Judy’s Comments (group member since Oct 01, 2015)

Judy’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

While we're talking about Christie, Caroline Crampton from the Shedunnit podcast has put together a quiz about her. I got 7 out of 10, so I fell for a few red herrings!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/arti...

That's exciting news, Jessica, hope you have a great time. Booking a year ahead means there's lots of time to plan and read books that are being discussed at the festival!

I'm sure you will also be visiting Agatha Christie's home at Greenway, now a National Trust property, which is a wonderful place to visit. I was amazed to discover what a keen collector she was, with all sorts of treasures that she couldn't resist snapping up.

Also, what do you think of the romantic content? I found it hard to believe that every woman in sight would swoon over Carlyon to quite that extent!

I also didn't find it very convincing when Tinka suddenly gets paired off with Chucky at the end after being so madly infatuated with Carlyon. I know there was the scene where she and Chucky kiss in the attic, but I didn't particularly get the impression that she enjoyed that or was attracted to him at all!

In all honesty, I can't say it is one of her best, but I do enjoy her writing, and I liked the ending too. I could hardly put it down, so had to give 4 stars even though the plot was bonkers.

Given the deaths of his previous wives, I thought it *had* to be him and was really taken aback when Brand came up with other explanations before the final twists. I do think she's great at coming up with multiple culprits. Shades of The Case of the Poisoned Chocolates, which she wrote an alternative ending for.

I don't think anyone else in the group is reading this series apart from us three mods? I'd be happy to forget it after these two and try Anthony Bathurst instead. I did read the first two in that series a while back and enjoyed them but failed to keep on with the series. He is wildly eccentric, think Holmes or Wimsey!

I enjoyed it a lot but felt the plot was extremely far-fetched, a sort of Gothic spoof almost at times. I'm not at all sure that Tinka would visit the letter writer, especially as it's so hard to get there!

Yes, Sandy, I agree with your comments. I'm not very keen on plots about international spies or rings of drug dealers - it's a bit disappointing when a book turns out to have this type of plot after appearing to be a normal mystery early on.

Overall, I'm not particularly gripped by this series, and not sure if I want to read on, but I did think with this one there was more atmosphere than in the first book.

It also struck me that Gently isn't actually all that gentle and I'm not sure how much we are supposed to like him. He is very driven - he sometimes seems quite happy for his team to rough up suspects if it will get them talking, which I would be amazed to find in a book featuring GA detectives like Alleyn and Fox or Inspector Grant.

I've started this and I think it begins well.It will be interesting to learn more about Paola's father.

I vaguely remember this happening a few years ago, when I think the same book was added to a lot of people's currently reading list. I don't remember what it was, though!

I enjoyed the opening section set in the girls' magazine office, which is very different from the rest of the book - quite jokey and light-hearted. I do remember problem pages in girls' magazines being discussed when I was a teenager!

Hope people enjoy the discussion, just linking the spoiler thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I haven't read this yet but have borrowed it from the library and will be starting shortly.

The spoiler thread is linked below:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Yes, very strange names. I found this one really hard to put down although the plot is crazy - Christianna Brand's writing style is just so compelling.

I like the description of it as "a lurid love letter to Gothic melodrama" in the description above.

The spoiler thread is linked below:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Welcome, Ninie, glad you found us - there are lots of Christie and Lorac fans here!

There's also Mordecai Tremaine constantly adjusting his pince nez in the Francis Duncan books.

Thank you for opening the discussions, Susan. I thought this was slightly better than the first book overall, but didn't start very well - at first there are a lot of uncomfortable descriptions of a disabled character.

Plus Gently keeps eating peppermint creams every five minutes and I wanted to grab them off him! But then it does improve and becomes more of an atmospheric thriller, and I think he must run out of peppermint creams for at least part of the book.

And the winner is... Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer, which will be our December group read.

Full results:
Murder After Christmas 6 votes, 42.9%
The Caxton Manor Murders : Book 1 Alexander Wolfe Series (The Alexander Wolfe Series) 4 votes, 28.6%
The Case of the Headless Jesuit (Thomas Littlejohn #16) 2 votes, 14.3%
Envious Casca (Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway, #6) 2 votes, 14.3%

Thanks to all who nominated and voted!

Thank you Susan! The non-spoiler thread is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I'm going to the Tales of the Weird festival at the British Library in London next month - I haven't read all that much of this type of writing and will be especially interested to hear more about the new Tales of the Weird anthology that BL is publishing. (Sorry, I couldn't find the book on GR to link to.)
https://events.bl.uk/events/tales-of-...

I'm thinking I may hopefully go to a few more talks and festivals in the future, although it is going to lead to me stacking up even more on my TBR! There seem to be more book festivals in my part of the world than there used to be.

Just a reminder that the poll for our December group read is still running - it's currently a draw, so if you haven't voted and would like to, please take a look:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...