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81
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| 3.87
| 109,963
| 1930
| 2005
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Dec 12, 2019
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Sep 04, 2021
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Paperback
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74
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| 0552776661
| 9780552776660
| 0552776661
| 3.92
| 32,314
| Jun 18, 2019
| Jan 23, 2020
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liked it
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Atkinson's style can best be described as an affectionate insouciant humour. Writing so treads a fine line between being twee and falling flat, the hu
Atkinson's style can best be described as an affectionate insouciant humour. Writing so treads a fine line between being twee and falling flat, the humour too clichéd or simply not funny. She'll slip in a little one to refine her point, like: 'If anyone laid a finger on his son or upset him in any way Jackson had to suppress the urge to rip his head off and stick it where the sun never shone. Middlesborough, perhaps.' (Black Swan, 2020, p.29). You may never have been to Middlesborough, but the joke is in the national consciousness, not the specific reference. And so the references are all to an average cultural meme: the Odyssey, blokes, divorce, shabbiness and shoddiness, seaside amusements, ice cream and whelks, the stuff of everyone's childhood holidays, all sort of reflecting the standard education or the idle work ethic or the public taste, reflective of the nation's lack of Japanese 'go' or American 'zest', but more than the French 'laissez-faire', or national shrug. A king of median banality. Not the text, the references. But it could be a close thing, if it weren't handled with a surety of touching the national vein, humorously. Another example is when the police duo asked someone to confirm their name, who answered, 'Maybe'. 'Well, you either are or you aren't,' [she] thought. 'You're not Shrödinger's cat.' Liked that one. The funniest is what's on TV and the Aleppo reference. There's more, the watermarks of a lively mind. Of course, starting with her Life After Life (2013) spoilt me, and none of her subsequent novels have lived up to that. This, my first Jackson Brody caper, now means I have a fair cross-section to compare with Behind The Scenes At The Museum (1995) and A God In Ruins (2015) as well. It takes 150 pages to get going, bedding in all the little strands, that aren't so much sub-plots, as threads of the main. I particularly enjoyed the Ronnie and Reggie strand(s), they represented an intelligent humour, a trait only otherwise marked out for Jackson Brody and Julie and Harry, and perhaps Crystal. The others tried, but felt like tired desk sergeants. Much like Atkinson's similes. Her frying eggs splutter; I'm pretty sure that should be 'sputter'; people splutter. Atypical, but there. As the threads weave, the gist seems to become one of nightmare, slowly but mercilessly unravelling, a series of bad pasts and worse pasts. It seems that every character has a bad past they are trying to escape but, like the merciless waves on the shore after scurrying evaders of wet feet, the water comes in higher and faster than expected, threatening to engulf all with its scumble of dirty incessance. Half way through my own desperate leaps, I wish I wasn't being submerged in it. In the end, the kind of rottenness at the core of this story really only live off a kind of cunning that substitutes for any emotional heart, and are bound to get caught, if not soon enough. What redeems the picture is the discussion of what women are bound to tolerate, and Atkinson paints are broad brush of them, not all victims, thankfully. Unfortunately the one we think might come to the fore as the predominant personality (Julia) doesn't, and that's a shame - she largely parenthesises Jackson's thoughts, as though a more certain moral compass, but even this is elastic. Anyway, it was a very fluid read, but I felt it over-expanded the central section, with too many retrospectives when it should have raced on with meshing in all the strands - quite a lot of them. It would have been a tighter work, and while sometimes, in the hands of a consummate writer - like Atkinson - expansion is welcome, here, in this genre, I felt it needed to be more compact, less expansive, and just a little less sordid. How she managed to keep up her sense of humour - probably, like Julia, a protective shell not quite cynicism - I will never know. Despite the lauding blurb, the humour and the subject felt by a certain stage to be entirely incompatible. And it felt like it should have finished a good 25 pages before it did. I did enjoy the little lantern chapter titles, though. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 26, 2020
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Aug 2020
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Jun 26, 2020
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Paperback
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69
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| 1787463397
| 9781787463394
| 1787463397
| 4.25
| 562,828
| Jul 1988
| 2009
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it was amazing
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While Harris had already laid the ground rules for the serial killer thriller with Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter seven years previously (1981), The
While Harris had already laid the ground rules for the serial killer thriller with Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter seven years previously (1981), The Silence Of The Lambs (1988) must stand as the turning point in the history of crime fiction thrillers. Previous landmarks that merged the psychological thriller with the horror genre - the prototypical The Killer Inside Me (1952) by Jim Thompson held some of the themes, and certainly Bloch's Psycho in 1969 seeded the new subgenre - looked at madness in terms of schizophrenia; this work launches a new kind of psychopath, the serial killer, into the genre. Yes, Norman Bates (or Norma Bates, whichever side you're on, ours or his/hers) was also a serial killer, but incidentally, not altogether purposefully; and Thompson's Lou Ford was certainly a brutal prototype. But this is the first time we have the modern phenomenon of serial killers (Gumb and Lecter) opposed by federal law enforcement (the FBI) set against the modern obsession of psychological profiling, taking the police procedural to new terrain, and merging several subgenres: Gothic, horror, psychological thriller, with the darkness of Crime Noir, the precision of the police procedural and even including observance of the detective clue-puzzles' rules of 'fair play'. Quid pro quo. One of the main reasons that this novel was very different from its subgenre antecedents was the depth of its characterisation. While Bloch gave us some insight into Bates's schizmed mind, and made Lila (Mary's sister) and Sam (Mary's boyfriend) reasonably real characters, we were only really given that insight as a summing up. In The Silence Of The Lambs, we live with Clarice Starling in real time, have flashes into her past, and see the relationship between her and Lecter develop into some kind of mutual admiration, a kind of relationship separate from her professionalism and his psychopathy. It adds to the strange blend of forces in the novel, a kind of twisting of the human genome that betrays all the best and worst of humanity. It is hard not to become divorced from the horror via all this interaction; our faces are frozen, mouth open, silent, and as section chief Crawford says, after a while you forget what kind of monsters you are dealing with. Added to this is the actual complexity of the sociopaths we have to entertain. Is there a certain withheld sympathy for Jame Gumb's trans-sexual desire, if not his means of transformation? Is there a certain admiration for Hannibal Lecter's genius? Is the word 'genius' appropriately used when referring to a psychopathic monster who seems to have a certain emotional intelligence, or reflexive empathy, while not actually feeling empathy for anyone. This is strange terrain. Is the word 'love' appropriate for what Lecter feels for Starling, an emotional space further explored in Hannibal (1999), the third in the series, which ends with the kind of sacrifice only love, surely, could have engendered. The sheer murkiness and complexity of these issues is part of the way this novel skews entirely our once-though-as-clear sense of morality, greying and blurring the edges of good and evil. There are so many twists in this police procedural, we withdraw our horror and our moral judgementalism and sit back in a state of mesmerism. Harris places us in some nowhere land, the normal rules of engagement kicked from beneath us. We are contending - through Clarice Starling - different forces to those we know: beyond good and evil, as Nietzsche might say. Harris's construction is superb. We are never lulled into a dull moment, except for that penultimate seemingly aside investigation by Starling at the eleventh hour. Why, we might wonder, are we suddenly plunged into the minutiae of the police procedural, while the action is happening 400 miles north, around Chicago? Well, wait for it. This is the calm before the storm, Starling's thread sinking into plain old police detection, a lull that comes as deep as the silence of the lambs. Somewhere that Hannibal Lecter has placed her. Somewhere where she would need all the training Quantico had provided her, and all the bravery only she could glean from inside. And there is never a moment when Harris hasn't thought about it, researched it, planned it, paced it, delivered. He's thought of everything, with such a meticulous scrupulousness, and not only sets it out for us punctiliously at times, but has considered its impact on the suspense and impact of each short, concise chapter. It may lack a kaleidoscope of colour, of metaphor and simile of say, Chandler, but it is vivid in placing us in highly uncomfortable emotional and moral spaces, causing our brains to baffle in unknown moral territory. We baulk at the language, the description so often, so brutal and outlandish, so alien and inhuman, it takes a lot of thought to determine quite where the moral terrain of his characters lie - particularly the quandary that is Hannibal Lecter. In the end you have to simplify: Jame Gumb is criminally insane; but Hannibal Lecter is sane, and wilfully evil. And Hannibal Lecter is one of art's most famous characters, as etched in our cultural psyche as Fagin, more psychologically real than Moriarty, more cunning and ruthless than Jack the Ripper. He owes much to Mr Hyde, and the Vampyre. To create such a monster is both astonishing - and very disturbing. Because in the end, Lecter defies all scientific classifications we attempt to rationalise the incomprehensible horror. This is a dark, superbly constructed, sensationally charactered novel that set the standard for the serial killer psychological thriller of our time. Anything else in the subgenre merely rests on its laurels, no matter how good. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Jan 14, 2020
not set
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Jan 23, 2020
not set
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Feb 20, 2020
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Paperback
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68
| 
| 0752883186
| 9780752883182
| B008YF6GWO
| 3.90
| 209,444
| May 05, 2004
| 2007
|
liked it
|
Sociopathic Dexter's supercilious sarcasm very quickly becomes wearing. Little chirpy mini-confessions to the reader in chipper little semi-humorous e
Sociopathic Dexter's supercilious sarcasm very quickly becomes wearing. Little chirpy mini-confessions to the reader in chipper little semi-humorous epithets. Of course, it's the linguistic idiom of his sickness, but, boy, is it wearing. Not a style I take to, especially when the subject matter (object matter, to our boy Dexter) is so grotesque you'd rather it never entered your head. But some novelists must think it's alright to venture the subject matter of this book, all gruesome body parts and fractured psychological 'insights'. There are limits, and Lindsay crosses them time and time and time again in the assumption of market if not style. This will never be art, it is so banal. It's just a money-making exercise - and what's wrong with that, right! Clearly the 'detective' benchmark is Chandler, the hardboiled detective who takes the rough from the tough and comes back for more in the name of justice. Lindsay's flip on Buffalo Bill - we are in the first person of a serial killer - doesn't make it an original or interesting perspective. The trick is to use language like Chandler did, 'lightning on every page', or define the dimensions of the psychopath deeply enough to make us baffled, morally confused. And Lindsay simply fails. It's glib (deliberately), mediocre (not) and unpleasant. There's zero tension, and no good jokes. There's a lot of repetition. Far too many times does he repeat the same logic paths of twisted Dexter in a slightly different form, protracting passages unnecessarily. Far too many times does Dexter ask the same sneering questions as though appealing to an understanding if not sympathising ally. Far too many times do you wish you had read this before you'd read The Silence Of The Lambs, and not been constantly disappointed. The psychopathic serial killer as first person protagonist is, in the canon, supposed to be a progression of the genre. But it's not. It implies that we will gain a key insight into the mind, make-up and motivation of the serial killer, as though we wanted this particular insight, as though it benefited the development of crime fiction. Of course, if the mind is as complex and cultured as Hannibal Lecter's, it might well be worth it. If the issue of understanding 'why' is important, it might be worth it. But Dexter doesn’t have any depth of personality nor intellect; he's just a smarmy alexithymic, and so ill-equipped to encourage us to take him seriously. Lecter exhibited emotional empathy - he just didn’t use it as part of his moral framework for good, but as another weapon in his arsenal. Until Clarice Starling, that is. Dexter doesn't even compare to Lecter's extra finger. There is nothing likable about him - including his dress sense - no cultural depth, no facet of interest, whereas Lecter demands the utmost concentration, because his psychology is deeply drawn, through his relation with Starling, whom we like. Deborah, the near equivalent in this, is written as superficial, is put down almost consistently, is not deeply drawn, but sketched. And that is the problem: Lindsay's 'style' is not style, it is glib, repetitive, sketchy, shallow. Harris's characters - Lecter, Starling, Crawford - have true depth, dimension, whereas Lindsay's are virtual caricatures. His dialogue is glib, insincere, partial. There is never a conversation where you feel these are real people one-to-one. There is Harry, of course, a kind of Crawford figure, paternal, guiding, but essentially limited in development. There's a clean structure to the novel's development, with the required turning points, but no sense of suspense, no feeling of mystery, no dark areas defying understanding beneath the reveal. It has all the ingredients, but they are not ingredients of quality. The police procedural lapses into a series of snarky put-downs, there is no trust, no loyalty, no sense of community. It's all a bit shallow. And, if course, in the end, in order to buy into the format - that we are sympathetic to the mind of our psychopathic protagonist - you have to in some way like, sympathise with, understand or empathise with Dexter. And we never do. There is no tortuous quandary about his steely, unfeeling lack of personality; there's just the glinty, pathetic attempts at gallows humour, the sarcasm of his sneering at humanity, the derision of the very same qualities he lacks. Too much sarcasm, too little quality. I think it fails as a flag of the genre, as a development of the canon, because it lacks quality: quality of style, quality of characterisation. Harris is a writer, The Silence Of The Lambs is art, albeit distasteful in large part. Lindsay comes across as an ex-cop who took up writing, and knew enough about the trade to write a coherent procedural. But, except for the odd flash of metaphor - wolves, werewolves, the moon, the atavistic lizard brain - there is no depth to this novel. Nor enough interest in the central character to buy into the remaining series. Whereas, as soon as I get the free time, I'll read the rest of Harris's Lecter series - because he is certainly the most compelling villain to come out of crime fiction, way beyond Moriarty, fuller than The Joker, and certainly light-years ahead of deeply disappointing Dexter. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 02, 2020
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Feb 08, 2020
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Feb 02, 2020
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Paperback
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67
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| 0446404144
| 9780446404143
| 0446404144
| 3.78
| 6,287
| Sep 09, 1988
| Dec 01, 1994
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None
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Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Jan 17, 2020
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Mass Market Paperback
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70
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| 1787463389
| 9781787463387
| 1787463389
| 4.06
| 346,449
| Oct 1981
| 2009
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really liked it
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Harris kicks off his second novel and first of the Lecter tetralogy with the sureness of an owner of the crime genre, specifically the serial killer t
Harris kicks off his second novel and first of the Lecter tetralogy with the sureness of an owner of the crime genre, specifically the serial killer thriller serial, or psychological horror thriller. Either way, this is a new subgenre of the canon, and marks a turning point in the field. The psychological horror story had its first notable exemplar in Bloch's Psycho of 1959, marked by the (second-hand) relation of the psychiatrist's analysis of Norman/Norma's mental state in its epilogue. It may not have spawned a whole new subgenre in the '60s and '70s, but it was, apart from that epilogue and its gothic darkness (the action leads us to a haunted cellar), a whodunnit with a new twist, the 'whydunnit', and contrary to the golden-age detective clue-puzzle, was an anti-mystery, since we are party to Norman/Norma's murderous actions throughout. Harris took this new subgenre in the '80s and made it his own, made something new of it, developing the whydunnit sub-text in an extended police procedural that required the central tropes of the detective puzzle based around a central mystery, the serial killings of an unknown perp, but introduced us pretty soon and added beneath it the gothic horror trope of the highly intelligent, unfathomably evil horror type that was Hannibal Lecter. Lecter confounds our moral sense and rationalism: he's a professional psychiatrist, but he's a cannibal; he's a highly cultured aesthete, but he's a serial killer. If we could put Norman Bates' psychological motivations down to early-onset schizophrenia, we cannot put Lecter down as anything but what he is. He shows no causation in the first three novels upon which we might establish a sense of order, he is highly elusive and uncontainable, which threatens our sense of security. Merely having Lecter in these novels casts a greater sense of danger overall than any 'normal' serial killer like the 'Tooth Fairy', like 'Buffalo Bill'. He defies strict classification, he transgresses known nomenclature, he lives in the liminal zone of gothic horror. "Dr. Lecter is not crazy, in any common way we think of being crazy. He did some hideous things because he enjoyed them. The psychologists call him a sociopath because they don't know what else to call him. He has no remorse or guilt at all." (Arrow, 2009, pp.63-4) It's Harris's use of the gothic that allows Lecter to seep between the boundaries of our known world, a world the FBI Behavioral Science department exists to classify, identify, capture and contain. Lecter might be serving several life sentences, but we know he won't. He is uncontainable. Even Will Graham fears any approach. As soon as he (and later, Starling) enters the underground corridors of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, we are in the gothic, with its windowless tunnels and dark cells. This is the world of Poe and Stevenson, the dark alleys of Jack the Ripper, the gothic world of horror. This is a whole other dimension, one only touched on in Bloch's Psycho, one more redolent of his 'Yours Truly...'. What we expect to find - and we do - is some form of super-human and supernatural entity. Lecter, cannibal psychiatrist, sophisticate with an understanding of empathy, is vampiric, something definitely other, a higher order of being. His reputation precedes him, because he is the charismatic stuff of urban legend: everybody over the age of 15 has heard of Hannibal Lecter, as good as generalisations go. He is a horror type of public consciousness, known the world over. We are grateful he is a fictional character. Not to Harris, though. He's as real to Harris as characters are to a writer. Read his preface, he establishes the psychological mood even in two pages about the creative-writing process. It must have been tough during those developmental stages to compartmentalise him away, to sleep peacefully at nights. With thirteen dogs howling. However, Hannibal Lecter is merely a sidebar in this opening sally, it's Will Graham and Jack Crawford's show, with Dolarhyde the chase, and Lecter coming in a short second. And Freddy Lounds, of course, whose brief flame is smutty and underbellied yet unforgettable. Even the fool Chilton gets to be a good boy for the authorities; he hasn't yet had the idea of making money off Lecter; a bit slow. And while this episode isn't a masterpiece like Silence, it has thumbprints of masterful writing: 'There were polyps of honesty in Lounds' (p.197); 'his rat eyes had the sheen of spit on asphalt' (173). But there is a problem with Red Dragon's construction, when there never was one with Silence: the intervening backstory of Dolarhyde. It messes up the impetus, it doesn't seem necessary. We want causation explained, but we don't want all this sordid stuff. Silence of the Lambs is perfect without this, Gumb's history briefly explaining him away in a 'post-mortem'. Dolarhyde's childhood is not needed, nor wanted, it feels, at the time. The whydunnit's causation is required, but not to this extent, surely. Further, it inserts a contra-genre which simply doesn't belong in this book, a banal historical leaf in a modern procedural. It just doesn't fit. What is interesting is that Dolarhyde is motivated by fear: he fears the beast that has taken him over. While his backstory suggest causality, the link between the cause and his schizophrenia are not made until much later in the story. This rectifies the seemingly awkward construction, and the more you get towards the climax, the more you realise how Harris has reasons for his awkward interstice. It becomes, as you fit the pieces together, explicative. And further, it makes you have some sympathy for this bestial person. Some. Harris will develop this sympathetic strand seriously when he comes to Starling and Lecter in Silence, then even more when you get to the climax of Hannibal, and then he will provide you with the full motive in the later prequel, Hannibal Rising. Overall, then, you see not only the developing mastery of his construction, but how it develops over the tetralogy - and this is a considerable bonus, and a very strong reason for reading all four. Which also demonstrates the traits of the serial formula: keep the main evil protagonist quiescent to begin with, becoming more active as you move from one novel to the next; and keep the causality hidden until the final canonical release. Because these overall constructive superstructures are what make us read and read the next. This is masterful storytelling, supremely assured of his ground, and with something darker underneath, something you only get a glimpse of, deeper than the threatening terrors of Lecter, of the mad cleverness of Dolarhyde, something reptilian, Satanic, chaotic, screamingly atavistic, like suddenly having a sensorium of darkness lying in wait, beneath the superficial busyness of the world. Just a glimpse, but that's enough. Harris is nothing if not very smart. But I wouldn't like his dreams, thanks. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 05, 2020
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Apr 08, 2020
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Jan 15, 2020
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Paperback
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65
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| 9780448095011
| 0448095017
| 3.98
| 80,315
| 1930
| 2002
|
liked it
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The first in the phenomenon of Nancy Drew series fiction (175 between 1930 and 2003), The Secret Of The Old Clock [1930] sets up the formula for succe
The first in the phenomenon of Nancy Drew series fiction (175 between 1930 and 2003), The Secret Of The Old Clock [1930] sets up the formula for success: a resilient, seemingly indestructible amateur teen sleuth with wide independence and an irrepressible determination to solve the mysteries which inevitably come her way each time she sets foot out of her upper-middle-class home in River Heights. While not yet accompanied by her friends, cousins George and Bess (Helen Corning is her schoolfriend in the first of the series), she is supported by her lawyer-father Carson and her surrogate-mother housekeeper Hannah Gruen in the mysteries which she is usually invited to investigate and solve, although in this opener, she accidentally 'stumbles' upon her first case in much the same way the Famous Five did. Nancy always takes unnecessary risks, ends up getting caught by the criminal gang, and always manages to be rescued before the criminals are themselves caught. Here she has the help of the State Police, and while there may be twists and turns in the development of the case, there is a strange moment with a police trooper where you think things might go unexpectedly wrong - but it seems yet another device to keep up the tension as the dénouement is a little flat: finding a will which delivers justice and upends greed. But the chase is pretty good so far, and we know the inevitable outcome, as we know that yet another case waits just round the corner for our intrepid (if at times, a little foolhardy) teen sleuth. The structure of the Nancy Drew stories is full of cliffhangers and signposts and continual repetitions of Nancy's hopes and intentions, and the books themselves well enough written for their intended 8-12 audience while providing no challenges to reach for a dictionary. Educational they may not be, but entertaining they are, and reliable too, and the package that the Stratemeyer Syndicate put together has lasted nearly a century now, but while all these glories attend this successful series fiction from across the water, they do not compete with the surprising psychological depth of the Famous Five series, for instance, with its gender-bending and more complex morality woven into its holiday adventure mysteries. But you cannot detract from the success of the formula fiction of the Nancy Drew books, and at 180 pages, make for quick rewards and the promise of much, much more. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 18, 2019
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Dec 25, 2019
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Nov 20, 2019
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
83
| 
| 1447299140
| 9781447299141
| 1447299140
| 3.81
| 5,548
| 1977
| Jun 14, 2016
|
liked it
|
This third Morse outing is somewhat pedestrian. Far too often Morse, sunk in his own poor memories, beer and general acerbity, smirks with knowing, wh
This third Morse outing is somewhat pedestrian. Far too often Morse, sunk in his own poor memories, beer and general acerbity, smirks with knowing, while Dexter keeps us almost completely in the dark. It is usual for readers of crime fiction to be one step behind most of the way, the facts of the case known only to the criminal, most often, and gradually, and more certainly, the investigating detective. This formula is only ever really broken by the serial killer thriller, where some third party - Lecter, for example - seems to know far more than the investigator, and releases cryptic clues to both show off their own intellectual prowess, and tease his surrogate victim. But generally, due to the rules of fair play incorporated in the generic whodunnit a century ago during the Golden Age, we are a few, then a couple, then a step behind the investigator. Building this tension ensures our commitment to the narrative, our eagerness to discover, and our pleasure in finding out Why, When, How and Who did the deed. The rules of the genre reassure that we have a good chance of adducing the last, while the former are gradually revealed. However, Dexter conceals all of Morse's deductions at the crux of each such titled sections; we are but left with his smug visage. He does not share it with Lewis, he does not share it with us. It makes for a very dissatisfying read. More of a plod, than a police procedural. It might be clever from the point of view of the author, but it is frustrating for the reader. And never, at any time, do we shiver with that pitch of tension or anticipation. The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn must necessarily hinge on our victim's deafness, and surely his weakest aspect - emphasised by the brief Prologue - handling the phone, is a key clue to the dénouement, but even so, we remain as confused as Morse until those closing murmurs of self-congratulation that he has discovered the why, when, how and who of it. We remain, always, in the back row of the cinema of this pedestrian little show. Needless to say, the dénouement, when it penultimately arrives, is convoluted and fits all the given snippets/facts except the patterns which Morse has been able to fit together in his quiet, smug moments. If ever there is a case for building a chain of events backwards from a predetermined set, the author thus conjuring a cleverly pieced jigsaw of many, many substantial clues strewn about like a paper chase through the constructed novel, this book is one. Whether that game of paper chase succeeds in satisfying the reader, though, is much more pertinent. You can potentially have a locked room mystery a very big chimney, and not reveal the very large chimney until the very end.... But that would be cheating. Is Dexter's Quinn narrative much the same? Certainly, it feels like it, all the way through. A measure of the pace of this 3rd Morse novel is that it took me 3 weeks to finish it, whereas it took me only 2 days to read the 2nd, Last Seen Wearing. I felt led down the garden path, out through the hedge, and across the barren fields of nomansland, cast adrift in a miasma of mud, while Morse swilled his beer, smirked gloatingly over each new key discovery, and spoke acid to Lewis, and to us through his murky thoughts. I did not like the way the thing was unravelled, and felt I was being duped all along. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 23, 2022
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Aug 09, 2022
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Nov 17, 2019
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Paperback
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82
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| 1447299086
| 9781447299080
| 1447299086
| 3.84
| 7,963
| 1976
| Jan 01, 1808
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really liked it
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Dexter builds his second Morse outing carefully and slowly, and by half way we have a near-certainty of the killer - if there is a killer - and a clea
Dexter builds his second Morse outing carefully and slowly, and by half way we have a near-certainty of the killer - if there is a killer - and a clear red herring - if he hasn't withheld too much identifying data. He does, though, in passages loosely interspersed through his logical progressions in Morse and Lewis's discussions of the possibilities of the case, using the indefinite article and keeping us guessing as to who exactly is doing or thinking this. One or two of these indefinite passages are cleared up pretty quickly, one or two not: enough to keep us only with the near-certainty and the almost-surety of the red herring. But, as with the resolution of almost any other crime novel, detail is the key; and to the avid crime fiction fan (not me), detail is as the candidate letters for a crossword clue. Dexter sprinkles his text with quotes and crossword clues, much of the former pertaining to the substance of the following chapter, the others just for fun. I'm not a crossword addict myself; I get bored very quickly. Sudoku, a no-no. So when these fleeting clues arise, I want them answered pretty quickly. Some are, some not. However, I'm content to be led by the nose through a crime novel if it is well written. Consider Chandler and his 100+ similes in The Big Sleep. You read it for the style as well as the story and the dénouement. So too with Dexter. Dexter's style, though, is more urbane - certainly more urbane than the often sharp (if not sour) Morse. It is propped up by a public school academicism, which, like the ancient civic environs of Oxford, belongs to some other era rather than to the Seventies. He contrasts this erudition with an account of housing estates and the comprehensive school, and the local rubbish tip, and where he gets down to proselytising, which is rarely (consider Banks), he does so about issues that we tend unanimously to agree with: graffiti, the state of the nation, the evils of gambling, particularly, here. But he also has Morse, a notorious boozer in the TV series, visiting the pubs, and oddly, distastefully even, not belonging. Morse is an already established figure, character and look for most of us who visit these early books; Dexter wasn't on the literary radar in the '70s for me; whereas Chandler was a must-read. Perhaps it is unfair to compare author with author, though, since the sub-genres - hard-boiled private detective and police procedural - are separate realms with differing times, social settings, even cultures. But the central question of fair play applies to either. Does Dexter, like Chandler, like Christie, slip in enough clues for us to see the wood for the trees, or at least a clear path emerging from them, do they play fair, do we stand much of a chance for our own accurate adduction? Or do they, like the recent series of Endeavour (scripted anew from the characters only of Dexter's 13 books, not the specific cases), throw in an utterly unknown array of facts/clues in the summing up of which we were never party to, and so tip the admiration over into the scenes, character development, and verisimilitude of period, rather than for the case itself, ourselves divested of any real chance of input? I'd say Dexter treads a pretty fine line, throwing in confusions (Chandler did, certainly Christie did) into a seemingly linear narrative where much, and certainly not all, is drawn out for us. He cleverly throws in some reversions by half way, so that we have a new likely candidate; and then more by three quarters, so that we really have little idea by the time Morse is sure - unless.... Did he succeed this time to strike that balance between fair play and withheld mystery in order to keep me entertained enough to follow it reasonably informed to the end, and to make me want to pick up another Morse novel? Yes - and likely sooner than later. With 50 pages to go, I was looking forward to Morse and Lewis finding the missing girl, and the murderer. At no point did I cry, 'Woe, that's unfair'. Then again, neither did I cry, 'Wow, that was some blistering writing!' But its urbane competence had me. Morse is most definitely a stop-at-home, relax-by-the-fire with-a-good-cup-of-tea crime series, fit for lovers of the genre and the country, and, particularly of Oxford. I found it comfortable within his pages, just as I had with the other couple I'd read, and I probably will see it to the end of his series; whereas, I almost certainly won't of Christie's many, nor re-read all of Chandler's few. Kudos enough. Now, back to Endeavour.... ...more |
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Jul 20, 2022
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Jul 22, 2022
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Nov 17, 2019
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63
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| 1447299191
| 9781447299196
| 1447299191
| 3.97
| 5,093
| 1979
| May 06, 2016
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really liked it
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My second Morse novel and as good a read as my first (The Dead Of Jericho [1981]), with the same fluid, informed style and, obviously, the same princi
My second Morse novel and as good a read as my first (The Dead Of Jericho [1981]), with the same fluid, informed style and, obviously, the same principal characters. This one starts differently, with a first 'book' describing the events leading to the murders and the interplay of the characters leading up to them, but not describing the actual killings - that's for Morse to deduce. So, without the disadvantages Morse has when happening upon the closed case, we tread his path, yet are as confused as Lewis. While this standard device, where the sidekick must be a little less intelligent than the reader (Watson) and significantly less so than his superior (Holmes), still leaves us at a disadvantage because, with Dexter, Lewis is party to the odd significant factoid which we are not until later. This way, we feel the same as him for the most part, until Dexter revs up for the dénouement, when all is laid out. Or is it? I quite enjoy this method, for it makes me feel less stupid than I invariably do, say, at the end of a Christie - where 'fair play' is generally, but not rigorously observed, and where a sudden volte face leaves me just a little chagrined. But it's more than this: it's the 'comfortable shoes' feel that Dexter immerses you in. I feel that I know Oxford as much as a don by now; I feel at home there. And it helps here that I know Shrewsbury, too (though only briefly significant), since I am at home here. But what I'm not at home with, is staying as unenlightened as Lewis! In the end, I felt just as I do after a Christie revelation: slightly duped. This story changes course more times than you can make anagrams of Morse. In my limited estimation, that's thrice. And I feel somewhat duped. The cast of characters, the slow drip-feed of their relations, histories and so potential clues becomes a miasma of purblindness, over-complicated by a ream of base motives, all very unsavoury, and the changes at the end were insufficient cause to base a dénouement on, I felt - or enjoy it. I liked that Morse found a sympathetic soul, but not that she had been so weakly implicated in all this selfishness, jealousy, greed and hate. Of course, without these human vices and motives, there would be no murders - only manslaughters. But I still felt slightly cheated, and the offerings of this church-based whodunnit were ultimately unsatisfactory - while the reading experience was. Such a strange place to find yourself in. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 23, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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Nov 17, 2019
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Paperback
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79
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| 0008134766
| 9780008134761
| 0008134766
| 3.95
| 26,162
| Dec 31, 1995
| Nov 05, 2015
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liked it
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(Contains spoilers - which spoilt it for me). Tony Hill and Carol Jordan's serial killer is a loner who works nights, lives in a terrace, is influenced (Contains spoilers - which spoilt it for me). Tony Hill and Carol Jordan's serial killer is a loner who works nights, lives in a terrace, is influenced by video games, and has an obsession for medieval torture implements, seen on holiday in a museum in Italy. He is riddled with prejudices and has a rationale that exists within his own construct of himself existing within a fantasy within the real world. He has a certain arrogance or confidence which is the result of alexithymia, the inability to feel empathy, that which works with the social prohibition centre of the pre-frontal cortex to adjust our behaviour towards others considerately. He's his own man, and has free licence within his fantasy to extend punishment to those he dislikes in place of a socially tempered moral code; his ethics are manufactured, based on his own justified authority. He plans, predates, and has an out-of-the-way place to enact his atrocities. His arrogance means he taunts the real authorities. His arrogance is his prime error. All this is my notes on the first quarter, and my deductions. I could be wrong. Tony Hill has confidence and anxieties. His confidence is born of his being good at what he does, based on an accrual of facts and evidence and an analysis and perspective not constrained by traditional procedures and methods. His social skill is in convincing his recalcitrant (career-minded) colleagues within crime detection that his perspective can be a valuable - if not essential - tool in profiling, identifying and capturing certain kinds of killer - serial killers, particularly - his other social skill. His anxieties are public speaking and not being able to fit in with his crime-fighting colleagues - but he works hard on these. He has others.... Carol Jordan is a competent detective inspector fighting prejudice and patriarchy within a male-dominated profession. Her self-monitoring constantly ensures she maintains a tough competence in her daily life, proving her everyday worth as a woman as well as in her profession, her workload twofold, if not always full-time. This second-nature adjustment means her mind is more open, alert to others' perspectives. She finds Tony Hill attractive for two reasons: he's not patronising, and he looks good. They're both relieved to have a smart, decent, dedicated and considerate colleague to work with on the biggest case of their careers. For their target is a career killer. McDermid spends the first quarter setting up the foundation, of the cases, the new co-ordinated team, headed by Carol with Tony as consultant, and the relationship between them. These chapters are interspersed with file logs of the killer's M.O., first-hand accounts of his backstory (the torture museum), his own set-up (the farmhouse), and his selection of victims. This is very Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), without the humour. This one's not got a developed sense of humour; but s/he does have a lightness of relation, consistent with the euphoria of control, enjoyment and lack of empathy. A sociopath who might be a member of a minority? S/he certainly talks of revenge killings of gay men, revenge for betrayals. Just what kind, we must assume a failed relationship where he was hurt, thus a gay man. Otherwise he'd be killing women, if he was hurt by his mother. Like Tony, too early to put theories before evidence? Authority appears to be an area they have yet to consider, considering the last victim was... well, in a position of authority. All this is my notes, and my deductions so far. After a very short while these diary-like self-witnesses to the killings become wearing, their superciliousness something between a a vapid child and a slimy fish. What is more interesting is the table of victim characteristics (pp.139-40), four of them, by the start of the narrative. He - probably a 'he' - chooses single white British male victims in good shape between 27 and 32 (~7% of the population), all of the educated middle class (a civil servant, university lecturer, solicitor...), therefore down to ~3-4% of the population. He is likely of similar characteristics, age and background. We know 'he' lives alone. There seems no relation to the victims' star signs; these are revenge killings, not occult practices. Working out his occupation is an interesting thread. He strikes every 8 weeks, dumping his bodies over Monday/Tuesday night. He works nights, or shifts. A picture is slowly emerging. It's Tony Hill that has collated this picture. By the half way mark I was getting bored with this book. The epigraphs for each chapter, taken from De Quincey's 'On Murder considered as one of the fine arts' (1827) added nothing except further supercilious commentary to the by now merely disgusting interstitial file logs of the serial killer's diaries of 'his' killings. Tony Hill's first draft of a profile was laughable, lacking in any concrete insights - except control, good planning and a contradictory pair of statements of intelligence, but that the perpetrator probably couldn't hold down a job as an insurance salesman! I felt the development weak. The key to this killer was his work, which would likely explain his frequency, of regularity every two months. But Hill, more fixated on his own aberrations (which make the novel smuttier and smuttier), wasn't even approaching the issue. Meanwhile, the plods had picked up a prime suspect, flagged by Hill as a red herring. And the very inclusion of the character Superintendent Cross dragged the book almost into parody - I know he was supposed to be a caricature of macho patronising patriarchal chauvinist old-fashioned prejudice and incompetence, but he was also a series of dull spots that didn't enhance the narrative. The same too with the caricatured local hack. There were passages of needless repetition, such as the hack's column inches which rehashed what we'd just been told (pp.374-77). It stretched the book and patience. It was becoming tiresome and lacked integrity, and something was needed soon to rescue this disappointment and set it on its course. By three quarters, things were looking no better. Having early established a check-list of victim characteristics, Hill didn't in his final profile consider for an instant that he was in that percentile, and a likely target, given his now high-profile involvement in the case. It beggared belief. This is a far lesser entity than the second in the series, The Wire In The Blood (1997), the one from which the TV series was named. Having already established the tricky ground of the insurgence of Hill and profiling into the force, McDermid could focus on the established relationship between Hill and Jordan and devote more to the development of the case, the detection work itself, and the development of the profiling unit. There, McDermid uses the inexperience of the new team to create danger. Here, the supposed expert should know better, plain and simple, guv, and that ask for our suspension of disbelief when he doesn't is not credible. Enough clues were there for us.... 'I should have realized as soon as I saw that profile that you could be a target...' (p.434). Indeed. For all that the structure had its annoyances and giveaways, this was otherwise an easy (if at times repetitive) read, with some decent use of simile. It just didn't add up to its successor. ...more |
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1
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Jun 14, 2021
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Jun 17, 2021
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Nov 12, 2019
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73
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| 0007344732
| 9780007344734
| 0007344732
| 4.16
| 19,455
| Nov 03, 1997
| Mar 04, 2010
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really liked it
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'Her last best hope' (Harper Collins, 2010, p.446). Given the average intelligence of the street copper - who are nothing if not nice and hard-working 'Her last best hope' (Harper Collins, 2010, p.446). Given the average intelligence of the street copper - who are nothing if not nice and hard-working - we automatically assume a significant upscaling in those of the newly-created National Offender Profiling Task Force, Leeds, headed by Tony Hill. Within a week, one of his candidates has proven herself a cut above the rest. But for the distracted arrogance of Hill himself, and his old friend Carol Jordan, things might have been different, and when Val McDermid leads us down that alternate history we all wished had been other, the brutality of the offender is ugly, merciless and faster than thought, all contrary to his public profile. Perhaps the very first lesson for the new force should have been: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR SUSPECT! Of course, the way McDermid calms our own suspicions while privileging us with her perpetrator's very thoughts is a useful suppressant to us not shouting that aloud as his first non-serial victim walks into his lair. This would make for very good television, it being based around a TV personality with very televisual presentation. We watch the scene unfold, but since nothing atrociously brutal has been unfolded before our eyes as yet, we are as much lambs to the... as is the totally unprepared maverick profiler. Naturally, having seen several of the TV series, we know better than to go ANYWHERE on your own, let alone into the viper's nest. Just because he smiles (while she accounts for every tell-tale nuance to the contrary), doesn't mean that he won't strike and kill. Treat as you would the sudden appearance of a snake, and GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! NOW! Such capitalisation saves lives; it's what the amygdala's for. But our suspension-of-disbelief is what prevents us from sighing and saying either 'I TOLD YOU SO' or, 'Nar, that wouldn't happen'. It is a credit to the way McDermid has beguiled us into her story that 200 pages in (did it go that fast?) we are utterly as unsuspecting as the over-confident and over-ambitious young officer is naïve. Should have read the warning label: police never enter a suspect's premises alone unless SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN. What makes it worse is that we came to like this particular victim immediately: she had all the qualities of the lonely girl ignored by distant parents that we would love to mother/father and correct. From hereon in, barely half way through, we are not merely piecing the bits together (in good old procedural way), but marvelling at how we, like the two 'shes' currently under or past threat, have been so easily led on through what was a standard procedural of the serial killer thriller, but a tamed British version. No real trace of Thomas Harris so far. But we had been man-handled! McDermid had led us through the familiar paths of mind-numbing and slightly pathetic British celebrity, not the distant ravaging subterranean pits of the US serial killers' unconscious; we were in our own back yard, anaesthetised by the plain ordinariness of the Sutcliffes and Wests, not the psychopathic demons of the Bateses, Gumbs, and Lecters. But entering into Part 2, we now enter that world of Poe's, of Bloch's, of Harris's. McDermid used the trickery of Dexter on us before Dexter was born. It's very effective, and entirely her own. But we end up in the same terrain. McDermid has brought us up to speed with the US, in terms of style, stakes and sinisterness. But fortunately for us, she has withheld the gothic horror, the terror, of her American predecessors. That she has done so, and the relief that she has done so is also somehow very British. There are clearly flaws, but they are not of plot nor device. Of course, with the plethora of modern surveillance (CCTV, device tracking...) and forensics, it's unlikely any criminal could proceed for long these days. Plus, as Hill remarks early on, the sheer bureaucratic stupidity of not setting up the new profiling taks force alongside Met Intelligence is mind-numbing. This is part of why we put up with the politicians we have, this sheer lethargy in the face of incessant stupidity. That our public institutions are riddled with their own debilitating internal politics. That whatever the good intentions, the lack of hitting-the-ground ready-for-the-fight capability, the very mundanity of even our hungrier institutions (sharp profiteering international businesses would surely by founded on this attitude) is ingrained in our identity, and so must necessarily be a standard feature of a force not fundamentally equipped for such wolfish competitiveness. In situations where every second and second thought counts, they are far too often far too late, bolting in after the event as reactive rather than proactive force. Not that you can ever police anything that well (the minority report), but when you do set up a special force, at least equip it with the very best of everything. All this is always what might have been, the benefit of hindsight, a privileged perspective. However, it's how, and how fast, you deal with the potential next tragedy that is always at the forefront of the mind, the tip of the tongue. What you need is the best of the best, alongside plain old honest and widespread coppering. And this is precisely where McDermid leads us next. That she has wrenched us from our seats so that we might jump up and shout BEHIND YOU, like an ineffectual pantomime audience, in our own front rooms, is all to her credit. Till I read The Wire In The Blood, I honestly wondered what all the fuss was about, even though the characters of Hill and Jordan were nearly as good as Crawford or Starling, in our old-fashioned soapy British way. The TV series was fine, but the books are far better. I am proud to say that we, because of McDermid, can (almost) stand alongside (though never above, after Harris) the best of the Americans in the genre. So much for style and credibility. Tick, tick. But McDermid also does something that Lindsay tried to do with Dexter and which didn't quite work for me - too glib. That is, that despite the darkness (which McDermid largely steers away from, wheras Lindsay drenches his Dexter work in), McDermid also manages to slip in a lot of humour within what is naturally a dark subject. But the book doesn't feel dark, it feels light. There are lots of witty little descriptions and reaction (Chris Devine owning most), that make you laugh at McDermid's general astute wit, little jokes at once laughing 'at', but affectionate, feeling like laughing 'with'. This makes the reading experience (which is immersive) feel like a fun joint-venture. And pulling that off in such an otherwise grim genre, is smart. This is a smart novel deliciously written, with superb structure and development, and some unforgettable characters. Sold, sold, sold. More please. ...more |
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1
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Jun 20, 2020
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Jun 23, 2020
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Nov 12, 2019
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62
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| 1447299205
| 9781447299202
| 1447299205
| 3.99
| 5,371
| 1981
| May 06, 2016
|
really liked it
|
DI Morse, as depicted by John Thaw in the '90s series, was a little too sour for my liking, but I watched many nonetheless because they were well desi
DI Morse, as depicted by John Thaw in the '90s series, was a little too sour for my liking, but I watched many nonetheless because they were well designed and charactered, as well as nicely set. I recently treated myself to the entire Endeavour series, with the excellent Shaun Evans and Roger Allam (who makes an appearance in an early Morse episode), and thought them infinitely better, with perhaps only a couple of episodes not entirely absorbing. The characterisation of this latter series was superb, as was the sense of time as well as place, something the original series didn't have to recreate, being contemporary. While initially the '60s setting felt as drab as the reality of the era - with the pervading sense of grubby formica and outside loos - I soon began to appreciate the amount of work put into Endeavour, and that Russell Lewis, who wrote the entirety of the 6 series, had had a hand in one of the original Morse episodes. But the pull of the later series was not merely its superb scripting and production values, or its superb blend of characters with their homely names, from Endeavour to Thursday, Bright to Strange, Fancy to Trewlove, but the very fine performances of the two leads, made their own while developing a father-son relationship that was affecting, and developing the characterisation and mannerisms of the evolving Morse persona. So a certain sourness - from years of establishment nonsense, reorganisation, injustice, corruption, and simply not fitting in - was, I see now, inevitable in the older Morse; yet it still detracted from the enjoyment of the watching, whereas every nuance Shaun Evans brought to the prototypical detective - the impatience, the earlobe tugging, the booze - was beautifully apt, and I initially watched the series for that superb characterisation than anything else. Such a preamble to my first Dexter novel is by way of establishing probably a common factor that many people must have been very familiar with Morse as DI before they turned to the novels. After the loyal cameos and later references to Colin Dexter throughout Endeavour, I became curious... I had had no intention of reading any of the Morse series; there were far too many detective mysteries, hardboiled private eye stories, spy thrillers, suspense thrillers, procedurals and crime-horror novels on my immediate to-read list already, all of them classics. But escaping a sudden shower the other day gave me an opportunity to browse in Waterstones - just browse, mind - and I was drawn ineluctably to the crime shelf, where I selected my first Morse novel, slightly grudging the full rrp. On return, I scheduled it for 'soon', but books rise to the surface of the mind and so the list, call to be read, and establish an appetite for specifically that title which must be sated. From 6th to 1st in 24 hours, a call I could not ignore. I don't know why I had unfairly judged that, with all the classics on my list of crime fiction to read, Dexter's novels could not compete. Having recently finished The Big Sleep [1939] (again), what really could compete or compare? Perhaps I had assumed that they might be pedestrian, non-literary and so not quite yet worthy for a claim to the rare and precious reading space I put aside for pleasure. But none of any of it. They are erudite, comfortable as old boots, somewhat demanding (Latin and Poetry), and while the pace may be pedestrian, the writing and content are certainly not. You can tell without referring to his bio that Dexter did classics at uni. Yet it doesn't have the feel of being highbrow, of talking down; it establishes its sightline, and you lock in or put down. And the setting! It is as classical as Rome, but still with that inevitable English smuttiness - largely due to the corruption of the council vandals of the past, like any other provincial town. But none of this detracts; rather it lends a realism, that, despite gorgeous appearances, every place, every life, has its patina, shadows or grime. And crime. For you are, before anything else, inside the personality of the man before you are inside the mind of the inspector, the one greyish, baggy and boozy, the other brilliant, braggish and tetchy. And almost immediately in that sense of shyness comingled with social awkwardness and the inevitable tristesse of failure as a private man, against the success of the accomplished detective. While, for example, you are very aware of Marlowe's personality, attractions, needs, tolerances, compromises and ethical lines, they are sublimations of the primary narrative, the private eye caper; with Morse, the balance is much finer: there is no separating the personality from the detective, so well is he characterised and compromised. He doesn't just fight a winning battle with the criminal; he fights a losing battle with himself (which Marlowe never quite does). So a certain melancholy lingers amid the honeyed and verdigris Oxford imagery, and not a little pedestrian soot. The great and the good, the ordinary and the nondescript, all are levelled by death - and murder. But we are raised from pondering these baser points by the flux of the classics streamed throughout, from the chapter epithets to the involvement of mythology in the plot. And if Morse gets some things wrong, it's the fact that his mind leaps into these more cultured backwaters which are the setting for the series, novels and TV. It's an essential part of the fabric, and it's seeded in Dexter's books. I enjoy those splashes, as much as I enjoy the establishing shots of the cupolaed rooves of Oxford. I also enjoy the idea of the eclectic - the opera, the crosswords - whereas I enjoy neither pursuit, just as I enjoy the idea of rewarding and refreshing pints, but indulge for neither reason. It adds flavour. A very convincing start, and I'm wanting for more. I feel comfortable, somehow, here. This is certainly because we are not in the otherwise modern terrain of the slasher, the serial killer, the psychopath, nor the forensic spatter-land. It's all much more urbane, aimed at the brain, and I fancy more of the same. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 13, 2019
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Nov 16, 2019
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Nov 11, 2019
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Paperback
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61
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| 1509867295
| 9781509867295
| 1509867295
| 3.68
| 565
| Jun 13, 2019
| Jun 13, 2019
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liked it
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A good 7/10 (still unhappy with and resistant to the inadequate 5-star system), I enjoyed most of Susannah Stapleton's The Adventures of Maud West, La
A good 7/10 (still unhappy with and resistant to the inadequate 5-star system), I enjoyed most of Susannah Stapleton's The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime. 'Secrets' because there was a private woman behind the name-change to Maud West, that of Edith Maria Barber, married as Elliott, private detective from ~1905-1939, and mother of six children; and 'lies', because she seemed to have invented a lot of thrilling stories à la mode of Conan Doyle, as she undertook largely humdrum and tedious detective work (waiting, watching, divorce cases...) during the Golden Age of the whodunnit - so you can't blame her for her adventurous advertising in frequent articles in weeklies and newspapers, some of which must have added another source of income, and much publicity. Apart from some tall tales and the emerging picture of a busy and complex character, the book demonstrated the enormous amount of research required in historical non-fiction and biography, made significantly easier since the age of the internet, but still nonetheless required the collation of vast depositories of information that must have seemed to those involved of little use to anyone outside of family. What emerged was the re-creation of a family living through particularly troubled times, with two world wars, the fight of the suffragettes for (at least) greater equality, as well as the ordinary lives of struggle and survival in an age without the NHS and modern conveniences. It is, of course, a detective story in itself, and while the structure of alternating chapters named after titles of prominent golden age authors (Christie, Allingham, Sayers, Doyle, Tey…) with short pieces by Maud herself was also a record of the journalistic research journey, it meant that, necessarily, there could never be a smooth storyline woven throughout, but each chapter revealing a little more of the character of the industrious sleuth, while concentrating on thematic issues such as types of crime (divorce, blackmail, drugs) and the detection methods (disguise, shadowing, and so on). Naturally, with a personality like Maud's - self-publicist and part-adventurer - the author was as often confused as I was about what was truth and which fiction, but in the end it's another look at a period which in the imagination, at least, removed from the horrors of those wars and the living conditions of the time, is as much romanticised by us, authors of historical fiction, film-makers and TV studios, as Maud romanticised her profession. We're not too interested in the grime beneath the surface colour, even if the subject is crime in all its indignities. What emerges is a patchwork of pentimenti, but a nonetheless fascinating look at a period and a personality that fills in certain gaps between the whodunnits and mysteries of a golden age of the genre, which create a very personal map of the era in our minds. I enjoyed the journey - but I must say, I could never undertake such hard work over so long for such a work, of historical non-fiction. I'll stick to the made-up stories. It seems so much easier. ...more |
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Sep 26, 2019
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Nov 10, 2019
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Sep 20, 2019
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Hardcover
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57
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| 0141037598
| 9780141037592
| 0141037598
| 3.95
| 159,908
| Feb 06, 1939
| Jan 09, 2008
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it was amazing
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Superlative. Chandler's instant classic of the late '30s is a classic still today and every time you read it. This is my third. Spawned from Hammett's Superlative. Chandler's instant classic of the late '30s is a classic still today and every time you read it. This is my third. Spawned from Hammett's Red Harvest [1929] and The Maltese Falcon [1930] and his Continental Op and a seedy post-Depression and post-Prohibition underworld LA, Marlowe's no Holmes or Vance, in his own words, but he is indubitably the archetype of the hard-boiled private eye, and has been and will ever be in the world of criminal fiction. But what impresses so colourfully on every page and in every piece of dialogue or paragraph of prose, is not the complex plot, nor even the mess of superbly seedy characters, nor the evenness of the fluid style, but the similie-a-minute, which makes you laugh, admire and wonder. It is beautifully written and splashed with the creamy froth of the sea, the eyes blue as mountain lakes or green as forest pools far back in the shadow of trees, or the colourless wash of dead men's fingers. There are 125 of them, give or take, like the saps of a punch-drunk loser. My favourite (anathema to me): 'Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.' (23/107, Penguin Modern Classics, 2000). ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Sep 12, 2019
not set
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Sep 16, 2019
Apr 1978
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Aug 11, 2019
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Paperback
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64
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| 3.87
| 109,963
| 1930
| Mar 01, 2005
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liked it
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Nine years before the archetype of the sub-genre appears, Hammett's second renowned novel sets the tone for the hard-boiled private eye. Red Harvest m
Nine years before the archetype of the sub-genre appears, Hammett's second renowned novel sets the tone for the hard-boiled private eye. Red Harvest may have been the prototype for all the private dicks that followed, but it's Sam Spade who the world remembers. That other novel was The Big Sleep (1939), and after that was published, nothing would ever better it, before or since, in the class. Fame has trailed The Maltese Falcon, novel and film. But, Bogart aside, the novel has to hold itself up to that archetype which shortly succeeded it - and it doesn't. Not that Sam Spade isn't an archetype himself for the private eye, nor that Bridget O'Shaughnessy isn't an archetype for the femme fatale, or that either Gutman or Cairo weren't, in their different ways, archetypes of the irredeemably greedy criminal, with their very different bents of personality, nor Wilmer the vicious hoodlum. It's not in the characterisation that I can find fault, nor its ideas - but in the writing style and the structure. In neither respect does The Maltese Falcon shine a candle to The Big Sleep. Chandler's style was sumptuously brilliant: it luxuriated in smart simile - over a hundred of them - and it radiated a darkly comic genius shot through with gold humour. It's dark and funny and admirable and awful all at once. The Maltese Falcon doesn't ever achieve that level of art. The chapters are short with headlines. The style is clipped and terse. Spade speaks a mix of American English and cryptic brogue. The setting is urban, streets, lobbies, offices, with a background of ferry horns and fog. There's femme fatales with tears in their eyes and handkerchiefs to the tears. It's a mish-mash of a new American stamp on an old Victorian formula, creating a new formula. It follows (even sets) the rules of the formula, like it doesn't give a damn, but cares deeply. Even describing its merits, you inevitably have to mimic Chandler's superlative style. There's simply no comparison, no getting away from the ineluctable truth: Chandler's work is high art, it oozes style; Hammett's style is flat as a lush's hangover - after that. It had all the ingredients for the classic of a sub-genre, but it did not have the high art of style which Chandler brought. Of course, one should try and judge it by its merits, but that simply won't wash. Once you've read The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon is just going to disappoint. Admittedly, Chandler's masterpiece is over-intricate in plot - even Chandler didn’t know who killed Owen Taylor, the chauffeur - but even here, Hammett's plot isn't complex enough, not to keep you on your toes. And when you come down to it, it didn't have any edge of suspense, while Chandler's work made you wonder about the fate of several characters, such as Carmen, Mona, even Harry Jones - while all the while, the question of ‘Rusty’ Regan hung over the whole shebang. And you could take your pick of femme fatales; there wasn't one of the female characters that didn't qualify. And Lash Canino was one of the most despicable characters that's ever disgraced the genre. And... And... Chandler's characters were just larger-life. There may not be much in it, but they were. My favourite character here was Effie Perine: her character was the most rounded and attractive, and most of that was drawn through dialogue, plus, the interaction between Spade and Effie was a delight. It had a good sense of place but no sense of atmosphere, whereas merely the Lido scene in The Big Sleep was a classic piece of art. And Eddie Mars gave you more than just the willies, whereas none of Hammett's characters - the equivalent being Thursby any way near - never got beyond a pencil sketch by comparison. No, ultimately, once you've read The Big Sleep, anything else on the same shelf never could, nor ever will compete. It's in a class of its own, up there with high art - and even Farewell My Lovely and The Long Goodbye, wonderfully bluesy and moody and maverick and magnificent, even they, especially the latter, are in a class of their own. Why, the titles alone... But The Big Sleep... The Maltese Falcon didn't stand a chance. It was a lead facsimile. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 20, 2019
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Dec 11, 2019
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Aug 11, 2019
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Paperback
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55
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| 147367395X
| 9781473673953
| 147367395X
| 3.73
| 6,457
| 1928
| Aug 09, 2018
|
really liked it
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The mystery - 'the Grey Mask imbroglio' - is outlined in the opening chapters after a very brief introduction - but if this had been across the water,
The mystery - 'the Grey Mask imbroglio' - is outlined in the opening chapters after a very brief introduction - but if this had been across the water, a gun would have solved everything right then and there. From here on in, Wentworth artfully develops the characters and circumstances, half of whom have several names and monikers, most of which are linked, like a spider's web, with layers of family background. Intrigue becomes danger very quickly, and then a little old lady is shuffled in as 'mistress' sleuth who takes control of the centre of information, about which the conspiracy revolves and evolves. It's an audacious set of premises. Wentworth writes convincingly and owns the story with utter confidence, and I cannot remember being so deliciously submerged in a mystery as insidious since Gordon Dahlquist's The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters [2006]. There's a girl in danger, and a woman too, and a man who wants to protect them both but is in too deep to be able to make any correct decisions. And the girl drives you to despair and the man is compromised and the woman is hedging and the girl is still driving you to despair, you begin to wish she were bumped off. It's light and dark at the same time, and the suspense is beautifully built. Considering the little actual physical threat - an element of suspense in any criminal fiction - Wentworth develops the atmosphere of it extremely well. She also develops a complex background of familial relations, which at times can become confusing, the number of marriages and name changes of the women particularly. Several of these are deceased, some just recently. It all seems to blend in with the fog, become obscure and then disappear, only to return the next day, after the rain. The number of name changes and pseudonyms and monikers can be a little troublesome. And all part of the mystery. The novel is a mish-mash of sub-genres: part detective mystery, or clue-puzzle, part private eye story, part thriller, with several ingredients common to each, secret societies, thefts, murders, conspiracies, criminal gangs, a whole plethora of characteristics common to some, others to others. This does not detract from the essential mystery. But as to that, several things prevent the usual outcome: an essential clue is withheld, several are seemingly incidental, and none key to the final unravelling - unless you're very clued in on the genre. Add to that a couple of romantic entanglements, one which stymies the expected development, another which forwards it, and we have a sophisticated, complicated plot, full of inconveniences and set-backs, deferrals and delays, red herrings and concealments. And a mixture of irritating self-mocking and grim gravitas. 'This was the flat, unprofitable everyday to which all romance came in the end. You had to go on and do your best without it - you had to go on' (p.223) In the end, we wonder about the central motif of the curtailed romance between two primary protagonists, and are at the same time frustrated by the lack of logic concerning it: namely, just why Charles Moray did not go to the police in the first place. Balancing the development on this knife-edge was perhaps the most tricky part of Wentworth's construction, because it comes quite close to us not taking the story as seriously as we might, and once you've made that decision, you might as well put it down and pick something else up. That she succeeded in this - just - is credit to her skills of complex construction, and lends the novel a tinge of dashing adventure on top of its criminal fiction kudos. Of course, with the air of confidence which imbues the work throughout, we expect a happy ending... but you never know. I do know that I want to read her next Miss Silver mystery, which will be arriving by post tomorrow morning. I just hope I don't merely receive an empty envelope. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 17, 2019
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Aug 19, 2019
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Aug 10, 2019
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Paperback
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54
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| 149266961X
| 9781492669616
| 149266961X
| 3.80
| 7,405
| 1935
| Feb 05, 2019
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liked it
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I liked the way this plunged into the puzzle straightaway. It builds up a very vivid if sanitised picture of the crime and the surroundings, and then
I liked the way this plunged into the puzzle straightaway. It builds up a very vivid if sanitised picture of the crime and the surroundings, and then spends a considerable amount of time punctiliously developing the intricacies of the circumstances around the case and the several suspects, most of whom belong to the deplorable upper-middle-class Vereker family. Heyer uses dialogue rather than extraneous description to lay out her story. Indeed, she uses very little description, usually rather like conjunctions between dialogue, and when she does, remarkably, shift into a descriptive passage - about half way through - I found myself not only suddenly lost but wondering if I were reading the same book or the same author. It was parallel universe strange. Soon, though, we had reverted to the squabbling and infighting of the Vereker siblings and their cousins, and things seemed to get bogged down in merely that, as though Heyer had decided that she enjoyed this people-building more than the detective case, and sailed away into a series of romances. It didn't quite get fully bogged down, but what was strange was that there was so very little filling in of the characters of the investigators, while there were whole biographies developed of the investigated. It was a strange (I say again) and confusing, if not confused approach. Naturally, one or two clues were dropped in, and caught, and one or two left as mere shadows in a dark pool in the deep background, to return in the reveal. But by then, we had worked out who the probable perpetrator was, and the wrapping up largely resolved the case in a couple of pages, plus the different romantic threads too. All of a sudden it was over, and it was not solved by our headlining detectives. While this was her first Hannasyde case - and that is a strange name too, sounding very much like a homicide committed by a female - it was her third, I believe, detective work. Perhaps she was finding her stride, alternating with her historical romances. But somewhere along the way I couldn't help feel that the manuscripts had got mixed up. Easy, undemanding, cosy fireside reading for a rainy weekend. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 14, 2019
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Aug 16, 2019
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Aug 04, 2019
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Paperback
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50
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| 1473621259
| 9781473621251
| 1473621259
| 3.84
| 57,819
| 1923
| Aug 25, 2016
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liked it
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'I always think that the franker you are with people, the more you're likely to deceive 'em; so unused is the modern world to the open hand and the gu
'I always think that the franker you are with people, the more you're likely to deceive 'em; so unused is the modern world to the open hand and the guileless heart, what?' (p.44, Hodder & Stoughton, 2016). So the tone is set of Lord Peter Wimsey's mix of insouciant social observer and affectionately humorous associate, to both his confidante on the force, Detective Parker, and his ever-trusty man and fellow sleuth, Bunter. Together they set off to discover the mystery of the dead man in the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of pince nez. As Laura Wilson notes in her introduction, if you can guess why he should wear his pince nez in the bath, 'you will in a position to lay hands on the murderer.' Although, it seems from this introduction that the original story commenced with a fat lady in the bath... Perhaps that was discouraged as an improper discovery? Wilson's introduction - which should really have been an afterword, in the interests of the uninitiated to the story - also mentions how the anti-Semitism becomes grating; whereas, in fact, it most closely resembles caricature, turning back on itself onto the fixed ideas of the upper classes, who likely considered themselves obliged to be snobbish about others not of their set, especially the 'new money'. What is more germane is the absence of the air of decidedly supercilious aloofness we might expect from the Lord in charge of the real investigation, except in his estimation of Inspector Suggs, which is rather tinged with a certain self-mockery and humility: 'How he does hate me, to be sure' (p.12). There is a fine line to be drawn between a caricature and candid aspersion, and the tone and convincingness of the narrative must be such that we want to read on, suspending our consternation of proper social mores being trampled on, accepting such caricatures as part of the humour, whilst being self-deprecating enough to imply that we share no such improprieties of thought, rather in the way that P.G. Woodhouse could be read without finding a loathing for upper class privilege. Nonetheless, the framework is that of white privileged Christianity, not yet dead post-Nietzsche, and we either accept this milieu or read something else. Having overcome, overlooked or dismissed this setting, we can start to look at the clue-puzzle before us. Laura Wilson again: 'A puzzle story, Whose Body? amply fulfils the rubric laid down by Sayers' near-contemporary Margery Allingham, creator of upper-class sleuth Albert Campion, that a detective novel should be a box with four sides: a killing, a mystery, an enquiry and a conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it. To say that it is unrealistic is missing the point. Like many of the 'Golden Age' crime novels, it's paradoxical, dealing with violent death and violent emotions in a joyfully ludic manner.' Of course it's slightly ludicrous, but it is also pastiche: what we want is a damn good mystery with that mix of seriousness of atrocity (a murder) sublimated by a veneer of good fun framed within a challenging puzzle (to mix marquetry and carpentry metaphors), plus a decent bit of characterisation. We accept the code of the sub-genre; we expect neither Clouseau nor Marlowe, neither outright comedy nor hardboiled wise-cracking wise guy. We have a playful aristocrat instead, and we get a certain whimsey, which is rather nice. In honour of the Baker Street duo, Wimsey refers to himself as the Watson of the duel mystery he is investigating, in deprecation to his Scotland Yard associate, Detective Parker, and the streets are full of London fog - but also of soot, updating the environment, if not the hero. Wimsey plays the piano well, instead of the violin, and has an equally fond passion for incunabula (books published before 1500 [or similar artefacts]) that Holmes has for all sorts of informational publications. Where they depart, is that there is no equivalent expertise or passion for a science, as Holmes his chemistry. His 'sidekick', Bunter, is his forensic photographer, to Watson's medical doctor. Here, the similarities run out. Wimsey, unlike Holmes, has a ducal family in the British heartland, and while his elder brother carries the noble torch, there is no Mycroft in the wings of government - at least, not yet, in this opening volley. As for the mysteries: there are two. Certainly, by half way - half way through the book, half way through the investigations (there are two: by Suggs and the Yard, and by Wimsey and Parker, together, separately) every line of enquiry peters out. 'Like rivers getting lost in the sand' (p.129). Sayers does an interesting thing, as the case moves into its conclusion: she switches to the first person perspective briefly, during a psychological test of an incidental witness; then she switches to the second person perspective during an episode where crucial evidence is about to be unearthed. It's a strange shift, into the floating person perspective, because she hasn't used it as a rule through the novel. This change in register is as much atmospheric as any description of fog-bound London cemeteries by night, a more typically gothic trope, but has as much effect as causing you to sit up and listen - though you'll not experience anything supernatural, rather something super-real. Two clever devices. And since doubling is a theme of the work, it follows quite naturally, once you’ve thought about it, though not at the time. Which is another way of manipulating the dangling puzzle-solver towards the revelation of a mystery. She then shifts into clipped sentences, as though compacting time, but really it's a method of impressing the impressions of the second person. This person is, of course, Lord Peter. He has been having a recurrence of 'shell shock', which he suffered at the close of the war. With the exigencies incumbent upon him to accelerate the inquiry and pinpoint the perpetrator of the crimes, he has felt a vacillating sense of euphoria at having the inspirational revelation, and a conflicting sense of responsibility in framing the criminal, a conflict of the seriousness which his hitherto amateur sleuthing had given him such excitement and pleasure. Rather than being faced with a gang of dangerous villains, he's suffering the mental anxieties of dealing with a man of psychological power. He is, we believe, able to surmount his conflict - and it's as well he has the help of a more die-hard detective inspector, and friend. This all adds a deal more realism and some threat to what has been, for most of the novel, a rather dashing case of amateur detectives, as though at a club or society. It now gets a little more real. The reveal is corroborated by a confessional, but there are no surprises, and one strange red-herring is cleared up. There is one significant stretch of disbelief, however, in the execution of the first mystery, one which was hinted at, at the disclosure of the body. It didn't make any sense then, and still doesn't now. I let it slide (though I doubt the murderer could with any will of his own), and dismissed it, since the air of ridiculousness to the whole affair did imply that such an act would be postulated, ridiculously - and it was. Far from spoiling the story for me, though, I sat quite comfortably with the slightly ludicrous, but trust that somewhere in the near future is a Sayers mystery that in all seriousness is a work of art (I'm told that that is The Nine Tailors [1934]. We shall see). This, though, was not it, though quite entertainin' for an entry level Sayers clue-puzzle of the early Golden Age. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 07, 2019
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Aug 09, 2019
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Aug 04, 2019
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Paperback
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66
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| 044809505X
| 9780448095059
| B002AST8R6
| 3.95
| 21,435
| 1931
| Sep 01, 1993
|
liked it
|
My first Nancy Drew mystery, and very mixed afterthoughts. It had a large cast of characters, and three principal criminal strands, all nicely tidied u My first Nancy Drew mystery, and very mixed afterthoughts. It had a large cast of characters, and three principal criminal strands, all nicely tidied up at the end, in a formula which became over-complicated by too many events in rapid succession, and suffered ultimately not from the over-sophisticated plot, but from the skimpily-drawn characters. Nancy was a decent detective, but arrived at some conclusions far too readily (the lamp), and yet made the odd blundering misapprehension, as though she'd momentarily become comatose (a certain ranch hand's sudden altruism). I think what dissatisfied most was that too much was going on without any real depth to the plot, as with the characters, and categorising these was problematic too: too many tertiary characters, yet even two of the supposed primary were really secondary (George and Bess). Comparing this with our equivalent this side of the water - Blyton's Five - showed that while Blyton's plots were simpler - certainly less convoluted - her characterisation was so much better, and the psychology of, say, her first Five novel, Five On A Treasure Island (1942), much more satisfying and very real (Julian and George's developing relationship, for example; even just George's evolving character). The Nancy Drew novel, it seems, was a lengthier branch of the simpler story papers popular at the time the novel(la) was becoming the new series of children's literature, without quite reaching the depth that the newer form could clearly achieve. In the end, Blyton's Famous Five brought pleasures because of this depth which Nancy Drew did not, so I shall probably look at another Five book, but probably not another Nancy. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 23, 2019
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Nov 15, 2019
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Jul 07, 2019
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81
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| 3.87
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Dec 12, 2019
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Sep 04, 2021
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74
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| 3.92
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Aug 2020
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Jun 26, 2020
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69
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| 4.25
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it was amazing
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Jan 23, 2020
not set
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Feb 20, 2020
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68
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| 3.90
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Feb 08, 2020
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Feb 02, 2020
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67
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| 3.78
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not set
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Jan 17, 2020
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70
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really liked it
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Apr 08, 2020
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Jan 15, 2020
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65
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| 3.98
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Dec 25, 2019
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Nov 20, 2019
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83
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| 3.81
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liked it
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Aug 09, 2022
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Nov 17, 2019
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82
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| 3.84
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really liked it
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Jul 22, 2022
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Nov 17, 2019
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63
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| 3.97
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really liked it
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Nov 27, 2019
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Nov 17, 2019
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79
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| 3.95
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liked it
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Jun 17, 2021
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Nov 12, 2019
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73
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| 4.16
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really liked it
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Jun 23, 2020
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Nov 12, 2019
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62
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| 3.99
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really liked it
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Nov 16, 2019
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Nov 11, 2019
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61
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| 3.68
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liked it
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Nov 10, 2019
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Sep 20, 2019
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57
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| 3.95
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it was amazing
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Sep 16, 2019
Apr 1978
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Aug 11, 2019
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64
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| 3.87
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liked it
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Dec 11, 2019
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Aug 11, 2019
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55
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| 3.73
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really liked it
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Aug 19, 2019
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Aug 10, 2019
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54
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| 3.80
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liked it
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Aug 16, 2019
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Aug 04, 2019
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50
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| 3.84
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liked it
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Aug 09, 2019
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Aug 04, 2019
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66
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| 3.95
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liked it
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Nov 15, 2019
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Jul 07, 2019
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