Reviews for Rooted In Dishonor

The average rating for Rooted In Dishonor based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-05-04 00:00:00 Hector V Joe Sandilands and Sir George Jardine are back, and they're in Paris. It's 1927, and numerous cultural icons of the time are present -- from Lindbergh to Josephine Baker to a young crime reporter named Simenon. Joe, in Paris for an Interpol conference, is brought in to help when Sir George, recently retired and thus no longer protected by diplomatic immunity, is found standing over the body of a fellow Englishman in a box at the theater where Baker is performing. The corpse was that of a thoroughly nasty character -- someone who "needed killing" -- and as Joe and his French colleague, Bonnefoye, work to clear Sir George (who really didn't do it, though he might have liked to), they begin to see a pattern in a string of unsolved murders. A character from one of the earlier Sandilands novels turns up with exciting results, and the conclusion is surprising and unexpected, if not completely believable. Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands novels, although they can involve vicious crimes perpetrated on undeserving victims, seem to me to have an essential light-heartedness about them which we don't find in some other excellent series set in the period between the wars. (I'm thinking of those by Charles Todd and Jacqueline Winspear, especially). In Cleverly's books, the British Empire is still the Empire on which the sun never sets, and its representatives still enjoy the self-confidence that brings. Todd's and Winspear's books, with protagonists who are themselves still traumatized by the Great War and who are dealing with situations arising from it, even years later, are excellent reading and perhaps more realistic. But if you like this historical period as much as I do, and need a break from the gloom, Cleverly's books should fit the bill nicely, as will Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple series, which focuses on some of the positive changes brought about by the Great War.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-05-09 00:00:00 Michael Collart This mystery was OK, entertaining enough so that I really want to give it 2 1/2 stars. I loved the Sandilands mysteries set in India, in large part for the "local color." This one set in Paris left me a bit cold. Joe is a nice enough guy, but not all that interesting (though easy to be around after spending time with Ian Rutledge, Charles Todd's much more troubled WWI-vet-back-as-an-English-policeman). There were many references to a prior story involving Sandilands and two other prominent characters, back in India, but I'd read it too long ago to have anything but the vaguest memory of it. I was confused as to whether an oft-mentioned Parisian street gang was, in fact, involved in the murders under investigation. And I thought the motivation for the Bad Guy Behind All Of It was utterly unbelievable.