Sherlock Holmes quotes

"That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in all the world."
Watson on Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Imagine a ruined house, an inheritance, a mysterious set of feral twins, a topiary garden, a murder, a ghost--these are just some of the Gothic elements that permeate The Thirteenth Tale.

 

Vida Winter, a successful novelist, contacts the bookish narrator, Margaret Lea, because she has one more tale to tell--the titular 13th tale. For years she has created falsehoods rather than reveal her past. She tell Margaret Lea she intends to tell the truth, at last, before the "wolf" catches her.

The Thirteenth Tale is a Gothic novel that explores how secrets and dark obsessions can destroy a family. More than that, however, it playfully looks at the slippery notion of self-hood--the small and cataclysmic changes that affect us and shake our identity.

If the novel is about abandonment--there's more than one abandoned child; it is, joyfully, also about reclaiming your family and your place in the world. 

Fans of this novel might enjoy seeing BBC a mini-series adaptation starring Olivia Holman and Lynn Redgrave. Setterfield's latest novel is Bellman and Black: a Ghost Story.

The Lost City of Z

The Lost City of Z by David Grann.

Soon to be a motion picture, this non-fiction narrative gives a detailed account of Col. Fawcett's last perilous trek into the Amazons. Fawcett, his son, and a friend mysteriously disappeared while searching for a lost civilization.

Grann, a journalist, interposes Fawcett's tale with his own adventures (and those of others) who sought answers about Fawcett's disappearance.

Fawcett was an accomplished amateur explorer who had been trained by the Royal Geographic Society.

Grann strikes the right balance between describing Fawcett's accomplishments and his romanticism and obsessions. Though early expeditions were focused on map-making, Fawcett became convinced of the existence of advanced Amazonian city lost in the jungle.

Though many people searched for the missing explorer, he disappeared in 1925. Some of his effects were found among various Indian tribes but it was his custom to give gifts as peace-making offerings. 

Unlike other explorers, Fawcett approached Indians unarmed and cultivated friendships with the most dangerous tribes. His tactics required great courage and specialized knowledge.

Fawcett's actions led the way for archaeologists to discover pre-Columbian settlements. While these were settlement  were different from the stone ruins he pictured, they quite possibly may have been the civilization Fawcett was searching for all along.