Random Jottings

Current reading etc

I was sorting out my TBR pile the other day and had a sort out of those I was sent and did not particularly want (charity shop beckons) and those I pass on to friends as I think they may like them and I am not going to read them, and then those which I definitely DO want to read but gawd knows when I will get round to them....you know the drill.

Anyway, here is a round up of read, to be read and will be read but I am not sure when....

Two from the British LIbrary series of Women Writers which is "a curated collection" which description makes me want to spit feathers. "curated" and "shop the edit" are marketing expressions which are now totally overused and incredibly irritating.  If I receive something so described I feel like chucking it in the bin straight away.  Which would be a pity as some of the titles are really interesting.  Father by Elizabeth von Arnim has long been out of print and it is good to have it back. I have a battered old copy on my shelves which I am hanging onto so this new copy will be passed on to a friend.

Jennifer has devoted years of her life to looking after her writer father who is selfish and utterly vile.  He arrives home one day with an adoring acolyte who he announces as his new wife.   When they go off on honeymoon Jennifer seizes the opportunity to do a bunk and make a life of her own.   Witty, funny and delightful and written with that wonderful detached humour that EVA does so well, this is a delight only marred by the ending when I wanted to get hold of Jennifer and bash her up against a brick wall....

Another in this series Tea is so Intoxicating by Mary Essex.  A new tea garden is opened in a country village much to the consternation of the lady of the manor who wants to shut it down. It is run by David who is a rather silly man with a high opinion of himself and is thoroughly irritating.   What was also irritating about this book is the author's penchant for totally unneccesary exclamation marks which are littered throughout and I am not quite sure why.   I have to be honest and say that this was not for me though I have read other reviewers who loved it.  Mary Essex is a pen name for Ursula Bloom who, it seems, was once recognised in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most published female author a fact which fills me with astonishment.   This title is being passed on.

Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford. An epistolary novel novel originally published in 1933. Hilary Fane has just left Edinburgh University and is determined to support herself by her own earnings in London for a year despite the resentment of her rather pompous surgeon fiance.  She finds works as a typist in a London department store (clearly based on Selfridges) and her misfortunes and mistakes and trials and tribulations are written about with wit and style.  She rises through the ranks to work in the library where all attempts at improving the service are met with disapproval by entrenched colleagues.

At first Hilary appears as a tad snobbish with a total ignorance of how the proles live and life comes as a bit of a shock but her natural resilience and good nature see her through. Initially unimpressed with this title by the end I had come to love it and it is staying on my shelves.  As I read it I realised it reminded me in style of E M Delafield which I think is A Good Thing.

In my previous post I said I had been watching the TV and film versions of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by le Carre. I decided I would re-read the book and, once more, found it totally gripping and superbly written.   I then turned to Box88 by Charles Cumming which is a brilliant spy story and very much in the le Carre style. Both Cummin and le Carrie show us what the reality of the intelligence sector is like, no James Bond swanning round in glam locations, but unobtrusive secretive men and women going about their business in a very understated way.  (Personally, I have always wondered how Bond could be a spy seeing as how everyone knew who he was...)

It is 1989 and the Cold War will soon be over, but for BOX 88, a top secret spying agency, the espionage game is heating up. Lachlan Kite, recruited from an elite boarding school, is sent to France, tasked with gathering intelligence on an enigmatic Iranian businessman implicated in the Lockerbie bombing. Lachlan is torn with loyalty to the service that has recruited him and to the friends he is staying with.

It is now 2020: MI5 hear rumours of BOX 88’s existence and investigate Kite only to disover that Iranian intelligence have got to him first. Taken captive and brutally tortured, Kite has a choice: reveal the truth about what happened in France thirty years earlier – or watch his family die.

The Narrative goes backwards and forwards in time, a device which I always find interesting and helps with charactr development. A tight, taut thriller, excellent writing and as good as Cumming's previous spy novels, all of which I have read. There is a cliff hanger ending so more to come and that is also A Good Thing.

Brothers at War - Robert Lacey.   Just published and loving a good gossip I read this with great enjoyment. All about Harry and William and their relationship.   Not all is as it seems as reported by the Press and Lacey seems to have good reliable sources for his facts.  An ongoing saga which will run and run. Various opinions expressed on Ginge and Winge or Cash and Harry as they are sometimes referred to in our fine tabloid press.

OK now onto books awaiting my attention:

Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey.  It is fifty years since this novel was written and I am delighted that Peter is still with us and still writing superb mysteries featuring Inspector Peter Diamond and set in Bath. This is a special anniversary edition and I am delighted to have it.

The Man who didn't fly by Margot Bennett. British Library Crime classic and I know full well that I am going to enjoy this.

The Artful Dickens by John Mullan "the tricks and ploys of the great novelist". As a Dickens fan and having read Mullan on Jane Austen I know this is going to be good and I am looking forward to reading it.

Dressed for War by Julie Summers. I know nothing about this except it is the story of Vogue editor Audrey WIthers from the Blitz to the Swinging Sixties. Sounds promising,

And I have to mention Miss Carter and the Ifrit by Susan Alice Kerby. Miss Carter by an combination of circumstances comes across an Ifrit "don't call him a genie" who is eager to do her bidding.  He brings her exotic foods and whisks her off through space to visit a nephew in Canada.  I am half way through this title and loving it - it reminds me very much of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day published by Persephone some years ago and has the same Cinderella quality. I will reveiw more fully later.   This little gem is published by Dean Street Press who are rapidly becoming my favourite place to find delightful unknown titles.

Well that is enough to keep me going for a bit methinks.

How are you all doing with your reading? Do let me know of any interesting titles and I hope everyone is keeping well in these trying times.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John le Carre

I mentioned in my last post that I had been watching the tv series which the BBC made over forty years ago.  It holds up very well indeed.  I had been reading a novel by Charles Cumming, Box 88 of which more anon, and it was very much in the mould of the Smiley novels of le Carre and made me seek this series out once more.

I found myself totally absorbed as I watched the story unfold. I now know it well but I remember when I first saw Tinker Tailor I watched it with my then husband and we both found it very complicated. It was shown on a Saturday and on the Friday evening the BBC repeated the previous episode as a reminder (this was pre video days remember) and we watched it to refresh our memory before then embarking on the next one. 

I found the terminology used by The Circus fascinating. There were "lamplighters" and "scalp hunters", names for the lower echelons while those on the top floor left them to do the grubby and dirty work.   The Circus has a source in Moscow "Merlin" and his intelligence was called "witchhunter" and there was a lot of lurking around in drab safehouses and hotel rooms.  One feels that this is how intelligence work operates with a lack of glamour and all rather drab, unlike the world of James Bond.

So I watched all the episodes and, once again, found I could not stop watching.  Some of the music is intrusive and overdone but most of the scenes where a discussion is taking place and you see the layers of treachery being peeled away have no background music at all and all the better for it.  It is "wordy" in the best sense of the word, a superb script and when spoken by the likes of Alec Guinness and Ian Richardson, it is pure joy.  Radio 4 did an adaptation of it some time back with Simon Russell Beale as Smiley and an actor of that stature rendered it wonderful to listen to.

I have to mention the theme music Nunc Dimittis composed by Geoffrey Burgon.  It was perfect and quite haunting. Having just heard it I find it hard to get it out of my head.  Here is a Youtube clip to listen to:

 

Today was a rainy cold day and after my morning walk I sat down with my toast and coffee and watched the film made some five years ago and starring Gary Oldman as Smiley. I remember seeing it in the cinema on the day of its release and wondering what it would be like and if it would compare to this series.  I need not have wondered as it was excellent and, once more, acting of the highest order.   As well as Oldman we had Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Ciaran HInds, Mark Strong and assorted British thesps.

It has made me want to read the book again and I searched in vain on my shelves and so by the wonder that is Kindle I downloaded a copy and will be taking a look at it in the coming week.

There are several books by le Carre featuring Smiley and I have read them all, but Tinker Tailor is the stand out one as far as I am concerned and I am looking forward to tackling it once more.

The BBC also did a second series, Smiley's People and I intend to watch that again as well.  With things the way they are at the moment and the winter coming in, it is good to have something as good as this ready to keep me happy.

I am away for a few days now and will be reviewing my recently read when I return.

 

Random Ramble

Hello to all my lovely followers/readers and, once again, time has passed and I have not posted. I am unable to fathom out why as I have time to do so as we all have at the moment, but I am finding it quite difficult to get motivated each day as they merge into one doom laden one after the other.

That makes me sound miserable and lacking oomph but I promise you I am not.  I am determined not to let things get on top of me and to live my life as normally as I can. 

So what have I been doing? A lot of reading and my next post will be an update on those read and those currently on my heap awaiting my attention. As per, there are quite a few.

One book I have just finished and will be writing about is Box88 by Charles Cumming, a taut immensely satisfying spy story, more in the le Carre mode than, say Ian Fleming and much more believable.  It is no coincidence that after finishing this I started watching the BBC series of Tinker Tailor starring the simply superb Alec Guinness as George Smiley.  It is over forty years old and yet, watching it last night, I was finding it as fresh as ever. OK the picture is "square" on the tv we all have today and some of the colours look slightly odd, but the script and the acting are superb. I know the story very well and so there are no suprises but what I love about it is the fact that it is, for want of a better word, "wordy". There are so many scenes where the characters sit and discuss and talk and unpeel the layers of treachery and it is totally absorbing.  And oh the delight of watching all the British thesps of long ago strutting their stuff. Wonderful.   I am half way through and had to turn off as I was aware it was nearly midnight and if I had carried on it would have been 3 am before I finished.   So tonight I shall watch the last few episodes. I remember when I first watched it my then husband and I would sit and discuss the ins and outs and decipher what was going on.

And the film, with Gary Oldman as Smiley which came out a while back is also very good.

OK I am rambling but it is 7 am and I have been awake for a couple of hours, I find I need less sleep these days, and so decided to sit down and write to you all.  I would love to hear how you are getting on and what you are doing and reading and surviving. I have turned into a jigsaw fiend this year after a long time of not doing any at all and here are a couple of pics of those I have finished.

 

They are pure nostalgia and lovely and delightful and I really enjoy doing them. Sometimes I will get up to go to bed and then think I will just put one more piece in.  Two hours later...

Back soon, I promise...

Anne Bronte - Happy Birthday

It is 200 years since Anne was born - it was in January 1820 so my birthday thoughts are somewhat late.  This year we were due to have a visit by Nick Holland, author of a superb biography of Anne, at the Felixstowe Book Festival but that never happened as along with other festivals, it had to be cancelled.

I was looking forward to his talk very much as I love Anne and think she is under appreciated and in this video I try to explain why.

I know some of you have difficulty with the sound of the videos which are filmed on my ipad and I tried to record this on my laptop. Unfortunately the video quality is not good and I looked like Morticia Adams so I reverted back to the ipad.  I have ordered a  microphone as the last one I had was useless so, let us hope next time is better.

In the meantime I do hope you enjoy listening and please leave thoughts and comments.

 

 

P D James- An Appreciation

Just recently I have been rediscovering Josephine Tey and I had forgotten what a wonderful writer she was. It is difficult to convey the sheer pleasure of such lucid, elegant and seamless prose which makes reading such a joy.  It is no surprise that after this rediscovery I decided to return to another writer whose writing falls into the same category as Tey, the kind of writing which flows, seemingly so easily, not a extraneous verb, adverb, comma or full stop. 

I came late to PD James, picking up one of her books at a book fair for 50p years ago and thinking that it looked interesting.  It was A Taste for Death and opened with the discovery of two bodies in a church in London, both with their throats cut, one of them being a Cabinet Minister who had recently resigned from the Government. So an intriguing premise.

I should have read the books in order but I never do, I just grab them when I see them but last week I read her first Dalgliesh Cover her Face (if I remember rightly this is a quote from the Duchess of Malfi and Agatha Christie uses it in Sleeping Murder.  I am just showing off here.....).

This title was published in 1962 and it has dated somewhat with class distinction a central theme. The victim, Sally Jupp, is an unmarried mother and, of course, back then such a person was regarded as a pariah.  While I feel PD James wants to feel sympathy with her she does portray Sally as a sly manipulative piece of work and her murder hardly comes as a surprise.  But this was the first in the Dalgliesh series and as the author became more certain of her ground and her characters they grow and expand.

A Certain Justice was next. Venetia Aldridge, QC is a distinguished barrister with a knack of arousing dislike in her colleagues and friends.  Her fierce drive to be the best and her ambition has led to an estrangement from her daughter and conflict with her fellow barristers in Chambers.  On the retirement of the current Head of Chambers, Venetia will take over, an event that is not greeted with any joy by Dyysdale Laud, who thinks it should be him, by the Clerk Harold Naughton who Venetia wish to be rid of and replace with an office manager, by the timid secretary who Venetia despises and other colleague who wish her ill.  Venetia's intolerance and impatience with them all is exacerbated by the crisis with her daughter Olivia who has become engaged to a young man, Ashe, who Venetia has just defended in a murder case.  He was acquitted because of her brilliant defence but it is clear that he is guilty.  For the first time in her life Venetia is powerless to act.  No surprise then that she is the victim.

The Private Patient was the last Dalgliesh and I think it is one of her best.

Rhoda Gradwyn is an investigative journalist, who has booked into a private clinic for the removal of a disfiguring scar on her face, inflicted upon her by a drunken father during her unhappy childhood. She has kept this scar as a badge of her determination not to let life defeat her, but now feels it is time to rid herself of this unsightly mark and to face up to her past.  She is looking forward to a successful operation and a convalescence at the beautiful manor house in Dorset which is the clinic's headquarters. 

Her operation takes place, all is well and she settles down to sleep in her bedroom.  In the middle of the night she awakes, she knows somebody is in the room and looking up she sees a dark masked figure coming towards her....

Dalgliesh and his team are called in and there follows the usual complex, beautifully plotted narrative which leads us to a denouement which is not quite the end of the story, as there is an added twist in the final chapter which is not totally cleared up, leaving the reader to wonder.

I remember posting on this some years ago and highlighted this paragraph which is so beautifully descriptive and made me feel in great sympathy with Rhoda and I insert it here again with no apology for so doing:

"Eight years ago she had taken a lease on a house in the City, part of a narrow terrace in a small courtyard at the end of Absolution Alley near Cheapside, and knew as soon as she moved in that this was the part of London in which she would always choose to live........many generations had lived in it, born and died there leaving behind nothing but their names on browning and archaic leases.........although the lower rooms with their mullioned windows were dark, those in her study and sitting room on the top storey were open to the sky, giving a view of the towers and steeples of the City....an iron staircase led from a narrow balcony to secluded roof which held a row of terracotta pots and where on fine Sunday mornings she would sit with her books or newspapers as the Sabbath calm lengthened into midday and the early peace was broken only by the familiar peals of the City bells"

I found myself liking Rhoda, probably because I too find it essential to find time to myself and to be on my own.  We are given the background to Rhoda's life and how she was scarred; her friends, not many, she was essentially solitary person, her desire to finally come to terms with her disfigurement.  Not necessarily an immediately lovable character but PD James tells us enough about her that we feel sadness that her life came to a sudden end and, what is worse, knowing in her last few minutes, that this was it, this was death coming towards her....

Brilliant.

In the last two weeks I have read Death of an Expert Witness, Death in Holy Orders and have now embarked on The Lighthouse.   It has been so long since I read them that I had actually forgotten the identity of the murderer though a glimmer of memory towards the end of one of them alerted me. One I had so forgotten it was a wonderful surprise to discover Who Dun It if that is an appropriate description. Perhaps not...

I still have another eight or nine to re-read and am looking forward to enjoying them all over again. Today is a windy, wind and leaf swept autumn day and is just perfect for staying indoors, keeping warm and reading.

Adam Dalgleish is in the tradition of elegant, fastidious detectives from Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn to Sayers Lord Peter, vulnerable and at times capable of great sensitivity.  Odd how the British detectives (I count Ngaio Marsh as British as the vast majority of her stories are set in England), despite multiple murders and gory details, manage to maintain this air of tea on the lawn, and servants in the kitchen below stairs, even though Adam certainly doesn't fit into that category.

 

Difficult to convey to you just how much I love her writing. The word mellifluos comes to mind the definition of which is  "(of a sound) pleasingly smooth and musical to hear".  Reading her prose and hearing it in your inward ear this description is perfect. Here is an example of her writing which I hope shows what I am trying to say in my muddled way:

 

"London had laid its spell on him and though his love affair with the city, as with all loves, had had its moments of disillusion, disappointment and threatened infidelity, the spell had remained ..... the panorama beneath him never failed to enchant. He saw it always as an artefact, sometimes a coloured lithograph in the delicate shades of a spring morning, sometimes a pen and ink drawing, every spire, every tower, every tree lovingly delineated, sometimes an oil, strong and vigorous. Tonight it was a psychedilic water colour, splashes of scarlet and grey latering the blue black of the night sky, the streets running with molten red and green as the traffic lights changed, the buildings with their squares of white windows pasted like coloured cut outs against the backcloth of the night"

 

Isn't that just perfect?

 

PS at the moment many of these titles are on Kindle at a silly price - do take advantage!

 

 

 

 

The Private Patient was the last Dalgliesh and I think it is one of her best.

Rhoda Gradwyn is an investigative journalist, who has booked into a private clinic for the removal of a disfiguring scar on her face, inflicted upon her by a drunken father during her unhappy childhood. She has kept this scar as a badge of her determination not to let life defeat her, but now feels it is time to rid herself of this unsightly mark and to face up to her past.  She is looking forward to a successful operation and a convalescence at the beautiful manor house in Dorset which is the clinic's headquarters. 

Her operation takes place, all is well and she settles down to sleep in her bedroom.  In the middle of the night she awakes, she knows somebody is in the room and looking up she sees a dark masked figure coming towards her....

Dalgliesh and his team are called in and there follows the usual complex, beautifully plotted narrative which leads us to a denouement which is not quite the end of the story, as there is an added twist in the final chapter which is not totally cleared up, leaving the reader to wonder.

I remember posting on this some years ago and highlighted this paragraph which is so beautifully descriptive and made me feel in great sympathy with Rhoda and I insert it here again with no apology for so doing:

"Eight years ago she had taken a lease on a house in the City, part of a narrow terrace in a small courtyard at the end of Absolution Alley near Cheapside, and knew as soon as she moved in that this was the part of London in which she would always choose to live........many generations had lived in it, born and died there leaving behind nothing but their names on browning and archaic leases.........although the lower rooms with their mullioned windows were dark, those in her study and sitting room on the top storey were open to the sky, giving a view of the towers and steeples of the City....an iron staircase led from a narrow balcony to secluded roof which held a row of terracotta pots and where on fine Sunday mornings she would sit with her books or newspapers as the Sabbath calm lengthened into midday and the early peace was broken only by the familiar peals of the City bells"

I found myself liking Rhoda, probably because I too find it essential to find time to myself and to be on my own.  We are given the background to Rhoda's life and how she was scarred; her friends, not many, she was essentially solitary person, her desire to finally come to terms with her disfigurement.  Not necessarily an immediately lovable character but PD James tells us enough about her that we feel sadness that her life came to a sudden end and, what is worse, knowing in her last few minutes, that this was it, this was death coming towards her....

Brilliant.

In the last two weeks I have read Death of an Expert Witness, Death in Holy Orders and have now embarked on The Lighthouse.   It has been so long since I read them that I had actually forgotten the identity of the murderer though a glimmer of memory towards the end of one of them alerted me. One I had so forgotten it was a wonderful surprise to discover Who Dun It if that is an appropriate description. Perhaps not...

I still have another eight or nine to re-read and am looking forward to enjoying them all over again. Today is a windy, wind and leaf swept autumn day and is just perfect for staying indoors, keeping warm and reading.

Adam Dalgleish is in the tradition of elegant, fastidious detectives from Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn to Sayers Lord Peter, vulnerable and at times capable of great sensitivity.  Odd how the British detectives (I count Ngaio Marsh as British as the vast majority of her stories are set in England), despite multiple murders and gory details, manage to maintain this air of tea on the lawn, and servants in the kitchen below stairs, even though Adam certainly doesn't fit into that category.

 

Difficult to convey to you just how much I love her writing. The word mellifluos comes to mind the definition of which is  "(of a sound) pleasingly smooth and musical to hear".  Reading her prose and hearing it in your inward ear this description is perfect. Here is an example of her writing which I hope shows what I am trying to say in my muddled way:

 

"London had laid its spell on him and though his love affair with the city, as with all loves, had had its moments of disillusion, disappointment and threatened infidelity, the spell had remained ..... the panorama beneath him never failed to enchant. He saw it always as an artefact, sometimes a coloured lithograph in the delicate shades of a spring morning, sometimes a pen and ink drawing, every spire, every tower, every tree lovingly delineated, sometimes an oil, strong and vigorous. Tonight it was a psychedilic water colour, splashes of scarlet and grey latering the blue black of the night sky, the streets running with molten red and green as the traffic lights changed, the buildings with their squares of white windows pasted like coloured cut outs against the backcloth of the night"

 

Isn't that just perfect?

 

PS at the moment many of these titles are on Kindle at a silly price - do take advantage!

Adam Dalgleish is in the tradition of elegant, fastidious detectives from Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Alleyn to Sayers Lord Peter, vulnerable and at times capable of great sensitivity.  Odd how the British detectives (I count Ngaio Marsh as British as the vast majority of her stories are set in England), despite multiple murders and gory details, manage to maintain this air of tea on the lawn, and servants in the kitchen below stairs, even though Adam certainly doesn't fit into that category.

 

Difficult to convey to you just how much I love her writing. The word mellifluos comes to mind the definition of which is  "(of a sound) pleasingly smooth and musical to hear".  Reading her prose and hearing it in your inward ear this description is perfect. Here is an example of her writing which I hope shows what I am trying to say in my muddled way:

 

"London had laid its spell on him and though his love affair with the city, as with all loves, had had its moments of disillusion, disappointment and threatened infidelity, the spell had remained ..... the panorama beneath him never failed to enchant. He saw it always as an artefact, sometimes a coloured lithograph in the delicate shades of a spring morning, sometimes a pen and ink drawing, every spire, every tower, every tree lovingly delineated, sometimes an oil, strong and vigorous. Tonight it was a psychedilic water colour, splashes of scarlet and grey latering the blue black of the night sky, the streets running with molten red and green as the traffic lights changed, the buildings with their squares of white windows pasted like coloured cut outs against the backcloth of the night"

 

Isn't that just perfect?

 

PS at the moment many of these titles are on Kindle at a silly price - do take advantage!

 

 

Dropping in

Hi everybody just to let you know that I am alive and plodding on though have been laid low with a bad back in the last week.  Life is just getting a bit tedious and  dreary at the mo and I know we are all in the same boat but now we have this Rule of Six which is just so flattening.

I have a friend staying with me (we have formed a bubble over the last few months) and we had a lovely day in Frinton where the sun shone and we had a lovely cuppa in Fred’s Cafe (I mean how could you not want to eat in a place with such a wonderful name?) and pottered around Connaught Avenue which was lively and cheerful. I have visited several times over the past few months and it was good to see it so happy.

The next day we visited Perrywood at Tiptree, a wonderful garden centre where I have to be restrained from spending vast quantities of money on their superb plants and flower. A new little cafe open, the Greenhouse Cafe, where we had coffee and a scone and the staff were smiling, cheerful and chatty.

Today we went to Aldeburgh. Crowded and unenjoyable. Getting a coffeewas well nigh impossible with queues everywhere, I went into a bookshop (NOT the Aldeburgh bookshop I hasten to add - that was lovely) and a voice shouted out Put your mask on. I was tempted to walk out but instead showed him my exemption badge, Oh alright he said.

My temper was not improved when walking back to get fish and chips I spotted discarded face masks in the gutter. Final straw was the queue outside the wonderful chip shop where we had planned to buy lunch. All standing about ten inches from each other and half of them not wearing a mask.

We drove home.

The next person who challenges me re my non mask wearing before checking my badge is liable to get a very short and to the point answer.

I am in Cambridge this week as it is Beatrice’s 8th birthday which will cheer me up no end. Thank goodness we will only be five in number.....

OK moan over.

And just to mention I am re-reading P D James. Wonderful. Will be writing about here later on this week.

Recently read and awaiting my attention

My sister came round for tea yesterday and pointed out to me that I had not posted for a week and when was I going to write again.  The usual excuse at the moment, total sloth and generally feeling fed up with life and the world. 

Apropos of nothing I sat and watched Andy Murray come back from two sets and a match point down in the first round of the US Open and win a stunning five setter, the first he has played for two years.  An incentive to beat sloth if ever I saw one.

So thanks to Andy here I am.

Still Life - Val McDermid.  I discovered this author about eighteen months ago and wondered why I had not done so before. I hoovered them all up, all the different series and have enjoyed them all in various degrees of pleasure. The Carol/Tony series now seems to have come to a halt and I feel this is probably a good thing as the pair of them were becoming increasingly irritating (to me anyway). My favourite is the Karen Pirie books.

Karen is a feisty Scot in charge of the cold case department who has suffered personal loss and tragedy and has had to come to terms with it.  This title starts with a dead man fished from the sea who was a prim suspect in a ten year old investigation into the disappearance of a civil servant. It was a Pirie case so she is asked to revisit it.  But she is also involved in another when a skeleton is discovered in an old campervan and it is clear the killer is still out there.

Both stories told beautifullly. I love the relationship between Karen and her sidekick, The Mint, so called because like the Murray Mint he cannot be hurried, who is loyal and faithful and a great guy.

Thoroughly enjoyed this but by the end of it I was aware, if I was not already from reading her tweets, that the author does not like the Tories, thinks Boris is useless, the First Minister is wonderful and she supports Scottish Independence.

I have no problems with anybody holding their political views but I do with they were not shoe horned into fiction. The last two DCI Banks books by Peter Robinson were blatantly anti Brexit and it all gets a tad tedious after a while.

Checkmate to Murder - E C R Lorac.  One of my favourite of all the discoveries of the British Library classic crime series.  Last one I read was Crossed Skis a few months ago and now this one dropped through my letterbox.

A foggy night in Hampstead, Lonndon during the blackout. A party is taking place in an artist’s studio, a civil servant, a government scientist playing chess while Bruce Manaton , the artist, paints a portrait. In the kitchen Rosanne, the artist’s sister preparing tea.   The studio is rented from a miser who lives alone in the hosue next door.

The sitting is interrupted by an officious Special Constable how has arrested a young soldier running from the house where the dead body of Mr Foliner, the aforementioned miser, has been discovered.

Ins and outs and the setting of fog bound London in the blackout beautifully portrayed. The BritLib and publish all of this writer’s book as far as I am concerned - and there are a lot....

The Outsider - Linda Castillo. The latest in the Kate Burkholder series set in Amish country. I do like these book.   The Outsider is a police detective fleeing a corrupt regime and she is running for her life.   It turns out that the fugitive, Gina Colorosa, is an old friend of Kate but she fell out with her years ago over her bending of the rules and is not sure she can be trusted.

Well written as always but I did find this particular title not quite up to the standard of the others in this genre. I think that the author thought it might be a good idea to change up the storyline from the usual internal Amish series of murders. After all, if they keep on killing  each other at the rate they are written the entire populace would be wiped out (as Anne Cleves has given as the reason for not writing any more Shetland novels) but I felt it did not quite work.

Last year I read a terrific debut novel by Harriet Tyce, Blood Orange. Her second book is now out, The Lies you Told and it is just as good, if not better than the first one.  I will be reviewing this more fully for Shiny New Books and will link to it when it is up.

Lots of good reads then and awaiting my attention the latest Strictly Foxed editions of two Rosemary Sutcliff titles of which more later, and a book which is sounding promising after the first chapter Queen Victoria and the Romanovs with the subtitle Sixty years of Mutual Distrust....

 

The Finisher - Peter Lovesey

Torpor. What a lovely word. Just saying it makes you feel languid and lazy and idle and can't be bothered.  And that is how I have felt the last week and this afternoon roused myself to start writing about books I have read over the last ten days.  I have read a couple of stinkers, a couple good, and two really excellent ones.

One of the excellent ones and the one I am reviewing today is The Finisher by Peter Lovesey.

Now I posted about Peter a while back on Random, here, after I had come across one of his books,  said blimey I thought he was dead (apologies....) and then discovered that he was in fact alive and kicking and had produced a whole slew of books I had missed entirely. A mistake I was happy to rectify.

Peter very kindly contacted me after my post to reassure me he was alive and well and said that the next Peter Diamond book was nearly finished and here it is.  He has forgiven my mistake re his mortality because I had first read his Sargeant Cribb books back in the sixties and so therefore, naturally, assumed he was no longer with us. I am delighted he is and even more so after reading this one.

A half marathon is taking place in the city of Bath and Diamond and his team are asked to police it and keep an eye on the crowds.  Not something he is particularly keen to do, particularly when he receives a shock when he recognises one of the runners, Tony Pinto, who he had arrested some fifteen years ago. He is now out of jail and taking part in the race.   Pinto had subjected a young woman to a vicious attack and Diamond is not happy when he sees him pestering a young woman runner who is clearly unhappy with his persistent attentions.   He keeps an eye on events and at the end of the race becomes concerned when the woman in question did not appear to have finished the course and has not registered that she has done so. She cannot be traced and two days later there is still no sign of her.

A parrallel story about Spiro, an Albanian illegal immigrant who has made his way to Bath, appears on the face of it to have little to do with the above. He is fleeing from The Finisher a vicious and dangerous traffiker who will have no hesitation in killing him if he catches him.  And it is while watching the half marathon that Spiro sees the man he fears.

OK I am stopping here as I do not wish to give anything away. I merely wish to say that for a large section of this book there is no murder, there is no body. We, the readers, are aware that somebody had met a grisly end but who? I will admit that I guessed but then I have a devious mind and have read too many detective novels.

I love Peter Diamond and his total lack of computer savvy and his grumps and his arguments with the Deputy Chief Constable, Georgina who, like all heirarchy in police detection stories, seems to worry more about appearances and statistics than the actual crime itself.   Peter tests her to the limit and I must admit I feel sorry for her sometimes as he gets away with, dare I say it, murder.

I had a bit of a re-reading binge of the Diamond books after reading this one and thoroughly enjoyed them all over again. And there is one The Tooth Tattoo which features a string quartet where one of its members has mysteriously vanished while on tour.  What I loved about this title was the intricate detail and descriptions pertaining to the Beethoven String quartets. He is my favourite composer but I have yet to tackle these and after reading this book again I ordered a box set of the same. They have arrived and I am looking forward to becoming acquainted with them and will be reading the sections of the Tooth Tattoo which give such wonderful insight and information.

So thank you for that Peter and for another smashing book.

Do keep well.

Do write another one.....

 

Random Video - I talk about Queen Victoria

Miss Mole - E H Young

I am sure those book collectors who love stumbling across a new author and love them for years and feel rather superior because of this, will know the acute irritation one can feel when suddenly that author is “rediscovered” and they become popular again. And yes it is totally petty. Elizabeth von Arnim who I have loved for over forty years was mentioned in an episode of Downton Abbey and, natch, was suddenly all over the place.  The British Library have a wonderful new series Women Writers and one of their title is totally unknown - “Father” by EVA. Bloggers and twitterers getting all excited while I sit here fuming and wanting to yell I have a copy of this book. I had it YEARS ago before you lot even heard of it.

As I said - petty.

Now Miss Mole by E H Young is getting the same treatment and I also read this years ago and found myself among an exclusive group who knew about it and could get all superior and lofty. Ah well....

I went to a book sale here in Colchester way back and came across a little pile of books by E H Young. They were all in the wonderful Virago green cover editions and were being totally ignored in the mad rush to grab the Dan Browns, Danielle Steeles and John Grishams piled up on the trestle tables. This suited me down to the ground as I had spotted these from the far end of the hall as I entered and had made a beeline for them pretty sure nobody else would want them. But you can never tell so I pushed and shoved until I had them safely in my bag. I knew nothing of the author but the fact that they were published by Virago was good enough for me and home they came, and went on my shelves and there they languished.

And then one day surrounded by review and proof copies and unable to choose which one to choose, I decided to read Miss Mole. This happens to me quite often, sometimes a book will just call to me that it is time to be read and when the siren call comes, I don't fight it. And when I had finished it I was annoyed that I had left it so long and denied myself this pleasure. What a simply wonderful book.

Miss Hannah Mole, a farmer's daughter, has for twenty years earned her living as a nursery governess or companion to a succession of difficult old women. She is now forty and has returned to the city of Radstowe where she lived as a child. She faces an uncertain future and has nothing to look forward to but a lonely and poverty stricken old age and at the start of the book is well on the way to losing her latest post. Miss Mole has a sense of the ridiculous and a quick wit which she has to keep well under wraps as employers don't care for this but it breaks out and has lost her countless jobs. "Who would suspect her for a sense of fun and irony, of passionate love for beauty and the power to drag it from its hidden places? Who could imagine that Miss Mole had pictured herself, at different times, as an explorer in strange lands, as a lady wrapped in luxury and delicate garments...?"

Hannah has a rich cousin living in Radstowe who prefers not to acknowledge her as she mistrusts this mischievous streak and is wary of getting involved in case she has to pull her out of a scrape or, worse still, financially support her. On her recommendation Miss Mole becomes housekeeper to a non conformist minister, Reverend Corder, a widower full of pomposity and self satisfaction, whose motherless daughters are sorely in need of care and good food. Also living with the family is the Reverend's nephew, Wilfred, who has no truck with his uncle and goes his own sweet way. He unerringly spots that Miss Mole is concealing her real character and it is with him that sometimes she relaxes and lets her true nature peep through much to his delight. On the odd occasion when she forgets and strikes a note of levity with Reverend Corder she runs perilously close to being asked to leave but manages to keep herself under control, though he views her with a vague mistrust and a feeling that all is not as it should be.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this book. It reminded me very much of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson, published by Persephone. Miss Pettigrew is in the same situation as Miss Mole, at the beck and call of anybody who will employ her and she, too, faces a dreary and lonely future. But as with Miss Mole, Miss Pettigrew has an inner strength which comes to her aid and allows her character to blossom. However, unlike Miss Pettigrew, Miss Mole has had a lover in her past and a secret that she conceals knowing that she will be ruined if the truth is revealed and this becomes very likely when another person from her past turns up in Radstowe. I was entranced by Hannah, her wit and humour and above all, her bravery.

So ignore my flouncing about in the sulks. Do buy this simply lovely book, read and enjoy.   Dean Street Press are high on my list of Publishers I Keep an Eye On as they come up with super titles, those you have been wanting to read for ages and those who you did not know you needed to read but now you do.

If that makes sense.

And of course I love that these authors and title are being republished - it is just that I rather liked being superior and knowing about books that nobody else did.....

'sigh'