Category: Crime Fiction

One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four… and Five…

Published on by Margaret10 Comments
Today I’m copying Simon and doing his little this-book-that-book-this-book-that-book sort of post.

  1. The book I’m currently reading:


    Cop Hater by Ed McBain – there are 13  87th Precint books – this is the first in his series. There’s a heat-wave and someone is killing cops. McBain was a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and was one of three American writers to be awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement.

  2. The last book I finished:


    Gently Does It by Alan Hunter – The first of the Inspector Gently books. I read it on my Kindle and enjoyed it very much – post to follow later.

  3. The next book I want to read:


    The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann – this is the next book for my face-to-face book group and I was talking to some of the other members yesterday who’ve already started it and they told me how good it is. It’s the story of Olivia and her love affair with a married man. I don’t often read romantic novels, so this will a change for me. I’m looking forward to reading it.

  4. The last book I bought:

    The last one I bought was The Weather in the Streets. The one before that was:

    Adam and Eve and Pinch Me by Ruth Rendell
    I bought this from the secondhand book box at Eyemouth Hospital. It’s hardback and looks practically brand new. I like buying books from the local hospitals as the money goes to a good cause. And I especially like buying them when they’re by authors I enjoy, such as Ruth Rendell.

  5. The last book I was given:


    Agatha Christie At Home by Hilary Macaskill. My husband gave me this for Christmas and I’m amazed at myself because I haven’t read it yet, although I’ve had a look at the photos. This is not just about Greenway, Agatha Christie’s Devon home but about her other houses and identifies the settings she used in her books.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: P is for P D James

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

This week’s letter in Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet is the letter P. My choice is The Private Patient by P D James. I like the fact that not only does the author’s name begin with P (for Phyllis) but the title also has a double ‘P’.

Description from the back cover

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn books into Mr Chandler-Powell’s private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing scar, she has every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week’s peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset’s most beautiful manor houses, and the beginning of a new life. She was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team, called in to investigate the murder, and later a second death, are confronted with problems even more complicated than the question of innocence or guilt.

My view

This book is not a quick, easy read. It took me several days of slow, careful reading to absorb the details of this complex book. All the characters are described in detail. Rhoda is described as a private person as well as being the private patient. She has a painstakingly probing personality – ideal for an investigative journalist:

Neither dislike nor respect worried her. She had her own private life, an interest in finding out what others kept hidden, in making discoveries. Probing into other people’s secrets became a lifelong obsession, the substratum and direction of her whole career. She became a stalker of minds. (page 8 )

The novel is built up very slowly and methodically and it is only after nearly 100 pages that Rhoda is murdered and Commander Adam Dalgleish and his team are called to the Manor to investigate her death. Dalgleish is preparing for his marriage to Emma Lavenham and his  first thoughts are that maybe he’d had enough of murder. Although it wasn’t the most horrific corpse he’d seen he thought it

… seemed to hold a career’s accumulation of pity, anger and impotence. (page 138)

There are many suspects – a group of seven people in the Manor any of whom could have killed Rhoda – Chandler-Powell, Sister Holland, Helena Cressett, whose family had previously owned the Manor for more than 400 years, Letitia Frensham, Helena’s old governess now working at the Manor as book keeper, the cook and his wife, Dean and Kimberley Bostock and the domestic helper, Sharon Bateman. Marcus Westhall, the surgical assistant and his sister Candace, although they lived in the nearby Stone Cottage, also had access to the Manor and then there was Robin Boyton (the Westhall’s cousin) who was staying at Rose Cottage. He had recommended the Manor to Rhoda.

Dalgleish and his team interview all the suspects and discover many secrets and connections, delving into their lives. The clues are all there, but despite paying close attention as I read, it was only near the end of the book that I worked out who was responsible for the murders. This is a thoughtful book, with precise descriptions of people and places and yet it is tense and dramatic. I enjoyed it.

The Private Patient

  • Paperback: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (24 Sep 2009)
  • ISBN-10: 014103923X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141039237
  • Source: I bought it

Weekend Books & A New Challenge

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This weekend I’ve been reading:

  • The Private Patient by P D James. I finished this yesterday and I’ll be writing about it for the next Crime Fiction Alphabet post this week.
  • The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell. I started this a few days ago.

I see that José Ignacio from The Game’s Afoot has found an interesting challenge and it is indeed a challenge:

2011 Challenge ‘Do not Accumulate, Read!!’

The rules are simple, before you buy another book, make a list of six from your TBR pile and read them. Once done you can go ahead, buy the book and, of course, read it. At the same time make another list of six books before buying the next one, and so on and so forth.

This will be difficult as this last week I’ve acquired nine books (bought and borrowed) and so I should make nine lists (and read 54 books) before I buy/acquire any more. That is some challenge, so I’m going to start the challenge from today and read 6 of my to-be-read books before I buy any more!

The new to me books this week are:

  • Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffennegger. I’ve previously borrowed a copy from the library but took it back unread. It hadn’t appealed at the time, but when I saw it on a secondhand bookstall selling in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust I wondered if the time was right to give it another go.
  • The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann. This is my local book group choice for May. We chose a romance due to the Royal Wedding this month.
  • Small Island by Andrea Levy – borrowed from a friend because I enjoyed The Long Song so much and she said this one is better.

Then two watercolour painting books to help me paint flowers:

I hope these will help me to paint like this. (Click on image to enlarge it.)

I’ve also recently downloaded these onto my Kindle:

  • Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi – because I no longer have a printed version
  • THE COMPLETE FATHER BROWN MYSTERIES COLLECTION by G K Chesterton
  • The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
  • Gently Does It (Inspector George Gently 1) by Alan Hunter

I’m not sure what I’m going to read next, apart from The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann, because that’s the May book group book, but they will all be from my to-be-read books.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins: Book Review

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

The Moonstone is one of those books that I thought I’d read because I know the story, but actually I hadn’t. I know it because years ago I watched a TV dramatisation and the images of the Indians, the jewel, the shifting sands and Sergeant Cuff have remained in my mind ever since.

I downloaded the free e-book  to my Kindle.

I was surprised by how easy it is to read, written from several viewpoints and all so individual.  The Moonstone, a large diamond, originally stolen from a statue of an Indian God and said to be cursed is left to Rachel Verinder. She receives it on her 18th birthday and that night it is stolen from her bedroom. Chief suspects are three Indian jugglers, who are Hindu priests dedicated to retrieving the jewel. Suspicion also falls on Rosanna Spearman, one of the maids, who later drowns herself in the quicksands.

I loved the way Collins has written this book from so many different perspectives, giving a rounded picture of the investigations into the Moonstone’s theft. I particularly liked the first narrator Gabriel Betteredge, the house-steward and his reliance on Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe for comfort and enlightenment:

I am not superstitious; I have read a heap of books in my time; I am a scholar in my own way. Though turned seventy, I possess an active memory, and legs to correspond. You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years’”generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco’”and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad’”ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice’”ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much’”ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service.

Then, there is Sergeant Cluff, the detective who loves roses who leaves the mystery unsolved. A year later matters move on, the investigations pick up and eventually the culprit is revealed. There are many red herrings, false trails and plenty of suspense and tension before the denouement. I loved this book for its wealth of vividly drawn characters, its mystery and atmospheric settings and also its humour. Now I want to read more from Wilkie Collins.

Ticket to Ride by Janet Neel: Book Review

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I recently finished reading Ticket to Ride by Janet Neel.

Author details taken from the book:

Janet Neel is the nom de plume of Baroness (Janet) Cohen of Pimlico, who sits as a Labour peer in the House of Lords. She started out as a solicitor, then went into the Board of Trade, then to Charterhouse Bank. Her first novel, Death’s Bright Angel, won the John Creasey Prize, and Death of a Partner and Death Among the Dons were both shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger.

From the publishers’ blurb:

On the beach, west of Kings Lynn, a dog discovers eight bodies—all young and male, with their identifying papers removed; all suffocated to death and hastily dragged through the mud to their temporary graves.

Jules Carlisle, the youngest and most recently qualified member of Paul Jenkins Solicitors, knows very little about illegal immigration and would like to keep it that way. But when she takes on the case of Mirko Dragunoviç, an illegal immigrant claiming his brother is one of the eight found dead, she finds herself intrigued by his plight and concerned for his welfare.

Although Mirko has knowledge of the human traffic operation that was bringing his brother to the United Kingdom, he’s reluctant to talk, leaving Jules torn between protecting him and following correct procedure.

But it seems the case is even more complicated than she first suspects. It isn’t long before Jules finds herself drawn inexorably into great danger, and back into the territory of the abused childhood she thought she had escaped forever….

My thoughts:

This is a complicated murder mystery with much detail about illegal immigrants from both the legal and personal viewpoints. I thought it was maybe too detailed. Its strength lies in the characterisation. Jules stands out as the most rounded character, with details of her earlier life revealed as the story unfolds, but the other characters are also believable, from her adopted mother, a peer in the House of Lords, to Gwyn Jones, the Welsh social worker. As well as the deaths that pile up (not much graphic detail) there is also a bit of romance and the involvement of MI5 is a further complication. From a relatively slow start, the pace picks up towards the end, which is fast and furious. I was surprised by the ending, which I hadn’t foreseen at all.

I borrowed this book from the library.

Other books by Janet Neel include 7 books in the Francesca Wilson and John McLeish series:

  • Death’s Bright Angel
  • Death on Site
  • Death of a Partner
  • Death Among the Dons
  • A Timely Death
  • To Die for
  • O Gentle Death


Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter by Simon Brett

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

This is the first in what is described as ‘a gloriously silly new series set in the 1920s and featuring a pair of aristocratic siblings: the honorable and handsome Blotto, who has all the brains of a billiard ball, and his sister, the beautiful and brilliant Twinks.‘ The dedication, ‘To Pete, who always had a taste for the silly‘ is also a give-away that this book is not to be taken too seriously.

I rather liked Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter. It is indeed silly in the P G Wodehouse style of Jeeves and Wooster silly, full of slang and poking fun at the amateur detective who is an expert in identifying toxins, reading clues and being several steps ahead of the plodding police. It begins when Blotto, the rather dim son of the Dowager Duchess of Tawcester, discovers a dead body in the library. The police, represented by Chief Inspector Trumbull, who although ‘deeply stupid‘, knows his place:

The role of the police was to do a lot of boring legwork and paperwork, to trail up investigatory cul-de-sacs, to be constantly baffled, and dutifully amazed when an amateur sleuth revealed the solution to a murder mystery. (page 9)

The body just happened to be that of one of the Ex-King of Mitteleuropia’s entourage,who are all staying at Tawcester Towers. Then the Ex-King’s daughter, the beautiful Ex-Princess Ethelinde is kidnapped and Blotto, together with his chauffeur Corky Froggett, sets off across Europe to rescue her. It does escalates into farce with Blotto fighting off canon balls with his cricket bat. There are also some pointed remarks about class, race and forms of government, such as this about the royal family and the British government because as Blotto explains as well as the monarch there is also:

…  this bunch of chappies called the House of Commons …  which is actually rather well named … because a lot of the boddos in there are rather common. You know some of them didn’t even go to minor public schools. Anyway they do all the boring guff … you know, making laws and increasing taxes and all that. But then there’s the House of Lords, which is where our sort of people go, and they do important things … like seeing that their own particular bits of the countryside get looked after … and finding ways of avoiding all these taxes that the little oiks in the House of Commons keep raising. It all seems to work rather well. (page 128)

And

… [democracy is] a system based on the illusion of consultation with the common people. (page 129)

As I said – I rather liked it.

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Felony & Mayhem; Reprint edition (16 Feb 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 9781934609699
  • ISBN-13: 978-1934609699
  • Source: Review copy