#45 – The Hollow

A house party for family and friends is taking place at The Hollow, country residence of Sir Henry and Lady Lucy Angkatell. Hercule Poirot is the special guest for Sunday luncheon but when he arrives he is confronted with the sight of Gerda Christow holding a gun and standing over her dying husband, John.

Yet this is no open and shut case for reasons which become quickly clear but as the murder is relatively late to say any more would be spoilerish.

The first half of the book introduces us to the people who make up the house-party, in particular John, a driven doctor who is seeking to cure a debilitating disease, his slow-witted and socially awkward wife, Gerda, and his mistress, Henrietta, who is just as driven as John in her chosen field of sculpture.

When I started this blog I placed this in my bottom 5 and whilst I can appreciate some of the touches (see Spoiler section) overall I’m still not convinced and neither was Christie who wrote in her autobiography that she had ruined it by introducing Poirot.

Recurring character development

Hercule Poirot

Met the Angkatells in Baghdad when Henry was High Commissioner.

Knows how the English dress in the country but deliberately chooses to retain his urban style.

Owns a country cottage called Resthaven.

Has a Belgian gardener, Victor, whose wife, Françoise, cooks.

Signs of the Times

Although published in 1946 this is still set pre-World War II.

According to Lady Angkatell, Henrietta’s sculpture “Ascending Thought” looked “rather like a Heath Robinson stepladder”. William Heath Robinson (1872 – 1944) was an illustrator who drew extraordinarily complicated machines that accomplished only minor tasks. As well as embodying this idea a Heath Robinson contraption also has connotations of being ramshackle and rickety and liable to fall to pieces at any moment.

Henrietta is trying to create a sculpture of Nausicaa. In Greek mythology Odysseus met Nausicaa when shipwrecked on the coast of the island of Scheria. She ends up marrying his son Telemachus.

John Christow is investigating a cure for Ridgeway’s disease which is fictional but may be based upon multiple sclerosis.

When John thinks “Who was it who had said that the real tragedy of life was that you got what you wanted?” he is probably of the Oscar Wilde quote “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

Henrietta has a Delage car. Louis Delâge (1874 – 1947) founded a car manufacturing business in 1905. It was sold to Delahaye in 1935 and ceased production in 1953.

Henrietta doodles a tree which she calls Ygdrasil. Yggdrasil is an enormous ash tree in Norse mythology.

Veronica Cray had “views on Strindberg and on Shakespeare”. August Strindberg (1849 – 1912) was a Swedish playwright.

Hercule Poirot sees Gerda as middle-aged. John is in his late thirties and I assume Gerda is of a similar age. Nowadays middle-aged is probably at least fifty but in a number of GAD books I have recently noticed that late thirties is described as middle-aged, which given lower life expectancies makes some sense and is also literally more accurate.

Inspector Grange prefers Hedy Lamarr to Veronica Cray. Hedy Lamarr (1914 – 2000) was best known as an actress but was also an inventor in her spare time. During World War II, with composer George Antheil (writer of Death in the Dark under the pseudonym Stacey Bishop), she designed and patented a frequency-hopping system which could not be jammed. It was not used during that conflict but was installed on US Navy ships in the 1960s.

Inspector Grange thinks that the Chief Constable of Wealdshire is “a fussy despot and a tuft-hunter”. Titled undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge were entitled to wear golden, rather than plain black, tassels on their academic caps. In the late 17th century these became known as “tufts” and this name was then given to the wearers, with those who followed and looked-up to them being known as “tufthunters” so the sense here is an obsequious sycophant. “Tuft” changed over time to become “Toff”.

Lady Angkatell quotes “If apes had been content with tails” which is from a poem called “Discontent” by Ellen Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919). She also wrote the lines “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone”.

Lady Angkatell says that it would have been all right for the murder to be the leading article in The Observer but not The News of the World. The Observer is the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, first published in 1791. Since 1993 it has been part of The Guardian Media Group. The News of the World was first published in 1843, also as a Sunday newspaper, and was the cheapest at the time. It closed in 2011 following the phone-hacking scandal but was unfortunately just replaced with The Sun on Sunday.

Lady Angkatell imagines that Inspector Grange is married with sons and helps them with Meccano in the evenings. Meccano is a metal construction kit invented in 1898 by Frank Hornby and is still made today. A similar toy called Erector was launched in the USA in 1913 and was eventually taken over by Meccano in 2000.

Henrietta’s quote beginning “The days passed slowly one by one” is from the poem “Creature Comforts” by Harry Graham. Graham (1874 – 1936) was a humorous writer best known for the 1898 collection “Ruthless Rhymes”.

Poirot is puzzled that Ainswick was not inherited by Sir Henry ” as he has the title” to which Henrietta responds “Oh, that’s a KCB”. This a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath which is a non-hereditary award which allows a man to be known as Sir or a woman to be known as Dame. Benito Mussolini, Nicolae Ceausescu, and Robert Mugabe were all members before their infamous deeds prompted their expulsion.

Lady Angkatell had had a rich chocolate and cream dessert with a very offensive name made for Poirot as it was “Just the sort of sweet a foreigner would like for lunch”.

Midge’s quote that begins “He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone” is from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.

Vintage Mystery Challenge

Fulfils “How – At least two deaths with different means”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#45 – The Hollow – WITH SPOILERS

A house party for family and friends is taking place at The Hollow, country residence of Sir Henry and Lady Lucy Angkatell. Hercule Poirot is the special guest for Sunday luncheon but when he arrives he is confronted with the sight of Gerda Christow holding a gun and standing over her dying husband, John.

Yet this is no open and shut case for reasons which become quickly clear but as the murder is relatively late to say any more would be spoilerish.

The first half of the book introduces us to the people who make up the house-party, in particular John, a driven doctor who is seeking to cure a debilitating disease, his slow-witted and socially awkward wife, Gerda, and his mistress, Henrietta, who is just as driven as John in her chosen field of sculpture.

When I started this blog I placed this in my bottom 5 and whilst I can appreciate some of the touches (see Spoiler section) overall I’m still not convinced and neither was Christie who wrote in her autobiography that she had ruined it by introducing Poirot.

Recurring character development

Hercule Poirot

Met the Angkatells in Baghdad when Henry was High Commissioner.

Knows how the English dress in the country but deliberately chooses to retain his urban style.

Owns a country cottage called Resthaven.

Has a Belgian gardener, Victor, whose wife, Françoise, cooks.

Signs of the Times

Although published in 1946 this is still set pre-World War II.

According to Lady Angkatell, Henrietta’s sculpture “Ascending Thought” looked “rather like a Heath Robinson stepladder”. William Heath Robinson (1872 – 1944) was an illustrator who drew extraordinarily complicated machines that accomplished only minor tasks. As well as embodying this idea a Heath Robinson contraption also has connotations of being ramshackle and rickety and liable to fall to pieces at any moment.

Henrietta is trying to create a sculpture of Nausicaa. In Greek mythology Odysseus met Nausicaa when shipwrecked on the coast of the island of Scheria. She ends up marrying his son Telemachus.

John Christow is investigating a cure for Ridgeway’s disease which is fictional but may be based upon multiple sclerosis.

When John thinks “Who was it who had said that the real tragedy of life was that you got what you wanted?” he is probably of the Oscar Wilde quote “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

Henrietta has a Delage car. Louis Delâge (1874 – 1947) founded a car manufacturing business in 1905. It was sold to Delahaye in 1935 and ceased production in 1953.

Henrietta doodles a tree which she calls Ygdrasil. Yggdrasil is an enormous ash tree in Norse mythology.

Veronica Cray had “views on Strindberg and on Shakespeare”. August Strindberg (1849 – 1912) was a Swedish playwright.

Hercule Poirot sees Gerda as middle-aged. John is in his late thirties and I assume Gerda is of a similar age. Nowadays middle-aged is probably at least fifty but in a number of GAD books I have recently noticed that late thirties is described as middle-aged, which given lower life expectancies makes some sense and is also literally more accurate.

Inspector Grange prefers Hedy Lamarr to Veronica Cray. Hedy Lamarr (1914 – 2000) was best known as an actress but was also an inventor in her spare time. During World War II, with composer George Antheil (writer of Death in the Dark under the pseudonym Stacey Bishop), she designed and patented a frequency-hopping system which could not be jammed. It was not used during that conflict but was installed on US Navy ships in the 1960s.

Inspector Grange thinks that the Chief Constable of Wealdshire is “a fussy despot and a tuft-hunter”. Titled undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge were entitled to wear golden, rather than plain black, tassels on their academic caps. In the late 17th century these became known as “tufts” and this name was then given to the wearers, with those who followed and looked-up to them being known as “tufthunters” so the sense here is an obsequious sycophant. “Tuft” changed over time to become “Toff”.

Lady Angkatell quotes “If apes had been content with tails” which is from a poem called “Discontent” by Ellen Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919). She also wrote the lines “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone”.

Lady Angkatell says that it would have been all right for the murder to be the leading article in The Observer but not The News of the World. The Observer is the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, first published in 1791. Since 1993 it has been part of The Guardian Media Group. The News of the World was first published in 1843, also as a Sunday newspaper, and was the cheapest at the time. It closed in 2011 following the phone-hacking scandal but was unfortunately just replaced with The Sun on Sunday.

Lady Angkatell imagines that Inspector Grange is married with sons and helps them with Meccano in the evenings. Meccano is a metal construction kit invented in 1898 by Frank Hornby and is still made today. A similar toy called Erector was launched in the USA in 1913 and was eventually taken over by Meccano in 2000.

Henrietta’s quote beginning “The days passed slowly one by one” is from the poem “Creature Comforts” by Harry Graham. Graham (1874 – 1936) was a humorous writer best known for the 1898 collection “Ruthless Rhymes”.

Poirot is puzzled that Ainswick was not inherited by Sir Henry ” as he has the title” to which Henrietta responds “Oh, that’s a KCB”. This a Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath which is a non-hereditary award which allows a man to be known as Sir or a woman to be known as Dame. Benito Mussolini, Nicolae Ceausescu, and Robert Mugabe were all members before their infamous deeds prompted their expulsion.

Lady Angkatell had had a rich chocolate and cream dessert with a very offensive name made for Poirot as it was “Just the sort of sweet a foreigner would like for lunch”.

Midge’s quote that begins “He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone” is from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.

Vintage Mystery Challenge

Fulfils “How – At least two deaths with different means”.

SPOILERS

So after all that it was Gerda all the time – but she only escaped detection for so long with a little help from her misguided friends.

The temporary hiding of the gun in a sculpture is clever as is the mysterious fingerprints taken secretly from a blind match-seller.

Poirot’s sudden appearance and intuition that Gerda might poison Henrietta is slightly odd, although allowing Gerda to inadvertently play Russian roulette with the cups of tea is in character: it is not the first time that he has allowed a killer an easier way out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His First Bow: Death Cloud by Andrew Lane (2010)

All the world knows Sherlock Holmes – the man that is – but what lead a Victorian boy to become the original consulting detective? This question is what Andrew Lane attempts to unravel across a series of eight books beginning with this one.

Fourteen year-old Sherlock Holmes is glad to be leaving Deepdene School for Boys for the holidays but instead of returning home he is packed off to stay with an unknown Uncle Sherrinford and Aunt Anna. He strikes up an acquaintance with Matty Arnatt, an orphan of the same age, who has witnessed a mysterious cloud leaving a house where a man has just died, his body covered with boils.

Sherlock and his new tutor, Amyus Crowe, discover a similar corpse in the woods around Holmes Manor, and he determines to solve the mystery of the cloud of death.

Unlike the 1985 film “Young Sherlock Holmes” which includes a young Watson (although David Marcum has written this interesting piece which explains who that boy really was) there are no obvious contradictions to the canon. We discover that Sherlock’s middle name is Scott (at least I’ve never come across that before) and amongst many other references which Sherlockians will recognise there is a Mycroft who is already putting on weight and who says “I don’t know everything yet”.

The fact that so many things are new to Sherlock, including both London and trains, means that Lane can describe these in detail to the audience. I still can’t imagine how dirty and smelly the capital was at the time and continued to be long into the twentieth century.

The key quote that stuck out for me which will shape Sherlock as he matures is:

“You can deduce all you like, but it’s pointless with knowledge…Information is the foundation of all rational thought. Seek it out. Collect it assiduously. Stock the lumber room of your mind with as many facts as you can fit in there. Don’t attempt to distinguish between important facts and trivial facts: they’re all potentially important.”

Overall good clean fun and recommended as a Christmas present for any 11+ people in your life. They will learn a lot without realising it and may be encouraged to keep the GAD flag flying high for another generation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#44 – Sparkling Cyanide

Rosemary Barton committed suicide a year ago in the middle of her birthday party.

But her widower George is no longer satisfied with that verdict and plans to recreate the evening again – ostensibly to celebrate Rosemary’s sister’s birthday – but in reality to trap a killer.

The returning Colonel Race should have been at the first party  and wants nothing to do with the second one but he is forced to lend a hand when events take an unexpected turn.

The book has a structure that is reminiscent of Five Little Pigs as we begin with the recollections of six people of the fatal night a year ago before we come into the present and see the fallout from George Barton’s scheme.

It is nice to see Colonel Race come into his own in his final appearance and there are some nice touches but overall there is a big thing (see Spoilers) that lets this one down.

Recurring character development

Colonel Race

He smokes a pipe.

Is now over 60

Knew two schoolgirls who committed murder.

Has worked for both MI5 and the Counter-Espionage Department.

Has worked with Chief Inspector Kemp before.

When a Major met General Lord Woodworth in Badderpore in 1923.

Met Mary Rees-Talbot in Allahabad.

Signs of the Times

The second of November is a Thursday which, coupled with Race’s age, places the story in 1950, five years’ after the date of publication, but as it is clearly set pre-WWII, there is a continuity error that needs ironing out somewhere.

The quote at the start of Book I is the start of a poem by John Keats, that at the start of Book II from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, and that at the start of Book III from Tennyson’s poem “Crossed Hands and Closed Eyes”.

Anthony references a historical Anthony Browne who was chamberlain to Henry VIII. Browne (1500 – 1548) was Master of the Horse. Amongst many other things he travelled with Henry to meet Anne of Cleves and was sent to see her before the king. He came out “lamenting in his heart to see the Lady so far unlike that which was reported”.

Rosemary has heard that Anthony Browne also goes by the name of Tony Morelli. Tony Morell/Antonio Morelli is a character in The Seat of the Scornful by John Dickson Carr which was published four years earlier.

Stephen Farraday was a member of the O.U.D.S. which is the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

Sandra has no aspirin but when Rosemary asks her for one is able to give her a Cachet Faivre. Advertised as being better than aspirin, this was a branded medicine to combat flu, fever, headache, and pain.

Mention of Dr Gaskell leads Lucilla Drake into thinking of the greengrocer, Cranford. “Cranford” is an 1853 novel by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The phrase “not all beer and skittles” meaning not always fun comes from the 1857 novel “Tom Brown’s School Days” by Thomas Hughes.

Sandra Farraday was wearing a Schiaparelli dress at the second dinner. Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 – 1973) was an Italian fashion designer and rival of Coco Chanel.

The quote “For the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin” is the last line of Kipling’s poem “The Ladies”.

Vintage Mystery Challenge

Fulfils “When – During a special event”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#44 – Sparkling Cyanide – WITH SPOILERS

Rosemary Barton committed suicide a year ago in the middle of her birthday party.

But her widower George is no longer satisfied with that verdict and plans to recreate the evening again – ostensibly to celebrate Rosemary’s sister’s birthday – but in reality to trap a killer.

The returning Colonel Race should have been at the first party  and wants nothing to do with the second one but he is forced to lend a hand when events take an unexpected turn.

The book has a structure that is reminiscent of Five Little Pigs as we begin with the recollections of six people of the fatal night a year ago before we come into the present and see the fallout from George Barton’s scheme.

It is nice to see Colonel Race come into his own in his final appearance and there are some nice touches but overall there is a big thing (see Spoilers) that lets this one down.

Recurring character development

Colonel Race

He smokes a pipe.

Is now over 60

Knew two schoolgirls who committed murder.

Has worked for both MI5 and the Counter-Espionage Department.

Has worked with Chief Inspector Kemp before.

When a Major met General Lord Woodworth in Badderpore in 1923.

Met Mary Rees-Talbot in Allahabad.

Signs of the Times

The second of November is a Thursday which, coupled with Race’s age, places the story in 1950, five years’ after the date of publication, but as it is clearly set pre-WWII, there is a continuity error that needs ironing out somewhere.

The quote at the start of Book I is the start of a poem by John Keats, that at the start of Book II from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, and that at the start of Book III from Tennyson’s poem “Crossed Hands and Closed Eyes”.

Anthony references a historical Anthony Browne who was chamberlain to Henry VIII. Browne (1500 – 1548) was Master of the Horse. Amongst many other things he travelled with Henry to meet Anne of Cleves and was sent to see her before the king. He came out “lamenting in his heart to see the Lady so far unlike that which was reported”.

Rosemary has heard that Anthony Browne also goes by the name of Tony Morelli. Tony Morell/Antonio Morelli is a character in The Seat of the Scornful by John Dickson Carr which was published four years earlier.

Stephen Farraday was a member of the O.U.D.S. which is the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

Sandra has no aspirin but when Rosemary asks her for one is able to give her a Cachet Faivre. Advertised as being better than aspirin, this was a branded medicine to combat flu, fever, headache, and pain.

Mention of Dr Gaskell leads Lucilla Drake into thinking of the greengrocer, Cranford. “Cranford” is an 1853 novel by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The phrase “not all beer and skittles” meaning not always fun comes from the 1857 novel “Tom Brown’s School Days” by Thomas Hughes.

Sandra Farraday was wearing a Schiaparelli dress at the second dinner. Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 – 1973) was an Italian fashion designer and rival of Coco Chanel.

The quote “For the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin” is the last line of Kipling’s poem “The Ladies”.

Vintage Mystery Challenge

Fulfils “When – During a special event”.

SPOILERS

There is a certain cleverness in that we only have Ruth’s word that Victor Drake left for South America and she was the one who “dealt” with Ogilvie thus proving he was still there.

However the device of everyone having moved round one place round the table without anyone noticing either at the time or afterwards is nonsense. Christine Shannon notices all sorts of details and yet she doesn’t notice that? Come on! It may work in a short story (which this was originally, although the solution in the David Suchet version is different) where a sleuth may pick up on it in the immediate aftermath of a frightening scenario which has left the witnesses temporarily at a loss, but not where there is a sustained period of time afterwards to allow people to recollect things properly.

And another thing – I always forget that Pedro Morales is Victor Drake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons (1957)

John Wilkins suffers occasionally blackouts, brought on by drinking, which leave him with no memory what he has done during that time. Could he have committed a crime and be completely oblivious to it?

The first section of the book “Before” is John’s statement to a consulting psychologist which details his unhappy marriage to May, his relationship with his mother and Uncle Dan, and his growing infatuation with Sheila Morton, the new librarian.

The second section “After” is concerned with a criminal trial before matters are wrapped up (or are they?) in an epilogue.

This is not a novel of detection, but the then the series is Crime, rather than Mystery, Classics, and is instead an exploration of the difference between how an individual perceives himself and how others see him, followed by a review of the British legal system and how it does, or doesn’t deliver justice.

So not entirely my cup of tea but I enjoyed the writing style and as Martin Edwards says in the introduction “it is also of interest in the way it documents British social history.”

A letter from Sheila to a friend reveals that what John has taken to be encouraging signs are merely pity and kindness which is interesting in light of recent revelations coming from the #MeToo movement where many women say that they don’t wish to offend men and so are nicer to them than they may really want to be which is then misread – something I can relate to in the past which lead to me being overly persistent in, for want of a better phrase, pressing my suit. Not in a physical sense, but in continuing to send Valentine’s etc hoping against hope that eventually my feelings would be reciprocated. In the unlikely event that anyone from my past is reading this and was upset by this type of behaviour then all I can do is say sorry.

Amongst the darker elements, there is humour to be found, in particular this quote from when his hostess tries to seduce him:

“She was a middle-aged woman, nearly forty(!!!), and I felt nothing but disgust.”

Vintage Mystery Challenge

Fulfils “Who – Librarian/bookstore owner/publisher”.

 

 

The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean (1957)

I’ve recently started re-reading the early Alistair MacLean novels and whilst not a classic mystery, along with a number of other thrillers, it made the Crime Writers’ Association Top 100 books list in 1990 so I feel justified in giving it a full review on this blog.

1,200 Allied soldiers wait on the Aegean island of Kheros to be defeated by an impending German assault. The Royal Navy could evacuate them if only the massive guns on the nearby island of Navarone could be disabled and so far they have been immune to everything that has been thrown at them.

In one last throw of the dice, Captain Keith Mallory and his handpicked commando squad are sent to enter Navarone by the backdoor: the sheer, virtually unclimbable, South Cliff. Facing physical hardship and extreme danger at every turn, and the tightest of deadlines, can they succeed where everyone else has failed?

This book sets the template in many ways for MacLean going forward: the feats of men (and it is almost always men) attempting the impossible whilst being outnumbered and outgunned, facing the possibility of betrayal from within and at their physical limit, often in the freezing cold, and usually sleep deprived. The particular narrative here of a small, specialised group being sent undercover to achieve a specific objective would also influence other writers. This was the first book of this type that I ever read and I haven’t since come across anything similar with an earlier date so if anyone does know of any precursors please let me know.

The book touches upon various concepts that may not normally be pulled out and analysed from a thriller but I want to do so here:

1. The unfair parental expectations put on Stevens by his father. As much as the next man I want my children to be Sheffield Wednesday supporting GAD addicts and whilst one of those has already gone down the drain, I know that, in the words of the well-known proverb, you can lead a child to a well-stocked GAD library but you can’t make them read.

2. Although Stevens appears to be successful ideas this has come at a great personal cost. He is all too aware of his own fears and believes Mallory and Andrea to be fearless superheroes until the latter explains otherwise:

“We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a brave man, he, too, is brave and afraid like all the rest of us. Only he is brave for five minutes longer. Or sometimes ten minutes, or twenty minutes – or the time it takes a man sick and bleeding and afraid to climb a cliff.”

If Stevens had felt able to talk about his struggles, or more importantly Mallory as he himself acknowledges had spotted that Stevens was in no fit shape to be the last man on the climb, things may have worked out very differently. Speaking to myself as much as to the reader, we need to more open about our own struggles and especially be aware of what other people may be going through.

3. Whilst Jensen will send men to almost certain death with almost no chance of success the idea of sending someone to certain death with a much better chance of success i.e. “cram a Mosquito full of TNT and crash-dive it into the mouth of the gun cave” is not countenanced. But whilst you may not be able morally to send someone to certain death, it transpires that someone can be free to choose this of their own volition: after all “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

The book was filmed in 1961 starring Gregory Peck and David Niven and this diverges somewhat from the book, to its detriment in my opinion, but it did give us this wonderful theme by Dimitri Tiomkin which was later adapted in various Ska versions such as this by the Specials and successfully summarised Squadron Leader Torrance’s views into this quote from the brilliant Richard Harris.

 

When Googling book cover images I also found that there was a related toy:

 

 

The full CWA list can be found here on the Past Offences blog where each title has been reviewed. I own 27, have read another 23, have another 3 on my TBR pile – although The Woman in White despite being started may never get finished – and am interested in a further 4.

What Else I’ve Been Reading Recently

There Was An Old Woman by Ellery Queen – old Ellery is back in a tale that is clearly set before “Calamity Town” and I believe I have read was drafted a lot earlier as well. Two members of the eccentric shoemaking Potts family take part in an early morning duel and despite Ellery’s precautions it does not end well. This sets the scene for a mystery that rivals “The Greek Coffin Mystery” for complexity and ends with a bizarre piece of in-universe retconning. A very good read and apologies to Brad for once again relegating Queen to a mere footnote!

The Perks of Being a Blogger

Having encouraged my readers to increase the supply of GAD fiction in the charity shops of Bristol in my last post, I was contacted by a very generous gentleman who said he lived in the area and had some duplicates that he had not gone round to donating to a charity shop and would I be interested in them! The answer as the Churchill dog used to say was “Oh, yes!”

So I’m very excited to have picked up the following today:

So I’ll be able to keep up with JJ’s Minor Felonies and who perhaps in R. A. J. Walling or Augustus Muir I could find my very own Brian Flynn!

But this post is not just to rejoice in my good fortune because I also brought back seven books that I already have which are available to anyone who is interested:

So there are the five paperbacks shown above (not actual images as the blog didn’t like my photos – actual images can be provided on request) and two hardbacks with no dustjackets: The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox and a Josephine Tey omnibus comprising The Singing Sands, A Shilling for Candles, and the Daughter of Time.

I don’t want this to be first come, first served, as that may not be very fair so please don’t put your interest in the comments section. Either get in touch via the Contact Page and leave an email address or DM me on Facebook.

The books themselves are free and I can hand deliver at next year’s Bodies from the Library, or you can send me the postage.

 

 

 

 

 

The Paddington Mystery by John Rhode (1925)

One of the good things about GAD being re-published is that sometimes it gets given to those who don’t appreciate it and donate it to charity shops where it can be picked up by the likes of me. So although I’ve seen it reviewed in a none too favourable light at £1 for an as new copy of the recent paperback reprint it was time to become acquainted with the work of Cecil Street under his John Rhode pen-name ( I have read both Miles Burton titles in the BLCC range).

Harold Merefield (pronounced “Merryfield” – so why not just spell it that way?) returns home in the early hours of the morning in a tired and emotional state to find a wet corpse in his bed. He immediately alerts the police and is their one and only suspect until the inquest finds that the man died of natural causes.

Although not under threat of the gallows, after a period of fast living Harold wishes to return to his former society and must remove any  trace of a stain upon his escutcheon and prove beyond any doubt that he had no part in what the press have dubbed “The Paddingto Mystery”.

Fortunately he knows contrarian mathematician Lancelot Priestley (a professor according to the text, a doctor according to gadection and Wikipedia, and both according to the back cover!)

“He claimed to be the precursor of Einstein, the first to breach the citadel of Newton. And as none of his acquaintances knew anything about these matters, he was not subject to the annoyance of contradiction in his own house.”

I very much enjoyed the premise, the writing style and the mechanics of the solution, but the exposition takes up a quarter of the book which is far too much. But overall a solid first novel and interesting that Rhode, like Dorothy L. Sayers two years earlier, began his career with the question “Whose Body?”.

So, in conculsion, buy all your friends and relations GAD for Christmas, especially if they live in the Bristol area: they may not like it but if they don’t it will still increase the volume of volumes in circulation which can’t be a bad thing!