Lose Yourself in Rich, Evocative New Historical Fiction

New York Times

28-02-2025

The Cannibal Owl
In Comanche folklore, the Mupitsi is a terrifying giant bird that swoops through the night, looking for naughty children to devour. But in the powerful novella THE CANNIBAL OWL (Belle Point Press, 66 pp., paperback, $15.95), it becomes a personal totem for Levi English, an 11-year-old boy who runs away from a frontier settlement in the spring of 1828. Adopted by one of the leaders of a Comanche band, he is tolerated, if not totally accepted, as he learns the ways of a world that will soon come in conflict with the white one in which he's known only violence and suffering.
Inspired by the early experiences of a prominent 19th-century Texan, Gwyn's starkly poetic storytelling avoids romanticizing tribal life even as it depicts the deep bond that grows between the elderly Indian known as Two Wolf and the young man who's been renamed Goes Softly. So when the inevitable test of his loyalty arises, the series of choices he makes are even more affecting. 'I wanted to find my people,' he moans in the brutal aftermath, then realizes 'he'd spoken in Comanche and they'd just killed everyone who might have understood him.'
Floreana
The so-called Galápagos Affair piqued the curiosity of Raymond, whose novel FLOREANA (Little A, 271 pp., paperback, $16.99) invents a dramatic explanation for the still-unsolved deaths and disappearances that occurred on this small island in the southern Galápagos in the 1930s. Her tactic is to contrast the contemporary narrative of Mallory, a biologist trying to save the island's endangered penguins, with the testimony of Dore, a German woman who came to the island with her lover between the two world wars, hoping to create their own private paradise.
The device that links these two is the anguished journal Mallory discovers hidden in a cave, a document in which Dore charts the arrival of a more conventional pioneer family as well as a sexually voracious baroness and her two attractive male companions. The mounting tension that engulfs the island is mirrored by that of the present-day research camp, where past liaisons and current secrets keep everyone on edge. As the action draws to a close, some of the revelations may strain credulity, but what remains most convincing is Raymond's vivid depiction of the island's flora and fauna. As for the interlopers, let's allow Dore to have the last word: 'Here we are, at the birthplace of Darwin's theory, and yet how little we humans have truly evolved.'
Boy
BOY (Morrow, 339 pp., $30) takes place in the final years of the Elizabethan age — when, as one of Galland's characters puts it, 'we have an ancient, heirless queen whose court is tearing itself apart.' Not exactly the best time for her title character, the real-life 'boy-player' of female roles in Shakespeare's company, to be aging out of his apprenticeship and seeking an aristocratic patron. Alexander 'Sander' Cooke has been feted for his androgynous beauty, but he knows that his primary asset is 'a whiff of celebrity.' This has brought him to the attention of Francis Bacon, the natural philosopher who advises the queen, as well as Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, a former favorite scheming to regain her favor. But will it also ensnare Sander in political wrangling that threatens to turn deadly?
The answer could well depend on Joan Buckler, his childhood friend, who has all the intellectual equipment so obviously lacking in charming but feckless Sander. Insatiably curious, she has befriended London's best apothecaries and amateur botanists, not to mention the most experienced midwives and herbalists in Southwark. 'I don't know how to be a man,' Sander tells her early on. She'll wind up being his tutor in that department, and several others.
The Case of the Missing Maid
Harriet Morrow is resigned to 'a life of hiding in plain sight.' It's 1898, and while Chicago's Prescott Detective Agency may not be ready for a female junior field operative with certain sexual inclinations, its owner is willing to give a trial run to a maverick 21-year-old sporting sensible shoes and a bowler hat as she zips around on her prized Overman Victoria bicycle. In THE CASE OF THE MISSING MAID (Kensington, 310 pp., $27), Osler debuts a historical mystery series that celebrates both its closeted lesbian sleuth and the town where she hopes to make her career.
Harriet's first case could be her last if she takes more than the week she's been given to locate the maid her boss's eccentric neighbor has reported AWOL. What at first seems like a harmless test gradually turns into a more dangerous adventure, taking Harriet from the mansions of the wealthy to gangster-infested pool halls on the Polish side of town and sleazy theaters featuring 'hoochie-coochie dancers,' even to a private club where Harriet feels delightfully at home. Unfortunately, someone may be sabotaging her investigation, a secret enemy who has even more to lose than she does.