Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler

Seventy-Seven Clocks
Christopher Fowler
4/5 stars

Detectives Bryant and May run London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, where the most unusual cases get investigated.  In this third book of the series, a spate of bizarre murders comes to their attention.  In investigating these connected deaths, they find themselves researching a Victorian tontine, protecting the most crabby of families, and receiving unsolicited help from a nosy teenager.

As with the other two PCU books, the plot of Seventy-Seven Clocks is bizarre and convoluted, but in a good way, keeping the reader guessing.  Bryant and May are engaging characters, giving much personality to the novel.  The interwoven plot of the teenager, Sam, added an extra dimension.  This is a fun novel for readers that appreciate a far-fetched but enjoyable mystery.

Poirot

A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry

A Christmas Beginning
Anne Perry
3/5 stars

A Christmas Beginning is one of Perry's annual Christmas stories that feature less major characters from her two established series.  In this one, Inspector Runcorn (from the William Monk series) is on holiday when he discovers a gruesome murder.

As is the case with many Perry novels, this one is very introspective, focusing more on what Runcorn is thinking and deducing, than on action or conversation.  The mystery itself was interesting, though not difficult to solve.

Having followed the two characters involved in this book's romance from the beginning in the Monk series, I felt that the happy conclusion was both sudden and improbable.

One thing that continued to bother me throughout the novel was the familiar use of first names by Runcorn and others not in the circle of intimate friends.  This did not fit with what I know of Victorian times, and jarred with the atmospheric details.

Overall, this short novel is an enjoyable way to spend a few hours, but not memorable enough to make a lasting impression.

The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart

The Pigeon Pie Mystery
Julia Stuart
3/5 stars

When her father, the Maharajah, dies, Princess Alexandrina (known as "Mink") finds herself in overwhelming debt.  Queen Victoria offers her a grace-and-favor residence in Hampton Court Palace. As Mink is still getting to know her eccentric neighbors, one of them dies after eating a pigeon pie prepared by her maid, Pooki.  With Pooki's life on the line, Mink decides to find the culprit herself.

The Pigeon Pie Mystery is a typical cozy mystery, with Victorian details and some good humor.  Stuart is a fine writer--I especially liked how she wove the backstories in with the main story--but the plot itself was only average.  Overall, this is a pleasant, fluffy read that most likely won't remain in the reader's memory for long.

Innocent Blood by P.D. James

Innocent Blood
P.D. James
4/5 stars

Phillipa was adopted around the age of 8, but has no real memories of what her life was like before Maurice and Hilda adopted her.  At 18, she requests the information about her birth parents, and is surprised to find that what little she's been told was not true.

To tell any more of the plot is to spoil the surprises for the reader--and Innocent Blood does contain excellent surprises and plot turns.  It is not James' usual mystery, but rather a suspense novel.  The reader is slowly given information and left to wonder just what will happen when the important characters finally meet.

As is true of all of James' novels, Innocent Blood is excellently written, with a gripping plot.  Her ability to bring the reader into the life of her characters is amazing. The only thing keeping this from being a five star novel is that Phillipa, a spoiled and "entitled" young adult, is an annoying and unlikable (for me anyway) character.

Other than that, this is a well-crafted novel that will keep the reader engaged until the end.

Three Mysteries

Well-Schooled in Murder
Elizabeth George
4/5 stars
This is one of the Inspector Lynley novels.  It started with finding the tortured body of a schoolboy, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to read it.  It turned out to be a well-crafted, well-written mystery.  The more I read by George, the better I like her.


Diamond Solitaire
Peter Lovesey
4/5 stars
A child is found in Harrods, and no one comes forward to claim her.  Ex-CID Diamond falls under the spell of the unwanted child and makes it his personal mission to uncover her identity. I nearly gave up on this one, as it is SO different from the first Peter Diamond mystery.  I stuck with it, though, and am so glad I did.  The plot occasionally strained credulity, but it was funny and interesting, and I enjoyed it tremendously.  I'm looking forward to more Diamond mysteries.


Swing, Brother, Swing
Ngaio Marsh
4/5 stars
Marsh always acquaints the reader with the principal players in advance of the crime, and does so expertly in this mystery. The solution to the murder was a little bit far-fetched, but the journey to the denouement was a great deal of fun.

The Black Curl by Constance and Gwenyth Little

The Black Curl
Constance and Gwenyth Little
4/5 stars

The Black Curl is the final mystery written by the Little sisters.  Like their other mysteries, it is a funny,  complex, lighthearted tale with a strongly-plotted mystery at the center.  The inspector has quite the job finding out who cut off Bill's curl in the middle of the night; why the hair lotion been replaced with water; and, most important of all, who put the housekeeper in the refrigerator?

Unlike most of their novels, the Black Curl is told from the point of view of the hero, rather than the heroine, and the heroine isn't a sassy, back-talking strong female, either.  While still being amusing, it also lacks the screwball zaniness of their previous stories.

Despite the deviation from their usual formula, the Black Curl is an enjoyable read that will keep the reader guessing until the very end.

The Grey Mist Murders by Constance and Gwenyth Little

The Grey Mist Murders
Constance and Gwenyth Little
3/5 stars

The Grey Mist Murders takes place on a cruise ship, and is told in first person by sassy, quick-witted Carla.  Two young women are strangled, and one more (the narrator) nearly murdered as well.

This is the first mystery written by the Little sisters, and it lacks the sparkle of their later works.  As with all their mysteries, this one is a light mystery with humor and a bit of romance, but in other parts it is dry, and there were times when it was a chore to read.  The plot was interesting, but the conclusion not fully believable, and the amount of evidence the hero was able to piece together was far fetched as well.

This is not a good example of the talent of the Little sisters.  If I had read it first, I would probably not have tried another one.  I suggest that this one be skipped by all but the most dedicated of the Little fans, and then read it as an experience to see how much they grew over their career.

(I recommend the Black-Headed Pins, the Black Honeymoon or the Black Coat for first time Little readers.)

The Water Room by Christopher Fowler

The Water Room  
Christopher Fowler
4/5 stars

The Water Room is the second in the Bryant and May series.  I found the first, Full Dark House, to only be worthy of 3 stars, but liked the characters enough to try the second novel.  It was much more polished and with a better plot, and I did enjoy it.

Bryant and May are senior citizen detectives that work in the Peculiar Crimes Unit--the department that is given any bizarre cases that the Met doesn't wish to tackle.  They've been partners in the PCU for 50 years and have the rapport of a golden anniversary married couple.

The plot begins when an elderly woman is found dead, sitting in a chair, fully clothed and dry, yet she appears to have died by drowning.  Her brother asks Bryant to help out, and he willingly involves the PCU.  As they investigate her death, other strange things seem to be happening on the same street, culminating in another murder.  Bryant and May scramble to solve the case before an impossible deadline set by their supervisor.

The characters of Bryant and May are both well developed with distinctive, and engaging  personalities.  The mystery was interesting, and the solution believable.  Bryant's tangents into more eccentric possible solutions is a great addition to the main story line.

The Water Room is a solid, entertaining read, and I look forward to reading more in the series.

The Black Dream

The Black Dream
Constance and Gwenyth Little
4/5 stars

Constance and Gwenyth Little were sisters who co-wrote mystery novels during the 1940s-50s.  Channeling the popular humor of the time, these books are screwball comedies with a fast pace, witty dialogue, and bizarre plots.  I've yet to read one that disappointed me, though some are, of course, better than others.

In the Black Dream (1952), Agatha keeps a boarding house of sorts and employees a cook, Em, that she despises.  A funky clause in Agatha's father's will keeps her from being able to fire Em.  Agatha has been under so much stress lately that she's been walking in her sleep; when she discovers Em's murdered body, she just knows that she killed Em while sleepwalking.  She hides the body, and then things get complicated.

With a full boarding house of characters it could be difficult to give them various personalities and quirks, but the Littles pull it off nicely.  The sub-plots running along side the major plot are funny and add to the general mayhem without detracting from the mystery.  There were enough twists in the plot to keep me guessing, even when I was certain I knew the answer.

While this isn't the best of the Little mysteries, it is a delightful novel and well worth a read.

Some of my favorites:

 

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

The Secrets of Wishtide 
Kate Saunders
to be published September 13, 2016
5/5 stars

I was given this book by the Amazon Vine program in return for an honest review.

This is the first mystery in a projected series about Victorian widow Letty Rudd.  Her brother Fred, a successful barrister, occasionally provides Letty with investigative jobs that are better suited to a genteel touch than to your typical police detective.  In this case, influential Sir James Calderstone hires Letty to ferret out the past of his son's inappropriate love interest.  What begins as a simple probe into a woman's life takes a serious turn, and Letty becomes involved in a quadruple murder.

Saunders is a polished writer, and this novel was immensely readable.  It was told in the first person, in Letty's voice, in a light-hearted, but still very Victorian, tone.  The characters were immediately likable, as well as fleshed out and believable.   The plot was just convoluted enough to be enjoyable, but with the right amount of clues for the reader can solve the mystery along with Letty.

Overall, I was impressed with the Secrets of Wishtide and I look forward to the next in the series.

Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon

Mystery in White 
J. Jefferson Farjeon

• Series: British Library Crime Classics
• Paperback: 256 pages
• 3/5 stars

Mystery in White (originally published in 1937) takes place Christmas Eve in rural England.  A train becomes stuck in a snowdrift, and an ill assorted group of passengers decide to attempt a walk to another station.  Due to the blinding the snow, they find themselves lost, and stumble upon a well-lit house with warm fires, tea on the table and no one around.

I enjoyed how Farjeon built up the story, and I liked the characters tremendously.  Watching as they began to get to know each other and share their stories was fun, and the uncertainty of when the mystery was going to occur was a pleasant tension. When it final came, though, the mystery itself was weak and the solution relied too much on the talents of Mr. Maltby of the Royal Psychical Society and not enough on actual deduction.

That said, Farjeon's style was appealing and I'd like to read another of his books to see if the mystery aspect of the story improves.  If it does, combined with his excellent story-telling, I would expect it to be worthy of five stars.  This one gets a three, as most of the novel was a great read that the let-down wasn't a deal-breaker.

Note: This is just my opinion; 44% of the reviews are 5 stars.

The Classics Club: The Thirty-Nine Steps

(about the Classics Club)

.

Despite never actually having read Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), I was familiar with it as one of the earliest hero-on-the-run suspense-thriller-mysteries, and one that was influential on the genre as a whole.  I take a historical interest in my favorite genre, and felt I needed to read it.

What a grand adventure!  I had to think that this is the precursor to those heroes so prevalent in today's thrillers (you know, the ones that get out of bed, get beat up, shot, drowned and beat up again all before they take the dame back to bed) but yet it didn't seem hokey.  Hannay was just this side of believable, like a hero should.  He was crush-worthy for the female reader and role model-worthy for the males.

The action of this book takes place just before the Great War starts (but is written after the War started, so it is written with the knowledge that the War will start, if that makes sense) so it also made me think a lot about the War, about patriotism during that War, and about how this book would have been the most excellent sort of propaganda.  It depicts an average man who realizes the fate of Great Britain, if not the world, rests on knowledge he has, so he steps up to the plate and does what he can.  I hate to borrow the overused phrase "stiff upper lip" for Blighty, but that is exactly it. Hannay is willing to die--even as an expatriate Scotsman just over from Rhodesia--to protect home and country.  Just an average guy (okay, maybe a little above average in strength and endurance but we'll not quibble) and he single-handedly beats the Germans at their own game.  Pretty good stuff to be reading in the muddy, infected, hell-on-earth trenches.

So yes, I started thinking about what a fun adventure it was, and ended by mourning the slaughtered Tommys who probably died a little happier for having read this.


 I suffered nostalgia for a time I've never experienced--that time, right before the Great War, when a speeding car went 40 mph and putting on working man's clothing could disguise a gentleman, when airplanes were a novelty and to be hatless was unconscionable.   I felt sad for the innocence that was lost in that War, sad that books like this--new as it was--would only have a few more years to exist, a few more years before violence and sex become the staples of fiction.  (Let me note here that there is no romance in this book--not even one slightly attractive woman.  How refreshing!)

I felt patriotic, too, for a country that isn't mine, for a cause that is hard to remember.

I also felt a longing for Scotland.  Apparently Buchan was Scottish; his descriptions of Scotland are lovely.  I've always wanted to visit and the mental images of Hannay's on-foot adventures to the highlands (or was it the lowlands?) added fuel to that flame.

Most of all, though, I felt satisfied by a good read.  It was a darn good yarn, and I enjoyed every moment of it--and for some reason, especially the ginger biscuits.  I'll never eat gingersnaps without thinking of Hannay hiding in the heather, munching on ginger biscuits.

Patriotism!  This was the subtle undertone and blatant overtone throughout the entire book.  Even an expatriate will answer the call to save Great Britain when it comes, because of natural patriotism.

 It is a level of dedication and love for country that I don't think we, in the U.S., will ever experience again. As such, it was almost a novel idea to me, here in this skeptical, cynical age.

A Red Herring Without Mustard

A Red Herring Without Mustard
Alan Bradley
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press (February 8, 2011)
4/5 stars

A Red Herring Without Mustard is the third in Bradley's series about the precocious Flavia de Luce, a pre-teen chemistry savant growing up in a small English village in the 1950's.  Flavia is an engaging character, and she charmed me immediately when I read her first adventure, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. The novels are told from Flavia's point of view, and her voice is at once amusing and real.  Her appeal has not diminished in this third novel, and it is pure reading pleasure to see what mischief she will create.

In A Red Herring Without Mustard, Flavia finds yet another dead body and sets off to solve the mystery before her frenemies from the police can.  As is usual with Flavia, she withholds evidence, generally gets in the way and succeeds in a spectacular manner.

The tension between Flavia and her sisters heats up considerably in this novel.  Not having siblings myself, I don't know if it's typical to be quite as brutal in pranks and revenge as the de Luce sisters are.  It is funny at times, but also very sad as these girls react in various ways to growing older without their mother.  Flavia's relationship with her father begins to subtly change, a very welcome development, and makes for some beautiful moments.

I did have two qualms about A Red Herring Without Mustard.  First, was the location of a certain bit of the theft.  (I think I can safely say that without spoiling any of the plot.)  It was difficult for me to believe that anyone would choose a location with such a high chance of being seen, where one so obviously did not belong.  For me, this weakened the plot a bit, but there was enough strengths that I could overlook it relatively easily.

My second concern is the number of dead bodies that Flavia keeps finding.  If she finds one a book, it won't be long before the entire village is dead.  And if, as has been the case, Bradley keeps bringing in characters from out of town to kill, the series will quickly loose both it's appeal and it's validity.  The similarity between A Red Herring Without Mustard and The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, for instance, is rather great (Flavia befriends a stranger from out of town and solves a new character's murder) on the surface. One wonders if perhaps Flavia might not need to take a vacation from corpses and turn to general crime instead?

Overall, A Red Herring Without Mustard is a charming, "cozy" mystery that invokes the feeling of different time and place in such a way as to make me want to visit.  Flavia is an endearing heroine and, despite my mild complaints, I look forward to reading her adventures and following her as she grows up and matures.

Note: This is the third in the series and to get full enjoyment from it, the series should be read in order.

Martin Hewitt, Investigator

Martin Hewitt, Investigator
Arthur Morrison
originally published 1894
3/5 stars

Martin Hewitt, Investigator is a series of short stories linked by the protagonist, Martin Hewitt, and written down by a good friend, the journalist Brett. The similarities to Doyle's Holmes are striking and most likely intentional. Doyle had killed off Holmes in 1893 and other writers were looking to fill that void.

Unlike Holmes, however, Martin Hewitt runs an investigative business, is a very personable gentleman, works well with the police force and easily makes friends. Add to this his ingenious ability for disguise and fluidity in thieves cant and in Mr. Hewitt you have an investigator that is able to blend in anywhere and solve the most intriguing of crimes.

In Martin Hewitt, Investigator, Brett gives the details of several of Hewitt's most renowned cases, many of which he was intimately involved with as well. They are tales of impossible to solve crimes that Hewitt was able to crack by piecing together a few clues (a burnt out match, raindrops on a hat, un-capitalized letters in a note) where the police detectives had failed.

While the solutions to these various crimes and mysteries do fit together well with the evidence and clues, the reader is not privy to all the information that Hewitt is (as he doesn't share it with Brett). Hewitt then chides Brett (or the police) for not having seen such and such clue and then builds his entire case on that missed bit of information. Morrison uses this ploy to make the solving seem even more spectacular, but this style patronizes the reader and is not a fully satisfying reading experience.

~~Read for the Victorian Literature Challenge.~~


Note: This is my opinion; on Amazon, 50% of the reviews were 5 stars.

Britten and Brülightly

Britten and Brülightly
Hannah Berry, author and illustrator
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Metropolitan Books (March 17, 2009)
5/5 stars

Britten and Brülightly is a well written, fantastically illustrated noir mystery. Britten is a private detective who, for years, has specialized so in the tawdry love triangle cases that he has been publicly nicknamed "the Heartbreaker". Despite the encouraging words of his much more upbeat partner, Brülightly, Britten has become tired of both his job and his life. "I don't get out of bed for less than a murder," he said, and it potential murder that persuaded him to crawl out of bed into the public again.

Britten has been contacted by Charlotte Maughan after the apparent suicide of her fiance. To her, the pieces don't fit; she feels it must be a murder made to look like a suicide and hires him to investigate.

Britten and Brülightly is film noir in a graphic novel; it is by far the best written noir I have encountered. It contains the classic elements of great noir : a fractured and down main character; a beautiful lady needing assistance; a complex mystery; realistic (leaning toward the unhappy) ending and leaves the reader or viewer sitting silent in amazement.

Berry's amazing art fits and adds to the story and to the noir feel perfectly. The predominant rain and gray days, the angles and corners, and the nearly monochrome color scheme enhance the feel of the story tremendously. The composition and "film angle", if you will, of the panels is that of a well done movie. They are not the common waist up, front on panels that are so predominant in the average graphic novel. From above, from below, half faces, close-ups: all are used to make an enormous contribution to both plot and ambiance. Berry's particular attention to hands is fantastic.

I had one small complaint: the story is hand written in a font that was, only at times, hard to interpret certain words. Oddly enough, though I had to squint and struggle, I found that in the end this rather added to the story, to the feel of uncertainty, mystery and confusion that were so prevalent in the story.

Britten and Brülightly simply awed me. It's a dark tale, and not a particularly happy one, but totally engrossing and simply stunning--text and image--from the first line ("As it did every morning with spiteful inevitability, the sun rose.") to that last breathtaking scene.

~~Read for the Graphic Novel Challenge.~~

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
Fergus Hume
published c.1889
3/5 stars

I was eager to read The Mystery of a Hansom Cab as it was supposedly one of the most popular (if not the most popular) mysteries of that century and is also, according to legend, what gave Doyle the interest in writing mysteries himself.

The actual mystery in The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is a good one: two gentleman get into a cab, one gets out and the other proceeds. When the cab stops for the second gentleman, the cab driver discovers that he is dead. There are no identifying papers or paraphernalia on the deceased and no one comes forward to identify him.

At first, like the detective in charge thinks, it seems a rather cut and dried case. Find the first gentleman and you have the murderer. The success of this novel though, hinges on the depth of the mystery. As the lawyer and detectives begin to peel away at it, they find layer after layer.

Unfortunately for the modern reader, the prose is just plain awful. This was Hume's first novel and it is stupefyingly boring at points as he goes into detail about his opinion of his fellow Australians, for instance, or makes one reference after another to contemporary mystery writers, or recounts everything the reader has just witnessed via a detailed newspaper account. Oh, and Hume's attempts at rendering lower class speech, with dropped letters and a plethora of apostrophes. .. dreadful, simply dreadful. I finally had to just start skimming over that and trust that any important information from these scenes would be recapped in another conversation later. A fourth of the book, of verbiage and descriptions and opinions that didn't contribute at all to the plot, could easily have been removed and it would have been a pretty good read.

If a modern reader is willing to take the time to wade through the chaff to get to the wheat, the mystery itself is a good one. Plus, from an historical point of view, this is a rather important novel in the solidifying of the mystery genre. It's tough going at times, though, so be forewarned.

~~Read for the Victorian Literature Challenge~~

Note: This is just my opinion; on Amazon, 41%  of the reviews were 5 stars.

The Leavenworth Case

The Leavenworth Case
Anna Katharine Green
originally published 1878
5/5 stars

(Project Gutenberg has a free eBook version.)

Anna Katharine Green (November 11, 1846 – April 11, 1935) was one of the first Americans to write mysteries that featured a detective, and is also credited with shaping the genre into more legally accurate fiction, as well as inventing both the (new stereotypical) meddling busybody sleuth and girl detective.

The Leavenworth Case (her first novel), is a complex mystery with a well penned and well planned plot. It takes many twists and turns, but none unbelievable or contrived, and arrives at a solution at once surprising, satisfying, and obvious from the beginning if the read had been looking in the right direction.

Loosely, the plot of The Leavenworth Case is that Horace Leavenworth is found murdered in his locked library. Naturally, his household is suspected, and evidence points to one of his nieces, Eleanor.

The narrator is a young lawyer, Mr. Raymond, who has no experience is mysteries or murders. The police detective, Mr. Gryce, enlists Raymond's help because he is a gentleman, and as such will be welcome in places that Gryce would not be. While Raymond hates the thoughts of playing spy, he has become extremely interested in protecting Eleanor's reputation, so agrees. All the clues and information the reader sees are what Raymond sees, so at times, the reader is deducing (like Raymond) without all the facts. As new information comes to light, Raymond has to fit that into his hypotheses, or scrap it all together and form a new one--and so does the reader.

Anna Katharine Green

The Leavenworth Case was a most satisfying mystery, and kept me guessing til the end. I was certain I knew who the guilty party was time and time again. Time and time again I had to reform my ideas around new information. The clues and misinformation did not feel contrived at all, rather it came about very naturally, as one would expect during the course of a police investigation.

Not only does The Leavenworth Case provide a meaty mystery; in it, one sees a very clear picture of life among certain classes in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century.

Given both the quality of the mystery, and the slice of history it gave, I look forward to reading many more of Green's mysteries.

~~Read for the Victorian Literature Challenge.~~