The Probability of Murder

Finished October 24

The Probability of Murder by Ada Madison

This novel is the second in a series of cosy mysteries featuring mathematics professor Sophie Knowles. Sophie holds weekly parties on campus that have a scientific theme with a short presentation. One of these, on Mobius strips, is just winding up when news of a death on campus begins to filter in. Charlotte Crocker, the librarian, has been found dead in the stacks. Sophie was a friend of hers, and is shocked at the news. Sophie's boyfriend, medevac pilot Bruce Granville, is leaving for a climbing adventure up in Vermont the next morning, and so the two forego plans for the rest of the day in light of the incident. 

When Sophie makes an unexpected discovery around something Charlotte left with her, she seeks counsel first from a friend before going to the police, and then decides that she needs to follow up on the clues she has to figure out if her friend was really a friend, or a criminal. When Sophie becomes a target herself, she is even more determined to find the truth.

With interesting mathematical problems scattered throughout, this is a series with its own particular draw, and Sophie's use of deductive reasoning drawing from her mathematical background gives great reasons for her own investigation. 

I liked the main characters and found the mystery very engaging. 

A Betting Woman

Finished August 3

A Betting Woman: A Novel of Madame Mustache by Jenni L. Walsh

This book was inspired by a real life woman who showed up in California during the Gold Rush and made a name for herself as a French-speaking female croupier, one of the first croupiers of either sex. The author had heard about her first via a nickname, Madame Moustache, and did research on the woman. Born Simone Jules, perhaps of France, perhaps of New Orleans, and later taking the name Eleanor Dumont, this woman traveled all over the west, including briefly into Canada, and made a name and a living for herself. At times she was flush and had her own establishment, at others she was near destitute. 

Walsh took the bare and sparse facts she found and built on them to create the fully-developed character depicted here, a woman who valued her independence, who knew her own worth, and who kept her private life private. The reader gets a sense of life in the west during those times, the lawlessness that prevailed in many, particularly smaller places, and the variety of dangers the people faced from angry men with weapons to diseases. Madame Dumont, as she was known for much of her career, faced all of these, and made her decisions in how to face each with thought and calculations. Walsh has made her origin New Orleans, and brings in other issues of the times from racism and the U.S. Civil War to the treatment of women and their lack of rights. 

A lively and adventurous tale.

The Stockholm Octavo

Finished August 12
The Stockholm Octavo by Karen Engelmann

This historical novel is set in the 1790s in Stockholm, Sweden. The narrator is Emil Larsson, a young man, who has worked hard to raise himself to the level of a secretaire in the government. His position is in the Customs and Excise office, and he has a sideline in reselling confiscated goods. He has come to his position through hard work, and hard play, teaching himself to be a skilled card player, and betting wisely, gaining the money to buy his position.
Now his Superior has decided that all the secretaires should be married, and Emil is one of the few who has no wife or fiance. Emil's favourite place to go to play cards is the house of Mrs. Sofia Sparrow, an older widow, who both runs a gaming parlour, and is a fortune-teller. She doesn't always use cards in her prognostications, but fairly often. When Emil is next at her house playing cards, she approaches him, and says she's had a vision for him concerning love and connection. She would like to lay an octavo for him, but first she must explain the rules around it. The cards serve as a guide to realizing the vision. Eight nights in a row she will lay cards until a card makes itself known as one of the Octavo. Laying the cards helps to identify who the people are in each role, and can then make it possible to manipulate them so the vision goes in the direction the seeker wishes. The seeker, in this case Emil, must swear an oath to complete the laying. Then he must work to identify who the people are in each role. The roles are: The Companion; The Prisoner; The Teacher; The Courier; The Trickster; The Magpie; The Prize; and The Key.
Along with this plot line, there is also one of royal intrigue. The King, Gustav has recently changed the law to give commoners rights and privileges previously reserved for the nobility. This has caused some of the nobility to rebel by refusing to sign the law, and be imprisoned for that rebellion. The group refers to themselves as the Patriots. Once released, they take their rebellion less openly, and choose the king's younger brother, Duke Karl as their leader. Duke Karl is a weak man, easily influenced by the flattering idea of becoming king. One woman in particular, the widow of one of the rebels, is determined to see the plot through. Her name is the Uzanne, and she has power beyond most women.
Another big theme to this novel is the use of the folding fan. A recent addition to the town's merchants is a skilled fanmaker, Christian Norden. He studied fanmaking in France and married a French woman, but with the growing unrest in France, they came to Christian's home country to make a new start. The Uzanne is a big collector of fans and uses them to get what she wants, whether it be a man or something else. She has some lovely and special fans in her collection and one of them plays a large role in this novel.
There is a lot going on here, and as Emil gradually identifies the people who have roles in his Octavo, we also see the plots developing. Some things, I could guess at ahead of time, but others took me by surprise. A very different and interesting novel.