The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer (1933)

 

In addition to her Regency and other historical fiction novels, Georgette Heyer wrote twelve mysteries. I’d read that they weren’t that good but when I found a copy of The Unfinished Clue for 50 cents while we were in Central Queensland, I grabbed it. Just in case. And just as well that I did because it was a delight from start to finish.

General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith belonged to that class of soldier who believed that much is accomplished by rudeness. He had been married to his much younger wife, Fay, for about five years and she had cowered under his bullish nature. The story begins with Fay’s younger sister, Dinah, coming to visit them at their country estate and being ungraciously greeted by Sir Arthur. A group of people which included the General’s son and nephew had also been invited to stay for the weekend. The General was clearly not happy about the presence of some of the visitors, especially when he found out that his son was bringing his Mexican dancer fiancée.

Two sisters couldn’t have been more different. Dinah was completely unfazed by Sir Arthur’s belligerence and baited him mercilessly. Fay tried to keep the peace but after five years of the General’s aggressive domination, she had been reduced to nervous exhaustion.

Between him and his sister-in-law there raged a guerrilla warfare which both enjoyed. They disliked one another with equal cordiality.

During the course of the weekend, Sir Arthur was stabbed to death in his study, and everyone was under suspicion. The local police knew that the General had many enemies. In fact, they believed that you would be hard put to find somebody who had a good word for the man. It was going to be a difficult investigation and Inspector Harding from Scotland Yard was brought in to help solve the crime. 

The Unfinished Clue is a solid mystery with a clever plot. With interesting and very likeable characters, plenty of humour and wit and topped off with a satisfying romance; this was a great read. 

Fay cast a startled glance at the clock, and sprang up.  ‘Heavens, it’s past four! I must fly or Arthur will have a fit. He can’t bear unpunctuality. Are you ready?’ ‘I’m ready,’ said Dinah, ‘but I shall dawdle for ten minutes for the good of Arthur’s soul.’

A description of Camilla Halliday, one of the weekend guests:

‘She had corn-coloured hair, shingled and perfectly waved, a pair of shallow blue eyes, and a predatory little mouth…’

I Will Repay - a Sequel to The Scarlet PimperneI

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David (1793)

I Will Repay (1906) is one of the numerous sequels to Baroness Emmuska Orczy's famous book, The Scarlet Pimpernel. It's a stand alone book but you do need to read The Scarlet Pimpernel beforehand or you won't catch an important allusion that is referred to.

Paris, 1783, and the code of honour among the French aristocracy was rigid and without logic. When the wealthy bourgeois Paul Delourede blundered and inadvertently offended a young hot-headed aristocrat, Vicomte de Marny, the only acceptable outcome was a duel.
Delourede was a brilliant swordsman and having the advantage, his intention was to disarm the younger man, but the Vicomte became reckless and lunged at his opponent, falling upon the other's sword.

Vicomte de Marny had a younger sister, Juliette, fourteen years old at the time. Their invalid father, the Duc de Marny, had lost his wife ten years previously and his mind was fast losing its reason. Juliette was his joy but the Vicomte was his pride. On him the old man rested his hopes and in his future he saw the glory of the family name recreated.
On the evening of the fateful duel, the Victome's body was carried home. The old man, when left alone with his daughter, threw off the lethargy he had shown on first seeing his dead son, and feverishly seized his daughter's hand. Placing it upon her dead brother's breast, he made her swear an oath to avenge her brother's death.

Ten years later, Delourede was a well-known and respected citizen. Up until this time Juliette had nourished revenge in her heart but when circumstances placed her under Delourede's protection, she began to know the real character of the man and was torn between his kindness and growing love for her and the oath she'd made.

I mentioned that The Scarlet Pimpernel should be read prior to this book. He plays a short but important role in this story and a knowledge of the first book helps in appreciating the Pimpernel's comments to Delourede about love and idolatry which hearken back to his own painful experience.

 "And 'twill be when you understand that your idol has feet of clay that you'll learn the real lesson of love," said Blakeney earnestly.

"Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after that—the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart."

The author's sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel retain the author's romantic, melodramatic tone and tend to have more mature themes than the original. I Will Repay, would suit readers about 13 years and up.

An excellent & comprehensive website containing information on all things Scarlet Pimpernel is Blakeney Manor. The books are available as e-texts on this site also.

Henrietta's House by Elizabeth Goudge (1942)

Henrietta’s House was written in 1942. I’m always amazed that there were so many women writing ‘domestic fiction’ during the war years. I read that the stubborn heroism of the civilian population was a necessary "military weapon" to stand against the demoralisation and capitulation of the British people, especially during the Blitz. 

Henrietta’s House is a children’s novel and wouldn't be classed as domestic fiction, but it was written in desperate times and so could be thought of as a stand against hopelessness and despair. Why write a children's novel if you succumbed to the idea that the world as you knew it wouldn't be around much longer? It feels like a fairy tale to a certain extent but in Goudge’s hands it becomes a decidedly moral tale - in the best sense. ❤️

Henrietta, with her brother, Hugh Anthony, aunt & uncle, grandparents & their elderly friends, as well as a couple of dogs, head off in horse-drawn vehicles and a new car for a picnic to celebrate Hugh’s birthday. Along the way the car breaks down & gets abandoned, and the whole company is swept into strange adventures in which some refining of character occurs. ❤️

There’s also humour throughout Henrietta’s House. One of the guests on the picnic was Mrs Jameson. She was a neighbour & the rich widow of a missionary ‘who had had the misfortune to be eaten by cannibals, had become a little peculiar in her ways after her sorrow and was rather an anxiety to take out.’ Grandfather had told Henrietta that ‘one must be very kind to people in this unfortunate condition.’

Kindness, respect for old age & deliverance from pride are themes throughout the story. 

‘Canon and Mrs Roderick in spite of having had many children of their own still adored the species.’

‘They hardly spoke, they were so busy absorbing the beauty into their very souls.’

‘When a man loses his pride he often finds his heart.’

A lovely story for the young and anyone else who appreciates good children’s literature. 

John Macnab by John Buchan (1925)

Two distinguished highflyers had separately been to see Dr. Acton Croke. Both were suffering from a common ailment - they had all grown too competent and comfortable and their doctor had given them both the same diagnosis and suggested treatment:

“You’ve got to rediscover the comforts of your life by losing them for a little…
You need to be made to struggle for your life again.”

The good doctor’s suggestions, as a friend and not a medical man, included dropping into another world, a harder one, for a month or two; stealing a horse in some part of the world where that crime was punishable by hanging, or to induce the newspapers to accuse them of something shady that would require a great effort to clear up.

Sir Edward Leithen, a barrister‘who had left forty behind him but was on the pleasant side of fifty,’ and John Palliser-Yeates, 45 years, an eminent banker known for his youthful athleticism, discovered their common complaint when they happened to dine at the same club that evening.

Lord Charles Lamancha, a cabinet minister in his early forties, was also there with a young friend, Archie Roylance, who was endeavouring to cheer him up. The three older men were close friends but were surprised to find they all suffered from the same ennui.

Archie Roylance stared blankly from one to the other, as if some new thing had broken in upon his simple philosophy of life.
“You fellows beat me,” he cried. “Here you are, every one of you a swell of sorts, with everything to make you cheerful, and you’re grousin’ like a labour battalion! You should be jolly well ashamed of yourselves.”

Archie’s advice was to go and do some hard exercise like sweating ten hours a day on a steep hill but he had a moment of illumination when the men responded that it would do no good. He recounted the story of Jim Tarras, a poacher on a grand scale, and the three men decided to take a leaf from that man’s book; to do something ‘devilish difficult, devilish pleasant, and calculated to make a man long for a dull life.’
Archie was staying at a lonely, isolated house in the Scottish Highlands and the three friends plotted to go there in secret and join him. Their plan was to inform three Scottish estates in writing that they would be poaching on their properties during a given time and would take two stags and a salmon from each estate.

‘The animal, of course, remains your property and will be duly delivered to you. It is a condition that it must be removed wholly outside your bounds. In the event of the undersigned failing to achieve his purpose he will pay as forfeit one hundred pounds, and if successful fifty pounds to any charity you may appoint.’

The letters were sent from London and signed with the nom de guerre, ‘John Macnab.’ It was imperative that whether they failed or succeeded, the trio must not be caught, but there were complications from the very start.

One of my favourite characters in this book is Sir Archie Roylance, who having implicated himself with ‘Macnab,’ is totally smitten by one of the Scottish laird’s daughters.

He was in the miserable position of having a leg in both camps, of having unhappily received the confidences of both sides, and whatever he did he must make a mess of it.

At the back of his head he had that fear of women as something mysterious and unintelligible which belongs to a motherless and sisterless childhood, and a youth spent almost wholly in the company of men. He had immense compassion for a s*x which seemed to him to have a hard patch to hoe in the world, and this pitifulness had always kept him from any conduct which might harm a woman. His numerous fancies had been light and transient like thistledown, and his heart had been wholly unscathed. Fear that he might stumble into marriage had made him as shy as a woodcock—a fear not without grounds, for a friend had once proposed to write a book called Lives of the Hunted, with a chapter on Archie.

John Macnab has been called ‘the sunniest of Buchan’s fictions’ and is his second most famous novel. It mixes comedy, adventure and friendship with an underlying attitude that life is what you make it.
Although more light-hearted than most of Buchan’s other novels, it is a great adventure story with a delightful romantic element.

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie (1936)

 

Murder in Mesopotamia is another book that came out of Christie's first-hand experience of working on archaeological sites with her husband. The setting of this book is the excavation a large Assyrian city about a day and a half’s journey from Baghdad. The book is narrated by Miss Amy Leatheran, a thirty-two-year-old nurse who had lately been employed by Dr. Leidner, the leader of the expedition.

Dr. Leidner had been worried for some time about his wife, Louise’s, health. She was suffering from ‘fancies’ as well as recurring nervous terrors and as a result the atmosphere at the dig was very tense. Nurse Leatheran was to keep an eye on Louise and help her to feel ‘safe.’
By the time Leatheran had been at the dig for about a week she had an uneasy sense that something really was wrong and that the sense of strain and constraint among the expedition team was genuine.
Hercule Poirot comes on the scene after a murder occurs. It looks like it must have been committed by a member of the expedition team and Poirot expects the murderer will strike again.
We find out much about the various characters’ backgrounds and their relationships with each other as Poirot conducts his investigations. A red herring is thrown in to confuse everything but eventually Poirot brings his investigation to a surprise conclusion.
Apart from the archaeological setting, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as some of her others, e.g. They Came to Baghdad. Nurse Leatheran was a pain, not to mention a lousy nurse - patronising and full of herself, with a bustling attitude of 'Come, come, that's enough of that.' Followed up by a slap on the face. That didn't endear me to her.
As usual, Christie included a nice little twist to reveal the suspect.

Even though this book is not one of my favourites, it held my interest throughout.

A good website for all things Agatha is https://www.agathachristie.com & if you haven't yet read any of her books here are some suggestions: Nine Christie Novels for Newcomers. I'm reading through her books that have a Middle East/Archaeological setting.

The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry (1990) – The William Monk Series #1

 

I’ve finished reading the first three books in Anne Perry’s William Monk series which are set in Victorian London. The first book is The Face of a Stranger.

William Monk is a police detective and the story begins with him waking up in a hospital. He’d been unconscious after a severe accident where he was a passenger in a carriage and the driver had been thrown off and killed. He has no memory of the accident and no idea of who he is. His memory is completely blank.  A clue to his identity comes when he is visited by a man named Runcorn. It happens that this man is his superior in the police force and his Nemesis, as he later discovers. 

When Monk recovers sufficiently, he goes back to work as a detective. He knows that if it is discovered that he has lost his memory, he will lose his job and would probably end up in a workhouse. So by deduction and some internal instinct, he pieces together who he is (or was), all the while terrified that his secret will be discovered.

When he first looks in the mirror he sees the ‘Face of a Stranger.’ In some ways the whole premise of Monk’s story is implausible but it is an interesting idea. As Monk meets people at the police department and on the case he is assigned to on his return to work, he has no idea if he has met them before, if they like or dislike him, or what his relationship to them has been in the past.

Monk is a brilliant, arrogant detective and he discovers that while he is respected, he is also feared and generally disliked. Did anyone care for him? Did anyone love him? He discovers from letters in his room where he lodged that he has a sister, Beth, in the country. She wrote to him often, but he hadn’t seen her for years and rarely wrote back to her. He visits Beth and her husband, who accept him readily and don’t expect much from him. This gives him pause – was he really so insular and uncaring? He kept his memory loss a secret but let them know that he had been in hospital and was not yet fully recovered. What kind of a man was he? Occasionally he has flashes of remembrance but the past is still dark. 

Runcorn obviously hates him and Monk suspects that he knows his memory is affected and if the opportunity came would be happy to get rid of his subordinate. Why was this man so antagonistic to him?

Runcorn assigns Monk to a difficult case involving the murder of Jocelyn Gray, son of Lord Shelburne.  Gray was celebrated as a hero of the Crimean War and returned home with a leg injury which left him with a limp. While pursuing his investigations, Monk meets Hester Latterly, who had worked as a nurse in Crimea and eventually she helps Monk solve the case. 

Monk is assigned John Evan, a young policeman, to assist in the case. Over time Evan proves to be a true friend who respects his senior officer and learns about his memory loss.

Perry captures Victorian London well. Sometimes she tends to be repetitive and ‘tells’ rather than ‘shows’ the attitudes of the time – class distinctions is an example. It seems that Monk had a chip on his shoulder about his origins and she labours that at times. The murder case involved a man of the upper classes and Runcorn didn’t want to upset anyone by Monk’s findings in the case. The three books that I’ve read so far contain quite a bit of social commentary which sometimes feels overdone. The Crimean War is referred to often which added some more layers to the story. This was interesting and inspired me to learn more about the subject. 

One of the things I liked most about this book was Monk’s objective discovering and examination of who he was. He didn’t like what he saw. It had a redemptive aspect in some ways. Here is a man given a second chance at making his soul.

As the first book in a series, The Face of a Stranger was excellent and I thought the best out of the first three. 

A Dangerous Mourning (1991) #2

Monk, still struggling with amnesia, is assigned to investigate the murder of Octavia Haslett, the daughter of the wealthy aristocrat, Sir Basil Moidore. Octavia is found stabbed to death in her bedroom and Monk insists that the murderer must be either a family member or a servant.

Hester Latterly features prominently in this book. She and Monk have similar reactive personalities and often clash with each other but in this book they start to understand one another more. When Monk refuses to arrest one of the servants for the murder he is fired by Runcorn and he has to give up the murder investigation. He asks Hester to get entry to the Moidore home by becoming a live in nurse to Octavia’s mother who is in a fragile state after her daughter’s murder.

Hester plays a major role in the solving of this murder and it is she who asks the brilliant barrister, Oliver Rathbone, to defend the charge against the accused servant. There’s a twist to the solution of this story which was cleverly done although once again, Perry tended to overplay the class consciousness theme.

Defend and Betray (1992) #3

There are some dark themes in this book, s*xual abuse being the major one. A courtroom drama towards the end deals with this. I was surprised and put off by the details that came out at the trial and questioned whether such things would have been made public in Victorian England. 

General Thaddeus Carlyon, a military hero, meets his death not on the battlefield but in a freak accident while attending a dinner party at the home of a friend. The freak accident turns out to be murder and the general’s wife confesses to it.

William Monk is really a background character to this story, which was disappointing. He goes off and investigates clues to his past in different places while playing a secondary role in the mystery. Oliver Rathbone’s performance at the trial was a highlight. In the days before the trial he and Monk try to break through the wall that the guilty woman erected to get to the truth. 

It appears that Oliver and Hester may have a relationship developing. But what about William Monk…?

Some thoughts generally:

I was pleased to find a modern author who could write a clean sort of mystery that didn’t feel anachronistic. Defend & Betray did deal with themes that were sordid, even though they were dealt with in the context of a courtroom trial. This is as far as I’ve read in the William Monk series so I can’t speak about the rest of them.

Having read three of Perry’s books, it seems that moral dilemmas are a focus in her writing. In Books #1 and #2, a murder was committed where the accused, although found guilty, was in a way justified in doing what they did or driven to it because of circumstances. 

I’m still interested in this series. Monk’s amnesia and search for his identity and past are drawing cards.

As a Blackwell’s Books affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie (1951)

 

‘Outside in Bank Street it was sunny and full of swirling dust and the noises were terrific and varied. There was the persistent honking of motor horns, the cries of vendors of various wares. There were hot disputes between small groups of people who seemed ready to murder each other but were really fast friends; boys and children were selling every type of tree, sweetmeats, oranges and bananas, bath towels, combs, razor blades and other assorted merchandise carried rapidly through the streets on trays. There was also a perpetual and ever renewed sound of throat clearing and spitting, and above it the thin melancholy wail of men conducting donkeys and horses amongst the stream of motors and pedestrians shouting, “Balek — Balek!”

It was eleven o’clock in the morning in the city of Baghdad.’

It is 1950 and everyone is coming to Baghdad.
Mr. Dakin, the undercover head of British Intelligence in Baghdad, is awaiting Henry Carmichael who is returning to Iraq with evidence to back up his fantastic story of an international plot involving a deadly weapon.

‘In substance, it is exactly like the Fifth Column activities at the beginning of the last war, only this time it is on a world-wide scale.’

Dakin’s best and most reliable man has either gone mad or his story is true. Four men with similar features to Carmichael have already been murdered in Persia and Iraq. He didn’t get away unsuspected and the enemy are on his trail. When he enters Baghdad the danger will be even greater.
World leaders hoping to promote peace are coming to Baghdad for a secret summit and Dakin is desperate to have Carmichael’s evidence to present to them.

Meanwhile in London, Victoria Jones, a young Cockney typist just fired from her job, is sitting in a park eating her lunch when Edward, a handsome young man, strikes up a conversation. Victoria, who considers herself an excellent judge of character, is immediately smitten, so much so that when she hears that he is heading to Baghdad the next day to work for a Dr. Rathbone, she decides that somehow, she would get herself to Baghdad.

They Came to Baghdad is one of the few Christie novels that is a spy/political thriller rather than her typical detective novel.
I think her detective novels are better than her spy thrillers but this book was a fun read with a complicated plot full of people who are not what they seem.
It took me a while to figure out that Victoria Jones was the main character. She didn’t seem very promising at first with her tendency to tell elaborate creative lies to make her life more interesting. Her sudden decision that she was in love with a man she’d barely talked to gave all the appearance of an airhead; but she was also generous, courageous and thoroughly optimistic, and she grew on me.

‘She, Victoria Jones, a little London typist, had arrived in Baghdad, had seen a man murdered almost before her eyes, had become a secret agent or something equally melodramatic, and had finally met the man she loved in a tropical garden with palms waving overhead, and in all probability not far from the spot where the original garden of Eden was said to be situated.’

Victoria’s quick wits and inventive qualities are given plenty of scope in Baghdad where she is caught up in a kidnapping and a murder and manages to talk her way into working at an archaeological dig by posing as an anthropologist. Through it all she matures and learns some truths about human nature while keeping her inherent optimism and revealing her true mettle.

‘Surely those were the things that mattered — the little every day things, the family to be cooked for, the four walls that enclosed the home, the one or two cherished possessions…
Humility is what keeps you sane and a human being…’

They Came to Baghdad was a good Christie book to follow on from her autobiographical, Come, Tell Me How You Live, where she recounts her time working and travelling with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, in Syria and other parts of the Middle East.
It also captures a very different Baghdad to that of today, just over 70 years later.

Interesting links:

Mysteries and the Middle East

Agatha Christie in Egypt & the Near East

Love by Elizabeth von Arnim (1925)

Love was the second novel I’d read by Elizabeth von Arnim, and along with Edith Wharton, she shot up on my reading radar. Both authors have gotten under my skin with their beautiful literary writing and their sensitive treatment of women’s issues and sometimes difficult themes. In the context of the times in which they lived, they explored subjects that tended to be either avoided or were taboo.

Wharton and von Arnim’s lives overlapped; both were born in the 1860’s and died at age 75 years in 1937 and 1941 respectively. Both belonged to wealthy, upper-class families and spent a good portion of their lives in Europe.

Where Edith Wharton wrote with a good dose of realism, Elizabeth Von Arnim’s writing has a gentler, more subtle tone, almost whimsical at times, and in The Enchanted April and Love, she leaves the reader to imagine the long-term outcomes of her characters’ lives. I didn’t mind this with the first book but it left the ending of Love uncertain and therefore a little unsatisfying. However, it is a memorable story and has lingered with me.

I keep wondering how everything is working out for these fictional characters!

Publisher’s Summary

‘A gentle romance begins innocently enough in the stalls of a London theatre where Catherine is enjoying her ninth and Christopher his thirty-sixth visit to the same play. He is a magnificent young man with flame-coloured hair. She is the sweetest little thing in a hat. There is just one complication: Christopher is 25, while Catherine is just a little bit older. Flattered by the passionate attentions of youth, Catherine, with marriage and motherhood behind her, is at first circumspect, but finally succumbs to her lover’s charms.’

©1925 Elizabeth von Arnim (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Catherine Cumfrit had been married to a much older man and was a widow for twelve years after his death before she met Christopher. She had a 19-year-old daughter, Virginia, who married a man a little older than Catherine herself. He had been waiting for Virginia to come of age for years and snapped her up as soon as she did. They were quite happy together and Virginia was expecting their first child.

Von Arnim contrasts the societal attitudes to both couples and does so with perception and humour, highlighting the obvious hypocrisy where a man could marry a much younger woman and nobody thought twice about it whereas that wasn’t the case if the situation were reversed.

Virginia’s mother-in-law, who was in her 70’s, treated Catherine as if she were the same age as herself, forgetting the fact that Catherine was actually younger than her own middle-aged son.

Beginnings were not suitable, she felt, after a certain age, especially not for women. Mothers of the married, such as herself and Mrs. Cumfrit, should be concerned rather with endings than beginnings.

I enjoyed the ‘omniscient narrator’ aspect of this story where the reader is privy to each character’s thoughts and motives. This worked extremely well, especially in Christopher’s case, and added some very witty and humorous elements.

'The woman has a beak,’ he thought, standing red and tongue-tied before her. ‘She’s a bird of prey. She has got her talons into my Catherine.’

Love explores attitudes to marriage, ageing, and the complexity of family dynamics.

It is poignant in places, especially where Catherine begins to be anxious about looking older than her husband and being taken for his mother. Later in the story when she takes steps to try to regain her youth, I wondered how on earth Elizabeth Arnim would manage to bring the narrative to a conclusion. A novel twist did it.

The book is out of print but is available secondhand. I highly recommend the Audible version narrated flawlessly by Eleanor Bron if you don’t have a copy of the book.

Laughter – one of the most precious of God’s gifts; the very salt, the very light, the very fresh air of life; the divine disinfectant, the heavenly purge. Could one ever be real friends with somebody one didn’t laugh with? Of course one couldn’t.

Read Along: For the Children's Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

I'll be hosting a read along of Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's book, For the Children's Sake on Substack. My first post will be in early June and will cover the Introduction and Chapter 1.

Whether you are a parent, home educator, a teacher, a grandparent, an aunty or uncle, or you have a heart for children, this book will show you how to extend learning to every facet of life. Good and true ideas may be found in many different contexts and this balanced and practical view of education and life will be beneficial whatever your background or beliefs.

For more details see here.

Crooked House (1949) by Agatha Christie

Crooked House is one of Agatha Christie’s special favourites – she said that writing it was pure pleasure and she considered this book one of her best.

I saved it up for years, thinking about it, working it out, saying to myself: ‘one day, when I’ve plenty of time, and want to really enjoy myself- I’ll begin it!’

There is no Poirot or Miss Marple, but there is Charles Hayward, a young man who comes back to England after five years' war service to ask Sophia Leonides, the woman he loves, to marry him. But a problem arises. Sophia’s rich grandfather, Aristides, dies suddenly and his doctor suspects poison. With the whole household under a cloud, she will not accept Charles’ offer of marriage until the situation is resolved. If it ever can be.

Charles’ father is none other than Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. The Leonides case, being under his jurisdiction, he suggests that Charles get information from the ‘inside’ – with Sophia’s full knowledge, of course. And so Charles is introduced to the family and ends up doing some detecting on the side.

I’d always taken a certain amount of interest in my father’s police work, but nothing had prepared me for the moment when I should come to take a direct and personal interest in it.

Crooked House is a clever story with a very surprising and unsettling end! Agatha Christie displays some psychological leanings in this book – the influence of hereditary being one:

Most people can deal with one weakness – but they mightn’t be able to deal with two weaknesses of a different kind.

Charles asks his father if there is a ‘common denominator’ of murderers and he replies,

‘Yes, I’ve never met a murderer who wasn’t vain…It’s their vanity that leads to their undoing, nine times out of ten.’

Josephine Tey’s Inspector Grant made the same observation about the vanity of murderers in The Singing Sands and The Franchise Affair.

A Daughter of the Land by Gene Stratton Porter

 A Daughter of the Land was published in 1918. It’s a little different – you might say darker – than some of her other novels and doesn’t seem to be as well-loved as some of her other books. It is less sentimental than Freckles or Girl of the Limberlost, and its protagonist, Kate Bates, isn’t as romanticised as some of Porter’s other female characters. She blunders through life and makes some unwise decisions. Kate learned the hard way. She was impulsive and headstrong; her upbringing had left her unprepared to navigate life outside of her own family. Despite her flawed character, I liked the realism of the story with its sharper view of life and how Kate’s character developed during the course of the story. 

‘I don’t know what life has been doing to you, Katie, but Lord! it has made a fine woman of you.’

Kate was the youngest child in a large family. She wanted to teach as her older sisters had done, but her mother wanted her to stay at home and help her with the farm work. Her father had always driven himself and his family like slaves and her mother went along with what he wanted. He was the richest farmer in the county, land was his one and only God. But he refused to hire help, keeping his sons as ever-ready help by promising them two hundred acres of land each with a house and some stock while keeping the deeds to their land under lock and key. His sons were under his authority and in his power. The women of the family were,

‘…to work and to bear children…Put them at the first job when they are born, and at the second at eighteen, and keep them hard at it.‘

Kate is the only one who rebelled against this and left home, taking ‘the wings of the morning,’ – Opportunity.

‘Home hasn’t been so overly pleasant. It has been a small, dark, cramped house, dingy and hot, when it might have been big, airy, and comfortable, well furnished and pretty as Father’s means would allow, and as all the neighbours always criticise him for not having it; it’s meant hard work…’

Gene Stratton Porter, besides being an author, was an amateur naturalist and this shows in her writing. Kate was drawn to the land and was tireless and hardworking. In many ways she was selfless and took the hard road,

‘…when one turns mental surgeon and operates on the ugly spots in one’s disposition, there is no anaesthetic, nor is the work done with skilful hands, so the wounds are numerous and leave ugly scars; but Kate was ruthless.’

In other ways she was thoughtless and willful and had to live with the consequences of decisions she made in ignorance or impetuosity. But she did learn and observed that,

‘It really seems as if failure and hardship make more of a human being of folks than success.’

This is a book I’ve had for a while, so I’m pleased that my book club chose it this month and pushed me to read it. I haven’t read anything by Gene Stratton Porter for some time and I liked this one, partly because it was a little different from some of her others, but mostly because it explored how adversity made a woman out of an ignorant and headstrong girl. A redemptive and realistic story.

I’ve linked to where you can get my copy of the book, which is published by Norilana Books. I have a few of their publications and I like the print and the covers, but there are the occasional typos. They are also more expensive than when I bought mine years ago. Porter’s books are free online.

Linking to TBR 24 in ’24 at Rose City Reader.

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