Death at the Bar by Ngaio Marsh (1940)

 

A dart's night at the Plume of Feathers, an old-fashioned pub at a small village in Devonshire, turns into a crime scene. Lawyer Luke Watchman, his cousin, Sebastian Parish who is a handsome and celebrated actor, and their friend, Norman Cubitt, a distinguished artist, are visiting the village after a year’s absence and are staying at the pub. Since their last visit some of the locals have formed the 'Coombe Left Movement' and think that the class problem and other ills could be solved by a Revolution.
The Secretary and Treasurer of the Movement is a man called Robert Legge. On the night of the dart game a man is murdered by poison and an inquest is held into the death. Cyanide was found on one of the darts and when Legge had thrown it, it had hit a man’s hand and he had died afterwards.
An inquest was held but no one was charged.

The coroner was Mr. Mordant, a sixty-seven-year old who suffered from dyspepsia:

He seemed to regard his fellow men with brooding suspicion, he sighed a great deal, and had a trick of staring despondently at the merest acquaintances. He at one time specialised in bacteriology and it was said of him that he saw human beings as mere playgrounds for brawling micrococci. It was also said that when Mr Mordant presided over an inquest, the absence in court of the corpse was not felt.

One man not happy with the lack of a conviction, presents himself to Scotland Yard and states his opinion on the case. The Yard decides to help with the investigation but the detectives have a chilly reception when they arrive at the Plume of Feathers. The police are part of the established order which the Coombe Left Movement considers to be corrupt to the core. The anti-authoritarian attitudes and hostility among the locals involved in the group hampers the investigation.

As this book was published in 1940, I thought that there would be references to the war but apart from a couple of passing comments about a soldier or two waiting to be called up, that was about as far as it went. This little village seemed completely isolated from the wider world. However, according to my copy of the book, it seems that Marsh finished writing it on May 3rd, 1939, and she was in New Zealand, so that may account for that.

On September 3, 1939 Britain declared war. The British Communist Party at first supported the war, but within a few weeks its line changed. On October 7, a manifesto was issued which referred to an ‘imperialist war’ and called for a government which would begin peace negotiations. Thereafter, the party’s official line remained essentially the same until June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, whereupon the Party entered into support for the war.

Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982) had a wonderful sense of humour that trickles into conversations and comes out in her characters. She captures all the little idiosyncrasies of character found in people who live at close quarters and who hold opposing views.
In one conversation, Mr. Nark, a prosperous farmer, was denouncing capitalism and its lack of a scientific outlook to Mr Oates, the village constable who was hoping to rise in his profession.

‘Do you know, Dick Oates,’ continued Mr. Nark, ‘that you’ve got a rudimentary tail?’

‘And if I have, which I don’t admit – ‘

‘Ask Mr Cubitt, then. He’s an artist and no doubt has studied the skeleton of man in its present stage of evolution. The name escapes me for the moment, but we’ve all got it. Isn’t that correct, sir?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr Cubitt hurriedly. ‘Quite right Mr Nark.’

‘There you are,’ said Mr Nark. ‘Apes, every manjack of us, and our arms have only grown shorter through us knocking off the habit of hanging from trees.’

‘What about our tongues?’ asked Mr Oates.

‘Never mind about them,’ answered Mr Nark warmly, ‘do you know that an unborn child’s got gills like a fish?’

‘That doesn’t make a monkey out of it, however.’

‘It goes to show, though.’

‘What’?’

‘You want to educate yourself. In a proper government the State ‘ud educate the police so’s they’d understand these deep matters for themselves. They know all about that in Russia. Scientific necessity that’s what it is.’

‘I don’t see how knowing I’ve got a bit of a tail and once had a pair of gills is going to get me any nearer to a sergeant’s stripe,’ reasoned Mr. Oates. ‘What I’d like is a case.’

Mr Oates gets his wish.

Roderick Alleyn, at 43 years of age, the youngest chief-inspector at New Scotland Yard and his sidekick, Mr. Fox, a big, burly fellow of about fifty (affectionately called Br’er Fox by Alleyn) have a good working relationship and an obvious liking for each other.
The case is convoluted and just when you think the murderer has been identified, a piece of evidence throws suspicion on someone else. I thought a couple of people could have done the deed and was surprised by the outcome. It was a person I’d suspected at first and then changed my mind.

Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealander and spent most of her life in Christchurch in the South Island, so I was impressed that she could describe the English countryside as well as if she had lived there all her life.
Marsh originally studied art and toured New Zealand with a Shakespearean company. She was credited for single-handedly reviving Shakespeare in New Zealand and encouraging young performers. Considered a ‘Crime Queen’ alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham, she wrote thirty-two novels featuring her detective, Roderick Alleyn. The theatre and painting feature in her stories and Alleyn is married to an artist. This background in the arts is unique to her work and adds richness to her novels.

Suspicions, Bacon remarked, that are artificially nourished by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (1942)

The first Miss Marple book I read was The Murder at the Vicarage and although I enjoyed the book, I wasn’t enamoured by Marple’s character and just thought she was an old gossip. 

I may have stopped there but Ruthiella @Booked for Life made a comment on my post that Miss Marple was particularly catty in that book and suggested I try another one.
Since then I’ve read eight Miss Marple books and she has grown on me. The Body in the Library was Christie’s third Miss Marple book and my most recent one:

Miss Marples good friends, the Bantry’s, wake up one morning to the news that a young woman’s dead, strangled body has been found in Colonel Bantry’s library. No one knows her identity and how she came to be there.
Mrs Bantry immediately rings Miss Marple:

’You want me to come up?’
“’Yes, I’m sending the car down for you.’
“Miss Marple said doubtfully: ‘Of course, dear, if you think I can be of any comfort to you – ‘
“Oh, I don’t want comfort. But you’re so good at bodies.’’
“Oh no, indeed. My little successes have been mostly theoretical.”
“But you’re very good at murders…
What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one’s house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean. Thats why I want you to come and help me find out who did it and unravel the mystery and all that. It really ‘is’ rather thrilling, isn’t it?”

There was a double murder mystery in this book and its solution was complicated as one of the bodies was burned beyond recognition. Meanwhile poor Colonel Bantry was getting the cold shoulder from people in St Mary Mead. The girl was found in the Colonel’s library, so the gossips said that the girl was his mistress…his illegitimate daughter…that she had been blackmailing him.

Favourite Characters

The Bantrys – Dolly Bantry was adamant the murder must be solved as she understood the devastating effect the implied guilt had on her husband. She had been away with Jane Marple and on her return home her husband seemed to have shrunk. After hearing of dinners that had been put off and a cancellation of the Colonel’s chairing of a council meeting, she pulled off a glove and threw it in the bin. Then she sat down and cut off the fingers of her second glove.

“What are you doing, Dolly?”
“Feeling destructive,” said Mrs Bantry.
She got up. “Where shall we sit after dinner, Arthur? In the library?”
“Well – er – I don’t think so- eh? Very nice in here – or the drawing room.”
“I think,” said Mrs Bantry, “that we’ll sit in the library!”
Her steady eye met his. Colonel Bantry drew himself up to his full height. A sparkle came into his eye.
He said:
“You’re right, my dear. We’ll sit in the library!”

Basil Blake – one of the prime suspects who seems to live up to his bad reputation but there is more to him than is first thought.

Peter Carmody – a nine year old would be detective who loves detective stories, does a bit of sleuthing and gives Miss Marple some clues.

“I’ve got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Dickson Carr and H.C. Bailey.” 

Not a favourite character but I liked this description of Inspector Slack – a misnamed man if ever there was one:

Activity was always to Inspector Slack’s taste. To rush off in a car, to silence rudely those people who were anxious to tell him things, to cut short conversations on the plea of urgent necessity. All this was the breath of life to Slack.

A chilling aspect to this story was the murder of a random sixteen-year-old girl who was lured to her death in order to cover up the identity of the intended victim. As Miss Marple observed, most people are too trusting for this wicked world.

Death in Berlin (1955) by M. M. Kaye

 

M.M. Kaye is well-known for her historical novels but I was unaware that she also had written six crime novels which are set in various locations. Kaye’s marriage to a British Army soldier meant that she travelled extensively and was able to use her experience of living in different locations in her writing. 

Death in Berlin (first published as Death Walks in Berlin) is set in the Berlin of 1953, eight years after WWII. Kaye and her husband were stationed in the city in the post war years and witnessed the erection of the Berlin Wall. They returned in later years and barely recognised the city as most of the ruins had disappeared from the British sector. 

Kaye describes Berlin as she saw it in 1953. As she took long walks through the leafy suburbs between Herr Strasse and the Grunewald and saw the ruined roofless houses where the Nazi elite used to live, she thought up the plot for her book. She made notes and wrote detailed descriptions of the ruined city, and made rough sketches of the stadium that Hitler had built in the 1930’s. This was used for the Olympic Games in 1936 and afterwards for a multitude of Nazi rallies. 

Post-war Berlin was a splendid setting for a murder mystery and the author’s familiarity with the city in the years after the war prior to the erection of the Berlin Wall creates an authentic atmosphere. 

The story opens at Dunkirk in 1940 with a group of refugees making their way to a fishing boat in a bid to escape to England. A young girl clinging to her doll is one of the refugees who makes it onto the boat, but one woman gets left behind in the scramble to get to the boat. Once the refugees reached England it was discovered that the young girl’s parents had been killed when the Germans attacked Belgium and that she was not French, as everyone imagined, but English. 

Years later, twenty-one-year-old Miranda Brand accepted an invitation from her cousin, Robert and his wife, Stella, to travel by train with them to Berlin and have a month’s holiday with them there. One of their travelling companions, Brigadier Brindley, told a story at dinner of a fortune in cut diamonds that was supposedly smuggled out of Germany in 1940. This proved to be the Brigadier's undoing...

That night, as the train rumbled on its way, Miranda could not sleep. She got up to get herself a cup of water and as she returned, the train rocked on a curve which made her stumble through her cabin door in the dark. Reaching out her hand & not finding her berth, she quickly realised she was in the wrong room. She had stumbled into the Brigadier’s compartment. Fortunately, he was sound asleep, and she left immediately and found her own compartment.  Sitting on her berth she thought how stupid she’d been and then she noticed that she had blood on her dressing gown and on the floor where she had walked. The Brigadier had been murdered and the prime suspect was Miranda who literally had blood on her hands. 

It was not only the sight of a murdered man that has brought those days back, dragging them out of that dark attic in her mind into which her conscious and subconscious mind had thrust them. She should never come here, to this shattered city where the very language in the streets tugged at shadowy memories that were better forgotten. 

I enjoyed this book although I didn’t think some of the characters were sufficiently developed - Miranda’s love interest, for example, but I’m keen to read more of Kaye's work. The ending was very unexpected and surprised me and as she reminded me a little of Mary Stewart, I'd be happy to explore her more thoroughly. I'm annoyed I can't find any of her books in the library and was stunned to randomly pick up Death in Berlin for a dollar!

Kaye was born to British parents in India and lived there until she was ten when she was sent to boarding school in England. She never expected to return but she met and married a British Indian Army officer who was transferred to the British Army when the Indian regiment was disbanded.

A few months before we left, The Wall went up. And with its rise many fond hopes for the future of humanity came tumbling down. I watched it being built: which is possibly why, when I look back, I think that I prefer the battered but more hopeful Berlin of 1953.

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…’

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

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.

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey (1929)

This is the first in Tey’s Inspector Grant series of which there are only six, which is unfortunate because Alan Grant one of the most likeable detectives in fiction. 

The Man in the Queue is a mystery surrounding the stabbing murder of a man who was lined up outside a London theatre waiting to be admitted to the last performance of a popular musical. No one had witnessed his murder and the press of people around him kept him upright until the doors to the theatre opened and he fell forwards.
He had nothing upon his person to reveal his identity and a loaded revolver was found in his pocket.
Inspector Grant is brought in to cover the investigation and by a painstaking process and some good luck, he manages to identify the victim and from there, the prime suspect.
One of the most interesting aspects of this book was the exploration of circumstantial evidence: how facts, evidence, and motives come together to pinpoint a suspect. In Grant’s mind there was a clear case to incriminate his suspect, but something felt wrong. What if all this was merely a series of accidents that were completely unrelated? What if he had arrested the wrong man?

‘Was the man by any remotest possibility telling the truth? If not, he was the most cold-blooded wretch Grant had ever had the unhappy lot to meet. But the man appeared unconscious of Grant’s scrutiny; he seemed wholly absorbed in his story. If this was acting, it was the best Grant had ever seen, and he deemed himself a connoisseur.’

Josephine Tey’s books are always satisfying reads and I enjoyed this one as much as her others. Being the first book in the series I thought it would lack some finesse but she didn’t disappoint.
The only quibble I have, if you could really call it that, is that her description of Detective Alan Grant in her first book didn’t match another description that stayed in my mind after reading The Daughter of Time. In The Daughter of Time Grant is confined to a hospital bed after an accident on the job and was wincing at the indignity of being thrown around by a small nurse he nicknamed the midget.

‘…she dealt with his six-feet-odd with an off-hand ease that Grant found humiliating.’

For years I pictured Grant as a tall, solid, garrulous type of fellow and then I read this in The Man in the Queue, which didn’t sit with the picture I had in my mind after reading The Daughter of Time:

‘If Grant had an asset beyond the usual ones of devotion to duty and a good supply of brains and courage, it was that the last thing he looked like was a police officer. He was of medium height and slight in build, and he was – now, if I say dapper, of course you will immediately think of something like a tailor’s dummy, something perfected out of all individuality, and Grant is most certainly not that; but if you can visualize a dapperness that is not of the tailor’s dummy type, then that is Grant.’

The resolution of this mystery came out of the blue and was as unpredictable as it was clever. Once again Tey has Grant romping around the Scottish Highlands which is always a treat.

Death Makes a Prophet by John Bude (1947)

The British Library has been reprinting some neglected old British Crime Classics. I counted 99 in my last check. The last time I looked there were about seventy-four books by a variety of authors including Freeman Wills Croft, George Bellairs, E.C.R. Lorac, John Bude and others. They're rather expensive to buy here but I have found a couple secondhand and picked up some more when I was in the U.K .a couple of years ago.

I've enjoyed a few by John Bude and thought this one looked promising so I bought a new copy. I didn’t regret my pick and thoroughly enjoyed this droll, and at times a little dark, crime novel.

The Children of Osiris was a cult created and led by the High Prophet, Eustace K. Mildmann, a widower with an only son, Terence, who was twenty-one years of age at the time of this story.

The cult, adopting the initials of their full title, referred to their doctrine as the Cult of Coo, or Cooism. Their dogmas included a mixture of Ancient Egyptian beliefs and bits and pieces of lesser-known religions with a modern twist.

The Cult of Coo believed in ‘magic numbers, astrology, auras, astral bodies, humility, meditation, vegetarianism, immortality, hand-woven tweeds and brotherly love.’ Mildmann was a sincere, dreamy man who believed Cooism was the key to all life’s mysteries.

‘His best ideas had always come to him when sunk in a self-imposed trance, or, as he pithily expressed it, “during a phase of Yogi-like non-being.” (“Non-being” figured as a very important factor in the Cult of Coo, though nobody seemed able to define its exact significance.)’

When he moved to the trendy Welworth Garden City in the 1940’s he found the right soil for his ideas and before long a group of intellectuals ripe for the picking. When the Hon. Mrs. Hagge-Smith came on the scene she totally embraced Cooism and became Mildmann’s patron and financial backer.

The author spends the first half of the book building the scene for a murder by introducing the various characters associated with the cult; their backgrounds, quirks, ambitions and petty jealousies. The second half of the book is more serious, although it still has some sparks of humour, and it’s here that Inspector Meredith makes his first appearance.

There are some bizarre and baffling circumstances for Meredith to untangle. This book was quite different to The Lakes District Murder, mostly because of the humorous aspects that Bude scattered throughout, but also because the plot didn’t go into intricate details about things that I knew nothing about.

Some of my favourite parts are those that deal with Terence. Here was an athletic, practical young man with the appetite of a horse and the physique of a boxer. He was the very antithesis of his father who ‘had done everything to undermine his normality.’ From clamping down on his tremendous appetite with a strict vegetarian diet, giving him a very small allowance of sixpence a week, requiring him to wear ‘rational clothing’ which included shorts in the middle of winter, and making him a Symbol-bearer in the Temple.

One day Terence met Denise, Mrs. Hagge-Smith’s secretary and immediately fell in love with her. She didn’t mind him either.

‘Terence…shot a quick glance at the miracle in his midst and asked abruptly:

“I say, don’t think this is rude of me, but do you have manifestations?”

“Manifestations?”

It sounded as if he were referring to insects or pimples.

“Yes, you know – astral visions and all that sort of thing. Spirit shapes.”

“No – I can’t say that I do. I dream rather a lot after a late supper. But I’m not at all psychic, if that’s what you mean.”

“I am,” announced Terence, to Denise’s surprise. “I’m always having astral manifestations. I get quite a kick out of it.” His eyes assumed a dreamy expression and then suddenly narrowed, as if he were trying, there and then, to penetrate the Veil. “It’s marvellous sometimes how clearly I see things. They’re so terribly realistic.”

“Things?” enquired Denise. “What things?”

“Steaks mostly. But sometimes its mutton-chops or steak and kidney pudding. I just have to close my eyes, relax my mind and body, and there they are…You think it’s blasphemous of me to see things like that, don’t you? I know it’s not very high-minded, but -”

“I don’t think anything of the sort. I think it’s very clever of you to see anything at all.”

Terence just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for peanut cutlets and raw cabbage and he confessed to his new-found friend that he went on the binge the week before and spent ten-weeks pocket money on a good feed.

Inspector Meredith always considered this investigation involving the Children of Osiris to be one of the most interesting, bizarre and exacting of all his cases. I thought it was an unusual mix for a murder mystery but very enjoyable.

Back to the Classics 2020 Challenge: Final Wrap Up

Well, this is the earliest I've ever posted my final wrap-up for the Back to the Classics Challenge! I've managed to fit in a lot of books so far this year, thanks mostly to Covid! I'm very happy to have finally read The Lord of the Rings...and to have enjoyed them so much. They were just the right books to read as we went into lockdown here. I also watched the movies, which I'd put off viewing until I'd read the books.

A pleasant surprise for me out of this list was Martin Chuzzlewit. I've read just about all of Dickens' novels, and wasn't busting to read any of his others but by chance I found this book, had no idea of its storyline, and had never seen it reviewed. I decided to read a chapter and if I found it too rambling I'd give it a miss, but I fell into it headlong and continued. A great read!

A book that made me cry (which doesn't happen very often) was The Death of Ivan Ilyich. A perfect (short) book to pick up for a first introduction to a Russian writer.

Saplings was very different to anything else I'd read by Noel Streatfeild - definitely not for children like many of her other books; a tragic tale of the impact of WW2 on a family.

Sadly, Miss Pym Disposes is the last of of Josephine Tey's crime/detective noels I had left to read. I've thoroughly enjoyed her books.

The only book I didn't really like was The Island of Doctor Moreau. There was a reason it was my abandoned classic!

19th century Classic: Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (1843-5)

20th Century Classic: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957-8)

Classic by a Woman: The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1901)

Classic in Translation: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (1886)

Classic by a Person of Colour: To Sir With Love by E.R. Braithwaite (1959)

Genre Classic: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (1930)

Classic With a Name in the Title: Miss Pym Disposes by Joesphine Tey (1946)

Classic With a Place in the Title: Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge (1948)

Classic With Nature in the Title: The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge (1963)

Classic About a Family: Saplings by Noel Streatfeild (1945)

An Abandoned Classic: The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (1896)

Adapted Classic: The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien (1949)

A Foray into Some Modern Books

Lila by Marilynne Robinson (2014)

I’ve been interested in reading something by this author for some time but as I’m always cautious about more modern novels and am generally disappointed with them, I wasn’t prepared to buy a new copy. Fortunately, I found a copy of at a secondhand book sale and then I discovered that my local library has other books by Marilynne Robinson, which is wonderful as I enjoyed this book very much.
Lila was a neglected child who found her way into the heart of an itinerant worker. Doll was a single woman on the fringes of life who slept at Lila’s house most nights. One evening she came home and found the young child half asleep outside the house in the cold, after being kicked out because her family was sick of her crying. Doll picked her up, wrapped her in her shawl, went into the house where everyone was asleep, took her bundle of possessions and went out into the night.

‘Doll may have been the loneliest woman in the world, and she was the loneliest child, and there they were, the two of them together, keeping each other warm in the rain.’

From then on Doll kept on the move with Lila, always with the fear that Lila would be taken from her. After a time they they joined up with a group of itinerant families and travelled with them. These were good years with enough food, a sense of security, and a year of school for Lila.
But the Great Depression drew near and the good years came to an end. The itinerant work dwindled and Doll and Lila, left to fend for themselves, were separated.
Lila had a life of misery and ended up in a whorehouse at one stage. After escaping from that place she wandered the countryside until one day she found herself in a small town called Gilead and took shelter from the rain inside a church.
Lila is a beautifully told story that goes back and forward in time revealing the details of Lila’s life as the story progresses. This type of writing doesn’t always work well but the author uses it to great advantage. The flashback technique was also good at showing the fracturing of families and society in the impoverished years of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl times in the 1930’s. The storyline has an aura of mystery surrounding it and was a book I found difficult to set aside because it always had me guessing. Lila is someone you come to care about, especially as she comes to a watershed in her life where her choices will either make or destroy her. I kept hoping her fear wouldn’t keep her on the run.
A major theme in the book is trust and when Lila put aside the fear she had been brought up with and decided to walk into that church in Gilead she started on a pathway where she was to learn to trust.
Acceptance, love and an unusual romance were part of this.
Highly recommended and I am definitely going to read more of this author.


A Dangerous Language by Sulari Gentil (2017)

A Dangerous Language is the eighth book in Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair Mystery series. I’ve read all eight and each book in the series seems to get better than the last. This one took off from the start and was hard to put down so I read it very quickly.
As usual, the author weaves in Australian history, politics, culture, and news items from the 1930’s. Her writing is extremely well-researched and I really appreciate the Australian history I pick up effortlessly when I read her novels.
Rowland Sinclair and his three friends are embroiled yet again in the dangerous world of political intrigue; this time in Canberra, the nation’s newly developed capital, when a Communist agent is murdered on the steps of Parliament House. (‘Old Parliament House’ as it’s now known opened on 9 May 1927)
Rowland has volunteered to fly an international peace advocate from Fremantle to Melbourne where he is scheduled to speak but the right-wing militia responsible for the agent’s assassination are determined to stop him.
The predicaments and dangerous situations that Rowland and his three friends find themselves in this mystery series are definitely far-fetched but the writing is witty, fun and intelligent.
I’d recommend reading the books in order as many of the characters in previous books make a reappearance and they build on each other. The four main characters are also developed more fully as the series progresses and the longstanding interest that Rowland has for his friend, Edna, is a work in progress. I do wonder how long the author will string out this relationship! I think readers need some closure here and Edna & Rowland really have had plenty of time to get over their pasts and get their act together.
These books afford a unique presentation of our more local history and factional politics in a well done fictional setting.

Death in Holy Orders by P.D James (2001)

Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James is a sinister multiple murder mystery set in an Anglican Theological College on the East Anglican coast.
All through the book there is an underlying tension that keeps the reader in suspense as the murders seem unconnected and random. The author’s strength lies in her exploration of the psychological aspects of her characters and their inherent motives. These explorations open up a Pandora’s box and complicate the investigation process. Part of the enjoyment of James’ writing is the intellectual pursuit she engages the reader in, not to mention her excellent command of the written word.
In Death in Holy Orders, Commander Dalgleish returns to a place he frequented as a child (his father was a rector) and relives some of his boyhood experiences. We don’t often get personal insights into Dalgleish’s life and I always enjoy them when they are included. In this book Dalgleish also finds romance. His first wife had died in childbirth a number of years ago and he distanced himself emotionally.
The murders aren’t described in great detail but she always includes some (often bizarre) element of a s*xual nature. I don’t think these are necessarily gratuitous as James had seen the seamy side of life in her work in the forensic science department of the police force and later in the Criminal Policy Department. She also served as a magistrate in Middlesex and London and worked in the National Health Service and used her varied experience to help her write her books.

There are actually some likeable characters in this book. Sometimes James seems more than a little misanthropic but there was more nuance in the personalities here than in some of her other novels.
One scene was a lovely redemptive act that dealt with the acceptance of guilt in thought:

‘What was there about this place that forced him to confront the greater as well as the lesser lies? He had known she was in danger if death. He had hoped that she would die. He was in the eyes of his God...guilty of murder...How could he continue to minister to others, to preach the forgiveness of sins, when his own great sin was unacknowledged? How could he have stood up before that congregation tonight with this darkness in his soul?

He got out of bed and knelt, burying his head in his hands. It wasn’t necessary to search for the words; they came to him naturally, and with them came the promise of forgiveness and peace. ‘Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.’

Death in Holy Orders is well-written and engrossing crime mystery. It's of the best books I’ve read by this author and apart from the one or two scenes which may not sit well with some readers, I’d recommend it as a very interesting and complex murder mystery.