Elsa Hart – Carol's Notebook

Author: Elsa Hart

Elsa Hart is the author of three acclaimed mystery novels set in eighteenth-century China. The most recent, City of Ink, was one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2018. The daughter of a journalist, Elsa was born in Rome and spent much of her childhood abroad, attending international schools in Moscow and Prague. She is drawn to stories about travelers throughout history and likes to put her own characters in places that are unfamiliar to them.

The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne by Elsa Hart is an old-fashioned mystery, set in early 18th century London. History is poised between the advent of modern science and the superstitions and fantasy of previous eras. Collectors - almost always men - searched the world for things, animal remains, plants, rocks, oddities to showcase in their homes. Or paid others to do the searching for them. They wanted prestige, social status, as much if not more than they wanted to further knowledge. They guarded their treasures, competed with other collectors, and spent much of their time arguing over provenance and ownership. Barnaby Mayne is one of England’s greatest collectors, and his house a confusing, claustrophobic place where anything, even murder, can happen. Honestly, as much as i love funky museums, the Mayne collection seems a bit creepy. Lady Cecily Kay has come to the house to view its plants. There she meets a woman she had known as a child, Meacon, a...

It took me a few chapters to get into Jade Dragon Mountain. The setting is amazing, but very different from most books I read. The pace at the beginning was slow, or at least the audio made it feel that way. However, once Li Du was settled in to his cousin the magistrate's home and we met all the others there, both the household and the foreigners, the story became engrossing. People have gathered in Dayan because the Emperor is coming and there will be a celebration of the eclipse. One of the visitors, a Jesuit astronomer, is killed in his room, poisoned. Li Du is not content with the official story and the magistrate allows him to investigate the crime. There were many people with access to the room and the tea that was poisoned, but, it's difficult to see who gained from the older man's murder. The author does a wonderful job at making us feel like we're in eighteenth-century...