Review: GREY MASK, Patricia Wentworth - audio book

• first published 1928
  
• #1 in the Miss Silver series
• Narrated by: Diana Bishop
• Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins 
  
• Format: Unabridged
• audio book from Audible.com

Synopsis (Publisher)

The first of the classic mysteries featuring governess-turned-detective Miss Silver, who investigates a deadly conspiratorial ring.

Charles Moray has come home to England to collect his inheritance. After four years wandering the jungles of India and South America, the hardy young man returns to the manor of his birth, where generations of Morays have lived and died. Strangely, he finds the house unlocked, and sees a light on in one of its abandoned rooms. Eavesdropping, he learns of a conspiracy to commit a fearsome crime.

Never one for the heroic, Charles’ first instinct is to let the police settle it. But then he hears her voice. Margaret, his long-lost love, is part of the gang. To unravel their diabolical plot, he contacts Miss Silver, a onetime governess who applies her reason to solve crimes and face the dangers of London’s underworld.

My Take

I've read this as part of the 2014 Vintage Mystery Challenge. I'm sure I have read a Miss Silver novel before, maybe even several (see these posts about forgotten books), but have not reviewed any on this blog, so a long time ago. Although the first in the Miss Silver series, this was far from Patricia Wentworth's first novel. There would eventually be over 30 titles in this series, which she kept publishing until 1961. However the second title in the series does not appear for another nine years.

It is probably inevitable that readers compare Miss Silver with Agatha Christie's Jane Marple, who made her first appearance in 1927. In contrast to Miss Marple, Miss Silver had had a previous career as a governess, and seems to be more experienced in the ways of the world, whereas Miss Marple is mainly experienced in village life. While Miss Silver appears to be attempting to be make a living as a private detective and sleuth, Miss Marple gets her cases from the things that happen around her.

Miss Silver does not appear to be as old as Miss Marple, but at the same time is rather more non-descript. Both are spinsters, and both seem rather small and harmless. Both do a lot of knitting. The author stresses how colourless and drab Miss Silver is. In fact the plot seems to bear that out for there are long passages between her appearances, and the reader could be forgiven for forgetting that she is "on the job" at all. But she has the knack of turning up when you least expect her, and she certainly is a shrewd observer. And in the long run it is Miss Silver who initiates the decisive action that brings everything to a satisfactory resolution and saves the day.

So how well has GREY MASK weathered? The plot is passable but I think perhaps the language of the novel is a bit dated. It seems set in a world of inheritances and a social structure that even by 1929 was rapidly disappearing.

My rating: 4.1

Report : Vintage Mystery Challenge 2013

With not many vintage mystery books on the immediate horizon, I'm declaring myself "finished" for 2013.
I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't really get much variety into my reading as you'll see from the list below.

All books must have been written before 1960 and be from the mystery category (crime fiction, detective fiction, espionage, etc.).  
The challenge was hosted by Bev at MY READER'S BLOCK

There are a number of categories and each book can only count for one category. 
I aimed for 8 or 16 categories and read 8

1. Colorful Crime: a book with a color or reference to color in the title
 4.4, THE PALE HORSE, Agatha Christie

2. Murder by the Numbers: a book with a number, quantity in the title
4.4, 4.50 FROM PADDINGTON, Agatha Christie
 
4. Leave It to the Professionals: a book featuring cops, private eyes, secret service, professional spies, etc.
4.2, DESTINATION UNKNOWN, Agatha Christie 

6. Yankee Doodle Dandy: one mystery set in the United States
4.2, THE BIG SLEEP, Raymond Chandler- 1939  

7. World Traveler: one mystery set in any country except the US or Britain
4.3, PIETR THE LATVIAN, Georges Simenon 1930 - France 

8. Dangerous Beasts: a book with an animal in the title (The Case of the Grinning Gorilla; The Canary Murder Case; etc.)
4.3, CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS, Agatha Christie 

11. Malicious Men: a book with a man in the title--either by name (Maigret & the Yellow Dog) or by reference (The Case of the Haunted Husband)
4.1, DEAD MAN'S FOLLY, Agatha Christie

16. Locked Rooms: a locked-room mystery
 4.5, ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE, Agatha Christie 

Bev has a really interesting looking challenge running next year called

Vintage Mystery BINGO 2014: Silver & Gold Edition 

with two levels to the challenge:  

Golden Vintage - books written before 1960

 

 and Silver Vintage: books written 1960 - 1989

I must admit I'm tempted. I do read a lot of the Silver category and the idea of being a bit more organised always appeals to me..

Review: THE BIG SLEEP, Raymond Chandler

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 311 KB
• Print Length: 177 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1604445181
• Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (July 7, 2005)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002RI9AH2
• originally published 1939

Synopsis (Amazon)

The Big Sleep is Raymond Chandler's most famous and popular novel of all

Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away. But with Sternwood's two wild, devil-may-care daughters prowling LA's seedy backstreets, Marlowe's got his work cut out - and that's before he stumbles over the first corpse . . .

My Take

It is probably highly improper for a crime fiction addict to admit in public that she has never read any Raymond Chandler, or at least I don't think I have. Of course, I have heard of Philip Marlowe, the P.I. that Chandler created, the model for many P.Is for future generations of writers.

And so why hadn't I read THE BIG SLEEP before now? Probably because American noir has not really been my genre of choice, because I mainly read British, Australian, and translated crime fiction.

I can see how the gun-packing Marlowe is very different to sleuths created in Europe at approximately the same time. Poirot, Marple, and Maigret are altogether more cerebral with blood and guns rarely sighted. Many modern American sleuths are really just more modern versions of Marlowe, solving more modern murders.

To be quite honest though, I didn't find THE BIG SLEEP as captivating as I had expected. It felt a bit dated, although Chandler is a good model for characterisation and descriptive prose. It probably still should be regarded as essential reading for crime fiction students, especially those who are interested in the history of the genre. But then again I have managed pretty well without, haven't I?

My rating: 4.2


Philip Marlowe (Fantastic Fiction)
1. The Big Sleep (1939)
2. Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
3. The High Window (1942)
4. The Lady in the Lake (1943)
5. The Little Sister (1949)
6. The Long Goodbye (1953)
7. Playback (1958)
8. Poodle Springs (1989) (with Robert B Parker)
The Simple Art of Murder (1950)

Review: DEAD MAN'S FOLLY, Agatha Christie

• First published in 1956
• This edition: part of the Agatha Christie Collection acquired in 2012
• ISSN 1473-0022
• 187 pages
• Source: my local library

Synopsis (Agatha Christie site)

Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fete, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery.
In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise the murder hunt. Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that something sinister is about to happen...
Ariadne Oliver plays a central part in this novel, with many seeing her as Christie's alter-ego. Indeed the house that the novel is set at was based on her own home, Greenway.

My Take

This is an interesting novel because the solution to the murder eludes Hercule Poirot until he realises while doing a jigsaw puzzle that he has been looking at some information he has had all along the wrong way around.

It is one of those stories where you keep thinking of the title because the obvious murder victim is female, so who or what is the "dead mans folly"?  There is a folly, a building placed on the estate by Sir George Stubbs soon after he arrived, or is Lady Stubbs, supposedly a little intellectually wanting, the folly?

Ariadne Oliver's mock murder mystery backfires when the Girl Guide who was to pose as the murder victim is actually strangled. Hercule Poirot is on the spot because Mrs Oliver was already uncomfortable with how things were going. She had the feeling of being manouvred and called her friend on the day before the fete to see what he thought.

There is not a lot of social or historical comment in DEAD MAN'S FOLLY. We know it is set post World War Two, because the original owners of the house, the Folliats, lost both their sons in the war.
Sir George Stubbs came along at the right time as the buyer of the house as old Mrs Folliat found herself unable to pay the death duties incurred by the death of her husband and two sons. The villagers had assumed it was destined to become a school or a hotel.
Sir George Stubbs appears to have "new money" which he is spending extravagantly on ventures like the folly and a tennis pavilion.The house is next door to a back packer's hostel, with European young people staying there. And another of the characters is an "atom scientist".
All of these items serve to place the novel in the early 1950s,

I found the final explanation a bit extravagant but it worked well enough.There are certainly clues along the way that the reader tends to gloss over.

My rating: 4.1

Read as novel #49 for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.

Review: SPARKLING CYANIDE, Agatha Christie

• originally published 1945, aka REMEMBERED DEATH
• This edition in a collection called SEVEN DEADLY SINS  published by Harper Collins in 2004, pp 353-513 
• Source: my local library
• sleuth: Colonel Race

Synopsis (from Agatha Christie.com)

At a round table in the Luxembourg nightclub six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary – in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously.
No one present on that fateful night would ever forget the woman’s face, contorted beyond recognition – or what they remembered about her astonishing life. But which of those present has the murder of Rosemary Barton on their conscience?
In 2003 this novel was adapted for television and starred Pauline Collins and Oliver Ford Davies.

My Take

SPARKLING CYANIDE is very carefully constructed, beginning with 5 people remembering the death of Rosemary Barton from cyanide poisoning just a a year before. The coroner brought a verdict of suicide, but recently George, her husband, has received notes leading him to think that perhaps Rosemary was murdered.  There seem to be any number of possible murderers.

George decides to set a trap, to hold another celebration at the same nightclub, this time for the birthday of Rosemary's sister Iris. The empty place at the table on the night of Rosemary's death had been for Colonel Johnny Race who had been unable to get there. George Barton had known Colonel Race in India. George invites Race to Iris' birthday party but Race refuses the invitation. Nevertheless George tells everyone that the empty place is for Colonel Race.

When George also dies from cyanide poisoning Colonel Race assists Chief Inspector Kemp from Scotland Yard to work out who is the murderer and what the motive is.

Colonel Race also appears in THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT (1924),  CARDS ON THE TABLE (1936) and DEATH ON THE NILE (1937). It is unusual for him to appear on his own, as he is generally plays a supporting role for others like Hercule Poirot.  By SPARKLING CYANIDE he is quite elderly.

This is still a cracking good read.

My rating: 4.4

Completed - 2011 Vintage Mystery Challenge

This challenge is hosted at My Reader's Block by Bev Hankins.


2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge Completed


Get a Clue Level: 7-9 books,
must have been written prior to 1960
My extra rule: all need to be by different authors 


Progress page on the challenge site

1. 3.8, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, Rex Stout (1955)
2. 4.4, GIDEON'S DAY, J.J. Marric (aka John Creasey) (1955)
3. 4.2, AN ASSISTANT MURDERER, Dashiell Hammett  (1926)
4. 3.6, X.Y.Z. A Detective Story, Anna Katherine Green (1883)
5. 4.1, DEATH AT THE PRESIDENT'S LODGING, Michael Innes (1936)
6. 4.3, DIED IN THE WOOL, Ngaio Marsh ( 1942)
7. 4.5, DUMB WITNESS, Agatha Christie (1937)
8. 4.4, MAIGRET & the MAN on the BOULEVARD, Georges Simenon (1953)
9. 4.4, IN THE TEETH OF THE EVIDENCE, Dorothy L. Sayers (1939) 

Looking at the ratings I have given the books it is perhaps true to say that from my point of view most of them have faded a bit with time, although if they rate 4 and above they are really solid reads.

You'll notice too that I put a restriction of 9 individual authors on myself, so I have 11 Agatha Christie reads that don't appear here.

Review: BEFORE MIDNIGHT, Rex Stout

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 458 KB
• Print Length: 224 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (May 19, 2010)
  First published 1955
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003L1ZWQW
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis  (From the Nero Wolfe site)

When Nero Wolfe comes up against murder in the advertising business it isn't surprising that the world's largest detective (one-seventh of a ton of orchid-loving, beer-drinking genius) should find himself involved with one of the world's largest advertising agencies.

The agency is conducting the biggest prize contest ever, with prizes totaling one million dollars. Just one man knows the solutions in the million-dollar contest, and it's his disappearance that introduces Nero and Archie to the world of four-color spreads and TV spectaculars. It introduces them also to a murderer who has the audacity to kill in Nero's office and before Nero's very eyes.

After Rex Stout unfolds this novel, it is possible that the advertising world will never be the same - and this may be a public service..

My take

My crime fiction education is probably very neglected in that I have never read Rex Stout, although I have seen the occasional television story.

The prelude to the Kindle version is an interesting introduction to the two main characters Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, and gave me some tips about what to look for in their relationship. 

The basic idea of the plot was a good one - a marketing campaign that involves a quiz, that has involved millions country wide and has now been narrowed down to 5 contestants. And then the final questions are distributed and the question creator takes a slip of paper from his wallet and waves it about claiming that on the paper are written the answers to the final questions. Before the night is out, he is dead and the wallet is missing.

Nero Wolfe takes a commission from the cosmetics company behind the contest to investigate, not the murder, but who took the wallet. He is careful to say he is not undertaking a murder investigation to keep his nose clean with the police whom he has crossed many times. If the murderer though happens to be the same person as the one who took the wallet, so be it.

This is a relatively short book but a sign of how little it interested me was how long it felt. It felt very technical, lots of carefully worked out, logical, scenarios that left me cold. I made it to the end, just, but I doubt I will trouble to read another Nero Wolfe. That's probably anathema to his fans but his writing is just not for me.

My rating: 3.8

Challenges I've joined in 2011

I've probably ventured into land of foolishness for 2011, over-committed myself to blazes, but time will tell.
I do intend to use the books I read in more than one challenge, so that will help a bit.
Overall I'm aiming at reading somewhere near 140 books.
As always my "extra" to each challenge is that my books will be crime fiction.
I will count all the books I read, made-from-paper, e-books, and audio books in my total.

Looking for some Challenge Ideas?

Here are the challenges and my level of commitment.

	Canadian Book Challenge 2010-2011   I have to read 13 books by Canadian authors by 1 July 2011. So far I've read 8, so I'm well on track.
	2011 Global Reading Challenge: Challenge site  http://2011globalreadingchallenge.blogspot.com/ I have committed myself to reading 21 titles, all crime fiction, 3 titles each from 7 "continents". I think my 7th continent will be historical crime fiction.
	2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge Get a Clue Level: 7-9 books, must have been written prior to 1960 Progress page on the challenge site
	Cruisin' thru Cosies Reading Challenge I'll try for Investigator: 7-12 books Definition: most cozies take place in a small town or village, generally considered "gentle" books, and the sleuth is usually an amateur.
	Ireland Reading Challenge aiming for Luck o' the Irish level (4 books)
	Agatha Christie Reading Challenge I'm aiming for my next 12 titles. How to join the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge
	Aussie Author Challenge I'm aiming for True Blue: 12 books
	Nordic Challenge 2011 I'm aiming for Odin 11-20 books
	e-book challenge I'm aiming for obsessed: 20 books
	British Books Challenge Royal Family level: 12 books by British authors.
	Historical Fiction Challenge Daring & Curious : 5 books
something New Zealand	maybe 4-6 books
	This is a personal challenge more than anything else. It will be an overlapping challenge, and I aim to exceed 20 titles which was my total this year.
	Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge I'm aiming for Out of Breath: 6-10 more books than in 2010 when I read 136 My aim is 142+ and will include all books read in all formats include audio books.
	Again, another personal challenge. In 2010 I read 46 new-to-me authors and I'll be keeping count in 2011 to see if I can exceed that total, even by 1.

Memes I'll be participating in

	Crime Fiction Alphabet I manage this one. Each week, beginning Monday 10 January 2011, you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week. 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.
	Sunday Salon Over 500 bloggers worldwide share their reading reports every Sunday
	Weekly Geeks A weekly task for book bloggers is set every weekend. I participate most of the time.
Friday's Forgotten Books	Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books is a weekly meme when we talk about crime fiction titles of the past.