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

Judy’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

Hope you enjoy it, Jackie.

PS While looking for details of Gilbert novels set in schools, just came across this interesting list from the Furrowed Middlebrow blog of novels set in schools but written for adults - it includes a lot of detective stories:
http://furrowedmiddlebrow.blogspot.co...

Susan wrote: "Fear to Tread the last in the Inspector Hazelrigg series takes place in a school apparently.

Headmaster of a London high school takes on crime and the black market. "One of the year..."

Ooh thank you, Susan. Although it's not on Kindle, it's on ebooks via Google Play Books. I've also just spotted a book by Gilbert with a prep school setting, Night Of The Twelfth, although the plot does sound a bit grim.

Frances, I liked Death in Captivity more than this book - but I did enjoy this one although I agree it is a bit disjointed at times. I'm going to look and see if he wrote a full book set at a school!

Jackie wrote: "my library just filled my hold on Two-Way Murder and now I don't remember why I put in on hold. Was it a buddy read for here? or did someone I know just rave about it? LOL, it's all..."

Hi Jackie, it was nominated for a group read a few weeks ago but didn't win the poll, so that may be what tempted you? I'll be interested to hear what you think as I'm hoping to read it soon.

I've also started The Missing Partners, Susan - I'm still reading Shadows in Bronze as well. As they are set in such different periods, hopefully I won't mix them up! ;)

That's great, Ruth.

I really enjoyed Swan Song by Edmund Crispin and am looking forward to our discussion.

I remember enjoying the film of Bunny Lake Is Missing, Alwynne. Sorry to hear the book was a disappointment.

Thank you Abigail - from your description and review, I'm guessing that may be why it has been missed out from the republication of the series!

I'm not very far in yet, Jill, but given the huge cast list at the start I think I may have a job keeping track of all the characters as well as the politics!

I've just read our next Maigret, The Night at the Crossroads, and have now started another of our forthcoming buddy reads, Shadows in Bronze.

On John Christmas's name, I've just remembered that another Detection Club author, Christopher Bush, had the real name "Charlie Christmas Bush" - fantastic name, probably a coincidence! I've only read one book by him so far but have been meaning to try more.

Susan in NC wrote: "I definitely would like to read more Gilbert - another publisher, House of Stratus, has several of his books on Scribd..."

Thank you, that's very interesting - I've just had a quick look around and Google Play Books and Hive also have various titles by Michael Gilbert which I think must be from this publisher available as ebooks in the UK, but they don't seem to be on Kindle. Worth knowing.

Susan in NC wrote: "Ok, in the book Nap is married, so he’s a philanderer in the film?..."

Ha, no, he isn't married in the film. :)

Sandy wrote: "Speaking of the characters appearing in other books: GR has this as an Inspector Hazelrigg book, and he has such a minor role!"

Yes, Hazlerigg really doesn't come in very much, does he?

I hope British Library publishes more of Gilbert's books, as I think there are only three on Kindle. He had an amazing career, writing from the 1940s right up to the 2000s!

I've now finished watching the film and sorry, I now think you were right, Susan, that there isn't all that much filming on location overall! There are a few scenes which look like French countryside but it has a B movie feel and most of it looks as if it was filmed in the studio.

I quite enjoyed it but, although it keeps quite a bit of the dialogue from the book, the plot is changed a lot, also adding in a romance between Nap and Mademoiselle Deboise (not Madame in the film!)

I just noticed that Martin Edwards has written a blog post about the film if anyone is interested:
https://doyouwriteunderyourownname.bl...

Definitely a big change, Susan, but there is still lots of filming in France with Nap trying to find evidence -it is a largely French production. I couldn't resist watching part of it - I will go back in a minute and finish. There is also dramatic music by Bruce Montgomery, aka Edmund Crispin!

I've finished this now - I enjoyed it but felt it jumped around a bit too much. I'm the other way round from you, RC and Susan, as I tended to like the chapters with the investigations more than the courtroom scenes.

I especially enjoyed the section with McCann visiting the eccentric prep school, but also the parts where Nap is in France even though some of the thriller part does become extremely unlikely!

It was interesting to see from the introduction by Martin Edwards that several of the characters appear in more than one of Gilbert's books, including McCann and Nap Rumbold.

I have just noticed that this book was filmed in 1956, as Guilty?, a British-French co-production with Donald Wolfit as the judge. The film is available on the Talking Pictures channel's TPTV Encore website. I've just watched the opening scene and the picture quality isn't great, and I can immediately see that it isn't going to be all that true to the book as Vicky is accused of killing Julian rather than Thoseby... but I will probably still watch it! Unfortunately there isn't an app for this site but it's possible to cast the films via Chromecast.

I definitely enjoyed it more first time around - this time it seemed a bit run-of-the-mill to me, partly because I remembered who the villain was, but I think also I've read a lot of better Golden Age books in between the two reads. I found most of the characters a bit uninteresting, apart from Christmas himself and his sidekick.

(I actually knocked my rating down to 3* on the second read, but GA seems to still be showing my first 4* rating.)