C'mon people! Sometimes you have to engage your brain when reading!

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

 

This was a book I was very keen to read and then somehow it fell off my list. I am so glad I eventually got round to reading it but disappointed I wasn’t ahead of the curve, as I had the opportunity to be.

Not that I will have much to add to what has already been said… but "The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" is a quite excellent genre-busting novel. It starts with a particularly dramatic scene which could certainly fit within a ‘Golden age’ crime novel, and indeed, the crux of the book certainly fits with the puzzle element and style of mid twentieth century mystery novels, but it quite quickly takes a turn toward what could very easily have been a plot from Doctor Who in its heyday.
But it is genuinely so much more that this; never losing sight of its crime novel basis nor its more ‘speculative’ fiction location, there is indeed a genuine crime to be solved but there is a lot more to be discovered other than a murderer. This is almost certainly the best novel of 2018 that I have read this year!

Not the crime novel you were expecting and all the better for it

Black Plumes

by Margery Allingham

Golden age crime fiction is something that I have found is very easy to become a little obsessed by. I love the very particular time invoked by these novels and find it surprising and almost refreshing the way with which the gruesome murders at the core of the books are frequently treated quite lightly and occasionally light-heartedly as a means simply to provide the basis of a puzzle.

Margery Allingham is an entirely different proposition to the standard ‘golden age’ crime fiction writer and not in any way what I was expecting: much less Agatha Christie and much more Evelyn Waugh.
The purpose of this book is not to establish a puzzle or whodunit but is really a study of changing times and perspectives and expectations from post Victorian to just pre-war in the upper middle classes. 

The majority of the book focuses on the impact of a scandal on the resilience and cohesion of a ‘society’ family which happens for the period covered by the novel to centre on an unfortunate event. This is done with precision and poise and surprisingly no little humour. However, the fact that the event at the centre of this novel is “the one social sin which everyone still takes seriously” as the author puts it, is certainly not ignored; the police turn up as expected and a number of scenes do involve a detective and there is of course a scene where the main characters are called to meet in a room when the explanation is expected and the murderer revealed. But that is where the classic crime tropes end; the characters appear real, interacting and responding to each other and events portrayed in ways that feel genuine rather than two-dimensional or stereotypical as can often be the case in crime fiction from this period.
 

I love a good straightforward, simple crime novel and this is not one of those.  Your are going to have to think with this one, and maybe even get a little emotionally involved...

It may be new, but it is very much 'Classic Crime'

The Paris Apartment

by Lucy Foley

'The Paris Apartment', to be honest, is not quite what I was expecting.  It is in essence a nuts-and-bolts thriller in a traditional/classic mould: a murder has (likely) been committed, a restricted number of characters in a closed environment are involved, and one of the group has taken it upon themselves to uncover the truth.  It is in effect the traditional ‘country house’ mystery dressed in Parisienne couture and told with a modern twist.  But to be fair, that is my type of thing, and it is certainly none the worse for it.

There is also no doubt that Lucy Foley can write a good thriller.  Her pacing is consistently good and her method of revealing the plot in short bursts from many characters’ perspective definitely works and has been very successful.  But really, this format it is starting to grate with me.  Don’t get me wrong, 'The Paris Apartment' is a well written, nail-biting thriller but one has to simply accept the ‘conceit’ of the first-person narrator presented as personal thoughts but reading as if a perspective of a story is being told to the reader.  This format and the constant shifting from narrator to narrator, literally every few pages, drip-feeding the story, does draw the reader in but it can become a little irritating after a while.
It is a relatively unusual device in literature and Lucy Foley certainly has made it her own – maybe it is too soon for me since finishing ‘The Guest List’ (her previous novel) but the style of narrative was putting me round the bend – but then again, maybe that is why it is a relatively unusual device…

Still, it is a good yarn told at a page-turning rate, and had it been the first Lucy Foley novel I had read I may have got along better with the style choice but for me, this (slightly) spoiled a good story well told.

Warm, funny, entertaining murder!

The Famished Parson

by George Bellairs

 

I’m not a fan of the ‘if you like that, then you’ll love this’ type review but I can think of no better shorthand evaluation than to say this puts me in mind of a post-war Midsomer Murders.
Well, that may have put off half of those reading this review, but it may encourage the other half to try a Bellairs novel.

I know it has been said before but so much of modern crime fiction really does revolve around horrific descriptions of mutilation and murder and the twisted serial killers involved. Don’t get me wrong, I do ‘enjoy’ this type of fiction but how nice to pick up a book that doesn’t demand a constitution of iron to read but still is very much a crime novel.

The murder and discovery of the body may be grisly but the focus is not put on the graphic details. The murder is in fact almost incidental, being a device around which to construct a number of puzzles. The main point of the novel is the solving of these clever and entertaining puzzles.

Set in a relatively recent but much more genteel time that now sadly feels like another country, it is very much a novel of its time but is none the worse for that. In fact, how pleasing it is to be able to read a novel set seventy years ago not written by a modern author with a cynical view of the past, imagining how people should have thought, interacted, and reacted to events. Listening to a voice contemporary with the age is for me one of the most interesting and occasionally surprising aspects of this book. However, at its heart, this is still a warm, funny and entertaining story with gentle plotting and gentle (if occasionally black) humour adding to the cosy, reminiscent feel of the book.

This was my first George Bellairs novel and I stumbled across it simply when looking for something worth reading on Kindle Unlimited (quite a task…) Since then, I have found George Bellairs popping up quite a bit in different places and like him enough to already have posted a "review" on this blog.  And I love the covers :)  Defintely worth taking a month free on Unlimited.  Just don't forget to cancel!

Not exactly Classic Crime, but...

The Twyford Code

by Janice Hallett

 

Okay, so just published hardly qualifies as 'Classic Crime' but ‘The Twyford Code’ is for its time (right now!) quite an unusual book.  It has more in common with ‘Golden Age’ crime writing (hence including it here) than anything more modern such as the obvious comparison of ‘The Da Vinci Code’.  With the basis of the book being the exploration of what is possibly a code which may point to a treasure or a terrible secret, it is not surprising to find it is full of codes and hints and clues and red herrings and half-truths and outright lies enough to satisfy the most ardent of Classic Crime puzzle fans, of which I am one.  
But it is a little bit more than that in that it is composed in a very modern way.  There have been many novels written in the first person or diary format which can be very affecting and intriguing but in a thriller this can tend to fall down at a number of points in the action.  For example, and to name no names, it is hard to believe in the diarist locking themselves in a room, frantically scribbling down their thoughts whilst the ‘bad guy’ breaks down the door…  ‘The Twyford Code’ gets around this in a very clever and believable way, utilising contemporary technology to create a conceit of a diary format (vital to the plot) to be presented in a way that holds up entirely to the end of the novel.

The novel doesn’t just tell you the story, the reader is carried along with the story, desperately trying to follow and crack the codes and puzzles which form the story but also looking out for other hidden clues and puzzles which may reveal the whole story.  To repeat, this really is not ‘The ‘Da Vinci Code’!
But it is not just about the puzzles; this is a great thriller which doesn’t let up from the start and has a complex backstory revealed throughout.  And it is funny – not full of jokes but there is a lot of humour all the way through the book.
This novel is going to get compared to Richard Osman and any number of current ‘light’ crime novelists, because that is the way the publishing industry works, but honestly, and without denigrating its competition, it is a good step or two above the rest.

Merry Christmas Everybody

There Came Both Mist and Snow

by Michael Innes

I have been reading a lot of classic 20th century crime fiction for a few years. Some good, some less so, some that stands up well to a 21st century reading and some that feels a little more dated. This title I was drawn to by the excellent cover and that it was a ‘seasonal’ tale i.e. Christmas. The fact that NetGalley gave me a copy for free was also encouraging!
 

Michael Innes wrote a quite large series of novels based around one character, Sir John Appleby and to be honest, just like classic crime, some are good and some less so.
Although the book is short, the plot really takes quite a while to get going and in the lead up to the action the book consists almost entirely of overly smart, flippant dialogue which becomes quite tiresome very quickly. I became more than a little bored.
Throughout the book the writing, although sharp and erudite, is a little too tongue-in-cheek for my liking and I found that it did not take too long for the flippancy to become irritating. Maybe I should have been expecting this as the alternative title for this novel is A Comedy of Terrors…  I wonder why they changed it for the new publication?

That’s not to say that there is not some things to like in the novel; once Appleby arrives and the plot eventually gets going it is fairly entertaining and creates a good puzzle but the characters are mere sketches and the dark aspect of the incident is treated very lightly and almost with humour; although it could be said that these complaints could be levelled at of many of the author’s contemporaries. The mistake may be that after reading a superb Georges Simenon book I directly followed with this one, which possibly highlighted the limitations in the story and the less distinct voice of the author.

Overall I did enjoy There Came Both Mist And Snow but probably mainly because of the seasonal setting of the story and the fact that I read it over the Christmas period. My feeling is that this was written as a warm, ‘novelty’ Christmas story for fans of Sir John Appleby as the other Michael Innes that I have read either have a little more weight to them or are compleltely off the wall crazy.  Starting to love him!

Death stops a lot of things

Death Stops the Frolic

by George Bellairs

You might be forgiven for thinking George Bellairs was French.  He wasn't.  But I have a feeling he was trying to tap into the Georges Simenon vibe...

What he wasn't, was a poor man's Simenon.  And he was very good.

If you like your crime novels light and infused with humour but with a well-constructed plot and good characterisation, then George Bellairs is hard to beat. He may not have been particularly radical in his approach to the crime novel but he certainly had a distinctive style and that is a style I have really warmed to over the past few years.

The previous George Bellairs novels I have read have all involved his indomitable detective, Inspector Littlejohn and been part of a series. This novel as far as I can tell is a standalone novel from 1943, quite early in the author’s writing life, and concerns another detective, Superintendent Nankivell, who has a very different back story and position, being from the local area and local police force. But although altering our perspective on the crime by being based in the locality, not having Littlejohn as the detective has little negative impact on the book, the story was as enjoyable as almost any other Bellairs novel I have read. 

It still has the tropes, details and flourishes that I have come to expect from Bellairs’ Littlejohn series: precise plotting with enough twists and red herrings to keep the story interesting but without becoming frustrating; relatively unlikely scenes and characters, just this side of believable (the main thing I love about Bellairs), and genuine humour throughout. Much of the humour comes from the colourful incidental characters, always described with great detail and care, and helping to add interest to the story and making it entertaining, if not themselves driving the story. It is for this alone that I would and indeed do keep returning to George Bellairs.

Added to this as a great little crime novel, is the incidental comments on the time this was written (1943), a time just within living memory, so very recent and yet so very distant. This novel is a time capsule and a comment on British society during the Second World War which adds to its interest and value. But even without this, it is still a very enjoyable little mystery novel. Just don’t come to this expecting modern day shocks or gore or other fetishes; this is good clean murder, and all the better for it.