Thank you to everyone who shared their favourite Golden Age mysteries.
Sadly there can only be one winner this time, and a copy of the lovely Felony & Mayhem edition of The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkley will be making it’s way to:
I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!
Posted in Mixed & Misc
Death by chocolate!
Yes, really – let me explain!
Notorious womaniser Sir Eustace Pennefather was staying at his London club when he received a complimentary box of liqueur chocolates in the post. Sir Eustace was unimpressed.
Graham Bendix, another member of the club, needed a box of chocolates. He had lost a bet with his wife and the stake had been a box of chocolates.
And so Bendix took the chocolates home. He and his wife both tried them; he didn’t care for them, but his wife did. And a few hours later Joan Bendix was dead and her husband, seriously ill in hospital.
You see – death by chocolate!
The police were called in and they discovered that the chocolates had been laced with poison; that they had been posted in a box near The Strand the previous evening; that they came with a letter typed on the chocolatier’s notepaper.
But who was the poisoner? Who was the intended victim? They were baffled!
And so they took a most unusual approach. They called in the Crime Circle: a group of six amateur detectives. The members agreed that a week would be allowed for each to investigate and then present their results to the society.
And so this is a very different Golden Age mystery. As fine a puzzle as you could want!
Six voices, all different, but all had both intelligence and wit.
Each of the sextet picks up on a different detail, takes a different tack, and provides a watertight case. Trouble is, each of the six points to a different murderer!
I couldn’t fault anybody’s logic, and I have to say that the way the book is structured to work as a whole is incredibly clever.
It was a wonderful roller-coaster ride as cases were built and then demolished.
Six people expounding theories could have been dull, but it wasn’t at all. There was plenty more going on, and the outcome was in doubt until the very last page. I had to read the ending twice, and the second time it made perfect sense.
The Poisoned Chocolates Case is, if you will excuse the pun, a confection. It has nothing of importance to say, but it is oh so entertaining.
And it is that rare thing, a crime novel I could happily read many times.
*****
I must thank The Classics Circuit for hosting The Golden Age of Detective Fiction Tour.
It was the perfect excuse to buy the lovely Felony & Mayhem edition of The Poisoned Chocolates Case that I had wanted for so long. In fact, I was so enthused that I accidentally ordered two copies. So, if you would like the spare give me the name of your favourite book from the golden age of detective fiction is and tell me what makes it special. I’ll pick a winner after 8pm on Sunday.
Work and life are a little complicated at the moment.
There aren’t enough hours in the day.
I’m thinking about other things while I’m dog-walking at the moment, instead of books and blog posts as usual.
So I’m afraid my blogging and commenting may be a bit more intermittent than usual for a while, and I may be even slower than usual responding to emails.
Hopefully things will settle down soon.
Posted in Mixed & Misc
I didn’t come across The White Woman on the Green Bicycle until it appeared on the longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
I wasn’t sure that it would be my sort of book, but I heard so much praise that I really had to order a copy.
Since then it appeared on the shortlist, and now that I have read it I have to say that I would be thrilled to see it win. A wonderful book!
It tells the story of one woman, her life and marriage, and wraps around it the story of Trinidad in the second half of the twentieth century.
French born Sabine moved to Trinidad in 1956 with her English husband, George. He has a three year contract with a shipping company. It’s an adventure, and they are young, happy, and confident that they will suceed where, it seems, many before them have failed.
George fell in love with Trinidad. The surroundings, the climate, the lifestyle.
Monique Roffey’s rich and evocative prose makes it easy to see why. But she describes a darker and more violent side to Trinidad too.
Sabine hates Trinidad: the heat, the humidity, the rigid social code of the ex pat community, the racial segregation. She accepts that she wil have to stay until the end of her husband’s contract, but she sees her future in England.
But George sees his future in Trinidad, and has no intention of returning to England. He would happily spend his whole life in Trinidad. And so the relationship between Sabine and George, inevitably, deteriorates. They continue to love each other deeply, but they many never understand each other.
And so Sabine is tied: she could leave Trinidad, but she could never leave George.
Meanwhile, the country is changing. And one day Sabine is caught up in a rally for a new political party, a party demanding an end to colonial rule and better things for the native people, as she rides her green bicycle to the market.
She starts to take an interest in the local politics, she argues with the other ex pat wives, and bonds grow between her and her family’s native maids. She will never love the country but she grows to love its people and hope for their future. And she writes letters to the new party’s leader, sharing her hopes, her fears, her concerns, her ideas. She knows that she will never be able to send them and so she stores them away.
Her husband though is her mirror image. He continues to love the country, but he will never be more than an ex pat and he will never understand, never even want to understand its people.
And years later George will find Sabine’s letters…
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is a powerful, complex, rich story of a woman, a marriage and a country. There are many details, many emotions, and each and every one rings true.
Many questions are posed. Some are answered, but others are too difficult.
The story is non chronological – the ending is seen first, through George’s eyes and then the past is revealed from Sabine’s point of view. And that works well, focusing attention on events and relationships as they unfold without the distraction of wondering where they are leading.
The language and the imagery are dark and dazzling, slowly but surely painting complex and vivid pictures of personal and political histories.
And the story is compelling.
Awonderful book!
Many years ago a small boy disappeared. He climbed over his parents’ garden wall and disappeared into the mist.
Now, twenty years on, the first piece of evidence has come to light. A new investigation begins.
A simple story, but Johan Theorin builds on it very well indeed.
He builds characters.
First there’s Julia. it was her son, Jens, who disappeared. She has never come to terms with her loss, never learned to live with it. She was already separated from her husband, and her refusal to accept that her son must be dead has left her estranged her from her family and friends and unable to return to her job as a nurse. She is in every way a woman alone.
And she is utterly believable. Infuriating and understandable in equal measure.
There is her father, Gerlof, struggling with the problems of old age and missing the respect and camaraderie he enjoyed in his working life.
Gerlof receives a child’s shoe in the post. Jens’ shoe. He calls his daughter, and a new investigation begins.
Who is responsible? Local people have alway blamed Nils Kant, a local man with a dark reputation, even though he was dead and buried before the child disappeared. Rumours persist. That another body is buried in the graveyard. That Nils Kant has returned.
And so two stories are told.
The first is the story of an investigation, of a mother’s dawning realisation that her child is lost to her, and of a father and daughter struggling to rebuild their relationship.
The second is the story of Nils Kant, of what lay behind the events that blackened his name, of what happened to him when he left his homeland.
Both are complex human stories, and both are very well executed.
And compelling – each time I stopped reading I was surprised at how many pages had gone by.
The atmosphere is dark, the sense of place is palpable, and the construction of the story is oh so clever. Particularly the conclusion, which comes quite naturally out of the story without ever feeling predictable.
I’m still thinking about this book, and I’m looking forward to Johan Theorin’s second novel too. It’s already in my library pile!
Translated by Marlaine Delargy
I am finally managing to bring down the size of my library pile. Just four books in two weeks!
And here they are:
Inside The Whale by Jennie Rooney
“Stephanie Sandford, recently widowed, must tell her family the truth. But the past is indistinct and it’s complicated. First, there was her mum, who developed an anxious streak after marrying the wrong Reg. And then there was the young man from the dairy who gave Stevie swimming lessons before he broke her heart. War came, and four years chopping root vegetables in the canteen of the Sun Pat peanut factory on the Old Kent Road. Then the wet London nights, with the Doodle Bugs slipping through the sky like huge silvery fish. It’s not until she’s under an umbrella with Jonathan – dark hair and seaweed eyes – that Stevie finally starts to sense safety. Meanwhile, Michael Royston’s memories are squashed into a shoebox (along with Queen Matilda’s Dicken Medal for bravery) ready for his move into hospital. Years ago, he trained military carrier pigeons for the Royal Corps of Signals in Cairo so it’s ironic that his own homecoming has taken a lifetime. Michael has never been good at putting things into words; he’s more comfortable with the click of Morse code. But Anna, a young healthcare assistant, has the patience – and rare tenderness – to eke out his story. And so he begins.”
The synopsis may seem a touch muddled, but I’ve started reading and so far it is quite wonderful.
The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill
“Simon Serrailler has just wrapped up a particularly exhausting and difficult case for SIFT – Special Incident Flying Taskforce – and is on a sabbatical on a far flung Scottish island when he is called back to Lafferton by the Chief Constable. Two local prostitutes have gone missing and are subsequently found strangled. By the time he gets back, another girl has disappeared. Is this a vendetta against prostitutes by someone with a warped mind? Or a series of killings by an angry punter? But then one of the Cathedral wives goes missing, followed by another young married woman, on her way to work. Serailler follows lead after lead, all of which become dead-ends. The fear is that more women will be killed, and that the murderer is right under their noses; meanwhile the public grow more angry and afraid. It is only through a piece of luck, a chance meeting and a life put in grave danger that he finally gets a result…”
I arrived in the library just as the new crime novels were being put out. There were a few I was interested in, but I was restrained and picked up just this one.
“Sandy is the true story of a boy and his friends growing up in Cornwall in the late 1800s. It’s the story of a ‘lost world’ in two senses — the lost world of childhood as recalled from an adult perspective, and the lost world of late Victorian England as lived through in a rural community, when the ordinary family depended for its livelihood on long hours of difficult manual labour. The Sandy whose early life this book chronicles grew up in West Cornwall’s countryside at the end of the 1800s. Initially living in Falmouth, where he was born, Sandy moves when his father inherits a derelict house and farm from his Uncle Benjamin. Here we come to see the restoration process that the whole family is involved in once this move had been made. The reader can enjoy an array of local colour in the antics and adventures Sandy embarks on with the new friends he makes, from Polwheveral Creek to Porth Navas to the woodlands north of Constantine. Then there are larger-than-life characters, such as the sailors who wouldn’t feel out of place in Treasure Island, with facial scars and eye-patches and mutilated limbs. Enjoy such new-fangled inventions and machinery as gas lighting for the home and a horse-drawn grass-cutter, and share in the wonder their arrival must have excited among the common people. Become acquainted too with such local traditions as the Helston flora dance, and delicacies like star-gazy pie. Childhood however runs its natural course, and once on the brink of manhood Sandy cannot resist his passion for the sea, of which his father sternly disapproves. The only option Sandy has is to run away from home, which he does, joining the Royal Navy in Plymouth. He returns briefly after serving for ten years, to find out what has happened to his friends and family. Then that chapter too closes, and with it a whole past world of English rural life.”
Hopefully this will be perfect Cornish comfort reading!
Florence & Giles by John Harding
“In a remote and crumbling New England mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from reading. Left to her own devices she devours books in secret and talks to herself – and narrates this, her story – in a unique language of her own invention. By night, she sleepwalks the corridors like one of the old house’s many ghosts and is troubled by a recurrent dream in which a mysterious woman appears to threaten her younger brother Giles. Sometimes Florence doesn’t sleepwalk at all, but simply pretends to so she can roam at will and search the house for clues to her own baffling past. After the sudden violent death of the children’s first governess, a second teacher, Miss Taylor, arrives, and immediately strange phenomena begin to occur. Florence becomes convinced that the new governess is a vengeful and malevolent spirit who means to do Giles harm. Against this powerful supernatural enemy, and without any adult to whom she can turn for help, Florence must use all her intelligence and ingenuity to both protect her little brother and preserve her private world.”
The influences are fairly obvious, but it does look good and a gothic novel does appeal right now.
Have you read any of these? What did you think? Which book should I go for next? And which are you curious to know more about?
And what did you find in the library this week?
See more Library Loot here.
“A great nineteenth-century novel translated into English for the first time.”
So says the back cover of this book, and I have to agree.
I was gripped even from the dedication.
“I dedicate this book all those who were bored stiff at school or reduced to tears at home, who in childhood were bullied by their teachers or thrashed by their parents.”
Jacques, the young hero is thrashed by his parents in the very first chapter. They are unhappy people, concerned only with their social status and advancement, and with no love, no empathy at all for their young son.
I worried that this would be a depressing and distressing read. And at times it was, but it was also something special indeed.
A neighbour saw what was happening and came to the aid of young Jacques. She realised that making a fuss would not help and so she offered to beat the child to save his mother the trouble. But instead of beating him she clapped her hand while he yelled, and gave him candy.
And so Jacques’ spirit was not broken.
His story went on, not with great drama but through the things – day-to-day routine, trips, family events and, of course, school – that make up a childhood.
Like so many children, before and since, Jacques had a strong survival instinct, and he only realised in time that his situation was not usual. He carried on.
He didn’t look to his parents, he looked out at the world, observing everything he saw so closely.
And his perspective is beautifully realised – idiosyncratic, sometimes witty, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and always utterly believable.
Jacques never received approval from his parents, and so he didn’t look for it from others. Insubordination and independence came to him quite naturally. Particularly at school, which he didn’t care for at all!
I was sorry to have to part company with Jacques when he reached adulthood.
But I won’t forget him, and I’m hoping that the two sequels to this book are translated into English one day. If they aren’t I’m going to have to think about brushing up my French!
But first I must thank NYRB for this translation and The Spotlight Series for encouraging me to pluck this volume from the shelf.
The Child isn’t an easy book to write about, but it is one that you really should read.
I first spotted Jane Borodale’s The Book of Fires last year. I was interested, but not quite interested enough to rush out and order a copy. Well, there are a lot of good historical novels out there.
But then something changed. The Book of Fires was one of three books shortlisted for this year’s Orange Award for New Writers. That suggested that it might be something rather special, and so the order went in.
The book duly arrived in the library, and it very nearly went straight back again. Because it is written in the present tense. And in the first person. A bad combination in my eyes. But the narrative voice was engaging and the story looked promising, so on I went.
It is the late 18th century and seventeen year-old Agnes lives with her family in rural Sussex. A picture of rural poverty is efficiently painted, but I really could have lived without so much detail of the slaughter and butchery of the family’s pig, and then a rather odd flashback to a conception scene.
I can happily read about English rural life all day, and this wasn’t badly done but I found myself thinking of those authors who write about it so well, and wondering if I should go and reread Thomas Hardy or Mary Webb instead. In the end though, curiosity about the new, unknown, shortlist-worthy novel won the day.
And yes, I did say conception scene. Agnes is pregnant, unmarried and fearful of the shame that she would bring to her family. She sees a way out when she find an elderly neighbour dead and rather more money than would be expected nearby. Agnes pockets some of the coins and runs away to London.
She is lost and alone in the city, but luck is still with her. She quickly secures a position as an apprentice to a firework-maker, and the story proper begins.
Agnes soon shows herself to be an able apprentice and a relationship begins to grow between her and her employer, Mr Blacklock. A widower. A quiet, clever man.
All the while new and innovative fireworks are being created, secrets are being sought. A major breakthrough may be close.
But Agnes fears the day when her pregnancy is discovered and she will be thrown out onto the street, and worries that her theft of the coins will catch up with her, knowing that the consequence will be transportation at best and death by hanging at worst.
She plots and schemes to secure her future. And others all around her are plotting and scheming too.
It’s a good story, with just enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. And Agnes is an engaging heroine, making it easy to empathise with her concerns, easy to see London through her eyes.
But there are problems.
A lot of them can be attributed to the perspective. The story is told solely from the point of view of a seventeen year-old girl, caught up in her own problems and concerns. It rang true, but that left the other characters undeveloped and the settings and situations underdescribed.
A pity, because with a different perspective – and maybe a different tense – I think this could have been a much stronger book. There was potential in the story and characters, the times and places were well realised, and the story of the creation of fireworks was fascinating, and clearly well researched.
A few other things maybe needed a little more thought. It was hard to believe that Agnes could conceal her pregnancy from so many people for so long, and some of the courses of action she tried to take were so clearly doomed.
I had to suspend disbelief quite a few times, and I rather suspect that this book was written for a younger, less analytical reader.
The ending rounds things off nicely – though maybe a little too neatly.
And what do I think in the end? I think that the Book of Fires has much of interest, but it has flaws as well.
A promising debut, but not an award-worthy one.
Posted in Mixed & Misc
