October 2022 group read - winner!

[Judy]

It's time to nominate for our October 2022 group read!

Please only nominate books written and published in the Golden Age period, or a little earlier or later - if in doubt whether a title is eligible, please ask.

As usual, just one nomination per group member, and only one book by any individual writer can be nominated per month. Happy nominating.

[Roman Clodia]

As it will be Halloween, I'll nominate the spooky Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie - I couldn't see it on the bookshelf as having been read but happy to withdraw it if I'm wrong.

[Judy]

I've just checked and we haven't read Murder Is Easy here before, so it is fine to nominate! It looks from reviews as if it is basically a standalone with a brief appearance by Supt Battle. Thanks RC, a great nomination to start us off.

[Rosina]

I have held off for a time, in the hope that it will be easily available everywhere, but I think it's time to nominate

. Written in 1962, but classed as a Crime Classic.

A car speeds down a road between miles of marshes and estuary flats, its passenger a young woman named Agnes - hands bloodied, numbed with fear, her world turned upside down. Meanwhile, the news of a girl found dead on the marsh is spreading round the local area. A masterpiece of suspense, Mary Kellys 1964 novel follows Agnes as she casts her mind back through the past few days to find the links between her husband, his friends, a mysterious stranger new to the village and a case of bloody murder. (From Goodreads)

The back of my paperback is very similar, but tantalisingly different. 'a young woman named Agnes, fresh from a discovery that has turned her world upside down' - no mention of bloodied hands. The news is of a body found on the marsh, and panic is spreading in its wake. The final two words are changed to 'unexplained death', rather than 'bloody murder'. And the date of the novel is given as 1962.

[Jill]

I will nominate Blue Murder byHarriet Rutland

That settles it, thought Smith savagely. He shall be murdered, even if I have to do it myself!The Hardstaffe family are not the nicest people in the world. In fact, he - schoolteacher, lothario and bully, she - chronic malcontent - and their horsey unmarried adult daughter seem to be prime candidates for murder. A writer planning these deaths, on paper at least, and a young girl, chased by old Hardstaffe, are the only outsiders in a deliciously neat, but nasty, case.Blue Murder was the last of Harriet Rutland’s mystery novels, first published in 1942. This new edition, the first in over 70 years, features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans

[Judy]

Thank you Rosina and Jill!

Nominations so far:

RC: Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie

Rosina: Due to a Death by Mary Kelly

Jill: Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland

[Susan]

Some great suggestions already. Can hardly believe it will be Halloween month - this year is going so quickly!

[Michaela]

I´ll try with another woman writer that did quite well in the last poll:

Post After Post-Mortem: An Oxfordshire Mystery by E.C.R. Lorac.

The Surrays and their five children form a prolific writing machine, with scores of treatises, reviews and crime thrillers published under their family name. Following a rare convergence of the whole household at their Oxfordshire home, Ruth – middle sister who writes 'books which are just books' – decides to spend some weeks there recovering from the pressures of the writing life while the rest of the brood scatter to the winds again. Their next return is heralded by the tragic news that Ruth has taken her life after an evening at the Surrays' hosting a set of publishers and writers, one of whom is named as Ruth's literary executor in the will she left behind.

Despite some suspicions from the family, the verdict at the inquest is suicide – but when Ruth's brother Richard receives a letter from the deceased which was delayed in the post, he enlists the help of CID Robert Macdonald to investigate what could only be an ingeniously planned murder.

At least in Germany and Austria it´s available on KU. Otherwise about 4 Euros/Pounds/Dollars, as far as I can make out. :)

[Abigail]

I’m always game for a Lorac!

[Sandy]

Michaela wrote: "I´ll try with another woman writer that did quite well in the last poll:

[book:Post After Post-Mortem: An Oxfordshire Mystery|60..."

In the US the kindle version that is not available until Feb '23.

[Judy]

Michaela, thank you for the nomination, but unfortunately it's not available in the US until February, as Sandy has just let us know. A pity, it's a good book - I've just read it.

Sorry about this, but would you be happy to choose another title instead, maybe another Lorac? It looks as if Two-Way Murder and Fire in the Thatch: A Devon Mystery are both available in the US and so are a few others.

[Michaela]

Thanks Judy! I wish other groups were as sensible as you with getting the books for everyone (f.e. in a tiny country like mine). :)

In this case I´d like to nominate Two-Way Murder by E.C.R. Lorac.

The blurb starts with It´s a dark and misty night..., so quite fitting for autumn. :)

[Susan in NC]

So many great choices - and I actually have this paperback, so yay! All of these are on my TBR list,so can’t lose.

This one is available on US Kindle for $7.99.

[Judy]

Thank you for changing your nomination, Michaela - I hope that eventually a lot of Lorac books will be available everywhere. :) This one does sound quite autumnal - here's the blurb:

'This is only a hill mist, not a real fog. You'll find it'll be perfectly clear when we run down into Fordings. Let's think - were you at the Hunt Ball last year, too?'

It is a dark and misty night - isn't it always? - and bachelors Nicholas and Ian are driving to the ball at Fordings, a beautiful concert hall in the countryside. There waits the charming Dilys Maine, and a party buzzing with rumours of one Rosemary Reeve who disappeared on the eve of this event the previous year, not found to this day. With thoughts of mysterious case ringing in their ears, Dilys and Nicholas strike a stranger on the drive back home, launching a new investigation and unwittingly reviving the search for what really became of Rosemary Reeve.

All the hallmarks of the Golden Age mystery are here in this previously unpublished novel by E.C.R. Lorac, boasting the author's characteristically detailed sense of setting and gripping police work.

[Judy]

Nominations so far:

RC: Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie

Rosina: Due to a Death by Mary Kelly

Jill: Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland

Michaela: Two-Way Murder by E.C.R. Lorac

[Jan C]

I'll nominate one from 1931 - Murder in a Library by Charles J. Dutton. Currently $1.99 on US Kindle.

A 60-year-old spinster librarian is found strangled in her office, while just outside her office is +50 patrons. The police chief turns to an old friend, Harley Manners, a professor of abnormal psychology.

[Jan C]

I think I liked Blue Way Murder - my review was Wow!

[Nike]

Michaela wrote: "Thanks Judy! I wish other groups were as sensible as you with getting the books for everyone (f.e. in a tiny country like mine). :)

In this case I´d like to nominate [bookcover:Two-Way Murder|5735..."

Unfortunately the books chosen by this group is rarely available in my country and never translated. I found one to download (in English) once and that's all. But I'll cross my fingers and wish that some day I will have the opportunity to read along with you. =)
I'm not complaining though, I'm reading way to many books in the same time anyway! I'm biding my time and meanwhile I just might finally finish my enormous "Currently Reading Stack" =D

[Susan]

Always a problem, Nike. Murder in a Library is sadly not available on kindle in the UK and £17.55 for paperback copy.

[Judy]

Yes, sorry to hear of the difficulties finding our books, Nike, but glad you have plenty to read!

[Judy]

Jan, thank you for nominating - but, as Susan has just posted above, unfortunately Murder in a Library isn't on Kindle in the UK and expensive in paperback.

Would you be happy to choose something else?

Thanks to Susan for checking out the availability.

[Jan C]

Okay.

How about The Yellow Bungalow Mystery: Another Case for Superintendent Anthony Slade by Leonard R. Gribble? It is $2.99 on Kindle here.

Some comments on Amazon make it sound as though there are some racial slurs, but that is par for the course for 1935.

A woman is found dead, killed by an ornate Arab dagger. Suspicion falls upon guests at a neighboring manor. Scotland Yard's Anthony Slade is called in.

Gribble is another publishing under a number of different names - at least 7.

[Sid]

I've not come across Gribble, but a quick look on Fantastic Fiction shows that he wrote They Kidnapped Stanley Matthews, which isn't listed on Goodreads, but :
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/le...

I saw Stan Matthews play in the twilight of his career when I were a nipper in the early 60s and went to see Stoke City every other Saturday. He was still majestic. It's probably a dreadful book, but I'd read it anyway, just for the nostalgia.

Sorry. More tedious and wholly irrelevant maunderings.

(For younger or non-British readers, Stanley Matthews was one of the all-time greats of English football - that's "soccer" to our transatlantic friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley...)

[Rosina]

The Yellow Bungalow mystery is available on Kindle Unlimited in the UK

[Judy]

Thank you for the changed nomination, Jan, and thanks to Rosina for checking availability. It's also £2.57 to buy on Kindle. Sounds interesting.

Leonard Gribble had a phenomenal number of pseudonyms, as you say, Jan!

Sid, he also wrote The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, which has been reprinted by British Library Crime Classics, so looks like he was a big football fan.

[Judy]

Nominations so far:

RC: Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie

Rosina: Due to a Death by Mary Kelly

Jill: Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland

Michaela: Two-Way Murder by E.C.R. Lorac

Jan: The Yellow Bungalow Mystery: Another Case for Superintendent Anthony Slade by Leonard R. Gribble

[Sid]

Judy wrote: "Sid, he also wrote The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, which has been reprinted by British Library Crime Classics, so looks like he was a big football fan."

Arsenal? Pah! Why would I want to read about Arsenal? 😊 Actually, I'm not really interested in football at all (although I'm immensely cheered by the Lionesses victory and what I hope will be its consequences for attitudes to women and girls in sport generally). My interest in the Stanley Matthews book was just misty-eyed childhood nostalgia.

On the other hand, I'd read The Lord's Cricket Ground Mystery like a shot, however dreadful it was...

[Susan]

Love football. Arsenal are kicking off the season tonight, Sid. I'm not a Gunner, but I will be watching.

[Sid]

Enjoy it, Susan! I know football brings huge pleasure to an awful lot of people. Sadly, I'm not really among them. I don't dislike it, it just doesn't do anything for me - but I do enjoy the QPR fans walking past our place from the local pub to the match on home game days, and hearing them celebrating/commiserating in the pub afterward. It's always very good-natured and a cheering feature of local life here.

Only 12 days to go until the first Test Match against South Africa... 😊

[ChrisGA]

fyi, Blue Murder is on Scribd...

[Judy]

The poll is now open - please choose the book you want to read in October!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

[Judy]

ChrisGA wrote: "fyi, Blue Murder is on Scribd..."

Thanks Chris, good to know!

[Judy]

Our poll is due to end tonight/early tomorrow - just checked and it is currently a tie between Blue Murder and Murder Is Easy! Exciting.

If you haven't voted yet/want to change your vote, here is the link again:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

[Judy]

The poll has finished and the winner is Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie, which will be our October group read.

As it was such a close poll, we will read the second-placed book, Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland, in November.

Thanks to everyone who nominated and voted. Full results:

Murder Is Easy (Superintendent Battle, #4) 11 votes, 44.0%
Blue Murder 10 votes, 40.0%
The Yellow Bungalow Mystery: Another Case for Superintendent Anthony Slade 2 votes, 8.0%
Due to a Death 1 vote, 4.0%
Two-Way Murder 1 vote, 4.0%

[Susan]

Both look great, Judy. Thanks, as always, to everyone for the brilliant suggestions.

[Jill]

Thanks Judy and Susan. Can't believe we are talking about October and November yet, but will be pleased to get out of this heat.

[Klowey]

Judy wrote: "The poll has finished and the winner is Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie, which will be our October group read.

As it was such a close poll, we will read the second-..."

Awesome! They both sound so good!

While there is a Kindle version of Blue Murder for only 99 cents, there is also a free-to-read online version here:
https://100vampirenovels.net/pdf-nove...

[Sid]

Thanks, Judy. Both safely on my Kindle and looking at me in a very come-hither sort of way. 😊

[Susan]

Blue Murder is 99p in the UK so if anyone intends to read along, they should download now, just in case the price goes up.

Jill, I agree about the heat! Too much of a good thing by far...

[Piyangie]

I'll join in for the Agatha Christie. I haven't read many mysteries this year.

[Susan]

You can't go wrong with a Christie, Piyangie :)

[Rosina]

I have to confess that I gave Murder is Easy only three stars (low for a Christie), and abandoned Blue Murder.

[Klowey]

Rosina wrote: "I have to confess that I gave Murder is Easy only three stars (low for a Christie), and abandoned Blue Murder."

I gave Murder Is Easy only 3 stars too. But now since I don't remember it, I'm going to give it another try.

Can you say more about why you gave up on "Blue Murder" without giving anything important away?

[Rosina]

I can't really give anything important away, since I didn't finish the book, and now, nearly three years later, my memory is a bit vague. But I believe it was distaste at the characters - and possibly the tone. I still have my Kindle copy, so may give it another try, when the Group reads it.

[Jan C]

Looking at my review of Blue Murder I apparently liked the ending although hadn't been too thrilled with most of the book. I may re-read it. And it appears that I read Murder is Easy so long ago that it isn't even marked as having been read. I do have that in paperback and Blue Murder on the Kindle.

[Susan]

I discovered I don't own Murder is Easy on kindle, so I must have last read it some time ago...

[Valerie]

I thought I had read all of Christie's mysteries, but I don't remember that one at all. So, this is very exciting - a 'new' Christie!

[Susan in NC]

Valerie wrote: "I thought I had read all of Christie's mysteries, but I don't remember that one at all. So, this is very exciting - a 'new' Christie!"

Same here!