Review: Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie

Title: Dead Man’s Folly

Author: Agatha Christie

Narrator: David Suchet

Publisher: Harper Collins [This edition 2007, originally 1956]

ISBN: N/A [downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 6hrs 1min

Genre: Private Detective

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: A book that simultaneously manages to offer exactly what you expect at the same time as a surprise ending

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Hercule Poirot receives a frantic phone call from his friend Ariadne Oliver, a writer of murder mysteries. She has created a live murder game for a fête to be held in the grounds of Nasse House which is the home of Lord and Lady Stubbs but she believes there is real danger lurking at the House and she begs Poirot to come immediately. Oliver gives Poirot little to go on but her feelings and, perhaps because of this, he fails to prevent the murder of the young girl who was only supposed to be playing the role of victim in the murder game. He subsequently participates in a stop-start investigation before finally solving the crime.

I was prompted to read this book by one of Margot Kinberg’s excellent contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet meme. Margot highlighted the humour of the book and as that is an element of crime fiction I enjoy and hadn’t really associated with Christie before I thought it would be an interesting choice for me. I wasn’t disappointed. The Ariadne Oliver character really does make a nice contrast to the somewhat prissy and proper Poirot with her ability to laugh at herself and it does seem like Christie was having a bit of fun with her genre by using the ‘mystery within a mystery’ twist.

This twist is also a perfect device for Christie’s favourite ploy: misdirection of her readers. Even though I know that her plots are always complex and that the obvious clues are red herrings to be ignored I still didn’t come close to picking up on the key hints that led to the solution. As almost always with Christie’s books, the uncovering of the murderer follows a wonderfully convoluted and unexpected journey. One of the things I liked about this book is that Poirot didn’t seem quite so cocky as he is in earlier stories. He doesn’t inveigle himself into every single interrogation and for some time it seems as if he might not even solve the mystery at all. I found this slightly more humble Poirot more likable than I have in the past.

I notice that some people mention struggling to keep track of all the people who appear in this book and I think this is where listening to the audio book had me at an advantage. David Suchet is a superb narrator and manages to provide all the characters a distinctive voice which is very helpful in such a dialogue-rich story. I must admit I am becoming quite addicted to Suchet’s narrations of Christie’s works.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

If you’ve read the print book and listened to the audio book of Dead Man’s Folly clearly the next step is to play the hidden object game based on the book. This screen shot has me tempted.

Another blog to have reviewed Dead Man’s Folly is Books Please as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge that Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise is hosting.

 

Review: Silks by Dick Francis

Title: Silks

Author: Dick Francis with Felix Francis

Publisher: Pan Books [original edition 2008, this edition 2009]

ISBN: 978-0-330-46451-2

Length: 400 pages

Setting: England, present day

Genre: Amateur sleuth

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: A quick, well-plotted tale with a satisfying ending though few surprises.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Geoffrey ‘Perry’ Mason is a professional barrister and amateur jockey and these pass times meet when a leading jockey he knows, Steve Mitchell, is accused of killing another jockey. A former client of Mason’s threatens that if he doesn’t take Mitchell’s case and lose his own family will suffer. Mason is torn between doing what he knows is right and doing what will bring him peace in his life.

Usually when I pick up a new book I do so anticipating an interesting experience: new characters to meet, places to visit, ideas to contemplate. Occasionally though I am in the mood for the literary equivalent of comfort food and for me that means reaching for one of ‘my’ authors who write to a formula I enjoy. Few do that better than Dick Francis. His books are all variations on the theme of a central male character somehow related to the world of horses who gets into trouble not of his own making that can only be overcome by heroism of the stiff upper lip variety. This is the 41st Dick Francis book I’ve read and I can’t honestly say it’s much different from any of the others. But then, today anyway, I’d have been disappointed if it had been.

Silks is the second book co-authored by Francis’ younger son Felix (Francis is 89 now) and is much better than the first, Dead Heat, which I read last year.  Unlike that one, which never felt terribly credible and had plot holes you could drive a lorry through, Silks was quite believable. The fear which people were able to induce in perfectly ordinary citizens so that they would lie and do other things against their nature felt very genuine and I was thoroughly engaged in finding out how our hero would ensure justice prevailed in the end (which of course I knew it would).

For all the lightness and frothiness of Francis’ books he does have a great ability to depict real human behaviour and it was interesting to watch how various people coped with the violent intimidation that was prevalent throughout the story. Mason’s growth into the sort of person who could stand up to quite horrifying scare tactics was also well done.

Silks is one of those books that delivers exactly what you expect and sometimes that’s enough to qualify as a satisfying read. Francis fans will enjoy the book while new readers could do worse than start with this one.

Other stuff

Silks has been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise and Reviewing the Evidence

 

Review: The Consequences of Sin by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Title: The Consequences of Sin

Author: Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Publisher: Penguin [2007]

ISBN: 978-0-14-311293-8

Length: 262 pages

Setting: England and Venezuela, 1910-11

Genre: historical crime fiction

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: Historically accurate, delightfully complex yarn full of wonderful imagery.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In Edwardian England Ursula Marlow is the only daughter of a widowed self-made man. She is woken one morning by a frantic phone call from one of her suffragette friends, Winifred “Freddie” Stanford-Jones, who has discovered her lover dead covered in blood in the bed beside her. Although she doesn’t want to be beholden to him, Ursula calls upon her father’s legal adviser Lord Wrotham to smooth the waters with the Police. Despite this Freddie is soon arrested and as Ursula tries to clear her friend’s name she discovers that the murder of Freddie’s lover may relate to a troubled expedition to Venezuela’s famed Orinoco Delta that her father financed 20 years previously.

I love it when a book surprises me. I was expecting a frothy historical romp and although this book does have its frothy moments there’s also a more melancholic, even sombre, thread that I, perhaps perversely, enjoyed. Also, Ursula is also more complex and credible heroine than I anticipated. She’s not the over-the-top force of nature that Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody is but nor is she an Austen-esque woman constantly being overcome by the vapours. At times she’s a take-charge gal forging ahead regardless of danger but at other points she’s indecisive and clearly scared by unfolding events. This dichotomy is far more realistic than the extremes you often find in fiction and it made Ursula more interesting and the book less predictable than others in this crowded space.

I’m no expert on the period but the historical setting seems to have been captured rather beautifully. There were many details of Edwardian life depicted that demonstrated that the past is indeed a foreign country: one fun to visit but nice to return home from. While exploring in South America a hundred years ago or sailing first-class on the Lusitania (5 years before it sank) might have been great experiences I wouldn’t trade them for being able to vote and look after my own finances.

While I revelled in the details of the explorers of the past and Edwardian life in general there was a solid mystery playing out at decent pace although there weren’t many red herrings or alternative suspects whose guilt I could ponder. The remaining characters other than the two leads played fairly minor roles and but perhaps other characters will participate more fully in future books. The only one here that I struggled with was the policeman (in fact I’m still not sure if he was supposed to be incredibly dumb or vaguely corrupt). However the book was crammed with enough other delights to keep me occupied and I’ll even admit (as long as you promise not to tell anyone else) that I was quite engaged by the romantic element to the story (which was almost entirely lacking in soppiness thank heavens).

Other stuff

This book has been reviewd at Books and Musings from Down Under and Bookgirl’s Nightstand

 

Review: A Cure For All Diseases by Reginald Hill

Title: A Cure For All Diseases (the 23rd of 24 Dalziel and Pascoe novels and published as The Price of Butcher’s Meat in the US)

Author: Reginald Hill

Publisher: Whole Story Audio Books [2009]

ISBN: N/A (acquired via digital download from audible.com)

Length: 15hours 49minutes

Narrator: Jonathan Keeble

After barely surviving a terrorist blast Superintendent Andy Dalziel is convalescing at a swanky private clinic in the seaside resort of Sandytown in Yorkshire. He befriends another young visitor to the town, Charlotte (Charley) Heywood, who is the daughter of an old Rugby mate of Dalziel’s and a psychologist reviewing the benefits of alternative therapies. They are both keen observers of the people and happenings in the town and record their observations: Andy using a digital audio recorder provided by his doctor and Charley via a series of emails to her sister. As with all fairly closed communities there are a couple of prominent families whose lives seem to impact everyone in the town directly or indirectly and the same is true of Sandytown which is the setting for a soon to be opened alternative healing centre. When one of the town’s most prominent citizens is killed in a gruesome way a full police investigation, headed by Dalziel’s old partner Peter Pascoe, gears up but Andy and Charley’s continuing observations play a key role in the solving of the murder.

This is, more than usually, a review specifically of the audio version of A Cure For All Diseases narrated by Jonathan Keeble. Because, regardless of how good the original content is, Keeble added a truly wonderful element that I don’t think could exist in the print version. His portrayal of the two main narrators of the story, ageing male Dalziel and young, somewhat excitable female Charley is truly magnificent and he rounds out the reading with an entire cast of minor players that are equally beautifully depicted. Coming back to my iPod each day became a real treat over the past week or so and I now have a sense of the anticipation people used to get as they ‘gathered round the wireless’ to hear the latest radio play in the days before television.

The format and, to some extent, the content of this story is actually Hill’s homage to Jane Austen but I don’t think it matters all that much if you’re an Austen fan and can recognise what he’s done or not. Far more important is that it provides an interesting, different approach to the standard police procedural. As someone who has lamented the formulaic writing by other well-known authors of late I applaud both the decision to do try something new and the successful execution of that decision. About half of the story is told via the recorded observations of Charley and Dalziel and I thoroughly enjoyed their dual points of view, especially the brave inclusion of a significant narrative voice that wasn’t Dalziel or Pascoe. The rest of the story is told via a more traditional narrative but the two forms are pretty seamlessly integrated.

There’s a strong undertone of humour through this book that I haven’t noticed in the series before (although I’ve not read a large number of them so maybe it has been present). Both Dalziel and Charley’s epistles are full of humour that suits their respective characters: Dalziel’s is coarse and reminiscent of a 1970’s comedian dripping with barely concealed sexual innuendo while Charley’s is full of the biting observations that a modern young woman might share with her friends in an online chat room. I found this added a very natural component to the characterisations and, particularly in the case of Dalziel, provided a layer of credibility to a character that I’ve struggled to believe in previously. He’s still all-seeing, all-knowing Fat Andy that nearly everyone is instantly afraid of, but the humorous monologue provides an insight into what makes him tick and because of it I cringed less and saw him as a more well-rounded character.

The book isn’t the fastest paced story you’ll find, especially where the two narrative voices overlap and recount the same events from their different perspectives, but the relatively slow revelation of events allowed the myriad of characters to be more fully developed than would otherwise have been the case. Rather than being ‘filler’ content of the ‘a book must have 500 pages’ variety this was a highly nuanced building up of a picture of the town and its inhabitants and I was completely captivated. I have to admit the final conclusion bordered on contrived but I forgave this minor lapse in what was otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Hill is to be congratulated for maintaining interest in his long-running series by trying something innovative with this book. I also admire the fact you don’t need to be a die hard fan of Dalziel and Pascoe to enjoy the book (although I doubt it hurts if you are). If you’re at all keen on audio books I’d highly recommend you relax and let Keeble’s narration spirit you away to Yorkshire for a few hours.

My rating 5/5

Other stuff

As Hill as a huge legion of fans his book has been reviewed by lots of fellow book bloggers including those at Mysteries in Paradise, Reviewing the Evidence, Euro Crime, Aust Crime Fiction and Ms Bookish

 

My history with Wexford (or timing is everything)

George Baker as Inspector Wexford in 1998's Road Rage for TV

Back in the mid-80’s when I started to look for crime fiction as an adult reader I was a rather strident young university student taking, among my other studies, a course entitled Women in Politics. From memory it covered a mish-mash of history and commentary about the treatment of women in society and was taught by the kind of Germaine Greer worshiping feminist that you don’t often see these days. Apart from turning me into a crushing bore for several months (Surely there’s not much more annoying in life than a newly converted disciple of any cause or faith) the course influenced me to demand my local librarian provide me with contemporary crime fiction by female authors. She suggested Sara Paretsky’s V I Warshawski series, Sue Grafton’s alphabet books and Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford novels. The first two of these, featuring young, adventurous female protagonists, were far more engaging to my 19-year old self than one starring two middle-aged blokes and I’ve never really gotten over my youthful disdain for Reg Wexford and Mike Burden. The books are forever identified in my mind as depicting an old-school ‘man’s world’ that I wanted no part of and even though I know now that’s a very superficial interpretation of the books I can’t help continuing to be influenced by the thought.

Regardless of this I have read at least half of the Wexford books over the years (they’re available everywhere) but they’ve never been the ones I wait impatiently for. Instead they’re the books I pick up from remainders tables when desperate or borrow from the library because it’s that or Danielle Steele (before the Internet made it simple for me to put holds on books I actually want to read). The only Wexford story I’ve liked is Road Rage which appealed to my inner hippie and focused more on Reg’s wife Dora than the other books I’ve read. I couldn’t provide you a single detail of any of the other novels if my life depended on it.

And so I shall dare to admit here that I groaned audibly when I saw From Doon with Death had been chosen for the upcoming classics month discussion at Oz Mystery Readers. But, because I do try to participate in the group discussions (and because I discovered the story is contained in the Wexford omnibus gathering dust on my bookshelves) I gave it a go.

I don’t think it would be quite fair to review the book properly given my gargantuan blind spot but this is what I thought of the book.

It’s the first in what has become a series of 22 novels featuring Chief Inspector Reg Wexford et al and was written in 1964. Ronald Parsons reports his wife missing to his neighbour Mike Burden, also a policeman. Initially skeptical, Burden starts half-heartedly making enquiries. When Margaret Parsons’ body is found the pace picks up and Wexford and Burden have to unravel a tale that started a dozen years ago when Parsons was at school in the area.

Because I really wasn’t terribly engaged by the book (refer above) I started to take note of the ways it let me know it’s 45 years old. I’d forgotten, for example, that there was a time, before the ‘war on terror’ prompted earthlings to give up any pretence of civil liberties, that an innocent person’s fingerprints would be destroyed once the case for which they’d been taken had been resolved. Imagine! There are a load of similar small details which ensure the book captures its time and place exceptionally well and I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

The plot is well constructed and I suspect it would have been a little controversial in it’s day but it’s in no way salacious. I did get a bit bored by some of Wexford’s drawn out figuring out of things (the tracking down of the owner of a single tube of lipstick seemed to take forever for example).

We don’t learn much about Reg or Mike in the book which is probably at the heart of my disengagement with the series. We know Mike is married with two young-ish kids but I don’t think there’s any mention of Reg’s family here. We do learn that he’s 52 in this book which would have made him 97 in his last outing if he had aged the same way the rest of us do. I guess that kind of poetic license doesn’t really matter but I think it probably contributes to to my lack of ability to get drawn into the series. I like my characters to be a bit more concretely drawn.

I’ve always felt somewhat heretical for being a crime fiction lover who doesn’t go weak at the knees at the sight of a new Ruth Rendell book. But I don’t and I can’t make myself. This book, like all the others I’ve read, is a perfectly plotted police procedural but it doesn’t have the other part of what I need to want to spend time with a book: engaging characters. To me Reg and Mike are about as interesting as day-old dishwater and neither the victim of the crime here nor any of the suspect pool we were introduced to was much better. It might get me excommunicated from the crime fiction fraternity but I’ve decided I’m done with Wexford. I no longer believe eschewing him is striking a blow for womankind (I really was insufferable 22 years ago) but I am comfortable in admitting he’s just not for me.

 

Review: Shatter, Michael Robotham

Title: Shatter

Author: Michael Robotham

Publisher: Sphere [2008]

ISBN: 978-0-7515-3731-4

Length: 470 pages

One afternoon Joe O’Loughlin, a clinical psychologist, is asked to help in a crisis situation: a naked woman is standing on a bridge preparing to jump to her death. Joe talks to her briefly but she jumps anyway. Several days later the woman’s teenage daughter, Darcy, appears on Joe’s doorstep and begs him to help her convince Police that her mother didn’t commit suicide. Joe begins to wonder if, somehow, the woman could have been coerced into jumping. He calls on his old friend, now-retired Detective Vincent Ruiz for some help and together they talk to the local police.

Joe O’Loughlin has appeared in 3 books now although they can all be read as standalones. Each time I meet him I find something else to love. Unlike many of the protagonists in crime fiction Joe is not a troubled loner nor does he have any super human abilities. Even his skills in reading people, which he is mostly very good at, let him down some times. He’s smart, funny and heart-wrenchingly self aware. I particularly like the way Joe deals with the personal issues in his life in a very realistic way. He’s not always sensible (who is?) but nor does he go to the extremes that you see in some fiction that make you wonder how the person could possibly have survived adolescence.

But the real joy of Joe is the way he interacts with the people around him: his family, his old friend Ruiz and, in this book, young Darcy and the DI in charge of the case, Veronica Cray. There’s always a dry, sarcastic wit to his relationships and it gives the book an undercurrent of humour which is a welcome relief among the dark subject matter. I think the natural-sounding dialogue that peppers the book is Robotham’s best writing and something that sets him apart from other authors.

Now comes the heretical part of this review: I didn’t find Shatter particularly suspenseful. It was never much of a whodunnit (the culprit was revealed quite early on) nor, really, a why or a even a how dunnit (again all of those were revealed without fanfare and long before the end of the book). In the end it was what happens next story which, especially towards the end, was disappointingly predictable. Most of the story is told from Joe’s perspective but there are also short chapters told from the killer’s point of view and in them he talks about his capacity to break a person’s mind. Although the killer’s methods, described at some length which somehow made them less scary, led to extreme consequences I was never as gobsmackingly shocked as I was supposed to be by the notion that one person could manipulate another into doing something truly awful. I’ve read history, I watch the news and I’ve seen teenage girls in action. So, I never stepped over that line that separates me from knowing I’m in a fictional world to wondering if, maybe, that noise I heard outside the window isn’t evil that somehow leapt from the page.

Perhaps I have suffered a little too much from the hype that has surrounded this book but it wasn’t the ‘wow’ read for me that others have described. The characters and dialogue are excellent, and well worth reading the book for, but, for me, the story wasn’t as engaging as Robotham’s two earlier books featuring Joe O’Loughlin (Suspect and Lost). I think it relied a little too heavily on one big, hairy, audacious plot point and because that didn’t quite work for me the rest was a little flat.

My rating 3.5/5

Other stuff

Shatter is a popular book among crime fiction bloggers so here are just a few of the links I found to reviews from people who all, I think, got a little more from this book than I did:

• Books and Musings from Down Under
• Crime Down Under
• It’s a crime (or a mystery)
• It’s criminal
• Mysteries in Paradise

 

Review: Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris

Title: Gentlemen and Players

Author: Joanne Harris

Publisher: Black Swan [this edition 2006, original edition 2005]

ISBN: 978-0-552-77002-6

Length: 506 pages

Gentlemen and Players is about an English private school for boys, St Oswald’s. The first of two narrators for the story is the now grown up child of one of the school’s former porters who as a child was a frequent trespasser into the school grounds and is now a teacher at the school bent on revenge for the real and imagined harm done to them by the school. The second narrator is Roy Straitley a curmudgeonly Latin teacher at St Oswald’s 33 years who is no less obsessed with the school than the porter’s child. Between them these two narrators tell of the events which made such an impression on the porter’s child and also show two sides of the current events unfolding within the school’s hallowed halls.

The school is the main character in the book as well as the location for almost all of the plot development. And although that sounds as if it should make for an interesting twist on character-driven stories I found it quite boring at times. The notion that every student, teacher, parent and even the other people in the town who don’t attend the school would be so obsessed with and in awe of a relatively minor institution is fairly ludicrous. If it had only been the two narrators who were so consumed by all things St. Oswald’sian I think the story might have been more believable.

Neither of the two narrators are particularly interesting characters either: stereotyped as they are fairly early on. There certainly wasn’t a single surprise in anything Straitley said or did and, for me anyway, even the more enigmatic porter’s child had a fairly predictable story arc. The book relied heavily on a ‘shock’ twist that I thought blindingly obvious from several hundred pages before the big reveal which probably explains why I was more than a little bored.

In the end I was just never engaged by this book or the all-consuming world of St Oswald’s and I felt the author’s attempt at clever suspense was a bit too see-through. The potentially interesting themes, like the class differences between a porter’s child and the privileged boys of a private school, were handled superficially and so failed to add much to what was, in the end, a fairly dull reading experience for me.

My rating 2/5

Other stuff

Reviewed by Yvonne at Euro Crime and Karen at Bookbath

There is a short written interview/FAQ with Harris about this book on her website.

 

Review: Search the Dark by Charles Todd

Title: A search in the dark

Author: Charles Todd

Publisher: Recorded Books [2008]

ISBN: n/a (digital download from audible.com)

Length: 11hrs 40 minutes

Narrator: Samuel Gillies

Following the end of the first World War Ian Rutledge has returned to his work as an Inspector with Scotland Yard after nearly dying on the battlefield. He is called to a case in Dorset where a man has been arrested for killing the woman he believed to be his wife, despite the fact his wife and two children had supposedly died during a bombing raid two years earlier. Rutledge is assigned as a trouble-shooter to coordinate with the jurisdictions involved to locate the children who were assumed to have been with the murdered woman when she was killed. His presence is not universally welcomed by the local coppers.

The slant to this book is that Rutledge has a partner of sorts: a voice in his head. The voice belongs to Hamish McLeod, a soldier that Rutledge was required to shoot during the war when McLeod refused to lead his men into a particular battle. Rutledge seems resigned to Hamish’s presence which is at times angry and taunting and at other times almost supportive of Rutledge’s ways. He copes remarkably well with the interruptions at any rate. This is the third book in a series of what is now 11 books and frankly I’m not sure where else this particular element can go as, after only a short while, the novelty value had worn off for me and I simply accepted Hamish as a normal, fairly minor character. In a way I suppose this is good as it means it’s less of a gimmicky element than it might otherwise be, but the downside is that there’s less to differentiate this book from similar books in the crowded police procedural genre.

As historical fiction goes the book is first rate. It captures the immediate aftermath of the war and its effect on both the people who fought in it and those who stayed behind. Although the book explores the psychological impact of the war in a way that a contemporary whodunnit might not have done, I don’t think that makes the exploration less legitimate and, for me, it was the most interesting aspect of the book. The depiction of the torment many people went through without the medical knowledge and social support systems that are available today is powerful and quite sobering to ponder. Of course this makes the book quite a sad one with an ending that should not have had to happen (but realistic nonetheless).

A combination of slower pacing than I like and Rutledge’s way of working things out in his mind (with Hamish’s help) led to each twist and turn of the plot being telegraphed to me slightly before it actually happened so that in the end there were few genuine surprises in the story. However the plot, though somewhat convoluted, is logical and does hang together well. The characters more than make up for the duller moments.

I’d definitely recommend this to fans of historical fiction (I have a friend who adores Foyles War and I think she’ll love this series) and those who like a solidly written police procedural with a touch of melancholy.

Audio book specific comments: A great narrator who manages the balance between performance and reading too perfection. I did find myself looking forward to getting back to this one and was quickly lost in the story each time I came back to it.

My rating 4/5

Other stuff

Reviewed by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise (in fact I have Kerrie to thank for the recommendation and I did enjoy the book although perhaps for different reasons than Kerrie as I wasn’t terribly taken with the whole notion of Hamish).

This is yet another book written by a pair of writers, this time mother and son (Caroline and Charles Todd). Who knew so many relatives could work productively together without killing each other? It wouldn’t happen in my crazy (but much loved) family.

There are 11 books so far in this series with another scheduled for release next year and, according to this Publishers Weekly article, the authors are starting a new seires of historical whodunnits also set around the time of WWI but this time featuring an army nurse as the investigator. The first book in this series is due for publication in September.

 

Review: Careless in Red by Elizabeth George

Title: Careless in Red (the 15th Inspector Lynley mystery)

Author: Elizabeth George

Publisher: ISIS Audio Books

ISBN: 978-0-7531-3908-0

Length: 23hours, 15 minutes

A few weeks after the murder of his wife Thomas Lynley is walking the Cornish coast in something of a daze when he stumbles across a body at the base of a cliff. His walk has been a solitary affair but the discovery of the body requires him to engage with society once more and he is drawn, somewhat against his will, into an investigation although it is DI Bea Hannaford who is in charge of it.

I struggled through this book primarily because of its length. At 23hours and 15 minutes it’s a lot longer than the average audio book which in itself wouldn’t be a bad thing but there is not 23 hours and 15 minutes worth of story to be told. The body Lynley finds is that of a young man called Santo and the book reveals not only who killed him and why (eventually), but also the back story of nearly everyone he ever encountered in his short life. The pasts of his parents, sister, acquaintances and lovers are all revealed in rather excruciating detail. I think if George had chosen one or two of the characters to delve into more deeply the book might have been more successful but I felt like she made a rod for her own back by trying to give everyone a ‘windswept and interesting’ story. Because of their quantity and what felt almost like competitiveness to be more quirky or perverse than the next one, these characterisations grew tiresome for me.

The plot’s many tangents accounted for the rest of the word count and, most of them failed to add much value or enjoyment. There were tangents about a mis-identified surfer’s pictures on the Internet and one about a woman wanting to become a nun and more than a few about the sex lives of the various players. Again, a couple of these tangents might have been interesting but their sheer volume made them all a bit like an amorphous, dull blob to me. The main plot was actually resolved quite satisfactorily although, annoyingly, the ever-brilliant Lynley managed to provide the essential clue even with his mind occupied elsewhere.

As always with this series there is much made of the fact that Thomas Lynley is an Earl. I have long thought this element of the series probably reflects the author’s nationality as Americans do seem to have a ‘what-might-have-been’ fascination for the inherited nobility they eschewed when establishing their more egalitarian country. As Maxine remarked in her review of this book the ridiculous levels of gratitude displayed when Lynley speaks to a ‘commoner’ with anything resembling decency becomes increasingly grating and incredible.

I imagine this book would be a completely different reading experience for someone who isn’t familiar with the series (I have read all of the previous books). That reader would, I think, struggle to understand the Lynley character as I thought a lot of prior knowledge of him and his life events was assumed (particularly towards the beginning of the book). However apart from Lynley and a relatively minor role for his faithful sidekick Barbara Havers, none of the regular characters (including my favourite, Simon) make an appearance so a reader new to the series wouldn’t have spent the whole book with the same annoyed anticipation that I did.

I know I would never have finished the print version of this book because I would have felt I was wasting my time. Walls and throwing would have entered into the equation long before the end. Being able to ‘read’ it while doing other things made it, just, bearable. The most irritating thing of all is that George showed she can still tell a story and create characters to care about. Daidre Trahir, the woman whose cottage Lynley breaks into to find a phone to report the body he found, is a charming and interesting character and her story is beautifully unwrapped. Unfortunately though there is so much detritus surrounding these good parts of the book that they tend to look like rubbish by association. I sincerely wish some serious editing had been able to tease out the good book buried inside the one that was published.

My rating 2.5/5

Other stuff

Reviewed by Maxine at Petrona who is sitting on the fence, Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise who isn’t and Terry at Euro Crime who seems, like me, a little disappointed.

 

Progress Report: Elizabeth George’s Careless in Red

I’ll admit I wasn’t brimming with excitement at the prospect of reading the 15th installment of Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries. Partly this is due to my own disappointment at the previous book (that wasn’t really in the series at all but did relate to a character) and partly this is because reviews by people’s whose opinions tend to coincide with mine haven’t been glowing (see Maxine’s review from earlier this year). But mostly it’s because the damned thing is enormous.

I chose to listen to it rather than read the print version (I’m desperate for audio books and I’m too cheap to buy as many as I need so make do with what’s at the library) but it’s 23 hours and 15 minutes long! I have to assume she was paid by the word. I also have to assume she’s too ‘big’ to warrant an editor these days. I don’t know what else would account for the kind of wandering down rabbit holes and meandering off on tangents that have, so far, filled the book (I’m somewhere in the middle of CD13). No first time author would get away with this.

There’s not a whole lot of story to date and I’m not nearly as interested in the sex lives of a bunch of dreary Cornwall residents as George seems to be (seriously the woman’s obsessed). There have been some decent moments but the book doesn’t have nearly the punch (nor the brevity) of the excellent earlier books in the series like For the sake of Elena and Deception on his Mind. All the regular minor characters are missing (even good old Havers took until CD 11 to make her presence felt) and their replacements haven’t grabbed me much. The DCI investigating the case, Bea Hannaford shows potential but it’s a toss up whether I find out how she finishes up or pour superglue into my own ears to make it all stop.