Reading Summary for May 2021

 

I had a very good reading month in May. My big project was reading The Mirror & the Light. Although it was 750 plus pages, it was not the length that bothered me. I just found it to be a depressing read, knowing how the story would end, and I could only read short bits at a time. So I interspersed several lighter books throughout, which is not the way I usually read books. 

General Fiction

A Month in the Country (1980) by J.L. Carr

From the cover of the book: "In J. L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby where he is to restore a recently discovered medieval mural in the local church." I enjoyed reading this book immensely; I loved the way it was written and reading about the 1920s in that setting.

Historical Fiction

The Mirror & the Light (2020) by Hilary Mantel

This is the closing book in a trilogy about Henry the VIII and Thomas Cromwell, a subject I knew little about when I first started reading Wolf Hall. It covers Cromwell's later years, following the beheading of Anne Boleyn. As noted above, this is a long book and overall about a depressing subject, so I found it demanding. But definitely worth the effort.

Crime Fiction

Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975) by Agatha Christie

This was a darker book than I expected. Both Hastings and Poirot are older, and Poirot has crippling arthritis which limits his ability to get around. Hastings meets Poirot at Styles, the setting of the first mystery in the Poirot series, which is now a guest house. There are several interesting guests: Dr. Franklin, a scientist, and his wife; Hasting's daughter Julia;  Stephen Norton, a bird-watcher; and Sir Carrington, whose home nearby is being renovated.  I liked it, of course, but it was not as much fun as many of the Poirot books. It was much more serious, more like Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile.

Checkmate to Murder (1944) by E.C.R. Lorac

This was an excellent vintage police procedural, set during World War II. Great characters and an interesting plot, and even better, there are several more by this author, easily available. See my review here.

The Man in the Queue (1929) by Josephine Tey

This was a reread, the first mystery novel by Josephine Tey, and the first in the Inspector Alan Grant series. I would like to get back to rereading more of Josephine Tey's mysteries. See my review here.

The Red Box (1937) by Rex Stout

This was another reread. It is an early book in the Nero Wolfe series, #4 following The Rubber Band, which I read in March. A complex story and interesting characters, and I am sure I would not have guessed the culprit except that I had read the books several times before.

So Pretty a Problem (1950) by Francis Duncan

This book is part of the Mordecai Tremaine series. Tremaine is an amateur sleuth, retired from his job as a tobacconist. As this book begins, we find that a controversial artist has been killed by his wife. She says it was an accident, but they were alone so no one can back her up. I enjoyed this  book, I liked the way it was structured. Last year I read Murder for Christmas by the same author and enjoyed it also. I first learned about this series of books from Rick Robinson at Tip the Wink.

READING NEXT?

Currently I am reading The Birdwatcher by William Shaw. I am enjoying it, as I expected, and I hope to finish it tonight. I have no idea how it is going to end.

Next I might read She Came Back by Patricia Wentworth or All Systems Red by Martha Wells or The Small Boat of Great Sorrows by Dan Fesperman. All of these books are on my 20 Books of Summer list.

Checkmate to Murder: E.C.R. Lorac

This book was published in 1944, and is set in London during World War II. The story starts out with five people in a large studio which adjoins a house in a neighborhood in London. The four men in the main room are busy. Two men are focused on a game of chess; Bruce Manaton is working on a painting; the fourth man, André Dulaunier, is posing for the painting. Rosanne Manaton, Bruce's sister, is in the kitchen cooking their dinner and occasionally looks into the studio to see what they are doing. Later, after dark, Rosanne goes out to check the blackout precautions for the studio, to make sure that they will not be fined.  

After the group sits down to dinner, a Special Warden comes to the door with a young soldier. He accuses the soldier of killing the next door neighbor, demands that they hold on to him until the real police come to pick him up, and goes off to make the call to the police. The young soldier turns out to be the nephew of the dead man, Albert Folliner. That is a complicated opening but it does introduce most of the major players in the story.

After reading about half the story I would have described this as a standard police procedural, with no really outstanding characters, but still I was enjoying the story. The characters and their relationships are interesting, but it does take a while to establish the connections.  

Then, as the investigation gets underway, some characters get fleshed out and more background is added to the story. The head investigator, Chief Inspector Macdonald, is clever and doesn't jump to conclusions; he begins several lines of investigation, including directing Detective Reeves to investigate the previous tenants of the studio, who have since disappeared. Detective Reeves is a very likable character, determined and innovative in his techniques.

Some of the smaller roles were the most appealing. Detective Reeves seeks information from a neighbor, Mrs. Stanton, whose yard has been used as a shortcut to get to the house behind her where the dead man lived. Initially she is somewhat hostile and overbearing, but he compliments her on her garden and she eventually shows him her Christmas roses, or hellebores. Those types of interactions add to a story.

As the story moves along, it gets more and more complex and only comes together at the end. The denouement was unexpected and satisfying. 

A big plus for me was the World War II setting, which is used to good effect here. Blackout regulations are imposed, and Air Raid Wardens monitor the neighborhood. Those in this neighborhood are not well off, suffering more than usual due to the war, the shortages, and the lack of work. People feel like their lives are on hold until the war is over. The police are still doing their jobs, but some wish they were off fighting instead of at home.

E.C.R. Lorac was a pen name of Edith Caroline Rivett (1894-1958). She also wrote as Carol Carnac and was a prolific writer of crime fiction from the 1930s to the 1950s. She wrote several series, and this book was the 25th book in the Robert Macdonald series (of 46 books).

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Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2021 (orig. pub. 1944)
Length:    214 pages
Format:    Trade paperback
Series:     Chief Inspector Macdonald #25
Setting:    London
Genre:     Mystery
Source:    Borrowed from my husband.