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

Frances’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

One of my only dislikes of this series is just how disgustingly awful Jackson Lamb is. Usually these rather boorish characters have a heart of gold or some other hidden redeeming quality but nope, nothing other than looking out for his team, and even that seems dubious-some get rescued, others are put in harm's way-and the support for team seems as much about saving his own arse as that of others. I think any TV/movie adaptation would have to significantly decrease this aspect of him or couldn't be made.

I'm about half-way through this and once again, it's a winner. Roderick Ho-too funny!

I also felt this was a lesser book than others so far in the series, except for the rather ingenious murder for which everyone can have an alibi. The Doctor started to seem suspicious from the moment Campion started telling him "secrets" and appearing to take him into his confidence. I also agree that the narrator shouldn't be hiding things from the reader, although obviously several well known GA authors have taken advantage of the unreliable narrator!

A question-my copy of The Drop has arrived as a library request before my copy of London Rules-can I read them out of order (are they parallel stories) or should I wait for London Rules first? Also, is Nobody Walks also in series, or can that be read out of turn?

I will be starting this shortly.

I would agree with whoever said they didn't tend to enjoy the shorter stories-I didn't get as engaged in these novellas and am struggling to remember what I thought of them for this comment! Dead Man's Mirror was well plotted but I did find Vanda very irritating and couldn't believe that she would have a husband and 2 lovers remain her devoted acolytes all these years. We don't learn if Ruth's husband will take the Chevenix-Gore name, though I suspect that for all that money it is just assumed.

Yellow Iris felt too rushed and staged for me. I liked the twist and the very capable roommate in Murder in the Mews, The Incredible Theft has unfortunately left very little impression. Triangle at Rhodes was also a neat twist, but again the roles of the Femme Fatale, the violent husband, the straying lover and the mousy wife seemed overplayed and staged (although I guess that was part of the plot!).

Looking forward to getting back to a full length novel.

Are there only 7 books to the series? I thought the television series was really long-did they make up a bunch of new stories for the TV or is each book drawn out over several hours?

I've just finished this one and really enjoyed it as well-nice to have unlikeable characters as both victim and murderer!

I did find Deirdre a little too overwhelmingly helpless and hapless in the theatre or when she was dealing with her father (the whole running out of the theatre without coat and purse and then endlessly running in circles after her father seemed ridiculous-why wouldn't you report him missing and get help?) to find her immediate transformation into competent director a bit unbelievable, but perhaps with the stress of caring for him lessened and love in her life she was able to pull herself together.

Did anyone thing Rosa might be pregnant at the end? All the talk of her being so tired...I reread trying to find out her actual age and thought she could have been in her late 30's/early 40's-it really wasn't made clear-there was a lot of talk of her being middle aged and past child=bearing and no longer a romantic leading lady but my sense is that stage might come very early in the theatre/film world.

I'm definitely in to read more of this series!

I did enjoy this book, and was surprised at how frankly people talked about sex (or lack thereof) as motivators, and all the discussion around who was having affairs with whom. If this had been written recently as a GA homage I wouldn't have felt it was true to the time period!

I thought her discussions around class, that Northeast clearly showed his lower class origins, or that the Cathcarts were getting above themselves, having made their money in biscuits quite recently, were interesting, particularly for someone not from the UK.

Jill wrote: "I agree with Bicky, lots of people write things in diarys that they wouldn't say to anyone, and it was very common for women to keep them at the time."

I continue to be amazed at how often people put incriminating information down on paper-diaries, letters-and now into digital form.

Tracey wrote: "I suspected the family from the start, as they were just too sickly sweet. Though I thought it might have been more likely to be the mother, especially as she was quite negative about her dead husband. At one point I wondered if she'd killed him too. "

That's clever-I had wondered if she'd somehow prevented/persuaded her daughters not to marry given her own negative experience with a husband, but hadn't thought about her actually killing him!

Tracey wrote: "I think it worked well the detective coming from a farming background so he was able to pass judgment on Ames. There were hints of an interesting character, with his failed previous case, and tryin..."

I think it was also so that he would recognize things like blowfish not belonging in the Midden, and that there seemed to be a lot of hay covering it. I did like that he recognized that Ames was a poor choice for groom given how he behaved towards the horse.

Judy wrote: "Thanks, Bicky. I meant that I assumed the whistle was an agreed signal from someone Delia was actually meeting.

I wasn't clear whether she did have a meeting planned on that night or was just hopi..."

Nancy whistles in imitation of a young man calling one of the maids out, knowing that Delia will try to catch them.

"D's always fussing about the maids and their young men...I shall give one of those whistles that the village boys call after their girls with...When D hears it, she's sure to get up and come to see who it is...she's so interfering.

So in the end I don't think there was any affair on Delia's part, other than a likely attraction to Ames, without any proof that anything had come of it.

Glad to hear it's a good mystery, the family is incredibly cloying and silly, and Delia seems awful, the way she deals with the staff and is expected to be the "Man" of the household.

I'm still waiting for my copy from the library so will join you in a few weeks!

I've just started Full Disclosure, a legal thriller written by the former Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLaghlin. So far it's pretty good, and quite minimally grisly.

I hadn't realized that Colonel Race is a recurring character-I found this out by looking at the AC Goodreads page which lists all her "series" characters and includes him, Ariadne Oliver, Superintendent Battle, Parker Pyne and Harley Quinn as well as Poirot, Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. I've got a lot of catch up reading to do!

Much more believable than that ridiculous chase seen on the recent Murder on the Orient Express movie!

I also really enjoyed the ending-the ongoing changing of the murderer is rather a Christie trick, and it gets me almost every time. I kept trying to figure out how it could be someone else other than the 4 suspects, as Christie is known for bringing in an "impossible" murderer-at one point I thought it might be Colonel Race (maybe he killed him just before leaving for his own game?) because there were several occasions where Poirot, Battle and Mrs Oliver met without him to discuss the case, but that was me trying (and failing, as always) to solve the mystery in a suitably Christie-ish way.

I didn't realize Rhoda and Despard show up again in The Pale Horse-I guess it will need another read at some point!

I've just finished this one so will head over to the spoiler threads for discussion.