Category: Crime Fiction

Crime Fiction Alphabet: L is for …

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

… Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie. This was first published in the UK in 1933 and later the same year in the USA as Thirteen for Dinner. It’s the eighth book featuring Hercule Poirot, narrated by Captain Hastings. Agatha Christie had written it in the autumn of 1931 at her house in Ninevah, whilst with her husband, Max Malloran on his expedition in the Middle East sponsored by the British Museum.

Lord Edgware Dies is set far from Ninevah, in London’s West End. Poirot is having supper at the Savoy with Hastings after they had been to the theatre to see the celebrated American impressionist, Carlotta Adams. At the next table is Jane Wilkinson, Lady Edgware, also a celebrated actress, who Carlotta had impersonated during her show. Jane implores Poirot to help her to ‘get rid of her husband’ – to convince him to agree to a divorce. Poirot agrees to go and see Lord Edgware. Much to Poirot’s surprise, Lord Edgware readily agrees to a divorce, but as Poirot and Hastings leave the house, Hastings is surprised to see an astonishing change in Lord Edgware’s face:

That suave smiling face was transformed. The lips were drawn back from the teeth in a snarl, the eyes were alive with fury and an almost insane rage. (page 33 0f my copy)

The next morning Lord Edgware was found dead, stabbed in the back of the neck. Jane was seen at the house the night before, but there are witnesses who can testify that she was at a dinner party with twelve other guests.  Could Jane have been in two places at once and killed him? She had boasted to her friends that if Poirot couldn’t help her that she would

‘have to call a taxi to go round and bump him off myself. (page 17)

Or was it Carlotta Adams impersonating Jane?

It’s not a simple mystery and there is a second murder which complicates matters. Poirot is at his best, relying on his knowledge of psychology, the ‘employment of the little grey cells‘, which gives him such mental pleasure. There are small personal touches such as this where Poirot compares his moustache to that of Hastings in this conversation between the two of them:

‘You have made a hit, Poirot. The fair Lady Edgware can hardly take her eyes off you.’

‘Doubtless she had been informed of my identity’, said Poirot, trying to look modest and failing.

‘I think it is the famous moustaches’, I said. ‘She is carried away by their beauty.’

Poirot caressed them surreptitiously.

‘It is true that they are unique,’ he admitted. ‘Oh, my friend, the ‘tooth-brush’ as you call it, that you wear – it is a horror – an atrocity – a wilful stunting of the bounties of nature. Abandon it, my friend, I pray of you.’ (pages 12-13)

Yet again, another baffling case solved by Hercule Poirot – a very entertaining book.

The Crime Fiction Alphabet 2012 is a meme hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.

July’s Books and Crime Fiction Pick of the Month

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

In July I read 8 books, 6 of them crime fiction. They are (in the order I read them):

The other two books I read are:

  • A Mercy by Toni Morrison – review to follow in a later post
  • The Glass Guardian by Linda Gillard

And my Crime Fiction Pick of the Month is The Crimson Rooms by Katharine McMahon.

Kerrie has a round-up post of bloggers’ book choices for the month, so for more recommendations, go to Mysteries in Paradise.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: K is for The Crimson Rooms by Katharine McMahon

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise hosts the Crime Fiction Alphabet each week. It has now reached the letter K and my choice is Katharine McMahon’s book The Crimson Rooms.

I bought The Crimson Rooms a couple of years ago because I’d enjoyed reading Katharine McMahon’s The Rose of Sebastopol, which I read in 2008. It’s been sitting with the other to-be-reads on my bookshelves since then and I hadn’t realised that this is not only historical fiction, but also historical crime fiction.

It’s set in London in 1924, with Britain still coming to terms with the aftermath of the First World War. Evelyn Gifford, one of the few pioneer female lawyers, lives at home with her mother, aunt and grandmother, still mourning the death of her brother James in the trenches. Evelyn is woken in the early hours one morning to find Meredith and her child, Edmund, aged 6 on the doorstep, claiming that Edmund is James’s son. Evelyn and the other women are thrown into confusion as Meredith upsets their memories of James.

Meanwhile Evelyn carries on with her work, taking on the case of Leah Marchant, who wants to get back her children who had been taken into care. She was accused of trying to kidnap her own baby. It’s early days for women to be accepted as lawyers and Evelyn struggles to defend Leah who distrusts her and wants Daniel Breen, Evelyn’s boss to defend her.

She is also involved in defending Stephen Wheeler, an old schoolfriend of Daniel’s. Stephen is accused of murdering Stella, his young wife of a fortnight. It’s obvious to Evelyn and Daniel that Stephen is innocent, but at first he refuses to talk and defend himself. After a humiliating experience in court, barrister Nicholas Thorne offers to help Evelyn much to her dislike. But she finds herself drawn to him and wonders how much she can trust him.

I was thoroughly engrossed in this book. It was not just the court cases, I was fascinated by the account of early women lawyers, represented by Evelyn, the central character. It clearly shows the prejudice these women had to overcome just to qualify as lawyers, never mind the difficulties of persuading law firms to employ them and clients to accept them. Katherine McMahon has included a Chronology of Women in Law from 1875 to 1950 at the back of the book and an analysis of why it took so long for women to be accepted. Evelyn is based on Carrie Morrison, who was the first British woman to be become a solicitor.

It’s not just about crime and the court cases, it’s also a novel about the way people’s lives were affected by the War, how men were unable to resume their old lives, some damaged by shell-shock and the horrors they had taken part in, or witnessed during the war. Women, too, had their lives completely changed, so many had their marriage prospects destroyed, and were replaced by work, becoming career women.

Katherine McMahon has done extensive research of the period but it all sits easily within the narrative. It’s beautifully written, full of imagery that creates a vivid picture of the setting and the characters. For example, she describes the moon:

… an extraordinary crescent moon which had, in the last few minutes, risen above the river, with the old moon burdening its lap like a fat round cushion.

and I like this description of one of the characters as she walked from the garden towards the house,

… the trailing hem of her robe a pool of ivory, her hair a swathe of black silk. (page 207)

Katharine McMahon’s other books are:

  • The Alchemist’s Daughter
  • A Way through the Woods
  • Footsteps
  • Confinement
  • After Mary
  • The Season of Light

More details are on her website.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: J is for …

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

ithe letter Js for … Peter James

Peter James is an author I’ve been aware of for a while and although I’ve owned a couple of his books until recently I hadn’t read them. Now I’ve read Dead Simple I realise I should have read it years ago – I didn’t know what I was missing. It’s really good.

Peter James is currently the Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association. As well as being a crime fiction writer he is also a film producer and script writer. He has sold more than a million books internationally and has been translated into 35 languages. His most recent books, set in Brighton, feature Detective Superintendent Roy Grace – there are 8 in the series, the first being Dead Simple.There is full list of all his books with summaries on his website.

Dead Simple is anything but simple. There are plenty of twists and turns in this story of a race against time to find Michael Harrison who disappeared after what was supposed to be a harmless stag night prank three days before his wedding. Michael’s fiancée, Ashley and his mother are frantic with worry, but surely Mark, his best man and business partner must have some idea where he is, even though he missed the stag night himself.

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is in charge of the investigation, which has added impetus for him as his wife disappeared eight years earlier and has never been found. When all the usual sources had failed to find her he had turned to psychics and mediums for help and he eventually resorts to consulting them again in this case.

It’s told from a number of viewpoints which gives a rounded view of the events and yet the full picture is never quite in view. There are hints that led me to suspect the outcome, but not completely. Some of it does seem rather far-fetched but it’s totally gripping, building to a tremendous climax.

I shall certainly be seeking out the other 7 books in his Grace series, and his earlier books too, which according to the author information in Dead Simple, all reflect his ‘deep interest in medicine, science and the paranormal.’

For more blog posts featuring the letter J in The Crime Fiction Alphabet go to Mysteries in Paradise.

Library Loot

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

It’s been ages since I did a Library Loot post. These reflect the variety of books that I enjoy. For more details about the books click on the links which take you to Amazon UK:

  • D H Lawrence – Daughters of the Vicar. This is a novella written in 1911. I’d never come across this before and thought it looked interesting. It has a foreword by Anita Desai – she writes that ‘here in the little story, Daughters of the Vicar (could any title be more redolent of the England of its time?) we have the essential D H Lawrence – the little contained world in a mossy valley of coal-veined hills from which that D H Lawrence grew’.
  • Kate Atkinson – Started Early, Took My Dog. This is the fourth Jackson Brodie book, described by The Times as ‘A comic novel of great wit and virtuosity.’ I’ve been meaning to get this since it came out a couple of years ago.
  • Edna O’Brien – The Country Girls. This was first published in 1960 and it’s set in a country village in Ireland in the early 1960s – a period piece now. Her books then were both successful and scandalous. In her native Ireland she was considered irreligious.
  • Guilty Consciences: a Crime Writers’ Association Anthology, edited by Martin Edwards (himself a successful crime fiction writer and blogger). I had to borrow this collection of short stories from some of my favourite crime fiction authors.
  • Peter James – Looking Good Dead. Even though I’ve had a couple of Peter James’s books for a few years I’d never read them, until I started Dead Simple (the first Detective Superintendent Grace book) this week. I’m hooked – it’s really good. So when I saw this in the library today I was delighted – it’s the second of his Roy Grace books!
  • M R Hall – The Flight. Another series of crime fiction that I like – this is the fourth in Hall’s Coroner Jenny Cooper series. I’ve read the first and the third – Jenny Cooper is a coroner who acts as a detective. Again, another series that has me captivated.

And finally, two books on a subject that is equally as absorbing as reading and blogging – painting:

Both books include demonstrations and advice on techniques, types of paint and pastels, and composition. I just need to get painting – and reading!

Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

A Golden Age Mystery

Death at the President's Lodging 001

This is the first Inspector Appleby mystery by Michael Innes. What struck me most about Death at the President’s Lodging is that it is essentially a ‘locked room’ mystery. Dr Umpleby, the unpopular president of St Anthony’s College (a fictional college similar to an Oxford college)  is found in his study, shot through the head.

 

The crime was at once intriguing and bizarre, efficient and theatrical. It was efficient because nobody knew who had committed it. And it was theatrical because of a macabre and necessary act of fantasy with which the criminal, it was quickly rumoured, had accompanied his deed. (page 1)

Inspector Appleby from Scotland Yard is in charge of the investigation, helped by Inspector Dodd from the local police force. They provide an interesting contrast, both in appearance, age and methods. Appleby is an intellectual, contemplative, preferring to study human nature rather than rely on the use of finger prints and material evidence. Dodd is reliant on routine and although untrained and unspecialised is shrewd and thorough. They know each other and make a good pair. This passage sums up their working relationship:

And now Dodd for all his fifteen stone and an uncommon tiredness (he had been working on the case since early morning), sprang up with decent cordiality to welcome his colleague. ‘The detective arrives,’ he said with a deep chuckle when greetings had been exchanged, ‘and the village policeman hands over the body with all the misunderstood clues to date.’ (page 5)

What follows is an extremely convoluted and complex investigation of the strange crime. Without the plan at the beginning of the book I would have been lost. The college is divided into different areas and each area is locked each evening, shutting it off from the outside world and shutting one part of the college off from the rest. Dodd describes it as a ‘submarine within a submarine’. The questions are how did the murderer get in and out, who had keys, and why was Umpleby murdered?

Appleby and Dodd interview the Fellows of the College, each of whom it seems at first could have had reason to murder Umpleby. Who is telling the truth? I couldn’t tell and there are innumerable clues to mystify both the police and the reader. Appleby watches and listens, recognising that he is not going to get a quick result in such a complicated case. Of course, in the end he works it all out. He gathers together the Fellows and calls on a number of them to give their statements of the facts as they know them. They each suspect a different person as the culprit, but Appleby gradually eliminates the suspects to reveal the murderer.

It was masterly. It’s also a book that you can’t read quickly. It requires concentration. There is little action, much description and a lot of analysis. I enjoyed it very much, but after reading it I felt my brain needed a little rest.

I also wrote about Michael Innes in my Crime Fiction Alphabet series of posts – I is for Innes.