Ruth’s Comments (group member since Oct 06, 2015)

Ruth’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

Susan wrote: "Well, London is rarely cold, cold. It has a more atmopheric foggy dampness. I live close to a park and it looked beautiful yesterday, with all the trees wreathed in mist. In fact, I thought it look..."

We've got that lovely mistiness here in the West Country as well at the moment. It's mild and damp.

Susan wrote: "This is a bit off topic, but I have recently come across two good crime podcasts. One hosted by Mark Billingham and the other by Luca Verde and Steve Cavanagh. I will include links if anyone wants ..."

Thanks Susan. I particularly like the look of the Mark Billingham one, so I'll give that one a go.

I like a mystery where I can distinguish all the characters and not have to keep referring back to check who someone is. Your mention of Agatha Christie reminded me of this because for me all her characters are distinct and easily recognisable.

She also gives you little reminders as you go along about who the characters are.

Judy wrote: "Just realised I hadn't posted the right link to the internet archive - have edited my post now, sorry."

Thanks Judy - that's the same link as the wikipedia entry gives.

LovesMysteries wrote: "Are The Wimsey Papers published in a book format? ..."

I was having a look at the wikipedia entry for The Wimsey Papers and there is a link there as well to 'The Wimsey Papers backed up at archive.org'.

I'm listening to Thrones, Dominations at the moment & I'd be interested in the buddy read if it was quite soon so it's still fresh in my mind.

I'm fascinated by the link to The Wimsey Papers - has anyone read them?

Susan wrote: "Plus the characters look the way you imagine them :)"

Speaking of characters looking the way you imagine them - have you got a strong impression of how Harriet looks. I like to think of her as looking fairly like Harriet Walter but she's always described as not being a beauty and I think Harriet Walter is beautiful but not in an English rose sort of way I suppose.

Susan wrote: "I saw the theatre version. I think it was an event - people went to enjoy the experience rather than the play. I think of both theatre and tv as being broad brush, compared to book though. You can just never replicate that detail, or get inside the character's head on screen or stage - not as well, anyway...."

That's true. I felt that with the early Midsomer Murders on TV which were based on the books - the books were so much better, with great characterisation and interaction.

Judy wrote: "Just struck me that Cecil Day-Lewis was Irish, so he must have enjoyed writing O'Brien's speech patterns. Somehow it keeps half-slipping my mind that Day-Lewis was really the author, just because h..."

Such good points Judy and Susan. I never think of Nicholas Blake as Cecil Day-Lewis but as a separate writer. That hadn't occurred to me before.

Susan wrote: "Talking of adaptations of mysteries, I wonder what people think about the advantages of film over stage versions. Fairly recently, I got around to watching The Mousetrap and really enjoyed it...."

Was that a film version, Susan? We went to see the play in London last year and I thought it was great fun. I don't go to the theatre often so the whole experience was very enjoyable.

But I found the characters fairly two dimensional and the plot felt fairly simple. I also missed things like the visual signals, closer interaction between the characters and facial expressions that a TV or film version allows. My feeling is that theatre is broad brush and film/TV is fine detail.

Everyman wrote: " Mount Baker which is often considered the snowiest spot in the lower 48 states.

(For a discussion of that, see
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/11...
..."

That's a detailed analysis!

Pghfan wrote: "(Ruth: we read and discussed The Santa Klaus Murder right here in this group last December!) ..."

Ah yes - I've gone back and read the thread again and I think it's slid back down my tbr pile for the moment!

Judy wrote: "I've read one of her mysteries, Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder - I didn't start with the first one in the series, I think because I was on holiday and picked it up ..."

My sister spotted one in a bookshop and thought it looked like my sort of thing! The covers of some of the series look a bit like Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple books which I was a bit lukewarm about so I might pass at the moment.

This was a book I had on my pile to read last December and didn't get round to it, so I'll retrieve it from the book shelf again and see if I can find the time, along with The Santa Klaus Murder.

Everyman wrote: "I haven't started it yet, but the amounts of snow aren't likely to faze me. During my teen years (and a bit each side of that) I spent my winter vacations at my grandparents' farm in Maine, where the snow was measured in feet ..."

Is that something you miss now, Everyman? Like Susan I feel that even small amounts of snow here tend to cause a disproportionate amount of disruption, but I miss being able to really enjoy the snow as I did when I was a child. We seemed to get more then, or is that just nostalgia clouding my memory!

Has anyone read anything by Catriona McPherson?

Susan wrote: "Still not keen on the way that GA authors wrote accents though......."

I was never able to read Five Red Herrings because of all the Scottish dialect - I just couldn't 'hear' the voices.

Susan wrote: "Yes, I was thinking of nominating one in the New Year."

I'd be on board for that Susan.

Susan wrote: "I have enjoyed mysteries by Jill Paton Walsh before - I think she wrote a series set in Oxford? I do sympathise with Nadine's point of view though, as I felt much the same about Poiro..."

I've enjoyed the two by JPW that I've read as well and I'm planning to read Thrones, Dominations in the next couple of months.

I wonder if it is a device used by writers to help set their books into the historical period they are writing about. I noticed Carola Dunn does this a lot, describing what each character is wearing and what their luggage and accessories look like.