Continuing on with this year's brief survey/history of crime fiction/mystery up to WWI, Recollections of a Detective Police-Officer belongs in the catContinuing on with this year's brief survey/history of crime fiction/mystery up to WWI, Recollections of a Detective Police-Officer belongs in the category of fictional detective memoirs, which were all the rage back in their day. Waters is one of these fictional detectives, and his exploits were serialized "intermittently" from 1849 to 1853 in Chambers [Edinburgh] Journal. His adventures turned out to be immensely popular with readers and eventually the serialized stories were gathered and published.
In this collection, the "resolute" and "sagacious" Waters investigates eight crimes including blackmail, forgery, lots of bigamy (mainly due to greedy people who want to get their hands on an inheritance), arson, theft, murder and fraud. He takes us anywhere from stately British homes to farms to the slums, so there is a wide range of socioeconomic situations portrayed here. While once in a while we hear the results of the arrests Waters makes, there also seems to be better solutions than just legal justice in some stories when all is said and done. In the case of the story "Mark Stretton," for example, the evildoer is arrested but jumps bail and leaves the country, which Waters saw as "the wisest course" for the sake of the woman involved. This sort of thing happens more than once, and in the case of the bigamists, compromises for settling parts of an inheritance are happily made so that the innocent don't have to suffer. Waters doesn't mince words about the people in his adventures -- one woman who knowingly committed adultery and seeks to profit from it was called a "limb of Satan;" a wife whom one man felt compelled to marry for her fortune is labeled as a "shrew," and well, let's just say our modern sensibilities about ethnicity aren't respected here (nor should they be, really) as one character gets the moniker of "The Jew," complete with stereotype. Although Waters takes an active role here, most of what we learn about detective work is that it's a lot of watching and waiting until our man is sure he has enough evidence against his quarry to make a case that will stick; he also enlists locals in his efforts as informants as well. He's no Sherlock Holmes, but the adventures are never dull.
Out of the eight stories here, my favorite has to be "Fire-Raising," which is really the best whodunit of the collection. In most of these tales, we already know who is doing what to whom and it's just a matter of waiting them out, gathering evidence, etc., before Waters makes his move. Here the situation is a bit different, since the mystery is focused on who is the arsonist doing mayhem in a local farm district in Essex. The perpetrator is very clever, able to create a fire that won't actually erupt in flames for a matter of hours afterwards. I have to say that he set this one up quite nicely and I didn't figure out the who, for which I am quite grateful.
Overall, it's a fun collection of stories I'll recommend to anyone interested in the ongoing history of crime fiction/mystery, or anyone interested in Victorian crime fiction in general.
Continuing on with this year's brief survey/history of crime fiction/mystery up to WWI, Recollections of a Detective Police-Officer belongs in the category of fictional detective memoirs, which were all the rage back in their day. Waters is one of these fictional detectives, and his exploits were serialized "intermittently" from 1849 to 1853 in Chambers [Edinburgh] Journal. His adventures turned out to be immensely popular with readers and eventually the serialized stories were gathered and published.
In this collection, the "resolute" and "sagacious" Waters investigates eight crimes including blackmail, forgery, lots of bigamy (mainly due to greedy people who want to get their hands on an inheritance), arson, theft, murder and fraud. He takes us anywhere from stately British homes to farms to the slums, so there is a wide range of socioeconomic situations portrayed here. While once in a while we hear the results of the arrests Waters makes, there also seems to be better solutions than just legal justice in some stories when all is said and done. In the case of the story "Mark Stretton," for example, the evildoer is arrested but jumps bail and leaves the country, which Waters saw as "the wisest course" for the sake of the woman involved. This sort of thing happens more than once, and in the case of the bigamists, compromises for settling parts of an inheritance are happily made so that the innocent don't have to suffer. Waters doesn't mince words about the people in his adventures -- one woman who knowingly committed adultery and seeks to profit from it was called a "limb of Satan;" a wife whom one man felt compelled to marry for her fortune is labeled as a "shrew," and well, let's just say our modern sensibilities about ethnicity aren't respected here (nor should they be, really) as one character gets the moniker of "The Jew," complete with stereotype. Although Waters takes an active role here, most of what we learn about detective work is that it's a lot of watching and waiting until our man is sure he has enough evidence against his quarry to make a case that will stick; he also enlists locals in his efforts as informants as well. He's no Sherlock Holmes, but the adventures are never dull.
Out of the eight stories here, my favorite has to be "Fire-Raising," which is really the best whodunit of the collection. In most of these tales, we already know who is doing what to whom and it's just a matter of waiting them out, gathering evidence, etc., before Waters makes his move. Here the situation is a bit different, since the mystery is focused on who is the arsonist doing mayhem in a local farm district in Essex. The perpetrator is very clever, able to create a fire that won't actually erupt in flames for a matter of hours afterwards. I have to say that he set this one up quite nicely and I didn't figure out the who, for which I am quite grateful.
Overall, it's a fun collection of stories I'll recommend to anyone interested in the ongoing history of crime fiction/mystery, or anyone interested in Victorian crime fiction in general.
I really love these Kindaichi novels -- over the years I've become a huge, huge fangirl. According to Wikipedia, it looks as if this book first appeared as a serialization that ran from 1951 through 1953. It was later published in 1973 in book form, and now the good people at Pushkin Vertigo have published it in an English translation, thanks to Jim Rion. Going with that same article in Wikipedia (and despite what the goodreads blurb says about it), The Devil's Flute Murders is number fifteen in the series starring Yokomizo's detective Kosuke Kindaichi; it is the fifth of the Kindaichi books to have been published in English by Pushkin Vertigo. Just a heads up here: at the Wikipedia page for author Seishi Yokomizo, I noticed that there is another translation coming from Pushkin Vertigo in 2024, The Little Sparrow Murders . I will certainly be grabbing that one as well.
The novel is quite involved, with a level of complexity I haven't yet seen in this series; after having finished it, I can see why the serialization of this novel lasted so long. Yokomizo obviously took his time, allowing Kindaichi to unravel each and every strand (and there are many) of this perplexing case until the detective can get to the bottom of it all. It might be worth noting here that if you're someone who wants their mysteries solved quickly with a standard cut-and-dried, formulaic approach to a solution, you won't find that here. Another thing: the huge cast of characters is listed in the front in a sort of dramatis-personae type thing, but I became pretty frustrated at flipping back to that list time and again so I finally ended up just making a copy to leave nearby while reading. And speaking of characters, at one point I actually said to my spouse that I believe this is the first time in reading a book where there were only two people I liked, and that was Kindaichi and the dead Viscount. Reader beware -- if you're someone who has to like the people inhabiting your books, you might be a bit disappointed.
I am beyond happy to report that I did not guess the who until nearly the end when Yokomizo almost hands it to the reader (boo!) although I will say that I did sort of figure out the underlying why in a vague way a bit earlier. If I explain what it was that made me get that far, it wouldn't be fair to people who may decide to read this book, so we'll leave it there. Bottom line: when all is said and done, The Devil's Flute Murders is a solid and compelling mystery that regular readers of Japanese mysteries in translation or regular readers of the Pushkin Vertigo Kindaichi series novels should absolutely not miss, although it is very different in many ways from its predecessors.
I did want to mention that the best film adaptation of the two I watched was done by NHK Television in 2018, available on YouTube with subtitles; do consider reading the novel before watching the movie.
I'm sooooo behind in posting about the books I've been reading -- our year has been seriously bad up until just a couple of weeks or so ago. Trust me I'm sooooo behind in posting about the books I've been reading -- our year has been seriously bad up until just a couple of weeks or so ago. Trust me -- the one big thing I've learned in the last couple of years is to never ask what can possibly happen next, because something generally does. Anyway, hopefully we're on a good path now so it's time to be moving on.
I just love reading the works of women crime writers of yesteryear. Jean Potts is the author of fourteen novels in this genre, one "mainstream" novel called Someone to Remember (1943) and a huge number of short stories. Quite a few of the latter were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and at least one in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. In short, she was an incredibly prolific author; thanks to Stark House Press, her work is being brought back for modern readers to enjoy. This volume contains two of her mystery stories: Death of a Stray Cat from 1955 and An Affair of the Heart, published in 1970.
While they're both good, my favorite is Death of a Stray Cat. I have to say that I didn't guess the identity of the killer, always a plus, but even more to the point, when that person was unmasked I had a true "whoa!" moment. The author's brilliant plotting shines through in this story, but even better is the way in which she managed to imbue her characters with such unexpected life. Mystery readers will LOVE this one. Another thing: while her Edgar award-winning novel Go, Lovely Rose (1954) was awesome, Death of a Stray Cat beats that one by a mile.
In An Affair of the Heart, a short, novella-sized mystery, once again it's the characters that really make this story, and once again, the plot focuses on a small number of people at its core, all of them with closely-guarded secrets that add an element of tension and a darkish sort of intensity into the reading. It's not quite on the level of Death of a Stray Cat in my opinion, but it's still a pretty good story with more than a couple of surprises along the way. Unfortunately, I did figure out the who in this one, but I think it's likely because it wasn't nearly as involved or written as in depth as the other. Despite that, An Affair of the Heart still makes for a good read, and taken as a whole, this two-novel volume is well worth your mystery-reading time.
Overall, definitely recommended for people like me who enjoy reading older mysteries....more
Valancourt Books has recently published new editions of two of Celia Dale's novels, A Dark Corner and this book, A Helping Hand. I read A Dark Corner some time ago and have plans to reread it soon, but A Helping Hand is completely new to me. As I discovered, even at less than two hundred pages it's worth taking your time on this one.
On the back cover there's a blurb from the Buffalo News that most perfectly describes A Helping Hand as "A little gem of a thriller ... evil most monstrous." It's a good thing that I am one of those readers who doesn't need to find something likeable with the characters in a book because with only one or two exceptions, the people involved in this story are absolutely vile. The author writes so vividly that at times I felt like I was right there in the house as an observer of the appalling wretchedness, and I had to stop reading every so often just to move out of the dark and back into the light because she is so good at creating a claustrophic atmosphere. While the usual elements of a standard crime story will not be found in this novel, what happens here certainly falls within the realm of the genre, and given that this book was written in the 1960s, it remains extremely pertinent in our contemporary world which makes what happens even more frightening. The one and only thing I found to be on the negative side is that right after a rather stunning twist the story comes to a quick, almost rushed ending which was a bit disappointing, but in the long run it's really more about the getting there, and overall the novel is a true gut puncher.
I can most certainly recommend this one, and my thanks to Valancourt for bringing it back into print. My advice: find a nice sunny spot for reading -- you'll certainly need it.
between a 4 and a 4.5. This is one of those books that it seems everyone has read but me, but as they say, it's never too late. Just freaking wow!
I wbetween a 4 and a 4.5. This is one of those books that it seems everyone has read but me, but as they say, it's never too late. Just freaking wow!
I will be back with comments on this novel -- I've sort of been sidetracked from my scheduled reading while catching up on group reads, posts for publisher-offered books, and of course, matters here at home but I will post my thoughts when possible.
Family here until Sunday (and we play really, really hard!) so my post will have to wait.
for now, another book that while not exactly great, was actuFamily here until Sunday (and we play really, really hard!) so my post will have to wait.
for now, another book that while not exactly great, was actually a lot of fun to read and I found myself glued. Eight people are invited to a party by an unknown host; once they are settled in, the partygoers find themselves at the mercy of someone whose presence is made known through a radio broadcast. The host lets them know that this is no ordinary party at all -- that they are there to die, one person every hour, and that there is no escape. My only issue came with the ending, but more on that later.
The reading dates are misleading ... I put this one down earlier to catch up on my group reads then came back to it, but it probably really took like 3-4 days of actual reading time to get through this one.
Completely overjoyed when I learned last year that this book was going to be published by Pushkin Vertigo, I hit the preorder button at lightning speed. At the same time, I bought a dvd of the 1977 film made from this novel, directed by Kon Ichikawa, which I watched after finishing Death on Gokumon Island.
It's September, 1946 and as the novel opens, a ferry is making its way to a few different islands in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. It drops its passengers until there are only three left, all heading for a small island, Gokumon-to, which translates to Hell's Gate Island. One of these people is Kosuke Kindaichi, who overhears a conversation between the other two -- a priest who had gone to pick up the once-confiscated, now-returned bell belonging to Senkoji Temple, and another man who informs the priest that someone named Hitoshi was "supposed to be coming home soon." He had heard the news from a soldier in Hitoshi's regiment who had come to the island a few days earlier, when the guy had turned up to tell the family that Hitoshi had sent him to let them know not only that he would be returning, but also that he hadn't been injured in the war. The priest then asks about someone named Chimata, which captures Kindaichi's attention, sparking a conversation among the three men. It turns out that Kindaichi, a friend of Chimata, had come to Gokumon-to let the Kito family know of his death aboard a transport ship just a month earlier.
Kindaichi, "like every other young man in Japan," had been drafted into the army, where he had spent two years in China before being deployed "between different islands to the south." His last stop had been in Wewak, New Guinea, where he had met and befriended Chimata Kito, helping him through his bouts of a very bad case of malaria and spending time together while the other soldiers "fell one after the other." While they eventually made it out okay when the war ended, each time Chimata fell ill Kindaichi noted that he suffered from "an extreme fear of death." All was well, it seemed, until Chimata fell ill on board the repatriation ship; before he died he had told Kindaichi that he didn't want to die, and that he had to go home. Otherwise, he said, his "three sisters will be murdered." Exactly why this might be is not explained until the end, but by then, it's too late -- it seems that Chimata had been right, and now our detective must try to discover who is behind these (quoting the back cover) "grotesquely staged" deaths that start not too long after he lands on the island.
The real payoff in reading Death on Gokumon Island must wait for the end. I was actually becoming a bit frustrated partway through because the story becomes more than a bit muddled and clunky at times; to be fair to the author, he does toss out clues here and there but they are on the impossible side of figuring out until all is revealed and things fall into place. Trust me -- even the most seasoned armchair detectives will not be able to figure this one out. Word to the wise: pay attention to the list of characters offered up front; I found myself returning to it several times.
According to Thrilling Detective, there are seventy-seven books featuring Kindaichi, so with any luck (crossing fingers) we may be seeing more in translation. As I've noted before, my favorite is The Inugami Curse apa The Inugami Clan, but with another seventy-three left, who knows what little gems are yet to be uncovered in this series! Despite my reading reservations at times, this novel ends up being not only clever, but the author injects more than a twisted sense of destiny as well as a sort of tragic irony into this story once all is said and done. Recommended for fans of the series and for Japanese crime fiction in general; it may be a bit slow in the telling but the reward is well worth waiting for....more
Had it not been for a hungry spouse, I would have finished this book in one sitting; I absolutely did not want to put it down for any reason.
I'm actually on the fence about labeling this book as crime fiction, because really, there's so much more to it. I mean, there is a crime (quite a heinous one in fact), there is a bit of an investigation and a number of possible suspects who might have been responsible. At the same time, Act of Darkness ventures well into the literary zone, as the author delves into and unravels human souls, exposing people for who they really are, and it works on a metaphorical level as well. The bottom line, however, is that it's quite good, very dark, highly atmospheric and well, anything but typical.
The central "Act" of this novel is a horrific murder that happens in the middle of one night, but it's the aftereffects that are at the heart of this story. As the author writes,
"A slow, expected death has a way of irresistibly sucking the members of a family together down its dark funnel. This death, as violent and unexpected as the explosion following the detonation of a bomb, had the opposite effect of blowing the members of the Thompson family in separate directions, however much they struggled to cling to each other."
The murder also lays bare some of the pent-up frustrations, jealousies and suspicions that have been simmering and being chipped away at under the surface within this household. The author absolutely excels here as he traces the effects of this crime on those left behind over the years that follow, offering more than one or two surprising twists as he comes down to its solution.
I loved this book -- King has created an atmosphere seething with dark, sometimes violent undercurrents running below the surface both within this family and also in India under British rule; that tension, once picked up on in the reading, just doesn't go away. I can certainly and highly recommend this book, especially to readers who are more into the why behind things rather than just the who. It is a memorable story that I still see flashes of in my head even though I finished reading it a few days back.
Village of Eight Graves will be the third book I've read that features the somewhat shaggy-looking detective Kosuke Kindaichi, whose creator Seishi Yokomizo wrote him into a grand total of 77 novels. Pushkin Vertigo has also published translations of his The Honjin Murders and The Inugami Clan (my favorite of the bunch so far), and there will be another one, Gokumon Island later this year. I've already preordered the last one, and I bought a dvd of that film as well. I tried to find a copy of Village of Eight Graves on dvd, but I'm not all that sure I really want to pay the $60 the one I actually found goes for. I did however, content myself with the trailer on YouTube (note: if you to and take a look at it you should know ahead of time that there are no English subtitles, but you'll get the drift).
One thing brought out very quickly which is extremely well done here is the effects of fear and superstition on the villagers, all stemming back to the sixteenth-century and the ongoing belief of these people that history tends to repeat itself, as well as what people are capable of when overcome by fear for their own lives. The mystery (and its solution) is beyond satisfying, and there are a number of suspects from which to choose to up the whodunit game. Like any good mystery writer, Yokomizo lays down any number of red herrings that tend to take readers down certain paths before realizing they've been had. Unexpected twists and turns abound right up until the very end, adding to the fun and continuing to add more to the mystery itself as well as ratcheting up the tension level for the reader. Two things: first, my advice would be to copy the cast of characters offered at the front of the book -- I ended up doing this not too long into the novel because I found myself constantly flipping back and forth. Second, the story takes a bit of a turn into the realm of adventure tale having to do with the samurai gold, which was a bit off-putting until I just let myself go with it, figuring we'd get to the solution at some point -- a good decision. And while it's not great literature, who cares? It's an incredibly fun book that will test any mystery reader's solving ability.
I actually thought I would die of old age before getting through this one. It is the rare book that tries my patience, but (read earlier this month)
I actually thought I would die of old age before getting through this one. It is the rare book that tries my patience, but that's exactly what happened here. The saving grace for me was that not only did I never guess the who, but when all was made known, it was someone I never would have suspected in a million years.
Puzzle for Players is book number two in Quentin's series featuring Peter Duluth, but it is the first time I've read anything by this author. The story begins as Duluth is hoping to make a bit of a comeback after having been "tabbed" as the "youngest has-been producer on record." Re-entering the theatrical arena after having been "tentatively cured" of a daily "two quarts of rye" drinking problem during his time in a sanitarium, Duluth is now ready for his "big come-back," after having read the script of a new play called Troubled Waters. A lot rides on Duluth's success, including regaining his "solvency" and "lost self-respect," and the fact that the play is to make its appearance in a theater with a reputation of being "jinxed" means nothing to him. It does, however, seem to make some of the cast of Troubled Waters nervous -- as part of its creepy past, for example, in 1902 a young woman had been discovered "hanging dead" in an actor's wardrobe, very likely a suicide. But Duluth, while sympathetic, is convinced that this play will restore his reputation, and he's got a fine cast to help make that happen.
It isn't long until the first of the weird incidents begin, but really, these are the least of Peter's problems. First, some pretty shady people arrive on the scene, each with an agenda and all adding to Peter's woes. Events begin taking their toll on the cast and especially on Peter himself, but above all, the show must go on. However, after two strange deaths, he's not so sure that will be possible.
I have to say that I was quite taken with the haunted theater idea, and while the author it ran with it for a while, creepy atmosphere and all, it just sort of fizzled. A shame, really, because to me, there was much more he could have done with it and didn't. The focus is very much the characters in this novel, many of whom are harboring secrets and some of whom are actively doing what they can to cause chaos while the cast is gearing up for opening night. And while all of the mayhem is certainly engaging, the story tends to be weighed down by the psychological aspects brought in by Peter's doctor, various romance moments, and the sheer volume of red herrings that are added to the story so that by the time the end came, I was ready to be done. Personally, I think that some careful editing might have given this story more teeth, which is what it needed, in my humble mystery-reader opinion.
I will be encountering another Peter Duluth mystery shortly, A Puzzle for Fools from 1936, so I'm sort of wary at the moment. I know there are any number of readers who enjoyed Puzzle for Players, but I can't really count myself among them. I will say that the final revelation was completely unexpected, which is what saved this novel for me, but the reality is that a good solution does not necessarily a good mystery make. ...more
A quotation from Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" serves as one of two epigraphs for this book and as it turns out, it is beyond appropriate. Words like "grotesque," "phantasm," "delirious fancies," leap out immediately, but it's more Poe's conjuring of
"much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust"
that truly fits the atmosphere, the setting, and the overall action in The Corpse in the Waxworks.
More often than not I tend to forget that John Dickson Carr was an American author since he wrote so many novels set in the UK. He did spend a good twenty years there before returning back to the US, and according to most biographies, was one of only a very few American writers to be admitted into the Detection Club. The Corpse in the Waxworks throws yet another curveball: it's set in France, and features M. Henri Bencolin, who is described in the book just prior to this one, The Lost Gallows as "a tall and lazy Mephisto," as well as "juge d'instruction of the Seine, the head of the Paris Police and the most dangerous man in Europe." In the present book, he is also noticed as a "man-hunting dandy," with an associate by the name of Jeff Marle who also serves as narrator.
The blurb for this British Library edition is pretty straightforward, but the one on the back of my old Collier paperback (1969) edition of this book is much more fun, with a teaser on the front that reads
"A Dead Girl in a Satyr's Arms -- A Club Devoted to Nocturnal Orgies"
and then on the back the salacious detail of a "notorious club ... whose masked members revel in carefully planned orgies," as well as mentioning "nocturnal debauches." I ask you, who could resist?
The Corpse in the Waxworks is notable not just for the mystery at hand, but also for the atmosphere that Carr establishes from the beginning. Marle's initial impressions of his first trip into the Gallery of Horrors are absolutely stunning, including the staircase that suggested "walls pressing in with the terrors so that you might not be able to escape," the exhibits imbued with a "pallor on each" face, the soundless terror caught on the faces of a particular group of wax figures, the ghastliness of the "shadowy people" who did not move, and the "choking stuffiness of wax and wigs" that left him needing "light and the knowledge of human presence." But what really sets this book apart is the second half of the story, where pretty much everything that happens is completely unexpected. And oh, that ending!
Don't miss Martin Edwards' fine introduction, and the added bonus of a short story (also featuring Bencolin), "The Murder in Number Four." And my many thanks to the British Library for reprinting this novel, since my little Collier paperback is pretty much on its last legs. Needless to say, I had a great time with this book, and it's one I can definitely recommend. ...more
In the introduction to this edition of Brown's Requiem, Ellroy notes from the outset that he was "determined to write an autobiographical epic second to none," but he also realized that his life was "essentially an inward journey that would not lend itself all that well to fiction," which, based on his life as described in My Dark Places, is probably true. His response:
"I then ladled a big load of violent intrigue into my already simmering, tres personal plot -- and the result is the novel you are about to read."
This book is much more a PI novel than anything else he wrote (at least of the books I've read), a fact he makes known in his introduction where he says that this book is "heavily beholden" to Raymond Chandler. He also notes that he owes Chandler a "two-fold debt" -- for getting him going and showing him "that imitating him was a dead-end street on GenreHack Boulevard." The Chandler influence shows.
it's easy to see the first inklings of what to expect in Ellroy's future writings, especially Ellroy's penchant for writing novels that are dark with a capital D. In Brown's Requiem the prose is more tame, less zippy than in his LA Quartet but given that it's his first novel, you can see still detect faint strains of the originality of yet to come. It's interesting to go back and reread Ellroy from the start, especially knowing that the first book of his excellent LA Quartet would be published only six years later. Recommended for those so inclined, mainly people who've enjoyed Ellroy's books and know what to expect....more
Coming in at just over 400 pages, don't let the size of this book be a deterrent -- it reads very quickly, espemore to come at some point but for now:
Coming in at just over 400 pages, don't let the size of this book be a deterrent -- it reads very quickly, especially since I didn't want to put it down, which is also for me the sign of a really, really good book. The only drawback is that I couldn't help but hear the voices of the main actors from the Preminger film while reading, which is really distracting. Another thing: I was more than surprised to learn that Anatomy of a Murder was based on a true story; Traver (the pseudonym he used) was actually John Voelker, the defense attorney in this case: https://www.historictruecrime.com/the...
I hadn't intended on reading this book just yet, but after my post about The Shooting Party , one of my goodreads friends commented on the fact that people were wowing the use of the book-within-a-book format in this novel while technically, as he pointed out in his own review of Magpie Murders, it had already been done by Chekhov over a century earlier. His remarks, along with all of the high ratings for this book, did the trick and my copy came off the shelf.
The book-within-the-book here is Magpie Murders the newest and final installment of author's Alan Conway's mystery series featuring his German detective Atticus Pünd. Editor Susan Ryeland begins her tale by giving her readers a warning: "This book changed my life." The changes she notes are not minor ones -- she loses her job, "a great many friends," and she no longer lives in her "quiet and comfortable" flat. She also states that "it was all down to that bastard Alan Conway," whose books she had "always loved," but not the man himself. But before she can explain the why behind that statement, we are immediately plunged into the small, quiet village of Saxby-on-Avon, 23 July 1955, where a funeral is being planned for Mary Blakiston, who had fallen down the stairs at Pye Hall where she had worked as a housekeeper.
As I am intensely following this 1955 story, Pünd makes the announcement that he has "everything I need to know" about the case and I turned the page expecting to find out who and why, but surprise: the story comes to an abrupt end and we're back in the now with Susan Ryeland. "Oh no! "I yelled out loud at this juncture, when I realized, along with Susan, that the last chapter is missing. I hadn't figured it out at all, and by golly, I wanted to know who killed Magnus Pye. But then things changed as Susan discovers that Alan Conway was dead and that it looks like he'd left a suicide note behind. Her boss, Charles, tells Susan that his copy was incomplete as well, and that there were no missing pages to be found anywhere. Susan needs to find those pages -- the publishing house had not been doing so well and they "needed" Conway's book to "make a hit." As she begins searching for the ending of Magpie Murders, she also decides that it might be worthwhile to do a bit of sleuthing herself, to see if indeed Conway's death had been a suicide.
While I had some minor grumbles about the writing here, including some of Susan's detecting skills and choices that seemed rather hollow and Horowitz's ego writ large on the page (mentioning probably every TV show he's written the screenplays for) that caused more than a few eyerolls, I still couldn't put this book down. But then the author does something unforgivable that made me take issue: while Susan says that as an editor she doesn't care for "coincidences in novels" (and quite frankly, neither do I as a reader), that is precisely where Horowitz goes with this book. Honestly, it felt like he'd written himself into a corner and had to do something to get her on trajectory to finish this story.
I know that this novel gets sterling reader reviews, so it's probably just me being picky again. On the plus side, this book kept me entertained for hours, and I loved the 1955 story. It's the modern one with which I have issues: it's not nearly as well done, and ultimately ended in a kind of letdown for me mainly because of the author's choice here to depend on coincidence. Not a good move in my mind, and I felt cheated. I also have to say that once the reasoning behind Conway's death was revealed, it didn't seem at all like a big deal and certainly not murder-motive worthy. I will still recommend it, but as Susan Ryeland says at the beginning of the book, "Unlike me, you have been warned."
4.5 + rounded up; more to come shortly but for now:
I went into this novel for the murder mystery, but (and unexpectedly), I came out of it with so muc 4.5 + rounded up; more to come shortly but for now:
I went into this novel for the murder mystery, but (and unexpectedly), I came out of it with so much more. The murder investigation actually takes second place to what's going on around it, in the figure of Virgil Tibbs, a black cop from California who must carefully thread his way in a small southern town that is deeply entrenched in bigotry, racial hate and as John Ridley notes in his introduction, "the paternalistically tolerant. " This novel was published in 1965, but in many ways it is sad to realize that some things remain the same today. Very highly recommended.
I'll be back with a full post soon; tonight we'll be watching the original film. ...more
actually, I have the 1953 paperback reprint from Hodder and Stoughton, complete with map of the village square as the frontispiece (something you rareactually, I have the 1953 paperback reprint from Hodder and Stoughton, complete with map of the village square as the frontispiece (something you rarely see these days so my heart went pitter-pat over that).
I went looking for older, contemporary reviews of this novel after finishing it, and in googling "Midsummer Murder Witting" without the quotation marks, got thousands of results for Midsomer Murders. I was a bit annoyed at first but then laughed because even though this book has nothing to do with Tom Barnaby and the gang from Causton CID, there is a character in this story who reminded me of Mrs. Rainbird from The Killings At Badger's Drift (which I recently read with a group on goodreads). Not unlike that creepy lady who spied on everyone in her village in Caroline Graham's book, there is a woman in this story who keeps a card file on everyone in her village. I guess the Mrs. Busybody must be a reality in some villages; on the other hand, both Barnaby and the Inspector in this book, Harry Charlton, came to a point where information gleaned from these respective sources became invaluable.
Midsummer Murder is book number two in Witting's Harry Charlton series, which begins with Murder in Blue (1937). I had to really go digging online for a copy of the edition of Midsummer Murder I have, but luckily, it seems that I won't have to work as hard to pick up the series opener, since the people at Galileo Publishers have seen fit to put that one back into circulation, to be released (at least here in the US) next month. Pre-ordered, for sure, along with his Measure For Murder (1941, book #5). His Catt Out of the Bag, book #4 from 1939 is already available for purchase, so I bought that one as well. As all of this buying might reveal, I liked the lead character, Inspector Charlton. I didn't particularly love the book itself, but the man intrigued me to the point where I would like to read more of his adventures in crime solving. As for the novel, I was more than mildly annoyed with the underlying motive that connected all of the crimes (yes, there are more than one), which to me was tenuous, at best.
As this is my first experience with Clifford Witting's mystery novels, I have no idea whether or not he does this in all of his books, but here he leads the reader on quite a merry chase through the police investigation before we realize at the very end that we've been had in a nice bout of misdirection. And I was fine up until that point, enjoying the mystery, putting the clues together in my head and even taking notes while reading. Normally the author's sort of "gotcha" moment is a good one, meaning that he or she has put together a story whose solution I never would have guessed because I was following the trail of red herrings. And while that happened here, when the killer was disclosed it was so out of left field that I had to go back and reread certain chapters just to try to figure it out. Still, it was fun up to that point so I can't complain too much, but somehow that final moment just didn't seem fair. Be warned that this book ends so abruptly that I was looking for evidence that some of the pages had been torn out of my copy.
Not great, but not bad, sort of middle of the road with an interesting lead character. In my mind, not quite as nicely done as the previous Séptimo Círculo books, but still a good read. ...more
The two novels offered here are The Abductor, from 1962 and The Bank With the Bamboo Door from 1965. Let me just say that Hitchens doesn't mess around in either of these books -- there is nothing cozy to be found here. Not at all.
Re The Abductor : I have to admit that I don't particularly care for novels involving child abduction, so I was a bit iffy about this one, but I needn't have been. What I discovered is that what happens in this book is anything but your standard kidnapping story, as Hitchens delves into the lives of the main players here, setting up a high level of suspense and asking serious questions about moral choices and responsibility along the way. As the story winds down it definitely becomes an edge-of-your-seat reading experience that lasts until the very end of this very twisty, taut story.
The Bank With The Bamboo Door is set in a "town full of secrets," the exposure of which for the people in this book would be devastating. As more than one person reveals in this story, their woes can be traced back to a single source, without whom their lives would be far better off. Reading this book is like being a spectator at a plate-spinning act, wondering how in the world someone manages to keep them all going at the same time without at least one crashing down. I would think that it's difficult to juggle so many storylines, but from the very few books I've read by Dolores Hitchens, I've noticed that one of her strengths as a writer is in her ability to begin with several different elements of plot and keep them under control individually even as they begin to merge together. Here not only does everyone have secrets but there's also the matter of the "bank with the bamboo door," where a robbery took place in the past; word has it that not all of the money was found and that what was left might just still be there behind that bamboo door. And then, of course, there's a murder that absolutely no one is sorry about.
In both books in this volume however, it is really her focus on small-town people that makes all the difference, and there she is a master. I tend to focus more on human nature than on plot when reading crime, so she's a great fit for me. It wasn't until after I'd finished this volume though that I understood why she is so very good at what she does, discussed in the informative introduction by Curtis Evans. After a brief look at Hitchens' life while growing up and then as an adult, he makes a great case for her "tangled family life" making its way into her novels. Both books go far beyond just straight plot, so that you get caught up in the lives of the characters before you. While I liked both of them very much, I will admit to being a bit more caught up in the suspense of The Abductor, and more focused on the outcomes of the people than the plot in The Bank With The Bamboo Door, but both are, as Evans notes about "Hitchens' crime concoctions," most certainly "criminally addictive." One caveat: it was often cringeworthy reading references to Chinese people in the second book, so beware.
I hope Stark House is planning to publish more of Hitchens' novels in the future. They won't be for everyone, but I love them. Absolutely.
It's sad that so many people tend to discount books written long ago (in this case the 1930s), because there are some true gems to be found if they'd just look. Case in point: this book, which had me going right up until the last page. No lie. It's also an intelligent read, not just some average mystery book that you've read a thousand times.
While I'm very a much a mystery series purist, meaning I have to read them in order, over the rest of this year I'll be making a lot of exceptions, including this book which is number four in the series featuring Blake's private detective Nigel Strangeways. There's a reason for this -- my crime/mystery shelves are overflowing with books I've picked up here and there over the decades that I've never read, so in trying to get through at least some of them, I needed some organizational help. I found it by chance while reading through a book called Serial Crime Fiction: Dying for More (eds. Jean Anderson, Carolina Miranda and Barbara Pezzotti; Palgrave MacMillan 2015) when I came across Miranda's chapter entitled "More Than the Sum of its Parts: Borges, Bioy Casares and the Phenomenon of the Séptimo Circulo Collection" (31-40). Fascinated, I went online to discover exactly which titles were included, landing here. As I read through the list, I realized that I owned more than quite a few of these books, and thus the decision was made to read as many as I can this year and very likely on into the next. Problem solved.
The Beast Must Die is, if I may say so, a brilliant piece of writing, worthy of the mental round of applause I gave it upon finishing. It is a solid whodunit -- I went through more than one round of "it was him/her" and still did not get it right. It's also a story about which I won't be saying very much, since any hint of what happens here would be a crime in itself. What I will divulge is that Frank Cairnes, a writer of crime novels under the name of Felix Lane, is out to get whoever it was that was responsible for the death of his young son in a hit-and-run accident. As the novel opens, we are made privy to Felix Lane's diary entry of 20 June 1937, which begins as follows:
"I'm going to kill a man. I don't know his name, I don't know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him ..."
which, as an opener, is just sheer genius on the author's part. No way will anyone want to stop reading at that point!
My first venture into the mind of Nicholas Blake has most certainly been a successful one. Not only is it worthy of my picky inner armchair-detective self, but it also offers an insightful character study as well as the ingenious use of literary references that fell into place in my head only after finishing the book. Definitely not your typical 1930s, golden-age mystery, and it's one I can most certainly recommend. I loved Georgia Strangeways; I'll now have to backtrack and go back to book number one to find out more about Nigel.
My advice: do NOT read reviews of this book that want to take you to the big reveal. You'll kick yourself if you do, trust me....more
I don't know what was going through this author's head, but what he's done here is absolutely unforgivable. Luckily I picked up the cheap paperback edition, because this book got tossed more than once across the room, something I do when I am so utterly frustrated with what I'm reading and don't want to scream.
Since I don't read much in the way of modern crime fiction these days, trust me, the premise has to be out there enough to capture my attention, and that is what drew me to this book. I reprint here the back-cover blurb:
"Years ago Malcolm Kershaw wrote a list of his 'Eight Favorite Murders' for his Old Devils mystery bookshop blog. Among others, it included those from Agatha Christie's The A.B.C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Now, just before Christmas, Malcolm finds himself at the heart of an investigation -- as an FBI agent believes someone may be re-enacting each of the murders on his list." , Oh, I thought, this sounds really good, and with the mention of the older crime novels I was hooked. Then I started reading and nearly choked. Some seventeen pages in, Malcolm's old blog post was offered in its entirety, with each of the eight books not only summarized (which is okay), but the plot reveals given away (which is not okay). To make matters worse, as we get further along into this story, the author decides to go further, giving away all of the show on each of the eight "perfect murders," and he's not quite done. He goes on to spoil other classics, including (and this is truly an act of anathema), Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
I'm looking at reader reviews and people are absolutely loving this novel, which, you know, to each his/her own. I am afraid that I am once again swimming against the tide here.
I have to be honest and say that for some time now, I've been much happier with crime novels from yesteryear -- for the most part they're well and often uniquely plotted, characters seem to be more well defined, and even in the worst ones there's usually a modicum of suspense to be had, none of which is the case here.
Warning: cute and cozy this book is definitely not. While it begins at a family gathering at Christmas, nobody's going a-wassailing, nor is there even the slightest hint of sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting tingling too -- this is the story of an unpremeditated but cold-blooded murder, the person responsible, and the aftermath.
The usual Christmas tradition at the Gray house is for the Gray children to come to the family home. Out of six, there are two already living at Kings Poplars; the remaining four had long ago left to make their way in the world. Yuletide is not necessarily a happy time for this family, because, as we are told early on, patriarch Adrian Gray is, "on good terms with none of his children." We learn why this is over the first forty-something pages, and we also learn why it is that, as the back-cover blurb notes,
"None of Gray's six surviving children is fond of him; several have cause to wish him dead."
Christmas morning rolls around, and Adrian has failed to join the family for breakfast or for the usual Christmas task of reading the lessons. When he is found dead in his library, it was thought at first he'd suffered a stroke but when the police arrive, it doesn't take long to figure out that Adrian's demise was anything but natural. The killer, however, is ready for them, having arranged things so that the accusing finger points elsewhere. I won't reveal any details, but this setup makes for very tense reading right up to the end as an innocent person is arrested, tried, and sentenced. Will justice be served or will a murderer remain free to walk the streets?
Although the forty-plus pages in part one are mettle-testing to even the most patient of readers, do not give up -- the information gleaned from there will serve you greatly in the long run. This is the sort of crime novel I love reading, answering the question of why rather than focusing on the who. As Carolyn Wells is quoted as saying in the introduction, it is indeed a most "Human Document."
As it turns out, I screwed up and read the wrong book, a mistake I discovered only this morning. I've been using the list of books from the Séptimo Círculo collection as my main crime/mystery reading guide this year; only four books in and thanks to my own stupidity, I read the wrong book. I was going to read Anthony Gilbert's The Long Shadow, written in 1932, and completely neglected the date (and obviously the real title) and bought his Death Casts A Long Shadow from 1959 instead (originally published as Death Takes a Wife). It's no surprise; here at casa mia our 2020 hasn't ended yet with what feels like a quarterly extension. I feel really stupid for being so careless, and now of course, I can't find a copy of the 1932 book anywhere.
But in the long run, it doesn't really matter, because I quite liked this one.
It's an intriguing and ingenious puzzle that is worked out over the course of this novel; the author also offers up a bit of sleight of hand that merited a silent "bravo" toward the end. And while I don't want to go too far here, let's just say that aside from the crimes in this story, the author also spends a lot of time thematically on examining different types of love that have the power to either make or break a marriage. Then there's this: when the "intrepid detective-lawyer" Arthur Crook reveals all about the case at hand, I actually said out loud "but what about" ... (and trust me, if you read this book you'll have the same question running through your own head throughout your time with this novel) and the answer appeared on the next page. Voila -- perfect sense of timing.
I have no other experience with the character Arthur Crook to know how Death Casts a Long Shadow fares alongside the other novels, but this one had me unwilling to set the book down for any reason. Once again I find myself saying that someone really needs to republish these old books; this one was quite cleverly done so I can only imagine that the others might be just as good or even better.
definitely recommended for those who are into older British mysteries and older mystery fiction in general....more
This one's like a 3.7 popped up to a 4 by the ending. Speaking of which, crikey! While not the best Japanese crime novel I've ever read, had I been eating something when the big reveal of this story came along, I probably would have choked because of the huge gasp that involuntarily came out of me. As soon as that cleared, the first words out of my mouth were "holy sh*t." I don't have that reaction very often; even though there have been many times I've been truly surprised at the unmasking of the who, this one absolutely takes the cake.
What begins as a week of fun and writing time for seven members of their university's Crime Club at an uninhabited island quickly turns into a nightmare. As the back-cover blurb reveals, they will all have to use their "murder-mystery expertise" to find out why and by whom they are being "picked off, one by one." While this is happening, back on the mainland another investigation has started, one that may hold clues to the mystery club's dilemma by delving into the past.
As I've always said about this particular genre that really stands on its own within the genre of crime/mystery fiction, these stories are less character oriented and more about how the deed was done. It's no surprise to me on reading several reader reviews of this book that noted the lack of character development, because that's pretty standard with this sort of thing, something I've come to expect after reading so many of them. Taking that aspect away, focusing on the who and the how, The Decagon Murders becomes an intense puzzle, the solution of which I would never have guessed. I will say that I'm a bit frustrated at not being able to share my experience with the identity of the who, but to do so would be giving away the show. I do think I would like to take a look at the original though, because I'm not sure I would have translated some things in this book the same way, for example, in having one character refer to the group as "y'all." I mean, come on.
I had great fun with this novel, and I certainly would recommend it to regular fans of this sort of puzzler, or to fans of Japanese crime fiction in general. The ending alone was worth the price I paid for the book....more
Two men of completely opposite temperament and circumstances live in separate houses on Heathfield Chine, west of Wellbrook-on-Sea in Hampshire. Mr. Benjamin Digweed of The Anchorage, a "man of very modest means" with a love of gardening, tends to keep to himself enjoying the company of others only occasionally with his neighbor Mr. Martin Lumb of The Haven, and Lumb's factotum Higgs. Mr. Lumb, who travels to London now and again, has no money worries, is an avid collector of and an expert on Aviation Issue stamps. The two dwelt in "perfect amity" so when Mr. Digweed disappears, Mr. Lumb is shaken and calls in the local police. What Sergeant Cartright discovers in the course of searching Mr. Digweed's home takes the investigation down a certain road, but then a case of murder causes a major detour and leaves Cartright's bride-to-be and her father to take charge.
It's not the greatest example of a 1930s mystery ever, but there's just something about Phillpotts' ability to put together a good yarn and to provide a challenge that appeals. Eden Phillpotts may not be a household name in the realm of mystery reading, but I've now read two of his books (this one and The Red Redmaynes) that were both engaging and fun, definitely requiring concentration because the solutions don't lend themselves easily. I will say that at some point while reading this one, I wrote a note with my theory and stuck it on a certain page where the light bulb started to blink on over my head, only to discover later that I was partly right but mostly wrong. While there is definitely police presence in this novel, it is not what I'd consider an early procedural, since the crime is actually solved by someone else using intuition and logic; while they do work on the case, the policemen become somewhat of a captive audience as the solution is revealed to them. Recommended.
As John Sutherland says in his introduction to this edition of The Shooting Party, while readers are used to a "dash of internationalism" in the twenty-first century, excluding Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the Russian novel has not been a "strong presence" in the realm of detective fiction. Like many fine mystery stories of yesteryear, The Shooting Party started out as a feuilleton in serial form, and given the fame of Anton Chekhov and his later dramatic works, has remained "unjustly ignored." A shame, really, because the mystery itself is quite good, and as Sutherland also notes, the book is "an accomplished crime novel in its own right." I tend to agree with him when he says that "few who start reading the work will be tempted to lay it down," because that's precisely what happened with me.
April, 1880. A man walks into a newspaper office, hoping for an appointment with "the Editor." After identifying himself as Ivan Petrovich Kamyshev, former investigating magistrate, he asks the Editor to read his manuscript, and if possible, to publish it. The subject, Kamyshev says, is "love, murder," and he calls it From the Memoirs of an Investigating Magistrate, swearing that the story "happened before his eyes," -- in fact he was both "eyewitness and even an active participant." The Editor isn't quick to bite, citing the readers who have "for far too long now... have had their teeth set on edge by Gaboriau and Shklyarevsky" and are
"sick and tired of all these mysterious murders, these detectives' artful ruses, the phenomenal quick-wittedness of investigating magistrates."
The particular story under consideration is called "The Shooting Party", and eventually the Editor agrees to read it, telling Kamyshev to come back in three months' time during which he'll make his decision. What follows is the story-within-the-story, as the Editor offers Kamyshev's story for the reader's "perusal" after reading it, assuring that it is "a page-turner." That it is, and while it may not be one of the best crime novels I've read, it is certainly very much worth the read -- this may have been one of Chekhov's earliest works, but he is a master of characterization here which is much more important than the crime or its solution. He wrote this in the 1880s, while Russia was still under Czarist rule, but he seems to have keen, almost uncanny insight into the future of class and social structure (including the roles and expectations of women) in an empire that in just a short while will be completely transformed.
Right at about page 165 of this book I stopped and made a comment on my goodreads group's "currently reading?" thread in which I said that it seems that everything has been laid out by now, and I'm stumped. Looking back on it now, it turns out that I may have jumped the gun a bit there thinking I had all pertinent information, but I still had no clue, and continued to remain in the dark until the very end. This book is hands down one of the twistiest and strangest crime novels I've ever read, which is a good thing; at the same time, I had to really work at this one which raised my level of frustration more than once.
The title of this book derives from a poem written by William Dunbar, one of "a group of medieval Scots poets known as the makars" -- or "makers", and according to the niece of the Laird of Echany, it was often chanted by her uncle as he roamed about his castle prior to his death. The haunting last line of each stanza "Timor mortis conturbat me" (fear of death disturbs me") adds to the already Gothic-ish atmosphere provided by the setting, the overall strangeness that pervades this novel, and even the sighting of ghosts by various people. While it was written during the Golden Age, it comes across as an example of an atypical story of this time, which I actually prefer. For me it's a case of the stranger the better.
I quite enjoyed Lament for A Maker which aside from its bizarre story appealed to my puzzle-solver self who loves a challenge, and I definitely got that here. I will also admit that the joke was on me more than once when I thought I had figured it out and hadn't, but I'd much rather things go that way than actually solving a mystery early on. Aside from Innes' The Mysterious Commission which wasn't a John Appleby novel, I haven't read any of his other books, so I'm pretty stoked to read more right now. Yet, as noted earlier, I did have to put a lot of effort into this one. My main issue with this book is that it's not often that I sit with my iPad at the ready while reading a mystery novel -- that's usually what I do while reading nonfiction or more esoteric, out-there kind of books -- but here it was almost a necessity, at least at first, since the entire first chapter was offered in a Scots dialect causing much frustration and necessitating multiple google visits. It took me a while to warm up to this story, but in the long run, it was well worth it.
Readers who make it through that first chapter will find a fine puzzler here, so don't give up. ...more
The back-cover blurb of this novel is short but succinct, and reveals that a local brewery owner loses his dog in one of the brewery's vats. It will also go on to reveal that said brewery owner will later be found in the same vat (more on that later). I'm not kidding when I say that my mind immediately flashed to particular episodes of Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse, New Tricks and even Brokenwood in a variation on the theme (a fermentation vat for wine instead of beer). I'm sure there are more that I've missed, but it seems that death in a vat is quite a popular way to go.
Of course, all of the above came long after There's Trouble Brewing, which made its appearance in 1937. This is the second novel I've read by Nicholas Blake after The Beast Must Die , both read out of series order. This book is number three in the series featuring Blake's Nigel Strangeways, and I'll confess to enjoying the other book much, much more, as this one was a bit on the sloggy side for me.
I very much enjoyed the writing otherwise, and only after two books now I have become a fan of Nigel Strangeways. I like his wife Georgia who sadly makes only a brief appearance here -- they are perfect for each other. And who doesn't love a story in which a character is so particularly loathsome that no one's going to be shedding a tear when he or she is dead? With the number of possible suspects and possible motivations that Strangeways uncovers here, it should have been a great read. The thing is though that Blake gives away the show much too early here with a particular remark that I took notice of that colored my thinking, so that by the time Strangeways cottons on to the solution, I'd already been there and was just waiting for our erstwhile detective to catch up. At chapter thirteen where Strangeways is going over the timetable of the case and makes an important discovery, I was just about ready to skip and get to the ending I knew was coming. It's a shame when that happens, really, because this could have been a most intriguing mystery novel otherwise. ...more
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