Book Notes: Daisy Dalrymple

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I’ve now read the first three books in Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple series – all borrowed from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. I wrote about the first book Death at Wentwater Court in this post. It’s a typical country house murder mystery.

I’ve recently read the second and third books, The Winter Garden Mystery, another country house murder mystery and Requiem for a Mezzo. These are quick, light, easy and enjoyable to read, not requiring much brain power to work out who did the murders. They provide an interesting glimpse of life in the 1920s..

Set in 1923 Daisy is visiting Occles Hall in Cheshire, the home of her school friend Bobbie, to write an article for the Town and Country magazine and discovers a corpse buried in the Winter Garden. It’s the body of Grace Moss, the blacksmith’s daughter and parlour maid at the Hall. She had gone missing three months earlier.The under-gardener is arrested. Daisy convinced of his innocence contacts Detective Inspector Alex Fletcher of Scotland Yard and their relationship develops as they set about discovering the murderer.

In this book Daisy and DI Alex Fletcher are at the Albert Hall watching a performance of Verdi’s Requiem in which her neighbour, Bettina Westlea is singing , until she drops dead, apparently from cyanide poisoning.  Alex reluctantly lets Daisy help with the investigation into her murder.

Bettina had made many enemies and it surfaces that there are several possible motives and suspects. Daisy has a knack of getting people to talk to her, but I did find this just a little repetitive as Alex tried to stop her involvement. However, this didn’t detract from their continuing relationship.

Saturday Snapshot: Berwick Castle

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

There is little left of Berwick Castle. Ruins are almost as enticing as libraries and bookshops to me. If there are any of these in an area I love to go and explore, so it’s amazing that after living near Berwick-upon-Tweed for over three years the most I’ve seen of Berwick Castle is the view of a wall from Berwick Railway Station. It was the building of the railway that caused the Castle’s final destruction when in 1847 substantial parts of the Castle were demolished to make way for the Station! Apparently the walls were so thick they had to use gunpowder to reduce them to rubble.

We were in Berwick on Wednesday; it was a dismal afternoon as rain blew in from the North Sea, not ideal for taking photos, especially on a camera phone. I’ll go back another day, when the sun is out, to take more photos.

The photo below shows the approach to the Castle ruins from Coronation Park above the River Tweed. The Park was created to celebrate the coronation of George VI in 1937. The area at the top of the Park was known as Gallows Knowe. It was the place of public executions in Berwick, the last being in 1823 – maybe the very place where we stood to take photos.

Berwick Castle grounds IMG_0459

The Castle was first recorded in 1160, probably built by King David I of Scotland, and was completely rebuilt by Edward I of England, after he captured it in 1296, with a strong circuit of walls,  towers and turrets, including royal apartments, a great hall and a chapel. Berwick- upon-Tweed is the most northerly town in England. a border town that changed hands between England and Scotland many times until 1482 when it was retaken from Scotland.

The photo below shows the castle mound, and the remains of the castle walls, including a rounded gun tower . On the right of the photo the White Walls are visible – this was a battlemented wall that still runs from the corner of the castle down to the River Tweed. It was built to defend the river approach to the castle and town around 1297 – 1298. Also, just about visible on the extreme right of the photo is the Royal Border Bridge carrying the railway line into Berwick Station.

Berwick Castle mound and wall IMG_0469The next photo (below) shows more detail of the Bridge and White Walls.

Berwick Castle and Royal Border Bridge IMG_0475For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Lost in the Stacks

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Books in hallway - photo 1

Danielle who writes one of my favourite book blogs, A Work in Progress, asked me to contribute to her  ‘Lost in the Stacks: Home Edition‘ series this week. I love writing about books and looking at other people’s bookshelves so I was delighted to take part. Danielle’s post includes photos of my books and shelves along with my answers to her questions.

If you’d like to see more have a look at this post.

Classics Club May Meme

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

The Classics Club

I recently joined the The Classics Club. Each month there is a meme – a question to answer and this is my first one.

Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).

I’ve just started to read A Man of Property the first book in the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, a book I’ve been meaning to read for some years. My copy contains this first novel plus Indian Summer of a Forsyte. It begins in June 1886 with an ‘at home’ at the house of old Jolyon Forsyte to celebrate the engagement of Miss June Forsyte, old Jolyon’s granddaughter, to Mr Philip Bosinney, an architect. The rest of the family all attend and are introduced to the reader, explaining their relationships. There is a family tree at the beginning of the book that helps me to understand who they all are.

I watched the first TV dramatisation of The Forsyte Saga way back in 1967 and the later production in 2002, so I know the story – or at least I remember the gist of it and can visualise Damien Lewis as Soames Forsyte and Gina McKee as Irene (I even remember Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene!)

I think the sequence of books in the Saga is a little confusing, so I’ve listed the books to clarify the sequence for myself:

The first trilogy, comprising:

  1. A Man of Property published in 1906 followed by Indian Summer of a Forsyte: a short interlude, published in 1918 (I have this book, which is the version shown above).
  2. In Chancery published in 1920 and another short interlude: Awakening (1920) – I don’t have this.
  3. To Let published in 1921 – I don’t have this.

A Modern Comedy, written between 1924 and 1928. I have these books in one volume,  called The Forsyte Saga Volume Two comprising:

  1. The White Monkey (1924)
  2. The Sliver Spoon (1926)
  3. Swan Song (1928)

But there are also Two Forsyte Interludes: A Silent Wooing / Passers By (1928)
On Forsyte Change (1930), which I don’t own.

And a further trilogy called End of the Chapter (I don’t own this), comprising:

  1. Maid in Waiting (1932)
  2. Flowering Wilderness (1933)
  3. Over the River (1933)

I think I’ve got that sorted out now!

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo by Julia Stuart

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

It’s been a while (2010) since I bought Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo and I was pleased when I finally got round to reading it to find that I enjoyed this quirky book, at times comical and at times poignant. It’s a mix of historical facts and odd characters, set in the present day at the Tower of London, but with a strangely old-fashioned feel to it. It’s the story of Beefeater Balthazar Jones and his wife Hebe, who live in the Salt Tower. Hebe works at London Underground’s Lost Property Office, full of weird and wonderful things.

It begins:

Standing on the battlements in his pyjamas, Balthazar Jones looked out across the Thames where Henry III’s polar bear had once fished for salmon while tied to a rope. The Beefeater failed to notice the cold that pierced his dressing gown with deadly precision, or the wretched damp that crept round his ankles. Placing his frozen hands on the ancient parapet, he tilted his head back, and inhaled the night. There it was again.

The undeniable aroma had fluttered past his capacious nostrils several hours earlier as he lay sleeping in the Tower of London, his home for the last eight years.

The Queen has decided that all the animals that have been given to her as gifts are to be moved from London Zoo to the Tower of London. This wasn’t a new idea as the ‘man from the palace’ explained to Balthazar Jones that animals had been kept at the Tower from the 13th century until the 1830s and the menagerie had been an immensely popular tourist attraction. The Queen is anxious not to offend the foreign rulers who have sent her the exotic animals and Balthazar, a collector of rare raindrops and the owner of a very ancient tortoise, is charged with taking care of them in the new royal menagerie at the Tower.

The supporting characters include the Reverend Septimus Drew, who writes erotica under the pen name Vivienne Ventress – he is in love, although he can’t bring himself to tell her, with Ruby Dore, the landlady of the Tower tavern, the Rack and Ruin, whose canary refuses to sing. There are the other Beefeaters, the Chief Yeoman Warder and the Ravenmaster who hates the intrusion of the Queen’s animals, which include an Etruscan shrew, a Komodo dragon, howler monkeys and a King of Saxony bird of paradise.

It’s not all eccentric characters and bizarre situations, there’s love and sorrow intermingled. Balthazar and Hebe had a son, Milo who died young and they are both still mourning his death. Balthazar, though is tormented by a terrible secret, which he can’t reveal to Hebe. Since Milo’s death they have drifted apart and Balthazar is devastated when Hebe leaves him. Will they get back together?  What is his secret and will he tell Hebe?

By the end of this book I was thoroughly absorbed into the world of the Tower of London, with all the irritations of living within circular walls, and the Lost Property Office of London’s Underground, where strange things were left such as a magician’s box used to saw glamorous assistants in two and a wooden box containing the remains of Clementine Perkins.  And, I wonder, do all the Beefeaters really have a ‘ruthless specimen of fungus that flourished on the back of their knees‘ as a result of the rain and ‘the damp from their abominable lodgings.‘?

Saturday Snapshot

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

This is the Flodden Visitor Centre. It’s in a former telephone box in the village of Branxton in Northumberland. Flodden Visitor Centre P1080503It claims to be the smallest visitor centre in the world:

Flodden Visitor Centre P1080499

It’s part of the commemoration of the Battle of Flodden which took place 500 years ago in September between the English and Scottish armies in the fields near Branxton.

Flodden Visitor Centre P1080501Inside there is a map showing the routes of the two armies and indicating several sites related to the battle. There are leaflets and even a button to press the hear about the battle.

If you are in London on 14 May you can get tickets for a lunchtime lecture on the Battle of Flodden 1513 by historian Clive Hallam Baker at the Tower of London. He is the author of The Battle of Flodden: Why and How.

Other books about Flodden, with links to my reviews:

Fiction:

Non fiction:

  •  Flodden: the Scottish Invasion of Henry VIII’s England by Nigel Barr
  • New Light on Floddon (sic) by Gerard F T Leather – I have not written about this short book published in 1938, which Leather, a member of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club had written after studying the battle for a talk. As he explained there were actually four distinct fights going on a more or less the same time and the old name of the battle was that of Branxton Moor, a more correct title, in his opinion, as the battle scene was a mile and a half from Flodden.

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.