Category: Crime Fiction

Ten Little Niggers by Agatha Christie

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

I wondered when I began to write this post whether to use the current title, And Then There Were None, for this book, but chose to use its original title, Ten Little Niggers as that is the title of my copy, a 1968 reprint of its first publication in the UK in 1939. Because of its offensive title it was first published in the US a few months later in 1940 as And Then There Were None.

Ten Little Niggers

Description from the back cover:

10 people are invited to a fabulous mansion on Nigger Island off the coast of Devon. Though they all have something to hide, they arrive hopefully on a glorious summer evening… But soon a series of extraordinary events take place: the island is suddenly bathed in a most sinister light .. panic grips the visitors one, by one … by one… by one…

Eight people are invited to the island (based on a real island – Burgh Island off the south west coast of Devon). They are met by the butler and housekeeper/cook who explain that the owner, Mr Owen (U.N.Owen) has been delayed but has left instructions for their reception. In each of their rooms is a framed copy of the rhyme about the ten little nigger boys who all met their death. On their first evening they sit down to dinner in good spirits until, without any warning they hear a Voice accusing each of them (including the butler and housekeeper) of having caused the deaths or murdered a number of people. From that point onwards, one by one they are found dead, corresponding to the deaths in the rhyme and one by one a china figurine on the dining room table mysteriously disappears.

As the weather worsens they are stranded on the island and unable to leave or to get help from the mainland. Agatha Christie has created not only a ‘locked room’ type of mystery but also a mystery full of suspense, as the guests try to identify Mr U N Owen and become increasingly suspicious of each other. Their fear is further amplified by the house itself, which surprisingly is not an old Gothic house full of creaking wood and dark shadows –

But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners – no possible sliding panels – it was flooded with electric light – everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it.

Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all …

They exchanged good-nights on the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door … (page 52)

Despite their precautions the deaths continue, and each time no one sees or hears anything. I’d marked the page with the rhyme and kept flipping back to it to check how the next victim was going to meet with death, as I tried to work out who the murderer was and how he/she was able to carry out the murders unobserved. What makes it more tense for the reader (or at least for me) is the technique Agatha Christie makes of revealing the thoughts of the remaining characters, but without letting on who the thinker is.

In 1943 Agatha Christie adapted the book into a play, changing the ending, and there have been several film versions, none of which I’ve seen, so I didn’t know who the murderer was, although I knew the outline of the plot. Part way through the book I thought – ah, there is only one person who could be the murderer and I was right. I must re-read the book sometime to see if there were any clues, because if there were I missed them. My idea was based on the probability of that character being the murderer rather than any specific clues.

It is an ingenious mystery, revolving around the concepts of guilt and justice. There was no doubt that each of the victims had committed murder or caused/influenced the death of another person. But did the punishment fit the crime and could it ever be justified? As the murderer explains in an epilogue there were varying degrees of guilt among the victims and those whose guilt was lightest were killed off first!

This is possibly the most famous of Agatha Christie’s books. In her Autobiography Agatha Christie wrote that she had written the book because it was so difficult to do and the idea fascinated her. I found it fascinating too, but as an exercise and a puzzle rather than as a novel. Writing about the play and the book she stated:

I don’t say it is the play or the book of mine I like best, or even that I think it is my best, but I do think in some ways that it is a better piece of craftsmanship than anything else I have written. (page 489 of An Autobiography)

I agree.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown: Book Notes

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol back in July and never got round to writing about it at the time, so I’ve forgotten much of the detail. For pure escapism I really like Dan Brown’s books. I know lots of people criticise his writing but I find his books hard to put down once I’ve started reading them – I’ve read The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons as well as this one. They’re not great literature but they are great entertainment, even though this one follows the same formula – it’s a breathtaking race over 24 hours as Robert Langdon follows the clues, to rescue the his friend, Peter Solomon, a Mason. Because it’s so formulaic I knew what to expect (although not the detail), it’s full of cliff-hangers and the characters are stereotypes.

It’s long and complicated, full of coincidences and improbable situations, all of which I had no trouble accepting, and a terrifying and crazy villain, Mal’ahk. It’s also packed with detail about the Freemasons,the art and architecture of Washington D.C., and Noetic Science – ‘a fusion of modern particle physics and ancient mysticism’,  all of which was new to me and I found it fascinating. It helped that I read the Illustrated Edition on Kindle which has many photographs and illustrations and I kept checking facts on the computer too.

I don’t think it’s as good as either The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, but that may because the first had the novelty factor and the second is set in Rome, a place I’ve visited and know more about than Washington D.C. It did make me want to visit Washington D.C. though. And I do intend to read his next book Inferno. I’ve read some of Dante’s Inferno and I’ve visited Florence so I’m keen to find out where Robert Langdon’s race against time takes him and how Brown incorporates the details of the Circles of Hell.

Although I didn’t read this to take part in the What’s in a Name Challenge I’ve realised that it does fit into the category of book with the word ‘lost‘ in the title, making this the last book for me to complete the Challenge.

Not the End of the World by Christopher Brookmyre

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Not the End of the World

Not the End of the World by Christopher Brookmyre is a crime thriller set in Los Angeles at the end of the last century when people were in the grip of ‘1999 Syndrome’:

1999 Syndrome took plain old Things Are Getting Worse and changed it into Things Are Getting Worse Because The End Is Nigh. Crime used to be seen as instances of anti-social behaviour, sins against society. But now there was this resigned attitude at large that it was indicative of a greater, inexorable process of decay. Each crime now had to Mean Something, each new atrocity held up as the next marker on our descent into uncharted depths of stygia. (page 37)

Synopsis (from Christopher Brookmyre’s website):

The crew of an oceanic research vessel goes missing in the Pacific along with their mini-submarine.

An evangelical media star holds a rally next door to a convention in LA devoted to ‘nubile’ cinematic entertainment.

The cops know there’s going to be trouble and they are not disappointed. What they didn’t foresee was the presence in their state of a Glaswegian photographer with an indecipherable accent and a strong dislike of hypocrisy or of a terrorist who seems to have access to plutonium as well as Semtex.

My View

I became absorbed in this book as I read it. The plot is tightly constructed but the novel is interspersed with details of the main characters’ backgrounds and how they came to have their beliefs and personality traits, which slows down the action somewhat. However, this does flesh out the characters – the tension and drama slowly comes up to boiling point.

Larry Freeman of the LAPD is overseeing security at the Pacific Vista Hotel where the American Feature Film Market is being held. Just over the road the Evangelical Festival of Light is being held, including the Mission of Purity and the American Legion of Decency, led by the TV evangelist and ex-Presidential candidate Luther St John. St John has predicted that time is running out, the countdown has begun and a tidal wave is going to hit LA as God’s punishment for all the evil man has committed. St John’s wrath is also aimed at the ‘Whore of Babylon’, the porn actress Madeleine Witherson, whose father is a Republican Senator. Steff Kennedy is a Scottish photographer who falls in love with Maddy and gets mixed up in the whole scene and the result is chaos. Add into this mix diatribes against fundamental religion and this is the book in a nutshell.

I enjoyed it, but could have done with less detail about the characters’ backgrounds. Brookmyre’s style is snappy, cynical and wise-cracking, although in places I thought it was too wordy. I really liked the ancient history references to the Minoan eruption of Thera (Santorini), one of the largest volcanic eruptions of all time, a ‘devastating caldera eruption’, resulting in one of the largest seismic waves in history. I’d like to find out more about that!

Not the End of the World is Christopher Brookmyre’s third book. He is a Scottish novelist whose novels mix politics, social comment and action with a strong narrative. He has been referred to as a Tartan Noir author.

Relics of the Dead by Ariana Franklin

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

As soon as I’d finished reading The Death Maze I began Ariana Franklin’s third book in her Mistress of the Art of Death series, Relics of the Dead. Now this one was more to my liking and I enjoyed it very much.

The date is 1176, the setting is Glastonbury where the monks, after a fire had destroyed their monastery, discovered two skeletons buried in their graveyard. The question is  – are these the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere? The problem is that Henry II needs evidence that they are not – that the legendary Arthur is indeed dead and not the ‘Once and Future King’, sleeping but waiting for the right time to lead the belligerent Welsh against him. Henry’s solution is to send Adelia Aguilar, the anatomist, to examine the bones for evidence, preferably to establish that no one can say that the bones are not that of Arthur and his queen. Given that this is the 12th century and the technology wasn’t there to prove the age and identity of the bones, Adelia assisted by Mansur, does a pretty good job in her investigation, despite attempts on her life.

Where Relics of the Dead stands out is in the depiction of Glastonbury, a mysterious, spiritual place, ‘one of the world’s sacred centres, a place where the division between man and God was thinner than anywhere else‘, a place where ‘there was a special magnetism that pulled people to worship a presence her long before Christ had set foot on his native heath.’ But Adelia, that down-to-earth, practical woman couldn’t feel it – for her all mysteries had to have an explanation. And she was determined to find it.

I’ve always liked the stories about King Arthur and the beliefs about his life and death, about Excalibur (which does feature in this book), about Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot,  and the Holy Grail (which do not). As well as a strong sense of place and atmosphere the characters are well-drawn and believable, even if some aspects of the plot required quite a hefty suspension of disbelief (which I managed easily enough).

Similarly I wasn’t bothered by Franklin’s use of modern language – in her Author’s Note, she had noted that she was sometimes criticised for making her characters use modern language and explained that ‘in 12th century England the common people spoke a form of English even less comprehensible than Chaucer’s in the 14th, the nobility spoke Norman French and the clergy Latin. Since people then sounded contemporary to each other, and since I hate the use of what I call ‘Gadzooks’ in historical novels to denote a past age, I insist on making them sound contemporary to us.’ If she had used such ‘gadzooks’ language I don’t think I’d have got very far into the book. And, it didn’t occur to me that her dialogue was anachronistic.

Franklin also used a lot of terms common to the age, such as ‘Mort d’Ancestor’, which she did explain within the text, so that that too did not bother me. In fact I liked it, I think it added to the atmosphere and I did enjoy looking up such terms for more information in a book I used to use a lot when I worked in a local archive repository – The Local Historian’s Encyclopedia by John Richardson, a fascinating book.

Ariana Franklin was the pseudonym of Diana Norman. She died in 2011. The last book in the series is The Assassin’s Prayer (published as Murderous Procession in the US), continuing Adelia’s story.

The Death Maze by Ariana Franklin

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Normal service has been resumed – thankfully!! – I’m back to writing on this blog thanks to my son.

It seems quite a while since I finished reading Ariana Franklin’s The Death Maze (published as The Serpent’s Tale in the US), so these are just a few thoughts about the book.

Back in 2007 I’d really enjoyed her first book, Mistress of the Art of Death (which I wrote about here) and I was eager to read the next book about Adelia Aguilar, the 12th century anatomist employed by Henry II. But I was a bit put off by reports that The Death Maze was not as good, and other books grabbed my attention. Time passed, the third book came out – Relics of the Dead – and curiosity got the better of me so I bought both books, and eventually I got round to reading them – one after the other.

Yes, The Death Maze does not live up to the first book for me, but it’s still enjoyable. Rosamund Clifford, Henry II’s mistress has been poisoned, allegedly by Eleanor of Aquitane, Henry’s wife. Adelia is summoned to investigate her death. So, she sets off to Oxford, accompanied by her baby daughter, Allie, her servant Gyltha and the Saracen, Mansur, who has to pose as the doctor whilst Adelia pretends to be his assistant. Adelia was a graduate of the School of Medicine in Salerno, which, unlike England, allowed women to train as physicians; in England her forensic skills would have been considered witchcraft.

Rosamund had lived in a strange and sinister tower surrounded by a maze, constructed of walls of granite with blackthorn planted against them. So, the first problem Adelia had to solve was to find the way through the maze. She was then faced with the gruesome discovery of Rosamund’s dead body. The main thrust of the book centres on Eleanor’s moves to overthrow Henry II, and after Eleanor and her supporters capture Adelia, they take her to the nunnery at Godstow, where they wait snowbound for the right moment to launch their rebellion.

I think the book works well as historical fiction, even though as Ariana Franklin wrote in her Author’s Notes that there is only a brief reference to Rosamund Clifford in the historical records and so this is a fictional portrayal based on legend. And she inserted a fictional rebellion in England in a gap in the medieval records. It has whetted my appetite to know more about the period. But as crime fiction, I was rather disappointed because although I found the details of Rosamund’s death interesting, there was actually very little about Adelia’s investigation, very little for her to exercise her forsenic skills, which was one of the elements I’d enjoyed in Mistress of the Art of Death. 

This is my second book for Carl’s  R.I.P.VII challenge and it also slots into the Historical Fiction Challenge and the Mount TBR Challenge 2013.

New-To-Me Books

Published on by Margaret17 Comments

I went to Barter Books in Alnwick last week and was really delighted to find these books:

Heatwave etcFrom the bottom up they are:

  • Instructions For A Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell – this was right at the top of a bookcase, far too high up for me to reach, but a helpful member of staff got it down for me. It’s one I’ve had on my wishlist since I read The Hand that First Held Mine, which I thought was excellent. This is her sixth book and is a portrait of a family in crisis during the heatwave in 1976.
  • The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate – this is the book to read in October for Cornflower’s Reading Group. I read about on the morning I was going to Barter Books  was amazed to find a good hardback copy just as though I’d reserved it. The shooting party takes place in autumn 1913 – ‘Here is a whole society under the microscope, a society soon to be destroyed.’ I began reading it in the shop whilst having a cup of coffee and it promises to be really good.
  • Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie – I always check which Agatha Christie books are in at Barter Books. Sometimes there aren’t any I haven’t read, but this time there were two. This one does not feature Poirot or Miss Marple, not like the TV adaptation that had Miss Marple (in the form of Geraldine McEwan), solving the mystery. In her Autobiography Agatha Christie wrote that ‘of her detective books the two that satisfy me best are Crooked House and Ordeal by Innocence.’ (An Autobiography page 538)
  • Ten Little Niggers by Agatha Christie – I was so pleased to find this book as it’s one of the best-selling books of all time and one I’ve never read, although I remember the basics of the plot from TV/film versions. I’ve beenlooking out for it for ages. The book was originally published in 1939, when the title would have given little offence in the UK, but it was different in the USA and it was first published there in 1940, a few months later, as And Then There Were None. This copy was published in 1968 in the UK and still has its original title, as the book continued to be published under this title until 1985 . I was quite startled, though, to see the cover picture showing a golliwog:

Ten Little Niggers

I’m looking forward to reading all of them – and the pleasurable problem now is deciding which one to read first – it maybe Ten Little Niggers! Again quoting from her Autobiography, Agatha Christie wrote that:

It was well received and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been. (page 488)