Frances’s Comments (group member since Aug 21, 2017)

Frances’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

As I am traveling in Scotland I’ve just finished Ian rankin’s Strip Jack while I’m in Edinburgh and started Anne Cleeve’s White Nights before I head up to the Shetlands.

In another group I’m in, we ask people only to vote if they plan on reading and discussing if their book wins. Nothing worse than having a read when no one participates!

I really enjoyed this one, and the series in general. I guessed that Helen was pregnant-her not drinking and only eating very little, her fainting and fatigue, her hiding, and so I went back and saw she was wearing a loose grey dress to the funeral and was pretty sure she was concealing a bump. However I still thought it was an inheritance issue-and that once she was aware that the police were there so possibly murder that she would be fearful for her baby (and her) standing in the way of whoever wanted to inherit.

I was surprised by the "Mrs Sloan is pregnant" ending-I had imagined Sloan as much older, or perhaps he is and has a much younger wife. Quite funny that he says something about "how could he know Helen was pregnant, it's not like she was sitting there knitting tiny garments", while his wife is sitting in front of him knitting a tiny white garment and he is oblivious.

I also enjoyed the church/lectionary clue that Miss Paterson picked up on, though probably modern readers would have no clue about mumps possibly causing infertility in men as almost no one gets it anymore thanks to vaccinations.

Agreed-I do enjoy ECR Lorac, don't know the others, and certainly know from things like Virago Press that many out-of-print authors are well worth the read, but I have learned to use things like Goodreads or other reviews before committing the time to read new-to-me and more obscure authors/books.

I've just started as well, and am reading an e-book. As I mentioned in another thread, I do miss the list of characters that were very common in Christie and other earlier mysteries, and it sounds like this would be a book that would benefit from one. However with an ebook it is harder to keep flipping back and forth than with a book book.

I'm also really enjoying this series-had to get volumes 4-6 as an e-book as these are hard to find, and hope the later volumes might be more available.

Sarah wrote: "This comment seems late, but since the book is listed as a July/August Buddy Read, I hope it's not inappropriate. I'm about 3/4 of the way through, so haven't looked at the spoiler thread yet. I ke..."

Not to worry, I'm often late to reads so I'm grateful the threads are kept open and enjoy revisiting things.

I also miss the maps and lists of characters that at one time (particularly with Christie, but I know with other authors as well) were common at the beginning of mysteries or other novels, and would refer back a lot as often the physical lay out of a place was key to solving the crime.

I haven't read Leon, but this novel has definitely made me want to revisit Venice at some point in the future.

Abigail wrote: "Basically the rare-book-business elements were all I enjoyed about this book. I found the writing clumsy, the characters mostly implausible, the plotting poor. By the time we got to the confession ..."

Agreed, Abigail, and I think I find that with a lot of the recently reissued GA mysteries-many fell out of print for a reason!

I agree with most of the comments-I enjoyed the bookseller aspect-how different from today when shops have all their stock on-line and everyone can shop from the comfort of their home-and all the skulduggery of conning people who don't realize the worth of their books (or other bric-a-brac). It's also an interesting comment on the book trade-it isn't the writing in the book that is of value but the bindings and the printing date/edition and how well preserved it all is.

I liked Wigan, and his wife, and respect his concern over the possible wrongful conviction and his willingness to spend his own time and money to track down the real killer. The plot, however, did seem really far-fetched, particularly, as others have said, when it delved into occultism and the eventual confession of Corky-not something I found at all plausible.

I agree with Pamela-the switch from Charlie to Connington didn't work so well, and the Connington sister sub-plot was over the top. What a lot of strange men with odd relationships with the women in their lives, and Ruth was one strange woman as well.

So I enjoyed this read, but wouldn't likely read another Farmer. A biography of Farmer, however, would probably be quite interesting, given the brief life sketch in the introduction to this volume.

Susan in NC wrote: "I enjoy rereading Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas, but that’s not in our period. My other Christmas favorite is Charlotte Macleod’s “Rest Ye Merry”, and we’ve got that one in ..."

I'd love to do Envious Casca as I missed it as part of the Heyer read.

I'm really enjoying the bookish element to this one, and the Sergeant that becomes a book collector.

Quite an interesting bibliography of Farmer in the intro, particularly the bit about him living in Winnipeg, Canada for some years and then ending up in Hospital in Kenora-this is a very small town in Northwestern Ontario, which puts it in the centre of Canada, 2 hours east of Winnipeg by car today (and I'm assuming the roads are much better now) and about a 20 hour drive west from Toronto. I know this as my daughter worked there as a paramedic for a couple of years and spent more time driving, often several hours to pick up patients from surrounding communities, than treating them, and often seeing bear or moose ambling by the side of the road on her travels. It's a beautiful but also very remote area of the country (and very cold and snowy in the winter). So quite a contrast to the London life he is writing about here.

I’m in but won’t start fora week or so.

I believe that is the plan as long as there is interest and I am definitely interested and have obtained copies of some future books in the series.

Thanks everyone, your points did help settle my feelings for this book and series. i really enjoyed the Venice setting, and I am enjoying the slow development of the relationship between the main characters. I also appreciate the art history as this is not an area in which I have much knowledge so fun to get this glimpse into the art world and academia. I always think it's interesting to get an outside perspective on these closed worlds like academia or the art market, and I loved the "glimpses" into a couple of Venetian houses and the constant getting lost. Makes me want to visit Venice again!

I’ve just finished my reread of this and enjoyed it as much the second time. I do need to polish up my history of the time, but I think what Tey says about history and myth/legends is apt and worth repeating to subsequent generations. Grant and his cast of supporters are great characters, and I look forward to finishing my reread of Tey’s mysteries at some point.

Now about a third in and quite enjoying this one.

I'll be joining but I'm super behind on reads so it may not be for a while-I'm still reading The Daughter of Time!

Thanks for the nudge back to this discussion-I finished the book some time ago but forgot to come back to discuss!
I too found this one a little too complicated and elaborate-as soon as alibi's start flying around one knows there is something off about the timing of the murder!

Another fun outing with Fen, a very tangled plot indeed. Do we have any idea in which part of the country this is meant to be set? Just curious about some of the varied language/dialects let loose and wondered if they had any basis in reality.

One wonders if this sort of village ever actually existed, or was it just a collective delusion propagated by mystery writers from the 20's to 50's.

I've just started this! I was having the devil of a time finding a copy-abehbooks/betterworldbooks/amazon were either out or very expensive-and even buying an e-copy, which I don't like-was more expensive than my usual. I was volunteering at my church setting up for The Great Glebe Garage Sale-a massive neighbourhood-wide garage sale in Ottawa, Canada-and found a complete set of old Crispin paperbacks, so was able to pick up all the remaining books in the series for $1 (Canadian) each!

I'm only a few chapters in-how can there be that many young beautiful single women in one tiny village? And I agree the standing for Parliament seems entirely random. And at least four words so far that I should have looked up in the dictionary, but I look forward to carrying on!

Rosina wrote: "If the Spoiler thread for next month's reading of The Daughter of Time had been open, I really wanted to post "He's buried under the car park!"

That really does work as a bit of a spoiler ..."

Love it!