THE BIG CLOCK by Kenneth Fearing

A murder investigation in which the investigator already believes he knows who the murderer is – and yet realizes he himself is being framed for the crime. He has to keep the investigation going long enough to reveal the murderer before the murderer realizes he was recognized. That is the taut, electrifying premise of Ken Fearing’s noir NYRB Classic The Big Clock.

George Stroud, editor of Crimeways magazine, is not a nice person. Despite the fact he has a sweet wife and an adorable kid (both nicknamed “George”), he begins a casual affair with his boss’ girlfriend, Pauline. After dropping her off from a clandestine weekend, he spies his boss following her up the stairs to her apartment. Two days later the cleaning lady finds she’s been murdered. George’s boss, publishing mogul Earl Janoth, tasks George with tracking down the killer – but all clues lead back to Pauline’s lover, who just happens to be George. The rest of the book is a study in tension, as George follows the steps that will inevitably lead to revealing himself as Pauline’s lover, thereby destroying his home life, his job, and quite possibly his life, if Janoth is the real killer.

I looked out the windows myself. There was a lot of territory out there. A nation within a nation. If I picked the right kind of a staff, twisted the investigation where I could, jammed it where I had to, pushed it hard where it was safe, it might be a very, very, very long time before they found George Stroud. p. 90

This short novel, told through multiple narrators who sound like witnesses giving testimony, really packs a punch. It’s fun to watch George, the sleazy philanderer who thought he covered his tracks so well, come to realize how easy his actions were to trace. Part of the giveaway comes in George’s peculiar taste in art, which was fine. But I really didn’t get why Fearing included the perspective of the artist in the novel. I thought it confused a very tight plot.

It’s easy to see why this is a noir classic, however, and a perfect choice for both the R.I.P. VIII Challenge and the Classics Club. That makes four for this season’s R.I.P. Challenge, but I’m still hoping to review one more before the week is out! Thanks so much to Carl V. for hosting! This is the first of the NYRB Classics on my Classics Club List I have gotten to, and I am happy I have so many of these once out-of-print titles on my TBR pile. They add an element of mental detective work to my reading, wondering why they went out of fashion in the first place.

FTC Statement: I did not receive a copy of this book for review. I borrowed it from the library. That brings my Classic Club average cost per book down to $3.07!

MY FRIEND MAIGRET by Georges Simenon

There is something very comforting about a classic police procedural. A corpse shows up at the beginning of the mystery – often accompanied by an exotic murder weapon or ornate crime scheme – and by the end the murderer is delivered to justice by either the keen intellect or daring intuition of some hardworking police detective. Writers as diverse as Ngaio Marsh (New Zealand), Erle Stanley Gardner (USA), Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (Sweden), and Peter Robinson (UK) have all delivered on the same concept for more than a century, all adding something unique to the formula – often in the understanding of how very different the legal systems in which the detectives operate actually are.

It makes sense that the French would have a unique take on the genre. And by some accounts, Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret remains the quintessential French police detective, even though he made his debut in the 1930s. My Friend Maigret was my second novel in the series (both read completely out of order). I enjoyed this one, not because the mystery was so fantastic, but because it gave me a great deal of insight into some of the inherent differences between the French and British legal systems. This was because Maigret spends the book being shadowed by Mr. Pyke of Scotland Yard, who has been sent to study Maigret’s crime solving “methods.”

In this case, Maigret gets a call from Inspector Lechat on Île de Porquerolles indicating that a local ne’er-do-well has been murdered on the same night he was overheard bragging in a bar about his “good friend,” the famous inspector Maigret. The Inspector does indeed remember Marcellin, a man who he put away for taking part in an inveigling scheme – and his TB-ridden accomplice, Ginette, whom Maigret took pity on, and sent to a sanatorium. At one point, Maigret discusses the relationships that develop between habitual criminals and the police with Pyke:

“I wrote to him, I recall. I don’t know how you deal with them in your country.

“Very correctly.”

“I don’t doubt it. Here we sometimes knock them around. We’re not always gentle with them. But the odd thing is that they seldom hold it against us. They know we’re only doing our job. From one interrogation to the next, we get to know each other.”

“This is the one who called himself a friend of yours?”

“I’m convinced he was sincere.”

Kindle location 173/2176

Intrigued by his alleged link to the thug’s death, and relieved to have an interesting case to work on with Pyke, Maigret heads off to beautiful Porquerolles. And meets the colorful locals and strange boating tourists. And drinks white wine. And observes. Actually, it looks like nothing is happening. And then all of a sudden he has the mystery solved. I’m not sure what Pyke learned about his methods, but I know I didn’t learn much. Still the motive was pretty clever – I just didn’t feel like I was gathering the same clues Maigret had in the end.

I said at a dinner party recently that I found murder mysteries very relaxing, and everybody laughed. I wasn’t actually joking. Sure, depending on the era and country in which they operate, these fictional heroes have different constraints, and different social ills with which they contend. Not to mention murder. But to my mind, what ties police procedurals together is a belief that somehow front line civil servants – at least most of them – are trying their hardest to protect the public. My Friend Maigret certainly falls into that category. And while in this case the ending wasn’t as satisfying as usual – either for me, or for Maigret – I still find something very comforting about that.

FTC disclosure: I did not receive a copy of this book for review.

Book Review: THE MOON AND SIXPENCE by W. Somerset Maugham

If Paul Gauguin was an Englishman who callously threw a respectable British life away to go to Paris (and later Tahiti) and paint, and an acquaintance from his first, respectable life chose to write a biography of him, the end product might well have been a fascinating essay of the kind you read in The New Yorker. But since that isn’t the case, we have instead W. Somerset Maugham’s fascinating novel The Moon and Sixpence, a portrait of a man literally consumed by his passion to create art, which reads exactly as if it were that piece of feature journalism.

At the beginning of the novel, Charles Strickland appears to be a comfortable if not rich British stockbroker, more annoyed than enthused about the “artsy” types his wife brings to the house for her famous salons. The first-person narrator of the novel, himself a writer who has been “collected” by Strickland’s wife (and who never shares his name in the novel) meets Strickland at one of these salons, and finds him absolutely unremarkable. Until, that is, one day he is called upon to intervene after Strickland quits his job, abandons his wife and children without a farthing, and runs off to Paris to paint – despite having shown no interest in painting his entire life.

What follows is a novel examining the value of passion in art. Strickland is absolutely brutal – to himself, to anyone who tries to help him, and especially anyone who loves him. All that matters to him is creating art, to the point that he nearly kills himself by spending the little money he has on supplies, rather than food. From the narrator’s perspective, the only thing that saves Strickland from being a completely abhorrent character is his single-mindedness in his devotion to art. But the question that remains is whether or not the emotional and social cost is truly “worth” the price of creating beauty.

The difficult relationship between art and beauty is articulated in the novel by Dirk Stroeve, a very successful but conventional painter who recognizes Strickland’s genius and, consequently, his own mediocrity:

”Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge, and sesnitiveness and imagination.” p. 56, Kindle edition

Maugham’s writing manages to be both powerful and austere. Not a word is wasted. I was completely mesmerized by this novel, particularly in the first-person narrative voice, which mixed such admiration with disdain. For me, it struck a masterful balance.

It only took six months, but I’m finally on the board in this year’s What’s in a Name 5 Challenge. This title fit in two slots (something in the sky and something in a pocket, purse or handbag), but I’m linking it to the purse category, and assuming it’s a very old, beat-up British purse – after all, the charge is to be creative! This title also counts as my 20th Century classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much. Progress at last!

Read Along Check in #2: Clarissa, or the History of a Young Woman by Samuel Richardson

Well, after a slow start, things are starting to heat up in Clarissa’s world. She has been dragged with little warning from her friend Miss Howe’s home because her family learned that Lovelace (her brother’s enemy) had visited there. So she’s now been made a prisoner in her own home, with her family trying to force her to marry Mr. Solmes, who she dislikes intensely, and to get hold of the property her grandfather left her, despite the fact that they obviously have plenty of money themselves.

I’m willing to admit I was totally wrong about Miss Howe. In the last of the February letters we finally hear her perspective on what’s happened, and she appears to have Clarissa’s best interests at heart. In fact, she’s giving Clarissa the same kind of support and advice that any good girlfriend would: “Your family is treating you badly,” “Don’t let everyone walk all over you,” “If you don’t like the guy, you shouldn’t lead him on.” Only with Samuel Richardson it takes a good many more words to get those sentiments across:

I know he has nothing to boast of from what you have written: but is not his inducing you to receive letters, and to answer them, a great point gained? By your insisting that he should keep the correspondence private, it appears there is one secret which you do not wish the world should know: and he is the master of that secret. He is indeed himself, as I may say, that secret! What an intimacy does this beget for the lover! How is it distancing the parent! pg. 53 of Volume 1

You can say that again, Miss Howe.

It’s clear from the agitated tone of the letters that Clarissa's situation is getting desperate. Although she has property of her own that should protect her from her family’s greed (and clearly that’s what her grandfather intended), the convention of the times leaves her at the mercy of the male members of her family. I have a feeling that March is going to be a critical month for Clarissa Harlowe.

I’m assuming that the pace of the letters is about to increase, as we’ve only reached page 24 of the first of nine volumes! Breaking this into 12 parts makes taking on such an enormous epistolary novel possible, so thanks to Terri at Tip of the Iceberg and JoAnn at Lakeside Musing for hosting this year long event. I am headed over to check out the links and see what everyone else thought about this month’s readings. Has the book captured you yet? I think I’m getting there!

Venice in February: Balzac’s Massimilla Doni and Corona’s The Four Seasons

In eighteenth and nineteenth century Venice, music was an obsession, marriage was a part-time occupation, and love was a spectator sport. Ironically, I read two books written more than 150 years apart by authors from two different continents (neither of them Venetian), for Bellezza and Ally's Venice in February event and found them strikingly similar.

The first was Honoré de Balzacs classic novella Massimilla Doni, which forms part of his masterwork, La Comedie Humaine. One of my goals for this year was to read some of the classics I’ve missed up until now, and Balzac was on that list, so I figured I’d test the waters with one of his shorter works. I actually enjoyed it, but his flowery style and the treacly heroine made it a bit slow-going at times.

Emilio Cane is a prince with no money, thanks to the conquering Austrian’s usurpation of the family patrimony. He falls in love with the beautiful and virtuous Massimilla Doni, an heiress who has been married off in a loveless marriage to the aging Duke Cataneo, and they hold hands and yearn for each other while chastely occupying her fabulous villa for what seems like the first half of the novella. But when renowned soprano Clarina Tinti and the great tenor Genovese arrive in Venice, the lovers quickly head back to town for the musical season. This is when the book becomes really interesting, as the tempestuous Clarina becomes – through a set of pretty unbelievable circumstances – Massimilla’s rival for Emilio’s affection.

The Duke, as it turns out, would like an heir, but has no interest in helping Massimilla out in that way, so he and apparently everyone else in Venice are anxious for Emilio and Massimilla to just get on with it. Balzac leads the characters down a circuitous road that involves opium, stage fright and suicide, examining the impact of passion on both relationships and art, and also manages to give the reader a nifty synopsis of Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, all in the course of a 120 page novella. Phew!

For a lighter take on Venice, I returned to one of my comfort zones: the historical novel. I have had Laurel Corona’s The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice on my TBR pile since I first read about it. I have loved Vivaldi’s masterpiece since I first saw those pixies spreading dewdrops to it in Disney’s Fantasia, and I thought I’d enjoy a novelization of how it came about. And I would have, if that’s what I read – but Corona actually delivered so much more than I’d anticipated with this fantastic book!

Maddalena and Chiaretta are abandoned as children by their courtesan mother on the doorstep of the Ospedale della Pieta, an orphanage known for its famous “coro” of musically gifted young women who perform for Venetian society. The young women of Pieta are taught the womanly arts and allowed to make money from their crafts and performances until they are old enough to either get married or enter a convent – the basic choices for women in 18th century Venice. Chiaretta’s extraordinary voice leads her to the coro early on, but Maddalena’s talent with the violin goes almost unnoticed until Vivaldi (who I had no idea was a priest) takes the job as musical director of the coro. Vivaldi begins to write for the sisters, and the novel follows the sisters’ diverging paths: Chiaretta as the wife of a wealthy Venetian businessman and Maddalena as Vivaldi’s muse.

The irony is that the cloistered life of the Pieta actually gives Maddalena far more autonomy than Chiaretta has as a member of Venetian society. In order to marry Chiaretta, her husband signed an agreement that she would never sing in public, so the book puts the sisters’ struggle with their musical passions in stark relief. Chiaretta adores her husband, but finds that fidelity is not an accepted part of marriage in Venice. In fact, her husband goes so far as to choose her paramour. This seems to have been a function of Venetian society, where to keep wealth in the family, second daughters were put into convents and second sons acted as a sort of “honor guard” for the women whose husbands were otherwise engaged with the city’s courtesans – unless they went into the priesthood, like Vivaldi.

The Four Seasons was a surprise. The female characters were complex and interesting – such a contrast to Balzac’s heroine. I would heartily recommend it to any lover of historical fiction, especially those who love books associated with masterpieces, like Tracy Chevalier’s novels. As for Massimilla Doni, I would say it’s an accessible introduction to La Comedie Humaine. I enjoyed it, and I think anyone interested in the roots of French literature would too. Just don’t expect Zola!

I did some double-dipping with my Venice in February titles. Massimilla Doni is my translated classic for the Back to the Classics 2012 Challenge, and The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice counts toward the Historical Fiction Challenge 2012. Thanks to Sarah Reads Too Much and Historical Tapestry for hosting!

Read Along Check-In #1: Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Woman by Samuel Richardson

When JoAnn at Lakeside Musing and Terri at Tip of the Iceberg announced their idea for a year-long read along of Samuel Richardson’s epic Clarissa, I realized I had my chance to approach a book I knew I should read, but never had made time to read. Just looking at the book might intimidate the most voracious reader: I wouldn’t want to drop it on my toe, for fear it would break it. But somehow it seemed more likely that I’d actually finish it if I was reading it with a group, so I jumped in!

Obviously, I’ve have had a terrible blogging month for a number of reasons – but it hasn’t actually been a bad reading month. So tonight I’m sharing my thoughts on the January readings for Clarissa.

To begin, I am amazed at how “modern” the book is. Clarissa Harlowe is not, as I had feared, some Victorian milquetoast heroine. She is a young woman with a mind of her own, politic enough to realize that the unusual bequest her grandfather has left her puts her in a precarious position vis-à-vis her jealous siblings.

Lovelace is an ambiguous love interest thus far. Clarissa is not impressed by him at the beginning of the book. But there is something extremely appealing about him, especially in his distaste for Clarissa’s vile brother James. It was frightening to consider how much power a male child had over a female child within a family, even though he had no real accomplishments of his own.

I am not sure I trust Miss Howe at this point. She seems to be a very close friend of Clarissa’s, but her flowery and supercilious writing leaves me wondering about her sincerity. However I am absolutely unsure as to whether or not that is a function of the time and place that the book was written – so I’m reserving judgment for the moment. We’ll see if she is truly friend to Clarissa in the end, or if she is harboring some ulterior motives.

I am so glad that I signed on to participate in the read along, and if you haven’t yet, feel free to join us – there’s a whole year of fun to come, and you can easily catch up! It’s early in the read, but I am already enjoying this more than I expected, so I am eager to see that February’s letters bring to our heroine. The links to the January Clarissa links are at Tip of the Iceberg.

Book Review: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

It’s amazing how often I start reading a book and realize that it’s referencing a classic that I haven’t read – which immediately makes me want to read the classic. I picked up Connie Willis’ time travel Hugo Award winner, To Say Nothing of the Dog, to share during January’s Science Fiction Experience, hosted by Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings. But it quickly became evident that the main character’s thoughts and actions were heavily influenced by his reading of Jerome K. Jerome’s Victorian “buddy” story, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). It was also evident that I wasn’t going to understand the Willis book completely unless I understood the references. So I put down Willis temporarily, and downloaded the classic* that inspired her.

I am so glad I did! How on Earth did this book escape me for so long?

The first-person narration describes a two-week trip up the Thames from Kingston to Oxford in a skiff with two close and quirky friends and an enthusiastic fox terrier, Montmorency. Parts of it are pure Victorian travelogue, describing in overwrought and sentimental fashion the towns, inns and historic sites they encounter along the river. Sounds dreadful, right? But what makes the book a classic of British comic literature are the narrator’s hilarious digressions, describing incidents from the lives of himself (an inveterate hypochondriac) and his companions, George (a lazy banker) and Harris (a prodigious tippler), as well as sending up some of the recurring themes in British history. In fact, the inclusion of these humorous sections actually renders the flowery travel writing funny in comparison, since it reads as satire of the genre.

What was most amazing to me was that even though the book was written in 1898, most of the humor still seems fresh in 2011. At one point, the narrator, J., shares the miraculous story of how he survived his first sailing experience, undertaken with absolutely no knowledge of the craft.

Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacy of all things in this world. The boat may possibly have come to the conclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behavior, that we had come out for a morning’s suicide, and had thereupon determined to disappoint us. That is the only suggestion I can offer. p. 89

This book is full of tongue-in-cheek humor, sarcasm and comic understatement. It occurs to me that a lot of what I love about British humor probably has its roots in this classic. The chapter about the mounted trout in the pub should be required reading for every fishermen – and every person who lives with a fishermen. Honestly, I laughed out quite a few times reading this book.**

Certainly, I’d recommend this to lovers of classics, but those who enjoy humor and travel books will also find it a pleasure. Really, unless you’ve had your funny bone surgically removed, I think you’ll find something to like in this book.

It’s so awesome to start 2012 off with a great surprise of a classic! This was my first book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2012, so thanks to Sarah at Sarah Reads Too Much for hosting. Next up, of course, is To Say Nothing of the Dog for Carl V.’s Science Fiction Experience, which I hope to appreciate far more thoroughly after reading this book.

*I am having so much fun with the free and almost free classics that are available in e-book format. My Kindle has already paid for itself with public domain works that I didn’t have to buy, find or wait for!

**Unfortunately for my husband, at one point I was reading long after he had fallen asleep. Let’s just say he didn’t find my chuckling as funny as I found the book.

Book Review: Emile Zola's The Fortune of the Rougons

I think of myself as a pretty adventurous reader, so it’s surprising how often I realize I’ve never read a single book by a well-known author. I am not participating in the Paris in July Challenge, but a number of my blogging buddies are, so I’ve been enjoying a raft of reviews of French literature lately – and my limitations in that area are becoming apparent to me. For instance, after reading a fine review of Emile Zola’s Germinal by Karen at Books and Chocolate, I racked my brain trying to remember anything I’d read by Zola. I came up with nothing.

This led to an internet search, which led to Zola’s sweeping Rougon-Macquart epic, which led to the first novel in the twenty-book series, The Fortune of the Rougons. Since I generally prefer to begin at the beginning, and the title was available for Kindle, I decided to download it. Once I opened it up, I absolutely could not put it down!

Some background: The Rougon-Macquart novels tell the story of one family with two branches, one legitimate (the Rougons) and one illegitimate (the Macquarts), all descended from the same wealthy but unstable heiress, Adelaide Fouque. In the 20 novels of the series, Zola used France’s Second Republic as a kind of “incubator” for his ideas about evolution, and explored the impact of both predisposition and environment on various characters in the family line. In the first book, Zola sets up the “nature” elements of the book, by giving the Rougon and Macquart families particular traits, some distinct because of their different fathers, some overlapping because of they share the same mother.

More character study than chronicle, the narration moves about in time, starting at the birth of the Second Republic in 1852, but near the end of the book’s action, with the love story of Silvere and Miette. Silvere is a grandson of Adelaide’s and a staunch Republican, urged on by his bitter uncle, Antoine Macquart. Antoine blames his wealthy half-brother, Pierre Rougon, for disinheriting him and causing all his troubles – and he isn’t completely wrong in that regard. Zola creates characters of great depth and complexity, showing how their personal traits, social circumstances and decisions have brought them to that critical moment in the history of both the family and the nation:

There are some situations which benefit only persons of bad repute. These lay the foundations of their fortune where men of better position and more influence would never dare to risk theirs…The game was too risky. There was no one among the middle classes of Plassans who cared to play it except the Rougons, whose ungratified longings urged them on to extreme measures. Kindle location 1272

Not all of the books in the cycle are currently available in English translation, and some of the translations that do exist were censored for what was considered a more puritanical audience. I have read a lot of criticism of the translation I read, by Vizetelly, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will be looking for even better translations for the other books, either in English or in Spanish – I now want to read them all!

So 2011 is the summer I fell in love with Zola. I hope I can participate in Paris in July next year! If you have any suggestions for what my next Rougon-Macquart novel should be, let me know!

This book in one sentence: A bitter seed bears a bitter harvest.

Book Review: The Mill Mystery

I have really been enjoying the The Golden Age Girls challenge, one of the challenge levels in Bev’s Vintage Mystery Challenge at My Reader’s Block. And considering I joined that one late, I’m making pretty good progress so far. Partly that’s because I love having a mystery on my Kindle, so I can sneak a few pages in while I’m waiting for children at activities, or waiting for the pressure cooker to de-pressurize, or waiting for a doctor/dentist/hair appointment.* But my idea to read 5 different vintage authors made the Kindle a liability. Neither the Ngaio Marsh nor the Phoebe Atwood Taylor titles I wanted were available for Kindle. My search finally lead me to The Classic Mystery Collection, more than 100 complete mystery novels in one Kindle title. And the list of authors included two vintage authors I had never read: Anna Katharine Green and Mary Roberts Rinehart. And the price? $2.99!**

I began with Green’s The Mill Mystery. Written in 1886, I would not call this a “detective” story – even an amateur detective story. The book is more mysterious than mystery, following Constance Sterling slowly piece together the reasons behind the seemingly unrelated deaths of a popular local minister and the richest man in town. When we meet Constance, she is “a young woman of twenty-five, without home, relatives, or means of support, having in her pocket seventy-five cents of change, and in her breast a heart like lead, so utterly had every hope vanished in the day’s rush of disappointments.” Before Constance’s kind and gentle roommate, the secret fiancée of the minister, dies within hours of hearing the news of his death, she begs Constance to clear her fiancée’s name from the inevitable rumors of suicide that will flow from his drowning in a vat at the abandoned mill.

The reason that I say the book is more “mysterious” than “mystery” is that Constance doesn’t actively set out to deduce a solution to the mystery. Most of the answer simply falls into her lap, in the form of an extraordinarily detailed letter. She did ferret out some of the details, but I think the long letter device was weak, and made the story look particularly antiquated. The book has some other problems from my personal perspective. There’s way too much Victorian feminine fragility for my taste – in fact, it’s the device that moves the main story along. The love story is rather predictable – once I was able to tell the two Pollard brothers apart, I was pretty sure who the “good” guy was.

So The Mill Mystery is a truly “vintage” title, more reminiscent of Wilkie Collins’ work than a classic Agatha Christie whodunit. It does have the virtue of being a very early mystery work by a female writer who was a best-seller during her own lifetime, and it certainly gives you an idea of how the mystery genre has developed since the Victorian era. In fairness, Green’s most famous work is The Leavenworth Case, and I probably should have started there. Still, if you loved The Woman in White, this might be up your alley.

Thanks again to Bev for hosting The Vintage Mystery Challenge!



*You get the idea. I do a lot of waiting. As in three books worth of waiting in the past two months.

**I’m going to admit that this is a poorly formatted Kindle title – each book is treated as a “chapter,” so searching is a pain. And I can’t figure out what to do about the “farthest page read” sync when I shift around from book to book. But for $2.99, it’s nice to always have a mystery I haven’t read waiting in the wings!

Hipster vs. Vintage Book Reviews: A Red Herring Without Mustard and Behold, Here's Poison

Within the past week I read two mysteries, Alan Bradley’s A Red Herring Without Mustard and Georgette Heyer’s Behold, Here’s Poison. Both of them were enjoyable, but very different. In fact, they really provided such a contrast in approach that I thought I’d review them together, because I think the comparisons say a lot about the individual authors’ styles.

I read Red Herring first. I’ve been waiting for it since I finished the second installment in the series The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, and it arrived on my Kindle the day it was released. Chemistry genius cum sleuth Flavia de Luce is thirteen now, still dueling wits with her (increasingly vile) sisters and trying to figure out her aloof father. Flavia’s first-person narration makes the series, frankly. She’s impetuous, sassy, and shrewd. But she’s also a child, so she doesn’t always completely understand the complex motives of the people around her. And she’s a bit sad and lonely, motherless because of her adventurous mother’s death when she was a baby. It makes for an oddly sympathetic combination – you just wish you could hug her, and tell her it’s going to be alright, but you know she’d blanch at the idea!

This time, Flavia is out to solve two crimes that she guesses are related: the beating of a gypsy who Flavia had invited to stay on a remote piece of the family estate, Buckshaw, and a the murder of local “tough” Brookie Harewood, whose body was artfully placed in the arms of Poseidon in a Buckshaw fountain. In the process she has to navigate a secretive sect of religious dissenters, the Hobblers, a ferocious London gypsy girl, and the estate’s arcane water system.

Red Herring is a mystery with lots of style. Because it’s part of a series, the characters are evolving in interesting ways, as Flavia begins to understand them more clearly. We are starting to see, for example, how very much Flavia’s father loves his family – and how very desperate he is to hold on to the family estate, which is at risk because of the onerous death duties owed to the government after his wife’s untimely death. Flavia’s sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, are evolving too, but in far less sympathetic fashion – in fact, I thought their evil was a bit “cartoonish” in this book. Inspector Hewitt’s fondness and respect for Flavia is growing, but so is his worry that she may be putting herself in danger. But the mystery itself in this one wasn’t so fantastic, I’m afraid. The chemistry tie-in was really weak, and the revelation of the murderer was anticlimactic. As for the title, I still don’t quite understand to what it alludes – unless it’s the fact that there are far more red herrings than actual clues to help the reader figure out the mystery. But it is a great title, isn’t it?

I followed up with my first book for My Reader’s Block’s Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge. Georgette Heyer was not a name at all familiar to me – in fact, many of the female names on the list were unfamiliar – so I signed up for The Golden Girls Challenge, decided to read at least 5 different authors, and started investigating.


Behold, Here’s Poison is a classic, country estate mystery. It’s so 1930s – everyone dressed for dinner, speaking wittily, loathing each other with class. The Matthews family, run by their tyrannical Uncle Gregory, is not at all unhappy when he winds up dead – except for the fact that it appears one of them must have done it. Oily Randall Matthews, Gregory’s heir, seems a likely murderer – but he has an air-tight alibi. Mrs. Zoe Matthews and Miss Harriett Matthews both hoped to inherit his house, and have something of their own, finally. Mrs. Matthews’ children, Guy and Stella, are tired of having their uncle derail their life decisions. Did they kill him? There are other family members, and even neighbors, with axes to grind. The cast of characters is extensive, and the formality of address – Miss Matthews, Mrs. Matthews, Mr. Matthews –had me re-reading at the beginning to make sure I knew who was who, but the characters had such well developed personalities that the confusion didn’t last for long. In fact, the only character I found kind of dull was Inspector Hannasyde, the Scotland Yard detective in charge of the investigation. His personality hardly develops at all, but maybe that’s just as well, as it lets the suspects shine.

The mystery is the key thing in this book. It’s so darn clever. The clues were there, but I really didn’t see it coming, which is what I love in a mystery. It’s clear that Heyer did her research – the murder weapon is a surprise, very unique and devious. So I’d say this mystery is all about substance. The dialog is good, the characters are well-drawn, but in the end it’s the crime you remember, not what surrounds it. It was a great find.

Both of these mysteries were 4 star reads, for completely different reasons. Neither was a 5 star, though, because neither delivered the complete package: style and substance. Both authors are obviously capable of it though, and I’m anxious to read more from both authors. Thanks to Bev at My Reader’s Block for hosting!