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

Judy’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

FYI I think the original post in this thread is some type of spam. An identical thread was set up today which I have deleted (sorry Carol, this means your response there was deleted too) and I've reported it to GR. We seem to be getting more spam in the group now, sadly.

Thank you Sandy and Susan, I'll let you know what the festival is like.

I'm going to the first-ever Ipswich Book Festival on October 4-5 and will be hearing talks by two crime writers. One is Vaseem Khan, so I've picked up The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown, the second in his Baby Ganesha detective agency series - we read the first one here a while ago. I'll also hope to try one from his other series, Malabar House.

The other author is C.L. Miller who has the series The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder, so I've got the first book lined up to read shortly!

Thank you Jackie and Carol, I'll aim to try some of those and will also let my daughter know your suggestions. :)

Jackie, my daughter (grown up) and I have just been wondering about trying more by Mary Stewart as neither of us has read much by her. Do you have other titles by her you'd recommend?

Has anyone watched either of the Wallander series, the UK one starring Kenneth Branagh or the Swedish version? If so, what did you think? I'm thinking of trying one of them, but haven't looked into availability yet.

I haven't been reading the later Bobby Owen books, but decided I'd give this one a try as I'm intrigued by the idea of the buried poetry, which I think must be inspired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poems being buried with his wife, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Siddal.

He had her body exhumed seven years later so that he could publish some of the poems. (I don't know if this is mentioned in the book as I'm not very far in yet.)

There's some information about it here:
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/...

I've just finished the pre-Golden Age short story collection The Old Man in the Corner by Emmuska Orczy. Some of the stories are rather similar, so I spaced them out. Quite often the culprit is pretty obvious, but there are one or two really good puzzles.

Yes, it's all too topical and as you say, Saba, the debate goes back many years. It hadn't struck me that this book was published only a couple of years after the Berlin Wall came down, with the ensuing conflicts you mention.

Wallander's views are quite problematic. He is also chauvinistic towards women and at times his behaviour is awful, also with the drink-driving. It will be interesting to see how his opinions and personality develop in future books.

Susan, thanks for mentioning St Cyr, I haven't tried them but must do so. I see my local library has the first book.

Just a reminder that all our mid-month buddy reads are open for discussion, so please feel free to join in. :)

Here are links to the non-spoiler threads for these:

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers (Wimsey #5)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Special Assignments by Boris Akunin (Erast Fandorin #5)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Vale of Tears (Bradecote & Catchpoll #5)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Mrs Pargeter's Point of Honour by Simon Brett (Mrs Pargeter #6)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell (Wallander #1)
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Oh no, that's a shame. I enjoyed his character in the first novella. Thank you for that.

Thank you Susan, I did take a look at the Wikipedia plot summary though I didn't take it in very well - I saw that a character from a previous book returns from the dead, is that it?

I also saw from the Wikipedia page about this book that it was the big bestseller that made the series a hit, after the first few hadn't done especially well.

sabagrey wrote: "Editors don't always care about spoilers (nor do authors of Introductions)"

Very true, I usually read introductions after the book because of this, though sometimes I read the general part/bio etc beforehand, then stop and read the rest afterwards.

I enjoyed the first novella a lot, and read it almost straight off - a lot of humour and it's fun seeing how the 'Jack of Spades' swindler and Fandorin try to outwit each other with a series of far-fetched scams.

I've decided not to read the second novella though - I started it and saw that it was very gory, and I'm not really in the mood for that after just reading The Peepshow, a true-crime book about the murders at Rillington Place, so thought I would give it a miss.

Thanks Susan, I couldn't make up my mind if I was remembering her or not!

I've started this now and am enjoying the character of Tulipov too. I'm not sure if the countess was also in a previous book, does anyone remember? We've definitely had similar characters before.

Interesting question! I think there are quite a few 'depressed, dysfunctional detectives' (or DDDs as you say, Saba!) going way back - even Sherlock Holmes has a drug problem, while hardboiled detectives like Philip Marlowe drink too much and have difficult personal lives.

Looking at Nordic noir, Martin Beck has a failing marriage and is fairly miserable in the 1960s/70s series we have just been reading, and as this series was very influential I'm guessing he paved the way for later characters. I must agree with Susan that characters with problems are often more interesting, although having said that it's sometimes a nice change to have a detective who doesn't have a lot of personal issues.

Sandy wrote: "One of the reviewers on GR said this was planned to be the last in the series (no idea if that is true) but it could have made a fitting ending ..."

Ooh, interesting! Looking at the publication dates, I think this must be right, as the first 6 books were published between 1988 and 1998 - then after this one, which is book 6, there was a long gap before book 7 came out in 2015. It will be interesting to see whether there are a lot of changes after such a long break in the series.

I've finished this now and have mixed feelings. It was certainly more fun than the previous couple, and I enjoyed the awful police inspector, Craig Wilkinson - I thought the sections with him were better than those with Mrs P to be honest.

But I didn't think there was really a crime plot or mystery at all, and it all got rather bland, with over-laboured humour about all the criminals' silly names. Hoping the next book at least features a suspicious death!