Random Jottings

2019 - Random Reading Thoughts

When I first started this blog some thirteen years ago now, I had such good intentions. I was going to read Serious Books. Books which were Good for Me by writers who were lauded as being the best. I looked at the Booker long lists, I chose, I read, I ploughed on.   I took up Reading Challenges. I made copious lists. I look back and think WHY? It was exhausting and the realisation crept up on me that I was reading in order to Keep up with the Joneses and to make people think of me as a serious reviewer.

Well I wasn’t and I am not. I am a book blogger who loves reading and wants to share that with my loyal readers. I don’t wish to write thoughtful dissertations on the Booker list, the Costa List, the Asda List or any other list (ok I made the last one up). I want to read because I enjoy what I am reading not because I want to appear an intellectual.   Mind you, it took a few years before this realisation dawned on me but I got there eventually.

So what have I read in 2019. Over 240 books and I can honestly say that the Litterati would turn up their noses but I really don’t care. I have found over the last few years that I have returned with a vengeance to my first love - Crime. When I was a teenager I discovered Agatha Christie and I have never looked back. But what has made this genre so enjoyable is the discovery of new Golden Age crime writers of whom I have never heard.  

The main reason for this rediscovery is the wonderful British Library Crime Classics library about which I have rhapsodised for the past five years or so and will continue to do so. Through them I have discovered Freeman Wills Croft, E R Lorac (which led me on to books written by this author under another name Carol Carnac), Alan Melville, George Bellairs, Miles Burton to name but a few. I am not saying that all that I have read I have enjoyed, some of them I have found a trifle ponderous and feel there was a reason why they languished in obscurity for years, but the main thing is that we are being given a chance to discover them again and it is wonderful.

Then an email one day from Dean Street Press - would I like to try some books by Moray Dalton a long forgotten crime writer? Well silly question. Yes please I say and off I go and I loved them.  There are more to come in March and please do check them out.

I have also read all the Peter Diamond books of Peter Lovesey set in Bath. Now I have already apologised to Peter as I first read his books years ago and I honestly had not read any more and thought he was dead....

Yes I know. Well Peter got in touch with me to say he was alive and well and the 19th Diamond book is due out next year. I wish Peter continued health and a long life so he can continue writing.....

I am also going to revisit his Inspector Lovesey books which I have not read for years. 

This year we saw the death of Andrea Camilleri author of the Inspector Montalbano books which I love dearly and I collect them all in hardback as they come out. I saw a delightful programme about him a few years ago and he said that he already written the last in the series, but there were a few more to come and he had written them well in advance so there would be plenty after he had gone. Now that is what I call forward thinking and I am very grateful to him.

In between I have read AN Wilson’s biography of Prince Albert which I freely admit I found a bit of a curate’s egg, Kenneth Rose diaries, deliciously gossipy and lighthearted and, naturally, when all else fails I have turned to my beloved Victorian literature. This year I have re-read David Copperfield and Great Expectations and loved them all over again. I am determined to read Dombey and Son next year - I keep starting it and giving up. I am not sure why.

And I have also read Jane Austen who soothes the soul like nobody else.

So no Book of the Year, just a hugely enjoyable twelve months of reading. I have given up on a lot of crappy books, I no longer waste my time with them. And I can tell you now I know within a page if I can carry on with a book - when a book is crap then it is crap and that is that.

And I hope UK readers have noticed that I have refrained from writing about the BBC new “darker” version of a Christmas Carol which they showed at Christmas. I wish to end the year on a nice happy joyous note and if I get started on this, well, it ain’t gonna happen.

Just take my word for it - it was AWFUL (to be fair quite a few people did like it but the majority did not).

I may save it up for a rant in 2020.

Recent Reading - Part Deux

Right more recent reads.

Two more Montalbano books by Camilleri - the Overnight Kidnapper and Death at Sea. These books are sheer delight and I adore them so no reasoned review will be made. If you love them too then you will know what I mean. I gather that one can go to Sicily and have a 'Montalbano tour' and I must say it certainly is tempting. Read them both with huge enjoyment. How I love Catarella.

Then two reprints of Golden Age mysteries published by Dean Street Press. Who Killed Dick Whittington by E & MA Radford and The Strange Case of Harriet Hall by Moray Dalton. I shall be reviewing these in full in the next edition of the online book magazine Shiny New Books, but I must mention here that they are both worth a read. Who Killed Dick Whittington features D I Harry Manson 'analytical detective par excellence'. I find him slightly pompour but the murder and how it was done was tricky and well thought out.

The Moray Dalton title was terrific and I am delighted to see that there are more titles available by this author. They are all available in paperback or e-books and I really took to Inspector Collier of Scotland Yard. Another name to add to my endless list of Golden Age writers to explore.  Do check them out. Both Released in March but can be pre-ordered and at £1.19 a bargain.

I mentioned in Part One of Recent Reading that I had re-read A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter and was delighted with some of the comments re this which you kindly left.  One reader recommended Keeper of the Bees to me as another good read by this author.  I found it available on Kindle and downloaded and read. Victorian age fiction, English or American, can get overwrought at times and this has been taken into consideration. Females tend to 'pant' a lot with 'heaving breasts' but this is part of the style and I accept that. There is a certain amount of that in Limberlost but it does not worry me. However, in Keeper of the Bees in which the narrator and chief protagonist is male, he does go on a bit to put it mildly.  Injured and ill young man home from the war takes to the road and ends up helping the Bee Master, an old man taken ill and who needs somebody to look after his bees while he is in hospital. As expected in this kind of fairy tale world, he dies and leaves his house to his Good Samaritan.  I enjoyed the main premise of the book but the endless pages of description of how bees live went on for ever and really bogged everything down. There is also a character in it called Scout and I found that she/he made me feel very uncomfortable indeed.  I did enjoy it but not as much as I thought I would.

From a previous post you will have seen that I have been having a D E Stevenson binge and this is continuing.  Her books vary wildly in standard.  I have read Listening Valley which I really enjoyed even though the premise in it of a shy young girl of 19 marrying a 60 year old was slightly unnerving. I am currently a third of the way through the Four Graces which is profoundly silly and flappy. Four sisters living in a country village with their father the Vicar and I am sure we are supposed to find them charming and sweet but so far I am finding them a pain. It is set during the second World War but the author makes it clear that she is not writing about it at all. Fair enough. It does not impinge.

Then I read The English Air. What a difference. Franz von Heiden, who has an English mother and a German father, comes to England in 1938 to visit his English relatives.  As all readers will suspect he has been sent there to report back on morale etc by his father who is a member of the Nazi command. At first he finds everything odd, he feels that the British do not care or are not interested in world affairs but only fun. He despises a young man who sits around doing nothing all summer except the odd game of tennis and then has to revise his opinion when he finds out he is a decorated War hero and recovering from being badly injured.

As the book progresses and he returns to Germany he realises that all the views he held about his homeland are skewed and what he believed in is no longer true. It has a profound effect on him.

This book is out of print so you will have to hunt for it, but I was impressed with it. The view of England portrayed through his eyes and which he comes to love reminds me of Mollie Panter-Downes superb book One Fine Day, an elegiac country solid to the backbone.  I really enjoyed this book and thought it was streets ahead of many of her other titles. I have a later edition but it was originally published in 1940.   Worth getting hold of.

I have also read some vintage romances from Mary Burchell which reflect the times and mores of the fifties beautifully. So beautifully old fashioned and I loved them.  She is an amazing woman.  I am sure I have written about Mary Burchell before, but will do so again, as she is a most interesting woman. Her real name is Ida Cook and she and her sister, both opera lovers, travelled all over Europe visiting various opera houses. This was pre-war and they became very well know as they always wore fur coats and lots of jewellery and made friends in every airport and city they visited. During WW2 they continued these visits, even to Germany, where they were regarded as those Eccentric English Women and were allowed through. Sewn into their fur coats and smuggled in were more jewels and money which was passed onto those helping the Jews get out of the country. They continued doing this for years and, after the war, Mary carried on writing for Mills & Boon and all proceeds of her books went to supporting refugees from the war. She also wrote a wonderful biography of my favourite baritone, Tito Gobbi and became a great friend of his.

Her later books which feature opera and music are available as ebooks and worth a look as well. Her knowledge of music and singing is obvious.

I have reached one of those plateaus when I look at the heap awaiting my attention and feel no desire to read any of them. When that happens I do a re-read and this time I have picked up David Copperfield and am looking forward to rediscovering all those wonderful characters.

Well, perhaps not Mr Micawber....

Au reservoir

Reading catch up - Two

Oh I must post more regularly but, as you know, this last month has been a blur and a write off and sloth has set in. So another catch up and then I will try and get back into the regular habit of posting more often.

Blade of Light and Game of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri. I adore these books as you all know by now and Inspector Montelbano and all his cohorts in Vigita feel like the family. Catarella is such a gem of a character and I love him.  These two titles were published very close together, it seems we are about four behind in the UK, and much though I love these stories I feel that the author may be on auto-pilot now. Hardly surprising as Camilleri is well into his eighties.  Also the TV series got ahead of itself so that both these stories have already been dramatised, hence the rush to publish. But no matter. I loved them and laughed at the Inspector and Catarella as always.

Thirteen Guests -J Jefferson Farjeon. Another of the wonderful series of British Library Crime Classics and, as always, beautifully produced with a great eye catching cover. This is another title by the author of Mystery in White which was such a best seller last Christmas. There is a huge appetite for these reprints and rightly so as they are intriguing and tremendous fun. This is a classic setting as well, a house party one weekend at the home of Lord Aveling. A painting is mutilated, a dog stabbed and a man strangled. I do not feel I need write any further. Go buy!

Make me - Lee Child. The latest Jack Reacher and try as I might when reading these, I simply cannot visualise Tom Cruise as our mighty hero. Liam Neeson gets in the way. Same old same old. Reacher arrives in town, something is amiss, he sorts it out, beds a glam female and then wanders off into the distance at the end of the story. BUT slight difference this time in that he does not say farewell to the glam female and there is a hint that she may stay with him for a bit. We shall see.

Agincourt - Anne Curry. Published by OUP and, as always, beautifully produced and presented. I have been fascinated by Agincourt ever since I was taken to see the Olivier Henry V when I was about eleven. A concise and fascinating history of the background to the battle and its political ramifications. I am dipping in and out of this book as it is very scholarly writing and the reader does have to concentrate. I do love books published by OUP.  They are such a joy to have.

The Moth Catcher - Ann Cleeves. the latest Vera Stanhope story, the seventh in the series. The owners of a big country house have employed a house sitter to look after their place while they are away. Then the sitter, Patrick, is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley and when DCI Vera Stanhope arrives with her team and checks out the attic room where Patrick was sleeping, discovers yet another body. Only thing they have in common is their fascination with moths.

I only discovered this author in the last year and, naturally, have read all her books in one fell swoop. Well, correction. I have read the Stanhope ones and those set in the Shetlands, which I think I prefer, but some of her earlier books I have tried and found not so good.  Ann Cleeves just got better once she found the right characters.

Still more to write about but this is enough for today.

At the moment I am reading two fascinating Austen related books: Jane Austen's Names by Margaret Doody and The Shades of Pemberley, a sequel by D A Bonavia-Hunt and written in the forties. I am enjoying them both very much and will be writing more anon.

Oh and finally, I was sent A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George, the latest Lynley book. I have now officially given up on these as the last one, set in Italy, was just so appallingly awful I could not believe that it had sneaked past her editor.  I have never felt the same about her when she wrote a book based on the Jamie Bulgar case which I thought was in ghastly taste and totally unacceptable. I have the feeling that her latest arrives and the publisher publishes it regardless. I have flicked through some of it and decided Yep enough. It is also over 500 pages long.......

Right I feel better now I have caught up a bit. So more soon. Promise.

Serial Detectives

I do love discovering new detectives, well new to me at any rate, particularly when there is a whole series to keep me going. Over the lifetime of this blog I have indulged in quite a few and thought it would be fun to see how many I have read.

Donna Leon - Brunetti series.   These are set in Venice and when I discovered them I was hooked. First one I read was Death at la Fenice which had the glorious combination of murder and opera, irresistible. I then plunged into an orgy of Venetian mysteries and polished off the lot in a month and then had to wait each year patiently for the next one to be published.    I have found that the last two or three have lacked a certain something, not quite sure what, but I feel that the author may have begun to tire of Brunetti and Paola his intellectual wife who manages to knock up stunning lunches each day and reads Henry James for fun. I, too, have begun to tire of her and now find her perfection irritating but Brunetti continues to fascinate.

Andrea Camilleri - Inspector Montalbano.   Ah these I will never tire of. I have just read and reviewed the   fourteenth in the series over on Shiny New Books here so do have a read.  The characters in these books are so endearing and funny and full of human frailty and the gem in the middle is Catarella, the intellectually challenged policeman who would lay down his life for the Inspector. There have been times reading these books when I have wept with laughter.  

Martin O'Brien - Daniel Jacquot. These books are set in Marseilles and simply reek of fish and Galouise and are totally atmospheric.  The hero, Daniel, is an ex-rugby player who wears his hair in a ponytail. Yes, I know but he is gorgeous and sexy. The stories are exceptionally well plotted and written and I simply love them.

Back in the UK I have enjoyed the Roy Grace books by Peter James. These are set in Brighton and part of their charm for me is knowing the streets and areas in which the stories are located. A long running series, I feel they need to be read in order so that you can follow the development of his character and the story of his personal life, which is tangled to say the least.   Nothing new there.....

P D James - Inspector Dalgliesh.  No need for recommendations from me for these simply wonderful books. Superbly written with a clarity of style which I find so satisfying to read. Dalgliesh is a fascinating character and I do wish a TV series could be made that did him justice. The originals were made back in the seventies and are a tad old hat now and the most recent with Martin Shaw, totally wooden and uncharismatic, were boring. Well I thought so, please feel free to disagree.

Susan Hill - Simon Serrailer.   The charismatic Simon lives in Lafferton and heads up the specialist crime division.  Devoted to his sister and her family he avoids commitment himself and when he finally falls in love, it is with somebody out of his reach.   HIs family life runs alongside the current investigation and it is best to read these in order so that the reader can see the time line.  Very well written and unputdownable.

And now the USA

Michael Connelly - Harry Bosch is his detective in the LAPD.  Goes without saying that he is divorced and estranged from his daughter for several of the books.   Gritty and realistic they are compulsively readable and as the author kindly writes at least one a year, all to a high standard, I don't have to wait too long for the next fix. He also writes books starring another character, Micky Haller, a downtown lawer who operates just on the right side of the law.    Both series are excellent.   A film was made of a Haller book, The Lincoln Lawyer, which follows the storyline exactly and is very good indeed.

Lee Childs - Jack Reacher.   I have recently mentioned the Jack Reacher books and nothing more to add other than they are all exactly the same, same super cool dialogue, same hero, same actions, all good fun and instantly forgettable. No need to bother reading them in order as it makes no difference at all. Fun.

I am in the throes of a re-read of the books of Anne Zouroudi. Her detective, or investigator really, is the Fat Man as he is described - his name is Hermes Diaktoris and he laughs that his father gave him this name meaning the Winged Messenger. The stories are set in the Greek islands and the atmosphere, heat, smell and feeling of the sun scorched lands is on every page.  Hermes rights wrongs and dispenses his own brand of justice, helping those in pain and sorrow and punishing those who have committed a crime. When asked where he comes from and who he is, his reply is that he is from Athens and is not with the police but with a 'higher authority'.   I leave it to the reader to come to their own conclusion.   They are excellent and I urge you to try them.

One of the charms of detective stories set abroad is the attention paid to food.  Here is a link to a post of a few years ago now which illustrates the importance of food in the Italian stories I have mentioned above:

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2009/01/montalbano-and-brunetti.html

The Zouroudi books are the same. No fish and chips in the police canteen here.

I love crime fiction, have done all my life and am amazed at the ingenuity and creativity of their authors. I have not mentioned Sayers or Christie, two of my most favourite authors, saving that for another day as pretty sure once I get started on them the post will go on for reams and reams. And then there is Patricia Wentworth, Georgette Heyer, Peter Robinson Inspector Banks series, and we had better not get started on Nordic crime, that too will wait for another day

I understand that Penguin are planning on republishing Simenon's Maigret books. I am ashamed to say I have read none of them so will look forward to seeing how I get on with this author. He wrote over 100 so I am hoping that I love them on first sight as they will keep me going for some time........

Crimefic Round up

Angelica's Smile - Andrea Camilleri.   If you are a lover of these books then you do not need me to urge you to get hold of this one, you will already have it on your radar or may have already read it.   I am totally in love with the inhabitants of the police station at Vigata and love Montalbano, with all his failings and yet knowledge of himself.   This latest concerns a series of burglaries for which there seems no reason and it takes Salvo sometime to realise they are a blind, a cover up for something more personal.   He has been distracted by the arrival of the beautiful Angelica with whom he is in thrall though he knows it is wrong and he is a fool.

Though these books are detective stories, the real interest for all of us who adore these books is the characters, Salvo, Augello, Fazio and the wonderful Catarella. I am so fond of them all that the story almost seems of secondary importance. At times I have felt that the author feels this way too but then I will come across a complicated or fiendish plot twist and realise that I am mistaken.

A joy as ever.

Top Secret Twenty-One - Janet Evanovich.   As with the Camilleri books, these stories are character driven and the plot, or what passes for one, is immaterial. We all know Stephanie Plum by now, her side kick and ex-ho Lula with her outrageous clothes, Joe Morelli her policeman boyfriend and the one she secretly yearns for, Ranger, who I certainly would not kick out of bed in the mornings.

In this story Stephanie is chasing down Jimmy Poletti who has skipped bail and is leaving a trail of bodies behind him.   She always arrives too late, her car gets blown up (again), her flat is torched (again) and somewhere along the line you know there will always be donuts, mayonnaise, cup cakes and fried chicken.

Total hoot. Loved it. Where is twenty-two?

Close Call - Stella Rimington. Another thriller featuring the head of MI5, Liz Carlyle.  Have read all of these now and now enjoy them though I admit to being indifferent at first. We all know the author was the head of MI5 so can be sure that the spy craft and the details of how it conducts is business are authentic, though I do wonder at her being allowed to write these books I must say.

This latest is concerned with the task of watching the international arms trade and when MI5 learn that the source of a series of arms deals is located in Western Europe, off they go to investigate. Along the way Liz meets up with an ex lover from her past and it all starts to get a tad complicated.

As I have said of the two titles above, despite the plot and the car chases etc etc it is the characters within MI5 and the relationships between them, either personal or political, that are of interest. When you write a book and you are interested in the characters then you are home or dry. If you don't give a damn about what happens to them, then you are doomed.

A lot of fairly easy reading over the last few weeks as I find that I cannot concentrate on anything substantial or heavy when the sun is shining and the nights are lighter. Happens every year and the books I should be reading pile up and have to wait until the temperatures drop and the nights draw in. 

I am also spending an awful lot of time at the moment watching cricket and tennis and as they were playing at Wimbers till nearly ten last night, you will understand that I have serious calls on my time......

 

Reading catch up - Janet Evanovich and books to come

Still feeling wiped out so my post on Margaret Forster which requires some research for me will have to wait until next week.    I have been lolling around in a heap with a box of tissues and vapour rub and sneezing like a maniac and it is driving me POTTY and any reading which requires concentration is out of the question.

So the latest Stephanie Plum book, Notorious Nineteen, was just the thing I needed and I greeted it with cries of joy when it was delivered by my lovely postman who just laughs at me now when I open the door and he hands over yet 'More parcels'.

Very soothing to read Janet Evanovich as you know exactly what you are going to get and there are no surprises.   Stephanie and her side kick Lula are trying to track down Geoffrey Cubbin who is facing trial for embezzling millions from a posh living facility for senior citizens when he is rushed to hospital suffering from appendicitis.   When the nurses go to check on him they find an empty room and no sign of their patient.  As Vinnie has bonded him out Stephanie has to find him else the bond will be forfeit and everyone will be out of a job and on the streets.

Well the usual mayhem follows Stephanie around, exploding cars, shoot outs, rocket launchers through her apartment window, falling into a grave and, a new one this time, catching a 'skip' from a nudist beach in Atlantic City which means both she and Lula have to strip off.  No place to hide a stun gun though Lula comes up with an ingenious solution which I will not go into....

As always Stephanie is torn between the two men in her life, Morelli and the Ranger.  I have to say the Ranger does it for me every time and he would be the one I would choose, but the series has to have a sexual tension and this dilemma provides it.  So great fun, perhaps not quite up to the standard of earlier titles in this series but at Nineteen hardly suprising.  Wonder how long she can keep it going?

Books on the way at the moment and which I am eagerly awaiting are the latest Montalbano book by Andrea Camilleri and the Isabel Dalhousie series by McCall Smith. After a shaky start with Camilleri when I was not overwhelmed by them, I have now become totally addicted to them and cannot wait for each one to arrive.   I am getting slightly worried, from a purely selfish viewpoint, as the author is now getting on a bit and I wish him long life and health for obvious reasons.   The TV series is also wonderful and I have recorded the last one just recently shown on BBC4 (good old BBC4 - a wonderful channel) and have a few saved up yet to watch.  I shall allow myself one every now and then as a treat.

The Isabel Dalhousie books I have already written about on Random - I love the slow, leisurely reasoned way they unfold, no mad rush, just gentle and calming.  I have given up on the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series now as I rather feel they are now just a formula which AMS trots out and feel there is very little thought to them.  I am probably totally wrong.  All the other series set in Scotland Road etc I have also given up on as there is a certain sameness about them after a while. I appreciate that the Dalhousie series is the same but there is something about these that appeals to me so will stick with them.

Have been sent a lot of catalogues recently from lovely publishers asking if I would like to receive any titles for review - is the Pope Catholic?   I have to make a huge effort to restrain my greed and drooling which overcomes me when I search through all those wonderful titles.   Coming up next year another in the Detective Grace series by Peter James, the fifth in the series set in Amish Country by Linda Castillo which I love, another Camilleri due in March and have also spotted, with some delight, that Macmillan are reissuing all the James Herriot books.   I used to have all of these but my battered paperbacks vanished years ago and would love to read these again so a plea has gone in and we shall see if I am lucky.

Lots to read when my head clears a bit and I stop feeling as if I have gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.   In the meantime I am turning to comfort reading so Gaudy Night or similar may have to come out again soon....

Au reservoir

Crimfic Round Up

I have a new upstairs neighbour and heaven knows what she must have thought the other night as I went to bed and started reading the latest Inspector Montalbano book by Camilleri, The Potter's Field. The first chapter had me weeping with laughter and in the end I just put the book down and lay in bed in hysterics. The combination of finding a body on a muddy hill, torrential rain, slippy underfoot and Catarella hurtling down the hill was just too much for my equilibrium.  Put in words it does not sound funny, you have to read it and you have to know and love these books and, if you do, you will totally understand.

The body found in the Potter's Field bears all the hallmarks of a Mafia style killing, but nobody can identify the victim, who has been hacked into 30 pieces.   While working on this mysterious case, Salvo has to deal with the irrational behaviour of his colleague Mimi, who is exhibiting signs of slipping back into his philandering ways despite having a wife and a young son. It seems he has fallen prey to Dolores Alfano, a stunningly beautiful and sexy woman, who enchants and enslaves all the men she meets - she makes Montalbano feel a tad frazzled himself when she comes in to report her husband missing.  No prizes for guessing what has happened to him....

A complicated and intricate puzzle solved by the wonderful Montelbano with wit and humour along the way and, naturally, the consumption of marvellously described food.   I simply adore these books - I was not sure about them when I first started reading them but now I wish Andrea Camilleri a long and healthy life so that he can continue to keep me enchanted with Salvo and his colleagues.

From Sicily to Amish Country and Gone Missing by Linda Castillo is the fourth in the series featuring Kate Burkholder, Chief of Police and ex-member of the Amish community.  Teenagers are going missing and the only thing they have in common, apart from their religion, is their keenness to leave the Plain Life behind.  Kate is called in to advise on another case with the same MO a little further afield and meets up once again with Agent John Tomasetti with whom she has been having a relationship.  Good to see its progress alongside the main story line.

Not sure how much longer this author can keep featuring murderous Amish brethren, seem to be a lot of them about, but I really enjoy these books.  Narrative fast moving, extremely well written and lots of tension.   Always an explosive tense finale, this is no different, and a final cliff hanging ending which made me blink.   Great stuff.

Then from far afield back to the English countryside in Sidney Chamber and the Shadow of Death, the Grantchester Mysteries by James Runcie.   This is one of those simply lovely gorgeous delightful books that you love from page one. It features Canon Sidney Chambers, recently appointed as vicar of Grantchester, near Cambridge. He is fairly young, in his early thirties and he finds himself caught up in detection and mystery by accident. He has a friend in the local police inspector who seems remarkably sanguine about Sidney's burgeoning second career as a male equivalent to Miss Marple, and between them they sort things out.

This series is the first of six books, published by those great people at Bloomsbury, and is projected to cover the years from the Queen's Coronation to Prince Charles' wedding and I am looking forward immensely to reading them all.

There are several mysteries contained in this first volume; they are not short stories, more like long short stoires if you know what I mean, and we meet characters along the way who are obviously going to make regular appearnaces.  It seems James Runcie is the son of a former Archibishop of Canterbury so his background knowledge cannot be faulted and I love his rather dead pan style.  This is the opening paragraph of page one:

"Canon Sidney Chambers had never intended to become a detective.  Indeed, it came about quite by chance, after a funeral, when a handsome woman of indeterminate age voiced her suspicions that the recent death of a Cambridge solicitor was not suicide, as had been widely reported, but murder"

Isn't that a great opening line?

Three great reads and, on checking through all my deliveries in the last week, I have a few more goodies lined up, so need to get reading.  Mark you, Wimbledon is now on so I may have some distractions though I can always turn down the sound when the Shrieking Shack (AKA Sharapova) is on court and read instead....

Crimfic Round up

Three crime novels this week - all different and all great fun. Odd that the word 'fun' should be attributed to murder but all the books I read this week had a humorous side.

Rack, Ruin and Murder - Ann Granger

An author new to me and I freely admit that it was the cover and the tag line 'a dead body shatters the tranquillity of a Cotswold village' that made me want to check this one out.  All very Body in the Library'ish only in this case the body is found in the drawing room. When old Monty Bickerstaffe comes home from his daily foray into the village carrying his supply of whisky, he is rather surprised to find the body of a man who he had never seen before stretched out on his sofa. Monty lives all alone in a crumbling ruin of a house and really does not want to be bothered by anybody, friends, relatives and least of all the police.   The locals say they know nothing about it, but when Inspector Jess Campbell searches the upper floor of the house which has been in disuse for many years, it is clear that somebody has been using one of the bedrooms on a regular basis, unknown to Monty and whoever these visitors are, they may hold a clue to the identify of the murder victim.

Along with Inspector Jess Campbell we have Superintendent Ian Carter and, as Jess finds it difficult to form relationships because of her job, it is almost inevitable that Ian is getting over a painful divorce. Stock characters as always. I have mentioned it before, and will no doubt mention it again, but surely somewhere there must be a happily married police inspector/detective?  No need to mention Roderick Alleyn and Peter Wimsey....

Great fun, well plotted and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I gather that there is one previous Carter and Campbell novel prior to this one so will keep an eye out for it and on checking inside the book it appears that Ann Granger has written about another 20+ detective titles so on my list she goes.

Murder Fortissimo - Nicola Slade

Classic crime setting here.  A disparate collection of people all in one place, all with a secret and in amongst them one person who can ruin their lives.  Of course, this person is murdered.  The setting is Firstone Grange a newly opened rest and recuperation home, very expensive and exclusive.  Harriet Quigley a recently retired headmistress goes there to recover from an operation looking forward to some peace and quiet.  Into this house comes Christiane Marchant, a Frenchwoman with a malevolent nature who seems to have the dirt on practically every member of the residents.  I will admit that her knowledge and the fact that all the residents are linked together in many ways is a tad far fetched and hard to swallow, but Suspension of Disbelief is sometimes essential to enjoyment and so it is in this case.

The book is witty and amusing with a list of characters such as Kieran - 'A lumpen slowcoach'; Ryan - a 'nasty little scrote'; Neil Slater - 'an estate agent who sometimes wears leather shorts' (don't ask) and other assorted personnel who all combine to make this a very enjoyable and lighthearted read. When I tell you that the nasty Christiane is killed by a euphonium falling on her head, then you get the drift.

The Track of Sand - Andrea Camilleri

The latest Inspector Montalbano book and really there is no need to tell you what it is about as the joy of these books, as with the Donna Leon though not to the same extent, is not the story but the characterisation and the sheer delight with which the reader greets them all.

Montalbano wakes up one morning to find the carcass of a horse on the beach in front of his seaside house. But no sooner do his men arrive, than the body has vanished leaving only a track in the sand. Later a glamorous equestrian champion, turns up at polic headquarters tor eport here horse missing. The horse has been stabled at the grounds of Saverio lo Duca one of the richest men in Sicily who has also lost one of his horses.

I love love love these books and cannot understand why I did not like them straight away - it took me three or four titles into the series before they totally beguiled me.   Montalbano is my kinda guy and the wonderful Catarella, manning the switchboard who gets everything wrong, who keeps crashing into Montalbano's office, who hero worships him and tells him when somebody has arrived to see  him that they are there 'poissonly in poisson' - well, I adore them both.

And, as ever, the food, oh the food!   How Montalbano loves to eat "Adeline had made a salad of baby octopus big enough for four and some giant langoustines to be dressed only with olive oil, lemon, salt and black pepper' and that is just one of the simplest dishes.

I wish Andrea Camilleri and long and happy life and good health so that he can continue to write and publish these books and keep me happy.

A most enjoyable crimfic week.

Viva Italia

Without meaning to I appear to be in the middle of an Italian splurge again. This seems to happen to me on a regular basis. I remember this happening to me a few years ago when I picked up a copy of the Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri which featured an Inspector Montalbano and was set in Sicily. This was the first Montalbano book I read and, not sure why, but I did not immediately fall in love with them.  This is what I said at the time:

"Inspector Montalbano is a lover of fine wine and food and there are copious descriptions of the food left for him by his housekeeper who appears to be a cook of supreme talent; he has a long distance relationship with a lady called Livia who he seems to be avoiding marrying and I am not totally sure if he is in any way likable or even interesting".

Well how wrong can you be? I read The Voice of the Violin after this one and then I was off and over the last three or four years have read all of the Camilleri books and eagerly await each one. There is a new one due very soon - The Track of Sand and this will not be bought for my Kindle. I have the entire series in proper book form and want to maintain them that way.  I adore these books so much now I really find it hard to understand why I did not take to them at first. Ah, well got there in the end.

And then there was Donna Leon.  I kept stumbling across articles about her in various magazines and thought I would give her books a whirl.  After all, I thought, they are set in Venice, one of my most favourite places on earth, so that is a good start.  The first one I picked off the shelf was Death at La Fenice.  A murder story set at the opera in Venice - irresistible. The victim was an arrogant German conductor with a penchant for fast cars and young wives and if this character was not based on the late Herbert von Karajan then I shall eat my baton. Her hero Commissario Guido Brunetti is near the top of my list of gorgeous policemen and at first I compared him with Montelbano and the Sicilian came off worse.  Now I adore them both and Montelbano has the advantage of not having a seemingly perfect wife whose persona is beginning to grate on me a tad.

In recent months I have discovered the Alec Blume novels set in Rome, as with other series I was fairly lukewarm about the first one, The Dogs of Rome, though I did enjoy it and the second, the Fatal touch, is more intricate and closely plotted and I now feel that these will stay on my list of Those to Watch out For.

And now another Italian detective has been brought to my attention.  One Inspector Bordelli in a series of books by Marco Vichi.  These are set in Florence and the first one been translated and published in this country, Death in August, and I have just started it.  So far it looks promising and I will let you know how I get on.  Not released until June but see there are a few reviews up already on Amazon so obviously some earlier reviewers were quick off the mark. 

So I now have detective stories set in Rome, Venice, Sicily and Florence.  I recently read a title by Grace Brophy set in Assisi which did not exactly overwhelm me so may not continue with hers, and I have Michael Dibdin's Zen books to read which I am rather saving up as a treat. I know I have to ration these as, sadly, the author is no longer with us so if I do my usual splurge and read them all then I am done for, no more will be arriving.

The only problem with reading books set in this country is that it reminds me just how much I love Italy and that it is some years since I was last there.  I was in Florence about four years ago, Venice about ten and last saw Rome when I was a mini-skirted teenager and found my bum was pinched with monotonous regularity in the Piazzas of Rome.

Not sure that I will have that problem now somehow.........