Random Jottings

Brit tec - home grown crime

I am getting really tired of January and the cold weather. Winter seems to have gone on for a long time this year.  I have been in Cambridge this week for a couple of days and the driving there was hampered by road works and the return journey not much fun as ice on the roads. So I have been hunkering down and reading a lot of crime, as per.

The Brutal Tide - Kate Rhodes.   This is the latest in the Ben Kitto series set on the Scilly Isles.  I really enjoy Kate's writing and loved her Alice Quintin books (if you have not read them may I recommend you do) and I keep pestering her for more despite the fact she is now writing a new series. Hope springs eternal.

A gangland mobster Craig Travis is dying in hospital and he is determined that he will get even with those who helped put him away. His daughter, who he adores and who sees no wrong in him, sets out to seek revenge on his behalf and a killing spree begins. Ben Kitto is on her list but she has to seek out a way to get to him.

At the same time Ben has discovered a skeleton which is unearthed during construction works and it links back to events some twenty years earlier.

The two stores run parrallel to each other and while one was predictible, (I won't say anything) the danger Ben is in keeps us on our toes and is very exciting. Really enjoyed it.

Showstopper - Peter Lovesey. The latest Peter Diamond detective story and I really love this series. I felt this was a slow burner and not as immediate as some of his other titles, and at the start when retirement was mentioned, I panicked. No this series cannot end but by the last page I felt reassured....

There appears to be be a jinx on a popular television series and while these are dismissed as just bad luck with the tabloids building it up, the mysterious disappearance of a member of fthe crew some years earlier has never been solved.

If you have not read any of the Diamond series then, once again, I can recomment that you do. Immensely readable and fun, with a dash of tragedy thrown in, I loved them all. 

Tana Collins - the Inspector Jim Carruthers series.   I received an offer from Amazon to read these, five of them in total, for the astounding sum of 99p on Kindle. Mad. But I bought them thinking if I did not like them then I was hardly out of pocket.

Well, I DID like them and spent a happy week reading all of them, Robbing the Dead, Care to Die, Mark of the Devil, Dark is the Day and Deep Water.   Inspector Carruthers is divorced from his wife (is there any other kind of DI in crime fiction) who is living in Scotland as he moved up there in an attempt to save his marriage. It did not work but Jim finds he loves living in a coastal town in Scotland.  He crosses swords with his boss (again this seems the norm in most crime stories. Peter Diamond has the same problem).   I am sure somewhere in the UK there is a DC Super who does not worry about budgets all the time. At least I hope so.

If I say to you that the writing is nice and tidy and clean you might get the impression that I am damning with faint praise, but I am not.  Flowery and over decorated prose is not for me. I like my stories and narrative lean and mean and Tana Collins fulfills this in spades as far as I am concerned.   Another recommendation and I do hope there are more.

I have also discovered another series, again courtesy of a 99p offer from Amazon. This is a cunning ploy because they lure you in and hope you will then go and buy the rest. I fall for it every time. This series features a female DI, Zoe Finch and the author is Rachel McLean. Just embarking on the second one and, yes, have bought more and will keep me going for a bit. Will let you know how I get on.

Two other things to mention.  A year or so ago, Dean Street Press, reprinted a series of detective stories by Moray Dalton of whom I had never heard. But as this publishing house seems to produce an endless list of books all of which I want, I got hold of them, read them and loved them.  Please do check them out and I am delighted to hear that in March this year more are arriving.

British Library Crime Classics continue to come up with the goods as well. Not all of them are to my taste but most of them are. After reading one of their reprints by Freeman Wills Croft I then went on to hunt down all his titles. It turned out to be quite expensive....

So two arrived this week, Death of Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson which is classified as a London Bibliomystery, A murder in a bookshop. Perfect.

Death of an Author - E C R Lorac. This title has been out of print since 1935 so kudos to the BritLib for giving us the chance of reading and enjoying. E C R Lorac is about my favourite of all the newly rediscovered authors they have published and I am going to save this up for a bit and just enjoy the anticipation.

And I have to mention yet again, Jane Casey and her wonderful detective stories featuring Maeve and Josh.  I have just reread them all and now that I know the characters well found that going right back to the beginning was a real treat.   They are simply brilliant.

Jane has also written stand alone title, The Killing Kind which is equally gripping and, I gather it is going to be made into a tv series.  Cannot wait.

OK well loads of recommends for you. Do let me know if you read or have read any of them, and let me know what you think.

 

From my Shelves 1 - Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

My project for 2023 is getting under way. I am selecting a book from my shelves that has been there for some time and dusting it off and writing about it.   I thought I might do one a month, but I already have a selection of ten so I may up the ante a bit.

First up is Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker.  This title was recommended to me by Simon Thomas whose blog is http://www.stuckinabook.com.  I have known Simon for years ever since we were members at one time of an online book discussion group, and though I am old enough to be his mother (actually grandmother as well which is a tad dispiriting), we are of like minds when it comes to literature and whenever Simon loves a book, then I know I will too. He currently edits the British Library Series of Women Writers which is well worth checking out. 

Miss Hargreaves is created by Norman and his friend Henry, when they are looking at an exceedingly ghastly church in Ireland in the pouring rain and decide to cheer themselves up a bit and have a laugh at the expense of the Ancient of Days showing them around,  and they invent her on the spur of the moment.

".... and what is your friend's name?'

'Miss Hargreaves'

It seemed to me there was a sort of stirring of air in the church, like - like what?  Rather like someone opening a very old umbrella.  I looked round sharply, but couldn't see anything unusual. A ray of feeble sun had broken through the dark clouds and was shining down on the dust in the galleries.

I realised I was trembling"

When he and Henry then send an letter to Miss Hargreaves at an imaginary address and invite her to visit any time she is free, that is an end of what they both regard as a good joke.  But then Miss Hargreaves writes accepting their invitation and to their utter horror, turns up complete with cockatoo and hip bath, little extras they had added to their description in order to add a little verisimilitude.

Then the fun starts.  Norman is horrified, scared and angry in turn as Miss Hargreaves proceeds to take over his life, his friends and his family.  His father,  a man of deep understanding of his son's flights of imagination as he is very similar himself, is the only person who believes in how Miss Hargreaves came to be, but he too begins to fall under her spell, and it is at this stage of the book that Miss Hargreaves who, up to now has been endearingly eccentric, begins to assume a slightly menacing aspect. 

Norman knows he has to rid himself of her by destroying his creation and to prevent her total power over him, but he has come to love her and he is in turmoil at what he knows he has to do.  In the end, he and Henry travel back to the church in Lusk, whence she was created, in order to bring the situation to an end.

"Immediately, where there had been that old lady there was now only a greenish darkness, broken faintly by a dusty light from some great windows.  Her voice died away, far away, echoing deep and long into space, vibrant at first then then thinner.....I opened my eyes.  The wind that had been roaring round the roof, suddenly stopped.  Henry and I lowered our heads as if by mutual understanding. We both knew that she had gone from us"

Frank Baker is a writer I know nothing about, except what I have read in the introduction to Miss Hargreave but here is a link to the Wikipedia page with more information. Miss Hargreaves was his most successful novel and was adapted for the stage in 1952 with Dame Margaret Rutherford in the leading role.  Talk about perfect casting!  Just wish there was a film somewhere of that particular performance. 

I have an out of print copy published by Tarturus Press which I bought some years ago. The front cover uses what appears to be a photogaph of the aforementioned Margaret Rutherford. Bloomsbury reprinted it and it is available on Kindle and in paperback. I have also checked Abe Books and they have several affordable copies.

Miss Hargreaves is a fascinating story.  It is hilarious and witty, sharply written and with great style, but Frank Baker is also wonderful at creating atmosphere and suddenly a paragraph of sheer beauty will catch your eye and make you realise that he is more than just a writer of fun and froth (not that I would describe Miss H in this way, rest assured).  Just look at this:

"The times when I really loved the Cathedral were weekdays when you could look right down the great nave, seeing perhaps only one tripper creeping from pillar to pillar with a guidebook, a vigilant verger stalking him and ready to net him if he so much as sneezed.

In winter you'd see nothing at all except the light from one gas-globe plunged smokily into the remote and vast darkness of the nave roof.  Then you really felt that Evensong and the Cathedral meant something.  Heralded by old Dyack and his pitch-pipe, Tallis in the Dorian Mode would float down the aisles; a motet by William Byrd weaves its intricate pattern upon the dark silence. At such times I believe we all felt a relationship to the great roof that soared away above us and to the wonderful old monks and people who'd built it all, and wrote that glorious music, centuries ago"

See what I mean?

If this has caught your attention then do try and get hold of a copy and if any of you have already read it I would love to hear your thoughts.

2023 The Year Ahead

I have decided it was time to get a grip once more when it comes to blogging. I think it is easy to blame Covid and lockdown for a lot but I honestly feel that over the last two to three years many of us have felt tired and dispirited. I know I have and it has been a bit of a struggle to stay positive and to post here on Random Jottings. I did think of giving it up as it was all an effort and I was not enjoying it any more, but it has become a part of my life and I would miss it so on I go.

I have been doing this for seventeen years now which I find hard to believe and Random has gone through many stages.  Started quietly and blogs were new and rather looked down upon by writers and publishers. I remember reading a hugely scornful article about bloggers in the Guardian the writer of whom seemed to take umbrage at the idea that the plebs might have something to say about books. Of course, this changed and now book bloggers are valued.

I used to get masses of books dropping through my letter box for reading and review, some of which were, quite frankly, pretty dire but there were plenty of gems and discoveries to be had.  These days more up to date reviewers and readers have taken over and I do not get as many as I used to which I am happy about. It was sometimes a worry. Now I just write about books I enjoy whether they be recent or or not and that is the way to go.   

In 2022 I was absent for a while as my daughter was over from Australia for the summer. We had not seen her for three years and so I abandoned serious blogging to spend time with her. It was a wonderful time and the whole family reconnected in a beautiful way and we are all the better for it. I found myself doing more and getting out more and feeling stimulated and full of an enjoyment I had not felt for a long time and I liked it.

So my plan for 2023 is to do more.  I have joined a gym, some four months ago now, and swim at least twice a week and this has helped enormously with my arthritis and well being. I have decided to book concerts and events, if I go on my own so be it. I have a train pass for us Oldies to enable me to go to London when i feel like it. I have booked into a concert in March to hear my favourite opera singer, Bryn Terfel, doing a Wagner concert.  Also a concert with a conductor John Wilson, who over the past seven or eight years, has had a special orchestra playing music from Hollywood and the shows. So I have tickets for one of his next autumn.   And last week, after dithering and delaying I booked a holiday to go to Salzburg and Vienna.  So it is all systems go.

I have already mentioned that I intend to take down a book from my library shelves, be it old or new, and write about it and I have already compiled a list of several so that will be my theme for the year, as well as recent reads.

As always, I am delighted and pleased to have such loyal followers who have stuck with me through thick and think. Thank you everyone. It means a lot and I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Elaine

x

Merry Christmas

I am off to see my family tomorrow and then a pantomime on Boxing Day and a good time will be had by all.  I would like to wish everyone who takes the time and trouble to visit, read and comment on my witterings, a very Merry Christmas with my love and thanks.

 

Winter Solstice - Rosamunde Pilcher

Last week I posted about A Christmas Carol which I read every year before Christmas and have done so for at least the last twenty years, if not longer.

I am now posting about a more recent addition to this tradition, though it is now a tradition that is at least ten years old, and that is the re-reading of Winter Solstice.   Some years back there was a poll on the BBC about the nation's favourite books. This was in the days when books were actually discussed on the Beeb, you won't find that now, and Pilcher's The Shell Seekers was near the top of the list.  I love the Shell Seekers and it was my first book by this author, but my favourite is Winter Solstice.

Each year I read it and each year I am engrossed and cannot put it down because I want to see how it finishes even though I know the ending. Many fellow readers will understand that daft though it sounds. We all like a happy ending.

Rosamunde Pilcher's books are all centered around family and relationships and in Winter Solstice we have disparate elements of a family coming together to make a whole.

Elfrida Phipps is a retired actress. As she says herself she was never famous but carved out an enjoyable living in the chorus and small parts.  Her marriages were ill advised but she found happiness with an actor, who she never named as he was well known.   He then became ill and she nursed him until he died.   Seeking solace she buys a cottage in a small village which she calls her 'geriatric bolthole'. She goes to a dogs home and brings back Horace for company and settles down.

She makes the acquaintance of the Blundells, Oscar and his wife Gloria and a late addition to the family, their daughter Frances.   Life settles down and then tragedy strikes.

Sam Howard is back from New York where he has been working and living for several years. His marriage has broken down and he has come home to take up a new position. He is a wool broker with a background in the production of tweed and wool and he has been asked to take over a mill which has been wrecked by flood damage and put it back on his feet.

Carrie has returned home from Austria where she is fleeing the end of a heart breaking love affair.  She is homeless and jobless at the moment and unsure of what lies ahead and is deeply unhappy.   She visits her mother and sister, a charmless pair, and discovers that her sister is remarrying and wishes to unload her daughter on her mother at Christmas so she can go to the States to be with her lover.   It is ever the lot of the single daughter to be assumed as having nothing better to do and when Carrie sees Lucy she decides to take care of her over the Christmas period.

I hope I am not giving too much detail away if you have not read the book so I will now cease and instead say that all these people, by way of coincidence and luck, all end up meeting each other in a house in Scotland.  All of them have more or less written Christmas off as they are all suffering from a loss but, as with all Pilcher books, a warmth and happiness permeate the writing and over the festive season, they come to terms with their situations and find comfort in each other and, yes, joy.

Rosamunde Pilcher's writing is such a pleasure to read.  I love what I call 'clean' writing, with no fuss or frills, just elegant well written prose and Pilcher delivers in spades.  Never a word wasted but she sets a scene and creates characters that resonate.

There is a room in the house which I love to conjure up in my imagination.

"the room was furnished with the bare minimum of furniture. A thick Turkey carpet. A sofa and two chairs. A table against a wall, a glass fronted book case in which a few old books leaned against each other......without pictures of knick knacks to divert the eye it was possible to appreciate the lovely proportions of the room, the ornate cornice and the plaster rose in the centre of the ceiling from which depended a charming Victorian chandelier"

This room has a bay window overlooking the town square where one can sit and watch what is going on and oh, how I would love to be there curled up with a book with the fire flickering and all peaceful and quiet.   It is a glorious room.

Winter Solstice is a book filled with warmth and happiness. Sorrow yes and bereavement but it is beautifully dealt with and written about. I find it hard to put into words just how much I love reading it and how happy it always makes me feel.  Despite all the odds this odd mixture of a family find comfort and solace over Christmas and are able to start looking forward.

And the final page is pure delight.

If you have yet to have the pleasure of reading this wonderful book then please get hold of a copy if you can and read before Christmas.

It is a book that will make you happy. I promise.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

It is that time of year again. The time when I trot over to my bookshelves, check the letter D and take down a copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  Please note I say A Copy not My copy. This is because I have multiple copies of this book and today have just added to them with yet another edition.

I love Dickens. Always have but I do know those who cannot get on with him at all - I freely admit I find this difficult to understand but hey ho.  Over the years I have read an awful lot about the man himself and, quite frankly, he sounds a tortured individual and not very nice, in particular in his treatment of his wife which I thought was appalling.  I really should not like him at all but somehow I find it hard to dislike someone who has created Mr Pickwick, the Fezziwigs, David Copperfield, Uriah Heep et al.  I feel that underneath all that non stop frenetic genius, there was a troubled individual. 

And this afternoon when reading A Christmas Carol for the umpteenth time I discovered passages that struck me anew as being simply wondrous, conjuring up wonderful pictures:

"The poulterers shops were still half open and the fruiterers were radiant in their glory; there were great round pot bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy brown faced, broad girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the greatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by and glanced demurely at the hung up mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes made in the shopkeepers benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves..."

Glorious.

Which edition to read today?

There is the one illustrated by Quentin Blake which I could not resist.

A superb edition of A Christmas Carol and other Stories by OUP, a wonderful hardback with the original illustrations.

A Christmas Carol, the Graphic Novel which reminds me of when, as a child, I had this kind of illustrated version of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and other classics.

Then an edition I came across at a jumble sale and which I paid about 50p.  Inside it is inscribed, written in ink "for our dear Gloria with loving Christmas wishes from the Aunties at Ealing Village" It does not have the date of the particular Christmas which is a shame but this particular copy, which has no ISBN number or publication date to give me a clue, is published by Raphael Tuck & Sons "publishers to their Majesties the King and Queen & to her Majesty Queen Alexandra" which means it is Edwardian. This link https://tuckdbpostcards.org/history makes fascinating reading.  There is also a Wikipedia page about this company which was founded in 1866 and was granted the Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria. This copy has lovely illustrations and the title page is protected by a sheet of tissue paper, intact which is a miracle after all this time. I would love to know who once owned this and to reassure them that I am looking after it very carefully.

And finally, another edition which arrived just an hour ago from the Folio Society. I could not resist. I simply could not.  A glorious edition with illustrations by Michael Foreman which fit beautifully.  It was a pleasure to hold and read. They also sent me a free Folio diary which I thought was rather kind.....

Well you know how I am going to close this post don't you? Of course you do....

"...he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us and all of us. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Current Books - Part two

OK here is a round up of my current reading having got through a shedload of slightly disappointing reads.

After the Romanovs - Helen Rappaport. I am a great fan of Helen's books, I have most of them on my shelves and as well as being impeccably researched, they are also immensely readable and she has the knack of making you want to keep turning the pages. Not all historians manage this. I can think of a few whose books have been a chore but never here.

This is the story of Russian Exiles in Paris between the Wars. I have just started it so cannot give a full review yet, but my goodness it is interesting.  As the blurb says "former princes could be found driving taxi cabs................talented intellectuals, artists, poets ....eked out a living at menial jobs while others found success"

A simply gorgeous cover as well which I always find adds to the pleasure of owning and reading and this book is top of my pile at the moment.

I have long been a fan of Jane Casey the creator of the Maeve Kerrigan series of crime novels and she has a new one out next year, The Close. I was lucky enough to be able to read it ahead of publication and thoroughly enjoyed it.   It is available for pre-order.

The first in this series, The Burning, was written in 2016 and so if you decide to try them you will have a lot to look forward to.   They can be read on their own but the relationship between Maeve and Josh Derwent, her colleague and boss, is fascinating and it is interesting to watch it grow.   I have now decided to re-read them all from the beginning as I freely admit that I have forgotten details so this week I read The Burning and was hooked in once more.   I know what I will be doing over the next few weeks.

As it is near Christmas time I have hauled out my copy of A Christmas Carol by Dickens and have it waiting as I always re-read it at this time of year. I never tire of it. I have about six editions and each year I read a different one. I have yet to choose for for 2022.    Also to hand is the Pickwick Papers. For years I put off reading this, I am not quite sure why, but it did not appeal. And then one day I decided to try it when a lovely new paperback edition was sent to me by Oxford University Press, and I simply loved it. There are the odd passages that I do find not as amusing as I would wish, but there are also moments of sheer laugh out loud fun and I did laugh.   We always think of Dickens at Christmas (well at least I do) and the chapter of Christmas at Dingley Dell is simply wonderful.

I am finding these days that I am reading less and less of what is called 'literary fiction' in some quarters, ie modern novels. This is not something that has crept up on me over the advancing years. I have always found current writing of little interest to me. Why I know not and yes, I will agree with any argument you may put forward that I am missing out, but I am really not bothered now.  I tried so many times to read the Booker list and other lauded books and, while I admired Attwood hugely, and some of A S Byatt and other luminaries, I found their oeuvre challenging and admirable, but I cannot say I have ever felt any desire to re-read any of them. So I have now come to terms with my lack of intellect and happily read books from Dean Street Press, Persephone, and similar publishing houses, and also gobble up as much crime as I can. The British Library Crime Classics series is wonderful as I have mentioned so many times and keep me going.

I have been having a sort out of books recently and have got rid of a shedload. Before you throw up your hands in horror I was very strict and asked myself honestly was I going to read this again and if the answer was no, then out it went. I have sold a lot and the local hospice shop which has a wonderful book section has benefited from several bags full. I still have several shelves to do and the interesting thing is finding stuff I had forgotten I owned and duplicates too and realise that I have plenty to keep me going.

In 2023 I have decided to take a book off my shelves, whether it be in print or not, and write about it. I shall make a resolution, early I know but never mind, to do this each month and I ask you all to keep me up to the mark.

So that is something planned for next year but I must not get ahead of myself....

Current books - Part One

I have had a few disappointing reads recently so am pleased that I seem to have struck lucky now and have been enjoying catching up.  Nothing too eclectic or academic, just good enjoyable books.

No Plan B - Lee Child with Andrew Child. I gather Lee is retiring from the fray but his brother is taking over the Reacher books. I always find this rather odd. I remember when Dick Francis died his son, Felix, took over the franchise and I cannot tell the difference in the writing. Makes you wonder.

Lee Child was interviewed recently and said he thoroughly enoys his success and his life, he and his family spend money and have a great time, though he gives a lot away.  Says you cannot take it with you.  He said that his books are generally looked down on and not taken too seriously but he is not too worried about that. When a new Reacher book comes out and immediately swlls in hundreds of thousands, he knows that for the next day or two all those readers would have a good time enjoying the story and that was good enough for him. I agree.

It is the usual tale. Reacher arrives in town, stumbles upon a wrong and sorts it out. Nothing new but, as always, punchy and well written and I am enjoying the latest in which it appears that a state of the art detention centre run on progressive lines may not be what it appears. Who would have thought?

Linwood Barclay - Take your breath away. Just spotted this in paperback at Waterstones the other day so I had obviously missed the original publication. I usually read the Barclay books because, as with the Reacher stories, they are great fun, well written and terrific entertainment.

Andy is married to Brie and one night he comes home and she has vanished and no sign of what happened to her. It goes without saying that the police have him down as the suspect in his wife's murder but no case can be proved. Eventually he moves away, changes his name, starts a new life until one day a woman drives up to the old address, where a new house has been built, and screams "what has happened to my house?"  It looks remarkably like Brie. But is it and where has she been all this time.  I am half way through and have no idea of how it ends. Good stuff.

An arrival from the British LIbrary. I am so lucky that they send me shed loads of stuff to
review. Some of it I love, others not so much, but there is always somewthing interesting there. This is for the festive marked as it is called Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season and includes authors Muriel Spark, Stella Gibbons, E M Delafield and others. This is currently on my bedside table and from the start of December I shall read a story a night.

Another book to read, but as with short stories and diaries, a little at a time is best is The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes.  The editor is Giles Brandreth so you know it will be witty and amusing and so it is.  There are anecdotes about every actor you can possibly think of in the British theatre and they are all, without exception, delightful and rather touching too. If I started quoting those I loved this blog would be neve rending so I suggest you get your mitts on it. It would make a wonderful Christmas present for a lover of theatre.

John Osborne has an anecdote about Richard Burton and it was suggested that Burton be invited to lead a National Welsh theatre.  A leader of the principality asked what were Burton's qualifications.

It was explained that he had played Henry V at Stratford and a Hamlet at the Old Vic which was applauded by Churchill. "the reply which evoked no surprise was 'yes I can see that, but what he done in Wales'"

Wonderful.  Loads more so do buy.

Enough for today. More later.

 

 

Recent reading

I have had problems with the blog the last week or so as my host, Typepad, who I have been with for years, had a new update etc etc and like all updates it caused mayhem and the blog was unavailable. An irritant for me, but checking on Twitter I could see how upset so many users were who were running businesses and were losing customers and orders.

Well they finally got it sorted and my post on Magpie Murders finally was able to be logged on.  SInce posting I have finished Moonlight Murders, a follow up to Magpie, and enjoyed its complexity and fun very much.  I am not sure if there will be another in this series, I do hope so.

I have also re-read the Karen Pirie books by Val Macdermid. I have read all her output and this particular series is my favourite.  I revisited them as I knew there was a tv adaptation coming up of A Distant Echo and I wanted to refresh my memory.  The TV dramatisation was a huge hit with large ratings and I gather another is in the pipeline.  I did not care for the actress who played the title role very much and I thought she was totally unlike the Karen of the books, but I put that to one side a she was very good indeed.   There were minor irritants with the characters, gender changed for one main protagonist for no reasont that I could understand, and the ethnicity of others was changed, presumably to tick diversity boxes as it made no difference to the story at all. I do find this virtue signalling that casting directors go in for rather boring and wish they would not do it but hey ho.   By the last episode it did not really matter as the tension was racheted up and it really had me gripped.   Do catch it if you can. Also if you read the books then please do read them in order.

I then turned to Marple: twelve new stories featuring the famous Christie creation. Twelve writers producing "new" Miss Marple tales.  This really irritates me as it is totally unneccessary and the main reason for this exercise is Money using the Christie name. 

I found most of them heavy going and nearly all lacking the  gentle wit and Marple touch. Oddly enough the only one which rang true in any way was the story penned by Val Macdermid. She got it right. The rest did not.  But it is out in time for Christmas and that is the obvious reason.

I have already written about the Alan Rickman diaries which I found disappointing and revealed a tormented, self absorbed persona in one of my favourite actors. Why they were ever published is beyond me. They were clearly personal and not written with publication in mind. I presume the reason is, once again, money.

As an antidote to this I turned to Patricia Wentworth. I have read all the Miss Silver cases and loved them but the author wrote many other crime stories and Dean Street Press (one of my very favourite publishers) have reprinted many more of these. I read three in one day (well it was raining and my arthritis was playing up so it was a day on the bed with hot water bottles) and they were huge fun. Madly dramatic and a bit over the top but thoroughly enjoyable. I read The Amazing Chance, Dead or Alive and the Red Lacquer Case and gave myself over to sheer in fun.

Left you Dead by Peter James.  I read this mainly because I have waded through all the Inspector Grace books but they really had become rather tedious and on at least a couple of occasions when it seems to me he had no idea what to do with a character he just killed them off. He did it again in this book.  I really enjoyed them when I started and I do wonder why authors carry on when they are clearly tired of churning them out. There was an interview with Lee Child in the paper today and he said that is why he stopped writing the Reacher books. 

Sadly though there will be no more Grace books because when I was writing this post I discovered that the author had died.  He was hugely successful and enjoyed by many including me though, as I said, I had rather lost interest in them.

Another of my favourite authors, Andrea Camilleri, died last year and he left several books behind for publication after his death. He was in his late eighties when he passed and the last few books showed a lack of focus which is understandable.   The final Montalbano book, Riccardino, was, I am sorry to say, really poor.   I have loved the Montalbano books with Catarella and Fabrizio and they have given me hours of enjoyment and many laugh out moments.

I mentioned in an earlier post the novels of Susan Scarlett AKA Noel Streatfield which I simply wallowed in, no other word, and they come once more from the Wonderful Dean Street Press. Well I read a couple more and have one left and am saving it up for a treat. Does that make sense?   Do check them out.

And finally, after a rather disappointing run, I turned to Agatha Christie.  I have recently rewatched the superb Miss Marple series on the TV and I re-read Murder at the Vicarage, Moving Finger, a Pocketful of Rye and A Murder is Announced and loved them all over again. I think Christie was a superb writer with a deftness of touch as well as steel and also she was funny,

There is one line in the TV version of A Murder is Announced which is pure Christie but I cannot find it in the book, so assume the script writer came up with this gem.  Miss Marple is having tea with Dora, and they are discussing a young man on the list of suspects.

"you know he is a communist don't you Miss Marple?"

"Oh dear, he must be very lonely in Chipping Cleghorn"

Priceless.

Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz

“There was going to be a funeral. The two gravediggers, old Jeff Weaver and his son,  Adam, had been out at first light and everything was ready”.

The funeral is taking place in the church of St Botolphs in Saxby-on-Avon. Mary Elizabeth Blakiston of the Parish, housekeeper to Sir Magnus Pye, had met with a nasty accident while hoovering the stairs of the manor.  Rushing to answer the phone, she gets her foot caught in the flex and tumbles head first down a flight of stairs until her head meets the hard tiles at their foot.

So that is that, but all aficionados of a good crime story know full well it is not as simple as it seems. A few weeks later the world famous detective Atticus Pünd has a visitor, the fiancé of the dead woman’s son. It seems he was on bad terms with his mother and the day before her death he had been heard shouting at her and wishing she was dead. Now the village suspect him of murdering her.

It is clear from the outset that we are in St Mary Mead country (devotees of Miss Marple will

have no hesitation in realising this) but the detective is a German refugee who survived the camps of the second world war and is now living in England.  Hercule Poirot immediately comes to mind.  As the reader reaches further into the story we realise that there are many references to Dame Agatha Christie and her works – at one stage a character takes the 2.20 to Paddington.  We all know full well that the 3.50 from Paddington was a famous Christie title.   Then we note that Atticus Pünd has a well meaning but slightly dim associate, in the Magpie Murders he is called Fraser and, once again, Christie aficionados will immediately realise the reason for this name as Captain Hastings, the companion of Poirot, is played by the actor Hugh Fraser in the television series.

By now the reader will realise we are being led up the garden path and all this is deliberate but to what end?   The story progresses and Pünd becomes involved when Sir Magnus, the housekeeper’s employer, also dies but this time there is no wondering if it was an accident as he was killed in a particularly gruesome way.

So Pünd comes to investigate and it is all intriguing and fun and then suddenly, bang, we leap from the 1950s to the modern day, and find that Susan Crosland an editor for a publishing firm is reading the Atticus Pünd for publication and horror of horrors the last chapter of the manuscript is missing.

It is slightly discombobulating to be wrenched from the mystery into Susan’s life and her attempts to track down the missing pages.   The author of the Atticus Pünd books is a deeply unpleasant man who does not hesitate to grill people with a smile and then create a version of them, usually derogatory, in his books and is disliked by many.   So when his body is found at this country house at the foot of a tower there are many who would be glad to see him dead.

Susan sets out to find out what happened to the missing pages and why he was murdered. The rest of the book is her story, in the first person which I rather liked, and we become so immersed in that story that when it comes to an end, we then have to read the final chapter of the Atticus Pünd manuscript to give us the solution of the earlier murder.

It is clever, it is witty and it is intriguing and Magpie Murders abounds in various Christie hints and names that are a joy if you are a fan of hers as I am.

There is a second, Moonlight Murders, which I am half way through and once again it is split into two time slots. 

A Murder has taken place at the Moonlight hotel, an arrest is made and the case is closed. Several years later the daughter of the hotel’s owners reads Alan Conway’s book in which he has used the location and hotel staff in an Atticus Pünd book.   Celia reads the book and realises that there is a clue in it which proves that the police arrested the wrong person.  She decides to investigate and then she disappears……………..

I am only half way through and am enjoying it immensely.   I do hope Anthony Horowitz writes another.

PS there is a tv series of the Magpie Murders, available on Britbox if you have it, and it is very good indeed.