Reading the Detectives discussion
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What mysteries are you reading at the moment? Old thread
Abbey wrote: "Jan C wrote: "Jan C wrote: "I have gone back to Look to the Lady by Margery Allingham. ...Roku doesn't appear to contain BritBox "mine does, check the new streaming c..."
I have been stalling on signing up for Acorn and MHZ - which used to be carried on one of Chicago's PBS stations - but apparently not on North Carolina's.
Have started Hamlet, Revenge!, but finding it a bit hard going. Don't know if that is just down to me though.
Jill wrote: "Have started Hamlet, Revenge!, but finding it a bit hard going. Don't know if that is just down to me though."well, don't beat yourself up about it dear. His writing is densely layered, initially slow-moving while he sets-the-scene, and extremely old-fashioned in style. He LOVES "asides", eliptical plot moves, very very subtle shadings, a word or two here, "maybe" a touch of something there, several things happening all over the place, while you're just trying to wend through that forest of prose...
MY kind of cream -grin- but YMMV.
Sandy wrote: "Reading the GR synopsis reminded me that the podcast The Readers has a group read of Strangers on a Train later this summer. I plan to read it as it is another classic I missed."It is a great book Sandy but is different from the Hitchcock film. I think I liked it better.
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Judy wrote: "I'm enjoying Hamlet. Revenge but, like Jill, also finding it slightly hard going at times, plus it is a job to keep track of all the characters! I'm glad to be reading this one on paper rather than..."That is exactly the problem I am having with it.
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Doesn't bode well for my Hoopla edition!
Sandy wrote: "[after Judy wrote: "I'm enjoying Hamlet. Revenge but, like Jill, also finding it slightly hard going at times, plus it is a job to keep track of all the characters!]: Doesn't bode well for my Hoopla edition! "Thanks for alerting me about the Hoopla editions for Innes! I just checked and, no, theirs (Stratus Edition) doesn't have a Cast of Characters either, alas.
I *love* it when authors thoughtfully include that Cast of Characters at the front of the book - Ellery Queen was particularly good at snappy short descriptions, very funny stuff, but it not only quickly brought you into the world of that story, it made things much easier when you got confused about the rich guy's driver or his third-ex-wife or the policeman's best friend who only shows up twice, sort-of-thing.
HAMLET, REVENGE! would have benefited greatly from such.
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This is a noir-type thriller about a gambler who meets a woman while on holiday on the Cote d'Azur and follows her back to Edinburgh. I've started even though I'm already reading too many other books and it looks very good.
Started off on Enigma last night- just one chapter in so no comment for now.
Oh lucky you Lady Clementina re Enigma. (Don't worry, I will post no spoilers.) I made my daughter watch the film at the weekend because she is going to Bletchley Park on a school trip this week - she was super-grumpy about it but I am sure she will get so much more out of the trip, having watched it. Obv I will try and make her read it too at some point but she's only 13 and the book is fractionally darker than the film. But either way, film or book, it's just a quality piece of work.
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Judy wrote: "I'd love to go to Bletchley Park, Annabel - I read The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WWII Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There a while ago now and found it..."That would be interesting. I haven't read that book but I have read The Code Book by Simon Singh- all about cryptography and codes - it also covered the Enigma machine - though despite his explanations being very easy to understand in general, I didn't quite grasp the working of the enigma machine.
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Bletchley Park fascinates me. The work of Alan Turing and the other cryptographers was just amazing. I think one of the saddest stories about the breaking of the German code was the fact that England (Churchill) was aware that the bombing of Coventry was imminent but could not warn the people because it would reveal that the code had been broken. Only one of the terrible choices that had to be made to keep that secret.
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On an unrelated note, the buddy read threads for Hamlet, Revenge! are now up:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I saw both seasons of 'Bletchley Circle', which were well done, but mostly concerned the women who had worked there. Since they couldn't tell anyone even years after, they could only discuss those years among themselves.
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I thought the TV series was excellent. The actors( not supposed to used actresses) were very convincing
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Betsy wrote: "I saw both seasons of 'Bletchley Circle', which were well done, but mostly concerned the women who had worked there. Since they couldn't tell anyone even years after, they could only discuss those ..."I shall look it up.
Gosh, another Wentworth I have never heard of - this is torture. On Bletchley, the mention of Coventry makes me think of To Say Nothing About The Dog, one of my absolutely favourite books, a time travel caper which has a lot to do with WW2 and the bombing of Coventry (and also Victorian house-parties, croquet games, jumble sales, cats, etc...)
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On Bletchley, the mention of Coventry makes me think of To Say Nothing About The Dog, one of my absolutely favourite books, a time..."
I stashed up a whole load of the early Wentworths when Dean Street Press was giving them away free on Kindle each week in the UK - they are still doing repeat offers on them.
So now it is a case of reading through them! This does mean that I'm reading a lot of the lesser-known Wentworths before I actually get to the famous ones, though!
I picked up Talking About Detective Fiction by P. D. James. Sounds interesting.
I'm reading The Wolfes Widow. It is a great series by Victoria Abbott about a girl who buys rare and antique books for a wealthy household but there is a twist to each book.
Currently reading
Arson Plus and Other Stories: Collected Case Files of the Continental Op: The Early Years, Volume 1 by Dashiell Hammett.Also reading
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich, the first book in the Stephanie Plum series.
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Sandy wrote: "Oh Stephanie Plum! The first half dozen or so are hilarious."I have the first 11 or so on my Nook. Enjoying the first one so far.
Jan C wrote: "I enjoy the Continental Op stories."Thanks to a sale from Open Road Media on Monday, I was able to grab all but two books in this series for my Nook.
Brina wrote: "I picked up Talking About Detective Fiction by P. D. James. Sounds interesting."I read that book, Brina. It is short and enjoyable but I wished it had been longer and she had gone into a little more detail/information.
Brina wrote: "I picked up Talking About Detective Fiction by P. D. James. Sounds interesting."I read this with a book group the year before. Quite a nice read but she wasn't much of a fan of AC- though I like the latter's puzzles much better than PD James'.
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I've now started Anthony Berkeley's Poisoned Chocolates Case (sorry, I can't remember the exact title). This is an exact result of reading the Martin Edwards Golden Age Detectives book (which I am still halfway through). It was described as an actual classic of the genre, so I couldn't resist.So far, I am finding the characterisation a bit limited after Christie and Dorothy Sayers, but the puzzle element is entertaining.
Surprising that PD wouldn't like AC. I didn't really get a chance to start because my eyes got heavy. Its a short book-- 195 short pages so I should finish and report back later today.
Just starting Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood. Haven't seen any of the TV series but I know who the actors are, so probably will picture them whilst reading it. Don't know if that is a good thing or not.
Susan wrote: "I remember being SO confused that PD James did not admire AC. I thought they shared a lot - the closed community, etc. I like James, but I would agree that AC plots much better."I think James enjoyed *reading* AC but didn't admire her writing per se, quality-wise, literary-wise. Thought she was a bit of a sell-out, and pandering to her audiences which, imo, in the early 1960s when James was first being published, Christie (or her publishers) was/were!
Christie's 1930s and 1940s plots were superb, her twists, turns and double-backs became such a Big Thing that they seemed to overwhelm both the stories and the author herself. By the late 1950s Christie was essentially re-writing her own works/styles again and again, but each with a nice bit of twist, "good reads" but not great. And she had been Great.
Her publicity machine took over, and Christie kept writing for contractural reasons mainly, I think. Some of the books were good, some of them dreadful, most of them "just ok". But "everybody" by then (1960s) always and forEVER, wanted there to be a new "Christie For Christmas", every year!
I think that sort of near-rote writing is what James didn't much like.
Jill wrote: "Just starting Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood. Haven't seen any of the TV series but I know who the actors are, so probably will picture them whilst reading it. Don't k..."Books are MUCH better - series is fun, but far more "traditional" than Greenwood's characters are on the pages. She's a richly deeply evocative writer, and the tv shows are lightish in style, the books far darker underneath all the beautiful things and people.
and the series made major cast changes that I, as a long-time series reader, simply found "wanting". I know they had to keep the cast numbers down but one of the major appealing things of the written series is the gradual accumulation of friends and family (well, sort of) that Phryne grows around her, and how they ALL participate as intelligent, fun-loving types in her mysteries.
Plus they rubbed most of the really dark bits down to light greys on the films too - one of the wonderful things about the books is Greenwood's juxtasposition of the good stuff and the horrific (well-researched btw) - makes the stories really plush, very effective.
I caught up with the book and the comments here. I've read half and PD is essentially saying that-- she used the word cliched. At this point I haven't read the full gamut of Christie's cases but now I am curious to see the cases repeat themselves. Kerry Greenwood sounds interesting to me now as well but after this book I am going to take a break and switch to a different genre.
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That's just how I felt when I read this one fairly recently - I remember loving it as a teenager but it didn't quite live up to my memories.
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I read the books first and much prefer them over the TV series - which is great for the costumes and still enjoyable. I imagine it is which you did first. My biggest complaint is the change in the detective (Jack Robinson?) character. I liked the guy who just wanted to go home to his wife and orchids.
The name of the detective is Jack Robinson? Ok, as a baseball fan, now I'm curious to read Phrynne Fisher. I'm going to look for Cocaine Blues.
Brina wrote: "The name of the detective is Jack Robinson? Ok, as a baseball fan, now I'm curious to read Phrynne Fisher. I'm going to look for Cocaine Blues."I've been wanting to read Phrynne Fisher too- I've seen some of teh TV series and enjoyed it, especially the '20s atmosphere.
Lady Clementina wrote: "I've been wanting to read Phrynne Fisher too- I've seen some of teh TV series and enjoyed it, especially the '20s atmosphere. ."well, then you should VERY much enjoy the books! they're much better than the tv series for the depth of character AND the settings, the tv version was good, and fun; the books are superb! And very, very "1920s".
yes , the writing is a bit spoofy at times, but lovingly done, and some of the exploits are over-the-top, but geez, it's fun!
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Quite honestly I don't really think of it as a mystery, more of a romance with mystery elements - not as much far-fetched plotting as in the others by her I've read so far. It's a bit like Grey Mask (which came the following year) in terms of the characters, I think. One for true romantics, though the hero can get a bit annoying!
Finished The Daughter of Time
by Josephine Teyhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Started Rosemary's Baby
by Ira Levin
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Reading the Detectives
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mine does, check the new streaming channels menu thing, altho I originally found it via a big, one-third-size page ad on the Roku Home screen!
Amazon has Acorn and may feel they don't *need* BritBox; I've got both via Roku and no, the contents don't much overlap.