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

Judy’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

Kimberly wrote: "Started the audiobook from my local library. This book is hilarious. I only wish my Grandmother was still here so I could pass it along for her to enjoy as well :)"

Welcome, Kimberly. Good to hear you are enjoying the book. Sorry about your grandmother, it must be a bitter-sweet feeling to know she would have enjoyed the book.

Susan in NC wrote: "Susan wrote: "To be fair, you didn't like the first one, Judy... I enjoyed this one, Crown Colony, and Jack Haldean. Thanks for all your dull work slogging through all the wannabes out there to serve us up this challenge,"

Thanks, Susan, Susan and Sandy - I agree that humour is a personal taste. Interesting to hear which series are people's favourites from the challenge.

Thank you for the kind comments on the challenge, Susan. :) My favourite is probably the Jack Haldean series although I already knew that one well as I've read a lot of them over the years, since discovering the early books in hardback from the library. I have also enjoyed Crown Colony and quite like Lady Caroline and the Benedict Brown series if I'm looking for something very light and frothy.

Looks like I managed to combine the Carnac/Lorac editions of this book...though there's always the risk that someone separates them out, or adds another one in that isn't attached.

I enjoy the mini-cow as part of the humour, but I wouldn't really call it a character ;)

I'm about halfway through this - I think it's much better than the first book but still not really grabbing me. I feel the humour is fun but the characters aren't very interesting.

I've finished this now - it's fun that Christie spoofs herself in the last story, with Tommy taking inspiration from Poirot. I also think that story has a clever plot, with the hotel rooms mystery - I certainly didn't guess the solution!

There are still a few more days to vote in our group read poll for February (a runners-up poll this month!) It's very close at the moment, so, if you haven't voted, please take a look:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...-

There are still a few more days to vote in the poll - it's very close at the moment, so, if you haven't voted, please take a look:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...-

I thought it was refreshingly different that the story involved an adopted son where his birth parentage then never came up and wasn't relevant. Usually, as soon as adoption is mentioned in a GA novel, you know the person in question will turn out to be the secret child of another character.

Teri-K and Frances, thanks for the great comments about the farming content of this book. I also really liked the part where they have to turn all the milk into butter to avoid it being wasted, something that I think may well stick in my mind long after I forget the details of the plot!

Susan in NC wrote: "I know the sister (Gwyn, I think), had been expected to marry the killer at some point, said all along she didn’t want to be a farm wife..."

Great point - I think this really misled me and made me think Bob must be a good guy who would get a romantic happy ending, so I never really considered him as the killer! I did briefly wonder if Henry might be, but decided he couldn't be, and I was at a loss for who it was going to be.

This is the second Carnac book I've read, both featuring the main detective Julian Rivers (the surname is very close to the author's real name, Rivett!)

While he seems very pleasant, I don't think I've got much sense of his personality so far and he doesn't seem all that different from Robert Macdonald, the detective in the Lorac books. Has anyone else noticed many differences between them? Rivers doesn't seem to have any family, as with Macdonald.

Another Carnac book, Murder as a Fine Art is being republished by British Library in January in the UK - great to see more Lorac and Carnac titles gradually being reissued.!

Interesting discussion! I've just looked up how old Ian Carmichael and Edward Petherbridge were when they started playing Wimsey. They were both in their early 50s. But of course Carmichael was playing the character in earlier books so with him there is much more of a gap between the character's age in the books and the TV versions. I wondered if he just got a bit too old for them to go on to do the Harriet Vane books on TV - he did do radio versions of those, though.

Martin Edwards wrote a blog post with the headline "Which Wimsey? Carmichael versus Petherbridge" which is interesting - he started out as a Petherbridge fan but was really impressed by both on re-watching: https://doyouwriteunderyourownname.bl...

The poll for our February group read is up - it's another chance to vote for runners-up from our polls over the past year!

Please cast your votes here:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...-

We're doing something a little bit different for our last book poll of 2024. It's a runners-up/bridesmaid poll to choose your favourite out of the books which just missed out on being chosen over the past year.

Take a look at the choices and cast your votes below!:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...-

I've just finished one of our forthcoming buddy reads, Last Respects by Catherine Aird, which I thought starts quite slowly but then becomes more gripping. Just wanted to mention that it's included in The Calleshire Chronicles Volume Four: Last Respects, Harm's Way, and A Dead Liberty - a reminder for anyone who bought this collection when it was on a special offer! I did but nearly forgot I'd got it ;)

Good to hear you are enjoying it, Ellen. I'm still reading these stories in between other books. I'm enjoying them too - I think it would have been nice to have more of an introduction to Appleby's friends at the start, though.

I've started this - must admit I wasn't a fan of the first book as I just didn't find the humour funny! I'm enjoying this one a bit more so far, though.

I really enjoyed this book, good to hear that others are too. I wonder if many readers at the time spotted that Lorac and Carnac were the same writer! Frances, thanks for pointing out about the editions - I'll have a look at that this week and see if I can sort it out, as I am a librarian though not very active.

Thanks Sandy, I've just listened to the Shedunnit podcast about Edmund Crispin and really enjoyed it.