Review: MR BOWLING BUYS A NEWSPAPER, Donald Henderson

• 
  Format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0797X4GSB
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Black Heath Editions (January 22, 2018)
• Originally published 1943
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 161 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

Mr. Bowling never used to read the newspaper. But since his second murder, he has found it convenient to discover whether the law has finally cottoned on to his activities. Because Mr. Bowling is an unusual kind of murderer - the kind that desperately wants to be found out. As the list of victims slowly grows, however, Bowling starts to wonder whether you really can get away with murder after all...

Originally published in 1943, this classic thriller, laced with jet black humour, was one of Raymond Chandler's favourite books. 

My Take

As Mr Bowling's murders escape police detection, he begins to wonder why God seems to be rejecting his advances. As he commits more murders he buys swathes of daily newspapers to see if anybody has picked up on his activities. The problem is that his murders seem to be covered over by "natural" events, like the Blitz of London, a heart attack, a fall down the stairs, and a catastrophic fire. Nobody asks the questions that Mr Bowling thinks should be asked. He is sure he has left evidence that a discerning detective should "see", or even be alerted by the fact that his name keeps turning up in connection with dead people.

Mr Bowling has no real motives for most of his murders apart from the fact that his victims are essentially boring people, or that they don't particularly like him. Originally Mr Bowling was working for an insurance company and he benefited from a policy that he had taken out on his wife. He had thought about making himself the beneficiary of policies taken out by some of his clients but then that seemed a little greedy.

It is unusual to read a murder mystery from the point of view of the murderer, and I thought at times they pontificated a little too much. In the end Mr Bowling seems to have found the woman of his dreams, but has he? For he has told her everything about his murderous activities. Does she believe him, or is she blinded with love? 

My rating: 3.9

About the author

Donald Landels Henderson was born in 1905; he later said, `I cannot pretend to have enjoyed anything very much about my childhood or adolescence.' Henderson was an actor and combined writing with his acting career. He died at only 42, in 1947, just three years after the publication of Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper

Review: THE UNHEARD, Nicci French

• 
  this edition an uncorrected proof
  
• Book published by Simon and Schuster September 2021
• Length: 464 pages
• ISBN13: 9781471179327

Synopsis (publisher)

He did kill. Kill and kill and kill.’
 
Tess’s number one priority has always been her three-year-old daughter Poppy. But splitting up with Poppy’s father Jason means that she cannot always be there to keep her daughter safe.
 
When she finds a disturbing drawing, dark and menacing, among her daughter’s brightly coloured paintings, Tess is convinced that Poppy has witnessed something terrible. Something that her young mind is struggling to put into words.
 
But no one will listen. It’s only a child’s drawing, isn’t it?
 
Tess will protect Poppy, whatever the price. But when she doesn’t know what, or who, she is protecting her from, how can she possibly know who to trust . . . ? 

My Take

Three year old Poppy can't always tell her mother what she means. But Tess becomes alarmed when she finds a disturbing drawing which Poppy tells her is a woman being killed. Poppy increases her sense of anxiety by asking her mother if she is dead. Tess at first thinks Poppy is telling her about something her father Jason, whom Poppy stays with a couple of times a week, has done. Until now both she and Jason think they have been handling their separation, and his new marriage, pretty well. Now Tess is anxious about who Poppy has been having contact with when she is not with Tess.

Poppy is showing clear signs of anxiety: wetting the bed, biting other children and so on. Now Tess does not know who she can trust, and she doesn't know who she should tell. She stalks Poppy's father and his new wife, and does not like what she finds out, things that were happening when they were together. 

She tries to report things to the police, but, as they point out, there is no body, no evidence of a crime. By her 11th report they are threatening to take action, against her.

Nicci French has come up with a very believable scenario.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.3, BLUE MONDAY
4.5, TUESDAY'S GONE
4.7, WAITING FOR WEDNESDAY
4.7, FRIDAY ON MY MIND
4.7, THE LYING ROOM
4.5, DAY OF THE DEAD  

 

Review: MURDER AT ST ANNE'S, J. R. Ellis

• 
  this edition a Kindle e-book (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0953L1WP9
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas & Mercer (December 7, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 283 pages 
• Yorkshire Murder Mystery #7

Synopsis (Amazon)

Winter, snow, murder—and a centuries-dead suspect.

In the chilly depths of a Yorkshire winter, a well-liked rector is found bludgeoned to death in her own church. With no sign of a murder weapon, local superstition quickly pins the blame on the ghost of a medieval monk believed to haunt the building…

Well accustomed to unusual murder investigations, DCI Jim Oldroyd takes on the case, along with his assistant, Sergeant Andy Carter, but they are hampered at every turn by the deepening snow and the threat of the supernatural. Even as possible motives and opportunities begin to reveal themselves, Oldroyd struggles to find a better suspect than the hooded phantom.

Has Oldroyd really found himself in the midst of a Gothic ghost story or is there a very real killer at large? Spectre or otherwise, it soon becomes apparent that the murderer is not yet finished. And, for Oldroyd, it’s about to become personal…

My take

Another reader wrote "Murder at St Anne’s is the seventh book in the Yorkshire Murder Mysteries series featuring DCI Jim Oldroyd and his loyal DS Andy Carter. These are gentle old-fashioned detective stories, usually with some form of locked-room puzzle, set in and around the small towns of Yorkshire."

I'm inclined to agree with the "gentle, old-fashioned" descriptor, but that doesn't mean that I enjoyed it any less.  There are really a number of modern aspects to the plots too - pressures from administrators to work more efficiently, to solve crimes faster, but at the same time Oldroyd and Carter try to present the face of personalised policing.

The plot is full of red herrings, a number of locals come under the spotlight and their alibis and possible motives are tested. Back at headquarters members of the investigative team search newspapers and websites for background to the list of suspects, and eventually this strategy is what makes the break through.

I've found that I have actually skipped 3 books in the series, and I am re-assured by readers commenting that it is possible to read these as stand-alones, although obviously there must be character development from one book to the next.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.3, THE BODY IN THE DALES - #1
4.3, THE QUARTET MURDERS - #2
4.4, THE MURDER AT REDMIRE HALL  - #3 

About the Author

John R. Ellis has lived in Yorkshire for most of his life and has spent many years exploring Yorkshire’s diverse landscapes, history, language and communities. He recently retired after a career in teaching, mostly in further education in the Leeds area. In addition to the Yorkshire Murder Mystery series, he writes poetry, ghost stories and biography. He has completed a screenplay about the last years of the poet Edward Thomas and a work of faction about the extraordinary life of his Irish mother-in-law. He is currently working on his memoirs of growing up in a working-class area of Huddersfield in the 1950s and 1960s.

Review: THE BLOOD DOCTOR, Barbara Vine

• 
  this large print edition published by Chivers Press 2002
  
• ISBN 0-7540-1786-9
• 507 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

Barbara Vine's new novel is about blood - blood in its metaphysical sense as the conductor of an inherited title and blood in its physical sense as the transmitter of disease.

The current Lord Nanther, experiencing the reform of the House of Lords, embarks on a biography of his great-grandfather, the first Lord Nanther, favoured physician to Queen Victoria, expert on blood diseases and particularly the royal disease of haemophilia. What he uncovers begins to horrify him as he realizes that Nanther died a guilty man - carrying a horrific secret to the grave.

The Blood Doctor weaves effortlessly between past and present, public life and private life. The result is a superbly satisfying novel about ambition, obsession and bad blood.

My Take

As she often did, Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) took circumstances that were prompted by her position and work in the House of Lords as a springboard for this stand-lone novel. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1996 Birthday Honours and a life peer as Baroness Rendell of Babergh, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk, on 24 October 1997. She sat in the House of Lords for the Labour Party. In 1998 Rendell was named in a list of the party's biggest private financial donors. 

The reform of the House of Lords took place in 1998 just after she had been made a life peer so what is happening to Martin Nanther is essentially what was happening there, although of course she was a life peer, not an hereditary one like Nanther.

By the time of the reform, the House of Lords was being overwhelmed by an excess of hereditary peers and had become unsustainable and unwieldy in its present form. The idea that the blood of the hereditary peers was somehow "special" had lost favour. They wouldn't lose their titles or their estates, simply their right to sit in the House of Lords.

Martin Nanther has begun amassing memorabilia about his great grandfather Henry Nanther, given a hereditary peerage at the end of the nineteenth century by Queen Victoria for his work on diseases of the blood, particularly of haemophilia of which she was a carrier (which she refused to recognise), and which her own sons and grandsons were afflicted by.

Martin is transfixed by a letter written by one of his great-aunts in which she says Henry Nanther had done terrible things. Martin aims to eventually write a biography of his great-grandfather, and his research takes him to meet cousins and distant relatives whom he has never met, and to become aware of the presence of "tainted" blood in his own family.

Running alongside the main plot is the sub-plot of Martin and his second wife Jude attempting to have a baby, and the revelation that it is a genetic problem that is causing her frequent miscarriages.

This wasn't a book I could read quickly. There was quite a lot of history to absorb, and though I read it in large print, or perhaps because I did, it was also quite weighty.

However, a fascinating read.

My rating:  4.7

I've also read 

Vine, Barbara:
THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT
4.8, A DARK ADAPTED EYE
4.3, THE CHILD'S CHILD

Rendell, Ruth:
FROM DOON WITH DEATH - Wexford #1
4.5, A NEW LEASE OF DEATH- Wexford #2
4.6, THE BEST MAN TO DIE - Wexford #4
4.3, A SLEEPING LIFE, Ruth Rendell  - Wexford #10 
4.7, PUT ON BY CUNNING - Wexford #11
4.6, THE VAULT- Wexford #23
4.5, NO MAN'S NIGHTINGALE- Wexford #24
PORTOBELLO
4.7, THE MONSTER IN THE BOX
4.5, A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES
4.5, THE SAINT ZITA SOCIETY
4.6, THE MASTER OF THE MOOR
4.4, DARK CORNERS
4.6, A SPOT OF FOLLY  

Review: BELLS ON HER TOES, Diana Febry

• 
  #2 in the Peter Hatherall series
  
• this edition from Amazon for Kindle 
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07D5F91TF
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 17, 2018
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 366 pages 
  

Synopsis (Amazon)

A mystery featuring DCI Peter Hatherall and DI Fiona Williams.The police are baffled by the discovery of a stranger shot in the forehead in a disused barn. When people connected to Elmsgrove Racing Stables start turning up dead the race is on to uncover how the stranger is connected to the area and who is behind the murders.The racing community is about to learn their deadliest enemy may be someone close. The quiet drinker in the corner of the pub may be a serial killer. And the crazy drunk may be the key to unlocking the mystery.A classic murder mystery. 

My Take

I kept thinking throughout this novel what a strange pair these detectives are. Fiona Williams is given to flights of imagination and Peter Hatherall is at times  an unmitigated disaster, and an extreme liability to his partner. They are constantly coming up with unlikely scenarios particularly related to the motives for the murders they are investigating. Both have domestic problems and in Hatherall's case these frequently impact on his ability to work. Hatherall appears to be often on the brink of dismissal.

In the working out of the plot there are some extremely interesting characters, including Bunny, the ex-actress married to the Earl, Gladys who also sees herself as an ex-actress, a friend of Bunny's, and is married to one of the murder victims. (For me she came across as a bit over-drawn and much younger than she in fact is.) In an effort to provide a series of red herrings, the author comes up with a considerable range of sub-plots.

By the end there are three bodies resulting from linked elements in the plots.

A good read.

My rating: 4.4

I've also read

4.3, THE SKELETONS OF BIRKBURY

Review: A SLOW FIRE BURNING, Paula Hawkins

• 
  format (Kindle): an e-book from Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08PC3SZHX
• Publisher: ‎ Riverhead Books (August 31, 2021)
  
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 31, 2021
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 316 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. 

Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim’s home. 

Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. 

And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. 

Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are – for different reasons – simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?

My Take

Three women looking for revenge for personal tragedies; and in the end, who killed who? One of those books where you are not sure whether you've actually got it right. Eventually two gruesome murders that look similar, but couldn't possibly be committed by the same person.

The author sets the reader a considerable challenge by introducing numerous characters—Irene, Deidre, Laura, Miriam, Daniel (dead), Carla, Theo, Angela (dead)—all of whom live or lived in a very small geographical area and have overlapping connections and reasons to be furious at each other. What has happened to each of them is fleshed out in a series of flashbacks.

An excellent read.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

4.9, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Review: HOME STRETCH, Graham Norton

• 
  this edition published by Coronet 2020
  
• ISBN 978-1-473-66517-0
• 362 pages

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Shame and longing can flow through generations, but the secrets of the heart will not be buried for ever.

It is 1987 and a small Irish community is preparing for a wedding. The day before the ceremony a group of young friends, including bride and groom, drive out to the beach. There is an accident. Three survive, but three are killed.

The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them are felt throughout the small town. Connor is one of the survivors. But staying among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as living with the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he makes a home - of sorts - for himself in New York. The city provides shelter and possibility for the displaced, somewhere Connor can forget his past and forge a new life.

But the secrets, the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind will not be silenced. And before long, Connor will have to confront his past.

Graham Norton's powerful and timely novel of emigration and return demonstrates his keen understanding of the power of stigma and secrecy - with devastating results. 

My Take

Connor knew there was no place for him in the town after the accident, especially now everyone knew he had been the driver of the car. Three of the passengers were killed, including a young couple who were to have been married the next day. A girl was left in a wheel chair. Just Connor and the car's owner, the son of the local doctor were virtually unscathed. Connor finds it impossible both for himself.and his parents and decides to leave. 

Over twenty five years later his nephew, the son of his sister and the doctor's son, accidentally finds him in New York, and Connor realises that he owes it to his parents to go home, and to reveal the truth of the accident. He has carried the burden for too long.

This novel is about far more than the accident and it's legacy. It is about a young man who needs to come to terms with his own sexuality, and the needs of the community to accept it too.

An intriguing book, which raises many issues in an empathetic fashion. Well worth the read.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.5, HOLDING,

Review: THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS, Agatha Christie

• 
  This edition from Amazon - read on Kindle
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0046RE5H2
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; Masterpiece Ed edition (October 14, 2010)
• Originally published in 1952
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1232 KB
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 227 pages 

Synopsis (Amazon)

A man is shot at in a juvenile reform home – but someone else dies…

Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitiation centre for delinquents. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gilbrandsen, is less fortunate – shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building.

Pure coincidence? Miss Marple thinks not, and vows to discover the real reason for Mr Gilbrandsen’s visit.

My Take

I am re-reading this for a book discussion group that I have been leading all this year. We have now read the first 5 Poirot novels and the first 5 Marple novels. We have been looking for the development of both sleuths and watching Agatha Christie as she experiments with various plot structures.

Miss Marple is in this novel from the very beginning. It is the first time this has happened. In the earlier novels she appeared after the action was well underway.

While visiting her American school friend Ruth Van Rydock in London, Miss Marple learns that Ruth is seriously concerned for her sister Carrie Louise. She asks Miss Marple to visit Carrie Louise at Stonygates, her home in England. Miss Marple agrees to the visit. She is impressed by the size of the Victorian mansion, which now has a separate building for delinquent boys, the cause which engages Carrie Louise and her third husband, Lewis Serrocold. Carrie Louise has her family living with her, as her granddaughter Gina has brought her American husband Walter to England to meet her family. Daughter Mildred Strete moved back home after she was widowed. Stepsons Stephen and Alexis Restarick, now grown, are frequent visitors and are present during Miss Marple's visit. One of the first people Miss Marple encounters is Edgar Lawson, a young man acting as a secretary to Serrocold; Lawson shows clear signs of paranoid schizophrenia, but these are largely ignored.

Miss Marple learns that Carrie Louise has experienced health problems incidental to old age. Nevertheless, Miss Marple is pleased to see that Carrie Louise is still the sweet, idealistic, and loving person she has known.

One of the puzzles for the reader to solve is the meaning of the title. For a while, you read on, looking for mirrors, or at the very least, duplicates, but that is really a red herring.

There are a number of interesting themes. One is the economic and social features  of England post World War 2. The old customs and social barriers have been largely discarded. Old estates like Stonygates have largely been repurposed. Another is the attitude of Americans to what they see as the state of England.

In this novel Miss Marple is included in his investigation by the police Inspector Curry, who is impressed by her powers of observation.

We get a little more background to Miss Marple too. She and Ruth Van Rydock were friends nearly 50 years before, and had travelled to Italy.

A number of the characters are not actually what they seemed to be originally.

My rating: 4.4

My original review,  from 2012

The list of Agatha Christie novels I have read. 

Review: THE KILLING KIND, Jane Casey

• 
  This edition published by Harper Collins Publisher 2021
  
• ISBN 978-0-00-84093-2
• 474 pages 

Synopsis (publisher)

He tells you you’re special…
As a barrister, Ingrid Lewis is used to dealing with tricky clients, but no one has ever come close to John Webster. After Ingrid defended Webster against a stalking charge, he then turned on her – following her, ruining her relationship, even destroying her home.
 
He tells you he wants to protect you…
Now, Ingrid believes she has finally escaped his clutches. But when one of her colleagues is run down on a busy London road, Ingrid is sure she was the intended victim. And then Webster shows up at her door…
 
But can you believe him?
Webster claims Ingrid is in danger – and that only he can protect her. Stalker or saviour? Murderer or protector? The clock is ticking for Ingrid to decide. Because the killer is ready to strike again.

My Take

Barrister Ingrid Lewis persuades the Crown prosecutor to drop the charge of stalking against John Webster by destroying his victim Emma Seaton as a trustworthy witness. They had been in a relationship for a number of years and Emma clearly could not get away from him. He took her savings; he beckoned, she came running. Ingrid's treatment of Emma in court is cruel, and eventually Emma tries to take some revenge.

Little does Ingrid realise that she too will become one of John Webster's victims. Things begin to happen shortly after the stalking trial - strange phone calls, her fiance's parked car is damaged, Ingrid's details appear on a call girl website, and more. Ingrid is convinced the source of the problems is John Webster, but he convinces investigating police that he is blameless.

As the story ramps up, the author uses some interesting devices to add to the plot and to provide more mystery: email conversations between three people, court reports and so on.

A well constructed novel that has the reader wondering about everyone in Ingrid's life, and just how good a judge of character she is. And she is obviously dangerous to know....

My rating: 4.8

I've also read

• 4.6, THE MISSING 
• 4.3, THE BURNING #1
• 4.5, THE RECKONING - #2
  
• 4.4, THE LAST GIRL #3
  
• 4.5, LET THE DEAD SPEAK #7
• 4.6, CRUEL ACTS - #8
• 4.6, SILENT KILL - #8.5
• 4.8, THE CUTTING PLACE - #9 (Maeve Kerrigan series)
  

Review: 1979, Val McDermid

• 
  this edition published by Little, Brown 2021
  
• ISBN 9-780751-583083
• length: 418 pages
• Allie Burns, book 1

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

The shadows hide a deadly story . . .

1979. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously.

Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there.

When she discovers a home-grown terrorist threat, Allie comes up with a plan to infiltrate the group and make her name. But she's a woman in a man's world . . . and putting a foot wrong could be fatal.

My Take

Allie Burns and Daniel Sullivan are colleagues at the Clarion, in Glasgow. Their first collaborative effort comes as the result of Danny delivering a baby on the Glasgow train. Allie writes the story up.

Their next story results from Danny realising that his own brother is working as a courier for a company which has put some tax evasion schemes in place. Joseph is obviously getting a kickback from the scheme. Eventually Danny and Allie investigate the scheme and their exposure results in a much higher profile for both of them at the Clarion.

But their next investigation is much more dangerous.

A very good read, as one would expect from a writer of McDermid's standing.

My rating: 4.7 

I've also read

BENEATH THE BLEEDING
4.8, THE SKELETON ROAD
4.8, OUT OF BOUNDS

Review: HOLDING, Graham Norton

• 
  this edition published in Great Britain, 2016, Hodder & Stoughton
  
• ISBN 978-1-444-79203-4
• 312 pages

Synopsis

The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama; and yet its inhabitants are troubled. Sergeant PJ Collins hasn't always been this overweight; mother of two Brid Riordan hasn't always been an alcoholic; and elegant Evelyn Ross hasn't always felt that her life was a total waste. So when human remains are discovered on an old farm, suspected to be that of Tommy Burke - a former love of both Brid and Evelyn - the village's dark past begins to unravel.

As the frustrated PJ struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his life, he unearths a community's worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regret.

Darkly comic, touching and at times profoundly sad. Graham Norton employs his acerbic wit to breathe life into a host of lovable characters, and explore - with searing honesty - the complexities and contradictions that make us human.

My Take

When PJ Collins had joined the police he had hoped to become a detective.  Instead, for his whole life he has been stuck in the village of Duneen, handling nothing more than the pettiness of everyday life., looked after by his housekeeper Mrs Meany, who feeds him well three times a day.

The discovery of human remains on a building site is certainly something out of the ordinary, and means that "the suits from Cork" will come to have a look, and inevitably take over. Twenty years earlier, a young man, Tommy Burke, had vanished, thought to have left the town on a bus, and never heard of again. 

Rumours start up that the pile of bones could be a mass grave, but eventually it is settled that it is just one person. The Superintendent arrived from Cork to supervise the investigation and PJ's local knowledge comes in useful.

Eventually, months later, a second bundle of bones is found, and then the truth comes out.

A deceptively gentle read, but eventually the secrets that the village has been hiding are revealed. People's lives are changed forever. The characters are beautifully and empathetically drawn.

My rating: 4.5 

About the author
Graham William Walker is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist, known by his stage name Graham Norton. He is the host of the comedy chat show The Graham Norton Show and the BBC commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Review: THE SKELETONS OF BIRKBURY, Diana Febry

• 
  format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07CYQDHHJ
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 8, 2018 -originally published in 2015
  
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 277 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 198104986X 
• #1 Peter Hatherall series

Synopsis (Amazon)

One buried body.
Many hidden secrets.
When the body of a teenage girl is discovered, the villagers of Birkbury close ranks to protect their secrets.
Gossip turns to fear and suspicion as they realise the killer is one of them and is prepared to kill again.
Beneath the good manners and polite smiles, DCI Hatherall discovers deep-seated resentments and family feuds going back decades. The stakes are raised when another girl goes missing.
Will the police uncover the killer before it is too late?

My Take

A debut title and the first in a series. The author has gone on to write more than a dozen titles, including five more in this series. 

During a big storm, a large tree falls over and reveals a skeleton. There is no problem in identifying the body as there is a bracelet that identifies her as a girl who had gone missing twenty years before. It seems most likely that she had been working at one of the local riding stables but nobody is able to remember her.

After her body is identified her twin brother and a cousin both turn up in the village. DCI Peter Hatherall and his offsider DC Fiona Wilson try to track down all who might have some knowledge of what was happening twenty years before. A mixture of local gossip and a set of old photos point the way for them.

While the story is very readable, and most of the i's get dotted and the t's crossed by the end, there are signs that this is a debut novel - for example there are a number of characters who come to nothing, and side-plots that have little significance. Peter Hatherall predictably has a curmudgeonly boss who threatens to take the case away from him if he doesn't get results "soon", and one of the suspects plays golf with someone higher up the chain than Peter Hatherall. Peter has domestic issues, a problem daughter, and a tragedy in the past, that all add dimensions to his character.

I'm looking forward to reading the second in the series.

My rating: 4.3

About the author
I was born and brought up in South west England where I still live with husband,two teenage children and aged dog. I studied law at Brookes University, Oxford but after a few years of feeling suffocated left to drift through a series of casual jobs. Mostly they have been connected with horses in some way but all gave me the freedom to dream and feed my imagination. 

 

Review: THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLS, Pat Barker

• 
   this edition in large print published in 2019 by Doubleday
  
• ISBN 978-1-64358-109-5
• 430 pages
  

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award
Finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction

Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman—and makes an ancient story new again. 

My Take

Briseis knows what will happen to her if she is still alive when Achilles and the Greek army reach her palace. She can hear him coming. Her husband, father and her brothers are already dead, and she has the option to throw herself from the ramparts, but she chooses to wait and become a captive. She is assigned to Achilles as part of his prize for what he has achieved in battle.

Her life radically changes as she becomes concubine and house servant.

The story explores what happens to women as they become trophies of war, at the same as combining Briseis' story with the legends of Achilles as we know them from Homer's Iliad.

My rating: 4.4

I have previously read

4.4, DOUBLE VISION

Review: A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED, Agatha Christie

• 
  This edition an e-book published by Amazon (Kindle)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000FC12YG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 17, 2009)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 17, 2009
• Originally published 1950
• Miss Marple #5
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 240 pages

Synopsis (Amazon) 

The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which read: 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m.' Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the pointed time when, without warning, the lights go out ...

My Take

This is another of my re-reads, so I can contribute to a book discussion on the first 5 or 6 Miss Marple novels. While Jane Marple was introduced in a set of short stories in the late 1920s, the first novels were spaced well apart.

• THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE 1930
• THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY 1942
• THE MOVING FINGER 1943
• A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED 1950

The last in that list seems to be placed just after World War II has ended, and there is even thought that another war is inevitable, with reference to the horrors of atomic war. 

England has much changed, and it's residents are no longer necessarily English. There are many migrants, and people are no longer whom they seem to be.

 

Fifteen years ago one knew who everybody was. The Bantrys in the big house—and the Hartnells and the Price Ridleys and the Weatherbys … They were people whose fathers and mothers and grandfathers...

But it’s not like that any more. Every village and small country place is full of people who’ve just come and settled there without any ties to bring them. The big houses have been sold, and the cottages have been converted and changed. And people just come—and all you know about them is what they say of themselves.
They’ve come, you see, from all over the world.

There were just faces and personalities and they were backed up by ration books and identity cards—nice neat identity cards with numbers on them, without photographs or fingerprints. Anybody who took the trouble could have a suitable identity card —and partly because of that, the subtler links that had held together English social rural life had fallen apart. In a town nobody expected to know his neighbour. In the country now nobody knew his neighbour either, though possibly he still thought he did …

Miss Marple is introduced relatively early in this novel. She is staying at a local hotel, having treatment for her "rheumatic leg." she is introduced as an old "Pussy" who has written to the local police saying that she might have something to contribute in the matter of the recent murder that has taken place at Little Paddocks.

Miss Jane Marple was very nearly, if not quite, as Craddock had pictured her. She was far more benignant than he had imagined and a good deal older. She seemed indeed very old. She had snow-white hair and a pink crinkled face and very soft innocent blue eyes, and she was heavily enmeshed in fleecy wool. Wool round her shoulders in the form of a lacy cape and wool that she was knitting and which turned out to be a baby’s shawl.

There are a couple of sub-plots to keep the reader involved, and eventually 3 murders in the quiet little village of Chipping Cleghorn, and of course, a whole raft of red herrings.

Inspector Craddock the policeman from Scotland Yard is far better treated by Christie than Inspector Slack was in earlier novels. He also has a better appreciation of Miss Marple:

Well, perhaps you’re right, Miss Blacklock, but my own diagnosis would be a severe attack of Nosey Parkeritis …’ ‘She’s a very harmless old creature,’ said Miss Blacklock. ‘Dangerous as a rattlesnake if you only knew,’ the Inspector thought grimly. But he had no intention of taking anyone into his confidence unnecessarily. Now that he knew definitely there was a killer at large, he felt that the less said the better. He didn’t want the next person bumped off to be Jane Marple.

Interesting features of this novel:

• Agatha Christie's observations of the changed structure of village life, and her comments on social and economic changes that have taken place;
• Miss Marple snares the murderer, whose identity she has already realised, but needs to prove. Her "honey trap", set up with the local policeman, puts one of the other characters in great danger. Note here Miss Marple's talent at mimicry;
• Miss Marple moves in a circle of vicarages. The Vicarage at Chipping Cleghorn is not the first one she has stayed at in these novels.
• ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard Sir Henry Clithering first appeared in the late 1920s and is still around, and being consulted.
• Note the "mannish" women and the women doing men's jobs. 
• Note also Jane Marple's own comments on her sleuthing abilities.
  
• There is a romantic element
• If Jane Marple was "old" in the late 1920s, how old is she now? It is 25 years later. She has to be in her 80s.
  

My rating: 4.5

Agatha Christie novels

Review: A FATAL LIE, Charles Todd

• 
  this edition an e-book from Libby through my local library
  
• #23 Inspector Rutledge series
• published 2021
• ISBN: 9780062905574
• ISBN 10: 0062905570
• Imprint: William Morrow
• Pages: 352 

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

In one of his most puzzling cases, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge must delve deep into a dead man’s life and his past to find a killer determined to keep dark secrets buried.

A peaceful Welsh village is thrown into turmoil when a terrified boy stumbles on a body in a nearby river. The man appears to have fallen from the canal aqueduct spanning the valley. But there is no identification on the body, he isn’t a local, and no one will admit to having seen him before. With little to go on, the village police turn to Scotland Yard for help.

When Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent from London to find answers, he is given few clues—a faded military tattoo on the victim’s arm and an unusual label in the collar of his shirt. They eventually lead him to the victim’s identity: Sam Milford. By all accounts, he was a good man and well-respected. Then, why is his death so mysterious? Looking for the truth, Rutledge uncovers a web of lies swirling around a suicidal woman, a child’s tragic fate, and another woman bent on protecting her past. But where among all the lies is the motive for murder?

To track a killer, Rutledge must retrace Milford’s last journey. Yet death seems to stalk his every move, and the truth seems to shift at every turn. Man or woman, this murderer stays in the shadows, and it will take desperate measures to lure him—or her—into the light.

My Take

You'll notice from the list below that I haven't read all of this series, but they are certainly worth following.

While each adds to the development of Ian Rutledge's character, each certainly works quite well as a stand alone. Most are set in the decade after World War One and Rutledge, an Inspector with Scotland Yard, is battling the aftermath of the war. The complexity of this case is typical of most of the stories. The body of an ex-soldier turns up in a river in Wales, and from there Rutledge establishes the identity of the man, and looks for the reason why he is so far from home.

It is typical of Rutledge that he goes that extra mile, looking for why Sam Milford has been killed and by whom. It is a tangled trail that leads him to look for a missing child, why she has been kidnapped, and to uncovering deaths of people who at first glance don't seem to have anything to do with the original case.

The main plot is surrounded by a number of sub-plots, many of them giving us further background to Rutledge himself.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

• A TEST OF WILLS -#1
• SEARCH THE DARK -#3
• 4.8, A FEARSOME DOUBT -#6
• A PALE HORSE -#10
• 4.5, A DUTY TO THE DEAD - Bess Crawford series
• 4.7, A LONELY DEATH -#13
• 4.6, THE CONFESSION - #14
• 4.7, HUNTING SHADOWS - #16
• 4.7, NO SHRED OF EVIDENCE - #18
• 4.7, RACING THE DEVIL - #19 
• 4.7, THE GATEKEEPER - #20
• 4.5, THE BLACK ASCOT - #21
• 4.8, A DIVIDED LOYALTY - #22
  

Review: THE MOVING FINGER, Agatha Christie

• 
  This edition from Amazon on Kindle
• Miss Marple #4
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0046H95SG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; Masterpiece Ed edition (October 14, 2010)
  
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 14, 2010
• Originally published in 1942
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 243 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

The quiet village of Lymstock seemed like the perfect place for Jerry Burton to recover from his accident. But shortly after his arrival he receives a letter accusing him of the unthinkable.

He’s not the only one. Across the village people are receiving letters accusing them of terrible acts. It seems like just a cruel prank until one recipient is found dead, with a letter next to her reading ‘I can’t go on’.

The inquest rules that her death was a suicide and the case seems clear cut. Until another body appears…

My Take

I'm reading this again for a group discussion, and at the same time I'm looking for new insights, things I haven't taken notice of before. 

Here are a few things to consider

• In this novel Agatha Christie reverts to the use of a narrator, and we need to ask ourselves how reliable he is. Does the fact that the narrator is male skew the perspective for the reader? Do other things cloud his judgement?
  
• The novel is well underway (over 60% according to Kindle) by the time Miss Marple is called in by the Vicar's wife, after two murders have already taken place:
  
  
  I’m going to call in an expert. .... I don’t mean someone who knows about anonymous letters or even about murder. I mean someone who knows people.
  
  The Dane Calthrops had a guest staying with them, an amiable elderly lady who was knitting something with white fleecy wool. We had very good hot scones for tea, the vicar came in, and beamed placidly on us whilst he pursued his gentle erudite conversation. It was very pleasant. I don’t mean that we got away from the topic of the murder, because we didn’t. Miss Marple, the guest, was naturally thrilled by the subject. As she said
  apologetically: ‘We have so little to talk about in the country!’ She had made up her mind that the dead girl must have been just like her Edith.
  
  
• Miss Marple lays a trap for the murderer just as she did in THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY
• Miss Marple attributes her understanding of what has happened to her life-long observation of village life.
  
  
  One sees a good deal of human nature living in a village all the year round,’ said Miss Marple placidly. Then, seeming to feel it was expected of her, she laid down her crochet, and delivered a gentle old-maidish dissertation on murder. ‘The great thing is in these cases to keep an absolutely open mind. Most crimes, you see, are so absurdly simple. This one was. Quite sane and straightforward—and quite understandable—in an unpleasant way, of course.’
  
  
  
  “No smoke without fire.” It irritated you, but you proceeded quite correctly to label it for what it was—a smoke screen. Misdirection, you see—everybody looking at the wrong thing—
  
  
  
• And of course Miss Marple engages in a little misdirection herself. When Jerry Burton and the police think the murderer has been found, the wrong person is accused.
• And then finally there is a bit of romance, just as there was in MURDER AT THE VICARAGE, and THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY.
• And the motive for the murders? well, that would be telling.
  

My Rating: 4.5

See what other Agatha Christie novels I've read

Review: A DIVIDED LOYALTY, Charles Todd

• 
   this edition an e-book on Libby through my local library
  
• Originally published 2020
• #22 in Ian Rutledge series

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned one of the most baffling investigations of his career: an unsolved murder case with an unidentified victim and a cold trail with few clues to follow

A woman has been murdered at the foot of a megalith shaped like a great shrouded figure. Chief Inspector Brian Leslie, one of the Yard’s best men, is sent to investigate the site in Avebury, a village set inside a prehistoric stone circle not far from Stonehenge. In spite of his efforts, Leslie is not able to identify her, much less discover how she got to Avebury — or why she died there. Her killer has simply left no trace.

Several weeks later, when Ian Rutledge has returned from successfully concluding a similar case with an unidentified victim, he is asked to take a second look at Leslie’s inquiry. But Rutledge suspects Chief Superintendent Markham simply wants him to fail.

Leslie was right—Avebury refuses to yield its secrets. But Rutledge slowly widens his search, until he discovers an unexplained clue that seems to point toward an impossible solution. If he pursues it and he is wrong, he will draw the wrath of the Yard down on his head. But even if he is right, he can’t be certain what he can prove, and that will play right into Markham’s game. The easy answer is to let the first verdict stand: Person or persons unknown. But what about the victim? What does Rutledge owe this tragic young woman? Where must his loyalty lie?

My Take

A very well plotted story, lots of red herrings, and a number of plot strands. This is another of those series where it pays to read the books in order, so that you follow the various by-stories that earlier titles bring with them. 

Rutledge is a very competent investigator and eventually he manages to untangle the plot that Brian Leslie didn't want anybody to know about. But even then he nearly gets it wrong.

My rating: 4.7

I've also read

A TEST OF WILLS -#1
SEARCH THE DARK -#3
4.8, A FEARSOME DOUBT -#6
A PALE HORSE -#10
4.5, A DUTY TO THE DEAD - Bess Crawford series
4.7, A LONELY DEATH -#13
4.6, THE CONFESSION - #14
4.7, HUNTING SHADOWS - #16
4.7, NO SHRED OF EVIDENCE - #18
4.7, RACING THE DEVIL - #19 
4.7, THE GATEKEEPER - #20
4.5, THE BLACK ASCOT - #21

Review: THE DARK ANGEL, Elly Griffiths

• 
  This edition published by Quercus 2018
  
• ISBN 978-78429-664-3
• 346 pages
• #10 Ruth Galloway series
• author website

Synopsis (author website)

The tenth book in the Dr Ruth Galloway series sees Ruth wanting to escape from Norfolk and from  her complicated relationship with DCI Nelson, at least for a while. Her chance arrives with an invitation from Dr Angelo Morelli at Rome University. Morelli, with whom Ruth once had a fleeting affair, has found some Roman remains that seem to hold a mystery. He offers Ruth a role as a consultant and a free holiday in the picturesque hilltop town of Castello degli Angeli. 

Ruth and Kate fly to Italy without telling Nelson, who is preoccupied by a recently released killer and by Michelle’s pregnancy. But Ruth’s holiday is not the relaxing break she had imagined; an earthquake is followed by a murder that shocks the local community and stirs long-forgotten memories. And it’s not long before Nelson, accompanied by Cathbad, is on his way to Italy. But has Nelson ignored the dangers at home? 

My Take

This novel takes Ruth out of her familiar setting of North Norfolk, and potentially we have a story uncomplicated by her relationship with Harry Nelson.

Ruth hasn't told Nelson that she and Kate are having a fortnight in Italy so she can give some advice to a friend at the University of Rome. However an earthquake in the area Ruth is staying in, together with media reports of injuries, sends Nelson to fly to her side, much to her surprise. And then the local priest is murdered. The earthquake causes damage to the local church and bones that have been long buried are revealed.

So now I have caught up with the novels in this series that I had missed out on reading. The events of this novel have filled in the details of events I had half known about.

Excellent reading!

My rating: 4.8

I've also read

• 4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES - Ruth Galloway #1
  
• 4.6, THE JANUS STONE - Ruth Galloway #2
• 4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END - Ruth Galloway #3
• 4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES - Ruth Galloway #4
• 4.8, DYING FALL- audio book - Ruth Galloway #5
• 4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #7
• 4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #6
• 4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE - Ruth Galloway #8
• 4.7, THE CHALK PIT - Ruth Galloway #9
• 4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
• 4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES
• 4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
• 4.4, THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS 
• 4.7, THE LANTERN MEN - Ruth Galloway #12
• 5.0, THE STONE CIRCLE, Elly Griffiths - Ruth Galloway #11

Review: THE STONE CIRCLE, Elly Griffiths

• 
  This edition published in Great Britain by Quercus 2019
  
• #110 in the Ruth Galloway series
• ISBN 978-1-78648-730-8
• 361 pages
• Author website

Synopsis ( Author website)

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to ‘go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there’. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle’s baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?

Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh – another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle – trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.

As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn’t save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.

My Take

Another page turner in this series, which I absolutely love.
I had discovered recently that I have missed reading a couple of titles, so I am remedying that.

There is something very satisfying about reading a series when you are familiar with so many of the characters who appear in one title after another, and also when there has been development in the mesh that holds the characters together.

And I love the merging of the plot with archaeological tidbits.

There are a couple of incidents in this novel when the author uses suspense very effectively.

And the question persists: do Ruth and Nelson have a future?

My rating: 5.0

I have also read

• 4.6, THE CROSSING PLACES - Ruth Galloway #1
  
• 4.6, THE JANUS STONE - Ruth Galloway #2
• 4.6, THE HOUSE AT SEA'S END - Ruth Galloway #3
• 4.5, A ROOM FULL OF BONES - Ruth Galloway #4
• 4.8, DYING FALL- audio book - Ruth Galloway #5
• 4.5, THE GHOST FIELDS, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #7
• 4.7, THE OUTCAST DEAD, Elly Griffiths - audio book - Ruth Galloway #6
• 4.7, THE WOMAN IN BLUE - Ruth Galloway #8
• 4.7, THE CHALK PIT - Ruth Galloway #9
• 4.4, THE VANISHING BOX
• 4.6, THE STRANGER DIARIES
• 4.5, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
• 4.4, THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS 
• 4.7, THE LANTERN MEN - Ruth Galloway #12

Review: THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY, Agatha Christie

• 
  this edition, an e-book in Kindle (Amazon)
  
• Miss Marple #2
• originally published 1942
• ASIN ‏: ‎ B0046H95MC
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins (October 14, 2010)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 226 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

It’s seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cheeks.

But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry?

The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple to solve the mystery… before tongues start to wag.

My Take

THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY portrays Miss Marple very differently to THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE which was published 12 years earlier.

The village hasn't changed much in that period of time, although I suspect that not so much time has elapsed in"village time". This novel is perhaps set 2 or 3 years later than THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE. Among my reasons for saying that are that the vicar and his wife, who made their debut appearance in the earlier novel, now have a son, a toddler. Among the cast of characters are people whom we met in the earlier novel: Colonel Melchett, Sir Henry Clithering, the local spinster "cats", and Superindent Slack.

The body on the floor of the Bantry's library at Gossington Hall is quickly identified as a young dancer missing from the Majestic Hotel in nearby Danemouth. Dolly Bantry and Jane Marple go to stay at the hotel to see what they can find out about the dancer. Dolly in particular is determined to prove that Colonel Bantry has nothing to do with the murder. The local cats are already saying there's "no smoke without fire".

Meanwhile Sir Henry Clithering answers a call for help from his friend Conway Jefferson at the Majestic Hotel. Jefferson had been planning to adopt the young dancer. On his arrival Sir Henry recognises Miss Marple sitting in a chair in the hotel foyer, and she is drawn in as a private consultant.

As  the novel progresses the plot becomes more complex. Another body, another girl turns up in a burnt out car, and there are plenty of suspects and red herrings.

And I need to confess that when the murderer attempted to do away with Jefferson, I did not have a clue about who it might be.

We learn a lot about how Miss Marple's brain works in this novel. Unlike THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE there is no narrator, and we see the action from a number of points of view.

Miss Marple says

The trouble in this case is that everybody has been much too credulous and believing. You simply cannot afford to believe everything that people tell you. When there’s anything fishy about, I never believe anyone at all! You see, I know human nature so well.

My rating: 4.5

See Agatha Christie books I've read

My previous review, written 11 years ago.