lyzard's list: worshipping obscurity in 2017 - Part 4

South Australia too is a place of striking contrasts, from its beaches to its vineyards to its desert; but perhaps it is most notable for its striking rock formations. On the left is a section of the Bunda Cliffs, the world's longest stretch of uninterrupted sea cliffs, which extend over 100 km from the north-west section of the Great Australian Bight into Western Australia. On the right is Wilpena Pound, a 1000 metre-high natural amphitheatre located in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park some 400 km north of Adelaide.

  

"When we really worship anything, we love not only its clearness but its obscurity."
---G. K. Chesterton (I'm pretty sure he was talking about books...)

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Currently reading:



The Beautiful Wretch by William Black (1881)



Someone Like You by Roald Dahl (1961)

2017 reading

January:

1. Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau (1839)
2. The Case Of The Black Twenty-Two by Brian Flynn (1928)
3. Forgive Us Our Trespasses by Lloyd C. Douglas (1932)
4. The Man Who Fell Through The Earth by Carolyn Wells (1919)
5. Elsie's Motherhood by Martha Finley (1876)
6. Hatter's Castle by A. J. Cronin (1931)
7. Colonel Gore's Third Case by Lynn Brock (1927)
8. The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1916)
9. Mrs Tim Flies Home by D. E. Stevenson (1952)
10. Summerhills by D. E. Stevenson (1956)
11. Red Pepper's Patients by Grace S. Richmond (1917)
12. Penelope's English Experiences by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1893)
13. Madeline; or, Love, Treachery And Revenge by James Summerfield Slaughter (1859)
14. The Merriweather Girls At Good Old Rockhill by Lizette M. Edholm (1932)
15. 1815: Regency Britain In The Year Of Waterloo by Stephen Bates (2015)
16. Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer (1968)
17. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie (1940)
18. Mr Pottermack's Oversight by R. Austin Freeman (1930)
19. The Linger-Nots And The Mystery House; or, The Story Of Nine Adventurous Girls by Agnes Miller (1923)

February:

20. The Riddle Of The Mysterious Light by Mary E. Hanshew and Hazel Phillips Hanshew (1921)
21. The Man Without A Face by Clifton Robbins (1932)
22. The Barrakee Mystery by Arthur W. Upfield (1929)
23. More Tales Of The Unexpected by Roald Dahl (1980)
24. Wind In His Fists by Phyllis Bottome (1931)
25. Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat by Ernest Bramah (1928)
26. The Devil's Highway by Harold Bell Wright and John Lebar (1932)
27. The Ellerby Case by John Rhode (1927)
28. Gentlemen Of Crime by Arthur Gask (1932)
29. The Man Of The Forest by Zane Grey (1920)
30. Sons by Pearl S. Buck (1932)
31. Mr Fortune, Please by H. C. Bailey (1927)
32. Death At Four Corners by Anthony Gilbert (1929)
33. Evil Under The Sun by Agatha Christie (1941)
34. Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer (1970)

March:

35. The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope (1880)
36. Feathers Left Around by Carolyn Wells (1923)
37. Flying Clues by Charles J. Dutton (1927)
38. Murder On The Palisades by Will Levinrew (1930)
39. The Greene Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine (1928)
40. One Wonderful Night by Louis Tracy (1912)
41. Lost Man's Lane by Anna Katharine Green (1898)
42. The Linger-Nots And The Valley Feud; or, The Great West Point Chain by Agnes Miller (1923)
43. Ruth Fielding Down In Dixie; or, Great Times In The Land Of Cotton by Alice B. Emerson (1916)
44. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (1920)
45. The Hermit In Van Diemen's Land by Henry Savery (1830)
46. This House Of Grief: The Story Of A Murder Trial by Helen Garner (2014)
47. The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay (1918)
48. Arresting Delia by Sydney Fowler (1933)
49. Dr Nikola by Guy Newell Boothby (1895)
50. N or M? by Agatha Christie (1941)
51. Lady Of Quality by Georgette Heyer (1972)
52. Daylight Murder by Paul McGuire (1934)
53. The Bartlett Mystery by Louis Tracy (1919)

2017 reading

April - June:

54. The House Of Discord by Hazel Phillips Hanshew (1922)
55. Death At The Opera by Gladys Mitchell (1934)
56. Danger Point by Patricia Wentworth (1941)
57. None Of My Business by David Sharp (1931)
58. The Tragedy Of Z by Barnaby Ross (1933)
59. The Zoo Murder by Francis D. Grierson (1926)
60. If Winter Comes by A. S. M. Hutchinson (1921)
61. Elsie's Children by Martha Finley (1877)
62. The Linger-Nots And Their Golden Quest; or, The Log Of The Ocean Monarch by Agnes Miller (1923)
63. The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace (1926)
64. Again The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace (1928)
65. Ruth Fielding At College; or, The Missing Examination Papers by Alice B. Emerson (1917)
66. The Dangerous Dandy by Barbara Cartland (1974)
67. Graustark: The Story Of A Love Behind A Throne by George Barr McCutcheon (1901)
68. Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers (1933)
69. Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode (1930)
70. The Clutching Hand by Charles J. Dutton (1928)
71. The Body In The Library by Agatha Christie (1942)
72. The Mysteries Of London; or, Revelations Of The British Metropolis by Paul Féval (1847)
73. The Mystery Of The Cape Cod Players by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1933)
74. The 'Z' Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1932)
75. The Holy War by John Bunyan (1682)

May:

76. Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury (1845)
77. Patty's Friends by Carolyn Wells (1908)
78. Peregrine's Progress; or, Diana Of The Dawn by Jeffery Farnol (1922)
79. Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green (1899)
80. Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton (1923)
81. Ruth Fielding In The Saddle; or, College Girls In The Land Of Gold by Alice B. Emerson (1917)
82. Red And Black by Grace S. Richmond (1919)
83. The Bunch Of Violets by Ernest Bramah (1924)
84. Ma Cinderella by Harold Bell Wright (1932)
85. Max Carrados Mysteries by Ernest Bramah (1927)

Books in transit:

On interlibrary loan / branch transfer / storage request:

Purchased and shipped:
Streaked With Crimson by Charles J. Dutton

On loan:
The Chinese Shawl by Patricia Wentworth (24/05/2017)
**Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers (06/07/2017)
Burglars In Bucks by G. D. H. & M. Cole (06/07/2017)
The Way Beyond by Jeffery Farnol (06/07/2017)
The Madwoman In The Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (06/07/2017)
Murder Gone Mad by Philip MacDonald (06/07/2017)
The Mad Monk by R. T. M. Scott (06/07/2017)
Julia de Roubigne by Henry Mackenzie (06/07/2017)

Reading projects 2017:

Blog reads:
Chronobibliography: Gallantry Unmask'd; or, Women In Their Proper Colours by Anonymous
Authors In Depth:
- The Mother-In-Law by E. D. E. N. Southworth
- The Captain Of The Vulture by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- The Sicilian by 'the author of The Mysterious Wife'
- Family Pictures by Susannah and Margaret Minifie
- The Old Engagement by Julia Day
- The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope
Reading Roulette: Had You Been In His Place by Lizzie Bates
Australian fiction: Louisa Egerton by Mary Leman Grimstone
Gothic novel timeline: Julia De Roubigné by Henry Mackenzie
Early crime fiction: The Mysteries Of London; or, Revelations Of The British Metropolis by Paul Feval / The Mysteries Of London by G. W. M. Reynolds
Related reading: Gains And Losses by Robert Lee Wollf / G. W. M. Reynolds: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Politics, And The Press by Anne Humpherys and Louis James (eds.)

Group / tutored reads:

Completed: Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau (thread here)
Completed: The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope (thread here)

Now: Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury (thread here)

General reading challenges:

America's best-selling novels (1895 - ????):
Next up: So Big by Edna Ferber

Virago chronological reading project:
Next up: Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury

Agatha Christie mysteries in chronological order:
Next up: Five Little Pigs

C.K. Shorter List of Best 100 Novels:
Next up: Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain René Le Sage

Mystery League publications:
Next up: The Hand Of Power

The evolution of detective fiction:
Next up: The Mysteries Of London by G. W. M. Reynolds

Random reading 1940 - 1969:
Next up: The Taking Men by Anne Hepple / Before The Crossing by Storm Jameson

Potential decommission:
Next up: Someone Like You by Roald Dahl

Completed:
Georgette Heyer historical romances in chronological order

Possible future reading projects:
- Nobel Prize winners who won for fiction
- Daily Telegraph's 100 Best Novels, 1899
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- Berkeley "Books Of The Century"
- Collins White Circle Crime Club / Green Penguins
- Dell paperbacks
- "El Mundo" 100 best novels of the twentieth century
- 100 Best Books by American Women During the Past 100 Years, 1833-1933
- 50 Classics of Crime Fiction 1900–1950 (Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor)

A Century Of Reading:

One of the projects around the threads that I've looked at wistfully from time to time - because, you know, I just don't have enough reading projects - is the "Century Of Reading", an attempt to read one book from each year of a given century. I've finally decided to undertake this, with my century of choice being the 19th. My hope is to get at least one book a month read, tying in with other challenges and my blog reading where possible.

In order to avoid completely intimidating myself at the outset, I am not going to add in a 100-year-long date list full of empty slots. Rather, I will build the list as I go. Watch this space! :)

...and hopefully the Century Of Reading will help me to get this sadly neglected challenge back up and running:

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 (1841, 1842, 1845)

Serials:
The Mysteries Of Paris by Eugene Sue (1842 - 1843)
The Mysteries Of London - Paul Feval (1844) (Internet Archive, R. Stephenson)
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)
Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective by Arthur B. Reeve (1913)

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

Series and sequels, 1866 - 1919:

(1866 - 1876) **Emile Gaboriau - Monsieur Lecoq - The Widow Lerouge (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1867 - 1905) **Martha Finley - Elsie Dinsmore - Elsie's Widowhood (7/28) {Project Gutenberg}
(1867 - 1872) **George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - Annals Of A Quiet Neighbourhood (1/3) {ManyBooks}
(1878 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Ebenezer Gryce - The Circular Study (10/12) {Project Gutenberg}
(1896 - 1909) **Melville Davisson Post - Randolph Mason - The Corrector Of Destinies (3/3) {Internet Archive}
(1893 - 1915) **Kate Douglas Wiggins - Penelope - Penelope's Progress (2/4) {Project Gutenberg}
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - The Lust Of Hate (3/5) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - The Circular Study (3/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1899 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Caleb Sweetwater - The Circular Study (2/6) {Project Gutenberg}
(1899 - 1909) **E. W. Hornung - Raffles - The Black Mask (aka Raffles: Further Adventures Of The Amateur Cracksman) (2/4) {Project Gutenberg}
(1900 - 1974) *Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - The Moon Of Much Gladness (4/6) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}

(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty's Pleasure Trip (7/17) {HathiTrust / Kindle}
(1901 - 1927) **George Barr McCutcheon - Graustark - Beverly Of Graustark (2/6) {Project Gutenberg}
(1903 - 1904) **Louis Tracy - Reginald Brett - The Albert Gate Mystery (2/2) {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 - Again The Three Just Men (6/6) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1906 - 1930) **John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - Awakening (4/11) {Project Gutenberg}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1907 - 1942) *R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - Pontifex, Son And Thorndyke (18/26) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1907 - 1941) *Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin - The Hollow Needle (3/21) {ManyBooks}
(1908 - 1924) **Margaret Penrose - Dorothy Dale - Dorothy Dale: A Girl Of Today (1/13) {ManyBooks}
(1909 - 1942) *Carolyn Wells - Fleming Stone - Spooky Hollow (15/49) {Kindle}
(1909 - 1929) *J. S. Fletcher - Inspector Skarratt - Marchester Royal (1/3) {Kindle}
(1909 - 1912) **Emerson Hough - Western Trilogy - 54-40 Or Fight (1/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1936) *Arthur B. Reeve - Craig Kennedy - The Treasure-Train (6/11) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - The House In Lordship Lane (7/7) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1910 - ????) *Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/?) {Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Joker (3/6?) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - ????) *Thomas, Mary and Hazel Hanshew - Cleek - The Amber Junk (9/12) {AbeBooks}
(1910 - 1918) **John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Special Detective (3/4) {HathiTrust}
(1910 - 1931) *Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Of The Redfields (5/6) {HathiTrust / Internet Archive}
(1910 - ????) *Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - The Way Beyond (3/?) {Fisher Library storage}

(1911 - 1935) G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown - The Scandal Of Father Brown (5/5) {branch transfer}
(1911 - 1937) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Letitia Carberry - Tish Marches On (5/5) {Kindle}
(1911 - 1919) **Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong - Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout (5/5) {Project Gutenberg}
(1911 - 1940) *Bertram Atkey - Smiler Bunn - The Amazing Mr Bunn (1/10) {AbeBooks}
(1912 - 1919) **Gordon Holmes (Louis Tracy) - Steingall and Clancy - The Bartlett Mystery (3/3) {ManyBooks}
(1913 - 1928) **Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - The Strange Case Of Mortimer Fenley (2/9) {ManyBooks}
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding In The Red Cross (13/30) {Project Gutenberg}
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu-Manchu - The Bride Of Fu-Manchu (6/14) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1913 - 1952) *Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - The Loring Mystery (3/9) {Project Gutenberg Canada / mobilereads / Rare Books}
(1914 - 1950) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Hilda Adams - Episode Of The Wandering Knife (5/5) Better World Books}
(1914 - 1934) *Ernest Bramah - Max Carrados - The Bravo Of London (5/5) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(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 / branch transfer / Kindle}
(1915 - 1923) **Booth Tarkington - Growth - The Magnificent Ambersons (2/3) {Project Gutenberg / Fisher Library / Kindle}
(1916 - 1917) **Carolyn Wells - Alan Ford - Faulkner's Folly (2/2) {owned}
(1916 - 1927) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Inspector Mitchell - The Nameless Man (2/10) {AbeBooks}
(1916 - 1917) **Nevil Monroe Hopkins - Mason Brant - The Strange Cases Of Mason Brant (1/2) {Coachwhip Books}
(1917 - 1929) **Henry Handel Richardson - Dr Richard Mahony - Australia Felix (1/3) {Fisher Library / Kindle}
(1918 - 1923) **Carolyn Wells - Pennington Wise - In The Onyx Lobby (3/8) {Project Gutenberg}
(1918 - ????) *Valentine Williams - Okewood / Clubfoot - Clubfoot The Avenger (4/?) {AbeBooks}
(1919 - 1966) *Lee Thayer - Peter Clancy - The Key (6/60) {expensive / Rare Books}
(1919 - 1921) **Octavus Roy Cohen - David Carroll - The Crimson Alibi (1/3) {Rare Books / HathiTrust}

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

Series and sequels, 1920 - 1927:

(1920 - 1939) E. F. Benson - Mapp And Lucia - Trouble For Lucia (6/6) {interlibrary loan}
(1920 - 1948) *H. C. Bailey - Reggie Fortune - Mr Fortune Speaking (5/23) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(1920 - 1949) William McFee - Spenlove - The Beachcomber - (3/6) {owned}
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - Five Little Pigs (23/39) {owned}
(1920 - 1921) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Ferguson - The Unseen Ear (2/2) {HathiTrust}
(1920 - 1937) *H. C. McNeile - Bulldog Drummond - Bull-Dog Drummond (1/10 - series continued) {Project Gutenberg / Fisher storage}

(1921 - 1929) **Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley - Streaked With Crimson (9/9) {ordered}
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - Gray Terror (3/5) {Amazon}

(1922 - 1973) Agatha Christie - Tommy and Tuppence - By The Pricking Of My Thumbs (4/5) {owned}
(1922 - 1927) *Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne - The Seventh Passenger (4/5) {Amazon}
(1922 - 1931) *Valentine Williams - Inspector Manderton - The Orange Divan (2/4) {AbeBooks}

(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - The Nine Tailors (11/15) {Fisher Library / branch transfer}
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2) {eBay}
(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Whispering Charm (4/5) {owned}
(1923 - 1927) **Annie Haynes - Inspector Furnival - The Abbey Court Murder (1/3) {Kindle}

(1924 - 1959) Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - Persons Unknown (aka "The Maze") (5/24) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held / Kindle / interlibrary loan}
(1924 - 1957) *Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - Inspector French And The Starvel Tragedy (3/30) {academic loan / State Library NSW, Rare Books / Rare Books / Kindle upcoming}
(1924 - 1935) * / ***Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - The Smiling Death (6/13) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - The Slip-Carriage Mystery (4/12) {Kindle}
(1924 - 1933) *Herbert Adams - Jimmie Haswell - The Crooked Lip (2/9) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1944) *A. Fielding - Inspector Pointer - The Charteris Mystery (2/23) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / Kindle, Resurrected Press}
(1924 - 1928) **Ford Madox Ford - Parade's End - No More Parades (2/4) {ebook}

(1925 - 1961) ***John Rhode - Dr Priestley - Death In The Hopfields (25/72) {HathiTrust / State Library NSW, held}
(1925 - 1953) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Superintendent Wilson - The Murder At Crome House (4/?) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
(1925 - 1937) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - Madame Storey (2/10) {mobilereads / Project Gutenberg Canada}
(1925 - 1932) *Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - The Chinese Parrot (2/6) {feedbooks}
(1925 - 1944) *Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Towards Zero (5/5) {owned}
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Second Shot (5/10) {academic loan / Rare Books}
(1925 - 1950) *Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) - Dr Eustace Hailey - The Double-Thirteen Mystery (2/27) (aka "The Double Thirteen") {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1925 - 1939) *Charles Barry (Charles Bryson) - Inspector Lawrence Gilmartin - The Smaller Penny (1/15) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1925 - 1929) **Will Scott - Will Disher - Disher--Detective (aka "The Black Stamp") (1/3) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1925 - 1927) **Francis Beeding - Professor Kreutzemark - The Seven Sleepers (1/2) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}

(1926 - 1968) * / ***Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers - Murder At Fenwold (3/63) {Rare Books}
(1926 - 1939) *S. S. Van Dine - Philo Vance - The Bishop Murder Case (4/12) {Rare Books}
(1926 - 1952) *J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - The House Opposite (2/8) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held}
(1926 - ????) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Everard Blatchington - Burglars In Bucks (aka "The Berkshire Mystery") (2/6) {Fisher Library}
(1926 - 1936) *Margery Lawrence - The Round Table - Nights Of The Round Table (1/2) {Kindle}
(1926 - ????) *Arthur Gask - Gilbert Larose - Cloud, The Smiter (1/27) {University of Adelaide / Project Gutenberg Australia}

(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Picaroon Does Justice (2/7) {Book Searchers}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - The Secret Trail (2/5) {Kindle}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - Footsteps At The Lock (2/5) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan / Kindle / Project Gutenberg Canada}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - The Murders Near Mapleton (3/54) {HathiTrust}
(1927 - 1947) *J. J. Connington - Sir Clinton Driffield - Tragedy At Ravensthorpe (2/17) {Murder Room ebook / Kindle}
(1927 - 1935) *Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Scott Egerton - Mystery Of The Open Window (4/10) {expensive}
(1927 - 1932) *William Morton (aka William Blair Morton Ferguson) - Daniel "Biff" Corrigan - Masquerade (1/4) {expensive}
(1927- 1929) **George Dilnot - Inspector Strickland - The Crooks' Game (1/2) {AbeBooks / Amazon}

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

Series and sequels, 1928 - 1930:

(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - The Chinese Shawl (5/33) {Kindle / Rare Books / interlibrary loan}
(1928 - 1936) *Gavin Holt - Luther Bastion - The Garden Of Silent Beasts (5/17) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - ????) Trygve Lund - Weston of the Royal North-West Mounted Police - Robbery At Portage Bend (4/5) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1936) *Kay Cleaver Strahan - Lynn MacDonald - October House (4/7) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1937) *John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab - Murder On The Marsh (2/5) {Internet Archive / Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - 1960) *Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins - The Murdered Manservant (aka "The Body In The Safe") (1/35) {rare, expensive}
(1928 - 1959) *John Gordon Brandon - Inspector Patrick Aloysius McCarthy - The Black Joss (2/53) {State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - 1935) *Roland Daniel - Wu Fang / Inspector Saville - Wu Fang (2/6) {expensive}
(1928 - 1946) *Francis Beeding - Alistair Granby - Pretty Sinister (2/18) {academic loan}
(1928 - 1930) **Annie Haynes - Inspector Stoddart - The Man With The Dark Beard (1/4) {Project Gutenberg Australia / Kindle}
(1928 - 1930) **Elsa Barker - Dexter Drake and Paul Howard - The Cobra Candlestick (aka "The Cobra Shaped Candlestick") (1/3) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1928 - ????) Adam Broome - Denzil Grigson - Crowner's Quest (2/?) {AbeBooks / eBay}

(1929 - 1947) Margery Allingham - Albert Campion - Death Of A Ghost (6/35) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1929 - 1984) Gladys Mitchell - Mrs Bradley - The Devil At Saxon Wall (6/67) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1929 - 1937) Patricia Wentworth - Benbow Smith - Walk With Care (3/4) {Kindle}
(1929 - ????) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Murder By An Aristocrat (aka "Murder Of My Patient") (5/8) {Rare Books / Kindle US / academic loan}
(1929 - ????) ***Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier - ???? (3/?) - Death In The Cup {unavailable}, The Wife Of Baal {unavailable}
(1929 - ????) * / ***Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift - The King Murder (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1931) Carolyn Wells - Kenneth Carlisle - Sleeping Dogs (1/3) {Rare Books / Kindle}
(1929 - 1967) *George Goodchild - Inspector McLean - McLean Of Scotland Yard (1/65) {State Library NSW, held}
(1929 - 1979) *Leonard Gribble - Anthony Slade - The Case Of The Marsden Rubies (1/33) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / re-check Kindle}
(1929 - 1932) *E. R. Punshon - Carter and Bell - The Unexpected Legacy (1/5) {expensive, omnibus / Rare Books}
(1929 - 1971) *Ellery Queen - Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery (1/40) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1966) *Arthur Upfield - Bony - The Sands Of Windee (2/29) {interlibrary loan / Rare Books}
(1929 - 1931) *Ernest Raymond - Once In England - A Family That Was (1/3) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1937) *Anthony Berkeley - Ambrose Chitterwick - The Piccadilly Murder (2/3) {interlibrary loan}
(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) {Kindle}
(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) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1941) *H. Maynard Smith - Inspector Frost - Inspector Frost's Jigsaw (1/7) {AbeBooks, omnibus}
(1929 - ????) *Armstrong Livingston - Jimmy Traynor - The Doublecross (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson - Sir John Saumarez - Re-Enter Sir John (3/3) {Fisher Library storage}
(1929 - 1940) *Rufus King - Lieutenant Valcour - Murder By The Clock (1/11) {AbeBooks, omnibus / Kindle}
(1929 - 1933) *Will Levinrew (Will Levine) - Professor Brierly - Murder From The Grave (3/5) {owned}
(1929 - 1932) *Nancy Barr Mavity - Peter Piper - The Body On The Floor (1/5) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
(1929 - 1934) *Charles J. Dutton - Professor Harley Manners - Streaked With Crimson (1/6) {ordered}
(1929 - 1932) *Thomas Cobb - Inspector Bedison - The Crime Without A Clue (1/4) {Kindle}

(1930 - ????) ***Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide - ???? (3/?) {see above}
(1930 - 1932) Hugh Walpole - The Herries Chronicles - Vanessa (4/4) {Fisher Library storage}
(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 Platinum Cat (17/57) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Inspector Henry Arnold - The Platinum Cat (18/57) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1933) ***Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane - In The First Degree (5/5) {unavailable}
(1930 - 1941) *Harriette Ashbrook - Philip "Spike" Tracy - The Murder Of Sigurd Sharon (3/7) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1943) Anthony Abbot - Thatcher Colt - About The Murder Of The Night Club Lady (3/8) {AbeBooks / serialised}
(1930 - ????) ***David Sharp - Professor Fielding - I, The Criminal (4/?) {unavailable?}
(1930 - 1950) *H. C. Bailey - Josiah Clunk - Garstons (aka The Garston Murder Case) (1/11) {HathiTrust}
(1930 - 1968) *Francis Van Wyck Mason - Hugh North - The Vesper Service Murders (2/41) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1976) *Agatha Christie - Miss Jane Marple - The Moving Finger (4/12) {owned}
(1930 - ????) *Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murder Backstairs (2/?) - {Kindle}
(1930 - 1950) *Leslie Ford (as David Frome) - Mr Pinkerton and Inspector Bull - The Hammersmith Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1935) *"Diplomat" (John Franklin Carter) - Dennis Tyler - Murder In The State Department (1/7) {Amazon / Abebooks}
(1930 - 1962) *Helen Reilly - Inspector Christopher McKee - The Diamond Feather (1/31) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1933) *Mary Plum - John Smith - The Killing Of Judge MacFarlane (1/4) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(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 - The Provincial Lady In Wartime (4/4) {Fisher Library}
(1930 - 1933) *Monte Barrett - Peter Cardigan - The Pelham Murder Case (1/3) {Amazon}
(1930 - 1931) Vernon Loder - Inspector Brews - Death Of An Editor (2/2) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1931) *Roland Daniel - John Hopkins - The Rosario Murder Case (1/2) {unavailable?}

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

Series and sequels, 1931 - 1955:

(1931 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens and Pierre Allain - An International Affair (3/8) {ordered}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - The Mystery Of The Cape Cod Tavern (4/24) {AbeBooks / Book Depository}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - Murder On Wheels (2/18) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Now, Voyager (3/5) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1931 - 1933) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cleveland - Arresting Delia (4/4) {Book Depository / Rare Books / online}
(1931 - 1934) J. H. Wallis - Inspector Wilton Jacks - The Capital City Mystery (2/6) {Rare Books}
(1931 - ????) Paul McGuire - Inspector Cummings - Daylight Murder (aka "Murder At High Noon") (3/5) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1937) Carlton Dawe - Leathermouth - The Sign Of The Glove (2/13) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1947) R. L. Goldman - Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed - Murder Without Motive (2/6) {Wildside Press}
(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 - Death On The Highway (3/5) {owned}
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - Un Crime en Hollande (8/75) {interlibrary loan}
(1931 - 1934) T. S. Stribling - The Vaiden Trilogy - The Store (2/3) {academic loan / State Library, held}
(1931 - 1935) Pearl S. Buck - The House Of Earth - A House Divided (3/3) {Fisher Library storage}
(1931 - 1942) R. A. J. Walling - Garstang - The Stroke Of One (1/3) {Amazon}
(1931 - ????) Francis Bonnamy (Audrey Boyers Walz) - Peter Utley Shane - Death By Appointment (1/8){AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1931 - 1937) J. S. Fletcher - Ronald Camberwell - Murder In The Squire's Pew (3/11) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1933) Edwin Dial Torgerson - Sergeant Pierre Montigny - The Murderer Returns (1/2) {Rare Books)
(1931 - 1933) Molly Thynne - Dr Constantine and Inspector Arkwright - The Crime At The 'Noah's Ark' (1/3) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1935) Valentine Williams - Sergeant Trevor Dene - Death Answers The Bell (1/4) {Kindle}

(1932 - 1954) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot - The Bell Street Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1932 - 1935) Murray Thomas - Inspector Wilkins - Buzzards Pick The Bones (1/3) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1932 - ????) R. A. J. Walling - Philip Tolefree - Prove It, Mr Tolefree (aka The Tolliver Case) (3/22) {AbeBooks}
(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) {Rare Books}
(1932 - 1944) Nicholas Brady (John Victor Turner) - Ebenezer Buckle - The House Of Strange Guests (1/4) {Kindle}
(1932 - 1932) Lizette M. Edholm - The Merriweather Girls - The Merriweather Girls At Good Old Rockhill (4/4) {HathiTrust}
(1932 - 1933) Barnaby Ross (aka Ellery Queen) - Drury Lane - Drury Lane's Last Case (4/4) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1952) D. E. Stevenson - Mrs Tim - Mrs Tim Flies Home (5/5) {interlibrary loan}
(1932 - ????) Richard Essex (Richard Harry Starr) - Jack Slade - Slade Of The Yard (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1933) Gerard Fairlie - Mr Malcolm - Shot In The Dark (1/3) (State Library NSW, held}
(1932 - 1934) Paul McGuire - Inspector Fillinger - The Tower Mystery (aka Death Tolls The Bell) (1/5) {Rare Books / State Library, held}
(1932 - 1946) Roland Daniel - Inspector Pearson - The Crackswoman (1/6) {unavailable?}

(1933 - 1959) John Gordon Brandon - Arthur Stukeley Pennington - West End! (1/?) {AbeBooks / State Library, held}
(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 / State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(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 / State Library NSW, held / Rare Books}
(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 / Rare Books}
(1933 - 1957) John Creasey - Department Z - The Death Miser (1/28) {State Library NSW, held}
(1933 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens - Body Unknown (2/2) {expensive}
(1934 - 1936) Storm Jameson - The Mirror In Darkness - Company Parade (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(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) {unavailable?}
(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) {interlibrary loan / omnibus}
(1935 - 1939) Francis Beeding - Inspector George Martin - The Norwich Victims (1/3) {AbeBooks / Book Depository / State Library NSW, held}
(1935 - 1976) Nigel Morland - Palmyra Pym - The Moon Murders (1/28) {State Library NSW, held}
(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 / State Library NSW, held / Rare Books}
(1935 - ????) George Harmon Coxe - Kent Murdock - Murder With Pictures (1/22) {AbeBooks}
(1935 - 1959) Kathleen Moore Knight - Elisha Macomber - Death Blew Out The Match (1/16) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1935 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Colonel John Primrose and Grace Latham - The Clock Strikes Twelve (aka "The Supreme Court Murder") (NB: novella) {owned}
(1936 - 1974) Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Arthur Crook - Murder By Experts (1/51) {interlibrary loan}
(1936 - 1952) Helen Dore Boylston - Sue Barton - Sue Barton, Student Nurse (1/7) {interlibrary loan}
(1936 - 1940) George Bell Dyer - The Catalyst Club - The Catalyst Club (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1939 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Inspector Lamb - Who Pays The Piper? (aka "Account Rendered") (2/3) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(1940 - 1943) Bruce Graeme - Pierre Allain - The Corporal Died In Bed (1/3) {unavailable?}
(1941 - 1951) Bruce Graeme - Theodore I. Terhune - Seven Clues In Search Of A Crime (1/7) {unavailable?}
(1947 - 1974) Dennis Wheatley - Roger Brook - The Launching Of Roger Brook (1/12) {Fisher Library storage}
(1948 - 1971) E. V. Timms - The Gubbys - Forever To Remain (1/12) {Fisher Library / interlibrary loan}
(1953 - 1960) Dennis Wheatley - Molly Fountain and Colonel Verney - To The Devil A Daughter (1/2) {Fisher Library storage}
(1955 - 1956) D. E. Stevenson - The Ayrton Family - Summerhills (2/2) {interlibrary loan}

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

Unavailable series works:

John Rhode - Dr Priestley
The Paddington Mystery (#1)
Tragedy At The Unicorn (#5)
The Hanging Woman (#11)
The Corpse In The Car (#20) {expensive}

Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers
The Plumley Inheritance (#1)

Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier
>#3 onwards (to end of series)

Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide
>#3 onwards (to end of series)

Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion / Inspector Arnold
>everything from #2 - #11 inclusive

David Sharp - Professor Fielding
When No Man Pursueth (#1)

Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells
The Double Thumb (#3) {expensive}

Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane
>#4 onwards (to end of series)

Tom Strong - Alfred Bishop Mason
Tom Strong, Boy-Captain (#2)
Tom Strong, Junior (#3)
Tom Strong, Third (#4)

Wu Fang - Roland Daniel
The Society Of The Spiders (#1)

TBR notes:

Currently 'missing':

The Paddington Mystery by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #1) {CARM}
Tragedy At The Unicorn by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #5) {CARM}
The Corpse In The Car by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #20) {CARM}
The Black Death by Moray Dalton {CARM}

Mystery At Greycombe Farm by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #12) {Rare Books}
Dead Men At The Folly by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #13) {Rare Books}
The Robthorne Mystery by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #17) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
Poison For One by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #18) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
Shot At Dawn by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #19) {Rare Books}
Hendon's First Case by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #21) {Rare Books}
In Face Of The Verdict by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #24) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
Secret Judges by Francis D. Grierson (Sims and Wells #2) {Rare Books}
The Platinum Cat by Miles Burton (Desmond Merrion #17 / Inspector Arnold #18) {Rare Books}
The Double-Thirteen Mystery by Anthony Wynne (Dr Eustace Hailey #2) {Rare Books}

Six Minutes Past Twelve by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #1) {State Library NSW, held}
The White-Faced Man by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #2) {State Library NSW, held}

Find The Clock by Harry Stephen Keeler {Kindle}
Down River by John Haslette Vahey {serialised, SMH}

The Wychford Poisoning Case by Anthony Berkeley (Roger Sheringham #2) {Kindle}
Mystery At Olympia (aka "Murder At The Motor Show") (Dr Priestley #22) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held}

1931:

Wanted! by Carlton Dawe {serialised, SMH / State Library NSW, held}
Oh Happy Youth by Kay Cleaver Strahan {serialised, 1931}

Death At Windward Hill by Helen Joan Hultman {HathiTrust}
Cottage Sinister by Q. Patrick {HathiTrust}

The Matilda Hunter Murder by Harry Stephen Keeler {Kindle}

The Marching Feet by Annie S. Swan {interlibrary loan}
Fever Of Love by Denise Robins {interlibrary loan}
The Flickering Lamp by Netta Muskett {interlibrary loan}
After Rain by Netta Muskett {interlibrary loan}
Pack Mule by Ursula Bloom {interlibrary loan, missing?}

The Crime At The 'Noah's Ark' by Molly Thynne (Dr Constantine and Inspector Arkwright #1) {Kindle / Rare Books}

Tragedy On The Line by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #10) {Rare Books}
Death By Appointment by "Francis Bonnamy" (Audrey Walz) (Peter Utley Shane #1) {Rare Books}
The Bell Street Murders by Sydney Fowler (S. Fowler Wright) (Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot #1) {Rare Books}
The Murderer Returns by Edwin Dial Torgerson (Pierre Montigny #1) {Rare Books}

NB: Rest of 1931 listed on the Wiki

Shopping list:

The Orange Divan by Valentine Williams
The Seventh Passenger by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry
Gray Terror by Herman Landon
The Pelham Murder Case by Monte Barrett
Prove It, Mr Tolefree by R. A. J. Walling

Expensive:

The Hawkmoor Mystery by W. H. Lane Crauford
Dead Man's Hat by Hulbert Footner
October House by Kay Cleaver Strahan
The Double Thumb by Francis Grierson
The Mystery Of The Open Window by Anthony Gilbert
The Mystery Of The Creeping Man by Frances Shelley Wees

Books currently on loan:



        

  

Reading projects:

Blog:

        



Other projects:

        

      

Short-list TBR:

        

        

Some group read reminders / heads-ups:

There will be a group read of Geraldine Jewsbury's Zoe: The History Of Two Lives in May, for the Virago Chronological Read Project - all welcome!

Now that Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels have been completed, there has been some discussion of more Trollope in the future. A read of the extended (uncut) edition of The Duke's Children has been pencilled in for October / November; the uncut version is now generally available for anyone wishing to join in. There is also the possibility of a group read for an as-yet undetermined Trollope novel in July. Naturally my preference is to start at the beginning, but some other votes have been recorded. If anyone has a Trollope novel that they would be interested in tackling, please say so here or on the thread for the group read of The Duke's Children - here.

...and I think we're now open for business!

20

21 :-)

>22 PaulCranswick: :-D

Two and Two Make Twenty-Two

>22 PaulCranswick: Drat, Paul beat me! :-)

I'm just surrounded by comedians, aren't I?? :D

>23 harrygbutler:

Never mind, Harry - nicely played anyway!

Happy new thread!

I will play nicely and just say happy new thread.
Loving the fabulous sea view. Gorgeous.

Happy new thread, Liz.
I like the way you show us beautiful parts of Australia, the two toppers contrast beautifully :-)

Happy new thread, Liz!

I enjoy learning more about Australia's geographic wonders through your thread toppers, Liz. Those Bunda Cliffs are gorgeous!

Happy New Thread, Liz!

I enjoyed the reviews of N or M and Lady of Quality in the last thread - both books are ones I've had a good time with. I can see the echoes of Black Sheep in the latter, but that sure didn't bother me. And I know Tommy and Tuppence aren't favorites of a lot of Agatha fans, but I've always gotten a kick out of them.

Thanks, Jim, Helen, Anita, Amber, Julia and Joe...oh, and Stasia, Roni, Paul and Harry too, I guess! :D

I'm glad that you're enjoying my thread-toppers!

>30 jnwelch:

Thank you, Joe. I agree on both counts!

Finished Elsie's Children for TIOLI #5.

Now reading The Linger-Nots And Their Golden Quest by Agnes Miller.

Finished The Linger-Nots And Their Golden Quest for TIOLI #7.

Now reading The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace.

Took a run into Rare Books today and made a start on Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode; however, with the Easter break upon us, I'm not sure when I'll get back for a second session. In the meantime, I'm still reading The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace.

The House Of Discord (US title: The Riddle Of The Spinning Wheel) - Maud Duggan, an old friend of Ailsa Lorne, consults Superintendent Narkom about her fear that her step-mother is trying to murder her father. Cleek agrees to look into the situation and, posing as "Mr Deland", travels to an inn near the highland estate of Sir Andrew Duggan. Once there, he sees for himself the explosive family situation, and the wedge driven between Sir Andrew and his son and heir, Ross, by the machinations of Lady Paula. But before Cleek can take action, tragedy strikes: he is summoned to the house by an hysterical Maud, who tells him that in the very act of formally disinheriting Ross, Sir Andrew was murdered---shot with a bullet no-one heard, and stabbed with a knife now missing, even as the antique spinning-wheel in the corner of the room began to turn on its own: an incident which family legend holds foreshadows a Duggan death... After the questionable authorship of the previous Cleek volume, here we seem to be back in the hands of Hazel Phillips Hanshew: The House Of Discord is a fairly well constructed mystery, albeit that it asks us to believe that Sir Andrew was, in effect, murdered twice, once with premeditation, once not---and that the two killers managed to strike simultaneously! On the other hand - and despite this outrageous scenario - the narrative is lacking any real sense of humour, besides being shot through with tiresome class snobbery and sniffiness about "foreigners". (In fact, the funniest thing about this novel is how it keeps forgetting that Cleek isn't English. Of course, come to that, it also forgets that Cleek faked his own death in the previous book...) All the early evidence points to Ross Duggan, including the disappearance of Sir Andrew's will, which everyone swears was still on his desk when the lights came back on. However, it is not long before Cleek discovers all manner of secrets in connection with the Duggan family---and all manner of people who may have wanted Sir Andrew dead. While he does not necessarily share Maud's convictions, Cleek is soon wondering how far Lady Paula might have been willing to go to secure the estate to her own young son, Cyril. He is also very interested in a certain Captain Macdonald, who is engaged to Maud despite her father forbidding the match, and who he knows was in the grounds on the night of the murder; while within the house are three young ladies - Cynthia Debenham, Ross's fiancée; Catherine Dowd, her cousin; and Joanna McCord, Lady Paula's companion - who might have had motive in that each of them is clearly in love with Ross. To solve the murder, Cleek will have to delve into the history of the Duggan family: that of Sir Andrew himself, and the matter of the family curse...

    "A terrible thing has happened, Mr Deland, and that which I feared has come to pass, only in a much more awful manner! My---my f-father has been murdered, in full sight of us all, right there in the library, just as he was about to draw up a new will to disinherit Ross. Foully...murdered...poor darling!"
    Then the sobs caught in her throat, and she turned away a moment and hid her face in her handkerchief, while Cleek, mastering his curiosity and amazement at this curious and amazing statement, waited a moment for her to regain her composure. Then: "My dear young lady!" he cried in a low-pitched, even voice. "Murdered! And in the presence of you all! Then of course you know who his murderer is."
    "I don't, I don't! We none of us know! None of us!" Maud ejaculated, shutting her hands together and lifting a tear-stained, haggard face to his. "Oh, Mr Deland, that is the terrible, the mysterious part of it all. It happened in a flash. Suddenly the lights went out; we heard the wheel humming, just as the Peasant Girl said it would hum, and then---then---the lights came up again, and there he lay, shot through the temple and stabbed to the heart, quite, quite dead!"

Finished The Three Just Men for TIOLI #8, and moving straight onto Again The Three Just Men, also by Edgar Wallace; still reading Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode.

The House of Discord sounds like it has a very complicated plot. I love the idea of the victim being murdered by two different people at the same time.

The funny thing is how matter-of-factly the narrative treats it, as if that sort of thing happened all the time! :)

Finished Again The Three Just Men for TIOLI#12...

...which means that I have FINISHED A SERIES!! Hence the follow-on. :)

Now reading Ruth Fielding At College by Alice B. Emerson; still reading Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode.

Oh, well done, that's another series done!

Oh, I do love me some list-crossing! :D

Finished Ruth Fielding At College for TIOLI #22.

Now reading The Dangerous Dandy by Barbara Cartland; still reading Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode.

At the beginning of the year I mentioned "finishing series" as a reading ambition for 2017, and so far I haven't done too badly. Of the six series I nominated in January, I have since wrapped up D. E. Stevenson's Mrs Tim series, Sydney Fowler's Inspector Cleveland series, the Merriweather Girls stories by Lizette Edholm, Louis Tracy's trilogy featuring Steingall and Clancy, and the Just Men stories by Edgar Wallace.

The next I'm in a position to polish off are the John Bartley books by Charles J. Dutton---one serialised, one purchased inexpensively and on its way. Of course, that last book is also a crossover, the first in a different series, but you can't have everything!

Elsewhere, I've hit a few road-blocks:

Evidently the last book in Jeffrey Farnol's Vibart trilogy overlaps his series featuring Bow Street Runner, Jasper Shrig, so I've had to put that on hold until I catch up.

Likewise, Anna Katharine Green's Ebenezer Gryce and Amelia Butterworth stories overlap a third series featuring Caleb Sweetwater.

The first four books in Agnes Miller's Linger-Nots series are readily available, but the belated fifth book is so rare that some experts on girls' series question its existence. Apparently it was published, but there is precisely one copy available, at a nice round US$100 (plus shipping, of course).

I've made good progress on the Cleek stories by the Hanshews, but unfortunately at this point the switch from ebooks to print, and are neither readily available nor inexpensive. The same is true of Valentine William's stories featuring Clubfoot and the Okewood Brothers, and the Jerry Boyne series by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry.

However---I will persist in trying to track those down, while also targeting a few more series only a couple from completion:

Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley (7/9)
Barnaby Ross - Drury Lane (3/4)
John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk (2/4)
Patrica Wentworth - Benbow Smith (2/4)
Pearl S. Buck - The House Of Earth (2/3)

Also:

The Hanshews - Cleek (9/12)
Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne (3/5)
Valentine Williams - Okewood / Clubfoot (3/?)

Death At The Opera - When teacher Calma Ferris disappears before her entrance as 'Katisha' in the Hillmaston School's production of The Mikado, her place is taken by her colleague, former actress Alceste Boyle, very much to the good of the performance. Exasperation with Miss Ferris turns to horror, however, when she is found drowned in a sink in a darkened room, her face having been held - or pushed - down in the water. The inquest verdict is suicide, but although this lets everyone off the hook, no-one who knew the dead woman believes it. Facing the fact that a teacher or a student must almost certainly be responsible, headmaster Mr Cliffordson summons Beatrice Lestrange Bradley---hoping that, for the good of the school, the truth will be discovered, even if it is never made public. What Mrs Bradley discovers first of all is that the shy, awkward Miss Ferris had a rare talent for blundering into other people's secrets... Despite the overarching tone of weirdness which is the hallmark of this series, the plot of the first half of this fifth book by Gladys Mitchell featuring psychologist-turned detective Mrs Bradley is almost conventional---or at least as conventional as Mitchell ever got---although it still has a great deal of fun mocking the conventions of the genre. Mr Cliffordson's hope is that Mrs Bradley's investigation may be conducted secretly, and to this end he has her pose as a substitute teacher, brought in to take Miss Ferris's classes: a ploy which holds up for precisely one class, since everyone knows who Mrs Bradley is! However, Death At The Opera then takes an abrupt lurch that pulls it into line with Mitchell's other peculiar mysteries, with the school left far behind as Mrs Bradley finds herself on the trail of a George-Smith-esque serial wife-murderer, who may or may not have a sideline in murder-for-hire, and who may or may not have been at Hillmaston School on the night of Calma Ferris's death... When the plot eventually refocuses, it is upon the question of timing. As she cuts her way through a morass of secrets and lies, Mrs Bradley never loses sight of the fact that, premeditated or not, the crime must have been one of opportunity: only the dead woman herself failed to meet her obligations to the opera; so who amongst cast, crew and audience had a chance to commit murder...?

    "I shan't carry the inquiry any further. It would be impossible to prove the crime against this wretched fellow, and I would sooner let the whole matter drop. After all, poor woman, it can't make any difference now, and perhaps it is kinder, from every point of view, to let things remain as they are."
    Mrs Bradley agreed. Negligently she took the photograph of Helm from her handbag, tore it across and dropped the pieces on to the pleasant little fire which was burning in the Headmaster's grate. It seemed unreasonable to inform him that to the best of her knowledge Helm had been nowhere near the school on the night when Calma Ferris was murdered.
    She herself, however, was determined to solve the problem to her own satisfaction. Before she had gone to Bognor Regis she had felt fairly certain of the identity of the murderer, but to psychological she was anxious to add tangible proof...

Danger Point (US title: In The Balance) - Miss Maud Silver is travelling by train when a young woman in an obvious state of shock stumbles into her compartment. From the magazines, Miss Silver recognises her as recently married heiress, Lisle Jerningham; by the end of the journey she has established that Lisle's condition somehow relates to the death of her husband's first wife, and a narrow escape of her own. As they separate, she presses her card upon the distressed woman. When, a few days later, Lisle calls for an appointment - then calls again to cancel - it is enough to bring Miss Silver to the town of Ledlington, which is in turmoil following the death of a local girl, Cissie Clarke, who circumstances suggest was pushed off a cliff---while wearing a distinctive coat that used to belong to Lisle... An example of the "threatened wife" subgenre of thrillers (or as 60s publishers used to put it: "Will he kiss her or kill her?"), Danger Point is a frustrating work in a number of different ways. Most significantly, it raises our hopes for increased involvement from the often-elusive Miss Maud Silver, who is introduced on the very first page---and then dashes them by having her less involved in this story than any of the previous ones in this series. Under the circumstances, however, there is little she can do, although she does bring the details of Lisle's situation to the attention of her friend and colleague, Inspector March, and is determined to prevent the wrong person being convicted for Cissie Clarke's murder. Ultimately, however, Miss Silver's most important function in the plot is to make it seem to others that Lisle has consulted a private investigator... Lisle herself is a rather tiresome "heroine", an exasperatingly submissive wife and almost suicidally passive as danger closes in on her; although that said, it must be recognised that the narrative of Danger Point unfolds over a very few days, with Lisle hardly given time to breathe, let alone recover from the shocks that assail her, one on top of the other. Already beginning to fear that she has been married for her money, in order to avert the otherwise necessary sale of the Jerningham family estate, Lisle is horrified when she overhears an acquaintance of Dale, her husband of six months, hinting that he murdered his first wife---who was also a wealthy woman---and that she may be next. Lisle has had one narrow escape, from drowning; a second, in a car crash, soon follows. Were these accidents---or could Dale really be trying to kill her? Or if not him, who? With the alienation between herself and Dale growing ever greater, and faced with the open enmity of the widowed Alicia Steyne, who married another man for his money but now makes no secret of her passion for Dale, Lisle turns with relief to Rafe Jerningham, Dale's cousin...

    "We were bathing. I'm not a very good swimmer---I couldn't get in. He and Rafe and Alicia were laughing and splashing each other---they didn't hear me call. I was nearly drowned. It was an accident. But that's what they said---"
    The voices drowned her own voice with a sudden surge of sound which filled her ears: 'Is she going to have an accident too?'
    And then the other: 'My dear, she's just had one---fished up out of the sea liked a drowned cat. Dale doing the broken-hearted widower for the second time. Practice makes perfect, but this time it was a bit premature. She came round, and he hasn't got the money---yet.'
    'Who was tactless enough to save her?'
    There was a drawled, 'Not Dale...'
    Lisle's hand dropped into her lap. It was no good, she had to listen.
    Miss Silver's voice came to her, saying quietly, "But you were not drowned. Who saved you?"
    "Not Dale," said Lisle Jerningham.

For all its faults, Danger Point induced me retrospectively to think more kindly of it than it deserves at face value:



If you've read enough of these "threatened wife books", you'll know that no matter how much it looks like it, no matter how awful / threatening he appears, it's never the husband...so I was genuinely delighted when for once, IT WAS THE HUSBAND!!

And then, the other standard of this subgenre is, "Beware the one person who is nice to the threatened wife"...only for Rafe to turn out to be the hero!

This pair of double-bluffs left me grinning, even though the book itself, on its own, is highly unsatisfactory.

>44 lyzard: Reading this review, all I could hear in my head was:

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time--
To let the punishment fit the crime
The punishment fit the crime;

And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment
Of innocent merriment!

>47 kac522:

And rightly so! :D

Poor Miss Ferris, the punishment really didn't fit her "crime"...

>45 lyzard: I see you didn't think too highly of Danger Point either. :-)

"Under the circumstances, however, there is little she can do..." — except that it is the author who created the circumstances, so it was hardly necessary, and no pass for Wentworth from me here.

>46 lyzard: Concerning this point: Were those the clichés in books at the time, though? I don't know, as I haven't read many books in that genre, but movies certainly abound with Bluebeards (e.g., The Two Mrs. Carrolls), and I gather that Francis Iles' Before the Fact fits the bill on the book front.

I think I can safely skip Danger Point based on your and Harry's reviews of it.

Happy Easter, Liz!

>49 harrygbutler:

True, of course, though I guess I was addressing the created circumstances rather than their creation.

It occurred to me that her real function was to protect Pell, though even that didn't really play out. (We can imagine that it would have, if other things had turned out differently.) I liked that aspect of the story, though: no-one pretends Pell is a nice person, and yet when put on the spot he refuses to help himself by saying that Cissie was suicidal. I thought that was an oddly subtle touch in a not-exactly-subtle story.

On that point:

At this time and later, it was overwhelmingly not the husband, particularly in this sort of "romantic thriller", though you do find a few others playing with the formula from time to time---various "Bluebeard" stories, as you note, though I won't name them! In that case it is more usual for the couple not to be married yet, in order to let the victim off the hook more easily. Where they are married, there is more commonly a highly improbable explanation for why it wasn't him after all...

I wouldn't put Fraces Iles in this category at all: though he is playing with the same constructs, he is coming from a completely place psychologically. (In his books it's always the husband because (i) all husbands want to murder their wives, and (ii) all wives deserve it!)

>50 alcottacre:

Thanks, Stasia!

It's not the strongest example of this genre, but okay if you like this sort of thriller.

Finished The Dangerous Dandy for TIOLI #10.

Now reading Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon; still reading Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode.

I find myself mildly amused by these alternate covers.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, dammit!?" "Not now, dear, I have to fight a duel."

That's supposed to be the Prince Regent sitting behind them, BTW:


  

None Of My Business - The eccentric Mr Sheridan Orford dominates the narrative of this third book in the series by David Sharp, with Professor Fielding occupying the position of sidekick-narrator. Orford's chief passion is curiosity: he doesn't particularly want to solve crimes, or even help people; in fact he rarely makes use of his painstakingly acquired knowledge; but when he comes across anything in the nature of a mystery, he simply has to know. Thus, when, while travelling from Amsterdam to London, he is mistaken for the correct courier for a written message in a self-evidently underhanded business, he accepts the role---and so finds himself dangerously involved in extortion, kidnapping, murder---and, it seems, freak-smuggling. The latter is only a sideline: Orford, like many people in England, is intrigued by the story of the three-legged man and the special double-layered crate (preventing his being seen) in which he is to travel across Europe; but when he discovers that Mr Roper, the recipient of his couriered message, is somehow involved with the transportation of the mysterious man in the crate, the two puzzles which are occupying his mind suddenly collide. As for poor Professor Fielding, he can only do his best to obey Orford's cryptic orders, transmitted from the Continent where he has gone in pursuit of Roper and the three-legged man - who has vanished from his crate en route - and so finds himself on the trail of a millionaire businessman who has also vanished without a trace... Though lacking the overt humour which marked the previous entry in this series, My Particular Murder, None Of My Business is even more bizarre and complex, with the reader very much in the position of Professor Fielding himself, trying desperately to catch up with Orford and make sense of a mystery that seems, instead of being unravelled, to become more tangled with every development. David Sharp's sense of humour re-emerges over the latter stages of the novel, however, particularly with the introduction of the elderly but fierce Miss Voles, who soon sets about putting kidnappers and murderers in their place, and with Professor Fielding - yet again - discovering the body of a murdered man. The latter situation quickly loses its humour, however, at least for the Professor, when he finds himself occupying the position of accessory after the fact---and when Orford's subsequent insistence that the disreputable Roper was not the killer seems to imply that Orford was...

    It was undoubtedly wiser to let Roper get away, supposing one has no feelings about allowing a murderer to be at large. But I resented his forcing me to be an accomplice after the fact. I have a craven preference for being on the right side of the law.
    I had to give the police my name and address. The Inspector seemed to remember it.
    "This isn't the first time you've been mixed up in a murder, sir, is it?" he said, looking at me keenly.
    "It isn't," I said. "The last corpse I found gave me such a lot of trouble that I reported this the minute I found it, instead of running away as I wanted to do."
    "Ah, you shouldn't ever do that, sir," the Inspector said gravely. "Let alone everything else, it isn't fair to the police. If we know at once we've a far better chance of getting our man. I hope we shall get him this time."
    As I bade him good day I said I hoped he would, but I don't think I did hope so---much...

The Tragedy Of Z - The third entry in the series by "Barnaby Ross" (Ellery Queen) featuring deaf ex-actor Drury Lane is narrated by the hitherto-unmentioned Patience Thumm, daughter of the former Inspector Thumm, who (we are told) has spent much of her life in Europe for one reason or another, and whose modern ways are something of an embarrassment to her conventional father. Nevertheless, Patience displays enough intelligence and deductive reasoning to edge her way into the private investigation business with which Thumm has occupied himself since his retirement, and so finds herself tagging along when Thumm is hired to look into the suspected corrupt practices of Senator Joel Fawcett and his brother, Dr Ira Fawcett: it is the latter's business partner, Elihu Clay, who, worried that he will be dragged into something illegal, has hired Thumm. Suspected fraud becomes definite murder, however, when Senator Fawcett is found stabbed to death in his study---while the case that unfolds is so complex, Thumm must admit defeat and beg help from Drury Lane... The Tragedy Of Z is a strange mix. Like many American mysteries of this period, the story unfolds within a chilling framework of political and legal corruption; while at one point the narrative detours for a graphic account of death in the electric chair. Meanwhile, District Attorney John Hume shows no hesitation in exploiting the murder of his political opponent for his own advantage, nor in pressing for the rapid conviction and execution of the prime suspect; and if he isn't guilty, oh well... The mystery itself is problematical (part of the solution turns upon a physiological "fact" that I'm certain isn't true); while the climax is ridiculously melodramatic, albeit hugely entertaining, as Drury Lane (with the connivance of his old friend and colleague, Walter Bruno, now Governor of the state) interrupts a second execution with a spellbinding account of how the crime in question was actually committed... As they conduct their separate investigations, both Drury Lane and Patience Thumm come to believe that Aaron Dow is innocent of the murder of Senator Fawcett, though the circumstantial evidence against him is strong; and although Dow is convicted, the grain of doubt sees him sentenced to life imprisonment rather than death. The detectives are still trying to prove his innocence when Dow escapes from his chain-gang; and when Ira Fawcett is murdered immediately afterwards, it seems that they may have made a dreadful mistake...

    Ordinarily, with the governor's reprieve coming on the threshold of the death-chamber, the condemned man would have been removed to his cell, the witnesses and others present would have been excused, and that would have been the end of it. But this was a very special occasion. It had been planned to a hair, it demanded, as I was now certain, a revelation in the chamber itself. But what they hoped to accomplish, Governor Bruno and Mr Lane, by this melodramatic procedure...
    They were all too stunned, I think, to protest; and if any of the officials present were moved to protest the propriety of the proceedings, the tight forbidding set of Governor Bruno's handsome jaw kept them silent... And then it was all forgotten as the old gentleman, taking his stand quietly at the electric chair at the side of the cowering, motionless old man who had been snatched from the arms of death, began to speak; and from his first word there was cathedral silence from his audience.
    Tersely, rapidly, more clearly than I had been able in all my expositions of the theory to expound it, Drury Lane went through the original deductions from the murder of Senator Fawcett...

Belated happy new thread Liz!

Going back to the last thread's discussion about N or M?, I can't believe I missed the Major Bletchley reference when reading that - especially considering I live near Bletchley and have visited Bletchley Park (now a fascinating museum of WWII and codebreaking).

I spotted The Madwoman in the Attic on your library loans list - please give me a nudge when you get to it as it's one I've been meaning to read and I think my library has a copy.

>46 lyzard: Excellent point, and you're right that it is a somewhat redeeming feature for the book. Also, your comments in >51 lyzard: — excellent point regarding Pell, and I remember thinking at the time that he was being awfully gallant for a ne-er-do-well, but not so out of character that it jarred. Just as you say, a subtle touch in a not-subtle story.

>53 lyzard: How strange to use almost-but-not-quite the same illustration for two different editions. The artist perhaps submitted several variations on the first go-round, and the publisher decided to just cycle through them rather than go to the bother of new art?

>56 souloftherose:

Hi, Heather - thank you!

Lived near Bletchley, hey? HIGHLY suspicious! :)

I was considering The Madwoman In The Attic for this month's "I'm late" challenge, since I've had it out of the library for several months, but at this point it is highly unlikely I'll get to it. I'll certainly keep you in mind going forward, though; how much warning would you need? It's a chunkster, so plan accordingly!

>57 rosalita:

Thanks, Julia! Like I said, it's a book I felt kinder about when I was thinking about it afterwards, for several of these little reasons. Given the usual attitude to the working-classes in these sorts of books, I thought it was interesting that Pell, otherwise clearly not a nice person, had a line he wouldn't cross, unlike Mr Aristocratic Lord Of The Manor!

Or maybe these were the UK and US editions - I haven't looked into that - but still, why bother!? :)

Your meet-up sounds fabulous, BTW - I'm very jealous!

>58 lyzard: Yes, why bother? They are so much alike that it seems pointless. Ah, publishers. They commissioned crappy cover art then to make us happy now. :-)

The meet-up was awesome! Someday perhaps I'll make my way Down Under, or you'll make your way Up Over, and we'll have our own meet-up. I'd love that!

So it was all out of the goodness of their hearts?? Well, who'd've thunk it! :D

Sigh... A girl can dream!

I listened to a podcast on my way to the Chicago LT Meet-Up that I think you'd be interested in. It was an episode of the Lit City podcast, which is produced by Iowa Public Radio. (The name comes from the fact that Iowa City is the only UNESCO City of Literature in the United States, and of course is the home of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, which was the first of its kind anywhere.)

Anyway, this particular episode is titled "The Case of the Female Detective". It starts out talking about Mildred Wirt Benson, an Iowa native and the first person to write the Nancy Drew mysteries, but then goes on to discuss the history of the detective novel in general and female detectives in particular. I don't know enough about the subject to know if they got anything glaringly wrong, but I'm sure you will. It was pretty entertaining.

Here's a link to the podcast: http://iowapublicradio.org/post/lit-city-episode-three-case-female-detectives

The Zoo Murder (US title: The Murder In The Garden) - When a lion at London Zoo dies, the autopsy discovers a human vertebra in the animal's stomach. Professor Wells, who happens to be present, calls Scotland Yard. Believing the assertion that no human remains could have been mixed in with the usual lion food by accident, or without being noticed, Wells and his friend, Inspector Sims, begin to investigate what must be murder. Clues indicating that both victim and killer were probably French, the two men set out for Paris---where they befriend a lovely young dancer known as La Joyeuse, and have their attention drawn to physician and researcher, Dr Santerre, who has some dangerous ideas about what is permissible in the name of scientific progress... The fifth book in the series featuring Inspector Sims of Scotland Yard and his friend and colleague, scientist Professor Wells, starts promisingly but then peters out, scuppered by the faults that plague most of the novels by Francis D. Grierson: (i) a dull writing style; (ii) a plot strung together by improbable coincidences and deductions that always pay off, no matter how flimsy the evidence; and (iii) a tiresome amount of the narrative being devoted to convincing us what Jolly Good Fellows Sims and Wells are; the latter in this case being balanced by a protracted back-story intended to prove the outrageous suggestion that someone could be a professional dancer and yet A Good Girl. By the time we've waded through all this, there isn't much room for an actual mystery; and indeed, the way that The Zoo Murder plays out, the fact that a woman was stabbed to death, stripped of her clothes and stuffed through the opening of the service grate in a lion's cage is almost a throwaway detail! (The victim, it turns out, was a professional dancer but, ahem, not A Good Girl, so perhaps we're not supposed to care what happened to her.) In light of all this, the reader is likely to be gleeful rather than horrified when the story shifts away from our exceedingly boring heroes to focus upon Dr Santerre, his pet gorilla and his "mad science" theories, which he is eager to put into practice---the latter subplot suggesting that someone had been reading H. G. Wells. But alas! - unlike Wells, Francis Grierson quickly loses his nerve, so that literally two pages later, it's all over. Or perhaps he just didn't want to spoil the reader with too much entertainment...

    "Here in this garden you shall see my animals playing freely---playing, as they think, but learning from me to lift themselves from their animalism. Presently, when they have learned to know you also, they will learn from you, too, and from that beautiful girl with you."
    "But don't you realise that it would take centuries to educate apes to be men?"
    Santerre shook his head. "You do not yet understand," he said slowly. "I will also educate men to be apes. They have strength, you have understanding. They are agile, you are graceful. Insensibly you will each acquire something from the other---"
    "But it is impossible," protested Mark.
    "Impossible for you, perhaps, but not---for others. The ideal man must possess the strength of a gorilla and the intelligence of a human being. Then he will beget a race besides which the gods of mythology will be as nothing."

Thanks, Julia! - another reminder that I really need to get back to my Timeline Of Detective Fiction...

>62 lyzard: Clues indicating that both victim and killer were probably French

Was the vertebra wearing a beret??

Boom-tish! :)

Discarded cigarette butt and matches on his part, the fact that "This came from a very small woman, and Frenchwomen are smaller than Englishwomen" on hers. (See what I mean about deductions on flimsy evidence?)

>65 lyzard: Hoo boy, yeah. I think a beret-wearing vertebra would have been more convincing!

Nah, too interesting for a book like this!

Hi, Liz! Having conned two and a bit of your threads, I'm somewhat overwhelmed by mysteries and book lists--and of course, stunningly bad cover "art."

If I may, I'd like to nominate Orley Farm for the next Trollope read. Circumstances prevented me joining the The Duke's Children read, but I'll catch up in September when you try the restored version.

A special congratulations on your Tioli sweep!

Hi, Gail!

Just shows that one person's 'trying desperately to get organised' is another person's 'overwhelming'! Don't let the lists frighten you, they make sense to me!

The bad cover art, on the other hand... :D

It would be great to have you join us for the re-read of The Duke's Children. I will add Orley Farm to the suggestions, thank you!

Thanks, it was very pleasing to achieve that milestone. :)

Best-selling books in the United States for 1922:

1. If Winter Comes by A. S. M. Hutchinson
2. The Sheik by Edith M. Hull
3. Gentle Julia by Booth Tarkington
4. The Head of the House of Coombe by Frances Hodgson Burnett
5. Simon Called Peter by Robert Keable
6. The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart
7. This Freedom by A. S. M. Hutchinson
8. Maria Chapdelaine by Louis Hémon
9. To the Last Man by Zane Grey
10. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
11. Helen of the Old House by Harold Bell Wright

On the whole Americans were reading seriously in 1922, the first year to end with a tie and give us eleven books in our Top Ten.

The only real exceptions are Edith Hull's The Sheik, hanging in from the 1921 list (heaven forbid anyone should take that seriously!) and Booth Tarkington's Gentle Julia, one of his small-town comedies, this one about the family of the town belle being driven mad by her swarm of suitors.

Louis Hémon's Maria Chapdelaine takes the reader as far away from possible from Tarkington's pleasant world: first published in 1913, but not translated into English until 1921, the novel is set in the harsh wilderness of northern Quebec, and is the story of a girl forced to choose between traditional village life or the temptations of the city. Sinclair Lewis, meanwhile, followed up his dissection of small-town life in Main Street with an equally savage attack upon the dubious business practices and rigid social conformity of middle-class life in Babbitt.

Even usually escapist authors were writing quite seriously in 1922: Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Head of the House of Coombe is a pre-WWI-set social novel, about the neglected daughter of a selfish mother, but also addresses the conditions that led up to war; Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Breaking Point is a mystery of sorts, but more about the impact of a murder upon the people involved than upon solving it; while Zane Grey's To the Last Man is a fictionalised account of the "Pleasant Valley War", a brutal Arizona range war that occurred during the 1880s. Robert Keable's Simon Called Peter was controversial for its wartime story of a priest who has an affair with a nurse and suffers a crisis of faith. Harold Bell Wright's Helen of the Old House is supposedly a hymn to the dignity of work and the need for brotherhood, but also displays a panicky and rather xenophobic tendency to slap the label "un-American" on anything vaguely unconventional or confronting. (Plus ça change.)

Our final author, A. S. M. Hutchinson, has two books in the Top Ten for 1922. This Freedom is a frankly anti-feminist novel about the dire social consequences sure to ensue as a result of the new freedoms gained by women in the wake of the war. If Winter Comes, meanwhile, is a story of middle-class English life before, during and after WWI.

Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson was born in India in 1880, to a professional soldier-father and a mother related to the Scottish aristocracy. Rejected for military service because of his poor eyesight, Hutchinson began to study medicine but gave it up for writing. He worked as a journalist to support himself while he began writing, publishing short stories in various magazines before producing two novels, the semi-comic The Happy Warrior and The Clean Heart, about a man learning the value of responsibility and sacrifice: a work that pointed the future direction of Hutchinson's fiction.

During WWI, Hutchinson served with the Royal Engineers. Afterwards, he returned to journalism and became editor of the Daily Graphic, an illustrated London newspaper. His main interest remained fiction, however, and in time he produced a series of novels focused primarily upon family life and social change in post-war England. His greatest success was his first post-war novel, 1921's If Winter Comes, which became America's best-selling work of 1922.

If Winter Comes - Mark Sabre is a partner in a business which supplies goods and books to schools and churches, though he is finding some success in the preparation of text-books, and has high hopes for a planned book simply called "England", a popular history. His personal life is not so successful: he is growing increasingly estranged from his wife, Mabel, with whom he can no longer find anything in common, and must deal with the return to the district of his first love, Nona, who is now Lady Tybar. The discovery that Nona, too, is unhappy in her marriage places a terrible temptation in Mark's way, while with the coming of war he is forced to confront the increasing gulf that exists not only between himself and Mabel, but between his own view of life and that held by most of the village in which he lives: a gulf which will cause Mark ever-increasing suffering, and finally precipitate tragedy... A. S. M. Hutchinson's 1921 novel offers a detailed and knowledgeable portrait of middle-class English life in the years before, during and after WWI, with the traditional county hierarchy and its accompanying class structure still firmly in place but facing upheaval with the coming of war. It is also, in numerous respects, a daring work - and was controversial in its days - dealing with "forbidden" topics such as the miseries of incompatible marriage, contemplated and actual adultery, unmarried motherhood, divorce and suicide. So far, so good. The problem with If Winter Comes is its protagonist, Mark Sabre---or, more correctly, with Hutchinson's attitude towards him. While the increasingly frequent and violent clashes between Mark's own broadminded and compassionate way of thinking, with his ability always to see both sides of an issue, and the rigid conventionality and judgement of the society which he inhabits offer valid drama, Mark's naivety and obliviousness become ever more exasperating, with the reader left to wonder how a man could reach his mid-thirties without having the slightest grasp of the realities of his world. Much could have been made of Mark's Candide-like obtuseness, but unfortunately Hutchinson sides with him even as his stubborn individualism brings tragedy not just upon himself, but others. Furthermore, there is real dishonesty in the portrait of the Sabre marriage, with Mabel Sabre existing simply to be the face of petty provincialism, and to illustrate what (in Hutchinson's opinion) Mark is forced to put up with: she invariably in the wrong and he invariably in the right. Even allowing for Mark's rebound for Nona, it is impossible to imagine how two people with so little in common could have ended up getting married, and Hutchinson doesn't even try to make it credible, simply presenting the estrangement as a fait accompli, one necessary to give Mark the necessary background of martyrdom. Hutchinson does create interesting situations throughout If Winter Comes, and offers much valid social criticism; while the courtroom scene that provides the novel's climax is excruciating; but that the novel is ultimately a failure may be judged by the fact that the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes not to feel some sneaking sympathy with Mark's (understandably) numerous enemies...

    "I like hearing you stumbling about trying to explain your ideas. You've got ideas. You're rather an ideary person. Go on. Why are you unsatisfactory?"
    How familiar her voice was on that note,---caressing, drawing him on.
    Mark said, "I'll tell you, Nona. I'm unsatisfactory because I've got the most infernal habit of seeing things from about twenty points of view instead of one. For other people, that's the most irritating thing you can possibly imagine. I've no convictions; that's the trouble. I swing about from side to side. I always can see the other side of a case, and you know, that's absolutely fatal---"
    She said gently, "Fatal to what, Marko?"
    He was going to say, "To happiness"; but he looked at her and then looked away. "Well, to everything; to success. You can't possibly be successful if you haven't got convictions---what I call bald-headed convictions. That's what success is, Nona, the success of politicians and big men whose names are always in the papers. It's that: seeing a thing from only one point of view and going all out for it from that point of view. Convictions. Not mucking about all round a thing and seeing it from about twenty different sides like I do. You know, you can't possibly pull out this big, booming sort of stuff they call success if you're going to see anybody's point of view but your own. You must have convictions. Yes, and narrower than that, not convictions but conviction. Only one conviction---that you're right and that every one who thinks differently from you is wrong to blazes."

>70 lyzard: Booth Tarkington's Gentle Julia, one of his small-town comedies, this one about the family of the town belle being driven mad by her swarm of suitors.

Ah yes, the story of my life ...

Hey, it's a tough job, but...

:-D

Finished Graustark for TIOLI #16.

Now reading Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers; still reading Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode.

Finished Murder Must Advertise for TIOLI #9.

Now reading The Clutching Hand by Charles J. Dutton; still reading Peril At Cranbury Hall by John Rhode.

I am reading The Clutching Hand through newspapers.com: it was serialised in the Los Angeles Times, broken up across two Sunday supplements appearing on the 16th and 23rd December, 1928:

...which turns out to be a work somewhat ahead of its time: dilithium-powered engines, I wonder?

...the boat came warping into position as if it had suddenly appeared out of space...

>79 lyzard: Wow, warping into position! That's pretty flash.

>79 lyzard: really?

>77 lyzard: Love Murder must advertise. Stands the test of time and surely one of the best of its type. (and you'd know, you read enough of them!)

>80 rosalita:, >81 Helenliz:

Pretty good for 1928, I thought! :D

>81 Helenliz:

I have a couple of minor issues with it, but by and large I agree with you wholeheartedly!

(Though I did find myself wondering what American readers make of the cricket match climax, since many of them seem genetically incapable of understanding the game...! :D )

Finished Peril At Cranbury Hall for TIOLI #4.

Still reading The Clutching Hand by Charles J. Dutton.

>82 lyzard: As an American whose favorite sport is baseball, I like to think that the reason I can't make heads or tails of cricket is that I just haven't had the chance to watch an actual game with an actual Brit/Aussie/Kiwi explain it to me.

On the other hand, it may be genetic. :-)

It's the "Oh no I couldn't possibly understand that even if you did explain it to me so please don't try" reaction that bemuses me.

My counter-argument does tend to be, "It isn't any harder to understand than baseball". Different terminology but jeez, it's just about hitting a ball with a bat, y'know?? :D

At some point I am really going to have to read David Sharp's books because it sounds like a series I would really enjoy.

Happy Thursday, Liz!

Thanks, Stasia!

I only wish Sharp's books were more readily available: they're clever and often very funny.

>85 lyzard: Yeah, that's not my attitude at all. I want to understand cricket, but every time I try to read the rules I get hopelessly confused. I need to actually watch a game.

Hey, Liz, there's a new reference book that may be of interest to you: The Encyclopedia of Pulp Detectives. It's only available in print via Lulu (http://www.lulu.com/shop/jess-nevins/the-encyclopedia-of-pulp-detectives/hardcover/product-23133319.html), it seems, but I believe all the content is included in the giant e-book The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes available for Kindle (and free that way if you have Kindle Unlimited): http://a.co/7aEtoMH

>88 rosalita:

Well, I think that's true of any sport or game. Even seemingly basic ones have strategies and special terms.

>89 harrygbutler:

Ooh, thank you! There are a couple of online databases of that nature which I reference from time to time---I wonder if this is an updating? I hope so, it's a great resource!

Finished The Clutching Hand for TIOLI #14 (and was very disappointed that (i) there were two different hands, not just "the" hand; and (ii) it was a minor detail anyway; but that's Dutton for you).

Now reading The Body In The Library by Agatha Christie.

...on the other hand (so to speak) I did find an inexpensive copy of Streaked With Crimson, which is both the final book in the John Bartley series - yay! - and the first in Dutton's second series featuring "psychological detective", Harley Manners, and which is supposed to be much better. We'll see.

One of the fun side-things about reading The Body In The Library is seeing all the different words for "library" on the covers. I love that French one!

(While Angela Lansbury did play Miss Marple, it wasn't in an adaptation of The Body In The Library. And I think they could have found a better picture of her...):

      

Finished The Body In The Library for TIOLI #20.

And this is where things get complicated...

I have been trying and failing for ages to get my examination of early crime and detective fiction going again. One of the reasons for the stall is that the next important book in the list, Paul Féval's Les Mystères De Londres, is not available in a good English translation. The only version available, published in London in 1847 and translated by R. Stephenson, is abridged. Frustratingly, there was a second translation by Henry Champion Deming, published in America in 1845 - and which may or may not have been uncut, evidence is scant - but I cannot find a copy anywhere.

On the other hand, the book has been reissued in French numerous times, including very recently. I can (and will) go on hoping for an English version in the future, but at the moment I'll have to bite the bullet and make do.

So, I am currently reading The Mysteries Of London; or, Revelations Of The British Metropolis; but since it is only available online (other than as an apparently horrendous ebook version), I am also reading The Holy War, Made By Shaddai Upon Diabolus, For The Regaining Of The Metropolis Of The World; or, The Losing And Taking Again Of The Town Of Mansoul by John Bunyan, the first book in my new "C. K. Shorter List Of The Best 100 Novels" reading challenge.

(And I wonder what the odds are of reading any two random books, let only two so utterly different ones, that both have the word "metropolis" in their title?)

>93 lyzard: I agree about the Angela Lansbury picture. That is definitely not her at her best!

>90 lyzard: It does sound like it is based on work done earlier by the author, who has a blog.

>94 lyzard: Drat. I wish I'd known you were starting with The Holy War so soon, Liz — we could have done a shared read, as I have had a copy on my shelves for a long time but have never gotten around to reading it (partly because the book is approximately a quadragesimo-octavo, and consequently the print is tiny).

>95 alcottacre:

Seems a strange way of selling a book!

>96 harrygbutler:

Oh, sorry! Did I miss you saying you wanted to read along with this one? I didn't think anyone would want to! I don't think I'll be rushing through it - though obviously aiming to finish before the end of the month - so you could still join me if that suited you?

I will be more careful about giving heads-ups for future books in this challenge.

>97 lyzard: No, I believe I only thought I'd offer to read along when you got to that one. I think I didn't realize (or remember) that it was first.

I can understand why you might not think anyone would want to read along, but I very much liked Pilgrim's Progress and am glad of a prompt to give The Holy War a try. I'll go ahead and get started on it, then. :-)

(BTW, I got a few mysteries on our outing to a book sale and then, later, a bookstore. The one most likely to interest you: The Black Cap: New Stories of Murder and Mystery, an anthology compiled by Cynthia Asquith and published in 1928.)

Excellent!

Aww, you and your book sales! Yes, that one sounds intriguing.

Finished The Mysteries Of London; or, Revelations Of The British Metropolis for TIOLI #10.

That is going to be difficult to blog, sigh...

Still reading The Holy War by John Bunyan.

Elsie's Children - The sixth book in Martha Finley's series about the offensively immaculate Elsie Dinsmore has a little more impact than its predecessors. Up until now, these books have (explicitly and implicitly) carried the specious message that nothing bad will ever happen to real Christians; this entry, however, finds the Travillas suffering through the lingering illness and death of a child. Nevertheless, the gravitas added by this genuine tragedy is somewhat offset by the fact that it is fairly evident from the outset that this child has been written in purely to allow for one of those creepy, "Death is beautiful!" scenes so beloved of 19th century didactic authors. Otherwise, life goes on as smoothly as ever for the Travillas, who spend most of their time travelling from place to place chiefly, it seems, so that their obnoxiously perfect children can show up how very imperfect everyone else's children are. A couple of mild diversions are offered along the way, such as a sudden recrudescence of anti-Catholicism (not seen in this series since Elsie had a literal fit as a child after being threatened with convent school); a more typical "This is what happens to non-Christians!" scene, wherein after being mean to her newly-crippled daughter, the ever-nasty Enna promptly suffers permanent brain damage in a carriage accident; and an equally typical icky Horace Dinsmore moment:

"Quite well, daughter," he said, taking the hands and kissing the rich red lips, as beautiful and as sweet now, as in her childhood or youth...

---but it is evident hroughout that Finley had lost interest in the story, and was being pressured into writing on by her publisher. Elsie's Children concludes with the engagement of Elsie Jr to poor but honest (and Christian) artist, Lester Leland, and it is clear that Finley hoped to leave it there, as indeed she had hoped to leave it after the child Elsie succeeded in converting her father to Christianity at the end of the second book. We may judge who won that battle by the fact that after this second "conclusion" to the Elsie stories, another twenty-one books were written...

    "Boys, I'm ashamed of you!" said Lucy, "I wish your father were here to keep you straight. You don't dare behave so before him. I'm sure your little friends would never act so. Don't you see how your naughtiness astonishes them? Vi, would you talk to your mamma as my children do to me?"
    The large blue eyes opened wide upon the questioner in half-incredulous, reproachful surprise, then turned upon the beautiful, gentle face of Mrs Travilla with an expression of ardent affection mingled with admiration and respect. "O Aunt Lucy! could you b'lieve I'd do that to my mamma?"
    The very thought of so wounding that tender mother heart was evidently so full of pain to the little one, that Elsie could not refrain from responding to the appeal, "Mamma knows you would not, darling."
    "Oh, no, mamma, 'cause I love you!" cried the child, the young face growing bright with smiles.

>101 lyzard: I do not think I have ever read a single one of the Elsie Dinsmore books. I would probably hate her, lol.

>101 lyzard: That sounds absolutely dreadful (the book, not your review). I nearly broke out in hives just reading about it!

The Linger-Nots And Their Golden Quest; or, The Log Of The Ocean Monarch - History takes a back seat to mystery in this third entry in the young adult series by Agnes Miller. As always in these stories about a group of nine young friends, a couple of the girls come to prominence in the narrative, and this time it is the gentle, generous Aline Gaines and her best friend, Helena Hawthorne, who continues to struggle with the humiliations of being a poor relation, and the repeated frustrating of her ambition to study singing. Although the friends do manage a short holiday in a country town with colonial roots (allowing for at least a small dose of history), more focus is upon how they set about earning the money for their trip. Aline and Helena take up part-time jobs as waitresses (or "hostesses") in a restaurant catering to a busy Wall Street clientele, and there find themselves strongly drawn to Felicity Hull, the clever and hard-working young woman who manages the restaurant for its owner, the socially prominent Mrs Jerrold. Proud and self-sufficient, Felicity carries silently the hurt of not knowing the truth of her origins. When Aline and Helena stumble across a clue to the young woman's background, they make up their minds to do everything they can to unearth the truth... Although somewhat spoiled by the class snobbery that underlies its narrative, The Linger-Nots And Their Golden Quest is an engaging young-adult mystery that also offers some interesting details about the days of the clipper-ships and a glimpse of pre-Crash Wall Street, and allows for some interesting character development---chiefly on the part of Helena, the most flawed of the girls, as she continues to blossom under the influence of the unselfish Aline, but also with respect to Gordon, Helena's highly intelligent but introverted young brother, who plays a significant role in the unravelling of the mystery associated with Felicity's parentage through his friendship with a retired ship's carpenter, who in his youth was involved in various stirring and tragic adventures...

    "Gordon Hawthorne, come here!" cried Helena, and clutched both the acorn and the artist. "What do you mean by talking about green acorns? And where are you going?"
    "Let go of me!" protested Gordon, aggrieved at this strange reception of his tribute. "I'm just going round to have a carving lesson from Ship's Carpenter Hornsby!"
    Helena, stunned by Gordon's last sentence, relaxed her hold on him, and he promptly made off with a banging of the front door which rocked the house. For one instant only did the three girls sit staring at one another, and the next second Helena cried: "Hornsby---Ship's Carpenter Hornsby! Rose, you read that name out of the log."
    "'Garet Hornsby, cabin-boy'," repeated Rose, "and did that old Mr Hornsby, the sexton, teach Gordon to carve a green acorn?"
    "Yes, and it must be the trademark of the line the Ocean Monarch belonged to, just as Aline thought from seeing it on the clipper-cards," gasped Helena.

>102 alcottacre:

All sensible people do! (But watch out for yourself: Enna hates Elsie, and look what happens to her.)

>103 rosalita:

Goodness me, it's nowhere near the most hive-inducing of the series! You'd better steer clear of the rest! :D

>105 lyzard: I certainly will! Thank heavens I have you to take all those hive-bullets for me, because I take a perverse pleasure in reading your reviews of them. :-)

It's what I do... :)

>101 lyzard: if you say you are planning on reading the remaining 21 books in the series, I think I might lose it just a little. No series obsession is worth reading that, surely?

Worth it to make you lose it! (Just a little...)

>101 lyzard: I love my mother dearly and I was still a very sassy child. So the two aren't mutually exclusive, Elsie Dinsmore not withstanding.

I think it was this book or the next one where I finally gave up on Elsie.

Sorry for the double post, but...

I was in the Authors' Room at the Indiana State Library and found these lovely books on one of the shelves:



Okay, so that's atrociously blurry. My phone camera is lousy. Anyhow, it's a complete set of Elsie Dinsmore first editions. Apparently Martha Finley lived in Indiana for a bit, so she's a Hoosier. (Hey, we claim Rex Stout, and he lived here for only the first nine months of his life!)

>111 casvelyn: Yeah, but Rex Stout is worth claiming! :-)

>72 lyzard: I found Sabre deeply sympathetic, as a character who sees so many different points of view that he has difficulty making up his own mind. I think I share this advantage/flaw (though on the other hand ... ) But why make that his primary character trait, then make the plot turn on his obtuse inability to see another point of view?

>101 lyzard: ... another twenty-one books were written ...
How fortunate for you! By comparison, there are twenty-eight more Gor books, but I'll probably quit after the nineteenth.

>112 rosalita: True that.

>110 casvelyn:

Move over Lust and Greed, Sass is the worst of the Deadly Sins!

(Not that I believe in anything that tells me Sloth is a sin...)

My guess is that it was after the next one, which promises the death of Creepy Mr Travilla! After that the rest were bound to be a letdown. :D

>111 casvelyn:

Oh, my goodness!

I think reading them in that form would make them go down a little easier.

>111 casvelyn:, >112 rosalita:, >114 casvelyn:

I have nothing to say here: this country is notorious for claiming anyone who wanders through!

>113 swynn:

Truthfully, so did I at the outset---and likewise found points of comparison with myself, inasmuch as my head is nearly always in a different place from the heads of the people around me, and I'm constantly amused by things that others can't or won't see. But the longer it went on the more contrived and artificial Mark's obliviousness felt to me. Even if he was out of step with the people, after thirty-four years you'd think he'd understand how the world around him worked.

I had to wonder why he didn't send Effie to Nona: she's the one person who wouldn't have believed him guilty, and the only one whose social position would have protected her, and Effie, from the consequences. That is, if he really wanted to help instead of just martyring everybody. Having lectured Nona on the "necessity" for cruel social convention, how did he not see it coming?

but I'll probably quit after the nineteenth

Is that arbitrary, or does the 19th book hold a special place in your heart?? :D

The Three Just Men - Mr Barberton, newly arrived in England from North Africa, consults the Triangle Detective Agency about locating a Miss Mirabelle Leicester, which he insists must be done within the next fortnight. He does not tell the detectives why he wants her, though from his oblique discourse they learn that it is to do with a secret for which Barberton was abducted and tortured, but which he did not reveal to his captors. As it happens, apropos of some of the agency's other interests, the detectives already know that Miss Leicester has been lured by a fake job ad into the orbit of a man called Oberzohn, supposedly the head of a business trading along the African coast, in reality an arms dealer---and worse. A brutal, conscienceless individual, Oberzohn will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. His only point of vulnerability is his fear of the Four Just Men... The fifth book in Edgar Wallace's series has his infamous organisation of vigilantes having undergone some significant reorganisation---and not just in their belated formal acknowledgement of being only three. Their intelligence work during the war has resulted in George Manfred, Leon Gonzalez and Raymond Poiccart being pardoned for their earlier crimes (not entirely credibly, since one of them was the murder of a cabinet minister!), but on condition that they give up their own dispensing of justice and live within the law. Though this is sometimes an exasperation and a struggle - and though they do not always keep their promise - the three have made the best of things by founding a detective agency, where strategist Poiccart does his thinking behind the scenes, Manfred is the face of business, and Gonsalez - as always - is the loose cannon. (In fact, it is Gonsalez who is the focus of Oberzohn's fear and hatred of the Just Men: one of the stories in The Law Of The Four Just Men told of his deadly vendetta against a white slaver who happened to be Oberzohn's brother.) When Barberton falls victim to the escaped black mamba which has been terrorising London, the men are left to discover for themselves the secret for which he suffered and died, and which makes Miss Leicester of such great value to Oberzohn. Eventually they learn that her late father was granted a concession for a territory in Algiers that is rich in gold deposits, which will lapse unless it is renewed within the next two weeks. To prevent this, Oberzohn has drawn Miss Leicester into a trap---and, given his fortress-like villa on the outskirts of London, his personal army of wanted killers and his collection of deadly snakes, getting her out of it in time will be no easy matter...

    Gonsalez shut the door quickly. The doctor was alone for the first time in his life with the three men he hated and feared.
    "Oberzohn, this is the end," said Manfred.
    That queer grimace that passed for a smile flitted across the puckered face of the doctor. "I think not, my friends," he said. "Here is a statement by Cuccini. I am but the innocent victim, as you will see. Cuccini has confessed to all and has implicated his friends. I would not resist---why should I? I am an honest, respectable man, and a citizen of a great and friendly country. Behold!"
    He showed the paper. Manfred took it from his hand but did not read it.
    "Also, whatever happens, your lady loses her beautiful hill of gold." He found joy in this reflection. "For to-morrow is the last day---"
    "Stand over there, Oberzohn," said Manfred, and pushed him against the wall. "You are judged. Though your confession may cheat the law, you will not cheat us..."

There's a funny in-joke in The Three Just Men, with stirring events occurring at a theatre where the attraction is the stage adaptation of The Ringer by...Edgar Wallace:

"I was merely going to suggest that there's a play running in London that we ought to see. I didn't know that 'The Ringer' was a play until this morning, when I saw one of Oberzohn's more genteel clerks go into the theatre, and, being naturally of an inquisitive turn of mind, followed him. A play that interests Oberzohn will interest me, and should interest you, George," Leon said severely, "and certainly should interest Meadows---it is full of thrilling situations! It is about a criminal who escapes from Dartmoor and comes back to murder his betrayer. There is one scene which is played in the dark, that ought to thrill you---I've been looking up the reviews of the dramatic critics, and as they are unanimous that it is not an artistic success, and is, moreover, wildly improbable, it ought to be worth seeing. I always choose an artistic success when I am suffering from insomnia," he added cruelly.

Leon has trouble persuading the others to go with him, however:

"Must I go?" asked Poiccart plaintively. "I do not like detective plays, and I hate mystery plays. I know who the real murderer is before the curtain has been up ten minutes, and that naturally spoils my evening."

...which itself prompts an LT in-joke:

The Ringer by Edgar Wallace brings up the touchstone for...For Whom The Bell Tolls...

>115 lyzard: Why are you spoilering that? It's in the title. :) And I probably did stop with that one.

Sloth? A deadly sin? NO!!!!!

>116 lyzard: I have not read any Edgar Wallace. I am really going to have to remedy that fact :)

>120 alcottacre: Do, Stasia! The plots are often pretty crazy, but Wallace can write, and the stories generally gallop along, frequently with a certain wry humor. I'm partial to the stories about J. G. Reeder, but must say I've enjoyed all, or nearly all, that I've read. House of Stratus has reprinted quite a number of them, so they are fairly easy to get.

Hi, Liz! Among the Mystery League books I don't intend to reread is The Invisible Host, which I read a few years ago. But I just discovered that there's a movie based on it, The Ninth Guest, available for viewing on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/TheNinthGuest. I think I'll give that a try when we reach that point in the series read.

>119 casvelyn:

True, but we'll cross that coffin when we get to it. :)

The only thing deadly about sloths is that they're so cute, you could just die!

>120 alcottacre:

As Harry says, his plots aren't always believable (to say the least), but they're a lot of fun!

>121 harrygbutler:

I'm fortunate that many of his books are available through an Australian ebook database.

>122 harrygbutler:

I actually own a copy of that, I'm sure I don't know why! So I may read and watch!

I ended up hugely over-committing myself this month, and with time running out I'm starting to hyperventilate...

My main problem is that Australia Post has been demonstrating its new "slow as a wet week policy" with respect to my interlibrary loan of J. Jefferson Farjeon's The 'Z' Murders, which is supposed to have left Armidale Library on the 7th and still hasn't arrived! I have a second option inasmuch as the book is available on Kindle, but I've been holding off and holding off in expectation of the ILL...and I just know that if I give in and buy it, the pre-paid ILL will show up five minutes later!

I've also had trouble accessing Phoebe Taylor Atwood's The Mystery Of The Cape Cod Players, but have just received a message that it is now available to me within the State Library.

And I'm already reading The Holy War by John Bunyan for my C. K. Shorter challenge, and find I do better with it in small chunks.

And I've made a start on Geraldine Jewsbury's Zoe, for the group read next month.

So basically I have two and a half books to finish in the next three days, plus one more to make headway with.

PANIC!! PANIC!! PANIC!!

And yes, just to reiterate---

There will be a group read of Zoe: The History Of Two Lives next month for the Virago Chronological Read Project---all welcome!

I note that there are a couple of inexpensive copies of the Virago edition available through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk at the moment, plus the book is available in a Kindle edition. It can also be read online; I will post details when I set up the thread over the weekend.

>124 lyzard: I'm liking The Holy War, but the print in my copy is so tiny that I have to read it in short stretches, too.

I didn't realize you were already up to #3 in Phoebe Atwood Taylor's Asey Mayo series. They came to hand in a haphazard way, so I've read them out of order. At this point I'm not even quite sure which remain for me to read. I like them well enough that in a few years I'll give them another go in order.

I did enjoy The Z Murders when I read it last year.

Good luck on getting through all that reading, Liz!

>121 harrygbutler: >123 lyzard: With input from both of you, I am definitely going to have to get some Wallace in the house!

Again The Three Just Men (US title: Again The Three) - The final entry in Edgar Wallace's series featuring former vigilantes, the Just Men, is a volume of previously unpublished / uncollected short stories (prior to 1928, that is). The joke here is the apparent dull respectability of the three - George Manfred, Raymond Poiccart, Leon Gonsalez - as they pursue their new careers as successful private investigators. As usual with the short story collections in this series, the focus is upon the active Gonsalez, with Poiccart and Manfred providing the brains behind the scenes. Some of the cases are (as we might say) "conventional" mysteries involving fraud, jewel theft, impersonation, blackmail and murder; but sometimes more exotic problems come their way, which draw upon the knowledge and experiences of their frankly criminal pasts: thwarting an anarchic plot against Italy; punishing the head of a white-slavery ring; dealing with a serial bigamist. For the most part the Just Men try to keep their promise to stay within the law, on the basis on which they were pardoned their past crimes, although it is sometimes a struggle: particularly so whenever they are confronted with the exploitation or abuse of women, which tends to push their berserk buttons. However, when one case evolves to expose a man responsible for the betrayal and subsequent deaths of many of his fellow-soldiers, the Just Men are finally guilty of a little back-sliding...

    The Three Just Men sat longer over dinner than usual. Poiccart had been unusually talkative---and serious. "The truth is, my dear George," he appealed to the silent Manfred, "we are fiddling with things. There are still offences for which the law does not touch a man; for which death is the only and logical punishment. We do a certain amount of good---yes. We right certain wrongs---yes. But could not any honest detective agency do as much?"
    "Poiccart is a lawless man," murmured Leon Gonsalez; "he is going Fantee---there is a murderous light in his eyes!"
    Poiccart smiled good-humouredly. "We know this is true, all of us. There are three men I know, every one of them worthy of destruction. They have wrecked lives, and are within the pale of the law... Now, my view is..."
    They let him talk and talk, and to the eyes of Manfred came a vision of Merrell, the Fourth of the Four Just Men---he who died in Bordeaux and, in dying, completed his purpose. Some day the story of Merrell the Fourth may be told. Manfred remembered a warm, still night, when Poiccart had spoken in just this strain. They were younger then: eager for justice, terribly swift to strike...

>126 harrygbutler:

Thanks, Harry!

The Asey Mayo series is one of those very erratically accessible: some entries reprinted, some on Kindle, some not available at all, or hardly so. When the "Of The" challenge came up this month, it seemed a good opportunity to try and make some progress.

>127 alcottacre:

I hope you enjoy it, Stasia!

Ruth Fielding At College; or, The Missing Examination Papers - This eleventh book in the young adult series by "Alice B. Emerson" tends to be more interesting in its side-issues than in its main plot, which finds Ruth and her best friend, Helen Cameron, departing for Ardmore College, where they are reunited with one of their Briarwood friends, Jennie Stone. It may be Jennie's story that has the greatest relevance for modern readers: unapologetically overweight all through her school years, when confronted by the group judgement of the college Jennie responds by tackling her diet and committing to regular exercise. In this she is supported by Ruth and Helen, with all three girls taking up rowing with great enthusiasm, and occasionally to the detriment of their studies: they must work to find the right balance. Meanwhile, as always, we find Ruth adopting a lame duck, in this case an unpopular student called Rebecca Frayne, whose misunderstanding of college life and determination to hide what she considers her family's shameful poverty causes her many difficulties. There is also a mystery of sorts for Ruth and Helen to unravel, with the college dealing with the aftermath of a hazing gone wrong the year before, during which a student ran away and a set of examination papers went missing...

    Trix Davenport steered well out from the dangerous shallows. "Pull away, girls!" she shouted through her megaphone. "It's going to blow."
    And just then the real squall swept down upon them. Ruth, although setting a good, long stroke, found of a sudden that the shell was scarcely moving ahead. The wind was so strong that they were only holding their own against it.
    "Pull!" shouted the coxswain again.
    Ruth bent forward, braced her feet firmly and drove the long oar-blade deep into the jumping little waves. Those waves quickly became larger and "jumpier." A white wreath formed upon their crests. The shell in a very few seconds was in the midst of white water...

>127 alcottacre: Enjoy, Stasia!

>129 lyzard: It took me some time to get all of Phoebe Atwood Taylor's Asey Mayo series, as well as her books as by Alice Tilton (the Leonidas Witherall series, which is even more madcap) and her one other, Murder at the New York World's Fair (as by Freeman Dana). Most are reprints done by an imprint of The Countryman Press of Vermont, Foul Play Press, quite a few years ago now — handy for their availability, but rather poorly made (nice-looking, but prone to having pages come out), so that I may have to replace a few when I do get around to rereading the whole series.

>58 lyzard: I'm picking up The Madwoman in the Attic from the library this weekend so in theory I'm good to go any time after that.

>101 lyzard: *shudders*

>131 harrygbutler:

I haven't attempted to find any of the pseudonymous works yet.

>132 souloftherose:

Let me know if your edition has 900+ pages: mine "only" has 650!

Other than that, I'm not sure where it might fit.

*shudders*

I knew without looking you were referring to Elsie...! :D

BTW, thank you again for your "close but not quite challenge": you see that The Body In The Library didn't end up fitting any of the others. (In other words, I was right to hyperventilate!)

Okay. I am officially ticked off.

I ran into the State Library to make a start on The Mystery Of the Cape Cod Players: their copy is catalogued as from 1933, and the library doesn't lend anything older than 1960, which is fair enough.

Except that it's been miscatalogued: 1933 is the original publication date, this edition is actually from 1980, and I could have had it by ILL months ago.

Meanwhile, my belated ILL still hasn't shown up.

Sigh...

Boy, I go to bed early one evening and your thread spirals out of control, Liz! Now that you know the Cape Cod book was mislabeled, did they let you check it out so you could at least read it at home? And boo for the wayward ILL. Why do I think it will show up on May 1, once your monthly reading challenges are over?

>134 lyzard: At least that library is intent on protecting books. My county library system currently has prominently featured on its website and Facebook page a slideshow with an initial frame that says "Have old books lying around? There are plenty of unique ways to repurpose them!" Argh!

>135 rosalita:

The State Library is a research / archive library, not a lending library, however it does make some of its material available via interlibrary loan. While this is occasionally a frustrating system, at least, as Harry says, it does look after its books. It is also a storage depository for many books culled from other libraries, so many older and more obscure works are available this way than would be otherwise.

So I guess I shouldn't bitch, but in context, this snafu was REALLY annoying!

My stray ILL has until this afternoon to show up (last mail delivery of the month!), otherwise I'll have to cave and buy the Kindle edition. I will go back into the city today to finish The Cape Cod Players, then come home via my local library, returning some books and picking up The 'Z' Murders if it's there, and also The Chinese Shawl...which came in within a few days of being requested...

>136 harrygbutler:

Oh, Harry, that's horrifying! We really are lucky here, in that libraries are rarely the target of fund-cutting (if not always funded as well as they should be), and not attracting that "Who needs books anymore?" attitude that seems to be getting scarily commonplace.

>137 lyzard: It really is outrageous. Our town's library is somehow affiliated with the county system without being part of it, so at least the locals aren't to blame. :-) But the slideshow was created by the library system, as it even encourages viewers to share their book-repurposing -destruction projects with the library's FB page and and Instagram account.

Sadly, I've seen that attitude out of libraries, and that eagerness to be "up-to-date," for many years now. When I lived in western New York, there was a major drive to build a new central library in our city because for some reason (possibly valid ones) the old one was inadequate; the end result, however, was a building with much open space that resembled nothing so much as a shopping mall or the shared spaces of an office building. And I think there were even fewer books in open stacks than had been in the old building across the street. All the closed stacks remained in the old building, so it ended up taking longer to get books than it had in the past (when they were just downstairs). It soured me a bit on the county library system, which in other ways was quite good.

We do suffer from "new book syndrome": my local library, in particular, has very few older works except by perennial authors like Agatha Christie, and classics that are assigned school texts. But through the State and academic library systems we at least can get access to a much greater variety of books. And no-one is saying that books per se are obsolete, just "old" books in some cases.

The upshot of this is that I use my local library system predominantly as a source of ILLs, rather than borrowing from it directly; though that said, I have had a bit more success in that respect recently: one of the branches has a lot of paperback reprints of older mysteries.

I miss the library that I used to access at my previous job: it's a great link with its community and has events like "bilingual story time" for the children of its significantly Mandarin-speaking local population. (Also, that system doesn't charge for ILLs unless they obtain the book!)

Oh, I certainly understand the need for libraries to cull, and I realize that given my reading tastes local libraries will be unlikely to have much for me. So I chiefly use my town library for ILL requests as well, though, as in your case, I have been able to get mystery reprints and a few other items from the county system. I gather they can draw on a fairly broad ILL network within the United States, including academic libraries, which means that I generally can count on getting my more-academic book requests filled, but older popular fiction remains a game of chance.

Despite my recent whinging, our ILL system is really very good, accessing books countrywide for a low flat fee. So at least if a book is out there somewhere, you *can* get it!

>141 lyzard: Oh, I'm quite happy with our ILL network, too, at least through my current town library — it's all free, unless the lending library charges for ILL.

The Dangerous Dandy - Despite finding her on the verge of suicide, the Earl of Dorrington is inclined to think that Alyna Camberley's terror in the face of her mother's plan to force her into marriage with Prince Ahmadi of Kahriz is exaggerated. However, when he subsequently learns from his connections at the Foreign Office that the Prince has been married twice before to very young, very fair girls---both of whom died within a year---Dorrington sees that Alyna is in real danger. When she turns to him in desperation after evading an attempt to keep her drugged, Dorrington carries her away to his sister's house in the country. But he knows this will not be the end of it: the Prince is a man who will go to any lengths to get what he wants... This 1974 novel by Barbara Cartland is, in spite of its paedophile prince (and the accompanying racial implications), more engaging than many of her romances. Dorrington is less obnoxiously alpha than most of her heroes, Alyna has a bit more of a backbone than usual, and both of them - when circumstances admit - display a sense of humour. In addition, we have another of Cartland's absurdly idealised portraits of the Prince Regent (in this case presenting his mind-boggling expenditure on works of art as altruistic, "for the good of posterity"), a climatic duel fought at Carlton House in front of the cream of English society, and the revelation that Alyna is actually a redhead!---her mother dyed her hair blonde to make her more appealling to the Prince. A friend and pupil of Beau Brummel, Dorrington himself has a public reputation for caring about nothing but his clothes. However, as his closest friends are very well aware, he is also a first-class athlete: a horseman, a boxer, and an expert swordsman. All of which means that Prince Ahmadi has bitten off a little more than he can chew...

    The duellists now seemed to quicken their efforts. The Prince, as if furious at having been blooded before his opponent, tore at Lord Dorrington and his sword hissed through the air with a sound like that of a whip. He lunged again and again but always Lord Dorrington seemed to be just out of reach.
    "I will kill you!" he said suddenly.
    His voice was quite audible to those who were watching, and there was no mistaking the primitive lust for blood in the expression on his face.
    "Are you suggesting," Lord Dorrigton asked, his voice quiet and quite unperturbed, "that we should fight to the death?"
    "It will be your death, you dressed-up Nincompoop!" the Prince replied; "your death! And then I course can have the pleasure of consoling your bride!"

I read some Cartland in my 20s, when I was looking for more books like Georgette Heyer's. Cartland may have copied her plots, but she never approached Heyer's wit or characterization. Nevermore.

Oh good lord no, not within a million miles! I find her books silly enough to be entertaining, though, and short enough not to wear out their welcome.

You know Georgette once got legal advice about that, right? Would have been interesting if she'd followed through! :D

I never knew that, about Cartland copying Heyer's plots! Interesting stuff. I've never read a single Cartland but of course I know the name. In fact, I knew who she was long before I ever heard of Georgette Heyer, which didn't happen until I joined LT and y'all helped me see the light!

Glad to be of service! :D

It was names and language as well as plots. Most notoriously, Barb stole the expression "making a cake of yourself", which was *not* in general usage: Georgette found it in a private letter when she was doing some research; it was an expression in that particular family, but not common slang.

Finished The Mystery Of The Cape Cod Players for TIOLI #19.

I picked up The Chinese Shawl by Patricia Wentworth this afternoon; alas, still no sign of The 'Z' Murders, so Kindle it is.

Meanwhile, still reading The Holy War by John Bunyan.

>147 lyzard: Oh wow! That sounds pretty blatant. It's a wonder that Georgette never followed through with a legal challenge.

She probably thought the unpleasantness would outweigh the payoff: she was a very private person, notorious for refusing interviews and other self-promotion, and would have hated the publicity of a law-suit.

I'm a bit jealous of your library system, Liz. When I worked at the University of Oregon, I had access to the library there but no longer. Now I live in a town with a small library, linked to the other libraries in the county, and it carries few older books. So often I have to buy them which has it's limits! I do love reading about the books you find.

Thanks, Jan!

Yes, my recent complaints shouldn't be taken as a reflection upon our library system generally---rather, I'm having a tantrum because things rarely go wrong like this, and it's such an unpleasant surprise when they do.

I'm trying very hard to limit my book buying too, but there are times when it's the only option.

Graustark: The Story Of A Love Behind A Throne - While on a train between Denver and his home in Washington DC, wealthy young American Grenfall Lorry becomes infatuated with a lovely fellow-traveller---although he is somewhat taken aback by learning that her name is Miss Guggenslocker. By the end of the journey Lorry is rather more than infatuated: so much so that after struggling with himself for several months, he sets out from America for the the tiny European principality of Graustark, in order to find the girl again. Along the way, he acquires a companion in the form of old friend and aspiring artist, Harry Anguish. Upon arriving in Graustark, Lorry is bemused and frustrated when he can find no trace of anyone called "Guggenslocker". However, his thoughts are diverted when he and Anguish overhear a plot to abduct Graustark's young ruler, the Princess Yevite. The two young men immediately vow to intervene, and succeed in thwarting the plot. They also discover the true identity of "Miss Guggenslocker". Lorry is stunned to realise that he has fallen in love with a princess, but worse is to follow: Yevite stands on the brink of making a hateful marriage... Although it became the first book in a series successful in its own right, the debt owed by George Barr McCutcheon's Graustark to Anthony Hope's The Prisoner Of Zenda could hardly be clearer; in fact, Graustark is basically The Prisoner Of Zenda re-written to answer the question, "How would an American have handled the situation?" The earlier book, for all its unabashed romanticism, is finally a much tougher-minded work, one determined to keep its princess a princess; whereas Graustark has a declared purpose of demonstrating that its princess is "a mere woman". But like its model, Graustark is a full-blooded adventure boasting a narrative enlivened by plots, and narrow escapes, and lots of derring-do. Due to its loss in a war instigated by Yevite's father, Graustark is obliged to pay an enormous sum of money to its northern neighbour, Axphain, or give up much of its territory. The ruler of Axphain has, however, offered to cancel the debt if Yevite will marry his son, Prince Lorenz. Meanwhile, Dawsbergen, to the south, has offered to pay Graustark's financial debt---if Yevite will marry its ruler, the domineering Prince Gabriel, who is obsessed with her. In fact, hearing Gabriel talk at a court function, Lorry is convinced that he is the man behind the attempted abduction of Yevite. Determined to save her country, and repelled by the violent Gabriel, Yevite makes up her mind to put aside her secret feelings for Lorry and accept Prince Lorenz. The weak, selfish young man subsequently makes the mistake of speaking disrespectfully of Yevite in public: Lorry loses his temper, knocking him to the ground and threatening him with worse should he transgress again. There are many witnesses to this scene, including Prince Gabriel---all of whom are prepared to swear Lorry guilty when Prince Lorenz is found murdered...

    “I cannot and will not permit you to make such a sacrifice for me. The proposition of Bolaroz is known to me. If you produce me for trial you are to have a ten years’ extension. My duty is plain. I am no cowardly criminal, and I am not afraid to face my accusers. At the worst, I can die but once.”
    “Die but once,” Yevite repeated, as if in a dream.
    “I came here to tell you of my decision, to ask you to save your lands, protect your people, and to remember that I would die a thousand times to serve you and yours.”
    “After all I have done---after all I have done,” she murmured, piteously. “No, no! You shall not! You are more to me than all my kingdom, than all the people in the world. You have made me love you, you have caused me to detest the throne which separates us, you have made me pray that I might be a pauper, but you shall not force me to destroy the mite of hope that lingers in my heart!... For my sake,---for my sake,---go away from this place. Save yourself! You are all I have to live for.” Her arms were about his neck and her imploring words went to his heart like great thrusts of pain...

>151 Oregonreader: Jan, how does your local library do with ILL requests? The library here where we live now is quite good about them (and the librarians are interested in the books, too), but in the last small town we lived in, the librarians seemed to have difficulties and my requests often were never heard from again.

>153 lyzard: I got about halfway through Graustark a couple years ago before mislaying the book. It recently resurfaced, so I guess I should finish it. Then at least I'd be certain whether I should get the sequels. :-)

> 154 Our system is all on line on the library computers. You can enter a search and it will tell you what is held by all the linked libraries. The librarians will help. But the real problem is how limited their holdings are. You can find most of Christies books, for example, but very few from mystery writers before her. But they probably don't get that many requests.

>143 lyzard: Does that bring back memories! I never read any of Barbara Cartland's books, but my mother sure did.

>156 Oregonreader: Oh, that's too bad! Our little local library has been able to get me some older books from libraries around the country via interlibrary loan — most recently a mystery first published in 1910 and reprinted in 1925. Anything I can find in Worldcat that is held in the U.S. is fair game to ask for, although I can't always get the book, if the libraries that own copies don't circulate them.

>154 harrygbutler:, >156 Oregonreader:, >158 harrygbutler:

I am a member of the National Library of Australia, and have access to their Libraries Australia database, which links all the libraries within the country, general, specialty and academic. The content isn't entirely complete or accurate (in particular, for some reason a lot of what the State Library NSW holds in storage isn't listed), but it gives a good overview of what might be available for ILL (or not).

>155 harrygbutler:

I confess to being a Zenda-ite, but I'll probably get to the sequels at some point...

>157 alcottacre:

This was one of my It Came Out Of The Box reads, but I did go through a phase some (many) years ago. :)

>133 lyzard: From the library webpage I think my copy will 'only' be about 750 pages. I'll keep an eye out for the 'M' spot in the Mayflower challenge and check p114 and p40 for transportation and capitals.

>147 lyzard: I also did not know about Cartland's borrowings from Heyer in her books - your thread is always interesting!

Aw, thanks. :)

I had no luck with my edition regarding pgs 40 or 113, but presumably we'll be allowed a shared read if you do. Otherwise, yes, catch that 'M'! (Or the 'The' in Paul's new challenge? We'll have to be quick for that one, I suspect!)

So, after all that---

Finished The 'Z' Murders for TIOLI #2.

Also finished The Holy War for TIOLI #5, which is also #75 for the year. (Good grief! I have gotten a little carried away this year...)

So I am done for April---phew!!

Now reading Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury, in preparation for the Virago group read.

Just noting for anyone interested that the next book in my C. K. Shorter challenge will be Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain René le Sage.

I would like to get to that in May as it fits my own TIOLI challenge, but it may not happen since I am (surprise!) already over-committed.

>163 lyzard: Hi, Liz! Consider me tentative for Gil Blas — I have it on a shelf and would like to read it, but I don't think May is likely to work for me.

Honestly, I don't think it's going to work for me either! But because it fits my own TIOLI challenge a got a whiff of obligation. :)

Anyway, I don't really want another nailed down, one-a-month challenge, so I might as well break the pattern at the outset!

>162 lyzard: Congratulations on reaching 75, Liz!

Thanks, Anita!

Congrats on 75!

Well done with reading 75 books already, Liz! You are a reading whirlwind, my friend.

Thank you, Jim and Julia!! :)

Surprise: my interlibrary loan of The 'Z' Murders just showed up.

Sigh...

The thread is up for the Virago Chronological Read Project group read of Geraldine Jewsbury's Zoe: The History Of Two Lives:

Here

All welcome!

Congratulations on reaching 75, Liz!

Thanks, Harry!

Congratulations on hitting the 75 book mark, Liz.

I can't remember if I've shared this story before but, although I had read The Prisoner of Zenda from the high school library, I borrowed Graustark from Ike's mother's bookcase at the Eisenhower Boyhood Home where I worked during the summer after my sophomore year in college. My station was right next to the front door with the counter (for # of visitors) and that bookcase was in the front hall right across from me. I ended up reading several books from it, but that's the only one I remember. (I shall have to visit the next time I visit family and see what other ones are there--these were the ones in the bookcase when Mrs. Eisenhower died in 1948.)

Thanks, Roni!

No, I hadn't heard that before---that's a great story, thanks for sharing. :)

Congratulations on reading 75 books this year!

My copy of *Madwoman* doesn't work for either the p40 or p113 challenges for May :-( Mayflower is paused on 'E' and I am hitting refresh frequently.....

Thanks, Heather!

Oh, I've been doing that too! Aren't we ridiculous?? :D

(Though it would be more ridiculous to stop! Given out timezone differences, I shall leave you to take over for a while...)

Finished Zoe: The History Of Two Lives for TIOLI #2.

Now reading Patty's Friends by Carolyn Wells.

Congratulations on the Magic 75, Liz!

I know you're not buying books (:-D), but FYI, from one of the small presses I like: https://www.facebook.com/CoachwhipBooks/posts/10158435509920411

>180 Matke:

Hi, Gail - thank you! :)

>181 harrygbutler:

Get thee behind me, Satan!

Finished Patty's Friends for TIOLI #13.

Now reading Peregrine's Progress by Jeffery Farnol.

Okay.

The very last thing I need is another reading challenge...or another book list...let alone one consisting of 3500 books...yet I find myself salivating in a disconcertingly Pavlovian way over this:

The best modern novels; a classified list of thirty-five hundred of the best modern novels that are in active use in the public libraries of the United States by William Alanson Borden (1910)

>184 lyzard: Let's see, at 12 a year for a monthly challenge... Go for it! :-)

Easy-peasy! :D

>184 lyzard: Just say no, Liz! Stay strong!

Finished Peregrine's Progress for TIOLI #4.

Now reading Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green.

>184 lyzard: Ha! At first read, I thought, "Whoa, Liz is going to read a list of *modern* novels?!" but then, of course, I can to the parentheses...

:D

Though I should point out that the best-seller list I'm already working through *has* no end, plus I've got at least one "best 20th century novels" list, so it may happen!

Just catching up after a long tax season. Loving the classic mysteries! I see that you have Murder Must Advertise on loan - it's my absolute favorite Sayers. And I love the French version of A Body in the Library!

Hi, Robin - thanks for that! :)

I read Murder Must Advertise last month, but am still pondering a review. (You'd know all about THAT!) That French cover is hilarious, isn't it??

Groan.

I seem to have slipped down a reading rabbit-hole: I keep rehashing my lists and researching and re-researching books I passed over previously for rarity or expense...and that fact that several of them have been released on Kindle since I skipped over them and now are available is making even harder to move on. It's like a game of snakes and ladders, except that someone seems to have removed all the ladders.

I keep telling myself that it doesn't actually matter---that if hunting down books makes me happy I am "making progress"---but there remains about it this sense of ever-diminishing circles...

>194 lyzard: Love to hear what you think about it, but darn those pesky reviews!

Hunting down books is part of the fun of reading, IMO. I, personally, seem to have this addiction to Kindle Daily Deals - or any sort of free or bargain book. I've joined a couple of book websites that will keep track of price-drops for authors that I'm interested in, or just send me deals for certain genres, and its killing me. I need to stop opening my email!

>195 lyzard: Like Robin says, sometimes the chase is half the fun (or more, in the case of some of those clunkers you read!) so don't beat yourself up, Liz. Maybe you could make a little rule for yourself: X number of books read between list re-hashes?

>195 lyzard: Aw, just revel in it! At least that's what I'd try to do. I'm in that situation (to a much lesser extent, likely, though) with the 1001 Children's Books and the Newbery Honor Books; there are many of the earlier ones that are difficult to find and I've done searching on various catalogues and then Audible (for which I don't even have a subscription yet, but plan on it eventually)... And I keep re-looking and such, but I love that part of it, too.

>195 lyzard: It's like a game of snakes and ladders, except that someone seems to have removed all the ladders.

I can identify with that Liz. As an avid list maker I often find the list making more enjoyable than the doing and my reading often suffers as a result.

Here's to doing. Have a great weekend.

Aw, thank you, guys! I'm lucky to have so many enablers such a great support group!

>196 rretzler:

I guess I'm lucky that the stuff I read doesn't come up in those sorts of deals, or in the monthly specials, or I'd have the same problem!

>197 rosalita:

My books aren't that bad, are they? (Okay, some of them...)

I wish I had the will-power for such an arrangement, but I find the book hunt just too addicting...

>198 scaifea:

Yes, that's pretty much my situation---except sadly I suspect the lists I'm working from are even longer than yours, the '1001' notwithstanding! I find it almost impossible just to let stuff go.

>199 PaulCranswick:

Thanks, Paul!

Truthfully it's the reviewing that tends to suffer! :D

Finished Agatha Webb for TIOLI #5.

Now reading Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton.

As long as it's fun, Liz. If it stops being fun...then come up with another plan. Life is too short! {{{Liz}}}

Thanks, Roni, but it is fun; it's great fun! It just doesn't get any reading done! :D

My lists tend to be fairly haphazard, with authors or series added only as I decide they have become sufficiently important. When I was actively gathering back issues of model railroad magazines, I was a bit more systematic. But researching what belongs on lists, and putting them together, can indeed be fun.

...not to mention dangerously addictive. :)

Finished Black Oxen for TIOLI #17.

Now reading Red And Black by Grace S. Richmond. However, I can only read that online, so my 'portable' book is Ruth Fielding In The Saddle by Alice B. Emerson.

Hi Liz. I'm reading Winifred Peck's Bewildering Cares at the moment which is a fictional diary of a vicar's wife in 1940 and idly wondering just how many fictional diaries of middle-class women there were in the 1930s and 1940s? So far I've got Delafield's Provincial Lady series, Stevenson's Mrs Tim and Bewildering Cares by Peck. I thought I could add Dennys' Henrietta's War (which I haven't read) to the list but looking at the LT page this is letters rather than a diary.

Oh, and there's Provincial Daughter in the 1950s written by Delafield's daughter.

Did The Provincial Lady start a little bit of a fashion for these sorts of books? Are there more fictional diaries waiting to rediscovered and republished?

I don't really expect you to know the answer but I figured if anyone on LT knew it would be you :-)

As to what other ones might be out there, I can't help you, but I think this mini-explosion of middle-class women writing fictional diaries was more a function of where society was at than a discrete phenomenon: fake diaries and journals were a standard from the beginning of the novel, probably another step in the acceptance of fiction as fiction, the move from people insisting that theirs was "a true story". Defoe's A Journal Of The Plague Year, from 1722, may have been the first, or perhaps it's just the first famous one. The shift towards this being an (almost?) exclusively female thing is interesting, though.

Murder Must Advertise - When copy-writer Victor Dean falls to his death on the premises of Pym's Publicity, an advertising agency, a certain Mr Bredon is hired to replace him. It seems to Bredon's new colleagues that he doesn't know much about copy-writing; he does, however, display an inordinate curiosity about the workings of the agency, the death of his predecessor, and where everyone was at the time... To the profound dismay of Managing Director Mr Pym, Bredon is soon convinced that Victor Dean was murdered; yet both men are aware that if this was a self-contained incident, it does not fit the suggestion that Pym's, in its entirety, may soon be plunged into scandal, as was hinted in an uncompleted letter written by the dead man. Bredon is put on a different track by the revelation that Dean was running with a social crowd given to wild parties and drug abuse; and in pursuing this line of investigation, finds himself living a dangerous and exhausting double - even triple - life... There's so much to admire about the tenth book in Dorothy L. Sayers' series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey that it seems petty to criticise it; yet certain aspects of Murder Must Advertise did disappointment me---even apart from the detail of Sayers' own prejudices emanating so jarringly from Peter's mouth. Though Peter Wimsey is indisputably one of the great characters not just of detective fiction, but fiction generally, here he crosses a credibility line---being, if you like, a little too perfect, too infallible, as he solves a murder and breaks up a drug-trafficking ring, in between maintaining two false identities, fending off smitten young women, partying all night with drug fiends, single-handedly winning cricket matches, and whipping together the most brilliant campaign in the history of British advertising; and while the advertising aspect of this is certainly intended satirically, there's little indication that the rest of this isn't meant to be taken straight. There's also something singularly exasperating about someone raised from birth in the very lap of wealth and privilege telling other people that, "It doesn't matter what school you went to": I'm not sure that's true even now, but it certainly wasn't in 1933! However--- You may, if you like, attribute all this to the usual critical tendency to be harder on works that get nearly everything right, than upon those that are merely mediocre; because in many, even most, ways, Murder Must Advertise is a remarkable work of fiction. Drawing upon her own past experiences, Dorothy Sayers makes Pym's Publicity a brilliantly believable entity, even as she ruthlessly satirises the advertising business itself and the public that continues to get suckered in. She also provides a fascinating portrait of office life in the 1930s, with young men and women of a variety of backgrounds and educations coming together in a single workplace---not always with the happiest of consequences; while the cricket-match climax, wherein (after a painful blow on the elbow from a rising delivery), Mr Death Bredon so far forgets himself as to allow Lord Peter Wimsey to show himself in public, is a hilarious and brilliantly sustained piece of writing. Yet the frequent humour of Murder Must Advertise is blended into a grim and, indeed, ultimately disturbing crime plot, as Peter unravels blackmail and murder on the premises of Pym's publicity, and searches for the connection between the agency and the ring of cocaine traffickers whose methods of distribution have baffled the police. Several more people will die before the mystery is fully unravelled, and Peter himself will find his own life in imminent danger---although the question remains, which part of his complex investigation has made him the target of a killer...?

    "Bredon?" Mr Brotherhood was plainly puzzled. "Bredon? I don't remember ever hearing that name. But didn't I see you play for Oxford in 1911? You have a late cut which is exceedingly characteristic, and I could have taken my oath that the last time I saw you play it was at Lord's in 1911, when you made 112. But I thought the name was Wimsey---Peter Wimsey of Balliol---Lord Peter Wimsey---and, now I come to think of it---"
    At this very awkward moment an interruption occurred. Two men in police uniforms were seen coming across the field, led by another man in mufti. They pushed their way through the crowd of cricketers and guests, and advanced upon the little group by the pavilion fence. One of the uniformed men touched Lord Peter on the arm.
    "Are you Mr Death Bredon?"
    "I am," said Wimsey, in some astonishment.
    "Then you'll have to come with us. You're wanted on a charge of murder, and it is my duty to warn you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence."
    "Murder?" ejaculated Wimsey. The policeman had spoken in unnecessarily loud and penetrating tones, and the whole crowd had frozen in fascinated attention...

Wonderful how LT always manages to time its crashes for when you're in the middle of a lengthy review...

>210 lyzard: Ugh, I hate when that happens. Earlier today I was in the midst of a carefully crafted and somewhat lengthy post when I accidentally hit some weird key combination that brought up some sort of developer's window in Chrome. By the time I figured out how to get back to my normal page, my post was gone. Boo!

Peril At Cranbury Hall - Professor Verclaes, a not-untalented but reckless scientist, goes into partnership with the unscrupulous Dr Richards to market his newly-developed anti-fatigue serum, which Richards intends to sell to his wealthiest patients, making it the basis of a long and expensive series of "treatments" conducted at a country rest-home. He does not mention to Verclaes his further intention to lace the experimental serum with something addictive, to keep his patients coming back... Meanwhile, the release from prison of Oliver Gilroy after a seven-year sentence for fraud is cause for dismay on the part of his brother, Arnold, who took advantage of his situation to forge a codicil to the will of their aunt, making himself her sole heir. Oliver has no suspicion of this, but is wholly focused upon catching up with his erstwhile partners in the fraudulent investment business, who were to hold his share of their profits while he did time, but now show a singular reluctance to hand the money over. It is perhaps not surprising that Oliver begins to experience a series of "accidents"... The eighth book in John Rhode's series featuring scientist and sometime detective, Dr Lancelot Priestley, is an unusually plotted and peopled mystery---offering not only a main cast of thoroughly despicable people, but staying with them as the first half of the plot develops, "inverted detective story" style, with the reader made privy to all sorts of criminal activity before the mystery per se kicks in. There is a certain black humour, most unusual for John Rhode, about the unfolding narrative, with Oliver Gilroy surviving a gunshot from ambush, tampered-with gas-lines, an exploding generator and a high-speed car-crash---the latter of which occurs before the horrified eyes of Dr Priestley and his secretary, Harold Merefield. Circumstances prevent Dr Priestley from having anything more than a cursory look at the car, but he sees enough to know that it was wired to send an electric shock through the steering wheel. Discreet inquiries reveal that Oliver has been holding a sinecure position as manager of the "rest-home" run by Richards and Verclaes, to whose daughter, Rachel, he was once engaged. When Oliver subsequently disappears, Dr Priestley joins forces with Inspector Hanslet (who has, we learn, shunned Dr Priestley since the events of The Davidson Case, this novel's clever predecessor), learning about Oliver's criminal past, and why there is no shortage of people with motive to kill him; though we are hardly prepared for the suggestion that his experiences so far may have been four unsuccessful attempts on his life by four different people! These attempted murders notwithstanding, the real interest of the police lies in identifying Oliver's three co-conspirators in his fraud. Their investigation leads Dr Priestley and Hanslet to Ostend, where - in what they are wholly unable to believe is either an accident or a coincidence - Oliver is found dead of what local authorities determine to be infection with anthrax...

    "I am of the opinion that we have learned much valuable information from Norton. You yourself are prepared to accept as correct his account of the operations of the Savings Investment Agency. Very well. Admitting the trith of this account, we know of three people who had a motive for murdering Oliver Gilroy: Norton himself, Dr Richards, and Mr Harrison. But Norton also let drop another piece of information, of which we had not the slightest inkling. Arnold Gilroy, it appears, had defrauded his half-brother of money due to him under a will, and he must have been under some apprehension of Oliver discovering the truth. This is sufficient for us to add him to our list of suspects.
    "Now, it is a significant fact that, on each occasion when Oliver Gilroy met with an accident, one or other of these suspects is in some way involved. Norton has confessed to the first attempt. Arnold Gilroy drove his half-brother to the lodge on the evening when he so narrowly escaped suffocation. It was at Harrison's suggestion that Oliver examined that gas-engine. The car which swerved while Oliver was driving it belonged to Dr Richards. What inference would you draw from these facts, Chief Inspector?"

There is something else about Peril At Cranbury Hall, in addition to its bizarre and sickly funny plot, which should be mentioned:

Those of you who have read Dorothy Sayers' Have His Carcase will know that a complicated cipher plays an important part in the plot. The novel comes appended with an acknowledgement by Sayers that it was John Rhode to whom she turned for help in working out this aspect of her story---and it was in Peril At Cranbury Hall, published two years earlier, that Rhode himself used the so-called "Playfair Cipher", where the cracking of the code allows Dr Priestley and Inspector Hanslet to flush out Oliver Gilroy's hitherto "silent partner".

For what it's worth, I found John Rhode's explanation of the working of this quite complicated cipher a lot easier to follow than Sayers':

>211 rosalita:

I was lucky: I copied it before I tried to save it, a habit I picked up while using my previous, most unreliable computer, which had a habit of freezing. There's nothing more exasperating than losing a block of work like that (and I've done the hit-the-wrong-key thing often enough to know!).

The Clutching Hand - Private investigator John Bartley and his assistant, Pelt, travel by car and ferry to a small island in Long Island Sound, intending to visit their friend, Willard Nash, who wishes to consult them. However, due to imperfect directions and a growing fog, the two become lost on the island's backroads. As they approach an intersection after a long drive through the darkness, they are startled to see, first, the figure of a woman slipping into the shadows; second, a darkened car parked off the road. The two men investigate---and find a man inside the car, shot dead, a gun in his left hand... Bartley goes for help, leaving Pell to keep watch; he finds a seat some distance away, from where he sees by the light of a torch a hand reaching for the dead man... This eighth book in the series by Charles J. Dutton is (like most of its fellows) much ado about nothing, a fairly simply plot dragged out to novel length by Dutton's inimitable "write simple things into the ground" style, and much pointless speculation on the part of the always bewildered Pelt. Furthermore, the title is a promise never fulfilled: it may refer either to the hand of the dead man, holding a gun, or the hand that Pell glimpses reaching into the car, but there's not much "clutching" going on. Ultimately, the one really interesting aspect of The Clutching Hand is that much of the plot turns on ballistic evidence: America was slow to adopt this investigative technique, for whatever reason, and while Bartley doesn't tell us anything we that don't already know, his lectures on the subject offer an intriguing glimpse of where law enforcement was at in this respect, circa 1928. Otherwise, this is the kind of mystery where pointing out that the victim was right-handed, while the gun was found in his left, is supposed to be a brilliant piece of detective work. The dead man was lawyer Robert Van Dike who, not content with unscrupulous but profitable dealings with the mobsters who retain his services, had a sideline in blackmail. Given that he was murdered on a small island where comings and goings would be noticed, Bartley considers it more likely that the blackmail got him killed, and that the murderer is a local person. When, the next morning, it is discovered that Harold Nash is missing, his father confesses to Bartley that it was about Harold he wished, privately, to consult him: about the boy's increasingly strange behaviour, and demands for money; about his evident anger with Robert Van Dike; and about the jewellery missing from the family safe...

    The car was in a direct line from where I was standing. When we had looked inside, the windows had been open, the glass level with the frame. As my eyes strained through the darkness, I saw at the window farthest away from me a light---a round splotch of light; a light which crept slowly over the head of the dead man, then went inch by inch down the length of the body. And as the light hesitated for a second---in its glare I saw a hand.
    It was the barest glimpse of a hand. Only for a mere part of a second did the light fall upon it---a hand reaching into the car. With long curving fingers, fingers reaching for something I could not see. A hand clutching wildly for a second at the coat of the dead man. As I saw it I hesitated, reached for my gun and started to run.
    Just what I intended to do, I do not know, but at the sight of the clutching hand reaching into the car, but one idea leaped to my mind---to see to whom the long, thin fingers belonged...

Finished Ruth Fielding In The Saddle for TIOLI #5.

Now reading The Bunch Of Violets by Ernest Bramah; but because it is only a linking short story, I will be moving on to Max Carrados Mysteries, also by Ernest Bramah.

Still reading Red And Black by Grace S. Richmond.

Finished Red And Black for TIOLI #14.

Still reading The Bunch Of Violets by Ernest Bramah.

Finished The Bunch Of Violets for TIOLI #7.

Now reading Ma Cinderella by Harold Bell Wright, one of three books slated for this month that I can only read online (my poor eyes!); while my 'portable' book remains Max Carrados Mysteries by Ernest Bramah.

The Body In The Library - At Gossington Hall, Colonel and Mrs Bantry are woken one morning by the sound of hysterical cries and the news that there is a body in their library. After a few minutes' incredulous shock, Colonel Bantry calls the police; Mrs Bantry, meanwhile, calls her friend, Miss Jane Marple... Josephine Turner, a hostess at the Majestic Hotel in Danesmouth, identifies the victim as her young cousin, Ruby Keene, who was also temporarily working at the Majestic as a dancer, but can offer no suggestion as to why Ruby might have been at Gossington. Noting the detail that it was not Josie, but a guest at the hotel, who reported Ruby missing, the police go to interview Conway Jefferson, an elderly man confined to a wheelchair after a plane crash that also killed his son and daughter. Jefferson tells them that he was planning on adopting Ruby and making her his heiress; having, as he feels, already done sufficient for Mark Gaskell and Adelaide Jefferson, the widower and widow of his daughter and son, after he settled money upon them at the time of their respective marriages. However, discovering that both Mr Gaskell and Mrs Jefferson are in financial difficulties, the police are sure they have found the motive for Ruby's murder---except that both suspects have a solid alibi for the time of Ruby's death... Published in 1942, The Body In The Library is the second full-length novel to feature Miss Marple, and the first to take her away from the environs of St Mary Mead. Though the mystery at its heart is sufficiently complex, it is the wealth of surrounding detail that makes this book enjoyable. As was her wont when dealing with particularly cold-blooded murder, Christie balances her horrors with humour. For one thing, we might recall that the author's alter-ego, Ariadne Oliver, had by this time already published a mystery called "The Body In The Library" (Dolly Bantry's immediate, indignant reaction to the murder is the protest that things like this, "Only happen in books."). Christie also offers cameo appearances from the cast of The Murder At The Vicarage, including the St Mary Mead gossips from whose ranks Jane has now been promoted. (The moment that always cracks me up is the vicar's blank incomprehension in the face of an ominous reference to St John's Wood...) More organically, there is almost a surfeit of police in The Body In The Library, with Inspector Slack and the Chief Constable, Colonel Melchett, of the Gossington Hall end of the case joining forces with Superintendent Harper of Danesmouth, and Sir Henry Clithering, formerly of Scotland Yard (and introduced in The Thirteen Problems), showing up during the proceedings. Christie has fun with the range of reactions displayed by these professional men to the involvement of Miss Marple, with Melchett and Clithering finally demoralised to the point of asking each other, "How does Miss Marple feel about it?" before acting on a theory, and the resentful Inspector Slack, who was shown up by Jane over The Murder At The Vicarage, finding himself destined to be so again. There is nothing funny, however, about the local response to the discovery of a dead blonde at Gossington Hall: it is her immediate recognition of what the consequences will be for her husband if the murder isn't solved and his name cleared that prompts Dolly Bantry to call in Jane; and indeed, initial snickering has progressed to shunning by the time the case is closed. Still more cruel is the reaction of the survivors to the dead girl, who is variously stigmatised as "cheap", "tawdry", "a little gold-digger"---even as "asking for it". We, however, never see Ruby alive to judge for ourselves. These condemnations issue from people with an axe to grind; much of the girl's supposedly reprehensible behaviour is clearly mere slanderous suggestion; and by the end of The Body In The Library, as far as "gold-digging" goes, we might find ourselves wondering what the difference is between "cheap" Ruby and "nice" Mark and Adelaide, who have hung on their father-in-law's sleeve for years, hoping to inherit his money. But whatever we make of their conduct, both of the obvious suspects are ruled out in the early investigation, and the police turn their attention to the hunt for Ruby's secret boyfriend---everyone is quite sure that there must have been a boyfriend. The case is turned on its head, however, when a second missing girl is found horribly murdered, leaving the police to wonder if they are hunting a very different kind of killer...

    "All set---eh?" said the Chief Constable. "Right. We'll go along. In the library, Slack tells me."
    Colonel Bantry groaned. "It's incredible! You know, when my wife insisted this morning that the housemaid had come in and said there was a body in the library, I just wouldn't believe her."
    "No, no, I can quite understand that. Hope your missus isn't too badly upset by it all?"
    "She's been wonderful---really wonderful. She's got old Miss Marple up here with her---from the village, you know."
    "Miss Marple?" The Chief Constable stiffened. "Why did she send for her?"
    "Oh, a woman wants another woman---don't you think so?"
    Colonel Melchett said with a slight chuckle: "If you ask me, your wife's going to try her hand at a little amateur detecting. Miss Marple's quite the local sleuth. Put it over us properly once, didn't she, Slack?"
    Inspector Slack said: "That was different."

>219 lyzard: As a boy I always preferred the Marple books to the Poirot books, Liz, but rereading them as an adult of sorts I think I have changed my mind. It doesn't matter really though as both remain great fun.

Have a great weekend and hopefully one without LT crashes.

Hi, Paul! No, I've never felt any need to choose between them---they're both great fun in their different ways, as you note. (I will add that there are a couple of standalones on my favourites list.)

Thank you! - a pox on crashes. :)

>219 lyzard: I remember that one being filled with humor both sly and not so sly. Good stuff!

There is a Kindle US sale today on Christie books ($1.99 each), and I had to restrain myself mightily to only buying the Poirots that I have yet to read (since I've finished the Marples). There were a number of standalones I would have loved to pick up as well but one must draw the line somewhere!

The Mystery Of The Cape Cod Players - Convalescing after pneumonia, Victoria Ballard allows her officious adopted son, George, to arrange for her an isolated cabin at Cape Cod where she can rest and recover, but rebels against his idea of suitable companions, taking with her instead her likeable if flighty maid, Rose, and Judy Dunham, the daughter of an old friend who has fallen on very hard times. The visitors have barely gotten settled when they find on their doorstep a group of travelling entertainers who have gotten lost while searching for the people who hired them to perform. Despite her vivid mental picture of George's stern disapproval should he know of her actions, the kind-hearted Vic allows them to stay the night, inviting the female members of the six-person troupe to sleep the house. She has reason to repent, however, when the next morning, she finds red-headed magician John Gilpin shot dead in the dunes near the cottage... The third book in Phoebe Atwood Taylor's series featuring Asey Mayo is perhaps not as strong as its predecessors, in that it spends rather too long going over the same ground, examining alibis and who could have been where when. Nevertheless, it also has the usual strengths of Taylor's writing, in particular its evocation of the lonely Cape Cod setting in which the mystery unfolds, and the understanding humour of her depiction of the locals. In addition, the effects of the Depression are constantly present in this story, albeit rarely referred to directly: Judy Dunham is experiencing literal starvation when her situation is brought to Vic's notice; the itinerant entertainers have taken up this way of earning a living after losing their jobs and their homes, and now live on the road in their trucks; and even Vic herself, though she is still comfortable, has the threat of financial losses associated with her late husband's company hanging over her head, despite George's management. Details such as these form the background to Asey Mayo's investigation of the murder of John Gilpin, whose attraction for, and careless treatment of, the female sex seems to provide the motive: outraged fathers, angry husbands and wounded women were the inevitable background of Gilpin's life. What evidence is found at the scene points at two potential suspects: hot-tempered, jealous Dan Allen, another member of the troupe, whose wife, Edie, was the sometime object of Gilpin's attentions; and Oscar Satterlee, the father of Gilpin's most recent romantic discard. In time, however, Judy confesses that she, too, was once involved with Gilpin: revealing that he told her he had finally fallen seriously in love---and with a married woman. With patience and skill, Asey tracks down the movements of those concerned in the case, until it seems to the bemusement of himself and Vic that he has eliminated everyone; and indeed, Asey may never have gotten on the right track if it weren't for the dead skunk...

    "Punch ain't come into this a lot as yet. But he admitted right off the bat he was a good shot an' knew a lot about guns. Hat Allen went out to the van sometime after twelve. Punch says he didn't hear Dan go out an' Dan says he didn't hear Punch. Either might have been wrong. Edie Allen says she didn't go out. Satterlee was roamin' around holdin' conversations with ladies in bushes that had nice voices. Take your choice!" Asey waved his hand casually. "Take your choice..."
    We drove back to the cottage in silence. Parker walked over to his own car. "I've got to get along, Asey. Carry on. Sing out for anything you need, and if your brain doesn't percolate over this, I'll know it's not possible for anyone else's to. Oh, the papers are a bit wrought up, but pay no attention to 'em. I'll see you later."
    "Nice feller," Asey murmured as Parker drove away. "Nice feller. Yup. Just use your brains, Asey. Pick the winner with the ole grey matter. Pick the winner, ladies an' gents. Step right up. Hand's quicker'n the eye. What's the guy think I am, for Pete's sake? Loco Looey, the mind readin' marvel? An' what he really meant was that the papers was pannin' him an' for me to get someone to hand over to him by t'morrow."
    "But he didn't say any such thing, Asey!"
    "He don't say. That feller expects..."

>222 rosalita:

Thanks, Julia!

one must draw the line somewhere

Does...not...compute...

>224 lyzard: You'll notice I didn't phrase it as "you must draw the line somewhere". I know you have no lines. :-)

I'm trying to have lines, honest! :D

The 'Z' Murders - Richard Temperley is already suffering through a miserable overnight train journey from the north of England to London when his previously solitary compartment acquires a second occupant---who snores. Arriving at 5.00am, Richard takes the advice of a porter and crosses the road to a hotel, which keeps its smoking-room open and fire going for just such travellers as himself. He is not thrilled when his nasal companion of the train has the same idea, but manages to get some sleep in an armchair before jerking awake, convinced that something is wrong---namely, that his companion is quiet. And, in fact, he is not asleep, but dead; shot... Under intense questioning by Detective-Inspector James, Richard recounts all he knows - reluctantly, in the case of a very lovely young woman who also, briefly, occupied the smoking-room; insisting that he heard no shot. While the inspector is briefly distracted by the discovery of a piece of red enamel in the shape of the letter 'Z', which he finds on the windowsill near the dead man, Richard discovers a lady's purse which he finds tucked beside the cushion of an armchair. Impulsively, he conceals it; later making it his business to find Miss Sylvia Wynne, whose card and key are in the bag. Despite the cynicism of the inspector, Richard is quite sure that such a girl could have had nothing to do with the murder: an argument by which he justifies keeping silent, and seeking her out himself to return the purse, instead of alerting the police: he is merely saving a lady annoyance. He even goes so far as to try the key, when there is no answer to his ringing of the bell; and immediately discovers on Sylvia Wynne's hall carpet a red enamel 'Z'... This 1932 standalone thriller by J. Jefferson Farjeon is one of a small clutch of early British crime novels apparently to deal with what we would now call a "serial killer"; and, as is the case with most of these novels, there is both more and less going on in The 'Z' Murders than initially meets the eye. The narrative does, however, offer an interesting glimpse of the general and widespread fear evoked by seemingly motiveless crimes, a situation which which, sadly, we are these days much more familiar. Typically for Farjeon, romance plays just as much of a role in his narrative as crime; and indeed, the horror of the crimes themselves is filtered by making the novel's perspective largely that of Richard Temperley, who is interested in the murders only so far as they impact Sylvia Wynne. To the time-honoured situation of young lovers caught up in crime, Farjeon adds a couple of interesting and highly competent police detectives, a couple of cab-drivers having the best and worst days of their careers, and a main villain so grotesque, he could have stepped out of the pages of Edgar Wallace: elements which combine to make The 'Z' Murders a very odd book indeed, albeit an engaging one---just so long as you can get past Richard's stalker-y behaviour and Sylvia's refusal to tell what she knows. (Both standard procedure for this branch of fiction, but exasperating just the same.) As the police try to find a reason for the shooting of John Able, his murder is followed by the even more senseless slaying of a countrywoman walking across a field, by whose side another of the red letters is found. By this time, the reader is aware that there is a motive of sorts behind these killings; that a terrible plan of revenge is being enacted. Meanwhile, as Richard runs interference between Sylvia and the police, he must face the fact that she is more closely connected with the murders than he ever dreamed, and that this connection is one which places her in imminent danger...

    Temperley did not sit down and watch the local police at work. He worked himself, joining one of the hastily improvised search parties, and sharing its failures and disappointments. For the people for whom they were searching had enjoyed the advantage of a long start, and of commencing their flight in the early hours of the morning when scarcely a soul was about. Thus, no-one could be found who had met the kidnappers on the road, or who could give any clue to their whereabouts. They had vanished into the void.
    There was not even any theory to work upon. The murders with which the kidnappers were concerned occurred, apparently, at any time and at any place. They appeared to be motiveless and purposeless, and to form no settled scheme. Within thirty hours three tragedies had occurred, known already as "The Z Murders" in thousands of homes, and countless anxious lips were voicing the questions, "How many more?", "Where will the next occur?" and "Who will the next victim be?"
    To the first and second of these questions Richard Temperley had no answer, but the answer to the third burned into his brain and sickened his heart...

One of my current self-imposed reading challenges is to work through the list of "The 100 Best Novels" compiled by scholar and critic, Clement King Shorter, in 1898. Shorter was / is best known as an expert on the Brontes, but he was also a literary critic, and one of the first to compile this sort of literary "best of" list.

In putting his list together, Shorter restricted himself to one book per author, and excluded living authors: rules which explain some, although certainly not all, of his list's idiosyncrasies. Though inevitably it contains books that have since fallen into obscurity, and choices for an author's "one novel" which seem inexplicable, Shorter's list is much more interesting than a similar one compiled a year later by the Daily Telegraph, which is almost exclusively British and largely content to throw the "complete works" of several authors together. Shorter's list, in contrast, shows him as a wide-ranging and eclectic reader, knowledgeable about world literature as well as the home-grown.

In tackling this challenge, I am chiefly interested in filling gaps in my own reading: I will not be re-reading works, unless I have a particular desire or reason. I will, however, list and briefly consider all the books on the list, and hopefully get some input on how others feel about their inclusion.

Please note that the Shorter list was given chronologically, and that there is no 'ranking' of books.

And with no further ado...


#1: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1605 / 1615)



Not much argument with this one: at a time when there barely was any such thing as "a novel" (and the term "novel" was yet to be applied to this form of writing), Cervantes penned an extraordinarily complex and witty piece of fiction, one which is deservedly a perennial on best-of lists.

I have read Don Quixote and won't be re-reading it at this time. However, I would like to someday, particularly as I believe there have been two or three excellent translations published since I first tackled it.


#2: The Holy War by John Bunyan (1682)



Shorter first displays his iconoclasm in his choice of John Bunyan's second extended religious allegory over the far better known The Pilgrim's Progress. (Mind you, I wonder where the latter would be without Louisa May Alcott...)

This was my first challenge book; review to follow.

Finished Ma Cinderella for TIOLI #2.

Now reading The Beautiful Wretch by William Black, also online; my 'portable' book is still Max Carrados Mysteries by Ernest Bramah.

>227 lyzard: Good review of The Z Murders, Liz. I'm about 2/5ths of the way through The House Opposite right now and quite enjoying it.

>228 lyzard: I certainly didn't come to, or hear of, The Pilgrim's Progress via Louisa May Alcott. It's possible the route for me was via C. S. Lewis (I can't recall at present), but a mention in some other book — perhaps a Louis L'Amour western, or a mention by someone who had read it, might have been what brought me to it (but I'm grateful to whoever did).

Thanks, Harry. I've read No. 17 but haven't gotten around to The House Opposite yet (though I did wish I'd had time for it when I did my 'wrong touchstone' challenge!).

I certainly didn't come to, or hear of, The Pilgrim's Progress via Louisa May Alcott

Yeah, but you're not a girl. :)

Jokes aside, I'd wager that the majority of people who know of (with or without reading) The Pilgrim's Progress today do so because of Little Women.

>231 lyzard: I'm finding Farjeon a consistently engaging author.

You may very well be right on the Alcott impact, as of course even if the direct source of knowledge were a later author, Little Women might lie in back of that author's mention of it.

>219 lyzard: Oh! I'm just now reading (or rather listening) to this one!

Oh my, Miss Marple and that very funny man, Asey Mayo. Old and dear favorites for me. The Body in the Library is one of my favorite Christie's because of the sharp observation of social prejudices.

I'm ashamed to say that despite several efforts, I could not get through Don Quixote. I felt too sorry for him to be able to read the entire book. The Bunyan, otoh, looks good. I liked most of Pilgrim's Progress although it became just the slightest bit repetitive in its moralizing.

>213 lyzard: WOW that's fascinating. I've finished Have his carcase as part of my Wimsey re-read this month. And I always struggle with the code breaking bit.

>209 lyzard: That's a great book, surely her most chilling plot.

>232 harrygbutler:

I like him too, though he does have what I'm currently tempted to call a Patricia Wentworth-esque habit of shoehorning a romantic plot into his thrillers. :)

Apropos, I'm still averting my eyes on yours and Julia's threads, as I haven't yet got to The Chinese Shawl, although I must in the next few days.

Yes, that may well be so. The fact that Alcott has her characters playing a game based on The Pilgrim's Progress strikes me as a clever way of making the book appealing. (Though I'm not sure what John Bunyan would have thought of it!)

>233 scaifea:

Hi, Amber - enjoy! :)

>234 Matke:

Hi, Gail! I was stalled for quite some time on Asey, and I'm very glad to have that series moving again. Jane of course is always a favourite.

I think that's a perfectly valid reaction to Don Quixote: it's a measure of Cervantes' art that he can make us uncomfortable in that way, though of course it doesn't exactly make for an easy read!

I would have to say that The Holy War has the same issue; it's the nature of that sort of writing, I think. However, as with The Pilgrim's Progress the premise of the allegory is its strength.

>235 Helenliz:

I knew of course that Sayers had consulted Rhode, but I hadn't realised he'd used the cipher himself, rather than just being knowledgeable about it. It's a great shame Rhode's books aren't more readily available: if they were I'd recommend Peril At Cranbury Hall to anyone planning on reading Have His Carcase! :)

It's a funny thing---now that I think about it, the Miss Marple books do have some of Christie's coldest murders. Perhaps she was attracted by the contrast between that sort of violence and Jane's "fluffiness"?

Finished Max Carrados Mysteries for TIOLI #2.

Still reading The Beautiful Wretch by William Black; my 'portable' book is now Someone Like You by Roald Dahl.

>208 lyzard: Thanks for your thoughts on that, and you're right about fictional diaries and journals being a fairly common literary device across the ages.

>209 lyzard: '.Though Peter Wimsey is indisputably one of the great characters not just of detective fiction, but fiction generally, here he crosses a credibility line---being, if you like, a little too perfect, too infallible, as he solves a murder and breaks up a drug-trafficking ring, in between maintaining two false identities, fending off smitten young women, partying all night with drug fiends, single-handedly winning cricket matches, and whipping together the most brilliant campaign in the history of British advertising'

Well, I can usually manage all that in an average week. Can't you? :-P

>228 lyzard: I've heard good things about Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote. It's definitely one of my 'Gosh, I should really have read that' books.

>231 lyzard: 'Jokes aside, I'd wager that the majority of people who know of (with or without reading) The Pilgrim's Progress today do so because of Little Women.'

That was where I first came across it. I now have a copy of PP but have never read it.

These days getting out of bed is a major accomplishment. :)

I'm certainly not saying I didn't enjoy Murder Must Advertise, au contraire, but I did find bits of it a little much.

Yes, I've heard about the Grossman translation, and there is another by John Rutherford that has been praised too.

I remember an early reading of Little Women when I didn't have a clue what they were doing or what they were referring to*. I have now read The Pilgrim's Progress but that was many years (and several re-reads of LW) later.

(*Which is the argument I make for re-reading: who gets everything out of a book the first time? I didn't understand where Mr March was at first, either.)

>239 lyzard: I remember an early reading of Little Women when I didn't have a clue what they were doing or what they were referring to.

I didn't understand where Mr March was at first, either.

+1 to both of those statements for me. I read it at a very young age — 7 or 8 years old. There was so much I didn't understand. It was my first lesson in realizing that knowing all the individual words did not mean you would understand the book.

Yes, I would have been about that age too. It's funny looking back to realise how things must progressively have fallen into place*.

I wonder how old I was when I grasped that books were written in the past?

(*It doesn't only happen with books, of course: I remember a moment of almost shocking enlightenment as a child, when I discovered that Walla Walla Washington was a real place and not something made up by the Warners cartoons!)

The Holy War, Made By Shaddai Upon Diabolus, For The Regaining Of The Metropolis Of The World; or, The Losing And Taking Again Of The Town Of Mansoul - The town of Mansoul, created and ruled by King Shaddai, is greatly desired by the evil Diabolus, who uses his wiles to tempt the town's population not merely to allow him within its gates, but to follow his own example. Mansoul thus falls into a state of sin, only redeemed when King Shaddai sends his son, Emmanuel, to wage war against Diabolus and his forces. Diabolus is eventually defeated and expelled; but even so, Mansoul has not yet learned its lesson... First published in 1682, John Bunyan's The Holy War is, like his better known The Pilgrim's Progress, a religious allegory of faith and sin, and the struggle and backsliding that attends imperfect man's efforts to obey God's law. Though writing of this nature is almost unavoidably repetitive, Bunyan's presentation of the relationship between God and man, and the covenant of Christianity, is masterly. The first half of his story, featuring fullscale war between Emmanuel and Diabolus for the possession of Mansoul, is obvious enough in its details and intentions; the second half is less so, and therefore more interesting. After the first defeat of Dialbolus, Emmanuel lives for a time in his palace in Mansoul, while the people devote themselves to redeeming themselves for their sins and following Shaddai's laws. They are happy, comfortable and safe; and it is this very state that leads them stray again as, in their comfort and safety, they forget their terror of Diabolus and, likewise, their obedience of Shaddai. When a grieving Emmanuel departs from Mansoul, Diabolus mounts a second assault upon the town. The population endures a state of siege, holding on grimly against the overt and covert attacks from Diabolus and his followers, and sending desperate petitions after Emmanuel, begging that he return and save them. This time, however, Emmanuel is not so swift to answer their pleas...

"Mansoul is mine by right of purchase. I have bought it, O Diabolus, I have bought it to myself. Now, since it was my Father’s and mine, as I was his heir, and since also I have made it mine by virtue of a great purchase, it followeth that, by all lawful right, the town of Mansoul is mine, and that thou art an usurper, a tyrant, and traitor, in thy holding possession thereof. Now, the cause of my purchasing of it was this: Mansoul had trespassed against my Father; now my Father had said, that in the day that they broke his law they should die. Now, it is more possible for heaven and earth to pass away than for my Father to break his word. Wherefore when Mansoul had sinned indeed by hearkening to thy lie, I put in and became a surety to my Father, body for body, and soul for soul, that I would make amends for Mansoul’s transgressions, and my Father did accept thereof. So, when the time appointed was come, I gave body for body, soul for soul, life for life, blood for blood, and so redeemed my beloved Mansoul..."

>241 lyzard: Even I was half convinced that Walla Walla could not possibly be a real place!

I don't know why I should be so surprised, as we have very many place-names here that sound like something made up. I guess I just didn't consider Daffy Duck a reliable source of information. :D

>244 lyzard: I was going to say, most of the names of places and things in Australia were just as unbelievable to my young self. A kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree, indeed!

I still have a blog post to write about the abridged version of Paul Féval's The Mysteries Of London, but otherwise that wraps up April:

April stats:

I read 22 works in April, which numerically is my best-ever effort. (This is somewhat ironic, since April of last year was my worst-ever effort.) However, several of them were quite short, really only novellas, so this was about average in terms of page number. Perhaps more of note is that there was only one re-read amongst the 22. I also hit 75 in April, much earlier than usual.

Works read: 22
TIOLI: 22, in 17 different challenges, with 3 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 14
Young adult: 3
Classic: 2
Contemporary romance: 1
Contemporary drama: 1
Historical romance: 1

Re-reads: 1
Series works: 18
Blog reads: 1
1932: 1
1931: 1
Virago / Persephone: 0
Potential decommission: 2

Owned: 5
Library: 5
Ebook: 12

Male authors : female authors: 14 (including 1 using a female pseudonym and 2 using a single male pseudonym) : 9

Oldest work: The Holy War by John Bunyan (1682)
Newest work: The Dangerous Dandy by Barbara Cartland (1974)

*************************

YTD:

Works read: 75
TIOLI: 75, in 57 different challenges, with 11 shared reads and 1 sweep

Mystery / thriller: 38 (50.7%)
Contemporary drama: 8 (10.7%)
Young adult: 8 (10.7%)
Classic: 6 (8.0%)
Historical romance: 4 (5.3%)
Humour: 3 (4.0%)
Non-fiction: 2 (2.7%)
Contemporary drama: 1 (1.3%)
Historical drama: 1 (1.3%)
Science fiction: 1 (1.3%)
Short stories: 1 (1.3%)
Western: 1 (1.3%)
Fantasy: 1 (1.3%)

Re-reads: 11 (14.7%)
Series works: 53 (70.7%)
Blog reads: 3 (4.0%)
1932: 7 (9.3%)
1931: 3 (4.0%)
Virago / Persephone: 1 (1.3%)
Potential decommission: 2 (2.7%)

Owned: 21 (28.0%)
Library: 21 (28.0%)
Ebook: 33 (44.0%)

Male authors : female authors: 45 : 33

Oldest work: The Holy War by John Bunyan (1682)
Newest work: 1815: Regency Britain In The Year Of Waterloo by Stephen Bates (2015)

This is a baby pygmy sloth, and it has been cracking me up for the last ten minutes: is it just me, or does it look like Margaret Rutherford??

Congratulations on hitting that 75 book mark, Liz!

I also probably first became aware of The Pilgrim's Progress through Little Women, but along with Hurlbut's Story of the Bible, I also had an abridged copy of Pilgrim's Progress in my home growing up and I read both a number of times. Both are somewhere up in my attic now.

>247 lyzard: SLOTH!!!!!!

I knew I went to bed too early last night. :-) That's kind of a funny-looking sloth, even allowing for its resemblance to Margaret Rutherford (I can't unsee that now that you've mentioned it). I think their fur is not usually so wiry-looking, maybe?

Congratulations on 75!

>247 lyzard: Lovely sloth, look at those hairs!
I had too google Margaret Rutherford, so I can't really comment that statement.

I knew about The Pilgrim's Progress before I knew about Little Women.

It may be due in part to my guyness, but I grew up in a pretty religious family in an evangelical denomination. I don't remember a time when I didn't know about The Pilgrim's Progress. Though there are few religious texts I find compelling anymore, I do still find TPP -- like the Authorized Version of the Bible -- weirdly riveting. And darn it, you make The Holy War sound tempting.

>245 rosalita:

Oh, we've got MUCH sillier things than that! :)

>248 ronincats:

Thanks, Roni!

>249 rosalita:

She who snoozes, loses!

Sloth hair does grow differently from most species', apparently to help the run-off of rain. The effect might be exacerbated in that shot due to it being a close-up of a very small sloth?

>250 FAMeulstee:

Thank you, Anita.

Margaret Rutherford was a British character actress, mostly on the stage but also in film. She played Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit and Miss Prism in The Importance Of Being Earnest, if you've seen either of those? She also played Miss Marple, or rather "Miss Marple", since her characterisation is nothing like written!

>248 ronincats:, >251 swynn:

Yes, that's the point I was making to Harry: if you're brought up as a "reading girl", the odds are very high that Little Women will be your gateway to The Pilgrim's Progress! But of course, like Steve, some people will be made aware of TPP in its own right.

If you're already familiar with TPP, Steve, you know what to expect in terms of the language and style, and should be fine with The Holy War.

(Also, if you *did* want to join in this this particular reading challenge...?? :D )

I actually read Pilgrim's Progress before Little Women. I don't remember how old I was, but I'm fairly certain I read both before I was 10. My parents owned Pilgrim's Progress and I found the cover intriguing, so I picked it up and read it.

An iconoclast in our midst! :)

I can't remember when I read The Pilgrim's Progress for the first time; I doubt it would have been before my first job, which was at a university with an academic library (at which point my reading of classics EXPLODED!!).

I have a new thread up - please drop in and say 'Hi!' :)

Here

>254 lyzard: Hardly! I'm a voracious speed reader and we couldn't visit the library often enough when I was a kid, so I had to read whatever was on hand. I remember liking Pilgrim's Progress but thinking Bunyan was a bit too obvious with his character names.

Bunyan was a bit too obvious with his character names

In that case, you'd LOVE The Holy War! Mr Carnal-Security, anyone?? :D

Understand perfectly about reading whatever was in the house, though it led to quite a bit of "reading above my age", much to the alarm of my teachers!