lyzard's list: letting the numbers take care of themselves - Part 5

    

This is the flower of the Tasmanian blue gum, which is the floral emblem of Tasmania. The trees are also native to southern Victoria and to the islands of Bass Strait. The trees are evergreen, and can reach a height of 300 feet. They are fast growing and adaptable, a source of wood and eucalyptus oil; the leaves can be used to make a "herbal" tea, and the flowers produce large amounts of a nectar which is the basis of a prized variant of honey.

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Currently reading:



The Secret Of Bogey House by Herbert Adams (1924)

What's on the shortlist TBR?

        

        

January:

1. Munster Abbey, A Romance: Interspersed With Reflections On Virtue And Morality by Sir Samuel Egerton Leigh (1797)
2. The Senator's Lady by Mathilde Eiker (1932)
3. The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything by John D. MacDonald (1962)
4. The Admirable Carfew by Edgar Wallace (1914)
5. The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer (1936)
6. The House By The Road by Charles J. Dutton (1924)
7. The Gray Phantom by Herman Landon (1921)
8. The Million-Dollar Suitcase by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry (1922)
9. The Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony Hope (1894)
10. Trilby by George Du Maurier (1894)
11. Partners In Crime by Agatha Christie (1929)

February:

12. May It Please Your Lordship by E. S. Turner (1971)
13. Bernard Leslie; or, A Tale Of The Last Ten Years by William Gresley (1942)
14. Japanese Tales Of Mystery And Imagination by Egogawa Rampo (1956)
15. Inspector French's Greatest Case by Freeman Wills Crofts (1924)
16. Suffer And Be Still: Women In The Victorian Age by Martha Vicinus (ed.) (1972)
17. Thank Heaven Fasting by E. M. Delafield (1932)
18. The Man In The Dark by John Alexander Ferguson (1928)
19. An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer (1937)
20. The Secret Of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (1927)
21. The History Of The Nun; or, The Fair Vow-Breaker by Aphra Behn (1689)
22. The Mysterious Mr Quin by Agatha Christie (1930)

March:

23. The Last Chronicle Of Barset by Anthony Trollope (1867)
24. The Noose by Philip MacDonald (1930)
25. Yesterday's Woman: Domestic Realism In The English Novel by Vineta Colby (1974)
26. As We Are: A Modern Revue by E. F. Benson (1932)
27. The Princess Of All Lands by Russell Kirk (1979)
28. The Claverton Mystery by John Rhode (1933)
29. The Death Of A Millionaire by G. D. H. and Margaret Cole (1925)
30. The Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie (1930)
31. A Modern Hero by Louis Bromfield (1932)

April:

32. The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer (1940)
33. The Scandal Of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (1935)
34. Venusberg by Anthony Powell (1932)
35. The Adventures Of Miss Sophia Berkley by Anonymous (1760)
36. The Silver-Fork School: Novels Of Fashion Preceding Vanity Fair by Matthew Whiting Rosa (1936)
37. The Ultimate Werewolf by Byron Preiss (ed.) (1992)
38. Victorian People And Ideas: A Companion For The Modern Reader Of Victorian Literature by Richard D. Altick (1973)
39. Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1932)
40. Mr Fortune's Trials by H. C. Bailey (1925)
41. The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie (1931)
42. Contango by James Hilton (1932)
43. Murder At School by James Hilton (1931)
44. Prince Of The Moon by Louise Platt Hauck (1931)

May:

45. The Italian by Ann Radcliffe (1797)
46. The Donnington Affair by G. K. Chesterton and Max Pemberton (1914)
47. The Vampire Of The Village by G. K. Chesterton (1936)
48. The Mask Of Midas by G. K. Chesterton (1936)
49. Holidays At Roselands by Martha Finley (1868)
50. Pamela's Daughters by Robert Paltrey Utter and Gwendolyn Bridges Needham (1936)
51. Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer (1941)
52. Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers (1932)
53. Pietr-le-Letton by Georges Simenon (1931)
54. The Best Circles: Society, Etiquette And The Season by Leonore Davidoff (1973)
55. Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber (1943 / 1952)
56. The Heart Of Princess Osra by Anthony Hope (1896)
57. Thirty Clocks Strike The Hour And Other Stories by Vita Sackville-West (1932)
58. Haunted Lady by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1942)
59. Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton (1929)

June:

60. Three Men And A Maid by Robert Fraser (Louis Tracy and M. P. Shiel) (1907)
61. Three Houses by Angela Thirkell (1931)
62. The Fourteenth Key by Carolyn Wells (1924)
63. The Forge by T. S. Stribling (1931)
64. Our Lady Of Darkness by Fritz Leiber (1977)
65. The Social Novel In England 1830-1850: Dickens, Disraeli, Mrs Gaskell, Kingsley by Louis François Cazamian (1903)
66. Peril At End House by Agatha Christie (1932)
67. A Bid For Fortune: or, Dr Nikola's Vendetta by Guy Newell Boothby (1895)
68. Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer (1944)

July:

69. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope (1869)
70. Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow (1932)
71. Le Charretier de 'La Providence' by Georges Simenon (1931)
72. The Limping Man by Francis D. Grierson (1924)
73. Voices From The Dust by Jeffery Farnol (1932)
74. The Deductions Of Colonel Gore by Lynn Brock (1924)
75. The Mysterious Wife by "Gabrielli" (1797)

August:

76. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young (1932)
77. The Early Victorians At Home 1837-1861 by Elizabeth Burton (1972)
78. The Under Dogs by Hulbert Footner (1925)
79. The Wallet Of Kai Lung by Ernest Bramah (1900)
80. The Case Of Constance Kent by John Rhode (1928)
81. A Fatal Legacy by Louis Tracy (1903)
82. The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol (1910)
83. The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie (1932)
84. The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer (1946)

September:

85. The Amours Of The Sultana Of Barbary by Anonymous (1689)
86. Carrie by Stephen King (1974)
87. The Gods Arrive by Edith Wharton (1932)
88. Episode Of The Wandering Knife by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1950)
89. The Merriweather Girls And The Mystery Of The Queen's Fan by Lizette M. Edholm (1932)
90. The Just Men Of Cordova by Edgar Wallace (1917)
91. As We Were: A Victorian Peep-Show by E. F. Benson (1930)
92. M. Gallet Décédé by Georges Simenon (1931)

Books in transit:

On interlibrary loan / storage request:
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Purchased and shipped:
The Perfect Murder Case by Christopher Bush
The Black Pigeon by Anne Austin

On loan:
Love-Letters Between A Nobleman And His Sister by Aphra Behn (26/09/2014)
*The Early Victorians At Home by Elizabeth Burton (26/09/2014)
M. Gallet Décédé by Georges Simenon (02/10/2014)
The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy (07/10/2014)
*The Gods Arrive by Edith Wharton (07/10/2014)
As We Were by E. F. Benson (25/11/2014)
Loveliest Of Friends by Sheila Donisthorpe (25/11/2014)
La Vendee by Anthony Trollope (25/11/2014)
Relative Creatures by Francoise Basch (25/11/2014)
Egoism And Self-Discovery In The Victorian Novel by John Halperin (25/11/2014)

Track down:
Handfasted by Catherine Helen Spence {interlibrary loan}
Quintus Servinton by Henry Savery (aka The Bitter Bread Of Banishment) {Fisher Library / storage & new edition}
The Final War by Louis Tracy {Internet Archive}
Guilty Bonds by William Le Queux {Project Gutenberg}
An Australian Heroine by Rosa Praed {Internet Archive}
The Last Lemurian by G. Firth Scott {Project Gutenberg Australia}
An Australian Girl by Catherine Martin {interlibrary loan}
The Medicine Lady by L. T. Meade {Book Depository}

Ongoing series and sequels:

(1866 - 1876) **Emile Gaboriau - Monsieur Lecoq - The Widow Lerouge (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1867 - 1905) **Martha Finley - Elsie Dinsmore - Elsie's Girlhood (3/28) {ManyBooks}
(1867 - 1872) **George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - Annals Of A Quiet Neighbourhood (1/3) {ManyBooks}
(1878 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Ebenezer Gryce - Behind Closed Doors (5/12) {Book Depository}
(1896 - 1909) **Melville Davisson Post - Randolph Mason - The Corrector Of Destinies (3/3) {Internet Archive}
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - Dr Nikola (2/5) {ManyBooks}
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - That Affair Next Door (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(1900 - 1974) *Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - Kai Lung's Golden Hours (2/6) {ManyBooks}
(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty's Summer Days (4/17) {ManyBooks}
(1903 - 1904) **Louis Tracy - Reginald Brett - A Fatal Legacy (aka The Stowmarket Mystery) (1/2) {ManyBooks}
(1904 - ????) *Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - The Albert Gate Mystery (1/?) {ManyBooks}
(1905 - 1925) **Baroness Orczy - The Old Man In The Corner - Unravelled Knots (3/3) {Project Gutenberg Australia}}
(1905 - 1928) **Edgar Wallace - The Just Men - The Law Of The Four Just Men (4/6) {Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1906 - 1930) **John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - The Man Of Property (1/11) {Fisher Library}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1907 - 1942) *R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - The D'Arblay Mystery (13/26) {Feedbooks}
(1907 - 1941) *Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin - Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar (1/21) {ManyBooks}
(1908 - 1924) **Margaret Penrose - Dorothy Dale - Dorothy Dale: A Girl Of Today (1/13) {ManyBooks}
(1909 - 1942) *Carolyn Wells - Fleming Stone - Raspberry Jam (11/49) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1936) *Arthur B. Reeve - Craig Kennedy - The Social Gangster (5/11) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - They Wouldn't Be Chessmen (4/5) {AbeBooks}
(1910 - ????) *Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/?) {Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Fellowship Of The Frog (2/6?) {ebook}
(1910 - ????) *Thomas Hanshew - Cleek - Cleek's Government Cases (3/?) {Internet Archive / Mobilereads}
(1910 - 1918) *John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Investigator (1/4) {ManyBooks / Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1931) *Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Pepper Burns (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - ????) *Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - Charmian, Lady Vibart (2/?) {owned}

(1911 - 1935) *G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown - The Scandal Of Father Brown (5/5) {branch transfer}
(1911 - 1937) *Mary Roberts Rinehart - Letitia Carberry - Tish Plays The Game (4/5) {GooglePlay}
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm (7/30) {Project Gutenberg}
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu-Manchu - The Mask Of Fu-Manchu (5/14) {interlibrary loan}
(1913 - 1952) *Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - The Amateur Gentleman (1/9) {Fisher Library storage}
(1914 - 1950) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Hilda Adams - Episode Of The Wandering Knife (5/5) Better World Books}
(1914 - 1934) *Ernest Bramah - Max Carrados - The Eyes Of Max Carrados (2/4) {interlibrary loan}
(1916 - 1941) John Buchan - Edward Leithen - Sick Heart River (5/5) {Fisher Library}
(1915 - 1936) *John Buchan - Richard Hannay - The Thirty-Nine Steps (1/5) {Fisher Library / Project Gutenberg}
(1916 - 1917) **Carolyn Wells - Alan Ford - Faulkner's Folly (2/2) {Book Depository}
(1917 - 1929) **Henry Handel Richardson - Dr Richard Mahony - Australia Felix (1/3) {inteelibrary loan}
(1918 - 1923) **Carolyn Wells - Pennington Wise - The Room With The Tassels (1/8) {Internet Archive / Book Depository}
(1919 - 1966) *Lee Thayer - Peter Clancy - The Sinister Mark (5/60) {owned}
(1920 - 1939) E. F. Benson - Mapp And Lucia - Lucia's Progress (5/6) {Fisher Library}
(1920 - 1948) *H. C. Bailey - Reggie Fortune - Mr Fortune, Please (4/23) {academic loan}
(1920 - 1949) William McFee - Spenlove - The Beachcomber - (3/6) {AbeBooks / Better World Books}
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - Lord Edgware Dies (8/39) {owned}

(1921 - 1929) **Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley - The Second Bullet (5/9) {expensive}
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - The Gray Phantom's Return (2/5) {Project Gutenberg}
(1922 - 1973) *Agatha Christie - Tommy and Tuppence - N. Or M.? (3/5) {owned}
(1922 - 1927) *Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne - The Mystery Woman (2/5) {Amazon, eBay?}
(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - Hangman's Holiday (9/15) {Fisher Library}
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2) {eBay}
(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Mystery House (1/5) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1924 - 1959) * / ***Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - Persons Unknown (aka "The Maze") (5/24) {academic loan}
(1924 - 1957) *Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - The Cheyne Mystery (2/30) {Fisher Library}
(1924 - 1935) *Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - The Double Thumb (2/13) {rare, expensive}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - Colonel Gore's Second Case (2/12) {AbeBooks}
(1924 - 1933) *Herbert Adams - Jimmie Haswell - The Secret Of Bogey House (1/9) {owned}
(1924 - 1944) *A. Fielding - Inspector Pointer - The Eames-Erskine Case (1/23) {owned}
(1925 - 1961) ***John Rhode - Dr Priestley - The Venner Crime (16/72) {owned}
(1925 - 1953) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Superintendent Wilson - The Blatchington Tangle (3/?) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1925 - 1937) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - Madame Storey (2/10) {mobilereads / Project Gutenberg Canada}
(1925 - 1932) *Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - The House Without A Key (1/6) {Internet Archive}
(1925 - 1944) *Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Cards On The Table (3/5) {owned}
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Layton Court Mystery (1/10) {owned}
(1925 - 1950) *Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) - Dr Eustace Hailey - The Mystery Of The Evil Eye (aka The Sign Of Evil) (1/27) {AbeBooks}

(1926 - 1968) * / ***Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers - The Perfect Murder Case (2/63) {online}
(1926 - 1939) *S. S. Van Dine - Philo Vance - The Benson Murder Case (1/12) {Fisher Library}
(1926 - 1952) *J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - No. 17 (1/8) {academic loan}
(1926 - ????) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Everard Blatchington - The Blatchington Tangle (1/?) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Green Shadow (1/7) {AbeBooks / eBay}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - Jimmie Rezaire aka The Trail Of Fear (1/5) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - The Three Taps (1/5) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - The Billiard-Room Mystery (1/54) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1947) *J. J. Connington - Sir Clinton Driffield - Murder In The Maze (1/17) {academic loan}
(1927 - 1935) *Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Scott Egerton - Tragedy At Freyne (1/10) {expensive}
(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - The Case Is Closed (2/33) {branch transfer}
(1928 - 1936) ***Gavin Holt - Luther Bastion - The Garden Of Silent Beasts (5/17) {academic loan}
(1928 - ????) Trygve Lund - Weston of the Royal North-West Mounted Police - In The Snow: A Romance Of The Canadian Backwoods (4/?) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1936) *Kay Cleaver Strahan - Lynn MacDonald - Death Traps (3/7) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1937) *John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab - Murder On The Marsh (2/5) {Internet Archive}
(1928 - 1960) *Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins - The Murdered Manservant (1/35) {unavailable}
(1928 - 1959) *John Gordon Brandon - Inspector Patrick Aloysius McCarthy - Red Altars (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1935) *Roland Daniel - Inspector Saville - The Society Of The Spiders (1/?) {Unavailable}
(1928 - 1946) *Francis Beeding - Alistair Granby - The Six Proud Walkers (1/18) {academic loan}
(1929 - 1947) Margery Allingham - Albert Campion - Sweet Danger (5/35) {Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1984) Gladys Mitchell - Mrs Bradley - The Saltmarsh Murders (4/67) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1937) ***Patricia Wentworth - Benbow Smith - Walk With Care (3/4) {expensive}
(1929 - ????) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Murder By An Aristocrat (5/8) {Better World Books}
(1929 - ????) Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier - ???? (3/?) - Death In The Cup {AbeBooks}, The Wife Of Baal {unavailable}
(1929 - ????) * / ***Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift - The King Murder (1/?) {Unavailable}
(1929 - 1931) Carolyn Wells - Kenneth Carlisle - Sleeping Dogs (1/3) {Amazon / eBay}
(1929 - 1967) *George Goodchild - Inspector McLean - McLean Of Scotland Yard (1/65) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1979) *Leonard Gribble - Anthony Slade - The Case Of The Marsden Rubies (1/33) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) *E. R. Punshon - Carter and Bell - The Unexpected Legacy (1/5) {expensive}
(1929 - 1971) *Ellery Queen - Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery (1/40) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1966) *Arthur Upfield - Bony - The Barrakee Mystery (1/29) {Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1931) *Ernest Raymond - Once In England - A Family That Was (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1937) *Anthony Berkeley - Ambrose Chitterwick - The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1/3) {City of Sydney / Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1940) *Jean Lilly - DA Bruce Perkins - The Seven Sisters (1/3) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1929 - 1935) *N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Montrose Arbuthnot - The Inconsistent Villains (1/4) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1929 - 1943) *Gret Lane - Kate Clare Marsh and Inspector Barrin - The Cancelled Score Mystery (1/9) {unavailable?}
(1929 - 1961) *Henry Holt - Inspector Silver - The Mayfair Mystery (aka "The Mayfair Murder") (1/16) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1930) *J. J. Connington - Superintendent Ross - The Eye In The Museum (1/2) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1941) *H. Maynard Smith - Inspector Frost - Inspector Frost's Jigsaw (1/7) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - ????) *Armstrong Livingston - Jimmy Traynor - The Doublecross (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) *Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson - Sir John Saumarez - Enter Sir John (1/3) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1940) *Rufus King - Lieutenant Valcour - Murder By The Clock (1/11) {AbeBooks / omnibus}
(1929 - 1933) *Will Levinrew (Will Levine) - Professor Brierly - The Poison Plague (1/5) {rare, expensive}
(1930 - ????) Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide - ???? (3/?) {see above}
(1930 - 1932) Hugh Walpole - The Herries Chronicles - The Fortress (3/4) {Fisher Library}
(1930 - 1932) Faith Baldwin - The Girls Of Divine Corners - Myra: A Story Of Divine Corners (4/4) {owned}
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion - The Milk-Churn Murder (10/61) {Munsey's}
(1930 - 1933) Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane - Murder Among The Angells (4/5) {online shopping}
(1930 - 1941) *Harriette Ashbrook - Philip "Spike" Tracy - The Murder Of Sigurd Sharon (3/7) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1943) Anthony Abbot - Thatcher Colt - About The Murder Of The Night Club Lady (3/8) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - ????) * / ***David Sharp - Professor Henry Arthur Fielding - My Particular Murder (2/?) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1950) *H. C. Bailey - Josiah Clunk - Garstons aka The Garston Murder Case (1/11) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1968) *Francis Van Wyck Mason - Captain North - Seeds Of Murder (1/41) {rare, expensive}
(1930 - 1976) *Agatha Christie - Miss Jane Marple - The Thirteen Problems (2/12) {owned}
(1930 - ????) *Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murder Backstairs (1/?) - {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1950) *Leslie Ford (as David Frome) - Mr Pinkerton and Inspector Bull - The Hammersmith Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1935) *"Diplomat" (John Franklin Carter) - Dennis Tyler - Murder In The State Department (1/7) {expensive}
(1930 - 1962) *Helen Reilly - Inspector Christopher McKee - The Diamond Feather (1/31) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1930 - 1933) *Mary Plum - John Smith - The Killing Of Judge MacFarlane (1/4) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1945) *Hulbert Footner - Amos Lee Mappin - The Mystery Of The Folded Paper (aka The Folded Paper Mystery (1/10) {mobilereads / omnibus}
(1930 - 1940) *E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady - Diary Of A Provincial Lady (1/4) {Fisher Library}

(1931 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens and Pierre Allain - The Imperfect Crime (2/8) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - Death Lights A Candle (2/24) {interlibrary loan}
(1931 - 1933) Philip MacDonald (as Martin Porlock) - Charles Fox-Browne - Mystery In Kensington Gore (aka Escape) (2/3) {Better World Books}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - Murder On Wheels (2/18) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Lisa Vale (2/5) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1933) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cleveland - Crime &. Co. (2/4) {owned}
(1931 - 1934) J. H. Wallis - Inspector Wilton Jacks - Murder By Formula (1/6) {Amazon}
(1931 - ????) Paul McGuire - Inspector Cummings - Daylight Murder (3/5) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1937) Carlton Dawe - Leathermouth - The Sign Of The Glove (2/13) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1947) R. L. Goldman - Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed - The Murder Of Harvey Blake (1/6) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1959) E. C. R. Lorac (Edith Caroline Rivett) - Inspector Robert Macdonald - The Murder On The Burrows (1/46) {rare, expensive}
(1931 - ????) Clifton Robbins - Clay Harrison - Dusty Death (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - Le Pendu de Saint-Pholien (4/75) {owned}
(1931 - 1934) T. S. Stribling - The Vaiden Trilogy - The Store (2/3) {academic loan}
(1932 - 1954) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot - The Bell Street Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1935) Murray Thomas - Inspector Wilkins - Buzzards Pick The Bones (1/3) {AbeBooks / expensive}
(1932 - ????) R. A. J. Walling - Philip Tolefree - The Fatal Five Minutes (1/?) {academic loan}
(1932 - 1962) T. Arthur Plummer - Detective-Inspector Andrew Frampton - Shadowed By The C. I. D. (1/50) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1936) John Victor Turner - Amos Petrie - Death Must Have Laughed (1/7) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1944) Nicholas Brady (John Victor Turner) - Ebenezer Buckle - The House Of Strange Guests (1/4) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1932) Lizette M. Edholm - The Merriweather Girls - The Merriweather Girls On Campers' Trail (2/4) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1933) Barnaby Ross (aka Ellery Queen) - Drury Lane - The Tragedy Of X (1/4) {Better World Books}
(1932 - 1952) D. E. Stevenson - Mrs Tim - Mrs Tim Of The Regiment (1/5) {interlibrary loan}

(1933 - 1959) John Gordon Brandon - Arthur Stukeley Pennington - West End! (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1933 - 1940) Lilian Garis - Carol Duncan - The Ghost Of Melody Lane (1/9) {AbeBooks}
(1933 - 1934) Peter Hunt (George Worthing Yates and Charles Hunt Marshall) - Allan Miller - Murders At Scandal House (1/3) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1933 - 1968) John Dickson Carr - Gideon Fell - Hag's Nook (1/23) {Better World Books}
(1933 - 1939) Gregory Dean - Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Simon - The Case Of Marie Corwin (1/3) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1933 - 1956) E. R. Punshon - Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen - Information Received (1/35) {academic loan}
(1933 - 1970) Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richlieu - The Forbidden Territory (1/11) {Fisher Library}
(1933 - 1934) Jackson Gregory - Paul Savoy - A Case For Mr Paul Savoy (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1934 - 1936) Storm Jameson - The Mirror In Darkness - Company Parade (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Colonel John Primrose and Grace Latham - The Clock Strikes Twelve (aka "The Supreme Court Murder") (NB: novella)
(1934 - 1949) Richard Goyne - Paul Templeton - Strange Motives (1/13) {unavailable?}
(1934 - 1941) N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Inspector Wren - Three Went In (1/3)
(1934 - 1953) Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) - Sir Henry Merivale - The Plague Court Murders (1/22) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1968) Dennis Wheatley - Gregory Sallust - Black August (1/11)
(1935 - 1939) Francis Beeding - Inspector George Martin - The Norwich Victims (1/3) {AbeBooks / Book Depository}
(1935 - 1976) Nigel Morland - Palmyra Pym - The Moon Murders (1/28) {unavailable?}
(1935 - 1941) Clyde Clason - Professor Theocritus Lucius Westborough - The Fifth Tumbler (1/10) {unavailable?}
(1935 - ????) G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Dr Tancred - Dr Tancred Begins (1/?) (AbeBooks, expensive}
(1947 - 1974) Dennis Wheatley - Roger Brook - The Launching Of Roger Brook (1/12) {Fisher Library storage}
(1953 - 1960) Dennis Wheatley - Molly Fountain and Colonel Verney - To The Devil A Daughter (1/2) {Fisher Library storage}

*** Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Timeline of detective fiction:

Pre-history:
Things As They Are; or, The Adventures Of Caleb Williams by William Godwin (1794)
Mademoiselle de Scudéri by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1819)
Richmond: Scenes In The Life Of A Bow Street Officer by Anonymous (1827)
Memoirs Of Vidocq by Eugene Francois Vidocq (1828)
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (1835)
Passages In The Secret History Of An Irish Countess by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1838); The Purcell Papers (1880)
The Murders In The Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales by Edgar Allan Poe {interlibrary loan} (1841, 1842, 1845)

Serials:
The Mysteries Of Paris by Eugene Sue (1842 - 1843)
The Mysteries Of London - Paul Feval (1844) (no translation?)
The Mysteries Of London - George Reynolds (1844 - 1848)
The Mysteries Of The Court Of London - George Reynolds (1848 - 1856)
John Devil by Paul Feval (1861)

Early detective novels:
Recollections Of A Detective Police-Officer by "Waters" (William Russell) (1856)
The Widow Lerouge by Emile Gaboriau (1866)
Under Lock And Key by T. W. Speight (1869)
Checkmate by J. Sheridan LeFanu (1871)
Is He The Man? by William Clark Russell (1876)
Devlin The Barber by B. J. Farjeon (1888)
Mr Meeson's Will by H. Rider Haggard (1888)
The Mystery Of A Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (1889)
The Queen Anne's Gate Mystery by Richard Arkwright (1889)
The Ivory Queen by Norman Hurst (1889) (Check Julius H. Hurst 1899)
The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (1892)

Female detectives:
The Diary Of Anne Rodway by Wilkie Collins (1856)
The Female Detective by Andrew Forrester (1864)
Revelations Of A Lady Detective by William Stephens Hayward (1864)
The Law And The Lady by Wilkie Collins (1875)
Madeline Payne; or, The Detective's Daughter by Lawrence L. Lynch (Emma Murdoch Van Deventer) (1884)
Mr Bazalgette's Agent by Leonard Merrick (1888)
Moina; or, Against The Mighty by Lawrence L. Lynch (Emma Murdoch Van Deventer) (sequel to Madeline Payne?) (1891)
The Experiences Of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective by Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1893)
Dorcas Dene, Detective by George Sims (1897)
- Amelia Butterworth series by Anna Katharine Grant (1897 - 1900)
Miss Cayley's Adventures by Grant Allan (1899)
Hilda Wade by Grant Allan (1900)
Dora Myrl, The Lady Detective by M. McDonnel Bodkin (1900)
The Investigators by J. S. Fletcher (1902)
Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy (1910)

Related mainstream works:
Adventures Of Susan Hopley by Catherine Crowe (1841)
Men And Women; or, Manorial Rights by Catherine Crowe (1843)
Hargrave by Frances Trollope (1843)
Clement Lorimer by Angus Reach (1849)

True crime:
Clues: or, Leaves from a Chief Constable's Note Book by Sir William Henderson (1889)
Dreadful Deeds And Awful Murders by Joan Lock

Group reads, tutored reads, everybody's-welcome reads:

Tutored read of Pride And Prejudice (completed - thread here)

Group read of The Last Chronicle Of Barset (completed - thread here)

Tutored read of Sense And Sensibility (completed - thread here)

Tutored read of The Italian (completed - thread here)

Tutored read of Phineas Finn (completed - thread here)

Tutored read of Love-Letters Between A Nobleman And His Sister (beginning after Phineas Finn)

Group / tutored read of Mansfield Park (beginning after Love-Letters Between A Nobleman And His Sister)

Georgette Heyer re-read: The Foundling

Agatha Christie re-read: Lord Edgware Dies

And I think that's it.

Now all I need to do is get some reviews written.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

But first - !

(What? No, no - I'm not procrastinating in the least!)

I owed you guys a sloth from my previous thread.

How is it that I always turn up in your thread right when you post a sloth picture? It's like magic. :-)

Also: sloth in a bucket of stuffed animals? Precious!

The word that came into my mind was "uncanny". :D

That works, too. :-)

A new thread! With an adorable sloth!

Hi, Carrie. Yes, I'm still shamelessly using sloth images to get myself some visitors!

Three Houses - Published in 1931, Angela Thirkell's first full-length work is a memoir of her childhood focusing upon the three different residences that hold a prominent place in her most cherished memories. The first is The Grange, one of a pair of twin houses in what is now West Kensington, which was occupied during Thirkell's childhood by her grandparents (of whom, more anon), but which was once owned by Samuel Richardson. The second is North End House, the grandparents' summer house, situated near Brighton. The third is Thirkell's own family home in Kensington, which was situated opposite the house once owned by William Makepeace Thackeray and still owned by his sister, Lady Ritchie, who was the Mackails' landlady. However, in Thirkell's memories these facts are less important than that the house was next door to a public house known as the "Greyhound".

Three Houses is both interesting and irritating. The slender volume holds a wealth of information about the daily details of late-Victorian life, at least for people of the middle-classes and in comfortable circumstances, and offers vivid word-sketches of London, "the country" (i.e. a suburb or two out of London) and the sea-side. What tends to strike the modern reader forcibly - ironically in a way, given the dedication of Three Houses to Thirkell's parents - is how very little contact a child in such circumstances apparently had with its mother and father, and, in contrast, how very large looms the figure of "Nanny". The work stays entirely within the child's self-absorbed consciousness, with what happened out of sight barely registering as having happened at all. It is hard to be certain whether the memories presented are idealised or just very selective; taken at face value, the narrative suggests that Thirkell's entire childhood was given over to treats, games, visiting, and disobedience with no consequences. Here we begin to touch upon the work's less attractive features. Thirkell is frank enough about being a spoiled child, and reports her own bad behaviour and attitudes quite openly. The problem is that we get no sense of an adult perspective - or rather, we get an unnerving impression that Thirkell's attitudes hardly changed as she matured. There seems little difference between the child who shrieks in offended horror when confronted by poor people, and the woman who complains bitterly of having "her" residential neighbourhood ruined by being opened up to people with lower incomes than her own.

However, in the end what really grates about Three Houses is the relentless name-dropping, even granting that Thirkell was born into a remarkable celebrity nexus. We must suppose that she was acquainted with some ordinary people during her childhood, but you wouldn't know it from this memoir. Instead we hear about Thirkell's grandfather, the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, who - we are told repeatedly - "adored" his granddaughter (quite undeservedly, if her account of her own behaviour is accurate), and her grandfather's good friend, William Morris; and about "Cousin Ruddy" (Rudyard Kipling) and "Cousin Stan" (Stanley Baldwin) and "Aunt Stella" (the actress Mrs Campbell Stewart) and "Aunt Janey", (Jane Morris, Mrs William Morris, the leading pre-Raphaelite model); while we are not in the least surprised when the two visitors Thirkell attempts to hug (one successfully, one unsuccessfully) turn out to be the Princess of Wales and the future King of Norway. Ultimately, though the content of Three Houses is never less than interesting, the narrative itself is shot through with an air of smug entitlement that grows increasingly unbearable.

    The Grange stood a little back from the road behind a brick wall with an iron gate in it. A short flagged path led to the low front door. It had a glazed upper half and green silk curtains to prevent people looking in, but people of the right size could always look through the letter-box. The low square hall must once have been a front parlour, but it had been thrown into the passage and made a pleasant room to play in, heated in winter by a large green earthenware stove called Pither. At its further end were the stairs and a long passage leading to the drawing-room and the door to the kitchen quarters.
    On Sunday my grandparents kept open house. Two or three extra places were laid at lunch for any friends who might drop in, but whoever came, I sat next to my grandfather. I was allowed to blow into the froth of his beer 'to make a bird's nest', or to have all the delicious outside from the mashed potatoes when they had been browned in the oven. If, disregarding truth, I said that at home my toast was buttered on both sides, my statement was gravely accepted and the toast buttered accordingly. There can have been few granddaughters who were so systematically spoiled as I was and it was a legend that the only serious difference of opinion which ever arose between Gladstone and Burne-Jones was as to which of them spoiled an adored grandchild the more.

I love the sloths, particularly this latest one, Liz. But I'd visit anyway, since the books you read and your thoughts on them are even more interesting to me.

I've started Phineas Finn and am at chapter 16. And loving it, as always with Mr.Trollope.

ETA Oh dear, I hope the novels are better than this.

Thanks for cheering me up with that sloth picture Liz. Happy New Thread!

>20 Matke:

Aw, thank you, Gail!

I hope you'll join us on the tutored read thread and let us know your thoughts. (And ask questions if you have some!)

I gather that the attitude never quite goes away, but her novels have a lot of fans, so I'll hope along with you. :)

>21 Smiler69:

You're very welcome, Ilana - thanks for dropping in!

That sloth is so adorable :-)

>13 lyzard: Ohomygoodness! That's so adorable!!

Happy New Thread, Liz!

>23 AuntieClio: Hi, Steph! Yes, it is. :)

>24 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!

Happy New Thread, Liz! I love the photos in >1 lyzard:. These flowers are so adorable.

Delurking to congratulate you on your new thread!

Wow. That sloth is SO cute!

Aw! He's got such tiny little paws!

Nuff said!

>26 Ameise1: Hi, Barbara - thank you! Glad you like them.

>27 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori!

>28 The_Hibernator: Hi, Rachel! Thanks for visiting. Yes, he is, isn't he?? :)

>29 cammykitty: Baby sloths are so cute it should be illegal!

>30 ronincats: That's more appropriate than you know, Roni - I've been sloth-like in my reading lately, sigh...

>30 ronincats: Well, that's just perfect — a reading sloth! You can shut down the internet now. I've seen it all.

That doesn't mean you're not coming back, right!??

No way! You might post another sloth picture!

{...*starts desperately searching for more images*...}

Two! Two sloths!

Which should get me twice as many visitors!!

Oh, how sweet!

Oh my gosh! That top one is the raccoon-y looking kind, which I find super amusing to look at. The bottom one is just totes adorbs, as the kids say.

Oh my! All that cuteness, I just might explode!

{...*rubs hands gleefully, as her evil plan succeeds*...}

>37 rosalita: The top one is a Bradypus, or three-toed sloth, and the bottom one is a Choloepus, or two-toed sloth.

The Fourteenth Key - More than twenty years ago, Mark Winslow quarrelled violently with his only child, his daughter Helen, who eloped with a man he disapproved of, and cut her out of his life. The subsequent birth of his grandchild did nothing to soften him, nor did the early deaths of both Helen and her husband. Now, however, a wealthy and successful but lonely old man, Winslow begins to think about that unknown grandchild... At length Winslow places an advertisement declaring his willingness to receive his grandchild into his home. This comes as a great and unwelcome shock to his great-nephew, Burr Winslow, who until now has been treated as Winslow's heir, and enrages Burr's mother, who Winslow has always despised as under-bred. Martin Barry, Winslow's legal advisor, warns him that he will be targeted by frauds, pointing out that he doesn't even know whether his grandchild was a boy or a girl, and that having been named for its father, Joyce Gilray, it could equally be either. Winslow is contacted by someone claiming to be Joyce Gilray, and is sufficiently convinced to bid that person come east from California. The first letter does not reveal the writer's sex, and when an impatient Winslow asks, he is exasperated to get a second letter that jokingly withholds the information. More eager than he cares to admit for a grandson and heir of his name, Winslow makes up his mind that Joyce is a man - and is openly delighted when the claimant turns out to be a good-looking youth. He explains that his delay in reaching the west coast was due to his involvement in a serious rail accident; he was only slightly injured, though others were killed. The claimant then produces letters and other documents demonstrating his relationship to Helen Gilray, as well as an amethyst cross given by Winslow to Helen. Winslow immediately welcomes the young man as his grandson, but Barry isn't so sure. When he expresses his doubts, Winslow becomes enraged and dismisses him. Burr, meanwhile, can only look on in painful disappointment as Joyce takes his former place in the Winslow household. He sees nothing for it but to give in with as good a grace as possible, however---at least until the morning when the butler makes the shocking discovery of a body on the Winslows' porch. The young woman has been stabbed to death...

In spite of the long-running popularity of her novels featuring private investigator Fleming Stone, Carolyn Wells made several attempts to initiate series featuring other detectives. For the most part these were a failure, and on the basis of The Fourteenth Key it is little wonder. This novel is the second and last to feature Lorimer Lane. I enjoyed the first, More Lives Than One, but because of its story, not because of the character of Lane, who is essentially without personality. In The Fourteenth Key, he shows up late in proceedings (as Wells' detectives were over-prone to do; a fault she corrected as the Fleimg Stone series progressed), does some minimal detecting, and finally solves the case due to a "lightbulb moment". If this is a "transcendent detective", heaven help us. If he is so, it's only by comparison with police force incompetent and lazy even by the standards of early American detective fiction. (In spite of the passion of the British for amateur detectives, their novels were a lot more respectful of the police.) They investigate the murder of the woman, who they are unable to identify, only because of its connection to the Winslow family; when it appears that the members of the household are all innocent, they lose interest and drop the case. However, when a member of that same household is themselves murdered, they barely bother to follow up the one lead that they had, the gardener's claim that a certain professor of geology, visiting nearby, called around the time of the murder; this person subsequyently vanished. It is by investigating the boarding-house at which the professor was staying that Lorimer Lane is put on the trail of the truth, an obvious move that the police did not bother with. If you need to make your police THAT feeble to make your detective look "brilliant" by comparison, you're not really doing your job.

But whereas the weaknesses in the detective plot of More Lives Than One were compensated for by the story that contained them, The Fourteenth Key also fails on this level. It sets up an interesting premise, with the reader left in tantalising doubt over whether the person claiming to be Joyce Gilray actually is so, and offering hints each way as to the truth. Of course, the fact that Mark Winslow is so desperate for Joyce to be a boy, not a girl, might incline some of us to feel he deserves to be taken advantage of. Perhaps the most amusing aspect of this generally unsatisfactory novel is Joyce's behaviour once ensconced in the Winslow household, whereupon he immediately starts making expensive demands upon his grandfather: an entire new wardrobe, a car - several cars - an apartment in New York, a healthy bank account... While the reader is likely to take this as a sign that the claimant is indeed an imposter on the make, those familiar with the novels of Carolyn Wells will recognise another manifestation of her serene belief in the superiority of rich people: the implication of Joyce's behaviour is not that he is bleeding Mark Winslow for all he can get, but that he is "naturally" at home with the trappings of wealth, and his behaviour is therefore perfectly reasonable. However, once the first murder is committed in The Fourteenth Key, it goes completely off the rails, becoming so increasingly obvious about its central "mystery" that the reader can only roll their eyes impatiently while waiting for the characters to catch up. It also, in effect, loses interest in its murders, focusing instead upon the belated arrival of a second claimant to the position of "Joyce Gilray": a young woman who insists that she met her rival on the train that crashed, and that he stole all her identifying documents from her in the confusion of the tragedy. The young woman herself was badly injured in the crash and indeed has not yet recovered, suffering from memory lapses and emotional instability; but is she telling the truth? The solution to both the mystery and the murders lies in the "fourteenth key" of the novel's title, which turns out to be such a complete non sequitur, you can only grit your teeth with annoyance and be thankful that Carolyn Wells' Lorimer Lane series never went beyond two books.

    "She's always rational---it isn't that---it's this kink in her mind, this hallucination that she's Joyce Gilray---of course you must see that she would never have thought of it at all only that Joyce told her that he hadn't told his grandfather what his sex was, as a sort of joke on the old man. This, I hold, clung to Lora's memory, and when she was told that Joyce was dead---"
    "That's just it, Mr Winslow," Barry spoke sternly now, "if she hadn't thought Joyce Gilray was dead, she never would have undertaken this imposition. But the fact that she did think him dead, and then tried on the imposition, proves not a disordered mind, but a clever and designing fraud."

>39 lyzard: I mean, you can get all fancy with your Latin names and all, but I prefer "raccoon-y" myself. ;-)

>40 lyzard: Wow, that sounds terrible and not even in a particularly entertaining way. It's so funny now to see the name Joyce taken for granted as gender-ambiguous. I can't imagine anyone in 2014 thinking for a second that someone named Joyce would be a man.

It's more about being anal than being fancy. :)

No, this one was pretty bad overall. Wells was never a particularly strong writer, although her best books are certainly entertaining, but in this one all her worst habits are jumbled together.

Even at this time (1924) everyone thinks it's more probable the child is a girl, so I suspect that Joyce must have been one of those names, like Evelyn, that was losing its gender-neutrality.

Hi Liz - happy new thread!

>3 lyzard: I like the post showing your TBR shortlist. I'd do something similar but it would be a sure fire way to guarantee my next read would be a different book entirely...

>14 rosalita: Awww.

>19 lyzard: Well, Three Houses doesn't sound like a Thirkell I'll rush to read.

I have really enjoyed the Thirkell novels I've read and can't say I noticed an attitude of smug entitlement but I did see Rhian's review of Wild Strawberries where she made a similar comment so it's as likely that's due to my lack of discernment than to an absence of the attitude in her novels.

>35 lyzard: "Which should get me twice as many visitors!!" And darn it, it worked! (They are very cute though)

I'm sure you have this on your 1932 wishlist but I'm currently reading Mrs Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson which is a sweet and humourous fictionalised diary of an army officer's wife. Quite Provincial Lady but gentler and less sharp in the humour. I think it manages to avoid being too sweet. It is however, the first book in a series. Sorry.

And 10 days until the start of the Phineas Finn tutored read. Just saying.

Hi, Heather!

Heh! If you look closely, what we have there is:
- my library books
- a couple of likely series reads
- my Heyer / Christie re-reads
- the next book on the 1932 list
- my next "potential decommision" book

In other words, an increased likelihood of being read...but nothing definite. :)

Yes, Rhian read Wild Strawberries around the time I read Three Houses, and we were comparing irritation notes. Of course, that sort of attitude isn't uncommon in works of this time - it's one of the things you know you might be letting yourself in for.

I'm sure Mrs Tim is in there somewhere, though I haven't encountered her just yet. And believe me, I'm quite capable of finding more series on my own! :)

10 days until the start of the Phineas Finn tutored read.

Hmm. Actually, I want a word with you about that...

Two sloths! Can you find three?

I love the smaller, "raccoon-y" sloth...the Bradypus. Adorable little face.

The Wells book sounds like a right disaster. In my off moments (well, some of them), I've been reading The Insidious Doctor Fu-Manchu. While the attitudes are deplorable, and the writing style passe, it remains amusing reading, even if for all the wrong reasons.

That either says something about the authors or something about me; not sure which.

>45 The_Hibernator: Next time, Rachel - next time! I don't want to spoil you all. Or use up all my visitor-attracting powers at once.

>46 AuntieClio: Hi, Steph! That's the house for me!!

>47 Matke: I think they each have their own attractions, Gail. :)

Yes, that is certainly one of Wells' failures. I'm also reading the Fu-Manchu books, and you do get caught between horror and sick laughter with them, I find. Personally I'm looking forward to the 1940s ones, wherein (I gather) we are told in all seriousness that Fu-Manchu is more dangerous than Hitler and Stalin.

Finished Phineas Finn for TIOLI #2, and in preparation for the tutored read (which may be starting a few days earlier than anticipated - stay turned!).

Now reading Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow.

Bookish sloths, sleeping sloths: They're all so cute they should be illegal!

>46 AuntieClio: That's hilarious!

:-D

>49 lyzard: I'm well into my audio version of Phineas Finn so I'm pleased to hear we may be starting early!

We were trying to strike a balance between the people who couldn't start yet and the people who wanted to plunge right in. But I think now most of the group has started anyway so holding off is only going to make it more confusing when we start again from Chapter 1.

Besides, as you well know, we just finished the tutored read of The Italian. Can't have me at loose ends! :)

I'm so glad you're making every effort to stay out of trouble, Liz. I'd hate to see you brought low by idleness. Hey, what's another name for idleness? It starts with an 's' ...

Aww...that's my very favourite deadly sin!! :D

This has nothing to do with anything immediate, but you know me---when I stumble over an awful cover, I just have to share.

Oh, dear. Poor Cinderella!

>57 lyzard: I read Murder on the Links earlier this year. I really don't remember anyone wearing fishnets and a toddler's tutu.

>57 lyzard: That's just sad. Those covers used to annoy the daylights out of me as I tried to make some connection to the book inside them.

Not to mention the extremely pointy boobs.

>57 lyzard: And why is there a keyhole with an eye in that position? Is that supposed to be Hastings or Poirot?

>57 lyzard: Oh, my! There are so many things wrong with that cover - I love it! Ha!

Ah-ha!! I've discovered another way to lure in visitors!

{Note to self: more shocking covers...}

Here is how Christie describes the girls' stage costumes:

There she was---there they both were, the pair of them, one flaxen-haired, one dark, matching as to size, with short fluffy skirts and immense 'Buster Brown' bows. They looked a pair of extremely piquant children...

I don't think by any stretch of the imagination you could describe the young lady on the cover as looking like a child, even if she does refuse to wear a bra.

I believe the eye at the keyhole is Dell's mystery logo, but yes, it is somewhat...unfortunately positioned...

I have set up the thread for the tutored read of Phineas Finn - it is here.

Please drop in and leave a note if you will be joining in!

Unfortunately positioned? Richard made that cover in a past life. You know it!

You do have to wonder if the people responsible were really that oblivious... :D

And speaking of awful covers---I've just finished Death Under Sail, and I have no idea what this is supposed to have to do with the novel in question, which is a cosy mystery wherein murder happens on a small yacht---NOT, as you might infer, a horror story about aquatic zombies.

So, oh yeah, finished Death Under Sail for TIOLI #8.

Now reading Le Charretier de la Providence by Georges Simenon, the second Maigret novel.

>67 lyzard: I'd say aquatic vampires rather than zombies but either way, a pretty dreadful cover.

Good grief!

Some extremely cute sloths and horrifyingly amusing covers being posted here!

I will be joining in with Phineas Finn but not for a few more days.

Hi, Heidi - glad you, uh, like them! Well - like the sloths, appreciate the covers? :)

We'll look forward to having you join us for Phineas Finn - bring your questions with you!!

Finished Le Charretier de 'La Providence' for TIOLI #3.

Now reading The Limping Man by Francis D. Grierson.

Our Lady Of Darkness - Having pulled himself out of the alcoholism that consumed him following the death of his wife, author Franz Westen is getting his life back on track. His fiction is beginning to find an audience, and he has a steady income thanks to his novelisations of a popular supernatural-themed television show. He has made some friends and, albeit tentatively and with grave doubts about the difference in their ages, begun a relationship with an attractive young musician, Calpurnia, who lives in the same San Francisco apartment building. Meanwhile, Westen is trying to get to the bottom of something of a literary mystery. During his drunken years, he acquired two books bound together: one a strange, ranting work called Megapolisomancy by one Thibault de Castries, which describes the growing occult powers of big cities and their evocation of dangerous beings called paramentals; the other, a hand-written diary recording the writer's relationship with de Castries, which Westen comes to believe was the work of poet and author Clark Ashton Smith. Working at home one morning, Westen's attention is drawn to the jagged peaks of Corona Heights, where through his binoculars he sees something odd: what looks like a slender figure in a pale brown robe, dancing wildly on the rocks. Assuming that this is one of San Francisco's many eccentric residents, Westen resolves to walk on the Heights and see if he can catch a closer glimpse of the person. Hiking up to the top of Corona Heights, to the point where, according to his best judgement, he saw the strange dancer, Westen sees no human being, but notices uneasily the many astrological and occult-related symbol painted on the rocks. Having carried with him his binoculars, it occurs to Westen to see if he can identify his apartment from this new perspective. Using a number of the city's famous landmarks to get his bearings, Westen is able to locate a narrow passageway through the many tall structures that must lead to his own building---and having done so, he recoils in terrified disbelief, as through the binoculars he sees a pale brown figure leaning from his apartment windows...

Fritz Leiber's 1977 novel Our Lady Of Darkness began as a modern re-working of M. R. James's seminal horror story, Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad, but was later expanded to novel-length and into something intensely personal. In all but its supernatural elements (at least, so we hope!), Our Lady Of Darkness is heavily autobiographical, drawing upon Leiber's own residence in San Francisco, and his personal struggles after being widowed. The geography of the city, its landmarks and buildings, its streets, even its public transport system, are rendered so accurately that to this day, it is possible to do a tour of the novel's points of interest. (FYI, the German restaurant around the corner from 811 Geary is gone, but the bookstore where Westen acquires his copy of Megapolisomancy and the anonymous diary is still there.) In addition to its remarkable evocation of place, Our Lady Of Darkness is a work subsumed in literary references, opening with an unnerving quotation from Thomas de Quincey's Suspiria de Profundis, name-checking famous San Francisco-based authors such as Jack London and Dashiell Hammett, working not only Clark Ashton Smith but H. P. Lovecraft and Ambrose Bierce into the story, and quoting everyone from Sax Rohmer to Dorothy Sayers. This is a book written by a book-lover for other book lovers; a book very much about the power of words.

It is in truth the power of words that is in play at the novel's climax---a climax I have to say I found slightly disappointing, as having been insufficiently prepared for. Though there have been conversations about such things in the course of the story, there was little indication that they were supposed to be taken seriously - that is, literally. An earlier, smaller demonstration of such power, even if in an ambiguous or dismissible manner, would have better paved the way. Nevertheless, Our Lady Of Darkness is a seriously creepy work, operating simultaneously as a piece of horror fiction and a detective story. Franz Westen becomes increasingly fascinated with his strange literary finds, trying to discover what he can about the mysterious Thibault de Castries, whose Megapolisomancy is a warning, arguing that the relentless accumulation of concrete and steel, of mass, the ever-greater striving for height and breadth that is the modern city, is focusing and setting in motion dangerous elemental forces. Westen uses his connections to seek out people who might have known de Castries, and learns about the circle of literary figures who were, apparently, once drawn to him---either in blasé amusement or in genuine search of arcane knowledge. He also hears about the mysterious woman who was de Castries' companion in the last years of his life; a woman often seen clad in a pale brown robe, one similar to that in which de Castries was cremated. When Westen learns that de Castries' ashes were buried under the rocks on the top of Corona Heights, the pieces of the puzzle begin to take on a terrifyingly personal shape. As Westen pursues his investigation, he slowly realises that he stands at the nexus of a dangerous network of powers---and that his actions have drawn upon him the attention of a strange and deadly entity...

    Really, a city's roofs were a whole dark alien world of their own, unsuspected by the myriad dwellers below, and with their own inhabitants, no doubt, their own ghosts and "paramental entities". But he rose to the challenge and with the help of a couple of familiar watertanks he knew to be on roofs close to his and of a sign BEDFORD HOTEL painted in big black letters high on the side wall of that nearby building, he at last identified his apartment house... Yes, there was the slot, by God! and there was his own window, the second from the top, very tiny but distinct in the sunlight. Lucky he'd spotted it now---the shadow travelling across the wall would soon obscure it.
    And then his hands were suddenly shaking so that he'd dropped the binoculars. Only his strap kept them from crashing on the rocks.
    A pale brown shape had leaned out of his window and waved at him...

Ah, I read the Leiber when it first came out--it was definitely a creepy one!

The Social Novel In England 1830-1850: Dickens, Disraeli, Mrs Gaskell, Kingsley - This is what you get for judging a book by its cover! This particular work turned out to be rather different from what I was expecting. It was written in French by Louis François Cazamian in 1903, and then translated into English in 1973 by Martin Fido, who contends that republishing it seventy years on is justified because it is still "unrivalled in its field" (something that in my opinion speaks very poorly of the intervening English scholarship). This introduction by Fido is somewhat unnerving, as he explains to us that in translating he has "fairly ruthlessly cut repetitions, rearranged sentences within paragraphs, and abandoned his phraseology whenever this seemed necessary". Translators who re-write is one of my bugbears, so this set me on edge to start with. Then we have the matter of the work's English title. This volume was originally published as Le Roman Social en Angleterre, "The English Social Romance", with no subtitle: clearly this has been forced upon it by its English publishers and, in citing those four novelists, it gives a false idea of the content in more ways than one. This is not a literary study; rather, it is a political and social study that examines how contemporary fiction dealt with the concerns of the time. It is only interested in those novels that do deal with those concerns, so anyone coming to this book expected an overall analysis of those writers will be sorely disappointed. The subtitle is also misleading for suggesting that equal weight is given to the four authors in question. In fact, Cazamian is very much focused upon the contrasting approaches of Dickens and Disraeli, with Gaskell and Kingsley mentioned only in specific contexts. Various other authors, less successful at the time and some of them almost forgotten now, are given almost equal consideration.

However, taken for what it actually is, rather than what we might have expected it to be, The Social Novel In England 1830-1850 is an interesting if highly idiosyncratic work. Such is Cazamian's style that we come to have some sympathy for Martin Fido's editing impulse: he is the kind of writer who never uses one word where ten will do. (Yes, yes - like I should talk!) In addition to applying expressions like bougeoisie and laissez-faire to the English society of the mid-19th century, Cazamian also uses certain political terms in a way that might strike a modern reader as strange - for instance, saying "liberal" where he seems to mean "libertarian". On the other hand, there's something amusing about seeing that much abused and misused word, "socialism", thrown around so enthusiastically; perhaps even joltingly to certain modern sensibilities, although it was those active in the movement that coined the phrase "Christian socialism". As an outsider both historically and geographically, Cazamian is often scathing about the society he describes. His focus is upon the social and political reaction to the First Reform Bill of 1832, which promised so much and delivered so little---yet enough to induce a conservative backlash that induced one of the darkest phases in English working-class history, with men, women and children alike compelled into working days of up to sixteen hours for an insufficient wage. Cazamian then traces what he calls the awakening of the social conscience, the various movements that arose to address specific matters such as wages, working hours and work safety, as well as broader social concerns such as housing, sanitation and education. He then considers those writers who became the voice of various political and social movements.

As a literary critic, Cazamian is even more idiosyncratic than as a political analyst. However, his writings also serve as a reminder that tastes do change over time, and that what we accept now as "canon" was not always so. This is particularly true with respect to his attitude to Dickens, which is nothing short of gushing (I don't think I've ever heard Dickens called "subtle" before), but where all of his praise is focused on the early works, and particularly the Christmas stories. In contrast, Cazamian has only tepid praise for Bleak House, and nothing at all to say for the later works. In terms of literary analysis, I found Cazamian's examination of the novels of Benjamin Disraeli far more interesting---chiefly because he passionately disagrees with Disraeli, and consequently takes the time to argue with his politics and dissect the manifestos out of his writing. Elizabeth Gaskell, barely mentioned for more than half the text despite her position in the subtitle, comes into her own when Cazamian examines literature dealing with the conditions of the working-classes; he singles out Gaskell as the only one of the social novelists to write from personal experience, as opposed to the majority who chose to get their material out of parliamentary blue-books, in lieu of getting too close to unpleasant reality. Charles Kingsley is examined both for his novel writing, in works such as Yeast and Alton Locke, but also as a leading figure in a conglomeration of clergymen and philanthropists who called themselves "Christian socialists". The social fiction of a number of other writers, including Charlotte Bronte (Shirley), Frances Trollope (Michael Armstrong) and Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (Helen Fleetwood), are considered, and so are the commentaries of Thomas Carlyle, which in themselves highlight the vast range of reactions to the painful beginnings of reform, and a variety of other publications inspired, one way or the other, and with feelings for or against, by shifting public opinion.

    A novel has a dual historical interest. It has the a priori value of an historical fact: it contains a certain amount of documentary evidence related to its didactic purpose; and it has exerted some definite influence on the public. This study sets out to find the information on social problems and proposals for their solution with which social novels persuaded their readers. It is also hoped to measure, as accurately as possible, the extent of the social novels' influence.
    Novels also have a representative value. They reflect their authors, the public which accepted them, and literary taste. If we keep a novel in the foreground, and examine it in the context of that psychological responsiveness of which it is at once cause and effect, our understanding of the novel may lead us to a better understanding of the psychology and thus to a grasp of the whole general mental climate. But for this final development it is not enough to examine novels alone; they must be compared with evidence from other sources...

@67 The guy's nose is too big for a vampire. I'm with the zombie, a well-preserved zombie.

I still haven't read Fritz Lieber but have had him on my must read list for years. Great review of Our Lady of Darkness.

>75 ronincats: Hi, Roni - brrr, yes! :)

>77 cammykitty: At any rate, we agree that it ain't natural!

Thanks, Katie!

>74 lyzard: Great review, but the book sounds too scary for me!

>76 lyzard: Sounds interesting (you make far too many things sound interesting) but I think I can resist this one.

Hi, Heather - thank you!

It is interesting, not least for being so different from what I expected, but I wouldn't call it essential. You're off the hook! :)

>77 cammykitty: I had no idea there was a standard nose size for vampires! Clearly I have not been paying enough attention.

>76 lyzard: That one interests me since I'm reading a Gaskell novel at the moment (Mary Barton). The public library system has a copy and I've put a hold on it. Hopefully it will be at my branch by Thursday and I can pick it up when I go downtown for my weekly allergy shots.

>81 rosalita: !? :D

>82 cbl_tn: Be prepared for a LOT of words, Carrie!

How are you finding Mary Barton? Gaskell suffered a lot of editorial interference with that one; I've always wanted to read the book she would have written if she had been left to her own devices.

I've only read the first couple of chapter of Mary Barton so I haven't formed an opinion yet. As for the book on hold, I probably won't read the whole thing. I'll just skim it for the bits on the authors I've read and have an interest in.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

Skimming sounds like a good idea! :)

>81 rosalita:: But ... But ... Al Lewis!

Whatever it is, it isn't even in the same league as the thing haunting the cover of Our Lady of Darkness.

>86 swynn: So do we measure vampire noses in Lewis Units, then? I'd say the guy up there in >67 lyzard: has a .8 LU nose.

>86 swynn: &. >87 rosalita: You two are nuts! :D

>87 rosalita: I agree, Steve - that's not the cover of my copy but my favourite of those to choose from.

Finished The Limping Man by Francis D. Grierson...and, oh yay! - it fits TIOLI #1.

Now reading Voices from The Dust by Jeffery Farnol.

Oh Liiiz

You are ALL nuts!!!!

Although...

Plot: Aladdin uses his third wish from the Genie to turn Jasmine into a sloth...

I would totally see that.

You two are nuts! :D
You get me! You really, really get me!

I have been on a shameless Georgette Heyer binge lately. I can't seem to stop reading them. I'm undecided whether this is a problem or not ...

>92 rosalita: "I'm undecided whether this is a problem or not ..."

I would say not, unless you find you are now only able to bandy words using Georgette Heyer's Regency cant...

Our Lady of Darkness IS the one where the books and research papers on the other side of his bed start taking a woman's shape, right? Funny how some images can hang in your memory for over 35 years.

>92 rosalita: & 93 I agree with Heather - no need to worry unless you find yourself telling people to stop making cakes of themselves.

>94 ronincats: Oh, yes, that's the one...the "Scholar's Mistress". He knows how to get at the compulsive book-buyers amongst us. :)

Three pieces of Heyer-speak that I have found myself saying lately:

"Oh, I should like that of all things!"

"Dash it all, that's the point!!"

"I'm afraid it is not at all the thing, is it?"

Oh, and I called a student a ninnyhammer, but not to her face. :-)

I'm pretty sure none of these are so unsurpassingly weird in the 21st century as to draw too much attention. Either that, or my friends and colleagues are used to me saying weird stuff.

On the other hand, I can tell you that talking like Anthony Trollope writes is guaranteed to get you stared at... :)

Having only read one Trollope, I can still find that very easy to believe! I will have to get over this Heyer obsession before I tackle another Trollope, or my brain-speech connection might become completely overloaded and start throwing sparks.

I just have one thing to add all this nonsense (for now), "Make it so!"

"Aye-aye, Captain!"

"Engage!"

"Warp factor 4!"
"Oh hell Data, open this thing up and let's see what she'll do."

"Dammit Jim, I'm only a doctor!"

I know, I know, wrong series.

*laugh*

We'd better stop or I'll be setting up a new thread come morning! :D

My least favorite line ever: "Shut up kid!"

Oh, I don't know... I'd say it has a certain appeal. :)

Oh Liz! :-D

Okay.

Having come across this cover image for George Coxe's Murder With Pictures in the wake of the one for The Murder On The Links, I find myself agreeing with the contention that the Dell "keyhole" logo *was* positioned deliberately...

Yeah but her left hand!

>109 lyzard: & >110 AuntieClio: *snort*

>96 rosalita: Julia: When I was pregnant I decided that I probably should stop cursing like a sailor soonish, and I started actively replacing the bad stuff with what I thought would be more appropriate discourse. Hence all the "Ding Dang!"s and "Holy Moly!"s that now pepper my language. Another one, which I speak more than I type, is from Jeeves & Wooster: "Dash it all, Jeeves!" Secretly, I'm hoping that Charlie picks up that one and uses it at school, just to confound the teachers (he already frequently uses "ding dang!" which is abundantly adorable)...

Oh, uh, hi, Liz!

We use Tintin and Captain Haddock's phrases: Great Snakes, Thundering Typhoons and Blistering Barnacles being my favourites. Jennings (by Anthony Buckeridge) is another good source: Fossilised Fish Hooks is a good one!

>109 lyzard: Oh dear, oh dear....

>109 lyzard: My pet theory is that the keyhole always goes in that lower right hand spot--and the illustrator(s) just had a lot of fun with "product placement'.

It's been a great day so far. I picked up The Social Novel in England, 1830-1850 on my way to get my allergy shots. When I got back to work, I found a database advertisement in my inbox that prominently features a lovely photograph of a sloth!

>115 ronincats: You know, I think you're right!

>115 ronincats: & >117 souloftherose: Some quick research suggests that logo did move around a bit, although the bottom right-hand corner seems to be the position of choice.

I think what we have here is a graphic illustration (literally!) of the rapid breakdown of society in the years following WWII. This is the Dell cover for the 1946 issue of Murder With Pictures, while our Shocking Shower Scene cover is from 1950 - which would YOU buy??

    

>112 scaifea: Hi, Amber! :)

>113 CDVicarage: Oh, good lord, Jennings! How that does take me back...

>114 Smiler69: I hope I haven't shocked you too much, Ilana - I can afford to be frightening away thread visitors!

>116 cbl_tn: I envy you your good day, Carrie - and of course, sloths make everything better!!

I have discovered that the shower scene artist was Robert Stanley; I'm now trying to find out if he was also responsible for bra-less Cinderella. (Apparently he did not always resort to product placement, although he does seem to have specialised in suggestive imagery...)

>118 lyzard: You know what I love about those two covers? In the 1946 edition, the extra blurb on the cover reads "Complete with Crime Map on Back Cover". Nice! Then in 1950, the blurb is "The girl stepped over the edge of the tub" — um, what? I haven't read that particular Coxe (although I've read other books of his and liked them), so I don't know if a girl stepping over the edge of a tub is a key plot point or not. I agree with Stephanie on the sketchy placement of her left hand, though! I'm sure it was just a coincidence (hard eyeroll).

I gather that this novel does open rather startlingly with a woman barging into the hero's shower. These covers are more fun when they just make something up, though. I particularly enjoy it when they sex up a perfectly polite "cosy" mystery.

Finished The Deductions Of Colonel Gore for TIOLI #4.

And now reading #75 for the year, The Mysterious Wife by "Gabrielli".

Woo-hoo! Get that #75 in the done pile, Liz!

The last two months have been very poor for reading, so I'll be glad to have reached this landmark, at least!

And before August — that's not too shabby especially with two slow months in the mix.

A Bid For Fortune - After many adventurous years scraping an existence in a variety of professions, Richard Hatteras has found success and fortune as the head of a pearling station on Thursday Island, off the tip of Queensland. Financially secure for the first time in his life, Hatteras resolves to have a holiday in England, and to see where his father's people came from. Travelling first to Sydney, he is walking in the Domain one afternoon when he sees a young woman being harassed by three men. After chasing the miscreants away and restoring the lady's purse, he learns that she is Phyllis Wetherell, daughter to the Colonial Secretary. Already smitten, Hatteras is delighted when he learns that Phyllis and her father will be travelling to England on the same boat as himself. Before the voyage is over the two are engaged---but Mr Wetherell, whose dark moods show that he has something preying on his mind, angrily forbids their marriage. Nevertheless, after their arrival in England the two continue to meet. Phyllis confides that she cannot understand her father's behaviour, adding that he seems frightened of something---or someone. While having luncheon on his own one day, Hatteras's attention is caught by a dark, handsome man with strangely hypnotic eyes. To Hatteras's astonishment, the man later joins him and addresses him by name, though they are strangers. He then proceeds to demonstrate what he calls a sort of conjuring trick: pouring a few drops of an unknown liquid upon a piece of paper, he sets the mixture alight. To Hatteras's astonishment and dismay, as he gazes into the resulting smoke he sees a vision of Phyllis, sobbing and calling his name. He leaps to his feet with a startled cry---only to realise that his mysterious companion has vanished...

Born in Adelaide but educated in England, Guy Newell Boothby returned to Australia as a young man, supporting himself as a political secretary while he pursued his artistic ambitions. His first efforts were in the area of opera, but after a cross-country trek he turned to writing, and after publishing several non-fiction works about his adventures, he turned to fiction and became a prolific and popular author of thrillers and other sensation fiction. Eventually Boothby relocated to England on a permanent basis, although he never lost his love for his native land, which shines clearly in his writing. One of the charms of A Bid For Fortune is its vivid word-sketches of both tropical Queensland and of Sydney, with long stretches of the story set in the latter, and fascinating glimpses offered of the city as it then was. In historical terms, however, the importance of this short novel is that in the mysterious Dr Nikola, Boothby not only created one of fiction's first master-criminals - who is, inevitably, on a quest for world domination - but made him his hero, or at least, anti-hero, with Nikola rather than the forces of good becoming the recurrent series character. Published in 1895, A Bid For Fortune (later reissued as A Bid For Fortune: or, Dr Nikola's Vendetta, once the character had taken off) introduces the elusive Dr Nikola, with his immaculate wardrobe, his debonair manner, his strange powers, his black cat, and his single-minded quest for something that at this stage of the game is not made entirely clear... Indeed, while there is plenty to enjoy about A Bid For Fortune, a coherent narrative isn't one of its outstanding qualities. This short novel offers a breathless chase from one side of the world to the other and back again, with detours for more adventures in Naples and Port Said, and a final pursuit by yacht into the islands of the South Pacific. Towards the end, the story also experiences a sudden irruption of mysterious "Chinamen"---one of the many indications that Dr Nikola was the model for Sax Rohmer's Dr Fu-Manchu.

And yet somehow, with a whole world to choose from and an ever-expanding cast of characters, Dr Nikola and Richard Hatteras cannot seem to stop running across one another, and getting mixed up in one another's plans. In particular, it becomes increasingly apparent that Mr Wetherell is the object of Dr Nikola's manoeuvres and that, as a consequence, Phyllis may be in grave danger. After a prologue in which the reader is introduced to Dr Nikola and his co-conspirators, brought together from all over the world and making their plans over an excellent dinner in a London restaurant, the story proper opens in Australia, with a word-sketch of the rackety yet happy life of Richard Hatteras, who narrates. While in England, Hatteras becomes the friend and mentor of a young nobleman, the Marquis of Beckenham, after saving the boy's life. Learning that Mr Wetherell has whisked Phyllis away and that they are headed back to Australia, Hatteras determines to follow them, with Lord Beckenham as his companion. After a series of dangerous adventures, the two arrive belatedly in Sydney to discover not only that a spurious Lord Beckenham has been imposed upon society, but that Phyllis herself is the target of Dr Nikola's plots, when in an effort to force Mr Wetherell to do his bidding, Nikola kidnaps the girl to hold her to ransom...

    "Who is this Nikola then?" I asked.
    "Dr Nikola? Well, he's Nikola, and that's all I can tell you. If you're a wise man you'll want to know no more. Ask the Chinese mothers nursing their almond-eyed spawn in Peking who he is; ask the Japanese, ask the Malays, the Hindoos, the Burmese, the coal porters in Port said, the Buddhist priests of Ceylon; ask the King of Corea, the men up in Thibet, the Spanish priests in Manilla, or the Sultan of Borneo, the ministers of Siam, or the French in Saigon---they'll all know Dr Nikola and his cat, and, take my word, they all fear him."

...and in fact, after a while spotting the various things that Sax Rohmer pinched from Guy Boothby while creating Dr Fu-Manchu became an amusing game - though in most cases, Rohmer also upped the ante. Remember how Fu-Manchu always goes around with a marmoset on his shoulder? (Sure you do!) Dr Nikola, meanwhile, is accompanied everywhere by a black cat called Apollyon:

The black cat, having finished its meal, sprang onto his shoulder to crouch there, watching the three men through the curling smoke drift with its green blinking fiendish eyes... Presently his owner took him from his perch, and seating him on his knee fell to stroking his fur, from head to tail, with his long slim fingers. It was if he were drawing inspiration for some deadly mischief from the uncanny beast...

Or perhaps he just liked hearing his cat purr?

(This reminds me, I should pop over to Nancy's thread and she how she's getting along now that she's been adopted by a black cat...)

>126 rosalita: That's the plan, Julia - fingers crossed!

Peril At End House - With Arthur Hastings temporarily back in England from the Argentine, he and Hercule Poirot treat themselves to a short holiday in St Loo, a watering-place in Cornwall. To Hastings' puzzlement, Poirot works to scrape an acquaintance with Nick Buckley, a young woman who owns an impressive if delapidated cliff-top mansion known as End House. As the three chat over cocktails, the men learn that Nick is the last of her family, and struggling to hold onto their traditional home; she also speaks casually of having had several fortunate escapes from injury recently, being seemingly beset by accidents. When Nick has been collected by her friends, Poirot shows Hastings what really caught his attention: what he first took to be a pebble, which struck the wall nearby, is in fact a spent bullet. Furthermore, the summer hat which Nick thoughtlessly left behind her has a small hole in the brim... Convinced that Nick is in danger of her life, Poirot follows up on their seemingly casual meeting. Pressed to describe her recent accidents, Nick tells of a heavy picture that fell onto her bed, a loose boulder that fell past her as she walked along a rocky cliff-path, and trouble with the brakes of her car. She is inclined to dismiss these incidents, until Poirot shows her the bullet which only narrowly missed her head. When Nick discovers that her own small pistol is missing, she must finally accept that someone is trying to kill her. However, she can offer no motive for such a crime: she has no money, and as far as she knows, neither End House nor its contents are worth much beyond their sentimental value. Poirot begins to investigate Nick's circle of friends and acquaintances, working desperately to find out who might want Nick dead, and why, before the would-be killer has the chance to strike again...

First published in 1932, Peril At End House is a novel with a curious mixing of tones. On one hand it seems to function as a rather playful summary of Agatha Christie' career to date---or more correctly, of Hercule Poirot's. There are call-backs in the text to most of Poirot's earlier cases, while joking references to his abortive retirement place the events of Peril At End House in the wake of those of The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd---which of course was the case that convinced Poirot that the cultivation of vegetable marrows wasn't for him. Furthermore, in addition to the temporary reuniting of Poirot and Arthur Hastings, Chief Inspector Japp puts in an appearance, obligingly doing leg-work for his friend while repeatedly insisting that he's "on holiday". Poor Hastings is treated particularly unkindly in this novel - we even have Poirot explicitly using him as an anti-judge of character, asking his opinion of people and then assuming that the opposite is true - while despite the novel's setting, and the appreciative descriptions of the English south coast that pepper the text, there are a curiously high number of comic jabs at English attitudes throughout, possibly reflecting Christie's own shift in attitude after spending increasing periods out of the country. Yet beside this fairly lighthearted material, and blending somewhat uneasily with it, Peril At End House offers a grim tale of thoroughly cold-blooded murder. Moreover, Poirot is faced with the challenge of not just solving a murder, but preventing one from happening---a task at which he fails...

From the moment he becomes aware of the threat to Nick Buckley's life, Poirot is confronted by the stumbling-block of insufficiency of motive. No-one seems to have any reason to hate Nick, nor would anyone profit much from her death. Poirot looks carefully into the lives and recent movements of those with whom Nick is in contact, convinced that eventually there will be a revelation which changes his perspective of the case. His investigation uncovers the curious fact that the will which Nick made out prior to having her appendix removed has gone missing---or rather, that despite being mailed it never reached Charles Vyse, Nick's cousin, who is also her solicitor - and in the absence of a will, her heir. The main beneficiary of Nick's will is her best friend, Frederica Rice, a miserably married woman separated from her husband, whose companion is the businessman, Jim Lazarus. Discussing Nick's accidents with Mrs Rice, Poirot is startled when she not only dismisses them, but advises him not to put too much faith in what Nick tells him. The detective also discovers that Lazarus has been attempting to buy certain items from End House---offering Nick rather more than they are worth. Meanwhile, Nick's own behaviour convinces Poirot that she is not being frank with him. Uncertain of where the threat to Nick lies, Poirot associates himself publicly with her and makes his suspicions obvious, hoping that this will act as a deterrent---but murder is committed anyway, albeit not the one anticipated, but an apparent case of mistaken identity. Wracked with guilt at his inability to prevent the crime, Poirot must simultaneously investigate the murder that has happened, while trying to protect Nick from a killer who is no longer relying on "accidents"...

    "I had drawn attention to myself. I had let him see that I suspected---someone. I had made it, or so I thought, too dangerous for him to dare to repeat his attempts at murder. I had drawn a cordon around Mademoiselle. And he slips through it! Boldly---under our very eyes almost, he slips through it! In spite of us all---of everyone being on the alert, he achieves his object."
    "Only he doesn't," I reminded him.
    "That is the chance only! From my point of view, it is the same. A human life has been taken, Hastings---whose life is non-essential... But on the other hand, what you say is true. And that makes it worse---ten times worse. For the murderer is still as far as ever from achieving his object. Do you understand, my friend? The position is changed---for the worse. It may mean not one life, but two---"

I had never heard of Guy Boothby, but now I am intrigued ...

Hi, Steve! A dozen or so of Boothby's books are available free online if you are interested, including most if not all of his Dr Nikola Stories.

Earlier this year I got myself into a tizz about the correct publication order of Philip MacDonald's Anthony Gethryn series, wherein several books were published within a ridiculously short space of time---some of them with alternative titles, just to muddy the waters even more. Having figured out - I think - the correct order, I figured I'd better preserve it for posterity:

Persons Unknown - aka The Maze - first published in the US late in 1930, republished early in 1931, published in the UK in 1932, which is usually, incorrectly, listed as its publication date (Book #5)
The Choice aka The Polferry Mystery aka The Polferry Riddle, 1931 (Book #6)
The Wraith, 1931 (Book#7)
The Crime Conductor - published late 1931 in the US, early 1932 in the UK (Book #8)
Rope To Spare, 1932 (Book #9)

>132 lyzard: A Bid for Fortune is among the freely available titles. into the swamp it goes!

Finished The Mysterious Wife for TIOLI #14...and at seven books, that is, sadly enough, me done for July.

On the other hand---that is #75 for the year!

Now reading Jenny Wren by E. H. Young.

You've read 75 books, you say?



OK, I know your name is Liz but it's the best I could do!

Congratulations on hitting the 75 book mark!!

>136 rosalita:

??????

Don't keep me in suspense! :)

(Is there meant to be an image there? 'Cos I'm not seeing it...)

>137 ronincats:

Thank you, Roni!

>136 rosalita: Chantal? Is that Liz's drag queen name or something?

>138 lyzard: Can you see it now?

>139 AuntieClio: Thank goodness someone can see it! I assume Chantal is the name Liz uses to get reservations at those high-class Aussie restaurants she hangs out in. Although ... it would be a great drag-queen name now that you mention it!

We have a drag queen here called Peaches Christ.

>141 AuntieClio: Yes! He/she was on NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" last weekend. Very funny.

Awww...still not seeing me Liz Chantal. Must be a browser issue - I will look again at home.

Oh, Congrats, Chantal! *snork!*

No, really, congrats on 75!!

Also, >141 AuntieClio: *SNORK!!* Love it!

Okay, NOW I can see it.

***SNORK***

I think I'll insist upon being called "Chantal" in future...

Congrats, Chantal!

Thank you, Dr N!

Good going Chantal. That name brings to mind a certain kind of French Canadian I can't take seriously though....

Thanks, Ilana! You are under no obligation to take me seriously either... :)

Very sorry to hear about your migraine issues - take care of yourself!

Yes, well, it isn't exactly news at this point, is it? I'm getting a bit tired of being the resident migraine sufferer. Never wanted to be one of those boring chronic pain people who just keep moaning and groaning... so boring to hear about. I'll have to find a new gig somehow! Good think I've got my drawing to make myself a bit more interesting!

Congratulations Chantal! :-)

>150 Smiler69:

Not at all. I've belatedly developed a sensitivity to fluorescent lighting that is causing me problems at work; I end quite a few days with what I call a "spiky" headache, which doesn't respond to medication and takes its own sweet time about going away. I'm struggling to cope with that, so I can't imagine having to deal with something so much more serious as recurrent migraine.

>151 souloftherose:

Thank you!! :)

>152 lyzard: Sorry to hear about the spiky headaches - that doesn't sound fun at all :-)

Probably a lot less fun than this.

>152 lyzard: I have had some issues with headaches the last couple of weeks. Yesterday I had one that really made me physically ill. I really think mine is sinus-related, but I have a colleague that got migraines from the fluorescent lighting at work. She ended up purchasing lamps for her office and not using the overhead lighting in her office. I'm not sure if you are in a situation where you could do something similar or not.

>153 souloftherose:

Spiky sloth---SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! :)

>154 thornton37814:

Hi, Lori. I'm in an open-plan office which complicates the situation, though I have succeeded in having the light tubes directly over my desk taken out, so that's something. It seems to be related to the weather - when it is darker or more overcast outside, it is relatively brighter inside, and that is when I have a problem - so I'm hopeful as we move out of winter the headaches will be less frequent.

Seriously, that spiky sloth was too adorable for words!

>155 lyzard: I've also had the ones directly over my desk removed in my office because of the glare. Between those and the window behind me, I couldn't handle it.

Call me paranoid but can I just check that we're not cracking the tutored reads whip too hard for you? If it would help to have a break or a slower schedule then please say.

I hope the headaches sort themselves out with the end of winter but it would be nicer if there was a solution that would work for winter too.

Yes, indeed it would!

No, I'm fine with Phineas! I just keep hoping we'll get a few more posters. I know we have lurkers but they're not speaking up! :)

Finished Jenny Wren for TIOLI #3.

Now reading The Early Victorians At Home by Elizabeth Burton.

I'm kinda of a lurker, and now I'm speaking up.

Ohhhh ... you meant about Phineas. Yeah, that's not me.

Hey, lurkers revealing themselves here is good too! - but yeah, I did mean the Phineas Finn thread.

Finished The Early Victorians At Home for TIOLI #9.

Now reading The Under Dogs by Hulbert Footner.

Finished The Under Dogs for TIOLI #3.

Now reading The Wallet Of Kai Lung by Ernest Bramah.

Did you know that the Madame Storey novels, novellas, and short stories have been reprinted with introductions by the son (I think) of Hulbert Footner? The small press Coachwhip Publications has put them out: http://www.coachwhipbooks.com/titles/madame-storey-adventures.html. I've read and enjoyed the first two volumes (including The Under Dogs).

The Amos Lee Mappin mysteries are promised as well.

Hi, Harry - no, I didn't know that, so thanks! I really enjoyed The Under Dogs too, and was quite surprised by it. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the Madame Storey series. The Mappin stories are On The List as well but I haven't got to them yet.

Finished The Wallet Of Kai Lung for TIOLI #8.

Now reading The Case Of Constance Kent by John Rhode.

I want to preface this comment by saying I really do come by and read your thread every time there are new posts, and I am interested in many more things that you do and read than sloths and Georgette Heyer, even if I seldom seem to post about those things.

Now, having said that ...

I just started reading The Masqueraders and I've had about 10 WTH moments in the first two chapters. It's just so different from any of her other books I've read (and set earlier, is this one of the Georgian instead of Regency books?) that I'm a bit befuddled. Also, I was reading it at lunch in a noisy sports bar so that may have inhibited my ability to follow along with who the characters are.

Anyway, The Early Victorians at Home sounds like an interesting book. Do you recommend?

I'm glad to have you here for any reason, Julia!

Yes on both counts - it's an early book, her third, but more to the point it is Georgian not Regency. It is set about 1746, in the immediate wake of the Jacobite Rebellion, i.e. the attempt to restore "Bonnie" Prince Charles Stuart to the throne. This is important in understanding the plot. That said, the first few chapters are confusing, for reasons that hopefully do become clearer (I'll just say, there's some identity switching going on), but I wouldn't recommend trying to absorb them in a sports bar! :)

If it would help, you could post any specific questions on your thread - I'd be happy to answer them. (Which, BTW, is how the whole tutored read thing started, when Madeline vented her puzzlement with Emma!)

Do you recommend?

Yes and no. It's quite an interesting book, but the "At Home" is misleading as it is more about general aspects of Victorian life and society than how people spent their day, which is what I was expecting.

It was all the talk about the main characters having been mixed up in the Stuart rebellion that clued me in that we were talking about a different time frame. Well, that and the descriptions of the clothes. :-) But yeah, I thought I knew who was who and then ... something happened and I couldn't concentrate enough to figure out what it all meant in all the blaring music and huge TVs glaring at me from the walls. I'm going to regroup and start over from the beginning, somewhere quiet.

And thank you — I will take you up on posting questions to my thread when I do restart it. It will be a low-key, no-pressure semi-tutored read. :-)

Excellent! :D

>170 rosalita: I think I also had to read the beginning of The Masqueraders twice because of the identity thing Liz mentions.

I'm so glad it's not just me, Heather! When the pronouns started changing I got very confused. :-)

Finished The Case Of Constance Kent for TIOLI #24.

Now reading A Fatal Legacy by Louis Tracy.

Finished A Fatal Legacy for TIOLI #22.

Now reading Patty's Summer Days by Carolyn Wells.

Finished Patty's Summer Days for TIOLI #14.

Now reading The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol.

Just saying hello Liz! I'm off to bed, which must mean you're just around midday!

Hi, Ilana! Yep, you got that about right. :)

I have written a blog post about my 75th book of the year, The Mysterious Wife by "Gabrielli" - it is here.

Liz, your blog link in >179 lyzard: just takes me to the top of this thread ... I wanna read about the mysterious wife!

Okay, that's completely weird, because as far as I can see there's no mistake...hmm...

I'll keep looking into it, but in the meantime the post is here: http://acourseofsteadyreading.wordpress.com/2014/08/20/the-mysterious-wife/

Ah, that did it! Thanks, and good heavens it sounds like "Gabrielli" or Mrs Meeks or whoever wrote that one could have used some lessons in pacing. I am assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that this was a serialized novel and thus the padding out might not have seemed quite so egregious to contemporary readers (being separated by a length of time between each)?

Yup, this one was a real chore. :)

No, this novel was pre-serialisation: it was published in 1797 by the Minerva Press, which specialised in multi-volume tomes to fill up the shelves of the circulating libraries. Serialisation became popular from the 1830s onwards.

Well, that just makes it worse, then. :-)

Friday's Child - Angered both by Isabella Milborne's blunt rejection of his proposal and his trustee-uncle's tactless reminder that he cannot have full access to his property until he turns twenty-five or gets married, the young Viscount Sheringham makes a reckless pledge to marry the first woman he sees. As it turns out, this is sixteen-year-old Hero Wantage, the unwanted poor relation of the neighbouring Bagshot family. Finding Hero crying, Sherry invites her to tell him her troubles, and learns that despite her youth and ignorance, she is to be sent away to Bath to be a governess. Sherry, in turn, tells Hero of his rejection by Isabella - and his pledge. When Hero laughingly points out the implications of this, Sherry decides on the spot that a marriage of convenience will solve both their problems. Almost before she can catch her breath, Hero is being whisked away to London... Sherry's closest friends, Gilbert Ringwood, Ferdinand Fakenham and George, Lord Wrotham, are stunned when confronted by the runaway pair, but immediately offer their assistance and advice. Armed with a special licence, Sherry marries Hero, and immediately sets in motion the legal process for winding up the trust. As the young couple begin a rather ramshackle form of housekeeping, their situation begins to worry their friends. George, heartsore himself due to his unrequited love for Isabella Milborne, sees clearly that Hero is not as indifferent to Sherry as he is to her; while Gil, realising that Sherry has thought his marriage through no further than obtaining access to his fortune, grows concerned for the future of the newlyweds - the bride in particular. And indeed, in spite of his marriage Sherry fully expects to simply pick up the threads of his somewhat hedonistic existence---only to find himself responsible for a young woman as trusting as she is ignorant, and with an extraordinary talent for getting into trouble...

Friday's Child is one of Georgette Heyer's most enduringly popular novels, not just for its account of the comic misadventures of its unsophisticated young heroine and her maddeningly thoughtless husband, but on the strength of its marvellous supporting cast. In the wake of her whirlwind marriage of convenience, Hero - having acquired the nickname "Kitten" - becomes an adopted sister of sorts to Sherry's closest friends: insightful, level-headed Gil, kind but foolish Ferdy and the self-consciously "romantic" George, who collectively almost steal this novel away from its central characters. When the Sheringham marriage reaches crisis point, with a permanent estrangement threatening, it is to her husband's friends that Kitten turns, and they do not let her down. Under Gil's thoughtful leadership, the three enter into a conspiracy calculated to make Sherry stop and think for the first time in his life---and, perhaps, to examine the state of his heart... Though Gil, Ferdy and George all have their virtues---not least that they all understand and appreciate Kitten a great deal more than Sherry does---I must admit that in spite of his infuriating habit of forcing duels on everyone, I've always had a soft spot for George in particular, who manages to be simultaneously a dashing, Byronic figure and a devoted one-woman man. The misunderstandings of Kitten and Sherry are counterpointed throughout by George's rocky courtship of Isabella who, though spoiled by society's adulation, and with the best will in the world to do it, never quite succeeds in letting her head overrule her heart. Her climactic speech, comprising a most exasperated declaration of love, is one of my favourite moments.

Although Friday's Child is one of Heyer's most sustained comedies, it is not without its serious side. The world of the Regency was a dangerous one for an unprotected young woman, and the perils that threaten Kitten as a result of Sherry's neglect of his thoughtlessly assumed responsibilities are only too real. Sherry himself, in his selfish carelessness, is not the least of Kitten's dangers. Taking her husband as a role-model, and his reckless speech for gospel, Kitten stumbles from blunder to blunder, escaping complete social disaster only by the skin of her teeth. Having married so lightly, and for entirely selfish reasons, Sherry is at last forced to grow up and take responsibility, not just for his own actions, but for those of his inexperienced bride. His journey to adulthood is slow and painful, and not undertaken without great reluctance---and not until it is nearly too late. Not nearly as worldly-wise as he likes to think, Sherry himself almost falls victim to the wiles of Sir Montagu Revesby, who lives by luring wealthy but inexperienced young men into gaming hells. When her impulsive rescue of Revesby's discarded mistress exposes his fundamental dishonesty to the disgusted Sherry, Kitten acquires a very dangerous enemy. However, when his plot to revenge himself upon Kitten becomes mixed up with his attempt to repair his fortunes by compromising Isabella and so forcing her into marriage, Revesby inadvertently becomes the catalyst for the uniting of Kitten and Sherry - and of Isabella and George - while himself rightfully falling victim to, "That Greek thing that creeps up behind a chap when he least expects it..."

    "Point is, that was a devilish queer business, your marriage, Sherry. Never pretended you was in love with Kitten, did you?"
    Sherry flushed, tried to speak, and failed.
    "Good as told us all you wasn't," pursued his friend. "Not that there was any need: plain as a pikestaff. Something else plain as a pikestaff, too, but whether you saw it I don't know, and never did. Tried several times to give you a hint, bit it didn't seem to me you took it up. Thought the world of you, did Kitten. Wouldn't hear a word against you... Used to put me in mind of that rhyme, or whatever it was, I learned when I was a youngster. Something about loving and giving: that was Kitten!"

...which brings us to the June stats...in the third week of August...sigh...

June stats:

Works read: 9
TIOLI: 9, across 6 different challenges

Mystery / thriller: 4
Historical fiction: 1
Historical romance: 1
Horror: 1
Non-fiction: 1
Memoir: 1

Series works: 4
Potential decommission: 1
1932: 1

Owned: 4
Library: 3
Ebook: 2

Male : female authors: 6 : 4

Oldest work: A Bid For Fortune by Guy Newell Boothby (1895)
Newest work: Our Lady Of Darkness by Fritz Leiber (1977)

Ah, a wonderful review of Friday's Child that gives it full justice. It's one of my top three Heyers.

Half-yearly summary:

Works read: 68
TIOLI: 65

Mystery / thriller: 27
Classic: 8
Non-fiction: 8
Contemporary drama: 6
Historical romance: 6
Horror: 5
Short stories: 4 (1 book, 3 works)
Fantasy: 1
Humour: 1
Memoir: 1
Unclassifiable:1

Blog reads: 7
Series works: 28
Potential decommission: 6
1932: 10
Virago: 2

Owned: 31
Library: 22
Ebook: 15

Male : female authors: 42 : 30

Oldest work: The History Of The Nun; or, The Fair Vow-Breaker by Aphra Behn (1689)
Newest work: The Ultimate Werewolf by Byron Preiss (ed.) (1992)

Q: What's better than a pocketful of miracles?
A: A bucketful of sloth!

>187 ronincats: Thank you, Roni!

Death Under Sail - In addition to a career divided between science and the civil service, Charles Percival Snow gained fame as a writer, chiefly for the series of semi-autobiographical socio-political novels known collectively as "Strangers And Brothers". However, like so many others embarking upon a literary career in the 1930s, Snow began by writing a mystery. That he had no particular liking for the genre is clear in the detached tone of Snow's preface to the 1959 reissue of his 1932 publication - no respect, either, based upon the distinction he draws between mysteries and "novels proper" - but Death Under Sail was a popular success at the time of its release and remains an interesting work. As was also true of James Hilton's Murder At School, which I read earlier this year, the very fact that its author undertook its writing as a one-off experiment gives Death Under Sail an unusual attitude and tone. Its set-up is certainly unique: while holidaying on a small private yacht amongst the waterways of Norfolk, five guests discover that their host has been murdered, under circumstances that mean one of them must be responsible.

The narrator of Death Under Sail is Ian Capel, a sixty-ish retired lawyer; the victim is Dr Roger Mills, his somewhat younger friend. The rest of the yachting party consists of the sort of bright young people with whom Roger, conceding nothing to encroaching age, liked to surround himself: Avice Loring, a cousin of sorts and once Roger's ward; Christopher Tarrant, Avice's fiancé, well-bred but poor and on the verge of taking up an important post in Malaya; Philip Wade, with more money than sense, and his new girlfriend, the rather exotic Tonia Gilmour; and Dr William Garnett, a protégée of Roger's. Joining the party after it has already been under way for a week, Ian discovers to his relief that Roger seems to have gotten over having his proposal rejected by Avice, a rejection he did not take well. Ian is also carrying a rather shamefaced torch for Avice but, painfully conscious of the difference in their ages, he remains silent and and tries to convince himself that he is happy about her engagement. All seems to be going well with the party, in spite of the occasional tensions caused by living in the confined space of the yacht---until, going up on deck to talk to Roger as he mans the tiller, Ian discovers that he has been shot dead... The circumstances of the crime create difficulties for investigators and suspects alike. As a compromise, the guests agree to take up residence at a rental house near the river, making themselves available to the local police. Ian, meanwhile, sends for an old friend, a man called Finbow, putting faith in both his legal acumen and his intelligence, and knowing that as a gentleman he can be trusted with the truth---if the truth is what he fears. For Ian has seen clearly that as Roger's heir, Avice is the only one of the group with a clear motive...

Even apart from the circumstances of its central crime, there are a number of striking things about Death Under Sail---one of them being its narrator, Ian Capel, whose first action in the wake of Roger Mills' death is to propose a mutual cover-up: if the guilty party will confess, the rest will bind themselves to have the death passed off as suicide. No-one accepts this suggestion, but it throws a shadow across the rest of the narrative, and leads the reader to question whatever is received through Capel's perspective. In fact, in takes the sound reasoning of Finbow to reassure the reader that Capel's own hands are clean---but how far is he prepared to go to shield Avice? Finbow's own investigation is conducted in parallel with that of Sergeant Aloysius Burrell of the local police, an odd young man of puritanical views and with an almost religious passion for detective work, but who is not nearly so much of a fool as he sometimes seems. The claustrophobic conditions under which the suspects are forced to live bring a variety of tensions to the surface. It becomes clear that Avice and Tonia despise each other; that William has a dangerous chip on his shoulder, and Tonia a humiliating secret; and that the relationship between Avice and Christopher is not what it at first seemed. Furthermore, it emerges that the apparently good-natured and generous Roger Mills was a selfish and sometimes dishonest man; one capable of bearing longstanding grudges - and of making bitter enemies. Reconstruction of the circumstances of Mills' death suggest that the murder was committed during a tiny window of time, which itself creates a paradox: there were those on board the yacht who wanted to kill Roger Mills, but they were not the people with the opportunity to do so...

    We stood for a moment on the deck, with the wherry gliding so smoothly through the water between the silent marshes that time itself seemed to have stood still.
    Then we turned down into the well to talk to Roger. Suddenly Avice gripped my arm, and ran forward a few steps towards the tiller. I followed, with a sudden fear. When caught her up, she hid her head against my sleeve and pointed with a trembling finger into the well. I looked, and saw a thin stream of dark blood, and then Roger, and shivered.
    For we were being sailed by a dead man...

Hi Liz. Also adding my admiration for your review of Friday's Child and the sloth cuteness! Death Under Sail also sounds interesting.

Le Charretier de 'La Providence' (translation / reissue titles: The Carter Of 'The Providence', Lock 14, Maigret Meets A Milord) - Around the locks that control the canals near the towns of Dizy and Épernay is a strange, enclosed world, one controlled by the tides and the boats and barges that use the waterways. Small inns and cafes serve the crews of the passing vessels, while some workers prefer to save their meagre funds by sleeping in the same stables as the horses that draw the barges. Near Lock 14, situated at the junction of the Marve River and the canals, is the Café de la Marine. When two pilots, somewhat the worse for drink, stumble into the stable attached to the café in the early hours of a Sunday morning, one of them makes a horrifying discovery... When Inspector Maigret arrives upon the scene, he is confronted by the body of a woman who has been strangled to death. Her clothing and jewellery make it obvious that she did not belong to the world of the lock - so where did she come from? - and how did she get there?

The second entry in Georges Simenon's long-running series featuring Inspector Maigret takes its long-suffering police inspector away from Paris and into the waterways of northern France. Le Charretier de 'La Providence' is a short novel, but one that drips with atmosphere---literally. Though Maigret's investigations carry him briefly into the town of Épernay, most of the story unfolds in the environs of the Marne and its canals. The narrative dwells upon the strange twilight life of the lock; of the rise and fall of its waters; of those who depend upon the lock for their livelihood; and of the boatmen who come and go at all hours as their work demands. The transient nature of life on the water poses its own challenges for Maigret, who must chase down any boat that happened to be in the vicinity of the Café de la Marine around the time of the murder, with only a bicycle for transport; while even at this early point in the series, the constant teeming rain seems an inseparable part of Maigret's professional life.

The return to the lock of a yacht called the Southern Cross solves at least part of the mystery: the dead woman is identified as the wife of Sir Walter Lampson, the English owner of the yacht, who lives a hand-to-mouth existence of desperate pretence. Sir Walter's lack of reaction to his wife's death raises suspicion, yet clearly the Lampson ménage was a peculiar one: also on board the yacht is Lampson's mistress, while his right-hand man, Willie Marco, seems to have been Lady Lampson's lover. Though as a husband Sir Walter is automatically a suspect in his wife's murder, no evidence ties him to the crime; but this is not the case when a second member of the yachting-party is murdered. Maigret, however, continues to have his doubts. When his inquiries into Lady Lampson's past reveal that she was using a false identity when she met Sir Walter, he becomes convinced that the motive for the murder lies buried in her past. During his dogged yet unavailing search for possible witnesses, Maigret becomes familiar with the barge La Providence and its operators, a married couple assisted by their carter, a strange, silent man called Jean. When Maigret goes in pursuit of the vessel once again in the wake of the second murder, his actions precipitate a third tragedy---but they also reveal the truth...

    If it had not been for the whip which had been mislaid, the corpse would probably have been found only a fortnight or a month later, accidentally, by someone poking around in the hay.
    And other carters would have come and snored beside that woman's body.
    In spite of the cold rain, there was still something heavy and implacable about the atmosphere. And the rhythm of life was slow. Feet in boots or clogs trailed across the walls of the lock or along the tow-path. Dripping horses waited for the end of the locking to move off again, straining forward in a repeated effort and thrusting back with their hindquarters. And dusk was about to fall, just like the day before...

Death Under Sail sounds interesting. The public library has a couple of copies so it's now on my wishlist.

I read a Maigret earlier this year that was set on the canals in Holland. I wonder if there are any more Maigrets that involve water?

Finally, a sloth sighting makes a great start for the weekend! I think Adrian would love to play with a sloth. I'm not sure that the sloth would enjoy playing with Adrian, though!

>189 lyzard: :-D

Enjoyed your review of Friday's Child. I'll definitely give Georgette Heyer several more chances, even though Frederica ended up getting on my nerves, sadly.

Will be back to read your take on Lock 14. Must write my own on The Yellow Dog, and watch the 1932 movie that came with the book too.

I just saw a poster on the metro yesterday advertising a sloth exhibit at the Biodôme in October. I thought it was a show for just sloths, but looking at the site, I see it's an exhibit called Nature's Slow Pokes. Good enough. I've never been to Montreal's Biodôme, so this might be an occasion to go. Might be a photo op to enliven your thread with, with any luck.

>192 souloftherose: Thank you, Heather!

>194 cbl_tn: Hi, Carrie - hope you enjoy it! As far as *I* know, all the Maigrets deal with water...although granted, I have about another 73 books to go... :)

>195 Smiler69: Thanks, Ilana. You're dashing ahead of me with the Maigrets. Ooh, a sloth exhibit!? - or at least, an exhibit featuring sloths? I'm green with jealousy! Please do feel free to drop in with your photos. :)

The Limping Man - Sir Charles Merivale of the CID is dining with Professor Wells, the well-known scientist and amateur criminologist, at the Hotel Philip when the owner of the establishment takes them into a private room under the pretence of offering them a special port. There, Monsieur Philip explains that one of the hotel's guests, a Mr Abbeymead, an elderly man who has stayed regularly for a number of years, has been found dead. The circumstances of the death are peculiar: it seems the dead man gave himself a dose of morphia strong enough to kill; however, the police surgeon is confident that the cause of death was heart failure. Professor Wells, meanwhile, detects an odd odour emanating from one of the room's three used glasses, and asserts that the real cause of death was poisoning with a substance called Horolain, which mimics the symptoms of heart failure. The morphia, he suggests, may have been injected by the killer after death to confuse the issue further, by indicating suicide. Monsieur Philip tells the police that, a short time before, Mr Abbeymead had given him the details of his solicitor and his heir, to be used "in case of an accident". The investigation of Mr Abbeymead's death is assigned to Inspector Sims, an old friend and colleague of Professor Wells. It is discovered that the reclusive Abbeymead had two visitors on the day of his death, one a young woman called Miss Pamela Greye, the other a stranger in evening clothes, apparently a foreigner, who walked with a limp...

Francis D. Grierson's series featuring Professor Wells and Inspector Sims was popular in its day, but I found this first entry disappointing in several different ways. Most fundamentally, I didn't warm up to its dynamic duo - rather perversely on my part, I suppose; but frankly, I found the relentless bonhomie and elbow-in-the-ribs interaction of the two rather tiresome; as is their constant praise of one another (they twice describe themselves as "members of a mutual admiration society"). The resulting lightness of tone makes it hard to take the central mystery seriously - though the nature of it doesn't help either; more of that anon - or to feel that the central characters are really in danger. Another significant problem with The Limping Man - and please note, the author is a man! - is that is spends far too much time dwelling on the insipid romance of Teddy Fane and Pamela Greye, Mr Abbeymead's nephew and heir, and his ward, respectively. The handling of Pamela is particularly exasperating. Though she is demonstrably much smarter than her good-natured but rather blockheaded fiancé - her deductions are vital in elucidating the mystery - and though at one point she makes a good-will effort to run down the villain with his own car, the three men hover and fuss and fret over her, expecting hysterics and/or emotional breakdowns at every turn---because, you know, she's a girl. (The narrative seems unaware of its own contradictions.) However, perhaps the overriding problem with The Limping Man is its dearth of viable suspects: if the overt villain is not Abbeymead's killer, as we are assured that he is not, then only one person really could be, whatever the motive; and the reader therefore spends quite a stretch of this novel waiting for its "brilliant" investigators to wake up to the obvious.

My final issue with The Limping Man is simply one of personal taste: the central mystery turns out to revolve around a literal treasure hunt, which is not one of my preferred plots. Mr Abbeymead's family, we learn, were in the past not only committed Catholics, but deeply involved with various Jesuit conspiracies at the time of the Reformation. The family estate (also called Abbeymead) was the site of secret Catholic activities, and used to hide a fortune in jewels intended to fund the attempted restoration of the Catholic faith in England. For security's sake, clues to the whereabouts of the jewels were divided between two stamped medals, one of which was retained by the Jesuits, the other entrusted to the head of the Abbeymead family. The latter was retained and passed on over the centuries; but the former was lost or stolen, with it the secret of the jewels' hiding-place. The late Mr Abbeymead, however, learning of this history, devoted much time, effort and money to hunting down the missing medal - but he was not the only one searching for them... As the investigators, professional and amateur, attempt to unravel the ancient mystery, they find themselves under threat from two different sources. A certain Dr Cortinga, well-known to the police as a dangerous individual, makes no secret of his intention of securing the jewels - nor of using whatever means necessary to do it. To the astonishment of Teddy and Pamela, Wells and Sims agree that Cortinga is not the killer of Mr Abbeymead, whose death they believe was the work of the club-footed stranger---the elusive individual who they come to think of as The Limping Man...

    The Professor turned to the two young people and directed their attention to the Inspector. "Now," he said, "you may be able to understand why that man's name is a power in the world of criminology. Mark the difference between us: I observe, but he reasons! No," he went on, as Sims protested, "I am not flattering you, old fellow; I am only treating you as a lay figure with which to illustrate my argument. I happen to know how little time you have yet been able to give to this case and that until this evening you knew nothing of Pamela's story. Yet, by sheer reasoning, you have arrived at a conclusion which I only reached by the aid of much observation and a good deal of information. Sims, I take my metaphorical hat off to you!"
    "Well, metaphorically put it on again," replied the detective, smiling. "I should be sorry to have you catch cold. But come, Professor, you are not going to escape like that. You like to keep your ideas up your sleeve until you have worked out your sum to five places of decimals, and then produce the answer like a conjurer."

Just reading your review of The Limping Man makes me think about how much mysteries have changed over the years. That seems like a very twisted and dated plot.

Hi, Katie! Yes, it's funny - you read some mysteries from the 20s and 30s and the still plots would work if they were given a modern updating, but others are completely of their time. The Limping Man is even old-fashioned for 1924, both for its plot and the handling of its characters.

Finished The Broad Highway for TIOLI #12.

Now reading The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie.

So The Thirteen Problems is short stories? Sounds like that would be a good thing to read during a busy week. You'll have to let me know what you think of it.

These were the first appearances of Miss Marple, but they weren't collected until after the publication of The Murder At The Vicarage. They're fun, if a bit insubstantial. I think they're better than the Poirot short stories, though, because they mostly involve the discussion of something mysterious, rather than trying to be entire mysteries in themselves (if that makes sense).

>196 lyzard: I'm only dashing ahead on the Maigrets because I've got this omnibus edition I'll have to return to the library soon, and I want to finish all 8 stories before I must do so. I plan to finish the last 2 stories for September Series & Sequels. Helps that they are so short. Didn't realise that until this summer. I'm currently listening to one of his non-Maigret stories, The Strangers in the House. I'd had the book for some 20 years, pilfered from my mum's collection, but then I found the library had an audio version with an ensemble cast. It's the unabridged text (I never listen to abridged texts, with very few exceptions), and is treated like a radio drama, with some music scores and sound effects, extremely well done. This will have been the summer of Simenon for me, I guess. After all the years and decades I'd been meaning to read him, only fitting I should have a sort of Simenon festival, no?

As for the sloth exhibit, I'll for sure have my phone/camera with me and will be looking out for photo ops. Hopefully there will be a few individuals close enough to me to offer up good opportunities for Liz thread-fodder!

Of course, what happened to me is that I belatedly realised the first Maigret novel was published in 1931. :)

Most of the Maigrets are available through our library system here, although annoyingly enough not the first few. I picked up an omnibus cheaply to take care of that, only to realise it contains books #1, #2 and #4! {*tears hair*} So I'm currently hunting #3 from another source...

I look forward to you adding to my sloth quotient!

Finished The Thirteen Problems for TIOLI #20.

Now reading The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer.

Finished The Reluctant Widow for TIOLI #19.

Now reading The Amours Of The Sultana Of Barbary by Anonymous.

I have written a blog post about Pamela's Daughters by Robert Palfrey Utter and Gwendolyn Bridges Needham---my 50th book of the year, so just a tad late...

It is here. (I hope this works this time!)

The Case Of Constance Kent - This book came to my attention via a post on The Passing Tramp, a blog specialising in Golden Age mysteries (and the more obscure the better; a blog after my own heart!). Curtis Evans is also the author of Masters Of The 'Humdrum' Mystery, a study that examines the work of several Golden Age mystery authors in an attempt to rehabilitate their reputations in light of the condemnation of their work as "humdrum" by critic Julian Symons. One of the authors discussed is John Rhode (real name, Major Cecil John Street), the author of the long-running mystery series featuring Dr Lancelot Priestley; as "Miles Burton", he wrote a second, almost as lengthy, series featuring private investigator Desmond Merrion. Rhode was also a member of the "Detection Club", an association of mystery writers, and a true crime buff. In 1928, he contributed a volume to the "Famous Trials Series" in which he attempted to get to the bottom of one of the most notorious of all Victorian crimes, the murder of three-year-old Francis Saville Kent - a case best known these days as the basis for Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher. The descriptor "notorious" brings us back to the original point: in his post on The Case Of Constance Kent, Curtis Evans takes exception to the assertion (or assumption) by reviewers of Summerscale's book that the Kent case was a "forgotten" crime, and to the claim (or, again, assumption) that she was the first to write a book about it. In fact, there had already been three full-length studies, one as recent as 1979, not even counting a biased account from 1861 written by a friend of the Kent family; and while Summerscale found a new way of presenting the story, there was little in The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher that broke new ground.

The murder of Francis Saville Kent occurred on the night of 29th June, 1860. The boy was taken from his crib in the bedroom he shared with his nurse. His body was found on the day his disappearance was discovered, pushed down a privy in the garden of his family's house; his throat had been cut, and there was a deep stab wound in his abdomen; there were also certain indications that he may have been smothered into unconsciousness during his presumed abduction. The child's father, Samuel Kent, was unpopular both personally and as a result of his position as factory inspector. It was initially assumed that the boy had been murdered as an act of revenge, but it soon became apparent that someone inside the house must have been, at least, an accomplice to the crime. However, evidence was scant, the Kent family was uncooperative, and the investigation by local law enforcement inadequate to the point of incompetence. The inquest, rather than being adjourned as the jury recommended, was forced to closure under a verdict of "Murder By Person Or Persons Unknown" by the foreman of the jury, a friend of the Kents. More than two weeks after the murder, following repeated attacks on the local police in the press, Scotland Yard's leading detective, Jonathan Whicher, was belatedly dispatched to the scene. Very quickly, his suspicions fell upon sixteen-year-old Constance Kent, the victim's half-sister. Whicher arrested her, possibly hoping that the terror of the experience would provoke a confession, but Constance said little other than to deny the crime. The case against her fell apart on insufficient evidence; she was released, and Whicher returned to London with his career in tatters, to be forced into premature retirement. Local law enforcement went back to trying to pin the crime on Elizabeth Gough, the nursemaid, but no real progress was made in the case until 1865, when out of the blue, Constance Kent confessed...

In The Case Of Constance Kent, John Rhode attempts to untangle this most bewildering of crimes, using official documents and contemporary reports on the case - the comprehensive mismanagement of which is hair-raisingly apparent to anyone with even a superficial knowledge of criminal investigation. Rhode's painstaking analysis highlights an almost incredible series of official blunders, which seem to have resulted partly from sheer incompetence, and partly from the unwillingness of those handling the case to believe that a member of the family - "gentlefolk", after all - could have been responsible; hence the ongoing persecution of the unfortunate Elizabeth Gough, once it was established that someone inside the house must, at the very least, have let the killer in. Rhode also puts remarkable effort into trying to untangle perhaps the most mind-meltingly confusing aspect of the case, the business of Constance Kent's missing nightgown, and the associated mystery of the appearing and disappearing bloodstained garment - which may or may not have been one and the same. (Briefly, if we cut through the obscuring Victorian-ese, it seems that the local police concluded that the stains on the gown were menstrual blood, and the attempt to destroy it had been made out of embarrassment, not guilt. It is entirely unclear how they came to this conclusion, and whether they actually believed it - or whether, as John Rhode concludes, this assertion was an after-the-event attempt to lessen the importance of the garment after, incredibly, it went missing from police custody.) Rhode agrees that the arrest of Constance Kent by Jonathan Whicher was a serious blunder; however, he also makes it clear that in a sense, Whicher had no choice: because the inquest was closed, rather than merely adjourned, the police could only proceed by making an arrest. The inquest itself was another badly mishandled bit of business, with the coroner being quite as intent upon sparing the Kent family as in investigating the crime, and a foreman with a conflict of interest being permitted to over-influence the verdict. (It is clear that the jury itself held grave suspicions of the Kents; early on, Samuel was the popular prime suspect.) Rhode also shows how the doctor who examined the victim's body after its discovery, and drew vital conclusions about how the crime was committed, repeatedly contradicted himself and changed his evidence over the succeeding years.

In spite of the public outrage that greeted Jonathan Whicher's arrest of Constance Kent, he was neither the first nor the last to suspect her; and some of those who did so were very close to home... Significantly, after the Kent family moved away from the property where the murder was committed, Constance was sent away altogether, first to a convent in France, then to an Anglo-Catholic institution in Brighton. It was from here that she finally made her confession: a fact that added yet another distorting aspect to the business, at a time of heightened inter-factional religious dispute, with the suggestion that she had been pressured / lured / tricked into confession by self-interested pseudo-Catholics. Entering a guilty plea to the charge of murder, Constance was automatically condemned to death; although no-one was surprised when her sentence was reduced. She subsequently served twenty years in prison, and upon her release, vanished from the public eye...

The final section of The Case Of Constance Kent examines the confession---which, as John Rhode shows, confuses this case even more, for the reason that the murder could not have happened the way that Constance said it did. The contradictions are numerous, the overriding one being Constance's insistence that she committed the murder with a razor, when it had been definitively proven that the stab-wound in the boy's body could not have been inflicted with a razor. However, because Constance confessed, and because she pleaded guilty, there was no proper re-examination of the case, even though everyone familiar with its details saw that the confession did not describe the crime as committed. In weighing the evidence, such as it is, John Rhode finally draws a conclusion which, I believe, every analyst of this case since has also done: that Constance's brother, the then-fifteen-year-old William, was involved in the murder, either as her accomplice or as the main perpetrator; and that her confession was framed to protect him. Reading over Rhode's account of the case, it seems incredible to me that of the entire household, family and servants, William was the least questioned; in fact, after giving a fairly superficial account of his movements on the night of the crime during the first inquest, he was never questioned again. The motive suggested for Constance was adolescent jealousy and an obscure kind of revenge against her step-mother (the latter of which Constance herself asserted in her confession). How much more credible a motive is this for William, the displaced eldest son, whose tactless parents evidently made no secret of their preference for his young half-brother?

    The rumours mentioned by the reporter of the Journal were of the wildest character. From the very moment that the news became known, two schools of opinion arose---those who believed the crime had been committed by one of the inmates of the house, and those who, influenced by previous undetected crimes, favoured the theory of some extraneous criminal. The object upon which the attentions of the first school were focussed was Mr Kent, though what his motive for murdering his infant sone could be no-one was prepared to say. His actions after the discovery of the crime came in, as will be seen, for a good deal of criticism, and the ugliest insinuations were made against him.
    But perhaps the most significant phrase in the above account is the expression "consternation reigned supreme". It did indeed. Here was a problem of which the solution depended upon a minute and scientific examination of the house and its immediate surroundings, the drawing-room door, shutter and window, the space between this window and the closet in the garden. Yet, long before Superintendent Foley of Trowbridge reached the spot, the whole place had been overrun by "servants and volunteer assistants", while the only available policeman, presumably the local constable at Road, had apparently been "despatched into Frome". By Sunday evening, when the small army of local investigators was complete, the whole countryside had poured through the premises in an overwhelming flood. It is hardly a matter for astonishment that "no satisfactory evidence was obtained as to this most mysterious and apparently inexplicable tragedy."

There is a coda to the story of Constance Kent, also highlighted at The Passing Tramp. I said up above that after her release from prison, Constance "vanished from the public eye"; at the conclusion of The Case Of Constance Kent, John Rhode suggests that she died shortly after her release. The truth about her fate came to light as a consequence of the publication of Rhode's book, in the wake of which he received a letter from Sydney, Australia, written by a woman who claimed to be a friend of Constance who, she added, had died. The letter put the blame for the murder upon the cruel treatment by the second Mrs Kent of the children of her husband's first marriage, and also took strong exception to the suggestion, made by John Rhode, that the first Mrs Kent was mentally ill. (It seems that in fact she had contracted syphilis from her philandering husband.)

John Rhode suspected that this letter by the mysterious "friend" was written by Constance herself, but he died before he was able to pursue the matter. The question was later taken up by Bernard Taylor, author of Cruelly Murdered: Constance Kent And The Killing At Road Hill House, who established that after her release from prison, aged only forty-one, Constance had indeed emigrated to Australia.

Significantly, given the conclusions often drawn about the Kent case, in emigrating Constance joined her brother William, who had settled in Tasmania many years before---also separating himself from his family. Changing her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye, Constance trained as a nurse, moving from Tasmania to Melbourne and from there to Sydney. For the last twenty years of her working life she was matron of a nursing home in East Maitland, in the Newcastle district. The final years of her life were spent in a private hospital in Sydney, where she died in 1944 - aged one hundred years, two months.

Interesting stuff! Is that where Wilkie Collins got the idea for the missing nightgown in The Moonstone?

Hi, Carrie.

YES!! And the incompetent Superintendent Seegrave in the novel is a sketch of the real-life incompetent Superintendent Foley, while the shrewd but ultimately unsuccessful Sergeant Cuff is a sketch of Inspector Whicher. The assumption that a servant must be responsible, rather than any of the "nice" people, also echoes the case. Victorian readers would have picked up on all of this immediately.

Finished The Amours Of The Sultana Of Barbary for TIOLI #5. (Ugh! That was a struggle!)

Now reading Carrie by Stephen King.

>193 lyzard: Enjoyed your review of Le Charretier de 'La Providence' , Liz.

"even at this early point in the series, the constant teeming rain seems an inseparable part of Maigret's professional life." Yes, I can't imagine Maigret investigating anything in glorious sunshine! :-)

>208 lyzard: Very interesting review of The Case of Constance Kent, Liz. It's been too long since I read the Summerscale book to remember if she claimed this was a forgotten crime. The John Rhodes book sounds really interesting.

>212 lyzard:. "Now reading Carrie by Stephen King." *shudders*

Finally caught up on your blog and really enjoyed your post on Pamela's Daughters - it sounds amazing.

"Almost immediately, however, the project got out of hand." Ha! That never happens to us....

"Utter and Needham then briefly outline the changing position of women over the course of the 18th century, during which time, due to increasing industrialisation and its consequent financial and social alterations, women were progressively stripped of their autonomy, rendered entirely financially dependent, and even relieved of their domestic duties"

Interesting. I think Amanda Vickery's The Gentleman's Daughter was a revisionist history arguing that in fact this didn't happen. Although I really enjoyed the Vickery book I don't think I followed the argument well enough to be able to say I agreed with her.

Sadly it seems quite hard to find. I can get a used copy for about £6 online (including shipping) (all other copies are about £15). It sounds worth it - is it?

Hi, Heather!

>213 souloftherose:

We can look out for glorious sunshine together!

No, I don't think it was suggested that Kate Summerscale claimed the Kent case was a forgotten crime; rather, the critics who praised her book treated it as if no-one had written about the Kent case previously, which of course is quite wrong.

I find Carrie profoundly sad as much as horrifying.

>214 souloftherose:

I don't think the two books are addressing the same social strata. Needham and Bridges were describing the shift from a self-employed, artisan-based manufacturing economy to a bulk-production, employer / employee-based system, which effectively "created" the middle classes, who were not at the time considered "ladies" and "gentlemen". The really drastic change in women's status happened at that level; as always there was more freedom (relatively speaking) for upper-class women.

I enjoyed Pamela's Daughters very much, but then it spoke to my passion for obscure and forgotten literature. No chance of a library copy? I'm always reluctant to encourage people to buy books - too much responsibility! :)

Only nine months late...

At the beginning of this year (or rather, late 2013 when I entered "Plans for the New Year, which will be totally different from the Old Year!" mode), I decided that I needed to do something about a lack of headway in reading the output of the Virago Press. As always, the question of where to start was fairly paralysing; and also as always, I eventually concluded that the best way to proceed was "in order"---that is, chronologically by original publication date.

Well...for a variety of reasons the project failed to get off the ground until now, but we may finally have lift off. I am delighted to report that Heather will be joining me Aphra Behn's Love-Letters Between A Nobleman And His Sister - which we will probably do as a tutored read, since although the book is a roman à clef about a contemporary sex scandal, it is deeply embedded in the history and politics of its time.

The read will probably be starting in about a fortnight, and anyone who would like to tag along would be more than welcome!

Finished Carrie for TIOLI #11.

Now reading The Gods Arrive by Edith Wharton.

Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister sounds interesting. I'm assuming it's an epistolary novel. I'm thinking I probably won't be able to join you in the tutored read though. I haven't read any of the Virago books knowingly, but they always sound good.

As for Miss Marple/Poiroit, I've never been interested in Poiroit. Kind of weird. I just didn't take to his character although I know I've given him a chance a few times. Not even in TV versions. Miss Marple though, she's a cool lady.

Love-Letters is actually three short novels on the same theme bundled together. However, the first volume is an epistolary novel, and in fact was probably the first true epistolary novel.

Aww, poor Hercule! Even Agatha felt she gone a bit too far in loading him with quirks, so perhaps that's why? He does appear in some excellent mysteries, however.

>217 lyzard: Liz, I read Carrie yonks ago and I was more frightened of the mother than Carrie. Given everything she went through, it's quite understandable why she went round the bend with so much angry energy spilling over everything. I've no desire to read it again, but do find it interesting that it's stuck with me all these years.

Hi, Steph!

Oh, absolutely - I think it's a book you don't forget, particularly if you first read it as a teenager. The ending, with a dying Carrie crying for the mother she's just killed, is terribly sad.

Finished The Gods Arrive for TIOLI #7.

Now reading Episode Of The Wandering Knife by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Finished Episode Of The Wandering Knife for TIOLI #19---and with that I have COMPLETED A SERIES!!!!---though apparently I remain constitutionally incapable of completing one of more than five books...

Now reading The Merriweather Girls And The Mystery Of The Queen's Fan by Lizette Edholm.

Finished The Merriweather Girls And The Mystery Of The Queen's Fan for TIOLI #14.

Now reading The Just Men Of Cordova by Edgar Wallace.

>215 lyzard: Good point about the difference in social classes between the Vickery and Pamela's Daughters.

Sadly no copies available in any of my local libraries. I could put in an ILL request which would probably be cheaper than buying it...

>223 lyzard: Woo hoo! Although it looks like you finished one only to start another straight away :-)

Hi, Heather!

Good luck with Pamela's Daughters.

Heh, yes, sadly I've reached the point of telling myself that since I've finished a series of five books and started one of four books, I'm ahead on the deal. :)

I was reading the unfinished review list on your thread, which made me feel a bit better in a Schadenfreude-ish sort of way. Mid-September, and like you I'm still trying to wrap up July! The two outstanding there aren't even particularly "hard", I can't can't seem to knuckle down to them...or convince myself to move on. I'm owed some time off and may get it from this weekend onwards. If so, I know where a large percentage of it will be going!

Speaking of which, I don't think I will have a chance to set up the thread for Love-Letters Between A Nobleman And His Sister before the weekend. I don't know if you've seen the Virago thread, but as well as Ilana we will have Laura and Belva joining us. I'm not quite sure how it's going to go - 17th century prose is a bit of an acquired taste. :)

Finished The Just Men Of Cordova for TIOLI #10.

Now reading As We Were: A Victorian Peep-Show by E. F. Benson.

>226 lyzard: That's fine re Love Letters. I think Laura has started reading but is going to pause until we start so she can read along with us. One thing I was thinking might be more difficult with this tutored read is the letters aren't numbered or dated but we could use page numbers and the first sentence/phrase of the letter.

That's the trouble with something being "the first" - there are no conventions for it to follow!

I think we'll have to play it very much by ear. How fast we move will depend upon how people cope with the 17th century prose, which can be pretty inpenetrable at times, though I find it's something you get into a rhythm with.

I will set the thread up tomorrow morning through the Virago Group, I think. I will drop a note on your thread when we're ready to go.

And the thread for the tutored read of Love-Letters Between A Nobleman And His Sister is now up!

It is here.

Anyone who is interested in reading along or just lurking is very welcome to join us.

Finished As We Were: A Victorian Peep-Show for TIOLI #13.

Now reading M. Gallet Décédé by Georges Simenon.

Voices From The Dust - This 1932 publication by Jeffery Farnol is rather a strange book. Rather than one of the straight historical romances for which Farnol was best known, Voices From The Dust is a series of short stories set across the history of England, from the Roman occupation to the 1930s. Recurring throughout the tales are two related but antagonistic families, and at the heart of each is a love triangle; sometimes the central love affair ends happily, and sometimes it ends tragically. Peculiarly, there is the suggestion that the lovers and the interloping rival are, in some way, the same people---either literally, through reincarnation, or through carrying a kind of "race memory"; either way, they tend to recognise each other from fragments of their dreams, and are fated to play out their predetermined roles. I'm still not sure how I feel about this conceit: on one hand I found it a bit annoying; but on the other, I suspect I would have found it even more annoying if it was supposed to be a different stunningly beautiful woman and dashingly handsome man at the heart of each story.

The opening story of Voices From The Dust, then, involves a secret love affair between Fraya, a princess of the Britons, and Julius Octavius Metellus, a centurion of the occupying force. Metellus is hated by Bran, son of the King of the Regni, both for his own qualities and because Bran, too, loves his cousin Fraya. When Metellus is injured in battle and captured, Bran plans a long-delayed revenge, persuading his father to agree to a bloody public sacrifice rather than the honourable execution Metellus' status deserves. Before his doom can be carried out, however, Fraya frees Metellus. The two flee together, only for Fraya to be struck down on the verge of safety by a javelin hurled by Bran. Many years later, Bran, the last British king, is brought before Metellus as a captive, and condemned to the very sacrifice he intended for his rival... As Fraya dies in Metallus' arms, the two swear eternal fidelity, a love that will last through the ages. So it does, generation by generation, through the descendants of the remnants of their respective families, through the battles between Saxon and Norman, York and Lancaster, royalist and rebel, Catholic and Protestant, as the history of England unfurls about them...

After opening with the Roman occupation, the stories in Voices From The Dust wander through the centuries, in particular showing the settlement of London growing into a great and thriving city, the playground of kings and lords. The settings of the stories offer the reader glimpses into the history of the London Stone, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London; of London Bridge and the river that winds beneath it. we hear of the founding of St Bartholomew's, the execution of Charles I, of London's devastating plague, and of duels in Hyde Park. Always foregrounded, however, are the men and women who recognise each other across the ages, and the furious, murderous rival who threatens their love... After all this history and pageantry, passion and violence, Voices From The Dust closes with a wry smile: the final story involves two last lovers recognising one another across time, but by now the streets of London are filled with young men and women on their way to golf and tennis, and the peril from which our final heroine must be rescued is a car that chooses to break down in the middle of Mayfair; while the threat of violence from a rival has dwindled to a glare through a monocle. We get the impression that, descendants of warriors and heroes though they might be, Jeffery Farnol found the current generation pretty weak tea.

    Fast they rode across an open mead, through rustling wood, by forest glades, plunging deep and ever deeper into the leafy wilderness; yet here, dark though it was, Fraya's white hand directed their going. Even so needs must he stoop oft-times to kiss her eyes, her cheek, her silky hair, murmuring words of adoration and vows of deathless love, until, what with the wonder of their young passion and the glamour of this midsummer night, they clean forgot their peril.
    "Wilt thou love me always?" she pleaded. "Wilt honour me though I am a Briton?"
    "To the end of my life, ay, and beyond!" he vowed. "O my Fraya, to the end of time itself..."

The Deductions Of Colonel Gore - Colonel Wickham Gore, ex-army and newly returned to England after an expedition into Central Africa - and a minor celebrity due to the resulting documentary - is invited to the home of Barbara Melhuish, the former Barbara Letchworth - "Pickles" to her friends - for whom he has been silently carrying a torch since her dazzling debut some twelve years earlier. A quiet but observant man, Gore soon sees that there is trouble of some sort in the Melhuish marriage; to his horror, an overheard conversation suggests that Barbara is not only having an affair with a friend's husband, but doing so almost under her own husband's nose. It is with a mixture of relief and dismay that Gore hears Barbara's subsequent confession that the man in question is not her lover, but her blackmailer: she was involved with him some time back, and he holds letters that would destroy her marriage should her husband see them. Barbara begs Gore to see Cyril Barrington for her and see if some closure cannot be negotiated; Gore is doubtful, but agrees to try. However, all action is forestalled with the shocking discovery of Barrington's body, slumped in his car outside of the Melhuishes' house. Dr Melhuish, who has been treating Barrington, examines the body and announces that the cause of death was heart failure. Gore, a witness to these events, finds himself certain of two things: that Barrington did not die a natural death, and that Melhuish knows very well that he did not...

The first entry in the series featuring Colonel Gore by "Lynn Brock" (Alister McAllister) is an odd but interesting mystery - chiefly for the way in which it plays with the conventions of its genre. In stark contrast to the many mysteries in which the amateur detective shows up the professional, in The Deductions Of Colonel Gore we have an amateur detective who is truly an amateur, to the extent of not being a detective at all for much of the story; and even when he accepts the role, his missteps and misapprehensions are frequent - if never repeated. Wickham Gore's one real interest in the Barrington case is the safety of Barbara Melhuish - even if he has to make himself accessory to murder to ensure that safety - and in pursuit of that end, he becomes so deeply enmeshed in the case that he simply has to know the truth; whether or not he ever makes that truth public... The other interesting thing about this novel is its early switch in perspective. Abruptly the narrative moves into the consciousness of the introverted yet passionate Sidney Melhuish: his fear that Barbara is having an affair; his discovery that she is being blackmailed. He is even a silent witness to her attempt upon Barrington's life... Consequently, during the early stages of Colonel Gore's investigation - which at that point can't really be called "an investigation" - the reader knows a great deal more about what is really going on than the putative detective.

In fact, fate seems determined to involve Colonel Gore in the death of Barrington. Gore's wedding present to Barbara, which decorates her hall, was a set of African war shields, spears and knives, the latter still carrying a coating of poison. It is with one of these knives that Barbara impulsively strikes at Barrington when he goads her too far; evading the blow, he disarms her, carrying away both knife and sheath. Gore himself finds the sheath in a nearby park, but of the knife there is no sign. There is, however, a cut on the body of the man who supposedly died of "heart failure"... Between Barrington's blackmailing activities, Barbara's admission of her attempt on his life, and Melhuish's apparent cover-up of the cause of death - however motivated - Gore realises that finding the real killer will be no easy task. He identifies a local businessman, Cecil Arndale, as another likely blackmail victim, and also discovers that Mrs Arndale's young brother, Bertie Challoner, was having an affair with Mrs Barrington - whose husband was in the habit of beating her. Then a second blackmailer, Richard Frensham, appears, having "inherited" Barrington's business. He is later found dead at the bottom of a quarry - but the cause of death was not the fall, but stab-wounds. With this second death, the case assumes a new urgency for Colonel Gore, and not just because of the involvement of the Melhuishes. Between his original ownership of the poisoned knife, his efforts to trace Barrington's movements on the night of his death, and his public confrontation with Frensham, Gore has managed to place himself at the top of the local police's list of suspects...

If there was one thing of which he was certain with regard to this most infernal mess in which Pickles had involved herself, it was that her husband had, for his own reasons, deliberately lied to him when he had said that the scratch on Barrington's hand possessed no significance. Of that Gore had no doubt whatsoever. If ever a man's eyes had said, I am lying, and you know I am lying, and I know that you know it," Melhuish's eyes had said so then. Why had he lied? What reason could induce any medical man in his senses to do such a thing wilfully---to burke wilfully the real cause of a man's death---to risk wilfully exposure, the loss of his reputation, of his professional honour, of his profession itself---if not a criminal prosecution and its penalty? Common sense answered inevitably: to save himself or someone else from a worse danger? And from that it was but a single step to the unavoidable conclusion...

...and that, finally, takes care of July:

July stats:

Works read: 7*
TIOLI: 7 in 7 different challenges, two shared reads

(Worst reading month in 4 years!)

Mystery / thriller: 4
Classic: 2
Historical romance: 1

Series works: 3
1932: 2

Owned: 6
Ebook: 1

Male : female authors: 6 : 1

Oldest work: The Mysterious Wife by "Gabrielli" (1797)
Newest work: Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow (1932) / Voices From The Dust by Jeffery Farnol (1932)

I do realise, by the way, that it isn't really fair to punish the rest of you for my slackness in getting my reviews done. That is, by inducing---SLOTH WITHDRAWAL!!!!

:-D :-D :-D

That's for the sloth content.

And also for your finally getting to Monsieur Gallet Décédé. Il était temps!

Finished M. Gallet Décédé for TIOLI #10...and I'd been doing such a good job slotting books into different challenges up until then, sigh!

Now reading The Secret Of Bogey House by Herbert Adams.

Ah, yes...the old "set up a new thread in the hope it will inspire you to write some reviews" trick!