Category: Books

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

I previously enjoyed The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz, so when I saw Magpie Murders  on NetGalley I was keen to read it and delighted when I received an uncorrected proof. I think it is an outstanding book by a master story-teller, with a wonderfully intricate plot. It’s a prime example of a puzzle-type of crime fiction combining elements of the vintage-style golden age crime novel with word-play and cryptic clues and allusions to Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s also a novel within a novel, with mystery piled upon mystery. I loved it.

The outer story and the contemporary mystery is that of Alan Conway, the author of the Atticus Pund Mysteries. His editor, Susan Ryeland is reading a manuscript of his latest novel Magpie Murders, expecting to enjoy it as much as his earlier books, even though she really couldn’t stand Conway himself. What she wasn’t prepared for is that this book would change her life.

The inner story, that told in Conway’s novel is a whodunnit, a murder mystery full of twists and turns with plenty of red herrings. I was enjoying it as much as Susan as she read of the death of Mary Blakiston in the little village of Saxby-on-Avon in 1955. Mary was an unpleasant character. She had been found dead at the bottom of the stairs at Pye Hall where she was the cleaner for the owner, Sir Magnus Pye. It appeared that she had tripped and fallen down the stairs.Then Magnus is also found dead, but this was obviously murder as he had been beheaded.

So back to the outer story. When Susan came to the end of the manuscript she found it wasn’t finished – there was no denouement. And she couldn’t contact Conway to get the final chapters of the book and then she discovered that he was dead. So, she sets out to find the missing chapters and in so doing discovers even more mysteries – was Conway’s death an accident, suicide or murder? Like Mary Blakiston in his novel, he was not a popular man, and there are a number of other parallels between his novel and his real life.

Magpie Murders is a really satisfying read, with believable characters, set in beautifully described locations, tantalisingly mysterious and so, so readable. I also particularly liked the use of the rhyme of ‘One for Sorrow’ in the chapter headings of Conway’s novel in the same way that Agatha Christie used ryhmes in some of her books. It’s quite long, but the pages sped by as I was drawn into both stories and keen to find the answers to all the questions all the mysteries it had posed.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Orion Books for an ARC.

Mount TBR: Checkpoint #3

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

 

It’s time for the third quarterly checkpoint for Bev’s Mount TBR Reading Challenge. Bev says:

1.Tell us how many miles you’ve made it up your mountain (# of books read).

I’m nearly at the top of Mt Vancouver, having read 35 books. So it’s looking doubtful that I’ll reach my target of getting to the top of Mt Ararat (48 books)!

2. Complete ONE (or more if you like) of the following:
  • A. Who has been your favorite character so far? And tell us why, if you like.
  • B. Pair up two of your reads. But this time we’re going for opposites. One book with a male protagonist and one with a female protagonist. One book with “Good” in the title and one with “Evil.” Get creative and show off a couple of your books.
  • C. Which book (read so far) has been on your TBR mountain the longest? Was it worth the wait? Or is it possible you should have tackled it back when you first put it on the pile? Or tossed it off the edge without reading it all?
  • D. Choose 1-4 titles from your stacks and using a word from the title, do an image search.  Post the first all-eyes-friendly picture associated with that word.

I think my favourite character has to be Richard III in The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman, one of the best historical novels that I’ve read. It is full of detail, but her research sits very lightly in this book, none of it feels like a history lesson, and it all brings Richard’s world to life. Penman portrays a very likeable Richard, from his childhood onwards he comes across as a kind, generous and brave man, a skilled leader on the battlefield, a loving husband to his wife, Anne, and devoted and loyal to his brother, Edward IV, who was by no means a saint.

For book pairs I’ve picked In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward and  Heat Wave by Penelope Lively – opposite weather conditions!

The book that has been on my TBR mountain the longest is still The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf as I said in the last Checkpoint post. I’m not sure when I bought it, but it was one of the books I listed when I first joined LibraryThing in 2007.  I do wish I’d read it before this year but I enjoyed it so it was worth the wait.

 

The Black Friar by S G MacLean

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

The Black Friar by S G MacLean is one of those books that has the power to transport me to another time and place. I was totally absorbed, convinced I was back in England in the 17th century.

The Black Friar (Damian Seeker, #2)

It is the second book in the Damian Seeker series, historical crime fiction set in 1655 during the Interregnum under Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector. Damian Seeker, Captain of Cromwell’s Guard, works for Thurloe, Cromwell’s Chief Secretary and spy master, in charge of the security of the regime. It’s a complex mystery, particularly as there are various factions and religious sects plotting rebellion against Cromwell.

A body, presumed by his black robe to be that of a Dominican friar, is found bricked up in a wall in Blackfriars, once a monastery and now a derelict building gradually falling into the River Fleet. But this was no friar, as Seeker recognised him as Carter Blyth one of Thurloe’s undercover agents, who had been working in the Netherlands, observing the Royalists colluding with foreign powers. As far as Seeker knew he had been killed in Delft three months earlier. Seeker’s task is to find why he had been killed and who killed him. He discovers that Blyth under Thurloe’s orders had in fact infiltrated a group of Fifth Monarchists who wanted to overthrow Cromwell and had been living with the Crowe family, members of the group, under the name of Gideon Fell.

It’s a complicated and intricate tale as Seeker, helped by Nathaniel Crowe, tries to discover what Blyth had been doing, and what trail he was following. There are missing children, whose whereabouts Blyth had been investigating, and plots to overthrow Cromwell as well as plots to reinstate Charles Stuart as King.

Although The Black Friar is the second book in the series, (the first is The Seeker, which I haven’t read) I think it works well as a stand-alone book. The characterisation is strong and I particularly like Damian Seeker, a man both respected and feared, and a man to trust.

I also like the way S G MacLean has based her book on solid historical research (she has an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Aberdeen) and weaves real historical figures into the story, such as the poet John Milton, now an old blind man, the Secretary of Foreign Tongues and the diarist Samuel Pepys, an Exchequer clerk, who though very personable was ‘prone to drink and some lewdness.’ It all brings to life the atmosphere and tenor of the 1650s. I loved it.

My thanks to Netgalley and Quercus books for my copy of this book. It is due to be published on 6 October.

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

The result of the Classics Club Spin is No. 1 which for me is Silas Marner by George Eliot. I am so pleased – I wanted a short book and lo and behold this is a short book!

Although the shortest of George Eliot’s novels, Silas Marner is one of her most admired and loved works. It tells the sad story of the unjustly exiled Silas Marner – a handloom linen weaver of Raveloe in the agricultural heartland of England – and how he is restored to life by the unlikely means of the orphan child Eppie.

Silas Marner is a tender and moving tale of sin and repentance set in a vanished rural world and holds the reader’s attention until the last page as Eppie’s bonds of affection for Silas are put to the test.

First published in 1861 as Silas Marner: the Weaver of Raveloe, George Eliot described it as ‘a story of old-fashioned English life’.

Classics Club Spin

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

The Classics Club

I was just thinking another Classics Club Spin would be nice and it appeared!

The Spin rules:

  •  List any twenty books you have left to read from your Classics Club list.
  • Number them from 1 to 20.
  • On Monday the Classics Club will announce a number.
  • This is the book to read by 1 December 2016.

I decided to organise my list in page number order from short to enormous.  I want to read all of them at some time but right now as I have a backlog of other books that I want to read before December, I hope that one of the shorter books (that is numbers 1 – 4) is chosen!

  1. Silas Marner by George Eliot – 176 pages
  2. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
  3. Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
  4. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
  5. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  6. The Black Robe by Wilkie Collins
  7. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  8. The Forsyte Saga (The Man of  Property) by John Galsworthy
  9. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  10. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
  11. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  12. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  13. Framley Parsonage (Barsetshire Chronicles, #4) by Anthony Trollope
  14. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
  15. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
  16. Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R D Blackmore
  17. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
  18. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  19. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
  20. Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford – 914 pages

 

Six Degrees of Separation: From Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to The Wasp Factory

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month’s chain begins with:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Froer. I read this book when I saw it was the starting point for this chain because I thought it sounded rather different and possibly challenging as it isn’t traditional storytelling. It’s about a boy whose father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre. Oskar is is trying to discover the facts about his father’s death and also to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father’s closet. I liked it enormously.

My chain:

extremely-loud

Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski is the first book in this chain – in this a father is looking for his son. I loved this book about life after the Second World War when Hilary Wainwright is searching for his son, lost during the War. Hilary had left France just after his wife, Lisa, had given birth to John. Lisa, unable to leave France, worked for the Resistance, but was killed by the Gestapo and her son disappeared. A friend tells him he may have found the boy, living in an orphanage in rural France and Hilary sets out to discover if the boy is really his son. It is emotional, heart-wrenching and nerve-wracking, full of tension, but never sentimental.

That leads me on to One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes – a beautiful, poetic novel also set after the Second World War, this time about England in 1946.  Mollie Panter-Downes so beautifully captures the essence of the English countryside and the changes in society in the aftermath of war. 

Another book with lovely descriptions of the English countryside is Watership Down by Richard Adams, which I read many years ago. It’s about a community of rabbits who sensing danger in their warren decide to leave in search of a peaceful home and they encounter many dangers and obstacles on the way to their unknown destination.

Awakening by S G Bolton, also features animals. This is crime fiction about Clare Benning, a wildlife vet who would rather be with animals than with people. A a man dies following a supposed snake bite and Clare who is an expert on snakes helps discover the truth about his death. If you don’t like snakes this book won’t help you get over your phobia! The setting is very dark and atmospheric.  

Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie is also crime fiction, but it’s a kind of locked room mystery, the ‘˜locked room’ being a plane on a flight from Paris to Croydon, in which Hercule Poirot is one of the passengers. In mid-air, Madame Giselle, is found dead in her seat. It appears at first that she has died as a result of a wasp sting (a wasp was flying around in the cabin) but when Poirot discovers a thorn with a discoloured tip it seems that she was killed by a poisoned dart, aimed by a blowpipe.

Wasps provide the last link – it has to be The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, described as ‘a Gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality … quite impossible to put down‘.  This book has been on my TBR shelves for a few years – it’s time I read it, but I’m not sure I’ll like it. By all accounts it’s a book you either hate or think is brilliant. I’m a bit squeamish, so I may have to abandon it. Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

‘Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.’

Enter – if you can bear it – the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least.

I really enjoyed making this chain (actually there were a couple of other ways I could have made it).  There are books about a father and his son, books set just after the Second World War, books featuring animals (rabbits and snakes), and two books with wasps; books set in New York, England and France; and in different genres. I’ve read all of them, except for The Wasp Factory, which I may or may not read!

And thank you Kate for introducing me to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I hadn’t heard of and think is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read.