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.

Weekend Cooking – Forever Summer

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

Although it’s not yet summer here, it’s been feeling like it this last two weeks. We’ve had some gloriously sunny days, which made me think of cooking something from Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer. This is a book full of recipes to give you that summery feeling all year round. There are recipes from around the world and I decided to make Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake.

Nigella writes that this is an Oz-emanating recipe that she scribbled down from a friend after a gardenside Sunday’s summer lunch.

It’s a combination of Pavlova and Victoria Sponge: make the sponge mixture by creaming 100g very soft butter with 100g caster sugar, beat in 2 egg yolks, fold in 12g plain flour, 25g cornflour and 1½ teaspoons of baking powder, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and stir in 2 tablespoons of milk to thin the batter. Divide this mixture between 2 x 22cm Springform tins.

Then add the pavlova mixture – whisk the 2 egg whites until soft peaks form, gradually add 200g caster sugar and spread a layer of the meringue on top of the sponge batter in each tin and sprinkle over 50g flaked almonds.

Bake for 30 – 35 minutes in a preheated oven – 200°C/gas mark 6 until the almond scattered meringues are a dark gold. Let the cakes cool in the tins until you’re ready to assemble the cake.

Whip 375ml double cream and hull and slice 250g strawberries and sandwich the cream and berries between the two cakes – meringue on the base layer and on the top.

I made this last weekend when we had the family round,  As Nigella suggested I placed more strawberries in a separate dish to eat alongside the cake and it was half gone by the time I remembered to take a photo of it. It’s definitely a recipe I’ll be making again – it’s scrumptious.

Strawberry meringue layer cake

Weekend Cooking is host at Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. For more information, see the welcome post.

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.

ABC Wednesday – O is for On the Balcony by Berthe Morisot

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

I only ‘discovered’ Berthe Morisot a couple of years ago, but I really like her paintings, especially this one,  On the Balcony, which is of her sister and niece on a balcony in the Passy suburb of Paris, looking out at the city – shown in the distance. It’s a small painting in oil, 1871 – 1872, now held in the Ittleson Collection in New York.

She was one of the French Impressionists and was married to Edouard Manet’s brother, Eugene. Her paintings are often studies of women, either out of doors, as in this one, or in a domestic setting.

An ABC Wednesday post.

House of Silence by Linda Gillard: Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments
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I’ve read several of Linda Gillard’s books and House of Silence is definitely one of her best. It’s only available on Kindle but you can download it onto your computer to read if you don’t have a Kindle.

It’s one of those books that makes you want to carry on reading although you know you’ve lots of things you should be doing apart from reading, but you read on anyway.

It’s a novel about families and their secrets – in particular one family, the Donovans. When Gwen Rowland met Alfie Donovan she becomes interested in his family and persuades him to let her spend Christmas with them at the family home, Creake Hall. Gwen comes from a dysfunctional family – mother died of an overdose, aunt from drink and uncle from AIDS, whereas Alfie is the youngest and much-loved younger brother of four sisters and the model for his mother’s best selling children’s books about Tom Dickon Harry.

But  their family life  is not as Gwen imagined it. Although Gwen immediately finds a kindred spirit in Hattie, Alfie’s sister nearest to him in age, and Viv his oldest sister she soon finds there is a secret they’re all hiding. The only person who seems to be open with her is Tyler, the handsome Polish gardener. Alfie, himself seems different and his mother keeps mainly to her room, her mind drifting back to the past. Gwen is puzzled by an old photo of Alfie and then discovers scraps of letters that eventually lead her to the truth.

This is a book in which it is so easy to lose yourself, at once emotional and mysterious. I really enjoyed it – the characters are so distinctive and complex, and the setting in an old Elizabethan manor house is perfect. It raises issues of memory and identity, mental illness, loss and love.

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 1125 KB
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B004USSPN2
  • Source: I bought it