Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints
This is the same Brackston as Paula, author of The Winter Witch and The Witch’s Daughter, beginning a fantasy mystery series. Gretel (yes, that Gretel) is now 35, living with her brother Hans in Gesternstadt (Yesterday Town), both grown large by continuous eating since the witch’s cottage events. A green-hatted messenger arrives from Albrecht Durer the Much Much Younger in the metropolis of Nuremberg begging Gretel’s help in the recovery of the frog prints of his much more famous ancestor. The messenger immediately drops dead. Gretel travels to investigate. Hans goes along for the Weisswurst festival. There is a handsome prince.
I’m afraid I cannot call this an historical novel, not even historical fantasy, even though the claim is that it is set in 18th-century Bavaria. We have hobgoblins, talking mice and those fantasy elements, but also lifts in hotels and hotel chains. Hotels period. As humorous fantasy crime, okay. At its most successful, the voice reaches some of the British humor so well crafted by Sir Terry Pratchett. Consider the “sugary tweeness of Gesternstadt… twiddly gables… floriferous window boxes and jolly paintwork” that so annoy our heroine.
I am gratified to find someone addressing Germany as other than the other side of world wars, even if it is “twee.”
