"The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins

 Not the first time I have read this Victorian classic, often hailed as the first detective novel, but I am re-reading it for the book club at the Grove Theatre in Eastbourne. This means that I am reading having already known whodunnit and how; this in turn means that I can spot the hints dropped in the plot which make the solution of the mystery possible. It's a clever plot. Below, I analyse the plot and this section contains a spoiler alert.

Sergeant Cuff, the detective, was probably based on the real-life Inspector Whicher, an early detective employed by the London Metropolitan Police, whose investigation into a murder at Road Hill House for which Constance Kent was subsequently found guilty also involved a nightdress. Sergeant Cuff's retirement to a cottage where he grows roses preceded the retirement of Hercule Poirot (who grows Vegetable Marrows) in Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a brilliant novel which also shares a narrative device with The Moonstone. The relationship between the clever, but sometimes enigmatic, detective and the slow-witted butler who narrates much of The Moonstone is clearly the model for Sherlock Holmes and his narrator Watson, and for Poirot and Captain Hastings. The character of Gooseberry, the nimble-witted street urchin, in The Moonstone is clearly a model for the Baker Street Irregulars in the Sherlock Holmes books. And of course the local policeman is incompetent! Thus, this book pioneers many of the tropes of detective fiction.

It is told from multiple perspectives. One of the narrators is unreliable: I can't think of any novel previous to the Moonstone which uses this device. The first section is narrated by the steward, Mr Betteredge. He is a fussy old man with an amusing (and rather unPC) view on life; this narrative allows Collins to add humour, both laughing with Mr B and laughing at him: "On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope said she didn't know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of her. I thought privately that it might have been her stays." (Ch 3) The second section is narrated by Miss Clack, a poor relation of the family, whose genteel poverty have led her to become a proselytising Christian, forever handing out unwanted tracts and advice; Collins skilfully pokes fun at her naivete. Other narrators include a principal protagonist, a medical assistant, and a solicitor. 

Collins employs subtle humour in his characterisations of the steward, Miss Clack and Mrs Merridew; these comic characters are far more skilfully drawn than the crude but compelling caricatures of Dickens.

Pacing: Warning: this section contains spoilers

• The crucial clues are clustered at the 13% and 14% mark: these are the painting of the door, Miss Rachel's character, and Mr Franklin sleeping badly.
• The diamond is stolen at 19%
• The Great detective arrives at 23%
• Rosanna dies at 34%
• Sergeant Cuff is dismissed at 38%
• We discover who took the Moonstone from Rachel's room at 65%
• The opium addiction theory is advanced at 80%

This means that most of the action occurs in the first half of the book and the second half is a sometimes long-winded explanation of who and, more importantly, how. A full third of the book occurs after the thief has been unmasked. This has, to modern eyes, the feeling that the narration isn't quite balanced.

The Moonstone as a commentary on social class

Collins shows a lot of class consciousness in this novel. 

• One of the main characters is a servant girl (an ex-thief whose mother was a prostitute) who dares to fall in love with the young gentleman of the house. Of course the object of her love is ignorant of the fact and of course she comes to a bad end (and you could argue from this, and from the conventional ending, that Collins believed that any disruption of the social hierarchy would lead to misery) but this character does enable Collins to make the point that "Suppose you put Miss Rachel into a servant's dress, and took her ornaments off -? ... young ladies may behave in a manner which would cost a servant her place." (2.3.4) 
• The bulk of the narration is undertaken by the family steward. He is an old man who has spent all his life in service and understands his place in the social hierarchy. Again, you could argue that Collins believes that 'knowing your place' is essential for social stability. Nevertheless, this loyal family retainer understands the unfairness of the system which is revealed through the use of gentle irony:
• "People in high life have all the luxuries to themselves - among others, the luxury of indulging their feelings. People in low life have no such privilege. Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us. We learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with out duties." (1.20) 
• "Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward rock ahead in life - the rock ahead of their own idleness.  ... the secret of it is, that you have nothing to do with your poor empty head, and nothing to do with your poor idle hands. And so it ends with your spoiling canvas with paints, and making a smell in the house; or in keeping tadpoles in a glass box full of dirty water, and turning everybody's stomach in the house; or in chipping off bits of stone here, there, and everywhere, and dropping grit into all the victuals of the house; or in staining your fingers in the pursuit of photography, and doing justice without mercy on everybody's face in the house. It often falls heavy enough, no doubt, on people who are really obliged to get their living, to be forced to work for the clothes that cover them, the roof that shelters them, and the food that keeps them going. But compare the hardest day's work you ever did with the idleness that splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders' stomachs, and thank your stars that your head has got something it must think of, and your hands something that they must do." (1.8)
• There is also a disabled girl who acts as a sort of Greek chorus to the story of Franklin and Rosanna and who prophesies that "the day is not far off when the poor will rise against the rich." (1.23)

Selected quotes:

• "I have myself (in spite of the Bishops and the clergy) an unfeigned respect for the Church." (1.5)
• "Everything the Miss Ablewhite's said began with a large O; everything they did was done with a bang; and they giggled and screamed, in season and out of season, on the smallest provocation. Bouncers, that's what I call them." (1.9)
• "We had our breakfasts - whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast." (1.11)
• "The ugly women have a bad time of it in this world." (1.14)
• "In my line of life, if we were quick at taking offence, we shouldn't be worth salt to our porridge." (1.16)
• "Through the driving rain we went back - to meet the trouble and the terror that were waiting for us back at the house." (1.19)
• "I have only been blindfolded; I have only been strangled; I have only been thrown flat on my back, on a very thin carpet, covering a particularly hard floor." (2.1.2) A nice example of dramatic irony used to highlight the sanctimonious Pharisaical hypocrisy of one of the major characters.
• "You have contracted two very bad habits ... You have learnt to talk nonsense seriously, and you have got into a way of telling fibs for the pleasure of telling them." (2.1.2)
• "I am not ignorant that old Mr Ablewhite has the reputation generally (especially among his inferiors) of being a remarkably good-natured man. According to my observation of him, he deserves his reputation as long as he has his own way, and not a moment longer." (2.1.8) A great observation of a minor character which chimes with the theme of 'not everyone is who they seem to be'.
• "He had what I may venture to describe as the unsought self-possession, which is a sure sign of good breeding, not in England only, but everywhere else in the civilized world." (2.3.9) I think it is described as the arrogance of entitlement nowadays
• "That terrible time in the early morning - from two o'clock to five - when the vital energies even of the healthiest of us are at their lowest. It is then that Death gathers in his human harvest most abundantly." (2.3.9)
• "The bees were humming among a few flowers placed in pots outside the window; the birds were singing in the garden, and the faint intermittent jingle of a tuneless piano in some neighbouring house, forced itself now and again, on the ear." (2.3.10) A perfect example of the pathetic fallacy suggesting not all is perfect in this rural idyll.
• "I used to attend scientific experiments when I was a girl at school. They invariably ended in an explosion." (2.4)
• "It is only in books that the officers of the detective force are superior to the weakness of making a mistake." (2.5.1)

July 2022; 472 pages

Nominated by Robert McCrum as 19th in the Guardian's 100 best novels of all time; chosen by the Crime Writers' Association as 8th best crime novel of all time and 7th for the Mystery Writers of America. 

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Peter Ackroyd has written a biography of Wilkie Collins. 

"Death on a Shetland Isle" by Marsali Taylor

Number seven in the Shetland Sailing Mysteries starring Cass Lynch. This is another voyage of the tall ship Sorlandet on which Cass is in charge of a Watch made principally of trainees. A new officer enlists ... and Cass recognises him immediately as Alain, an ex-boyfriend who went overboard in the Atlantic years ago. But he has a new identity and appears not to recognise Cass. There are some other trainees who cause concern to Cass; as the voyage progresses strange things begin to happen. Then, when they land on Fetlar for an international hnefatafl (Viking chess) competition, one of the trainees disappears. Gavin, Cass's detective boyfriend, takes charge of the search. Has someone died? (Of course they have, this is a murder mystery and the title has already given this away.) Whodunnit? And will the ex-boyfriend drive a wedge between Cass and Gavin?

This book is a little slower-paced compared to the others; she is moving away from straight detective fiction and making room for more Shetland tourist information. But this book is even better than the others for the lyrical beauty of some of the descriptions. For example:

• "This was what I was made for: this great sweep of water all around me, with the wind gentle on my skin, the ship creaking, the water curling under her forefoot and pulling away along her sides in a long V of foam." (C 2)
• "It was dark outside, but the crescent moon made a white pathway on the shifting water.
• The sails were ghostly in the sliver of moonlight, their ropes a forest of darker black against the glinting sea." (C 4)
• "The sun shone on the scrubbed decks, drying the last corner pools of water, and on the creamy sails, bleaching them to cloud-white. On land, it was harvest time, with rectangles of lime-yellow standing out in the green sweep of hill, either combed with the dulled green of drying hay, or dotted with black plastic bales like a giant’s chequer pieces waiting to be moved. The rumble of machinery drifted towards us: a shining green tractor trailing a whirl of gulls." (C 5)

Other bits I loved:

• "The blue watch scurried for their jackets, and mine drittled to their places on deck." (C 3)
• "The taxi air freshener (pine forest) overlaid his natural smell of Imperial Leather soap." (C 6)
• "I’m not taking fashion hints from any man who thinks cabbage green is a colour." (C 8)
• "If they’re speaking about you, they’re leaving someone else alone." (C 17)

The other brilliant books in this series, in order, include:

• Death on a Longship
• The Trowie Mound Murders
• A Handful of Ash
• The Body in the Bracken
• Ghosts of the Vikings
• Death in Shetland Waters

Great fun. June 2020

"The Five Red Herrings" by Dorothy L Sayers

A Lord Peter Wimsey whodunnit. When an artist is found murdered, there are six suspects, all artists. The discovery of the body involves some very careful unpicking of the timing of alibis made with the assistance of a bicycle and the local train timetable.

This is a classic 'puzzle' mystery.

As it says in the introduction, "Lord Peter Wimsey, with his aristocratic manners and mien, may seem precious in the modern era of alcoholic, working-class coppers with fractured marriages" but he is at his debonair best in this book. Of the other recurring characters, Bunter the servant has a very small part to play while girlfriend Harriet Vane and private sleuth Miss Climpson do not appear.

The book is amusing for its depiction of the dialogue of the Scots, a comedy cockney (I actually laughed out loud), and a fabulous character who lithpth.

I also enjoyed it for its description of artists working:

• "That’s the green for the gentleman’s coat. No – don’t pinch it, or you’ll get it all over you. Yes, you can put the cap on. Yes, that’s to keep it from drying up. Yes, put it back in the box . . . That’s yellow. No, I know there isn’t any yellow in the picture, but I want it to mix with the green to make it brighter. You’ll see. Don’t forget the cap. What? Oh, anywhere in the box. White – yes, it’s a big tube isn’t it? You’ll see, you have to put a little white into most of the colours – why? Well, they wouldn’t come right without" (C 20)
• "That’s called a palette knife. No, it isn’t meant to be sharp. It’s meant for cleaning your palette and so on. Some people use a knife to paint with. Yes, it’s nice and wiggly, but it won’t stand too much of that kind of treatment, my lad. Yes, of course you can paint with a knife if you want to. You can paint with your fingers if it comes to that. No, I shouldn’t advise you to try. Yes, well, it makes a rougher kind of surface, all blobs and chunks of paint." (C 20)
• "I’m going to begin with the sky. Why? Well, why do you think? Yes, because it’s at the top. Yes, of course that blue’s too dark, but I’m going to put some white in it. Yes, and some green. You didn’t know there was any green in the sky? Well, there is. And sometimes there’s purple and pink too. No, I’m not going to paint a purple and pink sky." (C 20)

There are a couple of moments when Sayers has Lord Peter semi-quotes Jerome K Jerome's wonderful assertion about work ("I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."; from Three Men in a Boat) when he says, for example: "I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf round and watch another bloke doing a job of work." (C 21)

She also says: "Life’s just one damn thing after another." (C 19).  This, presumably, pays homage to ODTAA, an adventure novel published by John Masefield in 1926, although it would seem that the phrase was around earlier in the twentieth century.

Other great moments:

• "To boast loudly in public of one’s own country seemed to him indecent – like enlarging on the physical perfections of one’s own wife in a smoking room." (C 1)
• "a sky full of bright sun and rolling cloud-banks, hedges filled with flowers, a well-made road, a lively engine and the prospect of a good corpse at the end of it, Lord Peter’s cup of happiness was full. He was a man who loved simple pleasures." (C 2)
• "The wild garlic was over now, but the scent of it seemed still to hang about the place in memory, filling it with the shudder of vampire wings" (C 2)
• "it doesn’t do to murder people, however offensive they may be." (C 2)
• "I’m probably the least awe-inspiring man in Kirkcudbright. I was born looking foolish and every day in every way I am getting foolisher and foolisher." (C 6)
• "To her, the beauty of an ordered life was more than a mere phrase; it was a dogma to be preached, a cult to be practised with passion and concentration." (C 6)
• "the more you hate everybody for hating you, the more unattractive you grow" (C 6)
• "'I have always done my duty as his wife.’     ‘Too true,’ said Wimsey. ‘He put you up on a pedestal, and you have sat on it ever since. What more could you do?’" (C 20)

May 2020

I have set myself the task of reading all the Lord Peter Wimsey novels (mostly again) in order. The ones I have read and reviewed in this blog so far include:

• Whose Body in which my Lord and his manservant are introduced
• Clouds of Witness in which Lord Peter must sleuth to get his brother Gerald, Duke of Denver, off a murder charge
• Unnatural Death which introduces another Wimsey sidekick: Miss Climpson
• The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
• Strong Poison which introduces Harriet Vane, a detective writer who becomes Lord Peter's love interest
• The Five Red Herrings; Lord Peter in Scotland
• Have His Carcase: Harriet and Peter investigate the death of a gigolo with dreams

There are also Wimsey books written since the death of DLS by Jill Paton Walsh. These include:

• The Attenbury Emeralds in which Lord Peter, in 1951, recalls the circumstances of his first case, the Attenbury Emeralds, which have gone missing again.
• The Late Scholar: in which Wimsey returns to Oxford

"Hazell and the Menacing Jester" by P.B.Yuill

Hazell the wise-cracking cockney private eye makes his third appearance after Hazell plays Solomon and Hazell and the Three-Card Trick. Can he work out who has been playing pranks on Mr Beevers, the businessman with the posh wife who lives in a swanky mansion flat and tips from a big roll of banknotes? Sex, violence and some cheeky cockney chatter.

There are some good lines as always:

• "They had that look you always see on hospital visitors, glad it's them coming out on the street again but a bit guilty about being glad." (p 15)
• "The darling sounded a bit forced, as if he had to remind her whose side she was on." (p 23)
• "He pecked at a cheek that didn't exactly offer itself." (p 24)
• "His tongue was busy making sure his beard hadn't fallen off." (p 24)
• "Your educated now, they're taught early on to shop everybody for thegood of society. I expect it makes sense if it's your society." (p 38)
• "I don't know what it is with me and women, when I'm feeling low I call it loneliness and when I'm flourishing I call it freedom." (p 50)
• "That's what it is about London, millions of us passing through and hardly leaving any mark at all. ... Your Londoner's got to make his own luck because if he lies down to die there's not a lot will stop to ask what's wrong." (p 58)
• "All the glamour of a honeymoon in a gravelpit." (p 58)
• "Driving was a duel to the death the way he went at it." (p 62)

April 2017; 189 pages

"Hazell plays Solomon" by P. B. Yuill

The south London wisecracking ex copper alcoholic no longer married private investigator James Hazell is working for a mother who believes that her baby was mixed up with another at maternity hospital.

A fairly standard PI story but well-written with a perfectly timed plot and, just for a moment, a true moral conundrum at the heart of it that has the potential for a stunning story.

This book comes before Hazell and the Three-Card Trick.

• "On the seventh floor I took a couple of deep breaths to remind my lungs who was supposed to be the guvnor." (p 6)
• "Today's lie is tomorrow's trouble" (p 8)
• "If life was all down to theory I'd be king." (p 8)
• "That year most kids were pinning up boy canaries with Lolita faces" (p 12)
• "he couldn't even mention God without taking a quick look over his shoulder." (p 15)
• "From the way she dealt with the porter I could see that the words please and thanks had been lost somewhere along the line." (p 36)
• "At that speed he should have been done for illegal parking." (p 41)
• "Her lips tightened as if she thought that an outright smile would be bad form." (p 81)

April 2017, 171 pages

Also in the series: Hazell and the Menacing Jester

"Hazell and the Three-Card Trick" by P. B. Yuill

Hazell is a Londoner, ex copper who, after losing his girlfriend and alcoholism, sets up as a very sleazy 'enquiry agent' and sets about tracking a three-card trick gang from Oxford Street who were involved in an altercation with a man who fell in front of a London Underground train. There are links to a previous case trying to find out how a cruise ship casino was cheated.

This somewhat overused format is given fresh life by the London patois and the wise-cracking, although too many of the expressions are explained. And there is a brilliant angry dad who sounds like Alf Garnett: "'Wot's got into you woman?' roared the old man." The dialogue is written in right cockney innit innit.

It did remind me slightly of the Saint books. I think it was trying to be Raymond Chandler.

This is the middle Hazell book. It was preceded by Hazell plays Solomon and succeeded by Hazell and the Menacing Jester.

There were some great expressions:

• "It was one of those damp February afternoons when the sky is like dirty dishwater and the brick walls are sweating old grease." (p 5)
• "A conga line of chanting Hare Krishners was jigging happily along the northside kerb." (p 5)
• "A mournful stare that made your average bloodhound seem like Woody Woodpecker." (p 5)
• "right under the useless empty road under the useless empty skyscraper" (p 5)
• "I'm like the weather forecast, only bright in patches." (p 30)
• "One sniff of bother and they're off quicker than a bride's nightie" (p 44)
• "the flash of blue fivers brought the sheep to the barbers" (p 60)
• "For some reason [at night] things stand out better in peripheral vision." (p 71)

A fun comedy thriller. April 2017; 204 pages

"A Question of Belief" by Donna Leon

An Italian-based police procedural murder mystery set in Venice. Commisario Brunetti is that rarity among detectives, a happily married cop. His wife, daughter of a Count, is a university lecturer on English Literature and the Commisario reads Marcus Aurelius and Tacitus. In the August heat wave, dreaming of going with his family to the still-snowy mountains where he will have to wear a cardigan, he investigates his Inspector's aunt who is busily paying huge sums of money to a fraudulent faith healer and a civil servant who seems to be involved in making the wheels of justice run even slower for a really cheap rent on his palatial Venetian apartment. Then the civil servant is brutally murdered.

Beautifully written, with great regard for local geography and local characters and a clear feeling for the ambiguous way in which Italians view the law, Leon's novel is utterly routed in the drama of the everyday.

December 2014; 262 pages

"Strip Jack" by Ian Rankin

An early Inspector Rebus. So far I have only read stories from later in the career of this Edinburgh detective (eg Standing in another man's grave, and The naming of the dead). In these he is weary and cynical, a heavy drinker with a sidekick called DS Siobhan Clarke. But in the early books he is a wise-cracking young man. He drinks but it isn't a theme. He has a girlfriend although he is not sure whether he wants a long term relationship or not. He and all his colleagues keep themselves going with a variety of dreadful puns. There is more idealism than cynicism.

It would be interesting to see where the two versions of Rebus join.

This classic police procedural whodunnit starts with a bang: the police raid a brothel and find an MP; the papers have been tipped off. Then the MP's wife is discovered dead. Suspicion falls on the small group of friends who grew up together including the wife of a film star, a mad murderer locked in an asylum, a second-hand bookseller and the owner of a haulage firm.

Best line of the book: "He didn't make waves exactly, but by Christ he splashed like hell."

A tightly plotted whodunnit which kept me interested throughout. August 2014; 279 pages

Other Inspector Rebus books reviewed in this blog include:

• A Question of Blood
• The Naming of the Dead
• Strip Jack
• Tooth and Nail: Rebus in London: poor stuff
• Standing in Another Man's Grave
• In a House of Lies

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Silkworm" by Robert Galbraith

This is the second Cormoran Strike novel by Robert Galbraith who is better known as J K Rowling. It is better than The Cuckoo's Calling, which was good. This is a very good detective novel indeed. It was shortlisted for the Golden Dagger in 2015. 

The usual cast of characters are here, resolving their issues with one another and with their partners. Private Eye Strike investigates a missing author who he soon finds murdered in horrific circumstances which appear strikingly similar to the ending of his latest unpublished novel which appears to viciously attack a wide section of London's literary world. Every chapter heading has quotes from Jacobean tragedies and a one-legged detective limping painfully around a snow-bound London in pursuit of a crazed killer seems to fit the bill perfectly.

Despite the flamboyance of the scenery, Galbraith keeps reality firmly in mind. I started wincing every time Strike's prosthesis rubbed or he had to limp down a snow-covered street concentrating hard on not slipping. When he interrogates a witness over lunch he worries about the size of the bill; he tries taking the tube rather than taxis despite his damaged knee. Locations are accurately described, from exclusive clubs to pubs to tower blocks. Characters are sympathetically portrayed: they function in the plot but each one has a set of strengths and weaknesses and longings and disgusts.

Whodunnit? Clues are scattered through the narrative with care, red herrings are equally dispersed. I nearly got it.

Well written and a real page turner; I didn't really want to go to bed last night. June 2014; 455 pages

Also read Strike #3 Career of Evil

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith

I really liked it.

This is detective fiction, pure and simple. A private eye with a complicated background and a dysfunctional private life, not to mention a seedy office and a mountain of debts, is given a last chance in a case that involves a dead super-model, a drugged-up musician, a gangsta rapper, a camp fashion designer and London's high social life. He also has a temporary secretary who proves a more able assistant than could be expected. They trawl through the evidence and all the clues are laid out but you don't know who the murderer is until the final chapter. Classic stuff and very well done.

Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling who, as everybody knows, wrote the Harry Potter books and the Casual Vacancy. For what it's worth, I think this is her best book yet and a very good book indeed.

Far better than the run of the mill whodunnits. It kept me reading voraciously until the final page.

The second book in the series, The Silkworm, is even better
The third book, Career of Evil, takes a turn into the territory of very dark, very visceral psychological thrillers

May 2014; 449 pages

"The Attenbury Emeralds" by Jill Paton Walsh

I used to love the Lord Peter Wimsey stories of Dorothy L Sayers so when  I learned that respected children's author Jill Paton Walsh had continued the series I jumped to read them.

At the start of this book the ageing Lord Peter tells his wife Harriet about his first case. It is 1921, Lord Peter is suffering from shell shock and faithful manservant Bunter decides that a gentle house party (with no shooting!) would be good for him. But (in a homage to the Moonstone by Wilkie Collins) a mysterious Indian has designs on a large emerald owned by the family which has a mysterious inscription on its back. Lord Peter explains how he solved the case.

Back in 1951 the emeralds rear their ugly head again. Somehow two nearly identical emeralds have been switched. Peter delves back into the history of the appearances of these gems: every time they come out of the bank there is some drama and often somebody dies. Who is the serial murderer and what is their motive? Can anyone seriously have planned a crime that takes place over thirty years?

Whilst all this is going on we learn, in the best traditions of fan fiction, how the characters have developed since we saw them last. The great thing about Sayers' books is that they form an unbroken narrative from the early days of Lord Peter through to his wooing and marriage of Harriet. Now Walsh updates us on the kids. Dramatic things also happen to the family: Lord St George has been killed in the War leaving the Duke of Denver without an heir of his body: Peter is the next in line. Denver's wife, the Duchess, is unspeakably snobbish about low-born Harriet and the Dowager Duchess, Peter's mother, is wonderfully loquacious, her stream of consciousness full of joyous misuses. We meet other firm favourites from the past including Freddy Arbuthnot and Charles Parker who was a sergeant in 1921 (who read Origen), married Peter's sister and is now a Commander of Scotland Yard.

Paton Walsh has done all this admirably; I scarcely noticed the join. There are other moments when I could enjoy her craft: I especially loved the two cockney sisters who had an understated but characteristic grammatical style of their type.

What I didn't like was the plot! You may argue that some of the original plots were massively far-fetched but this one was especially difficult to believe in and the solution and the villain were not especially credible.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, galloping through it in a couple of days, and I am looking forward to reading the next.

February 2014; 338 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

Also read The Late Scholar

The Lord Peter Wimsey novels are reviewed here:

• Whose Body in which my Lord and his manservant, Bunter, are introduced
• Clouds of Witness in which Lord Peter must sleuth to get his brother Gerald, Duke of Denver, off a murder charge; Bunter assists; policeman Parker falls in love with Peter's sister Mary
• Unnatural Death which introduces another Wimsey sidekick: Miss Climpson; Bunter is involved
• The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Bunter is involved as is Miss Climpson
• Strong Poison which introduces Harriet Vane, a detective writer who becomes Lord Peter's love interest; Bunter realises Lord Peter's affection first
• The Five Red Herrings; Lord Peter in Scotland; Bunter in the background
• Have His Carcase: Harriet and Peter investigate the death of a gigolo with dreams; Bunter has a small supporting role
• Murder Must Advertise: Peter goes undercover at an advertising agency; Bunter plays a very small role; policeman Parker has married Mary and they have sons
• The Nine Tailors: Peter investigates the discovery of a body in someone else's grave in a small fenland village. Floods and campanology.
• Gaudy Night: Harriet Vane investigates poison pen letters and high jinks at her old college; Lord Peter arrives belatedly to assist
• Busman's Honeymoon: murder follows the sleuths even after marriage ...

"The house of silk" by Anthony Horowitz

Horowitz writes a new Sherlock Holmes novel, using the authentic voice of Doctor John Watson.

And it is pretty authentic. He really gets the feel of Watson and the relationship between the narrator and his hero. Watson is perhaps a little too stupid (Holmes sometimes mocks him) and the social conscience seems a little modern (Conan Doyle was no Dickens) but foggy London is still there. Horowitz succumbs a little to the temptation to put in as much from the canon as possible: the Baker Street Irregulars and Mycroft and Moriarty and other characters from previous stories as well as a horde of red-headed men. And all the set pieces are included: the violin and the drug addiction and Holmes being able to tell what Watson is thinking and being able to correctly deduce others' occupation and history (although I loved the bit where he got the teacher wrong).

My basic problem with this book is that I didn't really like Sherlock Holmes in the first place. The stories are too far-fetched. Holmes is impossible. The villains are unreal. But worst of all, the author doesn't play fair.

The fundamental rule of detective fiction (which of course post-dates Conan Doyle) is that the reader must have the chance of guessing whodunnit before the revelation. When Holmes does his clever clever stuff he usually gives the observations after making the deductions. And often the solution is so extreme and improbable that it leaves me unmoved.

So Horowitz has to modernise the story to the extent that he offers the reader the chance to play the game. And he succeeds in doing this. The clues are there. Some are very easy, others well-hidden. I guessed the identities of two of the three criminals (although Horowitz follows Doyle in making some of his villains so blatantly villainous that there is little room for error).

A worthwhile update on a classic. January 2013; 399 pages

"Standing in another man's grave" by Ian Rankin

Rebus is back.

I have read very few Rebus novels. I ought to read some more. These are well-written, thoughtful whodunnits (although I wasn't impressed with the last one I read, Tooth and Nail). Granted, the Inspector (in this book retired) is the usual maverick, verging on alcoholism, unshaven, unkempt, living alone, mingling with low-lifes and bending every rule he possibly can but the character is convincing and the locational detail (I was following the story on Google Maps) is stunning.

And even though I guessed wrong (and even though my answer was considerably better than the final answer) I kept turning the pages desperately. This book really sucked me in. DON'T read it unless you have the ability to kill a couple of days without your wife getting angry, your work standing unfinished and your chores left alone.

Fantastic. January 2013 356 pages

Other Inspector Rebus books reviewed in this blog include:

• A Question of Blood
• The Naming of the Dead
• Strip Jack
• Tooth and Nail: Rebus in London: poor stuff
• Standing in Another Man's Grave
• In a House of Lies

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God