Murder at Madingley Grange: Caroline Graham

Caroline Graham is best known as the author of the Inspector Barnaby books, which were adapted for the TV series Midsomer Murders. Back in 2011 and 2012 I read all of the seven books in the series and I loved them.

Murder at Madingley Grange, published in 1990, is a standalone book, and very different from the Barnaby series, with much more humor, and not intended to be taken so seriously.

Madingley Grange is the perfect setting for a 1930s murder mystery weekend; thus Simon Hannaford plots to convince his half-sister, Laurie, to let him use their Aunt Maude's home for a money-making scheme while their aunt is away on vacation. Laurie agrees, reluctantly, and the planning  begins. Simon hires a butler and maid for the weekend, advertises for guests, and rents costumes. Felony & Mayhem, publisher of the edition I read, describes this novel as a "wonderful, hilarious satire of the country house mystery."

At first I had problems with some of the characters. Laurie is exceedingly shy and too innocent to be believed and behaves like a doormat. And I thought the humor was too over-the-top and not to my liking. But soon I was immersed in the story.

From beginning to end, this story was not at all what I thought it would be, but it turned out to be even better than expected. It was very clever mystery, where many of the characters are not what they seem. I was reminded of a Peter Dickinson style of plot, with many layers and hidden agendas and more than one twist.

To learn more about this book, see the review at Clothes in Books.

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Publisher:   Felony & Mayhem, 2006 (orig. pub. 1990)
Length:      275 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Setting:      UK
Genre:       Country House Mystery
Source:      On my TBR shelf for many years.

My Reading: December 2019

I read ten books in December 2019; most were crime fiction, but I started off the month with a book outside of that genre: Crazy Rich Asians. I read a few crime novels set in December, around Christmas, some of them with a Christmassy feel and some not. I ended the month with several mysteries that had been on my TBR for years. All in all, a very good month.

Of my crime fiction reads, four were published between 1930 and 1940 and the other five were published between 1979 and 2007.

Fiction 

Crazy Rich Asians (2013) by Kevin Kwan

I am not sure how to categorize Crazy Rich Asians; some call it a romance, or a romantic comedy, or even chick lit. It is about extremely rich Chinese families in Singapore, and a young American-born Chinese woman who is dating the son of one of the families. I hadn't been interested in this book until I read a review at Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan. I knew if Bill could read this book and enjoy it, I could too. 

There were many things about the story I found impossible to believe (even though I am sure many of them are very true) but even so, I just settled in and enjoyed the ride. I was thinking of describing this book as a fairy tale, but it is also a soap opera, and both of those can be very entertaining.

Crime Fiction

Crime at Christmas (1934) by C.H.B. Kitchin

A mystery set at a large home in London where a group of people have gathered for Christmas celebrations. The protagonist is a young stockbroker, Malcolm Warren, who featured in three other mystery novels by Kitchin. See my review here.

This Gun for Hire (1936) by Graham Greene

I haven't read that much by Graham Greene and it has been a while, so I have nothing to compare this too, but other reviews say it is not his best work. It was written before World War II started in Europe and it shows that people are fearing another war. Raven is hired to kill a foreign government official, and then is paid off in stolen bills, so that he will be caught by the police. He finds he has been double crossed and seeks revenge on the people who hired him. Along the way he takes a young woman hostage, and she feels compassion for his plight. I liked the story very much. I thought it was told in a brilliant way and the characters were well done.

The  original title in the UK was A Gun for Sale. The novel was adapted as a film with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, titled This Gun for Hire. My paperback edition has one of the weirdest covers I have seen.

Cold Light (1994) by John Harvey

I read the first three books in the Charlie Resnick series years ago and I remember liking them a lot. Resnick is a detective inspector based in Nottingham, England. In November I read Off Minor (4th book) and now I have read Cold Light (6th book), set during the Christmas season. These two books seemed a bit darker than I remembered. I really like Charlie's character, with his love for jazz and his four cats. He is a middle-aged man trying to do his best in his job.

The Twelve Deaths Of Christmas (1979) by Marian Babson

Another Christmas mystery. I usually read too many of them and cannot review them all but I did pretty well this year. The Twelve Deaths of Christmas is set in a boarding house, and based on the title it sounds grim. But it is more of suspenseful, cozy mystery, with many deaths throughout. My review is here.

The Shop Window Murder (1930) by Vernon Loder

Mander’s Department Store in London is well known for its elaborate window displays. A new one is  revealed every Monday morning. Several weeks before Christmas, the crowd gathered to see the unveiling realizes that the elaborate new window design includes a dead body. And shortly afterward, a second body is discovered. One of the bodies is the store’s owner Tobias Mander and the other is Miss Effie Tumour, a chief buyer for the store. It is a good puzzle mystery and a very interesting picture of a department store of that period, but I could not get too excited about the characters. 

A Fête Worse Than Death (2007) by Dolores Gordon-Smith

This is the first book in the Jack Haldean mystery series, set in the early 1920s. Jack was a fighter pilot in World War I and is now an author of detective stories. He is currently staying with his cousins at their country house in Sussex, when a man he knew during the war is murdered at the local fête. This was a fun book with a clever mystery, and I am sorry it took me so long to get to it.

Death in Blue Folders (1985) by Margaret Maron

Before her well-known Judge Deborah Knott series, Margaret Maron wrote a series about Sigrid Harold, New York City homicide detective. This is the third book in that series; I loved it and I will continue reading the series. See my review here.

Murder At Madingley Grange (1990) by Caroline Graham

This was not at all what I thought it would be, but it turned out to be even better than expected in the end. Madingley Grange is the perfect setting for a 1930s murder-mystery weekend; thus Simon Hannaford plots to convince his half-sister to let him use their aunt's home for a money-making scheme while she is away on vacation. This reminded me a bit of a Peter Dickinson style plot, with many layers and hidden agendas and more than one twist. 

The Dog Who Bit a Policeman (1998) by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Stuart Kaminsky's Inspector Rostnikov series is one of my favorite series, and now I only have four books left to read. The stories are set in Russia in the years between 1981 and 2009. When the series started Russia was still part of the USSR. With each new book in the series, the characters have aged and developed. Kaminsky showed the changes in Russia as the USSR dissolved and new people and groups are in power. This is the 12th book in the series. In most of the books, there are several cases that Rostnikov and his team are working on. A warning, one case in this book centers on an unpleasant subject, dog-fighting, with some graphic scenes included. 

Death in Disguise: Caroline Graham

Death in Disguise is the third in the Inspector Barnaby series written by Caroline Graham. I was motivated to re-read this book after I found this lovely paperback edition at the September book sale. I first read it back in 2002, and fortunately did not remember a thing about the story.

The Manor House of Compton Dando has been taken over by a commune called The Lodge of the Golden Windhorse. The residents of this small commune all have different reasons for joining this group of mystics and come from very diverse backgrounds. They offer seminars and classes in New Age mysticism and crafts to support their group. When not one but two of the group's leaders dies within a few months of each other, Inspector Barnaby and Sergeant Troy of Causton CID investigate. The second death is clearly murder, but was the first?

As Inspector Barnaby investigates, he loses patience with the residents of the commune. The residents vary in their devotion to eccentric belief systems, and some just can't communicate without spouting their beliefs. Some of them are sincere and some are not, and it is hard to tell which. Later he comes to regret that he did not take them more seriously and listen to Sergeant Troy's suggestions and suspicions. I like this humanizing of an otherwise close to perfect inspector.

Some reviewers complained that the story takes a while to get going, with too much exposition preceding the murder and the investigation. Inspector Barnaby doesn't show up until  about a third of the way into the book. I like stories structured like this, setting up the characters and the issues and relationships, so it was definitely my cup of tea.

I also watched the TV adaptation of this book. We have watched all of the episodes with John Nettles, and are going back and re-watching the earlier episodes, so this was perfect timing. In the TV episode some of the relationships are switched around, probably to fit the story into a 90-minute episode.

In the book, much of the plot centers around Suhami, formerly known as Sylvia Gamelin, and daughter of Guy Gamelin, a rich and ruthless business man. She is estranged from her parents and would like nothing better than to never see them again. Then they show up at her birthday celebration at the commune, and death ensues. Much of the book is devoted to fleshing out their background and relationships. The book may go too far in that area, but the episode cuts most of that out, making some of the plot less plausible and confusing. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining episode.

One thing I had forgotten about the books was that Sergeant Troy was a much more self-absorbed and chauvinistic person than in the TV series. In the early shows that are adaptations of novels his aversion and insensitivity to homosexual relationships is obvious, but in later TV episodes he mellows. In the books, Troy is married and he doesn't treat his wife too well. He is, however, an adoring father.

I reviewed the second book in the series, Death of a Hollow Man, in September. My review is here.

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Publisher:  Avon, 1994. Orig. pub. 1993.
Length:     368 pages
Format:     Paperback
Series:      Chief Inspector Barnaby, #3
Setting:     UK
Genre:      Police Procedural
Source:     I purchased my copy.

Death of a Hollow Man (TV episode)

This episode of Midsomer Murders centers around the amateur theatrical group in Causton, of which Joyce Barnaby, wife of Inspector Tom Barnaby, is a member. The members of the group are a motley group, and seem to be very true to the types who take part in amateur theatricals. These individuals have known each other so well and so long that there are petty resentments and misunderstandings simmering. All of this builds up to murder while working on the current play, Amadeus. Barnaby has done volunteer work for this group over the years, so he knows all the suspects well.

I recently reread the book that this episode is based on and my review is here. I enjoyed it just as much this time around.

The episode is faithful to the book, for the most part. It includes the preparations for the play, the in-fighting among the various members of the theatrical group, the performance of the play itself. Some of the characters in the book have been cut and relationships changed. The adaptation also differs in that there is a murder that occurs at the beginning of the episode. Personally I did not find that this added anything to the story. Initially it is unclear what the link is between the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society and this death. Caroline Graham wrote the screen play, so she must have felt theses changes were needed or at least beneficial for adaptation as a TV episode.

The TV adaptations don't have the same depth of dissection of English village life as the books did, but I enjoy them all the same. I love the characters, even the boorish Sergeant Troy. The book spends much more time explaining why Joyce has given up her budding career as a singer to be the wife of a policeman. This is just one example of how the character development can have more depth in a book. But each entertains in its own way.

Only five of the seven books in the Inspector Barnaby series by Caroline Graham were adapted for television. Death of a Hollow Man was the second book in the series and the fourth episode in the TV series. The episode first aired in 1998. It stars John Nettles as DCI Tom Barnaby and Daniel Casey as Sgt Troy. Joyce is played by Jane Wymark. Cully Barnaby (Laura Howard) plays a significant part in this episode, as she does in the book.

This TV adaptation is submitted for the 2014 Book to Movie Challenge at Doing Dewey.

Death of a Hollow Man: Caroline Graham

I seldom re-read mysteries, not because I don't want to but because I have too many unread books to read.  But recently I decided I wanted to do a book to movie post on one of the episodes in the Midsomer Murders television series. Only five of the seven books in the Inspector Barnaby series by Caroline Graham were adapted for television. I picked the second book in the series, Death of a Hollow Man, because I knew how the first book ended. For this one, even though I had read the book, and watched the episode, I had forgotten the ending.

It takes over one hundred pages in this book of 268 pages before the murder takes place. The first 105 pages cover the preparation for the play and setting up the background on some of the participants. The actual crime takes place during the first performance of the play, which Inspector Barnaby of Causton CID is attending. Barnaby's wife is the wardrobe mistress and has a small part in the play. His daughter, Cully, attends the play with him and is an aspiring actor. Barnaby even painted some of the props for the play. So he is well acquainted with everyone associated with the play, which is, of course, a challenge.

It surprised me how much I liked this book the second time around. I know I liked the series a lot when I read the books years ago, because once I had read the first two I purchased all of them and read them very shortly thereafter. I had forgotten the biting humor and the wonderful characterizations in the book. The stories seem like cozies (although by the some strict definitions a police procedural is not a cozy), but they are not even close in my opinion. Very fun, not thrillerish, but not cozy either.

It helped that the story is centered on the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society, since I have participated in such a group and know that the actors, directors, and even techies take the whole thing very seriously. It also helped that the play is Amadeus, which I know enough about so that the many players and their roles were not confusing. I also enjoyed reading about the main characters after having watched so many Midsomer Murders episodes.

Inspector Barnaby is such a wonderful character; I never grow tired of him, in a book or on the screen. He leads a normal home life (when he is there); his only demon is that he doesn't like his wife's cooking. He is a smart, insightful investigator, and knows how to handle Sergeant Troy, who is homophobic and boorish.

I will report on a comparison between the book and the TV episode in a future post. I am currently rereading Death in Disguise, the third book in the series. I picked up a copy at the book sale yesterday... a paperback edition with a lovely picture of the grim reaper on the cover. And I wanted to read it immediately, before I re-watch the episode. So I will be reviewing that book in the future too.

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Publisher:  William Morrow, 1990. Orig. pub. 1989.
Length:     268 pages
Format:     Hardback, book club edition
Series:      Chief Inspector Barnaby, #2
Setting:     UK
Genre:      Police Procedural
Source:     I purchased my copy.