A Bridge Across the Ocean, by Susan Meissner. Berkeley, 2017

Brette Caslake can see ghosts- she calls them Drifters. This ability runs in her mother’s side of the family, and is creating a problem in her life- she is afraid to have a child, lest it be a girl who inherits the ability. She ignores the Drifters, frightened not of them but of being driven mad like a relative was. So she’s very unhappy when an old classmate calls out of the blue, asking her to use her ability to help him. His daughter, with her mother recently dead, thinks she has found the spirit of her mother. Will Brette go and see, and, hopefully, put the thought to rest?

Reluctantly, Brette agrees. The ghost is supposedly on the Queen Mary, the ship with a varied history: luxury liner; troop transport in WW 2; carrier of hundreds of European women who married Americans during the war and now need to get to America to reunite with their husband; stationary tourist attraction in Long Beach, CA. Brette goes, and discovers that the rumors are true; the ship really is haunted, by several spirits. The little girl’s mother, however, is not among them, but a nameless, formless spirit seizes on Brette and guides her to a plaque stating that a war bride committed suicide. The spirit conveys wordlessly that it wants Brette to investigate this.

There are two other story lines, of two of the war brides; they both take place during WW 2. Simone is a member of the French Resistance after her father and brother are murdered and she is brutalized. While in hiding, she cares for an American paratrooper who was shot. Katrine is British/Belgic, but is carrying a huge secret. Eventually, Simone and Katrine board the Queen Mary and share a room with Phoebe, the one person without a backstory. She serves mainly to draw out Simone and Katrine, and to lighten the mood- not everyone on board this ship has been treated as horribly as Simone and Katrine have been. As they cross the ocean, they share their stories, and Katrine’s secret comes out.

The ending, and also the identity of the spirit that Brette met on the QM, both surprised me. The story itself left something to be desired in my opinion, and I’m not sure what. I’m not horribly bothered by multiple story lines, as long as they aren’t easily confused with each other, and there was no doubting who each section was about. The sections on Katrine and Simone are heart rending. Brette did a good job of sleuthing to find out what happened on the QM, but her character wasn’t very vivid. I couldn’t quite care about her problems. Even Phoebe, who had no backstory, was a stronger character. You’d remember her if you met her; she’s the big cheerful Englishwoman with the child, a woman who wants everyone to be happy. The horror that Katrine and Simone went through keeps this book from being fluffy, even though the ghost whisperer angle skews it that way some. Three out of five stars. 

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The Devil’s Feast, by M.J. Carter. Putnam, 2017

In 1842 London, Captain William Avery finds himself inadvertently drawn into a possible murder investigation. At the end of a fantastic meal by celebrity chef Alexis Soyer at the Reform Club in the chef’s own rooms, one man sickens and dies. At first glance it looks like cholera, but a closer look at the symptoms proves it to be poison. And it turns out not to be the only incident; another death follows, and investigation turns up some possible non-lethal cases of poison before the first death.

Normally Avery’s friend Jeremiah Blake would be leading the investigation, but he’s vanished from the debtor’s prison where he was being detained. Avery worries that he doesn’t have what it takes to solve the case before more deaths occur. And he’s under the gun; in just a few days, the club will be hosting the son of the ruler of Egypt in a fantastic dinner with heavy political ramifications.

This is the third in a series of Avery and Blake mysteries.  Blake is the brainy Holmes of this detective duo; Avery is the Watson who tells the tale. And it’s a fun tale to read if you’re a foodie. Soyer was a real historical person. He was the first chef who become a celebrity; he was not only a brilliant chef, but quite an inventor of kitchen gear and an innovator; he created tools and methods that are still used today. He was a fiend for cleanliness in the kitchen, promoted the use of natural gas for cooking, and encouraged women to become chefs. He also had an oversize personality that made him the center of attention at a time when chefs were becoming stars rather than just unseen food makers. Soyer is the heart of this novel, even more than the murders are.

I loved reading this book, in large part because of Soyer and the research that went into the descriptions of the food and the way it was made. The murder investigation itself seems to take the back seat to the food, however, and I’m not sure if this is desirable in a mystery? I was fine with it, but not sure if every reader will be. There is a lot of time spent questioning everyone from meat suppliers to waiters; there is a surfeit of suspects in these crimes and it becomes a little scattered. I started having trouble remembering who was who in the kitchen. I’ve not read the first two books in this series but this seems like a fun series. 

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Neither of these things influenced my review.  

The Forbidden Garden, by Ellen Herrick. William Morrow, 2017

Sorrel is one of the Sparrow sisters, a trio (once a quartet) of preternaturally gifted women who have a connection with plants. Their nursery in New England overflows with gorgeous plants that grow and bloom fast- that’s Sorrel’s realm. Another sister works with herbs and healing; the third can make any food related plant bear lushly. For this reason, Sorrel has come to the attention of a wealthy British manor owner. Kirkwood Hall has been renovated and made open to the public part time. All is lovely- except for one spot. The old Shakespeare garden lies in ruins, as it has for a couple of centuries. Within its walls, nothing grows. Sir Graham Kirkwood asks Sorrel to come over and make it right.

Once she gets there, Sorrel finds a happy extended family. There is only one grim spot- Lady Kirkwood’s brother, Andrew. An Anglican priest on sabbatical, he’s recovering- poorly- from a broken heart. He provides the romance in this combination romance/mystery, as Sorrel and the Kirkwood’s try to not just make the Shakespeare garden beautiful again, but to find out *why* it’s lain fallow for so many decades. Then there is the legend that any Kirkwood entering the garden will fall ill and die…

This is a pleasant enough story, with the extended family (that includes the head gardener, the inn keeper, and Lady Kirkwood’s brother) searching for clues while Sorrel designs and plants the garden. Basing it both on other Shakespeare gardens and glimpses of it in the tapestries, she creates a formal arrangement of parterres and knots that bursts into growth and bloom the minute she puts the plants in the ground. But things don’t work out easily; the garden’s curse is still alive.

As a gardener and a foodie, I couldn’t help but love the descriptions in this story. Herrick brings to life the look, feel, and scent of the plants. The meals the family eats are described just as lushly as the plants; I was hungry most of the time reading this! The mystery was interesting, although it largely came down to people deliberately hiding information. But the book is not without its faults; this is the second book of I assume a series, and as such referred constantly to events of the first book. Those references took up far too much of the narrative, and it’s far too repetitious. Also, for a mystery, it’s not a very tense story- it dwells on the relationships too much to make us worry much. It’s like the book couldn’t decide if it was a mystery or a cozy woman’s story. Still, I’m going to find the first book and read it. Because plants. 

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Neither of these things influenced my review.