Random Jottings

Death of an Author - E C R Lorac

E C R Lorac who also writes under the name Carol Carnac is one of my favourite crime authors unearthed and brought back into the public eye by the British Library Crime Classic series. Pretty sure when they started this series off they did not expect it to be so popular or do so well, but it has and they keep on coming.   Not all are to my taste, some of the writing can be old fashioned and a couple of authors I find pretty turgid, but other reviewers have disagreed with me so it all comes down to personal taste as always.

There was only one edition of this title and if you could track one down you would be looking at a three figure price as I have ascertained when looking through websites. It has been out of print since 1935 so Death of an Author is a gem for mystery lovers.

It is Introduced as always by the incredibly knowledgeable Martin Edwards, whose love of mystery and crime permeates everything he writes. 

The author of the title is one Vivian Lestrange a recluse who avoids publicity and refuses to have his photograph taken and about whom nothing is known.  He is published by Marriott and after a debate with another author, Ashe, an invitation to meet for dinner is issued and, surprisingly, accepted.

Ashe is totally shocked when a young woman turns up who Marriott regards as "the coolest creature I ever met in my life".  She is scathing regarding his reaction "what but male conceit formulated that judgement of yours that no woman could have written a book which you admired? Is your estimate of all women the same?"

I think the reader can safely assume that this is how E R Lorac/Carol Carnac felt....

Three months after this party a woman walks into Hampstead Police station to announce that she is worried that something has happened to Vivian Lestrange, her employer.   This woman. Eleonor Clarke, is the same woman who claimed to be Lestrange at the aforementioned dinner party. It transpires that he asked her to pretend to be him.

Now before I go any further I think it might be wise for all of you who wish to read this book to have a pencil and paper to hand or yellow post its so you can jot down points or flag pages.  I had to do this as the plot is intricate and convoluted and leads you in several directions at once with several theories all of which can be probable.

Shortly after the author's disappearance a dead body is found in a small country village. A note book is to hand which gives identification of the body clear. It is Lestrange. But is it?

OK I am going to stop here. If I continue I am going to give information away and I have no desire to do that all.   Just to say it was intriguing, full of twists and turns, and totally satisfying.

But be warned, as I have already said, you need to concentrate!

Brit tec - home grown crime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Current books - Part One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wonderful.  Loads more so do buy.

Enough for today. More later.

 

 

Golden age of Crime - Freeman Wills Croft

A few years ago I discovered Freeman Wills Croft mainly through the auspices of the Classic Crime series published by the British LIbrary.  I read a huge amount of them and found them totally engrossing. One of the first titles I read was Mystery in the Channel.  The Chichester is making a routine journey across the English channel when the crew notice something amiss. A yacht, bobbing about in the water ahead of them, appears to have been abandoned and, on closer inspection, a dark red stain is spotted on the deck.......

Inspector French is called in to deal with the case and the two bodies discovered on board are soon identified as the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the firm of Moxon Securities, one of the largest financial houses in the country. It is suspected that the two men may be heading for France knowing full well that the firm is on the verge of collapse and they are trying to get away with as much money as possible before the final crash.

The part of the book that I enjoyed the most was the chapter in which French, in consultation with an Ancient Mariner, discusses the tides, the ebbs, the flows and the fact that another yacht was to rendezvous with the fatal vessel (the person on board claiming innocence of the whole affair) and testing his alibi by working out the timeline to test his story.  I do like this kind of detection, it is neat, it is tidy and it is fascinating to see how the author's mind works and I am always lost in admiration at the care taken in getting these details just right.

The same attention to detail is apparent in The 12.30 from Croydon.   Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in his seat on this plane when it arrives in Paris. He was old and in ill health and his death perhaps not unexpected, but it is soon discovered that foul play has taken place. He has been poisoned. But how? He had the same food as everyone else on the flight. Perhaps it is a poison which can be administered some time before it is effective, again how was it given to the victim?

Inspector French, of whom I am rather fond, is once more on the case. But in this book, instead of following his though processes we follow those of the murderer whose identity we know right from the start.  In a position when he, yes it is a he, needs money to save his firm and having applied to his uncle unsuccessfully, he begins to think how wonderful it would be if his uncle died as he knows he is a beneficiary of the Will.

At first dismissing the idea, it gradually gets hold of him and he starts to plan how to do it. And the reader follows him through his plans, how he carries them out and, though I should not say this, by the end I was almost hoping he would get away with it. Well he doesn't.

'One glance at the jury's faces told Charles the truth. He was lost.....they were going to hang him. Nothing he could say could matter...he heard the sentence. It was over. the warders were pointing to the staircase. they were supporting him. Half unconscious he was helped down'

I must admit I felt a chill run up my spine at this final paragraph.

The Hog's Back Mystery.  Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside.  Friends of Mrs Earle come to stay and it pretty clear to one of them that the marriage is not a happy one and that she is involved with another man.  A chance encounter espied by the same friend seems to point to the doctor also being involved with someone. Then the doctor, and his friend, who is a nurse, both vanish. The doctor went to sit in his library after dinner one night and is never seen again. He was only wearing his slippers, he has no money, his keys and wallet are not taken, so where has he gone?   Later on one of the house guests also disappears and it all begins to get rather tortuous.

Once again by Inspector French's meticulous approach to the mystery he gradually unravels the solution to the disappearance of these three victims and deduces where their bodies are to be found.  Half way through the story I guessed what was going on, why the doctor had gone to town to meet the nurse, and from then on did manage to work out who the likely murderer was. I felt very pleased with myself as it is seldom I do this.

Freeman Wills Croft wrote an essay on the Writing of a Detective Novel. His method was first to prepare a synopsis 'of the actual facts that are supposed to have happened' including a chronology, character biographies and sketch maps of the important localities, and then a summary of how these facts became revealed to the detective' He also provides maps of the area.

Now I love maps or illustrations in a detective story. Dame Agatha did it, Ngaio Marsh did it and I love looking at them and murmuring to myself Now the Library is there, the kitchen there, so just how did the murderer get hold of the carving knife and get upstairs without being spotted.....ditto maps. Gosh the murderer must have come round the back of the house by the lane, then cut through the wood and ....well you get my drift. Wonderful.

In the last week or so I have had a lot on my mind and feeling rather anxious so I have returned to this author and re-read some other titles that I have not looked at for a few years.  Though many of his books are available now there are still a few that need tracking down and I have been on second hand book sites to find the ones I am missing. Among these was Crime at Guildford, Inspector French's Greatest Case and the Book Office Murders. Others are on the way.

I have heard from other crime lovers that they find Freeman Wills Croft boring with his stressing of minutiae and intricate details and I can understand that, but I beg to difer. There is one title Death of a Train in which details of flanges, stops, gages, etc etc are vital to the solving of the crime and though I did not understand a word of it, I just found it all fascinating. 

I find them rather soothing to the mind as we know the mystery will be solved and Inspector French will save the day. He always does. 

Lorac, Castillo and Gerritsen - three goodies this week

A good week with three books published by three favourite authors.

The first was Crook O'Lune by E C R Lorac, one of the writers rediscovered and republished by the British Library Crime Classics. Not all of them, interesting thought they are, have been to my liking but this author I do like.  I read one recently These Names have Clues which I found rather tedious so approached this with a little trepidation.  It is set in Lancashire and Inspector MacDonald who has appeared in many previous titles is contemplating retirement and rather fancies buying some farmland. He is visiting his friends, the Hoggetts, who have featured in an earlier book and, needless to say, while he is there is drawn into investigate a case of sheep stealing.   An empty house is set on fire as a distraction while the sheep are stolen, but turns into a case of murder when it turns out the house was not empty after all.

I found this book slow moving, but in the right way. Lorac has obviously visited Lancashire and has a deep love of this country side and it is beautifully written with quite lyrical descriptions of the fields, trees, sky and sunshine.   I really enjoyed it.   Not a riveting smack you in the face kind of mystery, but very satisfying.

Next up Linda Castillo The Hidden One. All her books are set in Amish country and, as with Midsomer Murders in the UK, they seem a murderous lot and this amount of death and destruction might give one pause, but suspension of disbelief is all and I love these books.

It starts with an Amish bishop keeping a rendezvous which he is dreading after he received a letter "I know who you are. I know what you did. I know your secrets. All of them". He knows he is probably going to his death and indeed he is. Eighteen years later a field is being ploughed and his skeleton discovered and suspicion points towards Jonas Bowman who had threatened him when he was younger.   He is arrested and kate Burkholder is asked by elders of the church to come and help him as she knew him when she was a young Amish teenager.

He was her first love and so she returns aware that she might be risking her relationship with her lover Tomasetti.

As always, well written and compulsive reading. I have read all of these books by Castillo and though there is a certain formula to them now, I love them. Long may they continue.

And, finally, Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen. It has been a couple of years since the last Rizzoli and Isles book, a series to which I am addicted and after I had spent a morning reading Castillo I then spent an afternoon reading this one.

The story is told from the viewpoint of several characters and you have to be patient as each strand will come together. Having read Gerritsen and know the way she leads you up the garden path I was happy to go along for the ride. The main strand that I really found interesting and amusing is the section from the eyes of Angela, Rizzoli's mother who is rather puzzled by the neighbours who have moved in across the street.   The curtains are drawn, the husband and wife stay inside all the time and the woman seems frightened and nervous and never goes out.  Angela gets a little too nosy and puts herself in danger and though I guessed who the neighbours were it did not spoil the story which bowls along beautifully. I could not put it down until I had finished it.

So a good week and up comes a reminder on my Amazon page that there is a new Michael Connelly coming out later this year so that is flagged up straight away,

I am still going through the Miss Silver books but coming to an end though she has written other non Silver books which will keep me going for months, but I may take a break. I have decided to re-read some Freeman Wills Croft and have just started on Fear Comes to Chalfont and am already hooked again.

British Library Crime - Lorac, Lorac and Bernard J Farmer

I seem to have fallen into a pattern of one post a week and I keep feeling this will not do but I have had another of "those weeks" with loads on and a few irritants. Next week is looking a bit dubious as well as I am having a boiler and hot water tank ripped out tomorrow and it is all going to be a bit chaotic.

So I am taking the chance now of sitting down with a cuppa and telling you of my latest crime reads.  I can assure you that I read quite a lot of thrillers that are NOT published by the British Library, but this week the ones I have perused have all, coincidentally, been from their Classic Crime List.

Two were by E C R Lorac, who I really enjoy and so glad that the BritLib discovered this writer. However, this particular title left me feeling really disappointed. These Names Make Clues got me totally bogged down.

Chief Inspector Macdonald was invited to a treasure hunt party at the house of a publisher.  He has misgivings but is persuaded to accept and joins in along with other guests who are all thriller writers disguised on the night under literary pseudonyms.   Naturally, there is a murder and the victim, who was there under the name of 'Samuel Pepys' is found seemingly dead of a heart attack. Well we know it was not.  

The blurb on the back of this title states 'amid the confusion of too many fake names, clues, ciphers,and convoluted alibis, Macdonald must unravel a truly tangled case'.

I can honestly say that at the end after another murder or two (and I still have no idea why they were killed) I felt totally discombobulated and, which is worse, bored.  A shame. This is the first Lorac I have not enjoyed.

It was with some relief, therefore, that I turned to another by this author, Post after Post Mortem which was so much better and so much more interesting. "The Surrays and their five children form a prolific writing machine, with scores of treatises, reviews and crime thrillers published under their family name"

Ruth Surray is found dead after an evening at the Surray's house.   A suicide note is left and it is clear that she was deeply unhappy and depressed and the coroner reaches a verdict that she took her own life.  But then a few days after her death, her brother Richard receives a letter from his deceased sister which had been delayed in the post, and this casts doubt on the verdict.

Much more concisely written and held together and, though I guessed who the murderer was, it was not obvious and the reader was led astray on the way.

Death of a Bookseller by Bernard Farmer was the third I finished this week. This is the hundredth title in this series so it is fitting that a book about rare books is published by one of the great Libraries.  I had never heard of the author, as with so many of these rediscoveries, and though some have left me cold, I rather enjoyed this one. The main reason is not the fact that it is about a bookseller and crammed with details of the internecine rivalry between booksellers and buyers, fascinating though that is, but the wonderful character of Sergeant Jack Wigan.  The sergent strikes up a friendship with a bookman, Michael Fisk, who he escorts home when he meets him having had too much to drink.   Fisk had been celebrating the acquisition of a rare book, Keat's own personally inscribed copy of Endymion.  Wigan develops a keen interest in book collecting and later, when Fisk is found stabbed to death and the Keats book missing, he aids the CID in their investigation.

Wigan is a kindly, dogged and honest policeman who is convinced that the wrong man has been arrested for the murder and enlisting the help of others in the book trade sets out trying to save the accused from the hangman.

I found the book slightly fantastical in places, there is mention of the occult and raising demons, but on the whole it is well written and intriguing.  But it is Wigan who makes this well worth reading. A character one can warm to.  I gather there are other titles awaiting republication so I do hope the British Library will let us have these as well.

I was pleased to see that Martin Edwards who writes the introduction, had likened this well crafted book to those written by George Bellairs, another discovery for me. I had had exactly the same thought...

Honest.

Recently received at Random Towers

At the moment there is a hashtag on Twitter #beathebacklog as a whole slew of book lovers are trying to get their To be Read backlog reduced. Nobody thinks for one moment that it is ever going to happen but we thought we would see if we could get it down a bit.  I have managed to get rid of about five or six that I have had since the autumn but I know I am doomed to failure as another heap arrived this week, either from purchases or from lovely authors and publishers.

You can see that this pile adds ten back onto the TBR backlog so it is clear that I am going nowhere. I admit that at the moment I am finding it hard to settle to any reading at all. I loathe January and I loathe the cold and the drear and am spending most of my time either watching the tennis or having a binge on box sets on the tv. My brain feels as if it has gone to mush so I am patiently waiting for the weather to get a bit better and hope that I can get on with things.

You will see from the top of the recently received, four D E Stevensons and one Molly Clavering. They were friends and neighbours up in Scotland I gather and I am looking forward to writing about D E Stevenson in particular at a later date.  Dean Street Press are republishing a shedload of her titles and, as they have only been available in second hand copies up to now, this is a blessing and I am so grateful to them for sending me copies. I have just started the Fair Miss Fortune and am enjoying it very much.

Then the British Library Classic Crime series have sent two, one by Anthony Berkeley and one by E C Lorac who is one of those unknown (well to me anyway) writers of the Golden Age and who I now love. This is going to be moved to the top of the heap.

Back to the Shops by Rachel Bowlby looks really interesting. Here is what the blurb has to say:

"Back to the Shops offers a set of short and surprising chapters, each one a window into a different shop type or mode of selling. Old shopping streets are seen from new angles; fast fashion shows up in eighteenth-century edits. Here are pedlars and pop-ups, mail order catalogues and mobile greengrocers' shops. Here too are food markets open till late on a Saturday night, and tiny subscription libraries tucked away at the back of the sweet shop". 

I have already dipped into this  - just the kind of social history I like.

Walking Invisible by Michael Stewart is a literary guide through the walks and nature of the Bronte sisters.  The author walked in the steps of the sisters and, while it is unlikely I will ever be able to copy his feat, I can come with him in spirit as I read. It looks a lovely book and I love all things Bronte.

Queen Alexandra by Frances Dimond.   It has been years since a biography was written on this rather forgotten Queen of England. We know all about her husband, there has recently been a wonderful biography of George V but Alexandra seems to lurk in the shadows. Time to open this up and have a delve.

Mary Seacole by Helen Rappaport.  I love this author's books. She has written on a variety of historical subjects with a slant to all things Russian, but writing the biography of Mary Seacole has been a dream of hers for many years and here, finally, the result of all her hard work and research is in print.  Everyone knows who Florence Nightingale is and her exploits in the Crimean War but it is only fairly recently that the name of Mary Seacole has become better known. 

So there you have it. These are the hard copies of books that have recently arrived but I have also downloaded quite a lot on my Kindle so I have a long hard slog in front of me...

2021 Reading - Part one

A bleak dreary day today and I am sitting here with a rug over my knees and a hotwater bottle at my back as I ache all over. I always do after a busy time. Christmas was stressful in that right up to the last few minutes of Christmas Eve I did not know whether I was going to see the family or not as they had had Covid and we were taking tests like mad. Finally all negative on the Day so slung everything in the car and off I went.

So now all quiet and a bit of music in the background and musing on my reading year. Not a vintage one as, along with many of you I suspect, life had got in the way and my resding has been of the light variety. Of course you may belong to those who have finally ready Proust, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in lockdown and if you have please don't tell me as it will make me feel inferior...

Glancing at my list it is no surprise that detective stories form the main bulk of my reading. I re-read all of the Bill Slider books by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles and can really recommend them. The mysteries are excellent, the writing witty and funny and the characters are warm, clever and lovable. Best to read in order as there is a story line relating to Slider's private life which develops throughout the series.   I love them and looking forward to the next one in 2022.

Kate Rhodes - her Alice Quentin series are my favourites but she also has a new character, Ben Kitto, and these stories are set in the Scilly Isles.  Still hoping we will get another Alice novel but these are also immennsely readable and so well written.

 

I re-read all the Peter Diamond books by Peter Lovesey set in Bath and love them. The main character is lovable though difficult and grumpy and knowing Bath fairly well helps place them. There are over 20 of them so if you want a nice new series then try them. Again, best read in order.

Jane Casey - I have read and loved all her Maeve Kerrigan books and am madly in love with her male protagonist, Josh Derwent, who is all man and simply gorgeous with it and if the author does not get them together soon I shall burst.   A new book by this author this year and though not a Kerrigan book "sob" was excellent and exciting. The Killing Kind, a stand alone but oh so looking forward to the next Maeve. If you have not read this series you have a treat instore but do read them in order.

E C R Lorac - a Golden Age crime writer and a new discovery by the excellent British Library Classic Crime series all of which I manage to get my mitts on as the BritLib send them to me. A huge selection of authors, not all of whom I get on with, but most of them are well worth reading. Along with Lorac, who also writes as Carol Carnac, I am working my way through Freeman Wills Croft who I love for his detail and minutaie.

Loads of re-reads this year and one of the best was the series of books about the Carey family by Ronald Welch and published by Slightly Foxed. I have written about them before and simply love them.

I discoverd the Malmo mysteries by Torquil McLeod. Scandi-noir and enjoyable.

I have also been reading a huge amount of chick-lit though I really dislike that description. Romantic fiction would be better. A huge amount of snobbery surrounds this genre and I can never understand why. Yes some of them are a bit meh, but that is not confined to romance alone.  Milly Johnson, whose I wish it could be Christmas Every Day I reviewed recently, is lovely and yes sentimental at times, but also funny and witty. Jenny Colgan is my current binge read with a heap of them sitting on my To be Read shelf.  I tend to avoid titles such as The Little Beach Tree Bakery and the Christmas Bookshop but one of my regular visitors recommended her and so I tried one and have since been thoroughly enjoying them.

Not a huge amount of non fiction this year but will be writing about those I have enjoyed in the next post.

A A Milne - not just Winnie the Pooh

I am currently enjoying Murder by the Book, a recent publication by the wonderful British Library Crime classics, and contained therein is a short story A Savage Game by one A A Milne.

We all know who A A Milne is (incidentally I have always wondered what A A stood for - it seems it is Alan Alexander. Thought you might like to know).  All of us are familiar with Winnie the Pooh et al and if you did not read them as a child (I didn't) your children will have done. Mine certainly did and also my grandchildren. It seems poor AA got a tad fed up with being famous purely for all the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood especially as he wrote poetry, plays, essays, non fiction and other fiction.  

He has also written a mystery, The Red House which was published in 1922 which I read a few years ago.  According to the blurb  the Red House was 'where secret passages, uninvited guests, a sinister valet and a puzzling murder' lay and this formed the foundation for a classic crime.

This is what I said about it at the time of reading:

We have a murder in a study - Anthony Gillingham, a sub-Wimsey man about town, clean cut and with grey eyes 'absorbing every detail of our person'  calls on a guest at a weekend party at the Red House and is just in time to hear a gun shot and a member of the household hammering on the locked door.

Within half an hour the police have arrived, led by an Inspector who is immediately portrayed as a dim and worthy person but obviously is never going to solve the mystery and Anthony takes over without so much as a by your leave.  Apart from one or two chapters, the police spend most of their time well off centre stage and Anthony just does as he likes - it is all very unbelievable.  Most of the house guests are packed off back to town within an hour of the murder, in case they find it all too upsetting, surprisingly the police allow this to happen, and we are therefore left with such a narrow field of suspects, ie - one, that any tension that might have been hovering vanishes entirely.

By the end of the book, I was very glad to have finished this tedious rigmarole and so disappointed as I had high hopes at the start of the first chapter and it was not until the end that I also realised that the 'sinister valet' mentioned in the blurb had never appeared.

And this story The Savage Game is all that the Red House was not. Witty and perceptive and a cracking good mystery which the narrator solves in double quick time.  It had definite shades of Miss Marple about it and I am rather sorry that this appears to be one of the few short stories he penned.   The light touch shown here is such a surprise after the full length novel.  In the foreword to the Red House A A Milne admits, somewhat ruefully, that perhaps a life of crime was not for him. He was right in that case but his inclusion in this volume shows he could do it. Perhaps he should have persevered.

A few years ago I reviewed a full length novel by the author, Two People which was published by Capuchin Press and enjoyed it very much indeed. The link to this review is here (apologies for the length of the link, it won't work unless all this is in) and illustrates his versatility:

https://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2009/04/two-people-a-a-milne.html?cid=6a00d83451935569e201157004f6e9970b#comment-6a00d83451935569e201157004f6e9970b

Incidentally Murder by the Book also contains story by Ngaio Marsh which I had never read before and I was thrilled to bits to find it written in her inimical style and fooled me completely. I wonder if she has any more lurking that have yet to see the light of day?

Incidentally Murder by the Book also contains story by Ngaio Marsh which I had never read before and I was thrilled to bits to find it written in her inimical style and fooled me completely. I wonder if she has any more lurking that have yet to see the light of day?

Current Reading and recently received

The last eighteen months have been rather odd reading wise, for me at least, as I have found myself taking comfort from re-reading a lot of titles and series.   I am currently ploughing, though that sounds as if it is difficult to do so when it is the opposite, the Bill Slider series by Cynthia-Harrod-Eagles which are simply terrific. I have been searching through Random and it seems I have never really written about them so I intend to rectify that mistake soon.

I have recently discovered that the series of The Darling Buds of May which first appeared on our tv screens over thirty years ago now is being remade, or as it is now phrased 'rebooted'. I remember the original very well because for years after reading the books by H E Bates, I did what I quite often do, and cast the characters just in case a film was ever made.   Pop Larkin had to be David Jason and I held this view for several years so when the casting was announced and there he was I was simply delighted.  Of course, to be honest, his Pop was a country version of Del Boy but it was "perfick" so I was not complaining.  It was a huge success so I am hoping the remake is as good.

I first read the H E Bates books when I was about twelve and remembered, little innocent that I then was, asking my sister how Pop and Ma could have so many children when they were not married?   She explained...

I love the books and so decided a reread was in order and as my old and battered copies vanished some time ago, decided to treat myself to new ones and they arrived today. I love the covers and am looking forward to reacquainting myself with the Larkins over the next week or so.

I have also received two titles from the Classic Crime series published by the British Library, Murder by the Book and Till Death us do Part and will be reviewing and writing about these later.

On a recent visit to a friend, whose collection of books makes mine look puny, I spotted on a table by her side a book called My Victorian Novel. Well, I could not resist taking a look and after starting to read the first essay decided I had to buy a copy. Price is £25 but managed to find a second hand one and it arrived earlier this week.  It contains essays on Jane Eyre, The Duke's Children, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Vanity Fair, North and South, Bleak House, David Copperfield and the Pickwick Papers all of which I have read and loved so this is sheer joy. I have already read the first on Jane Eyre but am saving the rest and eking them out. Just knowing they are there waiting for me is a wonderful thought.

Andrew Lownie, who published a book about the Mountbattens recently, was at the Felixstowe Book Festival this year and I really think we need to ask him back as I would love to speak to him about his latest, Traitor King - the scandalous exile of the Duke and Duchess of WIndsor.  It is totally engrossing but honestly the more I read about them the more ghastly they both appear. I can find excuses for the Duchess (more anon when I review) but it is almost impossible to find anything good to say about the Duke. Spoilt, selfish, narcissistic, needy, pathetic and, to be honest, rather dim is all I can think of at the moment.   I have been reading this with an horified fascination and have to keep putting it down as the sheer awfulness of their behaviour is simply staggering.

Oh and a few weeks ago I was asked to review a fictionalised account of the Duchess of WIndsor's 'love story'.   I had to apologise to the publishers and say I simply could not review it as it was utterly utterly dire and so far removed from reality I had difficulty in not hurling it across the room.   It is going to the charity shop though I feel rather guilty in inflicting it on some poor unsuspecting reader.

And in the middle of all this as I felt I needed some light and love I re-read Anne of Green Gables which made me feel much better....