Category: Fiction

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

From the back cover:

‘No sign of foul play,’ says Dr Carr after the post-mortem on Agatha Dawson. The case is closed. But Lord Peter Wimsey is not satisfied.

With no clues to work on, he begins is own investigation. No clues, that is, until the sudden, senseless murder of Agatha’s maid.

What is going on in the mysterious Mrs Forrest’s Mayfair flat? And can Wimsey catch a desperate murderer before he himself becomes one of the victims?

This is the third book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy L Sayers, first published in 1927. My copy was reprinted in 2016 and I bought it secondhand five years ago. I’ve been reading this series totally out of order – I’ve already read the first two and several of the later books too. I think they each read well on their own.

Miss Climpson makes her first appearance in Unnatural Death, helping Lord Peter, working undercover. She is an elderly spinster, who runs what Wimsey calls ‘My Cattery’, ostensibly a typing bureau, but actually an amateur detective/enquiry agency. As in the first two books he works with his friend, Inspector Charles Parker, who is a Scotland Yard detective. Bunter, his manservant, only has a very minor role in this book. I think it’s an interesting mystery, not so much about discovering who killed Agatha Dawson and her maid, Bertha, but more about how the murders were committed.

Uncertain Death is most definitely a book of its time – that is the early 20th century. There is much banter, wit and humour, and plenty of snobbery of all types, clearly showing the class distinctions between the working and upper classes. Racism is prevalent and also lesbianism, although that is not directly stated. It is a clever story, well told, with colourful characters. There is a biographical note at the end of the book that reveals much about Lord Peter’s background, about his early years, school and university, and his experiences during the First World War.

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …

17

which for me is How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by 22 September 2024.

Synopsis from Goodreads

A poignant coming-of-age novel set in a Welsh mining town, Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley is a paean to a more innocent age, published in Penguin Modern Classics

Growing up in a mining community in rural South Wales, Huw Morgan is taught many harsh lessons – at the kitchen table, at Chapel and around the pit-head. Looking back on the hardships of his early life, where difficult days are faced with courage but the valleys swell with the sound of Welsh voices, it becomes clear that there is nowhere so green as the landscape of his own memory. An immediate bestseller on publication in 1939, How Green Was My Valley quickly became one of the best-loved novels of the twentieth century. Poetic and nostalgic, it is an elegy to a lost world.


This is good as How Green Was My Valley is also on my 20 Books of Summer list. I’m looking forward to reading it. It’s been on my To Be Read list for so long!

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

The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Little, Brown Book Group UK| 18 July 2024 | 495 pages|e-book |Review copy| 3*

Description from the publishers

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW
THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL

You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed.

You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes.

Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer.

A cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, The Cracked Mirror is the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, a genre-splicing rollercoaster with a poignantly emotional heart.

My thoughts:

I’ve read several books by Chris Brookmyre and those he’s co-written with his wife, Marisa Haetzman under the pseudonym Ambrose Parry and thoroughly enjoyed each one. The Cracked Mirror is not like any of his other books and it took me quite a while to get into it.

First of all there’s the title – as the publishers’ description alludes to, it’s not another version of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, but it is a cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly. I’ve read all of Christie’s crime fiction novels and none of Michael Connelly’s books, so I didn’t know quite what to expect. Maybe a mash-up of British/American crime fiction/thriller, and that is what it is, with plenty of twists and turns, complications and rollercoaster fast action chases, most of it unbelievable. It’s brutal, violent, with quite a bit of dark humour thrown in. It’s also tense and full of suspense.

At first I was happily reading about Penny Coyne – think a sort of Miss Marple like character, a Scottish elderly spinster with a successful record of solving murder mysteries in her home village. The book begins as a body is found in the confessional booth of the chapel of Saint Bride’s in Glen Cluthar, where Ms Penelope Coyle lives. And then I was suddenly confused when I came to read a completely different story about Johnny Hawke, an LAPD homicide detective, not bothered about sticking to the rules. He’s investigating an apparent suicide of a screen writer in LA. But, as their cases came together I settled into this bizarre book and it became a unified whole. It has a very clever plot (maybe just too clever for me) that kept me guessing right to the end.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Cracked Mirror: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre, which was published yesterday. My full review will follow shortly.

Chapter One:

There was a body in the chapel of Saint Bride’s.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

‘Does your being an LAPD office help us here?’ ‘Not up the coast. And not while I’m under suspension. So I need you to understand that we might have to break a few rules. This could involve theft, fraud, trespass, or all three.’

Description

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW
THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL

You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed.

You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes.

Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer.

A cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, The Cracked Mirror is the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, a genre-splicing rollercoaster with a poignantly emotional heart.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Spell the Month in Books July 2024

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Spell the Month in Books is a linkup hosted by Jana on Reviews From the Stacks on the first Saturday of each month. The goal is to spell the current month with the first letter of book titles, excluding articles such as ‘the’ and ‘a’ as needed. That’s all there is to it! Some months there are optional theme challenges, such as “books with an orange cover” or books of a particular genre, but for the most part, any book you want to use is fair game!

The optional theme this month is Stars/Sky. All these book covers include the sky in different weather conditions, and one also has stars.

J is for The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths, crime fiction

Forensics expert Ruth Galloway is called in to investigate when builders, demolishing a large old house in Norwich, uncover the skeleton of a child – minus the skull – beneath a doorway. Is it some ritual sacrifice of just plain straightforward murder?

I like the mix of archaeology, mystery and crime fiction in Elly Griffiths’s books. This one has a double dose, with mythology and Catholicism running through the narrative as well as the police procedures.  Ruth is an interesting character, not your usual detective, she’s overweight, self-reliant but also feisty and tough. She has to be with everything that’s thrown at her and as her investigations lead her into great danger. 

U is for Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

In this book the author describes how she bought and renovated an abandoned villa. It’s full of the pleasures of living in Tuscany – the sun, the food, the wine and the local people. It makes me want to do the same! It’s nothing like the film they made of it – the book is much better. Bella Tuscany is the follow up book with more details about the restoration of the villa and its garden, plus recipes.

I used this book in June’s Spell the Month in Books, but I’m using it again because it’s perfect for the theme of Sky/Stars this month!

L is for The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

This is the story of Tom, a lighthouse keeper on an isolated island, Janus Rock, and his wife Isabel. Janus Rock )a fictional island) is nearly half a day’s journey from the coast of Australia, where the Indian Ocean washes into the Great Southern Ocean. When a boat washes up on the shore of the island it holds a dead man – and a crying baby. Tom and his wife have a devastating decision to make.

Y is for The Yorkshire Vet by Peter

I’ve watched the TV series and loved it. This book is one of four books by Peter Wright, telling his life story, charting his working relationship with the famous ‘James Herriot’, from work experience with him as a lad, to taking over his practice in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales.

Packed full of laugh-out loud moments, heartbreaking stories and transporting tales of his love for the animals and people of this breathtaking part of the country. Covering his bucolic childhood growing up on a farm right through to the heady days of his successful Channel 5 TV series, Peter’s warm nature and professional attitude shine through every page.

The next link up will be on August 3, 2024 when the optional theme will be Water.

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

I’ve read Alice Feeney’s debut novel, Sometimes I Lie and His and Hers and loved them. So I had high hopes for Daisy Darker, her fifth book.  Sadly, I was disappointed and I have to say that I didn’t enjoy it. I’ll even go as far as admitting, which I really don’t want to say because I don’t like being negative about a book, I think it is dire. But there are plenty of other readers who enjoyed it, even loved it, so I’m in the minority here. Don’t let me put you off reading it, if it appeals to you. This is just my opinion.

Description (Goodreads)

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.
The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows… Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.

My thoughts:

I’m going to be brief. The beginning, was promising and made me interested enough to read on as the Darker family reunited for their Nana’s 80th birthday party at Halloween. They all arrive, Daisy, her father Frank, her mother Nancy, her siblings Rose and Lily and her niece, Trixie. Nana lives on a tidal island, which means that when the tide was in they couldn’t leave, making this a variation on the ‘locked room murder’ mystery, which I generally like. So, I read on, as hour by hour, one by one they’re all found dead. There’s a poem written in chalk on the back wall of the kitchen about the Darker family. As each death occurs the lines about each person are struck through. The poem is pure doggerel and painful to read.

The story quickly began to drag for me and I got fed up with the repetition of how many hours were left until low tide. I got tired of the unlikable characters in this dysfunctional family, the platitudes scattered throughout the book and the increasingly stupid plot, culminating in a surreal supernatural conclusion. I was glad to get to the end.