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Reviews: Anthem for Doomed Youth

01/10/2011

1 Comment

 
Now out in hardcover, Kindle and Nook

Kirkus: "amusing and sprightly"

Mysterious Women: "gripping and fascinating"

Publishers Weekly: Set in 1926, Dunn's enjoyable 19th Daisy Dalrymple mystery (after 2009's Sheer Folly) will please fans of traditional English whodunits. When the graves of three men turn up in Epping Forest, once a royal hunting preserve just outside London, Det. Chief Insp. Alec Fletcher, the lead investigator, is relieved that his wife, Daisy, along with her friends Melanie and Sakari, are away at their daughters' school for the weekend, so she won't be able to nose her way into the case. Later, Melanie's daughter discovers a dead teacher while lost in the medieval maze of Bridge End Garden. Leave it to clever Daisy to figure out that all the bodies are related to the Great War. The aristocratic but very modern Daisy makes a formidable amateur sleuth as she acts to stop more murders and get justice for the victims.
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This is the poem that gave me the title:

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH,
by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

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Wilfred Owen was killed in action in France one week before the Armistice.
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Anthem for Doomed Youth

02/25/2010

6 Comments

 
I've just finished writing  my next Daisy Dalrymple mystery, the 19th. The title is Anthem for Doomed Youth, borrowed from a poem by Wilfred Owen, a poet who died in action in Flanders a week before the Armistice. As you can guess from the title, even without reading the poem, the book has a fairly sombre theme, but don't worry, Daisy comes through as cheerful as ever!

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?  Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
 No mockeries for them from prayers or bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
  The shrill, dementedchoirs of wailing shells;  And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?  Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
 Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.  The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;  Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,  And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

It always makes me tear up.
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6 Comments