Archive for March, 2008
March 31, 2008 at 10:29 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense
46. Crooked House by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 235 p.
This novel was not at all what I was expecting. A young man, Charles Hayward, meets and falls in love with Sophia Leonides in Egypt during the war. When he returns to England two years later, he finds that her grandfather has been murdered, and her entire family is under suspicion.
Charles’s father is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, and as Sophia’s unofficial fiancé, Charles has access to the house and the people involved in the case. For Sophia’s sake, and his own, he investigates the case. On the surface, it looks simple: Aristide Leonides was 85 years old, and his wife, Brenda, only 34. A young tutor living in the house, Laurence Brown, is just Brenda’s age, and may have been her lover. It seems obvious that one or other or both of them must be guilty—except that there are several circumstances that don’t fit that theory.
The police are baffled, especially since no other member of the family seems to have an adequate motive. Charles, encouraged by his father and Sophia, hangs around the house, searching for clues to the mystery in his conversations with everyone involved, but not really getting anywhere. The only person who seems to have any ideas about the crime at all is 12-year-old Josephine, Sophia’s younger sister. She claims that she knows who did it, and that she only lacks a few final pieces of evidence—a claim that is only believed after she twice escapes being murdered herself.
Aside from being a very entertaining read, Crooked House was quite surprising. I really didn’t seen the ending coming at all, and although I had several vague theories about the case, not one of them turned out to be correct. I thought I knew Christie really well, but this challenge is teaching me how many wonderful things I’ve missed!
This was one of Christie’s two favourites among her own works. The other, Ordeal by Innocence, is coincidentally my next pick for the challenge. I’m quite excited!
Pages read: 12,795
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge
March 31, 2008 at 5:07 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense
45. Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 224 p.
Partners in Crime features Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, the husband-and-wife team who first appeared in The Secret Adversary and went on to star in N or M, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, and Postern of Fate. I’ve always found the latter three strange and confused, but I adore early Tommy and Tuppence.
Somewhat bored with life as a London housewife, Tuppence feels she’s grown to take the good things in her life for granted, and vetoes Tommy’s solution:
“Shall I neglect you a little?” suggested Tommy. “Take other women about to night clubs. That sort of thing.”
“Useless,” said Tuppence. “You would only meet me there with other men. And I should know perfectly well that you didn’t care for the other women, whereas you would never be quite sure that I didn’t care for the other men. Women are so much more thorough.”
Instead, she wishes for something exciting to happen—and only moments later, she gets the answer to her wish. Tommy works in an unspecified government intelligence agency, and his boss, Mr. Carter, offers the couple the chance to do a bit of field work. Tommy and Tuppence agree to take over a small detective agency, working on perfectly genuine cases while they keep an eye out for espionage.
The Beresfords take to detecting like ducks to water, amusing themselves (and me) by using the methods of various fictional detectives, including both Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Their efforts are amateur, but aside from one or two embarrassing incidents, they generally manage to carry the day.
Partners in Crime is partly mystery, and partly a hilarious parody of fictional detectives’ methods and mannerisms—in fact, Tommy and Tuppence spend most of their time imitating the mannerisms rather than the methods, which only makes it funnier—as do their clients bemused reactions to them in their various roles.
This book was another re-read for me, but I’d forgotten just how wonderful it is, and I had an even better time revisiting Tommy and Tuppence’s adventures than I anticipated.
Pages read: 12,560
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge, short story collection, Tommy and Tuppence
March 31, 2008 at 12:43 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense
44. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 352 p.
Like Sparkling Cyanide, The Mystery of the Blue Train is a novel-length adaptation of a previously published short story. The Plymouth Express, which first appeared in 1923, tells of the murder of an American millionaire’s daughter on a train. The novel, although it has a more complex plot and deeper characterization, follows essentially the same lines as the short story.
Ruth Ketteridge, the spoiled, egocentric daughter of a very rich man, is found strangled in her compartment on the Blue Train, which carries wealthy passengers escaping a London winter for the warmth and sun of the Riviera. There are no shortage of possible murderers, and the victim’s estranged husband and her lover both come in for their share of suspicion. There is also the matter of some missing rubies, a gift from Ruth’s father and worth half a million pounds. Poirot, who was also a passenger on the Blue Train, begins to investigate, and soon turns up all manner of complications.
I’m very familiar with the story of The Plymouth Express, and I can’t say it’s ever been one of my favourites. Actually, I’m not a huge fan of the Poirot short stories in general—they’re fun as puzzles, but they lack the engaging personalities who form a great part of the charm of Christie’s novels, and the mysteries are rarely as fully developed as they ideally ought to be. The Mystery of the Blue Train has neither of these drawbacks.
The protagonist of the story is Katherine Grey, a young woman who, after a decade as a companion to a difficult elderly lady, has just been left a small fortune in her will. She travels by the Blue Train to the Riviera, and falls into conversation with Ruth Ketteridge. After the murder, meets Poirot and becomes further embroiled in the case.
Although the story is told in the third person, it mostly follows Katherine, and the book is the better for it. She’s very sympathetic, possessing both intelligence and a sense of humour. We also get to see a lot of Poirot, and he’s at his twinkly-eyed best.
This was actually a re-read for me, but as I’d only read the book once, and that long enough ago that I had no real memory of the plot, I thought it would be a great pick for the Anything Agatha Challenge, and it certainly was. I remembered liking the story, and my memory was accurate, for once; The Mystery of the Blue train is definitely one of Christie’s better novels. It didn’t matter at all that I knew the solution from the beginning (especially since I doubt I would have figured it out for myself!)
Pages read: 12,336
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge, Poirot
March 30, 2008 at 11:59 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Fiction and Literature, Mystery and Suspense, World Literature
43. Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 288 p.
This novel, like several others written by Agatha Christie over her long career, was actually expanded from a short story. Yellow Iris first appeared in the Strand Magazine in July of 1937, and has since been published in two collections: The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories and Problem at Pollensa Bay. As I actually own both of these, it’s not surprising that I recognized the basic plot of Sparkling Cyanide right away: a year after the death of his wife, George Barton arranges a dinner at the same restaurant, and with the same guests, as on the night his wife supposedly committed suicide.
Thankfully, in writing this novel, Christie did more than just flesh out Yellow Iris. Although some of the characters are the same, new ones have been added, and the solution to the mystery is quite different. Hercule Poirot was cut from the story, and instead the investigation is carried out by a Chief Inspector Kemp and by Colonel Race, who had previously appeared in three other novels (alone in The Man in the Brown Suit, and alongside Poirot in Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile.)
Sparkling Cyanide is divided into three parts, a format I think worked remarkably well. In the first section, each of the six dinner guests in turn remembers the past: the events of that one night, their relationships with the late Rosemary Barton, and their various motives for murdering her. In the second section, George Barton arranges and holds another dinner party with the same guests: his secretary Ruth, Rosemary’s younger sister Iris, Iris’s boyfriend Anthony, and a well-known political couple, Stephen and Sandra Farraday. Barton has received several anonymous letters which say that Rosemary killed herself, and so he intends to set a trap for the guilty party during the dinner. Instead, he himself drinks a glass of champagne laced with cyanide. In the third section, Colonel Race and Chief Inspector Kemp investigate the two deaths, but they’re hampered by the evidence of several independent witnesses, which seems to suggest the no one at the table could have committed the crime.
I am pleased to say that I never had the slightest idea who the murdered was, or even how the murder was committed. Christie was also at her best with the characters, all of whom are interesting, although not necessarily likable or sympathetic. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this story, and I was surprised and satisfied by the solution. After all these years, I never imagined there was such a gem among those of Christie’s works I hadn’t read. To think I wasn’t sure the Anything Agatha Challenge would be worth joining for a Christie fan(atic) like myself!
Pages read: 11,984
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge
March 30, 2008 at 6:14 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Fiction and Literature, Mystery and Suspense, World Literature
42. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 272 p.
This is my first read for the Anything Agatha Challenge, and the first of the six Christie detective novels I’ve never read. Unfortunately, although it’s true this book was new to me, the story wasn’t, since I’d already seen A&E’s 2-hour version. Still, even though I remembered how the murder was committed, I didn’t remember any of the surrounding details.
Murder in Mesopotamia is narrated by Amy Leatheran, a trained hospital nurse. Through a series of events, she finds herself at a dig in Iraq, taking care of Mrs. Leidner, the charming and beautiful wife of a prominent archaeologist. Mrs. Leidner is very nervous and jumpy, and although no one takes her fears very seriously, it soon seems they were justified: Mrs. Leidner is murdered. Local police welcome the help of Hercule Poirot, passing through on his way to Baghdad.
The case is an interesting one, and Nurse Leatheran is an engaging narrator. Another character, Dr. Reilly, describes her writing style as “vigorous, individual and entirely apposite,” and it’s true. Christie also takes the opportunity to make little jokes with her fans, as Miss Leatheran makes observations about Poirot that are funny if you know the truth about him. I also liked the little details of her reactions to archaeology, and her comments about some of the other characters.
I think the real test of quality for any mystery novel is the re-read. Of course, it’s true to a degree for pretty much every book, but more so in the mystery genre. I would never count any mystery novel as a success unless I can fully enjoy it even when I already know the solution. Murder in Mesopotamia passes that test, perhaps not with flying colours, but well enough that I’ll count it among some of my favourite Poirot novels.
Pages read: 11,696
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge, Poirot, What's in a Name?
March 28, 2008 at 4:16 pm · Filed under Books Etc
This week’s question comes from Julie, who asks:
While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?
Oh, I can judge a book by its cover. A bad cover won’t stop me from reading a book, but it might stop me from reading it in public, and it will almost certainly stop me from shelling out money for a copy. A good cover, on the other hand, can make me eager to buy even a book I’m fairly sure I won’t enjoy.
I prefer trade paperbacks to any other kind of book. They just feel right in my hands, and they’re not as heavy and bulky as hardcovers. I’m not a fan of mass market paperbacks—the very small print makes them harder to read, and they’re often printed on slightly darker paper, with less contrast between the print and its background. (The worst are large-print books, though. The huge type is really hard to follow!)
Illustrations are okay, but it really annoys me when they’re the wrong style for the book.
Tags: Booking Through Thursday
March 23, 2008 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Miscellanea
I hope everyone is having a wonderful day, as I am. This morning my roommate and I made pretty Easter eggs. Later, my father, sister, and I went to Czehoski, a Polish/Czech restaurant downtown. I had something called French Toast Bread Pudding—yummy!
March 22, 2008 at 10:54 am · Filed under Books Etc
What with reading my first book for this challenge yesterday, I completely forgot to post my list of books and actually, you know, sign up for the challenge. Once Upon a Time II runs for 3 months, from March 21 through June 20 (and links to reviews can be posted at the Review Site.) During that time, I will complete Quest the First by reading 5 books that fit the challenge’s criteria: fantasy, folklore, fairy tale, or myth. Since I already read a lot of fantasy, I want to choose books that specifically have a folklore, fairy tale, or mythic feel to them.
- Widdershins » Charles de Lint (myth)
- The Complete Quin & Satterthwaite » Agatha Christie (folklore)
- Beauty » Robin McKinley (fairy tale)
- Ironside » Holly Black (fairy tale)
- Sorcery & Cecelia » Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer (fantasy)
Tags: Book Lists, Once Upon a Time II
March 22, 2008 at 12:19 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
41. Widdershins by Charles de Lint (Urban Fantasy) 560 p.
I’d heard enough good things about Charles de Lint that when I got the chance to buy Widdershins, with its very attractive cover, at half off the remaindered price, I jumped at the chance. I didn’t know much about this book before I read it today, except that it was urban fantasy and part of a loosely-connected series of novels set in the imaginary North American city of Newford. I didn’t know how much I was going to love this book.
Actually, even after I started it, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it at all. The beginning, where a young Celtic fiddler named Lizzie is stranded by car trouble and has her first encounter with the magical world, caught my interest in a limited way. I liked Lizzie, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing a good bit more of her, but the point of view shifted in the next chapter, to a character I wasn’t nearly so interested in (although luckily Lizzie returned throughout the book.)
I’m not a fan of perspective shifts; they only work for me when I’m equally interested in all of the characters, and when the author resolves suspenseful episodes before skipping to another point of view. Charles de Lint doesn’t do that, unfortunately, and it continued to be something of a problem for me throughout the book—although less so as I got to know and be interested in more of his characters.
As Charles de Lint mentions in his author’s note, Widdershins was written partly because of requests from his fans that he write more about a particular character, Jilly, and show her getting together with her friend Geordie, since everyone but the two of them can see that they’re made for each other. I’m very grateful that de Lint didn’t limit the scope of his book to Jilly and Georgie, because I found them by far the least interesting characters in the book—especially when they were together! Maybe it’s because this book was written with established fans in mind, but there was a lot more telling than showing when it came to their personalities; I still don’t feel like I know much about the two of them beyond the things said by other characters in the book.
So I was reading along, mildly interested, but not enough to carry me through a 560-page book. The urban fantasy element wasn’t much different from other things I’d read, the plot wasn’t really going anywhere yet, and the characters weren’t wonderful enough to carry the story on their own. Then I got to page 111, and I started to sit up and take notice.
He was a curious little man, born a treekin—a kind of fairy about the height of a man’s knee, made of twigs and mulch and leaves and moss, all held together in the shape of a human body with a weaving of braided grasses and vines. Treekin needed to replenish their body parts from time to time—when a twig got old and chipped, or when a grass braid snapped and the press of leaves and moss that gave shape to limbs began to fall away. The materials they needed for repair were easy to find, even in a city, for there were always gardens and parks to plunder amongst the tall towers of concrete and steel.
But in the past few decades, many of the treekin began to utilize bits and pieces of electronics and computer parts for their repairs, metamorphosing over time into creatures made as much of wiring and circuitry as they were of organic material. Eventually, some, like Edgan, became creatures entirely made of synthetic castoffs; each techno treekin—as they came to be called—as individual as the materials they were able to scrounge. In Edgan’s case, he had a torso built up around a computer motherboard; his limbs and head were a complicated tangle of wiring and less identifiable objects, though his nose was certainly a spark plug and his eyes a pair of camera lenses.
He was in Computer World tonight because he’d recently seen another of the techno treekin sporting an iPod in the twisting snarl of wires that held her torso together, and he simply had to have one himself. He already had a PDA wired into his motherboard body—as well as a digital camera and a pair of cell phones—but its memory capacity couldn’t match the sixty gigabytes of the iPod. The iPod would be perfect for storing the data he pilfered from the Internet, but he also liked the shiny whiteness of its case for how it matched his spark plug nose.
I don’t know why, but that passage really appealed to me, and from that point on, I was fully engaged in the story Charles de Lint’s characters were telling me. In the end, it’s an intriguing one, about a potential war between the fairies, who came over from Europe with the first North American immigrants, and the Cousins, or First People, who were there before them. It’s also a story about hurt, malice, abuse, and vengeance, and how those things can keep hurting even after the fact. Ultimately, it’s about love and understanding, and about finding common ground. The message was a little heavy-handed, but the plot had a strong enough hold on me that I didn’t much mind.
There were a few other things I was going to mention that could have been better, but on the whole I loved the book so much I don’t want to add too many complaints to my review. Even characters I wasn’t very fond of at first tended to grow on me, and the majority are people I’d like to read more about. That’s why I’m going to end this on a positive note, with another quote (a short one this time!) Here’s an exchange between the crow girls that for no good reason had me in stiches:
“Don’t be rude,” she tells Zia.
“They’re not bribes?”
“Why would out veryvery good friends Geordie and Jilly ever need to bribe us?”
Zia shrugs. “So that we’ll behave?”
“Don’t mind her,” Maida says to me. “She was brought up in a tree by an old magpie.”
Pages read: 11,424
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Cardathon Challenge, Charles de Lint, Chunkster Challenge 2008, Newford, Once Upon a Time II
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