Random Jottings

British Library Classic Crime - John Bude

I am doing a lot of crime reading during the lockdown and by the time freedom beckons I reckon I will have a pretty good idea how to forge bank notes, bash somebody over the head with an axe and get away with it. Not that I am planning to do so of course...

I have been reading a lot of Christie, of which more another time, but over the last week I have been reading more of those delights from the British Library Classic Crime series which now are becoming part of the publishing landscape and have a huge army of fans.

This week I read Death in White Pyjamas and Death knows no Calendar by John Bude. This is a bonus as two books in one volume and all for £8.99 which is a pretty good bargain. I was slightly wary of reading this particular author as I had tried one of his earlier and failed with it, finding it stodgy and a bit dogmatic.  But the blurb sounded interesting:

"A theatre owner, a slightly sinister producer, a buregoning playwright and a cast of ego drive actors have gathered at a country house to read through a promising script...."

The words 'a country house' are enough to pique the interest of any seasoned crimfic reader as we know country houses are deadly places to be and that sooner or later a dead body will turn up. And it does. The set designer, a rather nasty piece of work who seems to be blackmailing various members of the cast turns up in the lake wearing her white pyjamas and it is clear she was not just out for a midnight stroll.  She was eminently dislikeable so the list of suspects is long.

I found this book so much more amusing and written in a lighter touch than the one I had failed with earlier (I cannot remember the title now) and it fairly zapped along.

Sam Richardson, a wealthy biscuit manufacturer, wanted a new hobby and he decided to put his money into a theatre. He was tired of Petit Beurre, Butter Fingers and Thin Lunch and left them behind. He met Basil Barnes at a party and a partnership was born .

"Sam was short, fat bald and benign. Basil was tall, slender, sleekhaired and slightly sinister. Sam, apart from business in all its aspects, was a child. His simple faith in everybody was delightful for he could never listen to a hard up story without putting his hand in his pocket. If Basil put his hand in his pocket you expected him to produce a revoler. Actually he produced plays"

I found it quite easy to guess the identity of the murderer and the reason why as it is flagged up fairly obviously - well I thought so anyway - but how the culprit managed it is another matter altogether.

Really enjoyed this and the characterisation of each member of the cast was spot on.

It is partnered with Death Knows no Calendar.  A locked studio, no way in and yet somebody has been murdered. How was it done? A classic locked room mystery and if you have read many of these, as I have, once again I worked out how the killing took place and who had done it, though really there is no effort made to throw suspicion of anybody but the one person tracked down. The others are merely side shows. But one again it was the tracking down of the murderer, how it was carried out and the steps taken to add layer of layer of proof. At times it reminded me very much of the Inspector French novels of Freeman Wills Croft who does the same thing - plodding along and finding the small details that will nail the offender.

In this case the victim was a glamorous, flamboyant artist who was a bit of a femme fatale. Her husband was an actor who seemed to be permanently 'resting' and who she held in contempt; a local farmer has been in love with her for years and she even tortures the vicar's conscience as she tempts him.  

We do not have a detective as such in this title but we have Major Boddy who has read every detective book going and decides to take the investigation in hand when a verdict of suicide is given. Well we all know that when this happens it is precisely the opposite - murder. We are told that "there were few detective writers in the country hwo had not, at one time or another received a letter from Major Boddy beginning:

Dear Sir

Much as I appreciated your really capable novel, Title so and so, I should like to point out that on Page so and so you have made a regrettable slip which you might care to correct in later editions etc"

There is no doubt that he will solve the mystery but it is a bit more difficult that he imagined.....

Both great stories and, as I said, two books in one and a bargain.

Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life - Laura Thompson

It is one hundred years since the first Agatha Christie was published “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”.  This biography by Laura Thompson was first published in 2007 and has been updated and revised with a new introduction to celebrate this occasion.

I read this when it came out and I am wondering whether I found it as irritating as I did this time around but it seems I did not review it on Random.  The book is brilliantly written but veers wildly between flights of fancy and fact. The author relies enormously on interpreting the books Agatha wrote under the name Mary Westmacott and, yes I agree they are very autobiographical in nature, but they cannot be used as a basis for verisimilitude.  I have read all of these titles and they are very revealing and give a glimpse into Dame A’s thoughts and psyche but they ARE novels and I do not believe that they should be treated as authentic resources. 

Everyone knows that Agatha Christie vanished for ten days and caused a huge upheaval. Theories abound why she did it.  My take on this is that she went away for a few days to a “spa” in the hope that Archie her errant husband would worry, come and find her and they would be reunited. She actually sent a letter to her brother in law informing him of this so that he would pass on the information to Archie but for some reason this did not happen.  He was suspected of doing away with her, the entire thing got out of hand and when he finally found her he was furious at the damage that had been done and a reconciliation was out of the question. She ran away to teach him a lesson and then had to have recourse to the amnesia excuse to cover it up.  I think she felt humiliated and distraught at what had happened and that is why she would never discuss it and refused to do so for the rest of her life. 

What is clear is that hearing that her husband was in love with another woman (he told her just after her beloved mother had died with huge insensitivity) brought her close to a breakdown which would explain why she embarked on this disastrous course of action.

The section of the book dealing with this episode is called The Quarry and it is pure fantasy.  We are told that on the evening she disappeared she had dinner and was hoping to hear Archie’s car and would constantly check through a chink in the curtains to see if he was coming. “She smiled at the maid Lily who cleared the plates and looked concerned at how much was left on them....the clock ticked heavily........the fire was dying in the grate. She sat on and on” and so it continues more fiction rather than fact.

Throughout this biography Laura Thompson points us in the direction of quotes and settings from her books that reveal that she never got over Archie, her attitude to husbands, elliptic references which could be to this disappearance and on and on and on.   It is the kind of biography which I find acutely irritating. I call it the Surely she Must have Felt and it is Clear she must have Thought style and it is all supposition.

But then we come to her later life when she marries Max Malllowan and the whimsicality vanishes and we have good solid biographical writing of great verve and huge interest full of detail and colour.  She uses sections of Agatha’s own autobiography and her letters which show how satisfying this part of her life was with the travelling to the archeological digs and how much she enjoyed it all. Her books set in this part of the world are among her best (Death on the Nile, Appointment with Death, Murder in Mesopotamia) and it is clear she felt happy and comfortable there.

Her relationship with her daughter Rosalind seems to have been a difficult one and it is clear that she was not a devoted maternal person.  She found Rosalind “tricky”, very matter of fact and cool (Hastings daughter in Curtain is said to be based on her) and though they were clearly fond of each other it was never easy.

I suppose the conclusion as to whether one has enjoyed a book or not is how one reads it and this proved, despite all I have said above, to be a fascinating biography and one I could not put down. I read it solidly over two days and by the end of those two days it was bristling with stick it notes as I marked up things I wanted to mention. Well I simply cannot as there are too many but I have checked one which I wanted to refer to.

There is a masterly section on English Murder which is worth reading on its own in which she discusses Agatha’s place among the pantheon of Sayers, Marsh, Allingham et al and I was delighted when she used the word “simplicity” to describe her writing as it is the way I have always viewed it.

”Simplicity sets Agatha apart. It was hard won as her notebooks make clear but she knew that it was the desired end. The finished product had to be impregnable. Its geometry had to be capable of being turned this way and that like a jewel in the sunlight. It had to be constructed so that it could be satisfyingly dismantled. Then everything had to be hidden from view”.

Because of this her books are quite often misunderstood and dismissed which I think it totally wrong. After reading Laura Thompson’s biography I have re-read several of her books - some Poirot, some Miss Marple and some stand alone, and I have admired them all over again for this very characteristic - there is no feeling, as we sometimes get with Sayers and Marsh, that the author’s private feelings and prejudices (or love of their detective) are intruding. The story is the thing and that is that.

Yes I found aspects of this book irritating but I also found it totally fascinating and obviously a labour of love for the author.  Well worth reading.

Moray Dalton - more discoveries

Last year Dean Street Press, who are rapidly becoming one of my favourite publishing houses, issued four titles by Moray Dalton. This is the pseudonym of Katherine Dalton Renoir who wrote 29 mysteries, the last in 1951. I know very little about her and it seems she lived on the South Coast of England for most of her life following her marriage. She died in Worthing in 1963. Now, call me flippant, but a mystery writer who dies in Worthing is just perfect - it fits in with the Miss Marple trope and Miss Silver (though these two characters never married), and the contrast between a, presumably, middle class married lady turning out death and destruction is irresistable.

I read the original four in 2019 and was delighted to see that there were more to come (and I do hope that Dean Street Press continue to publish them ALL) and have had a happy time reading them during lockdown, (I am also galloping through a huge re-read of Agatha Christie at the moment, of which more later) and feel perhaps in future years somebody might write a dissertation on why reading about murder and mayhem was so relaxing at this time. Of course, it might just be me...

OK off we go.

The Condamine Case.  Stephen Latimer, a rather arrogant and over sensitive film director, learns of a gentrified family in Somerset with an old history of witchcraft and haunting. Thinking this might be an excellent subject for his next film he goes on a visit. Mr Condamine, who is rather a sweetie, is very exciited at the thought of a film being made featuring his family and is eager to help. His wife, who obviously married him for money and status, is a different kettle of fish entirely:

"Mrs Condamine had not uttered a word for some time and sat smoking her cigarette and looking into the fire, indifferent and aloof. Or was she? Evan wondered. He was sensitive to atmosphere and it seemed to him that someone in the room was in a state of suppressed fury. He glaced doubtfully at her. There might be more in that young woman that met the eye"...

The Case of Alan Copeland.  An unhappy marriage, the death of the wife, the younger husband remarries quickly.  It is all innocent. But after a while the word "murder" rears its ugly head and the obvious suspect is arrested. The evidence is overwhelming.  Now at this stage you start pondering well yes it cannot be him as it is so obvious. But then we might be tricked into thinking this way and he/she really did do it.  And I am not going to tell you what the answer is in this one.  I did guess who the culprit was but then I have read a lot of Agatha Christie and this character reminded me of one in a Christie novel in a slight way and so I plumped on this person as the murderer.  Shades of Miss Marple....

The Art School Murders.  Glamorous but slightly over the hill femme fatal is posing as a model at an art school as she needs the money.  Her body is found and, as happens frequently in crime, somebody who saw something and decides not to say anything and to be terribly mysterious and clever about it, also turns up dead.   They never learn these clever ones.

The Belgrave Manor Murder. This is my least favourite of all that I have read by Moray Dalton. I found it vaguely fantastical and not at all convincing. It involves weird practices, witchcraft and I have to say, a ludicrous ending (and again I guessed what was coming). However, this is just my view point and I would not like to deter anybody from reading any of the above just because I disliked this one.

All these books feature Inspector Hugh Collier of Scotland Yard, a charming, cultured man but not as elegant or as fastidious at Roderick Alleyn or Wimsey which, quite frankly, does come as a bit of a relief. Much though I love Ngaio Marsh and Sayers and adore their detectives, sometimes the snobbish element and its feeling that a character might say any moment Gor blimey govnor you're a toff is always lurking.

To sum up - well written, well plotted and no dull bits at all, these are a great read. I now have eight of these on my shelves and am looking forward to More Please.

At the moment the Kindle editions are available at £1.99. A total bargain. Go buy.

They should have asked me....

Nine years ago today the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge got married. I sat down the night before and, for a giggle, designed a dress. And here it is.

And here is the real thing. I think I got pretty close!

 

My Husband Simon - Mollie Panter Downes

If there was any reason needed for me to love British Library publishing any more than I do already, being an aficionado of their Classic Crime series, then here is another one. A series of books under the umbrella of The British Library Women Writers.  These are novels by female authors who enjoyed popularity in their day but have now disappeared from the public purview.

Persephone books have done sterling work in this area and have published other titles by Mollie Panter-Downes: Minnie’s Room, London War notes and Good Evening Mrs Craven and these sit on my shelves alongside her simply wonderful novel One Fine Day. I have this in the “green” Virago edition and it is a treasured volume.

So I was delighted to see an unknown title by this author coming up on this list – My Husband Simon and my thanks to the British Library for sending me this copy.

I freely admit to being slightly disconcerted by its content and tone. I think I was expecting something a little more akin to the above mentioned titles and this one certainly isn’t and I found it difficult to feel any affection or even liking for the two main protagonists. Indeed the comment made by Jane Austen on Emma that she was going to create a heroine not many would like came to mind on reading the first few pages where we are introduced to Nevis Falconer, a young novelist who has had huge success with her first book but is now struggling to write another as good. I found her grumbling about her charlady slightly offputting:

“Mrs Proutie, my charwoman, had not turned up that morning to get my breakfast…….she was like  the geyser, temperamental. I couldn’t rely on her but at least she was cheerful and didn’t steal the gin……I thought of various ways of slinging Proudie out on her ear when she condescended to turn up”

Nevis goes away for the weekend and there she meets Simon. The attraction is immediate.

“He had curiously light eyes with dusty gold lashes. I thought ‘he’s attractive’ I felt angry and helpless as though I knew that my nice orderly little pattern of my life was going to be broken up.”

Simon admits that he has not read her book and tells her that he does not read anything. “I’m practically illiterate”.

It is obvious that despite their overpowering physical response to each other, temperamentally they are not suited. Nevis sees this with a clear eye but after spending a night together they marry. And yes, they are happy, in a wild, bickering kind of way, fighting and making up and making love but it begins to wear Nevis down as she finds that her writing is affected by her marriage.

She despises his lack of intellectual curiosity, he finds her attitude towards anybody who had not read the latest novel or seen the latest play snobbish and infuriating. And yes, she is a snob. She loathes his family and finds them boring and middle class.  Nevis sneers at them and is contemptuous of their attitudes.  

Oddly enough, she finds a kind of kinship with Gwen who is married to Simon’s boorish brother.

“Gwen would never be intensely happy or intensely miserable. She would never be exalted to the skies or cast down in the darkness of hell as I was alternately exalted and cast down; her life would move graciously in an even climate of content. And I thought ‘this is a very good thing’ and ‘Gwen is cleverer than you are”

Nevis is shocked to the core when Gwen dies in childbirth, she and Simon had thought, briefly, of having a child but after Gwen’s death this is never mentioned again.

Nevis is still struggling with her writing and her American publisher Marcus Chard who has come to London, has contacted her and is acting as her mentor and is ruthlessly critical of her work.  He knows that she can do better but sees that her life with Simon is holding her back. He persuades her to come to New York for a few months away from it all and write the book that is in her.

She decides to go and tells Simon

“Are you coming back?

Yes, I’m coming back.

When?

It’s hard to say”

I see”

 And he does see. Simon comes to see her off

“I looked up and saw Simon was crying. The tears were running down his face. I kept on saying foolishly ‘I’ll come back, oh my love my darling, I’ll come back.

You’ll never come back”

This is a book that, despite my feelings towards Nevis and Simon, held my attention from page one and I read it through in one afternoon.  So different from her others that I had read and rather a surprise. While reading there was a feeling in the back of my mind that I had read another book in the past few years where a heroine was as thoroughly dislikeable and it finally came to me To Bed with Grand Music by Laski which I reviewed here. The main character in this book is despicable and ruthless and without any moral compass at all, and in fairness to Nevis she at least has the self knowledge to look at herself and realise her true nature.

And Simon?  In the end he lets her go.  I could only feel that she was foolish to throw away the love of a man who would do this for the woman for whom he cares deeply.

More to come in this fascinating series.   I cannot wait.

Random Jigsaws

So it looks as if we will be in lockdown for a few weeks yet.  Normal life seems so far away and I have found that I have settled into a quiet schedule of chores and reading etc.  I am making myself get up early and go out for a walk. Now I loathe exercise in any shape or form, always have done, always will BUT it is a necessity to do something when you are stuck indoors.  Day to day I am usually on the move doing things and errands etc so though I am not exactly Feeling the Burn I am, at least, mobile. Hence the early morning walk. I managed 50 minutes today which I am pleased with. I took my Nordic walking poles with me which helped and plugged in my ipod and earphones and it was not too bad. I intend to keep this up. Well, I am going to try...

I need to do this as I am finding I am spending an awful lot of time hunched over my jigsaw puzzle board. I was looking at special folding jigsaw tables as they really would be better for my dodgy back, but blimey over £200 in some cases. Forget it.

I have been doing jigsaw puzzles for ages and have taken this hobby up again in the last couple of years and am loving it. I have even joined a Facebook jigsaw group where we post pics of our latest and admire each other’s skill. I tend to stick to 500 piece but am now advancing to 1000 though I do not think I will go any further.

I finished this one yesterday. Copenhagen, Denmark and this is a harbour scene  which has been reproduced many times in the puzzle kingdom, but this is a painting and I found it lovely to do. I also found it relatively easy which surprised me as it looked difficult.

I recently finished this one of Bath which was fun though the yellow houses got me a bit muddled.

I adore the old fashioned 1960 type jigsaws of which there are a lot around. Gibson jigsaws do many of these but another manufacturer, Ravensburger, do a series of Happy Days at Work. So we have pictures of happy jolly farmers doing the milking, beaming smiling factory workers and happy teachers.

I do wonder how many of these were happy at the time but I love doing them. Some of the early ones are hard to track down. I am trying to get hold of The Secretary which is priceless - glam lady sitting there with shorthand notebook at the ready. Which is what I did when I started....

This one is difficult to get hold of so if anybody knows where I can obtain this puzzle do let me know. It looks wonderful. Tea tray at the ready for the Boss....

Getting hold of puzzles is getting difficult now as more and more lockdowners turn to them to pass the time. There are loads on ebay which is where I get a lot but the bidding wars now taking place are making them very expensive.  I always stock pile and when I see one on ebay I want I nab it quick. I have about 50 left to do which I am hoping will see me through and I am passing them on when I have finished. I don’t keep many of them, I do not have the room and once I have done them I really don’t want to do them again. Having said that there are a couple I am fond of and they will stay with me.

One aspect of jigsaw puzzling which ALWAYS happens is that you come across a section to concentrate on, say a patch of sky or a piece of a flower bed. You get it all done save for one piece which is eluding your eye. This happens every single time I do a puzzle. Check every single piece. It ain’t there. The trick here is to adopt an air of careless indifference, stand up and say Oh well it doesn’t matter, I am going to make a cup of tea.

Come back five minutes later and you will see it immediately.

And then if you are wearing a fluffy jumper you will find that pieces stick to it and drop on the kitchen floor when you go to make this cup of tea. You then panic when you finish the puzzle and find a piece is missing. Before looking under the sofa, I usually check the kitchen....

It can all get a bit fraught.

Any other puzzlers out there?

 

Recently received and current reading

After a couple of weeks of not being able to concentrate on anything I have finally started on my Lockdown Pile (formerly my To Be Read pile which I have renamed).  Still not sure I can face anything to heavy but I am getting there. Such a strange time at the moment, I seem to be living in a state of suspended animation and my mind has gone to pot. But here goes with Wot I am Doing and Reading...

Crossed Skis - Carol Carnac.   This is one of the British Library Classic Crime series which I adore. I do not like all of them, but even those that do not enchant me are fascinating to read because of the time they were written, they reflect social attitudes of the time and, in the final analysis (call me shallow) the covers are gorgeous.

Carol Carnac wrote under this name and E C R Lorac and I have read quite a few of the latter. The Carnac books that I have read (I have managed to track down titles a few on ebay and in small publishers) are mixed and some of the writing is a bit "purple" in places. They are a mixed bag but this one is really good.  Inspector Brook of Scotland Yard is called in after a house fire in which is discovered an unrecognisable burnt body.  One lead emerges - a lead which suggests the involvement of a skier.  The story then switches to a merry group of holiday makers on a skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps.  It is clear that one of them is an impostor and a murderer but who? I admit that I was leaning towards one person and then applied the Agatha Christie rule - if it is obvious then it is wrong. But then I thought but suppose that is what the author wants me to think in which case.....

So I gave up and was proved resoundingly WRONG.   Great read and an exciting finish.

Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell. Garlanded by great reviews, raves and bloggers on twitter saying how wonderful it was, I overcame my misgivings as I had tried and failed with some of her earlier books. Perhaps you are wrong Elaine so I get it and, once again, gave up. It is in a style I just cannot take and it is written in the Present Tense which drives me DEMENTED.  So many readers think this author is wonderful so there is a lack in me somewhere.

My Husband Simon - Molly Panter-Downes.   Another book from the British Library and I am going to write separately about this as I love this author and this book was slightly out of her ordinary. More later.

Blue Remembered Hills - Rosemary Sutcliff. A memoir of her childhood and it is as beautifully written as all her books. Rosemary suffered from juvenile arthritis knows as Still's Disease leaving her disabled. But she rises above it and this book is sheer delight from start to finish. I had an old battered copy and I am most appreciative of Slightly Foxed for being so generous as to send me one of their neat, handbag sized editions which are so beautifully produced.  I have loved this author since I was a child but only recently embarked on her books set in Roman Britain as it was not a period of history in which I was interested and I tended to lean towards her Tudor books (Brother Dusty Feet, The Armourer's House etc) so I was a latecomer to these. I have found them quite quite wonderful and here is a link to an earlier post.

Writer's London - A Guide to Literary People and Places by Carrie Kanie and Alan Oliver.  Oh this is simply gorgeous. I know I keep using that word but it is appropriate.  The introduction reads as follows:

"To step out into the streets of London is to walk in the fotssteps of Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, John Dryden and Lord Byron. Since the time of Chaucer, writers as diverse as Heman Melville and Barbara Cartland have worked, played and loved in London. Many of the greatest books ever written can trace their their origins to this wondrous city"

The book is organised by loosely defined districts so I first checked the areas that I know so I looked at Bloomsbury, then Covent Garden and Marylebone and it became clear to me very quickly that I need to re-explore with this book in hand and also go further afield.   This is a fascinating book and while I cannot leave the house at the moment when the circumstances change this book is going to come into its own.

That is enough for today. I have also read reprints of another Golden Age writer of crime, Moray Dalton which I shall be posting about and have started the latest Inspector Montalbano books which I adore.

There is no cricket this year, Queen's has been cancelled and so I have no excuse for tackling all the reading which is piling up.

I daresay I shall find one though...

Stay safe and well everyone

Random Lockdown

The papers are full of Lockdown Diaries at the moment which vary wildly from the totally self absorbed (usually Slebs who cannot bear not to be in the limelight) to those who have such high minded ideas of what they are going to read (Tolstoy, Joyce, Proust etc) that I have given up on them.

They are as bad as the ones you see in papers during the summer asking What Books will you Read on the Beach and instead of just admitting Dan Brown or Lee Childs, all the high faluting writers trot out a long list which usually includes one of the authors I have already mentioned.

Well, dear readers, you and I know this is total bollocks but we allow them to be pretentious and precious if it makes them feel better.

I am finding it hard to settle down to any serious reading at the moment and I know from comments here and elsewhere that many others feel the same. I have a huge TBR pile which is ever present and lots of lovely books to read, but I have been re-reading and turn to the old favourites such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and of course my beloved Georgette Heyer.  When you can laugh at the absurdities of Friday’s Child or languish after Damerel in Venetia the world does not seem such an awful place. Which it is at the moment.

I live on my own and spend a great deal of time on my own and I like that, always have done so staying at home with just me does not bother me too much. Of course, in about a month I might be feeling differently and am not smug enough to think I have all this licked because I haven’t.  

I have jigsaws coming out of my ears, I always have a good stock in the cupboards and over the last few weeks I have purchased more, from Amazon and on ebay and glad I am I did as the bidding on ebay has now gone through the roof and many of the puzzles on Amazon are now ‘temporarily out of stock’. Sitting down with a 1,000 piece puzzle of a sunset over a Cornish harbour is totally soothing and engrossing and makes it easy to forget what is going on elsewhere.

I have been going out once a week to what I have named The Elderly Hour at our Waitrose just five minutes drive away. The first time I went when I had not been out for two weeks I found nerve wracking. Getting in the car felt strange and I was most apprehensive - it is so easy to become institutionalised. An orderly queue spaced apart, no hassle no fuss. We were let in a few at a time and handed a trolley sanitised and ready.  Everyone was SO polite...Excuse me may I just get at the milk? Oh I am so sorry of course....would you mind if I went past you...yes I will get out of your way....so frightfully British. I rather liked it.

Of course being at home would be a wonderful time to sit and watch tennis and cricket but of course there is none. It gives you that feeling when you are ill that you will take the opportunity of lolling in bed and reading, but you don’t because you feel naff and can’t be arsed. It is the perfect example of the Law of Sod.  Fortunately, Sky have set up a link and you click on it to pause your sub for Sports until it is back up and running so well done them.

The worst thing of course about this lockdown is not seeing the family. When I said goodbye to my grandchildren a few weeks ago I just burst into tears and when Beatrice said but grandma when are we going to see you again I fled the house.  But thank goodness for Facetime and Skype and all those other apps that allow you to chat. Not sure I could manage without them.

It is very cold today so I am happy to be indoors. I am about to start another jigsaw, I finished this one last night, I have a cup of coffee to hand and after lunch I will probably have a nap and then listen to a concert on the radio.

I am listening a lot right now as I cannot cope with the television and the constant haranguing from the news rooms by various reporters which the BBC still insist on sending out to far flung places such as Nether Bottom or Little Piddlington in the Marsh when they should be inside in the studio and not poncing around the countryside.

I shall be posting about the books I have actually managed to read in the last few weeks in a day or two. The British Library Classic Crime feature heavily.....

Stay well and safe everyone and I would love to hear from you all how you are coping.

Mortmain Hall - Martin Edwards

Some time back I discovered the Lake District Murders by Martin, read and thoroughly enjoyed them.  Then later he popped up as consultant to the British Library Classic Crime series, introducing many of the book republished and also curating a collection of short stories for titles such as Blood on the Tracks, a collection of railway mysteries and Serpents in Eden, Countryside Crime.  He is also the author of a simply superb book which nobody who is interested in Golden Age Crime should be without The Golden Age of Murder

Last year Martin published Gallows Court, a new series featuring Rachel Savernake. I am not sure that I find Rachel a particularly likeable heroine if I am totally honest, but that does not really matter if you are finding the book intriguing and full of twists and turns. I had to really concentrate when reading this, I freely admit, but it was worth it. Now Martin has another title out Mortmain Hall (incidentally I love the cover) and a copy arrived for me to review last week.

Now I am being honest and saying that I am only halfway through this title as I have been innundated with books and e-books from publishers and publicists who, because of the current situation, have to promote their clients via the internet, twitter and all over the internet as book launches and talks have been totally wiped out.

Because of this I am getting behind with my reading. OK well what else have you got to do I hear you cry, particularly as I am in lockdown and self isolating because I have reached a Certain Age and therefore vulnerable. I have plenty of time but I freely admit I am finding it hard to concentrate. So, Martin, I am apologising if this review is not as complete as it should be.

We have a brief epilogue mentioning Mortmain Hall which immediately grabs the imagination and then straight into chapter one with another intriguing opening line "the ghost climbed out of a hackney carriage".  Rachel Savernake is lurking and following him as he boards a train at the private station of the London Necropolis Company (worth . I reading all about this organisation, it makes fascinating reading/ Check out this article as it will help set the scene.

She knows he is not who he says he is but a man returned from self imposed exile, a swindler and a thief, who fled abroad. His life is in danger and Rachel warns him of this but he is weary of it all and takes no notice.  Two chapters later he is dead. Thrown out of the train but in a way that looks like an accident. And so the plot begins to thicken.

There is also another strand introduced when Jacob Flint, a reporter is watching a trial at the Old Bailey. Clive Danskin is accused of murder and though he is a philanderer, a cheat and drowning in debt, the case against him is purely cirumstantial.  I love court room scenes and this was a goody.

"Percival Lang KC was nicknames the Tortoise. Council for the Defence exuded caution and his deliberate manner verged on lethargy. Sir Edgar, in contrast, was a born hare"

I am not giving anything away here when we find a surprise witness who provides him with an albii so that Danskin is found Not Guilty.  We already know the evidence is cirumstantial so it comes as no surprise.   The atmosphere Martin creates here in this court room environment is spot on. .

And this is where I am and I am looking forward to finishing and finding out just what happened at Mortmain Hall and how all these events link up. You will see from the insert that other bloggers are reviewing Mortmain Hall so do log onto them in due course and see what they have to say.

Martin Edwards has won numerous awards and is currently President of the Detection Club, and chair of the CWA so he knows all there is to know about Murder and Mayhem.....

Stephen Sondheim is 90

I have piles of books to review that publishers have sent me in the past few weeks as launch parties have been cancelled and publicity thrown into chaos. My own daughter's book, of which more later, falls into this category so I have a lot of reading to do. But I decided that before I embark on this I would take time to celebrate the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Many years ago a friend of mine rang me up "I have got two tickets to the opening night of the UK opening of A Little Night Music, would you like to come with me?" I knew nothing about it, nothing about Sondheim but a free night at a London theatre was not to be sniffed at so off I went. And oh how wonderful it was. It took a while to acclimitise to his style, his lyrics and the cross cutting of sung dialogue and wit but once you tune it, it is wonderful.

Jean Simmons was in the role of Desiree, an aging actress who discovers too late that she still loves an old flame who now has a young wife.  Towards the end of the performance she sings Send in the Clowns. When the opening chord was played by the orchestra a hush fell on the audience and before she even started to sing I had a lump in my throat. I rank this song as one of the most perfect and moving every written. Last week the Proms showed a concert first broadcast on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday and Judi Dench sang it. I was in tears.

My ex who is a singer came home in great delight many years ago as he had landed a small role and an understudy in the London production of Follies which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. This show pays tribute to the women who became Ziegfeld Follies singers and dancers (here they are called the Weisman girls) and is set in a theatre where they used to perform and which is due for demolition.  Follies follows two couples, Phyllis and Ben and Sally and Buddy, who met and married during the Follies but who have never been satisfied with their choices or their lives.

The show is packed with stunning set pieces and songs starting with 'Hats off here they come, those Beautiful girls' . Anyone who knows Singing in the Rain will recognise the pastiche of one of the numbers in this film where we have a parade of lovely girls dressed as Winter, September, Spring and Summer.  The show has double casting, a young Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy to contrast with how they are now.  Most of the best songs are reserved for the women, 'Broadway Baby', 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and a simply heart stopping 'One last Waltz' which sounds like faux-Richard Strauss and is a quite beautiful song.  However, the biggy is 'I'm Still Here'.  This is sung by the main diva in the show charting divorce, scandal, alcoholism and begging on the streets, but hey 'I'm Still Here'.  I saw Eartha Kitt do this night after night when my ex was in the show in the West End back in the 90s and she brought the house down every single time.

It is a show full of regrets, bitterness and nostalgia and has resonances for me.  When I saw it, my two daughters were 8 and 10, we went to see the show with their Dad in it several times and they knew the words and music better than the artistes themselves by the end of the run, and it was such a lovely time in my life, so I tend to find it makes me rather sad when I see it, which is a shame as it is wonderful.

I was lucky enough to have a seat for the last night of the run in the West End and everyone was on top form.  The entire audience was full of aficionados who had obviously seen it dozens of times, loved it and knew the songs and by the end of the evening for the big revival of Beautfiul Girls the entire audience was on their feet singing.  Quite stunning.  But for me, the evening did not end there.  The producer, Cameron MacIntosh threw a lavish after show party on stage and I found myself mingling and drinking champagne with Eartha Kitt, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and other assorted luminaries who had come to see the show.  Stephen Sondheim attended and I ended up chatting to him for about 10 minutes about the different versions of the show (the earlier one had a darker ending with a breakdown of one of the characters but this was deemed not acceptable for this run) and I told him I preferred the earlier ending and he was delighted to hear it.  The sign of a person with good manners is their total attention and that is what Stephen Sondheim gave me.  Not once did his eyes stray past me searching for someone more interesting and famous to talk to, and believe me everyone else came in that category!  It was thrilling.

The best part was at the end of the party.  The musical director sat at the white grand piano on the stage and started to play songs from the shows.  I ended up leaning on the piano with the cast singing songs from Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific etc.  It was sheer magic and I do not think I have ever spent a more wonderful, unforgettable night. 

Last year my elder daughter in Australia bought me two tickets for Follies at the National Theatre for my birthday and I took my younger daughter. It was superb but a bittersweet memory of happier times which echoes the feeling of the piece. I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and afterwards my daughter said Oh Mum I had forgotten just how marvellous it was. And she was right. It was and it is.

Both my girls like Sondheim - when they were small I took them to see Sweeney Todd which looking back was probably not a good idea.........

But they survived.

I have piles of books to review that publishers have sent me in the past few weeks as launch parties have been cancelled and publicity thrown into chaos. My own daughter's book, of which more later, falls into this category so I have a lot of reading to do. But I decided that before I embark on this I would take time to celebrate the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Many years ago a friend of mine rang me up "I have got two tickets to the opening night of the UK opening of A Little Night Music, would you like to come with me?" I knew nothing about it, nothing about Sondheim but a free night at a London theatre was not to be sniffed at so off I went. And oh how wonderful it was. It took a while to acclimitise to his style, his lyrics and the cross cutting of sung dialogue and wit but once you tune it, it is wonderful.

Jean Simmons was in the role of Desiree, an aging actress who discovers too late that she still loves an old flame who now has a young wife.  Towards the end of the performance she sings Send in the Clowns. When the opening chord was played by the orchestra a hush fell on the audience and before she even started to sing I had a lump in my throat. I rank this song as one of the most perfect and moving every written. Last week the Proms showed a concert first broadcast on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday and Judi Dench sang it. I was in tears.

My ex who is a singer came home in great delight many years ago as he had landed a small role and an understudy in the London production of Follies which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. This show pays tribute to the women who became Ziegfeld Follies singers and dancers (here they are called the Weisman girls) and is set in a theatre where they used to perform and which is due for demolition.  Follies follows two couples, Phyllis and Ben and Sally and Buddy, who met and married during the Follies but who have never been satisfied with their choices or their lives.

The show is packed with stunning set pieces and songs starting with 'Hats off here they come, those Beautiful girls' . Anyone who knows Singing in the Rain will recognise the pastiche of one of the numbers in this film where we have a parade of lovely girls dressed as Winter, September, Spring and Summer.  The show has double casting, a young Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy to contrast with how they are now.  Most of the best songs are reserved for the women, 'Broadway Baby', 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and a simply heart stopping 'One last Waltz' which sounds like faux-Richard Strauss and is a quite beautiful song.  However, the biggy is 'I'm Still Here'.  This is sung by the main diva in the show charting divorce, scandal, alcoholism and begging on the streets, but hey 'I'm Still Here'.  I saw Eartha Kitt do this night after night when my ex was in the show in the West End back in the 90s and she brought the house down every single time.

It is a show full of regrets, bitterness and nostalgia and has resonances for me.  When I saw it, my two daughters were 8 and 10, we went to see the show with their Dad in it several times and they knew the words and music better than the artistes themselves by the end of the run, and it was such a lovely time in my life, so I tend to find it makes me rather sad when I see it, which is a shame as it is wonderful.

I was lucky enough to have a seat for the last night of the run in the West End and everyone was on top form.  The entire audience was full of aficionados who had obviously seen it dozens of times, loved it and knew the songs and by the end of the evening for the big revival of Beautfiul Girls the entire audience was on their feet singing.  Quite stunning.  But for me, the evening did not end there.  The producer, Cameron MacIntosh threw a lavish after show party on stage and I found myself mingling and drinking champagne with Eartha Kitt, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and other assorted luminaries who had come to see the show.  Stephen Sondheim attended and I ended up chatting to him for about 10 minutes about the different versions of the show (the earlier one had a darker ending with a breakdown of one of the characters but this was deemed not acceptable for this run) and I told him I preferred the earlier ending and he was delighted to hear it.  The sign of a person with good manners is their total attention and that is what Stephen Sondheim gave me.  Not once did his eyes stray past me searching for someone more interesting and famous to talk to, and believe me everyone else came in that category!  It was thrilling.

The best part was at the end of the party.  The musical director sat at the white grand piano on the stage and started to play songs from the shows.  I ended up leaning on the piano with the cast singing songs from Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific etc.  It was sheer magic and I do not think I have ever spent a more wonderful, unforgettable night. 

Last year my elder daughter in Australia bought me two tickets for Follies at the National Theatre for my birthday and I took my younger daughter. It was superb but a bittersweet memory of happier times which echoes the feeling of the piece. I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and afterwards my daughter said Oh Mum I had forgotten just how marvellous it was. And she was right. It was and it is.

Both my girls like Sondheim - when they were small I took them to see Sweeney Todd which looking back was probably not a good idea.........

But they survived.

I have piles of books to review that publishers have sent me in the past few weeks as launch parties have been cancelled and publicity thrown into chaos. My own daughter's book, of which more later, falls into this category so I have a lot of reading to do. But I decided that before I embark on this I would take time to celebrate the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Many years ago a friend of mine rang me up "I have got two tickets to the opening night of the UK opening of A Little Night Music, would you like to come with me?" I knew nothing about it, nothing about Sondheim but a free night at a London theatre was not to be sniffed at so off I went. And oh how wonderful it was. It took a while to acclimitise to his style, his lyrics and the cross cutting of sung dialogue and wit but once you tune it, it is wonderful.

Jean Simmons was in the role of Desiree, an aging actress who discovers too late that she still loves an old flame who now has a young wife.  Towards the end of the performance she sings Send in the Clowns. When the opening chord was played by the orchestra a hush fell on the audience and before she even started to sing I had a lump in my throat. I rank this song as one of the most perfect and moving every written. Last week the Proms showed a concert first broadcast on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday and Judi Dench sang it. I was in tears.

My ex who is a singer came home in great delight many years ago as he had landed a small role and an understudy in the London production of Follies which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. This show pays tribute to the women who became Ziegfeld Follies singers and dancers (here they are called the Weisman girls) and is set in a theatre where they used to perform and which is due for demolition.  Follies follows two couples, Phyllis and Ben and Sally and Buddy, who met and married during the Follies but who have never been satisfied with their choices or their lives.

The show is packed with stunning set pieces and songs starting with 'Hats off here they come, those Beautiful girls' . Anyone who knows Singing in the Rain will recognise the pastiche of one of the numbers in this film where we have a parade of lovely girls dressed as Winter, September, Spring and Summer.  The show has double casting, a young Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy to contrast with how they are now.  Most of the best songs are reserved for the women, 'Broadway Baby', 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and a simply heart stopping 'One last Waltz' which sounds like faux-Richard Strauss and is a quite beautiful song.  However, the biggy is 'I'm Still Here'.  This is sung by the main diva in the show charting divorce, scandal, alcoholism and begging on the streets, but hey 'I'm Still Here'.  I saw Eartha Kitt do this night after night when my ex was in the show in the West End back in the 90s and she brought the house down every single time.

It is a show full of regrets, bitterness and nostalgia and has resonances for me.  When I saw it, my two daughters were 8 and 10, we went to see the show with their Dad in it several times and they knew the words and music better than the artistes themselves by the end of the run, and it was such a lovely time in my life, so I tend to find it makes me rather sad when I see it, which is a shame as it is wonderful.

I was lucky enough to have a seat for the last night of the run in the West End and everyone was on top form.  The entire audience was full of aficionados who had obviously seen it dozens of times, loved it and knew the songs and by the end of the evening for the big revival of Beautfiul Girls the entire audience was on their feet singing.  Quite stunning.  But for me, the evening did not end there.  The producer, Cameron MacIntosh threw a lavish after show party on stage and I found myself mingling and drinking champagne with Eartha Kitt, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and other assorted luminaries who had come to see the show.  Stephen Sondheim attended and I ended up chatting to him for about 10 minutes about the different versions of the show (the earlier one had a darker ending with a breakdown of one of the characters but this was deemed not acceptable for this run) and I told him I preferred the earlier ending and he was delighted to hear it.  The sign of a person with good manners is their total attention and that is what Stephen Sondheim gave me.  Not once did his eyes stray past me searching for someone more interesting and famous to talk to, and believe me everyone else came in that category!  It was thrilling.

The best part was at the end of the party.  The musical director sat at the white grand piano on the stage and started to play songs from the shows.  I ended up leaning on the piano with the cast singing songs from Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific etc.  It was sheer magic and I do not think I have ever spent a more wonderful, unforgettable night. 

Last year my elder daughter in Australia bought me two tickets for Follies at the National Theatre for my birthday and I took my younger daughter. It was superb but a bittersweet memory of happier times which echoes the feeling of the piece. I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and afterwards my daughter said Oh Mum I had forgotten just how marvellous it was. And she was right. It was and it is.

Both my girls like Sondheim - when they were small I took them to see Sweeney Todd which looking back was probably not a good idea.........

But they survived.