December 2022 Wrap Up

Books Read:
Keep It Quiet by Richard Hull (1935)  4/5 stars
In this Golden Age crime story, a club member is found dead in the library, possibly accidently poisoned by the cook.  The club secretary is appalled by what such an occurrence will do to the club's reputation, so persuades the dead man's physician (also a member) to make heart failure the cause on the death certificate.  This simple cover-up creates a dangerous situation almost worse than a scandal.

Hull writes well, and this book is laugh-out-loud funny at times. However, as was the case with his debut novel (The Murder of My Aunt; my review here), he can't maintain an equal level of cleverness and sparkle, and there are parts that drag a bit.  Despite that, it's blackly humorous plot makes for a fun read.

A Surprise for Christmas and Other Seasonal Stories, edited by Martin Edwards  (2020)  5/5 stars
This is a collection of short stories by a dozen crime writers of the Golden Age.  They are all well-written, though some are more compelling than others.  The variety of personalities and styles that are represented is worth five stars, even if not all the stories are of that quality by themselves.

Audio Books Completed:

Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie (1934)  4/5 stars

This is an entertaining set of short stories about Mr. Parker Pyne, who advertises his services as a consultant for creating happiness.  He helps with love, loneliness boredom, and more -- and he even thwarts and solves crimes.  The first stories take place in London, the Mr. Pyne goes on vacation and he finds himself working while on holiday.  While most are not mysteries as such, they showcase Christie's talent for writing realistic people, motives, and emotions.  Despite the outdated relationship advice, I enjoyed them immensely.

An English Murder by Cyril Hare (1951)  4/5 stars

This is a country house Christmas mystery, where the suspects are snowed in with phone lines down and bodies piling up.  It's also great fun, well written, and intelligent.  I will note that the extremely British solution may be puzzling to those not familiar with a particular bit of how the country works (I can't explain more without spoiling it), but I still think it will be enjoyable for those fans of Golden Age mysteries. 

The Life of Crime: Unravelling the mysteries of fiction’s favourite genre by Martin Edwards (2022)  4/5 stars

In this nonfiction study of crime novels and their authors, Edwards explores and explains major subgenres, gives brief biographies of some of the writers (well-known as well as lesser-known), and includes some from non-English speaking countries.  It is quite interesting, but lacks the sparkle and enthusiasm of Edwards' work that focuses only on Golden Age British and American authors (The Golden Age of Murder; my review here).  Regardless of that, I would recommend it wholeheartedly to fans of crime and mystery novels.

Midwinter Murder: Fireside Tales from the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie (2020)  4/5 stars

This is a collection of previously published short stories with one novella occurring during winter.  Miss Marple, Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence, Mr. Quinn, and Parker Pyne are all included, giving a well-rounded example of Christie's talent and varying styles, and displays her excellent insight into character.  With the possible exception of "Christmas Adventure", there will be nothing new for long-time Christie fans, but it's still an enjoyable seasonal read.

Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee
co-authors of the Ellery Queen novels

The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen (1929)  3/5 stars

This is the first of the Ellery Queen series, and despite a highly complicated and unbelievable crime, is still a fun, engaging, and generally well-written book.

The French Powder Mystery by Ellery Queen (1930)  4/5 stars

The plot gets a bit convoluted, but it is still an engrossing story with a satisfying solution.

Harm's Way by Catherine Aird (1984)  4/5 stars

This is an enjoyable mystery written with Aird's usual intelligence and sly humor.  The plot is nicely devised, with a unique way to dispose of a body, and the solution is satisfying. 

Top Five Wednesday: 12/28/22

This week's Top Five Wednesday topic is "Favorite Books of the Year".  Though I reread some old favorites, I'm only listing books that were new to me in 2022.  

1.  I have to include an entire series as my number-one-top-favorite for 2022:  the Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope.  To me, all six volumes (written between 1865 and 1880) were five star reads.  Each book was huge (from more than 500 to over 800 pages), and I lived immersed in this world for three months.  I was so sad when I finished the last one and had to say good bye to those characters.  For any one who enjoys Victorian literature, I cannot recommend this engrossing, entertaining, and well-written series highly enough.

Anthony Trollope

2. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley (1917)  5/5 stars  (my review here)
This is a book for booklovers, and I absolutely loved it, from beginning to end.  Don't be put off by it's brevity, which belies it's strength -- this charming gem is well worth reading!

 

3. The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (1920)  4/5 stars  (my review here)

Though I couldn't rate it as such, I got five-stars-worth of enjoyment out of this adventure-espionage-drama.  It's well-plotted, engrossing, and twisty, with some excellent surprises.  It's definitely one of Oppenheim's best.

 

4. The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards (2015)  5/5 stars  (my review here)

This is a nonfiction love-letter to Golden Age mysteries and their authors.  I absolutely loved it, and recommend it as a must-read for fellow enthusiasts. 

Martin Edwards

5.  Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (1898) 4/5 stars (my review here)

This one is another short but charming novel for my list.  It's humorous, engaging, and such fun. Though it's not a five star book, it gave me as much enjoyment as if it were.

Elizabeth von Arnim

Top Five Wednesday: 12/21/22

This week's Top Five Wednesday topic is "Books to Have When Snowed In".  

1. If I could only have five books when snowed in, I'd want at least one big book, so I'd definitely want this huge collection. I have the Big Book of Female Detectives, and it's great fun, so I'm certain that the Big Book of Christmas Mysteries would be perfect for a snowstorm!

2. Being snowed in would be a perfect time to reread Jane Austen.  (Of course, when isn't the perfect time to reread Jane Austen?)  I'd pick Emma for this occasion, as an important scene features a Christmas party with a snowstorm.

3.  Another book that screams winter is Dracula (it actually screams a lot of things, but icy cold weather is one of them).  Being snowed in is a great time for a thriller, and this five star read (my review here) would fit the bill.

4. Thinking of snow and five star reads brings the Nine Tailors to mind.  For me, this is Sayers' best.  It's rich, layered, intelligent, engrossing, well-written and memorable.

5. Being snowed in calls for something warm and cheerful as well, and I suggest the Little House on the Prairie series.  Every time I read Wilder's stories, I'm amazed with what good humor the Ingalls family faced such grave challenges (many of them winter-weather related) and with how they found joy in the little things.  It would be hard to pick one, as they would all fit the bill, but if you've not read them, they should be read in order, so I suggest getting snowed in with Little House in the Big Woods.

November 2022 Wrap-Up

Books Read:

The Face on the Cutting Room Floor by (Ernest Borneman writing as) Cameron McCabe  (1937)  2/5 stars  (my review here)

Audio Books Completed:
Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan (1940)  3/5 stars
This is a modern fantasy of sorts, in which a painter meets a child who slips through time to visit him, aging quickly across the months of their friendship, trying, as she says, to catch up with him.  The plot premise of this popular book is intriguing and appealing, but the delivery was underwhelming. The prose is often dull, the story barebones, and the characters not well-fleshed.  It's only 125 pages, and it might have packed more punch had it been pared to the length of a short story instead.  

The Lady and the Highwayman by Sarah M. Eden (2019)  3/5 stars (my review here)

Catherine Aird

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards (2015)  5/5 stars (my review here)

Slight Mourning by Catherine Aird  (1975) 3/5 stars
Though somewhat predictable, Aird's sly sense of humor and solid writing make this an enjoyable mystery. 

The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton (1911)  4/5 stars

This is the first set of short stories to feature Father Brown, and I found them generally enjoyable.  Father Brown's personality is developed very little, unfortunately, but Chesterton creates clever and sometimes baffling problems, and writes well overall.  His Christian faith comes out clearly in his moral judgements, which is only fitting for the Catholic priest and his outlook.

Some Die Eloquent by Catherine Aird   (1979)  4/5 stars

Interesting plot with a satisfying solution, combined Aird's particular humor and strong writing, made this an enjoyable read.

Did Not Finish:

The Gentleman and the Thief  by Sarah M. Eden (my discussion here)

The Face on the Cutting Room Floor

The Face on the Cutting Room Floor 
by (Ernest Borneman writing as) Cameron McCabe 
1937 
2/5 stars

Going into this novel, it's best to know as little as possible about the plot, so as to preserve the surprises. The premise is that the book's author, Cameron McCabe, is narrating his experiences in the investigation of the murdered of an actress.  After McCabe's manuscript ends, an epilogue follows, written by another character in the drama.

This book starts off at a frantic pace, pushed on by a stream-of-consciousness-narrative that doesn't always make sense and rarely stops for breath during McCabe's portion. Borneman does an admirable job of giving the epilogue author a distinctive voice, and that portion feels entirely different, though it felt entirely too long.  There are many twists and turn in this bizarre and original mystery, but it was impossible for me to enjoy the story due to McCabe's prose.* The brief wrap up of the plot was too abrupt and, anyway, by then I was just so relieved to be nearly finished that the ending fizzled instead of shocked.  

*Note: I say this as a fan of earlier stream-of-consciousness authors such as Woolf.  It's not the style Borneman chose that is the problem -- it's his execution of it.

The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

The Golden Age of Murder 

Martin Edwards

2015

5/5 stars

This multiple award winning book studies the early history of the Detection Club, a social organization for mystery and crime authors, from it's inception in 1930 through the start of World War II.  Martin discusses the life and interests of these Golden Age writers, such as their fascination with real life crime, their relationships with each other, and the various secrets in their own lives.  He focuses more in depth on Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkeley than the most, but still includes a good deal of anecdotes and  information on many other members.

The Golden Age of Murder is an ode to the mystery novels and authors of  the Golden Age (the years between the two World Wars), and it's obvious that Edwards loves these devotedly.  Using the resources available to him as current President of the Club, he gives reams of stories about these authors that are enlightening as well as entertaining.  He discusses the real life murders that so interested this group, as well, and shows how those crimes influenced some of the Golden Age novels.

Edwards debunks popular myths about the genre and it's creators, as well as showing how current events shaped many of the plots, and further, how these books impacted future crime writers.

He discusses many of the most famous Golden Age stories, as well as mentioning lesser known authors and their works.  He is careful not to spoil the solutions of any of the novels, while giving tantalizing glimpses of the plots.  I now have a list of new-to-me authors and books to explore.

Edwards also uses his own deductive powers to answer questions about the secrets of Christie, Sayers, and Berkeley.  These are, of course, his own opinion and are meant to be taken as such, but he gives sound reasoning for his solutions.

I've seen complaints saying that if the reader does not have a basic understanding of this very specific period of fiction or a fascination with it, this book will be unreadable -- but why would such a one pick it up in the first place?  The Golden Age of Murder is, I believe, intended to be a gift from Edwards to his fellow fanatics and I found it to be just that.

Two of the Dread Penny Society Series by Sarah M. Eden

This is a series by Sarah M. Eden, each featuring a different member of the Dread Penny Society: a secret men's club made up of penny dreadful authors with a strong social conscience, who rescue children and women from the streets.  Eden alternates between the point of view of the two protagonists, and includes her own short stories as penny dreadfuls written by series characters.

The Lady and the Highwayman 
2019 
3/5 stars

Headmistress Elizabeth Black is the clandestine author of penny dreadful serials written as Mr, King. Top-selling author and Dread Penny Society member, Fletcher Walker, has his income threatened by Mr. King's success, so he sets out to uncover King's identity.  When Fletcher and Elizabeth meet by chance, they find an unlikely mutual spark that becomes something stronger the more they are together -- but Elizabeth must protect her hidden identity even from him, for the sake of her school.

First off, this is not my typical genre, as I don't generally enjoy romance novels. In addition, I'm coming to it with a background of extensive reading of Victorian sensational novels, and of having an above-the-average knowledge of Victorian England.  Due to that, I seem to be a harsher critic than most of the reviewers on Goodreads and Audible.

The Lady and the Highwayman is a sweet and clean light romance with a bit of adventure, and faux penny dreadful novels thrown in the mix.  The historical atmosphere was not convincing, and the combination of two greatly overused tropes (Victorian-lady-with-modern-views and Victorian-people-with-a-21st-century-amount-of-social-conscience) was trying. Eden's penny dreadful stories lacked a lot of the typical characteristics, so didn't feel authentic.  I waded through situations highly improbable in Victorian society, complicatedly contrived occasions for meeting, decisions that made no sense, and plot lines that eventually led nowhere (all with an audio book narrator I don't care for), because the DPS appealed to me on many levels, and I was curious where the story would go.  I wasn't fully satisfied by the ending, nor did I feel, given the social circumstances, that the romance would be possible for Elizabeth, yet. . . I did -- inexplicably -- rather enjoy this book.  Enough that I will give the second volume of the series a chance. 

The Gentleman and the Thief 
2020
Did Not Finish

I had the exact same problems as I did with The Lady and the Highwayman but, unfortunately, this one was so bland that I couldn't finish it.  As I said above, it's not to my regular taste anyway, so it's shouldn't be much of a surprise that it didn't grab me.