Polish sausage.

Life is always great for Chet, as for all of us dogs, so don’t expect any noir here. But he is not unphilosophical—“whatever that is,” as he often says modestly. Dogito ergo sum (“I am a dog, therefore I am”) appears to be his ruling concept, though not in so many words, of course. I did notice that he can’t seem to bark Latin. So few dogs, ahem, can.

Any reader with a nose for nastiness may sniff out the perp early on, but the real fun is in Chet’s take on humans and their world. He’s not above expressing his amazement at the many ways in which dogs are superior (hearing, smelling, etc.). Still, he retains an unqualified love for his human, and he expresses universal truths eloquently—like the superiority of bacon chew strips over other forms of entertainment.

Great job. Good Spencer.

Rusty lives with his owner, Maude McDaniel, in Cumberland, Maryland.