lyzard's list: Borrowing surcease of sorrow from books in 2022 - Part 5

The green tree python is native to Indonesia, New Guinea and the Cape York Peninsula in far north Queensland. Growing up to 2 metres long, with the females bigger than the males, it is an almost entirely arboreal species, with the snake anchoring itself to branches with its prehensile tail and striking out at small prey animals. Green tree pythons are oviparous, laying clutches of up to 25 eggs at a time; in captivity, females have been observed to incubate and protect their eggs. Juvenile green tree pythons are usually a bright yellow, changing colour at about a year old.

Because of their spectacular colouration, and instances of extreme variant colouring including red and blue, the snake is popular with collectors in spite of its irritable temper, and consequently the species is threatened by the pet trade and reptile smugglers, particularly the Indonesian population.

On the left is the typical resting coiled pose of the green tree python, by which posture the snake gathers rainfall and dew in its coils for water; on the right is a rare shot of the species on the ground (and not looking happy at being caught out):


  

As was the case last time, my thread-title is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven (the full text of which may be found here).

I was really hoping that by the time 2022 rolled around, this wouldn't be an appropriate quote...but here we are:

    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
    Eagerly I wished the morrow;---vainly I had sought to borrow
    From my books surcease of sorrow---sorrow for the lost Lenore---
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore---
        Nameless here for evermore...

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

Currently reading:



The Life And Adventures Of Valentine Vox, The Ventriloquist by Henry Cockton (1840)

2022 reading

January:

1. Tom Cringle's Log by Michael Scott (1833)
2. The Heroine; or, Adventures Of A Fair Romance Reader by Eaton Stannard Barrett (1813)
3. And Now Tomorrow by Rachel Field (1942)
4. The Island Of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (1941)
5. The Mystery Of The Fiery Eye by Robert Arthur (1967)
6. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (1970)
7. Royal Escape by Georgette Heyer (1938)
8. The Gutenberg Murders by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning (1931)
9. The Box Office Murders by Freeman Wills Crofts (1929)
10. Wheels Within Wheels by Carolyn Wells (1923)
11. The Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage by Enid Blyton (1943)
12. Elsie At The World's Fair by Martha Finley (1894)
13. The Marquis Of Carabas by Elizabeth Brodnax (1991)
14. Hotel Bosphorus by Esmahan Aykol (2001)
15. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1965)
16. The Looking-Glass War by John le Carré (1965)

February:

17. The Song Of The Lark by Willa Cather (1915)
18. Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb (1816)
19. Mr Midshipman Easy by Frederick Marrat (1836)
20. Elsie's Journey On Inland Waters by Martha Finley (1895)
21. The Teeth Of The Tiger by Maurice Leblanc (1914)
22. Castle Skull by John Dickson Carr (1931)
23. Dancing Death by Christopher Bush (1931)
24. The Girl In The Cellar by Patricia Wentworth (1961)
25. Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout (1934)
26. Dangerous Cargo by Hulbert Footner (1934)

March:

27. The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant (1864)
28. The Tunnel Mystery by J. C. Lenehan (1929)
29. Elsie At Home by Martha Finley (1897)
30. My Lord John by Georgette Heyer (1974)
31. Centennial by James A. Michener (1974)
32. The Mystery Of The Silver Spider by Robert Arthur (1967)
33. Rally Round The Flag, Boys! by Max Shulman (1957)
34. A Man Could Stand Up by Ford Madox Ford (1926)
35. The Casino Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine (1934)
36. Sir John Magill's Last Journey by Freeman Wills Crofts (1930)
37. Rory O'More by Samuel Lover (1837)
38. The Puzzle Of The Pepper Tree by Stuart Palmer (1933)

2022 reading:

April:

39. From Man To Man; or, Perhaps Only... by Olive Schreiner (1926)
40. The Red-Haired Girl by Carolyn Wells (1926)
41. Ragtime by E, L. Doctorow (1974)
42. Harrington by Maria Edgeworth (1817)
43. Elsie On the Hudson And Elsewhere by Martha Finley (1898)
44. The Crooked Furrow by Jeffery Farnol (1937)
45. Nemesis At Raynham Parva by J. J. Connington (1929)
46. The Lost Gallows by John Dickson Carr (1931)
47. The Grey Rat by Ottwell Binns (1931)
48. Poison by Lee Thayer (1926)
49. Mr Fortune Objects by H. C. Bailey (1935)
50. Murder Makes Murder by Harriette Ashbrook (1937)
51. Ben Sees It Through by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1934)
52. A Murder Of Quality by John le Carré (1962)
53. When The Bough Breaks by Lewis Padgett (1944)

May:

54. Jack Brag by Theodore Hook (1837)
55. The Mystery Of The Glass Bullet by Bertram Atkey (1931)
56. Dead Man's Music by Christopher Bush (1931)
57. Snowbird by Ottwell Binns (1931)
58. Trinity by Leon Uris (1976)
59. Elsie In The South by Martha Finley (1899)
60. Synnøve Solbakken by Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1857)
61. The Idea Of The Gentleman In The Victorian Novel by Robin Gilmour (1981)
62. The Mystery Of Villa Sineste by Walter Livingston (1931)
63. Murder In The Fisher Library by Stephen Knight (1980)
64. Burglars In Bucks by George and Margaret Cole (1930)
65. The Trailing Of The Picaroon by Herman Landon (1930)
66. The League Of Frightened Men by Rex Stout (1935)
67. The Video Nasties: Freedom And Censorship In The Media by Martin Barker (ed.) (1984)
68. The Mystery Of The Screaming Clock by Robert Arthur (1968)

June:

69. Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope (1865)
70. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818)
71. Maid In Waiting by John Galsworthy (1931)
72. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkein (1977)
73. Elsie's Young Folks In Peace And War by Martha Finley (1900)
74. The Crime Conductor by Philip MacDonald (1931)
75. Blanche Among The Talented Tenth by Barbara Neely (1994)
76. The Mystery Of The Twin Rubies by Armstrong Livingston (1922)
77. Baksheesh by Esmahan Aykol (2003)
78. Last Post by Ford Madox Ford (1928)

2022 reading:

July:

79. Mosquitoes by William Faulkner (1927)
80. Chesapeake by James A. Michener (1978)
81. Fardorougha The Miser; or, The Convicts Of Lisnamona by William Carleton (1839)
82. Elsie's Winter Trip by Martha Finley (1902)
83. Mystery In The Channel by Freeman Wills Crofts (1931)
84. The Rubber Band by Rex Stout (1936)
85. For Love Of Imabelle by Chester B. Himes (1957)
86. Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol (2007)
87. The Man Who Went Up In Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (1966)
88. The Mystery Of The Moaning Cave by William Arden (1968)

August:

89. The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum (1979)
90. Clue For Mr Fortune by H. C. Bailey (1936)
91. The Case Against Andrew Fane by Anthony Gilbert (1931)
92. Inspector Frost And Lady Brassingham by H. Maynard Smith (1930)
93. Little God Ben by J. Jefferson Farjeon (1935)
94. Death Of Mr Gantley by Miles Burton (1932)
95. Who Spoke Last? by John Victor Turner (1932)
96. The Man Who Killed Fortescue by John Stephen Strange (1928)
97. The Double-Thirteen Mystery by Anthony Wynne (1926)
98. Elsie And Her Loved Ones by Martha Finley (1903)
99. Wolf In Man's Clothing by Mignon G. Eberhart (1942)
100. The Vampyre by John William Polidori (1819)
101. Incognita; or, Love And Duty Reconcil'd by William Congreve (1692)

September:

102. The Covenant by James A. Michener (1980)
103. Elsie And Her Namesakes by Martha Finley (1905)
104. The Corpse In The Waxworks by John Dickson Carr (1932)
105. The Misty Harbour by Georges Simenon (1932)
106. Blanche Cleans Up by Barbara Neely (1998)
107. The Forsaken Inn by Anna Katharine Green (1890)
108. The Red Box by Rex Stout (1937)
109. The Mystery Of The Talking Skull by Robert Arthur (1969)

October:

110. Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (1866)
111. Noble House by James Clavell (1981)
112. Murder By Nail by Jeffery Farnol (1942)
113. The Crazy Kill by Chester B. Himes (1959)
114. The Hand In The Glove by Rex Stout (1937)
115. The After House by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1914)
116. The Golden Triangle by Maurice Leblanc (1917)
117. Shadow Of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (1948)
118. Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter (1830)
119. Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely (2000)
120. Paint It Black by Nancy A. Collins (1995)
121. Histoire de Babar, le Petit Éléphant by Jean de Brunhoff (1931)

November:

122. With Fire And Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1884)

Books in transit:

To borrow:
The Recess by Sophia Lee {Fisher Library}
Gains And Losses by Robert Lee Wolff {Fisher storage}

On interlibrary loan / branch transfer / storage / stack / Rare Book request:
Shot In The Dark by Gerard Fairlie {JFR}

Possible requests:
Sudden Death by Freeman Wills Crofts {ILL}

On loan:
Flowering Wilderness by John Galsworthy (17/11/2022)
*The Covenant by James A. Michener (17/11/2022)
*The Harlem Cycle Vol. 1 by Chester Himes (23/11/2022)
Corrupt Relations by Richard Barickman (07/12/2022)
Four False Weapons by John Dickson Carr (21/11/2022)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré (21/11/2022)
The Man On The Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (21/11/2022)
*Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely (21/11/2022)
The Life And Adventures Of Valentine Vox, Ventriloquist by Henry Cockton (19/12/2022)
*Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (19/12/2022)
*Noble House by James Clavell (19/12/2022)
*With Fire And Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (31/12/2022)
Don't Stop The Carnival by Herman Wouk (31/12/2022)

NB: Library card renewals!

Purchased and shipped:

Ongoing reading projects:

Blog reads:
Chronobibliography: The Penitent Hermit by "A Lady" / The Post-Boy Rob'd Of His Mail by Charles Gildon
Authors In Depth:
- Adelaide; or, The Countercharm by Catherine Cuthbertson
- Shannondale (aka "The Three Beauties; or, Shannondale: A Novel") by E.D.E.N. Southworth
- Lady Audley's Secret / The White Phantom by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Anecdotes Of The Altamont Family by "Gabrielli"
- The Cottage by Margaret Minifie
- The Old Engagement by Julia Day
- The Abbess by Frances Trollope
Reading Roulette: Pique by Frances Notley / Our Mr Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis
Australian fiction: Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter
Gothic novel timeline: Anecdotes Of A Convent by Anonymous
Early crime fiction: The Mysteries Of London by G. W. M. Reynolds
Silver-fork novels: Sayings And Doings; or, Sketches From Life (First Series) by Theodore Hook
Related reading: Gains And Losses by Robert Lee Wollf / The Man Of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie / Le Loup Blanc by Paul Féval / Theresa Marchmont; or, The Maid Of Honour by Catherine Gore

Group reads:

COMPLETED: The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant {thread here}
COMPLETED: Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope (thread here)
COMPLETED: Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant (thread here

Next up: The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope

Virago chronological reading project:
Next up: Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon / Phoebe Junior by Margaret Oliphant

General reading challenges:

America's best-selling novels (1895 - ????):
Next up: E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial by William Kotzwinkle (1982)

Nobel Prize / fiction challenge:
Next up: Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1907)

The C.K. Shorter List of the Best 100 Novels:
Next up: The Life And Adventures Of Valentine Vox, The Ventriloquist by Henry Cockton

A Century Of Reading:
Next up: 1825 - Tremaine; or, The Man Of Refinement by Robert Plumer Ward

Mystery League publications:
Next up: The Hunterstone Outrage by Seldon Truss

Banned In Boston!: (here)
Next up: Pilgrims by Edith Mannin

Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe series (shared reads):
Next up: Too Many Cooks

"The Three Investigators" (shared reads):
Next up: The Mystery Of The Laughing Shadow by William Arden

The evolution of detective fiction:
Next up: Clement Lorimer by Angus B. Reach

Random reading 1940 - 1969:
Next up: Don't Stop The Carnival by Herman Wouk

Potential decommission / re-shelving:
Next up: ????

Completed challenges:
- Georgette Heyer historical romances in chronological order
- Agatha Christie mysteries in chronological order
- Agatha Christie uncollected short stories
- Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver series
- Georgette Heyer historical fiction

Possible future reading projects:
- 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'
- Newark Library list (here)
- "The Story Of Classic Crime In 100 Books" (here)
- Dean's Classics series
- "Fifty Best Australian Novels" (here)
- "The Top 100 Crime Novels Of All Time" (here)
- Haycraft Queen Cornerstones (here)

TBR notes:

Rare Books:
Secret Judges by Francis D. Grierson (Sims and Wells #2)
Dead Men At The Folly by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #13)
The Rum Row Murders by Charles Reed Jones
The Torch Murder by Charles Reed Jones (Leighton Swift #2)
The Crooked Lip by Herbert Adams (Jimmie Haswell #2)
Death By Appointment by Francis Bonnamy (Peter Utley Shane #1)
The Inconsistent Villains by N. A. Temple-Ellis {Montrose Arbuthnot #1)
The Unexpected Legacy by E. r. Punshon (Carter and Bell #1)
Rope To Spare by Philip MacDonald (Anthony Gethryn #9)

State Library NSW, held:
The White-Faced Man (aka "The Praying Monkey") by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #2)
Pitiful Dust by Vernon Knowles
The Brink (aka "The Swaying Rock") by Arthur J. Rees
The Black Joss by John Gordon Brandon
This Way To Happiness (aka "Janice") by Maysie Greig
The Top Step by Nelle Scanlan

Interlibrary loan:
McLean Investigates by George Goodchild {JFR}
The Solange Stories by F. Tennyson Jesse {JFR}
Captain Nemesis by F. Van Wyck Mason {JFR}
The Vagrant Heart by Deirdre O'Brien {JFR}
Jinks by Oliver Sandys {JFR}
Storms And Tea-Cups by Cecily Wilhelmine Sidgwick (Mrs Alfred Sidgwick) {JFR}
Pawns & Kings (aka "Pawns And Kings") by Seamark (Austin J. Small) {JFR}
The Agent Outside by Patrick Wynnton {JFR}

Online:
The Wedding March Murder by Monte Barrett (Peter Cardigan #2) {newspapers.com}
Gay Go Up by Anne Hepple {online; possible abridged? / Mitchell Library}
The Whisperer by J. M. Walsh {online; possibly abridged? / Mitchell Lbrary}
About The Murder Of A Night Club Lady by Anthony Abbot {serialised}

CARM / National Library / academic loan:
The Black Death by Moray Dalton {CARM}
The Click Of The Gate by Alice Campbell {CARM}
Storm by Charles Rodda {National Library}
The Trail Of The Lotto by Anthony Armstrong {CARM}

Series back-reading:
All At Sea by Carolyn Wells {Rare Books}
The Creeping Jenny Mystery by Brian Flynn {Kindle / ZLibrary}
The Net Around Joan Ingilby by A. Fielding {Rare Books}
Corpse In Canonicals (aka "The Corpse In The Constable's Garden") by George and Margaret Cole {Rare Books}
Alias Dr Ely by Lee Thayer {Rare Books}
Murder On The Bus by Cecil Freeman Gregg {Rare Books / Kindle}
The Case Of The Marsden Rubies by Leonard Gribble {Rare Books}
The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen {Rare Books / ILL / Internet Archive / ZLibrary}
A Family That Was by Ernest Raymond {State Library NSW, JFR}
The Cancelled Score Mystery by Gret Lane {Kindle}
Inspector Frost And The Waverdale Fire by H. Maynard Smith {Kindle}
Jalna by Mazo de la Roche {State Library NSW, JFR / ILL}

Completist reading:
Thieves' Nights by Harry Stephen Keeler (#5) {Rare Books}
The Old Stone House And Other Stories by Anna Katharine Green (#11) {Project Gutenberg}
Dangerous Days by Mary Roberts Rinehart (#0) {Project Gutenberg}
The White Cockatoo by Mignon Eberhart {Rare Books}

A Century (And A Bit) Of Reading:

At least one book a year from 1800 - 1900!

1800: Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham
1801: Belinda by Maria Edgeworth
1802: The Infidel Father by Jane West
1803: Thaddeus Of Warsaw by Jane Porter
1804: The Lake Of Killarney by Anna Maria Porter
1805: The Impenetrable Secret, Find It Out! by Francis Lathom
1806: The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson
1807: Corinne; ou, l'Italie by Madame de Staël
1808: The Marquise Of O. by Heinrich Von Kleist
1809: The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
1810: Forest Of Montalbano by Catherine Cuthbertson / Zastrozzi by Percy Bysshe Shelley / St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1811: Self-Control by Mary Brunton
1812: The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
1813: The Heroine; or, Adventures Of A Fair Romance Reader by Eaton Stannard Barrett
1814: The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties by Frances Burney
1815: Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
1816: Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb
1817: Harrington by Maria Edgeworth
1818: Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
1819: The Vampyre by John William Polidori
1820: The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving
1821: The Ayrshire Legatees; or, The Pringle Family by John Galt / Valerius: A Roman Story by J. G. Lockhart / Kenilworth by Walter Scott
1822: Bracebridge Hall; or, The Humorists by Washington Irving
1823: The Two Broken Hearts by Catherine Gore
1824: The Adventures Of Hajji Baba Of Ispahan by James Justinian Morier
1826: Lichtenstein by Wilhelm Hauff / The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
1827: The Epicurean by Thomas Moore / The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
1828: The Life Of Mansie Wauch, Tailor In Dalkeith by David Moir
1829: Wilhelm Meister's Travels by Johann Goethe / The Collegians by Gerald Griffin / Louisa Egerton; or, Castle Herbert by Mary Leman Grimstone / Richelieu: A Tale Of France by G. P. R. James
1830: Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter
1832: The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope
1833: Tom Cringle's Log by Michael Scott
1836: Mr Midshipman Easy by Frederick Marrat / The Tree And Its Fruits; or, Narratives From Real Life by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown
1837: Rory O'More by Samuel Lover / Jack Brag by Theodore Hook
1839: Fardorougha The Miser; or, The Convicts Of Lisnamona by William Carleton
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 / The Mysteries Of London: Volume III by G. W. M. Reynolds
1848: The Kellys And The O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope / The Mysteries Of London: Volume IV by G. W. M. Reynolds
1850: Pique by Frances Notley
1851: The Mother-In-Law; or, The Isle Of Rays by E.D.E.N. Southworth
1856: Recollections Of A Detective Police-Officer by "Waters"
1857: The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope / Synnøve Solbakken by Bjornstjerne Bjornson
1859: The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden / The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope
1860: The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden / Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope
1861: The Executor by Margaret Oliphant / The Rector by Margaret Oliphant
1862: Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope / The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson by Anthony Trollope
1863: The Doctor's Family by Margaret Oliphant / Marian Grey; or, The Heiress Of Redstone Hall by Mary Jane Holmes / Salem Chapel by Margaret Oliphant
1865: Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope
1869: He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
1873: Had You Been In His Place by Lizzie Bates
1874: Chaste As Ice, Pure As Snow by Charlotte Despard
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 / The Autobiography Of Mark Rutherford by William Hale White
1882: Grandmother Elsie by Martha Finley
1883: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson / Elsie's New Relations by Martha Finley / X Y Z: A Detective Story by Anna Katharine Green
1884: Elsie At Nantucket by Martha Finley
1885: The Two Elsies by Martha Finley / Two Broken Hearts by Robert R. Hoes
1886: The Mill Mystery by Anna Katharine Green / Elsie's Kith And Kin by Martha Finley
1887: Elsie's Friends At Woodburn by Martha Finley
1888: Christmas With Grandma Elsie by Martha Finley
1889: Under False Pretences by Adeline Sergeant / Elsie And The Raymonds by Martha Finley
1890: Elsie Yachting With The Raymonds by Martha Finley
1891: Elsie's Vacation And After Events by Martha Finley
1892: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman / Elsie At Viamede by Martha Finley / Blood Royal by Grant Allen
1893: Elsie At Ion by Martha Finley
1894: Martin Hewitt, Investigator by Arthur Morrison / The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen / Elsie At The World's Fair by Martha Finley
1895: Chronicles Of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison / Elsie's Journey On Inland Waters by Martha Finley
1896: The Island Of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells / Adventures Of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison
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 / Elsie On The Hudson And Elsewhere by Martha Finley
1899: Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green / Dr Nikola's Experiment by Guy Newell Boothby / Elsie In The South by Martha Finley
1900: The Circular Study by Anna Katharine Green / Elsie's Young Folks In Peace And War by Martha Finley

Timeline of detective fiction:

An examination of the roots of modern crime and mystery 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 by Paul Feval (1844)
The Mysteries Of London by George Reynolds (1844 - 1848)
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume I
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume II
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume III
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume IV
The Mysteries Of The Court Of London by 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 (1862-1863)
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)
Hagar's Daughter by Pauline Hopkins (1902)
Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy (1910)
Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective by Arthur B. Reeve (1913)
Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective by Hugh C. Weir (1914)

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)
Clara Vaughan by R. D. Blackmore (1864)

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}
(1878 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Ebenezer Gryce - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (13/13)
(1896 - 1909) **Melville Davisson Post - Randolph Mason - The Corrector Of Destinies (3/3)
(1894 - 1903) **Arthur Morrison - Martin Hewitt - The Red Triangle (4/4)
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - Farewell, Nikola (5/5)
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - The Circular Study (3/3)
(1899 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Caleb Sweetwater - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (7/7)
(1899 - 1909) **E. W. Hornung - Raffles - Mr Justice Raffles (4/4)
(1900 - 1974) Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - Kai Lung: Six / Kai Lung Raises His Voice (7/7)
(1903 - 1904) **Louis Tracy - Reginald Brett - The Albert Gate Mystery (2/2)
(1905 - 1925) **Baroness Orczy - The Old Man In The Corner - Unravelled Knots (3/3)}
(1905 - 1928) **Edgar Wallace - The Just Men - Again The Three Just Men (6/6)
(1907 - 1942) R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - The Jacob Street Mystery (26/26)
(1907 - 1941) *Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin - The Secret Of Sarek (aka "The Island Of Thirty Coffins") (9/25) {Project Gutenberg}
(1909 - 1942) *Carolyn Wells - Fleming Stone - All At Sea (22/49) {Rare Books / serialised}
(1909 - 1929) *J. S. Fletcher - Inspector Skarratt - Marchester Royal (1/3) {Kindle}
(1910 - 1936) *Arthur B. Reeve - Craig Kennedy - The Film Mystery (14/24) {Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - The House In Lordship Lane (7/7)
(1910 - 1917) Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/3)
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Twister (4/6) {Roy Glashan's Library}
^^^^^(1910 - 1932) *Thomas, Mary and Hazel Hanshew - Cleek - The Amber Junk (aka Riddle Of The Amber Ship (9/12) {rare, expensive}
(1910 - 1918) **John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Criminologist (4/4)
^^^(1910 - 1928) **Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - The Black Cat (8/9) {Rare Books}

(1911 - 1935) G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown - The Scandal Of Father Brown (5/5)
^^^(1911 - 1940) Bertram Atkey - Smiler Bunn - Arsenic And Gold (10/11) {Rare Books}
(1912 - 1919) **Gordon Holmes (Louis Tracy) - Steingall and Clancy - The Bartlett Mystery (3/3)
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu Manchu - Re-Enter Fu Manchu (12/14) {Rare Books / Internet Archive / ZLibrary}
(1913 - 1952) Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - Heritage Perilous (7/9) {owned}
(1914 - 1950) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Hilda Adams - Episode Of The Wandering Knife (5/5)
(1914 - 1934) Ernest Bramah - Max Carrados - The Bravo Of London (5/5)
(1915 - 1936) *John Buchan - Richard Hannay - The Thirty-Nine Steps (1/5) {Fisher Library / Project Gutenberg / branch transfer / Kindle}
(1916 - 1917) **Carolyn Wells - Alan Ford - Faulkner's Folly (2/2) {owned}
^^^(1916 - 1927) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Inspector Mitchell - The Moving Finger (3/10) {ManyBooks / Kindle}
^^^^^(1916 - 1917) **Nevil Monroe Hopkins - Mason Brant - The Strange Cases Of Mason Brant (1/2) {expensive}
(1918 - 1923) **Carolyn Wells - Pennington Wise - Wheels Within Wheels (8/8)
(1918 - 1939) Valentine Williams - The Okewood Brothers - The Fox Prowls (5/5)
(1918 - 1944) Valentine Williams - Clubfoot - Courier To Marrakesh (7/7)
(1918 - 1950) *Wyndham Martyn - Anthony Trent - The Mysterious Mr Garland (3/26) {Rare Books / CARM}
(1919 - 1966) *Lee Thayer - Peter Clancy - Alias Dr Ely (8/60) {Rare Books}
(1919 - 1922) **Octavus Roy Cohen - David Carroll - Midnight (4/4)

^^^^^ Remainder of series unavailable
^^^ Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Series and sequels, 1920 - 1927:

(1920 - 1948) H. C. Bailey - Reggie Fortune - Black Land, White Land (12/23) {Rare Books}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - Curtain (38/38)
(1920 - 1921) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Ferguson - The Unseen Ear (2/2)
(1920 - 1937) *"Sapper" (H. C. McNeile) - Bulldog Drummond - The Third Round (3/10 - series continued) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(1921 - 1929) **Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley - Streaked With Crimson (9/9)
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - Gray Magic (5/5)

(1922 - 1973) Agatha Christie - Tommy and Tuppence - Postern Of Fate (5/5)
^^^^^(1922 - 1927) *Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne - The Seventh Passenger (4/5) {Amazon}
(1922 - 1931) Valentine Williams - Inspector Manderton - Death Answers The Bell (4/4)
(1922 - ????) *Armstrong Livingston - Jimmy Traynor - The Doublecross (aka "The Double-Cross") (2/?) {AbeBooks}

(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - In The Teeth Of The Evidence (14/14)
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2)
(1923 - 1927) Annie Haynes - Inspector Furnival - The Crow's Inn Tragedy (3/3)

(1924 - 1959) Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - Rope To Spare (8/24) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1957) Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - Sudden Death (8/30) {Rare Books / ILL}
^^^(1924 - 1935) *Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - Secret Judges (2/13) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - The Mendip Mystery (aka "Murder At The Inn") (5/12) {Kindle}
(1924 - 1933) *Herbert Adams - Jimmie Haswell - The Crooked Lip (2/9) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1944) *A. Fielding - Inspector Pointer - The Net Around Joan Ingilby (5/23) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1936) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - The Richest Widow (10/11) {Roy Glashan's Library}
^^^^^(1924 - 1931) R. Francis Foster - Anthony Ravenhill - The Missing Gates (1/7) {unavailable}

(1925 - 1961) ***John Rhode - Dr Priestley - Dead Men At The Folly (13/72) {Rare Books}
(1925 - 1953) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Superintendent Wilson - Corpse In Canonicals (aka "Corpse In The Constable's Garden") (8/?) {Rare Books}
(1925 - 1932) Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - Keeper Of The Keys (6/6)
(1925 - 1944) Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Towards Zero (5/5)
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Second Shot (6/10) {academic loan / Rare Books / Internet Archive}
(1925 - 1950) *Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) - Dr Eustace Hailey - The Mystery Of The Ashes (3/27) {Trove}
^^^(1925 - 1939) *Charles Barry (Charles Bryson) - Inspector Lawrence Gilmartin - The Detective's Holiday (2/15) {Rare Books / GooglePlay}
(1925 - 1929) **Will Scott - Will Disher - Disher--Detective (aka "The Black Stamp") (1/5) {HathiTrust}
(1925 - 1927) **Francis Beeding - Professor Kreutzemark - The Hidden Kingdom (2/2)
(1925 - ????) *Livingston Armstrong - Peter Creighton - On The Right Wrists (1/?) {AbeBooks}

(1926 - 1968) Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers - Cut Throat (7/63) {Kindle / ZLibrary / Fisher Library storage}
(1926 - 1939) S. S. Van Dine - Philo Vance - The Garden Murder Case (9/12) {fadedpage.com}
(1926 - 1952) J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - Detective Ben (6/8) {interlibrary loan / Kindle / ZLibrary}
(1926 - ????) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Everard Blatchington - Burglars In Bucks (aka "The Berkshire Mystery") (2/6) {Fisher Library}
(1926 - ????) *Arthur Gask - Gilbert Larose - The Lonely House (3/27) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1926 - 1931) *Aidan de Brune - Dr Night - The Green Pearl (2/3) {Roy Glashan's Library}

^^^(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Picaroon: Knight Errant (7/8) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - The Trail Of The Lotto (3/5) {CARM / AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - The Body In The Silo (3/5) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - The Creeping Jenny Mystery (7/54) {Kindle / ZLibrary}
(1927 - 1947) J. J. Connington - Sir Clinton Driffield - The Boathouse Riddle (6/17) {Kindle / mobilereads / ZLibrary}
(1927 - 1935) *Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Scott Egerton - Mystery Of The Open Window (4/10) {Rare Books}
^^^^^(1927 - 1932) *William Morton (aka William Blair Morton Ferguson) - Kirker Cameron and Daniel "Biff" Corrigan - Masquerade (1/4) {expensive}
^^^^^(1927 - 1929) **George Dilnot - Inspector Strickland - The Crooks' Game (1/2) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1927 - 1949) **Dornford Yates - Richard Chandos - Blood Royal (3/8) {State Library, JFR / Kindle / ZLibrary}

^^^^^ Remainder of series unavailable
^^^ Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Series and sequels, 1928 - 1930:

(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - The Girl In The Cellar (32/32)
(1928 - 1936) *Gavin Holt - Luther Bastion - The White-Faced Man (aka "The Praying Monkey") (2/17) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - 1936) Kay Cleaver Strahan - Lynn MacDonald - The Meriwether Mystery (5/7) {Kindle / ZLibrary}
^^^^^(1928 - 1937) John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab - Death Of Mr Dodsley (5/5) {unavailable}
^^^(1928 - 1960) *Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins - Murder On The Bus (3/35) {Rare Books / Kindle}
(1928 - 1959) *John Gordon Brandon - Inspector Patrick Aloysius McCarthy - The Black Joss (2/53) {State Library NSW, held / JFR}
^^^^^(1928 - 1935) *Roland Daniel - Wu Fang / Inspector Saville - The Society Of The Spiders (1/6)
(1928 - 1946) *Francis Beeding - Alistair Granby - Pretty Sinister (2/18) {academic loan}
(1928 - 1930) **Annie Haynes - Inspector Stoddart - The Crystal Beads Murder (4/4)
(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 - The Queen's Hall Murder (4/10) {Trove}
(1928 - 1931) **John Stephen Strange (Dorothy Stockbridge Tillet) - Van Dusen Ormsberry - The Clue Of The Second Murder (2/3) {GooglePlay / Rare Books}

(1929 - 1947) Margery Allingham - Albert Campion - The Case Of The Late Pig (8/35) {SMSA / 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)
^^^(1929 - 1954) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Dead Yesterday And Other Stories (6/8) (NB: multiple Eberhart characters) {expensive / limited edition} / Man Missing (8/8) {Internet Archive}
^^^(1929 - ????) Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier - The Belgrave Manor Crime (5/14) {Kindle}
^^^(1929 - 1930) * / ***Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift - The Torch Murder (1/3) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1931) Carolyn Wells - Kenneth Carlisle - The Skeleton At The Feast (3/3) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1967) *George Goodchild - Inspector McLean - McLean Investigates (2/65) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(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) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1971) *Ellery Queen - Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery (1/40) {interlibrary loan / Internet Archive}
(1929 - 1966) *Arthur Upfield - Bony - The Mystery Of Swordfish Reef (7/29) {SMSA}
(1929 - 1937) *Anthony Berkeley - Ambrose Chitterwick - The Piccadilly Murder (2/3) {interlibrary loan / Internet Archive}
^^^^^(1929 - 1940) *Jean Lilly - DA Bruce Perkins - The Seven Sisters (1/3) {rare, expensive}
(1929 - 1935) *N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Montrose Arbuthnot - The Inconsistent Villains (1/4) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1943) *Gret Lane - Kate Clare Marsh and Inspector Barrin - The Cancelled Score Mystery (1/9) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1961) Henry Holt - Inspector Silver - The Necklace Of Death (3/16) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1930) **J. J. Connington - Superintendent Ross - The Two Tickets Puzzle (2/2)
(1929 - 1941) *H. Maynard Smith - Inspector Frost - Inspector Frost And The Waverdale Fire (4/7) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1932) Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson - Sir John Saumarez - Re-Enter Sir John (3/3)
(1929 - 1940) *Rufus King - Lieutenant Valcour - Murder By The Clock (1/11) {Rare Books / Kindle / ZLibrary}
(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, JFR}
(1929 - 1934) *Charles J. Dutton - Professor Harley Manners - The Circle Of Death (4/6) {newspapers.com}
(1929 - 1932) Thomas Cobb - Inspector Bedison - Who Closed The Casement? (4/4)
(1929 - ????) * J. C. Lenehan - Inspector Kilby - The Silecroft Case (2/?) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1936) *Robin Forsythe - Anthony "Algernon" Vereker - The Polo Ground Mystery (2/5) {Kindle}
^^^^^(1929 - 1931) */***David Frome (Zenith Jones Brown) - Major Gregory Lewis - The Murder Of An Old Man (1/3) {rare, expensive}

(1930 - ????) Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide - The Strange Case Of Harriet Hall (4/?) {Kindle}
^^^(1930 - 1960) Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion - Death At Low Tide (16/57) {Internet Archive}
^^^(1930 - 1960) Miles Burton - Inspector Arnold - Death At Low Tide (16/57) {Internet Archive}
(1930 - 1933) Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane - Murder Among The Angells (4/5) {expensive}
(1930 - 1941) Harriette Ashbrook - Philip "Spike" Tracy - Murder Comes Back (6/7) {Kindle}
(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 - Miss Marple's Final Cases (14/14)
(1930 - 1939) Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murdered But Not Dead (5/5)
(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 Nation's Missing Guest (3/10) {fadedpage.com}
^^^(1930 - 1933) *Monte Barrett - Peter Cardigan - The Wedding March Murder (2/3) {serialised}
(1930 - 1931) Vernon Loder - Inspector Brews - Death Of An Editor (2/2)
^^^^^(1930 - 1931) *Roland Daniel - John Hopkins - The Rosario Murder Case (1/2) {unavailable?}
^^^(1930 - 1961) *Mark Cross ("Valentine", aka Archibald Thomas Pechey) - Daphne Wrayne and her Four Adjusters - The Grip Of The Four (1/53) {Rare Books}
^^^(1930 - 1937) Elaine Hamilton - Inspector Reynolds - Peril At Midnight (6/9) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1932) *J. S. Fletcher - Sergeant Charlesworth - The Borgia Cabinet (1/2) {fadedpage.com / Kindle}
(1930 - ????) *Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew - The Bungalow Mystery (3/?) {original text unavailable}
(1930 - 1937) John Dickson Carr - Henri Bencolin - The Four False Weapons (5/5) {SMSA / Fisher Library}

^^^^^ Remainder of series unavailable
^^^ Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Series and sequels, 1931 - 1932:

^^^(1931 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens and Pierre Allain - Not Proven (5/8) {Trove}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - The Tinkling Symbol (6/24) {Rare Books / academic loan}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - The Puzzle Of The Silver Persian (5/18) {Kindle / ILL / ZLibrary}
(1931 - 1933) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cleveland - Arresting Delia (4/4)
(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 - ????) Carlton Dawe - Leathermouth - Leathermouth's Luck (4/??) {Trove}
(1931 - 1947) R. L. Goldman - Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed - Death Plays Solitaire (3/6) {Kindle}
^^^(1931 - 1959) E. C. R. Lorac (Edith Caroline Rivett) - Inspector Robert Macdonald - The Affair On Thor's Head (2/46) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1931 - 1935) Clifton Robbins - Clay Harrison - Methylated Murder (5/5)
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - Le Fou de Bergerac (16/75) {ILL / ZLibrary}
^^^(1931 - 1942) R. A. J. Walling - Garstang - Murder At Midnight (2/3) {Rare Books}
(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 - He Dies And Makes No Sign (3/3)
(1931 - 1935) Valentine Williams - Sergeant Trevor Dene - The Clue Of The Rising Moon (4/4)
(1931 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Frank Garrett - Pursuit Of A Parcel (5/5)
(1931 - 1931) Frances Shelley Wees - Michael Forrester and Tuck Torrie - The Mystery Of The Creeping Man (2/2)
(1931 - 1948) Alice Campbell - Tommy Rostetter - The Click Of The Gate (1/?) {CARM}
^^^(1931 - 1939) Roland Daniel - Inspector Walk - The Stool Pigeon (4/8) {Rare Books}

(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 - The Cat And The Corpse (aka "The Corpse In The Green Pajamas") (6/22) {Kindle / Internet Archive}
(1932 - 1962) T. Arthur Plummer - Detective-Inspector Andrew Frampton - Frampton Of The Yard! (3/50) {Rare Books}
(1932 - 1946) David Hume - Mick Cardby - Bullets Bite Deep (1/29) {Rare Books}
(1932 - 1936) John Victor Turner (David Hume) - Amos Petrie - Amos Petrie's Puzzle (3/7) {Kindle}
(1932 - 1944) Nicholas Brady (David Hume) - Ebenezer Buckle - The House Of Strange Guests (1/4) {Kindle}
(1932 - 1933) Barnaby Ross (aka Ellery Queen) - Drury Lane - Drury Lane's Last Case (4/4)
^^^(1932 - ????) Richard Essex (Richard Harry Starr) - Jack Slade - Slade Scores Again (2/?) {Rare Books}
(1932 - 1933) Gerard Fairlie - Mr Malcolm - Shot In The Dark (1/3) (State Library NSW, held}
(1932 - 1934) Paul McGuire - Superintendent Fillinger - Murder By The Law (2/5) {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}

^^^^^ Remainder of series unavailable
^^^ Incompletely available series

Series and sequels, 1933 onwards:

(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) {fadedpage.com / Internet Archive}
^^^^^(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 (Jacob D. Posner) - 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 - 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 - The Denmede Mystery (3/8) {State Library NSW, JFR}

^^^^^(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 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Colonel Primrose - The Strangled Witness (1/17) {Rare Books}
(1934 - 1975) Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe - Too Many Cooks (5/?) {ILL / Internet Archive / ZLibrary}
(1934 - 1935) Vernon Loder - Inspector Chace - Murder From Three Angles (1/2) {Kindle / ????}

(1935 - 1939) Francis Beeding - Inspector George Martin - The Norwich Victims (1/3) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(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) {HathiTrust}
(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) {ebook? / AbeBooks}
^^^(1935 - 1959) Kathleen Moore Knight - Elisha Macomber - The Tainted Token (6/16) {Rare Books}

(1936 - 1974) Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Arthur Crook - Murder By Experts (1/51) {Kindle / interlibrary loan}
(1936 - 1940) George Bell Dyer - The Catalyst Club - The Catalyst Club (1/3) {Rare Books}
^^^(1936 - 1956) Theodora Du Bois - Anne and Jeffrey McNeil - Death Dines Out (4/19) {Rare Books}
(1936 - 1945) Charles Kingston - Chief Inspector Wake - Murder In Piccadilly (1/7) {Kindle}
(1937 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Grace Latham - Ill Met By Moonlight (1/16) {Kindle / Internet Archive}
(1938 - 1944) Zelda Popkin - Mary Carner - Time Off For Murder (2/6) {Kindle}
^^^^^(1938 - 1939) D. B. Olsen (Dolores Hitchens) - Lt. Stephen Mayhew - The Clue In The Clay (1/2) {expensive}
(1939 - 1953) Patricia Wentworth - Inspector Lamb - The Vanishing Point (11/11)
^^^(1939 - 1940) Clifton Robbins - George Staveley - Death Forms Threes (2/2) {Rare Books}
(1939 - 1956) D. B. Olsen (Dolores Hitchens) - Rachel Murdock (check Stephen Mayhew) - The Cat Saw Murder (1/12) {Kindle / ZLibrary}

^^^(1940 - 1943) Bruce Graeme - Pierre Allain - The Corporal Died In Bed (1/3) {CARM}
(1941 - 1951) Bruce Graeme - Theodore I. Terhune - Seven Clues In Search Of A Crime (1/7) {Kindle / GooglePlay}
(1943 - 1961) Enid Blyton - Five Find-Outers - The Mystery Of The Disappearing Cat (2/15) {fadedpage}
(1945 - 1952) D. B. Olsen (Dolores Hitchens) - Professor Pennyfeather - Bring The Bride A Shroud (aka "A Shroud For The Bride") (1/6) {Rare Books / National Library}
(1947 - 1953) Michael Gilbert - Inspector Hazelrigg - They Never Looked Inside (2/6) {State Library NSW, JFR / ZLibrary}
(1955 - 1991) Patricia Highsmith - Tom Ripley - Ripley's Game (3/5) {SMSA}
(1957 - 1993) Chester B. Himes - The Harlem Cycle - The Big Gold Dream (4/9) {Fisher Library}
(1961 - 2017) - John le Carré - George Smiley - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (5/9) {branch transfer / SMSA}
(1964 - 1987) Robert Arthur / William Arden - The Three Investigators - The Mystery Of The Laughing Shadow (12/43) {freebooklover / Internet Archive / ZLibrary}
(1965 - 1975) Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö - Martin Beck - The Man On The Balcony (3/10) {SMSA}
(1992 - 2000) Barbara Neely - Blanche White - Blanche Passes Go (4/4)
^^^^^(2001 - 2012) Esmahan Aykol - Kati Hirschel - Divorce Turkish Style (3/4)

^^^^^ Remainder of series unavailable
^^^ Incompletely available series

Non-crime series and sequels:

(1861 - 1876) **Margaret Oliphant - Carlingford - Miss Marjoribanks (6/7) {Fisher storage}
(1867 - 1905) **Martha Finley - Elsie Dinsmore - Elsie And Her Namesakes (28/28)
(1867 - 1872) **George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - Annals Of A Quiet Neighbourhood (1/3) {ManyBooks}
(1893 - 1915) **Kate Douglas Wiggins - Penelope - Penelope's Postscripts (4/4)
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3)
(1898 - 1918) **Arnold Bennett - Five Towns - Tales Of The Five Towns (3/11) {Fisher storage / Project Gutenberg / Internet Archive}

(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty And Azalea (17/17)
(1901 - 1927) **George Barr McCutcheon - Graustark - Beverly Of Graustark (2/6) {Project Gutenberg}
(1906 - 1930) **John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - Flowering Wilderness (11/12) {Fisher Library}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1908 - 1924) **Margaret Penrose - Dorothy Dale - Dorothy Dale: A Girl Of Today (1/13) {ManyBooks}
(1909 - 1912) **Emerson Hough - Western Trilogy - 54-40 Or Fight (1/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1931) Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Pepper Returns (6/6)
(1910 - 1933) Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - The Way Beyond (3/3) {Fisher Library storage / fadedpage.com}

(1911 - 1937) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Letitia Carberry - Tish Marches On (5/5)
^^^(1911 - 1919) **Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong - Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout (5/5)
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding In The Far North (20/30) {expensive}
(1916 - 1941) John Buchan - Edward Leithen - Sick Heart River (5/5)
(1915 - 1923) **Booth Tarkington - Growth - The Magnificent Ambersons (2/3) {Project Gutenberg / Fisher Library / Kindle}
(1917 - 1929) **Henry Handel Richardson - Dr Richard Mahony - Australia Felix (1/3) {Fisher Library / Kindle}

(1920 - 1939) E. F. Benson - Mapp And Lucia - Trouble For Lucia (6/6)
(1920 - 1952) William McFee - Spenlove - The Adopted - (7/7)
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
^^^(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (5/5)
(1924 - 1928) **Ford Madox Ford - Parade's End - Last Post (4/4)
(1926 - 1936) *Margery Lawrence - The Round Table - Nights Of The Round Table (1/2) {Kindle}
(1927 - 1960) **Mazo de la Roche - Jalna - Jalna (1/16) {State Library NSW, JFR / fadedpage.com}

(1928 - ????) Trygve Lund - Weston of the Royal North-West Mounted Police - The Vanished Prospector (6/9) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1931) *Ernest Raymond - Once In England - A Family That Was (1/3) {State Library NSW, JFR}

(1930 - 1932) Hugh Walpole - The Herries Chronicles - Vanessa (4/4)
(1930 - 1932) Faith Baldwin - The Girls Of Divine Corners - Myra: A Story Of Divine Corners (4/4)
(1930 - 1940) E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady - The Provincial Lady In Wartime (4/4)
(1930 - 1937) *Nina Murdoch - Miss Emily - Miss Emily In Black Lace (1/3) {State Library, held}

(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Fabia (5/5)
(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)
(1932 - 1932) Lizette M. Edholm - The Merriweather Girls - The Merriweather Girls At Good Old Rockhill (4/4)
(1932 - 1952) D. E. Stevenson - Mrs Tim - Mrs Tim Flies Home (5/5) {interlibrary loan}

(1933 - 1970) Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richlieu - The Forbidden Territory (1/11) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1936) Storm Jameson - The Mirror In Darkness - Company Parade (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1968) Dennis Wheatley - Gregory Sallust - Black August (1/11) {interlibrary loan / omnibus}
(1936 - 1952) Helen Dore Boylston - Sue Barton - Sue Barton, Student Nurse (1/7) {interlibrary loan}

(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}
(1989 - ????) Nancy A. Collins - Sonja Blue - A Dozen Black Roses (4/7) {Internet Archive / Kindle / ZLibrary}

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

Unavailable series works (Part 1: series partially available):

Esmahan Aykol - Kati Hirschel
Istanbul Tango (#4) {untranslated}

John Rhode - Dr Priestley
The Hanging Woman (#11) {rare, expensive}

Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion / Inspector Arnold
The Three Crimes (#2 Merrion / #1 Arnold) {rare, expensive}
The Menace On The Downs (#2 Arnold) {rare, expensive}
Fate At The Fair (#4 Merrion / #4 Arnold) {unavailable}
Tragedy At The Thirteenth Hole (#5 Merrion / #5 Arnold) {unavailable}
Death At The Cross-Roads (#6 Merrion / #6 Arnold) {unavailable}
The Charabanc Mystery (#7 Merrion / #7 Arnold) {unavailable}
To Catch A Thief (#8 Merrion / #8 Arnold) {unavailable}
The Devereux Court Mystery (#9 Merrion / #9 Arnold) {unavailable}
Murder Of A Chemist (#11 Merrion / #11 Arnold) {unavailable}
Where Is Barbara Prentice? (aka "The Clue Of The Silver Cellar") (#13 Merrion / #13 Arnold) {rare, expensive}
Death At The Club (aka "The Clue Of The Fourteen Keys") (#14 Merrion/ #14 Arnold) {unavailable}
Murder In Crown Passage (aka "The Man With The Tattoed Face") (#15 Merrion / #15 Arnold) {unavailable}

Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Inspector Mitchell
The Nameless Man (#2) {expensive}

Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux
The Park Lane Mystery (#6) {unavailable}

John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab
Death Of Mr Dodsley (#5) {unavailable}

Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier
The Harvest Of Tares (#4) {unavailable}

E. C. R. Lorac - Inspector Robert MacDonald
The Murder On The Burrows (#1) {unavailable}
The Greenwell Mystery (#3) {unavailable}

R. A. J. Walling - Garstang
Stroke Of One (#1) {unavailable}

T. Arthur Plummer - Inspector Frampton
Shadowed By The C.I.D. (#1) {unavailable}
Shot At Night (#2) {unavailable}

Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens
Body Unknown (#?) {unavailable}

Charles Barry (real name: Charles Bryson) - Inspector Gilmartin
The Smaller Penny (#1) {expensive}

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

Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins
The Murdered Manservant (aka "The Body In The Safe") (#1) {HathiTrust/not accessible}
The Three Daggers (#2) {HathiTrust/not accessible}

Charles J. Dutton - Harley Manners
The Shadow Of Evil (#2) {rare, expensive}

Elaine Hamilton - Inspector Reynolds
Murder In The Fog (#2) {unavailable}
The Chelsea Mystery (#3) {unavailable}
The Green Death (Reynolds #4?) {unavailable}
The Silent Bell (Reynolds #5?) {unavailable}

Herman Landon - The Picaroon
The Picaroon Does Justice (#2) {CARM}
Buy My Silence! (#3) {rare, expensive}
The Picaroon Resumes Practice (#5) {unavailable}
The Picaroon In Pursuit (#6) {CARM}

Bertram Atkey - Smiler Bunn
The Smiler Bunn Brigade (#2) {rare, expensive}
Smiler Bunn, Man-Hunter (#3) {unavailable}
Smiler Bunn, Gentleman Crook (#4) {unavailable}
The Man With Yellow Eyes (#5) {unavailable}
Smiler Bunn: Byewayman (#6) {unavailable}
Smiler Bunn, Gentleman-Adventurer (#7) {unavailable}
Smiler Bunn, Crook (#8) {unavailable}
The House Of Clystevill (#11) {unavailable}

Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift
The King Murder (#1) {unavailable}
The Van Norton Murders (#3) {Complete Detective Novel Magazine}

Monte Barrett - Peter Cardigan
Murder Off Stage (aka "Knotted Silk") (#2) {expensive shipping}

Roland Daniel - Inspector John Walk
Dead Man's Vengeance (#1) {unavailable}
Ann Turns Detective (#2) {unavailable}
Ruby Of A Thousand Dreams (#3) {Ramble House} (NB: Wu Fang)

George Dilnot - Inspector Strickland
Crooks' Game (#1) {expensive}
The Black Ace (#2) {expensive}

Richard Essex (aka ) - Jack Slade
Slade Of The Yard (#1) {expensive}

Mark Cross aka Archibald Thomas Pechey aka Valentine - Daphne Wrayne and the Four Adjusters
The Shadow Of The Four (#1) {rare, expensive}

Bruce Graeme - Stevens and Allain
Satan's Mistress (#4) {unavailable}

Wyndham Martyn - Christopher Bond
Christopher Bond, Adventurer (#1) {unavailable}
Spies Of Peace (#2) {unavailable}

Clifton Robbins - George Staveley
Six Sign-Post Murder (#1) {expensive}

Unavailable series works (Part 2: series effectively unavailable):

R. Francis Foster - Anthony Ravenhill
The Missing Gates (#1) {unavailable}
Anthony Ravenhill, Crime Merchant (#2) {expensive}
The Music Gallery Murder (#3) {unavailable}
The Moat House Mystery (#4) {unavailable}
The Dark Night (#5) {unavailable}

David Sharp - Professor Fielding
When No Man Pursueth (#1) {unavailable}
I, The Criminal (#4) {rare, expensive}
The Inconvenient Corpse (#5 rare, expensive}
Marriage And Murder (#6) {unavailable}

Adam Broome - Denzil Grigson
Crowner's Quest (#2) {rare, expensive}
The Island Of Death (#3) {rare, expensive}
The Crocodile Club (#5) {unavailable}
The Black Mamba (#6) {rare, expensive}
Snakes And Ladders (#7) {unavailable}
The Red Queen Club (#8) {unavailable}
Flame Of The Forest (#9) {rare, expensive}

Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane
Murder Among The Angells (#4) {expensive}
In The First Degree (#5) {expensive}

Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne
The Seventh Passenger (#4) {expensive}
Who Is This Man? (#5) {available, expensive shipping}

Roland Daniel - Wu Fang
The Society Of The Spiders (#1) {Ramble House}
Wu Fang (#2) {unavailable}
Ruby Of A Thousand Dreams (#3) {Ramble House}
Wu Fang's Revenge (#4) {unavailable}
The Son Of Wu Fang (#5) {Ramble House}
The Return Of Wu Fang (#6) {Ramble House}

The Hanshews - Cleek
The Amber Junk (aka "Riddle Of The Amber Ship") (#9) {rare, expensive}
The House Of Seven Keys (#10) {rare, expensive}
The Riddle Of The Winged Death (#11) {unavailable}
Murder In The Hotel (#12) {unavailable}

William Morton (aka William Blair Morton Ferguson) - Daniel "Biff" Corrigan / Police Commissioner Kirker Cameron
Masquerade (#1) {expensive}
The Mystery Of The Human Bookcase (#2) {expensive}
The Murderer (aka "The Pilditch Puzzle") (#3) {expensive}
The Case Of Casper Gault ????

Jean Lilly - DA Bruce Perkins
The Seven Sisters (#1) {rare, expensive}
False Face (#2) {rare, expensive}
Death In B-Minor (#3) {rare, expensive}
Death Thumbs A Ride (#4) {rare, expensive}

David Frome (Zenith Jones Brown) - Major Gregory Lewis
Murder Of An Old Man (#1) {rare, expensive}
In At The Death (#2) {rare, expensive}
The Strange Death Of Martin Green (#3) {rare, expensive}

John Franklin Carter (aka "Diplomat") - Dennis Tyler
Murder In The State Department (#1) {unavailable}
Murder In The Embassy (#2) {unavailable}
Scandal In The Chancery (#3) {unavailable}
The Corpse On The White House Lawn (#4) {unavailable}
Death In The Senate (#5) {unavailable}
Slow Death At Geneva (#6) {unavailable}
Brain Trust Murder (#7) {unavailable}

Murray Thomas - Inspector Wilkins
Buzzards Pick The Bones (#1) {unavailable}
Inspector Wilkins Sees Red (#2) {rare, expensive}
Inspector Wilkins Reads The Proofs (#3) {unavailable}

Roland Daniel - John Hopkins
The Rosario Murder Case (#1) {unavailable}
The Shooting Of Sergius Leroy (#2) {unavailable}

Roland Daniel - Inspector Pearson
The Crackswoman (#1) {unavailable}
The Green Jade God (#2) {unavailable}
White Eagle (#3) {unavailable}
The Crimson Shadow (#4) {expensive}
The Gangster's Last Shot (#5) {unavailable}
Murder At Little Malling (#6) {CARM}

Kathleen Moore Knight - Elisha Macomber
Death Blew Out The Match (#1) {expensive}
The Clue Of The Poor Man's Shilling (aka "The Poor Man's Shilling") (#2) {CARM / expensive}
The Wheel That Turned (#3) {expensive}
Seven Were Veiled (#4) {expensive}
Acts Of Black Night (#5) {expensive}

Peter Hunt (aka George Worthing Yates and Charles Hunt Marshall) - Alan Miller
Murders At Scandal House (#1) {expensive}
Murder For Breakfast (#2) {expensive}
Murder Among The Nudists (#3) {expensive}

Gregory Dean (aka Jacob D. Posner) - Benjamin Simon
The Case Of Marie Corwin (#1) {unavailable}
The Case Of The Fifth Key (#2) {unavailable}
Murder On Stilts (#3) {unavailable}

N. A. Temple-Ellis (aka Nevile Holdaway) - Inspector Wren
Three Went In (#1) {unavailable}
Dead In No Time (aka "Murder In The Ruins") (#2) {expensive}
Death Of A Decent Fellow (#3) {unavailable}

Richard Goyne - Paul Templeton
Strange Motives (#1) {unavailable}
Murder At The Inn (#2) {unavailable}
Produce The Body (#3) {unavailable}
Death By Desire (#4) {expensive}
Hanged I'll Be! (#5) {CARM}
Death In Harbour (#6) {unavailable}
Seven Were Suspect (#7) {unavailable}
The Merrylees Mystery (#8) {unavailable}
Who Killed My Wife? (#9) {unavailable}
Fear Haunts The Fells (#10) {unavailable}
Five Roads Inn (#11) {unavailable}
Murder Made Easy (#12) {unavailable}
Murderer's Moon (#13) {expensive}

Theodora du Bois - Anne and Jeffrey McNeill
Armed With A New Terror (#1) {unavailable}
Death Wears A White Coat (#2) {unavailable}
Death Tears A Comic Strip (#3) {expensive}

D. B. Olsen (aka Dolores Hichens) - Stephen Mayhew (overlaps with Rachel Murdock)
The Clue In The Clay (#1) {expensive}
Death Cuts A Silhouette (#2) {expensive}

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

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

Books currently on loan:

        

      

      

Reading projects:

Blog:

        

        

Other projects:

        

        

Group read news:

In October, there will be a group read of the next work in Margaret Oliphant's 'Chronicles of Carlingford', Miss Marjoribanks. This will be conducted through the Virago group, but all welcome!

Next up in our series of Anthony Trollope reads will be The Belton Estate. We do not have a fixed date for this yet but, as things are shaping, next January is likely.

General comments:

While weighed down by The Covenant, I ought to be able to get some outstanding reviews caught up, don't you think? We'll see.

Meanwhile, I would really, really like to get me book blog re-started, and have in fact read William Congreve's Incognita for that purpose. WE'LL SEE.

But both of these aims pale into insignificance beside the fact that this month marks the end of my gruelling journey through Martha Finley's Elsie Dinsmore series---and in this case, WE WILL SEE!!!!

Phew!

Come on in. Make yourselves at home.

Tell me how pretty you think my snakes are. :D

Happy new thread, Liz.

Snakes can be visually striking but I will happily avoid an interview with any of them. That is what comes from being brought up in the benign UK.

Happy new thread!

I really dislike/am afraid of snakes, but that boa is beautiful.

Whew! After reading the trigger warning in your last thread, I switched to landscape mode on my iPad mini so that the photos wouldn't be visible when I first opened this thread and I could scroll carefully ... but it's a just a pretty, pretty snake! They don't have any legs, let alone eight, so we're all good.

For another thread, at least. :-D

Happy new one!

Happy new thread. That is a rather vivid snake. Pretty is a bit of a stretch.

>1 lyzard: >24 PaulCranswick: Love snakes! I have the reverse reaction to Paul from growing up in the U.K. - snakes are seen so rarely that I find them beautiful and exciting. I’m always the one with the first hand up to hold the snake, if there’s any snake holding on offer!

Happy new thread, Liz!

>1 lyzard: The green tree python makes a striking topper.

And it is always fun to scroll through all the lists you have listed :-)

Happy new one! Beautiful pics up top.

Happy new thread Liz!

>24 PaulCranswick:, >25 Matke:, >26 rosalita:, >27 figsfromthistle:, >28 Helenliz:, >29 SandDune:, >30 FAMeulstee:, >31 drneutron:, >32 swynn:

Thank you, everyone!

>24 PaulCranswick:

Well, yeah: if you can't cope with the wimpy snakes of the UK... :D

>25 Matke:

Now, that's the broadminded response I'm looking for! :)

>26 rosalita:

Spoiler warning:

You're probably right about that...

>28 Helenliz:

Ask for pretty; settle for vivid. :)

>29 SandDune:

Whoo, Rhian!

>30 FAMeulstee:

"Striking" is good too!

Nothing makes you regret your lists like having to do the touchstones. :D

>31 drneutron:

Thanks, Jim!

Publication date: 1865
Genre: Classic
Read for: Group read

Miss Mackenzie - Having lived a quiet, lonely life dominated by first her father, then her eldest brother, at the age of thirty-six Margaret Mackenzie finds herself independent and wealthy when she inherits a fortune upon the death of Walter Mackenzie: their other brother, Thomas, having offended his family by going into trade. The money itself is somewhat contentious, having come to the Mackenzies as a result of another family feud; and to this day, Sir John and Lady Ball and their only son, now a harassed widower with nine children, still think of it as "theirs". When the Balls reach out to her, Margaret is aware that her fortune is the attraction; but while she learns to like and respect her cousin, she rejects his proposal of marriage. Feeling that she must separate herself from the Balls, and eager to spread her wings for the first time, Margaret removes to the spa-town of Littlebath, where she finds both attractions and complications... Anthony Trollope declaredly set out in Miss Mackenzie to write "a novel without love"; but since he could not, or would not, envisage any outcome for his heroine but marriage, and since in his conception of his world there could not be marriage without love, his project was doomed from the outset. Miss Mackenzie is a worthwhile though ultimately frustrating novel. As always with Trollope, there are rich character sketches and plenty of humour, and his analysis of Margaret's thought processes as she adjusts to the drastic alteration in her circumstances and ponders her future is sympathetic and well-observed. However, the novel falters through its author's refusal to accept that his world was changing, and that new opportunities were opening up for women: he simply will not allow Margaret the freedoms that her inheritance would, in reality, have won for her. Instead, she escapes her narrow London life only to fall into the clutches of the even narrower Evangelical circle of Littlebath, and toggles between that and the dubious attractions of visits to the Balls without ever entering society proper, attending a single party, or meeting any of the "fun" people we keep hearing about but never see (with the single exception of the outspoken Miss Todd, reappearing here after her supporting role in The Bertrams). Furthermore, you can hardly imagine a more dismal array of suitors than the men who come sniffing around Margaret's money; yet Trollope presents her not as insulted or resentful, but pragmatically accepting and even grateful. He does his heroine a disservice here: the warm and generous Margaret deserves better than these predominantly self-interested men, for whom her personal qualities are a secondary consideration if they enter into it at all. We could take this if there was criticism of the men intended, or of the society that functioned on such cold-blooded transactions; but instead what we get is a rather smug male sense that a woman "must" want a man and that any man is better than none. But even as Margaret contemplates her unattractive options, pondering how she can best put her money to use in someone else's service, her world is turned upside-down yet again. Papers come to light indicating that the Mackenzie money was not legally theirs in the first place, and that the Balls may in fact have a claim to it; and from being the target of fortune-hunters, Margaret suddenly finds herself facing destitution...

    "It is not as if you two were young people, and wanted to be billing and cooing," Lady Ball had said to her the same evening.
    Miss Mackenzie, as she thought of this, was not so sure that Lady Ball was right. Why should she not want billing and cooing as well as another? It was natural that a woman should want some of it in her life, and she had had none of it yet. She had had a lover, certainly, but there had been no billing and cooing with him. Nothing of that kind had been possible in her brother Walter's house...
    Thinking of this during the long afternoon, when Susanna was at school, she got up and looked at herself in the mirror. She moved up her hair from off her ears, knowing where she would find a few that were grey, and shaking her head, as though owning to herself that she was old; but as her fingers ran almost involuntarily across her locks, her touch told her that they were soft and silken; and she looked into her own eyes, and saw that they were bright; and her hand touched the outline of her cheek, and she knew that something of the fresh bloom of youth was still there; and her lips parted, and there were her white teeth; and there came a smile and a dimple, and a slight purpose of laughter in her eye, and then a tear. She pulled her scarf tighter across her bosom, feeling her own form, and then she leaned forward and kissed herself in the glass.
    John Ball was very careworn, soiled as it were with the world, tired out with the dusty, weary life's walk which he had been compelled to take. Of romance in him there was nothing left, while in her the aptitude for romance had only just been born. It was not only that his head was bald, but that his eye was dull, and his step slow. The juices of life had been pressed out of him; his thoughts were all of his cares, and never of his hopes. It would be very sad to be the wife of such a man; it would be very sad, if there were no compensation; but might not the sacrificial duties give her that atonement which she would require? She would fain do something with her life and her money,---some good, some great good to some other person. If that good to another person and billing and cooing might go together, it would be very pleasant...

Publication date: 1818
Genre: Classic
Read for: C. K. Shorter 'Best 100 Novels' challenge

Nightmare Abbey - Disappointments in his early life cause Christopher Glowry to retreat to his gloomy country estate, Nightmare Abbey, where he raises his only son, Scythrop, in his own misanthropic philosophy. As part of this, Glowry only allows to visit at his house people whose view of the world is similar to his own, and for whom failure, catastrophe and death are the very essence of life... Thomas Love Peacock's follow-up to his satirical take on modern society, Headlong Hall (read and reviewed here), is generally considered his best work, but I found it somewhat less accessible than its predecessor, though certainly not without humour---probably because while the social "types" that Peacock mocks in the earlier work are still with us, the literary criticisms that form the basis of Nightmare Abbey are more on the mark and require specific knowledge of the people and writing being satirised. Furthermore, though his main target is Romanticism and the Romanctic poets, the dominant form of writing at the time, much of Peacock's satire is also directed at the excesses of the Gothic novel which, conversely, was already in its death-throes---so that his mockery seems like piling on. However, Peacock was writing from the inside - he was friends with the people he chose to satirise - so that for those readers with the right sort of knowledge, there is much to be appreciated here. Among those invited to Nightmare Abbey by Christopher Glowry (a sketch of Percy Bysshe Shelley) are Mr Cypress (Byron), a misanthropic poet determined to reject society before it can reject him; the lachrymose Mr Flosky (Samuel Taylor Coleridge), whose aim is to ensure that his poetry and conversation are unintelligible; Mr Toobad (John Frank Newton, a friend of Shelley's and an early campaigner for vegetarianism), a "Manichaean Millenarian" whose main contribution to discussion is quotes from Revelations; and the latter's daughter, Celinda (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), who is determined to make herself one point in a doomed love triangle. Meanwhile, Scythrop is having mysterious romantic adventures in one of the Abbey's Gothic towers...

    Scythrop, attending one day the summons to dinner, found in the drawing-room his friend Mr Cypress the poet, whom he had known at college, and who was a great favourite of Mr Glowry. Mr Cypress said, he was on the point of leaving England, but could not think of doing so without a farewell-look at Nightmare Abbey and his respected friends, the moody Mr Glowry and the mysterious Mr Scythrop, the sublime Mr Flosky and the pathetic Mr Listless; to all of whom, and the morbid hospitality of the melancholy dwelling in which they were then assembled, he assured them he should always look back with as much affection as his lacerated spirit could feel for any thing. The sympathetic condolence of their respective replies was cut short by Raven's announcement of 'dinner on table.'
    The conversation that took place when the wine was in circulation, and the ladies were withdrawn, we shall report with our usual scrupulous fidelity:

MR GLOWRY: You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty to one against ever meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad parting, and let us all be unhappy together...

Publication date: 1922
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Jimmy Traynor #1
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (connection to Gemini)

The Mystery Of The Twin Rubies - Having moved to the exclusive enclave of Claremont, businessman Jeremiah Bronson further accedes to his wife's yearning for social success by hiring a butler, John Peters, even though he is unable to check his references: Peters' previous employer, the novelist Reginald McKittrick, having departed suddenly for California. He finds Peters an excellent servant, however, and a welcome addition to the household that includes, in addition to himself and Mary, their young daughter, Cicely; Mary's cousin, Joan; and Sidney Durant, Bronson's nephew, who he raised, but who he now fears is running off the rails. Bronson's own passion is the collection of rubies, for which he has a passion. Peters hesitantly informs Bronson that Mr McKittrick has a ruby which he is trying to sell and which, in spite of the writer's absence, he could arrange to bring for inspection. Bronson is delighted with the second gem and plans to purchase it: he offers to keep it in the safe overnight, to which Peters agrees; but it is still on his desk when young Cecily is taken seriously ill in the night; and it is the next day before he discovers it is missing... It is evident in-text that Armstrong Livingston originally intended The Mystery Of The Twin Rubies to be a standalone work; though he did eventually bring back its detective, private investigator Jimmy Traynor, and turn him into a series character---at the same time introducing several surprising (to say the least) aspects to his mysteries that makes their current rarity frustrating (though the former probably explains the latter). Even this early, more conventional work has several surprises up its sleeve; though these unfold within a familiar framework. When the ruby goes missing, Jeremiah Bronson resists calling the police: his fear is that Sidney, who his uncle knows is in a financial mess, and upon whom he has been trying a "tough love" approach, has taken the gem---all the more so since Sidney has rather hurriedly departed the house and cannot immediately be found. But there are other possible explanations, as Jimmy Traynor is quick to realise: Mary Bronson, too, having defied her husband's interdict on bridge gambling, now teeters between financial and social ruin; and what of Peters and his access to the possessions of his strangely elusive former employer? Peters himself, meanwhile, has identified another suspect in a housemaid with a secret in her past, and has decided to keep it to himself---though not without qualms. There is even the strange incident of the locksmith who no-one in the household called... It will take the combined efforts of Traynor himself and of Peters, turning amateur detective when suspicion focuses upon him, to solve the mystery of the missing ruby---and in a way that no-one sees coming...

    What a mess it all was! Peters had never before experienced the effect that a theft can have upon people who hitherto regarded one another with esteem and respect, and he never wanted to again. Here was he suspecting the mistress of the house, a woman whom he would ordinarily have liked well enough even if he considered her a bit too selfish and a bit too pushing socially. And Jerry Bronson was obviously hurting himself more than anyone else by suspecting that young scapegrace, Sidney. Peters was inclined to wonder at the tenacity with which Jerry clung to his theory, for the broker had never told him in detail all the scraps of evidence that pointed to his nephew as the thief. The butler only knew what he had gathered in a general way---that the boy was, in a general way, given to sporting adventures, and was in pressing need of a large sum of money as the result of some escapade; he was not aware of the existence of Maybelle, much less that Sidney had discharged his indebtedness.
    As for Mrs Bronson---whom she might suspect, provided she were innocent herself, he did not have the least idea. No intuition came to tell him that she had mentioned his own name to Traynor!
    Then there was Julia. Peters had frequently asked himself if he had not allowed a misguided sentiment to run away with common prudence in so summarily concluding that she had had no part in the affair... The thought was so disagreeable that he did his best to put it on one side, but it cropped up again almost directly as a corollary to still another puzzle, which was why had Traynor never referred again to the burning of Julia's papers, of whose destruction the detective had so luckily learned? To Peters, the man’s silence was apparently inexplicable. He could only account for it by assuming that Traynor might be following some other lead of his own---in which case he might be so sure of himself as to disregard any other incidents that he had encountered in the course of his investigation...

Publication date: 1928
Genre: Contemporary drama
Series: Parade's End #4
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI ("first" or "last" in title)

Last Post (US title: The Last Post)- Apparently Ford Madox Ford did not originally intend or wish to write a fourth part of the short series known as 'Parade's End', planning instead to leave his characters' fates undecided amongst the chaos of the Armistice; critics, adaptors and some readers tend to ignore it. But though very different from the previous three entries, as perforce it must be, Last Post has a value of its own---though it is incorrect to say it "clarifies" the action of the previous books: rather, it throws several different lights upon those earlier events, filtered through the imperfect knowledge of those pondering them, and leaves the reader to decide if these viewpoints have validity or not. Whereas the first three books dealt with the war and its impact not just upon the individual, but upon England's social and moral standards, Last Post deals with that society's efforts to rebuild in the war's wake, and the question of whether those standards still apply. Christopher Tietjens and Valentine Winnop have taken their reckless plunge, and now live in seclusion in a country cottage: Tietjens is trying, though largely failing, to support them both through an antiques business, only to find that the organisational skills that made him such an asset in wartime have deserted him. Valentine, meanwhile, is pregnant---and unable to find a way out of her consciousness of her anomalous position, her child's illegitimacy, and Tietjens' financial struggles... This outline gives a false impression of Last Post: though it is "about" Tietjens and Valentine, the bulk of the narrative comprises what others think of them and their situation, predominantly Tietjens' brother, Mark, and his estranged wife, Sylvia. Mark dominates the non-action of this novel: having realised, far too late, the damage he done to his own family through his misguided beliefs and actions, he has retreated into a form of collapse as much psychological as physical; but as his body lies immobile, he broods incessantly over the past and present... Sylvia, meanwhile, having spent years tormenting and humiliating Tietjens for his private estrangement from her, playacting the wounded, deceived wife and doing her husband as much damage as possible, cannot cope with the final - and public - rejection represented by his cohabitation with Valentine. She becomes obsessed with the thought of the couple in their retreat, and with finding some way of destroying, permanently, their happiness: a happiness already under siege...

    It was one thing for a Tietjens younger son to be a bold sort of law-breaker---or at any rate that he should be contemptuous of restraint. It was quite another that the heir to Groby should be a soft sort of bad hat whose distasteful bunglings led his reputation to stink in the nostrils of all his own class if a younger son can be said to have a class... At any rate in the class to which his father and eldest brother belonged. Tietjens was said to have sold his wife to her cousin the Duke at so contemptible a price that he was obviously penniless even after that transaction. He had sold her to other rich men---to bank managers, for instance. Yet even after that he was reduced to giving stumer cheques. If a man sold his soul to the devil he should at least insist on a good price. Similar transactions were said to distinguish the social set in which that bitch moved---but most of the men who, according to Ruggles, sold their wives to members of the government obtained millions by governmental financial tips---or peerages. Not infrequently they obtained both peerages and millions. But Christopher was such a confounded ass that he had got neither the one nor the other. His cheques were turned down for twopences. And he was such a bungler that he must needs get with child the daughter of their father’s oldest friend, and let the fact be known to the whole world...
    This information he had from Ruggles---and it killed their father. Well, he, Mark, was absolutely to blame: that was that. But---infinitely worse---it had made Christopher absolutely determined not to accept a single penny of the money that had become Mark’s and that had been his father’s. And Christopher was as obstinate as a hog. For that Mark did not blame him. It was a Tietjens job to be as obstinate as a hog.
    He couldn’t, however, disabuse his mind of the idea that Christopher’s refusal of Groby and all that came from Groby was as much a manifestation of the confounded saintliness that he got from his soft mother as of a spirit of resentment. Christopher wanted to rid himself of his great possessions. The fact that his father and brother had believed him to be what Marie Léonie would have called maquereau and had thus insulted him he had merely grasped at with eagerness as an excuse. He wanted to be out of the world. That was it. He wanted to be out of a disgustingly inefficient and venial world, just as he, Mark, also wanted to be out of a world that he found almost more fusionless and dishonest than Christopher found it...

June stats:

Works read: 10
TIOLI: 10, in in 9 different challenges, with 2 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 4
Contemporary drama: 2
Classic: 2
Young adult: 1
Fantasy: 1

Series works: 7
Re-reads: 1
Blog reads: 0
1932: 0
1931: 2
Virago / Persephone: 0
Potential decommission: 0

Owned: 0
Library: 5
Ebooks: 5

Male authors : female authors: 7 : 3

Oldest work: Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818)
Newest work: Baksheesh by Esmahan Aykol (2003)

******

YTD stats:

Works read: 78
TIOLI: 78, in 69 different challenges, with 12 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 36
Classic: 11
Young adult: 9
Contemporary drama: 7
Historical drama: 5
Non-fiction: 3
Historical romance: 2
Fantasy: 2
Children's fiction: 1
Short story: 1
Humour: 1

Series works: 48
Re-reads: 8
Blog reads: 0
1932: 0
1931: 11
Virago / Persephone: 3
Potential decommission: 0

Owned: 5
Library: 28
Ebooks: 44
Borrowed: 1

Male authors : female authors: 54 : 27

Oldest work: The Heroine; or, Adventures Of A Fair Romance Reader by Eaton Stannard Barrett (1813)
Newest work: Baksheesh by Esmahan Aykol (2003)

Look at me, dashing ahead like---oh, I don't know---

Yay! Sloth!! I don't know, Liz, finishing June and its only just September is almost ahead of yourself.

>40 Helenliz:

:P

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

>42 rosalita:

Oh, that's only one of two gifts I have for you in these updates: note the variant title in >37 lyzard: :D

I'm getting seriously interested in this: the British habit of omitting articles (which goes back at least as far as the early 19th century, now that I think about it), and the American insistence upon putting them in; why!?

>44 lyzard: Oh, I did notice that, although I might not have if you hadn't pointed it out when you sent me the cover to upload. It's truly bizarre; surely the British don't make a habit of leaving articles out in speech and other written communications, do they?

in all the cases you've seen so far, is the British edition always the original? So it's the Americans adding "The"? Or does it sometimes go the other way, and Brits remove "The" from original American editions?

Publication date: 1927
Genre: Humour
Read for: Banned In Boston! challenge

Mosquitoes - Desperate to be a figure of influence in "the art world", wealthy widow Mrs Maurier organises a yachting holiday on the waters of Lake Pontchartrain; rather, she commands her hanger-on, Ernest Talliaferro, a women's clothes buyer who likewise exists on the fringe of the New Orleans artistic community, to make the arrangements for her. Talliaferro eventually manages to gather a group representing, as Mrs Maurier hopes, the spectrum of the arts: gregarious novelist, Dawson Fairchild; Dorothy Jameson, a painter; Mark Frost, a young poet whose reputation exceeds his abilities; Eva Kauffman Wiseman, another poet, one absorbed by sexual themes; Julius Kauffman, her brother, a critic; and a sculptor, Gordon, who accepts the invitation only after becoming aware of Mrs Maurier's niece, Pat Robyn. Also on board are Major Ayers, a British friend of Fairchild and Kauffman; Pat's twin, Josh; Jenny Steinbauer, barely an acquaintance of Pat, invited in a thoughtless moment; and Pete Ginotta, her boyfriend, who wasn't invited at all. As the yacht sets out, Mrs Maurier dreams of an interlude filled with intellectual conversation about the arts and the aspirations of her guests; but what she gets is rather different... In the 1920s, William Faulkner spent time in the American artistic community gathered in New Orleans, before moving to France and living for a time on the Left Bank. He wrote Mosquitoes, his second novel, upon his return to the US---and makes clear in it his opinion that the local "arts" scene was a pale and embarrassing copy of its European model, full of frauds and poseurs, and with genuine artists thin on the ground (though that said, he manages to give himself a cameo role in proceedings, and a pat on the back). The only real artists here, representing two very different faces of that world, are Dawson Fairchild (usually considered a sketch of Sherwood Anderson), a talented writer but one who treats writing as a job and has a life apart from it; and Gordon, the sculptor, for whom conversely his art is everything. The rest talk and strike attitudes but get very little of worth achieved. Meanwhile, alas for Mrs Maurier's dreams, the male guests remove themselves from her intended salons as quickly as they can, drink themselves stupid, and spend any spare time chasing sexual encounters while avoiding anything that seems like commitment; the women, too, prowl, though a little more subtly; while Pat and Jenny become objects of desire - or lust - for most of the guests, male and female. Faulkner's satire in Mosquitoes is savage, and though there is plenty of humour in the novel, much of it is cruel and ultimately becomes rather tiresome. When the yacht finally returns to New Orleans, disgorging its exhausted, emotionally battered and figuratively (in some cases literally) exposed cargo, the guests are hardly more glad it's all over than the reader.

    It's being an artist, Mrs Maurier said to herself with helpless despondency. Mrs Wiseman, Miss Jameson, Mark and Mr Talliaferro sat at bridge. She herself did not feel like playing: the strain of her party kept her too nervous and wrought up. "You simply cannot tell what they are going to do," she said aloud in her exasperation, seeing again Major Ayers' vanishing awkward shape and Fairchild leaning over the rail and howling after him like a bull-voiced Druid priest at a sacrifice.
    "Yes," Mrs Wiseman agreed, "it's like an excursion, isn't it?---all drunkenness and trampling around," she added, attempting to finesse. "Damn you, Mark."
    "It's worse than that," the niece corrected, pausing to watch the hissing fall of cards, "it's like a cattle boat---all trampling around."
    Mrs Maurier sighed. "Whatever it is..." Her sentence died stillborn. The niece drifted away and a tall shape appeared from shadow and joined her, and they went down the dark deck and vanished from her sight. It was that queer shabby Mr Gordon, and she knew a sudden sharp stab of conscience, of having failed in her duty as a hostess. She had barely exchanged a word with him since they came aboard. It's that terrible Mr Fairchild, she told herself. But who could have known that a middle-aged man, and a successful novelist, could or would conduct himself so?
    The moon was getting up, spreading a silver flare of moonlight on the water. The Nausikaa swung gently at her cables, motionless but never still, sleeping but not dead, as is the manner of ships on the seas of the world; cradled like a silver gleaming gull on the water...her yacht. Her party, people whom she had invited together for their mutual pleasure... Maybe they think I ought to get drunk with them, she thought.

Mosquitoes was read for the Banned In Boston! challenge, and frankly I doubt whether the censors would have bothered to read past Faulkner's opening sentence---

---"The sex instinct," repeated Mr Talliaferro, in his careful cockney, with that smug complacence with which you plead guilty to a characteristic which you privately consider a virtue, "is quite strong in me..."---

---though if they had, they'd have found the word "masturbation" a little further down the page.

There is plenty of thought and talk of sex in this novel (less action); a lesbian character with a letch for another woman; and, perhaps most deliberately provocative of all, a scene in which the two young women climb naked into bed together and discuss their sex lives (or the lack thereof).

The whole novel, in other words, would have been anathema; but still, I'm betting that Page 1 did the trick.

**********

Next up:

Pilgrims by Ethel Mannin (1927)

>45 rosalita:

I don't know! I haven't yet come across a case of the British taking an article out of an American title, but you can bet I'm now keeping an eye out.

We've recently had both Last Post / The Last Post (which you could argue don't have quite the same meaning, they could be two different things) and Clue For Mr Fortune / A Clue For Mr Fortune, but it occurred to me that last year I read Catherine Cuthbertson's novel from 1810, Forest Of Montalbano - not THE Forest - so this is a longstanding British publishing habit, whatever the reason.

Best-selling-books in the United States for 1978:

1. Chesapeake by James A. Michener
2. War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
3. Fools Die by Mario Puzo
4. Bloodline by Sidney Sheldon
5. Scruples by Judith Krantz
6. Evergreen by Belva Plain
7. Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
8. The Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlum
9. Second Generation by Howard Fast
10. Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

Thrillers and trash - and trashy thrillers - mounted a challenge in 1978, but history came out well on top.

Richard Bach's Illusions is a holdover from the 1977 list.

Mario Puzo's Fools Die is a semi-autobiographical work that seems like Puzo's attempt to "do" Arthur Hailey, simultaneously exposing the worlds of publishing and gambling and the film industry. Judith Krantz's Scruples is about sex and scandal (and sex) amongst the wealthy and privileged. Sidney Sheldon's Bloodlines is about the struggle for control of a multinational pharmaceutical company, after its CEO dies in what may or may not be an accident.

Robert Ludlum's The Holcroft Covenant is about a man drawn into a dangerous political conspiracy after discovering his father was financial advisor to the Nazis. Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle (originally published as "Storm Island") is a WWII-set thriller about a German spy in Britain.

Belva Plain's Evergreen is an historical romance about a Polish-Jewish immigrant to America and her descendants, set from 1900 onwards. Howard Fast's Second Generation is the second volume in his trilogy about the immigrant Lavette family, and their rise to power following the San Francisco earthquake.

Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance, his sequel to The Winds of War (#7 in 1971, #6 in 1972), follows his characters from the attack on Pearl Harbor through the end of World War II.

However, America's best-selling book of 1978 was James A. Michener's Chesapeake

This was James A. Michener's third time at the top of the best-seller lists, after 1965's The Source (reviewed here) and 1974's Centennial (reviewed here).

A sketch of Michener's life and career may be found here.

Publication date: 1978
Genre: Historical drama
Read for: Best-seller-challenge

Chesapeake - James A. Michener's 1978 best-seller traces the history of the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland over some 400 years, from its native tribes' first intimation of the coming of white settlers through to contemporary times. As usual with Michener, though his overarching history is accurate, his narrative unfolds in an imagined corner of his geographical setting, and is told through the experiences of three very different families, each one representing different - and usually conflicting - aspects of his region's history and development. Fleeing the persecution of Catholics in England, Edmund Steed gains a foothold on an extensive island at the mouth of the river, where he builds a home and founds a dynasty which will rise to wealth and prominence on the back of its slave-worked tobacco fields. Also seeking religious freedom, the Quaker Paxmores establish themselves further down the river, where they carve out a niche as master shipbuilders---and make enemies for their anti-slavery stance. And further along again, in the near-impenetrable marshes, the hard-bitten and resourceful Turlocks survive where others cannot: made use of in war, they are shunned in peacetime... Like all of Michener's narratives, Chesapeake is a well-written and interesting but often emotionally draining account of the violent clashes - racial, religious, and nationalistic - of its setting's history. As we now expect, there are long, lyrical passages describing the natural beauties of the Chesapeake area, and of its extraordinary wildlife; but these are balanced, if not overwhelmed, by equally lengthy descriptions of hunting and killing and, later, destruction of the wilderness for profit or even almost for its own sake. Distressing descriptions of the overwhelming of the local native tribes give way to accounts of the War of Independence - much of which does not touch Maryland directly - and the region's far more significant involvement in the War of 1812. Subsequently, Chesapeake's main conflict is internal: between those building their fortunes upon tobacco and the slave-labour they believe is necessary to maintain it, and the Quaker-led anti-slavery movement, which includes the Paxmores' dangerous involvement in the Underground Railroad. Here Michener, with the divided geography of the area acting as a natural metaphor, captures the bewildering contradictions of Maryland, caught on the borderland as the country moves towards civil war: with few actual slave-owners, but an overall approval of slavery, nevertheless the state never seceded, and even sent troops into the Union army. Over its final phases, however, Chesapeake loses its way, as it traces the lives of the area's black residents following abolition, through the horrors of Jim Crow, and into the segregation and poverty of the mid-20th century---and the coming of the Civil Rights movement. All of this is true, of course, and all of this is important - BUT - it has nothing specifically to do with the Chesapeake area; and, well-intentioned as it is, it's just too much and too far off-topic. Likewise, the end of the novel finds one of its minor characters caught up in Watergate! - though the message there may be that the realities of the 1970s were too much even for the Paxmores, who otherwise act throughout as the novel's moral touchstone.

    The town of Patamoke now assumed its final form. everything centered on the harbor... Along the eastern edge stood the rambling buildings of the Paxmore Boatyard, and to the west, as so often happened in American towns, gathered the better residential homes; the combination of a grand view of the river and the clean breezes from the south made this area desirable, and here the white owners of the town lived. In between were the small houses of the artisans, the mariners, the retired farmers and the boardinghouse keepers.
    These major dispositions had been agreed upon more than a century ago; what made Paramoke of 1855 different was that two new vital elements had been added. To the north, beyond the business district, the Irish families clustered, and they had either the gall or the gumption to build for themselves a rather large Catholic church, in which services were conducted by a flamboyant priest from Dublin... The Steeds viewed this new development not with outright distaste, but with a large degree of bewilderment. None of the family was easy with the brash young priest, for he preached a Catholicism strange to those whose forebears hobnobbed with the Lord Baltimores.
    The other innovation stood on a marshy point east of the boatyard, where a collection of cabins and shanties had grown up. It was called Frog's Neck and was occupied principally by freed blacks, with a few lean-tos for slaves who were hired out by the day to businesses in Paramoke... There was formal contact between the black area and the boatyard, some with the business section, quite a lot with the residential area in which many of the slaves worked, but absolutely none with the Irish district.
    There was, of course, a final area, but it was not delineated. Its inhabitants lived where they could, some with the Irish, some in shacks within the business district and some with the blacks. These were the poor white trash. There were forty-one Turlocks scattered about Patamoke and no one could unscramble the relationships that existed among them.
    It was a good town, and during those very years when extreme passions excited the rest of the nation it flourished in peace...

>29 SandDune: Not as sure how you would cope with a 30ft python coming up out of your storm drain, Rhian or three cobras paying visit to your car porch? I make no claim of bravery in either case as discretion was the better part of valour for me in both instances.

>33 lyzard: My abhorrence has much more to do with the prevalence of snakes here in Malaysia and their propensity to cause harm! The wimpy sobriquet definitely suits me in this instance, I will allow, Liz!

By the way the last post was the 1,000th on your threads this year and your place here in the group remains as interesting and informative as ever. x

>52 PaulCranswick:

To be fair you probably should have gone with "My benign UK upbringing did not prepare me for---!!!!" :D

Thanks, Paul! - thank you too for continuing to keep your eye across our group. :)

Publication date: 1931
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Inspector French #7
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI {7th book in a series or later}

Mystery In The Channel - A cross-channel steamer carrying day-trippers from Newhaven to Dieppe comes across a small yacht lying dead in the water. At first merly annoyed by the hold-up, the steamer's officers are horrified when they discover a dead body on the deck---and another below. The third officer, Mackintosh, and two of his subordinates are given the task of piloting the yacht and its grim cargo into Newhaven: they take careful readings of the yacht's position and its levels of fuel before starting. Along the way, the yacht is caught by a small motor-launch carrying a man called Nolan, who to his horror recognises the dead men as his business partners, Paul Moxon and Sidney Deeping; though he has no explanation for the tragedy, or even for what they were doing out on the yacht. At Newhaven, the chief constable, Major Turnbull, makes an almost immediate decision to hand the case over to Scotland Yard: not only were the dead men from London, but news has just broken of the collapse of their investment firm, leaving thousands ruined... Though overall Freeman Wills Crofts' Mystery In The Channel is a very typical entry in his Inspector French series, there is an additional note in this novel that places it squarely in the reality of the early days of the Depression. The dead men, Moxon and Deeping, were the chief executives of Moxon's General Securities, and word of the murders coincides with the revelation of the firm's collapse---bringing ruin upon its employees and its investors alike. It is soon clear that murder interrupted an attempt by the executives to take whatever they could and run; and as the police carry out their investigation, and deal with those left to pick up the pieces, a sense of rage against the dead men becomes a constant presence in the story. The feeling that Moxon and Deeping got what they deserved does not, of course, sway Inspector French in his investigation; though it does add an extra impetus to the search for Bryce Raymond, the third executive, who is now missing---along with the remaining proceeds of the dying firm... There are those who find the Inspector French mysteries, with their focus on the prosaic nature of real police work, rather dull; and though in most cases I rather enjoy the police-procedural aspects of these stories, a bit too much of Mystery In The Channel does involve French hanging around while his underlings carry out and report on thankless (and often unproductive) leg-work, or goes over and over the circumstances of the case trying to construct a theory that fits the facts. In addition, this novel is quite as much about its setting as its mystery: Crofts, like his contemporary, John Rhode, was an enthusiastic waterman himself, and his books often do have a focus upon boating, or the behaviour of waterways, or include scenes set along the coast of England and/or France; and this may be the most extreme example of this tendency so far. To my taste (though this certainly won't be for everyone!), Mystery In The Channel is at its most enjoyable when French is trying to work out who could have been where, when---using times and times, fuel consumption and boat speeds to place the various actors in the drama, either to confirm or break an alibi. (At one point we get almost literally a high-school maths problem: if two boats travelling different speeds leave two different docks at different times...) When the missing Bryce Raymond is arrested in France, he has an incredible story to tell, one which sounds like nonsense---except that, as French proves, at least some of it is true; leaving the overriding mystery of how the killer got on the yacht in the first place, and how he got away afterwards...

    "These two boats," French went on when they were settled side by side at the table, "Moxon's yacht Nymph and Nolan's launch ran on Thursday morning last from Folkstone and Dover respectively to the point at which the tragedy occurred. The Nymph went first and the launch followed pretty well in her tracks. I've had a statement about the movements of these two boats which I want to check."
    Bateman was supremely interested. He had read detective stories and was mildly amused by the coups of the famous detectives of fiction. But this was very different. This was seeing Scotland Yard at work, and from the inside. French might count on his enthusiastic help. He got out a scale and a sheet of paper, pointed his pencil, and waited with an air not far removed from reverence.
    "The first thing," French went on, "is to fix the point of the murders. Let us call it Point M---Point of Murders. We have a good many checks on that. We'll begin with the captain's report. He gives the position as fifty degrees fifteen minutes north by no degrees forty-one minutes west. Will you plot that?... The next thing to find out is when the Chichester got to Point M. How many sea miles do you make Point M from Newhaven?"
    "Thirty-nine," Bateman answered presently.
    "What speed does the Chichester run? Let's see, I have it here. Newhaven depart, 11.45; Dieppe arrive, 2.55; that's 190 minutes. What do you make the toal distance between the ports?"
    "Sixty-seven sea miles."
    "Then it's an easy sum in proportion. If she goes 67 miles in 190 minutes, how long will she take to go 39 miles?"

>53 lyzard: Hahaha true. I wasn't exactly self-serving was I?

Publication date: 1931
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Read for: 1931 reading / TIOLI {invertebrate in the title or author's name}

The Case Against Andrew Fane - When the reclusive Gervase Fane is found murdered in his isolated cottage outside the village of Amber Cross, Inspector Nolan and Sergeant Pryor find a puzzling crime scene, with contradictory signs of coolness and panic from the killer. Fane was a public figure of some influence in the world of politics, yet lived a solitary life estranged from his son and daughter. A strong lead points to Andrew, Fane's nephew, who was at the cottage on the day of the murder, who was in dire financial straits, and who brings suspicion upon himself by running. When the police arrest him, Andrew Fane tells his story---bleakly certain that they won't believe it. So bizarre indeed is his tale that Inspector Nolan begins to wonder if it mightn't be true: surely no-one would make up something like that...? This standalone mystery by "Anthony Gilbert" (Lucy Beatrice Malleson) is an interesting and clever work---though in the end, perhaps a bit too clever for its own good. There is a slightly facetious attitude to it, and a focus upon playing narrative games, that works against its mystery aspects; though that said, it is never less than engaging. This is one of several British mysteries of the time that manages to involve the police, and a private investigator, and an amateur detective - in fact, two - in this case, pitting the latter three against the former. In the course of his investigation, Nolan questions a man called Nixon about another suspect's movements. Nixon has something of a reputation as a criminologist and, when Nolan speaks dismissively of "amateurs", he is sufficiently provoked to make contact with Andrew Fane's fiancée, journalist Hilary Ware. She in turn hires a private investigator called Bennett, and the three team up, each bringing their own particular expertise to the task of proving Andrew's innocence. As their starting-point, they begin - despite Nixon's admitted doubts - with assuming that the story told by Andrew is true: that, desperate for financial help, he called upon his uncle; that he found instead a mysterious veiled woman, who succeeded in concealing her identity from him; and that, after she had fled, tired of waiting for his uncle, he decided to wake and question the charwoman sleeping - or sleeping it off - in the kitchen: only to discover that the sleeping woman was actually his dead uncle in her clothes... Hilary, Nixon and Bennett divide their investigation, chasing information about other likely suspects: Fane's cold, extravagant daughter, Clara; her estranged husband, barrister Bertram Fiennes; and Archer, the husband of the woman with whom, it is discovered, Gervase Fane was having an affair. Increasingly, however, their suspicions focus upon Gervase's son, Raymond, who has a bad reputation and a criminal history, and who they believe was blackmailing his father. However, finding Raymond is another matter: in the course of his rocky career, he was once an actor, and a good one; and to their dismay the investigators realise that he could be almost anywhere---and anyone...

    "You don't want to call in the police, do you?" urged Nixon.
    "I?" said Hilary. "No. They've had their chance and we consider they've botched it. They ought to have tried to discover who the woman was."
    "Their trouble being that they don't believe in any such woman," put in Bennett dryly.
    "That's where they're wrong. We've definitely established the fact that there was a woman, and I'm inclined to think that Fane was expecting her that afternoon, and that's why he sent Mrs Bracey away."
    "Very likely, but how do we prove a thesis like that?"
    "Ay, there's the rub. It's going to be a ticklish job to approach either of the Archers direct."
    "And I don't think, anyway, we've got the right to do it," Bennett insisted... "I don't see how we can walk into his room and say, 'We know your wife was, or had been, carrying on a liaison with Gervase Fane. What were you both doing on the afternoon he was killed?' We're not in a position to say a thing like that."
    "All the same, I don't see why, when we've had all the work, the police should step in and get all the credit."
    "When's the trial going to be held?"
    "End of June, if he's lucky. If not, the end of September."
    "Either way, we ought to have time to put up a case." Bennett fell silent. "I wish I knew where Raymond Fane was..."

Publication date: 1936
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Nero Wolfe #3
Read for: Shared read

The Rubber Band - In the absence of Nero Wolfe - busy with his orchids - Archie Goodwin is attempting to placate irate executive Anthony Perry when they are interrupted by a second potential client, Harlan Scovil, who announces that he has travelled from Wyoming to find out what kind of man Wolfe is. Archie cannot make head or tail of Scovil's ramblings, and is finally forced to leave him to deal with the Perry matter. Clara Fox, a clerk, has been accused of stealing $30,000 from the desk of Perry's vice-president, Ramsey Muir, who wants the police called in. Archie sees that the matter is as much one of hostile personalities as straight robbery, and withdraws to report. Wolfe, meanwhile, is consulted by the survivors and descendants of a group of men who saved another from frontier justice many years before, and now want the payment that was promised. To his astonishment, Archie discovers that one of those involved is Clara Fox. Harlan Scovil, however, is not with the group, having left the house upon receiving a phone-call there---and soon afterwards, he is found murdered... This third entry in Rex Stout's series featuring private investigator, Nero Wolfe, offers a tangled mystery with its roots deep in the past, and a rising body-count in the present. Decades before, in the dying days of the Wild West, a group of friends known as "the Rubber Band" saved another man from a threatened lynching, in return for his promise of "half of anything I inherit". That British ne'er-do-well is now the wealthy Marquis of Clivers, or so Wolfe's clients believe: they want him to confirm the identity of the visiting aristocrat, and compel him to keep his promise. Wolfe, however, is quite as interested in the matter of Clara Fox, who he takes on as a client in preference to Anthony Perry: a situation that forces him to violate his own dictum against women in the house, and to instigate a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the police, when Ramsey Muir tries to follow through on his threats of arrest. It is increasingly evident that the attempt to frame Clara is somehow linked to the claim against Lord Clivers---but how...? Though it isn't quite smooth in the working of its parts, The Rubber Band is a complex mystery that finds Wolfe trying to discover the truth behind conspiracy, fraud, false identity and murder. The supporting narrative, meanwhile, begins to fill in the details of Wolfe's relationship with Archie, his contentious standing with law enforcement, and his shrewd deployment of the group of loyal (if griping) leg-men who become his eyes and ears on the street. The main disappointment here is the nasty note that increasingly enters the presentation of Clara Fox: Archie, via his author, is indulgent of Wolfe's pursuit of the almighty dollar, but when a young woman alone in the world and looking out for herself does it, it's the basis for sneers. However, Clara is only one part of a shifting mystery that changes his identity when, confronted with the claim of Wolfe's clients, Lord Clivers refuses to pay on the grounds that he already has: that, shortly after unexpectedly inheriting his family's title and fortune, one of his rescuers, "Rubber" Coleman, presented their claim on behalf of the others---so he said. Wolfe then finds himself pursuing an elusive forger and con-artist but, before her can get to the truth, murder will intervene again...

    "So Harlan Scovil saw you yesterday?" Wolfe rubbed his nose. "That's int---"
    "He didn't see me. I was out. When I returned in the late afternoon I was told he had been there." Clivers drank his beer. "Then this morning your letter came and it looked like blackmail again. With a murder involved in it also, it appeared that publicity was inevitable if I consulted the official police. The only thing left was to deal with you. All you wanted was money, and I have a little of it left in spite of taxes and revolutions. I don't for a minute believe that you're prepared to drop it merely because I show evidence that I've paid. You want money... I'll pay three thousand for Linquist's receipt for that horse."
    "Indeed." Wolfe sighed. "Back to three thousand. I'm sorry, sir, that you persist in taking me for a horse trader. And I do want money... You haven't been entirely frank, Lord Clivers. You knew when you came here that Mr Walsh never got any of that money, possibly that he never signed the receipt."
    "I knew he said he hadn't."
    "Don't you believe him?"
    "I don't believe anybody. I know damn well I'm a liar. I'm a diplomat." He did his three blasts again, haw-haw-haw. "Look here, you can forget about Walsh, I'll deal with him myself. I have to keep this thing clear, as long as I'm in this country. I'll deal with Walsh. Scovil is dead, God rest his soul. Let the police do what they can with that. As for the Lindquists, I'll pay them two thousand for the horse, and you would get a share of that. The Fox woman can look after herself; anyone as young and handsome as she is doesn't need my money. As far as I'm concerned, that clears it up. If you can find Coleman and put a twist on him, go ahead, but that would take doing. He was hard and tricky, and it's a safe bet he still is..."

>57 lyzard: I'm sure I've mentioned before that this isn't one of my favorite Wolfes (I can sense regular readers of your thread rolling their eyes vigorously right about now), but I think I liked it a little more this time around. It's the first one where the humorous aspects of Archie's narration begin to feel organic and not forced, at least to me. And I do love the whole scenario of Clara hiding out in the house and especially during the police search for her.

And while I'm here: I've finished the second Bony, although I haven't written my review yet. I was checking your lists above and I believe you've read the first six? My plan is to read (at least) one a month to catch up, so we should be in sync at or shortly after the New Year. How does that sound to you?

>58 rosalita:

That, yes. And that's one of the reasons I was annoyed with the tone otherwise taken towards her, after that she deserved better. :D

I think with this one you can feel where Stout was trying to go, with the interlocking narratives and the ah-ha moments, but he wasn't quite there yet.

>59 rosalita:

Oooooooh!!

Yes, I'm up to #7, The Mystery Of Swordfish Reef---and that sounds good!

Your intervening works - which I include because there are - of course there are! - alternative titles, are:

#3: Wings Above The Diamantina aka "Wings Above The Claypan"
#4: Mr Jelly's Business aka "Murder Down Under"
#5: Winds Of Evil
#6: The Bone Is Pointed

>61 lyzard: I bought the ebook for #3 yesterday, and it has the first title. I'm guessing the title Wings Above the Claypan is the original Australian title, based on not having encountered the word "claypan" until these books. I'm not sure "Diamantina" did much to improve understanding for American readers, though!

I'm also feeling smug now about understanding the reference in the title of #6, after finishing #2. :-)

>62 rosalita:

Nope, other way around! This is another common American publishing practice: they tend to change any title with a non-American place-name or landmark in it. This one, though, as you rightly say, is rather weird, since I can't imagine that American readers knew what a claypan was any more than they knew where the Diamantina is (fyi: it's a river in Queensland).

Give yourself a pat on the back, you've earned it! :D

>63 lyzard: Well, a pat on the back for knowing what claypan is, and a facepalm for not sussing out that Diamantina was the foreign title.

Maybe they changed it on the assumption that American readers who were reading the books in order would have learned what claypan as I did, from Book 2?

Publication date: 1957
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: The Harlem Cycle #1
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (intended to read earlier this year)

For Love Of Imabelle (reissue title: A Rage In Harlem) - Jackson is obsessed with Imabelle---so much so, he allows her to persuade him to entrust his entire savings to a man who claims to have a process for literally changing ten-dollar bills into hundreds. The exercise ends in disaster, with Jackson's money going up in smoke, and the conspirators busted by the police. The others escape, but the inexperienced Jackson falls into the hands of an officer who makes it pragmatically clear that he is willing to be bribed. In desperation, Jackson robs his employer, the undertaker H. Exodus Clay, even though he knows the robbery must inevitably be brought home to him. Having paid off the cop, Jackson tries to replace the money via a craps game, but loses his stake too. He then hunts down his brother, Goldy, an occasional police informant who earns a comfortable living impersonating a nun and selling "tickets to heaven". When Goldy hears Jackson's sorry tale, he comes up with a dangerous plan to beat some con-artists at their own game... For Love Of Imabelle was the first novel of Chester B. Himes, and also the first work in what would become known as his "Harlem Cycle": a series of hard-boiled crime stories set amongst desperate people fighting to survive on the streets of New York. A groundbreaking work in all respects, this was the book that introduced the black police detectives who would becomes Himes' series characters, "Coffin Ed" Johnson and "Grave Digger" Jones, but they play only a supporting role here, and they don't exactly cover themselves in glory. On the contrary: though his perspective would later shift, Himes depicts the detectives here as effectively part of the problem; they are as unpredictable and as violent of any of the story's criminals, only with badges - and their famous nickel-plated Colts - to back it up. Set deep in the mean streets of Harlem, and filled with desperate people fighting for survival with whatever weapons they can find, the narrative of For Love Of Imabelle disconcertingly mixes a plot of spiralling absurdity and pitch-black humour with explosions of horrendously straight and bloody violence, as the hapless, frustrating Jackson, wilfully blind to the role played by the seductive Imabelle in his ever-increasing woes, tries to think up a way of recovering his money---but finds only more trouble than he ever dreamed of...

    A young white cop had arrested a middle-aged drunken colored woman for prostitution. The big rough brown-skinned man dressed in overalls and a leather jacket picked up with her claimed she was his mother and he was just walking her home.
    "Gettin' so a woman can't even walk down the street with her own natural-born son," the woman complained.
    "Shut up, can't you?" the cop said irritably.
    "Don't you tell my mama to shut up," the man said.
    "If this whore's your mama, I'm Santa Claus," the cop said.
    "Don't you call me no whore," the woman said, and slammed the cop in the face with her pocketbook.
    The cop struck back instinctively and knocked the woman down. The colored man hit the cop above the ear and knocked him down. Another cop let go his own prisoner and slapped the man about the head. The man staggered head-forward into another cop, who slapped him again. In the excitement someone stepped on the woman and she began screaming. "Help! Help! They's tramplin' me!"
    "They's killing a colored woman!" another prisoner yelled. Everybody began fighting.
    The desk sergeant looked down from the sanctuary of his desk and said in a bored voice, "Jesus Christ."
    At that moment Coffin Ed and Grave Digger entered with their two prisoners.
    "Straighten up!" Grave Digger shouted in a stentorian voice.
    "Count off!" Coffin Ed yelled.
    Both of them drew their pistols at the same time and put a fusillade into the ceiling, which was already filled with holes they'd shot into it before...

I read and reviewed The Real Cool Killers, the second book in Chester Himes' Harlem Cycle, and the one which shifts the focus onto Grave Digger and Coffin Ed, some years ago, when David Goodis' Down There (better known by its reissue title of Shoot The Piano Player) came up for my random reading challenge. I acquired the latter in an omnibus, Crime Novels: American Noir Of The 1950s, which also contained Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and Charles Willeford's Pick-Up.

That was a pretty grim ride: so much for white-picket-fence 1950s America... :D

>64 rosalita:

That might be giving them a bit too much credit. :D

Publication date: 2007
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Kati Hirschel #3
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (first published this century)

Divorce Turkish Style - With a business to run, a new apartment not paid for and a busted relationship already on her hands, Kati Hirschel has no time for murder; but when her friend, Fofo - newly returned to Istanbul after his own relationship imploded - brings to her attention the death of Sani Ankaraligil, she cannot help taking an interest. She and Fofo knew Sani - at least, they sometimes saw her at a restaurant they all liked - and when an online gossip site begins to hint at something more than a natural death, she allows herself to be drawn in. Sani was in the process of divorcing her husband, Cem, the son of a wealthy shipping magnate; she was also a member of an environmental group fighting to expose industrial abuses: could either of these activities have gotten her killed...? The third of Esmahan Aykol's Istabul-set mysteries featuring bookstore owner, Kati Hirschel, does not blend its elements quite as well as its predecessor, Baksheesh, but nevertheless offers another intriguing portrait of life in and around Istanbul, and the city's many contradictory and conflicting elements, political and human. The self-satisfied Kati remains a problematic protagonist, and when she teams up with her over-emotional friend, Fofo, it's frankly a bit much. However, despite the note of facetiousness in the depiction of the two amateur sleuths, Divorce Turkish Style is overall a novel that deals with some serious issues; while the mystery itself is intriguing---particularly because it isn't clear exactly how Sani Ankaraligil died; though the death of such a young woman from natural causes seems unlikely. As usual, Kati's "investigation" involves exploiting a circle of acquaintances, each of whom knows someone connected with one aspect or another of Sani's life, and getting those people to talk. The product of a poor, mostly immigrant country village, Sani was always an unlikely daughter-in-law for the rich and sophisticated Ankaraligil family; though it seems that she was rejecting them and not the other way around: Kati learns of one or two affairs even before her move towards divorce. Furthermore, Sani's lawyer was preparing to test Turkey's existing divorce laws in the dissolution of the marriage. On the other hand, Sani's fight against the industrial pollution causing appalling damage to some areas of the countryside - including her own home village - may well have made her enemies amongst those profiting from the existing arrangements. Kati makes contact with Naz, Sani's sister, and the two pursue their own lines of investigation. Naz, a doctor, is able to access the autopsy report; while Kati renews her acquaintance with Batuhan, now a senior police officer and mostly involved in administration. To their surprise, the two women learn that the evidence does tend to support a verdict of death from natural causes---but also that someone else was there when Sani died...

    "I expect you realise," I said, "that there are weaknesses in both my theory about the industrialists and your TLF theory."
    "Why's that?"
    "Why would Sani have let them into her home? The police said the door wasn't forced. So if Sani was murdered, she must have opened the door to the murderer. In other words, she knew the person well enough to let him or her in." I paused for a moment before adding, "Living in Istanbul makes you lose your trust in people, doesn't it? You never open the door to anyone."
    "Let's say you become more cautious. It's a big city, and you have to be on guard all the time," said Naz, turning to gaze out the window.
    In the autumn sunshine, I noticed lines around her her eyes and on her forehead that I hadn't seen before. Her face suddenly looked full of sorrow, etched with life's struggles, gains, losses, missed opportunities and dreams.
    "I'm losing my faith," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Each day since my sister's death, I find I've lost it a bit more. I don't believe in myself, my ability to cure patients, to save Ergene, to be happy... It's as if I've been drained of all emotion and I'm left completely empty. And it's worse when I see the state my parents are in. What's going to happen now? What on earth can happen after this?"
    "We'll make a plan," I said, knowing that this was probably not what she meant, but I'd learned from Fofo that scenes of high emotion were best kept short...

Finished The Covenant for TIOLI #3---





(I nearly didn't do that, for reasons I'll get into later; but the reality is that The Covenant took me 4-5 days longer to get through than comparable works, including others by Michener, so it gets the anti-prize.)

Anyway...out of the frying-pan and into the fire:

Now reading Elsie And Her Namesakes by Martha Finley.

Boy, oh boy, oh boy...

American readers sure did like to get a lot of words for their book-buck, didn't they??

At this rate I'm never going to get to With Fire And Sword...

>71 lyzard: Big food portions in restaurants, big books? The American spirit. :-(

>72 rosalita:

Whatever the primary cause, it's pretty much got to the point where I can say of my monthly bestseller, "877 pages, is that all??" :D

Finished Elsie And Her Namesakes for TIOLI #14...and FINISHED A SERIES.

In fact---I would go so far as to say that I have FINISHED ****THE**** SERIES.

There's only one possible response---


  

No offence to Martha Finley, her characters, or anyone else, but---dear God.

I do have a bit more to say about this series, but I think I'll leave it until after I get the last two entries written up. And I've had a chance to recover.

(Note to self: don't forget to consider the covers.)

Now...

...next up - and ironically enough, given how often I was driven to screaming point by the relentlessly unfunny ventriloquism scenes of the Elsie Dinsmore series - I was going to read Henry Cockton's The Life And Adventures Of Valentine Vox, Ventriloquist; however, I'm having trouble getting access to a readable copy.

This is a long book; but despite this, it seems to have been one of those rare 19th century novels to only ever be published in a single volume.

Consequently, most publishers dealt with the length of it by reducing the font as much as possible.

There are a couple of downloadable copies of it out there, but the best option (that is, a first edition) is only available in PDF format, meaning that I can't adjust the font. An epub edition, conversely, is from a copy that in its original format ran only 345 pages, making me suspect that it was heavily cut.

At first there seemed to be no borrowable hard copy available to me---but, much to my surprise, my academic library may posses such a thing: it has, at least, a listing for an item in storage that seems to pre-date the last two rounds of cataloguing and barcoding (and has therefore not been accessed in decades, if ever).

I can only request it and find out - and I have to run into the library next week anyway - but whatever the outcome, I'll have to put Valentine Vox on the back-burner for the moment.

I can't say I'm altogether sorry: I don't really need another 800 page book in my life just now.

Anyway---after all that, I think I'm going to allow myself to relax with a little bloody mayhem:

Now reading The Corpse In The Waxworks by John Dickson Carr.

>74 lyzard:. !!!!!
On so many fronts.

>77 lyzard: nothing better than a bit of murder & mayhem to unwind.

>74 lyzard: RAINBOW LIZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I apologize to our colorful friend for forgetting his formal name, but my goodness what a beauty.)

I'm very happy for you not only to have finished another series but to never have to read about Elsie ever again. The books sound dreadful but I did take a certain horrified pleasure in reading your reviews, if that's any consolation. :-)

>76 lyzard: An epub edition, conversely, is from a copy that in its original format ran only 345 pages, making me suspect that it was heavily cut.

If the original was an American edition, maybe it wasn't cut. I have several 19th century American publications of English books in which a large format page was used for a two-column text, and the font is itty-bitty. My copy of Old Kensington has only 182 pages but it is uncut.

Of course, if you can borrow a hard copy, so much the better!

>78 Helenliz:

Or to put it another way, the Elsie books were enough to drive me to murder. :D

>79 rosalita:

Fan-throated lizard. But rainbow lizard is nicer, I think. :)

Thank you! And of course I'll have a couple more pieces of anti-entertainment for you before they're really gone for good.

>82 lyzard: I'll have a couple more pieces of anti-entertainment for you before they're really gone for good

I will look forward to it! Sort of.

>80 NinieB:

Oh yes, I'm very familiar with those horrors: I've had my heart broken many a time, thinking I've found a workable online copy of something and then discovering it's a two-column nightmare.

In this case, though, the book is about 40% of its original length which makes me think it's cut as well.

I'm intrigued to find out exactly what my library does have, and if they'll really let me borrow it (I don't think this book has been reissued since the beginning of last century). I won't get my hopes up too high just yet, though: it may have to be the PDF after all!

I haven't encountered an English book of this length, at this time, in a single volume before: I wonder why they broke the mold in this particular case?

>83 rosalita:

One last bout of loin-girding... :D

Finished The Corpse In The Waxworks for TIOLI #13.

Now reading The Red Box by Rex Stout.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I GOT A BLOG-POST WRITTEN!!---





My sentiments exactly.

I've written up William Congreve's Incognita; or, Love And Duty Reconcil'd, a short novel from 1692; however be warned: I've also blathered on about why this is such an important work in the context of my blog.

For any brave souls...

>87 lyzard: Woo-hoo! The lemur and I are very proud of you.

>88 rosalita:

I thank you both. :)

Publication date: 1966
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Martin Beck #2
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (title on the cover is written on at least 3 lines)

The Man Who Went Up In Smoke (original title: Mannen som gick upp i rök) - Martin Beck succeeds in escaping work for a holiday in the country with his family, only to be called back to Stockholm almost immediately on a case with political overtones. A Swedish journalist, Alf Matsson, has disappeared in Budapest, and there are fears that he may either have defected, or somehow fallen foul of the authorities. Beck is asked to travel to Hungary and try to find some trace of the journalist; however the nature of the case requires that he do so on a more-or-less unofficial basis: he will have no professional standing or assistance. Arriving in Budapest, Beck ends up occupying the same hotel room as Matsson; he learns that the journalist left without his luggage or his passport, indicating that he could not have left the country spontaneously. Beck connects Matsson to a certain youth hostel, where the womanising journalist may have been involved with one of the guests. As he pursues his investigation, Beck realises that he is being shadowed, and assumes that his inquiries have attracted the attention of the Budapest police. He is right---but someone far more dangerous is also dogging his steps... The second book in the series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö unexpectedly carries its police detective, Martin Beck, away from his usual Swedish haunts and behind the Iron Curtain; though the authors' sketch of Budapest at this time reveals a stable and relaxed society, as well as a city of many beauties---which Beck, having given up his holiday, sometimes finds distracting him from the issue at hand. (The emphasis on the Swede's reaction to Hungarian cuisine is amusing.) Beck's acceptance of the assignment, which his superiors make clear is voluntary, underscores the biggest disappointment in these books - though of course, it may not have been such a cliché at the time as it was to become - its protagonist's failing marriage and his tendency to use his work to escape his family: increasing his estrangement from his wife and children even as he deplores the state of things to himself. There is, therefore, a certain irony in Beck's success in finding ways to connect and collaborate professionally when he must: even as his previous case found him working long-distance with the authorities in its American victim's hometown, here Beck gains the assistance of Major Szluka of the Budapest police, both men speaking their equally imperfect English. Beck initially perceives Szluka as a threat, but it is he and his men who save the Swede's life when he is savagely attacked. This incident puts Beck on the trail of the truth about Alf Matsson, revealing that he was using his journalistic assignments as cover for drug-smuggling. It also indirectly confirms what Beck has come to suspect about the disappearance... Back home, Beck and his colleagues begin to investigate Matsson's personal and professional lives, and try to trace his movements in the days before his final sighting. With each discovery, Matsson is increasingly revealed as a vicious individual, a heavy drinker with a violent temper who took pleasure in hurting others; someone who many people may have had reason to wish ill, and whose removal is no loss to anyone: on the contrary. The police detectives, however, cannot allow such considerations to influence their actions: they must follow the trail wherever - and to whomever - it leads...

    Before they parted, Martin Beck said, "What do you personally think about this? Where's he gone?"
    The man from the Embassy looked at him expressionlessly. "If I think anything, I prefer to keep it to myself."
    A moment later he added, "This thing is very unpleasant."
    Martin Beck went up to his room. It had already been cleaned. He looked around. So Alf Matsson had stayed here, had he? For an hour, at the most. To expect any clues from his activities during that brief period would be demanding too much.
    What had Alf Matsson done during that hour? Had he stood by the window like this, looking out at the boats? Had he seen somebody or something that made him leave the hotel so quickly he'd forgotten to hand in his key? Possibly. What would it have been, then? Impossible to say. If he'd been run over in the street, it would have been reported at once. If he had planned to jump into the river, he would have had to wait until dark. If he had tried to nurse his hangover with apricot brandy and had plunger into another drinking bout as a result, then he'd had sixteen days in which to sober up. That was a bit much. Anyway, he had not been in the habit of drinking while on an assignment. He was the modern type of journalist, it had said someplace in the report from the Third Division: quick, efficient and direct. He was the type who did the job first and relaxed afterwards.
    Unpleasant. Very unpleasant. Singularly unpleasant. Damned unpleasant. Blasted unpleasant. Almost painfully so.
    Martin Beck lay down on the bed. It creaked magnificently... Had it scrunched beneath Alf Matsson? Presumably. Was there anybody who didn't test the bed as soon as he stepped into a hotel room? So Matsson had lain here and looked up at the ceiling over twelve feet above. Then, without unpacking and without handing in his key, he had gone out...and disappeared...

Publication date: 1968
Genre: Young adult
Series: The Three Investigators #10
Read for: Shared read

The Mystery Of The Moaning Cave - Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews arrive for a vacation at the Crooked-Y Ranch in northern California to find nothing but trouble. In the wake of the revival of an ancient legend, that of a moaning cave, the ranch has been stricken by a series of accidents that is beginning to drive its hands away, making increasing difficulties for its owners, the Daltons. But the Moaning Cave is not the only apparently supernatural force at work: there are also whispers of the return of El Diablo, a notorious rebel-bandit who rode the district decades before, who finally evaded the authorities by retreating into the caves---and who no search could ever subsequently find... This tenth entry in the series featuring The Three Investigators is where authorship changed hands, from Robert Arthur Jr to William Arden: a reader aware of that can note certain differences in the language used, though thankfully the characters themselves do not change---except, perhaps, that Jupiter is a lot more physically active in this story than we're used to; but then, it's that sort of case. The main shortcoming of The Mystery Of The Moaning Cave is that it bears a bit too much of a resemblance to a couple of its predecessors, particularly, with its focus on a creepy cave-system, The Mystery Of The Green Ghost; but also, with its mixture of an old tale of the supernatural with a more modern crime, The Secret Of Skeleton Island. However, the number of different plot-threads crammed into this relatively short narrative is impressive and engaging. There really is a Moaning Cave: the boys hear it for themselves; the question is why, after so many years of silence, it should suddenly have started moaning again---and what is the connection between the cave and the series of accidents plaguing the Crooked-Y? Determined to solve this mystery, the boys begin to investigate the caves, and find themselves tangling with a mysterious individual with an scar and an eye-patch who is haunting the vicinity of the ranch; an old prospector obsessed with the thought of a diamond mine; a criminal returned to the scene of his crime; a legendary monster; and even the US Navy---while in solving several other mysteries, they also stumble over the truth about El Diablo...

    "Golly, Jupe, if someone is trying to scare people away, how come no one saw the phony El Diablo until tonight? I mean, why didn't he appear when the sheriff and Mr Dalton searched the cave?"
    "I don't know that yet," Jupiter admitted. "But until tonight the moaning always stopped when anyone entered the cave. Tonight we managed to enter unseen, the moaning did not stop, and the fake El Diablo appeared! That leads me to the deduction that we saw El Diablo tonight because the moaning had not stopped..."
    "Maybe we should tell Mr Dalton what we know, Jupe," Pete said uneasily.
    Jupiter frowned. The First Investigator hated to admit that they could not handle a situation on their own, but even he had to agree that there were times three boys could not do the job alone.
    "I suppose you're right," Jupiter said reluctantly. "Bring El Diablo's pistol and we'll try to find the tunnel that leads out of here."
    Pete lit his candle, and the boys started for the next tunnel to test for a current of air.
    Suddenly there was a ripple in the water of the pool that had been so dark and silent... Jupiter and Pete stared in horror as the shiny black creature began to climb out of the pool...

Funny the random things I remember from this series, in those entries I didn't own (and therefore didn't obsessively re-read):

This time around it wasn't any of the spooky cave doings, it was poor Bob - his bad leg playing up - being left behind to camp out with a dummy-Jupe and a dummy-Pete, while their real counterparts slipped into the caves unseen. :D

(I notice, though, that my random memories nearly always involve Bob. Hmm...)

So far, so good:

My academic library has at least accepted my request for their uncatalogued copy of Valentine Vox: whether they'll find it in storage - and whether they'll let me borrow it if they do - remains to be seen...

July stats:

Works read: 10
TIOLI: 10, in 10 different challenges, with 2 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 5
Young adult: 2
Historical drama: 1
Humour: 1
Classic: 1

Series works: 7
Re-reads: 1
Blog reads: 0
1932: 0
1931: 1
Virago / Persephone: 0
Potential decommission: 0

Owned: 0
Library: 7
Ebooks: 3

Male authors : female authors: 8 : 3

Oldest work: Fardorougha The Miser; or, The Convicts Of Lisnamona by William Carleton (1839)
Newest work: Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol (2007)

******

YTD stats:

Works read: 88
TIOLI: 88, in 79 different challenges, with 14 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 41
Classic: 12
Young adult: 11
Contemporary drama: 7
Historical drama: 6
Non-fiction: 3
Historical romance: 2
Humour: 2
Fantasy: 2
Children's fiction: 1
Short story: 1

Series works: 56
Re-reads: 9
Blog reads: 0
1932: 0
1931: 12
Virago / Persephone: 3
Potential decommission: 0

Owned: 5
Library: 35
Ebooks: 47
Borrowed: 1

Male authors : female authors: 62 : 30

Oldest work: The Heroine; or, Adventures Of A Fair Romance Reader by Eaton Stannard Barrett (1813)
Newest work: Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol (2007)

It's been a pretty good week, so have some baby sloths!---

Finished The Red Box for TIOLI #16.

Now reading The Misty Harbour by Georges Simenon.

>95 lyzard: Baby sloths are so cute!
May more good weeks come ;-)

>95 lyzard: SLOTHS!!,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>97 FAMeulstee:, >98 rosalita:

Enjoy!

In fact, enjoy a LOT, because August is a long-reviewing month and I'm not sure when you'll get more...

...though maybe you'll get another lemur instead??

Finished The Misty Harbour for TIOLI #15...

...and currently having a bit of a crisis.

I've been following the publication list given under wikipedia's 'Jules Maigret' page, and was stunned just now to see that I'd somehow (apparently) gotten The Misty Harbour and The Madman Of Bergerac out of OPO. I may say that the order given on that page is the reverse order of that listed on LT. But the more I looked into it, the more confusing things got.

Simenon famously dashed off the first dozen and a half of the Maigret books over an astonishingly compressed timeline---but did not, it seems, publish them in the order in which he wrote them.

And beyond that, for reasons that still escape me, the "accepted publication order" bears only the slightest resemblance to the actual publication order.

Plus you can find different sources contradicting each other, and even contradicting themselves.

Either way, try finding a series order that doesn't list Pietr The Latvian as the first Maigret book; yet look at this, from the "companion" book, Maigret's World, which gives the dates the books were written followed by the original publication date in parentheses:





I suppose the good news is that it's too late now to be worrying about any of that---or will be when I tackle The Madman Of Bergerac.

The other good news is that Simenon slowed down a bit (just a bit) after this, and there seems to be less confusion about the correct order.

Even so, you can imagine the state I'm in just now...

Anyway...now reading Blanche Cleans Up by Barbara Neely.

>100 lyzard: A pox on the houses of authors who were *too* prolific!

Best-selling books in the United States for 1979:

1. The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum
2. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
3. Overload by Arthur Hailey
4. Memories of Another Day by Harold Robbins
5. Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut
6. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
7. The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart
8. The Establishment by Howard Fast
9. The Third World War: August 1985 by John Hackett
10. Smiley's People by John le Carré

An odd mixture in 1979, though mostly comprised of familiar names, and with political thrillers finally dominating.

The Establishment is the final entry in Howard Fast's trilogy about the rise (and fall, and rise) of the Lavette family, following Second Generation (#9 in 1978).

The Last Enchantment is the third in Mary Stewart's quintet of Arthurian fantasy, following The Crystal Cave (#4 in 1970) and The Hollow Hills (#6 in 1973). Stephen King's The Dead Zone is a horror-thriller about a young man who wakes from a coma with the ability to see the future.

Arthur Hailey's Overload is set against the Californian power industry. Harold Robbins' Memories of Another Day is about the son of a coal-miner turned union boss trying to come to terms with his father's legacy.

Kurt Vonnegut's Jailbird uses Watergate as a framework for an examination of McCarthyism and the American labor movement.

William Styron's Sophie's Choice is about a young Southerner who gets involved in the tumultuous relationship between a Jewish scientist and his Holocaust-survivor lover.

John Hackett's The Third World War: August 1985 is a political thriller-cummilitary fantasy about a Third World War fought between NATO and the Warsaw Pact forces. John le Carré's Smiley's People, the 7th in his series featuring master-spy, George Smiley, and the 3rd and final entry in his "Karla Trilogy" sub-series, is about Smiley coming out of retirement to investigate the death of a former Soviet general.

The year's best-selling book was also a Cold War political thriller: Robert Ludlum's The Matarese Circle.

Robert Ludlum was born in New York in 1927, but grew up in New Jersey. He was educated at the exclusive Rectory School and Cheshire Academy in Connecticut, and would later (post-WWII) earn a B.A. in Drama from the Wesleyan University.

Ludlum began working as a actor while still in his teens and graduated from school theatricals to Broadway, appearing in the comedy, Junior Miss, when he was sixteen. When the war began, he tried but failed to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force; he later served in the South Pacific as an infantryman in the U.S. Marine Corps. He began writing during this time, but his first manuscript was lost during the celebration of his discharge in 1947.

After receiving his degree, Ludlum built a career as a stage and TV actor in the 50s, before becoming a producer and staging more than 370 productions for New York and regional theatre groups.

In the 1970s, however, Ludlum turned back to writing, and quickly built a reputation as an author of political thrillers. His first novel, The Scarlatti Inheritance, was rejected ten times before being picked up by the World Publishing Company: it became an immediate best-seller and a Book-Of-The-Month pick. He followed it with The Osterman Weekend, also a best-seller and later filmed by Sam Peckinpah.

From this point Ludlum found regular commercial success, with many of his works also being filmed. He is perhaps now best known for his series featuring Jason Bourne, which began in 1980 with The Bourne Identity. Prior to this, however, Ludlum published The Matarese Circle, a thriller about two bitterly opposed international operatives who must join forces, which became the best-selling book in the United States for 1979.

Robert Ludlum died of a heart attack in Florida in 2001; his last novel, The Sigma Protocol, was published posthumously.

Publication date: 1979
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Read for: Best-seller challenge

The Matarese Circle - In New York. General Anthony Blackburn, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is grotesquely murdered, with evidence at the scene pointing to KGB operative, Vasili Taleniekov. Soon afterwards, Soviet nuclear physicist Dmitri Yurievich is murdered in the Russian countryside along with his family and military guests ---the evidence there pointing to the American agent, Brandon "Bray" Schofield. An unusually frank conversation between the US President and the Soviet Premier ends in the dismissal of the overt evidence and prevents these incidents from escalating into a confrontation; but those behind the killings have only just begun... After a botched mission in Amsterdam, Schofield is called in and "retired" from service, but soon realises that his life is in imminent danger. Meanwhile, Taleniekov is summoned to the bedside of one of his former teachers, who is dying: the man uses his last moments to convince Taleniekov of the existence of an organisation called the Matarese, which he claims poses a threat to the US and Soviet governments alike. Almost immediately, Taleniekov finds his own position untenable: he goes on the run from his own people, driven to the realisation that the only person he can now trust is his American counterpart, Schofield... Robert Ludlum's The Matarese Circle is a Cold War political thriller that imagines an even greater threat to the safety of the world than the US-Soviet brinkmanship already at its height. In the 1930s, a shadowy organisation known as the Matarese specialised in political assassinations, in exchange for high fees and an even higher level of plausible deniability. Supposedly the cabal fell apart during WWII; but in fact its members withdrew to consolidate their power, build their fortunes and bide their time---and that time has come... The central premise of The Matarese Circle is a wryly enjoyable one, with the top American and Soviet agents forced to put aside a decade or more of trying to kill each other and work together to save the world - a kind of Cold War version of The Defiant Ones - but the novel that contains this premise finally becomes just too much: too much killing, too many hair's-breadth escapes, too many people assassinated just before they can talk---and our protagonists taking far too long to accept that anyone they turn to for help is going to end up dead. In that respect, The Matarese Circle is the perfect paranoiac's fantasy: everyone is in on it, and they are all out to get you. A more specific problem is that I found Vasili Taleniekov the more interesting of the two central characters; but as the novel proceeds - inevitably, I suppose - Taleniekov recedes into the background, while the American Schofield begins to dominate the narrative. Furthermore, Ludlum makes is quite clear that Schofield is every bit as much a cold-blooded professional killer as his Soviet counterpart; yet apparently we're supposed to hope, not only that he survives his final mission, but that he escapes to a future of love and safety: I can't think of a single reason why we should. After a lengthy and rather bloody stand-off, Taleniekov manages to convince Schofield both of his own sincerity and of the existence of the Matarese. The two men trace organisation to its roots in Corsica, where they learn the names of those behind it. Totally isolated from their usual support networks, and with their own people as well as the Matarese hunting them, the agents attempt to trace each of these men and their chosen successors, but are frustrated again and again in their efforts to find evidence that they can carry to their governments. Finally, however, they succeed in identifying the real power behind the Matarese---and just how close that power is to the US presidency...

    Bray studied Taleniekov's face, then looked back through the shattered window at Harry. "Congratulations. Things fall into place more clearly now."
    "They don't for me, I'm afraid," said the KGB man. "Believe me when I tell you that it is most unlikely that any order out of Moscow would include a direct attack on Robert Winthrop. We're not fools. He's above reprisals---a voice and a skill to be preserved, not struck down. and certainly not for such - personnel - as you and me."
    "What do you mean?"
    "This was an execution team, as surely as those men at the hotel. You and I were not to be isolated, not to be taken separately. The kill was inclusive. Winthrop was to be executed as well, and for all we know may have been. I submit that the order did not come from Moscow."
    "It didn't come from the State Department, I'm damn sure of that."
    "Agreed. Neither Washington nor Moscow, but a source capable of issuing orders in the name of one, or the other, or both."
    "The Matarese?" said Schofield.
    The Russian nodded. "The Matarese."
    Bray held his breath, trying to think, to absorb it all. "If Winthrop's still alive, he'll be caged, tapped, held under a microscope. I won't be able to get near him. They'd kill me on sight."
    "Again, I agree. Are there others you trust that can be reached?"
    "It's crazy," said Schofield, shivering in the cold---and at the thought that now struck him. "There should be, but I don't know who they are. Whoever I went to would have to turn me over, the laws are clear about that. Police warrants aside, there's a little matter of national security. The case against me will be built quickly, legally. Suspected of treason, international espionage, delivering information to the enemy. No one will touch me."
    "Surely there are people who will listen to you."
    "Listen to what? What do I tell them? What have I got? You?"

>102 rosalita:

I can only think there was something in the water in 1931-1932, because those are the years I've also complained about with respect to the ridiculous fecundity of John Rhode / Miles Burton and Philip MacDonald / Martin Porlock. :D

>51 lyzard: Mostly it's just *long* isn't it? The detours into the civil rights movement didn't bother me as much, though I know what you're saying about the theme not belonging here. But I welcomed it as an attempted balance to all that had gone before, which is probably how liberal-white-guy Michener intended it.

>57 lyzard: I'm enjoying these mysteries, and especially the complicated multigenerational plot in this one. But I agree there's a mean misogynistic streak in it.

>65 lyzard: Wasn't this one fun? I read this earlier this year, then picked up the same omnibus where you found The Real Cool Killers. Unfortunately it has sat neglected on my shelf while I work up the courage and time to attack it.

>105 lyzard: It's probably a case of right-book-wrong-time, but I found it very difficult to get into the headspace for The Matarese Circle. It's fast paced and, as you note, crazy violent and yet I found my mind wandering so much I'd often have to reread pages and in a couple cases entire chapters. I agree completely about the difficulty of finding a reason to invest in Schofield's success -- I suppose because he sometimes decides not to kill somebody when their death doesn't further his goals? Yay, humaneness of convenience? About a hundred pages from the end, I was convinced that there was going to be an "Angel Heart" twist, where Schofield turned out somehow to be the heir of the Matarese all along. I'm sort of disappointed that didn't happen, but mostly I'm glad it's over.

>107 swynn:

Hey, my man! - thanks for dropping in. I hope everything is going well for you. :)

I had no problem at all with what he was saying, I just felt it wasn't specific to his framework. Though you may be right about an attempt at balance.

I'm also thinking now that he already had The Covenant in mind and some of that was a dry run. That's a weird book inasmuch as the problems I had with Chesapeake are more or less inverted there (though of course I still have problems!).

BTW don't worry about keeping up at the moment, if you have too much else on your plate: we'll sort it out later.

Agreed, though there's a brief moment in The Red Box that gives me hope for better going forward (although even there we have assumptions about female hysteria, sigh).

Fun when it wasn't being completely horrifying, yes! I've been trying to get to The Crazy Kill but it keeps getting shunted for something that fits TIOLI better.

I didn't find it hard to read but it did wear me down (albeit not at Michener-level). I found the push for sympathy with Schofield increasingly annoying, and all I could think through the romantic subplot was, how about Vaseli DID kill her and then they still had to work together? How 'bout them apples?? :D

Well, I thought it was probably Winthrop so we were both on the same page, even if it was the wrong page!

Well, my goodness, I've even managed to get some film-blogging done! (Or anyway, I've resurrected and tweaked an old review...)

Sugar Hill (1974)

A flawed but very fun low-budget zombie film, about a woman taking revenge for the murder of her lover.

(NB: a little bit of grue in the screenshots, but not much.)

Publication date: 1932
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Henri Bencolin #4
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (set in Europe in the 20th century)

The Corpse In The Waxworks (UK title: The Waxworks Murder) - Young American, Jeff Marle, accompanies his friend, Henri Bencolin, to a meeting with the elderly M. Augustin, owner of the oldest waxworks in Paris. Bencolin shows M. Augustin a photograph of a young woman, Odette Duchêne, last seen alive entering the Musée Augustin, and later found dead in the river. M. Augustin, admitting that he saw Odette in his museum descending the stairs to the Gallery of Horrors, whispers that he saw another woman following her, who looked just like the wax figure of a notorious murderer... Bencolin, Marle and Odette Duchêne's fiancé, Captain Robert Chaumont, accompany M. Augustin to the waxworks, where his daughter, who does the daily work, including selling tickets, reacts with hostility to their questioning, and insists that Odette did leave the museum alive. The men look around, with Marle rather reluctantly examining the Gallery of Horrors. At its entrance is a distorted wax figure known as the Satyr of the Seine; in its arms is a woman's body, not made of wax... The fourth in John Dickson Carr's series featuring Parisian juge d'instruction, Henri Bencolin, The Corpse In The Waxworks is something of a disappointment: the novel never lives up to its bravura opening, with its hints of a serial killer operating out of the wax museum - Odette Duchêne is the second young woman last seen alive there - and of a murderous wax figure come to life, and with the body of yet another young woman found on the premises. In spite of all this, the waxworks turns out to be something of a red herring, with the real site of the action the establishment next door: a private clubs where the elite of Paris may meet secretly for assignations, with no risk to their reputations---or so they think... The Corpse In The Waxworks is ultimately heavy on atmosphere but rather light on mystery. It is also rather light on Henri Bencolin, with both the narrative and the action dominated by Jeff Marle (whose ongoing presence in Paris, and these mysteries, is never really explained), and Bencolin, when he is present, guilty of some uncharacteristic blunders. The crux of the matter is not the museum, but a supposedly private door that leads into the passageway running between the waxworks and the "Club of Masks", which those in the know having been using to avoid any chance of being seen on their way into the club. The evidence shows that it was in this passageway that Claudine Martel, a friend of Odette Duchêne, was murdered. Bencolin's investigation leads to an old adversary, a man calling himself Etienne Galant, who the magistrate believes is the owner of the club. He also knows for a fact that Galant is a blackmailer; is he also a killer? In order to find out, Jeff Marle volunteers for a dangerous mission, disguising himself and penetrating the secrets of the "Club of Masks"...

    The staircase turned sharply. Against the rough and green-lit wall a shadow rose up, and my heart thumped in my chest. A man with humped shoulders, his face shaded by a medieval hood, but with a long jaw which carried the suggestion of a smile---this gaunt model crouched against the wall. In his arms, partly covered by the cloak, was the figure of a woman; an ordinary man, except that in place of an out-thrust foot he had a cloven hoof...
    I heard the sound of something dripping...
    Panic seized me. Staring round at all those other groups beneath their pallor---at the Inquisitors working with fire and pincers, at a king under the guillotine knife... It was not my fancy. Something was falling, drop by drop, slowly...
    I hurried up the stairs in a tumult of echoes. I wanted light, and the knowledge of human presence in this choking stuffiness... There they were, Bencolin, Chaumont and Augustin, just coming into the upper rotunda as I ascended. I steadied myself and called out. But something must have shown in my face, for they noticed it even in that dim light.
    "What the devil ails you, Jeff?" the detective asked.
    "Nothing," I said. My voice told them it was a lie. "I was---admiring the waxworks---down there. The Marat group. And I wanted to see the satyr. It's damn good, the whole expression of the satyr, and the woman in his arms---"
    Augustin's head jerked on his neck. "What? he demanded "What did you say?"
    "I said, it's damned good: the satyr, and the woman in---"
    Augustin said, like a man hypnotised: "You must be mad---yourself. There is no woman in the satyr's arms..."

Finished Blanche Cleans Up for TIOLI #8.

Now reading The Forsaken Inn by Anna Katharine Green.

Well! - I was on a bit of a roll, so I tweaked another one:

The Thing With Two Heads (1972)

A typically bizarre 70s mish-mash of social commentary, mad science and car crashes, with an appropriate sense of humour about itself.

...and now, my goodness me, I've actually managed to get some new film-writing done!---

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916)

The first feature-length adaptation of the novel by Jules Verne is flawed film-making, but still a remarkable and worthwhile production in terms of its underwater photography, unprecedented at the time, and its special effects.

---and now I suppose I should get back to thinking about some BOOKS! :D

September isn't being a very productive reading month, at least numerically, thank you very much James Michener, and I haven't managed to get to as many of my challenge books as I would have liked (though to be fair to Jim, some of that is just lack of immediate availability).

On the other hand, I did manage to dispose of the Elsie Dinsmore series---WHOO!!

So with several planned works rolling over, October is shaping as follows:

Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant {group read}
Noble House by James Clavell {best-seller challenge}
The Life And Adventures Of Valentine Vox, Ventriloquist by Henry Cockton {C. K. Shorter challenge}
Pilgrims by Ethel Mannin {Banned in Boston! challenge}
The Hunterstone Outrage by Seldon Truss {Mystery League challenge}
Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter {blog read: Australian fiction}
Murder By Nail by Jeffery Farnol {ILL}
The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Hanns Heinz Ewers {film project}

I also have a few series that are nearing completion, and I would like to focus on those.

Much to my astonishment, my academic library seems willing to lend its very old copy of Valentine Vox, and I will be running into town tomorrow to pick that up from storage and to do some book exchanges there and at a second library.

Finished The Forsaken Inn for TIOLI #10.

Now reading The Mystery Of The Talking Skull by Robert Arthur.

So I made it into my academic library today---

In fact it was quite the pick-up yesterday:

Noble House at 1206 pages, Miss Marjoribanks at 499 pages and Valentine Vox at 537 pages of very small font.

>118 lyzard: I hope you had a wheelie cart to lug those home in!

>119 rosalita:

Of course not. Nothing so sensible. :D

Finished The Mystery Of The Talking Skull for TIOLI #9...and finished Steptember.

It is becoming increasingly clear that I am *not* going to make it to 150 this year and I put all the blame on MOUTHY MALE AUTHORS AND THEIR SPINELESS EDITORS!!!!

{*sniff*}

Anyway...now reading Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant, in preparation for the group read.

Publication date: 1936
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Reggie Fortune #11
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (by an author who died before April 1972)

Clue For Mr Fortune (US title: A Clue For Mr Fortune) - The 11th entry in H. C. Bailey's series featuring medical detective, Reggie Fortune, is a collection of short stories---and in some respects, a strange one. Reggie's ambivalence towards his role as a Scotland Yard consultant, and his always somewhat adversarial relationship with the police, in particular Sidney Lomas, head of the C.I.D., is foregrounded here, and an angry note runs through the stories, with Reggie more than usually disgusted with the official mindset and its preference for "an arrest" over "the truth". The stories are longer than usual, making the hostile attitude prominent; while the cases themselves feature Reggie taking the law into his own hands - in the cause of justice - unnervingly often. The first story, A Torn Stocking, is a prequel of sorts, set when Reggie has just taken over his father's general practice. A schoolgirl, Lorna Miller, has apparently committed suicide via a gas-oven, but the local police feel there might be more to the case than meets the eye. So does Reggie---but his suspicions turn in a different direction... In The Swimming Pool, an investigation that begins with a suspicious death ends in conspiracy, impersonation and gruesome murder... In The Hole In The Parchment, while holidaying in Florence with his wife, Joan, Reggie becomes involved in the case of an irascible collector, his unhappy wife and daughter, and a parchment that may or may not be a forgery... In The Holy Well, Reggie intervenes after an elderly countrywoman is convicted of the murder of her own son and sentenced to death, demonstrating to the judge concerned an entirely different interpretation of the evidence... In The Wistful Goddess, Reggie hunts for a missing girl, accepting the view of her desperate fiancé in spite of the evidence pointing to criminal activity and voluntary disappearance... In The Dead Leaves, a woman found dead in a London park leads Reggie on a chase for a killer amongst the mountains of Wales...

    "We can't make anything of it," said Lomas.
    "Can't you?" Reggie sighed. "Why, don't you think she's innocent?"
    "Innocent!"
    Reggie's voice rose. "Yes. Yes. Innocent and tortured."
    "I agree. Half-wit in the hands of knaves. Well, taking it altogether, this is brilliant work, Fortune. We should never have put it on that scoundrel, Miller, but for you, And, damme, we should never have got near the emeralds. What?"
    "I said 'grrh'," Reggie told him.
    "Meaning it." Lomas chuckled. "Playing the game for the sake of the game. I know. You would feel that. Well, you've found your line in life now, Fortune."
    "You think so?" Reggie said slowly. "I wonder."
    "Great game, man-hunting, isn't it?"
    "No," said Reggie. "Not a game. And I wasn't man-hunting. I was working for that woman---savin' what could be saved of her life. So little, my Lord, so little! However. That is my job..."

Two other things of note in Clue For Mr Fortune:

We've met Reggie's cat, Darius, in several other books: a imperious black Persian who rules his owner with an iron paw. Here, in the opening prequel story, we meet one of his predecessors:

    He had nothing urgent enough on his conscience to take him out till the world had the warmth of noon. From breakfast he retired to the couch in front of the study fire and his black Persian cat, Cyrus, first of a dynasty which still reigns in his house and heart.
    Cyrus objected to his reading the paper, a duty in which Mr Fortune rarely shows determination. Having made him put it down, Cyrus, always a just cat, rewarded merit by sitting upon him for a moment to purr, knead and puncture...

The other key point here is this---

"That won't wash." Nosy showed his teeth. "My statement is, you're doing the dirty on me. Write that down. And I want a lawyer. Mr Clunk, I'll have."

Josiah Clunk is the protagonist - we can hardly say "hero" - of Bailey's other series: a thoroughly unscrupulous solicitor who nevertheless not infrequently serves the cause of justice.

(Noting too that British crooks hardly ever demand a lawyer the way their American counterparts do. This is very unusual.)

>118 lyzard: That's quite a lot of pages... Good luck.

>122 lyzard: I'm intrigued by that cover, and in particular the pre-title. It's so weirdly specific and conversational. I feel like these days it would be more "A Clue for Mr. Fortune: The Reggie Fortune Collection" or something like that.

Also Darius the cat as described in the excerpt in >123 lyzard: sounds very ... catlike.

>124 Helenliz:

I think I'm just going to have to resign myself to Not Much Else this month. :(

>125 rosalita:

That particular quote struck a chord because one of Chester's main ways of showing affection is to dig his nails into me really hard: I know all about being punctured! :D

Gollancz covers were always weird that way. I really don't like them, but in this case I couldn't find an alternative with the original title.

Publication date: 1930
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Inspector Frost #3
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (job title in the title)

Inspector Frost And Lady Brassingham - When Lady Dorothy Poynings, headmistress of an exclusive girls' school, disappears in London with her secretary, Miss Le Fanu, the school's deputy headmistress, Miss Dampier, is finally driven to consult Scotland Yard. Miss Dampier and Inspector Frost take an instant dislike to one another, however the former reluctantly agrees to show the inspector all over the school, once he promises to disguise his real mission by posing as the father of a prospective pupil. Before leaving London, Inspector Frost calls upon Lady Brassingham, Lady Dorothy's aunt, a forthright and rather domineering old lady, to whom, conversely, Frost takes an immediate shine. In spite of her ladyship's declared resentment with her niece for refusing to become her companion - adopted daughter, rather - and for choosing instead to work for her living, turning the family estate into a school in the process, it is evident that she is deeply concerned about Lady Dorothy's disappearance; also, that in addition to her personal feelings, she fears a scandal. Dissuaded from hiring private inquiry agents, Lady Brassingham joins forces with Inspector Frost... The unpredictability of Herbert Maynard Smith's Inspector Frost series continues with this third entry. After dealing with a case of international espionage built around a gruesome murder in his previous outing, here we find Inspector Frost involved in a case offering perhaps the least actual criminal activity of any Golden Age mystery I've read: not that there isn't a mystery or two, but in the end the narrative is quite gentle and rather humorous. Inspector Frost And Lady Brassingham is as much a character study as a mystery, with the mismatched duo at its centre each deploying their own particular skills as they try to get to the bottom of the disappearance of Lady Dorothy---and of Miss Le Fanu, who tends to get overlooked. While Lady Brassingham, much to Miss Dampier's indignation, takes over the running of the school, Inspector Frost follows up clues associated with Lady Dorothy's private life, including the whereabouts of her brother - Earl of Castlekerry, but without property or a penny - who, like his sister, proves strangely elusive. Together, Inspector Frost and Lady Brassingham come to the surprising conclusion that, in spite of the possible impact upon the school, Lady Dorothy's disappearance was intended to cause a scandal. However, it is not until an exceedingly ill-behaved young duke's daughter involves herself in the case that all becomes clear...

    "Dorothy intended that letter to be found with her comments on it, when England was ringing with the mystery of her disappearance."
    "It seems spiteful," I said.
    "The spite apparently has not been all on one side," said Lady Brassingham grimly. "You will note that the lawyers are Wilson and Dampier. I always thought the Dampier woman knew more than she told."
    "What is your ladyship going to do, and where do I come in? Scotland Yard cannot mix itself up in personal disputes of this nature. As a man I can sympathise, but in my professional capacity I can do nothing."
    "Your business begins and ends with the finding of Dorothy. That is all right. After finding that letter, it is quite natural that you should apply to Messrs. Wilson and Dampier for an explanation. The rest you can leave to me. Brassingham, good man, always said if you have to do business with sharks, have a witness."
    "Your ladyship ought not to prejudge the case. For all we know Messrs. Wilson and Dampier are a highly respectable firm---"
    "Rubbish!" said Lady Brassingham.

Publication date:
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Ben the Tramp #5
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (first name of author has more characters than last name)

Little God Ben - Times are tough: so tough, that Ben gives up his wandering ways and gets a job. Calling on his past experience as a merchant sailor, Ben secures a minor position on an ocean liner, only to be assailed by an inescapable sense of approaching disaster. Ben's instincts are correct: in a violent storm, the liner hits some floating wreckage and is wrecked. Thrown overboard, Ben is rescued at the last moment and becomes one of eight people in a life-raft, which eventually makes its way to the shore of a seemingly uninhabited island. But almost immediately, he and the others - Ruth Sheringham, a lovely young debutante; the ship's Third Officer, Thomas Haines; Lord Cooling, a rather untrustworthy businessman; Richard Ardentino, a film actor; Ernest Medworth, a stock broker; Elsie Noyes, a rigid spinster; and Henry Smith, a suburbanite with a chip on his shoulder - not only find signs of a native population, but are astounded when a dirty, ragged British man appears from the undergrowth. Introducing himself as Robert Oakley, a survivor of another wreck three years before, he confirms the newcomers' worst fears: that the locals do indeed practice cannibalism... J. Jefferson's Farjeon's series featuring the well-meaning but cowardly and not particularly bright tramp known only as Ben was always a peculiar one; but "peculiar" is hardly an adequate term to describe Little God Ben. This is an adventure story rather than a thriller, like its predecessors; and, as its title suggests, it finds Ben at least temporarily saving his own and his companions' lives when he is mistaken for the physical manifestation of the local storm god, Oomoo. The main narrative is so divided, it is hard to know what to make of it. On one hand, the novel's assertion that black people are just people, after all, and that skin colour isn't all that important, is almost staggering given its origin and publication date; and even the practice of cannibalism is treated with a certain respect, as a manifestation of the natives' beliefs. However, though there is humour in Ben's ascension to godhead, and though it is through him that the novel expresses its more radical attitudes, the little Cockney's growing conviction that he has literally been sent by God to teach the natives the "right way" of doing things - which is to say, the white / British / Christian way - is played uncomfortably straight. Broadly, Little God Ben takes the same approach as earlier narratives of this type, in that the real danger to the newcomers is not the tribal chief, but the witch doctor, who sees Ben as a threat to his power. Robert Oakley, who has survived chiefly by subordinating himself to the witch doctor - and by giving up all hope - takes on the role of Oomoo's "interpreter" and helps Ben keep the others safe. But Ben's belief in his mission both creates new dangers, and puts him in opposition to his companions. Not only is he determined to prevent the desecration of the natives' golden temple, but when an inter-tribal war looms, which the others plan on using to cover their escape, he devotes himself to preventing the bloodshed...

    "Lumme!" muttered Ben miserably. "I wish I could go 'ome."
    "I'm doing my darndest to get you there," Oakley reminded him.
    "Tha's right," nodded Ben. "I ain't fergettin'. But where are yer goin' now?"
    "To see the others who share your wish."
    "Well, give 'em Oomoo's love, and doncher be gorn long. I feel like a ship wot's lorst 'er rudder when you ain't 'ere. Oh, and 'ere's another messidge fer 'em. Tell 'em to fergit that there gold, see? It ain't ours, and gawds don't steal. See?"
    Oakley had turned to go, but now he turned back for a moment and peered into Ben's solemn face.
    "You're a queer blighter," he remarked. "I can't recall ever having met anything quite like you before. I'll give them your message, but I don't imagine they'll pay any attention to it. After all---they're human."
    "Well, so are the black johnnies, ain't they?" answered Ben. "I mean ter say---well, ain't they?"
    Oakley smiled gravely. "I've an idea you're going to be a bit of trouble, Ben," he said.

Another tweaked review: at least this one is based on a book!---

The Dark Eyes Of London (1939)

Adapted from the thriller by Edgar Wallace. A series of drowning deaths leads Scotland Yard to investigate the connection between an insurance broker and a home for the blind.

I have created the thread for the group read of Margaret Oliphant's Miss Marjoribanks:

Here

All welcome!

Finished Miss Marjoribanks for TIOLI #5.

Now reading Noble House by James Clavell...

...which, oh much goodness, is much heavier than either Chesapeake or The Covenant! :(

I did manage with the Micheners but this time I am gunna need a bath book...

I thought you might enjoy this discussion with Dr Madeleine Seys, English professor at the University of Adelaide, about museology, fashion in Victorian literature and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, among other things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10LOaR1TzEg

It's a bit long, but very interesting.

Her book looks intriguing as well: Double Threads: Fashion and Victorian Popular Literature.

>132 kac522:

Thanks, Kathy! I might save that up for a treat, or a reward, after I finish Noble House, assuming I ever do (of all my 2022 chunksters, this might be the one that breaks me!). :)

>133 lyzard: One point she makes, which applies to Miss Marjoribanks, is the significance of the white dress, which Lucilla wears on her first Thursday evening (I think?), and encourages Barbara to do so, too.

>134 kac522:

Nice, thank you!

Finished Noble House for TIOLI #18:

  

  

THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAW AGAINST IT!!!!

Anyway.

I've decided that I'm not going to tackle Valentine Vox this month: I can't face another chunkster, certainly not one with tiny font (although at least that way I might not feel like I'm in danger of pulling a muscle every time I picked up my book).

So mostly I'm going to rest my brain with comfort reads. However, I would still like to get one of my in-library reads done, maybe Ethel Mannin's Pilgrims which I haven't managed to slot in over the last month or two; and if I can manage a blog read, that would assuage the challenge-guilt.

So---

Now reading Murder By Nail by Jeffery Farnol.

AAAAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I wanted a respite from chunkster best-sellers and I guess I got one!

But now can I find a copy...?

>139 lyzard: Oooh, intriguing!

>140 rosalita:

It's now up above in the challenge listings / book covers. :)

>141 lyzard: I've never read that! I actually didn't even know it was a book before it was a movie. (Actually, after looking more closely at the book page I see it's actually a novelization of the screenplay so I feel better about my ignorance.) :-)

By the way, I dropped some Red Box trivia along with my review, if you're up for a browse...

>142 rosalita:

On the 'unlikely #1-s' list, this probably runs second to Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I don't read a lot of novelisations, however my favourite is Jaws 2 because by the time it was written they'd junked that screenplay and started over. :D

>143 rosalita:

Yes, I saw that*, but I'm leaving things until after I get my own review written, though goodness knows when that will be. :(

Actually thank you for mentioning it because I've just realised I left it off my September list for some reason??

(*Also that you've started Wings Above The Diamantina...)

ETA:

BTW I'm still thinking of reading The Hand In The Glove this month but I'm all discombobulated after Noble House and don't have an actual plan.

>144 lyzard: Imsure you will get it added to the September list in all due haste.

I have not been successful yet in finding my copy of The Hand in the Glove but hope springs eternal. Although I'm now wondering if I might have read a library copy, and inexplicably returned it to the library when I finished it? Hmmm.

Well done on finishing yet another ridiculously long book.

>145 rosalita: if I might have read a library copy, and inexplicably returned it to the library when I finished it? that made me snort my tea in an inelegant, unladylike, manner!

>146 Helenliz: Helen, I can think of no greater compliment than making you snort in an unladylike manner!

>145 rosalita:

I can possibly send you an ebook copy if you need one, let me know if you want me to look into that.

>146 Helenliz:

Thank you! - this one was like Sisyphus' boulder. :(

>148 lyzard: If it's not a terrible amount of trouble for you, I'd definitely be interested in that.

>150 rosalita:

I'm pretty sure it's do-able, what format suits you best?

>151 lyzard: I have a Kobo reader, so EPUB is the default. But I think I could convert just about anything to EPUB using Calibre.

>152 rosalita:

Done. :)

YES!!

It turns out that Carolyn Wells' All At Sea, which otherwise is only available via Rare Books, was (i) serialised in the NZ paper, The Franklin Times, in 1932, and (ii) is available digitised through the NZ government's 'Papers Past' project.

So that's one off the in-library-read list.

Finished Murder By Nail for TIOLI #6.

Now reading The Crazy Kill by Chester B. Himes.

>154 lyzard: Well, that's good news! And as a bonus you get to look at all the old-timey advertisements in the newspaper. One of my favorite pastimes ever. :-)

>153 lyzard: Bingo! Let me know when you're getting ready to start and I'll move it up the list.

>156 rosalita:

A reminder that regular re-sweeps for missing books is always a good idea. :D

Plenty of ads in this case, I might post a few. :)

>157 rosalita:

Not just yet but I should get to it this month.

>154 lyzard: My, your hunting of the difficult-to-find tomes is impressive, Liz!

Have a great Sunday.

>159 PaulCranswick:

Hi, Paul! 'Obsessive' is probably the word for it but thank you. :D

Finished The Crazy Kill for TIOLI #14.

Now reading The Hand In The Glove by Rex Stout.

Finished The Hand In The Glove---for TIOLI #3, if I can get a slot, or TIOLI #5 if I can't.

Now reading The After House by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Note to self: Tecumseh Fox---

Double For Death (1939)
Bad For Business (1940)
The Broken Vase (1941)

Finished The After House for TIOLI #11.

Now reading The Golden Triangle by Maurice Leblanc.

Finished The Golden Triangle for TIOLI #9.

Now (re-)reading Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter; however I have to read that online, so also reading Shadow Of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer.

Finished Shadow Of Fu Manchu for TIOLI #3.

Now reading Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely; still reading Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter.

Finished Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers for TIOLI #9.

Still reading Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely.

Well! - not a lot happening around here at the moment, for a variety of reasons. I hope to be addressing that over the weekend but, as usual in this situation---here are The Boys to be going on with:


  

>168 lyzard: Such handsome boys!

BTW, I finished The Hand in the Glove and have, as you might guess, Some Thoughts.

>168 lyzard: Aww, the adorable cuddle bugs!

>169 rosalita:

hnjbbbbbbbbbb bv

(That's from Chester, who just walked across the keyboard!)

Ooh! - looking forward to them. I have Some Thoughts too, though goodness knows when I'll get around to writing them down. :(

>170 MickyFine:

Hi, Mickey, thanks for visiting! Yeah, it makes me go all gooey when they do that. :D

>171 lyzard: Wow, what a coincidence, my cat writes really similar messages!

>173 NinieB:

I prefer Chester's messages to Spike's, he always manages to hit the control functions or the off button. :D

A post with Chester & Spike is never wasted.
Hope things go your way.

>175 Helenliz:

Aw, thank you! :)

Finished Blanche Passes Go for TIOLI #13...and FINISHED A SERIES!!

Only a four-book series, but an important one. I can't remember the specific TIOLI challenge that led me to Barbara Neely's Blanche White books, but it is through them I discovered how disgracefully late to the publishing game were crime and mystery books by women of colour, and featuring women of colour as their protagonists.

Male versions of same had been around since the 1950s but it wasn't until the 1990s that women began to find a voice in this area. Barbara Neely's Blanche On The Lam seems to have broken the barrier, followed by Nora Deloach's "Mama" series---both series featuring working-class women of colour who find themselves turning amateur detective chiefly for reasons of self-defense, or in defense of their loved ones. The books, likewise, offer an overt or covert commentary on the position of women of colour in America.

I would like to follow up my reading of the Blanche White books with Nora Deloach's series, but the first couple are impossible to get here for some reason (the later ones are all available), and getting them anywhere else is currently prohibitively expensive. I'll have to put them on the "we'll see" list.

Meanwhile I might look into the question of who followed Deloach...?

Anyway---have a marmoset. In fact have two marmosets:

...and now naturally thinking about next month's reading. If not next month's writing.

Finally having a best-seller to tackle that amounts to a snack rather than a full degustation menu opens November up for catching up all my neglected challenges. (Yeah I know I say that every month but really! this time!)

I also have a pile of library books that I really should get to and another series or two nearing completion.

However, the only definites at the moment are---

E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial by William Kotzwinkle {best-seller challenge}
Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout {shared read}
The Mystery Of The Laughing Shadow by William Arden {shared read}

>178 lyzard: Why do these marmosets look like they're wearing a mask? Then again, how am I even noticing the markings on their faces when those EAR TUFTS are screaming for attention?

Congratulations on finishing a series, no matter how long or short. After Elsie Dinsmore, you've earned a couple of quickies. :-)

>180 rosalita:

I think the photo's a bit over-exposed but you're right, as long as the EAR TUFTS are present the rest just doesn't matter. :D

Thank you! I think. :P

Anyway---

Now reading Paint It Black by Nancy A. Collins.

Finished Paint It Black for TIOLI #2.

Now attempting to read Histoire de Babar, le Petit Éléphant by Jean de Brunhoff.

(Which hilariously enough was originally published in 1931: how did this escape my lists before??)

Finished Histoire de Babar, le Petit Éléphant for TIOLI #7.

(Sort of. With the assistance of what I have to declare a rather loose English translation...)

Okay, let's do this:

I am officially declaring November to be Catch-Up Month!---

(---and thank you to Morphy for reminding me of this re-working---)

Now reading With Fire And Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz.

>185 lyzard: And writing All The Things, too?

>187 rosalita:

We-ee-ee-ell...

>188 lyzard: *stamps foot and pouts*

>189 rosalita:

You should talk, don't you owe me some THOUGHTS?? :D

>185 lyzard: *snort* Wish you luck with catch up month.

>190 lyzard: What's the rush, since you won't read them until you write your own review? :-p

>191 Helenliz:

I definitely prefer that version to the original!

Thanks! Anyway, I've made a start. All 80 pages of it. :)

>192 rosalita:

Oh I see. Well, if you need to use me as your excuse I guess I can live with that... :D

>193 lyzard: Hey, anytime you want to read and respond to the review I'VE ALREADY POSTED (for The Red Box), feel free! Until then, button it, missy!

>194 rosalita:

Well now you're just being unkind... :D

>195 lyzard: Think of it as a compliment — I so value discussing books with you that I am eager to get your insights into these! That has the advantage of being both true and a touch obsequious. :-)

>196 rosalita:

That's much better, thank you! :D

Publication date: 1942
Genre: Historical romance
Series: Jasper Shrig #6
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (teeth on the cover)

Murder By Nail - Walking through a London cemetery, Edward Brandonleigh discovers that some works have unearthed a skull with a long, rusty nail driven through its temple. The relic is that of Jonas Wrybrook, who died some seventy years before in what now looks like murder... Subsequently, Brandonleigh receives a visit from the Bow Street Runner, Jasper Shrig, who tells him all that he has learned---including his theory that Jonas Wrybrook was murdered by his reluctant young bride, Marianne. Shrig has knows that the real heir to the Wrybrook estate is a young woman, Virginia Wrybrook, who has no idea of her family history. When Virginia disappears after learning her true identity, Brandonleigh finds himself setting out on an adventure that will change his life... The sixth entry in Jeffery Farnol's series of romance-adventure novels featuring Jasper Shrig, Murder By Nail is a curious work that tends to keep its grisly crime-plot in the background. This is as per usual in one sense, in that Shrig and his investigations are usually a supporting character and a side-plot to the main thread; but Brandonleigh himself, who narrates, is less involved in that aspect of the novel than is usually the case---and indeed, he doesn't want to be involved in it at all. Since suffering a romantic disappointment in his youth, Edward Brandonleigh has become reclusive and rather misanthropic, particularly with regard to women, and epicurean by habit. His involvement in the search for Virginia changes all that, with Brandonleigh learning some hard lessons about himself, making new friends, facing various dangers---and most surprising of all, falling in love. Here it feels as if Farnol were taking pointers from his protégé, Georgette Heyer, in that he pulls a bait-and-switch, with the beautiful and headstrong young Virginia giving way as romantic heroine to Evadne Trevanion, the warm-hearted though level-headed sister of the district's former minister, who now devotes himself to combating the deadly local practice of "wrecking", luring passing ships upon the rocks for plunder. The rugged beauties of the Cornwall coast and its surrounding woods, and the gloomy ruin in those woods where dangers of all kinds lurk, become almost characters in their own right as Edward Brandonleigh and his companions seek to protect Virginia Wrybrook, who under a false name has secured a position of governess at the Trelant estate, in the very household where, if Shrig is right about her family history, she should be mistress. The men are unable to convince Virginia of her potential danger---which may be even greater than they first realise. The current head of Trelant is ninety-year-old Lady Polgarth, who is suspected locally of shielding, if not actively encouraging, the wreckers---and who is also Jasper Shrig's prime suspect in the long-ago murder of her first husband, Jonas Wrybrook: a crime that in spite of time and lack of evidence, Shrig has every intention of bringing home to the guilty party...

    "Sir, it had to be small,---yet old Lady P. took it for a nail, same as I meant she should and hoped as she might!"
    "But what on earth had you to do with it?"
    "Everything, sir!... 'Twas my hand as drove that little nail into dolly's napper---same as another hand drove a larger nail through a poor man's skull seventy years ago!"
    At this, and quite heedless now of his smoke, I leaned forward to peer speechless into Shrig's placid, rubicund face and for a long moment so remained, being shocked and horrified beyond all words.
    "Shrig," I said, at last, "then you are sure at last that...Lady Polgarth---?"
    "Sir," said he, and very gravely, answering the question I had left half uttered, "she ob-serves said nail and knowing all it means, throws dolly on the fire! She axes the child: 'Who told you that name?' said name spoke full being: Sir Jonas Wrybrook, borrownet, who departed this life suddenly, May five, seventeen hundred and fifty-eight, being exactly seventy year ago!"
    "But then, Jasper, you have merely proved your own suspicions---no more."
    "Ay, sir, I'm sarten-sure as Marianny, Lady Polgarth, vidow of Sir Jonas Wrybrook, murdered same by means o' hammer and nail, being then a beautiful young creetur o' twenty summers!"
    "A terrible indictment!" said I, with involuntary shudder. "This was such a very hideous crime, especially for a young woman to commit."
    "Ar!" he exclaimed, in a sort of ecstasy. "But---such a voman!"

Publication date: 1932
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Inspector Arnold #3 / Desmond Merrion #3
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (book has the last three letters of my city’s name in the title)

Death Of Mr Gantley - When young Constable Pentrellis discovers a wrecked car with a dead body inside, he hastily summons his inspector and the police surgeon: the former recognising the victim as Arthur Gantley, owner of the Downhamshire Courier, and the latter discovering that he was shot through the right temple. It is quickly evident that the crime scene makes no sense, and although the local investigation is as thorough as possible, it ends with more questions than answers and the summoning of Inspector Arnold of Scotland Yard. Arnold follows up suggestions of personal enmity and resentment of Gantley's involvement in local politics, but soon the case seems to revolve around the almost simultaneous death of Gantley's sister-in-law, whether or not her death was of natural causes, and which of the two died first---this determining who inherits a fortune and who, therefore, had motive... Death Of Mr Gantley was the third work in each of the the overlapping series by "Miles Burton" ("John Rhode", aka Cecil Street) to feature Inspector Arnold and Desmond Merrion, formerly of British Intelligence, though only the second to feature them together (their meeting takes place in the unavailable work, The Three Crimes). Having read some of the later series entries, I have the same complaint to make here that I did there---namely, that while Arnold is on his own account an intelligent and competent detective, as soon as Merrion shows up he seems to lose about 50 IQ points, with Merrion solving the case and Arnold reduced to a sidekick role and/or always being wrong in his deductions. This aspect of these books is particularly annoying in Death Of Mr Gantley since Merrion doesn't show up until about halfway through the narrative, giving us lengthy passages of a "smart Arnold" who suddenly disappears; and because the scenario of the mystery offers a perfect opportunity for (what ought to be) the men's complimentary skills. Death Of Mr Gantley is a long, rather twisting mystery, which carries the investigators away from the initial scenario of local intrigue to a case of murder for personal gain. It is unusual for its time in its use of forensic evidence and its frankness about such things as body temperature and lividity patterns in determining time of death and the handling of the body. Correct interpretation of the confusing crime scene indicates that Gantley was killed elsewhere, and that his murderer was interrupted in the midst of staging his death---forcing him to a change of plans and some hasty improvisation. Merrion becomes convinced that the murder actually took place on Gantley's house-boat, which he kept moored in an isolated coastal bay. As the detectives pursue matters of time and tide, and of who knew of Gantley's movements, how another person could have reached the scene, and whether anyone saw that person, they begin to receive cryptic, anonymous communications pushing them towards the solution of the case---communications which Merrion believes come from the killer...

    "In each of our cases of recognition, the witness expected to see Mr Gantley. It wasn't a case of picking him out from a dozen others. Urmery expected to find him alone at Benger's Creek, Grundy saw the dinghy, which he recognised at a distance, the company at the Otterworth Arms knew the car before the driver came in. It's easy enough to say now that they would have noticed minor points of difference between Mr Gantley and any one impersonating him. Very possibly they would, if they'd looked for them. But they didn't. Why should they ? They had no earthly reason to suppose that the man was not, in fact, Mr Gantley."
    Merrion paused, and Arnold ventured a word. "But where is all this leading to?" he asked.
    "It's leading to the removal of one of the obstacles to the theory of Mr Gantley having been murdered at Benger's Creek. Inspector Driffield has produced the unanswerable argument that dead men don’t drive cars or call at pubs. No, but live men do, and I maintain that on this occasion a live man did, but that that man was not Mr Gantley...
    "No, I don’t want to discuss the question of who it could have been just yet. Let me go a bit further. I’ve been to see Doctor Froude, and have thrashed out the vexed matter of the medical evidence with him... Froude’s first verdict, you may remember, was that Mr Gantley, when he saw his body at a quarter to nine on Monday morning, had been dead not less than ten hours. The body was taken to the mortuary, where Doctor Froude discovered the post-mortem stains he spoke to you about. The intensity of these stains rather surprised him, as did the extent to which certain other bodily changes had taken place. He told me just now that he would have considerably increased his original estimate of ten hours, but for the fact that it had by then been apparently established that Mr Gantley had been alive at nine o’clock on Sunday evening...
    "So you see, the second objection to Mr Gantley having been killed at Benger’s Creek is now removed. My own belief is that he was murdered, not only before Urmery’s visit to the house-boat, but as early as Saturday evening. And this, I think, is of the highest significance..."

Publication date: 1932
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Amos Petrie #2
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (rolling challenge: who / what / where / how / when)

Who Spoke Last? - The Stock Exchange is left in upheaval with the sudden crash of Bedlay's Atlantic Trust, which those in the know assign to one of its directors "ratting": suddenly throwing his own shares into the marketplace without the foreknowledge of his partners; there is even a whisper that the person responsible is Horatio Bedlay himself... When Bedlay is found murdered, a paper knife through the back of his neck, Inspector Ripple alerts his friend and colleague, Amos Petrie, a solicitor with the Public Prosecutor's Department. From the estimated time of death, and what they learn of Petrie's movements, the investigators conclude that he must have had a late-night caller, which initially they suppose will point to a particular suspect---but they are wrong: as it turns out, Bedlay was confronted the night before, singly and in groups, by all of this fellow-directors of the ruined Trust and their solicitor; so the question becomes, who was with him last...? As with its predecessor, Death Must Have Laughed, the main problem with the second entry in the series by "John Victor Turner" (aka David Hume) is that, even by the quirky standards of the Golden Age amateur detective, Amos Petrie is annoying and not particularly likeable---his main schtick being to drag fishing and fishing analogies into everything he says. He also makes a constant butt out of his "friend", Inspector Ripple; although given that Ripple chooses to put up with all this in exchange for getting professional credit for Petrie's work, we don't have to feel particularly sorry for him. (Ripple is supposed to be a competent detective himself but we certainly don't see it for ourselves.) Like a number of the thrillers written around this time by Edgar Wallace, Who Spoke Last? turns upon the ins and outs of Stock Market manipulation, its legalities and illegalities, and the grey area in between. The novel is even more cynical with respect to the law, with the company's solicitor manoeuvring himself into the position of personal attorney to each of the suspected men, and keeping them safe en masse by preventing any of them from saying who left the house last---though of course, as Petrie realises, this keeps him safe too. It becomes evident that Bedlay's Atlantic Trust was always intended to crash, to the profit of its directors and the ruin of its investors; but pre-empting this this was only one of the many ways in which Bedlay may have made enemies. On one hand, he had a long history of financial malfeasance; on the other, an estranged wife and a bad reputation with women: and the more Petrie and Ripple discover about his past, the longer the list of suspects grows...

    "In other words, Ripple, you're saying to me, 'What have you found out?'"
    The Inspector stared at Amos, as though to express astonishment at the suggestion, but the little man was gazing over the Yard man's shoulder. "You're about right, Mr Petrie..."
    "Well, you deserve to know something," said Amos, settling back into his chair. "The position as I see it is this: Some days in clear water you see pike and perch swimming side by side. Then you say to yourself---have the pike followed the perch because they know that the rough-finned ones are always to be found where minnows pass, or have the pike led the way, so convincing the perch that wherever the big fish swim there is a reasonable chance of a tasty gudgeon? Or have they both come to the kill without any sort of arrangement? Or have the perch swum to dash in where pike fear to tread, or have the pike arrived to bite where perch are too small to kill? Is one perch likely to follow five hungry pike, or are five hungry pike more likely to follow one hungry perch? If you saw a plump roach flash through the water near five pike, and then you saw a swirl on the surface as the fish departed from this life would you be certain that the pike had had it? In these, and other problems, my friend, is to be found the answer to your murder mystery. Have I helped you along the right line of thought, or are you still pining for more?"
    "I want no more of that sort of help," said Ripple, emphatically. "I know just as much now as I did before I asked you. Why can't you pretend that you know nothing about fishing---just for a minute?"
    "All right, I will. There are two features in this business that I want you to notice very particularly. In the first place remember that the lawyer, Cavendish, has coached the others very carefully. In the second place remember that things in this case are not what they look by a mile. I'm beginning to think that if you reversed all your information, and applied the opposite, you'd be nearer the truth than you are at the moment..."

Publication date: 1928
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Van Dusen Ormsberry #1
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (a book in my favorite genre by an author new to me)

The Man Who Killed Fortescue - When novelist G. M. C. Anstruther is found stabbed to death on the top deck of a New York bus, the case is assigned to police detective Van Dusen Ormsberry, who arrives at the scene with his subordinate, Sergeant Hennessey. The two soon withdraw to Anstruther's nearby apartment---but when they arrive, they hear sounds of movement within. Forcing their way in, the detectives catch a glimpse of a man in evening-clothes, who escapes through the window into the surrounds of the exclusive apartment building next door. Ormsberry is still staring after his quarry when he sees another person on the scene: Joan Archer, who the year before was tried for the murder of her step-father, John Fortescue, and acquitted---but hardly exonerated, with many people, most vocally Fortescue's sister, Estelle, still believing her guilty. Ormsberry had fought against her arrest and trial but was unable to produce a viable alternative suspect---and the case, the worst failure of his career, continues to haunt him... The main problem with this mystery by "John Stephen Strange" (aka Dorothy Stockbridge Tillett) is its detective---or rather, that the author wants to have his/her cake and eat it too. Van Dusen Ormsberry is supposed to be a New York police detective, but in almost all respects he comes across as a textbook Golden Age amateur detective instead---called to murder scenes in evening clothes and from Broadway shows, or from hobnobbing with New York's social elite, and keeping a separate office for himself because "headquarters" offends his sensibilities, if you please; only with all this, he also has a two-fisted sergeant-sidekick and the resources of the NYPD to back him up. If can swallow all this, however - and it takes some swallowing - The Man Who Killed Fortescue is an engaging mystery, with its overlapping murder cases and its habit of keeping the reader slightly ahead of its detectives by letting them follow the people who become suspects in both cases---most of whom have secrets, and therefore motive. Delightfully, it turns out that Anstruther was attempting not only to solve the murder of John Fortescue, but to turn it into a mystery novel; so that his manuscript would - or might - reveal the real guilty party. Discovering this, it becomes evident to Ormsberry what the person who broke into the novelist's apartment immediately after his murder was looking for---but did he get away with it? - and who else might have known Anstruther's theory of the crime? Determined as much to clear Joan Archer's name as to solve the two murders, Ormsberry's first actions hardly make the situation better for the persecuted young woman, when Brian Channing, Joan's former fiancé, who for his sake she broke with after her trial, becomes the new prime suspect. Though the circumstantial evidence is strong against him, it is eventually revealed that Channing was the one person in whom Anstruther confided some of his theories---so that if he isn't arrested for murder, he stands a good chance of being the next victim...

    "Do you think Anstruther actually knew the name of the man he believed to be guilty of Fortescue’s death?"
    "No, sir," said Roberts, "I’m sure he didn't, because he continually referred to the fact that it was Channing's business to locate the guilty man, not his. As far as I can make out, what he did was to reason out that there must be some one connected with the case in a certain way - some one who had a certain motive for wishing Mr Fortescue out of the way - and that once that was pointed out, it would be easy enough to find the man. The difficulty was that no one had ever distantly connected the murderer with any of the people concerned. Once attention was called to him he couldn’t escape for a day."
    "Evidently Mr. Anstruther was right," murmured Ormsberry thoughtfully.
    Here Mr Speck intervened. "I don’t quite follow your reasoning."
    "Clearly, when Anstruther told the man we are trying to find, the man in the library of the Fontenoy Club---when Anstruther told him the plot of his newest story, this man was so impressed with the force of the novelist's reasoning that he followed him on to the bus and killed him. Clearly he, too, thought that he would not escape for a day, once attention was called to him."
    Joan shuddered slightly. The secretary spoke in an awed tone: "Then Anstruther actually told his story to---"
    He hesitated and Ormsberry took up the sentence. "To the one man in the world most interested in hearing it; the one man he had succeeded in tracking where the police department of New York had failed---the man who killed Fortescue."

Finished With Fire And Sword for TIOLI #9.

One chunkster down, one chunkster to go!---

Now reading The Life And Adventures Of Valentine Vox, The Ventriloquist by Henry Cockton.

(Ugh. Tiny font. :( )

With Fire And Sword was read for my Nobel Prize challenge, wherein I am reading a representative work of fiction by those winners who wrote novels, whether or not they won for their novels.

Got that??

The list so far looks like this:

1901: Sully Prudhomme (France) - poetry, essay
1902: Theodor Mommsen (Germany) - history, law
1903: Bjornstjerne Bjornson (Norway) - poetry, novel, drama (novel read: Synnøve Solbakken, reviewed here)
1904 (joint winner): Frédéric Mistral (France) - poetry, philology
1904 (joint winner): José Echegaray (Spain) - drama
1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland) - novel (novel read: With Fire And Sword)
1906: Giosuè Carducci (Italy) - poetry
1907: Rudyard Kipling (United Kingdom) - novel, short story, poetry

Kipling's prize was awarded "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration that characterize the creations of this world-famous author".

Oddly enough I've read very little Kipling, so I'm not sorry for this opportunity.

Though he wrote copious short stories, Kipling only wrote three novels (plus another in collaboration): The Light That Failed, Captains Courageous and Kim.

I'm currently thinking that Kim might be the most representative of the three, but I'm willing to hear opinions?

>203 lyzard: I'm afraid I'm no help at all, as I have not read any Kipling, unless you count that ubiquitous quote about meeting triumph and disaster and treating both imposters just the same.

>204 rosalita:

Keeping your head while all about are losing theirs, yada-yada. :)

It's strange I haven't read Kipling but I suppose he was a little too late to get caught in my classics dragnet but too early to get fall into my other challenges / categories.

Publication date: 1926
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Dr Eustace Hailey #2
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (uneven number in title)

The Double-Thirteen Mystery (US title: The Double Thirteen) - Some years after their first meeting in St Petersburg, Robert Carling is reunited with Olva Vorloff---now, with her mother, a refugee from the Revolution who has sought sanctuary in London. To his delight, Olva accepts his proposal, and he further gains her mother's consent to their marriage; but almost immediately, things go wrong. Though Olva intimates that she is retiring for the night, a restless Bob, hovering near her house, sees her slip out and into a taxi; while a scar-faced stranger is quickly admitted to the Vorloffs' house---though at the party earlier, where Bob noticed him, neither the stranger nor Olva gave any sign of knowing one another. Confused and jealous, when the man emerges again Bob follows him, determined to discover who he is and what his connection to the Vorloffs may be... The next day, Dr Eustace Hailey receives a call from an old friend and patient, Inspector Biles of Scotland Yard, who to his surprise asks him about Bob Carling, who he knows well. Biles explains that Bob was seen at the hotel of a man called Danatoff, whose room there was ransacked, and who was later found dead in the country. Also at the scene is a car identified as belonging to Olva Vorloff---though Olva herself has disappeared... The second entry in the series by "Anthony Wynne" (aka Robert McNair Wilson) featuring practising psychologist and amateur detective, Dr Eustace Hailey, The Double-Thirteen Mystery is a disappointment. This novel's predecessor, The Sign Of Evil was - albeit obliquely - one of the earliest British mysteries about a serial killer, and Hailey's psychological insight was vital. This, by contrast, is more a thriller than a mystery, one of rather too many of the time built around sinister Russian agents and beautiful Countesses, and with all the usual trappings of chases, abductions and narrow escapes, an espionage back-story, and a rather dull pair of young lovers; while Hailey's psychology goes about as far as, "Bob's a good chap, he wouldn't do that." More absurdly still, though there is a constant emphasis on Hailey's size and bulk, the plot keeps trying to turn him into some sort of action hero---carrying a gun, speeding through the night, chasing people around, doing second-storey work, and so on. Inspector Biles, meanwhile, is the type of police detective who makes up his mind fast and then interprets the evidence to fit his theory---forcing Hailey to run interference between him and Bob and Olva, one or both of whom Biles is dying to arrest. The country murder scene, meanwhile, offers a confusing mix of evidence---not least that, while the shattered windscreen glass from two cars is present, suggesting gun-play, the murder victim has been stabbed to death. Olva's car and Olva's footprints at the scene are enough for Biles, but Hailey is focused upon a slip of paper found in the dead man's clothing which carries a message in a complicated cipher involving rows of thirteen numbers...

    As he drove to London in the car he had hired at the Red Lion, Doctor Hailey attempted to clear his mind. He could not dispute the fact that the theory of the crime which Biles had elaborated was a very satisfying one. It seemed to cover every scrap of evidence which they had collected. What was more it had proved itself capable of absorbing each new clew. That. as he well understood, is the real test of any theory. In detective work, as in science, it is the exception that proves the rule...
    And yet, what he called the "psychological argument" against this solution remained. Everything was right except the actors in this grim drama, who seemed to have been cast in the wrong parts.
    It was a slender enough objection to a case which he realised would convince any jury that might be summoned to adjudicate on it. British juries are not open to psychological pleadings. Like British detectives they have few prejudices and a strong sense of evidence. Moreover it would assuredly not strike them as surprising that a beautiful Russian Countess should commit murder.
    A faint smile flickered on his face as this thought crossed his mind. For how much the label on a man or woman counted! For how little, comparatively, the spirit which animated!

Pity about the title change because this is a much more appropriate cover (thank you, Julia!):





Although not as complex or interesting as the Playfair cipher used by John Rhode in his 1930 mystery, Peril At Cranbury Hall - and pinched by Dorothy Sayers for Have His Carcase - the double-thirteen cipher is one of the better parts of this book.

I was amused to note that someone else who had read this copy of The Double-Thirteen Mystery had taken a crack at solving it before the novel's detectives did:





The same person also took exception to a particular detail of Dr Hailey's dinner:

I used Kipling's "If" as my quote in the front of my thesis, on the grounds that it was probably the word I'd used most in the previous 3 * a bit years!

I first read the Just so stories as a child, but they stand up to a re-read as an adult. I read Kim a few years ago and enjoyed it. I've also read one short story, The Phantom Rickshaw, but I'm afraid I remember nothing about that one.

I (fairly recently) read Kim as an audiobook and loved it, which I didn't expect.

>208 Helenliz:

I have a feeling I've read a bunch of his stories in different anthologies but nothing specific or focused.

>209 CDVicarage:

Thanks for that, Kerry; good to hear. :)

ETA: The blurb on the main page for Kim says that it is "widely acknowledged as the author's greatest novel and a key element in his winning the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature", so I guess we have a plan!

Publication date: 1942
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Sarah Keate #6
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (Dog Days of Summer)

Wolf In Man's Clothing - When two nurses are called to the home of the Brent family in the Berkshires, Drue Cable is very urgent that her older colleague, Sarah Keate, be the one to accompany her. Sarah thinks she knows her young protégé well, and is shocked to learn that there is an entire chapter of her life with which she is unacquainted: a short, failed marriage to Craig Brent, the son of the house---and their patient. And the shocks keep coming: having been told only that Craig has suffered "an accident", the nurses discover that he has been shot... When word of Drue's presence spreads, she finds herself under attack from the other members of the household, particularly Craig's father, Conrad, who furiously demands her departure, and the former Alexia Senour, who everyone then supposed Craig would marry---and who is now his step-mother instead. Tensions continue to escalate as Craig's life hangs in the balance---and they culminate in murder... There was a ten-year break in Mignon Eberhart's series featuring Sarah Keate, between 1932's Murder By An Aristocrat and Man In Wolf's Clothing, and the Sarah who reappears is older and sadder but alas, not wiser; though this is the kind of book where the characters vie to see who can behave in the most exasperating way. Both Drue and Craig, but particularly the latter, behave so stupidly (having done so in the past, too) that it becomes harder and harder to sympathise; though the novel's most hair-clutching moment finds Sarah tampering with a crime-scene out of fear for Drue: removing evidence, hiding it, having it stolen, and then lying to the police about it. This is not the Sarah we know, nor does this behaviour accord with the novel's framework, which finds her - after having served in France during WWI - coming to reluctant terms with her rejection from further war-work on the score of her age, but still hoping for a call-up. So matters stand when Sarah unwittingly becomes involved in Drue Cable's extremely messy personal business via her nursing of Craig Brent, who is supposed to have been shot "by accident", though the circumstances suggest otherwise and no-one knows - or no-one is admitting - who pulled the trigger. The seriousness of Craig's condition allows Sarah to override demands for Drue's immediate departure, but she has reason to regret doing so when, after a confrontation between Drue and Conrad, the latter is found dead. Despite her panicky interference with the crime-scene, removing a syringe, Sarah has faith in Drue's innocence---but who else might have wanted Conrad dead? In addition to the recovering Craig, the household consists of the manipulative Alexia and her twin brother, Nicky; Peter Huber, a friend of the family on a visit; the nervous Dr Chivery and his eccentric wife, Maud; plus servants, old and new, but all affected by their employers' own evident fear. Sarah is initially afraid of the phlegmatic Lieutenant Nugent, who has charge of the case, but she learns to be grateful for his steady presence when it becomes clear the murderer hasn't finished---and that she may be his - or her - next target...

    In a time of shattering emergency and haste one's action is altogether instinctive. It's only afterwards that you question that action and then it's too late because it is already accomplished---for good or bad but certainly forever. I reached out and took the shining thing from Drue's hand. It was a hypodermic syringe; the barrel was empty and a needle was in place.
    Drue was staring down at Conrad Brent, her eyes wide and dark in her white face. She said, in that queer, faraway voice, "I didn't mean to kill him. I was trying to help him. But he---he died..."
    I couldn't put my hand over her mouth, for it would have been seen; the sound of footsteps had abruptly stopped at the door. I thrust the hypodermic syringe into my pocket and said loudly, to cover whatever Drue was trying to say, "Don't be frightened, we'll get the doctor..." and turned around. It was Peter Huber who stood there; at least, it wasn't Alexia who might have heard what Drue said, or Nicky which would be the same thing...
    All three of us stood there for an indecisive moment, staring down at Conrad Brent's body---sprawled there awkwardly, with his face sunk over one shoulder and his mouth a little open. I remember feeling that I ought to get a towel and tie that square, but no longer formidable, jaw before rigor mortis set in. And then instantly I thought the police wouldn't like it; I must touch nothing. Police? But Drue's wild words hadn't meant that she murdered him. I thought of murder and police only because Craig had said, there'll be murder done...

Publication date: 1819
Genre: Short story: horror
Read for: 'A Century Of Reading' challenge

The Vampyre - Although not as famous as the other literary product of the notorious summer at the Villa Diodati, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this short story is in its way just as important, being the earliest published work to centre around a vampire and vampiric lore. Arguments over authorship continue, but these seem wishful thinking; and though Byron may have suggested the subject matter, The Vampyre in its completed form was the work of John William Polidori---who based his undead protagonist so overtly upon Byron, it's a little embarrassing. Anyhoo. A mysterious nobleman, Lord Ruthven, becomes the cynosure of a London season. He forms a friendship of sorts with a young man, Aubrey, who is flattered by the attention; the two end up travelling on the Continent together where, in spite of his continued fascination with the charismatic Ruthven, Aubrey cannot help noticing that he brings disaster upon the others with whom he interacts---women in particular. Aubrey finally breaks from Ruthven, travelling alone to Greece where he falls in love with a beautiful girl called Ianthe---only to have her fall victim to a strange, wasting illness...

...then, turning to subjects that had evidently made a greater impression upon her mind, Ianthe would tell him all the supernatural tales of her nurse. Her earnestness and apparent belief of what she narrated, excited the interest even of Aubrey; and often as she told him the tale of the living vampyre, who had passed years amidst his friends, and dearest ties, forced every year, by feeding upon the life of a lovely female to prolong his existence for the ensuing months, his blood would run cold, whilst he attempted to laugh her out of such idle and horrible fantasies; but Ianthe cited to him the names of old men, who had at last detected one living among themselves, after several of their near relatives and children had been found marked with the stamp of the fiend's appetite; and when she found him so incredulous, she begged of him to believe her, for it had been, remarked, that those who had dared to question their existence, always had some proof given, which obliged them, with grief and heartbreaking, to confess it was true. She detailed to him the traditional appearance of these monsters, and his horror was increased, by hearing a pretty accurate description of Lord Ruthven...

Okay---let's do this.

{*girds loins*}

Publication date: 1903
Genre: Young adult
Series: Elsie Dinsmore #27
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (by an author who died before April 1972)

Elsie And Her Loved Ones - The struggle is real, as the saying goes. This penultimate entry in Martha Finley's gruellingly protracted Elsie Dinsmore series finds the clan travelling from Elsie's Louisiana plantation, Viamede - where she used to be A SLAVE-OWNER - to California; meaning that the early stages of the book consist of plagiarised travelogue rather than plagiarised history; though the latter shows up soon enough, after the characters travel cross-country to Crag Cottage, Evelyn Leland Raymond's property on the Hudson River, where we endure chapters of Revolutionary history lifted from Benson John Lossing's Pictorial Field-Book Of The Revolution, interspersed with chapters of bible quotes and interminable and unfunny ventriloquism scenes (there's two of them at it now, God help us). The plot, such as it is, is largely centred on the slow push towards the marriage of Grace Raymond and Dr Harold Dinsmore, with clingy father Levis Raymond dragging his feet and much discussion of whether or not Grace is too "feeble" for marriage, and isn't it lucky she's marrying a doctor? Ick. Meanwhile, Evelyn gives birth to a daughter---and becomes the first person in this series to reject "Elsie" as a name for her baby, on the grounds that there are already "so many of them". (Mary, if you were wondering.) The only other tiny point of interest here is that everyone is okay, or even better than okay, with Evelyn's first baby being a girl---but given Finley's evident father / daughter hang-ups, we can't really take anything positive from it.

    “Yes, I like Cousin Ronald,” the baby voice seemed to say.
    “And you love your aunties, don’t you?” asked Elsie Raymond, leaning over her.
    “Yes, I love you and all the other ones.”
    “And don’t you love your cousin doctor, who takes care of you and mamma when you need him?” asked Dr. Harold, joining the group.
    “Yes, indeed! Will you be my uncle some day?”
    “I hope so,” laughed Harold. “You will make a nice little niece, I think.”
    “And I think he will be a nice uncle,” laughed Grace, who was standing by his side.
    Captain Raymond, too, was near, the baby being as attractive to him as to any one else---except, perhaps, the parents.
    “I should like to be able to prove that very soon,” said Harold with a significant glance at the captain.
    At that Grace blushed and gave her father a loving, entreating look that seemed to say: “Don’t be angry with us, father dear. I love you, and we are not rebellious.”
    “‘Patient waiting no loss,’” he said with kindly look and smile. “I love my daughter too well to be in a hurry to give her away.”

Publication date: 1905
Genre: Young adult
Series: Elsie Dinsmore #28
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (a book with a word beginning or ending with one of the following letters: BETTER WEATHER)

Elsie And Her Namesakes - And so my Sisyphusian journey comes to an end---and, to mix a metaphor, nothing becomes this series so much as the leaving of it. Perhaps Finley did intend to end her series here, as she manages to bring almost her entire supporting cast into this book (prompting much discussion of the actual relationships between them all); or perhaps she didn't, because otherwise there's nothing to mark this 28th (!) entry as the end, just more of the same---by which I mean, chapters about (primarily) the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and their respective wars; travelogue material dealing with Florida; an unexpected appearance in the narrative by Mary, Queen of Scots, which condemns both Mary (a Catholic) and Elizabeth (an untrustworthy woman); plus bible quotes and ventriloquism. Meanwhile, perhaps prompted by her own thoughts about the plethora of Elsies in her previous entry, Finley justifies her title by including young Elsie Dinsmore (daughter of Horace Dinsmore Jr and his wife, whose identity I forget) in a yachting party to Viamede - former SLAVE PLANTATION - and bringing Elsie Raymond, daughter of Levis Raymond and Violet Travilla, front-and-centre; in addition of course to Elsie the matriarch and her own eldest daughter, Elsie Travilla Leland. After the yachting trip, we finally get Grace Raymond and Harold Dinsmore married; while Lucilla Raymond Dinsmore gives birth to a boy---inevitably named for her father, but called "Ray". And that, my friends, is that.

    "I am glad for you, Lu, that your baby is a boy, since that was what you wanted," Zoe remarked to Lucilla one day; "but for my part, if I have another child I hope it may be a girl, so that I can name it for mamma. She is and has always been such a dear, kind mother to me."
    "Yes, she is certainly one of the dearest and sweetest of women," responded Lucilla heartily; "but there are so many Elsies that it really seems a little confusing. I believe I should rather like to have one myself if that were not the case," she added laughingly, "for I do dearly love Grandma Elsie, as I have been used to calling her. My, what a mixed-up set we are becoming! For, as you know, she is mother now to my sister Grace."
    "Who, to my delight, is my sister now, since she is the wife of my husband's brother," returned Zoe exultingly.
    "And mine, since I am the wife of her brother," laughed Evelyn. "Oh, we are a mixed-up set, but perhaps none the less happy and well off for that."
    "No, I think not," said Zoe.
    "And I am quite sure of it," said Lucilla; "and as my husband is a distant relative of yours, Zoe, you and I can claim kin, can't we?"
    "Yes, and we will. We will call ourselves cousins from this time forward."
    "And as my Aunt Elsie, Grandma Elsie's oldest daughter, is sister to your husband, can't you and I claim kin, Zoe?" asked Evelyn.
    "Certainly," promptly replied Zoe; "we will consider ourselves cousins now."
    "So we will; it is a very comfortable way to settle matters," laughed Evelyn. "We have been calling you Aunt Zoe, but you are too young for that, and we have been growing up to you in age."
    "So you have. Well, how soon do you expect our kith and kin to come from Viamede to their more northern homes?"
    "Father says in two or three weeks," replied Lucilla, "and I hope I shall be allowed to sit up by that time. Oh, you don't know how I long to show him my little Ray of Sunshine!" she added, gently patting the sleeping babe by her side. "Oh, both Chester and I want very much to have him resemble his grandfather, my dear father, in looks, character and everything."

Apologies, but---

“Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are free at last.”

Congratulations on achieving maximum Elsie, Liz!

I did a double take when I saw the first Elsie review. "But she finished that series already!" I cried. Then I remembered that while you had finished the reading you had not finished the reviewing. No wonder you were dragging your feet on reviews!

Now it's done forever, say hallelujah.

>217 swynn:

Thank you!

When we're tackling our chunksters I feel like I should be paraphrasing Scarlett O'Hara and her, "I've done murder so I can do this"---

---"I've finished Elsie Dinsmore so I can finish this!" :D

>218 rosalita:

Among other reasons, but yeah, that definitely didn't help! (Of course what you remember is the fan-throated lizards and rightly so.)

Funny how this provokes religious outcry, isn't it...?

well done you.
Where's our exotic lizard to celebrate???

>220 Helenliz:

Thank you!

Technically he's about finishing the series...but I'll think about it! And anyway, there should be a sloth along shortly... :)

Well...

...I won't use my official 'big project completed' celebratory images but as a compromise here's a different one:

August stats:

Works read: 13
TIOLI: 13, in 11 different challenges, with 1 shared read

Mystery / thriller: 10
Young adult: 1
Short story: 1
Classic: 1

Series works: 9
Re-reads: 1
Blog reads: 1
1932: 2
1931: 1
Virago / Persephone: 0
Potential decommission: 0

Owned: 0
Library: 4
Ebooks: 9

Male authors : female authors: 9 : 4 (including 2 using a male pseudonym)

Oldest work: Incognita; or, Love And Duty Reconcil'd by William Congreve (1692)
Newest work: The Matarese Circle by Robert Ludlum (1979)

******

YTD stats:

Works read: 101
TIOLI: 101, in 90 different challenges, with 15 shared reads

Mystery / thriller: 51
Classic: 13
Young adult: 12
Contemporary drama: 7
Historical drama: 6
Non-fiction: 3
Historical romance: 2
Short story: 2
Humour: 2
Fantasy: 2
Children's fiction: 1

Series works: 65
Re-reads: 10
Blog reads: 0
1932: 2
1931: 13
Virago / Persephone: 3
Potential decommission: 0

Owned: 5
Library: 39
Ebooks: 56
Borrowed: 1

Male authors : female authors: 71 : 34 (including 2 using a male pseudonym)

Oldest work: Incognita; or, Love And Duty Reconcil'd by William Congreve (1692)
Newest work: Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol (2007)

Big news, guys! - they've discovered a new species of sloth!!

Maned sloths are one of the three species of three-toed sloths (Bradypus) but it has now been determined that there are two different species of maned sloths in different regions of Brazil. This variant is being referred to as the 'coconut-headed sloth' for obvious reasons...

>222 lyzard: Yes! There's our colorful little friend, striking a pose. Marvelous.

>222 lyzard: well that's a stylish creature not afraid to flaunt it.

>224 lyzard: well I never.

>224 lyzard: SLOTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it has a mullet! Excellent work, Mother Nature.

>225 rosalita:, >226 Helenliz:

I hope I can create another opportunity for the official ones. :)

>226 Helenliz:, >227 rosalita:

What the world needs now / Is sloths, sweet sloths...

I have managed to catch up some blogging!

Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers

---a young adult novel from 1830 with some interesting ideas about emigration, social responsibility and race relations.

---and I seem to have caught this lemur off-guard:

>230 lyzard: I'm going to come back tomorrow with a very witty post about what, exactly, this lemur is hearing that is causing him to make that face. Right now I am too sleepy and too full of margarita to pull it together.

Don't leave me hanging! :D

>230 lyzard: "You read HOW MANY Elsie books? But WHY?!?!?!"

I'm having a hard time coming up with something good enough for that face, I have to admit.

>233 rosalita:

No, that will do perfectly! :D

Well! - I've decided to set up what will, hopefully, be the year's last thread: "hopefully" because my aim is to catch up my reviewing and not have it run into next year. (Oh, right, they chortled.)

But the other reason I wanted a new thread is to carry out my promise / threat of trying to prove that spiders, too, can be adorable.

A secondary warning, though: this time I've used four images as thread-toppers instead of the usual two, for reasons I think will be obvious...

Abandon hope, yada-yada

>235 lyzard: One image for every pair of legs?

I kind of wish I'd saved that margarita to dull the terror of clicking through ...