Random Jottings

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........

Posh 'tecs

There have been many examples in my reading life of discovering books very late. Books which have been staring me in the face for years, books recommended by afficionados, the list is pretty long. Mapp and Lucia are among the many I have missed out on and then in 2006 I picked up and read Gaudy Night by D L Sayers and fell in love.  I don't regret the missed years, au contraire, I am now glad and happy that these were saved up for me when I have all the time in the world to read and can sit for hours and indulge myself.

So it is seven years later and I have now read all of D L Sayers, some titles several times (Gaudy Night I seem to read every six months) and feel it is time to re-read them again despite the teetering pile of new books awaiting my attention.   The reason for this that I have just re-read almost all of my collection of Ngaio Marsh over the last few weeks as the eagle eyed will have spotted on my list of 2013 reading on the blog. September has been family orientated and driving hither and thither and looking after grandchildren and have had no time to concentrate on new books at all.   And as I have always linked Lord Peter and Roderick Alleyn together I thought I would post about them.

I have done this before and have plundered the Random Archives to ponder on my earlier thoughts. Always interesting to see if one's viewpoint has changed in the meantime.

Both are 'gentlemen detectives' though Roderick Alleyn is a real policeman and a member of the CID, while Lord Peter regards it as a hobby.  They are both elegant, wear their clothes well, are interested in the theatre, music and books.   

They both marry strong women with their own careers:  Lord Peter marries Harriet Vane, who writes detective stories and Alleyn's wife, Agatha Troy, is a famous and distinguished artist.  Harriet and Troy also share a similar trait, both have a prickly personality in that they both fought their feelings and, initially, did not wish to marry.  Harriet because she disliked being beholden to Lord Peter who saved her from being convicted of murder, and also did not wish to lose her independence, and Agatha, a very private woman, who disliked her husband's profession very much.  As she was involved with a murder investigation (Artists in Crime) shortly after their initial meeting, this is hardly surprising.

As with all good detective stories, each has his 'side kick', usually of the plebeian order, Lord Peter has Bunter (who, in many ways is a more of a snob than his master) and Alleyn has Inspector Fox, who he calls rather whimsically (if you will forgive the use of the word) Brer Fox.  Both are essentially there to admire and appreciate their superior, usually uncritically.  Readers know that Bunter and Fox are devoted to their masters and would lay down their lives for them.

Both Alleyn and Wimsey moved in high society circles; both had aristocratic mothers, Alleyn had a brother George ( a 'silly ass') who was a diplomat and Wimsey had a brother Gerald (also a 'silly ass') who held the fictional title of the Duke of Denver.  One of my favourite Marsh novels is Death in a White Tie which is set in the Season and where a murder takes place at a grand social occasion.  Beautifully described and written this shows Ngaio Marsh had a very good working knowledge of the aristocracy and its comings and goings at this time.

The 'gentleman detective' has, of course, continued in the books of Elizabeth George and, to some extent, in PD James Inspector Dalgliesh stories (as well as being a policeman he is also a poet).  Elizabeth George is an American writer who has a huge admiration for the English detective novel and has striven to recreate this genre.  The current editions of the Sayers have a foreword written by her in which she makes no secret of her admiration for these books. 

Sadly, her detective, Inspector Lynley (who is a member of the aristocracy and is called 'Tommy' by his friends for heaven's sake) is a pastiche and not really believable.  He is self obsessed, angst ridden and continually doubting himself and his motives.  He also has a 'pleb' side kick, Barbara Havers, very much a member of the working class, no musical tastes, eats junk food, wears trainers and dreadful anoraks, and is a complete contrast to her boss.  Though she will not admit it, she is devoted to the Terrible Tommy and it is her detecting that solves the problem most of the time. Lynley marries an equally self obsessed, ghastly wife called Helen who is, without doubt, the most irritating female I have ever met in fiction (with perhaps the exception of Irene in the Forsyth Saga, who I wanted to shake most of the time.  My sympathies were always with Soames who I felt showed remarkable forbearance towards his wife but that is a blog for another day).   Elizabeth George had the sense to kill her off to my relief which vanished pretty quickly when I realised it merely gave Lynley the chance to wander off and treat us to hundreds of pages of more angst and introspection.    I have read all of the George books and the last two have really driven me barmy, one of them using the James Bulger case as a plot device which I found utterly despicable,  but I have this awful compulsion to carry on reading them to find out what happens.   Masochistic - that is me.

I do wonder who had influenced who in the Peter/Roderick output and if either of these authors had read the other and, on checking bibliographies, can see that the first D L Sayers novel was published in 1923 and Ngaio Marsh had her first, A Man Lay Dead, published in 1934 so she would have had ample time to read, and be influenced by, Lord Peter Wimsey. I have been hunting out some references on Ngaio's thoughts on DL Sayers and have found this:

"She had cordial relations with Christie and Allingham but loathed Sayers, and was one of the most vehement proponents of the cruel rumour that Sayers was a pathetic, dried-up old biddy who created Harriet Vane as an author avatar because she had fallen in love with Lord Peter Wimsey".   This is rather horrid and I find it a bit upsetting that she had this view of DLS, a biography of whom I recently read which shows that this is rather wide of the mark.

and then this: "Miss Idris Campanula and Miss Eleanor Prentice in Overture to Death are both vicious caricatures of Dorothy L. Sayers. Eleanor Prentice is a passive-aggressive, sex-hating, shrewish, bitter harpy who literally cannot control herself when she hears the ringing of church bells and is driven to madness by the possibility that she might miss Sunday service. Idris Campanula is a vicious, screeching tartar who tries to control people with money. Even their names are allusions: "Campanula" means "bell ringer" and is an allusion to Sayers The Nine Taylors, while Miss Prentice of the Hall is a reference to Prentice-Hall, Sayers's publisher"

NOT very nice and yet, despite this, her creation owes a lot to Wimsey.   Perhaps she was a tad miffed that she had not come up with a 'gentleman detective' first.

I have discovered two marvellous illustrations by Robert Fawcett (1903-1967) who achieved fame as a book and magazine illustrator.  "As he was slightly colour blind, Fawcett did not excel as a painter, but he was an excellent draftsman and designer, with a strong eye for detail. He produced story illustrations and full-page ads that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, Holiday, Cosmopolitan and numerous other magazines".

They are both from Final Curtain in which Troy is persuaded by Thomas Ancred to paint his father, Sir Henry Ancred, a retired actor and Knight of the Realm.

"The man who stood before the unkindled hearth was tall and stooped a little. His hair, which had the appearance of floss, stood up thinly like a child’s. He wore glasses and blinked behind them at Troy.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m Thomas Ancred."

  

The second shows Troy at work painting Sir Henry, who is in costume as Macbeth, one of his greatest parts.

I love both these illustrations and if you Google Robert Fawcett and check him out, his catalogue of work and illustrations is simply fascinating.

I adore the Golden Age of crime writing and part of its charm is the manners and speech of the time. Marsh is stuck in this time warp in all of her books, even the later ones written in the 60s and 70s, which makes them sound rather dated to say the least. She has a slightly mannered and camp style which appeals to me enormously and after an extended run of Marsh I find the words insufferable, impertinent and tedious start to litter my conversation....

Of course after reading D L Sayers I find myself saying 'Don't cha know' and pronouncing dropping as droppin' and getting a bit high and mighty.    I then remember Lord Peter saying to his faithful Bunter to whom he gives an enormous amount of leeway 'borderin' Bunter borderin' just to remind him not to overstep the mark.

After a tough crime novel set in the US or an enigmatic and dark one set in Scandinavia or a glut of serial killers, there is something soothing about returning to this era of 'teckery' (and that is a Marshism!)

Who do you prefer - Alleyn or Sir Peter? Or, like me, do you love them both...

Autumn Monday - reading, writing and relaxing

Much as I love autumn today was one of those days that do not endear this season to me. I can put up with cold and snow etc but I loathe windy days where your hair is whipped across your eyes and you have to lean forward to walk.  It has been raining quite heavily here in Colchester, all the beautiful gold and crimson leaves are being blown off the trees and are now lying in sodden heaps on the pavement, lovely to look at but treacherous to walk on.  So decided that today was a good time to tuck myself up indoors and do a few domestic bits and pieces and be warm and gemutlich.   This I have done and, as I have to fill in a tax return as I worked for a few months this year, spent an hour getting my figures and things together.  I will be doing this on line and oh my goodness what a hassle registering I want to do this, ringing up the IR Helpline when the system kept crashing, then having to wait for my activation code blah blah blah. Soooooooooooo boring.

It is now the part of the early winter days I love.  It is dark, I have pulled the curtains, the lamps are on, listening to the afternoon concert on Radio 3 and that wonderful feeling of knowing that there is nothing I have to do if I don't want to this evening.  Have my supper all ready to pop into the oven, then I will watch It Takes Two and see Jimi Mistry and Flavia being interviewed by Claudia and the obligatory tears at being voted off the show, then sharpen my wits with University Challenge later (do ANY undergraduates know anything about Shakespeare and poetry I ask myself?) and then settle down at 9pm for the final episode of Spooks to which I have become addicted.  I am linking you to an earlier post on this series in which I poured scorn and vitriol on its awful script etc etc and I still stand by this and the  tight lipped delivery of awful lines, but of course Richard Armitage has been in this for the last few series and that is the reason for my watching.   But I will own up and say I love it now.  Confession is good for the soul...

An interview with PD James in my paper this morning.   Wonderful woman who stands no nonsense and takes no prisoners.  I have just re-read The Private Patient, a copy of which I picked up at a book sale recently (have a sneaky feeling it was probably my copy I donated last year) and, as always when reading this author, felt the usual sense of keen enjoyment which always comes over me when I read her elegant writing and clear and clean style.  Not going to repeat myself so here is the link to my earlier review back in 2008.

Now in her nineties, PD James says that she has probably written her last book as they usually 'take about three years to write and I might not be here then'.  I would adore her to produce just one more Dalgliesh book, from purely selfish reasons, as I cannot bear to let him go but did suspect after the ending of the Private Patient where she finally marries him off, he finds happiness and is contemplating making this his last case, that there would be no more.

Faber are reissuing her earlier books as I mentioned last week and I intend to get hold of them all as I find I read and re-read these books as often as I do DL Sayers and Ngaio Marsh.

A great lady and a great writer.