Category: Crime Fiction

First Lines

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Currently I’m reading The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann, but I’m getting increasingly tired of it. It maybe very well written, chronicling (in detail) the tension and despair in Olivia Curtis’s life as she has an affair with a married man in the 1930s, and no doubt it captures the spirit of the times of the interwar years but I just want to shake her. I’m probably in the wrong frame of mind to read it right now with its stream of consciousness style of writing and the small font that is blurring in front of my eyes as I read.

So this morning instead of struggling on with it I opened Once a Biker by Peter Turnbull, a Hennessey and Yellich mystery and began reading. It was a relief – the font size is much bigger, the writing is straightforward and the action is quick-moving.

I’ll write more about both books when I’ve finished them, but for now here are the opening lines of Once a Biker:

Monday, 17th June, 09.05 hours – 23.42 hours in which a realization comes to a dying man.

She had found the hospice had a wholly unexpected air of happiness about it. The peace of the institution she could understand, and indeed expected, as with the atmosphere of resignation, but the happiness of those awaiting death was something that came as a surprise. (page 1)

and of The Weather in the Streets:

Turning over in bed, she was aware of a summons: Rouse yourself. Float up, up from the submerging element … But it’s still night, surely … She opened one eye. Everything was in darkness; a dun glimmer mourned in the crack between the curtains. Fog stung faintly in nose, eyelids. So what was it: the fog had come down again: it might be morning. But I hadn’t been called yet. What was it woke me? Listen: yes the telephone, ringing downstairs in Etty’s sitting room; ringing goodness knows how long, nobody to answer it. (page 1)

Both books invite me to carry on reading. They are very different genres, but I’m keener to find out who killed Terry North, whose body has been found buried in a wood, twenty years after he disappeared, than I am to find out how Olivia’s affair progresses. I suspect it’s doomed.

A Book Beginnings post hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.

Cold is the Grave by Peter Robinson: Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

There’s quite a lot to think about reading Cold is the Grave by Peter Robinson. First of all are the crimes, the characters, how they interact and so on and then there are  a number of issues raised – including the difficulties of family relationships, the problems arising when professional  and personal lives overlap, and the effects of guilt.

Description from the back cover:

Detective Inspector Banks’s relationship with Chief Constable Riddle has always been strained. So Banks is more than a little surprised when Riddle summons him late one night and begs for his help.

For Riddle, Banks’s new case is terrifyingly close to home. Six months ago his sixteen-year old daughter ran away to London, where she has fallen into a turbulent world of drugs and pornography. With his reputation threatened, Riddle wants Banks to use his unorthodox methods to find her without fuss. But before he knows it, Banks is investigating murder …

My thoughts:

This is the 11th book in the Inspector Banks series and refers back to incidents in previous books. It’s not too difficult to follow if you haven’t read all the others (as I haven’t) but I think it would help and I wish that I had. It’s also a bit too long for my liking – maybe reading older crime fiction has  made me prefer a tighter and shorter book. However, this is still a good read.

Banks quickly finds Emily, living with Barry Clough a dubious character, old enough to be her father and wealthy from the proceeds of bootlegged computer games and software. Sickened by her life with Clough, she returns home with Banks and then one month later she is found dead, murdered by a mixture of cocaine and strychnine. Banks finds it difficult to stand back and be objective. It becomes personal to him and Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe has to warn Banks,

… don’t let anger and a desire for revenge cloud your judgement. Look clearly at the evidence, the facts before you make any moves. Don’t go off half-cocked the way you’ve done in the past. (page 192)

He and his team, including Detective Sergeant Annie Cabot, are also investigating the death of Charlie Courage, a small-time crook. Their investigations take them from their base in Eastvale, Yorkshire down to London, Stony Stratford, and Leicestershire, with links to crime in Northumbria. At first this seems to be unrelated to Emily’s death but Banks begins to suspect that the two cases maybe linked.

More complications follow with blackmail, another death and suicide, but eventually Banks and Annie work their way through the maze of events. Banks, though, has more victims of crime to add to those that bother his sleep with feelings of guilt, thinking that he should have dug deeper, and that he could have prevented the murders. He knew there was ‘something desperately out of kilter with the Riddle family’, and realises that Emily’s death was

… murder from a distance, perhaps even death by proxy, which made it all the more bloody to solve. (page 271)

This is a detailed and comprehensive police procedural as well as a thoughtful look at the problems of modern life. One to ponder.

 

Crime Fiction Alphabet – R is for …

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

… Ruth Rendell is one of my favourite authors, whether she writes under her own name or her pseudonym, Barbara Vine, so her novel, Tigerlily’s Orchids was an easy choice to illustrate the letter R for Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet.

Ruth Rendell was born on 17 February 1930 in London. She is Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has received many awards for her work, including the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger (lifetime achievement award), and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.
She is the author of a series of many novels featuring Detective Chief Inspector Wexford, set in Kingsmarkham, a fictional English town. The first of these, From Doon with Death, is also her first novel and was published in 1964. Books in the series include Kissing the Gunner’s Daughter (1992), Simisola (1994), Road Rage (1997), End in Tears (2005), and Not in the Flesh (2007). Under the pseudonym Barbara Vine her books include A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986), A Fatal Inversion (1987), winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction, Gallowglass (1990), King Solomon’s Carpet (1991), Asta‘s Book (1993) and The Brimstone Wedding (1995). The Blood Doctor (2002) is a psychological novel based on the diaries of Lord Henry of Nanther, Queen Victoria’s physician.

In 1996 she was  awarded a CBE in 1996 and in 1997 became a Life Peer –  Baroness Rendell of Babergh.

Tigerlily’s Orchids, published in 2010, is her 60th published book. It’s one of her stand-alone psychological crime novels, full of decidedly disturbing and disturbed characters.

Summary from the book cover

When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building. After some deliberation, he even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. There are a few other genuine friends on the list, but he definitely does not want to include his girlfriend, Claudia, as that might involve asking her husband.

The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons. All the occupants of Lichfield House are about to experience a dramatic change in their lives’¦

Living opposite, in reclusive isolation, is a young, beautiful Asian woman, christened Tigerlily by Stuart. As though from some strange urban fairytale, she emerges to exert a terrible spell. And Mr and Mrs Font, the worried parents, will have even more cause for concern about their handsome but hopelessly naive son.

As I began reading this book which starts by introducing the dysfunctional characters living in the building I had that creepy, ominous feeling  Ruth Rendell creates so easily, generated by the sad and sordid lives of the seemingly ordinary people she describes. Part of me didn’t want to carry on reading, but another part felt compelled to read on. There is Olwen who is determined to drink herself to death, Stuart, who is having an affair with Claudia, whose husband knows about it and who threatens and attacks him; a doctor, who writes dodgy medical reviews, a caretaker who spies on young children and three girls who are flat-sharing. Then there are the people living over the road …

Rendell weaves together a story round the various characters, first concentrating on one then another, in a way that made me want to know more about each one. I read it quickly and it’s one that may benefit from re-reading but I don’t want to. By the end I was happy to finish it and return my copy to the library.

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie: Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Murder is Easy, Agatha Christie’s 25th book was first published in 1939.

Publisher’s summary:

Luke Fitzwilliam could not believe Miss Pinkerton’s wild allegation that a multiple murderer was at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood — or her speculation that the local doctor was next in line. But within hours, Miss Pinkerton had been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke was inclined to think so — until he read in The Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood’s Dr Humbleby …

My view

This has stood the test of time very well. It’s another one of Agatha Christie’s easily read crime mysteries, with plenty of plot twists and unexpected revelations. This time the detective is Luke Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman recently returned to England from the East. He was wondering what to do with himself when he met Miss Pinkerton quite by chance. She tells him of her suspicions about a number of murders in her village and when he tells her that it’s rather hard to do a lot of murders and get away with it, she replies:

No, no, my dear boy, that’s where you’re quite wrong. It’s very easy to kill – so long as no one suspects you. And you see, the person in question is just the last person anyone would suspect! (page 22)

Wychwood-under-Ashe is a picturesque village with a Manor House, a village green and a duck pond. In other words a quintessentially English village just like Miss Marple’s St Mary Mead. But instead of Miss Marple, the person who helps Luke with his investigations is Bridget Conway, a beautiful young woman who immediately entrances Luke. His cover story is that he is writing a book on folklore and needs to talk to the locals gathering tales and legends.

I had no idea about the killer’s identity and neither really did Luke, until just near the end of the book. Superintendent Battle appears but does nothing towards solving the mystery and denies that he could have done any better than Luke explaining that

… nothing’s impossible in crime.

… Anyone may be a criminal, sir, that’s what I meant. (page 317)

Murder is Easy – one of Agatha Christie’s best mysteries:

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Harper; Masterpiece edition (Reissue) edition (3 Sep 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 000713682X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007136827
  • Source: I bought it

Cop Hater by Ed McBain: Book Review

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

Ed McBain is the pseudonym of Salvatore Lombino (1926 – 2005). He wrote children’s books, science fiction and westerns before writing crime fiction. He also wrote books under the name of Evan Hunter, most notably The Blackboard Jungle, which was later made into a film. He also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds, (which in turn was loosely based on Daphne du Maurier’s short story of the same name).

Cop hater 001
Cop Hater is the first in his series of 87th Precinct books and to my mind is a classic in the police procedural genre with its emphasis on the police routine investigations and on the importance of forensics in detection work. It’s a step back in time to the 1950s. The cover I’ve shown is of my copy reprinted in Penguin’s Crime Series in 1964, the original book was published in 1956.

It’s summer, a heatwave in the city (not named, but suspiciously like New York) and someone is targeting and killing cops, first Mike Reardon, then his partner David Foster. Hank Bush and his partner Steve Carella are struggling to find any clues to identify the murderer. But when Bush is killed with the same weapon, a Colt .45 Carella gets his break. Fortunately Bush managed to wound his attacker and the forensics team are able to piece together a remarkable analysis of the killer:

The killer is a male, white, adult, not over say fifty years of age. He is a mechanic, possibly highly skilled and highly paid. He is dark complexioned, his skin is oily, he has a heavy beard which he tries to disguise with talc. His hair is dark brown and he is approximately six feet tall. Within the past two days he took a haircut and a singe. He is fast, possibly indicating a man who is not overweight. Judging from the hair, he should weigh about 180. He is wounded, most likely above the waist, and not superficially. (page 122)

And all this is drawn from the hair Bush pulled from the attacker’s head, skin and beard hair from scratching his face and from the attacker’s blood that dripped onto Bush’s clothing and his blood stains on the pavement.

The general theory is that the killer is a ‘cop hater’, someone with a grudge against the police, whereas Carella has a different idea and when he talks to Savage, a journalist about it, Savage prints his words, putting Carella’s girlfriend in deadly danger as a result.

This is a great book. I loved McBain’s style, with vivid, precise descriptions of the city, the sizzling, suffocating heat and the characters. The dialogue is terse, tense and to the point and the plot moves quickly as the tension mounts towards a dramatic climax.

McBain is not just good on crime investigation and description. His characters, even the minor ones are real people, like Carella’s girl friend Teddy Franklin for example. I like the way he lets us know that she is deaf by Carella cursing the telephone because ‘it was worthless with a girl like Teddy’ and on then on the next page he clarifies that she’s dumb too – ‘her face was her speaking tool‘.

I love this description of a brief break in the heatwave as a storm hit the city.

It seemed the rain would never come. The lightning was wild in its fury, lashing the tall buildings, arcing over the horizon. The thunder answered the spitting anger of the lightning, booming its own furious epithets.

And then, suddenly, the sky split open and the rain poured down. Huge drops, and they pelted the sidewalks and the gutters and the streets; and the asphalt and concrete sizzled when the first drops fell: and the citizens of the city smiled and watched the rain, watched the huge drops – God, how big the drops were! – splattering against the ground. And the smiles broadened, and people slapped each other on the back, and it looked as if everything was going to be all right again.

Then suddenly the rain stopped.

It had burst from the sky like water that had broken through a dam. It rained for four minutes and thirty seconds. and then, as though someone had suddenly plugged the broken wall of the dam, it stopped.

The lightning still flashed across the sky, and the thunder still growled in response, but there was no rain.

The cool relief the rain had brought lasted no more than ten minutes. At the end of that time, the streets were baking again, and the citizens were swearing and mumbling and sweating.

Nobody likes practical jokes.

Even when God is playing them. (pages 111 – 112)

There are plenty of books in the 87th Precinct series and I hope to read more of them.

Crime Fiction Alphabet – Q

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

This week  it’s the letter Q in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet.

In January I decided that for the Crime Fiction Alphabet I would read books that I already own and I made a list of possible authors/titles for each letter. It’s worked out OK – up to now. I don’t have any unread books that I could write about for the letter Q, so I looked in my local library for inspiration.

The library had a lot of books on the shelves by Quintin Jardine. I’d written about his book Fallen Gods: a Bob Skinner mystery last year in the Alphabet  series so I thought I’d try another one of his books and borrowed On Honeymoon with Death: an Oz Blackstone Mystery. At the same time I also picked up Thereby Hangs a Tail: a Chet and Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn.

I’ve read the opening chapters of each one and decided I don’t really want to read either of them right now.

The book cover tells me that On Honeymoon with Death is about Oz Blackstone and Primavera Phillips trying to rekindle their relationship by returning to L’Escala, the idyllic Spanish village where they were once so happy. But things go wrong and then a body turns up face down in the swimming pool. My problem with the opening chapter is that I didn’t take to Oz’s outsize ego.

So I turned to Thereby Hangs a Tail but the idea of a doggy narrator called on to investigate threats made against  a pretty pampered show dog named Princess didn’t thrill me.

So both books are going back to the library unread – unless anyone can tell me that these are books that I will enjoy if I read a bit further on.

So my offering for the letter Q is A Question of Blood, the 14th Inspector Rebus book by Ian Rankin, which I read and wrote about last year.

Whilst looking for Q ideas I read about The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. This sounds a most interesting book. The description on various websites leads me to think I would like it:

Description from Amazon:

The Quincunx is an epic Dickensian-like mystery novel set in 19th century England, and concerns the varying fortunes of young John Huffam and his mother. A thrilling complex plot is made more intriguing by the unreliable narrator of the book – how much can we believe of what he says? First published in 1989, The Quincunx was a surprise bestseller and began a trend for pastiche Victorian novels. It remains one of the best.
If you’ve read this can you let me know what you think of it?