The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Published on December 13, 2015 by Margaret7 Comments

Ingenious! That’s what I thought when I’d finished reading The Murder at the Vicarage. Although Agatha Christie had written short stories featuring Miss Marple this is the first full length Miss Marple story, published in 1930.

I’ve been reading my way through Agatha Christie’s crime fiction for a few years now, totally out of order, which is why I’ve only just got round to reading The Murder at the Vicarage. I’d picked up along the way on the fact that Miss Marple uses her knowledge of people to help her solve the mysteries she investigates. And it is in this book that her use of analogy is made absolutely explicit, as she considers who could have killed Colonel Prothero, the unpopular churchwarden, found in the vicar’s study shot through the head. She comes up with seven suspects, all based on examples of human behaviour she has observed in the past.

Miss Marple is not the popular figure she appears in the later books as not everybody likes her. The vicar does, liking her sense of humour, and describing her as ‘a white-haired old lady with a gentle appealing manner’, whereas his wife describes her as ‘the worst cat in the village. And she always knows everything that happens – and draws the worst inference from it.‘

But it is very helpful to know what is going on in St Mary Mead, about Dr Stone, a well-known archaeologist superintending the excavation of a barrow on Colonel Protheroe’s land and about Mrs Lestrange, a mysterious woman who has recently moved to the village and also about who was coming and going to the vicarage and when.

It’s also helpful to have a a plan of St Mary Mead, showing where the main characters live, and plans of the layout of the vicarage and the vicar’s study, where the murder occurred.

After one of the suspects confesses to the murder Inspector Slack, who shows his contempt for Miss Marple, thinks the case is closed, but Miss Marple is puzzled – the facts seem to her to be wrong. The Murder at the Vicarage has an intricate plot, is full of red herrings and was impossible for me to unravel, but Miss Marple with her knowledge of ‘Human Nature’ solves the mystery.

I enjoyed this book very much, but Agatha Christie writing her Autobiography years later, wasn’t all that pleased with it. She thought it had too many characters and too many sub-plots; she is probably right. But she thought that the main plot was sound and that the village was as real to her as it could be. It’s real to me too.

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

Published on December 9, 2015 by Margaret1 Comment

I was a bit doubtful that I would like Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner as it’s written in the present tense, which I usually find irritating. But I needn’t have been concerned because it wasn’t long before I’d completely forgotten the tense and I was totally immersed in the story. And I loved it.

Missing, Presumed is crime fiction, investigating the disappearance of Edith Hind, a beautiful Cambridge post-grad. Her boyfriend, Will Carter had returned to their flat to find the front door open, coats in disarray and a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. It’s told from different characters’ viewpoint, each one individually distinct, beginning with DS Manon Bradshaw on the Major Incident Team (her name means ‘bitter’ in Hebrew, but I thought it was Welsh), a lonely disillusioned single woman approaching forty, who overcomes her insomnia by listening to the low murmurings of police reports on her radio.

Edith’s mother, Miriam, Lady Hind, is distraught, wondering if somehow this is fault, her daughter the centre of a drama. Sir Ian Hind, a successful doctor, physician to the Royal Family and a friend of the Home Secretary adds to the pressure the police are under to find Edith. Edith’s friend, Helena comes under suspicion and known offenders are interviewed, but after the first 72 hours she is still missing. The team’s urgency is cooling as the possibility that Edith is still alive diminishes. Then a dog walker finds a body in the Ouse, near Ely; is it Edith? The search for the killer is intensified.

This has all the ingredients of a successful crime novel for me. My only criticism of the book is that I didn’t think the final section, ‘One Year Later‘ in which the ends are tied up , was necessary. But apart from that I found it gripping and intense. I was intrigued by the multi-layered plot, and thought the characters were fully rounded, believable people, explored with psychological depth – in particular Manon Bradshaw stands out. And, best of all, it is beautifully written.

The Author

Susie Steiner is a novelist and freelance journalist. She began her writing career as a news reporter first on local papers, then on the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph and The Times. In 2001 she joined The Guardian, where she worked as a commissioning editor for 11 years. For more information see her website, susiesteiner.co.uk

My thanks to Lovereading for providing an advance proof of this novel, due to be published in February 2016. Missing, Presumed is Susie Steiner’s second book ‘“ the first is Homecoming, which I really must read.

And I do hope she will write more about DS Manon Bradshaw.

Classics Club Spin Result

Published on December 7, 2015 by Margaret5 Comments

The Spin number is 19, which for me is The Color Purple by Alice Walker – to be read by 1 February 2016.

‘One of the most haunting books you could ever wish to read … it is stunning – moving, exciting, and wonderful’, Lenny Henry.

I’m looking forward to reading it. I watched the film starring Whoopi Goldberg many years ago, which I thought was an excellent film.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

Adding to the TBR Shelves

Published on December 5, 2015 by Margaret5 Comments

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Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves. This means you can include ‘˜real’ and ‘˜virtual’ books (ie physical and ebooks) you’ve bought, books you’ve borrowed from friends or the library, review books, and gifts.

These recent additions to my bookshelves and the ever growing TBR piles are the result of my last visit to Barter Books. I took in two bags of books (20 books), books I’d read and decided I wouldn’t want to re-read, and came home with 7, so I’m still in credit there and at least, for the time being, have fewer books in the house. Six of the books are fiction and just one is non-fiction.

From top to bottom they are all crime fiction apart from the last book:

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers – Lord Peter Wimsey’s brother the Duke of Denver is charged with murder. A series I’m dipping into now and then. This is the 2nd Lord Peter Wimsey book.
Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow – currently published as George Passant, this is the first in the Strangers and Brothers series. I read some of the series many years ago, so not sure if I read this one then.
Runaway by Peter May – In 1965, five teenage friends fled Glasgow for London to pursue their dream of musical stardom. Yet before year’s end three returned, and returned damaged.
The Child’s Child by Barbara Vine – ‘A brother, a sister and a secret. Could you live a lie, to protect the one you love?’
Dead Men and Broken Hearts by Craig Russell – the 4th in his Lennox thriller series set in Glasgow.
Lennox by Craig Russell – the first in the series set in Glasgow in the 1950s. I love Russell’s Jan Fabel books set in Hamburg so am keen to see if I’ll also love his Lennox books.
Pastels for Beginners by Ernest Savage – a book to improve my pastel painting, I hope. This was published in 1980, with lots of detail and mainly black and white illustrations. I’d prefer more colour illustrations.

And yesterday I went to the library and borrowed these:

The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History by Boris Johnson. Cath’s review at Read Warbler inspired me to read this book. She loved its conversational tone and Johnson’s insight into Churchill’s character – what made him tick. I reserved this book.
The Pattern in the Carpet: a Personal History with Jigsaws by Margaret Drabble – a book that’s been on my wish list for years and there it was just sitting on the library shelves. Drabble describes is as a ‘hybrid’ – not a memoir, nor a history of jigsaws, although that is what she intended to write. It spiralled off in other directions and she is not sure what it is!
Katherine Mansfield: a Secret Life by Claire Tomalin. I reserved this book for two reasons – I’ve recently read some of Katherine Mansfield’s short stories and I’ve enjoyed other biographies written by Claire Tomalin.

Now I need to get reading!!

The Classics Spin

Published on December 4, 2015 by Margaret11 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Spin.

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

Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor by R D Blackmore
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Romola by George Eliot
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Doctor Thorne (Barsetshire Chronicles, #3) by Anthony Trollope
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

I really don’t mind which one comes up in the Spin!

Five of the Best for November 2011-2015

Published on December 4, 2015 by Margaret14 Comments

This was originally Cleo’s idea (Cleopatra Loves Books). It’s to look back over your reviews of the past five years and pick out your favourite books for each month from 2011 ‘“ 2015. I like it so much it inspired me to do the same.

I really enjoy looking back over the books I’ve loved reading. These are some of my favourite books for each November from 2011 to 2015 (click on the titles/covers to see my original reviews). November is apparently the month where the crime fiction books I’ve read have been my favourite reads.

Three of the five books are Ian Rankin’s Rebus books – November is the month he’s published his latest books and November is the month I read them. Ian Rankin is one of my favourite authors and his Rebus books never fail to impress me both with their ingenuity and the quality of their plots and characterisations.

2011

White Nights by Ann Cleeves – the second in her Shetland Quartet, featuring Detective Jimmy Perez, set mainly in Biddista, a fictional village of a few houses, a shop, an art gallery and restaurant called the Herring House, and an old Manse. A man’s body is found, hanging in the hut where the boat owners of the village of Biddista keep their lines and pots. Perez recognises the dead man ‘“ he’s the mystery man who had caused a scene the previous evening at the opening of Bella Sinclair’s and Fran Hunter’s art exhibition.

This book is not only full of believable characters, each one an individual in their own right, it also has a nicely complicated plot and a great sense of location. It’s the place, itself, that for me conveyed the most powerful aspects of the book. The ‘˜white nights’ are the summer nights when the sun never really goes down. They call it the ‘˜summer dim’, the dusk lasts all night, and in contrast to the bleak, black winters, fills people with ‘˜a kind of frenzy‘˜.

2012

Standing in Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin. This is the first book after Rebus’s retirement in which he is working for SCRU ‘“ the Serious Crime Review Unit, a Cold Case unit of retired police officers, investigating the disappearance of a young woman missing since 1999, and linking it with later cases of missing women all in the vicinity of the A9. He also clashes with Malcolm Fox of Edinburgh’s internal affairs unit – their dislike is mutual.

I was gripped by this book and liked the way Rankin included characters from earlier books, such as Big Ger Caffety, Siobhan Clarke, now a DI, and in particular Malcolm Fox.

2013

Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin. I think this is one of his best ‘“ a realistic and completely baffling mystery. a complex, multi-layered case, linking back to one of Rebus’s early cases on the force as a young Detective Constable. Rebus is now back on the force, the rules on retirement age having changed, but as a Detective Sergeant. Once more he is under scrutiny by Malcolm Fox. There are suspicions that Rebus and his colleagues, who called themselves ‘˜The Saints of the Shadow Bible’ were involved in covering up a crime, allowing a murderer to go free.

The interaction between Rebus and Fox is one of the joys of this book. Beneath his controlled exterior Fox is just as much a loose cannon as Rebus, he’s not a team player either and it is fascinating to see how Rebus gets under his skin and reveals Fox’s true nature.

2014

And now for a different author, but still crime fiction:

Blue Heaven by C J Box. I loved this book, the first one of C J Box’s books that I’ve read. The action takes place over four days in North Idaho one spring. It’s a story about two children, Annie and William who decide to go fishing without telling their mother, Monica, and witness a murder in the woods. One of the killers sees them and they run for their lives.

I loved the writing style – straightforward storytelling, with good descriptions of locality and characters; characters that are both likeable and downright nasty, but not caricatures. It’s a book that got right inside my mind so that I found myself thinking about when I wasn’t reading it and keen to get back to it. And the ending was what I hoped, and also dreaded it would be.

2015

Back to Rebus – although I also loved Claire Tomalin’s Mrs Jordan’s Profession.

Even Dogs in the Wild – Now, two years later on from The Saints of the Shadow Bible Rebus is on his second retirement, working in a ‘˜consultative capacity’, albeit not as a cop and with no warrant card or real powers and with no pay. Once more this is a complicated plot, involving Malcolm Fox now seconded to the team of undercover cops from Glasgow, gang warfare, and Big Ger Cafferty. There are so many deaths and twists and turns that my mind was in a whirl as I tried to sort out all the characters.

Rankin, as usual, successfully combined all the elements of the crime mystery with the personal lives of the main characters and at the same time highlighting various current political and social issues.

Is this the last we’ll see of Rebus? Only time and Ian Rankin will tell.