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White Nights by Ann Cleeves (Shetland #2) (August/Sept 25)
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By Susan · 29 posts · 12 views
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White Nights - SPOILER Thread - (Shetland #2) (August/Sept 25)
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last updated Aug 24, 2025 11:29PM
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What mysteries are you reading at the moment? (2023)
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What Members Thought
I was a bit surprised on reading the mixed reviews for this one as I really enjoyed it. Just shows you that, as useful as reviews are, sometimes you have to ignore them!
This is the seventh in the Gervase Fen series, published in 1950. Fen is working at a film studio, bizarrely giving his advice on a film based - loosely - on the life of Alexander Pope, even as the studio itself is loosely based on Ealing Studios.
Fen arrives one morning and runs into Inspector Humbleby. A young actress, Gloria S ...more
This is the seventh in the Gervase Fen series, published in 1950. Fen is working at a film studio, bizarrely giving his advice on a film based - loosely - on the life of Alexander Pope, even as the studio itself is loosely based on Ealing Studios.
Fen arrives one morning and runs into Inspector Humbleby. A young actress, Gloria S ...more
Apart from increasing my vocabulary, I found this to be another book where the author rambles a lot. Fen was mostly in the background and so we followed Humbleby, an inspector from Scotland Yard, and a friend of Fen. I knew a maze would be included in the story, as it was on the cover of my book, but thought they had got the maze wrong when the beginning of the book goes on for ages about the maze of the film studios. I liked the plot and thought that it did highlight what people of the time tho
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A tale of revenge and murder in the film industry...
Only rarely did the glamour of "a job with films" go to anyone's head - and though the girl who called herself Gloria Scott may have suffered from such delusions of grandeur, she had the excuse of being young, and was, in any case, a person of very little consequence. Her death, and the appalling consequences which followed it was perhaps shocking precisely because she was so unimportant; it was as if a bomb had gone off in an area confidently ...more
Only rarely did the glamour of "a job with films" go to anyone's head - and though the girl who called herself Gloria Scott may have suffered from such delusions of grandeur, she had the excuse of being young, and was, in any case, a person of very little consequence. Her death, and the appalling consequences which followed it was perhaps shocking precisely because she was so unimportant; it was as if a bomb had gone off in an area confidently ...more
3.5*. Crispin is a bit of an acquired taste, his writing is peppered with witticisms and quotes (most of which go over my head), he does tend to go off on interesting tangents, and his plots are weirdly convoluted and improbable, which makes them not unlike many other Golden Age mystery writers. This particular novel takes place on and around a film set and involves the suicide of a young ingenue about to get her break in the film industry, and the subsequent suspicious deaths of other members o
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I found this entry in the Gervase Fen series a little disappointing - Fen himself is absent for a good portion of the book. The mystery itself though is one of Crispin's usual quality. I suspected the guilty party early on but then was led astray by the cleverly done red herrings.
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Has all the humor I expect from Fen / Crispin with an excellent inside look at the film industry of the time.
Mar 30, 2014
Gary Vassallo
marked it as ebook-library
Oct 06, 2016
Melinda
marked it as to-read
May 29, 2018
Thomas
added it
Jul 28, 2018
Tessiebear
added it
Jul 19, 2021
GeraniumCat
marked it as to-read
