Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I hadn’t come across any of Catriona McPherson’s books until the publishers emailed me about her latest book – Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder, which is coming out in the spring and they kindly sent me the fifth in the Dandy Gilver series – Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. Given that it has the sort of title and jacket cover that normally make me avoid a book, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really enjoyed this book. It just goes to show not to judge a book by its cover.

It’s set in Edinburgh in 1926, when Dandy (short for Dandelion Dahlia!), a wealthy aristocrat who is also an amateur sleuth, receives a letter from Lollie Balfour asking for help as she is convinced that her husband is going to kill her. The only way Dandy can investigate is for her to go undercover as lady’s maid to Lollie. She manages to pass as a  lady’s maid (albeit an inexperienced one) with the other household servants, who with just one exception, all have stories of how horrible Mr Balfour is. And then he is found dead in his bedroom, a locked room, stabbed with ‘a long, bone-handled knife, lodged to its hilt and standing straight up out of his neck, pooled all round with blood that was almost black.’

There are plenty of suspects for his murder, including Lollie herself, and Dandy has to work out who is telling the truth. I had my suspicions quite early on but hadn’t quite foreseen the actual outcome or culprit. Even though I didn’t get it right I was on the right lines, which is pleasing and in any case I wouldn’t have liked it to be too easy to work out the puzzle.

Along with a good plot, the characters are all well defined and distinct and although at one point I thought the amount of description of the miners’ strike was just that bit too detailed, it has a great sense of time and place reflecting the mood of the 1920s during the general strike. And now I do know the proper treatment for bloodstains.

  • Hardback: 291 pages
  • Publisher:Thomas Dunne Books (2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312654184
  • Source: the publishers

My rating 4.5/5

I wonder how I’ve managed to be totally unaware of Catriona McPherson‘s books up to now. She is a Scottish writer who now lives in Northern California. I’ll certainly read more of her books in future.

Looking Back at 2011’s Books

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

Here are some statistics – I’ve read a total of 103 books, most of which I’ve enjoyed very much. The full list is on my Books Read in 2011 page.

My ratings are purely based on how much I liked them and anything less than a 3 star rating means that the books were just OK – nothing special. Fortunately I only had 6 books that failed to make the 3 star rating. I try to be selective so that I don’t waste time reading books that are not so enjoyable.

These are the figures:

5 star books = 7
4.5 star books = 15
4 star books = 36
3.5 star books = 19
3 star books = 20
2.5 star books = 1
2 star books = 5
Each month I’ve been keeping a record of ‘the book of the month’. They are as follows (with links to my posts):

My Book of the Year and also my Best Crime Fiction Book is:

Blood Harvest by S J Bolton. It’s set in the fictional town of Heptonclough in Lancashire where the Fletcher family have just moved into a new house built on land right next to the boundary wall of the churchyard.  I was completely convinced not only by the setting but also by the characterisation that the place and the people in this book were real. It’s full of tension, terror and suspense and I was in several minds before the end as to what it was all about. I had an inkling but I hadn’t realised the full and shocking truth.

A few more statistics:

  • Male Authors: 37
  • Female Authors: 59
  • New-To-Me Authors: 38
  • Fiction: 93
  • Crime Fiction: 61
  • Non-fiction: 10
  • Memoir/Biography/Autobiography: 7
  • Re-read: 4
  • Mine: 77
  • Library books: 25
  • Borrowed: 1
  • E-Books: 14

Happy New Year 2012

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

I’m not a great one for making New Year resolutions – or keeping them, but these are a few things I’d like to achieve in my reading this year.

  • Read more from my to-be-read books and keep a record of how many I read (something I didn’t do last year).
  • Read the library books I borrow and not just keep on renewing them, or returning them unread.
  • Not get hung up if I don’t complete the reading challenges I’ve joined. Reading is for pleasure and it’s not something that ‘should’ be done.
  • Weed out and re-house books I know I’ll never re-read.

I’m compiling some statistics and deciding which are my favourite books from 2011, which I’ll post soon.

In the meantime I wish you all a Happy New Year and … Keep on Reading!

Mini Reviews

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

I’ve been reading books recently and not writing anything about them. So, before they drop out of my mind completely here are a few notes:

Body Parts: Essays on Life Writing by Hermione Lee – this is a book about writing biography, which I’ve been reading on and off since I started it in 2007! I first wrote about my impressions in this post. It’s very good with an interesting selection, although some essays are a lot shorter than others. As with all books about writing it includes books and authors I haven’t read – and makes me want to read them – Eudora Welty for one. There are essays on T S Eliot, J M Coetzee, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, to name but a few.

My rating 4/5

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – I bought this book several years ago, so it’s one off my to-be-read list. A fantasy/science fiction magical classic and 1963 Newbery Medal winning book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s the story of Meg and Charles, searching for their father, a scientist, lost through a ‘wrinkle in time’, with wonderful characters such as Mrs  Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to help them.

My rating 4.5/5

Maigret in Court by Georges Simenon. Maigret is two years from retirement and is wondering about this with foreboding. He does seem rather tired as he investigates the murder of a woman and small child. The book begins in court as Maigret gives evidence against Gaston Meurat, but he is beginning to have doubts that Meurat is the murderer and carries on investigating to save Meurat from execution. A complicated story, packed into 126 pages, that at times had me completely puzzled.

My rating 3/5

I read two books on Kindle:

Breakfast at the Hotel Deja Vu by Paul Torday. I rather liked this little e-book about a politician, a former MP exposed in the expenses scandal and staying in a hotel abroad, whilst he recovers from an illness and writes his memoirs. All is not as it seems, however, as each day he discovers he hasn’t actually written anything.And just who are the woman and young boy he sees each morning?

My rating 4/5

Crime in the Community by Cecilia Peartree – a free e-book from Amazon. I was disappointed with this one – too wordy, and convoluted. It’s about a small group of people who are supposed to be organising events to improve their community, but who actually don’t do anything except go to meetings. I found this part quite true to life for some committees I’ve known. But then it got tedious and eventually too far-fetched with a retired spy, a missing person and a mental breakdown.

My rating 2/5

Best Crime Fiction Reads 2011

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise is collecting lists of best crime fiction reads for 2011 – the books don’t have to have been published in 2011, but must be crime fiction.

These are the books that I’ve rated with 5 and 4.5 stars:

  1. Exit Lines by Reginald Hill 5/5
  2. Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon 5/5
  3. The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths 5/5
  4. Blood Harvest by S J Bolton 5/5
  1. Wycliffe and the Last Rites by W J Burley 4.5/5
  2. The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter 4.5/5
  3. The Art of Drowning by Frances Fyfield 4.5/5
  4. The Stabbing in the Stables by Simon Brett 4.5/5
  5. Gently Does It by Alan Hunter 4.5/5 (Kindle)
  6. Cop Hater by Ed McBain 4.5/5
  7. The Case of the Lame Canary by Erle Stanley Gardner 4.5/5
  8. Intimate Kill by Margaret Yorke 4.5/5
  9. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie 4.5/5
  10. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie 4.5/5
  11. The Hanging Wood by Martin Edward (Kindle) 4.5/5
  12. Awakening by S J Bolton (Kindle) 4.5/5
  13. Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains by Catriona McPherson 4.5/5 – review to follow