Review: RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER, Sally Andrew

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1485 KB
• Print Length: 384 pages
• Publisher: Text Publishing (September 23, 2015)
• Publication Date: September 23, 2015
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B010KFBP4E
• #1 in the Tannie Maria series

Synopsis (Amazon)

Tannie Maria used to write a recipe column for the Klein Karoo Gazette. Then Head Office decided they wanted an advice column instead, so now she gives advice. In the form of recipes. Because, as she says, she may not know much about love, but food—that’s her life.

Everything has been going well. A tongue-tied mechanic wins his girl with text messages and Welsh rarebit. A frightened teenager gets some much-needed sex ed with her chocolate-coated bananas.

But then there is a letter from Martine, whose husband beats her, and Tannie Maria feels a pang of recognition and dread. This may be a problem that cooking can’t solve…

Warm, funny, poignant: Sally Andrew’s irresistible heroine brings mystery, romance and amazing cooking together in the most entertaining new series in years. And all Tannie Maria’s mouthwatering recipes are right there in the book!

My Take

An interesting and captivating read which I must admit I began reading as a paperback from my local library but then swapped to an e-version on my Kindle because of the size of the print.

As another reviewer commented, it looks like a cosy, but doesn't shirk from major topics like South African history, and social problems like domestic violence. A murder mystery is interwoven with Afrikaans and local recipes, as a small team from the local paper investigates and members of their team are targetted by the murderer.

Tannie Maria's character is well fleshed out and is a good basis for a second novel, already published, THE SATANIC MECHANIC.

My rating: 4.4

About the author

Sally Andrew lives in a mud-brick house on a nature reserve near Ladismith in the Klein Karoo (South Africa). She has published a number of non-fiction books and educational articles. Recipes for Love and Murder is her first novel

Book vs Film, Agatha Christie's DUMB WITNESS

Having recently reviewed DUMB WITNESS, I decided to watch a TV version to see what changes the dramatisation made to the Christie story.
The one I chose to watch was produced in 1996 with David Suchet playing Poirot and Hugh Fraser playing Captain Hastings.

The first thing that strikes you is the change of setting: from Berkshire to Windermere (Coniston Water).
The second is the change of time frame: Charles Arundell is attempting to set a new water speed record, so the time frame has been changed from the mid 1930s to around 1949/1950. (Donald Campbell is mentioned in passing).

Here are some of the other modifications

• Hastings and Poirot have come to Coniston Water to watch Arundell's attempt because Hastings is a friend of Arundell's
• Emily Arundell confides her worries to Hercule Poirot prior to her death, and he persuades her to re write her will.
  
• There is no letter from Lady Arundell to Hercule Poirot (in the book posted after her death)
• after Emily Arundell dies there is a second murder (I won't tell you who)
• the companion Minnie Lawson is involved romantically with the local Doctor - in the book it is Theresa Arundell.
• Bob's ball is always kept in his basket, not in the drawer of the hall stand
• the problem of who becomes the eventual owner of Bob the dog is solved (in the book Poirot has to take him)
• Poirot's own form of justice (mentioned in my book review) does not eventuate because he never gives the murderer a written version of his understanding of what has happened.

The actual plot/murderer is unchanged, and all is revealed, Poirot-style, in a final denouement when all the characters in the story are assembled. However because of the changes I've listed above, many of the red herrings are either left out or do not work.

Which did I prefer? well, the book actually. I think the suspense was better there and the characters better drawn.

Review: DUMB WITNESS, Agatha Christie

• this edition Center Point Large Print published 2013
• originally published 1937 AKA USA edition POIROT LOSES A CLIENT
• ISBN 978-1-61173-683-0
• large print edition, 382 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Agatha Christie Wikia)


The story is set in Berkshire and centres on Emily Arundell, a wealthy spinster surrounded by grasping young relatives. She is injured by falling down a staircase, and everyone believes that she tripped over a ball left by her pet fox terrier, Bob. Emily later dies of natural causes (or so it is believed), and her estate is unexpectedly left to her companion, Miss Lawson. A letter written before her death to Hercule Poirot by Emily arrives too late to save her, but puts Poirot on the case. 

The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and is the second to last Poirot novel (the last being 1975's Curtain: Poirot's Last Case) to be published that features Hastings as narrator.

Dumb Witness was based on a short story entitled The Incident of the Dog's Ball. This short story was lost for many years but found by the authoress's daughter in a crate of her personal effects, in 2004. The Incident of the Dog's Ball was published in Britain in September 2009 in John Curran's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years Of Mysteries. The short story was also published by The Strand Magazine in their tenth anniversary issue.

My Take

One of the focal points of this novel is the unreliable narrator. The assumption is that if the dog, Bob, could tell his story, he would be able to narrate what actually happened. But in fact Bob does not see all.

The principal narration is through the eyes of Captain Hastings, and the reader has come to expect that he often gets things wrong. But there are other points of view expressed including Poirot's. Under Hastings' influence we either dismiss or accept these other points of view, but which is the right one?

This is also a classic Poirot. Various red herrings are laid, and various scenarios and alibis tested, accepted or rejected. And then of course there is the final denouement. But Poirot has already meted out his own peculiar form of justice.

I thought there were at least a couple of unsatisfactory plot elements: I couldn't imagine anyone hammering a tack into wood in the middle of the night and expecting to go undetected, and I thought the murderer changed character too much. Unexpectedly Poirot becomes the owner of Bob the dog.

I originally reviewed this novel in 2011 and gave it the same rating. I have re-read it to participate in this month's Crime Fiction of the Year Challenge for 1937 at Past Offences.

My rating: 4.5
Check my other reviews in the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.

Review: MISS CHRISTIE REGRETS, Guy Fraser- Sampson

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 1458 KB
• Print Length: 263 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Urbane Publications (January 12, 2017)
• Publication Date: January 12, 2017
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B01MRUI98P
• #2 of the Hampstead Murders

Synopsis  (Amazon)

The second in the Hampstead Murders series opens with a sudden death at an iconic local venue, which some of the team believe may be connected with an unsolved murder featuring Cold War betrayals worthy of George Smiley. It soon emerges that none other than Agatha Christie herself may be the key witness who is able to provide the missing link.

As with its bestselling predecessor, Death in Profile, the book develops the lives and loves of the team at 'Hampstead Nick'. While the next phase of a complicated love triangle plays itself out, the protagonists, struggling to crack not one but two apparently insoluble murders, face issues of national security in working alongside Special Branch.

On one level a classic whodunit, this quirky and intelligent read harks back not only to the world of Agatha Christie, but also to the Cold War thrillers of John Le Carre, making it a worthy successor to Death in Profile which was dubbed 'a love letter to the detective novel'.

My Take

I was attracted to reading this book by the connection in the title to Agatha Christie. I generally don't read what I term "coat-tails" novels (those that attract readers because of their connection to someone famous) but the blurb for this one made me curious, even though it too tries to attract by making reference to books that have nothing to do with the plot of this one.

The story opens at Burgh House in Hampstead where a young couple are inspecting a Constable exhibition. They are about to have afternoon tea when a uniformed policeman arrives with the news that a murder has been discovered in a room on one of the upper floors. The young woman, who is Detective Sergeant Karen Willis, takes charge until another detective arrives. The detective who arrives is DI Bob Metcalfe, a colleague and close friend.

The plot becomes complicated when a murder is discovered in an apartment house in which both Agatha Christie and the grandfather of the current victim were residents. However the body in this case is long dead, bricked up in the basement in a trunk. The date of the death appears to be some time in 1937.

There seems to be a lot of complication in this novel. On the surface it is a police procedural, but it is also obviously a tribute to crime fiction writers, with the connection to Agatha Christie, but also one character who thinks he is the embodiment of Lord Peter Wimsey, and references to other writers such as Ngaio Marsh and Philip Marlowe. The personal relationships between the main characters are very convoluted. There are political overtones with connections to top secret documents which means that the SIO has to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Then finally there was a twist in the tale that I didn't see coming.

My rating: 4.3

About the author
GUY FRASER-SAMPSON is an established writer, previously best known for his 'Mapp and Lucia' novels, which have been featured on BBC Radio 4 and optioned by BBC television. His debut work of detective fiction, Death in Profile, the first in the Hampstead Murders series has drawn high praise from fellow crime writers as well as from readers on both sides of the Atlantic. 

What I read in February 2017

Some good reads this month including the latest by Australian author Garry Disher.

1. 4.5, SIGNAL LOSS, Garry Disher
2. 4.4, THE MOVING FINGER, Agatha Christie 
3. 4.4, THE UNFORTUNATE VICTIM, Greg Pyers
4. 4.8, IMPERIUM, Robert Harris - audio book 
5. 4.5, WHAT REMAINS BEHIND, Dorothy Fowler 
6. 4.3, THE PALLAMPUR PREDICAMENT, Brian Stoddart
7. 4.7, THE SILENCE BETWEEN BREATHS, Cath Staincliffe
8. 4.7, HELLFIRE, Karin Fossum
9. 4.7. THE NEW MRS CLIFTON, Elizabeth Buchan  

My pick of the month though is THE SILENCE BETWEEN BREATHS, Cath Staincliffe

Passengers boarding the 10.35 train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston have no idea that their journey is about to be brutally curtailed.

Holly has just landed her dream job, and Jeff is heading for an interview after months of unemployment. They end up sitting next to each other. Onboard customer service assistant Naz dreams of better things. And among the others travelling are Nick with his young family; pensioner Meg and her partner, setting off on a walking holiday; Caroline, run ragged by the competing demands of her stroppy teenage children and her demented mother; and Rhona, desperate to get home to her daughter.

And in the middle of the carriage sits Saheel, carrying a deadly rucksack....

See what others have chosen for their pick of the month.

Review: THE NEW MRS CLIFTON, Elizabeth Buchan

• this edition published by Penguin UK 2016
• ISBN 978-1-405-91820-6
• 401 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Penguin UK)

As the Second World War draws to a close, Intelligence Officer Gus Clifton surprises his sisters at their London home. But an even greater shock is the woman he brings with him, Krista - the German wife whom he has married secretly in Berlin.

Krista is clearly devastated by her experiences at the hands of the British and their allies - all but broken by horrors she cannot share. But Gus's sisters can only see the enemy their brother has brought under their roof. And their friend Nella, Gus's beautiful, loyal fiancée, cannot understand what made Gus change his mind about their marriage. What hold does Krista have over their honourable and upright Gus? And how can the three women get her out of their home, their future, their England?

Haunted by passion, betrayal and misunderstanding these damaged souls are propelled towards a spectacular resolution. Krista has lost her country, her people, her identity, and the ties that bind her to Gus hold more tightly than the sisters can ever understand...

My Take

We know from the opening pages that a murder has been committed, but not whose body it is. The murder is discovered nearly 3 decades after it happened. There are at least 3 possibilities and the identity is not revealed until the last few pages.

This is a novel filled with the aftermath of World War II and full of little mysteries. Central is the hold that Krista has over Gus. Theirs is clearly a marriage of convenience not love, but just who has a hold over who is not clear. The comparisons between Berlin and London are very evocative and thought provoking. Krista is an illustration of how tough and resilient the female survivors of Berlin must have been, but life in post war London is tough especially for a woman speaking with a noticeable German accent.

Gus's sisters Julia and Tilly are struggling to find meaning in their lives especially after their brother's return to the house they have maintained for him during the war years. And Gus's job doesn't make life any easier.

An excellent read, but one that is on the very edges of crime fiction.

My rating: 4.7

About the author

Elizabeth Buchan's previous novels include the prizewinning Consider the Lily, The New York Times bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, and her most recent book I Can't Begin To Tell You, which was a World Book Night pick for 2016. Elizabeth's short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in a range of magazines. Elizabeth reviews for the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail and is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival. She has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliott literary prizes, has been a judge for the Costa novel award, and she sits on the authors' committee for the Reading Agency. She lives in London.

Pick of the month February 2017

Crime Fiction Pick of the Month 2017

Many crime fiction bloggers write a summary post at the end of each month listing what they've read, and some, like me, even go as far as naming their pick of the month.

This meme is an attempt to aggregate those summary posts.
It is an invitation to you to write your own summary post for February 2017, identify your crime fiction best read of the month, and add your post's URL to the Mr Linky below.
If Mr Linky does not appear for you, leave the URL in a comment and I will add it myself.

You can list all the books you've read in the past month on your post, even if some of them are not crime fiction, but I'd like you to nominate your crime fiction pick of the month.

That will be what you will list in Mr Linky too -
e.g.
ROSEANNA, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo - MiP (or Kerrie)

You are welcome to use the image on your post and it would be great if you could link your post back to this post on MYSTERIES in PARADISE.

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