Today I’m featured on Simon’s blog Stuck in a Book as part of his series My Life in Books. Simon and I started our blogs just a few days apart and I’ve always enjoyed reading his posts, particularly this series in which bloggers talk about some of our favourite books from the past and more recently. So if you’d like to see my choices and that of Tanya who I’m paired with do have a look.
Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet has reached the letter X this week but I haven’t found any books to fit in the required categories:
Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book’s title, the first letter of an author’s first name, or the first letter of the author’s surname, or even maybe a crime fiction “topic”. But above all, it has to be crime fiction.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.
So I decided to add another category – a book with a title that sounds as though it begins with the letter and plumped for The Xpats, or as it really is – The Expats by Chris Pavone.
Synopsis (Chris Pavone’s website):
Kate Moore is a typical expat mom, newly transplanted from Washington DC to the quiet cobblestoned streets of Luxembourg. Her days are filled with coffee mornings and play-dates, her weekends with trips to Paris and Amsterdam. Kate is also guarding a tremendous, life-defining secret, one that’s becoming unbearable, indefensible. It’s also clear that another expat American couple are not really who they’re claiming to be; plus Kate’s husband is acting suspiciously. While she travels around Europe, looking for answers, she’s increasingly worried that her past is finally catching up with her. As Kate digs, and uncovers the secrets of the people who surround her, she finds herself buried in layers of deceit so thick they threaten her family, her marriage, and her life.
My view:
The book moves between the present day and the past, just two years earlier and is narrated through Kate’s perspective. Although I like this type of narrative, I had to concentrate to follow the changes in time and location as I read. It begins slowly and then gradually the tension builds and builds as Kate discovers more secrets and reveals secrets of her own to the reader. It certainly kept me wanting to know more and trying to work out the bluffs and double bluffs.
I liked the insights into the expat life – the adjustments in lifestyle and expectations come over very well and the locations are described in just enough detail for someone (me) who hasn’t been to these places to visualise the scenes. Chris Pavone has been to all the locations and there is a helpful itinerary map on his website.
Most of all I liked the tension in Chris Pavone’s narrative and the contrast between Kate’s everyday life as a mother of two young boys, the interaction between her and her husband and friends, and her ‘secret’ life with all its dangers and complications. I think Pavone portrays the female perspective well and Kate is a fully rounded character. I don’t often read spy thrillers, but found myself completely engrossed in this one, even though by the end I thought the whole thing was almost too incredible to believe. But then, what do I know about spies and cyber crime?
During our recent visit to Scotland we went to Rosslyn Chapel and also to Rosslyn Castle. This was our second visit to the Chapel, but our first to the Castle. (We went to Rosslyn Chapel three years ago – see this post for information on the Chapel and some photos.) On that first visit the Chapel was surrounded with scaffolding and you could go up to the roof. From there you can see the Castle far below the Chapel built on high on a rocky promontory in the Roslin Glen.
The Castle is in Roslin Glen – the nearby village is spelt Roslin, but the Chapel and Castle are spelt Rosslyn – like the earldom. The derivation of the name is from the Celtic words ‘ross‘, a rocky promontory and ‘lynn‘, a waterfall – not as described in The Da Vinci Code as deriving from a longitudinal Rose Line on the north-south meridian that runs through Glastonbury!
This time we decided to go to the Castle after seeing the Chapel. It’s down a little lane between trees and you walk over a bridge to get to the ruins.
It was a dismal rainy day but still the castle ruins stood out – stark and dramatic against the skyline:
These are the ruins of the original 14th century castle, built in the 1330s for Henry Sinclair, the Earl of Orkney. At that time there was a drawbridge – replaced now by the modern access bridge. Behind the ruined walls you can see what looks like a house:
My photo is dark because by this time it was raining quite heavily. The castle was largely destroyed during the 15th and 16th centuries and was rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries as a fortified house with five floors. The building from this side looks like any other house, but from the other side it is enormous. We didn’t go round to see it, but there are photos on the Landmark Trust website showing its size and the renovated rooms that are available to let as holiday accommodation.
The photo below shows the remains of the west wall:
and here are the remains of the gatehouse:
There were only a few other people walking round the ruins, whereas the Chapel was packed, with people arriving in cars and coaches. In fact inside the Chapel it was so crowed you could hardly walk round for other people. I suppose it’s the popularity of The Da Vinci Code that attracts so many people, but it’s hard to get a proper sense of its history and to see its beauty with so many other people there. There is now a Visitor Centre, where you can buy books and souvenirs and get drinks and sandwiches etc, also very crowded.
I preferred the Castle – so atmospheric.
For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.
Hickory Dickory Dock is a Poirot mystery, first published in 1955. The nursery rhyme title actually bears no relevance to the plot, even though Poirot quotes the rhyme at the end when he hears a clock strike one. The only links I can see are that it’s about the residents of a students’ hostel at 26 Hickory Road and one of the suspects also parodies the rhyme.
Poirot is drawn into the plot through his secretary, Miss Lemon. This is her first appearance as Poirot’s secretary in a full length novel, although she had featured in some of Agatha Christie’s short stories. She had also appeared in Parker Pyne Investigates (1934) when she worked for Mr Parker Pyne. I’m used to Pauline Moran’s portrayal of Miss Lemon, in Agatha Christie’s Poirot TV series – efficient and smart but also attractive. So I was surprised to read this most unflattering description of her as ‘that hideous and efficient woman … she was not a woman at all. She was a machine – the perfect secretary’ , with ‘strong grizzled hair.’ Poirot just cannot believe that she has made three mistakes in one letter and discovers that she is worried about her sister who manages a student hostel where strange things have been happening.
Now this is not the usual setting for an Agatha Christie novel – no quintessential English village, no grand country houses, or quaint cottages, but a crowded London house, owned by Mrs Nicolstis, a Greek and full of a mixed group of young people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures – from America, West Africa and India as well as an assortment from the British Isles. Miss Lemon’s sister, Mrs Hubbard gives Poirot a list of items that have recently gone missing and.invites him to talk to the students about detection and some of his celebrated criminal cases. At first it all seems to be quite low key, as some of the missing items are rather trivial – lipstick, and a box of chocolates, for example, but others are rather odd – such as one evening shoe, a rucksack, discovered cut up in pieces, and boracic powder. But then one of the students commits suicide – or is it murder? And more deaths follow.
I did enjoy this book, although the plot is somewhat far-fetched, but I liked the characterisation, particularly the way in which Agatha Christie reveals contemporary attitudes (1950s) to race and politics, as the characters’ prejudices come out in their discussions. There are plenty of suspects and red herrings and some interesting reflections on crime and the psychology of behaviour. And I also liked this insight into Miss Lemon’s mind. Poirot has quoted from one of Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and she responds:
‘You mean these Baker Street societies and all that’, said Miss Lemon. ‘Grown men being so silly! But there, that’s men all over. Like the model railways they go on playing with. I can’t say I’ve ever had time to read any of the stories. When I do get time for reading, which isn’t very often, I prefer an improving book.’ (page 9)
It’s just as well we don’t all think like that.
… Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death by W J Burley.
From the back cover:
When Matthew Glynn, a respectable bookseller is found bludgeoned and strangled, Chief Superintendent Wycliffe is mystified. Why would anyone want to kill him, and in such a brutal manner?
But a look at Glynn’s background reveals tension within the family. Alfred Glynn, an eccentric recluse, has held a grudge against his brother for years and the older brother, Maurice, argued bitterly with Matthew over the sale of family land. Add to this a discontented son, valuable documents in the bookseller’s safe, and the mysterious, still unexplained disappearance of Matthew’s wife years earlier, and Wycliffe faces one of his most impenetrable cases yet.
Then another Glynn dies and the murderer’s identity seems obvious. But Wycliffe is not convinced – and soon uncovers some very murky secrets, and the possibility of another murder …
My view:
The story is set in Penzance and its immediate neighbourhood, so Burley, who knew the area well (he lived near Newquay), sets the scene well. The three Glynn brothers didn’t get on, with a long-standing quarrel between Matthew and Alfred, which was connected to their mother, and a more recent row between Matthew and his other brother, Maurice, who objected to Matthew’s proposal to build houses near to Maurice’s pottery. And as Trice, the local DI, tells Wycliffe, the locals are suspicious of outsiders – he’s talking not just about Cornwall, but about the local area, Penwith, which in Cornish means ‘ … “the extreme end”. The people here feel different – they are different.’
And this is a murder mystery with a difference, because all is not clear by the end. There are plenty of suspects, not just the brothers but also their sister and grown-up children. The reader is left to work out the puzzle, indeed Wycliffe struggles to come to terms with his suspicions and his mind is in turmoil:
With something approaching desperation, Wycliffe was trying to see the events in perspective, to relate them one to another and to imagine the repressed tensions and accumulated bitterness which had finally surfaced. But what troubled him most was the thought that he was being pushed beyond his role as an investigating officer into decisions which were either moral or judicial or both. (page 185)
I liked the book very much, with its complex plot, convincing characters, and in particular the way Wycliffe’s humane and thoughtful character is portrayed. The ending certainly makes you think.
A Crime Fiction Alphabet post for the letter W.
We spent last week in Scotland. Except for Monday the weather was atrocious with torrential rain on most days. But Monday brought blue skies and glorious sunshine, so we took advantage of the good weather and visited Stirling Castle, maintained and managed by Historic Scotland. This is a most spectacular castle standing high on a volcanic rock. It was one of the most favoured homes of Scottish kings and queens from the 12th century, although it is an ancient site.
I have many photos – here is just a small selection:
A statue of King Robert the Bruce stands outside the modern entrance to the castle:
In the background is the National Wallace Monument which overlooks the scene of Scotland’s victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297.
The Forework (above) was installed by James V around 1500, originally the main entrance, it is now an inner entrance to the castle.
The photo below shows the Queen Anne Garden, which on Monday was being used for a crossbow demonstration – children were queuing to have a go for themselves. Behind the garden is James V’s Renaissance Palace of Princelie Virtue which he had built for himself and his French Queen, Mary of Guise (the parents of Mary Queen of Scots) on the site of earlier buildings.
The pale golden building peeping out beyond the Palace is the Great Hall, commissioned by James IV (who died at Flodden Field in 1513) and completed in 1503. It almost glows in the sunlight because it is covered with ‘king’s gold’ limewash. It has been renovated and was reopened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.
Just visible in the photo above are the statues on the facade of the Palace and the Prince’s Walk. The statues are grotesque and warlike, portraying monsters hurling missiles south against any invaders. They include one of the Devil, with breasts:
There is so much to see and so much history within the Castle that I’d really like to go again one day. As well as the Official Souvenir Guide Book there are guided tours of the castle and an audio tour that you can listen to on your own, if you prefer – which I did.
I have far too many photos for one post, so maybe ‘ll post more photos in due course.
For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.
BooksPlease 