Tag: #RIPXXI

Review 2783: #RIPXXI! #1949Club! Crooked House

~ whatmeread ~ 14 Comments

Crooked House is my second book for the 1949 Club and another one for RIPXXI. Some of Agatha Christie’s books are better than others, and Crooked House is pretty darn good. In fact, Christie commented that it was one of her favorites. It’s one of the few of her stand-alone books that I think is just as good as the best Poirot and Marple mysteries.

As the war is wrapping up in Egypt, Charles Hayward realizes he loves his friend Sophia Leonides and tells her that when he returns to England, he will ask her to marry him. Two years later, he cables Sophia to meet him for dinner in London and later reads that her grandfather, Aristide Leonides, a very rich old man, has died. Sophia joins him at dinner anyway and tells him that she fears her grandfather was murdered. Since most of the suspects are family members, she won’t marry him unless the murder is solved. She asks him to help.

Charles’s father is the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, and he thinks Charles could be helpful since Aristides was indeed murdered, poisoned when someone substituted eye drops for his insulin. So, the A. C. suggests that Charles accompany Chief-Inspector Taverner to the estate. The near-ninety-year-old Aristides has remarried Brenda, a much younger woman, and it’s clear that the whole household wants the murderer to have been Brenda or Laurence, the tutor whom the family believes is her lover.

Aside from them, the household consists of Sophia’s icy father Philip and her theatrical mother Magda, her emotional uncle Roger and arctic aunt Clemency, her younger siblings Eustace, crippled by illness and bitterness, and young Josephine, who likes to spy on people and brag about what she knows. Finally, there is Edith de Haviland, the sister of Aristides’ first wife.

Although everyone knows how the estate was left, there are unpleasant surprises. First, the will that was read to all of them a year ago is missing. Then, someone knocks Josephine unconscious. Finally, a totally different will is sent to his lawyer by one of Aristides’ old friends.

This one is twisty, and I had no idea who the evildoer was. Although Sophia seems like one of the least knowable characters, there’s a reason for that. This is a good one.

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Review 2782: #RIPXX! #1949 Club! The Third Man

~ whatmeread ~ 3 Comments

The Third Man is my first choice for the 1949 Club and also applies to RIPXXI. As usual for the club, I’ll start out by listing books written in 1949 that I have reviewed previously:

I think I’ve read some of the children’s horse books (Black Stallion, Chincoteague), too, but it’s too long ago for me to remember back when I was a child.

And now for my review.

For those like me who are more familiar with the movie, there are quite a few differences. However, Greene explains in the Preface to my Penguin edition that the book was written as a preliminary to the screenplay, because he found it almost impossible to write a screenplay without a book.

The narrator is British Detective Calloway, who sometimes speaks firsthand and other times secondhand from information received from the main character, Rollo Martins. Rollo is the author of several pulp Westerns who has been summoned by his friend Harry Lime to Vienna. But he arrives just in time for Harry’s funeral after he was hit by a car.

Martins is at a loss, because at the time, shortly after World War II, British citizens were only allowed to take £5 out of the country, so he’s broke. Furthermore, Calloway meets with him to discuss Harry’s illegal activities, which are serious. Rollo, who has been friends with Harry since school and hero-worships him, doesn’t believe him. At the same time, Calloway wants to try to determine how involved Rollo is in Harry’s activities. Rollo is so incensed at Calloway’s imputations that he tells him he’s going to prove him wrong.

Rollo starts with interviewing the witnesses to the accident, who apparently were both acquaintances of Harry. This seems odd, and what is odder is that another witness, Dr. Koch, who saw the accident from the window but didn’t talk to the police, tells him he saw three men at the scene of the accident rather than the two who were reported. Who was the third man? And doesn’t it seem sinister when Dr. Koch is killed shortly thereafter?

Another complication is Anna Schmidt, Harry’s girlfriend, a Hungarian actress who is hiding under a false name and papers from the Soviets. She also doesn’t believe Harry is guilty. Unfortunately, Rollo falls in love with her.

This novel is not as suspenseful as the movie, but it excels in its bleak descriptions of post-war Vienna and the complications of its subdivided governance. It’s really moody.

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Review 2777: Short Story September! #RIPXXI! Excerpts from Vampire Tales

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

For both Short Story September and RIPXXI, I decided to read something out of Vampire Tales, first reviewed by Kaggsy. This selection consists of a fragment of a story, a poem, a letter, an introduction, and a short story that are all related, according to editor Nick Groom.

The fragment is the beginning of a novel by Lord Byron. The theory is that on the famous stormy night when Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein, Lord.Byron told the party his idea for his story, for which he had only written a few pages. Present besides Percy Shelley, Mary, and her sister was John William Polidori, Lord Byron’s doctor.

Byron died leaving “A Fragment” with his publisher, who asked Polidori to turn it into a full-length story, we assume using Byron’s plot. But the publisher released the story with no credit to Polidori and no rights to the material. The subsequent dispute ruined Polodori’s literary career.

So, I’m looking at “A Fragment,” a poem by Goethe that awakened the punisher’s interest in releasing a vampire tale, a letter, the introduction to “The Vampyre,” the work by Polidori, and “The Vampyre” itself.

“A Fragment” (1819) is just a few pages long, in which a young man travels with Augustus Darvell, a man of great reticence whom he tries to befriend but fails. Arriving in a Turkish cemetery, Darvell says that he is going to die and starts setting conditions for his burial. That’s as far as it gets, and no vampire appears, but I presume Darrell proves to be one.

The poem that piqued an interest in vampire literature is “The Bride of Corinth” (1798 in German, 1819 in English) by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. It’s about a man who travels to Corinth to meet his intended. At his bedside, a beautiful woman appears and he falls in love. But she is not his bride. She was supposed to be, but she is dead, and he’s supposed to marry her sister. Tragedy ensues. I’m not much of a poetry reader, and 19th century narrative poetry is not very interesting to me. But it tells the story, not in a particularly scary way.

Next is a letter called “Extract of a Letter from Geneva, with Anecdotes of Lord Byron, &C.” (Gotta love those 19th century titles.) I personally don’t see a big reason for including it, since it doesn’t talk about the story but relates some gossip and refers to the famous night of inspiration.

Next is the Introduction to “The Vampyre,” by Alaric Watts (1819), which recounts some incidents of vampirism and includes a short history of vampire literature.

Finally comes the story, “The Vampyre.” Aubrey, a young man, becomes acquainted with Lord Ruthven, a handsome but pale older man who never shows an expression. The two agree to travel together, and Aubrey observes that Ruthven breaks young men and married men with children at gambling but is generous to scoundrels. Their ways part in Rome after Aubrey finds him apparently trying to seduce the innocent daughter of their landlady.

Going to Greece to look for antiquities, Aubrey falls in love with his host’s daughter, Ianthe. He is told not to go into a forest at night, but he does—

None of these are the most scary vampire tales, but the poem and the story end in doom and disaster. And probably at the time the notion was new enough to give a thrill just thinking about it.

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Review 2773: #RIPXXI! Benbecula

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

I accidentally started reading the Darkland Tales in order. These are books by prominent Scottish authors about various episodes in Scottish history. This time, I read #6, so I’ve skipped a few, but I also read this for my Walter Scott prize project and it fits for RIPXXI!

Benbecula is about an 1857 series of murders on Benbecula, a small Scottish island. It is narrated by Malcolm McPhee, the oldest brother of the murderer.

The McPhee family gets by earning a small amount harvesting seaweed. The mother spends all day tending the fire while the father is weak and can only do easy work but prefers life to be clash-free. The adult children are all unmarried. Marion is a hard worker but grim. John seems to be mentally challenged. Angus can manipulate people but can’t be controlled and is left to do what he wants. Malcolm is a bit of a bully.

Angus goes off to work for a while for a farmer, but after he returns, he’s subject to fits of uncontrollable rage and has to be restrained. After he disturbs everyone by wildly ringing the church bells, authorities recommend he be committed, but the McPhees can’t afford the fees. When a doctor examines him for involuntary committal, he seems perfectly rational.

We read this with dread, because we get plenty of warning about what’s coming, as Malcolm tells the story from some years later, living alone in the family house drinking and wallowing in his own filth. There are more mysteries ahead, though.

This novel is atmospheric despite being sparely written. It definitely left me with questions. There is an Afterword that accounts some of the facts of the case.

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Review 2770: #RIPXXI! Written in Blood

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Here’s another book for RIPXXI! It’s hard to tell whether I would have found this fourth entry in Graham’s Barnaby series even more effective than I did, being so familiar with the TV version that I knew practically everything that was going to happen. I could even picture the actors in some of the parts. Still, I enjoyed this one a lot.

The Midsomer Worthy writing club is trying to decide who to invite as a speaker, knowing full well that no one ever accepts. They finally decide on the blockbuster fiction author Max Jennings. But Gerald Hadleigh seems upset by the decision, although he agrees as club secretary to write the invitation.

Everyone is surprised when Jennings actually agrees to come. The club members are strictly amateurs. Senior citizen Rex St. John is writing about the adventures of a hit man but gets hung up on describing his weapons. Intimidating Honoria Lyddiard is writing a history of her distinguished family. Her quashed sister-in-law Amy Liddiard is writing an adventure novel. Brian Clayton sees himself as an intellectual and is writing an avant-garde play. Sue Clayton, his beleaguered wife, is writing a children’s book about a delightful dragon. And Laura Hutton is pretending to write something to be in the club because she’s in love with Gerald. And what is Gerald writing? I don’t think it ever says.

The afternoon of the meeting, Gerald visits Rex and asks him not to leave him alone with Max. The evening seems to go well except that Gerald doesn’t say much. Rex tries to perform his assigned task when everyone has left except himself and Max, but Max pretends to leave with him and once he’s gone through the door, shuts and locks it. Rex waits outside for a while wondering what to do but feels as if someone is watching him and eventually leaves.

The next morning Gerald is found dead upstairs in his bedroom, his head brutally smashed. Oddly, although most things seem to be in place, the police find that several drawers are empty and a suitcase missing.

Although Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby has been told that Gerald is a retired civil servant and widower from Kent, he can find no trace in records of his marriage or of him, for that matter. And he also can’t track down the location of Max Jennings, who reportedly left around midnight.

As usual, Graham takes her time developing her characters, some of whom have fates they richly deserve. In fact, one of the differences of the book from the episode is that she spends some time at the end on some fitting endings, in particular for two loathsome characters.

Graham is wickedly funny as she skewers writing clubs and a high school drama teacher’s pretentions.

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Review 2768: #RIPXXI! The Methods of Lady Walderhurst

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

It took me a while to find information on R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril (RIPXXI) for this year, since they are now only active on Instagram and Threads, where I am barely active or not at all, respectively. But here is my first book for this challenge, which runs from September 1 until the end of October.

When I was looking for an adult book by Frances Hodgson Burnett for my Classics Club list, I read that The Methods of Lady Walderhurst was a sequel to The Making of a Marchioness, which I enjoyed very much. When I finally began reading it, though, I became confused because it begins before Emily Fox-Seton’s marriage, and The Making of a Marchioness ends quite some time after it. Furthermore, it had been years since read TMofaM, but the book seemed very familiar.

As it turns out, this book was written as a sequel to the original Marchioness, which apparently ended with the betrothal. Later, the books were combined, and the Persephone copy that I read years ago must have been a combined edition. That explained to me why when I originally read the first book, it felt as if I was reading two—one a romance and one a dramatic suspense novel.

The Methods of Lady Walderhurst begins shortly before the wedding of the naïve, open Emily Seton-Fox, a well-born but poor errand runner for rich women, to Lord Walderhurst, a middle-aged marquis. Almost immediately, the subject of Alec Osborne comes up. Osborne is a distant relative who has considered himself Walderhurst’s heir. He has a disgraceful past, and Walderhurst dislikes him. He has married a Eurasian girl named Hester, and eventually they come to England on a visit from India.

Emily, now installed as Lady Walderhurst, is a friendly, guileless creature, and as she knows they are not well off, she talks her husband into letting them live in a vacant house on the estate. She does not realize how much Alec Osborne hates her.

Then Walderhurst has to travel to India on business, and Emily invites the Osbornes to move into the big house. She finds she is pregnant, and from that point Osborne begins plotting to kill her, working with Hester’s Indian maid. Hester herself is aware of his feelings but feels more ambiguous because of Emily’s kindness, which alternaturely infuriates her and softens her.

Where will it end?

From a romance novel in the first book, this story moves right into sensation novel territory. Although it describes Emily as childish and almost stupid, it really invokes the reader’s sympathy toward her. I enjoyed it just as much the second time. Warning: it does not portray its Asian characters in a positive light, but then again, there’s Alec.

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