Reading the Detectives discussion
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What mysteries are you reading at the moment? Old thread
Looks like I haven't posted recently. No golden age stuff currently.Earlier this month I finished:
Just Desserts by G.A. McKevett.Currently reading:
Killer Jam by Karen MacInerney
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener by M.C. Beaton
Hospitality and Homicide by Lynn Cahoon
I have just started An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and have been struck by the opening of the author's note: "A crime novelist, by virtue of his unpleasant craft...". I wonder whether in her later years she would still have used 'his'.Coincidentally, all the three books which the group are reading are written much after the Golden Age with this being the earliest. I found it surprising that as early as 1972 cremation was already a serious option: "“Cremation every time. There’s no private insurance, you tell me? Then get it all over as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible. Take my word, that’s what the deceased would want nine times out of ten..."
The attitude towards religion is also noticeable: "The cremation service had been spoken by the priest with carefully controlled speed and with a suggestion of apology in his tone as if to assure his hearers that, although he enjoyed a special dispensation, he didn’t expect them to believe the unbelievable."
Expression of such sentiments in popular fiction, I think, would have been impossible in an earlier era.
Cremation in the UK has been around since mid to late 19th century as even then burial space was running out in the cities. It became part of the law as early as 1902. I think in the UK some religious groups like the Jewish faith don't do it, but otherwise for decades it has probably been the preferred option for the majority.
Same in Australia as far as I know. My grandparents all chose cremation so far and a number were born pre 1900s. It is definitely the most popular except for some of the more orthodox religions and Catholics commonly choose burial. But it is a lifelong headache for their ancestors. We are spending our big to preserve the grave of my MIL’s mum who died giving birth to her. If we don’t pay up the grave gets removed. Big business obviously.
Jemima wrote: "Same in Australia as far as I know. My grandparents all chose cremation so far and a number were born pre 1900s. It is definitely the most popular except for some of the more orthodox religions and..."Jemima that’s horrible, I’d never heard of that! I am sorry, and I do know cremation was still somewhat controversial when my mom chose it for my dad in 1989 when he died. She made it clear when she had cancer four years ago that she wanted cremation, her and dad’s ashes mingled, and poured out to sea - and that’s what we did!
She figured with kids scattered all over the East Coast, there was no central burial spot anymore- her family are all buried in a Catholic cemetery back in Chicago, and her unmarried sisters plan to be there, but none of us live back there anymore.
Jemima wrote: "If we don’t pay up the grave gets removed. Big business obviously. "Back when I was doing family history, another researcher had deep Norwegian roots. She said that was common in Norway, that if you weren't able to keep up the burial payments they just moved someone else in. And that policy went back more than a century.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Jemima wrote: "If we don’t pay up the grave gets removed. Big business obviously. "Back when I was doing family history, another researcher had deep Norwegian roots. She said that was common in N..."
Wow - I guess if burial space is at a premium it makes sense, but if sincerely held religious beliefs dictate you must bury the dead, it puts the faithful, who may not have the endless wealth to maintain the burial plot, in a hell of a bind...thank you, ladies, I learned something today!
Interesting. See how wrong you can be when your knowledge is based solely on fiction! And yes, one did learn something.I guess, my comment was ill-informed but in fiction burials have still been going on. Does anybody care to point out when cremation became common in fiction in UK and Australia etc.?
Both of my parents chose cremations - ten years apart. We tried to remember where we had put my father's ashes so that hers could go at least nearby.In Chicago some years ago there was a big cemetery scandal - not sure if they were moving people out/burying people on top of them. But it was a big scandal. Multiple people paying for the same spot.
Jan C wrote: "Both of my parents chose cremations - ten years apart. We tried to remember where we had put my father's ashes so that hers could go at least nearby.In Chicago some years ago there was a big ceme..."
Oh, wow, I don’t remember that - I’m surprised I didn’t hear about it from my aunts, they’re the only ones still living up there.
Started reading An Aegean Prophecy which seems appropriate as the first murder occurs on the Sunday before Easter. Love this series, no idea why it has taken me so long to get back to it.
Thanks, Carolien, neverheard of that series, but it sounds intriguing *tosses another title on to the tottering TBR pile...*
Finished An Accidental Death by Peter Grainger. 5*A police procedural which is witty, clean and has no gore. First published in 2013, this is the first book of a series which already has seven more books.
Will start later today The Judge and His Hangman by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Dürrenmatt was awarded Switzerland's Schiller Prize in 1960.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Will start later today The Judge and His Hangman by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Dürrenmatt was awarded Switzerland's Schiller Prize in 1960."I see this is book 1 of a new-to-me author and series - I’ll be interested to see what you think (plus a prize winner!)
Susan in NC wrote: "I see this is book 1 of a new-to-me author and series - I’ll be interested to see what you think (plus a prize winner!) ."I think there are only 2 books in the series. GR says there is a bundle, but for some reason I chose to get the single title paperback.
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Murder at the Mardi Gras (1947) by Elisabet M. Stone. I'm a little more than half-way done and I'm not entirely sure I like it. The protagonist is a journalist and she just doesn't appeal to me. Stone has made her very rough-edged and foul-mouthed (for a vintage-era mystery)--especially since she seems to come from Louisiana's upper-class.
Reading American Gun Mystery. About halfway through and Ellery has just said "I know but I don't know." I certainly don't know right now.
Sandy wrote: "I've started Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg. Very light, set in India, written by a Brit. I heard about this series from Alexander McCall Smith and I can see the similarities with #1 L..."I've been meaning to try these out. I didn't know they were books but I saw a film called The Perfect Murder, which was based on one of these, which I liked very much. Later I discovered it was a series.
The most important fact about H.R.F.Keating is that he was a Britisher who had never been to India when he started his Inspector Ghote series set in Bombay and sometimes in other parts of India. It was only when the books had becomes successful that he deigned to make a short visit to India at his publisher's insistence and cost.This might be called a heroic feat of imagination or it might be called something else.
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I read this was a little Campion like, Judy? You must let me know. I haven't started it yet, but I have started:
They Rang Up the Police
and the next Poirot:
Cards on the Table(one of my favourites)
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I read this was a little Campion like, Judy? You must let me know ..."
That's interesting - the start is quite adventurous, so maybe! I haven't got all that far as yet though. I'll be getting on to They Rang Up the Police after this.
Starting to struggle now with Murder At the Bookshop.
It started out as quite a reasonably taut detective story but has now brought in gangs, masks, kidnappings, aggressive guard-dogs, faked deaths, etc and got completely silly. It rather reminds me of Dickson Carr in the mix of very careful, forensically-planned and detailed crimes combined with melodramatic absurdity in the plot.
The Detection Club's rules about gangs could have been usefully followed here, it seems to me. The big problem with gangs is that unless there's a colourful mastermind at the top, the whodunit element becomes completely interesting. And even if the mastermind is charismatic, the availability of henchmen can mess up the business of alibis.
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Jill wrote: "Now starting A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. Third in the Flavia de Luce series."I am yet to read that one though I have read books 4 and 5.
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Judy, I guess you are more generous than some of us. For me gangs are a strict no no. Even Christie's The Big Four is boring compared to her other Poirot books. I think If you want gangs, read Edgar Wallace- a GA writer I will never read again!
While reading Death of a Busybody by George Bellairs, I came across a description of the victim's drawing-room which included 'novels of a moral type'.I have no idea what this phrase means. Do religious people (in context the relevant characteristic of the victim) read novels different from others and if so, which ones?
I started American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century
for a book club. It is a turn of the century true crime story, and is well-written and interesting, although the crime at the center of the story has yet to occur. There are a lot of photographs of Evelyn Nesbit throughout the book, and even by today's standard you could understand her appeal. There is something like a chameleon about her, in that she looks totally different depending on her pose and costuming.
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I have no id..."
There were certainly children's books, given as Sunday School prizes, with moral/religious storylines. I remember Treasures of the Snow was one such title which I received at Sunday School as a child. I think there were probably similar adult books but I'm not sure.
Morality plays are defined as a kind of drama with personified abstract qualities as the main characters and presenting a lesson about good conduct and character, popular in the 15th and early 16th centuries.I suspect "novels of a moral type" might fall into the same sort of definition. Here is a GR shelf called moral. (And some are definitely more recent than the 15th/16th Centuries!)
In an attempt to google 'novels of a moral type' I also came across this list but I doubt Miss Tither's books would belong to a list of which the first three members are Nietzche, Paine and Machiavelli and one of the novels is Voltaire's Candide.This is a list of goodreads members shelving books as moral i.e. dealing with moral issues. This makes sense in our era and even in 1942.
However in the book the phrase must mean books of the kind Judy describes, but for adults. I wonder whether such books are still being published.
I've completed An Aegean Prophecy. Andreas Kaldis is assigned to investigate the murder of an old monk on Patmos, but his murder turns out to be closely linked to politics of the Eastern Orthodox Church and secretive monasteries on Mount Athos. Add in Serbian war criminals and a few Russian connections and you have an interesting plot in a beautiful setting. Andreas remains one of my favourite policemen and this is a series that needs more of my attention!
Thanks, Carolien. I've added the first in the series to my over-burdened wish list!
Tonight I will start The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas. In 2009 it won the CWA International Dagger, but I'm reading it because she was awarded Spain's 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature. They are a series of annual prizes awarded in Spain by the Princess of Asturias Foundation (previously the Prince of Asturias Foundation) to individuals, entities or organizations from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, humanities, and public affairs.
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Currently, though, back in Aberdeen with Flesh House
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I am just about to start it, so that is encouraging
Bicky wrote: "OK, you have made me push Death in Captivity to the top of 'have to be read right now' list."Same here, but the kindle edition isn't available in my country yet.
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Reading the Detectives
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Yes, seems the wise thing to do unless you have a mind to use it or perhaps even then.