Category: Book Reviews

Crime Fiction Alphabet: G is for Sue Grafton

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

This week’s letter in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet is the Letter G.

Sue Grafton is the author of the alphabet- titled series of books featuring Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator. So far there are 22 books in the series covering the letters A – V. For the full list see Sue Grafton’s website.

The books are set in and around the fictional town of Santa Teresa, California, based on Santa Barbara, where Grafton has a home in the suburb of Montecito. She was born in 1940, the daughter of detective novelist C. W. Grafton. She began writing at the age of 18 and before writing the Kinsey Millhone novels she was a TV scriptwriter. I think it’s remarkable that her novels have been published in 28 countries and in 26 languages, including Bulgarian and Indonesian, but she has no wish to sell the film and television rights to her books. Based on the one book of hers that I’ve read, A is for Alibi, I think they would make an excellent TV series, but maybe it’s a good decision. TV adaptations have a most irritating tendency of changing plots and the characters rarely match up to my mental images! 

A is for Alibi was first published in 1982.

Synopsis from Grafton’s website:

When Laurence Fife was murdered, few mourned his passing. A prominent divorce attorney with a reputation for single-minded ruthlessness on behalf of his clients, Fife was also rumored to be a dedicated philanderer. Plenty of people in the picturesque Southern California town of Santa Teresa had a reason to want him dead. Including, thought the cops, his young and beautiful wife, Nikki. With motive, access, and opportunity, Nikki was their number one suspect. The jury thought so too.

Eight years later and out on parole, Nikki Fife hires Kinsey Millhone to find out who really killed her late husband.

A trail that is eight years cold. A trail that reaches out to enfold a bitter, wealthy, and foul-mouthed old woman and a young boy, born deaf, whose memory cannot be trusted. A trail that leads to a lawyer defensively loyal to a dead partner – and disarmingly attractive to Millhone; to an ex-wife, brave, lucid, lovely – and still angry over Fife’s betrayal of her; to a not-so-young secretary with too high a salary for too few skills – and too many debts left owing: The trail twists to include every turn until it finally twists back on itself with a killer cunning enough to get away with murder.

My view:

I thought this was a well constructed and convincing murder mystery. Kinsey is a likeable, strong character. In this first book she comes across as a loner. She’s 32, twice divorced with no children or pets, or indeed any ties, although she does have plenty of friends and contacts who help out with her investigations and she goes jogging – a lot. There are  some cameos of characters, who I suspect feature in the later books. There is her landlord Henry Pitts, a former baker aged 81 who makes a living devising crossword puzzles. Kinsey is ‘halfway in love’ with Henry.

It’s a fast-paced book, easy to read and with no gory details, which I have to skim read in other books (the equivalent of watching the TV  behind my fingers). I liked it and now will have to find the other books in the series.

Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

All week Gaskella has been hosting the Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week and I’m just in time to join in.

Beryl Bainbridge (1934 – 2010) was made a Dame in 2000. She wrote 18 novels, three of which were filmed, two collections of short stories, several plays for stage and television, and many articles, essays, columns and reviews. Five of her novels were nominated for the Booker Prize, but none of them won it. Years ago I read two of her books, historical novels, one being According to Queenie, a novel about the life of Samuel Johnson as seen through the eyes of Queeney, Mrs Thrale, and the other Master Georgie, set in the Crimean War telling the story of George Hardy, a surgeon.

This week I’ve read A Quiet Life, first published in 1976 before she wrote her historical novels.

Synopsis from the book jacket:

Alan, a schoolboy living in a seaside village after the war, is concerned about the behaviour of his sister Madge. She has been seen talking to a German prisoner on the beach. Gradually her nightly disappearances affect the whole household. The parents become bitterly estranged, the wireless is turned up full volume so the neighbours won’t hear the rows and the slamming of doors. Inexorably, Alan’s conscience and his love for his family lead to disaster. Does time distort or clarify events in the past? After twenty years can one ever be sure they took place at all?

My Thoughts:

I didn’t know before I read it that it is a semi-autobiographical novel, using her own childhood and background as source material. I was struck immediately by the claustrophobic atmosphere pervading the novel. The family live in a small house, their living arrangements reduced by the fact that the rooms were full of furniture and ornaments and they kept the freezing cold lounge just for visitors of which they had very few. And Alan had to have his mother’s permission to use the dining room to do his homework. They lived on top of each other in the kitchen where the armchairs in front of the fire made it difficult to enter and move about.

Most of the time they spent escaping from the house – Father to the garden, Mother out, thought by Father to be having an affair, Alan to school, church or youth club and Madge to the pinewoods or to the beach with her German. As Madge says Alan ‘keeps everything bottled up, … anything for a quiet life.’ Whereas Alan realised that Madge ‘came out with things for precisely the reasons he hid them – to avoid embarrassment.’

Alan’s embarrassment is increased when he gets a girlfriend, Janet and is made worse by Madge’s behaviour – she gets away with much worse than he ever can. There are some wonderfully vivid scenes, such as Alan scrambling up a sand dune and seeing Madge and the German caressing each other behind a small hillock. Then there is Father hurling the arm of his father-in-law’s chair out of the house onto the lawn, followed by him manhandling the chair out of the house, lurching across the grass with it to the greenhouse and then setting fire to it. The whole episode is rendered farcical when his false teeth fly out of his mouth into the fire and Mother squealed with laughter, the sound carrying across the ‘bleak and desolate gardens.’

There’s pathos and dark humour and I found it moving and disturbing. Madge in particular seemed a problem for her parents and Alan, at one time manipulative and at another understanding and sympathetic. It expresses the pain of living with parents who don’t get on, the frustrations caused by rigid code of behaviour and class structure of the period, the shame they would suffer if the neighbours ever discovered what was happening, and the rows, stress and unhappiness they all endured.

I was interested to know more about the book and found this fascinating interview between Beryl Bainbridge and Anthony Clare in August 1983. I was intrigued to hear that so many of the descriptions and incidents in A Quiet Life were based on her own experiences. In fact she said that her creative urge was fuelled by what happened to her and from the age of 9 or 10 she had started to write about her parents and her background. She described herself as a child as an ‘awkward little devil‘, and I could see so much of that in the character of Madge – even down to the bad cough she could bring on at will.

My verdict: A brilliant book. She doesn’t waste any words, but still clearly sets the scene, portraying the everyday dilemmas, disasters and scandals of her eccentric characters. I’ll be reading as many more of her books that I can find.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Letter E

Published on by Margaret11 Comments
Endless Night (Agatha Christie Collection)…

Endless Night by Agatha Christie was first published in 1967.

She usually spent three to four months writing a book, but she wrote Endless Night in six weeks. It differs from most of her other books in that it is a psychological study. In fact it reminded me very much of Ruth Rendell’s books, writing as Barbara Vine. It has the same suffocating air of menace throughout the book, with more than one twist at the end.

The title comes from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence:

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight.
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.

It’s hard to write about this book without identifying the murderer.  Don’t read the Wikipedia entry if you don’t want to know,  as that gives it away completely.

The narrator is Michael Rogers, a young man with grand ideas who’d had many jobs and not enough money to buy everything he wanted. He longs for a fine, beautiful house designed by his architect friend, Santonix and after seeing the Sale Notice of ‘The Towers’ and its land, known locally as ‘Gipsy’s Acre’, he dreams that he would live there with the girl that he loved.

His dreams come true when he meets and falls in love with Ellie, an American heiress. They marry when she reaches 21 and she buys the ‘The Towers’ . Santonix designs and builds them a new, modern house and they live there – but not happily ever after because ‘Gipsy’s Acre’  is said to be cursed. Indeed, old Mrs Lee, who tells fortunes and prophesies the future warns Ellie:

‘I’m telling you my pretty. I’m warning you. You can have a happy life – but you must avoid danger. Don’t come to a place where there’s danger or where there’s a curse. Go away where you’re loved and taken care of and looked after.  You’ve got to keep yourself safe. Remember that. Otherwise -otherwise- ‘ she gave a short shiver. I don’t like to see it, I don’t like to see what’s in your hand. (pages 32-3)

It’s Michael  who dominates the book, with his aspirations, his determination to get what he wants, his optimism and also his difficult relationship with his mother, his inability to get along with Ellie’s family and her companion, Greta, who Michael thinks has an undue influence on her.There is little or no detection, and no investigators – no Poirot or Miss Marple – to highlight the clues to the murders, for there are several.

I read Endless Night very quickly and easily, convinced of the characters and the locations. But thinking about it now I can see that it’s deceptively easy to read and I read it too quickly, hardly taking in hints and clues along the way, although I did begin to sense who the murderer was. It’s a study of avarice, of the effect of the pursuit of wealth, of the restless desire to possess. It’s also about evil, love, hate and desire – and ‘endless night’ is a terrible fate.

A Weekend with Mr Darcy by Victoria Connelly

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I don’t normally read romantic chick-lit fiction, but this book was a gift, described as a light easy read and it is. I didn’t expect too much from it but I quite enjoyed it. A Weekend with Mr Darcy takes place at a Jane Austen conference, attended by Katherine Roberts, a university lecturer who doesn’t want her colleagues to know she is a Jane Austen fan and Robyn Love, a Jane Austen fanatic who is stuck with Jace,a boyfriend from her childhood who dislikes anything to do with Jane Austen.

They meet at the conference at Purley Hall in Hampshire, not far from Jane Austen’s birthplace, Chawton Cottage. Katherine is hoping to meet the novelist Lorna Warwick, famous for her risqué Regency romances, but Lorna who has been writing to Katherine is reluctant to go, not wanting Katherine to find out that she is in fact a man, Warwick Lawton. (This is not a spoiler as it’s revealed early on in the book.) But as Warwick he goes to Purley Hall and the inevitable conclusions follow. Robyn is desperately trying to ditch Jace, who has insisted on driving her to Hampshire and staying at a local pub. Chaos follows as Robyn falls in love with Dan, who she thinks is ‘totally beautiful’.

The attraction of the book for me is in the Jane Austen references and in particular the Jane Austen quiz. The book may not be entirely my cup of tea, but it has made me keen to re-read the Jane Austen novels I haven’t read for many years, such as Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility and in particular Northanger Abbey which I haven’t read since I was at school.

For a more detailed and enthusiastic review than mine see this post on the Austenprose blog.

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Synopsis from the book cover:

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a ‘˜truth’ that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

Some thoughts:

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel is described on the sleeve of the book cover as ‘a speaking picture, an audacious vision of Tudor England that sheds its light on the modern world.’

It is, of course, the sequel to Wolf Hall and I was too keen to read it to wait for the paperback to come out. I finished it a while ago and have been mulling over in my mind what to write about it. On balance, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Wolf Hall and I had just a little feeling of anti-climax about it, but then the novelty of Wolf Hall for me was the way Hilary Mantel not only brought the Tudor world alive but also how she overturned my ideas of both Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. As there is no denying that I knew that Anne Boleyn was not going to make a go of her marriage to Henry VIII, so there was little drama there for me. I didn’t even want her to escape her fate.

And yet, Bring Up the Bodies is still a brilliant book. It’s beautifully written, even if it is in the present tense, full of colour and detail so that there is no doubt that this is 16th century England, with vivid descriptions of the people, buildings, fabrics, and landscapes of both town and countryside.

One of the things that stood out for me in Wolf Hall was just how much of a family man Cromwell was, how much he loved and protected them. In Bring Up the Bodies, my overall impression of him is as a politician, a schemer and an implacable enemy. Right from the start he’s in the thick of the action as he and Henry are out hunting, flying their hawks. Cromwell’s are named after his dead daughters, a reminder of him as the family man, but immediately we are made aware that he is very much in the king’s service.  

He never spares himself in the king’s service, he knows his worth and his merits and makes sure of his reward: offices, perquisites and title deeds, manor houses and farms. He has a way of getting his way, he has a method; he will charm a man or bribe him, coax him or threaten him, he will explain to a man where his true interests lie, and he will introduce that same man to aspects of himself he didn’t know existed. … he is distinguished by his courtesy, his calmness and his indefatigable attention to England’s business.  (pages 6-7)

Truly, a man not a man to ignore. A man to be wary of, and even though Henry fondly and familiarly calls him ‘Crumb’, a man needing to take great care of himself. Anne Boleyn, in contrast, by the end of the book is ‘ a tiny figure, a bundle of bones’  when she is brought to the scaffold. But Cromwell is not deceived:

She does not look like a powerful enemy of England, but looks can deceive. If she could have brought Katherine to this same place, she would have. If her sway had continued, the child Mary might have stood here; and he himself of course, pulling off his coat and waiting for the coarse English axe. (page 395)

However, this is not the end of Cromwell:

Summer, 1536: he is promoted Baron Cromwell. He cannot call himself Lord Cromwell of Putney. He might laugh. However. He can call himself Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon. He ranged all over those fields, when he was a boy.

The word ‘however’ is like an imp coiled beneath your chair. It induces ink to form words you have not yet seen and lines to march across the page and overshoot the margin. There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one. (page 407)

And so, on to the next book …

Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder by Catriona McPherson

Published on by Margaret1 Comment
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!

(from Sir Walter Scott: Marmion Canto VI, XVII)

I wasn’t very far into reading Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder when this quotation (above) came into my mind. This is a remarkably complicated plot, with the most difficult family relationships that I’ve ever come across. Fortunately there are two family trees in the opening pages of this book that go some way to sorting it all out.

This is the sixth Dandy Gilver Murder Mystery book:

When the heiress to a department store goes missing, Dandy is summoned to Dunfermline, where two warring families run rival stores. As Dandy starts to unravel family secrets, she begins to discover disturbing connections and it’s not long before she’s in over her head.

(extracted from the summary on the back of my advanced reader copy)

This summary says it all really. It’s set in Dunfermline in 1927 and the two families are the Aitkens and the Hepburns. At the beginning of the book Mirren Aitken and Dugald Hepburn, the two youngest offsprings of the families have disappeared. Rumour has it that they have eloped and both families are dead against their marriage.

But is there more to it than commercial rivalry? Dandy thinks so and when Mirren is discovered dead on the attic floor of Aitkens’ Emporium, apparently having shot herself, she is even more convinced. Added to that on the day of Mirren’s funeral Dugald is found dead on top of the lift up to the Aitkens’ attic. Together with Alec Osborne, her sleuthing partner, she sets about unravelling the truth even though this is against both families’ wishes.

There are things I like about this book. The setting in Dunfermline is convincing, the descriptions of both stores provide fascinating details of the 1920s department stores. In a note at the beginning of the book Catriona McPherson acknowledges that she has used what she describes as, ‘the insanely detailed and unexpectedly riveting‘ book From Ascending Rooms to Express Elevators: A History of the Passenger Elevator in the Nineteenth Century by Lee E Gray (2002).

I liked the puzzle aspects of this book, even though I failed to work it out completely. But I thought that most of the characters were difficult to distinguish, partly because their names were too confusing, with alternative names – Mary Aitken, also known as Mrs Aitken and Mrs Ninian Aitken or Mrs Ninian. There is also Arabella Aitken, also called Mrs Aitken, Mrs Jack Aitken, Mrs Jack or simply Bella (I liked that version best). I even found the men’s names troublesome, what with Robert and Robin, Mr Hepburn, young Mister Hepburn and Master Hepburn – I could go on. Dandy and Alec are similarly confused.

It’s a very detailed book (and not just about the lift) and at times that became confusing too so that I had to keep flipping backwards to go over passages making sure I understood it. It has a heavy sombre tone and there is quite a lot of repetition as Dandy and Alec keep reviewing what they have discovered and wondering what it all means. For me it could have been much more succinct. Despite these misgivings I did like this book, but not as much as the earlier Dandy Gilver books that I’ve read.

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Minotaur Books (22 May 2012)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1250007372
  • ISBN-13: 978-1250007377
  • Source: Advance Reader Copy
  • My Rating 3/5