Review: FIVE LITTLE PIGS, Agatha Christie

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 333 KB
• Print Length: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harper (October 14, 2010)
  Originally published in 1942
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0046RE5BS
• Source: I bought it

aka MURDER IN RETROSPECT

Publisher's blurb (Christie.com):

Amyas Crale's passion for painting and women made him famous. His murder made him infamous. Sixteen years earlier his jealous wife was tried, convicted and sentenced to life for a notorious slaying. Now their daughter Carla, a young woman convinced her mother is innocent, has presented Hercule Poirot with a brilliant challenge: to clear her mother's name by returning to the scene of the murder and finding the fatal flaw in the perfect crime.

This was the first of five novels that Christie wrote concerning a murder in retrospect. The novel is dedicated to Professor Glanville, who persuaded the author to write Death Comes as the End.  Christie adapted the novel for the stage in a play entitled Go Back for Murder.  Hercule Poirot was eliminated as a character in the play.  David Suchet starred in the ITV television adaptation in 2003.

My take

Many of the crime fiction novels we read these days deal with cold cases, but in the 1940s this type of scenario would have been unusual. Not only is the murder victim long dead, but the convicted murderer is dead too. However Poirot has no doubt that he can use his little grey cells to get to the truth.

Hercule Poirot always has a soft spot for a young lady in distress or peril. In his previous appearance in EVIL UNDER THE SUN he had great admiration for the female murderer. In FIVE LITTLE PIGS he has great sympathy with Carla Crale's belief in her mother's innocence.

It is Poirot himself who names this case:

A jingle ran through Poirot’s head. He repressed it. He must not always be thinking of nursery rhymes. It seemed an obsession with him lately. And yet the jingle persisted. ‘This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home…’

The structure of FIVE LITTLE PIGS is deceptively simple. In Book I there are ten chapters. In the first five Poirot interviews the officials involved in the court cases to see what they remember and what their impression was of Caroline Crale's guilt. In the next five chapters he interviews the five people who were present when the murder happened.


In Book II each of the latter five gives Poirot a written narrative of events and their own opinion of whether Caroline Crale was guilty of murder.

Book III also has five chapters. Poirot brings the five people together with Carla Crale and her fiance. He asks a question each of those who gave him a narrative and then reconstructs what happened as he sees it, pointing out that one of those present has lied, and some of the others are mistaken in their interpretation of what they saw and heard at the time.

For readers it is a most satisfying book because you have the same opportunities as Hercule Poirot to reinterpret the evidence and to look for the flaws in the narratives. I must admit to at first following the red herring that Christie so temptingly laid across my path. I always had an alternative reconstruction lurking in the back of my mind though, and that proved to be the correct one.

This was the last novel of an especially prolific phase of Christie's work on Poirot. She published thirteen Poirot novels between 1935 and 1942 out of a total of eighteen novels in that period. By contrast, she published only two Poirot novels in the next eight years, indicating the possibility that she was experiencing some frustration with her most popular character. (see more at Wikipedia about the novel)

My rating: 4.6

Forgotten Book: TOMBSTONE COURAGE, J.A. Jance

This contribution to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books is from my records for 1996.

TOMBSTONE COURAGE is #2 in Jance's Joanna Brady series (see full list below)

I had read the first in the series, DESERT HEAT earlier that year. It introduced a new female protagonist.
Life is good for Joanna Brady in the small desert community of Bisbee. She has Jenny, her adored nine-year-old daughter, and solid, honest, and loving husband, Andy, a local lawman who's running for Sheriff of Cochise County. But her good life explodes when a bullet destroys Andy Brady's future and leaves him dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun.

In TOMBSTONE COURAGE, Joanna Brady runs for sheriff in Cochise County, Arizona, and thereby earns the enmity of the local police force and gets involved in investigating a strange double homicide.

Jance set her Joanna Brady series in the town where she herself grew up and says that the Brady character owes quite a bit to her own experiences as a single parent.

In PARTNER IN CRIME Jance introduced Sheriff Joanna Brady to another of her protagonists, Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont, who has her own series of 19 titles.

1. Desert Heat (1993)
2. Tombstone Courage (1994)
3. Shoot, Don't Shoot (1995)
4. Dead to Rights (1996)
5. Skeleton Canyon (1997)
6. Rattlesnake Crossing (1998)
7. Outlaw Mountain (1999)
8. Devil's Claw (2000)
9. Paradise Lost (2001)
10. Partner In Crime (2002)
11. Exit Wounds (2003)
12. Dead Wrong (2006)
13. Damage Control (2008)

Catch up with J.A. Jance on her website.

Review: OUTRAGE, Arnaldur Indridason

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 411 KB
• Print Length: 320 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307359417
• Publisher: Vintage Digital (June 23, 2011)
  Translated from Icelandic by Anna Yates
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0051UTRLM
• Source: I bought it

Product description (Amazon)

In a flat near Reykjavík city centre, a young man lies dead in a pool of blood. There is no sign of a break-in: the only clues are a woman’s purple shawl, found under the bed in the next room, and a vial of prescription drugs in the victim´s pocket.
With Detective Erlendur away in a remote part of Iceland, Detective Elínborg, who is already struggling to juggle family life and the relentless demands of her job, is assigned the case. Her investigation into the murdered man’s past soon uncovers a squalid tale of double lives, drug dealers and the unsolved disappearance of a young girl many years before.
From its explosive opening, Outrage leads down a trail of hidden violence, psychological brutality and of wrongs that will never be fully righted.

My take:

Although OUTRAGE is the 7th title in the Erlendur series to be translated  into English it could quite easily be read initially as a stand alone. Hopefully the reader will enjoy this one enough to track down some of the earlier titles.

I've referred to the books as the Erlendur series because the novels usually focus on a rather grumpy old-fashioned detective by that name. In OUTRAGE though he has recently wound up a very  demanding case and has taken an unscheduled leave. Not even those closest to him know where he has gone.

So when the dead body in the flat in the fashionable Thingholt district is called in, Detective Elinborg is on duty and she calls the team to the crime scene. We, the readers, have met Elinborg in earlier novels, and know her as hard working, meticulous, conscientious. OUTRAGE gives us a chance to get better acquainted with her. Elinborg tries to keep her home life and her work life separate, refuses to discuss the cases she is working on with her husband and children, but this does result in a form of alienation between her and her eldest son. Elinborg works incredibly long hours and leaves much of the home management of their three children to her husband Teddi who is a mechanic.

What we learn from this novel is that sometimes people, particularly women, will talk to Elinborg particularly because she is a woman. This particular case involves a man who uses a date rape drug on his victims and when they learn this it colours women's attitudes to giving information.

Indridason uses an interesting hook for this novel. In the opening chapter Runolfur, the murder victim, is off to a bar with the Rohypnol in his pocket. He picks up a woman to take back to his flat. Later he is found dead on the floor of his flat, his throat cut, wearing the t-shirt we last saw on his female victim. It sent me scurrying off to read the first part of the chapter again. And of course we now want to know what happened.

I didn't feel OUTRAGE had the flair of earlier novels in the series, but is nevertheless still a very acceptable police procedural. It does also explore a number of contemporary issues: the pain that occurs when children leave home, the growing urbanisation of Iceland and the social dislocation that can occur, and how life in Iceland has changed in the last part of the twentieth century.

My rating: 4.6

Other reviews

• Petrona at EuroCrime
• Irresistible Targets
• The Independent

Indridason titles on this blog
ARCTIC CHILL
5.0, HYPOTHERMIA
4.5, OPERATION NAPOLEON

Review: THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED, Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo

• Format: Kindle Edition
  originally published in 1969
  translated from Swedish by Joan Tate
  Introduction by Colin Dexter
• File Size: 553 KB
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (August 20, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002RI9EZ0
• Source: I bought it

Also available from Audible.com

Product Description (Amazon)

The excellent fifth classic installment in the Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s – the novels that have inspired all crime fiction written ever since.
Widely recognised as the greatest masterpieces of crime fiction ever written, these are the original detective stories that pioneered the detective genre.

Gunvald Larsson sits carefully observing the dingy Stockholm apartment of a man under police surveillance. He looks at his watch: nine minutes past eleven in the evening. He yawns, slapping his arms to keep warm. At the same moment the house explodes, killing at least three people.
Chief Inspector Martin Beck and his men don't suspect arson or murder until they discover a peculiar circumstance and a link is established between the explosion and a suicide committed that same day, in which the dead man left a note consisting of just two words: Martin Beck.

Written in the 1960s, they are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo – a husband and wife team from Sweden. The ten novels follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction. The novels can be read separately, but do follow a chronological order, so the reader can become familiar with the characters and develop a loyalty to the series. Each book has a new introduction in order to help bring these books to a new audience.

My take

THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED is a perfect illustration of the concept that solving homicide cases is a mixture of accumulating evidence through painstaking and methodical sleuthing with flashes of intuition. In any investigative team the role of some will be the sleuthing, but it will often be the intuition that solves the case. The problem is that without the painstaking sleuthing little intuition is possible, and the accumulation of evidence is often necessary to both break the perpetrator and for for successful prosecution to take place. There is also often a problem in getting all the essential information into one brain. It takes all kinds to form a good team of detectives: plods, cynics, workaholics, as well as those who carefully compartmentalise their lives. Successful resolution requires testing theories, discarding those that don't fit, following the occasional red herring, and often, as in this case a long passage of time. The threads that make up a case often first present separately but as the plot develops they begin to converge.

One of the things that this novel clearly shows too is that each of the team has a private life. In THE FIRE ENGINE THAT DISAPPEARED Martin Beck's marriage appears to be on the point of collapse. This seems to be something so common to the modern detective that we almost take it for granted.

The Martin Beck series was written in the late 1960s and now five decades later we can still appreciate how cleverly they were constructed.

My rating: 4.5

 The Martin Beck series (courtesy Fantastic Fiction)
I have now read *
1. Roseanna (1965)
2. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966) *
3. The Man on the Balcony (1967) *
4. The Laughing Policeman (1968) *
     aka Investigation of Murder
5. The Fire Engine That Disappeared (1969) *
6. Murder at the Savoy (1970)
7. The Abominable Man (1971)
8. The Locked Room (1972)
9. The Cop Killer (1974)
10. The Terrorists (1975) 

See also
THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE

Challenge Targets so far

I thought at the beginning of this year that I had committed myself to rather too many reading challenges, but as you can see from the list below I am pretty well on target, although a couple need more focus.
I have achieved about 50% of my targets and look on track to complete most of the others.

My full summary can be found at Reading Challenges Update

• Agatha Christie Reading Challenge 9/12  
• Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge: aiming for 142+  currently 121
• Historical Fiction Challenge 10/10 - Completed
• British Books Challenge 12/12 - completed at Royal Family Level.
  Now attempting to earn a Crown (50 books) - 31/38
  
• e-book challenge 51/100 - completed at 20, now aiming for 100 but I don't think I will get there.
  
• Nordic Challenge 2011 11/20 (Odin is 11-20)
  
• Aussie Author Challenge 12/12- completed
• Ireland Reading Challenge 1/4 
• Cruisin' thru Cozies Reading Challenge 20/13+ - Completed
• 2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 6/9 
• 2011 Global Reading Challenge 21/21- - Completed
• Canadian Book Challenge 2010-2011 7/7 - Completed
• Canadian Book Challenge 2011-2012 2/13 
• translated, currently 19 - last year 20
• New Zealand, currently 2
• new to me: currently 52 - last year 46

Best crime fiction reads so far in 2011

To be on this list books have to be rated 4.8 and above in my reviews this year.
That is no mean feat.
When I made my mid year list there were 16 titles on the list. Now there are 21.

There are just 4 Australian titles and one New Zealander on the list. Can you pick them?

I think I would have expected more translated titles to make the list. Can you pick them?

There is one Irish writer. And 4 writers each appear twice.

5.0, BURY YOUR DEAD, Louise Penny
5.0, THE WRECKAGE, Michael Robotham
5.0, A THOUSAND CUTS, Simon Lelic
5.0, BLUE LIGHTNING, Ann Cleeves 
5.0, THE RULE BOOK, Rob Kitchin
5.0, DEAD TOMORROW, Peter James
5.0, THE END OF THE WASP SEASON, Denise Mina  
4.9, THE BRUTAL TELLING, Louise Penny
4.9, BAD INTENTIONS, Karin Fossum
4.8, THE HANGING WOOD, Martin Edwards
4.8, KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES, Jussi Adler-Olsen
4.8, AN UNCERTAIN PLACE, Fred Vargas
4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL, Geoffrey McGeachin
4.8, VIOLENT EXPOSURE, Katherine Howell
4.8, COLD JUSTICE, Katherine Howell
4.8, THE LEOPARD, Jo Nesbo  
4.8, CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, Tom Franklin
4.8, BOUND, Vanda Symon
4.8, SILENT VOICES, Ann Cleeves
4.8, DEAD LIKE YOU, Peter James  
4.8, THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE, Alan Bradley

Crime Fiction on a Euro Pass: Italy: where else but Venice?

At last we are in Italy!
Without doubt it contains one of my favourite cities in the world.
For me no visit to Italy is complete without a visit to Venice.
I first visited in April 1975 and I must have been back at least half a dozen times since.








Nothing beats a ride on the Grand Canal on a vaporetto and I can never get enough of wandering the streets.

I guess that must be why I enjoy the novels of Donna Leon so much. Over the years I have made friends with Commissario Guido Brunetti and his family. I also love the way Leon weaves a crime fiction story against a background of modern Venice and it's problems such as political corruption, illegal immigration, the rising waters, the challenges to traditional industries, and industrial pollution.

I have 4 reviews on Brunetti titles on this blog
ABOUT FACE
THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
A QUESTION OF BELIEF

although I suspect I have read almost all the 19 published titles.

Did you know that if you visit Venice you can take a guided tour of the landmarks of Brunetti's Venice?

Organise your own tour from this page.

There's even a book of over a dozen walks, encompassing all six regions of Venice as well as the lagoon, lead readers down calli, over canali, and through campi.
Important locations from the best-selling novels are highlighted and major themes and characters are explored, all accompanied by poignant excerpts from the novels.

And there's even a version for your Kindle, with an introduction by Donna Leon herself.  How great would that be? Put it on your Kindle or your iPad and you are set!

Check what other participants in Crime Fiction on a Euro Pass have chosen this week.