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

Frances’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

I'm interested in continuing with the Nicola Upson/Josephine Tey series, at the moment I'm only reading that one, Campion and Inspector Barnaby.

I recently finished March Violets (I first heard of him on reading his obituary), and while I found it well-written and engrossing I found the level of graphic violence unsettling. After reading reviews of the next in the series, I have opted not to read more of his novels.

I've just finished the second Matthew Shardlake mystery, Dark Fire, and I'm really enjoying this series.

I'm now giving Magpie Murders a go.

Christopher-I'm sure you've seen it, but The Ottawa Citizen gave your book a great review-congratulations and I'm looking forward to reading it.

I’m interested.

I just finished Dissolution after getting a recommendation from someone on this site-loved it and am looking out the rest of the series.

I also really enjoyed the opening, and that the victim is in fact universally well-regarded. I was rather expecting her to be an unpleasant busybody-it's such a common cliche in mysteries. I was also pleased by the very positive portrayal of these 2 elderly women (and that they were given individual characters).

I liked the cooking joke as well-rather nice to have a beloved wife who isn't a superb cook for a change!

Annabel-I think the Vancouver-Toronto trek has to be one of the best sleeper train experiences around-4 nights through mountains, prairies, Canadian Shield, comfy beds, cars date from the 50’s so there’s a vintage feel, the food is cooked on board and served properly (this is assuming you’re traveling in a sleeper car) and is quite good. It’s very friendly in the lounge or viewing cars, especially if you go off-season. They’re currently adding some luxury berths and doubling the price but I’m hoping they’ll keep the older, cheaper option too.

I’ve just finished and enjoyed it, but not sure if I’ll continue the series-anyone else read these? Does the series improve as it goes along?

I've just finished We All Love the Beautiful Girls, an emotional roller-coaster of a book about how quickly a comfortably off, loving family can fall apart when things go wrong. Told from the point of view of both parents and the teenaged son, it brilliantly chronicles the love and the hurt and the anger that can consume a marriage, a friendship, a family. At times I couldn't put it down, at other times I desperately needed to take a break from the story. It's one of those books that is hard to stop thinking about once it is finished.

I will say upfront that a few months back I got about 100 pages into this and decided to give it up-it just didn't feel true to Christie and I was also quite put off by the degree of "unpleasantness"-not what I want in my GA mysteries! Just wondered what others have thought and if I should give it another try.

Judy wrote: "When do you give up on books? I've just decided to give up on a couple that I started but haven't picked up for ages - they were both quite good but I now don't remember the early chapters enough, ..."

I learned a rule a few years back which I love and have shared with a couple of my Goodreads groups:

The number of pages you ought to read before giving up on a book is (100-your age), which takes into account the fact that, as you get older and have less time to waste on books (and perhaps become more discerning), you need to spend less time on a book before you can put it aside. The best part? At age 100 you CAN judge a book by its cover!

Yes, I at least know that whatever Hastings thinks is wrong so I can forget about that person as a suspect!

I haven't reread this time as it was fairly recently that I read this, but I remember really being shocked and uncomfortable finding out what the "family scandal" was, perhaps because it wasn't clear whether the author, or Campion, felt that this was unreasonable or an abhorrent position to be taking. As I read more GA or earlier mysteries (or novels in general) I do find it difficult when such casual racism (or sexism, or homophobia) is written, and often appears to be the assumed position of the characters and of the reader.

At one point I'd wondered if Derek Kettering had in fact taken the trip to try to patch things up with his wife-but probably not. Agree that he and Katherine seem an unlikely couple, however I did like the comment of Poirot (I think) that a woman can make either a bad man turn good or a good man go bad-I wonder if Christie is suggesting that Derek simply hadn't yet met the "good woman" that he needed to become a good husband and steady partner. Not sure I believe that, but it is a nice touch!

I also felt sorry for Lenox-perhaps because I see myself so much more in the onlooker than in the beautiful woman who comes in and steals all the hearts! Katherine was such a lovely character, though-particularly when she goes back to nurse that "plain-spoken" (that is rather insulting) woman with the good heart.

Yes, all sorts of reasons why I've enjoyed this novel-now over to the spoiler section...

I was also quite surprised by the ending, but I always am with Christie. Agreed that the hair falling out was an obvious clue.

I think the fact that Easterbrook and possibly the police actually believed that there could be some occult explanation was far-fetched-once they knew there was some killing on demand scheme working they should have been able to start looking for an explanation of how it was done, so it was ridiculous that Ginger actually allowed all those people into her flat at a time when she knew she was supposed to be killed!

Still, I completely fell for Venables as the mastermind-was it suggested at the end that he had been a thief of some sort as the source of his income but, as he played along to catch Osborne, they were going to overlook his crimes?

I also thought he was mid-thirties.

I had some difficulty situating myself in the time period (I started reading without reading any information about the story) and it took me a while before I realized it was set some time in the 50's/60's. Perhaps as Christie was older the time period felt a bit older as well!

I’d join another Allingham read

While it took me a while to warm up to this being an international criminal gang rather than a more classical murder mystery, I did enjoy the sequential stories and the long drawn out tracking of the criminal masterminds. I agree that it was really charming to see the relationship between Poirot and Hastings, however poor Hastings wife was left in South America for a shockingly long time. It certainly appears that Christie is modelling her sleuths directly on Holmes and Watson.

Roman Clodia wrote: "I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek introduction of 'Achille Poirot': 'You surprise me, Hastings. Do you not know that all celebrated detectives have brothers who would be even more celebrated than they ..."

Another Holmes reference occurs in chapter 12 when Hastings admits to being engaged in reading "The Clue in Crimson"!