MYSTERIES in PARADISE

11 April 2011

Review: DEATH AT THE PRESIDENT'S LODGING, Michael Innes - audio

Audio book available from Audible.com
Narrated by Stephen Hogan
Length: 9 hours
Unabridged.
First published 1936, the first of the Inspector Appleby series.

Publisher's Blurb:
Inspector Appleby is called to St Anthony's College, where the president has been murdered in his lodging. Scandal abounds when it becomes clear that the only people with any motive to murder him are the only people who had the opportunity - because the President's Lodging opens off Orchard Ground, which is locked at night, and only the Fellows of the College have keys.
Legendary character Inspector John Appleby of Scotland Yard inspired a lasting vogue for donnish detective fiction. Innes's detective novels are playfully highbrow and rich in allusions to English literature and to Renaissance art.

My take:
This was not only the first in the Appleby series which was to continue very successfully, with 35 titles, till 1986, but it was also Michael Innes' (John Innes Mackintosh Stewart) debut novel.

The murder has a very limited number of suspects (the alternative title for the book was SEVEN SUSPECTS) and they try to move suspicion from themselves to each other, to the point of even moving the body, destroying evidence, and leaving "red herring" clues with the body. There is an elaborate setup with keys to the college grounds of the college, being changed on the day before the murder, and with the description of the college as being like a "submarine": once locked up no-one can get in, and keys are needed to get out.
As the publisher's blurb says, this was "donnish" detective fiction, with an academic feel to it. The text is littered with references to current detective fiction that Innes either did or didn't like, and rather obviously tries to appeal to an "intellectual" audience. Just by-the-by Innes seems also to be trying to establish that writing detective fiction, as he is, or reading it, as his readers are, is a "worthwhile" intellectual activity.

There are times when you just wish the action would happen faster, that Innes/Appleby would just "get on with it". A lot of time is spent with suspects explaining where they were at the time the murder must have happened, and why they thought someone else had perpetrated the crime. Innes is obviously trying to engage his readers with logic puzzles which involve timing and placement. I couldn't help wondering if the original publication included a map.
I suspect the language hasn't really weathered time very well and will have limited appeal to modern readers.
However the narrator Stephen Hogan provides a good audio version.

My rating: 4.1

DEATH AT THE PRESIDENT'S LODGING and other Michael Innes titles are available for Kindle.

I will "count" this book in two challenges: 2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge and the British Books Challenge I wrote about this very title in Friday's Forgotten Books. My records show that I read it in 1988.

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2011 - Letter N - week begins 11 April 2011

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

It is never too late to join in on this meme and you don't have to post each week if reading (or life) gets in the way. And it is so easy!

The books and authors being suggested are a great way of learning about books you haven't read, or authors you haven't yet met.
We have participants from all over the globe too. Do take the time to check the entries towards the end of the week. Like me, you'll find yourself adding "must read" titles to your TBR.

Letters already covered: A B C D E F G H I J K L M

A note to remember: We'll have a little rest on the week beginning April 24. There's a double public holiday here in Australia for Easter Monday and then Anzac Day. But we'll start up again on Monday May 2.

This week's letter is the letter N:

Here are the rules

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
[Those who intend to participate regularly have signed up here.]

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, or even maybe cover a crime fiction "topic", so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)

Please link your post for the week back to this page. (a letter image is supplied that you can use in your post as well as the meme icon if you wish).

After your post is published, put a link to your actual blog post in the Mr Linky that appears below.
(leave a comment if Mr Linky has disappeared)

Then come back at the end of the week to check to see who else has posted and visit their blog (and leave a comment if you can).

Please check each Monday for the letter of the week

Letters already covered: A B C D E F G H I J K L M

Thanks for participating.

10 April 2011

Review: TEN LITTLE NIGGERS, Agatha Christie

Originally published 1939
aka AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1940)
also TEN LITTLE INDIANS
My edition: Fontana books 1975
190 pages
ISBN 0-00-611727-9
Source: my father's library

Publishers blurb
10 people are invited to a fabulous mansion on Nigger Island off the coast of Devon. Though they all have something to hide, they arrive hopefully on a glorious summer evening... But soon a series of extraordinary events take place: the island is suddenly bathed in a most sinister light .. panic grips the visitors one, by one ... by one... by one...

My take

You will have noticed that I have unapologetically used the original title of this novel, because that is the title of the copy that I have in hand.
This really is a novel with an extraordinary history.
Complaints about the perjorative nature of the original title resulted in it being renamed with the last line of the original rhyme And Then There Were None for the American publication. The island became Soldier Island. In the version published as TEN LITTLE INDIANS, we have Indian Island.
That people still feel very strongly about the use of THAT word was an issue I raised in a post earlier this year: Creating P.C. Reading by whitewashing the classics.

Wikipedia tells us that "it is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time". There is more about the history of the publication here.

Each of the ten guests has been responsible for at least one death, and in each of their rooms is a framed copy of the original "Ten Little.. " rhyme which details how each of the ensuing deaths will occur. The reader will find himself/herself consulting that page in the book to see how the next death will be accomplished. The guests do that too as they realise that the person committing the murders has to be one of them. On the dining room table are ten china figurines and as a guest dies, so the number of figurines is reduced.
The guests are stranded on the island by the weather and the novel is consequently an example of a very clever "locked room" mystery.

Even though this was far from my first reading of the novel (I used to teach it as a text back in the 1970s), it was still enjoyable to try to pick up finer details. Even when the police finally investigate the sequence of events that led to the ten deaths on the island, they don't get the chronology right. The reader knows that because of course we were there as the deaths happened. But even the reader doesn't know, unless they are clever, who the murderer is. Christie does give us just one tiny clue. In general, readers will need the final ten pages when a message in a bottle, picked up at sea, reveals all.

I have read TEN LITTLE NIGGERS as my next novel for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and I will also be listing it in the British Books Challenge

My rating: 4.5

Sunday Salon: 10 April: Aussie Author's Month

Over on Fair Dinkum Crime this month we are celebrating Aussie Authors Month with the Fair Dinkum Baker's Dozen, a series of interviews with Australian authors. We've approached the author interview a little differently, trying to offer the authors (who we thought must get asked a few standard questions fairly frequently) the opportunity to share some of their lesser known secrets. Or not, it's entirely up to them. We provide the authors with 13 beginnings and, like the creative geniuses they are, they turn them into sentences (or paragraphs, or full blown essays should the urge arise).
So far we've interviewed

Coming up:

Brian Kavanagh
P.D. Martin
Leah Giarratano
Michael Robotham

Aussie Authors Month is a cross-genre celebration of Australian writing. In addition to sharing reviews, author interviews, competitions and anything else relating to the writing and reading of works by Aussie authors the month is focused on raising awareness of the Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP). The ILP is a charity with the aim of raising literacy levels among Indigenous Australians in rural and remote communities and it works in partnership with the Australian Book Industry and the Fred Hollows Foundation.

Our first Fair Dinkum Quiz
To further help celebrate Aussie Authors Month we're offering a selection of slightly loved books (i.e. bought new, read once) from some great Australian authors as prizes for our inaugural quiz. In keeping with our baker's dozen theme there are 13 questions ranging in difficulty from 'googlable' to 'should probably have read a few posts on Fair Dinkum before attempting this quiz' to 'oh heck I hate quizzes'. Check Fair Dinkum Crime from Monday 11 April for the quiz questions.

What's been happening on MYSTERIES in PARADISE

This week's posts:

News & Headlines

Currently Reading

now: KING OF THE CROSS, Mark Dapin.
next: A GRAVE IN THE COTSWOLDS, Rebecca Tope
then - THE FACILITY, Simon Lelic
next on Kindle - THE LEOPARD, Jo Nesbo
now on audio - DEATH AT THE PRESIDENT'S LODGING, Michael Innes
current Agatha Christie - AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Completed: British Books Challenge 2011

Among the 15 or so reading challenges I've "accepted" for 2011 is the British Books Challenge being hosted at The Bookette.

The terms of the challenge for International Friend

For any wonderful bloggers living overseas who wish to support British writers.

You can choose between:

Winston Churchill - Read 6 books by British authors in 2011

The Royal Family - Read 12 books by British authors in 2011

There will also be the chance to earn yourselves a Crown if you manage to read 50 books by British writers in the year. This is open to everyone because I want to give special treats to people who love to support British talent. You don't need to decide now if you are aiming to meet this target. I'll post about this much later in 2011.

I imposed an extra rule on myself: all the books had to be crime fiction and all by different authors.

Yesterday with the completion of RELICS OF THE DEAD by Ariana Franklin I reached Royal Family level.
Here is what I've read:

Now that I've got here so early in the year I might see if I can get a Crown by reading 50 books by British authors in the year. I have certainly got enough on my TBRs to get close to that, but for the remainder of the list, although I'll stick to crime fiction, I'll allow myself to count books by the same author. (e.g. all the Agatha Christies I read from now on will count etc). I think I'll need to do that to get to 50 as that would be over 25% of my anticipated reading total for the year (and I've got a lot of other reading on my plate)

I'll continue to keep my records on my Reading Challenges Update and to tag them with British Books Challenge.

9 April 2011

Review: RELICS OF THE DEAD, Ariana Franklin

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 471 KB
Print Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Transworld Digital (December 23, 2009)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B0031RS43O
aka GRAVE GOODS, published in 2009
Source: I bought it.

Publisher's Blurb
England, 1176. Beautiful, tranquil Glastonbury Abbey - one of England's holiest sites, and believed by some to be King Arthur's sacred Isle of Avalon - has been burned almost to the ground. The arsonist remains at large, but the fire has uncovered something even more shocking: two hidden skeletons, a man and a woman. The skeletons' height and age send rumors flying - are the remains those of Arthur and Guinevere?

King Henry II hopes so. Struggling to put down a rebellion in Wales, where the legend of Celtic savior Arthur is particularly strong, Henry wants definitive proof that the bones are Arthur's. If the rebels are sure that the Once and Future King will not be coming to their aid, Henry can stamp out the insurgence for good. He calls on Adelia Aguilar, Mistress of the Art of Death, to examine the bones.

Henry's summons comes not a moment too soon, for Adelia has worn out her welcome in Cambridge. As word of her healing powers has spread, so have rumors of witchcraft. So Adelia and her household ride to Glastonbury, where the investigation into the abbey fire will be overseen by the Church authorities - in this case, the Bishop of St. Albans, who happens also to be the father of Adelia's daughter.

My take

History will always remember Henry Plantagenet as the king responsible for the death of Thomas a'Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. In his quest for a united kingdom, he desperately needs to remove anything that will give rebels a rallying point. In the West of England and in Wales the Arthurian legend is strong, with those who believe that Arthur may rise. Henry II needs Adelia to prove beyond doubt that Arthur is dead.

Henry nodded. 'Arthur's. The Welsh are supposed to be a Christian race but their pagan little minds hold Arthur as a more immediate Messiah than Jesus, God rot them. They claim him as their own. He's the one who will rescue them from what they see as the Norman yoke. And I'm not a Norman yoke, Adelia. For one thing, I'm an Angevin and, for another, I'm a bloody good, peace-bringing, justice-giving king if they'd only realize it.'

There are several plots developing through the novel. What did the dying Brother Caradoc see when he saw three shadowy figures lowering a coffin into the fissure in Glastonbury Abbey grounds during the earthquake twenty years before? What happened to the Abbot's Crusading son? Where is Adelia's friend Emma? Around these threads and others Ariana Franklin weaves an authentic-feeling historical tale, using some verified fact embroidered with credible detail.

Yesterday I read a blog post about how tricky it is to write a historical novel with a satisfying mystery element and to achieve a satisfactory balance. I think RELICS OF THE DEAD achieves that quite well, although I think the character of Adelia and her relationship with both the King and the Bishop of St. Albans strain the bounds. Certainly I enjoyed a lot of the historical detail and there was sufficient in terms of mysteries to get me conjecturing.

RELICS OF THE DEAD is #3 of the 4 title Mistress of the Art of Death series. I haven't read any of the others but only occasionally felt at a disadvantage, despite the fact that each book follows in sequence on the previous.

My rating: 4.6

Unfortunately Diana Norman, who wrote under the pen name of Ariana Franklin, died earlier this year.

Ariana Franklin's website, where you can read an excerpt from each of her books.

I am counting RELICS OF THE DEAD in these challenges:

7 April 2011

Forgotten Book: DEATH IN THE BACK POCKET, Peter Fitzpatrick & Barbara Wenzel

This week's Friday's Forgotten book for the meme hosted by Patti Abbott on Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books really stretched my research skills.

It appears in my records in September 1993. It also appears to have been published in 1993.

It is subtitled A footy murder mystery and I'm pretty sure the setting was an AFL (Australian Football League, i.e. Australian rules football) match at the MCG. (Melbourne Cricket Ground, "home" of the AFL)

Both the authors Peter Fitzpatrick and Barbara Wenzel appear in the National Library archives as having written separate novels, but DEATH IN THE BACK POCKET was their only collaboration, nor do they, separately seem to have written any other crime fiction.

After an hour's research, I am no wiser about the plot or the cover. Drat!

So, here's your chance. Tell me about any murder mystery title you know of set at a sports match.
I think there is a series set at baseball matches isn't there?

One I read in 2008 set around soccer was BENEATH THE BLEEDING by Val. McDermid.
Tony Hill is in hospital after being attacked by a mad machete wielding prisoner. Another patient in Bradfield Hospital is Bradfield Victoria's star midfielder, quickly dying from a poison for which there is no antidote. It is obvious he has been murdered but why?
Then a terrorist bomb explodes at the Bradfield football stadium killing dozens. DCI Carole Jordan seethes as she is forced to hand over the bombing investigation to a specialist terrorist investigation team. Not that she doesn't have enough to keep her occupied. Tony Hill suspects that the bomber is no terrorist, and then one of their own dies from poisoning.

Then there was Louise Penney's DEAD COLD
#2 in the Armand Gamache series. In the little Canadian village of Three Pines another death has occurred. A female spectator, the hated CC de Poitiers, has been electrocuted while out on the ice watching the annual Boxing Day curling match.

What can you think of?