lyzard's list: Provided with books for the 2019 journey - Part 3

You knew there'd be a cat picture sooner or later, right?

I found it difficult to select a header from the wildlife shots of 2016, because so many of the finalists were sad or disturbing. So is this one in its way.

We think we have a feral cat problem in Australia, but it's nothing on the one they have in India. In this suburb of Mumbai, which abuts a national park, leopards prowl at night searching for food:

If you have a book with you on a journey it is very possible that you may not look at it;---but how terrible a thing it is to come on a journey unprovided with any book!
---Anthony Trollope, The Duke's Children: The First Complete Edition (1880)


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Currently reading:



The Sicilian by "Gabrielli" (Elizabeth Meeke) (1798)



The American Caravan: A Yearbook Of American Literature by Van Wyck Brooks, Alfred Kreymborg, Lewis Mumford and Paul Rosenfeld (eds.) (1927)

2019 reading:

January:

1. The Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque (1931)
2. Shadows On The Rock by Willa Cather (1931)
3. Family Trouble by William McFee (1949)
4. Patty's Motor Car by Carolyn Wells (1911)
5. Dr Nikola's Experiment by Guy Newell Boothby (1899)
6. Tragedy At The Unicorn by John Rhode (1928)
7. Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham (1800)
8. The Crime At The Noah's Ark by Molly Thynne (1931)
9. The Mother-In-Law; or, The Isle Of Rays by E.D.E.N. Southworth (1851)
10. The Monster Of Grammont by George Goodchild (1927)
11. The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas (1942)
12. The Stoneware Monkey by R. Austin Freeman (1938)
13. Cat Among The Pigeons by Agatha Christie (1959)
14. The Captain Of The Vulture by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862)
15. The Mystery Of The Peacock's Eye by Brian Flynn (1928)

February:

16. Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (1801)
17. Tragedy On The Line by John Rhode (1931)
18. The Island Of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells (1896)
19. Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith (1944)
20. Circus Parade by Jim Tully (1927)
21. The Crouching Beast by Valentine Williams (1928)
22. Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth (1948)
23. Charlie Chan Carries On by Earl Derr Biggers (1930)
24. The Adventure Of The Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie (1960)
25. Broadway Melody Of 1999 by Robert Steiner (1993)
26. The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class And Women's Reading, 1835-1880 by Sally Mitchell (1981)
27. Farewell, Nikola by Guy Newell Boothby (1901)

March:

28. The Kellys And The O'Kellys; or, Landlords And Tenants by Anthony Trollope (1848)
29. Kenilworth by Walter Scott (1821)
30. The Two Elsies by Martha Finley (1885)
31. Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor (1944)
32. Number Seventeen by Louis Tracy (1915)
33. The Slip-Carriage Mystery by Lynn Brock (1928)
34. The Hardway Diamonds Mystery by Miles Burton (1930)
35. The Supernatural by Douglas Hill and Pat Williams (1965)
36. The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen (1894)
37. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie (1961)
38. Rich In Love by Josephine Humphreys (1987)

2019 reading:

April:

39. Cone Of Silence by David Beaty (1959)
40. Orca by Arthur Herzog (1977)
41. Hands Unseen by Herman Landon (1924)
42. The Amazing Mr Bunn by Bertram Atkey (1911)
43. Miss Silver Comes To Stay by Patricia Wentworth (1948)
44. The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side by Agatha Christie (1962)
45. Peril! by Sydney Horler (1930)
46. Mr Polton Explains by R. Austin Freeman (1940)
47. Murder By An Aristocrat by Mignon Eberhart (1932)
48. The King's General by Daphne du Maurier (1946)
49. Miss Parritt Disappears by Valentine Williams (1931)
50. Bread And Vinegar by H. A. Manhood (1931)
51. The Fox Prowls by Valentine Williams (1939)
52. The House Opposite by Elizabeth Kent (1902)
53. Murder In Amityville by Hans Holzer (1979)
54. Anna The Adventuress by E. Phillips Oppenheim (1904)
55. The House Opposite by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1931)
56. Who? by Elizabeth Kent (1912)

May:

57. Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1796)
58. Home Port by Olive Higgins Prouty (1947)
59. The Clocks by Agatha Christie (1963)
60. The Complete Guide To Mysterious Beings by John A. Keel (1994)
61. The Miracle Of The Bells by Russell Janney (1946)
62. This'll Kill Ya: And Other Dangerous Stories by Harry Wilson (1991)
63. The Jacob Street Mystery by R. Austin Freeman (1942)

Books in transit:

Library books to collect:
Emmeline, The Orphan Of The Castle by Charlotte Turner Smith

On interlibrary loan / branch transfer / storage / Rare Book request:
The Adopted by William McFee {ILL}
The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas {Fisher storage}
The American Caravan by Van Wyck Brooks (ed.) {State Library NSW}

Upcoming requests:
Blind Corner by Dornford Yates {ILL}
Many Ways by Margaret Pedler {JFR / ILL}
The Spectacles Of Mr Cagliostro (aka The Blue Spectacles) by Harry Stephen Keeler {CARM}

Purchased and shipped:
Gray Magic by Herman Landon

On loan:
*The Miracle Of The Bells by Russell Janney (27/06/2019)
*The King's General by Daphne du Maurier (05/07/2019)
Women, Letters And The Novel by Ruth Perry (05/07/2019)
Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving (05/07/2019)
*Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (05/07/2019)

Reading projects 2019:

Blog reads:
Chronobibliography: Leandro; or, The Lucky Rescue by James Smythies
Authors In Depth:
- Forest Of Montalbano by Catherine Cuthbertson
- Shannondale (aka "The Three Beauties; or, Shannondale: A Novel") by E.D.E.N. Southworth
- The Captain Of The Vulture by Mary Elizabeth Braddon / Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- The Sicilian by 'the author of The Mysterious Wife' / Ellesmere by Mrs Meeke
- The Cottage by Margaret Minifie
- The Old Engagement by Julia Day
- The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope
Reading Roulette: Pique by Sarah Stickney Ellis
Australian fiction: Louisa Egerton by Mary Leman Grimstone
Gothic novel timeline: Reginald Du Bray by 'A Late Nobleman'
Early crime fiction: The Mysteries Of London by G. W. M. Reynolds
Related reading: Gains And Losses by Robert Lee Wollf / The Man Of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie / Le Loup Blanc by Paul Féval

Group / tutored reads:

Upcoming: Emmeline, The Orphan Of The Castle by Charlotte Smith
Upcoming: The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope

Completed: Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (thread here)
Completed: The Kellys And The O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope (thread here)

General reading challenges:

America's best-selling novels (1895 - ????):
Next up: The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas

Virago chronological reading project:
Next up: The Semi-Attached Couple; and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden

Agatha Christie mysteries in chronological order:
Next up: A Caribbean Mystery

The C.K. Shorter List of Best 100 Novels:
Next up: Wilhelm Meister by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe / Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving

Mystery League publications:
Next up: The Maestro Murders by Frances Shelley Wees

Banned In Boston!:
Next up: American Caravan by Van Wyck Brooks, Alfred Kreymborg, Lewis Mumford and Paul Rosenfeld (eds.) (1927)

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

Random reading 1940 - 1969:
Next up: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh / Blind Corner by Dornford Yates

Potential decommission:
Next up: They Who Do Not Grieve by Sia Figiel

Potential decommission (non-fiction):
Why: The Serial Killer In America by Margaret Cheney

Completed challenges:
Georgette Heyer historical romances in chronological order

Possible future reading projects:
- Georgette Heyer's historical fiction
- 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)
- The Guardian's 100 Best Novels
- Life Magazine "The 100 Outstanding Books of 1924 - 1944" (Henry Seidel Canby)
- "40 Trashy Novels You Must Read Before You Die" (Flavorwire)
- best-novel lists in Wikipedia article on The Grapes Of Wrath
- Pandora 'Mothers Of The Novel'

TBR notes:

Currently 'missing' series works:

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}
The Corpse In The Car by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #20) {CARM}
Hendon's First Case by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #21) {Rare Books}
Mystery At Olympia (aka "Murder At The Motor Show") (Dr Priestley #22) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held}
In Face Of The Verdict by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #24) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}

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}

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}

The Black Death by Moray Dalton {CARM}

1931:

Many Ways by Margaret Pedler {ILL / JFR}
The Murderer Invisible by Philip Wylie {Rare Books}
The Back-Seat Murder by Herman Landon {Rare Books}
One-Man Girl by Maisie Greig {Mitchell Library}

The Matilda Hunter Murder by Harry Stephen Keeler {Kindle}

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

Completist reading:

The Spectacles Of Mr Cagliostro (aka The Blue Spectacles) by Harry Stephen Keeler (#3) {CARM}
The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope (#6) {Fisher Library}
XYZ by Anna Katharine Green {Project Gutenberg}
The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart {Project Gutenberg}

Shopping list:

Expensive:

The Amber Junk (aka The Riddle Of The Amber Ship) by Hazel Phillips Hanshew (Cleek #9)
The Hawkmoor Mystery by W. H. Lane Crauford
Dead Man's Hat by Hulbert Footner
October House by Kay Cleaver Strahan (Lynn MacDonald #4)
The Double Thumb by Francis Grierson (Sims and Wells #3)
The Mystery Of The Open Window by Anthony Gilbert (Scott Egerton #4)
The Mystery Of The Creeping Man by Frances Shelley Wees (Michael Forrester #2)
The Shadow Of Evil by Charles J. Dutton (Harley Manners #2)
The Seventh Passenger by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry (Jerry Boyne #4)
The Daughter Of The House by Carolyn Wells (Fleming Stone #19)
Murdered But Not Dead by Anne Austin (James Dundee #5)
The Pelham Murder Case by Monte Barrett (Peter Cardigan #1)
Prove It, Mr Tolefree (aka "The Tolliver Case") by R. A. J. Walling (Philip Tolefree #3)
The Hanging Woman by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #11)

A Century (And A Bit) Of Reading:

A book a year from 1800 - 1900!

1800: Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham
1801: Belinda by Maria Edgeworth
1807: Corinne; ou, l'Italie by Madame de Staël
1809: The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
1812: The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
1814: The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties by Frances Burney
1815: Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
1821: The Ayrshire Legatees; or, The Pringle Family by John Galt / Valerius: A Roman Story by J. G. Lockhart / Kenilworth by Walter Scott
1836: The Tree And Its Fruits; or, Narratives From Real Life by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown
1845: Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury / The Mysteries Of London (Volume I) by G. W. M. Reynolds
1846: The Mysteries Of London (Volume II) by G. W. M. Reynolds
1847: Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë / The Macdermots Of Ballycloran by Anthony Trollope
1848: The Kellys And The O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope
1851: The Mother-In-Law; or, The Isle Of Rays by E.D.E.N. Southworth
1859: The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden
1860: The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden
1869: He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
1873: Had You Been In His Place by Lizzie Bates
1877: Elsie's Children by Martha Finley
1880: The Duke's Children: First Complete Edition by Anthony Trollope / Elsie's Widowhood by Martha Finley
1881: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen / The Beautiful Wretch by William Black
1882: Grandmother Elsie by Martha Finley
1883: Elsie's New Relations by Martha Finley
1884: Elsie At Nantucket by Martha Finley
1885: The Two Elsies by Martha Finley
1894: Martin Hewitt, Investigator by Arthur Morrison / The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
1896: The Island Of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells
1897: Penelope's Progress by Kate Douglas Wiggin
1898: A Man From The North by Arnold Bennett / The Lust Of Hate by Guy Newell Boothby
1899: Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green / Dr Nikola's Experiment by Guy Newell Boothby
1900: The Circular Study by Anna Katharine Green

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); Tales Of Hoffmann (1982)
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)
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)
Ruth The Betrayer; or, The Female Spy by Edward Ellis (!862-1863)
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)
When The Sea Gives Up Its Dead by Elizaberth Burgoyne Corbett (Mrs George Corbett)
Dorcas Dene, Detective by George Sims (1897)
- Amelia Butterworth series by Anna Katharine Grant (1897 - 1900)
Hagar Of The Pawn-Shop by Fergus Hume (1898)
The Adventures Of A Lady Pearl-Broker by Beatrice Heron-Maxwell (1899)
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 Kith And Kin (12/28) {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 Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (13/13) {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 Postscripts (4/4) {Project Gutenberg}
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1894 - 1903) **Arthur Morrison - Martin Hewitt - Chronicles Of Martin Hewitt (2/4) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - Farewell, Nikola (5/5) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - The Circular Study (3/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1898 - 1918) **Arnold Bennett - Five Towns - Anna Of The Five Towns (2/11) {Sutherland Library}
(1899 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Caleb Sweetwater - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (7/7) {Project Gutenberg}
(1899 - 1909) **E. W. Hornung - Raffles - Mr Justice Raffles (4/4) {Project Gutenberg}
(1900 - 1974) Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - Kai Lung: Six / Kai Lung Raises His Voice (7/7) {Kindle}

(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty's Butterfly Days (10/17) {Project Gutenberg}
(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 - To Let (5/11) {Project Gutenberg}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1907 - 1942) R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - The Jacob Street Mystery (26/26) {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 - The Daughter Of The House (19/49) {expensive}
(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 Adventuress (10/24) {ILL}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - The House In Lordship Lane (7/7) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1910 - 1917) ***Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/3) {Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Joker (3/6?) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1932) *Thomas, Mary and Hazel Hanshew - Cleek - The Amber Junk (9/12) {AbeBooks}
(1910 - 1918) **John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Criminologist (4/4) {Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1931) Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Pepper Returns (6/6) {Internet Archive}
(1910 - 1933) Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - The Way Beyond (3/3) {Fisher Library storage / fadedpage.com}
(1910 - 1928) **Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - The de Bercy Affair (1/9) / The Postmaster's Daughter (5/9) {Project Gutenberg}

(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 Smiler Bunn Brigade (2/10) {rare, expensive}
(1912 - 1919) **Gordon Holmes (Louis Tracy) - Steingall and Clancy - The Bartlett Mystery (3/3) {ManyBooks}
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding In The Far North (20/30) {expensive}
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu-Manchu - The Bride Of Fu-Manchu (6/14) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1913 - 1952) *Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - The High Adventure (4/9) {State Library NSW, JFR / 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 - The Come Back (4/8) {Project Gutenberg}
(1918 - 1939) Valentine Williams - The Okewood Brothers - The Gold Comfit Box (6/?) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1918 - 1944) Valentine Williams - Clubfoot - The Gold Comfit Box (6/8) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1918 - 1950) *Wyndham Martyn - Anthony Trent - The Mysterious Mr Garland (3/26) {CARM}
(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 - Case For Mr Fortune (7/23) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1920 - 1952) William McFee - Spenlove - The Adopted - (7/7) {academic loan}
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - The Clocks (33/39) {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) {owned}
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - Gray Magic (5/5) {expensive}

(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 Eye In Attendance (3/4) {AbeBooks}
(1922 - 1961) Mark Cross ("Valentine", aka Archibald Thomas Pechey) - Daphne Wrayne and her Four Adjusters - The Adjusters (1/53) {rare, expensive}

(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - In The Teeth Of The Evidence (14/14) {interlibrary loan}
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2) {eBay}
(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (5/5) {unavailable}
(1923 - 1927) **Annie Haynes - Inspector Furnival - The Crow's Inn Tragedy (3/3) {Kindle, owned}

(1924 - 1959) Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - Persons Unknown (aka "The Maze") (5/24) {State Library NSW, JFR / Kindle / interlibrary loan}
(1924 - 1957) *Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - The Sea Mystery (4/30) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, JFR / ILL / Kindle}
(1924 - 1935) * / ***Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - The Smiling Death (6/13) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - The Dagwort Coombe Murder (5/12) {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}
(1924 - 1936) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - The Viper (6/14) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(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 - Poison In A Garden Suburb (6/?) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1925 - 1932) *Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - Keeper Of The Keys (6/6) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1925 - 1944) *Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Towards Zero (5/5) {owned}
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Second Shot (6/10) {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 Kennel Murder Case (6/12) {fadedpage.com}
(1926 - 1952) *J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - Murderer's Trail (3/8) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(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 - The Dark Highway (2/27) {University of Adelaide / Project Gutenberg Australia}

(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Picaroon Does Justice (2/7) {Book Searchers / CARM}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - The Trail Of The Lotto (3/5) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - The Body In The Silo (3/5) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - The Five Red Fingers (5/54) {expensive}}
(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}
(1927 - 1960) **Mazo de la Roche - Jalna - Jalna (1/16) {State Library NSW, JFR / fadedpage.com}
(1927 - 1949) **Dornford Yates - Richard Chandos - Blind Corner (1/8) {Rare Books / JFR / ILL / Kindle}

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

Series and sequels, 1928 - 1930:

(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - The Catherine Wheel (16/33) {fadedpage.com}
(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 - The Vanished Prospector (6/9) {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 Crime At Tattenham Corner (2/4) {Project Gutenberg Australia / Kindle / mobilereads}
(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 - The Case Of The Late Pig (8/35) {interlibrary loan / Kindle / fadedpage.com}
(1929 - 1984) Gladys Mitchell - Mrs Bradley - The Devil At Saxon Wall (6/67) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1929 - 1937) Patricia Wentworth - Benbow Smith - Down Under (4/4) {Kindle}
(1929 - ????) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Dead Yesterday And Other Stories (6/9) {expensive / limited edition}
(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 - The Skeleton At The Feast (3/3) {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 - For Sale - Murder (4/5) {AbeBooks}
(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 - The Shadow Of Evil (2/6) {expensive}
(1929 - 1932) *Thomas Cobb - Inspector Bedison - Inspector Bedison And The Sunderland Case (2/4) {unavailable?}

(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 Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side (10/12) {owned}
(1930 - ????) *Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murdered But Not Dead (5/5) - {AbeBooks, expensive}
(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 - Satan's Mistress (4/8) {expensive}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - Sandbar Sinister (5/24) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - Murder On The Blackboard (3/18) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Fabia (5/5) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(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 - 1935) Clifton Robbins - Clay Harrison - Methylated Murder (5/5) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - La Guinguette à Deux Sous (11/75) {ILL}
(1931 - 1934) T. S. Stribling - The Vaiden Trilogy - The Store (2/3) {Internet Archive / 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 - Death In The Dentist's Chair (2/3) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1935) Valentine Williams - Sergeant Trevor Dene - Death Answers The Bell (1/4) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Frank Garrett - Pursuit Of A Parcel (5/5) {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?}
(1932 - 1951) Sydney Horler - Tiger Standish - Tiger Standish (1/11) {Rare Books}

(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}
(1933 - 1952) Wyndham Martyn - Christopher Bond - Christopher Bond, Adventurer (1/8) {rare}
(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}
(1936 - 1956) Theodora Du Bois - Anne and Jeffrey McNeil - Armed With A New Terror (1/19) {unavailable?}
(1938 - 1944) Zelda Popkin - Mary Carner - Death Wears A White Gardenia (1/6) {Kindle}
(1939 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Inspector Lamb - Eternity Ring (9/?) {fadedpage.com}
(1939 - 1940) Clifton Robbins - George Staveley - Six Sign-Post Murder (1/2) {Biblio / rare}
(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}
(1955 - 1991) Patricia Highsmith - Tom Ripley - Ripley Under Ground (2/5) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1957 - 1993) Chester B. Himes - The Harlem Cycle - For Love Of Imabelle (aka "A Rage In Harlem") (1/9) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}

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

Unavailable series works:

John Rhode - Dr Priestley
The Hanging Woman (#11)

Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier {NB: some now available in Kindle}
>#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 {NB: Now available in paperback, but expensive}
>#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)

The Linger-Nots - Agnes Miller
The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (#5)

Inspector Bedison - Thomas Cobb
Inspector Bedison And The Sunderland Case (#2)
Inspector Bedison Risks It (#3)
Who Closed The Casement? (#4)

Books currently on loan:



      

Reading projects:

Blog:

        

        

Other projects:

        

        

Group read news, ruminations, etc.

There are two further group reads in the works.

For our accidental 'important female authors before Jane Austen' project, we will be taking a look at the first novel of Charlotte Turner Smith, Emmeline, The Orphan Of The Castle.

We will also be moving on to the next work the Anthony Trollope gap-plugging project, with his autobiographical sixth novel, The Three Clerks.

We do not as yet have a schedule nailed down for these, but at the moment it is looking like June and July. As usual, everyone is welcome.

Meanwhile, my reading is on track numbers-wise. I don't like to fixate on that too much, but I do aim for 150 in the year, and I am exactly on the mark for that at the moment. I'm also keeping up a reasonable mix of works, blending a higher proportion of more serious works into the series reading. I'd like to be doing better with my non-fiction reading, and will try to focus a little more on that going forward.

My writing remains problematic, however. (I won't whinge about that any more: I'm sure by now you know it chapter and verse!)

April looks like being a good challenge-reading month, although it will require a number of visits to various libraries and an increased amount of reading in the library.

Possible April reading:

The King's General by Daphne du Maurier {best-seller-challenge / Virago}
Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving {C. K. Shorter challenge}
Cavalier Of Chance (aka Peril!) by Sydney Horler {Mystery League challenge}
The American Caravan by Van Wyck Brooks (ed.) {Banned In Boston challenge}
The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side by Agatha Christie {chronological challenge}
Miss Silver Comes To Stay by Patricia Wentworth {shared read / series work}
The Adventuress by Arthur B. Reeve {TIOLI / series work}
The Amazing Mr Bunn by Bertram Atkey {TIOLI / series work}
Mr Polton Explains by R. Austin Freeman {TIOLI / series work}
Hands Unseen by Herman Landon {TIOLI / series work}
The De Bercy Affair by Louis Tracy {TIOLI / series work}
To Let by John Galsworthy {TIOLI / series work}
Home Port by Olive Higgins Prouty {TIOLI / series work}
Cone Of Silence by David Beaty {TIOLI}
Orca by Arthur Herzog
Bread And Vinegar by H. A. Manhood {1931}

Of course, I *would* pick a day when the touchstones are having a tantrum, sigh...

But I think that's it at last. Please come on in!

>12 lyzard: I just realized we are almost halfway through the Miss Silver series. Hard to believe.

Happy New Thread, Liz! And I ran across a handwritten inventory of a box of vintage books I have in the attic and thought you might be interested in the Ruth Fielding books at least. I have another box with the Five Little Peppers and Elsie Dinsmore series books among others. One of these days I'll dig them out and properly catalog them.

1913 Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall (all of these are by Alice B. Emerson)
1915 Ruth Fielding at Sunrise Farm
1916 Ruth Fielding Down in Dixie
1917 Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill and also a 1930 edition
1917 Ruth Fielding in the Saddle
1927 Ruth Fielding and her Great Scenario
1930 Ruth Fielding in Talking Pictures

Other series books include

1923 Gloria at Boarding School by Lillian Garis
1913 The Meadowbrook Girls Across the Country by Janet Aldridge
1914 The Meadowbrook Girls in the Hills
1925 Betty Gordon at Rainbow Ranch by Alice B. Emerson
1925 Betty Gordon and her School Chums
? Campfire Girls of Roselawn by Margaret Penrose
1918 Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor by Margaret Vandercook

Eight Marjorie Dean, High School Freshman through Marjorie Dean, College Senior by Pauline Lester, with dates from 1915 to 1922

1912 Tabitha's Glory (Vol. 2) by Ruth Alberta Brown
1913 Tabitha's Vacation (Vol. 3)

There are some other miscellaneous books, such as a 1915 edition of The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs. Molesworth and a leather-bound 1974 edition of Poems by William Cullen Bryant, a 1923 edition of Tennyson's Idylls of the King and an undated (but in the general age group of the above) copy of Whittier's Snowbound. A 1901 edition of Graustark and several by Kate Wiggin Douglas.

I really need to find that box.

>19 rosalita:

I know!

I'm freaked out by how far I am along with Agatha, too.

>20 ronincats:

Hi, Roni - thanks!

Wow, that's quite a collection! I've read all but the last two of the Ruth Fieldings (having stalled at the post-1923, non-public domain works). I have the Betty Gordons on my list too, not the others I think.

I have my actual boxes to hand, it's getting through the contents that's the problem. (Ahem. Hence...below.)

Finished Cone Of Silence for TIOLI #5.

Now reading Orca by Arthur Herzog.

Happy new thread, Liz!

>1 lyzard: Ewww, I would not want to encounter such a cat in my neighborhood....

>8 lyzard: I guess "1959" in that list is a typo?

Happy new thread!

>23 FAMeulstee:

Thanks, Anita!

Apparently the locals take it in their stride; I'm not sure I could.

It is not! - it's my book for Linda's TIOLI challenge. :D

>24 drneutron:

Thanks, Jim!

Happy New Thread, Liz!

I'm enjoying the Agatha Christie reviews in particular, as they come up in that chronological challenge.

Thanks, Joe! - Agatha is the one thing I've managed to keep on schedule. :)

Happy new thread, Liz.

I had almost forgotten how many books the Dame produced or the fact that I have pretty much read all of them at some stage, but not in chronological order.

What would be your own favourite of her books?

>25 lyzard: No, I think you mislooked, as "The Semi-Detached House" by Emily Eden was published in 1859, not 1959.

>28 PaulCranswick:

Hi, Paul - thank you!

Not an easy question to answer! I'm going to have a good ponder once I actually finish this challenge. What I will say at this point is there are a number of lesser-known mysteries including some of the standalones that are high up on my list.

>29 FAMeulstee:

Okay. I needed a bit more specificity, since I was reading a book from 1959 at the time...

I thought you were having a go at me for reading something so "recent". :D

Finished Orca for TIOLI #12.

Now reading Hands Unseen by Herman Landon.

The Kellys And The O'Kellys; or, Landlords And Tenants - Published in 1848, Anthony Trollope's second novel is (like The Macdermots Of Ballycloran) set in Ireland, and reflects his observations while living and working there. A far less grim work, although not without its dark side, The Kellys And The O'Kellys is set in and around the village of Dunmore, and chiefly concerns the efforts by two young men of different social status to advance their positions by marrying for money. Francis O'Kelly, the Viscount Ballindine, has inherited his feckless father's debts, and knows that he must marry a woman of fortune: a situation which proves to have a distinctly pleasant side when he falls in love with, and becomes engaged to, lovely Fanny Wyndham. However, Frank's perceived neglect of Fanny for his horse-racing interests allows her uncle and guardian to intervene and attempt to break off the relationship; his aim being to acquire Fanny's fortune for his own son, Lord Kilcullen, whose debts make Frank's seem like a pittance. Meanwhile, Martin Kelly, one of Frank's tenants, is attempting to raise his social status through marriage to Anastasia 'Anty' Lynch, who has unexpectedly inherited half of her father's estate. Here the obstacle is Anty's violent, selfish brother, Barry, who has no intention of allowing her property to go any man but himself... Though sufficiently engaging in its own right, The Kellys And The O'Kellys will probably be of most interest to those familiar with Anthony Trollope's later, more successful works, in that it offers in embryo many of the themes and situations which be the hallmark of his work. As is self-evident, money - along with the efforts of men to acquire it, and the treatment of women who have it - is at the forefront of this novel. What is perhaps surprising is that no criticism is offered of either Frank or Martin for pursuing fortune through marriage; rather, the honest way in which both go about their business is considered sufficient absolution. A sharp contrast is drawn between these two and their straightforward proceedings, and the machinations of Barry Lynch, who is one of the very few irredeemable villains to be found in the entire Trollope canon---though even at this early stage we see the author's interest in psychology, as he delineates the twisted workings of Barry's mind. Similarly, one of the strongest aspects of this novel is the characterisation of the Earl of Cashel, as he tries - and fails - to reconcile his high opinion of himself with his increasingly dishonest attempts to bring about a marriage between Fanny and his son. In fact Trollope generally does better with his depiction of his older characters, including Mrs Kelly and the distinctly underworked Protestant minister, Mr Armstrong. In contrast, his young women in particular are underdeveloped---although Fanny shows that obstinate belief in her man that will be a defining feature of many of Trollope's later heroines, and for all her humble-mindedness, Anty is shrewd enough to hire an agent to guard and manage her inheritance. In the broader sense, The Kellys And The O'Kellys reflects what Trollope evidently found so fascinating about Ireland, the blurring of the social lines and the mixing of the classes, and the consequent potential for a social mobility not seen in England. The novel also expresses what was, for the time, an unusual interest in, and sympathy with, the Irish people and their difficulties---which extends so far as criticisms of English governance (the narrative is set against the trial of Daniel O'Connell and his co-defendants) and a respectful treatment of the Catholic faith. This broadmindedness did Trollope no favours back home: The Kellys And The O'Kellys, like The Macdermots Of Ballycloran before it, was a significant failure, attracting some positive reviews but finding no audience among English readers.

    "Well, so, from that out, I began to think of it in arnest," said Martin. "The Lord forgive me! but my first thoughts was how I'd like to pull down Barry Lynch; and my second that I'd not demane myself by marrying the sisther of such an out-and-out ruffian, and that it wouldn't become me to live on the money that'd been got by chating your lordship's grandfather."
    "My lordship's grandfather ought to have looked after that himself," said Frank. "If those are all your scruples they needn't stick in your throat much."
    "I said as much as that to myself, too. So I soon went to work. I was rather shy about it at first; but the girls helped me. They put it into her head, I think, before I mentioned it at all. However, by degrees, I asked her plump, whether she'd any mind to be Mrs. Kelly? and, though she didn't say 'yes,' she didn't say 'no'."
    "But how the devil, man, did you manage to get at her? I'm told Barry watches her like a dragon, ever since he read his father's will."
    "He couldn't watch her so close, but what she could make her way down to mother's shop now and again. Or, for the matter of that, but what I could make my way up to the house."
    "That's true, for what need she mind Barry, now? She may marry whom she pleases, and needn't tell him, unless she likes, until the priest has his book ready."
    "Ah, my lord! but there's the rub. She is afraid of Barry; and though she didn't say so, she won't agree to tell him, or to let me tell him, or just to let the priest walk into the house without telling him. She's fond of Barry, though, for the life of me, I can't see what there is in him for anybody to be fond of. He and his father led her the divil's own life mewed up there, because she wouldn't be a nun. But still is both fond and afraid of him; and, though I don't think she'll marry anybody else---at laist not yet awhile, I don't think she'll ever get courage to marry me---at any rate, not in the ordinary way."
    "Why then, Martin, you must do something extraordinary, I suppose."
    "That's just it, my lord; and what I wanted was, to ask your lordship's advice and sanction, like."
    "Sanction! Why I shouldn't think you'd want anybody's sanction for marrying a wife with four hundred a-year..."

Kenilworth - It is difficult to know how to approach this 1821 historical novel by Walter Scott, which is built around the strange death of Amy Robsart, the wife of the Earl of Leicester---because, whatever it may be as a novel, as history it is false from start to finish: false about dates, false about events great and small, and consequently false in its characterisations---all, perhaps, but one. Scott's declared purpose in writing this book was to balance his ledger: to "do" Elizabeth, having "done" Mary, Queen of Scots, in the earlier The Abbot; and though (as was Mary) Elizabeth is something of a supporting player in the main drama of the novel, here there is at least a sense that Scott was trying to create a genuine portrait. However, Scott makes his centrepiece Elizabeth's 1575 visit to Kenilworth Castle; and while we can understand the attraction of this for Scott, and though there is more reality about his depiction of the extraordinarily lavish entertainment provided by Leicester for his monarch than anything else in this book, the fact is that this visit took place fifteen years after the death of Leicester's wife---rather than immediately preceding it, still less (as Scott implies) precipitating it. Since its initial publication, Kenilworth has proven to be a popular and influential novel---which only serves to highlight the dangers of inaccurate historical writing, since it is certainly the basis for the commonly held belief that Leicester was culpable in the death of his wife. In any event, there is nothing to be gained from trying to treat Kenilworth as history; rather, it needs to be treated as the fiction it is. Kenilworth opens shortly after the secret marriage of the Earl of Leicester to the beautiful young Amy Robsart---secret because, though he has allowed his passion to overcome his personal and political ambition so far as to marry Amy, the sudden upswing in the favour shown him by Elizabeth, and the whisperings that she may at last be ready to share her throne, have taught Leicester his folly. Only too well aware that the revelation of his marriage will be the end not only, perforce, of any chance of his marrying Elizabeth, but of his career at court, Leicester persuades Amy to live concealed in the country, and to keep their marriage a secret even from her heartbroken father. In the first flush of her love, Amy believes Leicester's arguments for secrecy and is willingly obedient; but over time her impatience to be vindicated as a wife, and to be received by the world as Countess of Leicester, grows uncontrollable; and when an opportunity presents itself she flees the manor in which she has been all but a prisoner, intending to travel to Kenilworth and to demand her rights from Elizabeth herself... Meanwhile, Edmund Tressilian, at the behest of Sir Hugh Robsart, is seeking Amy, finding her in circumstances that lead him to believe that she has eloped with Sir Richard Varney, one of Leicester's supporters. Having hoped to marry Amy himself, Tressilian is crushed by his discovery; yet his only thought is to ensure Amy's welfare. Aligning himself with the retainers of Leicester's main political rival, the Earl of Sussex, Tressilian resolves to bring Amy's wrongs to the attention of Sir Richard's patron, the Earl of Leicester... As a novel, Kenilworth is an entertaining work, full of heroes and villains, plots and counterplots, and the struggle between love and ambition; although also rather overcrowded with supporting characters and their unnecessary life-histories. Its main weakness is its conception of Leicester, who we do not believe for a moment would have been stupid enough, or sexually obsessed enough, to risk his position with Elizabeth by marrying another woman. However, granting this improbable central situation, Leicester's subsequent scheming and his desperate efforts to keep Elizabeth from discovering the truth about his marriage, and the rapid multiplication of the threats of exposure, create a suspenseful narrative. Scott's handling of the Kenilworth visit is also masterly, balancing the larger view of the astonishing complexity and extravagance of Leicester's arrangements with the ongoing but temporarily hidden feuds between Elizabeth's courtiers and the various plots unfolding within the nooks and crannies of the castle itself. The narrative generally is of course filled with historical figures, including the young Walter Raleigh, who rises to the dignity of "Sir Walter" over the course of the story, after first catching the Queen's attention via the famous, albeit apocryphal, cloak incident. As for the portrait of Elizabeth, it is on the whole a success, though marked - inevitably, with male authors of this era - by a simultaneous criticism of her for being too much a woman - in that she can be swayed by a handsome face - and not woman enough - in that she can't bring herself to share power with a man - but at any event, just a woman, when all is said and done. Still, Scott does try to do justice to her qualities as a monarch, and her shrewd ability to juggle the conflicting personalities of her courtiers, and always credits her with a genuine devotion to her people and their welfare.

     Upon entrance, Tressilian found himself, not without a strong palpitation of heart, in the presence of Elizabeth, who was walking to and fro in a violent agitation, which she seemed to scorn to conceal, while two or three of her most sage and confidential counsellors exchanged anxious looks with each other, but delayed speaking till her wrath abated. Before the empty chair of state in which she had been seated, and which was half pushed aside by the violence with which she had started from it, knelt Leicester, his arms crossed, and his brows bent on the ground, still and motionless as the effigies upon a sepulchre. Beside him stood the Lord Shrewsbury, then Earl Marshal of England, holding his baton of office. The Earl's sword was unbuckled, and lay before him on the floor.
    “Ho, sir!” said the Queen, coming close up to Tressilian, and stamping on the floor with the action and manner of Henry himself; “you knew of this fair work---you are an accomplice in this deception which has been practised on us---you have been a main cause of our doing injustice?” Tressilian dropped on his knee before the Queen, his good sense showing him the risk of attempting any defence at that moment of irritation. “Art dumb, sirrah?” she continued; “thou knowest of this affair dost thou not?”
    “Not, gracious madam, that this poor lady was Countess of Leicester.”
    “Nor shall any one know her for such,” said Elizabeth. “Death of my life! Countess of Leicester!---I say Dame Amy Dudley; and well if she have not cause to write herself widow of the traitor Robert Dudley.”
    “Madam,” said Leicester, “do with me what it may be your will to do, but work no injury on this gentleman; he hath in no way deserved it.”
    “And will he be the better for thy intercession,” said the Queen, leaving Tressilian, who slowly arose, and rushing to Leicester, who continued kneeling---“the better for thy intercession, thou doubly false---thou doubly forsworn;---of thy intercession, whose villainy hath made me ridiculous to my subjects and odious to myself? I could tear out mine eyes for their blindness!”
    Burleigh here ventured to interpose.
    “Madam,” he said, “remember that you are a Queen---Queen of England---mother of your people. Give not way to this wild storm of passion.”
    Elizabeth turned round to him, while a tear actually twinkled in her proud and angry eye. “Burleigh,” she said, “thou art a statesman---thou dost not, thou canst not, comprehend half the scorn, half the misery, that man has poured on me!”

Kenilworth was read for the C. K. Shorter "Best 100 Novels" challenge.

Next up---

#30: Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving (1822)




The first American novel to make the list---albeit that it was written and published while Irving was living in England. Basically a collection of humorous character sketches, Bracebridge Hall may well have been influenced by the works of Thomas Love Peacock, whose similar Headlong Hall also made Shorter's list; he evidently enjoyed that kind of fiction.

I enjoyed Kenilworth, it's a fun romp, even taking into account the historical faux pas. And I'm afraid my library couldn't find the copy of the Trollope that they claimed to have, so I've missed that one. I find myself back in Ireland this month, I'm aiming to read The Absentee

I enjoyed it as far as I was able, but I have the type of brain that won't let me ignore things I know are wrong.

I'm sorry you couldn't join us for The Kellys And The O'Kellys. We look like doing The Three Clerks in July, hopefully your library system will be more cooperative then! I read The Absentee last year for the C. K. Shorter challenge and found it another interesting and largely sympathetic take on the Irish situation.

The Two Elsies - The title of this 1885 series entry by Martha Finley is something of a misnomer, inasmuch as the ladies in question - that is, Elsie Dinsmore Travilla and her eldest daughter, Elsie Travilla Leland - are no more prominent in the narrative than has become usual. Rather, this is yet another story of the extended clan taking in a stray child, in this case Evelyn Leland, niece-by-marriage of the younger Elsie, after the death of her beloved father. Evelyn's mother is initially outraged when she learns that her brother-in-law, Lester Leland, has been appointed Evelyn's guardian and trustee; but an invitation to join an extended tour of Europe sees her abandoning her daughter with barely a glance back. Evelyn is then carried away to the South, where her grief is assuaged by the loving welcome of her aunt's family, and she becomes the unlikely best friend of the turbulent Lulu Raymond, still fighting a losing battle against her temper and her pride. The second half of The Two Elsies is, indeed, yet again devoted to Lulu's troubles, and her rebellion against the authority of Horace Dinsmore: a subplot which produces this charming reminder of, ahem, good times past:

    "I've said I won't take another lesson from him, and I don't intend to. But Grandpa Dinsmore says I must; so there'll be another fight."
    "Oh, Lu, don't!" cried Grace, in terror; "don't try to fight him. Don't you remember how he 'most made Grandma Elsie die when she was a little girl, 'cause she wouldn't do what he told her to?"

---which, let us be clear, is not here intended as a criticism of Horace Dinsmore, but rather an illustration of the extent of proper parental authority. (In its own context, however, that incident was quite another matter; has Finley forgotten that?) Meanwhile, other subplots involve the saintly young Gracie finding Jesus, rather to the chagrin of her sister; the properly Christian death of Elsie Sr's elderly Mammy; and - balancing the eruption of anti-Catholicism in the previous entry, Elsie At Nantucket - a sudden outbreak of anti-Mormonism, with Edward and Zoe Travilla rescuing a pair of Danish immigrant sisters from being lured, all unknowing, out to Utah. It is the impasse that develops between Lulu and Horace that dominates this short novel, however---and we can only imagine to what lengths it might have been carried, had potential tragedy not intervened, with Gracie and baby Elsie contracting scarlet fever, and word being received that the ship carrying Captain Raymond may have been lost with all hands...

    Violet...laid her hand kindly on the child's shoulder, and said, "Lulu, dear, I know pretty well what you have just been told by grandpa, and, my child, it distresses me exceedingly to think of you being sent away from us all."
    "You needn't care, Mamma Vi; I don't," interrupted Lulu, angrily. "I'd rather be away from people that ill-treat me so; I only wish I could go thousands of miles from you all, and never, never come back."
    "Poor, dear, unhappy child!" Violet said, tears trembling in her beautiful eyes; "I know you cannot be other than miserable while indulging in such wrong feelings. If I have ill-treated you in any way I have not been conscious of it, and am truly sorry, for it is my strong desire to be all that I should to my husband's dear children. Come into my dressing-room and let us have a little talk together about these matters."
    She drew Lulu into the room as she spoke, and made her sit down on a sofa by her side.
    "No, Mamma Vi, you have never ill-treated me," answered Lulu, her sense of justice asserting itself; "but I think Grandpa Dinsmore has, and so I'd rather go away from him."

>37 lyzard: "Yikes!" is all I have to say to this one specifically and this series in general. Oh, one more thing to say: "Better you than me!"

I've begun Miss Silver Comes to Stay. Although no murder has yet been committed, I have already identified the all-too-obvious victim-in-waiting, as well as the obligatory star-crossed lovers who will live happily ever after. And, as I expected from the title, Miss Silver is already on scene despite the current lack of crime. I don't expect that state of play to last much longer ...

>33 lyzard: Would this be a good entry to the Scott canon? Because I've started Ivanhoe about five times now, and experience suggests that finishing is in the distant future.

>37 lyzard: If it's any consolation, there's a John Norman book coming up in my DAW project ....

>36 lyzard: Well the catalogue says they have a copy, which I have reserved. But the number of times they don't find the book means I'm not exactly confident quite yet.

>38 rosalita:, >39 swynn:

At least they're short.

And this time the anti-Mormon stuff was so exaggerated, it was almost funny rather than offensive. Almost.

From Martha Finley to John Norman: a reminder that offensive reading material comes in many different forms. :D

>38 rosalita:

Not sure when I'll be getting to Maudie: I've got a complicated reading month full of requested books and running back and forth between libraries. It will definitely be happening, though! Interesting to hear she's been brought front-and-centre this time.

>39 swynn:

I'm not all that experienced in Scott, but my general observation is that there is usually several chapters of "What the hell?" before the narrative settles down. Kenilworth does that too but for a shorter period, so you might find it an easier entry point. I've read Ivanhoe but too long ago to make direct comparisons.

It also depends what kind of history you're looking for: this one is all about the intrigue.

Meanwhile, I've been notified that they've successfully retrieved The American Caravan from storage for me; now I've just got to figure out when I can get in to sit down and read it.

>40 Helenliz:

That must be frustrating for you. It's also a lesson in appreciating our ILL system, which is both countrywide and efficient in either producing your book or letting you know why not.

Best-selling books in the United States for 1945:

1. Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor
2. The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
3. The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain
4. The White Tower by James Ramsey Ullman
5. Cass Timberlane by Sinclair Lewis
6. A Lion Is In The Streets by Adria Locke Langley
7. So Well Remembered by James Hilton
8. Captain from Castile by Samuel Shellabarger
9. Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham
10. Immortal Wife by Irving Stone

Sex, sex, sex...that's all they ever think about...

Well, maybe not: but we do have another taboo-breaker at #1 in 1945. We also have a severe reduction in the number of religiously-themed novels on our list, with Lloyd C. Douglas' 1943 best-seller, The Robe, still hanging in there at #2.

Historical fiction returns in The Black Rose by Thomas Costain, about the illegitimate son of a Crusader who travels to the Far East in search of wealth; Captain from Castile by Samuel Shellabarger, about a Spanish cavalier who takes part in the invasion of Mexico under Cortes; and Immortal Wife by Irving Stone, a biographical novel about Jessie Benton Fremont, the wife of John Fremont, who explored and mapped the American frontier as it moved westward, before embarking on an unsuccessful political career.

Both James Hilton's So Well Remembered and Adria Locke Langley's A Lion Is In The Streets take a longer view of contemporary life, though in very different ways. The former is set from WWI to WWI, and tells the story of a man determined to improve conditions in his home town no matter what it costs him; the latter (like Robert Penn Warren's better-known All The King's Men) is the story of the rise of a political demagogue, loosely based on the life of Huey Long, but told from the perspective of the politician's wife.

Sinclair Lewis's Cass Timberlane is a contemporary novel about a staid middle-aged judge who marries a vivacious young woman against his better judgement. James Ramsey Ullman's The White Tower is set against WWII, but its focus is an ill-mixed party attempting to be the first to conquer a particular Swiss peak.

Gwethalyn Graham's Earth and High Heaven, meanwhile, is one of several important novels of this era to tackle the problem of anti-Semitism amongst "nice" people on the home-front, this one set in Montreal.

The best-selling book of 1945, however, which also appeared at #4 on the 1944 list, was Kathleen Winsor's monumental historical fiction about the sexual adventures and misadventures of a young woman in Restoration England, Forever Amber.

Kathleen Winsor was born in Minnesota in 1919, but grew up in Berkeley, California, where she eventually attended university and married a fellow-student, college football player and 'All-American' Robert Herwig. After graduating she worked for a time as a sports journalist, but was progressively demoted and then released as her paper was forced to cut staff.

With the outbreak of WWII, Robert Herwig joined the Marines and was largely absent from Winsor's life for the next five years; they would eventually divorce. Winsor had already developed an interest in Restoration history and, during her husband's time away, undertook serious research into the period which eventually became the basis for her first novel, Forever Amber.

Published in 1944, Forever Amber became a succès de scandale, being banned as pornographic in 14 American states. Nevertheless, it sold over 100,000 copies in the first week of its release and stayed on the best-seller lists for eighteen months.

However, Forever Amber proved the alpha and omega of Kathleen Winsor's career. Though she published seven more novels, only the next, Star Money, an autobiographical work about her post-Amber celebrity, found any success.

Forever Amber - Believing herself to be merely the daughter of a farmer, Amber St. Clare is in fact the illegitimate child of the Earl of Rosswood and Judith Marsh, separated by politics during the English Civil War. Taken in and raised by the woman who acts as her mother's midwife after Judith dies in childbirth, Amber is sixteen years old when King Charles II is restored to the English throne---and when a party of cavaliers rides through the tiny village of Marygreen. Dazzled by one of the group, Bruce, Lord Carlton, Amber pursues him, begging him to take her with him to London. Bruce does---warning Amber, however, that come what may he will never marry her; nor will he promise to stay with her. Overwhelmed by her passion, Amber cares nothing for the future, but soon finds that Bruce means what he says when he leaves her to embark upon a privateering venture. Alone in London, too stunned by Bruce's departure to manage properly the money he has given her, Amber falls from one trap into another until she is imprisoned for debt in Newgate. From this low point of misery, however, she eventually fights her way to the very pinnacle of English society, her only weapons her body, her wits, and her ruthlessness... Forever Amber is a novel that manages, simultaneously, to be a frustrating bore and an amusing entertainment; though in the end the boredom wins out, chiefly because much of what was so shocking to readers and critics in 1944 hardly raises an eyebrow today. This book has been called "the female Anthony Adverse", and while the original allusion was to its length and the distance travelled by its protagonist - albeit that Amber's journeys are up and down the English social strata, from Newgate Prison to the bed of Charles II, rather than around the world - it is a description perhaps more apt than its coiner intended, in that like Anthony Adverse, Forever Amber is a lengthy and often a gruelling reading experience. But in truth, a far more obvious influence upon this book is Gone With The Wind: like Scarlett O'Hara, Amber is at her best when things are at their worst; but also like Scarlett, she is vain, selfish, self-absorbed, and exasperatingly stupid when it comes to both the man she is obsessed with and the other men she simply makes use of; a set of characteristics that make her an often unappealing protagonist. However, though we may not be as shocked today as people were in 1944, we can still appreciate the magnitude of Kathleen Winsor's taboo-breaking, and why this novel ended up so widely banned. Amber's enthusiastic embrace of a life of harlotry is only the beginning: added to this we have rampant casual sex and equally casual pregnancy, forbidden subject matter including contraception and abortion, fairly graphic descriptions of bodily functions and related unpleasantnesses, and any amount of unpunished crime, up to and including murder. But whatever we make of these deliberate provocations, Forever Amber does have the virtue of being a carefully researched and written piece of historical fiction (something that appealed to me strongly in the wake of Walter Scott's wilful disregard of the facts in Kenilworth). Winsor intersperses Amber's story with a depiction of Charles II's return to the throne of England, the profligacy and intrigue of his Court, and the major events of his reign, including the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London. Charles' story and Amber's run in parallel, until their inevitable collision. Though her passionate obsession with Bruce never wavers, Amber sleeps and marries her way to wealth and prominence, eventually achieving the social and political distinction of becoming one of Charles' official mistresses with lavish accommodations at Whitehall. But despite a success beyond even her own wildest dreams, Amber is still frustrated by Bruce's ongoing evasion of her clutches. She is also a woman living in a man's world---as she discovers to her cost when her involvement in the dangerous manoeuvring of Charles' court wins her some very powerful enemies...

    The bed, an immense four-posted structure with a massive tester, was covered with beaten silver and hung with scarlet velvet. And every other article of furniture in the room was thickly plated with silver; each chair, from the smallest stool to the great settee before the fireplace, was cushioned in scarlet. The window-hangings were silver embroidered scarlet velvet. Above the fireplace and sunk flush with the wall was an intimate and considerably more typical portrait of Amber painted by Peter Lely. She lay on her side on a heap of black cushions, unashamedly naked, staring out with a slant-eyed smile at whoever paused to look.
    The room seemed to possess a violent, almost savage personality. No human being had a chance of seeming important in it. And yet it was the envy of the Palace, for it was the most extravagant gesture anyone had yet made. Amber, not at all awed by it, loved it for its arrogance, its uncompromising challenge, its crude and boisterous beauty. It represented to her everything she had ever believed she wanted from life; and all she had got. It was her symbol of success.
    But it was not enough, now that she had it, to make her happy.
    For though her days were perpetually busy, occupied with a never-ceasing round of gossip, new clothes, gambling, play-going, supper-giving, schemes and counterschemes, she was never able to make herself forget Bruce Carlton. He would not leave her, no matter what she was doing, and though usually her longing for him was a low-keyed minor unhappiness it surged sometimes into tremendous and monumental music which seemed unbearable...

>33 lyzard: I must look out for Kenilworth as it is one of Scott's better known novels that I haven't yet read.

Have a great weekend, Liz.

Thanks, Paul! I'll be interested to hear what you make of Kenilworth.

Finished Hands Unseen for TIOLI #13.

Now reading The Amazing Mr Bunn by Bertram Atkey.

Sigh.

I've been lucky up till now with Herman Landon's 'Gray Phantom' stories, but it seems that the final book in the series, Gray Magic, is fairly rare and expensive.

I hate leaving things hanging, but it looks like this will be another one on my 'one of these days when I win the lottery' shopping list...

Number Seventeen - As Frank Theydon waits for a taxi outside a theatre, he is struck by the beauty of a young woman nearby; accidentally overhearing part of her conversation with her father at the same time. Nearing his block of flats, Frank spots the same man again - a destination that contradicts what he told his daughter - and soon after entering his own flat, hears someone he presumes to be the same man calling upon his neighbour. A glance out the window shortly afterwards, as the caller leaves, satisfies Frank's mild curiosity on this point. He thinks no more of this apparently trivial incident until the following evening, when he is met at the railway station by Chief Inspector Winter and Detective Inspector Furneaux of Scotland Yard, and learns that the woman in #17, a Mrs Lester, was murdered during the night. As Frank has a pressing business appointment, the detectives allow him to proceed when he promises to call at Scotland Yard at his earliest convenience to give a statement. Frank's appointment is with the millionaire businessman and philanthropist, James Creighton Forbes, who he is to interview for a magazine article---and as they are introduced, he realises to his dismay that Forbes is Mrs Lester's late-night visitor... The fourth entry in Louis Tracy's series featuring Winter and Furneaux is a thriller rather than a mystery. It is also told predominantly from the point of view of Frank Theydon, yet another of those rather exasperating young men so frequently found in British thrillers of this era, who falls desperately in love at first sight and proceeds to do any number of stupid and dangerous things as a consequence. In this case, Frank's obsession with Evelyn Forbes leads him, in the first place, to withhold information about her father from the detectives: excusing himself with the thought that a respected and dignified gentleman like Mr Forbes can't really have anything to do with Mrs Lester's murder and will surely be able to clear himself; but knowing all the while that he is really thinking of the impact of the situation upon Evelyn, and her opinion of himself. Fortunately for Frank, Mr Forbes is indeed able to clear himself; and in fact, far from being the killer, he is revealed as the potential next victim... Rather dismayingly, Number Seventeen eventually turns out to be a 'Yellow Peril' thriller, with Mr Forbes, his wife and his daughter in danger from a vengeful Tong, who carry out against them a campaign of kidnapping and attempted murder. Mr Forbes and Mrs Lester, we eventually learn, were connected to a scheme to overthrow the Chinese emperor and install a democratic government---and typically, the narrative never stops for a moment to consider whether these British people had any right to be interfering in the governance of another country; whether, in fact, they were rather asking for payback; but instead is properly horrified at the thought of nice white people in danger from "sinister Orientals". As you might imagine, there are any number of cringe-worthy moments on the way through; in particular, the official willingness to tar all Chinese people in London with the same brush is rather chillingly familiar. This novel also has a rather cowardly ending in which the nice white people get to keep their hands clean while some slightly less sinister Orientals do their dirty work for them. Nevertheless, Number Seventeen does have some virtues too. We see Winter and Furneaux operating outside their usual comfort zone, though no less effectively for that; the battle of wits between the main good guys and bad guys creates some suspenseful sequences; tiny carved skulls both left at the crime scenes and sent as a warning are a charmingly sinister touch; and Louis Tracy manages to find an effective way to include an obvious "American identification figure" for his US audience in his story, with some valuable assistance provided by wandering tourist, George T. Handyside of Chicago, who on one hand becomes the story's comic relief, but on the other proves a quick-thinking and courageous ally.

    The ivory skull was an exact replica of its predecessors. The set teeth, the scowling grin of the gaunt jawbones, the dull menace of the empty eye sockets, were equally convincing, equally disconcerting.
    Lighting a cigarette, Theydon scrutinised the address and postmarks. In a sense, it was ludicrous to find "Francis B. Theydon, Esq., 18 Innesmore Mansions, W. C.," typed in plain script on the wrapper. What an unholy alliance of modern science and medievalism! The mind almost refused to focus itself on the tragic aspect of the affair, yet the hour at which the package was posted, 5:30 p. m. in the West Strand, showed conclusively that Wong Li Fu, at any rate, had not sent the death's head by his own hand, but had entrusted it to a confederate. The notion brought in its train the departure of Miss Beale from her hotel, "because she had seen a Chinaman there." "Every little helps," mused Theydon, "I must let Scotland Yard know."
    He went straight to the telephone, and was pleased to hear that Mr Winter had reached headquarters. The chief inspector was feeling grateful, and said so. "It was very thoughtful on your part to deal so promptly with the message received by Mr Forbes," he said. "I meant remaining in Croydon all night. No one came to the house, of course. Wong Li Fu's note explained why. Callous and calculating demon, isn't he?"
    "Yes. Even more calculating than you are aware. He has included me in the count now. When I reached home ten minutes since, after gormandising with Mr Handyside, I found the totem of the tribe awaiting me."
    "The what?"
    "An ivory skull."
    "You don't say!" and there was a genuine thrill in Winter's voice. "Anything else?"
    "There was no written legend. I have no doubt the enemy believes that such a work of art speaks for itself. It does. I am to be exterminated..."

The Slip-Carriage Mystery - Colonel Gore is consulted by the Home Office about the unsolved murder of the wealthy Sir William Ireland. Via his reading of statements taken from all parties involved - statements obtained, in the Colonel's opinion, under circumstances of dubious legality - Gore learns that Sir William was stabbed to death as he slept in his compartment of a stationery slip-carriage, as it sat in the siding of a country train-station, waiting to be connected to a local train---while his much-younger wife was in a different compartment with a Captain Ingoldsby, and while his agent, Claude Theobold, whom he had just dismissed, was in a third compartment in a state of intoxication. Though railway regulations insist that passengers wait to board until the slip-carriage was connected and standing at the platform, the reality is that the carriage was easily accessed while in its siding - on cold nights most passengers did so - meaning that others could have slipped onboard and off again without being seen. In the latter category is Dudley Burchall, Sir William's stepson from his first marriage and, at the time of his death, his heir---whose name had been linked by gossip with that of Lady Ireland. But there were others with a grudge against Sir William... I've enjoyed Lynn Brock's Colonel Gore mysteries up to this point, but I found The Slip-Carriage Mystery a struggle---partly for inherent reasons, and partly because of the way my brain works, or doesn't. This is very much what I call a "spatial mystery", meaning it is built upon the geography of the crime scene and who could have been where, when; and I always have trouble with that sort of conceptualisation. Furthermore, the narrative leans upon contemporary British rail travel: everything from the management of the slip-carriage to the design of its compartments to the ticketing system turns out to be important, in ways that are difficult for the modern reader to grasp. Ultimately, however, the major shortcoming of The Slip-Carriage Mystery is that it is overpopulated. The decision to present the crime itself via after-the-event testimony, rather than the reader following events as they unfold, is interesting, and Brock makes some interesting points about the gap between how a person presents themselves in response to controlled questioning shaped to evoke specific reactions and what they really are. In particular, Claude Theobold - who seems like a surly drunken failure on paper - turns out to be a complex and rather good-humoured individual who, though he no doubt drinks too much, is very good at his job and much respected by his colleagues; meaning that Sir William Ireland must have had a reason for firing him other than the one given. The overriding problem here, however, is that no sooner has the reader gotten their head around the the fairly extensive cast of characters introduced via their statements and their relationships to one another and Sir William, than Gore visits the scene and encounters an entire new secondary cast with new relationships and new motives. It's all too much. There is some atmospheric writing, and a lot of good and thoughtful detection by Colonel Gore; while the mystery takes some interesting turns, particularly in a subplot dealing with the attempted murder of a secondary character who, at first glance, seems to have little do do with anything; but in the end the solution to The Slip-Carriage Mystery is too much like a rabbit pulled from a hat.

    Gore knew Waterley---a backward, slow, out-of-date county capital, where the tying up of a penn'orth of tacks took five minutes. As dull and safe a place, as friendly and as law-abiding, as any on the face of the earth. Fancy shut it out, and went back to the dim, lonely siding. What had straight-faced Waterley to do with this crooked business? This was Tragedy, tied down to no place.
    If one had a night-glass focused upon those three little rectangles of light that evening, what would one have seen? That, of course, was probably the whole puzzle. If one had been watching through a glass from the window of the East Signal Cabin, from 6.59 to 7.17 on that October evening, what would one have seen? Theobold..."screwed"...asleep in one little lighted box, his feet on a cushion, his newspaper on the floor? Then, a blank, where a rectangle was missing. Then another lighted-up little box, empty. Then another, in which stood a young man and a young woman, chatting...first-class passengers, both, chatting in the soiled atmosphere of a third smoker on a cross-country line... Had that been all one would have seen?
    On platform No. 1 the worthy Waterley burghers made a brief confusion---husbands or wives returning from a day's business or shopping in Westpool or London, or seeing friends off for Baynham or Exeter---absorbed in their respectable cares and purposes, heedless of that carriage of tragedy out there by the solitary lamp. On platform 3 a little crowd, smaller than the melting hubbub across the way, waited for the North Pier train to come up from Plymouth. No doubt many of those waiting passengers must have looked impatiently in the direction of the lonely lamp. For the night had fallen in bitter cold---no night to cool one's heel's along a draughty platform. But those who had looked had seen a lamp and nothing more. They had blown their noses and changed chill hands upon the grips of their bags and stamped numb feet and dreamed of no such possible thing as murder within a cry of them...

>50 lyzard: I find my aging brain decreasingly able to handle large casts. Years ago I started using scratch paper for bookmarks, on which I keep notes about who is who and to whom they're related. Once the cheat sheet gets filled I usually wing it and hope I have notes enough already. If I don't then I blame the author, which I maintain is perfectly reasonable.

The Hardway Diamonds Mystery - An experienced burglar named Thomas Herridge breaks into the home of Lord Hardway and steals a valuable diamond necklace, only to be caught and arrested by plain-clothes detectives shortly afterwards. Herridge manages to escape custody, albeit in handcuffs and without the diamonds; it is only afterwards, when no news of his doings breaks, that it dawns upon him that he has, in turn, been burglarised... Sir Edric Conway, the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, receives a call the next morning from his friend, Richard Penhampton, the brother-in-law of Lady Hardway, who tells him all the details of the robbery. Penhampton then learns of the existence of a dangerous criminal gang headed by a mysterious figure known only as "the Funny Toff" for his wild, disturbing laugh. The Hardway case is given to Inspector Brooks, who visits a waterside pub that is a known meeting-place of the Toff's gang, and then disappears---only to be found brutally murdered. Learning the shocking details from Sir Edric, Richard decides to amateur detective, inventing a new identity for himself and infiltrating the criminal gang; knowing as he does so that if he makes a slip, he will meet Brooks' fate... Though known chiefly by his "John Rhode" pseudonym, under which he authored the long-running Dr Priestley series, Cecil Street used a second pseudonym, "Miles Burton", for various other mysteries and thrillers, including this standalone work from 1930. The Hardway Diamonds Mystery is a curious novel. Its plot is very Edgar Wallace-like, featuring as it does a master-criminal whose own men do not know his true identity, and who maintains a respectable "normal" persona that masks his illegal activities. It is a strange choice for Rhode / Burton, known for his "humdrum" mysteries and his matter-of-fact tone. The latter proves an odd vehicle for this story's inevitable chases and death-traps and hair's-breadth escapes; yet there are moments when this almost casual approach is chillingly effective, as in the shocking scene of the discovery of Inspector Brooks' body: this too, at a time when the killing of a police officer in fiction or film was frowned upon by The Authorities. At the same time, the novel is bolstered by a couple of more typical authorial touches, including the geographical detail in the descriptions of the Mendip Hills, where the story's main suspense-sequence plays out, and Richard's knowledge of geology, which allows him to interpret a significant clue. Perhaps the most interesting thing about The Hardway Diamonds Mystery, however, is that at times it seems intended as a critique of the limits of the amateur detective. Like a thousand young men in a thousand thrillers before him, Richard Penhampton tries to tackle a criminal gang single-handed, armed only with his wits---and soon discovers that he is in over his head, being toyed with by "the Toff", and still alive for no reason he can grasp. But in spite of his own narrow escape, and in spite too of the gruesome deaths of both Inspector Brooks and the burglar Herridge, Richard is forced to continue his efforts to unmask the Funny Toff when he is framed for a second burglary, and saved from arrest by the plodding and unimaginative but painstaking Inspector Pollard only by his friendship with Sir Edric. Richard's investigation leads him to an abandoned lead mine in the south-west of England, where his discoveries reveal both the means by which the gang are smuggling their cache out of England and the terrible fate met by Inspector Brooks---a fate that Richard seems doomed to share, when he is trapped by the unexpected return of several of the gang-members...

    Dr Weatherleigh had been informed of the discovery of an ancient pig of lead in some old workings in the Mendips, by someone purporting to be Professor Cobbold. He had sent Alison to fetch it, in order that he might examine it. But it was never to be allowed to reach him, since an expert of his standing would regonise it as a forgery at first glance. Somewhere on the road to Lestridge Hall Alison would be stopped and the pig taken from her. But---would she be allowed to continue her journey unharmed? Was not this the development which he had always feared? The Funny Toff had decided to avenge his own interference upon the woman he loved!
    At this terrible prospect, Dick's self-control deserted him. He tore madly at the cords which bound him, strove savagely to dislodge the choking gag which filled his mouth. But his efforts were unavailing, and after a few moments of wild-eyed desperation, he staggered against the wall of his cell, and, unable to preserve his balance, fell heavily to the floor.
    The shock sobered him. If he were to save Alison, to save himself, he must at all costs keep calm and bring the whole power of his mind to bear upon the problem of escape. He lay for a while where he had fallen, striving desperately to think. Bound as he was, there was no means of escape from the cell. If only he could free his hands---
    He became aware that a strange lassitude was creeping over him, that he was breathing deeply, almost gasping for breath. It must be the gag which was suffocating him. He tried to take a deep breath but the effort choked him. A deadly weariness seemed to have overtaken him, numbing his muscles and his brain. The hissing noise rang in his ears, which throbbed dully with it. Then, in a sudden access of understanding, he realised the manner of death which had been prepared for him...

I praised artist Gene Thurston for his attention to story-detail in his cover for the previous Mystery League book, The Monster Of Grammont. It must have gone to his head: here a larger version of his effort for The Hardway Diamonds Mystery, in which hero Richard Penhampton is indeed pushed out of a train...but *not* while the train is crossing a bridge some one hundred feet over a river!

So yeah---

The Mystery League Inc. Challenge:

#12: Peril! by Sydney Horler (published in the US in 1930, and in the UK in 1931 as Cavalier Of Chance; cover art by Gene Thurston)



Sydney Horler was a popular, albeit - or perhaps not albeit - xenophobic writer of mysteries and thrillers, so the fact that he apparently struggled to get this one published in Britain bodes rather ill.

Note the indecisiveness over 'exclamation mark' or 'no exclamation mark'; I would have thought the former went without question for the Mystery League!---

>51 swynn:

I'm usually okay with that sort of thing, but on top of the train / geography stuff it must just too much in this one. I ended up reading reading but not absorbing, if you know what I mean.

Ah!

There was one more thing I meant to say about The Slip-Carriage Mystery. I'm getting used to Lynn Brock's often daring approach to his material, but this time he ventured into the most forbidden territory of all, with an allusion to menstruation.

The only other book of this era I can think of that does something similar is E. Arnot Robertson's Four Frightened People, but there it's a rather over-obvious attempt to be shocking.

Here it is organic to the plot, with a young woman suffering a regular illness---prompting Colonel Gore to observe, yes, well, and the doctor he's talking to to say, no, he's looked into that and it isn't. :)

Oh good gravy.

I ran into the State Library yesterday to make a start on the next 'Banned in Boston' work, The American Caravan.

A volume of this was released annually for four years, from 1927 - 1931 (and with the 1927 edition being the current bone of contention). As remarked up-thread, these anthologies were classified and shelved as journals, so I guess I was expecting just that, a volume of a journal; something like a magazine.

What did I get instead?

This. This. All 833 pages of it. (And, now that I read the fine print, all "72 contributors".)

  

I'm not sure how many trips in it will take to get this finished, nor when I'm going to find time to make them. (As per standard procedure, all my various library requests have come in at once.) There is a distinct possibility that this will have to roll through April into May.

The other question is how to approach a report of the contents, which include (more fine print) stories, novelettes, plays, poetry and travel sketches.

I don't think there's any way of actually reviewing this; rather, I think I'll simply post a (very) brief comment about each entry as I go along.

And of course, my other ongoing task is to spot what got this 'Banned In Boston'...

So anyway---

On my first visit I managed to read about 110 pages of The American Caravan; I had to break off halfway through Isidor Schneider's 64-page (!) "narrative poem", The Temptation Of St. Anthony.

I completed the following:

Supper For The Dead by Paul Green: - a short play set amongst a poor black community on the Cape Fear River. A bereaved mother consults a conjure-woman after her daughter dies under mysterious circumstances. (Banned in Boston? - incest, rape, suicide, black magic.)

Six Poems by Wallace Gould: - just that: six pieces of poetry whose main themes include mythology, authorship and sex. And cats. (Banned in Boston? - sex.)

An Alpine Idyll by Ernest Hemingway: - a short story. Two young men on a skiiing holiday in the Swiss Alps encounter a peasant with a disturbingly prosaic attitude to death.

Death At Bearwallow by Elizabeth Madox Roberts: - a short story. When a man is asked to keep vigil over a young woman who has died, it triggers childhood memories of another, involuntary vigil.

Lowing In The Night by Alter Brody: - a play, but in the form of dialogue only. A Jewish couple talk through the night, revealing the root cause of their unhappy marriage. (Banned in Boston? - sex, pregnancy, obstetrical issues.)

>38 rosalita: Seconding Julia's comments on the Elsie book and series.....

>57 lyzard: It does seem that your various challenges seem to have given you a run of lengthy reads at the moment....

Hi, Heather!

I don't mind taking one for the team. :)

At least I was prepared for the other chunksters; I nearly fell over when I saw this one on the shelves! At first I thought (hoped) it was all five editions bound together, but alas, I soon realised I had nowhere to hide... :D

So---

After running in to the State Library yesterday, today it was my local library to pick up an ILL, Home Port by Olive Higgins Prouty, and to make a start on the next Mystery League book, Peril! (aka Cavalier Of Chance) by Sydney Horler.

The Supernatural - Published in 1965, this non-fiction work by Douglas Hill and Patricia Williams was one of the first broad studies of paranormal phenomena intended for a general audience. The book is wide-ranging, including chapters on historical belief in the supernatural and those persisting within "primitive" cultures; the roots of various superstitions; hauntings; spiritualism and mediumship; telepathy and psychokinesis; witchcraft and black magic; and legendary creatures and cryptozoology. With such a crowded roster, no one topic is covered in any depth; but generally Hill and Williams give a fair overview of their subject, including historical attempts made to prove or disprove the phenomenon in question, and contemporary academic studies. That said, this is book with a number of shortcomings. One is the very fairness of the authors' approach: in their attempt to be even-handed and non-judgemental, they very nearly succeed in making these subjects dull. This is also very much a book of its time, with passing references to LSD as "an interesting new experimental drug", a tendency to view anything but narrow heterosexuality as "a perversion", and above all the offering of "telepathy" as a likely explanation for almost everything. The layout of the book itself is also problematic: it is, if anything, over-illustrated---and offers photographs of supposedly genuine supernatural phenomena, photographs of things subsequently debunked and "recreations" with such impartiality that it tends to invalidate the lot. It is easy to understand why, at the time of its publication, The Supernatural was a popular and important breakthrough work; but at this distance, it is a lot easier to see its flaws than its virtues.

    In everyday speech, "supernatural" refers to anything that stretches or breaks or otherwise violates what we commonly think of as the laws of nature---the normal, accepted, natural processes of day-to-day living...
    To get away from the looseness of colloquial meanings: by the supernatural we mean, first, those instincts and perceptions about the universe that make no sense in rational terms but that, over many centuries and in many countries, have mever been lost or eradicated. We mean those unseen powers and influences whose existence has been acknowledged by most people at most times---not only by those who, claiming special knowledge, have been said to be able to make direct contact with the powers, but also by those who, without personal contact, continue to believe with unshakable tenacity. And we mean the stories and lore about such matters that can be found throughout the world since history began to be recorded, and the accounts of spontaneous manifestations of such powers and forces.

The Great God Pan - In 1890, Arthur Machen published a standalone short story under the title, The Great God Pan, which went on to become a highly praised and much anthologised work in its own right. However, subsequently recognising the thematic connections between that story and another published a year later, The City Of Resurrections, Machen wove them both into a longer work published in 1894 as The Great God Pan: the original short story became the first chapter under the altered title, The Experiment, and tells of a surgeon's attempt, via what he considers a simple brain operation, to permit an individual to perceive the realm that he believes exists outside of normal human perceptions. To this end, he uses his own adopted daughter, Mary, as his experimental subject... The rest of The Great God Pan deals, in effect, with the consequences of the experiment---being, in its entirety, less a novel than a series of interconnected short stories (mimicking, perhaps, the structure of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, published in 1886), as a handful of different characters undergo strange experiences which they then recount to each other, thus expanding each other's knowledge of, and belief in, a terrifying supernatural force, which seems somehow connected to a beautiful yet sinister woman named Helen. The results are sometimes chilling, but overall unsatisfying. The original story is a gem; but the allusiveness that is so effective in this short, standalone work becomes frustrating when it is replicated over multiple chapters, with the reader never really finding out what it is that the various characters have seen and experienced. Nevertheless there are some powerful sequences within The Great God Pan, including the disturbing experiences of two children who venture into the woods near their home, and an interlude involving a wave of suicides of men with, it would seem, everything to live for. The work as a whole finally comes full circle, with the surgeon of the original story at last forced to take action to destroy the evil that, in his arrogance, he unleashed upon the world.

    "Safe? Of course it is. In itself the operation is a perfectly simple one; any surgeon could do it."
    "And there is no danger at any other stage?"
    "None; absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I give you my word. You are always timid, Clarke, always; but you know my history. I have devoted myself to transcendental medicine for the last twenty years. I have heard myself called quack and charlatan and impostor, but all the while I knew I was on the right path. Five years ago I reached the goal, and since then every day has been a preparation for what we shall do tonight."
    "I should like to believe it is all true." Clarke knit his brows, and looked doubtfully at Dr Raymond. "Are you perfectly sure, Raymond, that your theory is not a phantasmagoria---a splendid vision, certainly, but a mere vision after all?"
    Dr Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply. He was a middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow complexion, but as he answered Clarke and faced him, there was a flush on his cheek.
    "Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things---yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet---I say that all these are but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes..."

Finished The Amazing Mr Bunn for TIOLI #1.

Now reading Miss Silver Comes To Stay by Patricia Wentworth; still reading Peril! by Sydney Horler and The American Caravan.

>57 lyzard: My, that’s a big ‘un!

>63 lyzard: I got The Great God Pan{ on kindle last year and am really looking forward to it. Thanks for one of your great reviews, Liz.

The Pale Horse - On his way home from giving a dying woman the last rites and hearing her last words, a Catholic priest, Father Gorman, is brutally murdered. A popular and notoriously poor man, the priest is an unlikely robbery target. However, when the body is examined a piece of paper is found in the victim's shoe, bearing a list of names. From her landlady, the police learn that to Father Gorman, the dying woman spoke of "wickedness"... Leaving the house of his late godmother, Mark Easterbrook encounters an acquaintance, police surgeon Jim Corrigan. Learning about the list of names, Mark confirms that Lady Hesketh-Dubois is dead; adding of his own knowledge that a person named Tuckerton, also on the list, has recently died. Over dinner, Mark, his friends Hermia and David, and David's dithery girlfriend, Poppy, talk about the current production of Macbeth. As the others discuss the play's professional murderers, Poppy refers vaguely to something called "the Pale Horse". Mark and the novelist, Ariadne Oliver, drive together to the village of Much Deeping, where Mrs Oliver has agreed to appear at a charity fete organised by Mark's cousin, Rhoda; Mark is startled when Mrs Oliver, too, mentions the Pale Horse. From Rhoda, Mark learns that it is an old country inn, which has been converted into a house by its current owners, Thryza Grey and Sybil Stamfordis---who claim to to have spiritualistic powers... This 1961 novel by Agatha Christie is a strange book in many ways: a crossroads book, very conscious of contemporary times and the "generation gap"; yet with its roots deep in the superstitious past, its narrative tapping into the upsurge in public interest in witchcraft and the paranormal which took place during the 1960s, probably as a pushback against the scientific terrors of the fifties. At the same time, this is a reassuringly self-referential work: not only does Agatha's alter-ego, Ariadne Oliver, make a welcome appearance, but Maud Dane Calthrop, who had a cameo in The Moving Finger some twenty years earlier, plays a much more significant and serious role here; while there is also a (spoiler-y) callback to the events of Cards On The Table. Mark Easterbrook, a forty-ish historian, is every bit as bemused as we feel the much-older Agatha was by the modern world of beatniks and Teddy boys and espresso bars in Chelsea---a world where the police can conclude grimly that the bashing murder of a priest may have been a "thrill kill"---and is perhaps an unlikely protagonist for a story which plunges into the unnerving possibility of murder through supernatural means. However, when Mark learns of the list of names; that several people on it have recently died, all apparently of natural causes; and when circumstances suggest that the women at the Pale Horse are somehow involved, he is unable to let the matter rest. Encouraged by Mrs Dane Calthrop, Mark finds a willing collaborator in a friend of Rhoda's, Katherine Corrigan---known as Ginger for her hair. When their investigation seems to confirm their worst and most incredible fears, Ginger makes a daring proposition: that Mark should offer himself as a client to the women of the Pale Horse; that she should go to London, take a flat, and pose as Mark's long-estranged wife, returned at just the worst time and a ripe candidate for murder. From Poppy, Ginger obtains the name and address of a man who acts as a sort of "agent", reassuring clients as to the legality of making bets - even very large bets - on whether someone lives or dies. This tawdry matter-of-factness is is startling contrast to subsequent events at the Pale Horse, where Mark attends a ceremony conducted by Thyrza, Sybil and their cook, Bella, known locally as a witch, which weirdly blends black magic with science. Afterwards, shaking off the ceremony's unnerving effects, Mark is embarrassed by his own credulity, telling himself stoutly that the whole business is nonsense---that is, until Ginger falls seriously ill...

    Ginger put both elbows on the table, and began to argue. We thrashed it out, to and fro, ding dong, repeating ourselves whilst the hands of the clock on my mantelpiece moved slowly around..
    Finally Ginger summed up. "It's like this, I'm forewarned and forearmed. I know what someone is trying to do to me. And I don't believe for one moment she can do it! If everyone's got a 'desire for death' mine isn't well-developed! I've good health. And I simply cannot believe that I'll develop gallstones, or meningitis, just because old Thyrza draws pentagrams on the floor, or Sybil throws a trance---or whatever it is those women do."
    "Bella sacrifices a white cock, I should imagine," I said thoughtfully.
    "You must admit it's all terribly bogus!"
    "We don't know what actually does happen," I pointed out.
    "No. That's why it's important to find out. But do you believe, really believe, that because of what three women can do in the barn of the Pale Horse, I, in a flat in London, will develop some fatal disease? You can't!"
    "No," I said. "I can't believe it. But," I added, "I do."
    We looked at each other.
    "Yes," said Ginger. "That's our weakness..."

>65 Matke:

Yes, I fear I'll be trotting out my 'crushed by a book' graphic again. :D

Thanks, Gail! I'll be interested to hear how you feel about it.

As we might anticipate, the better covers for The Pale Horse are those which correctly interpret the title reference, which goes unexplained for most of the book, but is duly quoted in full by Mrs Dane Calthrop at the end:


      


Quite a few, however, have carried the book's supernatural themes too far: trust me, there's no voodoo, no tarot, and no covens dancing by the light of the moon (and I don't know what's up with the recurrent bat motif):


      


...and, as always, a couple are just bizarre (though I rather like the haunted urn, or whatever it is; espresso machine?):


  

Finished Miss Silver Comes To Stay for TIOLI #7.

Now reading The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side by Agatha Christie.

>68 lyzard: Gosh, the shrunken head (?) is a nice touch on that one cover with the skeleton.

>70 rosalita:

Yeah, a few of these artists got a bit carried away; which I suppose is better than Collins' usual no-effort effort.

Horror of horrors, though: I can't find a decent reproduction of the first-edition cover of The Catherine Wheel, and I pretty much hate all the alternatives. I've been driven to a minimalist French cover for the moment (up above) while I do a bit more research. I haven't had a failure like that before and I'm not sure what it implies about the novel; surely it wasn't the first paperback original??

Rich In Love - The Odoms occupy a waterfront house in the town of Mount Pleasant, on the outskirts of Charleston. Seventeen-year-old Lucille is comfortably convinced that her family has escaped the domestic upheaval that seems to have struck most of her friends and acquaintances---until the day she arrives home from school to find the car sitting open, groceries abandoned on the front seat, and a note from her mother saying that she is gone for good. Appalled, Lucille sends to Washington for her older sister, Rae, in the expectation that she will take over the care of their father, upon whom his wife's desertion has fallen like a bombshell. However, when Rae arrives it is to announce both her pregnancy and her marriage to the baby's father---and all of a sudden, Lucille finds her new responsibilities exponentially multiplied... Though at a glance it seems like a rumination upon the resilience of families and the ties that bind - and, to an extent, is so - Josephine Humphreys 1987 coming-of-age story progressively reveals itself as a rather uncomfortable tale of how human beings can live cheek by jowl for years without knowing the first thing about one another. Of course part of the latter is due to the novel's perspective: Lucille Odom may not be an entirely typical teenager, but she has all of the expected self-absorption and lack of perception; and much of the novel's rather mordant humour derives from the contrast between Lucille's aggrieved sense that no-one really understands or appreciates her, and her indignant frustration at the refusal of the rest of her family to behave according to her own sense of what is appropriate. Ultimate, however, Rich In Love is a book that leaves a rather sour taste in the mouth: there is too much selfishness, too much of what amounts to deliberate cruelty, in the behaviour of the characters; while the overall tone struck me as just too self-consciously "quirky": a problem I often have with literary fiction. At the same time, this is not a novel without virtues. Though we might not care for what Humphreys does with them, this is a work full of sharp observations about human nature. It is also a book with a powerful sense of place, with the descriptions of Mount Pleasant and Lucille's love of her childhood home and its surroundings vividly conveyed.

    We were becalmed. I heard barnacles ticking on the pilings under the dock. Yes, animal life was everywhere: snails, fiddlers, fish, blue crabs, jellyfish, dirt-daubers, bees, cicadas, mosquitoes, fire ants, snakes, lizards, toads, alligators. The water was moving. I was at home here. For the first time in a long while I felt some serenity in my heart...
    "You are strange, Lucille," Billy said. He stood up and looked down at me, his pants still rolled to the knee, his calves dripping onto the dock.
    "Well, I know that, I guess. But what aspect of my strangeness are you referring to?"
    "You look so tough. You come across as a woman strong as Fort Sumter in its heyday, a bastion nobody in his right mind would try to take. But then half your sentences start out with the words, 'I love.' You're saying, 'I love this,' 'I love that.' You love more things than anyone I've ever run into."
    I swallowed down my surprise and tried to be casual. "I never noticed that," I lied.
    "You have a lot of love in you."
    "I guess I do."
    In the stillness we could hear sounds coming across the water, music of other people's evenings. Somebody's white dog loped across the yard, one of those that belong in Alaska. I took that far-from-home dog into my breast, and all the moonlight, and the one, two, three, four shadowy docks like haphazard fences in the water. I sucked the whole night into me. I wanted it all...

March stats:

Works read: 11
TIOLI: 11, in 7 different challenges, with 1 shared read

Mystery / thriller: 4
Classics: 2
Contemporary drama: 1
Historical drama: 1
Young adult: 1
Non-fiction: 1
Horror: 1

Re-reads: 1
Series works: 3
Blog reads: 0
1932: 0
1931: 0
Virago / Persephone: 0
Potential decommission: 2

Owned: 3
Library: 4
Ebooks: 4

Male authors : female authors : 7 : 5

Oldest work: Kenilworth by Walter Scott (1821)
Newest work: Rich In Love by Josephine Humphreys (1987)

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

YTD stats:

Works read: 38
TIOLI: 38, in 31 different challenges, with 4 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 17
Classics: 7
Contemporary drama: 6
Historical drama: 3
Young adult: 2
Non-fiction: 2
Horror: 1

Re-reads: 3
Series works: 16
Blog reads: 2
1932: 0
1931: 4
Virago / Persephone: 1
Potential decommission: 3

Owned: 7
Library: 16
Ebooks: 15

Male authors : female authors : 22 : 17

Oldest work: Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham (1800)
Newest work: Broadway Melody Of 1999 by Robert Steiner (1993)

Well---the blogging situation remains unsatisfactory (to say the least); but on the other hand I'm now only five books and twelve days behind in my general reviews.

On that basis, I am permitting myself a slightly larger sloth:

SLOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>74 lyzard: finishing March only midway through April is practically early! Sloth deserved. >:-)

>75 rosalita:, >76 Helenliz:

Thank you, ladies! :)

I'm pretty sure this is a record: I now have four books going at the same time, when ordinarily I don't even like to have two. :)

More library running around, this time into my academic library to return some books, pick up some others (though less than I returned, which I'm pretty sure is also a record), and make a start on Murder By An Aristocrat by Mignon Eberhart.

Also reading:
- The American Caravan (State Library)
- Peril! (local library)
- The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side (home)

Oh, The Mirror Crack'd is one of my favorites. I hope you have a good time with it.

Nice review of The Pale Horse. As usual, you make me want to do a re-read. What an imagination she had.

I almost always like the cover of the edition I've read the most, and don't see any of the others as an improvement. Fond memories I guess.

Another thing that always fascinated me was the different titles given her books. I don't recall that happening that extensively with any other author. We did get Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the USA, rather than Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and I'm sure there are other examples. But Dame Agatha's books got that treatment a lot. Here are examples I cribbed from a blog:

The Sittaford Mystery: Alternate Title: The Murder at Hazelmoor

Lord Edgware Dies: Alternate Title: Thirteen At Dinner

Murder in the Calais Coach: Alternate Title: Murder on the Orient Express:

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?: Alternate Title: The Boomerang Clue

Three Act Tragedy: Alternate Title: Murder In Three Acts

The ABC Murders: Alternate Title: The Alphabet Murders

Dumb Witness: Alternate Titles: Poirot Loses A Client, Murder At Littlegreen House, and Mystery at Littlegreen House

Hercule Poirot's Christmas: Alternate Titles: A Holiday for Murder, Murder For Christmas

Murder Is Easy: Alternate Title: Easy to Kill

Ten Little Niggers: Alternate Titles: And Then There Were None, Ten Little Indians

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe: Alternate Titles: The Patriotic Murders; An Overdose of Death

Murder in Retrospect: Alternate Title Hercule Poirot Five Little Pigs

Towards Zero Alternate Title: Come and Be Hanged

Remembered Death: Alternate Title: Sparkling Cyanide

The Hollow: Alternate Title: Murder After Hours

Taken At The Flood: Alternate Title: There Is A Tide

Mrs. McGinty's Dead: Alternate Title: Blood Will Tell

Murder with Mirrors Alternate Title: They Do It With Mirrors

Funerals are Fatal: Alternate Titles: Murder at the Gallop

Destination Unknown: Alternate Title: So Many Steps To Death:

Hickory, Dickory, Dock: Alternate Title: Hickory, Dickory, Death

4.50 from Paddington: Alternate Titles: Murder She Said, What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!

The Mirror Crack'd: Alternate Title: The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side

>79 jnwelch:

Thanks, Joe!

Almost all of my owned Agathas are in the three-novels-in-one format, which was released here by the Lansdowne Press; so I have no "real" covers myself. For that reason I tend to use an image of the first-edition covers, though that means the boring, no-effort ones from Collins, which give me the pip!

There are so many weird and just-plain-wrong covers out there, we've fallen into the habit of always taking a look. :)

Ha! - unnecessary retitlings are another of my bugbears, and I always draw attention to it. It happened a lot with Agatha, although she was certainly not the only the author to suffer that sort of treatment; and while it was usually a British-to-American thing, you do sometimes catch it in the other direction.

(I have one of the latter at the moment: Mignon Eberhart's Murder By An Aristocrat was changed to Murder Of My Patient in Britain, presumably because the word 'aristocrat' has a different usage there.)

You can understand doing it if there is something particularly British in the title, and Americans perhaps wouldn't understand the allusion; but so many of them seem completely pointless.

Cone Of Silence - When one of the new, highly-publicised Phoenix jet-airliners fails at takeoff from an airport in Pakistan, its pilot, George Gort, manages to bring it under control so as to save the lives of his passengers, but his co-pilot is killed in the incident. Back in Britain, Gort becomes the subject of intense scrutiny; examination of the plane reveals no mechanical fault, and the official inquiry finally rules that the incident was the result of pilot error. Gort, a veteran flyer, is scarred by the verdict, being certain in his own mind that he followed procedure to the letter. There is a push within the airline either to persuade Gort into retirement, or demote him back to flying piston-engine models. However, the airline's fleet supervisor, Edward Manningham, is both an old friend of Gort's and a crash survivor himself, intervenes, arranging for Gort to go through another round of stringent testing on the Phoenix. Captain Hugh Dallas, the Phoenix's training-pilot, is resentfully certain of Gort's culpability, and puts him through a regime of testing designed to expose him as a failure. Gort, however, performs brilliantly---raising the terrifying possibility that there is something wrong with the Phoenix after all... The birth of the commercial jet-airliner also saw the birth of a new genre of writing, the aviation thriller. It was pioneered by Nevil Shute, but its next exponent was David Beaty: a pilot himself, a pioneer in the field of what is now called aviation medicine, and a staunch campaigner against what he saw as a pernicious tendency to blame everything that went wrong in aviation on "pilot error". (Television shows such as Aircrash Investigation are the far end of Beaty's long-running but finally triumphant battle with the aviation industry.) Published in 1959, Cone Of Silence is an interesting novel for those with knowledge of the early days of jet-travel. It is obviously based upon the notorious series of crashes involving the de Haviland Comet that occurred during the early 1950s, yet carefully distances itself so as not to exploit the real-life tragedies: the de Havilands and their Comet are name-checked as rivals to the Phoenix, and Beaty finds a crash-cause that is both aeronautically plausible but quite distinct from the metal fatigue that brought the Comets down. However, the focus of Cone Of Silence is the situation of George Gort, who is certain in his own heart and mind that he was not responsible for his plane's takeoff failure, but is nevertheless held accountable by the official inquiry, and left with a black mark on an otherwise exemplary record. Beaty carefully delineates the psychology of all involved: Gort's emotional struggles; the pack mentality of the other pilots, only too eager to distance themselves from their tainted colleague; company man Judd, who wants Gort gone by whatever means necessary, for "the greater good"; the designer of the Phoenix, who takes Gort's insistence of the plane's failure as an intolerable affront; and the airline company, which has too much time, money and prestige invested in the Phoenix to admit that anything could possibly be wrong. Hugh Dallas finally emerges as the novel's rather unlikely hero. Cynical and egotistical, he too is cruelly certain that the middle-aged Gort is simply not up to the task of piloting the latest technology---until he sees Gort in action for himself; after which he becomes, with Manningham, his supporter against their irate superiors, who expected the two to do their dirty work and force Gort out. Against a stonewall of indifference and self-interest, Dallas sets out to determine in his own mind whether there is in fact something subtly wrong with the Phoenix: an investigation which becomes desperately urgent when a second Phoenix crashes on takeoff, killing all on board; a tragedy that, too, is swiftly blamed upon pilot error...

    "Take him up again."
    "And when he does all right?"
    "That's just it." Judd smiled. "You can either say he's come down too fast and he'd have broken up in turbulence. Or he's come down too slowly and all his passengers would have been asphyxiated."
    "And then?"
    "You can fail him."
    "I can what?"
    "Fail him."
    Dallas slowly put down the papers in his hand. "Deliberately fail someone? Is that what you mean? Is it?"
    Judd shrugged his shoulders. "No need to put it like that. But you've got the general idea."
    "What d'you think I am?"
    "A good Phoenix training captain."
    Dallas folded his arms across his chest. "Like hell you do! If you come up with that!" He kept his head slightly down, his light eyes upturned unblinkingly on Judd's face.
    "Now you're being naive." The colour was coming up under Judd's fair skin. "Sometimes...these things have to be done."
    "What things? Cooked checks?" Almost gently, Dallas said, "You take a pride in your job." He paused. "Oddly enough, I do in mine."
    Judd said bitterly, "Oh, for God's sake come off it! My job! Your job! Don't be such a bloody little cog in a machine! Take the long view..."

Orca - When he hears that a Japanese consortium is offering a huge reward for the capture of a live great white shark for exhibition, Jack Campbell decides on one last all-or-nothing effort to earn enough money to save his struggling marina business. Setting out from Florida with his sister, Annie, her boyfriend, Paul Sutro, and their late father's friend and associate, Gus Novak, as his crew, Jack heads up the coast to Newfoundland, where there have been reports of large great whites. The mission seems doomed to failure when the hunters finally do locate a huge shark; but their efforts to trap it are frustrated, first by the presence of Rachel Bedford, a marine biologist, and her assistant, and then by the arrival on the scene of an enormous orca---which attacks and kills the shark. In desperation, Jack decides to try and capture the orca instead, hoping that it too will bring a cash reward. However, the attempted trapping goes tragically wrong when the hunters accidentally kill the orca's mate---and subsequently find themselves the target of its campaign of vengeance... While the Dino de Laurentiis-produced Orca is one of my favourite bad movies, this short novel upon which it was based is not only every bit as bad, but - even though, I was somewhat surprised to realise, the novel was the source of most of the movie's dumbest touches - lacks the air of lunacy that makes the movie so much idiotic fun; being instead just plain bad-bad. You can hardly even dignify Orca with a phrase like "beach novel" or "airport novel": this is trash fiction of the worst kind, full of unpleasant, two-dimensional characters who behave in a completely unbelievable manner, plot-touches that would be offensive if they weren't so stupid (Jack is a surly, petulant drunk whose favourite word is "bitch", so naturally he has to beat the women off with an oar), and filled with so much misinformation about sharks and orcas, it makes Jaws look like a factual treatise on marine biology in comparison. It finally does have the small grace to admit that the great white shark hunt was always a false lead, since (as was known even at this time) these animals cannot live in captivity; but this revelation just serves to make the characters look even more moronic. It is impossible not to sympathise with the bereaved orca as it sets about making Jack Campbell pay for its mate's death (the film makes no bones about who we should be siding with, which is why it is so much fun); and when Jack and his crew try to take refuge in the small Newfoundland fishing town of South Harbour, refusing to engage with the animal, the enraged orca goes on a rampage of destruction that prompts the locals to force Campbell and the others back out on the water, where a final showdown takes place between man and whale...

    Thump. The ship wobbled.
    "We hit something!" Robichaud shouted. "But there's no reef here."
    "The whale!" Campbell shouted back. It surfaced far off the port bow and lay eyeing them.
    Campbell fired twice more, but it was impossible to be accurate at that range on a rolling boat. He put down the rifle in disgust and went to the main cabin for grenades. On deck, he fondled one.
    The whale advanced once more. Campbell waited. Just as the whale dove, he pulled the pin, counted, threw. The metal ball hurtled high over the water, splashed into the sea, and exploded.
    The fin retreated. The head, with its red eyes, appeared.
    "Come and get me, you bastard!" Campbell shouted into the wind...

I hadn't read either of the last two before, but I have seen - and reviewed - both movies:

The film adaptation of Cone Of Silence has a slightly different emphasis from the novel (less technology, more human drama), but hits all the main notes; there is a short review here.

Orca, on the other hand, got what it deserved: an overly long review, necessary to highlight every moment of hilarious stupidity---here.

Hands Unseen - Millionaire businessman J. Pendleton Craig retreats to his isolated country house when he becomes the target of an odd campaign by the Gray Phantom, who requests from him - and nine other millionaires - one million dollars, to be repaid with interest during the following year. Despite all his efforts, Craig continues to receive letters---which he finds in places no outsider could seemingly reach. The next mentions the name "Jack Frey", which for Craig has sinister connotations. The rest change tone entirely, threatening Craig's life. Having long lived under a shadow, Craig retreats to a specially designed room, which can be sealed at all points; he also hires unscrupulous private detective, Harry Bell, to act as his bodyguard. Craig's precautions prove useless: in the dark of night, three raps are heard on the door of the room, though there is no-one outside; next, Bell is struck down by an unseen assailant; and finally Craig is stabbed to death... When the police arrive, Bell is the immediate suspect; however, his head injury supports his strange story of the night's events. The discovery of the letters in Craig's pocket turn the investigation in a very different direction: despite having declared his reformation and worked hard to make amends for his past crimes, it seems self-evident that the Gray Phantom has relapsed, and turned to blackmail and murder... This fourth entry in Herman Landon's series featuring master-criminal turned master-crook-buster, Cuthbert Vanardy, aka "the Gray Phantom", is a reasonably effective thriller with some interesting touches---if also a large serving of (to say the least) improbable ones. The apparent backsliding of the Gray Phantom who, after falling love with Helen Hardwick, put an end to his criminal ways and embarked upon a course of restitution, makes an intriguing premise; although - unlike the police - the reader is likely to assume, and rightly, that there is more than meets the eye in the fulfilled threats against Pendleton Craig. The frustrating thing about Hands Unseen is the usual serial-fiction flaw: no-one ever learns anything. The entire point of the preceding series entry, Gray Terror, was the lengths the Phantom had to go to prove himself innocent of murder, after being cleverly framed; yet here, once again, we find the tunnel-visioned Lieutenant Culligore shrugging off those harsh lessons, arguing that, sure, the Phantom wasn't the killer any of the many times he was previously suspected, but this time... Also once again, Culligore fails to do any actual investigating, or to entertain any second theory of the crime; so it serves him right when the Phantom makes a complete fool of him for about the billionth time. (The only person more annoying than Culligore is Helen, who makes the Phantom's mission exponentially more difficult by walking into an obvious trap---also for the billionth time.) The narrative then settles down into the usual format of the Phantom having to evade the police while he works to expose the real criminals and prove his own innocence; while at the same time striving to free the Hardwicks. Meanwhile, the reader is made privy to the reasons for the Phantom's initial strange course of action: Helen's father, Professor Hardwick, has been kidnapped, and is being held to a ten-million-dollar ransom. In his desperation, the Phantom very nearly has backslid, planning a bank heist when his requests for loans are a failure. However, even to save her father Helen will not consent to the Phantom turning back to crime; and instead the two seek another way to rescue the Professor. When accused of the murder of Pendleton Craig, the Phantom assumes the identity of amateur criminologist, Philip Dawson, and is able in this guise to investigate the scene of the crime. Though he learns much that is suggestive - including that those letters threatening Craig's life, which he did not send, were written on the same typewriter as his own - the Phantom's situation becomes fraught with danger when Culligore arrives on the scene. Nevertheless, he persists, arranging to spend the night in the sealed room---where he, too, experiences the strange three raps, and is later attacked by an unseen assailant, who vanishes without trace...

    "I suppose you would like to see my face?"
    Vanardy's answer came on the spur of the moment. "That would be asking rather too much. A look at the lower part of your right arm would be enough, the part just above the wrist."
    A sound came out of the darkness, but Vanardy could not tell whether it was a gasp or a half-stifled chuckle. The lighted area in front of the fire-place was growing narrower and shadows were advancing across the room.
    "As I said, you are a very clever man," the voice went on, "but there is such a thing as being too clever. You had better listen to reason, Vanardy. Craig got what he deserved. His death means nothing to you. You are under suspicion, of course, but that's no novelty in your case. Better turn your talents to more serious matters. Seen Miss Hardwick lately?"
    A twinge went through Vanardy. Several moments passed before he could trust himself to reply. "I can imagine in a general way what has happened to her," he said evenly. "if any harm comes to her through you, I will tear you to pieces with my bare hands."
    The other laughed softly. "Idle threat, Vanardy. You are helpless. But don't alarm yourself. Nothing serious is going to happen to Miss Hardwick just yet, or to her father, either. I won't answer for the consequences, though, unless you quit this foolishness and turn your wits to serious work. In the end, nothing on earth can save Miss Hardwick and her father unless you pay us what we ask..."

Finished The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side for TIOLI #11.

Now reading Mr Polton Explains by R. Austin Freeman.

Still reading:
- Peril! by Sydney Horler
- Murder By An Aristocrat by Mignon Eberhart
- The American Caravan by various

>81 lyzard: 'Aviation thriller' - I can't think of a genre of book that I'm less likely to read. I get jittery enough about flying as it is.

Hi, Rhian - thanks for visiting!

Yeah, it's not an area of interest I ever expected to have---the outcome of a perverse passion for disaster movies on one hand, and a taste for non-fiction 'investigation' shows on the other. :)

BTW I have been lurking on your thread, but having nothing cogent to contribute to the Brexit debate, I've been keeping my head down. (I know I should be better at just saying 'hi'!)

Finished Peril! for TIOLI #6.

Glad I didn't end up paying for THAT. :D

Still reading:
- Mr Polton Explains by R. Austin Freeman
- Murder By An Aristocrat by Mignon Eberhart
- The American Caravan by various.

The Amazing Mr Bunn - If E.W. Hornung's gentleman-crook, A. J. Raffles, was intended as an inverted riff upon Sherlock Holmes, the famous creation of Hornung's brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle, it may further be presumed that the "Smiler" Bunn stories of Bertram Atkey were, in turn, intended as a comic riff upon Raffles. Unapologetically a crook, and unapologetically lower-class - although he strives to "improve himself" as his career and his circumstances flourish - John Bunn is a master-pickpocket, a burglar and a confidence trickster, who takes pride in his professional skills and displays a distinct lack of angst about anything but the possibility of prison---and missing a meal. Known to everyone but family as "Smiler", John Bunn first appeared in 1910, in a series of short stories published in The Grand Magazine; twelve of these were subsequently collected and released in book form in 1911, as The Amazing Mr Bunn. This selection of stories follows Smiler through various crimes and attempted crimes, highlighting his ongoing feud with a dangerous American criminal known as Kate the Gun and her band of "plug-uglies", his peculiar friendship and eventual partnership with the rough-hewn Lord Fortworth, and his contentious relationship with his younger brother, Tony, once the latter falls in love with a female detective and reforms. Taken individually, the Smiler Bunn stories are entertaining enough; but collected like this they display the usual shortcomings: too much repetition of themes and touches, particularly Smiler's obsession with his meals, and an overall same-ish-ness in the telling of the tales. A less forgivable flaw is the escalating use of racial stereotypes and derogatory language, which by the end is almost ubiquitous and makes it hard to see the humour in the rest.

    "It's a remarkable thing how how proud and ambitious a few good hauls make a man," Mr Bunn was musing one afternoon, soon after he had moved into a comfortable furnished flat in Ridgeford Mansions, Torrington Terrace. "Look at myself, for instance. A couple of years ago I wasn't capable of thinking in quids, and if I was I never had a chance. I was too busy hunting for bobs. And my clothes was nearly rags, my grub was trash, and me grammar was muck. Not that I reckon myself a duke, even now. But I do consider I've got on in the world. Worth a couple of thousand o' goblins, anyhow, and my way of speaking has improved something astonishing. And me clothes is remarkable neat and classy."
    He took up his bank-book and ran his eye affectionately over the total once again. "Very well done indeed, Smiler," he soliloquised comfortably; "you have a very happy knack of putting your hands on the right thing in the right place, and it'll carry you a long way yet."
    He got up from the sofa and locked the bank-book away. "Yes, with ordinary care and a bit of luck you'll die a prosperous gentleman-farmer yet, my lad. And in the meantime you shall take an evening off, and have a special dinner..."

>88 lyzard: Glad I didn't end up paying for THAT. :D

I'm sure it's occurred to you before now that perhaps there is a higher (reading) power preventing you from acquiring some of these books at a reasonable price? Saving you from yourself, essentially. :-)

Of course, for that to be true we would have to believe that every bargain-priced book was a masterpiece, and I'm certainly not prepared to stipulate that!

That's a nice theory, but it also doesn't account for all the times those higher powers have let me go right ahead and buy a piece of crap. :D

>91 lyzard: I never said it was a flawless theory! I'm on a never-ending quest to answer the age-old question: Why do bad books happen to good readers?

Ehhh...I don't think I can honestly claim that I don't ask for it...

(Exhibit A: The Mystery League challenge!)

Miss Silver Comes To Stay - Miss Maud Silver accepts an invitation to stay in the village of Melling with an old friend, Mrs Voycey. From the latter's cheerful gossip, Miss Silver gains much knowledge of village affairs---and what the village is currently agog about is the return of James Lessiter. Some twenty years earlier, James was a point on a triangle between Henrietta Cray and her distant cousin, Catherine Lee: James and Rietta became engaged, but the matter came to nothing---for lack of money on either side, among other reasons. Now, however, James is a wealthy man; Catherine is a poor widow living in a cottage in the grounds of Melling House; Rietta is still unmarried; and Melling looks on with great interest... When James Lessiter is found murdered, hit from behind with a poker while he sat at the desk in his study, the only question in the mind of Inspector Drake is whether the murderer is Rietta Cray, who on top of discovering she would inherit James' fortune under the terms of his decades-old will, had a furious quarrel with him shortly before his death; or Carr Robertson, Rietta's nephew, who had just discovered in James the man who seduced and abandoned his, Carr's, wife during the war, leaving her to die in poverty. A coat worn to the scene by Rietta and left there after the quarrel, and later found and brought home by Carr, one sleeve soaked in blood, is the main piece of direct evidence---but which of them does it accuse...? Published in 1948, Miss Silver Comes To Stay is an effective series entry, offering a good balance of its mystery and character aspects, as well as offering another intriguing glimpse into post-war British life; this is, in fact, the first Wentworth novel in nearly a decade in which the war does not play a significant part. In that respect, perhaps the most interesting touch in this novel is the supporting character of Frances "Fancy" Bell, an aspiring actress of working-class background, who is suspected locally of trying to "trap" Carr Robertson into marriage, but is subsequently revealed as too honest and generous - and sensible - to do anything of the kind. Fancy is a character we would hardly have found in a pre-war British novel; while her acceptance by the gentry would have been literally unthinkable. Class issues, indeed, are another intriguing touch here: the local police inspector, a rising man, is deeply resentful of the class assumptions behind his superior's surety over who could and could not be guilty of murder. (Wentworth, though she allows his viewpoint, is clearly in sympathy with the snob-stance.) And as for Drake's superior--- As with the earlier The Case Of William Smith, Miss Silver Comes To Stay benefits from the fact that its inevitable romance is made integral to the plot, rather than getting in the way of it. To the surprise of the long-time reader, one party to that romance is none other than Randal March, many years before Miss Silver's pupil, then her first police collaborator, and now Chief Constable of the county: a position which brings his professional responsibilities into extreme conflict with his personal life, as Randal happens to be in love with Rietta Cray. (Their relationship proves a refreshing rebuttal to the usual suggestion that "being in love" is a privilege reserved for those aged twenty-five and under). Though Inspector Drake is sure that either Rietta or Carr murdered James Lessiter, his hands are tied by his uncertainty over which, and the lack of direct evidence against either; though the statement made by Mrs Mayhew, James' housekeeper, who eavesdropped upon his conversation with Rietta, is damning for the latter. As for Rietta herself, her only certainty that Carr did not murder James is his obvious, dismayed conviction that she did. Knowing of Miss Silver through Randal March, Rietta consults her---and reveals to her both James' threat to prosecute Catherine over her apparent sale of items belonging to his mother, and a phonecall she received from Catherine on the night of the murder: during which, after Rietta refused to lie for her, Catherine spoke of doing something desperate... In his eagerness to press a case against either Rietta or Carr, Inspector Drake overlooks a vital piece of evidence, located by Miss Silver and Randal: a set of woman's footprints in the garden, proving that someone else was there the night of the murder. Furthermore, Allan Grover, a clerk in the office of Mr Holderness, the solicitor who represented the late Mrs Lessiter and is now representing both Carr and Catherine, comes forward to tell Miss Silver that, on the night in question, Cyril Mayhew was visiting his mother, despite having been forbidden the house by his father after acquiring a police record for theft. As the investigation expands to consider this new evidence, another discovery is made: Mr Holderness informs the police that four figurines are missing from the murder scene; figurines that, though locally believed to be only gilt, were in fact made of gold and highly valuable---their absence pointing at an entirely different motive for the murder of James Lessiter...

    "Have you---perhaps I oughtn’t to ask it, but I do---have you had any communication from Rietta Cray?... She rang me up and asked me about you. I hoped you would have heard from her."
    The busy needles moved again. She said, "I have."
    "You have seen her?"
    "Yes, Randal."
    "What do you make of it all?"
    She lifted her eyes and looked at him steadily. "What do you make of it yourself?"
    He got up out of his chair and stood half turned away from her, looking down into the fire. "She is quite incapable---" He had neither voice nor words to complete the sentence.
    Miss Silver said, "Quite so. But there might be a strong case against her. She is aware of that herself."
    He said, "Damnable---" and again had no more words.
    Miss Silver failed to reprove him for the one which he had used. She continued to knit. After a little while she said, "There is something which I think you ought to know---in your private capacity."
    He pushed a log with his foot. "I haven’t got a private capacity. I’m a policeman."
    She coughed. "You are Chief Constable. You would not, I imagine, find it necessary to impart everything you knew to a subordinate."
    He had a wry smile for that. "Jesuitry!" Then, before she could summon up the look with which she had been used to quell him in the schoolroom, he went on in a voice quite broken away from its habitual control. "I’d better make a clean breast of it. You always do know everything whether one tells you or not, so it’s just as well to make a virtue of necessity. Rietta is completely incapable of harming anyone, but she is also completely incapable of defending herself at the expense of someone she loves."
    Miss Silver answered this very directly. She did, in fact, justify his assertion that she always knew everything by answering what he had merely implied.
    "You are afraid that Mr Carr Robertson is the guilty person, and that Miss Cray will screen him at the risk of incurring suspicion."
    He drove hard at the fire with his foot. A torrent of sparks rushed up. He said, Yes..."

>84 lyzard: For every Mystery League abomination, there's a Miss Silver to balance the scales ...

I really liked this one! It doesn't even matter that Wentworth so clearly telegraphs the murder victim and the romantic coupling; the characters were nicely varied and realistically drawn (at least to the limited knowledge of an American who wasn't born during the time period in question). And I thought she played pretty fair with the eventual villain, though I didn't see it coming, necessarily.

I liked your observation about this being the first of the series to have put WWII fully behind it. I didn't consciously pick up on that as I was reading but when you mentioned it, I thought "Oh, of course."

And as always, I am in perpetual awe at the speed with which Miss Silver churns out knitted coatees and booties and hats for all the various babies in her life. The woman is a needle-wielding machine!

:D

Yes, those things aren't important as long as they're properly worked into the rest. I thought this was fairly clued on the whole, although of course it required a piece of Miss Maud Silver Special Knowledge to bring it home. (I may say I shared Randal's sudden horrified conviction about his warrant being dodgy!)

My late mother used to knit like Maudie (although adult jumpers rather than baby clothes).

>96 lyzard: I dabble in knitting myself (I've been working on the same hat for almost a year) so I am in awe at how quickly she whips through each garment. I also think she surely must run out of babies to knit for soon, although I guess the postwar period was a baby boom, so perhaps not.

I was taught to knit, but I'm pretty clutzy with my hands, unfortunately. (I knit better than I sew, and that's all that can be said for me.)

It's mostly Maudie's niece Edith Burkett's daughter getting older in each book that prompts these frenzies, I think. :)

And we have heard references to photographs of grateful clients and their new families, so yes, babies ahoy!

Finished Mr Polton Explains for TIOLI #9.

Now reading The King's General by Daphne du Maurier.

Still reading:
- Murder By An Aristocrat by Mignon Eberhart
- The American Caravan by various

Score!

On my last thread I reported a rare spotting of a pair of king parrots while coming home at dusk one day; this time I had an even rarer spotting during daylight.

That said, they still weren't easily photographed: as usual they positioned themselves against the light, and because of the surrounding foliage I struggled to get both in shot clearly at once.

These represent the best compromises: the male, predominantly red, is on the right; the female, with more green and her breast feathers a duller red, is on the left:


  

Finished Murder By An Aristocrat for TIOLI #15.

Still reading The King's General by Daphne du Maurier, and The American Caravan by various.

>100 lyzard: Wow, Liz, to have such beautiful birds around!
I seached king parrot on Wikipedia to get a better view, they look amazing ;-)

>100 lyzard: Gorgeous birdies, those! How amazing to have them just hanging around the house.

>102 FAMeulstee:, >103 rosalita:

It's amazing to me that anything so brightly coloured can be so hard to see!

Blergh.

Having at length restarted Mignon Eberhart's series featuring nurse-detective Sarah Keate, I've promptly stalled again.

Technically the next book in the series is a collection of short stories, Dead Yesterday And Other Stories. No copy of this is available in this country, nor it is readily available anywhere. Original copies are scarce, and while it was reissued about a decade back, it was as a limited edition and is priced accordingly.

Furthermore, or so I gather, Sarah Keate appears in only the title story of the collection.

At the moment I'm contemplating putting this aside for a time and moving onto the other novels in the series, but...it's not a decision I'm comfortable with...

ETA:

On the other hand, the next novel, Wolf In Man's Clothing, is readily available here; so there's that.

Pursuing this line, I've yet again stumbled over one of the most annoying roadblocks to book locating here: the stupid and inefficient search engine at the local Amazon.

I've had this problem before: unless you use a particular search string, it won't find your book. In particular it will find a book if you search by title only, but not if you search by title and author; but occasionally, the reverse. Sometimes it doesn't respond well to the author's first name. Sometimes it won't find a book without inverted commas around the title; and sometimes it doesn't like inverted commas.

For series works, sometimes books come up if you search for the detective (most Kindles now coming with an imposed 'A So-and-So Mystery' subtitle), but not if you search by title.

So basically to be sure that a book is held, or not, you have to do multiple searches under a variety of search strings.

It turns out that Murder By An Aristocrat has just become available for Kindle pre-order here...though not if you search for 'Mignon Eberhart'. I'm okay with having done it as a Rare Book read though---and more to the point, the fact that we are - albeit very slowly - getting the Sarah Keate novels on Kindle means that there's an outside chance we'll eventually get Dead Yesterday too.

The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side (US title: The Mirror Crack'd) - Having changed hands several times following the death of Colonel Arthur Bantry, Gossington Hall is now in the possession of actress Marina Gregg and her director-husband, Jason Rudd, who have purchased the property for its proximity to a new studio. However, Jason also hopes that Marina, who has a long history of tragedy and emotional instability, will find some peace and happiness in the English countryside. To the delight of the curious locals, a charity fete is planned for the grounds of Gossington. Particularly favoured guests are invited into the renovated house to meet Marina Gregg herself. One of these is Dolly Bantry, who now occupies the Lodge at the gates of the property. The fete itself is a great success---but it ends in tragedy, with Heather Badcock, another of those invited to meet Marina, collapsing and dying of what is later discovered to be a large dose of barbiturates. The police investigation gets nowhere until it is discovered that, after Heather's own drink was spilled, she was given one intended for Marina Gregg... While we are by now accustomed to Agatha Christie's novels revealing the social changes that occurred across post-war Britain, what we get in this 1962 mystery is more in the nature of a bomb going off. Progress - with a capital 'P' - has come to St Mary Mead, of all places, its most public face a housing development that occupies what was previously farming land and countryside between the neighbouring villages of St Mary Mead and Much Benham. But while the Development, as the disapproving locals call it, is the most obvious sign of change, there is an elegiac feel to much of The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side; not least in its depiction of a significantly older and frailer Miss Jane Marple, troubled by both her eyesight and her hearing, forbidden to work in her beloved garden, and under the dominion of an obnoxiously cheerful nurse-companion, Miss Knight. Her mental faculties are undiminished, however, and when Dolly Bantry carries to her the story of the Gossington tragedy, she is immediately on high alert. The generally gloomy tone of this novel is subsequently dissipated by amusing scenes of Janie educating herself about the film industry via a serious study of the gossip magazines (she's not shocked by what they say, just that they say it at all), and evading Miss Knight's vigilance in order to go on a fact-finding mission to the Development---where to her relief she discovers that, after all, people are still just people... However, it is the tragic death of Heather Badcock which most occupies Miss Marple; particularly when Scotland Yard sends Inspector Dermot Craddock to the scene, to investigate the attempted murder of Marina Gregg. (In another sad touch, we learn that Dermot hasn't seen the woman he calls "Aunt Jane" in many years.) Dermot begins painstakingly working through Marina's past of multiple marriages, Hollywood feuds and personal tragedy, as well as searching for motive within her own household; but there will be three more deaths before the truth is finally revealed... Meanwhile, Miss Marple confines herself to trying to piece together the circumstances of Heather Badock's death: a process greatly hindered by the fact that she depend upon what she knows to be unreliable eyewitness testimony of the surrounding events. However, one account she does not doubt: a brief incident described to her by Dolly Bantry, which occurred while Marina was listening politely to an interminable anecdote told by Heather. As Dolly looked on, she saw Marina's gaze slip past Heather to something - or someone - on the staircase, and her face go quite blank---as if in response to some tremendous shock. Struggling to express what she felt to be the strangeness of Marina's fleeting expression, Dolly is finally driven to compare her to Tennyson's Lady of Shallot: "The curse is come upon me..." To Miss Marple's way of thinking, when they can find an explanation of that moment, they will also find an explanation of the case...

    "One person has told me that she was taken faint... Someone else said that she was startled." Dermot paused a moment, then went on, "And somebody else describes her as having a frozen look on her face."
    "Frozen," said Margot Bence thoughtfully.
    "Do you agree with that last statement?"
    "I don't know. Perhaps."
    "It was put rather more fancifully still," said Dermot. "In the words of the late poet, Tennyson, 'The mirror crack'd from side to side: The doom has come upon me, cried the Lady of Shallot.'"
    "There wasn't any mirror," said Margot Bence, "but if there was it might have cracked." She got up abruptly. "Wait," she said. "I'll do better than describe it to you. I'll show you."
    She pushed aside the curtain at the far end and disappeared for some moments. He could hear her uttering impatient mutterings under her breath. "What hell it is," she said as she emerged again, "one can never find things when one wants them. I've got it now though."
    She came across to him and put a glossy print into his hand. He looked down at it. It was a very good photograph of Marina Gregg. Her hand was clasped in the hand of a woman standing in front of her, and therefore with her back to the camera. But Marina Gregg was not looking at the woman. Her eyes stared not quite into the camera but slightly obliquely to the left. The interesting thing to Dermot Craddock was that the face expressed nothing whatever. There was no fear on it, no pain. The woman portrayed there was staring at something, something she saw, and the emotion it aroused in her was so great that she was physically unable to express it by any kind of facial expression. Dermot Craddock had seen such a look once on a man's face, a man who a second later had been shot dead...

Out flew the web and floated wide
The mirror crack'd from side to side
The curse is come upon me, cried
The Lady Of Shallot...

It was weird meta-experience, reading The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side, with its quoting and misquoting of Tennyson, in the middle of our run of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver novels---in which Tennyson is a constant touchstone. I doubt that Agatha Christie intended a deliberate allusion to her contemporary and rival, but it makes for some fun moments.

(Apparently Agatha was plagued all her life by people wanting a meeting between Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot; I would *much* rather have been a fly on the wall for a chat between Jane and Maud!)

The other meta-point in this novel is---

NB: Spoilers of a sort for 4:50 From Paddington

---I've always taken to the very ending of 4:50 From Paddington to mean that Dermot Craddock married the rather marvellous Lucy Eylesbarrow; but here we find Dermot stating firmly that he is not and never has been married. So have I read that ending wrongly all these years? - or did Agatha change her mind, or simply forget?

Or are we to conclude, rather, that the independent-minded Lucy said 'no'?

On the whole the cover art for The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side is disappointingly sensible, either working abstractly with the 'crack'd' theme, or showing a collection of relevant elements, or both:


    


However, as with The Pale Horse, we also get a few instances of either guessing wrong or spicing up: no knives (or swords!) in this one, and while there *is* poison, its use is a little more subtle than this would suggest.


    


Once again we have someone resorting to the lazy reuse of an earlier cover, this one for Sad Cypress:





And though a poisoned drink does play its part, this collection of what I take to be cocktail umbrellas seems inappropriately cheerful:

Peril! (UK title: Cavalier Of Chance) - Though "an officer and a gentleman", James Hanray is homeless and destitute when he is rescued by a man called Dorman who, claiming philanthropical motives, takes him to his home and asks to hear his story; he then offers Jimmy a job. Jimmie is overwhelmed by gratitude, even though the job strikes him as rather absurd: to attend a society costume ball, make contact with another masked guest, and receive something from him. His embarrassment turns to anger, however, when he finds himself a party to the attempted theft of a valuable necklace; while his instinctive chivalry makes him intervene on behalf of the intended victim. At her behest, Jimmy escorts the girl home---and to his astonishment finds himself being introduced to Sebastian Miller, the millionaire financier. After telling his story, Jimmy is offered a job for the second time in twenty-four hours, this time acting as bodyguard to the beautiful Delia---her life in danger from an enemy of Miller's who the businessman knows will stop at nothing to enact his revenge... Published in 1930, Sydney Horler's Peril! is an ineffective thriller that fails to overcome both its plot-holes and its air of over-familiarity. As to the latter, I'm beyond bored with this era's proliferation of novels about young men falling desperately in love at first sight and risking their lives as a consequence; which in this case is exacerbated by Jimmy's non-stop rich girl / poor boy maundering. However, a far more serious flaw is the way that Horler attempts to manipulate his narrative to let his "good guys" off some contentious hooks. Thus, we never actually find out what happened to create such deadly enmity between Sebastian Miller and his enemy, Kurt Zweig, on which the entire story hangs---presumably because Horler doesn't want to reveal anything particularly bad about his heroine's father. That said, Miller effectively commits murder over the course of the story---and makes Jimmy an accessory after the fact. However, Horler was a great believer in solving your problems through violence, so perhaps he thought that didn't "count". A lack of clear motivation in Miller's determination to handle things himself rather than just call the police weakens the story even further, as does Horler's usual lack of subtlety in his characterisations: the bad guys are all "foreign", and though we don't get exactly a Madonna / whore split on the women, they are divided up into "angels" (i.e. beautiful but functionally useless) and "tiger-cats". The plot of Peril!, such as it is, is the back-and-forth between Miller and Zweig as the latter tries to ruin the former both professionally and personally---by wrecking Miller's last great financial coup, and by attacking him through his love for his daughter. Jimmy, assigned to keep Delia safe, finds his situation greatly complicated by the machinations of the second Mrs Miller (the aforementioned tiger-cat), who has a secret in her past that allows Zweig to turn her into a weapon against her husband. However, her successful framing of Jimmy for theft comes to nothing, since he has already discovered an old friend at Scotland Yard, who intervenes on his behalf. This intervention comes at a price, however: in return for his temporary freedom, Inspector Puden forces Jimmy to act as his undercover agent---having him take the place of a German criminal sent for by Zweig, but who was recognised and arrested upon his arrival in England, and walking disguised into the lion's den...

    "I thought you would be interested to know what is going to happen in this house tonight... Zweig sent a message to Miller, who is now back in London, to the effect that if he did not turn up here by ten o'clock, he would kill his girl. A car is being sent to fetch Miller from somewhere in the suburbs. Miller may think that he will be able to bluff Zweig into giving him back the girl, but all that Zeig wants is to get them both here. Zweig himself is sailing from Southampton tomorrow... He will have finished what he wants to do by then. For both Miller and the girl will be dead. As for yourself, haven't I told you that Zweig has left the job to me?"
    Except for the fact that the speaker was not wearing a mask, Jimmy realised that this scene was an actual materialisation of the dream he had had on the first night he spent in Sebastian Miller's Park Lane mansion... His position now was absolutely hopeless. Tied down to a truckle-bed, with bonds that he could not budge, he was unable to move hand or foot. He was completely at Scanlon's mercy. He had struggled until his arms hard been rubbed raw, but the ropes had not given an inch.
    "How long would you like to live, Hanray?" now asked Scanlon. "I don't mind a few minutes either way. You can have five, or ten, or even a quarter of an hour! But you mustn't bank on any extension beyond that."
    He leaned forward and blew more cigarette smoke into the helpless man's eyes.
    "Perhaps at the end of that quarter of an hour you will be glad to die..."

So how does Jimmy escape that death-trap??

He struggles a bit more and the ropes break.

No, really.

Though the book is now very obscure, I managed to find a cover image from its British release, under its alternative title. Though I'm not sure why they put a petty crim on the cover, rather than the hero...

Peril! was read for The Mystery League Inc. Challenge.

Next up---

#13: The Maestro Murders by Frances Shelley Wees (published in the US in 1931, no UK edition; cover art by Arthur Hawkins Jr).



Frances Shelley Wees was a Canadian author whose first few books were set in the US but who, after she found some success, became one of the first authors of Canadian-set mysteries.

This is one of the harder-to-find Mystery League dust-jackets (and dust-jacket images). It is not by regular artist, Gene Thurston (though in the same spirit), but by Arthur Hawkins Jr, who graduated from the Mystery League to have a successful career both as a cover and a commercial artist. We have seen his Mystery League work before, in the cover of Walter Livingston's The Mystery Of Burnleigh Manor.

The Maestro Murders will be a re-read for me: I bought and read a copy several years ago.

Now I just have to find it...

Among many other things in your thread, Liz, I enjoy looking at old Christie covers. There’s a tiny thrill of recognition when I see a cover from (probably) when I first read them, so many years ago.

That said, I didn’t recognize any for The Mirror Cracked, one of my favorites. The whole theme of doom striking seemingly out of nowhere has stuck with me.

I always have fun when I come over here.

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side is one of my favorite Christies. I first read it when I was but a mere slip of a girl, back when I only liked the Miss Marples and disliked Poirot as an arrogant little fussbudgety gasbag. (Hey, I was a teenager.) Now that I am no longer either a mere slip or a girl, I appreciate Monsier Poirot much more, though I still love dear old Jane. ANYWAY, I thought the twist in this one was excellent but I didn't remember exactly what it was when I first started re-reading it a couple of years ago. I think it came back to me before the big reveal but it didn't spoil the enjoyment for me.

>110 lyzard: That cover is so bizarre. At first I thought it was a different book entirely, and the title was "Horler for Excitement!" I guess old Horler must have been quite well-known in his day to get that treatment from the publisher.

>112 Matke:

Thank you, Gail! :)

I own most of these as three-in-one editions, which oddly was also how I first read most of them via my high-school library, so I don't get the same cover recognition (just for a few odd ones). The art itself is interesting, though, if often disappointing / bewildering!

It's a book with an unexpected emotional resonance, once you really think it through.

>113 rosalita:

I don't recall deciding between them; I think I was all about working out the plot even then. :)

Yes, it's a striking and unusual premise. I wonder how generally aware readers were at the time?

And is it something that would be unexpected all over again, now that we grow up with vaccination?

Talking up the author on the cover was a fairly common British practice in the 20s and 30s, particularly for thrillers and mysteries. Whether the bigger the talk, the duller the book, is a matter of opinion. Horler was popular at the time, though I don't particularly care for his books: he's very much a "A punch in the face can fix anything" kind of writer. (Also don't care for his attitudes, but that's a separate problem.)

Well, given the soaring rates of (regular) measles infections happening in the States these days as a result of misguided people refusing to get their children vaccinated, I'd say the chances of something similar happening are all too likely, just when we thought all of that was a thing of the past.

Yes, very sadly true.

Finished The King's General for TIOLI #9.

Now reading Miss Parritt Disappears by Valentine Williams.

Mr Polton Explains - Through the Dr John Thorndyke series by R. Austin Freeman, the work of the medico-legal detective has been supported by the expertise of his technical assistant / manservant, Mr Polton; but it is only here, in the 25th of that series, that Polton is allowed to step front and centre---sort of. The first half of this novel is a first-person account of Polton's early years, his growing fascination with all things mechanical - clock-making in particular - his early training, and his struggles to support himself prior to his meeting with Thorndyke. (This book suggests that Polton is some years younger than his employer, which contradicts earlier impressions.) In the second half of Mr Polton Explains, Thorndyke's colleague and partner, Dr Christopher Jervis, takes over the narration, telling the story of Thorndyke's retention by an insurance company, in the case of a suspicious fire ending in a fatality. To an extent the fire is completely explicable, inasmuch as it occurred in a building in which celluloid film was stored; however, there are questions both about its starting, and about the identity of the body recovered from the debris. The rooms above the storehouse were occupied by a man called Gustavus Haire, but the police have reason to believe that, at the time of the fire, Haire had been absent for some five days on a business trip to Ireland, and that his rooms were occupied by his cousin, Cecil Moxdale. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the fire is ruled an accident, and the victim identified as Moxdale. Thorndyke, however, has his doubts, particularly when the police cannot subsequently find Gustavus Haire, and when he learns that Haire and Moxdale were both due to inherit under the will of their late uncle---and that each was the other's residual legatee... The main problem with Mr Polton Explains is that it ultimately has the insubstantial air of an expanded short story---and may well have been one, before Freeman decided to turn it into Mr Polton's autobiography. It is certainly not hard to imagine an alternative presentation, a bare-bones account of how Polton's knowledge of clock-making contributed to Thorndyke's solving of a case. As it is, the mechanics of time-keeping are allowed to run riot over the narrative---leaving me somewhat cold and, I'm afraid, very little the wiser. I was more at home with the gruesome forensic details involved in trying to identify the body, in which, as usual, Freeman has Thorndyke offering up an obscure bit of scientific knowledge---in this case, the consequence of elevated levels of fluorine in the waters around Maldon in Essex, an affliction known as "mottled teeth". But while Thorndyke is able to identify the body, it is Polton who finally demonstrates that the fire was not an accident at all, but deliberately started. In this, he has not only his expert knowledge to draw upon, but the startling fact that a clock recovered from the burned building was one that he himself designed and built, many years ago---when he shared a workroom with a young man called Gustavus Haire...

    And then, at last, came the disclosure; and a most astonishing one it was. It occurred a few mornings after Blandy's visit, when Thorndyke and I, happening to go up together to the laboratory, found our friend at the bench, poring over one of the heaps of mechanical fragments with a pair of watchmaker's tweezers in his hand.
    "Well, Polton," I remarked, "I should think that you have squeezed the inspector's treasures nearly dry."
    He looked up at me with his queer, crinkly smile and replied: "I am rather afraid that I have, sir."
    "And now, I suppose, you know all about it?"
    "I wouldn't say that, sir, but I know a good deal more than when I started. But I don't know all that I want to know."
    "Well," I said, "at any rate, you can tell us who set fire to that house."
    "Yes, sir," he replied, "I think I can tell you that, without being too positive."
    I stared at him in astonishment, and so did Thorndyke. For Polton was no jester, and, in any case, was much too well-mannered to let off jokes at his principals.
    "Then," said I, "tell us. Who do you say it was?"
    "I say that it was Mr Haire," he replied with quiet conviction.
    "But, my dear Polton," I exclaimed. "Mr Haire was in Dublin when the fire broke out, and had been there five days. You heard the inspector say that it was impossible to suspect him."
    "It isn't impossible for me," said Polton. "He could have done it quite well if he had the necessary means. And I am pretty sure that he had the means."
    "What means had he?" I demanded.
    "Well, sir," he replied, "he had an eight-day long-case clock..."

In the end it wasn't anything about clock-making that I took away from Mr Polton Explains, but the fact that after so many books covering so many years, we finally learn Polton's first name: Nathaniel, or Nat.

Meanwhile, we also learn that Thorndyke has been reading Nature (Mr Polton Explains was published in 1940):

Murder By An Aristocrat (UK title: Murder Of My Patient) - Nurse Sarah Keate is summoned to the country estate of the Thatcher family, where - or so she is told - Bayard Thatcher has accidentally shot himself while cleaning a gun. It takes Sarah no time to see the improbability of the story; nor does her patient pretend that what happened was an accident. Though Sarah takes a dislike to the cynical, sneering Bayard, she does her professional best to guard him---and is witness to two failed attempts to get into his room during the night, one from the corridor and from from the balcony. However, Bayard's wound is not serious, and the next day, over Sarah's advice, he insists upon going downstairs. Then Sarah learns that Bayard is a cousin of sorts to the main family: frail but indomitable Adela; her younger brothers, Hilary and Dave; Hilary's wife, Evelyn; Dave's wife, Janice; and Evelyn's brother, Allen Carick. That day, the Thatcher family scatters: Hilary and Evelyn, who do not live with Adela, separately leave and return; Allen and Dave go fishing; Janice visits a farm for supplies for the kitchen; and Adela attends a local women's meeting. Sarah is able to relax in the grounds opposite the front of the house, watching the comings and goings; while Adela's loyal maid, Emmeline, makes jelly in the kitchen at the back, at the same time keeping an eye on the rather lazy gardener, Higby. Thus it is certain that no outsider could have entered the house; yet when the Thatchers do return, it is to find Bayard shot dead in the library... Published in 1932, this fifth book in the Sarah Keate series by Mignon Eberhart is a complex and intriguing mystery, for reasons that go well beyond its almost-locked-room plot. Firstly, this book really focuses upon Sarah, who this time is out on her own, without the help and support of her usual police contact. As she quite often insists, Sarah is a nurse, not a detective---and this is not a modest disclaimer, but a statement of fact. She is, however, a close observer who never forgets anything, though it is often some considerable time before she can make sense of her observations. She also has a dogged way of thinking that compels her---not so much to discover the truth, as to force it out into the open. In parallel with this, we have the fact that there is no police presence in Murder By An Aristocrat. In most American mysteries of this era, the police are incompetent, and often almost belligerently stupid to boot, so they might as well not be there; but here we get something slightly different. In the wake of Bayard's murder, the Thatchers are (in Sarah's opinion) suspiciously swift to suggest that he surprised a burglar, and to discover that the family diamonds are missing; the obedient local sheriff swallows this red herring whole and vanishes from the narrative in pursuit of an imaginary burglar, leaving the Thatchers - and Sarah - to thrash matters out amongst themselves. Here we have the other strength of Murder By An Aristocrat: it doesn't chicken out on the promise of its title. Among the second tier of mystery writers, it is not uncommon to find a stubborn suggestion that "nice" people don't commit murder, and a disappointing ending tacked onto an otherwise good story. The superior writers, Eberhart among them, knew better; and though throughout the narrative of Murder By An Aristocrat Sarah struggles to reconcile her growing admiration for the cultured Thatchers with what must have been premeditated murder, never for a moment does she believe in the burglar theory to which the family clings with such tenacity. Nor can she believe that Emmeline, or Higby, or the snooping maidservant, Florrie, had anything to do with it. Sarah's obstinacy has serious consequences for herself, in that, seeing in her the danger of the burglar story being contradicted in the world at large, and bringing upon the family notoriety if not worse, the Thatchers conspire to hold her at the house, in an attempt to convince her that none of them could have committed the murder. The private inquiry undertaken by Adela does nothing to change Sarah's mind, but it does reveal to her a great many other things: that it was Dave who shot Bayard the first time; that Hilary had motive and opportunity; that Janice and Allen are in love; that Janice - at least - found the body, and said nothing; that no-one's alibi is as rock-solid as it first appeared; and that Bayard was a skunk who needed shooting. But it is not until she understands the strange incident of the dog---not in the nighttime, but in the broad daylight---that Sarah knows who pulled the trigger...

    Adela and Evelyn and Hilary. A confidential family conference, and I was sitting on the bathtub hearing every word of it. I started to make my presence known. And then Adela said: "It's the nurse. She's our danger."
    "That's right. If we can silence her--- We ought never to have got her here, in the first place."
    "I know it now," said Adela. "But at the time I thought it was the best thing to do. After what happened. I thought she would stand between them, in a sense. Bayard refused to leave; I couldn't send him away sick, after that."
    "But I don't like her,"said Hilary in a peevish way. "She makes me nervous. Always about where you don't expect her."
    There was a short pause during which I wondered what Hilary would do if he knew where I was at that moment; then he continued, still rather fretfully:
    "Why didn't you let her leave right away after he was killed? I don't understand you, Adela. She's right here among us, seeing every move. How long do you think we can keep her thinking it was a burglar shot him?"
    "But it was a burglar who shot him," said Adela stubbornly. "And think, Hilary, how mad it would have been to send her away unconvinced. I can see doubt in her eyes. I could see it yesterday afternoon, there in the library. We've got to keep her here. Where we can watch her."
    "Indefinitely?" asked Hilary unpleasantly.
    "Don't talk that way, Hilary," said Evelyn sharply. "Adela's quite right about it. You can manage the sheriff, and Adela can manage Dan Bouligny, and all of us together can face down the talk in the county. It's that nurse who is our problem. It's she who threatens us..."

Goodness me.

I'm fairly grammar-psycho myself, but I've got nothing on a previous reader of - or possible a librarian with access to - this copy of Murder By An Aristocrat, who not only pencilled an indignant protest on the flyleaf that, "likely is not an adverb", but proceeded to mark every usage of it as such throughout the book, in order to register their - or perhaps I should say in this context, his or her - disapproval.

In fact most dictionaries do now accept "likely" as an adverb; though perhaps not in the 1930s.

To me, though, the point is that this is both a regional novel (Eberhart was a Nebraska native who set most of her books in an unspecified part of her home state), and a very dialogue-heavy one; and pulling up people's speech patterns, particularly people dealing with the stress of murder in the family, is a bit much even by my obsessive standards...

>121 lyzard: Ha! If it bothered me that much, I think I'd be inclined just to read something else. I can't help admiring the reader's persistence.

I was sympathetic to an extent because I know what it's like to have a writing tic become distracting, but it did seem rather like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. :D

BTW, you should try to enjoy all the sex and violence and other censor-unfriendly material on your current platter, because the best-seller lists will be giving us religion again shortly...

Well, I've just started Circus Parade and then it'll be Forever Amber -- which btw is indeed 650 pages but with small print and double-columns. There's no indication that it's abridged, so I don't know why our page counts differ by so much.

By the time that's all done I may just be in the mood for a pious palate-cleanser. But I doubt it.

>121 lyzard: That's a bit extreme! I do understand the annoyance of certain writing styles though, as I get annoyed at some tics. Data is drives me up the wall, because data are plural. I feel bettter getting that out there.

>124 swynn:

We get the British editions of almost everything, so it might be just a layout variant, wider margins or some such.

I doubt it too. How are you with historical fiction? You may find du Maurier the cleanser you need, before your palette gets all cloyed up again. :D

>125 Helenliz:

That - case in point - is an example of something I might say incorrectly (singular or plural) but always write correctly (plural only).

Feel feel to grammar-vent whenever you need to!

>126 lyzard: thankyou! I agree, in speach I'll let it pass, but in writing, never. Occasionally it feels like I'm the only one it matters to and everyone else thinks I need to get a life. Also high on the annoyance level is "this document speaks to ...". No. This document does not have the power of speach, it cannot speak to anything. I can refer to, it can be about, it can make reference to but it cannot speak to anything ever.
You have no idea how much better I feel...

>121 lyzard: This puts me in mind of one of my favorite mystery series, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. Throughout the series Wolfe reveals himself as a bit of a grammar fiend, more than once refusing to work for a client who uses "contact" as a verb, for example, but in Gambit he really lets his grammar freak flag fly. The book opens with a prospective client coming to see him, but Wolfe's not in his office because he's in the front parlor, burning a copy of Webster's Third New International unabridged dictionary page by page in the fireplace. Among its many sins: Asserting that "imply" and "infer" can be used interchangeably. Fortunately for the client, she passes the test when he asks her if she agrees with that view, and thus the plot continues.

When I first read this book years ago I thought, "Well, that's ridiculous. Of course 'imply' and 'infer' don't mean the same thing at all!" Which must mean I also have a grammar freak flag waving above my head. I've become more descriptivist over the years, trying hard to let go of the silly distinctions that were drilled into me during my journalism career ("over" can only refer to physical locations, not quantity, etc.) but I stand firm with Wolfe on his infer/imply stance.

Whew! Like Helen, it feels good to get that off my chest.

>128 rosalita: now that sounds like a book I ought to read, a plot point hinging on the use of grammar! I bet Gambit is not book 1 and I now find myself with a series umptyteen books long to get through...

>129 Helenliz: Oh, dear. I have good news and bad news, Helen. The bad news is that Gambit is #37 (out of 47) books in the Nero Wolfe series. The good news is that more than any other series I've read, it really needn't be read in order, unless you absolutely must read all series in order (which position I respect and usually share even if not in this particular case). If you do feel compelled to begin at the beginning, you'll find Fer-de-Lance is the series debut.

>127 Helenliz:

and everyone else thinks I need to get a life

Gosh. I've never been told that.

{/sarcasm}

I used to act as proofreader for students' theses. I admit to my shame that I finally gave up the fight over split infinitives, but I stood firm on the rest---thus making myself extraordinarily unpopular. :)

>128 rosalita:

Wow. I know those words get misused all the time but that's the first time I've heard it suggested they could be used interchangeably.

Though I must say I find that less brain-melting that the recent capitulation over the use of "literally" to mean "not literally"...

>130 rosalita:

Treading very carefully there, missy! :D

Finished Miss Parritt Disappears, a standalone short story in Valentine Williams' Clubfoot series, for TIOLI #2.

Now reading The Fox Prowls, also by Valentine Williams.

>131 lyzard: I know those words get misused all the time but that's the first time I've heard it suggested they could be used interchangeably.

And by the dictionary, no less! Just one more indication that the 1960s were the devil's playground (the New Third International was published in 1961).

Treading very carefully there, missy!

Hey! I was taking to HELEN!

Hey! It was just an observation. :D

An unexpected add-on:

I was able to swing by Rare Books today and polish off Bread And Vinegar by H. A. Manhood, a collection of two short stories (if you can call two a collection) released as a limited edition in 1931---thus ticking another off THAT monstrous impediment to progress.

That slots into TIOLI #6; meanwhile, still reading The Fox Prowls by Valentine Williams, and The American Caravan (which I *am* going to get back to this week!).

>100 lyzard: Well done!

>105 lyzard: "the stupid and inefficient search engine at the local Amazon."

Amazon UK has a similar problem. It's good at directing you to 'a' book with that tile (normally a kindle version) but terrible if I want, say, the Oxford World's Classics edition of a particular book. I have to go to another website, find the ISBN for that edition and then search amazon with that.

Even more difficult for you for older books without ISBNs.

>108 lyzard: I have the knife cracking through the mirror cover which I quite like from an aesthetic perspective but as you say, no knives in the book.

>114 lyzard:, >115 rosalita: When I first read The Mirror Crack'd I remember thinking so that's why they make us have that vaccination! And yes, the anti-vax movement is a worry here too.

Apropos of nothing, this popped up in my items you might be interested in on Amazon. I've enjoyed other Sutherland books a lot but can't decide from the description what he's trying to do in this book.

http://www.eerpublishing.com/sutherland-secret-trollope.html

Hi, Heather!

Ha! - it's a measure of what I mostly read that I don't usually even think about searching by ISBN.

Yes, I would have first read that book about the same time I had my rubella shot at school. I can't remember linking the two events but I'm sure one would have impacted the other.

I see what you mean about the Sutherland. Thank you for letting me know about it, though I don't know if I'll follow up: I always prefer just reading the books to reading about the author.

Speaking of which, it probably will be Emmeline in June and The Three Clerks in July, if that's okay with you?

Oh!

I've just belatedly realised it's my 9th Thingaversary!

I should say that I don't consider this my "real" Thingaversary, as for the first few months I was purely cataloguing. It was late in 2010 when I properly discovered the threads - particularly the 75ers and TIOLI - which for me are the heart of my LibraryThing experience.

I'm currently trying to restrict my book buying, so I won't be celebrating in the traditional way; but perhaps instead I'll sip a glass of wine tonight while I'm, oh I don't know, reading...

Apropos:

Finished The Fox Prowls for TIOLI #10, which also means that I have FINISHED A SERIES!!

Now reading The House Opposite by Elizabeth Kent.

(And yes I'm still reading The American Caravan; but then you knew that, didn't you?)

Now...I believe I promised you all a marmoset to mark the end of a series, didn't I?

The Fox Prowls constitutes a slightly odd series end (for reasons I'll get into when I review it), so I think I'll parallel what I did previously with my sloths, and mark the occasion in, ahem, just a small way:

>140 lyzard: aw, what a cute little fella!
Congratulations on your sort of thingaversary.

Happy belated Thingaversary, Liz! (It's still April 24 here.) Selfishly, I'm very glad you found your way to the 75ers group as I would have missed out on some good reading if you hadn't! I might never have met our Maudie, for one thing. Not to mention learning about the danger of living life as a potato.

>140 lyzard: So that's a marmoset! I realize now I may have never seen one before — totes adorbs, as the kids probably don't say anymore.

>141 Helenliz:

Thank you, Helen!

>142 rosalita:

Aw, thanks very much, Julia! It's nice that you can still say those things *after* finding out about the potato life...

That's a baby common marmoset. There are about 20 different species, and about another 20 of their close relatives, the tamarins; I'd like to think you'll see a lot of different ones, as I plow forward.

>130 rosalita: I forgot to thank you for the information, which I appreciate. And it was very carefully worded, when you consider whose thread we're on >;-)

>143 lyzard: I'm definitely rooting for you to keep finishing series so we can see more of those marmosets!

>144 Helenliz: You're welcome, Helen. I tried to be oblique but of course Liz was too sharp to fall for my obfuscating. :-)

>144 Helenliz:, >145 rosalita:

Oh, go right ahead, don't mind me! :D

>145 rosalita:

I should make another list of those close to finishing, to give myself a push...and because it involves making a list...

Finished The House Opposite, which I am trying to work into TIOLI #3...but which otherwise will be for #17.

Now reading Murder In Amityville by Hans Holzer.

I finally made it back into the State Library today, to take another crack at The American Caravan:

The Temptation Of St. Anthony by Isidore Schneider: - a long "narrative poem" about the clash between a solitary atheist and the citizens of a nearby, conventionally religious township. (Banned in Boston? - atheism, sex, hyposcrisy, censorship.)

Seven Children by Philip Edward Stevenson: - a longish short story about the struggles of a family moved from urban Kansas to rural New Mexico, told from the perspective of a young, trouble-prone boy.

Unpublished Leaves by William Ellery Leonard: - Leonard published Two Lives in 1925, a cycle of 250 sonnets recounting his own tragic first marriage, which ended when his mentally ill wife committed suicide; these poems consist of material excised before the main work's publication.

Shore Ways by John Riordan: - a short story about three young men trolling for girls at the seaside on the Labor Day holiday. (Banned in Boston? - much thought of sex, if no activity.)

From: A Folded Skyscraper by William Carlos Williams: - a fragment combining poetry and prose, notable for marking the author's break from the Imagist movement and in particular Ezra Pound. (Banned in Boston? - some sexual / biological terminology.)

I am currently halfway through Galahad by Edmund Wilson.

(pg 232 / 833)

Just popping my nose in to say that the library has come up trumps and I have a copy of The Three Clerks. Looks like it hasn't seen the light of day in a while. Last stamp is 1968. Electric library issue leaves no record on the book, and it did have an RFID tag, so I think it has been out more recently than that.

Whoo!! :)

It's great that you've got your hands on a copy, Helen, but will you be allowed to hold onto it for long enough? Generous renewals, I hope??

Finished Murder In Amityville for TIOLI #16.

Now reading Anna The Adventuress by E. Phillips Oppenheim.

>150 lyzard: I should be OK. If it's not reserved by someone else, I have up to 20 renewals of a 3 week loan. Yes, I could keep a book for over a year (and nearly have done one one occasion!)

My academic library now has a system of unlimited six-week loans with automatic renewals, unless recalled. It is NOT helping me get through my library books! :D

Great to hear you should be able to join us for The Three Clerks!

>137 lyzard: That works for me!

>138 lyzard: Happy thingaversary and congratulations on finishing a series!

>154 souloftherose:

Lovely!

Thanks very much, Heather. :)

Finished Anna The Adventuress for TIOLI #8---

---because the ILL of Arthur B. Reeve's The Adventuress, which was the reason I started that challenge in the first place, didn't show up in time despite the best efforts of my local librarians; is there anything more exasperating!?---

---how much do you want to bet it shows up tomorrow?

Anyway...now reading The House Opposite by J. Jefferson Farjeon.

Well! - I guess I did just ask if there was anything more exasperating---!?

Somewhere up-thread, I was complaining about the vagaries of the search engine at our local Amazon, which finds or doesn't find your item according to how you structure your search...and/or what mood it happens to be in at the time...something which I've just experienced yet again.

As also mentioned up-thread, I'm putting together a list of series that are close to completion, one of which is Anne Austin's about special investigator, 'Bonnie' Dundee. I had stalled on that because the final book, Murdered But Not Dead, was rare and quite expensive. I had certainly searched for it before on Amazon, as several other of the Dundee books are available on Kindle, but had not previously found it. I took one more look in the hope of finding it as an upcoming release---and not only found it, but was told it had been available for three and a half years.

I have no idea why I found it this time. My only hint is that this time I searched for anne austin (no book title, no inverted commas, not even any capitalisation), and for some reason that worked.

And yes, of course this is good news; but it is also INCREDIBLY ANNOYING!!!!

>157 lyzard: Aren’t those sorts of things maddening???

I was looking for a book: The Strangest Family, about British King George the Third and his home life. I found it easily; that wasn’t the problem. I noticed another book by the same author: The Royal Experiment (no touchstone). I nearly put both in my cart, but fortunately curiosity and good sense sent me scurrying. I finally wound up on Google where a tiny bit of research revealed that these are, in fact, different iterations of the same book. It’s the old story: different British and US titles.

What was irritating was that nowhere on Amazon, either from the company or in the several reviews I sampled, was this fact stated at all.

Grrr.

>158 Matke:

I have lots of books, mostly mysteries, listed twice on my wishlist under their variant titles. The only upside is that when I search for one the other usually comes up too, but places like Amazon you're on your own. And as you note you do get a lot of title changes with non-fiction, either UK/US or just tweaking when the book is reissued. It's incredibly easy to make an expensive mistake!

So was it the Americans or the Brits who (obviously!) wanted the word 'royal' in your title?

Best-selling books in the United States for 1946:

1. The King's General by Daphne du Maurier
2. This Side of Innocence by Taylor Caldwell
3. The River Road by Frances Parkinson Keyes
4. The Miracle of the Bells by Russell Janney
5. The Hucksters by Frederic Wakeman, Sr.
6. The Foxes of Harrow by Frank Yerby
7. Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque
8. The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain
9. B.F.'s Daughter by John P. Marquand
10. The Snake Pit by Mary Jane Ward

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the 1946 best-sellers list is the emergence of a genuine post-war literature, novels which take a critical look at contemporary American society.

In this category we may place Frederic Wakeman Sr's The Hucksters,a jaundiced look at the advertising business; John P. Marquand's B.F.'s Daughter, which has a woman contemplating whether her pre-war marriage "really counts" in a post-war world; and Mary Jane Ward's The Snake Pit, an excoriating denunciation of the treatment of the mentally ill, told from the perspective of an institutionalised young woman.

In a sense Russell Janney's The Miracle Of The Bells fits this category too, in its story of a press agent exploiting the church for a publicity stunt; but here the religious theme finally takes over.

Frances Parkinson Keyes' The River Road is set in Louisiana between the wars, with societal change the backdrop to the story of a man trying to save and revive his family's plantation. Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph is about a German refugee in Paris, immediately preceding WWII.

The remaining books on the list are all genuine historical fiction, including Thomas B. Costain's The Black Rose, a holdover from the 1945 list. Taylor Caldwell's This Side of Innocence is a fin-de-siècle story of an extended family trying, and generally failing, to find happiness; while Frank Yerby's The Foxes of Harrow is another 19th century novel, about a man rising to become a wealthy and powerful Louisiana plantation owner over the decades leading up to the American Civil War.

The year's best-seller is also a work of historical fiction: Daphne du Maurier's story of the English Civil War, The King's General.

Daphne du Maurier was born in London in 1907, into a family active in the arts: her grandfather was the author and artist, George du Maurier; her father, the actor / manager Gerald du Maurier; and her mother the actress, Muriel Beaumont. She began writing short stories at an early age and published her first novel, The Loving Spirit, in 1931.

The following year she married Frederick Browning---full name and title, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague Browning---making her Lady Browning. She continued to write and publish under her own name, however, and in 1969 was elevated to the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature, which turned her (somewhat awkwardly) into Lady Browning; Dame Daphne du Maurier DBE.

Du Maurier's marriage and her private life generally were rocky. She did not take easily to motherhood and struggled with her sexuality. After her death various controversial claims were made about her relationships (the suggestion that she was a lesbian prompted one of her daughters, rather wryly, to argue that when it came to men, she was more like a nymphomaniac). However, in life du Maurier was an intensely private person, who spent most of her time away from the public eye in Cornwall, where many of her books are set.

The critics were slow to respond to du Maurier's work, often dismissing her as a "romance novelist" (less because of actual romance in her works than because she almost always had a female protagonist); however, she was popular with the public from the outset. Her breakthrough work was 1938's Rebecca, a modern-gothic; but she confined herself to no one genre, writing thrillers, psychological dramas, historical fiction, and short stories of all kinds including tales of the supernatural. She also wrote successful plays, works of biography (about Sir Francis Bacon, Branwell Bronte, and her own family), non-fiction about Cornwall, and a late-life autobiography about her career.

In 1943, du Maurier leased Menabilly, an historically significant Cornwall estate famous for belonging to the prominent Rashleigh family from the 16th century until the present day. Already the model for Manderley in Rebecca, Menabilly inspired du Maurier to write The King's General, an historical novel about the Cornwall Royalist movement during the English Civil War, in which the Rashleighs were heavily involved.

Published in 1946, The King's General became America's best-selling book of that year. It was also reissued by Virago in 2014.

The King's General - Published in 1946, Daphne du Maurier's historical novel about the English Civil War is a work that successfully blends fact with fictionalisation. Set in Cornwall during the 1640s, the story is told from the Royalist perspective, following the King's forces from the first, optimistic days of the conflict through bitter periods of defeat, occupation and siege, to the desperate, last-ditch attempt to preserve Cornwall itself, whatever might happen to England at large. In what we might call the public sense, this is an accurate account of the involvement of Sir Richard Grenvile, "the King's general in the west", and the various members of the prominent Rashleigh family, in the doomed battle for the King and for Cornwall. However, as usual in her historical fiction, du Maurier is less concerned with the big picture than with the impact of historical events upon the bystanders to them, in particular, the women and children; and with this focus upon private experiences, she must necessarily imagine the details of the personal relationships and the secret motives of the real people she depicts. The King's General is narrated by Honor Harris who, in her youth, becomes passionately involved with the reckless, hot-tempered Sir Richard. On the eve of their marriage, however, Honor is crippled in a riding accident. As a consequence she breaks her engagement; the two do not meet again for fifteen years, by which time Sir Richard has become famous for his military prowess, but notorious for his dangerous feuds with the King's court and his fellow officers. Though seeing clearly enough that his personal and professional disappointments have exacerbated what was always worst in his nature, particularly his capacity for cruelty, Honor finds that her love for Richard persists; as does his for her, in spite of her situation. To the anger and shame of their families, the two become lovers---a connection which will persist through danger and hardship, and force Honor to make some desperate choices... As with much of Daphne du Maurier's historical fiction, The King's General is a difficult book to enjoy: both in terms of the broad story it is telling, and the fates of its individual characters, there is an inescapable air of tragedy and suffering throughout the narrative. Nor can the reader take refuge in the central relationship. Du Maurier, through Honor, pulls no punches about the character of Sir Richard Grenvile, whose selfishness, cruelty and vengeful nature bring disaster upon both himself and those closest to him, even as he remains the one slender hope of the Royalist forces in the west. Though clear-eyed about his numerous failings, Honor remains devoted to Richard except at one point: his brutal treatment of his young son, Dick, whose gentle, nervous temperament and resemblance to his mother - who Richard married for her money, and abused and divorced when he failed to get it - bring out the very worst in him. Seeing in Dick the children that she was denied by fate, and attempting to give him the love of which he has been deprived, Honor puts the boy before all else, forcing not only herself but everyone else who has taken refuge at the Rashleigh estate of Menabilly through a protracted siege under Parliamentary occupation rather than give Dick up to the invaders---never dreaming that this choice will ultimately bring about the final blow to the Royalist cause in the west...

    At mid-week we heard that Richard had seized Restormel Castle by Lostwithiel, and that Lord Goring, who commanded the King's horse, held the bridge and the road below St. Blazey. Essex was now pinned up in our peninsula, some seven miles long and two broad, with ten thousand men to feed, and the guns from Polruan trained on Fowey Harbour. It could not last much longer. Either Essex and the rebels must be relieved by a further force marching to him from the east, or he must stand and make a fight of it.
    And we would sit, day after day, with cold hearts and empty bellies, staring out upon the sullen soldiery as they stood huddled in the rain outside their tents, while their leaders within the house held councils of despondency. Another Sunday came, and with it a whisper of alarm among the rebels that the country people were stealing forth at night and doing murder. Sentries were found strangled at their post, men woke to find their comrades with cut throats, others would stagger to headquarters from the high road, their hands lopped from their wrists, their eyes blinded. The Cornish were rising.
    On Tuesday, the twenty-seventh, there was no soup for our midday dinner, only half a dozen loaves amongst the twenty of us. On Wednesday one jugful of milk for the children, instead of three, and the milk much watered.
    On Thursday Alice and Joan and Mary, and the two Sparke sisters and I, divided our bread amongst the children, and made for ourselves a brew of herb tea with scalding water. We were not hungry. Desire for food left us when we saw the children tear at the stale bread and cram it in their mouths, then turn and ask for more which we could not give to them. And all the while the south-west wind tore and blustered in the teeming sky, and the rebel bugle that had haunted us so long sounded across the park like a challenge of despair...

The King's General seems an odd best-seller. It is a solid piece of historical fiction, but a gloomy, matter-of-fact work that sees unlikely to appeal to a broad audience.

My suspicion is that American readers were led astray by their previous best-seller, Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber, another novel about 17th century England, but one which is full of scandalous sex and other shocking material; but if they were looking for more of the same in du Maurier, they were doomed to disappointment---even though the work does have at its heart an untoward sexual relationship.

In fact, the most interesting thing about The King's General is a little-known real-life detail that was instrumental in prompting the writing of the book in the first place, and which du Maurier makes the basis of the climax of her novel---and which cannot be discussed openly precisely for that reason.

My understanding is that the introduction to the recent Virago reissue of The King's General does go into detail about that particular incident---thus spoiling the novel for anyone who hasn't read it. So I am obliged once again to say what I always say at the outset of our group reads: if you are thinking about reading The King's General, DO NOT READ THE INTRODUCTION UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED IT.

Finished The House Opposite by J. Jefferson Farjeon which, along with The House Opposite by Elizabeth Kent, is for TIOLI #3.

Now reading Who?, also by Elizabeth Kent.

Gaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

So it turns out that The Fox Prowls is *not* the last book in a series after all...

Oh, well. It was only a small marmoset, after all; do I really have to retract it?

(Or maybe redact it??)

Miss Parritt Disappears - In addition to the (I think) seven novels featuring spy-master and criminal, the sinister Dr Adolph Grundt, aka "Clubfoot", Valentine Williams wrote a series of short stories that remain uncollected---perhaps because most of them were only published in America, mostly in the Blue Book Magazine. One of these, published in 1931 but set many years earlier, is Miss Parritt Disappears. The unnamed narrator, a Secret Service agent, starts off by explaining that the "sexy female spy" construct is entirely a myth, and that women in general are useless at spy work because they always let their emotions get in the way. Then he tells us about an exception to the rule, the cool and efficient Miss Frances Parritt---only to reveal how he found out she was not an exception after all... This short story, then, is basically just a sexist joke; and, moreover, one that takes the usually frightening character of Grundt and turns him into the butt of that joke. From both perspectives, it would have been better off not written.

    The sound of women's voices in the hall abruptly ended this sheerly preposterous interview. With a hollow cry of, "There she is now!" the redoubtable Man with the Clubfoot retired swiftly into his bedroom, slamming the door and locking it. Already Helmstedter was halfway down the stairs. I saw him grab one of the women who were there and whisk her off through a door. A figure, whose angular silhouette was all too familiar to me, remained behind.
    Directly I set my eyes on her I knew that Grundt had spoken the truth, incredible though it was. She was transfigured: she was almost good-looking...

Bread And Vinegar - During the 1920s and 1930s, Harold Alfred Manhood was celebrated both by the critics and by his fellow writers as a master of the short story. In time, however, he grew disillusioned with writing and gave it up altogether. His reputation has since likewise faded away, although in recent years various specialty presses have gone some way to rehabilitating it via newly issued collections of his stories. Bread And Vinegar, however, is a specialty press dating from 1931, a limited release of two of Manhood's short stories. In the title story, a boy is walking the docks when he encounters a homeless old woman, and succumbs to an impulse to buy her what turns out to be her last meal; the "bread and vinegar" of the title are literal within the story, but the biblical suggestion of a covenant is also present. In The Beginning Of Wisdom, a boy (it isn't clear whether it's meant to be the same boy) becomes obsessed with, and eventually obtains, what for all its lofty title is essentially a sex-manual---and with his new knowledge, finds the world entirely changed... As you might imagine, this story is funny, sad and embarrassing in turns; though it would have been stronger without the boy's last-minute "getting of wisdom", which seems unlikely under the circumstances.

    That the barber knew everything was evident from his slow, pitiless smile. He knew all that the boy thought as he stared through the window, and was amused, and intended to make a profit. That day, a Saturday, the book had been opened wide at a particularly lascivious page and the boy had bit his lips as he read, secretly tearing the envelope containing his wage, spilling the coins into his pocket. Hot with desire he hurried into the shop where the barber waited, seated at ease in a shabby inquisitor's chair, his short legs crossed, one cloth-topped boot twitching knowingly.
    "That book in the window, it looks damned funny." The boy spoke breathlessly.
    The barber studied his finger nails intently, burnishing them on the lapel of his greasy linen jacket: "It is," he agreed in a soft, unpleasant voice...

H. A. Manhood only wrote one novel, the rather marvellously titled Gay Agony.

Try searching for "gay agony" and "manhood" and see what you get.

Or better yet, don't. :D

>165 lyzard: Oh no! I feel your pain at finding out a series you thought you finished has another entry. I like the idea of redacting the marmoset; maybe just put a black bar over its eyes?

;-)

*At least* one other entry; one that I currently know about.

I get the feeling Williams meant to finish it then changed his mind later, so there's that.

Nah, I can't mess with that little cutie. :D

The Fox Prowls - The British Secret Service loses three men during its pursuit of the Baron de Bahl, aka "The Fox", a dealer in political secrets for profit and a ruthless killer. In a dangerously unstable Europe, the pursuit must go on, however; and Alfred Donnington Montgomery Clinton Boulton - "Don" to his friends - a former fighter pilot and footloose adventurer, is dispatched to Bucharest where the Baron has been spotted... Retired American millionaire, Stephen Selmar, is bemused when he inherits an ancient castle in Romania from a relative on the non-immigrant side of his family. However, growing bored now that he is not working, Selmar becomes intrigued by stories of a long-lost cache of gold and jewels rumoured to be hidden on his property. When papers are unearthed that seem to support the rumours, he allows himself to be persuaded into a treasure-hunt, under the guise of renovating sections of the castle. Growing enthusiastic, Selmar sends for his daughter, Melissa, introducing her to the man with whom he has entered into a partnership of sorts: the Baron de Bahl... Doubtful over the treasure stories, even more so about the prospect of a winter passed in the wilds of Romania, and most of all about the motley collection of Europeans whom the Baron has hired to oversee the renovations, Melissa finds some relief in the presence at the Castle Orghina of the young English chauffeur of the Baron's right-hand man, the rude and ill-tempered Grenander. Relief turns to dependence, however, as it swiftly becomes clear that the Baron has lured the Selmars to Castle Orghina for reasons of his own---and that Melissa and her father are, in reality, prisoners... Published in 1939, Valentine Williams' The Fox Prowls is a rather mixed thriller, albeit one that in some ways is more interesting now than when it was written. Its main weakness is the silly treasure-hunt premise, used to lure the Selmars into becoming the smokescreen for the Baron de Bahl's political manoeuvring: it is difficult to believe that a shrewd businessman like Stephen Selmar would fall for such a thing, his boredom with his retirement notwithstanding. This novel aso starts very confusingly, hurling a bewildering collection of European names (mostly Romanian) at the reader, but only offering hints as to the people behind them, which makes it difficult to absorb any individual significance. To this reader, however, the most tiresome thing about The Fox Prowls is its romantic subplot, in which - stop me if you've heard this one - a well-bred but poor young man falls for the beautiful daughter of a millionaire. (Honestly, the ubiquity of this as a male fantasy of the period is getting beyond embarrassing.) However, once the overly complicated set-up is in place, The Fox Prowls is able to develop into an effective thriller---not least because of its use of the contemporary political situation in Europe. Unlike some thrillers of this time, including some of Williams' own, this not really a "forecasting WWII" story, but more specific to time and place. It is set in Bessarabia, historically a much disputed territory which sits across the river Dniester from the Ukraine. Eventually it emerges that behind the renovations, de Bahl, Grenander and their co-conspirators have been smuggling weapons into the castle, with the intention of causing a "border incident" and prompting a violent retaliation from the Ukrainians. However - and this cynical touch is the best thing about the novel - this is not done for political purposes, but to influence the price of armaments' stock, and to make a killing on the stock market. It is up to Don not merely to keep Melissa and her father safe, but to find a way out of the fortified castle in order to alert the Romanian authorities before the planned border incident turns into a full-scale uprising. Meanwhile, he finds an unexpectedly valuable ally in Stephen Selmar---who has pulled off a stock-market coup or two of his own over the years...

    "You were right about de Bahl and I was wrong. I wish you'd tell me what you know about him."
    Don's laugh was grim. "Plenty, and none of it good. For years he's been running one of the most successful espionage bureaus in Europe, if you know what that is."
    "Not very well."
    "They buy up military secrets and sell them to the highest bidder. They also undertake specific commissions as in the case of a Power that wants, let's say, the plans of a fortress or the design of a new anti-aircraft gun. It's a dirty business. They go to work very methodically to corner the person who can give them the information they want. Sometimes it's a highly placed staff officer, sometimes only a clerk, but the procedure is always the same. They discover their victim's weakness---it may be gambling, or it may be women---and use it to get him in their clutches. Then he has to come across with the information or else... De Bahl specialises in this sort of thing. Wherever he goes, he leaves a record of ruin, suicide, behind him. And the men he employs are absolutely ruthless, like this Miklas rat"---he jerked his head backward towards the window. "If they want to leave no traces, they kill. The Lord knows how many people de Bahl has murdered, or caused to be murdered."
    Melissa shuddered. "But it's too ghastly! Knowing all this, why ever didn't you warn us?"
    He shook his head. "I didn't know what your father was doing mixed up with a man of his stamp. De Bahl has always had plenty of capital. We never knew where it came from---it certainly didn't come from this antique business of his. I'm pretty sure now that Ardza supplied it."
    "Ardza? What had he to do with espionage? I thought he was in the arms industry."
    He laughed. "And what's better for the arms trade than seeing that everybody knows just what the other fellow has got tucked away in the way of secret weapons? But de Bahl's never been in the arms business and I must say I'm puzzled to know what he's up to here, hobnobbing with a bunch of gun-runners like Grenander and the rest of them..."

Though I classified The Fox Prowls as an entry in Valentine Williams' series featuring the brothers, Francis and Desmond Okewood, it is so only by courtesy of the tiniest of cameo appearances.

At the opening of the novel, there are scenes set in the office of the head of a particular branch of the British Secret Service. The man in charge is referred to only as "the Chief"---except once, when we learn that his name is Okewood.

This is presumably elder brother Francis, who was career Secret Service, rather than Desmond, who just kept getting seconded.

Anyhoo---as it turns out, one or both of the Okewoods subsequently appears in the next Clubfoot novel, which was not published until the middle of the war years.

>168 lyzard: *snort*

>173 Helenliz:

:D

I shall have to read it, of course, though I'm sure I'll be bitterly disappointed...

Finished Who? for TIOLI #17...and that is a line under a rather frantic and overcrowded April.

As for May---well, I think that needs a separate post.

(Though of course I am still reading The American Caravan...)

Ruminations:

So.

Not just because April got out of hand, although that's part of it (18 books in 30 days!?), I've decided to do something in May I've been thinking about for a while, which is to take a step back from general reading and spend a month focusing on my poor neglected book-blog---catching up my outstanding posts and only, or mostly, reading related material.

As I've been bitching about once a month (that is, on stats day) for a scary amount of time, I owe myself blog-posts on the second volume of George Reynolds' The Mysteries Of London, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Captain Of The Vulture. I need to clear myself some time, knuckle down, and get those written.

Meanwhile, I have made a start on Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which (for reasons I explained here and here) I am reading both for my blog and for my "C. K. Shorter Best 100 Novels" challenge.

After that, I have several other blog-related possibilities:

Reginald du Bray by 'a late nobleman' {Gothic timeline}
Louisa Egerton by Mary Leman Grimstone {Australian timeline}
The Sicilian by 'Gabrielli' {Authors in Depth}
Leandro; or, The Lucky Rescue by James Smythies {Chronobibliography}
Pique by Sarah Stickney Ellis {Reading Roulette}

But while I intend to put my general reading on the back-burner, I will be sticking with those challenges that I'm tackling on a one-book-a-month basis. I also have a non-renewable ILL on loan. Therefore I will be completing

The Miracle Of The Bells by Russell Janney {best-seller challenge}
The Clocks by Agatha Christie {chronological challenge}
Home Port by Olive Higgins Prouty {ILL}

...and at least trying to get The American Caravan wrapped up for the 'Banned in Boston' challenge.

What else I allow myself will depend upon how the blogging project goes, and how much time (if any) I have left over...or whether it turns out I really need to vary my diet. In which case I will probably try to wrap up a series or two, as discussed up-thread.

So that's the plan. But as I always tend to say at these moments---

We'll see.

Well. Bugger.

I complained up-thread about my ILL of Arthur B. Reeve's The Adventuress not arriving in time for my TIOLI challenge. It turned out to be worse than that: the libraries that hold it, all apparently in South Australia, decided they didn't want to release their copies for interstate loan. I've never encountered that before in our ILL system; it's very disappointing.

And disappointing for more reasons than one, of course, as I will have to track down a copy somewhere / somehow else...

The House Opposite - On a stifling New York night, having tried and failed to find a cooler spot in his rooms, Dr Charles Fortescue seeks some relief on his own rooftop. Though it is the middle of the night, he observes that an apartment in the "Rosemere" building across the road, higher than his own position, is still lit up. As he watches, he is witness to some disturbing events: there is agitated movement near the window; something crashes to the ground; a woman cries out; a man carries her away... Almost immediately, lights come on in another apartment directly opposite his position, and a young man begins searching for something in a frantic way; while, in a bedroom on the floor above, a woman kneels at her window in an attitude of despair... Finally retreating back to his rooms, Fortescue is woken in the early morning by a summons to the Rosemere, where a body has been discovered in an untenanted suite. Though he immediately connects this with the night's events, a cursory examination tells Fortescue that the man has been dead at least twenty-four hours. The young doctor's first opinion is that the man died of natural causes---but when he examines the body more closely in the company of police detective Merritt, a small but fatal stab wound is discovered... Published in 1902, Elizabeth Kent's The House Opposite is a work heavily influenced by the sensation novels-cum-mysteries of Anna Katharine Green; though Kent lacks the latter's ability to make an improbable story persuasive. Furthermore, she has a tendency to foreground the genre's more exasperating features---most particularly the assumption that if a woman is beautiful she must also be good, and the belief (common in American mysteries both at this time and for decades after) that murder is something best covered up in order to save embarrassment, but also silly tropes such as people "going insane" at the drop of a hat. However, the most objectionable aspect of The House Opposite is its casual attitude to domestic violence, which is disturbingly prominent in the narrative. In the early stages of her novel, Kent manages to build an interesting mystery, with the unidentified victim found in an apartment undergoing renovation. While this disposal offers no clue as to who killed the man, it highlights not only that the body must have been hidden somewhere for a day before being placed there, but that more than one person is involved in the man's death. High summer has seen most of the Rosemere's tenants leave the city; but those few residents who remain, the building's employees and the workmen doing the renovations are shown the body and questioned about their movements over the preceding two days. Allowed by Mr Merritt to stay through these interrogations, Dr Fortescue is alert during the questioning of Mr and Mrs Atkins, a young couple living on the upper floors, and Miss May Derwent, a beautiful young socialite. It is evident to him that neither woman is telling all she knows---which forces him to decide what to do with his own secret knowledge of the previous night's events... Having made a promising start, The House Opposite runs off the rails during its second half, becoming less about solving the murder than Fortescue's growing obsession with May Derwent and his determination to shield her should it turn out she was involved in the man's death, as he is increasingly forced to believe she was. At the same time, the police detective, Merritt, who starts out unusually competent for an American mystery of this time, is allowed to just fade from narrative, defeated by the main characters' cover-up. The explanation that Kent finally provides for her mystery is convoluted and ultimately unbelievable---and, though I cannot say more for fear of spoilers, hilariously brutal to one of the supporting characters, who our completely self-absorbed hero and heroine use and discard without a flicker of either gratitude or guilt.

    “Now, Doctor,” Merritt began, in a matter-of-fact voice, “I’d like you to tell me all you know of the murder.”
    He had taken me completely by surprise, but I am learning to control my features, and flatter myself that I did not move a muscle as I quietly replied: “This is a very strange question, and I can only answer that I know nothing.”
    “Oh, hardly as little as that,” the detective rejoined, with irritating complacency.
    “Just as little as that,” I asserted, with some warmth.
    “Well, Doctor, if that is the case, you can no doubt explain a few things that have been puzzling me. In the first place, will you tell me why, if you were not expecting another victim, you showed such surprise at the sight of the corpse? What reason could you have had for being so deeply interested in the relative positions of your roof---not your office, mind you, but your roof---and the room in which the body was found, unless you had noticed something unusual from that point of observation? Why were you so sure that the Derwents' flat was occupied, if you had not seen some person or persons there? By the way, I noticed that from your roof I could look directly into their windows. Again, you betrayed great surprise when Miss Derwent lifted her veil. Why did you do so, except that you had previously seen a very different looking person in her apartment? And why did you select the Atkins’s two servants out of all the people in the building, to question about a certain noise, but that you yourself had heard a scream coming from their premises? And, lastly, you showed an unexplained interest in the back door of the Rosemere, which is particularly suggestive in view of the fact that this window is exactly opposite to it. I need only add that your presence on the roof during some part of Wednesday night, or early Thursday morning, is attested by the fact that I found some pipe-ash near the chimney. You smoke a pipe, I see” (pointing to a rack full of them); “your janitor does not, neither do your two fellow-lodgers. Besides that, all the other occupants of this house are willing to swear that they have not been on the roof recently, and those ashes could not have been long where I found them; the wind would have scattered them. You see, I know very little, but I know enough to be sure that you know more.”
    I was perfectly dumbfounded, and gazed at the detective for some moments without speaking.
    “Well, granted that I was on the roof during a part of Wednesday night, what of it? And if I did hear or see anything suspicious, how can you prove it, and above all, how can you make me tell you of it?”
    “I can’t,” rejoined Mr Merritt, cheerfully. “I can only ask you to do so.”

Murder In Amityville - I have a longstanding interest in the "Amityville" case---mostly the increasingly silly movie franchise, but also the grim and bizarre back-story; and when I re-read John G. Jones' The Amityville Horror Part II last year (which deals with the supposedly continued persecution of the Lutz family after they fled the house), it occurred to me it was rather strange I'd never read any of the true-crime examinations of the original case. Naturally I started with the first of them; which also, or so I profoundly hope, turned out to be the least of them. Murder In Amityville, by professional parapsychologist Hans Holzer, is an astonishingly bad book---though also a perversely interesting and occasionally amusing one for the insight it offers into Holzer's twisted view of the world, in which anyone who disagrees with his own belief-system is sneered at, reproved, dismissed and even threatened. At least---this sounds to me like a threat; what do you think?---

    The current resident, however, refuses to believe any of the paranormal occurrences, even though many of them have been well documented.
    Nobody, including myself, had had the opportunity to conduct a "rescue circle" to satisfy the ghost of the restless Indian, and it is possible that the energy in the house may someday lead to spontaneous combustion, a known phenomenon in such cases...

(Ahem. Forty years on, no spontaneous combustion - or anything else - has been experienced in the house in question; although it was badly damaged during Hurricane Andrew.)

Cynically timed for release simultaneously with the original film, The Amityville Horror, Murder In Amityville presents Hans Holzer's contention that at the time he murdered his family in November 1974, Ron DeFeo Jr was possessed by a spirit emanating from---say it with me, now, folks!---an ancient Indian burial ground, over which the house had been built. (This is indeed the source of that now-cliché trope.) He goes on to reproduce huge chunks of verbatim testimony from the original court hearings, partly with the aim of critisising the courts, the police and the way DeFeo's attempted insanity defence was conducted, but mostly to deplore the narrow-minded way that the court system refuses to believe in anything beyond its narrow conception of "reality". He also describes his own investigations into the house and its history, an aspect of the book notable equally for the number of assertions of startling "discoveries" and a complete absence of revealed sources for them. There is, however, a transcript of an hilarious meeting between Holzer and the then-curator of the Amityville Historical Society, who knows nothing about any of the alleged historical events about which Holzer questions him. (Remarkably, Holzer seems to believe this supports his own view of the case.) And there is also a transcript of Holzer's visit to the house itself, in company with a "trance-medium", who has a lengthy interaction with the spirits that supposedly inhabit the property. Ultimately, Holzer is so taken up with his own view of the case, he turns his book into a rather tasteless apologia for Ron DeFeo. At the same time, however, and almost in spite of itself, Murder In Amityville does have something to offer the true-crime buff---including a glimpse into the way that Ron DeFeo's account of the night shifted and shifted over time as, we presume, he grasped what his lawyers wanted him to say. This is also, for all its shortcomings, the first record of certain points of the case that have since assumed a greater prominence: the suggestion that DeFeo had an untoward relationship with his sister, Dawn; the allegation that Dawn was also involved in the murders; and the detail that I have always found most tantalising (for which, of course, Holzer provides a paranormal explanation): why didn't anyone hear the shots?

    Possession takes place when the subject is already inclined to emotional disturbances, and the possessor can then mold the personality with greater ease to his or her own whims. This, of course, would not be readily acceptable in a court of law. But it nevertheless represents my firm conviction. Based upon this and other cases of possession, I am very sure that the voice within that told Ronald DeFeo to kill was not his own.
    Other, marginal theories remain. There are those who think he didn't commit the crime, and that someone else did it in his presence and framed him. DeFeo himself is not exactly sure what happened, and yet he maintains he did not do it---that is to say, he did not do it as Ronald DeFeo Jr. Also, the figure with the black hands handing him the gun is a fascinating item: was it his sister Dawn, as DeFeo claims. Or was it someone a lot less substantial appearing to him for the purpose of beginning the slaughter?
    When I first entered the case it was my feeling that DeFeo had committed the physical crimes and could not be exonerated for them. At best, if the trial were reopened, mitigating circumstances could be brought out, such as possession, to lessen the severity of his penalty. Now, as I look back upon greater and more mysterious details of the case, I am not even sure of that. If he did indeed commit the physical crime, as it seems likely, but not completely definite, then of course he could not be held morally responsible for what was done with the vehicle of his physical body...

>178 lyzard: As I was decidedly underwhelmed by Anna Katherine Green, I think I’ll give the Kent book a miss.

>179 lyzard: I don’t know what to say “oh dear.” It would be interesting to know more about this backstory, of which I was completely unaware. Not from this book, though.

Hi, Gail! :)

I think Green improved as a writer as she went along, but the overwrought style that was popular at the time is rather an acquired taste.

I preferred Kent's decade-later work, Who?, though it has some of the same weaknesses.

"Oh, dear" is sufficient. :D

Yes, it's rather silly that with my interest in this topic I haven't read any of the serious accounts of the original crime; probably because the haunted-house aspect of the situation pretty much took over.

Finished Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship for TIOLI #9.

Well...I won't trot out my "crushed by a book image"...but phew!

Now reading Home Port by Olive Higgins Prouty.

Anna The Adventuress - In Paris, a beautiful young Englishwoman in distress is rescued by Sir John Ferringhall, a wealthy but rather pompous and self-conscious former merchant. Sir John is immediately smitten, but hesitates when the young woman tells him that her name is Anna Pellissier: though her own reputation is unsullied, her sister, Annabel, is notorious in Paris both for her stage performances and her conduct with the men who pursue her. Learning that Sir John is no stranger to her circumstances, the young woman tells him she must separate from her sister and pleads for his assistance in returning to London. While he goes to make arranges, the girl returns to the studio she shares with her sister---greeting her as "Anna"... As different from her lookalike sister as chalk from cheese, Anna Pellissier is a intelligent and serious young woman with great artistic ambition; but after two years of striving, she is forced to accept that she will never be a painter. She too gives up her Paris adventure and returns to London, to her aunt's house. She finds Annabel there and soon sees that she is unwelcome: still masquerading as "Anna", Annabel is on the verge of marriage with Sir John. Hoping to see her flighty sister settled and safe, Anna goes along with the masquerade---realising too late that along with Annabel's name, she has taken on the burden of her past misdeeds... This 1904 publication by E. Phillips Oppenheim might almost be called a sensation novel, but it lacks the melodramatic tone and the enthusiastic embrace of its more shocking material which mark that genre; so instead we'll call it a "romantic thriller"---and even there most of its thrills are muted. Anna The Adventuress is an interesting but ultimately disappointing work that wants to have its cake and eat it too: flirting with some genuinely daring material regarding the conduct of Annabel and the consequences of this for Anna, before chickening out on both fronts and settling for a painfully conventional ending. Prior to this, however, it offers two engaging parallel plots: the first that finds a relationship developing between Anna and Nigel Ennison, who knew Annabel very well in Paris and is confused and intrigued by this strangely changed version of her; and the increasingly frightening pursuit of Anna by an unstable man claiming to be her - or rather, Annabel's - husband... Ultimately the most interesting thing about Anna The Adventuress is not its twin central plots, but its background of fin-de-siècle London. In some respects, stuffy old London is still stuffy old London: a stark contrast is drawn between the open celebration of Annabel's talents in Paris, and London's wary disapproval of women on the stage---at least when they're off the stage. Yet at the same time things were changing---and through the behaviour of the high-principled Anna we see what was then considered permissible: men and women dining together unchaperoned; women living alone; men calling upon women in their rooms or flats; and most engaging of all, mutually supportive, platonic friendships developing between the sexes---even if Anna does finally find herself juggling three simultaneous proposals of marriage...

    Ennison hesitated, and glanced towards her companion. He saw now that it was merely a boy.
    “This is Mr Sydney Courtlaw---Mr Ennison,” she said. “You are coming in, aren’t you, Sydney?”
    “If I may,” he answered. “Your coffee’s too good to refuse.”
    She led the way, talking all the time to Ennison. “Do you know, I have been wondering what had become of you,” she said. “I had those beautiful roses from you on my first night, and a tiny little note but no address. I did not even know where to write and thank you.”
    “I have been abroad,” he said. “The life of a private secretary is positively one of slavery. I had to go at a moment’s notice.”
    “I am glad that you have a reasonable excuse for not having been to see me,” she said good-humouredly. “Please make yourselves comfortable while I see to the coffee.”
    Ennison leaned back in a low chair, and watched her graceful movements, the play of her white hands... A woman indeed this to love and be loved, beautiful, graceful, gay. A dreamy sense of content crept over him. The ambitions of his life, and they were many, seemed to lie far away, broken up dreams in some outside world where the way was rough and the sky always grey. A little table covered with a damask cloth was dragged out. There were cakes and sandwiches---for Ennison a sort of Elysian feast, long to be remembered. They talked lightly and smoked cigarettes till Anna, with a little laugh, threw open the window and let in the cool night air.
    Ennison stood by her side. They looked out over the city, grim and silent now, for it was long past midnight. For a moment her thoughts led her back to the evening when she and Courtlaw had stood together before the window of her studio in Paris, before the coming of Sir John had made so many changes in her life. She was silent, the ghost of a fading smile passed from her lips. She had made her way since then a little further into the heart of life. Yet even now there were so many things untouched, so much to be learned. To-night she had a curious feeling that she stood upon the threshold of some change. The great untrodden world was before her still, into which no one can pass alone. She felt a new warmth in her blood, a strange sense of elation crept over her. Sorrows and danger and disappointment she had known. Perhaps the day of her recompense was at hand...

The House Opposite - In 1926, J. Jefferson Farjeon wrote a play called No. 17, which was successful but subsequently surpassed in fame when it was filmed in 1932 by Alfred Hitchcock (as Number Seventeen). In the meantime, however, Farjeon had novelised his play under its original title, No. 17: a work which would eventually become the first in a series of novels featuring a most unlikely protagonist, Ben the Tramp; a footloose, grammatically-challenged former merchant seaman with a talent for stumbling into trouble. The second entry in the series, published after a five-year hiatus, was The House Opposite, a work divided into three parts. The first is told from the point of view of Ben who, having taken refuge in an empty London house, becomes aware that strange and confusing events are unfolding in the house immediately across the road. He sees a young woman leave the house opposite in distress; later, upstairs, he sees what appears to be one man shooting another---although the "victim" later springs to his feet; later still, something is delivered to the house that looks unnervingly like a coffin... Still more to Ben's dismay, events then begin to intrude upon his own refuge: a young man turns up on his doorstep claiming to be the owner of the house, prompting Ben to fib and claim in turn to be the caretaker---a lie he subsequently repeats to a sinister Indian, who warns him to get out of the house and stay away. His final visitor is a lovely young woman who, conversely, offers him a pound note to stay---but then succumbs to a different prompting and also urges him to leave... After all this coming and going - and a great deal more - the narrative switches to "the house opposite", and the story is re-told from the perspective of those involved in the criminal conspiracy unfolding within---including the response of the conspirators when they realise that their actions have been overlooked by someone hiding within the house opposite them... Given that The House Opposite was written outright as a novel, it bears rather too much resemblance to No. 17, which failed in its novel-form to disguise its stage origins, with much of its action happening "off-stage" and being reported to the reader rather than shown. The divided narrative of The House Opposite produces something of the same effect, causing confusion quite as much as it builds suspense; it also requires certain feats of memory on the party of the reader, in order to tie Ben's confused interpretation of what he witnesses only through glimpses with the events spelled out in the middle section of the book. The other potential stumbling-block here is the amount of time the reader is asked to spend inside Ben's consciousness, where his jumbled mental processes (and the jumbled grammar in which they are explicated) form another barrier to correct understanding of the action. Farjeon really overdoes this aspect of his novel, particularly Ben's ability to foresee a range of spectacular and/or gruesome deaths for himself every time he manages to overcome his innate cowardice. However---the fact remains that he does overcome it, chiefly due to the promptings of an obscure chivalrous impulse that devotes him to the cause of the lovely young woman---whether or not she is a part of the conspiracy. Between this and his sheer obstinacy, Ben ignores both direct warnings and other attempts to remove him from the scene, including attempted murder---finally positioning himself, more or less accidentally, as the Deus ex machina in the battle to thwart the criminal gang...

    "Look 'ere, miss," Ben said seriously, "orl this ain't got nothin' ter do with me and you, 'as it? I dunno where old Ranjysinjy's gorn, orl I know is I 'ope it's a long way, and the reason I sed 'e'd be a mug ter go in the 'ouse oppersit ain't much better'n this'un, ter my thinkin', not with people pertendin' ter be dead---lyin' dahn, I seen 'em, and coffins bein' derlivered there in carts like stop-me-and-buy-one. And now, fer Gawd's sake, let's be goin', 'cos lummy I've 'ad enuff of it, that's a fack."
    He stopped to breathe. It was rather a long speech. The girl looked at him intently. "I'm grateful to you for all your information," she said, "but if you want to go I'm still not keeping you."
    "Yus, you are," retorted Ben.
    "How?"
    "By not gettin' a move on. I ain't goin' afore you do."
    "Why not?"
    Ben's expression grew hurt. "Well, p'r'aps I ain't much ter look at," he murmured, "but Napoleon wasn't seven foot!"
    The remark, as well as the manner, made an impression. She regarded him more intently still. "I believe I've been underrating you all this while, Napoleon," she said, "and I believe you underrate yourself."
    "Oo?" he blinked. He wasn't quite sure of 'underrate', but he felt there was a compliment somewhere, and it confused him.
    "I don't believe you're half as scared as you say you are," she went on, simplifying it.
    Ben considered the point. He tried to agree, but couldn't. "There's times, miss," he responded, with an outburst of frankness, "when jellies ain't in it." He misread her smile, and tried to save himself a little. "Lorst me nerve, miss, in the war---thinkin' I was goin' to be called up."
    "Just the same, I'm going to stick to my opinion, Napoleon," she insisted, "and, what's more, I'm going to test it. You say you won't go if I stay. Will you stay if I go?"

Who? - Travelling by the Newhaven train upon his return to England from France, Cyril Crichton responds instinctively when a young woman implores his protection from the police who are searching the train. Unable to believe that she can truly have done anything to warrant arrest, when questioned he claims her as his estranged wife, Amy, who is also on his passport. It is only after the dangerous moment has passed that Cyril learns the police are hunting a murderer... His companion collapses under the strain of her position, forcing Cyril to go on with the masquerade. With no house in London, he places the young woman in a nursing home under another false name---only to find his situation becoming even more complicated when her furious doctor tells him that she has recently been flogged... Though he manages to convince the doctor of his innocence by imposing his real wife's strange situation on the imposter, Cyril's problems reach a climax when he learns that he has inherited the title and estates of his second cousin, Lord Wilmersley, who has been murdered---presumably by his much-younger wife, who is missing... Published a decade after her novel called "The House Opposite", Elizabeth Kent's Who? is a distinct improvement---even if the long arm of coincidence plays an even more significant role in this mystery, and even if its class snobbery finally overwhelms the more interesting aspects of its narrative. Nevertheless, that narrative offers an engaging if convoluted mystery---although that said, it must be confessed that a large part of the novel's entertainment value lies in the amusing misapprehensions of Kent, an American, about the workings of British society: not only does she offer us a very strange portrait indeed of "dissolute aristocracy", but she gives her own origins away altogether in her assumption that (in 1912) a British wife could divorce her husband as easily as a British husband his wife. Nevertheless, the disastrous marriage of Cyril Crichton is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this novel: he marries Amy purely out of a chivalrous impulse and, when she realises he does not return her passionate love, she embarks on a self-destructive course of alcoholism and infidelity---and yet is length revealed as, in effect, this novel's true heroine!---though of course, it's neither as simple nor as satisfactory as that. Nor do these revelations emerge until late in the narrative of Who?, which is instead focused upon the twin plots of the investigation into the murder of Lord Wilmersley, and Cyril's efforts to prove the identity of the young woman in the nursing-home who, in her dangerous delirium and subsequent loss of memory, cannot tell him. Is she in fact Priscilla Prentice, Lady Wilmersley's maidservant, who also went missing on the night of the murder? - or is she Lady Wilmersley herself? - and, if the latter, is she guilty of murder as the police believe? - and, if so, how far will Cyril go to protect her? And how, for that matter, is he to extricate himself from his own dilemma? - given that he has accidentally made himself look like a party to a murder in which he had a very strong motive indeed...

    Two hours later Cyril was speeding towards Newhaven. Huddled in a corner of the railway carriage, he gave himself up to the gloomiest reflections. Was ever any one pursued by such persistent ill-luck? It seemed too hard that just as he began to see an end to his matrimonial troubles, he should have tumbled headlong into this terrible predicament. From the moment he heard of Lady Wilmersley's disappearance he had never had the shadow of a doubt but that it was she he had rescued that morning from the police. What was he going to do, now that he knew her identity? He must decide on a course of action at once. Wash his hands of her? No-o. He felt he couldn't do that---at least, not yet. But unless he immediately and voluntarily confessed the truth, who would believe him if it ever came to light? If it were discovered that he, the heir, had helped his cousin's murderess to escape---had posed as her husband, would any one, would any jury believe that chance alone had thrown them together? He might prove an alibi, but that would only save his life---not his honour. He would always be suspected of having instigated, if not actually committed, the murder.
    If, however, by some miracle the truth did not leak out, what then? It would mean that from this day forward he would live in constant fear of detection. The very fact of her secret existence must necessarily poison his whole life. Lies, lies, lies would be his future portion. Was he willing to assume such a burden? Was it his duty to take upon himself the charge of a woman who was after all but a homicidal maniac? But was she a maniac? Again and again he went over each incident of their meeting, weighed her every word and action, and again he found it impossible to believe that her mind was unbalanced. Yet if she was not insane, what excuse could he find to explain her crime? Provocation? Yes, she had had that. She had been beaten, flogged. But even so, to kill! He had once been present when a murderer was sentenced: "To hang by the neck until you are dead," the words rang in his ears. That small white neck---no---never. Suddenly he realised that his path was irrevocably chosen. As long as she needed him, he would protect her to the uttermost of his ability. Even if his efforts proved futile, even if he ruined his life without saving hers, he felt he would never regret his decision...

Well! - up-to-date on the 9th of the next month after a big reading month! - I'm feeling rather smug just now...

(...except of course for those pesky blog-posts...)

Noting, however, the number of difficult-to-categorise works in my April reading: is Cone Of Silence a drama or a thriller? - is Anna The Adventuress a thriller or a romance? - is The Amazing Mr Bunn "crime" or "humour"? - is Murder In Amityville non-fiction or utter fiction??

April stats:

Works read: 18
TIOLI: 18, in 16 different challenges, with 2 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 12
Contemporary drama: 2
Historical drama: 1
Short stories: 1
Non-fiction: 1
Humour: 1

Re-reads: 1
Series works: 8
Blog reads: 0
1932: 1
1931: 3
Virago / Persephone: 1
Potential decommission: 1

Owned: 4
Library: 5
Ebooks: 9

Male authors : female authors : 12 : 6

Oldest work: The House Opposite by Elizabeth Kent (1902)
Newest work: Murder In Amityville by Hans Holzer (1979)

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

YTD stats:

Works read: 56
TIOLI: 56, in 47 different challenges, with 6 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 29
Contemporary drama: 8
Classics: 7
Historical drama: 4
Non-fiction: 3
Young adult: 2
Short stories: 1
Humour: 1
Horror: 1

Re-reads: 4
Series works: 24
Blog reads: 2
1932: 1
1931: 7
Virago / Persephone: 2
Potential decommission: 4

Owned: 11
Library: 21
Ebooks: 24

Male authors : female authors : 34 : 23

Oldest work: Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham (1800)
Newest work: Broadway Melody Of 1999 by Robert Steiner (1993)

I think I've earned The Full Sloth this time, don't you??

SLOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a pretty blond one. Inquiring minds want to know: How do they manage to always catch them looking directly into the camera?

I think it's that they're not going to move anyway, so you can take as long as you like to set up your angle. :)

>160 lyzard:, >161 lyzard: Thank you for the nudge to read The King's General last month which I really enjoyed although as you say, it is more of a tragedy. I also found it really interesting to think about how this book would have been written and received in the UK in 1946 just after the end of WWII. Although the two wars ended differently, I could imagine that the same sense of tiredness and exhaustion that Honor and others felt about the seemingly never-ending fighting and hardships of the 17th century may well have been shared by readers in 1946.

>163 lyzard: 'a little-known real-life detail that was instrumental in prompting the writing of the book in the first place, and which du Maurier makes the basis of the climax of her novel'

Yes, coming across the historical note at the end was a grim moment.

>168 lyzard: Oh dear....

>175 lyzard: I impressed myself by managing to finish The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side at 23:59 on 30th April for a shared read (more taking the opportunity of not being able to sleep to finish the book than staying up late to finish it).

>187 lyzard: Sloth!

>187 lyzard: Sloth!! That's quite a "young" reading month for you, oldest book 1902.

>190 souloftherose:

Hi, Heather!

Glad you got to it, glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the shared read! :)

I also found it really interesting to think about how this book would have been written and received in the UK in 1946 just after the end of WWII.

Yes, very true! As you say I think the sense of exhaustion and of counting the cost - perhaps even more so in 1946, when the feeling of 'victory' had worn off - would have been a striking point of contact.

That point makes it tricky to deal with, as you can't just start with "Based on---".

Oh dear....

Lots of 'oh dears' on this thread! :D

Gay Agony is even available online, so I have no excuse...

I impressed myself by managing to finish The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side at 23:59 on 30th April

Oh my goodness!!!!!! I've come in under the wire a few times but never by that slender a margin! I hope you feel the shared read is sufficient recompense?? (And sorry for the sleep issues, I know how that feels.)

>191 Helenliz:

Heh! - true. :)

I'm working on that this month, 1796 done and (hopefully) heading backwards...

Hi Liz! Just catching up here, and loving all the sloths! I've been looking ahead to next month's reading this evening, instead of reading this month's books, naturally. Wilkie Collins is coming up in Paul's British Isles challenge next month. I'm planning to read Man and Wife and thought I'd mention it here in case you have time to join me. I know there's a group read in the plans for next month so that will have priority. I'm hoping to fit that one in, too!

Hi, Carrie!

Ooh! - I'm so loaded up with self-challenges that I haven't been paying proper attention to the group projects, but Wilkie Collins sounds tempting. I couldn't commit to it just now but I will certainly keep it in mind and let you know if I can slot it in. Thank you for the heads-up!

Also, great to hear you should be joining us for Emmeline. :)

Finished Home Port for TIOLI #11.

Now reading The Clocks by Agatha Christie.

Finished The Clocks for TIOLI #4.

Now reading The Complete Guide To Mysterious Beings by John A. Keel.

>182 lyzard: Fun! I also finished Wilhelm Meisters leerjaren on the 8th.

If you haven't seen this, Liz, you need to drop everything and watch it (spoiler: SLOTH!!!!!).

https://twitter.com/Dutchwouter777/status/1127989740777635842

Home Port - The fourth book in Olive Higgins Prouty's series about the prominent Vale family of Boston is focused upon Murray Vale, the second son of the late Rupert Vale and the now Lisa Firth. Murray has lived his entire life in the shadow of his brother: handsome, popular, a star athlete, "Windy", as he is known, is barely thrown off his stride when polio ends his sporting career, but finds new ways to pursue his goals---and remains everyone's hero. Murray, meanwhile, has been discouraged from pursuing his interest in science and the natural world as both inappropriate for someone of his social position and insufficiently "manly"; and he is gloomily contemplating law-school when his life is turned upside-down. Most of his life, Murray has found refuge at a boys' summer camp, where he has risen from camper to counsellor to guide. One day, Murray is asked to allow a new counsellor to accompany him while searching for a new camp-site: Briggs is something of an outsider, who struggles because of a heart condition. While returning by canoe, the two are caught in a devastating storm. Murray does his best to save Briggs, but the young man slips away from him; and it is all Murray can do to crawl ashore. For three days, he is then lost in the woods, finally staggering to the cottage of a game warden. Exhausted and unfit for questioning, Murray impulsively gives a false name---only then to learn that Briggs' body has been found, and that he is also presumed dead, on the assumption he would never have saved himself and let his companion drown... At its centre, Home Port is a sympathetic portrait of an introvert, a young man out of step with his family and the values his society, who is made to feel ashamed of being different. Modern readers may be inclined to blame the Vales more than Prouty does - particularly his mother Lisa, who gets off much too lightly in my opinion - for effectively taking a bright and talented boy and turning him into a self-loathing loner with (as another character puts it) "a terrific inferiority complex". Likewise, the "code" to which Murray tries his best to live up to is draconian in its demands---in this case, damning Murray as a coward for not giving his life in a self-evidently futile fight to save his companion. (Futile in any case: as the reader knows, though Murray does not, Briggs dies of heart failure, not drowning; there was nothing Murray could have done.) The bulk of Home Port's narrative, however, deals with Murray's attempt to reinvent himself after, more or less accidentally, faking his own death. Finding himself hailed in the papers as a hero - because he is dead - Murray cannot go home. Instead, he finds a position as a guide and handyman at a fishing camp in the woods, under the assumed identity of Eliot "Joe" Jones. ("Eliot", because his Boston accent gives away his background; "Joe", because his employer finds Eliot too snooty.) There, Murray works through his problems via solitude, hard-work---and hard-earned self-respect. To one person only does he confide the truth about himself: Nora Brock, the tomboyish daughter of one of the camp's frequent visitors, in whose love and companionship Murray finds new purpose. However, his self-doubt remains---and, deciding that he must confront his demons once and for all, when America institutes the draft in the early days of WWI, Murray - or rather, "Joe Jones" - enlists...

    Joe gave a short laugh. "That's funny! My mother used to say I was like Thoreau, to console me when I was a kid because I wasn't much of an athlete. But that's no theory to explain why I'm here now."
    "Yes, it is! Thoreau wanted to be free and independent and live the way he wanted to live and judging from the things you marked in that book I bet a dollar that's the chief reason you're here. In a nutshell, my theory that you are up here just to get away from conventions and life in general and be yourself."
    "I'm sorry. You're wrong, entirely wrong. I didn't have Thoreau's courage or self-confidence, or guts either, I guess, to break away and live independently. I had to wait till something happened that forced me to it."
    "Well, anyway, you love the woods and this kind of life, and whatever happened that made you decide to come here I don't believe it was anything very horrible or tragic."
    "But it was! It was! And I didn't decide to come to the woods. I just happened to land here. I was running away. Any safe hiding place---a lumber camp, a coal-mine, or the hold of a ship would have served my purpose. Things happened. I was in a terrible situation. And I still am! God, I wish I could tell you about it!" He got up and took a turn up and down the room and came to a halt in front of her. "No, I can't. I can't. I mustn't! It's impossible! It involves others---everyone who ever knew me. If my mother should find out I'm alive and living here, it would absolutely ruin her memory of me, and her opinion, too. I can't let her down like that! It would be unfair to her, and to everybody who ever had a good opinion of me, to tell anyone in the world who I really am..."

Finished The Complete Guide To Mysterious Beings for TIOLI #3.

Now reading The Miracle Of The Bells by Russell Janney.

>198 FAMeulstee:

Well done, Anita!

I'm still deciding how to write about it, it's a difficult book to summarise.

>199 rosalita:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

>202 lyzard: :-D

>203 rosalita:

The bit that killed me in that clip is when the sloth blinks: they really do blink like that! :D

And then it waved goodbye! So adorable. Everything seemed in slow motion, which I guess is appropriate for an animal named 'sloth'. :-)

Well.

I haven't managed to get any book writing done so far this month...but I have done some film writing.

(Funny how clearing the decks for one job immediately makes you want to do something else...)

I've taken a look at a pair of oddly contrasting disaster movies from 1960:

- The Last Voyage, which deals with an escalating disaster upon an ocean liner at sea, and keeps its disaster rolling from start to finish;

- The Crowded Sky, about the potential collision of two planes, which in contrast takes its own sweet time getting to the point.

Both great fun if you like this sort of thing, not least for their ensemble casts:

  

Finished The Miracle Of The Bells for TIOLI #3.





Now reading - appropriately enough - This'll Kill Ya: And Other Dangerous Stories by Harry Wilson.

It it appropriate or inappropriate that I moaned, "Oh, God!" when I saw the next book in the best-seller challenge...?

>208 lyzard: Well, you've certainly piqued my interest!

>209 rosalita:

It's up above, if you really can't wait until next month... :)

Finished This'll Kill Ya: And Other Dangerous Stories for TIOLI #1.

Now reading The Jacob Street Mystery by R. Austin Freeman.

Upcoming group read:

Just a reminder that there will be a group read of Charlotte Turner Smith's Emmeline, The Orphan Of The Castle next month.

It will be conducted through the Virago group; everyone welcome!

Finished The Jacob Street Mystery for TIOLI #15...which means that I have FINISHED A SERIES!!

In fact---I've done rather more: this series featuring the medical detective and barrister, Dr John Thorndyke, is by far the longest-running series I have so far completed, comprising 26 books published between 1907 and 1942, and therefore unintentionally recording England from the era of gaslight and hansom cabs to---well, I can't really say "WWII", as at some point R. Austin Freeman stopped advancing his dates: The Jacob Street Mystery, for example, though published in 1942, is explicitly set from 1930 - 1932. I think Freeman didn't like the way the world was going.

The series is also fascinating for recording advancements in police procedure and scientific detection.

I may say that there is no sense within The Jacob Street Mystery that Freeman intended to stop writing the series: the author died in 1943. It is unfortunate that this last book isn't one of his stronger ones; however, it is entirely appropriate that the last two words that Freeman ever wrote for this series were "John Thorndyke".

Looking back, I am rather horrified to discover that I started reading this series in 2011.

At this moment I feel like I need to take on another long-running series to replace this one. I already have a couple running, such as the Fleming Stone novels of Carolyn Wells, and the Dr Priestley books of John Rhode. Neither of these really fit the bill: the former is stalled because I can't bring myself to skip an entry only available in rare and expensive copies; the latter requires a lot of ILLs and in-library reading.

However there is no shortage of candidates; and at the moment I'm inclined to take a more regular run at the police-procedural series of Freeman Wills Crofts, featuring Inspector French.

That should keep me occupied: it runs for 30 books, and I am currently at #4.

Now---I believe I promised marmosets for the completion of a series. Under the circumstances, I don't think one marmoset is really enough, so please enjoy this image of a mother common marmoset with her baby twins:

...and what am I reading now? I don't know. I'm feeling very disorganised at the moment.

This month has not panned out at all as planned, except for a reduction in reading---which isn't really the part I wanted to pan out. Instead of focusing on my book-blog, I've been lured away into film watching and reviewing for a couple of ongoing projects. This is likely to remain the case for the next couple of weeks. If I can wrap up what I'm mentally committed to, I'll be able to switch back to my book projects and - hopefully - actually get something finished.

Sigh.

At the moment I don't even have a copy of Emmeline, The Orphan Of The Castle to hand for the group read: I have a book on storage request from the same library and want to pick the two up in one trip, but I'm getting a bit antsy about it as the month slips away.

For an immediate read, nothing is pressing itself upon me so I think I'll wander over to TIOLI and let the remaining challenges "speak to me"---and see if that can cure my current empty and slightly panicky feeling...

I should mention, though, that I did finally find some time to run in to the State Library and have another session with The American Caravan, for the Banned In Boston challenge.

This session ended up including quite a lot of poetry.

I completed:

Galahad by Edmund Wilson: a short story about an upright young man who devotes himself to clean living and morality...until the sexually experienced sister of a friend puts other ideas in his head. (Banned in Boston? - a constant consciousness of sex and a facetious attitude about it.)

Penance by Virginia Moore: a poem about an illicit relationship. (Banned in Boston? - probably too obscure to bother.)

The Posthumous Poems Of Emanuel Morgan by "W-tt-r B-nn-r": the back-story here is long and complicated: Witter Bynner was one half of an elaborate literary hoax,a satire of the "Imagism" poetry movement, which he perpetrated under the name "Emanuel Morgan"; his partner-in-crime, Arthur Davison Ficke, wrote as "Anne Knish". These fragments are supposed to be the final works of Morgan, who committed suicide after learning of the death of Knish.

The Auction by Jay G. Sigmund: a poem about the drift of young people from the farms to the cities and the loss of a way of life.

Variation On A Theme Of Catullus by Louis Gilmore: a poem about love and chocolate.

The Year At Boiling Spring by Edna Bryner: a short story about a young teacher's experiences in a remote country community.

The Contract by Kate M. Tucker: a poem about two wary people.

Ballad Of A Strange Thing by H. Phelps Putnam: a poem that reworks the story of Pan and Syrinx. (Banned in Boston? - some sexual allusions.)

Three Fennelville Stories by William Shepard: three short stories set around a fictional farming community.

...and just because I haven't managed to get any book-blogging done, naturally I'm now going to complicate things for myself with a blog-read:

Now reading The Sicilian by "Gabrielli" (Elizabeth Meeke).

My completion of R. Austin Freeman's Dr John Thorndyke series reminds me that I had intended (and we all know about intentions, right?) to put together a list of series nearing completion, and make a concerted effort to cross a few more of The List.

The following are only a single book off completion:

William McFee - Spenlove - The Adopted
Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale novels - Fabia
Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - Keeper Of The Keys
Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murdered But Not Dead
Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - Gray Magic

The Adopted is currently on interlibrary loan request. I have also discovered and ordered a (relatively) inexpensive copy of Gray Magic, which I had previously set aside as too costly---whoo!

>213 lyzard: Aw, baby marmosets and mama! Very cute. And more importantly, congratulations on finishing a good long series! And you are so close on those other series, too. Whatever will you do when you've finished up all your series reads?!

Thank you!

Uhh...that's not actually something I'm worrying about too much just now... :D

:-D

>213 lyzard: excellent! A whole series finished and a plan hatched.

I do love a good plan! :D

>214 lyzard: Do you have Emmeline yet? I got mine from the library today!

Hi! - that's great to hear, I'm glad you'll be joining us. :)

I still don't have mine, but my storage request has just come through, and I will be running into my academic library tomorrow, to pick up both The Big Fisherman and Emmeline.

I will be setting up the group read thread over the weekend, and I will post around then to let everyone know when we're ready to make a start. See you there!

May went a bit-pear-shaped, so I thought a fresh thread might be the way to go.

Please join me there!