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

Judy’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

Good to hear you both enjoyed the challenge, Susan and Pamela, and thank you for your kind words about the mods.

My favourite was Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles aka Anthony Berkeley. I possibly wasn't expecting to enjoy this one as much as I did, as I don't always enjoy inverted mysteries where readers see through the eyes of a killer, but I really enjoyed Berkeley's sarcastic style in this. I agree with Pamela that it was quite creepy. I had already read a few books by Berkeley and hope to read some more.

I also really enjoyed The Missing Partners by Henry Wade, and wanted to read another by him, but didn't like the one I tried, The Duke of York's Steps, which is supposed to be one of his best and mentioned in Martin Edwards' book The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books. I will probably still try more by him though.

I also enjoyed the Crofts and Cyril Hare books - they were both authors that I already liked. My least favourite was probably Death in Fancy Dress, as I felt it rather fizzled out.

We now have a thread to discuss everyone's favourite books from this year's Detection Club Challenge:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Now that our Detection Club Challenge is coming to an end, I'm just wondering which books were people's favourites?

Have you discovered any authors you haven't previously tried who you want to explore further?

As a reminder, here is a list of the books in the challenge. We also had a buddy read of The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards before starting, and our current group read, The Floating Admiral, also ties in with the theme as a "round robin" book written by members of the Detection Club.

Jan: The Hollow Man - John Dickson Carr
Feb: Inspector French's Greatest Case - Freeman Wills Crofts
March: The Three Taps: A Detective Story Without a Moral - Ronald Knox
April: Tragedy at Law - Cyril Hare
May: Whose Body? - Dorothy L. Sayers
June: Murder at Monk's Barn - Cecil Waye
July: The Red Thumb Mark - R. Austin Freeman
August: Malice Aforethought - Francis Iles
September: The Studio Crime - Ianthe Jerrold
October: The Missing Partners - Henry Wade
November: Death in Fancy Dress - Anthony Gilbert
December: Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie

What did anyone think of all the other solutions by the various authors at the end of The Floating Admiral? I found that I glazed over a bit by the time I'd read a few of them, but I did find the Agatha Christie solution very intriguing.

Susan in NC wrote: "Jessica wrote: "It also might have been helpful if they agreed on a plot or at least the killer beforehand."

Good point, that vital plot point should have been the baseline."

I agree with this. The sheer number of clues and characters does become confusing!

I've started reading The Sinking Admiral, published a few years ago, which was jointly written by 14 current Detection Club members but followed a different system which Simon Brett describes in the introduction. They worked together more closely and didn't write separate chapters, although they still finally agreed on the killer quite late on.

I'm enjoying it so far. Apparently there will be some moments of tribute to the original book, which I wonder if I'll spot. The only problem with this system is that you don't know which writer's work you are reading!

I agree, Jessica, that I would have found it a bit clunky if I didn't know it was by different authors. I find it rather confusing even knowing that!

Amazon in the UK does have The Calleshire Chronicles Volume Two: A Late Phoenix, His Burial Too, and Slight Mourning which Frances mentioned, for £15.19, which is still expensive.

Sorry Michaela, not much use to you for this read, but just in case it is any help to anyone for future reads, I've also bought a few of this series as old paperbacks via Ebay.

I've just read the 39 Articles of Doubt chapter by Ronald Knox. Although I enjoy his writing style, I think it shows up the problem with so many authors, as they have introduced such a range of clues!

The vote for our February group read is now open, with 4 great titles to choose from - please cast your vote for the one you most want to read:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

The poll is now open - please vote for your preferred title:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

Wow, that sounds like an epic last chapter, Michaela. I've just read the Dorothy Sayers chapter, which I enjoyed, but it had a lot of new developments - I may struggle to remember them all!

I've read about 40% now and am getting a bit bogged down - I thought it would be nice to read it slowly and appreciate each author, but I think I'll need to pick up pace to keep up with the story.

I thought the first few authors had a similar style and it all flowed quite smoothly, then Agatha Christie's chapter stood out with some good humour involving the talkative landlady, but John Rhode slowed things down with all the information about the tide times, even though I've enjoyed some of his own books a lot.

While I enjoyed this, and didn't remember the murderer either, I did feel too many people turned out to have a secret identity at the end - both the unknown visitors having stolen other people's identity really is a bit much!

I think it is clever, though, how Christie drops lots of clues about one of the two secret sons - I picked up on these and felt pleased with myself, but totally failed to spot the clues to the other one.

I like the opening of this book with the characters meeting on a train and heading for a family reunion - a very characteristic Christie opening!

Nominations so far:

Susan: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Michaela: Crossed Skis by Carol Carnac (ECR Lorac)

Jill: The Verdict of 12 by Raymond W. Postgate

Jan: The Rasp by Philip MacDonald

Great nominations so far, thanks everyone. Thanks for looking at the Crossed Skis availability, Sandy - as it is available in various formats I think we could stick with the nomination. Odd about the US Kindle edition - I looked at Nook and Kobo sites and they seem to have ebooks, although I can never be 100% sure when looking at sites outside the UK!

Jackie wrote: "I'm reading the chapter 39 Articles of Doubt and am liking it better - I wonder if it would be so obvious each chapter was written by someone different if I didn't know ahead of time?"

Good question! I've only read the first chapter so far but will be interested to see how much the writers' styles differ.

I've started rereading - I enjoyed the first chapter of the main story, by Victor L. Whitechurch - I think he set up an intriguing mystery for the rest of the authors to develop.

Has anyone read much by him? I've only listened to some abridged stories with his railway detective Thorpe Hazell which Benedict Cumberbatch read on the radio, which were fun.

I also read Simon Brett's introduction, which was very interesting, and Dorothy L. Sayers's little introduction about how the authors worked.

She mentions that Chesterton's "picturesque preface" was added after the mystery was completed - I did quickly read this section but disliked it, as I'd remembered from my previous read. It has a lot of racial stereotypes, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the main story

I read this a few years ago but am planning to reread - I'm going to read one section at a time and then am also planning to read The Sinking Admiral by today's members of the Detection Club.

For anyone just starting The Floating Admiral, my memory from last time around is that the introduction by Chesterton is rather off-putting and doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the story, so if anyone finds that section a struggle I don't think you will lose much if you skim and move on.

It's time to nominate for our February 2023 group read.

Please only nominate books written and published in the Golden Age period, or a little earlier or later - if in doubt whether a title is eligible, please ask.

As usual, just one nomination per group member, and only one book by any individual writer can be nominated per month. Looking forward to seeing what everyone nominates.